MONTGOMERY – Nimrod T. “Rod” Frazer, a community leader, author and retired investment banker, will deliver the keynote address to graduates at Troy University Montgomery during the spring commencement ceremony on May 15.
The ceremony will be held at 7 p.m. in the Davis Theatre for the Performing Arts. Nearly 170 students are expected to receive degrees this spring at the Montgomery Campus.
A native of Montgomery, Frazer was chairman of the board and co-founder of The Frazer Lanier Company, and later led the Enstar Group, Inc., increasing its net worth by more than $400 million. He is a 1954 graduate of Huntingdon College and earned his Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School in 1956. He is a member of the Alabama Business Hall of Fame.
A tank platoon leader in the Korean War, Frazer was decorated with a Silver Star for Gallantry in Action.
In 2005, Frazer became a founder and benefactor of the Croix Rouge Farm Memorial Foundation that commemorates the role and service of the 167th (Alabama) Infantry Regiment, a National Guard unit of the 42nd “Rainbow” Division of World War I. The memorial is located on the site of the Battle of Croix Rouge Farm in Fère-en-Tardenois, close to Château-Thierry, in France.
In 2014, Frazer’s book “Send the Alabamians: World War I Fighters in the Rainbow Division” was published by the University of Alabama Press, recounting the story of the 167th Infantry Regiment of World War I’s Rainbow Division from their recruitment to their valiant service on the battlefields of eastern France in the final months of the war.
