Marketing Executive Named Texas A&M Foundation Trustee

The Texas A&M Foundation has announced P. William “Bill” Toler of Cincinnati as the newest member of its Board of Trustees. Toler, chairman and CEO of Swift Communications Inc., began his board service July 1.

“I am truly interested in learning where I may be able to best serve this very accomplished board,” said Toler, who graduated from Texas A&M in 1976 with an accounting degree. “My approach is always to provide expertise in a focused area versus being a generalist.”

The Texas A&M Foundation is a private nonprofit organization that solicits and manages investments in academics and student leadership programs to enhance A&M’s capability to be among the best universities. It is governed by seven trustees, each serving seven years. A new trustee is appointed each year to ensure continuity. Toler replaces Melbern Glasscock on the board.

Toler attended Texas A&M with financial assistance from a four-year Army scholarship. The Hurst (DFW), Texas, native was a member of the Corps of Cadets and its elite Ross Volunteer Company. He also was active in student organizations such as Memorial Student Center (MSC) Town Hall, which produced major concerts for the campus community, and MSC SCONA (Student Conference on National Affairs).

“As the stage committee chairman for MSC Town Hall, I remember headliners like The Eagles and Mac Davis,” he said. “I had the opportunity to talk basketball with Henry Mancini and stage Sonny and Cher the week before they announced their divorce in Houston.

“As part of the MSC SCONA organizing committee my senior year, I got to meet Al Haig, who came to campus in 1976 when he was the supreme allied commander for Europe.”

Toler credits these student organizations and Texas A&M’s “superior academic preparation” for shaping his business and leadership skills.

“All successful leaders are servant leaders,” Toler said of the skills he learned at Texas A&M. “Texas A&M really teaches you that inside and outside of the classroom. Not many other schools give students that experience.”

After graduation, Toler served the Army as a field artillery officer in Germany from 1976 to 1980 while earning Airborne and Ranger qualifications.

He worked for Procter & Gamble (P&G) Company from 1980, most recently as global vice president and general manager for its professional oral care group. In 2009, he joined Carson City, Nev.-based Swift Communications, which publishes more than 30 community newspapers and websites in seven western states.

Toler is interested in Texas A&M’s investment in faculty, particularly in maintaining a low faculty-student ratio. In the late 1990s he co-led the Vision 2020 faculty committee that advocated for dramatically reducing the faculty-student ratio.

“The ratio was way too high,” Toler said. “Some students were graduating without experiencing personal relationships with our faculty. This struck a chord with me then and it’s something I continue to view as a priority.”

He says he is excited to learn exactly how he can best assist the Texas A&M Foundation as it works with the university toward Vision 2020 goals. “I have a passion for Vision 2020 and believe its basic precepts are right for Texas A&M,” he said. “It’s so important that the Foundation and university are in lock-step on what we want to accomplish through this guiding document.”

With his wife Melanie, also a Texas A&M graduate, Toler created a bequest through the Foundation to fund a President’s Endowed Scholarship. He is an Endowed Diamond Century Club member of the university’s alumni organization, The Association of Former Students, and a donor to its recent Building Enhancement Campaign.

The Tolers live in Cincinnati with their daughter (16) and son (14).