GIVING MINERAL RIGHTS
The advent of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing technologies have created a global oil and gas boom. These mineral rights and royalties can also make a difference for current and future Aggies through a donation to the Texas A&M Foundation.
Plummer’s gift is especially unique because he chose to transfer all interests including royalties—from oil, gas or minerals—to the Foundation for as long as the interests are producing. This means that the Foundation, as the owner of the interests, will continue receiving revenue for Plummer’s scholarship fund even after his lifetime until there is no longer production.
However, there are also other ways you can create an endowment for the Texas A&M program of your choice using mineral rights or royalties. Here are three alternative methods:
- Term Royalty Deed: There are both time-based and dollar-based royalty deeds. In a time-based deed, you transfer mineral interests for a specified period of time to fund a specific Texas A&M program. In a dollar-based deed, you transfer mineral interests until reaching a specified dollar amount. In both cases, you maintain ownership of your mineral interests, but the royalties pass directly to the Foundation, allowing you to avoid income taxes. At the completion of the royalty term, all royalties return back to you, the owner.
- Cash: Cash generated from mineral royalties can support a gift (outright, charitable remainder unitrust or charitable gift annuity) while also giving you a charitable deduction.
- Bequest: You can transfer your mineral interests to the Foundation after your lifetime via a will or living trust to be used for a designated purpose at Texas A&M.
After completing his doctorate, Plummer joined General Electric. Years later, in a consulting role, he found a way to utilize both his electrical engineering and nuclear engineering knowledge. “I became fairly adept at vibration analysis, which uses a lot of the same math as in nuclear engineering,” said Plummer, who eventually founded his own company, Transitek. “Having a degree in electrical engineering made understanding the circuitry and the instrumentation pretty easy. I visited nuclear power plants to ensure that very large pieces of equipment could withstand seismic activity.”
Displaying Drive
Eventually, Plummer joined the University of North Texas (UNT) as a faculty member in 1992. “I thought it was time to start giving something back,” he said. “I made good money in my career up to that point, and it seemed like it was time to help the younger generation.”
Plummer’s expertise made him a natural fit for UNT’s Nuclear Engineering Technology program. The first to be certified by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, the program worked closely with Comanche Peak Nuclear Power Plant.
In addition to working with the power plant, Plummer worked with a team to create a car powered by liquid nitrogen. With a top speed of 30 miles per hour, the vehicle featured a heat exchanger that turned the liquid nitrogen into a high-pressured gas that was put through an air motor. “That car took me a lot of places I never expected to go!” he said. “The first one was Canada to an air-motor manufacturer at the Toronto Automotive Show. It also took me to Ukraine three times, where they had a grant from the U.S. government to work on creating a similar car.”
A Nuclear Reaction
Plummer has a long history of supporting development of Aggie nuclear engineers through annual cash gifts for student scholarships. “When I left General Electric in 1974, I made my first matching gift to establish an award fund in the Department of Nuclear Engineering,” he said. “At the time, Texas A&M had just started its bachelor’s degree program, and I was concerned that they didn’t have any scholarships yet in nuclear engineering.”
Plummer, who retired from UNT in December 2012, continues to seek ways to assist the next generation. “I like to see students getting awards and acknowledgement,” he said. “The inflation rate in higher education alarms me, so I’m passionate about helping students obtain their educations.
If you would like to learn more about giving gifts of mineral interests, please contact Tim Walton ’90, assistant vice president for real estate services, at (979) 845-8026 or send him a message using the form below.
