Donors

Potthoffs support veterans with scholarship

Anne and Thomas E. Potthoff ’72, of Fort Worth, have established a $100,000 endowed scholarship for full-time students with a grade-point ratio of 3.0 or higher at Mays. The scholarship is specifically intended for a veteran or a veteran’s child majoring in business.

The gift creates the John and Betty Potthoff Endowed Scholarship in Business. It is named after Tom’s parents, who — on an enlisted Navy man’s salary — managed to provide opportunities for their children that included saving for Tom’s college education.

“The Potthoffs’ gift is one from the heart that will impact many, many future students at Mays Business School,” said Dean Jerry Strawser. “It also perpetuates the ‘Aggie Miracle,’ that process through which a person of modest means can achieve their dreams through the generosity of Texas A&M University’s former students.”

Potthoff was the first in his military family to attend college, graduating from Texas A&M with a BBA in management in 1972. He was commissioned in the U.S. Army and after his discharge obtained a bachelor’s in nursing from the University of Texas System School of Nursing, where he met his future wife, Anne Dafcik. After completing a residency in anesthesia, he was on the staff of 17 rural and large community hospitals. In 1987, Tom began the purchase of Town Talk Foods from his father-in-law’s estate and is currently president and majority owner.

“My dad did not have the opportunity to attend college,” Tom Potthoff said. “My grandfather was 100 percent disabled from World War I, so in order to help his family, my dad dropped out of school at 16. He joined the Navy and served 20 years as an enlisted man.

“So many in that generation sacrificed in order for their children to have a better life and Anne and I looked at ways of honoring them. After visiting with Dean Strawser, we thought this would be the ideal way to acknowledge what my parents did for me and their service to our country.”

The Potthoffs have one daughter, Virginia “Ginny” ’05, who was on the A&M Golf Team and is completing the Professional Program at Mays. The Potthoffs still tailgate each Aggie home game in Lot F between the Bright Complex and the Texas A&M Foundation building.

— Staff Reports

Ed, Howard and Paul Kruse of Blue Bell accepted the 2005 Kupfer executive award.

Executive Speakers

Kruses named Kupfer executives

Paul W. Kruse , CEO and president of Blue Bell, summed it up for his family when he said "We're very fortunate to work in ice cream. It’s fun!" Along with his father, Ed. F. Kruse, chairman of the board, and his uncle, President Emeritus Howard W. Kruse, the trio showed that they did indeed think ice cream was a fun business when they accepted the 2005 Kupfer Distinguished Executive Award at Mays in late October.

Kruse family members have been at the helm of Blue Bell Creameries in Brenham since early in the 20th century. Long ago, Blue Bell sold fireworks to grocery stores during the winter because ice cream sales were not enough. Today, Blue Bell has expanded its operation to 16 states and is currently the No. 3 brand in the country.

All three Kruses are Texas A&M graduates. Ed Kruse ’49 earned his bachelor's in dairy science. He was a member of the Corps of Cadets, a Distinguished Military Student and a varsity letterman in swimming.

Howard Kruse ’52 also majored in dairy science, and was a Distinguished Student. Howard is the creator of Blue Bell's top-selling flavor, Homemade Vanilla.

Paul Kruse ’77 earned his degree in accounting and in 1980 graduated from Baylor University School of Law. He practiced law until he joined Blue Bell in 1986 as general counsel and corporate secretary.

During their presentation to a class of Mays' marketing students, the Kruses emphasized that caring for people is paramount to those students' success. "Care about the people you work with and you serve. Most of all, make it a lot of fun," Howard said.

The Kupfer award, established in 1987, is presented annually to an outstanding executive. This is the first time that the award was presented to a family. The award was established by Gerald Ray '54 and Donald Zale'54, good friends and classmates of Harold Kupfer.

Previous Kupfer Award winners are T. Boone Pickens Jr., Trammell Crow, Herbert D. Kelleher, Richard E. Rainwater, H. Ross Perot, Mary Kay Ash, Roger Staubach, David Glass, Gen. Alexander Haig, Michael S. Dell, Lowry Mays, Colleen Barrett, Gordon M. Bethune and Ray L. Hunt.

— Staff Reports

Centers

Aggie 100 celebrates fastest-growing businesses

The 100 fastest-growing Aggie-owned and Aggie-operated businesses have a $3.3 billion impact on their areas and employ 17,000 in the United States and Canada. They know how to make a difference in their fields and in the lives of those who work for them.

For the first time, Texas A&M honored the accomplished leaders of these companies — who hold degrees from A&M in everything from liberal arts to engineering — in Aggie 100 celebrations on campus in late October.

“There is no better place to start dreaming than at Texas A&M,” A&M President Robert M. Gates said during the inaugural Aggie 100 gathering. “The skills set these folks attained is from more than just books. It’s from a culture, the Aggie culture. The greatest sign of a university is the success its students achieve.”

Born over a conversation at breakfast, the Aggie 100 concept was pioneered by members of Mays Business School’s Center for New Ventures and Entrepreneurship (CNVE) advisory board. If cities can honor their top businesses, the group mused, why can’t a university with a growing entrepreneurial tradition do the same? Basing the criteria on growth as an indicator of job creation, product acceptance and entrepreneurial vision, CNVE and its partners collected more than 700 nominations for the list.

The Aggie 100 businesses were ranked based on compounded growth rates from the most recent two-year reporting period. Each nominee must have been in business five years or more by 2005, another business indicator that celebrates staying power as well as growth.

Of the 100, 29 were run by business graduates. That includes the 2nd fastest-growing business, Granbury-based CareerPhysician, run by marketing and management graduate Wesley Millican ’92. CareerPhysician posted an astounding 107.4 percent growth rate from 2002 to 2004.

Read more about the Aggie 100 and find a full list of honorees at http://aggie100.com.

— Sommer Hamilton

Programs

Richards tops in CPA exam performance

Mays Business School graduate Ryan Richards posted the best performance on a CPA exam among all new recipients of the CPA certificate in Texas. He spoke on behalf of all the new CPAs at the annual swearing-in ceremony in Austin this November.

In addition to Richards, 2003 graduate Joseph LoSurdo IV came in 6th on the list of the state’s top 10 CPA candidates for 2005. The rest of the A&M accounting and five-year Professional Program participants who took the CPA this year aren’t too far behind: Mays graduates rank second in the state when it comes to passing the exam.

Mays’ average 62 percent pass rate for all parts of the CPA exam taken from October 2004 to October 2005 was well above the national average and a close second in Texas to the University of Texas. Mays graduates beat out all other Texas schools in key sections of the CPA exam during the most recent quarterly testing period, according to data from the State Board of Public Accountancy.

“I think our best can compete with the best from any business program,” said Richards, a director with Big-Four accounting giant KPMG in New York after only three years with the firm. “The folks I encountered in the program were driven to succeed.”

Richards earned his BBA in accounting and completed his master’s degree in finance in 2001 through the Professional Program at Mays. Richards said he scored highest in the auditing portion of the CPA exam — but only because of training from his auditing professor. “Mays does have great instructors,” he says. “I’ve never audited a day in my life.”

In the July-August 2004 test period, Mays students passed 64 percent of parts taken as compared to 45 percent from candidates from all other Texas universities.

When it came to the regulation section of the July-August 2005 test, Mays graduates had a stellar 68 percent pass rate compared to the state average (not including A&M scores) of 43 percent. In business environments and concepts, they earned a 78 percent pass rate compared to an overall 48 percent state average. The results showed similar feats in financial accounting and reporting (62 percent compared to 50 percent) and attestation (55 percent compared to 45 percent).

“The remarkable performance of our graduates on the CPA exam reflects the combination of bright, highly motivated students, a dedicated faculty and a contemporary curriculum,” says Jim Benjamin, accounting department head. “I am particularly proud that our program is one of the top producers nationally of entrants to the accounting profession.”

— Sommer Hamilton

Former Students

Horne named a Houston Heavy Hitter

Howard W. Horne ’47, vice chairman of Cushman & Wakefield of Texas, has joined the Houston Business Journal’s Heavy Hitters Hall of Fame, which recognizes exemplary individuals who have had a lasting impact on the Houston commercial real estate community through their contributions and character.

Horne transformed a two-man real estate firm into a 250-member firm specializing in commercial, industrial and office building. Read more about Horne’s accomplishments at http://www.bizjournals.com/houston/stories/2005/05/16/focus4.html .

— Staff Reports

Executive Speakers

Katz turning Neiman Marcus to new customer base

The Neiman Marcus Group sold to private investors in early October for $100 a share, fetching the largest price ever for any retailer. Sitting pretty at the helm of the Neiman Marcus stores, CEO Karen Katz pointed out in an Oct. 31 visit with Mays marketing graduate students that the luxury store’s careful cultivation of customers and high-impact sales associates are what made it such a valuable buy.

In 2004 the high-end retailer earned $555 per square foot of space in its 35 stores, compared to an average of $200 a foot at competitor Nordstrom’s, making Dallas-based Neiman Marcus a model of efficiency. Sales associates at Neiman receive the most training (200 hours in the first year) of any of the major luxury stores, and turnover from the self-motivated sales workforce is the lowest in the industry, at 35 percent compared to the industry-average 67 percent.

That translates to excellent customer service, the kind in which the target Neiman shopper — the high-income, middle-aged woman — is served in the dressing room or receives items in the mail from watchful sales associates.

But Katz said it’s the stores’ commitment to appeal to up-and-coming customers that shows the most opportunity for growth. “We want to attract aspirational customers and help them understand why they need to shop at Neiman Marcus,” she said. “We need to capture them as their wealth begins to accumulate.”

Katz is the dapper first-ever woman CEO of Neiman Marcus who was rejected, fresh out of college, in her first application to the retailer’s training program — “Success is sweet revenge,” she jokes. After helping initiate the online sales push and overseeing catalog services in Neiman Marcus Direct, she now handles 71 percent of the Neiman Marcus Group as CEO of the stores division.

Showcasing the hottest sellers for the fall, Katz pointed to a market segment the stores hope to wedge into: men’s fashion, as premium velvet jackets for both men and women flew off the shelves. Men are the first to drop fashion from their must-have list when the economy is shaky, but Neiman wants them to find it as essential as any other consumer items.

After all, they’ll need a new jacket to look good next fall. And helping make sure they do is what gets Katz out of bed every morning.

“I’m passionate about merchandising,” she says, with a broad smile. “A great piece of leather gets me going, a great handbag makes me soar… selling velvet jackets to men keeps me at it every day.”

— Sommer Hamilton

Faculty

Marketing tops on most-cited lists

Works by four marketing professors are in the top 10 — including a No. 1 ranking — on the list of the 50 most-cited articles published in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science as of October 2005.

Coming in at No. 1 most-cited: Center for Retailing Studies Director David Syzmanski’s co-authored Winter 2001 Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science article, “Customer Satisfaction: A Meta-Analysis of the Empirical Evidence.” That paper was written with Mays marketing PhD graduate David H. Henard.

Third most-cited is Distinguished Professor Leonard Berry’s “Cultivating Service Brand Equity” JAMS article from Winter 2000. And eighth on the list is department head Rajan Varadarajan and Mays Research Fellow Manjit Yadav’s Fall 2002 JAMS paper, “Marketing Strategy and the Internet: An Organizing Framework.”

Syzmanski’s August 2001 paper “Why Some New Products Are More Successful Than Others,” again co-authored with Henard, is also fifth on the list of the most-cited articles between 2000 and 2005 in the Journal of Marketing Research.

— Staff Reports

Students

Kushwaha dissertation proposal honored

Marketing PhD student Tarun Kushwaha's dissertation proposal, "Essays on Multichannel Marketing," has been selected to receive an honorable mention award in the Levy and Weitz Doctoral Dissertation Competition, sponsored by the Miller Center for Retailing Education and Research at the University of Florida.

As an honorable mention award winner, Kushwaha will receive $1,000. In addition to the cash award, his accomplishment will be formally recognized at the American Marketing Association 2006 Winter Educators' Conference in February. His dissertation proposal was also a finalist at Penn State's eBRC doctoral dissertation competition.

The marketing department will match Kushwaha's award with $1,000 that he can apply to dissertation research. It’s part of a policy department head Rajan Varadarajan has instituted to reward external recognition for doctoral work.

— Staff Reports

Executive Speakers

Oreck stresses brand in “age of the marketer”

“We vacuum salesmen are rarely welcomed so warmly,” David Oreck says, smiling in response to the loud “Howdy!” that filled the room he shared with expectant MBA students in October.

Oreck is the face of a personalized selling philosophy that has made his lightweight vacuum a household name since 1963. That he still calls himself a simple salesman is evidence of his strategy in business and in life.

You’ve seen him on commercials and late-night TV infomercials, bright red bowling ball suspended above his head and held aloft only by the suction power of his 8-pound Oreck XL. You’ve probably locked eyes with the gracefully aging man as he explained the Oreck challenge that gives you a guaranteed out if you don’t love his vacuum cleaner.

“There is such a namelessness and facelessness in business,” Oreck said. “You have to look at a TV ad like you’re talking to one person, eyeball to eyeball. Everybody makes claims, but who do you believe? You’ve got to give them that person to believe in.”

In what Oreck told Mays MBA students is the “age of the marketer,” he warned students that the strength of their marketing is the strength of their product. Holding aloft on one arm a Timex that tells time just as well as his snazzier Rolex, Oreck — the 2003 American Marketing Association’s Marketer of the Year — told students they must never forget that brand, quality and customer loyalty are the only items that set products apart.

His premium yet lightweight vacuum models, first introduced in hotels, gained a niche despite expert warning that they weren’t heavy enough to clean properly. It turns out consumers wanted to take the hard work out of housework, he said.

“As you sit here rip-roaring to go, filled with energy, I’ll tell you as a business man to keep the fundamental things in mind,” he said. “You have to offer the customer a benefit, a reason to buy. And mind you, friendliness still goes a long way.”

— Sommer Hamilton

Centers

Ideas Challenge technology gets more momentum

Biomedical engineering PhD student Saurabh Biswas won $10,000 to help further the commercialization of a colon cancer early-warning technology, taking 1st place in the Idea to Product (or “I2P”) International Competition in early November. Student teams from leading universities in three continents — including top idea-generating students from Stanford, Penn State and Purdue — competed for $25,000 in prizes in the competition, held in Austin on the University of Texas campus.

Past entries in the I2P International have stepped up university patenting efforts, led university technologies to be licensed, and even spawned new companies.

Biswas first championed the colorectal cancer early-detection technique, based on technology from the Texas A&M University System Technology Licensing Office, during the Ideas Challenge organized this spring by Mays’ Center for New Ventures and Entrepreneurship (CNVE). He took second place at that event in May, winning $2,000. And with CNVE’s sponsorship and continued guidance, he advanced the technology’s commercialization appeal in Austin.

The technique — with patents pending in the U.S. and Europe — has the potential to identify the altered genes associated with colorectal cancer a decade before cancer strikes.

Biswas’ first-place win at I2P earned him the first-ever A&M spot in UT’s global MOOT CORP Competition, a world-renowned business plan competition in which aspiring entrepreneurs solicit start-up funds from experienced investors. Competitors from schools around the globe come to UT each May to present their business plans to panels of investors. CNVE will help Biswas team up with Mays MBA students, who can address the key business issues in the idea for MOOT CORP.

The student’s success takes the entry from the Ideas Challenge — held every spring and open to any student on the A&M campus — to one of the highest levels in seeking new funding opportunities for a commercially viable technology.

“Saurabh is an outstanding student, a business-savvy researcher and a great presenter,” CNVE Director Richard Scruggs said. “We are happy to have sponsored him and are looking forward to helping him with the MOOT CORP competition.”

— Sommer Hamilton

Faculty

Conant’s master teaching recognized

Best known for his research on master teaching, Marketing Professor Jeffrey Conant was one of four finalists to compete in the 2005 Society for Marketing Advances Sherwin-Williams Distinguished Teacher Competition at the recent SMA annual conference. Conant lectured to a standing-room only crowd on the crafting of a master teacher.

Two pieces by Conant and fellow teaching-investigators Denise Smart and Craig Kelley were also among the three most-cited Journal of Marketing Education articles, according to Sage Publications. The trio’s December 1999 and April 2003 articles on marketing education for the year 2000 and the new millennium were No. 1 and No. 3, respectively, on the list.

— Staff Reports

Faculty

Poole a distinguished scholar

Information and Operations Management Professor M. Scott Poole, also a professor of communication, was named a Distinguished Scholar by the National Communication Association in recognition of a lifetime of scholarly achievement in the study of human communication.

Honorees must have had at least 20 years of scholarly contributions since earning their PhD. Poole is the second A&M professor to earn the distinction. Only 11 scholars have been named since 1992.

— Staff Reports

Centers

Curry, custodial crew win awards for meritorious service

Camille Crow, a senior business administrator in the dean's office, thanks Wehner Custodial Crew K team member Maria Benavides for her work.

Center for Executive Development Administrative Assistant and Program Coordinator Pam Curry is a 2005 recipient of the President’s Meritorious Service Award. That makes her the first Mays employee in five years to win the honor, which recognizes the university’s top employees and their dedication to work and the people around them.

Since a move from the Undergraduate Program Office in April, Curry has handled the center’s billing, accounting and office tasks as well as programming for law enforcement training and U.S. Army MWR (morale, welfare and recreation) development programs.

In another win for Mays, Wehner Custodial Staff Crew K was named the team recipient of the President’s Meritorious Service Award. During a breakfast in the crew’s honor, Dean Jerry Strawser thanked the team for their commitment to the Wehner Building’s constant upkeep. “Everyone who comes into this building tells me how professional it looks, how taken care of,” Strawser said. “Thank you for your dedication.”

— Staff Reports

Students

Intern reconciles major government costs

Leave it to an Aggie business student to save a U.S. government agency nearly $2 million on a single summer project. Senior finance major Jennifer Campbell spent a summer 2005 internship with the Department of Commerce — and in only one of many high-level assignments, she saved the department more than $1.8 million with a reconciliation of staff counts submitted by the State Department under the Capital Security Cost Sharing Program.

In the cost-sharing program, State determines how much to charge other government agencies for the use of U.S. diplomatic facilities in foreign countries. Campbell found 17 international cities were there were major discrepancies in State’s count of total Commerce employees in those embassies. After weeks of correspondence with overseas posts, she verified that 61 positions were incorrectly charged to Commerce. That resulted in a cost savings of $1.83 million ($30,000 per position per year).

— Staff Reports

Centers

REC nets communication awards

At the International Association of Business Communicator’s 17-state Southern Region Conference in College Station, only four people from the Texas A&M University System were honored with the esteemed Silver Quill award. Two of them represent the best at Mays.

Real Estate Center Graphic Designers Robert Beals II and J.P. Beato III won an Award of Merit for designing the center’s quarterly journal, Tierra Grande. Beato also won for his design of the center’s 2003-2004 annual report and 2005 calendar.

— Staff Reports

Centers

Winners announced in 11th annual CMIS Case Competition

Eight teams of future information technology professionals, all students at Mays, are winners in the annual Center for the Management of Information Systems (CMIS) Case Competition.

Students had a week to prepare a proposal for a brand-name international manufacturer and marketer. Their task? To demonstrate the ability and know-how needed to provide installation, configuration and support services for the global identity and access management system for the vendor. Information technology industry experts who form the board of advisors for CMIS judged teams on their originality, creativity and the feasibility of their ideas.

Members of winning teams received scholarships and ExxonMobil gas cards. First-place took away $300 each in scholarships and $100 in free gas; second scored $200 scholarships and $75 scholarships; and third and fourth place winners earned $100 and $50 scholarships and $50 and $25 gas cards, respectively.

Winners are:

Undergraduates

1st-place team of: Richard Ewers, Erik Hausmann and Heather Simpson
2nd place: Emily Davis, John Quanrantello and Josh Rizzo
3rd place: Amy Allen, Eric Bookbinder and Elizabeth Gillespie
4th place: Brennan Bice, Chris Haycraft and Chris Trotter

Graduates:

1st place: Subrata Chakrabarty, Jill Rosenberry and Jane Wang
2nd place: Brijesh Patil, Nimish Sheth and Preetam Shetty
3rd place: Srivatsan Parthasarathy, Bhavani Radhakrishnan and Madan Sundaresan
4th place: Sundar Krishnamoorthy, Seepika Gupt and Raja Srinivasan

The 2005 competition, held Oct. 27, was sponsored by Anadarko, ExxonMobil, EDS, Dell and SAS, all corporate members of the CMIS Advisory Board. It’s the 11th annual event.

— Staff Reports