James A. Haslam II is the founder and chairman of the board of Pilot Corporation, headquartered in Knoxville, Tennessee. He founded the company in 1958 as a family-owned business with one gas station. Doing business as Pilot Flying J, the company has grown to become the largest operator of travel centers and travel plazas in North America.Haslam serves as the current chairman of the board of the Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy at the University of Tennessee and on the board of directors for the National Football Foundation, the Trust Company of Knoxville and University of Tennessee’s University Health System. He founded the Haslam Family Foundation, which has contributed millions of dollars to charitable organizations. Haslam also was the founder and remains chairman of the local Alexis de Tocqueville Society for the United Way of Greater Knoxville.In October of 2014, for the first time in its 220-year history, the University of Tennessee named a college in recognition of an alumnus and donor. The James A. Haslam II College of Business was approved by the UT Board of Trustees after a landmark gift of $50 million was made to the university in honor of the Haslam family patriarch.In 1952, Haslam graduated from the University of Tennessee, where he played for the national championship winning football team and was then commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. He is married to Natalie Leach Haslam. They have six adult children, 18 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.