Braun taps Barry Cox to fill vacated USI Board of Trustees seat

Indiana Governor Mike Braun has appointed Barry Cox of Mount Vernon, Indiana, to the University of Southern Indiana Board of Trustees for a term beginning Monday, January 19, 2026, and ending June 30, 2028. Cox fills the remainder of the four-year term previously held by Tim Hollander, former President of Toyota Motor Manufacturing Indiana, who vacated the seat due to a professional relocation with Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada Inc. in 2025. 

Cox is the owner of The Cox Group and President of Warehouse Services, Inc. (WSI), a national logistics and supply chain services company headquartered in Mount Vernon, Indiana. He began working alongside his father to develop the foundation for Warehouse Services, Inc. and formally began operations in October 1986. Since that time, WSI has expanded to 19 states and employs over 3,500 personnel. The Cox Group serves as the Holding Company for the 27 companies that he has helped to develop over the past 40 years. 

Prior to joining Warehouse Services, Inc., he held a variety of operational roles with Georgia Power and Texas Crude Oil Company in Midland, Texas, gaining early experience in the energy and industrial sectors. 

Cox has been widely recognized for his leadership and contributions to the region’s business community. In 2023, he received the Distinguished Business Leader of the Year Award from the Evansville Regional Economic Partnership, and he was inducted into the Evansville Regional Business Hall of Fame in May 2025. 

A committed supporter of USI, Cox and his companies have made significant investments to the University and its students. In June 2022, Warehouse Services, Inc. established the Warehouse Services, Inc. Barry Cox Scholarship Endowment with a $100,000 gift to benefit students in USI’s Supply Chain Management Certificate Program, recognizing the many USI alumni employed by the company. In December 2023, Cox committed a $500,000 gift, funded over five years, to support the purchase of an LED ribbon board in Liberty Arena, Home of the Screaming Eagles. He also made a major gift to the USI Applied Engineering Center in 2012, where a laboratory bears his name. 

Warehouse Services, Inc. employs several USI alumni, including Chief Financial Officer Jeff Denning ’92 and Chief Operating Officer Steve Magruder ’00. 

Cox maintains deep ties to the University through his service as a member of the USI Foundation Advisory Council, the President’s Circle and the Legacy of a Lifetime of Giving. 

Beyond USI, he has demonstrated a strong commitment to education and community development. He helped fund STEM laboratories in all three elementary schools in Mount Vernon, Indiana, contributing to the Mount Vernon School District becoming fully STEM-certified. 

He earned a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1982, where he was a member of the tennis team and the Kappa Alpha Order fraternity. 

He and his wife, Nikole, reside in Posey County, Indiana. They have three adult daughters, Alexa, Grace, and Cydney, and two grandsons. 

The USI Board of Trustees has nine trustees and must include one alumnus of the University, one current student and one resident of Vanderburgh County. Trustee terms are generally four years with exceptions for the filling of vacancies or for the student term, which is two years.