Students inspire Brian and Denise Cobb’s 20 years of funding scholarships
- Laurie D. Babcock
- Giving
- Contributors: Lexi Harbach, Photos
7 – minute read
When Brian Cobb hears that the endowed scholarship that bears his surname at Florida Gulf Coast University is celebrating its 20th anniversary, he looks at Denise Cobb and says, “I didn’t know that.”
Considering the length and breadth of their giving history to the university and the community, marking such a milestone likely wouldn’t occur to them. Nevertheless, the Brian and Denise Cobb Endowed Scholarship Fund has supported 110 students since 2005.
Denise Cobb jokes how she’s “terrible with names” — yet easily recalls and rattles off the names of a few of the students she and her husband of 39 years have met at the President’s Scholarship Luncheon. The annual event provides an opportunity for scholarship recipients to meet and thank donors in person for their generous philanthropy.
That personal connection with students, and the chance to see young lives changed, inspires the Cobbs to continue giving for the next generation of Eagles.
How their story started
Brian Cobb grew up in Reno and majored in business at the University of Nevada. He worked for General Electric Broadcasting, running television stations in Denver and Nashville before starting his own mergers and acquisitions firm and brokering more TV deals than anyone else in the country.
The former Denise LeClair grew up in New Jersey and attended West Virginia University on a partial scholarship.
“Being a scholarship recipient really influenced me,” she says. “Any time you can pay that forward, you should do it.”
She became one of the original CNN anchors in 1980 and was the original co-anchor in 1982 of CNN2 before it became Headline News, making her the only person to appear on both networks’ first days. With her storied career, she’s been a featured speaker at the Press Club of Southwest Florida and in FGCU journalism classes.
“I love talking to FGCU students. They’re so much smarter than we were when we went to school,” Denise Cobb says.
The couple married in 1986, and their journey to Southwest Florida started with philanthropy: During a 1993 charity event, they purchased a two-week stay in a Naples house. They resettled from Washington, D.C., to Naples in 1997 — the same year FGCU opened its doors. A few years later, Brian was appointed to the university’s Board of Trustees by Governor Jeb Bush.
“FGCU was growing at a pretty good pace,” he says. “As a businessman, it’s always fun to see something grow quickly, and this was very similar. If you look at every metric that you have — the quality of the students, the graduation rates — every measurement was improving. Still is.”
He says he could tell from the beginning that FGCU was going to be a stimulus for Southwest Florida’s growth. “It was going to change this community in a big way. It helps the students, but it also creates jobs, which helps everybody.”
Doing more to give back
Becoming a trustee was what got the Cobbs involved at FGCU, he says, but “By nature, if you get involved, you stay involved.”
“As we became more successful, and a little more mature, we realized that we could do a lot more to give back,” Denise Cobb says. “I think a lot of people go through that as they get older, they realize that there’s more to life than just succeeding financially. And the friends we’ve made in Naples really led us down that path.”
In addition to their scholarship, the Cobbs are supporters of Night at the Nest, the FGCU Athletics’ annual fundraising gala; Wanderlust, a fundraiser for FGCU’s Resort & Hospitality Management program; and several past lecture and speaker series.
Beyond campus, the Cobbs are well known as two of the 17 founders of the Naples Winter Wine Festival, launched in 2001 to raise funds for children’s social services and education.
“Not one dime of taxpayer money goes to children’s social services in Collier County,” Denise Cobb says. “If the philanthropy didn’t exist here, it would be terrible for them.”
According to Wine Spectator magazine, the festival is America’s top wine charity auction. It has raised over $300 million for the Naples Children & Education Foundation, which is a partner of FGCU’s Early Childhood Development Center.
While they’ve supported FGCU in many ways over the years, they say the best moments are sitting down with students and hearing how a scholarship changed their lives.
Support on and off the court
Ohio native Jacqueline “Jaci” Carpenter is one of those students. A member of the beach volleyball team, she discovered FGCU during the recruiting process. “It felt like home the second I stepped on campus,” says the senior communication major.
Receiving the Cobb scholarship enables her to focus on athletics, academics and enriching experiences rather than financial concerns. Carpenter served on FGCU’s hazing prevention team and was elected by her Atlantic Sun Conference peers to chair the 2024-25 ASUN Student-Athlete Advisory Committee.
“This scholarship allows me to dive into the true life of a student-athlete and immerse myself in campus activities and community service projects,” she says. “Being able to give back to the local community has been the most impactful part of my time at FGCU, and I wouldn’t have been able to do so without a scholarship.”
She has met with the Cobbs several times, most recently March 19 during a volleyball double-header that was also senior day. The event was bittersweet for Carpenter because it was her last home match.
“But I felt so loved and surrounded by people who have had a hand in my successes and time here at FGCU, especially the Cobbs,” she says. “They are such a positive influence on me.”
And they are happy to witness the impact of their giving in action.
“At FGCU, donors can see what happens right before their eyes,” Brian Cobb says. “That has a lot to do with keeping their interest.”
“But really, it’s the students. That’s why the scholarship luncheon is so wonderful and important and fun,” Denise Cobb says. “We sit with the students that we’ve given scholarships to and it’s thrilling just to hear their stories and where they come from and where they’re going and how they’re doing in school — which is always the top of the class. That event really is the highlight of our year.”
