Donors

Neely endows $1 million business chair

L.C. “Chaz” Neely, Jr. ’62 of San Antonio has committed $1 million to endow the Trisha and L.C. “Chaz” Neely, Jr. ’62 Endowed Chair in Business. The gift will support the teaching, research, service and professional development of a faculty member at Mays Business School.

“The Neelys’ most generous commitment will allow us to continue to build on our outstanding faculty,” said Dean Jerry Strawser. “Faculty are truly the lifeblood of our school; in addition to their research, it is our faculty who create the outstanding learning environment that benefits our students.”

Neely was the first person in his family to attend college, graduating from A&M with a marketing degree in 1962. In 1979, after working for a family business and for Atlantic Richfield, Neely founded San Antonio Steel Company. He now serves as CEO of what has become one of the largest business-to-business steel and fencing companies in the southwest. Chaz and his wife Trisha have been married for more than 40 years. They have three Aggie children and three grandchildren. They have long been supporters of Mays, most recently giving $150,000 in 2003 to establish a matching Heep Foundation graduate fellowship.

“The dean wants to have Mays Business School in the top 10 and I’d like to help him get there,” Neely said. “I’ve been blessed with doing well in business and I want to help Mays find even more success.”

—Staff Reports

Donors

Eckels establish endowed professorship

P.G. “Buck” Eckels ’52 and Sandra Eckels of Houston have committed an estate gift valued at $700,000 to establish a professorship at Mays. The Sandra and P.G. “Buck” Eckels ’52 Endowed Professorship funds the teaching, research, service and professional development activities of a Mays faculty member.

“Our faculty are our greatest resource,” said Dean Strawser. “The Eckels’ most generous gift will allow us to recruit and retain the very best minds to Mays Business School. Coupled with the university’s faculty reinvestment program, endowed professorships provide our very best faculty with the environment needed to educate the next generation of business leaders.”

Eckels graduated with a BBA in 1952 before fighting as a platoon leader in the 7th Infantry Division in Korea. He negotiated oil leases after the war as a land man for oil and gas businesses in Corpus Christi before starting his career as a title underwriter. In 1974, he bought Lawyers Title Insurance in Houston, retiring 30 years later as president, chair and sole stockholder. He and his wife Sandra, a University of Texas graduate and former teacher, have been married for 30 years.

“The business school is where I started, and it’s been good to me,” Eckels says. “We’ve been very lucky to be able to give back.”

— Staff Reports

Donors

Business scholarship fund established by former professor

Professor Charles Plum with Willie and Marian Langston.

Accounting Professor Emeritus Charles W. Plum of Dallas has funded $130,000 in scholarships for students at Mays. His gift forms the Charles W. Plum Endowed Scholarship Fund, established with proceeds from two charitable trusts.

“Charles had such a major impact on students during his teaching career at Texas A&M University,” said Dean Strawser. “He is one of those professors who had a major impact in his students’ lives. We are so pleased that his generosity will continue to impact Mays Business School students in a meaningful way.”

Plum earned his bachelor’s degree from Ohio State University in 1936 and his MBA from Case Western Reserve University in 1951. He attended Harvard Business School’s advanced management program in 1954. After passing the New York CPA exam, Plum held positions in public and private accounting in New York City and St. Louis before joining The Standard Oil Company (Ohio) in 1946 as an assistant controller. He retired from Standard Oil as vice president of accounting and management systems in 1978, two years after he first lectured at Texas A&M as a business executive in residence.

In 1979, Plum joined the Mays faculty as full professor of accounting, retiring in 1989 after teaching accounting for non-business majors to more than 6,000 students. Plum, a longtime supporter of Mays and its programs, also advised business majors on their career choices. One former student, Willie Langston ’80 and his wife Marian ’82, endowed the Charles W. Plum Seminar Room in the Wehner Building, home of Mays Business School.

“I want to pay back the school for my academic career,” Plum says. “Mays gave me the opportunity to extend my professional career.”

— Staff Reports

Donors

Midway Companies establishes Moran real estate excellence fund

Houston-based Midway Companies has seeded the newly created James A. Moran Real Estate Excellence Fund with a $100,000 endowment to Mays.

Midway’s gift will support various faculty and student activities at Mays. It is named after James A. “Bugs” Moran, the founder of Midway Development Company in 1968, for his contributions of integrity and professionalism to the real estate industry.

“Our students and programs will benefit greatly from Midway’s generous contribution and Mr. Moran’s legacy of ethics and fair dealing in real estate,” Dean Strawser said.

Midway Chairman Bradley R. Freels ’81 fondly remembers his old partner and mentor as a creative and inspiring leader and “truly one of the best at extracting value from a piece of land.”

Midway Companies began as Midway Development Co., Inc. in 1968 with the development of a 160-acre Dallas-area pasture, located at Midway Road and LBJ into Metropolitan Business Park. Over the years, Midway integrated the full scope of development services and property management. Today Midway continues this full-service approach in developing commercial and residential projects. In 1999, the company was renamed Midway Companies, which is now the parent company to a host of real estate-related companies also headquartered in Houston.

— Staff Reports

Executive Speakers

Nobel laureate outlines affects of optimism on risk-taking

Daniel Kahneman

Nearly 100 MBA students crowded in to the Cocanougher Center in March for an early breakfast and enlightenment from Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences winner Daniel Kahneman. Israeli native Kahneman began a dialogue with students about psychological impacts on rationality in the financial marketplace — for which research he was awarded a Nobel in 2002 — saying that hope typically leads to risk.

The Princeton University psychology and public affairs professor outlined his theory that optimism is a bias that makes us expect to do better than others, neglect competitors and gives the illusion of control. He says that in the financial marketplace, individual investors tend to think they’re doing better in a transaction even though most others have the same information and expertise they have.

The same goes for professionals on Wall Street, who have more skills and are taking a more informed risk in transactions but still, because of optimism, think they’re doing better than other professionals.

“People don’t know the odds,” Kahneman said. “People are taking risks but they don’t know that they’re taking them.”

Though the hope of the entrepreneurial spirit has driven the market and helped to increase general prosperity, Kahneman said investors are better off trading less — to avoid the risk their optimism might otherwise expose them to. “I personally don’t want my financial adviser to be an optimist,” he told students.

Born in Tel Aviv in 1934, Kahneman earned his undergraduate degree from The Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 1954 and his PhD from the University of California at Berkeley in 1961. He’s best known for his work in integrating insights from psychology into economics, which has laid the foundation for a new field of research.

During the question-and-answer session that followed his talk, Kahneman met the gaze of a first-year MBA student who posed a classic question: “Does money lead to happiness?”

Sizing up the crowd, Kahneman nodded in response to the familiar question and explained a cohort study that followed a set of college students from the 1970s into their careers 20 years later and found that those who said they wanted money typically had more of it.

But, he said, it didn’t make many of the people who aimed to be rich happier in the end because of it. “By and large wanting money leads to disappointment,” he said. “The more you wanted it, the less happy you are.”

But on a final, optimistic note for Mays students, Kahneman noted: “It’s only when you’ve made a lot of money that you’re happy with it.”

— Sommer Hamilton

Programs

U.S. News ranks MBA No. 15, Accounting No. 11

The Mays MBA program tied for 32nd overall — sharing the spot with Notre Dame, Michigan State, Georgia Institute of Technology and Washington University — in the U.S. News & World Report graduate school rankings released in April. That puts Mays’ MBA program 15th among public institutions and second in Texas.

Though the ranking is down from last year’s position at 23, Mays maintained the top spot for placement of MBAs at graduation: 90.6 percent of MBAs had jobs at graduation and 95.3 were working within 90 days of graduation. MBA Director Carroll Scherer noted that the job-placement rank is the best measure of success, because students and employers alike get what they need from the quality of Mays’ MBA program.

Rankings for the magazine are determined based on a number of factors including placement, acceptance rates and peer and recruiter assessments.

“This ranking is the result of tremendous effort and performance by our entire MBA team,” Dean Strawser said, pointing to students, faculty, staff and alumni in their work in support of Mays’ goals. “The recognition that the U.S. News ranking brings to our school will help us continue to attract the best students and build relationships with top employers.”

The accounting graduate program moved up in U.S. News rankings for 2006, from 30th overall in 2005 to 24th in the 2006 rankings. That brought accounting from No. 16 to No. 11 among public institutions.

The magazine ranks special disciplines such as accounting based solely on ratings by business school deans and directors of accredited master’s programs. They nominate up to 10 programs for excellence in each area.

Accounting Department Head James Benjamin said the growth and success of the Professional Program since its establishment in 1992 has helped drive consistent improvement in accounting’s rankings. The Professional Program has seen more than 1,400 students graduate with a BBA in accounting and a master’s degree in finance, accounting, information systems or marketing.

“The U.S. News ranking coupled with our position as a top ten graduate accounting program in the CPA Personnel Report clearly establishes us as one of the leading programs in the United States,” Benjamin said. “It is particularly gratifying to me that both rankings are based upon peer evaluations from our competitor schools.”

— Staff Reports

Faculty Honors

Fraser, Kolari among world’s most published finance scholars

Donald Fraser, finance professor and holder of the Hugh Roy Cullen Chair in Business, and Chase Professor of Finance James Kolari were both ranked among the most prolific authors in finance literature by the Journal of Finance Literature this spring.

“Prolific Authors in the Finance Literature: A Half Century of Contributions” ranks the most-published finance scholars worldwide from 1953 to 2002. Article authors Phillip L. Cooley and Jean L. Heck examined 17,573 scholars who published in 72 peer-reviewed scholarly journals.

Fraser, a 30-year veteran Mays professor, has penned or co-authored 12 books and published more than 100 articles in leading finance journals. He is ranked No. 26 most-published by the journal.

He has served as associate editor of the Journal of Banking and Finance, Journal of Financial Research, Journal of the Midwest Finance Association and as a member of the Editorial Review Board of the Journal of Retail Banking.

Kolari has taught at Mays since 1980 and has written eight co-authored books and more than 50 scholarly articles. He is ranked No. 361 most prolific of the total 17,000 authors reviewed in the most-published scholar list.

Previously a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago in 1982 and a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Helsinki and Bank of Finland in 1986, Kolari has been a consultant to the U.S. Small Business Administration, American Bankers Association, Independent Bankers Association of America and U.S. Information Agency.

— Staff Reports

Executive Speakers

Drayton McLane equates business with baseball

Drayton McLane

Houston Astros Baseball Club owner Drayton McLane — an international businessman and food importer and exporter for four decades — told students in Lorraine Eden’s management class that businessmen should adopt their attitudes from baseball. Baseball mirrors life’s ups and downs; with more than 160 games a season, the team might lose one game but has to remain unfazed to face the next game less than 24 hours later.

So his advice? “Move forward, get off the past, and think about what you’re going to do tomorrow.”

That lesson is in part a new one for McLane, who faced a group of ballplayers during spring training in 1993 and attempted to inspire them about teamwork — a businessman’s mantra — before he realized the players’ focus was first on their own performance. “In business, a lot of times we hide behind teams and say that the team failed,” he said. “Well, the team didn’t fail; that pitcher lost the game. We don’t take enough personal responsibility.”

McLane, a third-generation grocery wholesaler and entrepreneur, is chairman of family-owned holding company McLane Group, based in Temple, which has owned and operated the Astros since 1992. The group also oversees Minute Maid Park; MC-McLane International, involved in global imports and exports; software solutions company McLane Advanced Technologies; McLane International, Inc., which provides wholesale food distribution overseas; Classic Foods and LoneStar Plastics, both based in Fort Worth; Hometown Favorites, a nostalgic candy company; and CSP Magazine, the leading publication in the convenience store industry.

McLane’s businesses grew an average of 30 percent a year from 1966 to 1990, a testament to a leadership style in which he told students to “find the future” and direct employees toward it.

Expounding on the international aspect of his work and the networking that put him in business in such countries as Spain and Poland, McLane cautioned students to maintain their ethical standards no matter what other governments’ policies are.

“If you have a better idea, better plans and a better product,” he said, “it may be more complicated, but you’ll win.”

— Sommer Hamilton

Faculty Honors

Conant appointed to university professorship

Marketing Professor Jeffrey Conant added a second university-wide professorship to his name in March with the Eppright Professorship in Undergraduate Teaching Excellence.

Conant, who last year was appointed a Presidential Professor for Teaching Excellence, is one of five Texas A&M faculty members named to the three-year university professorships. Conant is well known for research that delves into the elements of effective teaching, work he first started with colleagues in 1988 to provide insights into how marketing's top teachers practice their craft.

His teaching philosophy is based on five key areas of importance: Course structure and organization, class atmospherics, student involvement, experiential projects and instructor availability.

Conant joined Mays as an assistant professor in 1986 and has received numerous awards for teaching at both the undergraduate and master's levels. He is also a distinguished scholar, receiving the Journal of Marketing Education's Outstanding Article of the Year Award three times.

— Staff Reports

Centers

Nominate Aggie businesses for Aggie 100

The Center for New Ventures and Entrepreneurship needs your help to find the top 100 fastest-growing Aggie-owned or -operated companies worldwide. Nominations for the first-ever Aggie 100 awards are due June 1.

To be eligible, a company must have been in business for five years or more as of December 2004 and have had revenues of $100,000 or more in 2002. The top 100 nominated companies will be ranked by percentage growth in revenue from 2002 to 2004. Companies must either be owned or managed by one or more Aggies during the same timeframe, and must also exemplify the values and ethical image of Texas A&M.

The complete Aggie 100 list will be announced in October during an entrepreneur day on campus. Winners will also be featured in the November issue of Texas Aggie magazine, a publication of the Association of Former Students.

To access a nomination form, visit the center’s Web site at http://cnve.tamu.edu/aggie100/ or e-mail aggie100@tamu.edu.

— Staff Reports

Faculty Honors

Welch honored with A&M distinguished teaching award

Management clinical associate professor Ben D. Welch — also director of the Center for Executive Development — was recently named a recipient of the 2005 Texas A&M University-level Distinguished Achievement Award for Teaching. He is one of 22 faculty and staff to be honored in May by the Association of Former Students for achievements in teaching, research or student relations.

Welch, who says he was humbled to learn of the award, explains that his approach to teaching has always been to put his students’ needs first. Welch’s management 105 class was also named one of the two best courses to take at A&M by Texas Monthly in 2004.

“It’s about human compassion — students don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care,” Welch says. “This is where my passion lies.”

A decade ago, Welch was recognized with another Association university-level award with the 1994 Distinguished Achievement Award for Student Relations.

— Sommer Hamilton

Faculty Honors

Mays professors collaborate on text

Introduction to Business

Two years of cooperation have paid off for a team of Mays professors in the form of a new textbook hitting Mays classes in fall 2005. The “Introduction to Business” text was written by six faculty members and tailors the presentation of business basics to the needs of first-year students.

The textbook features the basics of accounting, management, finance, marketing and information and operations management with underlying themes including international globalization, ethics and technology. The text is among the first products formed from such a large cumulative effort at Mays and, consequently, features leading authors in each discipline.

“It really is a joint effort of specific faculty members from all five departments of Mays,” says Julian Gaspar, director of the Center for International Business Education and Research. “The Mays environment is very conducive to such professional collaboration.”

Gaspar led the project and worked weekly with Professor of Management Leonard Bierman, Professor of Finance James Kolari, Foley’s Professor in Retailing and Marketing Richard Hise, Professor of Accounting L. Murphy Smith, Associate Professor of Information and Operations Management Antonio Arreola-Risa and Clinical Associate Professor of Management Ben Welch, who edited the textbook. Together, the group created a textbook that would challenge students and instill the view that business is technology driven, global in nature and needs to be conducted ethically to be successful in the long run.

“Our hope, given the strengths of the book, is that it will be a market leader,” Gaspar says. “We have done our part, now we will wait to see the outcome.”

The textbook has already gained national recognition, with numerous universities in the process of adopting the book as a required text for their fall undergraduate business classes.

— Alycia Zuehlke

Alumni

“Apprentice” star Henry shares reality-driven tips

Amy Henry

Amy Henry ’95, the last woman standing on the first season of Donald Trump’s “The Apprentice,” told students gathered in Rudder Theater in April to create their own personal brand and market themselves with it.

Sharing personal quips and insider stories from the set of the reality show that aired last spring, the marketing graduate said the biggest lesson she took from the show was how to edit herself. Some on the show always gave great face-time by being vigilant of the camera, while others weren’t seen for their ideas but rather characterized through flaws or emotional outbursts.

People in business see their co-workers and business partners through a similar lens, though without a camera to mediate, in daily interactions. “Remember, always, you will be edited — it’s up to you to provide the footage,” said Henry, who cautioned students to stay consistent with the message they want to deliver. “Figure out how to create your own brand and use it. What are your strengths and weaknesses, what do you do best, what are your stories?”

Henry is a former Mays Fellows Program member who earned an MBA from Texas Christian University in 1997. She was a dotcomer who went through the boom “and bombed” with commerceone.com in 1999, landing at the other end of the see-saw with more than $2 million less in her portfolio. Since earning a spot on “The Apprentice” — in which she was the last woman eliminated, fired on the second-to-last show — Henry wrote “What it Takes: Speak Up, Step Up, Move Up” and has toured the country relating life and business lessons to student groups and conferences.

— Sommer Hamilton

Faculty Honors

Marketing researcher, reviewer earn honors

Marketing Associate Professor and PhD Adviser James Leigh was named the 2005 Journal of Advertising Outstanding Reviewer in April during the American Academy of Advertising’s annual conference.

Leigh is also a former recipient of the Journal of Marketing and Public Policy Outstanding Reviewer award. He joined the business school in 1981 and has published more than 25 articles, most extensively in the Journal of Advertising and the Journal of Advertising Research.

A research article by fellow Marketing Professor Venkatesh Shankar was also recognized recently as being among the top three most frequently downloaded at the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science’s Web site. The 2004 paper, co-authored with Shun Yin Lam, Eramilli Krishna and Bvsn Murthy, is entitled “Customer Value, Satisfaction, Loyalty, and Switching Costs: An Illustration From a Business-to-Business Service Context.”

Shankar, who joined the Mays faculty in 2004, specializes in digital business, competitive strategy, international marketing, pricing, retailing, new product development and biotechnology.

— Staff Reports

Students

Free Enterprise team heads to national expo

The Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) team will head to its third national competition in as many years at the 2005 SIFE USA National Exposition May 22-24 in Kansas City, Mo. The team was named regional champion in Dallas on April 11.

SIFE presenters — two seniors, one junior and two freshmen — received a few more surprises in regional competition when they were named finalists in the Aflac Global Economics Competition for their “Penci-Cola” project and the Campbell's National Ethics Competition for their “Aggie for a Day” project. Both honors earned the free enterprise team $2,500 in awards to use towards projects and travel expenses for Kansas City.

Students in Free Enterprise encourages students to take what they learn in the classroom and apply it to real-life situations, using their knowledge to make life better in their communities by teaching the principles of free enterprise.

SIFE Texas A&M touched the Bryan-College Station community this year in several ways, including teaching ethics to fourth- through sixth- graders with the on-campus Aggie for a Day program. The team also simplified global economics by showing second graders how the world works together to make a simple wooden pencil in the Penci-Cola project.

— Staff Reports