Chattanooga businessman donates $5 million to UTC entrepreneurship center

Max Fuller, a cofounder of trucking giant U.S. Xpress, has donated $5 million to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga’s center for innovation and entrepreneurship, which will now bear his name.

Fuller graduated from UTC in 1975 with a degree in finance and business administration. During his studies, he also worked for his father’s company, Southwest Motor Freight, and what his dad didn’t teach him, the school did.

“When it came time for me to start my own business, I felt like I was extremely well prepared, and I drew on a lot of the information that I learned here at UTC — but then also the things my dad taught me to do and not to do,” Fuller said in an interview.

Fostering a culture of entrepreneurship in Chattanooga is essential for producing businesses that create good jobs, Fuller said.

(READ MORE: FreightWaves CEO Craig Fuller shifts gears from his trucking family roots to helping build freight brokerage market)

“If we create really good entrepreneurial people, then I think we could really — I’m not going to say we’re going to be a Silicon Valley, because that would be a stretch — but we probably could be a powerhouse in the next couple generations,” Fuller said.

Thomas Lyons, the Clarence E. Harris Chair of Excellence in Entrepreneurship at UTC, said Fuller’s gift will be a game changer for the center, which acts as the entrepreneurship program for the entire campus.

“We want people thinking and acting like entrepreneurs no matter what their major or background is,” Lyons said in an interview.

The center strives to act as a relevant contributor to the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Chattanooga, working with founders and support organizations. It also prepares students to be effective leaders during times of uncertainty, he said.

“I really think entrepreneurs’ superpower is that they know how to manage uncertainty, and a lot of people don’t have any idea how to do that,” Lyons said. “So we teach our students how to do that and help them. If they go to work for a corporation, fine. They can think and act like entrepreneurs and be leaders in that corporation.”

People trained in the discipline are also tenacious, Fuller said, and are often more determined to solve a problem than a professional manager.

“You can take a situation and a professional manager will look at it and say, ‘Well, it’s impossible. I’m not even going to try it,'” Fuller said. “And that entrepreneurial person will take the same situation and look at it and say, ‘I’m going to try it. If it doesn’t work this way, then I’m going to try that way, and I’ll keep trying until I get it right.'”

Fuller’s gift will enable the university to expand its paid internship programs, which include direct work with start-ups and support organizations like the Company Lab. It could also create an investment fund to support entrepreneurial ventures by students and alumni.

(READ MORE: UTC plans nearly $100 million expansion of business college facilities)

“We’ve been strategizing ever since we found out we have this gift and thinking about where we take this now,” Lyons said.

The financial gift will continue to support the Max Fuller Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship after it moves from the campus’s Mapp Building to the newly expanded Fletcher Hall, which houses the Gary W. Rollins College of Business.

In early March, the university broke ground on an 81,000-square-foot expansion to Fletcher Hall. Officials expect the project will be complete by 2028.

According to the university, the expansion will enable the college of business to increase enrollment and programs to drive workforce development, create innovative classroom space and enhance student retention, graduation and placement opportunities.

The state set aside $66 million for the project, and Gary Rollins, a UTC graduate, and his wife, Kathleen, donated $30 million. Gary Rollins acted as CEO of the pest control services company Rollins Inc. for 20 years.

The Rollins College of Business graduates more than 550 students per year, the university said. Enrollment has increased 21% over the past decade. More than 85% of business students have an internship at a local business or nonprofit while at UTC.

Fuller and Patrick Quinn started U.S. Xpress in the 1980s with a fleet of about 45 trucks, which eventually grew to thousands of tractors and trailers and more than a billion dollars in revenue. In 2023, Knight-Swift Holdings bought the company for $808 million.

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In 2013, UTC named Fuller to its Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame, noting in a write-up that Fuller also cofounded a number of successful business ventures outside the transportation industry.

Fuller’s sons have also been prominent members of the business community. Eric Fuller succeeded his father as the head of U.S. Xpress before ultimately stepping down as CEO when it was sold to Knight-Swift. Craig Fuller, meanwhile, started the logistics news and analytics company FreightWaves.

“Chattanooga is a city of entrepreneurs,” University of Chattanooga Foundation Executive Director Kim White said in an interview. “You look at some of the most successful people in this city, and they were entrepreneurs.”

Officials are proud to have Max Fuller’s name associated with the university, White said.

“Not only has he created his own companies … he’s hired people who’s gone out and they’ve created companies,” she said.

Contact David Floyd at [email protected] or 423-757-6249.