Founder, JP Bryan

JP, or better James Perry Bryan, was born at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Houston, Texas on January 17, 1940. It was a memorable day, not necessarily for his birth, but for there being one of the largest snowstorms in the history of Houston.  He was delivered by the doctor who oversaw the birth of as many Houstonians as anybody in its history, Dr. Robert Johnson.

While JP’s family had many connections to Houston, he was raised in Freeport, Texas, where his ancestors had first settled nearby in a town which in the 1820s was under the leadership of his great, great, great uncle, Stephen F. Austin.  In 1952 JP enrolled at Saint Stephen’s School, a boarding school in Austin, where he graduated as the first boarding school student to have attended for the full five years. He was class president and was the only five-year letterman in the school’s history to be on the varsity tennis team.

After high school JP enrolled at The University of Texas. He was a plan to complete a history major. He pledged to Phi Delta Theta fraternity, where he was Rush Chairman and a senior class honors student. JP later went on to attend the University of Texas Law School. There he was the class president, a member of the Honor Council, and cofounder of the International Law Society, and winner of the International Law Moot Court competition. After graduating law school, he attended the American Institute of Foreign Trade in Arizona, receiving a degree in international finance.

His professional career began with JP Morgan in New York City, and later as an investment banker with Dominick & Dominick and E.F. Hutton in Houston Texas, and was the founder of the Mortgage Banque, at which time he served as the first chairman of the South Main Center Association.

With the help of Rice Design Alliance, they were instrumental in saving from commercialization, some of the most historic residential districts in Houston, such as Shadowlawn and Broad Oaks subdivisions and numerous adjoining neighborhoods. JP has served as the president of the Texas State Historical Association, where he currently is the Executive Director and CEO, he served for eight years as the first President of The Texas Historical Foundation.  He was a member of the Board of the Texas Historical Commission, appointed by then governor, George Bush. He also was chairman of the Institute of Texas Cultures in San Antonio and was board member of the Brazoria County Museum and the Briscoe Museum.

He founded Torch Energy Advisors Inc. in Houston and during that period was the CEO of Bellwether Exploration and Nuevo Energy. From 1995 until 1998 JP was the CEO of Gulf Canada Resources. He was honored as Texas Entrepreneur of the Year in 1993 and as the Canadian Oil Producer in 1996.

In 1978, JP and his wife, Mary Jon, bought and then restored the Gage Hotel and 26 surrounding buildings in Marathon, Texas and over 30,000 acres of grass lands at their nearby ranches. In 2013 they purchased the former Galveston Orphanage and there opened The Bryan Museum, dedicated to telling the story of the settlement of the west in Texas and the exceptional people who made that history.

JP has been recognized with numerous awards for his efforts in the preservation and promotion of the written and built history of Texas, but he would say his life has been more about his faith, his family, his freedom, and his love for the history of the great state of Texas.