The Entrepreneurial Legacy at UTC

Bobbye Harris

Clarence and Bobbye Harris
Around the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Clarence Harris is a legend. His is a great American success story.

Mr. Harris had a humble beginning, born in Chattanooga during the Great Depression to parents who worked in the mills. He was industrious from an early age, starting as a paper boy at age 12.

He continued for the next ten years and expanded his route into working six routes simultaneously. He attributes those years as a great learning laboratory where he learned that the mark of a man is how he treats little people. In 1949, Mr. Harris entered the University of Chattanooga (UC), but was forced to leave after two years because he was $262 short of tuition payments. He worked to obtain the tuition and returned to classes. When he returned he made a prophetic statement: “My primary objective is to give this university a million dollars. My secondary objective is to earn this million dollars so as to give it to the university.” And he was indeed a man of his word. Not only did he make the million, he never forgot his desire to share it with the university. In 1988, he endowed the Clarence E. Harris Chair of Excellence in Business and Entrepreneurship at UTC. In addition to the endowment, he gave generously of his time and expertise as a guest lecturer in the School of Business, served as a member of the University of Chattanooga Foundation and also served on the UT Development Council.

It took Clarence Harris 15 years to earn a degree in business from UC. During that time he had worked and become a partner in a stock brokerage firm. In 1969, tired of selling securities, he started his own company, Carriage Industries, with investments from his securities sales customers. Today Carriage Industries is a leading manufacturer of carpet for manufactured housing, recreational vehicles, multi-family housing, hotels, motels, boats and exposition centers. He built Carriage Industries into a large corporation that is listed on the New York Stock Exchange while maintaining a willingness to help people. In 1992, he sold his stock in Carriage Industries to Dixie Yarns.

Even after retirement, Mr. Harris was still a friend to UTC, advising who should be invited as guest speakers to campus to talk with students. He believed that it is important for young people to hear entrepreneurs who overcame hardships to become successful, people who have succeeded without a push from the old man, people out there who saw what he saw, innovative, talented people, people who are not scared to death by a risk. Clarence Harris was never afraid to take the risk.

Through the years Clarence’s wife, Bobbye, has worked at his side. Friends say she has been a stabilizing influence—the one with her feet on the ground—that allowed Clarence’s entrepreneurial spirit to develop and succeed.