Don and Ailene Chambers Endowed Scholarship

The Don and Ailene Chambers Endowed Scholarship was created in 2018 by Ailene Chambers to honor her late husband, Don, who was an early entrepreneur in the field of transportation design. This scholarship supports undergraduate Transportation Design students who demonstrate both talent and financial need. “My husband may be gone, but I know that somewhere out there, there are others like him. All they need is the freedom to realize their dreams.” – Ailene Chambers

FROM STORYBOARD ON AILENE CHAMBERS:

Dear ArtCenter friends and family,

My husband Don and I both came from a small town called Chattanooga, in Tennessee. Growing up, we were both enamored with the national car culture. When we moved out west to California in 1965, cars were our shared obsession. They were also a driving force in our romantic relationship. I like to tell people, “I graduated college on Sunday, got married on Monday, and moved to California on Wednesday.”

When we first started dating, he was driving a 1957 Thunderbird. By 1963, it became a chore to try and keep the damn thing running. I convinced Don to trade it in. My promise to him was that as soon as we both had our feet on the ground, we would buy another one – and we did. The plan was to find two new models in one day, sell the first one, and make back the money we spent on the second one. In a sense, this was our first business venture together.

We went along buying and trading cars until the early 1970s, when our focus shifted from Thunderbird to Mustang. At that time, we lived in a residential area where, unfortunately, it was not uncommon for folks to wake up in the morning with their hubcaps missing. So, Don and I decided that it was in our best interest to start selling parts. In an effort to separate our business from the rest, we gave it the name Mustang Country: a reflection of our love for automobiles and our Southern roots.

Don loved cars. He loved the art of negotiation. And he loved me. I was always the organizational side of the business, but it nevertheless felt like we did everything together. Our business was a logical extension of our love affair with cars and with each other.

We never had children. I had no siblings. When Don passed, it was just me. This forced me to consider my legacy and what I would eventually leave behind. That’s where ArtCenter comes into the picture.

Though neither of us ever stepped foot inside an ArtCenter classroom as a student, we felt a kinship with both the students and the faculty there. There was a mutual drive, a shared sense of values.

The last time we paid a visit to the College, I remember Don chatting up one of the students. He noticed a young man had discarded some of his sketches in a nearby waste bin. Don appraised the sketches, wondering why the student had thrown them away. “If this is what they’re throwing away,” he remarked, “imagine what the finished product would look like.” He even asked the younger man for an autograph because he so revered the energy that the school produces.

ArtCenter is a place Don would have ended up had his life turned out differently. He was as restless, dynamic and motivated as any of the ArtCenter students I met during my visits there.

This year, I established an endowed scholarship to support ArtCenter’s Undergraduate Transportation Design program in honor of my late husband. As an early entrepreneur in this field, Don did not have the opportunity to benefit from a program like this one. However, the fundamental values of the ArtCenter curriculum have always been deeply aligned with our own. I hope to extend this opportunity to a broader community of deserving students.

My hope is that future generations of ArtCenter students will be inspired by his legacy.

My husband may be gone, but I know that somewhere out there, there are others like him. All they need is the freedom to realize their dreams.

Yours truly,

Ailene Chambers
Owner, Mustang Country International
Donor, Don and Ailene Chambers Endowed Scholarship