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Q&A: Get to Know the Family Behind the New Chemical Engineering Program

Jasper Ventures, Inc. leads in developing and installing world-class gas processing solutions. The University partnered with the company to launch the UT Tyler Jasper Department of Chemical Engineering. Learn about founder Jon Jasper; his son and president Brent Jasper; and daughter, UT Tyler alumna Carrie-Ann Jasper Yearty, who serves as vice president of people; and how the family’s partnership with UT Tyler began.

How did your relationship with UT Tyler form?

Jon:

The engineering college at UT Tyler decided to add a chemical engineering program to their school, and Dr. Mike McGinnis (interim dean of the college at the time) was tasked with promoting the idea, in order to find a local financial supporter to get the program started. Daniel Carrell, who was a friend of mine and a development officer for UT Tyler, set up the meeting between Mike and me, my wife Susan, and our daughter, Carrie-Ann, a UT Tyler business grad, who had joined the company in 2011, when my business partner retired. We were all impressed with the vision that Mike shared with us for a new chemical engineering department, and what it could mean for the school and for our community. We had further discussions over the next couple of years, as the plan to develop a chemical engineering program evolved.  

Brent & Carrie-Ann:

Daniel Carrell was a longtime friend of our family, having worked for Buckner International in East Texas. He was our contact there and when he went to UT Tyler’s College of Engineering, he learned of the need for someone to work with the University to fund a chemical engineering program. He knew that our dad was a ChemE from University of Kentucky and that we might have an interest. He introduced us to Mike McGinnis, who had done a lot of the legwork and presented the idea to us; we began discussions that lasted a couple of years as we began to get to know Mike Tidwell and Javier Kypuros.

How did the Jasper Department of Chemical Engineering at the University come about, and what made you want to be a part of it?

Brent & Carrie-Ann:

As we began to meet different people in the COE, including Mike McGinnis, we began to see their passion around engineering and growing the college. We learned a lot about the University, the programs being offered, the hole that needed to be filled around chemical engineering, and the lack of options for East/North Texas when it came to ChemE programs. We live in an area where there is immense oil and gas, but no program to allow East Texas students to stay close to home and receive a degree here. We were losing excellent students, and many of them would find jobs away from East Texas and not return to share what they had learned with employers here.

Jon:

My desire to glorify God with my life.

Why is chemical engineering important to you and your family?

Brent & Carrie-Ann:

Our dad is a 1970 ChemE graduate from the University of Kentucky and being a chemical engineer is what brought him and our mom to East Texas from Kentucky upon graduation. We want to honor our dad’s chosen degree program and profession for years to come and we want to encourage other students to consider ChemE and all the opportunities this degree offers its recipients; if not for this degree and opportunity, our parents might have stayed in Kentucky and we wouldn’t all be here today helping to run the family business.

Jon:

Chemical engineering gave me the background education for a very gratifying and always interesting career. In school, I was interested in chemistry and the other sciences, but wanted to be able to apply the science to real life applications. Chemical engineers are involved in many industries that do involve chemicals, but in practice, many chemical engineers have very limited connection to chemistry beyond the basics. I believe that of all the engineering disciplines, chemical engineering provides the most opportunity to pursue a variety of career paths.

What do you hope the department will achieve in the future? For East Texas? For the state?

Brent & Carrie-Ann:

We hope a comprehensive engineering program including chemical engineering will attract students from outside of East Texas due to the UT Tyler name/reputation and price point. We also hope it will encourage students that graduate from high schools in East Texas to stay close to home if they are considering a chemical engineering degree. Right now, those students leave East Texas to go outside of Texas in some cases to pursue a degree they can now receive right here in Tyler.

Jon:

There are several fine chemical engineering schools in Texas and neighboring states, but one of the main points in Dr. McGinnis’ initial presentation to us was that East Texas is in the center of a large part of Texas, where there was no opportunity to pursue a degree in chemical engineering, without traveling from home a couple hundred miles.

Why do you donate and get involved? 

Brent & Carrie-Ann:

Our goal as a family and as a business is to create unparalleled value for our employees, clients and communities. We are passionate about building strong communities and giving back to our local community. A partnership with a prestigious university like UT Tyler seemed to be a way we could give back to our community and our industry. The UT Tyler College of Engineering already offered so many other engineering disciplines that we felt that adding ChemE would round out the program and make the college more attractive now and in the future.

Jon:

I believe that God has blessed me to be a blessing to others. All that I have received from God has been loaned to me by Him, to steward for Him while I am here.

What motivates you to stay involved?

Brent & Carrie-Ann:

We have been incredibly pleased to see how President Tidwell has led the University for the last several years and we have enjoyed being a part of the process to begin the ChemE program, including helping to hire some of the faculty. We are motivated to stay involved because we are excited to see how the University will continue to grow and expand under President Tidwell’s leadership and direction.

Jon:

My desire to glorify God with my life.

What does the UT Tyler College of Engineering and Jasper Department of Chemical Engineering mean to you and your family?

Brent & Carrie-Ann:

This will allow us to honor the legacy of Jon Jasper and his work in the oil and gas industry for years to come in Tyler. Once again, it is meaningful to our family since our dad began his career here in Tyler in 1970, which is what brought him from Kentucky and kept him here all these years.

What advice do you offer for current UT Tyler engineering students?

Jon:

Take advantage of the low student/teacher ratio, and develop personal relationships with the teachers and classmates.  Study hard and take lots of notes to learn the basic principles of engineering. As you learn these principles, think about the world around you and try to see the ways that engineers contribute to society.

What other organizations or causes do you support?

Brent & Carrie-Ann:

As a family, some of our top giving priorities are focused on strengthening families, effective discipleship, redeeming struggle and valuable lessons from hard work. As followers of Christ who want to love God and people in the same gracious and humble way that Jesus loved us, we see everything we have been given as a gift from God, and we want to be generous with the gifts with which we have been entrusted.

We give locally, nationally and internationally as we feel we have been called by God to do, giving of our time, talents and treasures to strengthen families everywhere through holistic and tangible help that embodies and announces the Gospel to people struggling in a broken world. There are so many amazing ministries and nonprofits in Tyler and we support many of those that are in line with our giving priorities, like YoungLife Tyler, Mentoring Alliance and Children’s Advocacy Center. Internationally, we support YoungLife Africa, Buckner International and International Justice Mission.

Anything else you'd like to add?

Brent & Carrie-Ann:

We are proud to be affiliated with a quality system like the University of Texas System and look forward to seeing the program grow and develop into a world-class ChemE program.

Jon:

I have enjoyed very much the relationships that I have developed with the engineering department personnel, including Mike McGinnis, Javier Kypuros and Fernando Resende. As I have become more familiar with UT Tyler over the past three years, I have come to realize what an important part of the community that UT Tyler is. Having an engineering college gives locals an opportunity to get a quality education at a much lower cost than going out of town or state. It also provides local industry a great resource for well-educated engineers.

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