“You Can’t Take It with You”

For William “Travis” Brown CC’67, coming to Columbia was a stroke of serendipity.

Travis happened to meet a Columbia recruiter through his high school counselor in Tyler, Texas, his hometown. The recruiter assured him that if he were accepted, Columbia would help. 

The son of a coal miner and the first in his family to go to college, Travis was awarded a scholarship, work-study, and a loan. “My education at Columbia could only have happened because I received this kind of financial aid,” he said.

“Needless to say, New York City was a sharp contrast to my life in Tyler,” he continued. “Columbia introduced me to the kind of social and cultural diversity that I would not have experienced anywhere else.”

Travis particularly enjoyed dorm life and “hearing about the experiences of others from different parts of the country.” He formed a lasting friendship with his first-year roommate, whose family “semi-adopted me, which added a lot to my time at Columbia,” he said. He joined the rowing team, played lightweight football, serving as captain in 1966 and coached a touch football team of local teens in Morningside Park.

Travis was preparing to major in chemistry when another fortunate happenstance changed his academic—and career—trajectory.

During his sophomore year, he landed a work-study working for the undergraduate chairman in Schermerhorn Hall. “It laid the foundation for my interest in a career in geology,” he said.

After graduation, Travis worked the summer for Humble Oil (now Exxon) in Lafayette, Louisiana, and then enrolled the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, earning an MS degree in geology. Another summer job while in graduate school took him to Prince of Wales Island, Alaska, conducting mineral exploration for Exxon.

Once faced with being drafted into the Army and being unable to finish his thesis, he enlisted in the United States Air Force officer training program in 1969, served a year in Vietnam and completed his obligation in Utah as an Explosive Ordinance Disposal officer.

After returning to school to study for a PhD, Travis decided against a teaching career and went to work for Amoco in Denver, Colorado. “I’ve remained here since 1975, working for a series of independent companies and focusing my work on the Rockies and the mid-continent,” he said. 

Today, he heads a consulting company in Centennial, Colorado. Semi-retired, he enjoys woodworking, fly fishing, gardening and traveling in Europe with his wife, Kathy. Their son, Alexander, is a mechanical engineer in Colorado, and their daughter, Elena, works in finance in New York City.

While Travis had made donations from time to time over the years, he decided that making Columbia the beneficiary of his individual retirement account (IRA) would be the best way to realize two important goals: simplifying his estate plan and expressing his appreciation.

“The tax complications of inheriting an IRA would have imposed an unnecessary burden on my family,” he explained, “and it was a chance to pay back for the faith and financial assistance that provided a strong foundation for my professional career.”

Travis has directed his gift toward student scholarships for Columbia undergraduates so that they can receive the kind of financial help that made his own education possible. He has also set up a recurring gift of his required minimum distribution (RMD), the withdrawal of which is timed to count for Columbia Giving Day. This annual gift allows him to support scholarships during his lifetime and each year will be included in Columbia College’s totals for Giving Day.

“As we all know, you can’t take it with you,” he said. “I hope my gifts will help the recipients gain a solid foundation for their own careers—and maybe they’ll make their own contributions to Columbia in the future.”