Troy C. Alley Jr., co-founder of the number one black-owned construction and real estate firm in the Southwest, was inducted this month into the University of Arkansas’ College of Engineering Hall of Fame. He is the first African-American so honored.
A native of Pine Bluff, Arkansas and a graduate of the U of A, Alley is Chief Operating Officer of Con-Real, LP, a company he co-founded with his brother, Gerald. The company is headquartered in Arlington, Texas and has offices in Dallas, Houston, San Francisco, Oakland, and Little Rock.
Con-Real, in partnership with Turner Construction Company, has been awarded the contract to remodel Fort Worth’s historic I.M. Terrell High School which will be the site of the district’s new Visual & Performing Arts and STEM academies.
The Hall of Fame, which was established in 1965, recognizes prominent graduates and leaders who have made outstanding contributions to the engineering profession and to society as a whole. Honorees also have demonstrated concern for improving their communities.
Troy Alley attended the university during the Civil Rights Movement, graduating in 1969 with a degree in electrical engineering. He was in the university’s first class in which African American undergraduate students were allowed to reside on campus. Alley was one of 60 black students among the 11,000 student body. The first Electrical Engineering Honor Society inductee, Troy also is the first African American to serve on the College of Engineering Campaign Committee, Engineering Advisory Board and is the only “Distinguished Alumni Award” recipient.
He earned his MBA in finance and real estate at Southern Methodist University’s Cox School of Business where he is also the recipient of the Distinguished Alumni Award. He completed advance studies in the real estate development at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
In addition to Con-Real, Gerald and Troy Alley have established other related firms, including The Alley Group (TAG), a nationwide program solution provider, and Bravado, LP, a real estate and hospitality development/owner firm.
“The companies have made remarkable growth and progress for over four decades,” Troy Alley said.
Troy Alley’s passion for education is demonstrated in various ways. He is an instructor for the Appraisal Institute, a former lecturer/instructor at the University of Texas at Arlington and Paul Quinn College, and he serves on the advisory boards at UT-Arlington’s School of Engineering and SMU’s Cox School of Business.
He is the founder of the nationally acclaimed Engineering Career Awareness Program (ECAP), the first minority program at U of A to recruit underrepresented engineering students and provides four-year scholarships. Alley also is the founder of the Alley Scholars organization which is a collaboration of business professionals from all disciplines partnering to help promote and support future young minority entrepreneurs and leaders.