A retired trucking company executive is helping dozens of local nonprofit organizations move forward in pursuing their mission.

Through a gift to the Northshore Community Foundation earlier this year, Covington resident Doyle Coatney helped launch the Coatney Center for Philanthropy. Designed as a resource center, it will serve as a place where charities can go for technical assistance, training, and more. It will offer classes to train community volunteers about the value of service and philanthropy.

Coatney is the former owner of Acme Truck Line, a Harvey-based fleet that hauls pipe and equipment for oilrigs. He retired from the company in 2000, and got involved with the foundation after being invited to its first organizational meeting last year.

Doyle Coatney

“I liked what they were trying to do, and I like getting involved with good causes,” said Coatney. “After we met a few more times I became a member, and then I thought I’d do something more to help them.”

Coatney is no stranger to philanthropy, and will be the first to tell you he loves giving his money away. Growing up poor in rural Texas, he said he received help from charitable organizations several times in his life, and learned early the value of giving a gift to a stranger.

At age 16 he was selected for the Calf Scramble, part of the annual Houston Livestock & Rodeo in which 20 boys “scrambled” for 10 calves. Once a calf was caught, the youngster got to keep it, raising it to show at various fairs.

Coatney said he was the first one back across the line, and the calf he caught went on to win a blue ribbon at the Texas State Fair. Sometime later he got a letter from the organization that ran the event.

“They told me this lady had donated $250 to sponsor a calf for the event, the calf that I caught,” he said. “That was my very first benefactor.”

The youth went on to win 30 more ribbons with his calf, and later wrote the woman a thank-you letter. They struck up a correspondence, and eventually he hitchhiked to Houston to meet her. She picked him up in a long, black limousine, and took him to River Oaks Country Club. It was an experience he never forgot.

A high-school athlete, Coatney played baseball, football, basketball and track. His efforts earned him a scholarship to tiny Blinn College in Brenham, Texas.

He was the first in his family to graduate from high school, and became the first to finish college.

His years at Blinn also left a mark. The well-mannered residents of the small German community were like none he had ever seen.

“They really took care of each other, and I aspired to be like them,” said Coatney. “Everyone was so good to me, I always knew someday I would give something back.”

In later years, his first act of philanthropy would be to establish an endowed scholarship at Blinn for a needy student at Montgomery High School, his alma mater.

After going to work for an oil company, Coatney was transferred to the New Orleans area in 1960. He went into business for himself 12 years later, purchasing what at the time was the smallest truck line in Louisiana, with only six trucks. Today, there are more than 2,000 trucks in the fleet.

Coatney has been a big supporter of Ochsner Hospital, funding the Coatney Wellness Park and the Karen Coatney Memorial Labyrinth, and has been named by the facility as a Doctor of Philanthropy. He’s also established the Coatney Leadership Center and Coatney Leadership Award at St. Martin’s Episcopal School in Metairie, where his grandson was a student.

His son, Mike, is following in his father’s footsteps. He’s active in the church and St. Martin’s as well, as well as the Boy Scouts. Coatney’s grandson, an Eagle Scout, will soon graduate from Cornell University with a degree in Chemical Engineering. Coatney said the family has come a long way from the sharecropper’s farm where he was raised.

He’ll continue giving back, he said, as long as he is breathing.

“Those people that helped me, that’s part of what made me who I am,” said Coatney. “Giving back, that’s what it takes to pay the price.”