The Center for Retailing Studies at Texas A&M University announces a new partnership with the Texas Retailers Association as a 2017-2018 TREF grantee.
The Texas Retailers Education Foundation (TREF) is the charitable educational foundation of the Texas Retailers Association (TRA). TREF was founded to promote a better-trained workforce in retail, through investment in high school and college education programs that focus on teaching retailing career competencies. Approximately $1.4 million has been awarded from TREF to the Texas Grant Program since 2001.
“Texas A&M University is proud to partner with the Texas Retailers Association. Since opening our doors in 1983, the Center for Retailing Studies’ purpose has been to promote and prepare young people for careers in retailing,” said Kelli Hollinger, director of the Center for Retailing Studies at Texas A&M. “This fully aligns with the Texas Retailers Education Foundation’s mission to provide scholarships and learning opportunities that encourage the next generation of retail professionals in Texas.”
For more than 90 years, TRA has represented retail professionals in Texas, and provided them with a voice in Austin and Washington D.C. TRA has worked to support and protect the concerns of its members through government advocacy, industry information, education programs, and scholarship funds.
Members of TRA include major Texas-based retailers such as H-E-B, JCPenney, and Academy Sports + Outdoors, as well as hundreds of independent jewelry shops, hardware stores, specialty apparel boutiques, booksellers, and more.
As a TREF grantee, Texas A&M becomes the first Tier 1 Research university to partner with TRA.
“Developing transformational leaders to work at companies that drive a robust state economy is central to the public service that a flagship university like Texas A&M provides,” Hollinger added. “The distinction as a Texas Retailer’s Education Foundation recipient university is an honor.”
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This story by Andrew Vernon originally appeared in Mays Impacts.
