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ONE-ON-ONE - June 2004
by Ed G. Lane
'Educational Value Is My Main Criterion for Giving'
Louisville businessman and benefactor Owsley Brown Frazier discusses philanthropy, business and his new historical arms museum
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Owsley Brown Frazier
Owsley Brown Frazier is founder of the Frazier Historical Arms Museum and serves on the board of directors for Brown-Forman, the company his great grandfather, George Garvin Brown, founded in 1875. Frazier was formerly Brown-Forman’s vice chairman of the board. A Louisville native, he has actively raised money for universities and charities across Kentucky. Frazier is also chairman of Bittners LLC, a 150-year-old interior-design and furniture business in Louisville. He is an avid historical arms enthusiast and received the Louisville Urban League’s Equality Award in 1990 for his contributions to the community. Frazier holds honorary doctorates from the University of Louisville and Bellarmine University. He has two daughters, Catherine and Laura, and eight grandchildren. |
Ed Lane: I recently read an article in which your good friend Bill Stone was quoted as saying, “If the good Lord had to endow a fortune to anyone, he picked the right person in Owsley.” That was a very nice compliment. How old were you at the time you inherited your legacy?
Owsley Brown Frazier: Well, there was no legacy to inherit, per se. It was stock in Brown-Forman. It was in 1955 and Brown-Forman was doing about $70 million in sales. Today its sales are $2.5 billion. Brown-Forman’s growth has been very dramatic and my wealth (stock value), as a consequence, has increased substantially over the years.
EL: Over the years, was it your primary investment strategy to reinvest in Brown-Forman? The company’s success has been your success.
OBF: That is absolutely correct. I have practically no investments in any other stocks.
 EL: Most people think that being rich is all positive, but what have been some of the drawbacks of being financially successful? Have you ever had problems with personal security issues? Do you have to employ security offices to help assist you?
OBF: Sure. Yes, that’s correct.
EL: When someone wants you to make an investment or philanthropic gift do you normally conduct a due diligence investigation?
OBF: Yes. And you still can have problems.
EL: About how many requests do you get annually for contributions or to invest in a business opportunity?
OBF: Between 500 and 1,000 each year.
EL: When you’re evaluating requests, what are your criteria for deciding on whether you may invest?
OBF: What interests me the most is education and assisting education, the thought being that individuals who are educated have something that is exclusively theirs. The more a person puts into education the more benefits he/she receives. Educational value is my main criterion for giving.
 EL: As a general rule, do you prefer to make fewer gifts of higher value as opposed to more but in lesser amounts?
OBF: Well, there are a certain number of gifts that are strictly community-based, such as the United Way or Red Cross. There are others like Frazier Rehabilitation Center that my mother founded. We’re wrapping up a $87 million drive on that. The building is well underway. That’s obviously a high level of interest for me even if I were not in a wheelchair. Those are major outside interests other than education.
When I look at the educational field, I not only consider bricks and mortar, but I also look at athletics and the various aspects that go into making up the whole educational process. So the Lord knows, there are more than enough opportunities to satisfy my needs or wants to give.
EL: You recently said that you had contributed or raised about $500 million for education. Was the majority of that focused toward University of Louisville and Bellarmine University?
OBF: Yes.
 EL: You spent all of your business career at Brown-Forman and retired as the vice chairman in 2000. As one of the major stockholders, what is your current involvement with Brown-Forman today?
OBF: I sit on the board of directors. I attend four or five meetings a year, plus various committee meetings as an outgrowth of that board. I endeavor to provide my very best business counsel and advice as a director of the corporation.
EL: Since most of your money is invested in Brown-Forman, you’re probably very interested.
OBF: Yes, I am.
EL: Another business in which you’re involved is Bittners Decorating. In my research, I noticed this company was founded in 1854, which makes it one of Kentucky’s oldest businesses. How did you get involved with Bittners and what was your motivation to invest in that company?
OBF: My closest personal friend was William Bittner Snyder and my involvement started literally with helping him to buy all the stock back from various relatives so he could actually own and control the company. Bill came to me and three other people and he asked that we help him, which we did. He was later able to reacquire our interests. I did sit on a board of directors. My involvement with Bittners goes back into the ’60s.
EL: You’ve received a lot of publicity lately. A recent article said that you’ve been collecting weapons for about 50 years. When did you decide that starting a museum would be a good idea?
OBF: Yes, I have collected weapons for an extended period of time. It’s only been for about the last 10 to 15 years that I have really been a major collector. I also sat on the board of directors of the Kentucky History Foundation. A lot of the folks on that board knew I had a collection and asked me if I would be willing to show it for a few months over the summer at the Kentucky History Museum in Frankfort, which I did.
It really was the best-received, best-attended exhibit the museum ever had in terms of attendance. The Frazier Museum was an outgrowth of that success. Heck, I might start a small museum in Louisville – 10,000 to 15,000 square feet. Then in a very serendipitous way, the British Armouries was in the U.S. looking for a partner and a mutual friend got us together. My folks and their folks hit it off very well and as a result we’ve got, all of a sudden, a museum slightly in excess of 100,000 square feet. We had our grand opening on May 29, 2004.
 EL: Approximately how much money have you invested in the museum in order to get it going?
OBF: Let’s put it this way – a very substantial amount. And I am trying to do some major fund-raising to get some of that back. The construction of the building, in terms of bricks, mortar and galleries, was $32 million.
EL: Just the building itself?
OBF: The building itself. Clearly for security and insurance purposes, we never divulge the value of the collections. But you can say the collection at this stage is “priceless”.
EL: In putting the museum together, were you able to use any tax incentives from the state of Kentucky?
OBF: To date, we have received no state benefits. The building did not qualify, for some strange reason, for historic tax credits. There are some other credits that we have applied for or are in a position to receive, but we don’t know how much and when they’ll be distributed.
EL: The museum is in the renovated Doerhoffer Building at the corner of West Main and 9th Streets in Louisville. What was the original use of the building?
OBF: As I understand it, it was an old tobacco warehouse. It may have actually started as a dry goods warehouse and then converted to tobacco.
EL: In trying to start the museum, what kind of support did Greater Louisville Inc. provide?
OBF: GLI played a very important role, Steve Higdon and his group were helpful, very supportive. The museum has also been able to get support from the state and local tourist bureaus in terms of advertising. The museum is one of the four main reasons for tourists to come and visit Louisville.
EL: Have you been able to forecast how many people will visit the museum on an annual basis?
OBF: Our estimate is 250,000 visitors. The Bat Museum, right across the street drew about that many in its opening year and I feel that we should be able to do that well.
 EL: What impact would that many visitors have on the state’s tourism industry?
OBF: The Frazier Museum would generate between $17 and $19 million for Louisville alone and more than that for the state.
EL: How have you found it to work with the British and how have they approached having a major exhibit at the Frazier Arms Museum?
OBF: I found it to be a real pleasure to deal with the Royal Armouries. Occasionally, we have disagreements, but we’re able to work those out without any difficulty. Most of it is “what do you think about this” or “shouldn’t we do that,” sort of thing. The British have been fine to work with.
EL: The British have incurred cost in setting up a major exhibit in Louisville. Do they receive some type of compensation based on the number of visitors?
OBF: No, they do not. I’ve got a lot of dollars invested, and I need to recover some of my commitments. It’s a little early to determine a future operating agreement with the Royal Armouries.
But effectively, the Royal Amouries did not incur or spend any British taxpayer dollars. The Frazier Arms Museum has covered the transportation and display costs of the artifacts.
The items that we have in Louisville came from the Armouries reserve collection. Part of the mission of the Royal Armouries – which has 50,000 items in storage and none of them get to see the light of day – is to expose these artifacts.
EL: Did you contribute some of your personal collection to the Frazier Museum and are there tax benefits for you?
OBF: First of all, some of the pieces have been given and some have been loaned to the museum. There are tax benefits when you gift a 501(c)(3). There is a certain amount of tax benefit I will receive as a result of those gifts.
EL: What is the oldest artifact you collected that is on display at the museum?
OBF: I personally have a matchlock rifle that was made, as close as we can determine, between 1580 to 1690 in Austria.
EL: Trying to authenticate antique weapons must be very, very difficult. Are there people in Kentucky who are knowledgeable in this area or do you have to rely on experts in other states to help you?
OBF: Walter Karcheski, our chief curator of arms and armor, is probably one of the three most knowledgeable people in the arms / armor field. He came here from Higgins, Massachusetts in the Boston area.
EL: Well, the arms museum is an amazing project. You should be very proud of your success.
OBF: The Frazier Arms Museum is really not a “gun museum” per se. It’s not guns, bang-bang you’re dead, sort of thing. It is the use of arms as a lens to look through the history of time: why weapons get invented, and how were they used. The time sequence of the museum starts with the Battle of Hastings in 1066 with the British, and moves forward through Teddy Roosevelt’s presidency and his African safari thereafter. That may prompt another question: Why does it stop there? Well, there are hundreds of museums dealing with the First and Second World Wars. I had no appetite to try to get into and compete with those because they had already done a splendid job and why be redundant?
It’s really delightful to have the museum up and running. The workload is now substantially less.
EL: During the development of the museum you’ve been confined to a wheelchair. Has being handicapped impeded your efforts to undertake the project?
OBF: You know, my brain is not in a wheelchair. It’s just my body. Basically what I have is bone spurs, both within and outside my spinal column. I’m fairly much paralyzed from basically my waist down. With a mobile wheelchair like this, I can get out and move around really pretty well. The last thing in the world that I wanted to do was to stay at home, sit around and do nothing.
Ed G. Lane is chief executive of Lane Consultants Inc. and publisher
of The Lane Report.
edlane@lanereport.com
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