E. Bronson Ingram II

Erskine Bronson Ingram II was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota on November 27, 1931, the son of millionaire businessman Orrin Henry Ingram, Sr. and Hortense Bigelow Ingram.[1][2][3][4] He was named after his grandfather.[6] His family moved to Nashville, Tennessee in 1948.[1]

E. Bronson Ingram was educated at the Phillips Academy and Montgomery Bell Academy.[4] He attended college at Vanderbilt University and transferred to Princeton University, graduating in 1953.[1][2][3][4][7] At Princeton, he majored in English, and belonged to the Republican Club.[4]

E.B. Ingram joined the United States Navy as a naval officer, when he sailed to Panama on a destroyer until 1955, when he resigned.[1][2][4] He then started working for his father's company, the Ingram Oil & Refining Co., later known as the Ingram Corporation.[1][3][5] In particular, he managed the company-owned service stations and helped build truck stops where Ingram truckers could sleep, shower, or eat.[6]

After the death of his father in 1963, E.B. Ingram became President and his brother, Frederic B. Ingram, became Chairman of the Ingram Corporation.[1] In 1976, E. Bronson and his brother Frederic were indicted for bribing officials in Illinois for a "$48 million Chicago sewage contract".[8] E.B. Ingram was acquitted but his brother Frederic was convicted.[9] By 1978, they split the company.[1][6] Frederic kept the Ingram Corporation, which consisted of oil refineries and pipeline system, headquartered in New Orleans.[1]

E.B. Ingram took over the Tennessee Book Company, Ingram Materials Company, Ingram Barge Company, and Bluewater Insurance Company.[1] He called it Ingram Industries.[1] By 1995, the Ingram Barge Company became the Inland Marine Transportation Group, the third-largest inland waterway carrier in the United States.[1] In 1970, the Tennessee Book Company became known as the Ingram Book Company, and by 1995 it controlled 52 percent of the wholesale book distribution market to American retail bookstores.[1] He also founded Ingram Software; in 1985 it acquired Micro D and morphed into Ingram Micro Incorporated.[1] It quickly became the largest distributor of microcomputer hardware and software in the world.[1]

E.B. Ingram Ingram also founded Ingram Entertainment, the largest wholesale distributor of pre-recorded videocassettes.[1]

He served on the Board of Directors of Weyerhaeuser.[10] In 1988, he owned 222,380 shares.[10] He served as the President of the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce in 1987, and later as Vice-Chairman of the Tennessee Industrial and Agricultural Development Commission.[1][2][3]

E. Bronson Ingram held leadership positions in the Tennessee Performing Arts Center in the late 1970s and the state Bicentennial Celebration of 1996.[1]

He joined the Vanderbilt Board of Trust in 1967, and served as its Chairman from 1991 to 1995.[1][2][3][7] He donated US$25 million to Vanderbilt.[1] Additionally, he helped fundraise US$500 million for the university.[11]

In 1993, he nominated the first African-American accepted for membership in the Belle Meade Country Club.[1] He also supported Inroads and the Nashville Symphony.[3] He was a member and former Chair of the PENCIL Foundation, a non-profit organization whose aim is to improve public education in Nashville.[3] He served as the Chairman of the steering committee of Nashville's Agenda.[3]

In 1958, E. Bronson Ingram met Martha Robinson Rivers in New York City, and they got married the same year.[1][12][13] They moved to New Orleans, where the Ingram Corporation was headquartered, but moved back to Nashville in 1961.[1] They had three sons, David Bronson Ingram, Orrin H. Ingram II, and John R. Ingram, and one daughter, Robin Ingram Patton.[1][2][4]

E.B. Ingram died of cancer on June 15, 1995.[1][2] At the time of his death, he was Tennessee's only billionaire and 56th richest person in the United States.[1][5] Golfer Arnold Palmer was a pallbearer at his funeral. He is buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery.[1] The Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center and the Ingram Studio Arts Center are named for him.[7]