James Arthur Haslam II (BS, business 1952) came to UT in 1948 to play football for General Neyland. He served as captain of the 1951 national championship team. He then served in the military for two years as a company commander in Korea and returned to Knoxville. General Neyland urged him to take a high school football-coaching job, and he also had an offer to sell advertising for a local television station, but he chose to go to work for Sam Claiborne, the owner of Fleet Oil Company in LaFollette.
After learning the business for three years, he invested $6,000 to purchase a service station in Gate City, Virginia. Six years later (1958) he established Pilot Oil Company, building it into a major national force in the oil industry. In 2001, when Pilot and Marathon Ashland Petroleum LLC (through its wholly owned retail unit Speedway SuperAmerica LLC) combined travel center operations, SSA operated 110 travel centers, and Pilot operated 140 in 36 states (as well as 65 convenience stores). Haslam was appointed to the UT Board of Trustees in 1980 and served as vice chair. He was a perennial member of the executive board of UT Athletics, serving until the expiration of his term in 2007. He became a major force in local and state politics and good causes. In 1985 the Council for the Support and Advancement of Education named him one of the nation’s top ten volunteers.
Among his many contributions was the 2006 donation of $32.5 million to the university by Haslam and his wife Natalie Leach (Tucker, UT, 1952), consisting of $10 million toward construction of the Music Building; $2.5 million toward the construction of the Howard H. Baker Center for Public Policy; $7.5 million for the College of Business; $5 million toward the renovation of Neyland Stadium; $2.5 million toward the basketball practice facility; $2.5 million to other Athletic Department programs; $2.5 million for the Haslam endowment, which will provide for strategic initiatives; $1 million to establish the Haslam Torch Fund in the College of Business, through which students learn how to manage investment portfolios; and $2.5 million to support the Haslam Scholars Program, established by his son, Jimmy and Jimmy’s wife, Dee.
Haslam’s son Jimmy (James A. Haslam III) succeeded him as CEO of Pilot, and his son Bill was elected mayor of Knoxville after serving successfully as an executive of both Pilot and SAKS Inc. Bill was subsequently elected governor of Tennessee. His three children, Jimmy, Bill, and Anne (Bailey), were children of his first marriage to Cynthia Allen Haslam, also a UT graduate, who died in 1974. Natalie and her first husband, Al Tucker, also had three children, Jennie (McCabe), Carol (Pattison), and Susan (Robie).