UA News

Homebuilder Bill Estes Jr. spearheaded volunteer and philanthropic projects across the University and Tucson.

"Tucson is an Estes hometown," went the ad campaign from an earlier day here. Bill Estes Jr., the man behind the message, made sure it was more that just a slogan.

Estes, who died last week, was never one to tout his good deeds. Estes built homes in Tucson and Phoenix. A lot of them with the company his father, Bill Estes Sr., started. He also gave back much of what he made.

The University of Arizona was among his and his wife Shirley's many beneficiaries during the couple's lifetime of volunteering and philanthropy. Examples of their gifts are spread across the campus, from improvements to athletic facilities to funding for academic programs, the Alumni Association Heritage Plaza and the Women's Plaza of Honor.

Bill Estes graduated from the UA with an engineering degree in 1961, the first in his family to get a college education. Shirley Estes earned an education degree in 1960.

Ron Marx, dean of the UA College of Education, said he first met Bill Estes in 2003 when Marx was a candidate for the deanship.

"He had already embarked on a personal mission of advocacy to improve the quality of public education, and was rapidly becoming southern Arizona's leading champion for education from the business sector," Marx said.

Marx said Estes built an invaluable network of business contacts to support schools, sat on several influential boards and lead the drive to create the Wildcat School, which was designed to offer focused science and math education to low-income students in Tucson.

"Bill never sought publicity for what he did, but ask almost anyone in the education community and they all knew about him and his philanthropic work. He was very, very active in working with our college," Marx said.

Gifts from the Estes family also have supported Wildcat athletics. In 2002, they started the Bill and Shirley Estes Strength and Conditioning Center at the UA. The center includes not only physical training, speed development and flexibility but injury prevention and nutrition counseling as well. They also funded renovations to the baseball stadium in 2006.

"We all know about his philanthropy and his kind heart; but what I found most endearing about Bill was the tremendous love he had for his family and those close to him," said Jim Moore, president of the UA Foundation. "His love for the UA family was equally passionate, for which we will be eternally grateful."

"Bill Estes was one of a small group of Arizona leaders who believed that the UA should have a top-ranked business school and he worked to make that dream a reality," said Kenneth Smith, a professor of economics and former Eller College of Management dean. "Bill helped to form the college's National Board of Advisors and he was an early and crucial contributor to the effort to build a new home for the college – McClelland Hall. He truly was special in his devotion to the UA and to Tucson's future."

The Estes Atrium inside McClelland Hall is one of that building's defining architectural features. But Estes also helped create a professorship in Eller's finance department and named it for his colleagues, Chrisopher Sheafe and Robert Neill, said Jane Prescott-Smith, the director of development for the Eller College of Management.

"Perhaps most importantly, Bill worked with the University of Arizona Foundation to create a mechanism by which a student group could manage a portion of the foundation's endowment," said Prescott-Smith. "The resulting portfolio management and investment class has become de rigueur for our students who are Wall Street bound. Bill was a tremendous friend and supporter of the Eller College and we shall miss him," she said.