Bobbie and Coulter R. Sublett Centennial Professorship

Bobbie and Coulter were both in the same business law class in 1932. Four years later, in 1936, they were both working in Tyler when they ran into each other at the Post Office. They were married for 58 years.

Coulter started working for Eli Lilly & Co. in 1935 and retired 39 years later. He served in World War II for five years, the last year of which he was head of forward ordinance for General Patton, with 17,000 men reporting to Coulter, then just 33. In 1946, Coulter returned to his same territory in Tyler, which Eli Lilly had held for him. He retired from the Army as a brigadier general, after continuing to serve as a reserve officer until age 60, and was Deputy Chief of Staff for Logistics at the Pentagon.

As Coulter rose through the ranks at Eli Lilly, the couple moved 13 times all over the United States. In Indianapolis, where the company headquarters were, he had responsibility for sales for half of the country for a decade before becoming head of relations with all corporate partners in the United States. It was there that he retired.

The Subletts loved The University of Texas, and when the Centennial Professorships were proposed in 1983 to improve the quality of UT’s faculty, they responded with several gifts, including this one to the McCombs School of Business.

Loyal throughout their lives, they wanted to ensure that the quality of The University would continue to grow. UT Austin changed their lives, and they wanted it to continue to change the lives of others.