Oct. 26, 2006 - When Todd Routh ’86 was a finance student at Texas A&M University in the mid-80s, there wasn’t much support for students who wanted to hone their skills in national and international business case competitions.
Routh and his wife Stephanie ’93 intend to remedy that for future students with a $100,000 endowment for Texas A&M University’s Mays Business School, creating the Stephanie ’93 and Todd Routh ’86 Endowed Case Competition Fund.
“It’s a good experience for those students to be able to travel, and it showcases A&M’s talents to other schools,” Routh says. “Our business school has been underrated, and it’s time our students had more funding and encouragement to show what a great school they come from and a great university.”
Case competitions typically pit business students in teams or pairs against a panel of industry judges to test a galaxy of business planning, new venture, finance, real estate and trading skills. In a spring 2006 new venture case competition at Rice, for instance, a team including a Mays MBA student took fifth—beating out teams from Duke and Harvard—for proving the commercial viability of their technology.
“Our students are increasingly active in traveling to competitions throughout the world,” said Mays Dean Jerry Strawser. “In addition to the skills they develop, participation in these competitions is increasingly important to companies recruiting our students. Because of the Routh’s generosity and vision, we will be in position to increase our participation and continue to provide this outstanding learning opportunity to our students.”
Routh, a 1986 finance graduate and Austin real estate developer, says his Texas A&M pedigree and business training have genuinely aided his development as a businessman. Routh worked as a financial manager before jumping at the chance to work for himself in investments, partnering with two others in 1992 to buy his first shopping center on credit. Today, his Routh Development Group and River Place Golf Group L.P. owns and operates three country clubs and 40 shopping centers in Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana. Both businesses were recognized among the fastest-growing Aggie businesses in the 2006 Aggie 100 list: Routh Development came in rated 68th and River Place was 46th. Routh is also an organizer of the Texas Enterprise Bank in Bryan, Texas.
Stephanie Routh earned her Texas A&M degree in environmental design in 1993. She worked as a development director in several Texas cities, including the city of Taylor, where the couple first met over a development deal. Today, Stephanie assists River Place and Routh Development, but spends most of her days as a full-time mother to the couple’s two young children, with a third expected soon.