Jay Hurt ’88: The Alum Who Came Back to Davidson to Build Something New

When Carol Quillen, former president of Davidson College, approached Jay Hurt ‘88 with an idea, returning to Davidson College was not on his radar. Quillen had a vision for the college’s future and wanted Jay to help bring it to life. He accepted, adding another chapter to a familiar Davidson story: alumni who find their way back to the college and invest in the next generation.

After graduating with a B.A. in Economics, Jay took a job in the corporate world, but after four years he knew that wasn’t the life for him. During an intensive three-month executive transition program focused on career coaching and counseling, one path stood out: entrepreneurship. Until then, he had never thought of himself as an entrepreneur. A career coach challenged that assumption, encouraging him to recognize the entrepreneurial opportunity to build and grow his dad’s company, The Hurt Company, into something different and larger than it had ever been.

Jay spent the next decade working alongside his dad at The Hurt Company, learning every aspect of the business while preparing it for transformative growth. After purchasing his dad’s equity, he expanded the company aggressively, making investments and pursuing new and innovative opportunities that reflected his own vision for the business. Jay was drawn less to a particular industry than to the challenge of innovating within one. In the lubricant and fuel distribution business, he saw opportunities that others overlooked. What resulted was a holistic business strategy focused on reliability centered solutions that drove profitability for its customers, not simply selling products. As this approach took root, The Hurt Company grew rapidly both in scale and profitability; innovation in a static and mature industry had worked.

Another industry opportunity presented itself in the form of rapid consolidation of companies to build scale.  Once again, Jay’s entrepreneurial instincts kicked in and in partnership with a private equity firm he co-founded RelaDyne to capitalize on this opportunity through acquisitions.  RelaDyne was founded through the combination of four lubricant and fuel distributors, including The Hurt Company, into a single business. Each brought its own strengths and core competencies to the table with the strategy of leveraging those competencies across all four companies and future acquired companies. As Jay puts it, “The Hurt Company’s successful focus on reliability-based solutions is woven through the DNA of RelaDyne.” RelaDyne experienced significant growth and success, and five years later, when RelaDyne was sold, Jay stepped away from the business and opened the door to a new chapter built around philanthropy.

Creating opportunities for others and watching them succeed had always been one of the most rewarding parts of Jay’s career, so philanthropy was a natural extension of that work, though not a passive one. He wanted to stay involved, playing an active, supportive role in whatever he funded by sharing his experience and helping others build something of their own. The Hurt Hub, then a recently acquired building under Quillen’s leadership, was exactly that kind of opportunity. Its programming depended on the active participation of mentors offering advice and counsel, and Davidson needed a place where students could explore their potential as innovators. As Quillen told him, “Davidson students are uniquely equipped to be innovators and entrepreneurs.” The college simply lacked a dedicated space to support them. Jay’s gift brought that vision to life, creating the Jay Hurt Hub for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

As a venture philanthropist, Jay’s investment extends far beyond the building itself. He’s invested in every student who walks in with an idea but doesn’t know where to start. Davidson’s budding entrepreneurs now have a place to develop and refine their ideas before bringing them into the world, and Jay makes a point of sharing what he has learned along the way, mistakes included. Above all, he emphasizes the importance of relationships: leverage your network and treat people with respect. Taking the time to make people feel valued, he’ll tell you, makes all the difference.

The Hurt Hub would not be what it is today without Jay. His commitment has shaped its programming and expanded opportunities for entrepreneurship into a liberal arts education built for it. Central to that philosophy is a comfort with failure, something Jay has always embraced. “Failure is only failure if you fail to learn from it,” he says, a belief that lives at the heart of the Hurt Hub’s commitment to freedom: the freedom to take risks and the freedom to fail and to succeed. Because Jay chose to invest in his alma mater, generations of Davidson College students now have a place to test ambitious ideas, learn from the ones that don’t work, and build the ones that do.