In the competitive world of business, it's no big corporate secret that companies live and die by their ability to identify and satisfy needs in society.

Five years ago, Ellen Ellison, co-owner of Ellison's Greenhouses Inc. in Brenham, saw a need to increase the number of university horticulture graduates and trained greenhouse specialists to ensure the future of her profession, and she turned to Texas A&M University in hopes of fulfilling it.

That savvy business sense recently paid off—not only for her industry, but also for the university and its students—to the tune of $500,000 in pledges that will be doubled through the H.R. "Bum" Bright Matching Program to create a $1 million Endowed Chair in Floriculture and Greenhouse Crops at Texas A&M.

Back in 1998, Ellison approached administrators in the Texas A&M College of Agriculture and Life Sciences with what proved to be a win-win proposition. Backed by the Texas State Florists Association, she volunteered her industry's services to raise funds in support of an endowed chair to address greenhouse crops and greenhouse management.

"We approached them because we had a need," Ellison said. "Three growers and their families put up funds and went on to ask other growers nationwide."

Dr. Sam Cotner, former head of Texas A&M's department of horticultural  sciences, said Ellison and others sought support — monetary and otherwise — from commercial greenhouses, florists and professional and amateur associations.

"We would have liked to have had one donor, but no one could afford to put up the money," he explained. "That's why we got into fund-raising, and we've had outstanding support."

More and more, Ellison said, outstanding education and training programs will be increasingly essential to supporting the needs of a growing horticulture, or "green" industry, which recently surpassed cotton as Texas' second largest agricultural industry. The booming business adds more than $9 billion a year to the state's economy and sustains 220,000 jobs, many of them in commercial greenhouses such as Ellison's that play key roles in cultivating the nation's No. 1 leisure pastime—landscape gardening.

Dr. Edward A. Hiler, Texas A&M University System vice chancellor for agriculture and life sciences, credited Ellison, who he described as a "super volunteer fundraiser," as the inspiration behind a chair that will be instrumental in Texas A&M's efforts to advance an industry.

"Ellen was the driving force behind establishing the chair and was invaluable in raising the external funds to support it," he said. "This floriculture chair is crucial to our ability to best serve the burgeoning horticulture/floriculture industry in Texas and beyond."

According to Dr. J. Warren Evans, assistant to the vice chancellor for resource development for the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, the college expects the chair's donors — who number nearly 50 — to fulfill their pledges within one to two years, at which time a candidate to fill the inaugural chair will be selected.

Ellison said she hopes research, teaching and training programs supported by the chair will attract students worldwide to greenhouse crops and greenhouse management. But those recruitment efforts won't be limited to Texas A&M's campus borders, she added.

In addition to traditional educational programs, Ellison said the university hopes to offer a virtual international school via the Internet with the capability to train students in greenhouse management online.

"In the beginning, our vision was more local and statewide," she said. "Now, our vision is bilingual and international in scope." The Endowed Chair in Floriculture and Greenhouse Crops is included in "One Spirit One Vision," a multi-year fund-raising campaign to help Texas A&M attain national top 10 status among public universities while sustaining the distinctive Texas A&M spirit. The volunteer-led campaign, coordinated by the Texas A&M Foundation, encompasses all private gifts benefiting the university.