Endowed career fund for URI business students created by alumni couple

SOUTH KINGSTOWN – Kent and Diane Fannon, a married couple who first met at the University of Rhode Island and have business careers that changed direction, have established an endowed “career” fund at URI’s College of Business Administration.

The couple launched the Kent and Diane Fannon Endowed Career Fund at URI with a gift of $500,000.

“Kent and Diane Fannon’s generous endowment gives us an unparalleled opportunity to improve and enhance our career services offerings to our students,” said College of Business Administration Dean Maling Ebrahimpour. “We are grateful for their gift, which will help our students to be better prepared in an increasingly competitive global job market.”

The gift was inspired in part by the college’s Alumni Career Day, which the Fannons, who graduated in 1974, have participated in for the past 10 years, traveling from Dallas to Providence, along with 100 other alumni.

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“My advice is to learn from every role you have, exceed expectations, and then be willing to move on to a new challenge,” Kent Fannon says.

After 11 years with American Airlines including internships and employment and a move to Dallas, Kent Fannon branched into different industries and, as a result, came to see a career as a step-by-step process that can evolve in a number of directions. Today, he is a partner with Chartwell Partners, an executive search firm.

Kent, who also graduated from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business in 1976, the same year he and Diane would marry, assumed he would work for American Airlines for 30 years and retire.

“The opposite happened,” he said.

Diane Fannon, who graduated with a degree in elementary education and English, is today a principal at The Richards Group in Dallas, the nation’s largest independently-owned ad agency with marquee clients like Home Depot and Chick-Fil-A. Her career path also changed, something she hadn’t counted on.

“It was the opportunities afforded me along the way that make me feel like I want to give back to URI and help students get a fulfilling job and make a career of it,” she said, “and not be afraid to try something different.”

The Fannons say they hope their gift also inspires fellow alums to re-engage with URI in a meaningful way.

In addition to their latest gift, the couple previously established two endowed scholarships at URI, both reflecting their areas of interests. The Diane and Kent Fannon Marketing Scholarship supports marketing majors at the College of Business Administration. The Kent and Diane Fannon Business Administration Scholarship supports entrepreneurial management majors at the College of Business Administration.

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