The A. B. Freeman School of Business at Tulane University has recently received a whopping $12.5 million donationfrom the Albert Lepage Foundation to establish a new center dedicated to the study, teaching and practice of entrepreneurship.
The Albert Lepage Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation will oversee the business school in relation to its entrepreneurship offerings, such as coursework, academic research and student programs.
“There is a real need for research in the best practices of entrepreneurship and growing a business,” said Lepage Foundation President Albert Lepage, the retired co-chairman of Lepage Bakeries Inc and a 1971 MBA graduate of the Freeman School. “But it is also important to bring that expertise back into the wider community — both the under-served and well-served — to help entrepreneurs and innovators in New Orleans and Gulf South achieve their goals and thrive.”
The university says the existing Levy-Rosenblum Institute for Entrepreneurship and the Tulane Family Business Center will continue their work as segments within the Albert Lepage Center.
Albert Lepage earned his MBA from the business school at Tulane in 1971. He then went on to join the family baking company, now an empire that is a national licensor of Sunbeam Bread. Lepage retired in 2014 from his role as chairman of Quality Bakers of America Co-operative, formed when Lepage Bakeries and Flower Foods merged in 2012.