Draft:Frederick S. Kummer, Jr.

Frederick S. Kummer, Jr. (April 23, 1929-April 30, 2021) was an American construction entrepreneur and philanthropist. He was the founder of Hospital Building and Equipment Company (which became HBE Corporation) and the founder of the Adam’s Mark hotel chain. HBE grew from a small construction company in Crestwood, Missouri, in 1959 to the world’s largest design-build company for the construction of medical and financial facilities based in Creve Couer, Missouri, a St. Louis suburb. By the time Kummer died in 2021 at age 92, HBE Corporation had built over 1,100 hospitals and clinics in 49 states. Beginning in 1972, when he purchased a hotel in Charlotte, North Carolina, and over the next three decades, Kummer renovated or built additional properties for his Adam's Mark chain.

Early Life and Education

Kummer was born in New York City, the son of Gertrude L. Kummer and Frederick S. Kummer, Sr., who was an engineer with the Knott Hotel Corporation and then a vice president of the Sheraton Corporation of America. He attended the Oakland Military Academy in New Jersey, and graduated from William Cullen Bryant High School in Queens, New York City, United States. Kummer served two years in the U.S. Army at Fort Dix, New Jersey, before graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree in civil engineering from the University of Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy in Rolla, Missouri, in 1955. The school is now known as Missouri University of Science and Technology. In 1953, Kummer married June M. Baumer in St. Louis, Missouri. The couple had three children: daughters Caroline and Melanie and son Frederick S. Kummer III.

Career

After working for two construction companies in the late 1950s, Kummer, along with his wife, June, who had a degree in architecture from Washington University in St. Louis, established Kummer Construction in Crestwood, Missouri, in 1959. By 1972, Kummer had decided to focus upon the construction of hospitals, clinics, and financial institutions, and renamed his company Hospital Building and Equipment Corporation. He adopted a successful design-build approach to construction, one in which HBE did the design work, architectural and engineering planning, and supervised the construction. This method offered lower costs and eliminated most cost overruns. Over the next 45 years HBE built medical and financial buildings in every state except Alaska. In the process, HBE became the nation’s leading construction company utilizing the design-build approach. The company ceased operations in 2014.

Beginning with his purchase of a Sheraton Hotel in North Carolina in 1972, Kummer built a chain of luxury hotels from Philadelphia and Buffalo to St. Louis, Dallas, and Denver. Kummer pursued several other ventures including an attempt in 1977 to buy the St. Louis Blues hockey franchise. Sixteen years later, he joined seven other St. Louis business leaders in an effort to attract a National Football League expansion franchise. Both initiatives were unsuccessful, as was another, much larger venture. A skiing fan, Kummer sought to develop a luxury ski resort in Eagle County, Colorado, halfway between Vail and Aspen. Conflicts and court challenges involving local environmental groups, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the U.S. Forest Service forced Kummer to give up his plans.

Charges of Discrimination Throughout most of the 1990s, Kummer’s Adam’s Mark hotel chain faced charges of racial discrimination against its black employees and guests. Notably, in 1999, United States Attorney General Janet Reno and the State of Florida filed civil rights suits against Adam’s Mark for its treatment of black guests at its Daytona Beach, Florida, hotel during the annual Black College Reunion celebration. While the hotel chain admitted no wrong, the resulting settlement included a payment to the guests of the hotel during that event and donations to historically black colleges in Florida. However, a post-settlement independent audit, required by the Justice Department, found no pattern of discrimination in either Adam’s Mark's treatment of its guests or in its employment practices. Service on the University of Missouri Board of Curators

Kummer served a term on the University of Missouri Board of Curators, the institution’s governing body (1987-1993). He sought to streamline the administration of the four-campus University of Missouri System and urged administrators to use a business-like approach in developing their budgets. In addition, Kummer repeatedly called for the reallocation of university resources and for the campuses to minimize the duplication of degree programs. He also believed the university should eliminate degree programs that could not justify their costs.

Historic Gift to Missouri University of Science and Technology

Kummer and his wife, June, were leading philanthropists in St. Louis, donating to a wide range of organizations and institutions from the Missouri Botanical Garden and Habitat for Humanity to the NAACP and the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. However, their largest gifts went to Kummer’s alma mater, renamed the University of Missouri-Rolla in 1964. In 1997, for example, they gave $1.25 million for a renovation and expansion of the civil engineering building on campus. Most important, in 2020, the Kummers gave the campus, which changed its name to Missouri University of Science and Technology in 2008, $300 million, the largest gift ever for a college or university in Missouri. According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, the gift was the eighth-largest donation to any public university in the nation as of July 10, 2023. The Kummers intended their $300 million gift to transform Missouri S&T into a premier science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) institution, one that promotes economic development in the state, as well as providing a dramatic increase in new research areas through a college of entrepreneurship and innovation and providing funding for additional faculty and substantial scholarship support for students. The Kummers’ gift was a donation, according to Forbes magazine, that broke a pattern of major gifts going almost exclusively to “premier universities and elite colleges enjoying national prestige.” It was a gift that reflected Fred Kummer’s gratitude to and respect for the institution that he contended prepared him for his remarkable business success.