Ben E. May

Ben E. May (1889–1972) was a

Southern Research Institute in Birmingham, Alabama

. The Ben May Library—Mobile's central public library—is named in his honor.

Early life

At the age of fifteen, May worked in a sawmill, where he acquired the expertise with which he would eventually make his fortune. After only a year of formal higher education at the

Georgia Institute of Technology, May moved to Mobile, Alabama, where he quickly recognized the value of the region's timber holdings and began acquiring previously-harvested properties with the idea of reforesting them.^[1]

Business career

May's fortune was made during World War I, when he supplied England with much-needed timber for the nation's war effort. May then re-invested that fortune in land in southwest Alabama, Florida, and California. In 1940, he founded and became president of the Gulf Lumber Company in Mobile, and he served as vice-president of Blackwell Nurseries, director of the First National Bank of Mobile, and director of Morrison's Cafeteria.^[2]

Philanthropy

May was motivated mainly by the desire to help physicians and scientists eradicate disease. He supported the

Southern Research Institute in Birmingham.^[3]^[4]

On November 6, 1971, Mr. May established The Ben May Charitable Trust (the "Trust"), consisting of a trustee (currently Hancock Whitney Bank) and a three-member distribution committee, of which he was an original member.

Weizmann Institute established the Ben May Center for Chemical Theory and Computation in 2018 to bring scientists together to study the fundamental properties of materials and physical systems by using advanced theoretical and computational tools spanning a broad range of scales.^[7] In 2020, the Trust donated $1,270,000 to the Barton Academy Foundation as an anchor donor for the purpose of establishing the Barton Academy for Advanced World Studies.^[8]

The Trust continues to support a wide array of local, national, and international charitable causes through the issuance of funds pursuant to grant requests.

References

^ Alabama Business Hall of Fame, Culverhouse College of Commerce, University of Alabama, http://cba.ua.edu/about/hof/ben-e-may.
^ Alabama Business Hall of Fame.
^ Alabama Business Hall of Fame
^ "Ben May Charitable Trust". Archived from the original on 2016-10-18. Retrieved 2016-10-14.
^ http://www.benmaycharitable.com/
^ Mobile, Alabama, History Blog
^ https://centers.weizmann.ac.il/ben-may-chemical-computation/
^ https://www.bartonacademy.org/_files/ugd/23c7e3_79b0975c9da14e68af7eb69a6bf234f3.pdf

[1] Alabama Business Hall of Fame, Culverhouse College of Commerce, University of Alabama, http://cba.ua.edu/about/hof/ben-e-may.

[2] Alabama Business Hall of Fame.

[3] Alabama Business Hall of Fame

[4] "Ben May Charitable Trust". Archived from the original on 2016-10-18. Retrieved 2016-10-14.

[5] ttp://www.benmaycharitable.com/

[6] Mobile, Alabama, History Blog

[7] ttps://centers.weizmann.ac.il/ben-may-chemical-computation/

[8] ttps://www.bartonacademy.org/_files/ugd/23c7e3_79b0975c9da14e68af7eb69a6bf234f3.pdf

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