SIFE unveils Plaster Enterprise Center

Plaster, the 77-year-old chairman of Lebanon-based Evergreen Investments LLC, was the $6.5 million center’s lead donor. The former CEO of Empire Gas Corp. also was instrumental in bringing SIFE to Southwest Baptist University in the early 1980s from the University of Texas.

Plaster and other guests of honor, including former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, former Wal-Mart Stores Inc. executive Jack Shewmaker and Campbell Soup Co. President and CEO Doug Conant, toured the 33,000-square-foot, three-story center Monday after an official ribbon-cutting ceremony. The center brings the total space at SIFE’s world headquarters, 1959 E. Kerr St. near Interstate 44 and North Glenstone Avenue, to about 50,000 square feet.

Plaster said he’s proud to be part of SIFE’s success. The organization now reaches 38,000 students at more than 1,500 colleges and universities in 46 countries.

“SIFE is the largest and strongest economics, education and free enterprise organization in all of higher education,” he said in a prepared speech Monday. “It has a mighty potential for accomplishment, a powerful influence for good, and it is not afraid to use that influence to establish the principles of economic integrity, hard work and personal responsibility.”

The Plaster Free Enterprise Center is home to SIFE’s domestic and international operations staff as well as four expandable conference rooms equipped with videoconferencing technology. The center also houses the new office of SIFE President and CEO Alvin Rohrs, who celebrated his 25th anniversary with the organization Monday.

“I see this building as a giant launching pad for what we can do in the future,” said Rohrs, a graduate of Pleasant Hope High School.

See SBJ’s Sept. 1 issue for more about SIFE’s Robert W. Plaster Free Enterprise Center.