March/ April 2007

Donors

Funding future Aggie business connections

Caryl and Al Reese, Jr. of Houston believe in supporting education as much as they believe in the connections Texas A&M fosters. Those beliefs are what prompted the couple to commit $100,000 to provide scholarships for Mays business students.

The Reeses’ gift establishes the Caryl and Albert L. Reese, Jr. ’71 Scholarship, which will support funding for four concurrent student scholarships a year.

The couple operates a charitable organization called ACR Foundation, which focuses on giving for health, education, art, religion and teaching—or “HEART.” Mays’ educational programs are a natural outlet for their support.

“We wanted to have our name associated with students and what they are going to do for the world,” Al Reese said. “In funding four scholarships, each year we support one new future business person coming in and one graduating. What the students do with their education is up to them. Our goal is for them to know that we believe enough in them to make an investment in their future.”

Caryl and Al Reese have been married for 34 years, and have two children and three grandchildren. Caryl earned her degree in medical technology from TCU and was a researcher for the University of Alabama medical school while the couple lived in Birmingham.

Al earned his BBA in finance in 1971, his CPA in 1974, and an MBA from the University of Houston in 1977. He was partner of a Houston CPA firm until a former client brought him into the energy business. In addition to being in the energy business since the late 1970s, he ran his own Birmingham-based consulting firm, Corporate Financial Management, throughout the 90s. It was during this period he became director of finance and eventually chief financial officer for ATP Oil & Gas, where he is today.

— Sommer Hamilton

Students

If I had a million dollars… and lost it

Finance students scrutinize their trades during the final session of the BP internal trading competition in Mays' Reliant Trading Center.

February marked the first time junior finance major Tracie Goodwin plied her skills on the trading-room floor, leaning over her laptop to make quick decisions about whether to buy, sell or hold onto natural gas futures.

Though she and a partner finished with a loss in the trading competition hosted by BP at Mays, Goodwin brimmed with enthusiasm about the experience. “This is for me,” she announced. “I definitely want to have a future in investments and trading.”

That’s just the kind of thing recruiters for BP’s energy trading floor want to hear. For the second year, BP returned to the Reliant Energy Securities and Commodities Trading Center in search of talented students who have an interest in energy trading. BP’s purpose is three-fold: “To expose students to the energy trading business, let them see who we are and what we do, and to see if there are any talented students for future consideration in our trader development program,” says Tami Joslin, BP’s graduate recruiting manager for its North American gas and power business unit based in Houston.

The internal recruiting competition at Mays’ Reliant Energy Securities and Commodities Trading Center was the first of its kind for BP last year. Returning in 2007 with a more sophisticated trading simulator, BP also added recruiting competition stops at the University of Texas, Rice and the University of Oklahoma.

In this February’s BP competition, 90 business students—mostly freshmen and sophomores—executed simulated natural gas futures trades based on mock news feeds that typically influence trading behavior in the energy sector. In hour-long sessions in three separate rounds, students traded contracts based on the relevance of the news, such as a familiar scenario in which a hurricane is threatening oil production in the Gulf Coast.

Overall winners were sophomore Chris Martin, who took first, and the teams of junior finance major Steve Teng and sophomore Kelly Corley (second) and junior accounting majors Natalie Minshew and Stephanie Coco (third).

Finance students at Mays are already being trained for the type of securities and commodities trading that happens at BP, Joslin noted. “The finance program is so strong,” Joslin said. “We know these students are being exposed to what we do on a daily basis.”

The big picture for Mays professors is not only showcasing the best students to BP. It’s also about sparking an early interest in trading as a career, says Detlef Hallermann, program leader for the Reliant Energy Securities and Commodities Trading Center at Mays. “Competitions like this provide these students with the ability to understand trading and what it takes to become a trader,” Hallermann said. “In a one-hour simulation they get to get a feel for what it’s like to lose $1 million. They know then if they can handle the stress and joy of being a trader.”

— Sommer Hamilton

Programs

MBA program makes top 25 worldwide

Mays’ MBA program fared well again in the 2007 London-based Financial Times’ rankings of the best programs in the world, moving up four places to 22nd U.S. public. The program held steady in terms of placement three months after graduation, holding on to the 1st place position (tied) in rankings that were released in February.

For more on the Financial Times rankings of both the MBA and EMBA, see http://mays.tamu.edu/aboutus/rankings/.

— Staff Reports

Students

Urban design puts A&M name on map

Master of real estate candidate David Holland was part of the first team from Texas A&M to get on the winner’s list in the Urban Land Institute’s Gerald D. Hines Student Urban Design Competition.

The urban design team, which consisted of Holland and four other students from land development, architecture and construction management, was one of five honorable mentions in the competition. That puts the team in the top 10 percent of the 104 competing teams in 2007, and helps put Texas A&M real estate education on the map for those in the Urban Land Institute, or ULI.

Past winners include teams from such schools as Harvard, Berkley and Columbia.
ULI members include everyone from architects, land developers, manager of real estate investment trusts and real estate professionals.

— Staff Reports

Faculty

E-commerce article among the best

Marketing professors Manjit Yadav and Rajan Varadarajan won an honorable mention in the William R. Davidson Best Paper Award competition for the best article in the Journal of Retailing’s 2005 issues.

Their winning article is “Understanding Product Migration to the Electronic Marketplace: A Conceptual Framework,” which appeared in the Journal of Retailing in May 2005. The duo also shared their perspectives on how the field can build on e-commerce research like theirs during the American Marketing Association winter educator’s conference in February.

The Davidson awards are given annually to authors of leading retail-marketing articles published in the journal. Awards are given two years after a paper's original publication to allow for evaluation of the research's effect on the field.

— Staff Reports

Donors

Simmons supports future careers

Harvard-educated L.E. Simmons knows about the values of Aggies in business: He has worked with Texas A&M graduates in Houston’s oilfield services sector for decades. But it wasn’t until he toured Mays with his son last fall that he realized how impressed he was with the students, programs and Aggie standards that could shape a business career.

Thinking of the Aggie leaders he has watched in business, Simmons wanted to support the institution that molded their careers. And he wanted to help to mold future careers. So he decided to endow a $25,000 scholarship fund, creating the Avalon Advisors Scholarship for full-time students at Mays.

The scholarship is named after Avalon Advisors and its partner, Willie Langston ’81, an A&M graduate Simmons has watched over the years. “Langston is just so supportive of A&M, and he exemplifies what A&M is all about,” Simmons explains. “Scholarships are always meaningful to students, and I wanted to tie that meaning to a firm Aggies can be proud of.”

Simmons grew up in rural Utah, the son of a savvy bank teller who rose to become chairman of Zions Bancorporation in Salt Lake City. Dinnertime conversations sparked an early interest in business, and Simmons earned his degree in economics from the University of Utah (finishing at the London School of Economics) in 1970 and an MBA from Harvard in 1972. He moved to Houston with brother Matt to establish Simmons & Company in the 1970s, eventually starting SCF Partners, a private equity firm specializing in energy services companies located throughout the world.

Simmons and his wife, Ginny, have been married for 23 years and have two children: Virginia, a freshman in the Honors Program at the University of Utah, and William, who is expected to join the Business Honors Program at Mays this fall.

— Sommer Hamilton

Donor

Lakes endow scholarship fund

Charles E. Lake ’52 is well versed in a variety of life’s roles. But his lead role is family man who values education. Lake’s appreciation of the foundation that Texas A&M University provided for him is immense—and now he’s laying the groundwork for others to have that same opportunity.

Lake and wife Joyce have created the Joyce and Charles E. Lake ’52 Endowed Scholarship Fund with a gift of $25,000. The fund was made in conjunction with Lake’s former employer, Texas Instruments, and will support scholarships for full-time students pursuing a degree at Mays.

At Texas A&M, Lake was a member of the Army Security Agency in the Corps of Cadets. Upon graduation in 1952 with a degree in statistics, he served as an officer during the Korean War, primarily in Okinawa. In 1960, Lake and his family moved to Richardson, Texas, where he spent the majority of his professional career as a data processing systems analyst at Texas Instruments.

Joyce Lake was a secretary who became a homemaker raising four children, two of whom graduated from Texas A&M. Now grandparents of eight, this couple—married 51 years—enjoys traveling, supporting their church ministries, and occasionally playing in bridge tournaments.

“Texas A&M has always been known as a fine engineering and agriculture institute, but I’ve always wanted to see them have the same recognition in the business school,” Charles Lake said. “Our modest contribution is a way to help fund students and say ‘thank you’ to A&M.”

—Ashley N. Coker

Students

Keep Wehner Clean

More than 80 members of the Business Student Council worked to “Keep Wehner Clean” this January in their first-annual service project to remind business students of their role in keeping clean and orderly classrooms and hallways. In this photo, BSC members show the trash bags they filled after scrubbing down Wehner’s largest lecture hall, the Ray Auditorium. BSC President Dawn Wolfe had asked custodians to leave the room untouched for a week to let students see firsthand the amount of waste they often leave behind. “It definitely drew attention to the matter,” she says.

Students

MBAs in top 18 worldwide

A team of first-year MBA students has advanced to the semi-finals round in the National University of Singapore’s annual business plan competition, called Cerebration, placing them among the top 18 teams of an original pool of 568 teams. That keeps them in the competition along with such schools as MIT, HEC Montreal and Rice.

Students Lindsey Galloway, Mandar Marathe, Sasiri Yapa and JaeHwan Yoo developed a plan for Singapore-based home healthcare retailer OSIM International that would allow them to increase points of sale 200 percent by 2013. The next step in the competition could take them to Singapore to compete in the final round with 6 other teams.

— Staff Reports

Former Students

Houx is TIME’s auto dealer of 2007

Michael R. Houx ’73, president of Sandia Automotive Corp. in New Mexico, was named the 2007 TIME Magazine Quality Dealer Award for his record of community service and industry accomplishments.

Houx is one of only 60 automobile dealers, from more than 19,500 nationwide, nominated for the 38th annual award. Recipients are those who demonstrate a long-standing commitment to effective community service and are among the nation’s most successful auto dealers.

An Aggie management graduate, Houx is a BMW and MINI dealer in Albuquerque and Santa Fe who got his start at the age of 24 as a sales manager for a Dallas Porsche Audi dealership. In 1986, he bought a BMW dealership in Albuquerque; in 2004, he added the MINI franchise; and in 2005 he added a BMW Motorcylce franchise—making Sandia BMW in Albuquerque one of the few BMW campuses in the nation to offer all BMW products in one location.

Houx and his dealership have also supported a wide range of organizations and causes, including Texas A&M, where he and wife Debbie have established a learning endowment to build entrepreneurship studies at the business school. He’s also been a major benefactor of Texas A&M’s collegiate equestrian program, and in New Mexico is on the board of the Albuquerque Museum Foundation.

— Staff Reports

Speakers

Williams: Only gamble with what you know

Williams dons a Mays cap in place of his traditional cowboy hat to share a Gig 'Em with marketing students at Mays in February.

When it comes to risk, don’t gamble in Vegas—gamble in the business you know well. That’s what Texas oilman and financier Clayton W. Williams, Jr. ’54, told a roomful of marketing students as he accepted the 2007 Kupfer Distinguished Executive Award at Wehner in mid-February.

“If you don’t take risks, you’re probably not going to get very far. Not with the girl you want to marry or the business you want to run,” explained Williams, a 1954 Aggie graduate who established 26 companies in his long career as Texas businessman. “Risks should be calculated and within reason. I only gambled with wildcat wells.”

And those gambles, after the 1980s energy slump, have worked well for Williams. In the past 50 years, Williams has drilled 1,000 wells and 300 horizontal wells, and been part of efforts to drill an additional 2,400 wells. He took his oil and gas company, Clayton Williams Energy, public on the NASDAQ in 1993. He is also an active alumnus of Texas A&M, where The Association of Former Students’ building bears his name.

The Kupfer Executive Award at Mays serves as a lasting tribute to Harold L. Kupfer ’54 and his career and contributions to the Texas business community. The award, established in memory of Kupfer by his friends Gerald Ray ’54 and Donald Zale ’55, recognizes leading business executives who exemplify professionalism, enthusiasm and dedication to service.

The Kupfer designation is far from the first honor for storied Aggie Williams. Williams is a 1981 Texas A&M Distinguished Alumni, a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Energy Award, and a Champion of Free Enterprise award winner. He was inducted into the Petroleum Musuem’s Hall of Fame in 2005. And in 2006, the Texas State Historical Society named him Businessman of the Decade.

It turns out it’s not who you know or what you know that earns you business success, Williams said: It’s both. “Oil and gas, or any industry in fact, is a business of people. In the long run, if you know somebody and have a legitimate opportunity to put in front of them, that’s OK,” he said. “But focus on running your own business and putting your people first. And don’t worry so much about who you know, so long as you have good friends to share your life with.”

Kupfer Award founders Ray and Zale also honor Corps of Cadets students for their academics and leadership, and—in a new award introduced this year—for their courage and perseverance.

— Sommer Hamilton

Students

MBAs judge inventions’ commercial potential

A chemical technique that could ease targeting of diseased cells in pharmaceutical drug delivery isn’t quite ready yet for the market, but still holds promise if research continues. That’s the judgment of a team of MBAs and their informal technology commercialization board—the 135 industry representatives judging the Ford MBA Technology Transfer Challenge.

First-year MBA candidates Matt Hancock, Samuel Kerns, Janet Marcantonio, Brock Roark and Scott Schun took first prize, winning $3,000, in the 5th annual challenge, sponsored by Mays’ Center for New Ventures and Entrepreneurship.

The challenge is a required part of the curriculum for all first-year MBAs. Students have a week to assess a new technology, identify markets for it and determine its potential commercial viability. They must then make a “go” or “no go” decision on the technology and defend their decision to potential business and venture capital investors.

The challenge is underwritten by Ford Motor Company. CRA International provided the $3,000 grand prize; Ozona Grill & Bar-Ford Restaurant Group sponsored the second-place, $2,000 award; and Hewlett Packard sponsored the third-place prize of $1,000.

Other winning teams include:
Second place: Design of a Portable Buoyancy Driven PCR Thermocycler, presented by Tanya Arora, Olubanke “Banke” Awofeso, Aritada “Pam” Changchit, Rachana Chidanand and Jennifer Hoffpauir

Third place: Radio-Frequency Encoding (RFE) Probes for Magnetic Resonance Imaging, presented by Todd Johnson, Jesse Durden, Sean Green, Samuel Kirk and Leandro Salgado.

— Sommer Hamilton

Programs

Nominate fast-growing businesses for Aggie 100

Know a successful Aggie business owner or leader overseeing an established, growing company? The Center for New Ventures and Entrepreneurship needs your nominations for the third annual Aggie 100 program, which celebrates the 100 fastest-growing Aggie-owned or Aggie-led businesses in the world.

To learn more about qualifications and how to nominate a company, visit http://aggie100.com/. The deadline for nominations is May 31.

Applicants will be ranked by compound annual revenue growth rate for the 2004 to 2006 period. Graduates from every Texas A&M degree program are welcome. The 100 companies with the greatest percentage growth will be named members of the 2007 Aggie 100.

— Staff Reports

Centers

Finding the perfect fit

A JCPenney recruiter screens an applicant at Wehner during the Retailing Career Fair in January.

When most people think of retail, they picture a department store of clothing-racks adorned with inventory for the average Joe. For students at Mays, the Center for Retailing Studies’ Retailing Career Fair on Jan. 30 was the gateway into a booming industry—with a networking night that gave an extra edge to early birds.

Since a free-for-all career fair can be a bit overwhelming, students at Mays had the opportunity to meet with recruiters the night before. While students attending the fair can go online to get a list of employers, attending the pre-event lets them see the personalities they might be working with, giving a better idea of which firms are a “perfect fit.”

Recruiters from 40 companies headed to Mays—many of them coming home when coming back to Aggieland. One was Jennifer Norbin ’05, a former intern at JCPenney and now a full-time employee who’s hoping to bring more Aggies into the corporation. “JCPenney really helped the transition into work life and out of college life,” Norbin said. “It’s a very diversified company, and I love it.”

While each company put their own spin on why students should work for them, company representatives all shared a central idea: They want people who will grow with the company.

Store managers are needed, but opportunities are also available at corporate offices. Companies such as Barnes & Noble, Bridgestone and Dillard’s need people for marketing, sales, allocations and buying. Most highlighted their search for graduates who’d fulfill the “quality people” aspect that mirrors their products.

Retailers know the early bird gets the worm, so they use events such as the Retailing Career Fair to recruit productive students to represent their products. The fairs let retailers grab students while they’re hot, and teach them that once on the wagon, they should stay along for the ride. After all, as a recruiter from Adplex told students, “You want to be where the puck it headed—you don’t want to be where it’s been.”

— Ashley N. Coker

Centers

Corporate women discuss life as leaders

Women and work have become acquaintances that are no longer out of the ordinary. When it comes to being a woman in a leadership position, though, the path becomes far less traveled. This spring, Mays’ Center for the Management of Information Systems continued its annual Women in Information Technology forum, delving into work-life issues that successful executive women face.

Women students from Texas A&M-College Station, Prairie View, Corpus Christi and International campuses came together in February to learn from a panel of corporate women in IT.

The 28 women leaders from such companies as Dell and Texas Instruments gave an outlook on what corporate life in an upper-level position consists of, and how to manage life while in that role.

Panelists discussed the fine line between being an assertive leader and being bossy, and the differing approaches of women and men to group management. They also agreed that to move up in a company, you have to lead. Panelist Katherine Garner, senior manager of global online support & services IT at Dell, told the students there are many opportunities to lead, regardless of your title.

Kim Smith, manager of IT at Texas Instruments, introduced a point valid to all women in all fields looking to move up, or to simply stay afloat. “Don’t let conventions or history constrain your thinking on what you can or cannot achieve,” she said. “Because all that sets you apart is a label.”

— Ashley N. Coker