The Furniture Retailer Behind Two of Houston’s Biggest Education Experiments

Jim McIngvale has been “Mattress Mack” to Houston since long before the Gallery Furniture commercials made him famous. He was also KIPP’s first funder in the 1990s, and three decades later he co-founded WorkTexas alongside Mike Feinberg.

His reasoning stayed consistent both times. “I see the people coming up here asking for money in a stream of hopelessness constantly,” McIngvale said. “Giving them money doesn’t work, because it’s gone the next day and they’re back in the same situation. I wanted to figure out a way we could teach these people a trade. Rather than give them a fish, they could learn how to fish and feed themselves.”

What Mike Feinberg Got From Mattress Mack

McIngvale donated roughly 15,000 square feet of a Gallery Furniture showroom for what became WorkTexas’s main campus, complete with welding stations and electrical bays. Houston Community College President Mike Webster, who helped line up early funders, credited McIngvale with something the college couldn’t offer on its own. “What we didn’t have [at the college before] was the Mattress Mack bullhorn to get out there and say, ‘Hey, come on down and get trained,’” Webster said.

A Model Feinberg Says Any City Could Copy

Feinberg argues the McIngvale partnership was never really about furniture money. It’s about finding a local figure willing to lend both space and credibility. “Every community has someone like a Mack who is a connector or a local celebrity who could play that role,” he has said. Houston found its version early. Feinberg’s continuing case for the model is documented on his speaker bio, his personal site and older profiles hosted on TXSVF’s site.