Allen has led many professional organizations in his career. As his class representative and 20th Reunion chair, Allen rallied his Emory classmates in 1966 for an unprecedented yet memorable reunion at Atlanta's Playboy Club.
“Everyone must understand three things,” says Walter Allen 46C, now retired from his entrepreneurial career in financial and real estate investment and management. “First, America is flooded with information on a daily basis. Second, knowledge comes after investing a great deal of commitment and discipline. Finally, true wisdom can only be achieved by learning from our mistakes throughout our lives. All three components work together to make up our education.”
Allen came to Emory from Augusta as a young man to attend classes and serve in the Navy’s V-12 program during World War II. Influenced by his Uncle Gardner B. Allen 28C 30C 33L, the younger Allen believes that “Emory taught me how to expand my horizons.” Citing the value of his liberal arts education and his long term leadership at Sigma Chi fraternity, Allen contends that “true education is a journey, not a destination.”
As a husband, father and grandfather on an important journey, Allen is a family man, first and foremost. Throughout his 57-year marriage to wife, Ann, Allen has deepened his commitments to education, thrift, and civic duty to become a business and community leader.
A former Junior Achievement leader and devoted Rotary Club member with a 47-year record of perfect weekly attendance at nearly 2,500 meetings, Allen invests in his community by concentrating on dedication and emotional support for the bottom 30 percent of students in local schools. “It’s one of the biggest flaws in our educational system that we’re often not meeting basic needs of poorly motivated children.”
Allen’s empathy for many under-educated children is clear. “My heart goes out to these kids brought into the world by parents with no means to support or educate them,” he says. “Underprivileged children don’t have enough guidance, and role models are critically important.”
As a role model to the disadvantaged youth of Atlanta, he is deeply invested in scholarship and classroom advancement. “If you invest $3,000 in a third grade child who can’t read and write and give them additional education when they need it most, the long-term effects are invaluable. Literacy will enable these children to get jobs, to pay taxes, and to ultimately become good citizens and lead meaningful lives. ” He points out that the $30,000 per year cost for each individual in our nation’s prisons would be greatly reduced with this type of early educational intervention. He contends, “Let’s apply the best of the best techniques from top classrooms around the world to make American schools the best they can be.”
Leading a Rotary International Group Study Exchange in India to observe the educational system was eye-opening. “We are all God’s children in the brotherhood of man,” he reflects. “They may have different mores, and their cultural values might vary, but at the core, we all want the same good things for our children.”
He reflects on his own upbringing in the American South. “My mother gave me great love, and love will get you through,” he says. “But education is the key.”
Walter Allen and his wife, Ann, sharing a smile together.
Savvy saver turned financier
The entrepreneurial spirit took hold early for Walter Allen 46C. At the ripe old age of ten, Allen conducted his first financial negotiation, bargaining with a barber for a half-price haircut “because my head was much smaller than an adult’s,” he says. The barber was amused enough to grant the savvy young man a 30% discount.
From that first transaction forward, Allen made wise financial choices, pocketed his savings, formed the Inexpensive Loan Company and made his first loan of $100 – to his father – at the age of 12. He recalls his youth fondly. Creative and enterprising, he says “I’ve always been a thoughtful saver.”
Professionally, this talent for understanding how to make money work served Allen well as he invested in commercial and residential real estate. After establishing the Allen Motor Company to sell and finance new and used cars, he went on to establish Hertz franchises in Tennessee airports before managing the Italian Imported Car Company. “Fiats, I found out, didn’t have many buyers in Atlanta in the late 1950s,” he says with a laugh. His next professional stop was to join Industrial Credit Corporation, the family business founded by his uncle Gardner B. Allen, where he remained until his recent retirement. Allen and his family now divide their time between homes in Atlanta and Cashiers, North Carolina.
School garb for Walter in his Emory days.
This Kingsport Theater Guild actor of the year for his portrayal of a sword-wielding Teddy Roosevelt is a family man, first and foremost. “Family comes first,” he declares, followed in priority by church, Rotary, and fraternity. He reflects on his journey. “The more freedom an individual has, the more he has to learn to solve his own problems. Sometimes it’s hard to be entrepreneurial, but following your passion leads to a very fulfilling life.”
Read more about Allen’s experience as a Navy seaman at Emory.
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