Ira A. Fulton would be proud to know that the results of an internet search of his name include more references to wealth he gave away than the wealth he accrued. His financial successes were substantial, yet he was known to say, “Becoming a billionaire means zilch to me because you can’t take it with you. Now, to give away a billion dollars — that’s important.”
Fulton died on Aug. 21 at the age of 94, after supporting tens of thousands of students at Arizona State University. The ASU alum also served on the ASU Board of Trustees and the ASU Foundation board of directors.
INDUSTRY INSIGHTS: The 100 Best Doctors in Arizona for 2026
LOCAL NEWS: The 20 biggest employers in Arizona
Fulton was born in Tempe, Arizona, on Nov. 12, 1931. He grew up just a block away from the building that now houses Arizona State University’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering.
His mother gave him his first job at age 6, washing dishes in the cafe she operated. She also provided his first lessons in philanthropy, giving food to people who couldn’t afford it during the Great Depression. Speaking on behalf of his large family, Ira said, “Mom, we’re poor, too.” She replied, “But Ira, they are hungry.” Years later, Fulton said, “I learned the principle of giving, and I didn’t even know it. My mother was a very generous lady.”
At 11, Fulton took a job delivering newspapers for The Arizona Republic. He soon became the paper’s most successful carrier and eventually took over the paper’s largest route. It was one of several jobs he held simultaneously in his teens, Fulton said in a 2015 interview, along with delivering dairy products, collecting and selling wild honey, and building and loading wooden fruit boxes.
“My parents always said to me, ‘Do anything the best you can.’ If you mow the yard, mow it the best. If you rake the yard, rake it the best. If you are going to drive a truck, drive it better than anybody else,” Fulton said.
Fulton attended then-Arizona State College on a football scholarship, where he met his sweetheart and love of his life, Mary Lou Henson. She was unsure of him at first.
“I thought he was just a little too loud and obnoxious and good-looking,” she said in a 2006 interview, “and I just didn’t want anything to do with him.”
She said she also thought his smile was too perfect for his teeth to be real.
They were real, and so was the love that developed between the two. They wed in June 1954, and the marriage lasted until Mary Lou’s death in 2015.
Finding success through hard work and innovation, Ira Fulton quickly became National Cash Register’s National Salesman of the Year. He used his experience and network to start the first of several companies he would develop and then sell over the years. In 1976, he acquired a struggling Southern California menswear firm, Eagleson’s Big and Tall, and grew it from two stores to more than 30. He followed that success by buying and growing the family business that bears his name, the Tempe-based homebuilder and developer Fulton Homes.
The success of Fulton Homes, Fulton’s longest-lasting business, enabled the creation of the Fulton Family Foundation, supporting Fulton’s passion to uplift others.
“When you look at history,” Fulton was quoted on the foundation’s “Who we are” page as saying, “you realize we are here for just a second, a twinkle of time, and you learn we can do things to make the world a better place.”
Ira and Mary Lou Fulton frequently appeared on lists of the most generous philanthropists in the nation. Their gifts to ASU and Brigham Young University, among other universities, number in the hundreds of millions of dollars, and several colleges and centers at both universities bear one or both of their names.
At ASU, those gifts named the Mary Lou Fulton College for Teaching and Learning Innovation and the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering — support that continues to fund scholarships, faculty and student research at both schools.
“Ira Fulton has always understood that the true impact of philanthropy is not measured by the buildings that bear a name, but by the people whose lives are changed. Through the generosity of Ira and his family, the Mary Lou Fulton College for Teaching and Learning Innovation has been able to create opportunities for teachers and learners whose impact reaches classrooms, schools and communities across Arizona and beyond. That is a legacy that will continue for generations,” said Carole Basile, dean of the Mary Lou Fulton College.
The engineering school that carries Fulton’s name has grown into the largest and most comprehensive engineering program in the country.
“Ira was a fixture at orientations, research symposiums and convocations into his 90s, always curious about what students were going to do next,” said Kyle Squires, dean of the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at ASU. “The engineers and technologists who come through our schools because of his generosity are working on problems that didn’t exist when he made his gift, and tens of thousands have earned degrees that bear his name. They are the ones who will continue his work.”
