Statement of Tom Davis

Subcommittee on 21st Century Competitiveness

Hearing on
"Paying for College: Innovative Private-Sector Proposals to Complement Record Federal Investment in Student Aid"

May 23, 2006

Good morning, Chairman Keller, ranking member Kildee and Committee Members. Thank you for inviting me here today to testify before the Committee about how the private sector can help expand college access. My name is Tom Davis and along with my brother Bob Davis, we are the owners of Davis Brothers Construction. We have been in business for 20 years. We are a general contracting firm building apartments, dormitories for Universities, and condominiums. We do an average dollar volume of $50,000,000 per year.

I was raised on a ranch in West Texas by two hard working, loving parents who sacrificed much to put their four children through college. Out of the four children, I was the only one who did not complete his college education. It is the one failure in my life that I regret the most. The good Lord has blessed my brother and myself with a great company and many wonderful employees that have many wonderful children. Because of this and my strong belief that we owe our children an opportunity to attend college, my brother and myself have dedicated ourselves to helping children get an education.

I am involved with three charities and they all involve children. The first is the Star of Hope Mission in Houston, Texas. It is one of the largest homeless missions in the country. The average age of the homeless person in Houston is 9 years of age. I served on their board for nine years and am still heavily involved. Another charity I am involved with is the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo which last year gave out $8,000,000 in scholarships to Texas students. I am currently on their board of directors. The last charity I am involved with is Elves & More, a Houston-based charity that gave away 20,800 bicycles last Christmas to kids living below the poverty level. This is our fifth year of existence and we have seen a marked increase in school attendance because these children can now get to school on their bikes, get to their jobs, get to their friends house, get to Scout meetings, etc.

The point I am making is that by being an active board member of these charities, I see first hand what happens when a child gets an education and I see first hand what happens when a child does not get an education.

Because of these experiences working with children and because several of our employees have children that have reached the age to attend college, my brother and I decided to start paying for their college education. Davis Brothers Construction currently has 37 full-time employees and as of today we have seven of our employee’s children enrolled in college full-time. All of these kids live at home with their parents and Davis Brothers pays for their tuition and books. On the average, it is about $5,000 per child per year. This is our third year since implementing this program. We monitor each student by requiring they bring us reports during the year and if they are having difficulty in a class, we help by getting them the necessary tutoring they need to succeed. Because of the way we treat our employees and their children, they literally would walk through fire for us. All companies, large and small are nothing without their employees. The Family Friendly Employers Act you are considering would make a huge difference, not only for companies making a decision to help their employees with their children’s education, but also in our society. I am of the opinion that dollars spent in this way will be much more effective than programs that merely give monies, because those other programs require large administrative overhead expenses.

The State of Texas does not currently have any incentives that I know of to encourage companies to help with their employees' children’s education.

I believe this bill will encourage more businesses like mine to invest in education and help send more kids to school. While I am happy to provide this benefit for my employees and their children, I know that some businesses simply do not have the resources to pay for it out of pocket. A tax incentive like the one provided in the Family Friendly Employers Act would encourage more businesses to help send their employees' children to college.

A business is only as good as its employees. Because of what we do with our employees, our turnover in our employees is non-existent. Moral is high and the quality of work we receive from our employees is outstanding.

In conclusion, on the behalf of my employees their children, and businesses like mine across the county, I encourage Congress to pass the Family Friendly Employers Act.

And I will say it one more time. We owe it to the youth of this country.

Thank you, Chairman Keller and other Committee Members, for holding this hearing on a topic so important to our nation's businesses, workforce and students.