Jim Crane

Early life and education

Crane, who grew up in the north St. Louis suburb of Dellwood, Missouri, attended Lutheran High School North and graduated from there in 1972. He gave the school a donation of USD$1 million to improve their athletic facilities and enlarge the size of the campus from 40 acres to 67 in 2004. The school named the James R. Crane Athletic Complex for his contribution.

Crane earned a degree in industrial safety from Central Missouri State University (now University of Central Missouri) in 1976, where he became a member of the fraternity, Tau Kappa Epsilon. He pitched for the Central Missouri Mules baseball team. Crane's father died between his freshman and sophomore years and he seriously thought about dropping out of college, but his coach Robert N. Tompkins drove to his home in north St. Louis and talked Crane into returning to school.

In 1998 Crane was the largest donor in a USD$1.2 million upgrade of the CMSU baseball stadium, which was then named James R. Crane Stadium.

Career

After graduating from college he followed his father and went into the insurance business. He moved to Houston in 1980, and in March 1984 Crane borrowed USD$10,000 from his sister and founded Eagle USA Airfreight, an air freight logistics business. In 2000, Eagle USA was subject of an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission investigation regarding hiring practices of minorities and women.

Eagle USA Airfreight later became Eagle Global Logistics, and then EGL, Inc., and moved into the supply chain management and information services business. In August 2007 EGL merged with United Kingdom-based CEVA Logistics, owned by American private equity capital management and leveraged buyout firm Apollo Management L.P.. Crane owned approximately 17.6% of EGL's stock at the time of the merger. He had wanted to do a leveraged, management, or combination of the two, buyout of EGL, prior to the merger with CEVA, but was unable to obtain financing on acceptable terms. Later, after he obtained equity backing he initially offered $36 per-share for EGL, but Apollo then engaged in a bidding war and the shareholders eventually went with the Apollo/CEVA offer of $47.50 per share. He was opposed to the EGL and CEVA merger.

Crane took his profits from EGL and formed Crane Capital Group. He also became a director and shareholder (less than 1%) in Western Gas Holdings, LLC, the general partner in Western Gas Partners, LP, a mid-stream (mainly pipelines and natural gas gathering assets) energy company operating in the southeastern Rocky Mountain region and southern Mid-Continent area (Oklahoma and Texas) of the United States. Western Gas Holdings and Western Gas Partners are majority owned by Anadarko Petroleum Corporation. Crane is also the majority shareholder in Crane Worldwide Logistics LLC., director of Fort Dearborn Life Insurance Company (a subsidiary of Health Care Service Corporation), and a director and executive officer in Champion Energy Holdings LLC.

A scratch golfer, Crane has been ranked as the nation's top CEO golfer. In April 2010 he purchased The Floridian National Golf Club from H. Wayne Huizenga. The Floridian in Palm City, Florida recently completed major renovations and additions under the supervision of noted architect Tom Fazio.

Crane reached an agreement to purchase the Houston Astros of Major League Baseball from Drayton McLane for a reported $680 million. He was unanimously approved by MLB on November 17, 2011 after being forced to move to the American League in 2013.

"It was two things (owning a team and golf course) that I never thought I would be able to accomplish," he said. "I was able to pull it together and I am very happy about it."

Personal life

Crane and his ex-wife, Franci Neely Crane, are financial supporters of The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

For her 60th birthday party Franci was serenaded by the rock-pop band The B-52's at the Crane's summer home in Nantucket, Massachusetts in July 2010.