Neal St. Anthony: Learn-by-doing entrepreneur funds courses for next batch

Gary Holmes of CSM Corp. pledges $6 million to the Carlson School for entrepreneurship teaching and research.

By Neal St. Anthony, Star Tribune

Gary Holmes has made a lot of money in the past 30 years developing residential and commercial property, including restoring the Milwaukee Road depot in downtown Minneapolis.

Now Holmes, 59, plans to give some of it away.

"I'd rather do it now than when I'm dead," he said the other day.

To that end, Holmes -- who founded CSM Corp. in 1976 -- has pledged $6 million to the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota, two-thirds of what will be a $9 million endowment to support entrepreneurship teaching, research and outreach programs.

Holmes, who suffers from attention deficit disorder and was a so-so student at the university in the 1960s, said he made the gift because he's impressed with scientific and other research at the university, some of which will be commercialized by business school graduates who will start and work for Minnesota-based companies.

"I sort of learned business by doing it," said Holmes, who began buying and selling things as a south Minneapolis kid. "The instruction was just too abstract for me. But now the university brings in lecturers from the outside, studies what works and has graduated thousands of people who have started businesses and generated billions in revenue over the years.

"This is good for Minnesota, fostering business, employing lots of people in high-paying jobs and developing our quality of life."

Holmes, who has generated considerable wealth through his solely owned CSM, said he and his family are getting increasingly involved in philanthropy -- on top of volunteer service to medical and other charities.

Holmes plans to expand the assets in a family foundation from about $4 million today to $50 million or $60 million over the next several years.

"I don't exactly have a dollar goal," he said. "We're formulating all that. I've been funding things to date mostly with cash and stocks that I've done well in. But we're going to get to an [asset] level where it generates enough income to give out a substantial amount of money every year.

"I'm at the point where I don't desire anything more than I've got. We're going to get our employees involved in matching-dollar programs behind their giving, and we want people to feel good about it."

Holmes, who employs 2,000 at CSM, said his giving will focus on health and educational opportunities, including for disadvantaged kids.

"Entrepreneurship is the fastest-growing undergraduate major at the Carlson School," said Carlson Dean Alison Davis-Blake. "The gift from Gary Holmes allows us to take a big step forward in our efforts to serve more students as we expand our undergraduate program."

Separately, the business school said it has raised all but $3.5 million of $39 million needed to build an undergraduate-school building and make changes to the existing building. The school also has raised nearly half its goal of $12.5 million for student scholarships.