Robert Brockman
Robert T. Brockman is an American billionaire and former CEO of Ohio-based Reynolds & Reynolds software company. He was charged in October 2020 with running a $2 billion tax evasion scheme. Early life and education. Brockman grew up in St. Petersburg, Florida with his brother Thomas David Brockman. His father Alfred Eugene Brockman was a gas-station owner and his mother, Pearl was a physiotherapist. Brockman briefly attended Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, and later graduated summa cum laude from the University of Florida in 1963 and was a member of its business honor society. Career. Brockman  started his career in 1964 as a marketing trainee with Ford Motors and was a Marine Corps reservist at the same time. From 1966 to 1970, he worked at IBM and was the leading U.S. salesman in IBM's service bureau. Brockman founded "Universal Computer Systems", a computer systems and software provider for car dealerships, in 1970 in his living room. The company sold its first in-dealership computer system in 1982. The company merged with Reynolds & Reynolds on August 8, 2006. He became the CEO after the merger. Tax fraud charges. A 39-count indictment was filed against Brockman  in September 2020 in the Northern District of California. Brockman was accused of engaging in a 20-year long scheme to hide around $2 billion in income from the IRS. List of charges included tax evasion, wire fraud, money laundering, and failure to disclose assets held overseas. Brockman pleaded not guilty and was released on a $1 million bond. Brockman is an investor in Vista Equity Partners, whose founder Robert F. Smith narrowly reached a non-prosecution agreement with the United States Department of Justice, agreeing in October 2020 to pay a fine of $139 million for  failure to pay about $200 million in taxes. In October 2021, Brockman and Smith were both among those listed in the Pandora Papers revelations, which exposed offshore shelters of the financial assets of hundreds of politicians, business people, and celebrities. Personal life. Brockman married at age 18 in Kentucky and later divorced. He Later married to Dorothy Kay Brockman in 1968; the couple lives in Houston. He is known to be very private individual and refused public interviews. Brockman owns a Bombardier private jet, a 209-foot yacht named "Turmoil" , a 17,000-sq.ft. residence in Houston and a 5,800 -square-foot cabin in Aspen, Colorado. He is prolific donor to Republican groups and causes. Philanthropy and board memberships. In July 2013, Centre College in Danville, Kentucky announced that it had received a $250 million donation from Brockman's charitable trust. This donation was later withdrawn, when a "significant capital market event", upon which the gift was contingent, did not occur. Brockman has donated money to, and has two named buildings on the campus of, Rice University in Houston. He is also on the "Council of Overseers" of the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business. He serves on  the Board of Trustees of Centre College and Baylor College of Medicine.