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Robert C. McNair Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer |
Fox Sports Houston's Spotlight on Mr. McNair: 
Part One | Part TwoRobert C. McNair, a leading businessman, sportsman and philanthropist in the city of Houston for more than 40 years, is the founder, chairman and chief executive officer of the Houston Texans. McNair is perhaps best known in the business community as the founder of Cogen Technologies, which was sold in 1999. Cogen was the largest privately-owned cogeneration company in the world, with aggregate capacity of 1,400 megawatts.
McNair serves as chairman and chief executive officer of The McNair Group, headquartered in Houston, Texas, where he oversees an investment portfolio that includes interests in three cogeneration plants in the eastern United States. McNair owns Palmetto Partners, Ltd., and RCM Financial Services, L.P., private investment entities that manage the McNairs’ private and public equity investments, and is a member of the Texas Business Hall of Fame.
Committed to bringing a National Football League team to Houston, McNair formed Houston NFL Holdings in 1998. On October 6, 1999, the NFL announced that the 32nd NFL franchise had been awarded to McNair, returning football to the city of Houston in the year 2002 and Super Bowl XXXVIII in 2004.
The Houston Texans finished the 2008 campaign with their second consecutive 8-8 season. The 16 wins over two seasons are the most in team history. The Texans finished the season with four wins in the month of December to set a team record for wins in a month. Houston won five of its last six games which included the team’s first four-game winning streak. Houston began the season with three consecutive road games, becoming the first team since 2001 to start the home portion of their season in October. The Texans started the year 0-4, but managed to finish 8-4 over the last 12 weeks becoming the 10th team in NFL history to start 0-4 or worse and finish .500 or better.
McNair is actively involved in NFL affairs serving as chairman of the Investment Committee, and is a member of the Audit, Finance, Stadium and Expansion committees.
McNair is chairman emeritus of the board of directors of The Texas Bowl, Inc. which brought the inaugural Texas Bowl game to Reliant Stadium on December 28, 2006. In 2007 TCU and the University of Houston played in front of 62,097 fans, the largest bowl crowd ever at Reliant Stadium and the third-largest bowl crowd in Houston’s history. The 2008 Texas Bowl featured the home-town favorite Rice Owls versus the Western Michigan Broncos. The Owls came away with their first bowl victory in 50 years in front of 58,880 fans which made the Texas Bowl the seventh largest non-BCS bowl game in the country. Annual Texas Bowl games feature teams from the Big 12 and Conference USA.
Stonerside Stable, a major thoroughbred horse farm in Kentucky, is also among McNair’s successes. A 1,947-acre thoroughbred horse farm and racing stable, Stonerside is home to more than 250 racehorses, broodmares, yearlings and weanlings. Since its inception in 1994, Stonerside has won 72 Graded Stakes races including Grade I wins in the Belmont, Breeders Cup Mile, the Travers, the Haskell, the Hollywood Gold Cup, the Cigar Mile, the Carter, the Swaps, the Wood Memorial, the Matriarch and the Oak Leaf Stakes. Stonerside also has finished second and third in the Kentucky Derby and was the co-breeder of Fusaichi Pegasus, winner of the Derby. Stonerside also bred the 2008 winner of the Breeder’s Cup Classic, Ravens Pass; and Midshipman, the winner of the 2008 Breeder’s Cup Juvenile. In October 2008 McNair sold Stonerside Farm and Racing Stable to Sheik Mohammed, the ruler of Dubai.
McNair is Chairman of the McNair Foundation and the Houston Texans Foundation. The McNair Foundation was honored as the 2003 Outstanding Philanthropic Foundation by the Association of Fundraising Professionals, and in November 2004, the Foundation was honored by the Houston Independent School District Partnership with a Hall of Fame Award.
The McNairs have given generously to a wide array of charitable, scientific, literary, educational and religious organizations through the Robert and Janice McNair Foundation. Major support has been given to scholarship programs at Baylor College of Medicine’s MD/PhD Program, the University of South Carolina, Columbia College, Austin College, Virginia Tech and Houston Community College. Educational initiatives supported include the HISD Fine Arts Program, Project GRAD, Teach for America, Neuhaus Education Center and local schools. Contributions to the community include the McNair Asian Elephant Habitat at the Houston Zoo, the jogging trail at Discovery Green, Equestrian Center for the San Jacinto Girl Scouts, McNair Cub Scout Adventure World, the Computer Training Center Room for the United Way and sponsorship of community outreach programs for the Houston Symphony and Houston Grand Opera. The McNairs turned their philanthropic focus to medical research in 2007 and gave a transformational gift to Baylor College of Medicine to fund the McNair Scholars Program which will recruit top physicians/scientists in the fields of juvenile diabetes, breast and pancreatic cancer and the neurosciences. Additional McNair Scholars Programs were established at M.D. Anderson, Menninger Clinic, Texas Children’s Hospital and Texas Heart Institute.
McNair is the recipient of many awards, including the Anti-Defamation League’s Torch of Liberty Award, the Northwood University Outstanding Business Leader Award, the Association for Private Enterprise Education’s Herman W. Lay Memorial Award, the Distinguished American Award from the Houston Chapter of the National Football Foundation, the Distinguished Citizen Award from the Rotary Club of Houston, The South Main Center Association City Builder Award, the Houston Advertising Federation Annual Trailblazer Award recognizing him for significantly enhancing the overall image of Houston both locally and globally, the Distinguished Citizen Award from the Sam Houston Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America, The Denton A. Cooley Leadership Award from the Texas Heart Institute, the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge National Award for Outstanding Patriotism, Responsible Citizenship and Community Involvement and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes President & Mrs. George H. W. Bush Community Impact Award. In June 2005, Rice University announced that the newest building on the campus, the 167,000-square-foot home of the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management, had been officially named Janice and Robert McNair Hall by the Rice Board of Trustees. In January 2006, the McNairs were the recipients of the Texas Association of Partners in Education Award for the Texas Outstanding Sports Partnership. In October 2007, the Baylor College of Medicine bestowed their first Pink Ribbon Hero Award for Ambassadorship on the McNairs for their support of past Pink Ribbon Houses and for their commitment to the fight against cancer. In April 2009 the McNairs were honored at the annual KIPP Academy dinner as devoted supporters of education for inner city and underprivileged youth. In May 2009 McNair was named Entrepeneur of the Decade by the Houston Technology Center. McNair also is a founder of the Cotswold project, a revitalization project focused on downtown Houston.
McNair is a current or past member of the Boards of Trustees of a number of institutions, including Rice University, Baylor College of Medicine, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Grand Opera, the Greater Houston Partnership, the Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Free Enterprise Institute, the Sigma Chi Foundation and the Federal Reserve Banks of Dallas and Houston.
Born in Tampa, Florida, McNair has been a resident of Houston since 1960. He graduated from the University of South Carolina in Columbia in 1958 with a bachelor of science degree. In 1999, McNair received an honorary doctor of humane letters degree from the University of South Carolina.
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