The Legacy of a Family

A legacy can be defined as having a long-lasting impact, and Hollis Wooten’s (’75) support of UTC will have an impact forever.

Born in 1939, the second of six children to Lawson and Lila Mae Wooten, Hollis graduated UTC at the age of 36, a nontraditional student before the term was coined.

Ultimately securing a scholarship to complete his engineering degree, Hollis had a distinguished professional career—including stints with Westinghouse and Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Hollis shared in an interview with UTC shortly before his passing in 2021, “I thought one of the best ways to remember the people who helped me would be to provide something for other students.”

In addition to his parents, Hollis credited his success to his wives, Elserean, who passed in 1997, and Hertistine, who passed in 2017.

While Hollis became a UTC donor in 1985, he started the Wooten Family Endowed Engineering and Computer Science Scholarship Fund in 2019. The fund provides scholarships to undergraduate students pursuing an engineering or computer science degree. Hollis set up the fund to recognize his mother, father, and late wives.

In the same 2021 interview, Hollis shared, “This is for all of them and not for me. Without my mother and dad, I would not have been able to be successful and also without my spouses.”

The culminating gift for the fund was an estate gift made after Hollis’ death.

In a fitting recognition of his generosity, the Wooten family gathered on campus in 2024 to commemorate his legacy. Hollis’ niece, Elserean Wellington, echoed her uncle’s philosophy of giving back. “Hollis received help to attend college. He wanted others to have the same opportunity.”