Contact: Sammy McDavid
Fred E. Carl Jr.
A $2.5 million donation by Fred E. Carl Jr. of Greenwood will support increased small town design research and education at Mississippi State's College of Architecture.
Announced today, the major commitment to the university by the president of Viking Range Corp. and Viking Capital Ventures will endow the college's Small Town Center, now renamed the Carl Small Town Center.
Carl, a fourth-generation Leflore County entrepreneur and former MSU architecture student, long has been a major supporter of student scholarships, student recruiting efforts and specific small town projects undertaken by the college.
College Dean James West said the gift will ensure stable funding for operational, staffing and materials needs of the center for years to come.
"This endowment by Fred Carl and Viking Range Corp. to create the Carl Small Town Center will provide resources to expand the scope and depth of the center's involvement and increase the number of communities we serve," West said.
The center has developed a national reputation for its assistance to rural Mississippi towns with various aesthetic and structural challenges. Established in 1979--six years after the state's only university program in architecture itself was launched--the non-profit unit also utilizes its community projects as real-world teaching tools for architecture majors.
"The Small Town Center always has believed in the value of good design to bring order and meaning to the built environment in support of a higher quality of life," West said. "Fred Carl has embodied this philosophy in his business and his work and this gift is another example of his personal commitment to make it a reality in the small towns of Mississippi."
West said the center now will be equipped to engage more students and faculty in community assistance projects. "This focused engagement helps communities enhance their physical environments and create stable, safe and healthy towns that reveal their unique heritages and diverse values," he added.
College alumna Kimberly Brown said the center she directs has worked with or researched about 24 projects over the past year. Of that number, all have involved Mississippi towns and communities, she added.
Among some recent efforts cited by Brown: a transit feasibility study for Starkville, a variety of architecture-related challenges in the Mississippi Delta town of Jonestown and the design of Habitat for Humanity homes in Meridian and Starkville.
"I join Dean West and everyone else in the College of Architecture in thanking Mr. Carl for his generous support," Brown said. "These are exciting times for architecture research and education at Mississippi State, especially now that we have this endowment to be used to promote the role of architectural research in education in small town design."
Founded by Carl in 1987, Viking Range manufactures and markets professional-grade kitchen appliances for the home. With headquarters on historic Cotton Row in downtown Greenwood, the company employees more than 1,000 in three Leflore County manufacturing facilities. The company also is constructing a research and development complex adjacent to the MSU campus that will serve as an engineering testing ground for new Viking products.
West credited the Carl gift to the businessman's personal experience with the center's staff. In 2002, Viking provided a grant to investigate the potential for revitalizing the much-declined Cotton Row, a five-block area that fronts the Yazoo River along Howard Street. This followed other projects in Greenwood, including a design by the Small Town Center for the redevelopment of the impoverished Baptist Town neighborhood.
Recently, the company also renovated and reopened the Hotel Irving, another historic structure near Cotton Row. Now called The Alluvian, the dramatically modernized facility serves as an upscale residence for visiting Viking distributors from around the country, as well as a steady stream of Delta tourists.
In addition to the College of Architecture, Carl serves on the MSU College of Business and Industry's advisory board and MSU Foundation's board of directors. He also is a board member of Trustmark National Bank, Mississippi Partnership for Economic Development and Greenwood-Leflore County Economic Development Foundation.
Carl was inducted into the Mississippi Business Hall of Fame in 2002.