James Arthur Haslam III (Jimmy) graduated from UT in 1976, two years after he assumed the seat on the board of Pilot Oil that was vacated by the death of his mother, Cynthia Allen Haslam. At UT he was a member of Sigma Chi Fraternity and active with the Interfraternity Council.
He went to work full time for Pilot following graduation, with his first assignment being to assess how the company could move to add convenience stores at its locations as the industry changed. In the early 1980s, he planned the expansion of the business to add diesel pumps for truckers, starting the business on its way to becoming Pilot Flying J, the nation’s largest travel center operator. The first travel center opened by Pilot was in Corbin, Kentucky. In 1988 he brokered the split of Pilot and Marathon Oil. In 1995 Jimmy became CEO of Pilot Corporation with his brother Bill serving as president, and his father, James A. Haslam II, becoming the company’s chairman. Bill left the company in 1999 to establish an online division for SAKS Inc.
In 2001 Jimmy inked an agreement with the company’s old partner (by then Marathon Ashland Petroleum LLC) as 50-50 partners in a new venture called Pilot Travel Centers LLC, which would have 235 locations and approximately eleven thousand employees. CVC Capital Partners acquired a substantial interest in Pilot Travel Centers in 2008, facilitating the sale by Marathon Petroleum Company of its interest in Pilot Travel Centers. (Pilot Corporation retained majority ownership of Pilot Travel Centers and continued to be the sole owner of the convenience store operations.) In 2010 Pilot Travel Centers became Pilot Flying J, when it merged with Flying J Travel Inc. Haslam became chairman of the board of Pilot Travel Centers LLC in September 2012. That same year, Pilot Flying J acquired Western Petroleum and Maxum Petroleum, and in 2013 formed Pilot Logistics Services.
In 2008 Haslam became a minority owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers, and in October 2012 he became owner of the Cleveland Browns in a billion-dollar sale of the team. In September 2012 John C. Compton was named CEO of Knoxville-based Pilot Flying J, with Jimmy Haslam becoming chairman. In February 2013 Haslam returned to the company as CEO, with Compton becoming an advisor to Pilot Flying J, the Haslam family, and the Cleveland Browns. A few months later, an FBI raid on the company’s Knoxville headquarters was revealed to concern actions by Pilot Flying J employees to cheat trucking companies out of money for pricing of diesel fuel to which they were entitled by contractual agreements.
Haslam and his wife, Dee (Bagwell), CEO of RIVR Media, have made a substantial impact upon the university through their giving. Their gifts include the 2007 gift of $10 million while they were serving as chairs of the Campaign for Tennessee for the Knoxville campus. That gift provided $2.5 million to establish the Haslam Scholars Program and supplied transformational funding for the Forensic Anthropology Program by providing $750,000 for the Bass Building and endowments that fund postdoctoral fellowships and dissertation fellowships. The Marco Institute also was a beneficiary of an endowment from the gift, and professorial endowments were also established. In 2011 Haslam was named the Distinguished Alumnus of the College of Business.