Trinity University has named Craig Crow its first director of investments, managing the liberal arts school’s $1.1 billion endowment.
The San Antonio, Texas-based university created the position with the goal of increasing returns and lowering administrative costs, Gary Logan, Trinity’s vice president for finance and administration, said this month. Crow, a former professional baseball player for the Texas Rangers, joined Trinity from Rice Management Company, where he was a member of the investment team managing the $5.3 billion endowment at Rice University in Houston.
In his new role, Crow will provide due diligence of new investment opportunities and act as the primary contact for the Board of Trustees Investment Committee and the University’s investment consultants, according to the announcement.
Over the 10-year period from 2006 to 2015, Trinity’s annual spending appropriation rate exceeded the compounded annual net investment return, according to a letter last year from the university’s president, Danny Anderson, in response to a Congressional inquiry about 57 private colleges’ endowments. Anderson wrote that the decline in real dollar values was the result of the university’s commitment to support financial aid, scholarships, and other operating expenses with the endowment, adding “the Board of Trustees continues to closely monitor this situation.”
Before his four-year stint at Rice, Crow had been an investment associate in J.P. Morgan’s Asset Management division, where he advised family offices, according to Trinity’s statement. Crow earned a Bachelor of Arts in economics and English from Rice University, where he was an all-conference pitcher for the Rice Owls baseball team. He was later picked in the 11th round of the 2006 Major League Baseball First Year Players draft.
