About the Institute

“The purpose of the Institute for Ethics is to encourage discussion on campus, in businesses and in the community about how ethical decision-making can be the basis of both personal and professional success.”
– Robert J. Rutland

Robert Rutland’s generous support of Clemson’s Institute for Ethics reflects his long-standing commitment to promoting ethics in the workplace and the community. In 1934, Rutland’s grandfather founded Allied Holdings, Inc., a company committed to treating people with respect. Rutland believes that this “human touch” approach underpins Allied’s solid, lasting relationships with customers and guides its focus on the safety and well-being of its employees. As chairman of Allied Holdings, Rutland helped pioneer the field of industrial chaplaincy. Rutland is very active in his church and community. He is a member and Deacon at First Baptist Church in Covington, Georgia.

He served as the director of Fidelity National Bank in Decatur and Georgians for Better Transportation. He is the former chair of the DeKalb Chamber of Commerce and the Sam Jones Boys and Girls Club. He was a trustee of Mercer University in Macon, Georgia and of Atlanta Youth for Christ. He was named the 1997 Executive of the Year by Georgia Securities and was a 2000 finalist for the Entrepreneur of the Year for the Southeast.

Voice of Our Founder

Voice of Our Founder.wav
“What I was looking for was an idea that would go across a lot of different interests and people from different businesses. And, so, what we were trying to do was to bring together people that had successful businesses—businesses that had started to grow—and to try to teach them how to do it with a different type of goal that they would use. And it became very apparent that so many people were going into business, and they were just doing their normal business paces, and they were just not having the values that they put in there with it. And [those values] are what we were trying to put into position.”

– Robert J. Rutland on his vision at the founding of the Rutland Institute for Ethics
August 14, 2024