Paying It Forward

By Terry Tush

Fred Gibson still has the old newspaper clipping from more than 45 years ago. It means almost as much to him now as it did when he was an Oklahoma State University junior in 1968.

The photo shows Gibson being presented the State Farm Exceptional Student Scholarship by OSU College of Business Vice-Dean Edward C. Burris. The $1,000 scholarship meant everything to the Medford, Okla., native who was the oldest of Oscar and Lula Gibson’s seven children.

Both Gibson and his wife, Janice, the fourth of five children, received scholarships during their four-year OSU careers, and they haven’t forgotten how the generosity of others benefited their lives.

“We probably couldn’t have gone to OSU without OSU scholarships,” says Fred Gibson, now 68. “Our parents did what they could, but usually that related to the basics, a car or groceries. We’d work every summer and save up our summer paychecks, but I’d say OSU [scholarships] provided 50 percent of the total we needed.

“They were there, year after year, making sure we got through. You just don’t forget stuff like that.”

Now that the Gibsons are able to give back to others, they do so willingly — to OSU, scholarships for students in the Spears School of Business, their church, four children in an orphanage in Uganda and various other charities.

Fred Gibson says the relationships he developed at OSU helped shape him into the person and businessman he eventually became after graduating with a bachelor’s degree in general business. He credits OSU President Robert Kamm and College of Business Dean Richard Poole as influential in his development. “Dr. Kamm had a heart for the students, and it started there,” he says.

Poole, who led the business college from 1965 to 1972, had a major impact on Gibson. “The relationship with Dr. Poole was like here’s my grandfather. He took that much interest, and I’m sure he did with other students too,” says Gibson.

Gibson remembers his first time to fly was when Poole helped send him to a conference in New York City. “I’d never been to any place bigger than Oklahoma City, and a whole different world woke up [on that trip].”

“[Poole] just took me under his wing,” Gibson says. “If you had a question, you had easy access. If you went out to eat and he saw you, he’d stop to talk to you. It was just those things that made you feel like you were special. But I think he did that with everybody when I look back, but I felt pretty special back then.”

But it wasn’t just Kamm and Poole. Gibson says he felt a connection with the College of Business faculty, too. “Some of the well-known names that chairs are named for now … I had those guys for professors,” he says. “Dr. [Wayne] Meinhart in management; Dr. [B. Curtis] Hamm in marketing; Dr. Richard Leftwich wrote his own econ book, and that’s what we studied. They were stalwarts or became stalwarts [in the teaching profession], and I got the advantage of knowing them.”

Gibson was hired right after graduating in 1970 as a consultant with Arthur Andersen in Tulsa. Gibson eventually started his own data processing software consulting company before he received an offer he couldn’t pass up.

After working as a consultant with Heat Transfer Equipment Co., Gibson had an opportunity to purchase the business. He fulfilled his lifelong dream of becoming a business owner in 1988 when he purchased HTE, a Tulsa-based company with 25 employees.

Gibson and his family — son Timothy is now president, son-in-law Jason Carrison is vice president, son Daniel oversees accounting, and daughter Sarah serves on the board of directors — have been instrumental in the company’s growth into a staple of Tulsa’s economy. Over the years, Heat Transfer Equipment added shop offices, a maintenance room and a tool room. Also, the expansion included an employee break room (1992), a machine shop (’95), a sales office (’97), shipping and receiving area (2004), additional product storage building (’07) and an expanded weld shop (’10).

Today, HTE employs around 150 people.

“Back when I was involved [in the daily operations], I knew all the names of the guys in the shop. We treated it like a family,” says Gibson, who is now chairman of the board of directors. “This company is a special achievement just from the standpoint that it’s allowed us to do a lot of the other things we do now in the giving department because it’s been successful.”

Gibson and his family have made a gift to the new Business Building under construction, and the Fred and Janice Gibson Endowed Scholarship was created in 2012 to assist a student in the Spears School. They are now considering how they can endow four four-year scholarships. And it’s all because they remember the impact from the scholarships they received when they were at OSU.

“You’ve got to give back, and OSU is the one who taught us to do that. It’s very emotional because they were there when we needed them,” Gibson says.

The Gibsons hope someone says the same about them one day.