Perfect timing: A Lumberton native with impeccable Wall Street credentials--and a smart art collection--helps the UNC Tar Heels stay financially robust.

• Author: Douglas, Donnie

When John Townsend graduated from UNC Chapel Hill in 1977 with degrees in history and English, he felt ill-prepared for the working world. He and his wife, Marree, returned to his Lumberton hometown to work in the hog, tobacco and car-sales business that his family had developed over a couple of generations.

The couple built a home in Robeson County. "The plan was to spend the rest of our lives there," he says.

Three years later, Townsend had learned enough about the challenges of farm work that he concluded that its risk-reward didn't fit his ambitions. He decided to reroute his life, returning to UNC's business school in July 1980 to seek an MBA.

"I didn't want to look back and wonder what could I have done on my own," he says. "I enrolled with the attitude that I was going to take two years out of life and work really hard, and I was going to go for it."

His graduation timing proved perfect, with Wall Street on the verge of what Townsend calls "this great bull market that started in August of 1982. Business just took off."

New York investment firms were hiring MBAs at a record pace, aiming to keep up with the cascade of mergers and acquisitions spurred by Michael Milken, Henry Kravis and other big investors. "If I had gotten there five years earlier or five years later, I might have fallen on my face," Townsend says.

There would be no face-plant. Townsend, 67, spent most of the next four decades at leading U.S. investment firms, working alongside industry kingpins such as Dick Jenrette, Henry Paulson, Jon Corzine and Julian Robertson. He created major personal wealth along the way, leading to his current status as a major philanthropist whose biggest beneficiary is his alma mater.

In 2017, the Townsends pledged $50 million to UNC, including $25 million in art that will be displayed at the university's Ackland Art Museum. When announcing the gift, Townsend noted in a speech that he and his wife had often made donations that were "designed to be large enough so that the recipient would be grateful, very grateful, but maybe we could have and should have done more."

The Townsends, who have been married for 45 years, initially considered a gift of $5 million to $10 million. Marree Townsend, who is a 1977 UNC graduate, is a longtime interior designer. Their donated art includes pieces by Alex Katz, Jasper Johns and Joan Mitchell.

We challenged ourselves to get out of our comfort zone, and that is when we landed on this $50 million gift. It was the most liberating thing we have ever done.... You experience all these rewards, unanticipated, not tangible. I think that was a very defining...