Community service is an important part of the role of a senior financial officer. Since 1970, the FEI Houston Chapter and its members have sponsored an Academic Honors Program for Southeast Texas Area Universities. The Program provides scholarship support for 12 qualified students who have achieved at least Junior status and who are destined to be future financial leaders, but need tuition assistance to complete their final year of college. In 2003, the FEI Houston Chapter established the FEI Scholarship Foundation to focus strategic fundraising efforts and shepherd the long term success of the Academic Honors Program. The Foundation is a 501 (c) (3) organization.

The Program has provided over $350,000 of financial support since inception and assisted in graduating over 450 students, approximately 85% of which have been minorities. Several of these individuals have benefitted from internship opportunities and mentoring from FEI members and affiliated organizations. The short-term focus of the Foundation, working closely with Houston’s FEI Chapter, is to enhance mentorship opportunities, fully support the Academic Honors Program and establish fundraising opportunities to achieve a Foundation corpus of $1,000,000 by the end of 2015. This will enable student awards to continue to be provided at a meaningful level.

The major focus of the Academic Honors Program is an annual Academic Honors Day for the 12 qualified students and their professors. The day’s activity comprises a field visit to a major Houston based business facility, discussion with industry business leaders and a scholarship award dinner in February, in conjunction with a Houston FEI Chapter Meeting. This allows FEI member access to potential future employees with outstanding qualifications. Hosting business organizations have included the Haliburton, Centerpoint Energy, Goodwill Industries of Houston, Houston Astros, The Houston Port Authority, The Greater Houston Partnership, Sam Houston Race Track, ExxonMobil, Service Corporation International, Carriage Services, Reliant Energy, Shell Oil, Gulf States Toyota, and Bio Houston. Financial support for the Program is received from the Chapter and its members, with major business contributions from ExxonMobil, Halliburton and Hein and Associates.

Opportunities to support the important work of the Foundation and FEI Houston Chapter in this area range from tax-deductible individual contributions during the annual dues or year-end solicitation processes, company financial support on an annual or multi-year sponsorship basis and business hosting, internship or mentoring through the Academic Honors Program activity. Assistance in any or all of these opportunities is strongly requested with appropriate recognition to be provided for all participating. Often, member contributions may be matched by an employer.