Buc-ee's founder fuels Texas A&M's new $50M immersive learning laboratory

Beaver powered

Buc-ee's founder Arch Aplin III is gifting $50M to A&M's new facility. Buc-ee's/Facebook

The founder of Lone Star State’s favorite rest stop/gas station/car wash/cultural beacon has just made a Texas-sized investment in a major state university.

Buc-ee’s mastermind Arch “Beaver” Aplin III will commit $50 million toward establishing a Texas A&M University academic center that will serve as an immersive learning laboratory, the school announced.

Dubbed the Aplin Center (Aplin graduated from A&M in 1980), the hub will offer new university programs in hospitality, retail studies, and food product development through degree programs including viticulture, fermentation processes, coffee, and food science.

This new facility also will house product development laboratories and food tasting centers that can be utilized in partnership with related industries, according to a press release. Retail and food services areas will be managed by students and faculty. Students can also expect indoor and outdoor recreational spaces.

The center will be built across the street from the Texas A&M Hotel and Conference Center near Wellborn Road and Kyle Field.

Aplin’s $50 million commitment marks one of the largest single donations in Texas A&M history. “Arch ‘Beaver’ Aplin is a true visionary and one of the most creative entrepreneurs I have known,” said school president Dr. M. Katherine Banks in a statement. “He remains connected to his university, speaking to many students who share his passion for business and product development. Through this generous gift, he is creating a living, learning laboratory that will provide transformational opportunities for our students. The Aplin Center will positively impact Aggies for generations to come.”

Buc-ee’s founder, in turn, noted that Banks’ vision of a “world-class hospitality entrepreneurship program” is “just what Texas A&M needs and I’m proud to have an opportunity to be involved.”

Two years after graduation, Aplin opened his first Buc-ee’s in 1982 in Lake Jackson. His beaver empire has since expanded into five other states, with development underway in another five. Aplin’s brand hallmarks include pristine restrooms, endless fuel pumps, a vast selection of food and consumer items.

Besides its reputation as a cult and customer favorite, Buc-ee’s offers health insurance to employees and pays more than twice the amount of minimum wage. Earlier this year, the convenience store-rest stop hybrid received nationwide attention on CBS Sunday Morning. July 28 marks Buc-ee’s 40th anniversary.

“When Beaver Aplin does something, it’s never halfway,” said A&M System chancellor John Sharp in a statement. “The love he has and shows for Texas A&M and Aggies is inspirational and appreciated. This is an awesome gift and will position Texas A&M to become the top hospitality program in the nation.”

An Aggie through and through, Aplin, who serves on myriad boards and is also chairman of Texas Parks and Wildlife, once preached the College Station gospel during a lecture in 2012, telling the class, “I have to remember — I’ve gotta stay Beaver. I’ve gotta stay Buc-ee’s. I’ve gotta stay Aggie and I’ve gotta stay who I am.”

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

This makes those Beaver Nuggets a lot more cost effective. Image courtesy of TDECU

Houston-area credit union pumps up customers with new Buc-ee’s credit card

WHO NEEDS A BLACK CARD?

Buc-ee’s fanatics, rejoice! As consumers cope with skyrocketing prices, those Beaver Nuggets and gas purchases are getting cheaper for certain credit card holders.

A new credit card from Houston-area credit union TDECU offers a five percent discount for in-store and at-the-pump Buc-ee’s purchases made with the card. TDECU says holders of the new Buc-ee’s Platinum Mastercard, featuring the iconic Buc-ee’s logo, can take advantage of the discount at participating Buc-ee’s locations.

“We are thrilled to share the expanded benefit of our Buc-ee’s partnership with our Members, at a time when they need it most,” Isaac Johnson, president and CEO of TDECU, says in a news release. “Buc-ee’s travel centers have become their own must-see destinations, and we are excited to give our Members another reason to stop along their financial journeys.”

TDECU members with other Mastercard or Visa credit cards will continue to receive a 10-cents-a-gallon discount on fuel pumped at Buc-ee’s stores.

Both Buc-ee’s and TDECU are based in Lake Jackson.

Buc-ee’s operates 35 stores in Texas and locations in seven other states. Its stores are known for their massive size, spotless restrooms, and Beaver Nuggets snacks.

TDECU (Texas Dow Employees Credit Union) is the largest credit union in the Houston area. It operates 37 branches in the region.

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

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Houston VC funding surged nearly 50% in Q1 2026, report says

VC victories

First-quarter venture capital funding for Houston-area startups climbed nearly 50 percent compared to the same time last year, according to the PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor.

In Q1 2026, Houston-area startups raised $532.3 million, a 49 percent jump from $320.2 million in Q1 2025, according to the PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor.

However, the Q1 total fell 23 percent from the $671.05 million raised in Q4 2025.

Among the first-quarter funding highlights in Houston were:

  • Utility Global, which focuses on industrial decarbonization, announced a first close of $100 million for its Series D round.
  • Sage Geosystems raised a $97 million Series B round to support its geothermal energy storage technology.

Those funding rounds underscore Houston’s evolution as a magnet for VC in the energy sector.

“Today, the energy sector is increasingly extending into the startup economy as venture capital flows into companies developing the technologies that will shape the future of global energy,” the Greater Houston Partnership says.

The energy industry accounted for nearly 40 percent of Houston-area VC funding last year, according to market research and lead generation service Growth List.

Adding to Houston’s stature in VC for energy startups are investors like Chevron Technology Ventures, the investment arm of Houston-based oil and gas giant Chevron; Goose Capital; Mercury Fund; and Quantum Energy Partners.

How Houston innovators played a role in the historic Artemis II splashdown

safe landing

Research from Rice University played a critical role in the safe return of U.S. astronauts aboard NASA’s Artemis II mission this month.

Rice mechanical engineer Tayfun E. Tezduyar and longtime collaborator Kenji Takizawa developed a key computational parachute fluid-structure interaction (FSI) analysis system that proved vital in NASA’s Orion capsule’s descent into the Pacific Ocean. The FSI system, originally developed in 2013 alongside NASA Johnson Space Center, was critical in Orion’s three-parachute design, which slowed the capsule as it returned to Earth, according to Rice.

The model helped ensure that the parachute design was large enough to slow the capsule for a safe landing while also being stable enough to prevent the capsule from oscillating as it descended.

“You cannot separate the aerodynamics from the structural dynamics,” Tezduyar said in a news release. “They influence each other continuously and even more so for large spacecraft parachutes, so the analysis must capture that interaction in a robustly coupled way.”

The end result was a final parachute system, refined through NASA drop tests and Rice’s computational FSI analysis, that eliminated fluctuations and produced a stable descent profile.

Apart from the dynamic challenges in design, modeling Orion’s parachutes also required solving complex equations that considered airflow and fabric deformation and accounted for features like ringsail canopy construction and aerodynamic interactions among multiple parachutes in a cluster.

“Essentially, my entire group was dedicated to that work, because I considered it a national priority,” Tezduyar added in the release. “Kenji and I were personally involved in every computer simulation. Some of the best graduate students and research associates I met in my career worked on the project, creating unique, first-of-its-kind parachute computer simulations, one after the other.”

Current Intuitive Machines engineer Mario Romero also worked on Orion during his time at NASA. From 2018 to 2021, Romero was a member of the Orion Crew Capsule Recovery Team, which focused on creating likely scenarios that crewmembers could encounter in Orion.

The team trained in NASA’s 6.2-million-gallon pool, using wave machines to replicate a range of sea conditions. They also simulated worst-case scenarios by cutting the lights, blasting high-powered fans and tipping a mock capsule to mimic distress situations. In some drills, mock crew members were treated as “injured,” requiring the team to practice safe, controlled egress procedures.

“It’s hard to find the appropriate descriptors that can fully encapsulate the feeling of getting to witness all the work we, and everyone else, did being put into action,” Romero tells InnovationMap. “I loved seeing the reactions of everyone, but especially of the Houston communities—that brought me a real sense of gratitude and joy.”

Intuitive Machines was also selected to support the Artemis II mission using its Space Data Network and ground station infrastructure. The company monitored radio signals sent from the Orion spacecraft and used Doppler measurements to help determine the spacecraft's precise position and speed.

Tim Crain, Chief Technology Officer at Intuitive Machines, wrote about the experience last week.

"I specialized in orbital mechanics and deep space navigation in graduate school,” Crain shared. “But seeing the theory behind tracking spacecraft come to life as they thread through planetary gravity fields on ultra-precise trajectories still seems like magic."

Rice Alliance names first head of platform & more innovation headlines

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Editor's note: The top April innovation headlines to know include Rice Alliance's newly minted head of platform and FDA approval for a local medtech startup. Below are the five most-read InnovationMap stories from April 1-15, 2026:

1. Rice Alliance names Houston healthtech exec as first head of platform

The Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship has named its first head of platform. Houston entrepreneur Laura Neder stepped into the newly created role last month, according to an email from Rice Alliance. Neder will focus on building and growing Houston’s Venture Advantage Platform. The emerging platform, which is being promoted by Rice Alliance and the Ion, aims to connect founders with the "people, capital and expertise they need to scale." Continue reading.

2. Houston medtech startup clears FDA approval for new surgical tool

Prana Surgical has developed a minimally invasive, image-guided, single-use tissue extraction tool. Photo via LinkedIn

Houston-based Prana Surgical will soon bring a new electrosurgical tool to operating rooms around the country. The Prana System officially cleared U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval earlier this month. Prana Surgical began as Prana Thoracic in 2022. Back then, the company primarily focused on developing screening tools for lung cancer diagnosis. It raised $6 million in series A funding rounds in 2023 and 2024 before transitioning to broader surgical needs in 2025. Continue reading.

3. Houston leads U.S. in population growth for 2025, Census says

The 10-county Houston metro added 126,720 residents from July 1, 2024, to July 1, 2025. Photo via Getty Images

Imagine that the Houston metro area swallowed a city the size of Pearland in just one year. That’s essentially what happened from 2024 to 2025, with the Houston metro ranking first in the U.S. for population growth based on the number of people. New estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau show the 10-county Houston metro added 126,720 residents from July 1, 2024, to July 1, 2025. That’s just shy of Pearland’s roughly 133,000-resident tally. Continue reading.

4. 8+ can't-miss Houston business and innovation events in April


From the Rice Business Plan Competition to the Veterans Business Battle, here's what not to miss in April and how to register. Photo courtesy the Ion

Houston's weeklong innovation festival kicked off April, followed by Rice University's globally recognized pitch competition returning for its 26th year. Plus, find coworking pop-ups, industry meetups, pitch battles and even a crawfish boil on the calendar. Continue reading.

5. Houston unicorn closes $421M to fuel first phase of flagship energy project

Tim Latimer, CEO and co-founder of Fervo Energy. Photo courtesy of Fervo Energy

Houston geothermal unicorn Fervo Energy has closed $421 million in non-recourse debt financing for the first phase of its flagship Cape Station project in Beaver County, Utah. Fervo believes Cape Station can meet the needs of surging power demand from data centers, domestic manufacturing and an energy market aiming to use clean and reliable power. According to the company, Cape Station will begin delivering its first power to the grid this year and is expected to reach approximately 100 megwatts of operating capacity by early 2027. Fervo added that it plans to scale to 500 megawatts. Continue reading.

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