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McCombs School of Business
~Magazine~
spring 2013
Cheers to the
TASTE
MAKERS
A good chef is just one ingredient.
How restaurateurs keep
their kitchens in business.
PLUS
Telecommuting
on Trial p. 12
How to Live with an
Entrepreneur p. 24
MBA Women Reverse
the Pay Gap p. 13

spring2013
departments
HARD WORK:
Finance professor
Stephen Magee
(center, holding a
dead rattlesnake)
spent 10 summers
as a boy working on
his grandfather’s
cattle ranch. “Every
job I have had since
then has been easy,”
Magee says. Get to
know Magee a little
better in our
Q&A on p. 40.
4
Letters
From the Dean
6
2
3
4
www.today.mccombs.utexas.edu
Clockwise from left: courtesy STEPHEN MAGEE; Drex Agency; CHRIS PHILPOT; courtesy Taco Bell Corp.
14
FEATURES
14
Order Up!
What it’s really like to own a restaurant
If the kitchen is the soul of the home, in a restaurant it is the manufacturing
plant, R&D lab, warehouse, and, yes, the grease splattered, raucous soul.
Five alumni restaurateurs—from a food truck chef to a sushi chain CEO—
share the ins and outs of the restaurant business.
24
How to Live with
an Entrepreneur
Instructions and insight about a complicated breed
They’re obsessive, visionary, and eccentric. But at home, they’re “honey”
or “mom” or “darling, don’t forget to buy milk.” Read about how
entrepreneurial families make it work.
28Why Friends Matter
A social CEO can mean more money for the company
College reunions and golf-course chats may be just as important as
boardroom meetings and analyst advice for the success of a firm’s CEO.
Learn how a CEO’s social life affects company performance and
when it’s best to keep friends at arm’s length.
www.today.mccombs.utexas.edu
34
38
40
Startup
Taking the Pulse of Medicine
A neonatologist hopes an MBA
can make him a better physician.
Infographic Tracking the
habits of online shoppers. Job
Well Done Become a better
negotiator. The Big Question
Can the tax code be fixed
34
Network
Taco Bell’s Biggest Hit
A Conversation with Gary Kelly
“We are all Lance Armstrong.”
Alumni News
Exit Interview
He has stared down Fidel Castro,
worked a cattle ranch, and
danced the Dougie. Get to know
McCombs’ resident philosopher
and frequent dinner party host,
finance professor Stephen Magee.
SPRING 2013 OPEN
1

We’re launching a new campaign
to increase giving by our alumni network—
competitive with other top-tier schools.
Saints, SinnerS,
and New Lessons
in Ethics p. 16
What VoterS
think About
Energy p. 7
the MBA
Who Became
A prieSt p. 10
OPEN_Cover_R1_d.indd 3
~Magazine~
fall 2012
Stop waiting for
inspiration to strike.
Learn where creativity
comes from and
9/21/12 10:18 AM
to step up
now 87,000 strong.
Engaging our alumni is crucial to staying
f the university of texas at austin.
PlUs
McCombs School of Business
fall 2012
Comments from
you on our most
recent issue.
UNLOCK YOUr
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Ideas
Be
honest.
We can
take it.
Did you love a
story Hate it
Think we missed
the point OPEN
welcomes reader
rants, raves,
reviews, and
recommendations
on the magazine
or any McCombs
School of Business
issue.
E-mail
publications@
mccombs.
utexas.edu
Snail mail:
“Letters to
the Editor,”
Communications
Department,
McCombs School
of Business,
1 University
Station
B6000,
Austin, TX 78712.
Letters may be
edited for length,
style, and clarity.
COOL SCHOOL:
California high
schoolers show some
McCombs pride.
More Lab
Memories
Was that an accounting lab or the statistics
lab on the fourth floor of the BEB
I worked both as an undergraduate and
then as a graduate teaching assistant in
the “stat” lab. I reported to Dr. Francis
“Frank” May. We (including a friend of
mine to this day, Robert Schneider, MBA
’70) helped undergrad students debug
their Fortran and COBOL programs over
the deafening noise of those old Marchant
rotary mechanical calculators. When the
electronic calculators came into the lab,
we had to switch to whispers.
—John Windham, BBA ’69, MBA ’71
Our West
Coast
Campus
UT alumna and teacher Cynthia Cuprill
contacted us asking for help outfitting her
students at the Ivy Academia school with
McCombs gear. Ivy is a Los Angeles K-12
charter school that focuses on entrepreneurship,
and each classroom is named after a
top business school. Naturally Cuprill chose
to represent her alma mater, and we’re
happy to see McCombs pride on the coast.
Name That
Artist
In the article “Out of Office: The
Cowboy Collector” by Shawna Reding,
she attributes the painting pictured in the
article as “The Roping,” by W. R. Leigh. I
could tell this was not a Leigh painting.
The huge painting pictured in Shawna’s
article looks to me like it could be a Remington.
Can you tell me the correct title
and artist of that painting
—George Thomas
Right you are, Mr. Thomas. We included an
image of “The Roping” on our Table of Contents
page, but the painting shown with the
article is “The Charge [A Cavalry Scrap],”
by Frederic Remington.
Did C.R. Smith paint I’m wondering
because I’ve come across a small painting
signed ‘C.R. Smith.’ —Anonymous,
via mccombstoday.org
We weren’t able to uncover any evidence
that Smith was a painter in addition to
being a collector. But we weren’t able to
uncover any evidence that he wasn’t a
painter either. Answer: inconclusive.
OPEN
The McCombs
School of Business
~Magazine~
is published biannually for alumni
and friends of the
McCombs School of Business at
The University of Texas at Austin.
Director of Communications,
Marketing and Public Affairs
David Wenger
Editor
Cory Leahy
Managing Editor
Tracy Mueller
Art Direction/Design
EmDash, Austin
Contributing Writers
Mike Agresta, Sarah Beckham,
Steve Brooks, Kelly Fine,
Rob Heidrick, Renee Hopkins,
Robert Strauss
Send comments
and questions to:
Letters to the Editor
Communications Department
McCombs School of Business
1 University Station, B6000
Austin, TX 78712
Phone
512-471-3314
Fax
512-232-9167
E-mail
publications@mccombs.
utexas.edu
Web Address
today.mccombs.utexas.edu/
magazine
For change of address, visit
www.mccombs.utexas.edu
OR call 512-471-3019.
On the Cover
Amy’s Ice Creams owner
Amy Simmons, MBA ‘92, has been
serving Austinites out of her ice
cream shops for 27 years.
Cover photo by Wyatt McSpadden.
Chalkboard art by Natasha Navarro.
Fueling the
Entrepreneurial Engine
As we close out the 2012-13
academic year, I’m pleased to
announce a $25 million pledge
from Dallas businessman Robert
B. Rowling, BBA ‘76, his wife Terry Hennersdorf
Rowling, BBA ‘76, and their family
to fund the construction of Robert B.
Rowling Hall, which will house graduate
programs of the McCombs School of Business
and will also expand conference and
executive education capacity.
Rowling’s entrepreneurial success is the
ideal accent point for this issue of OPEN
magazine, which includes an examination
of the business creator’s lifestyle in “How
to Live With an Entrepreneur,” an affectionate
look at the sometimes gut-wrenching
realities of doing it your way.
You will also read about the first two
winners of the new Jon Brumley Texas Venture
Labs (TVL) Scholarship, who have
stepped into that all-consuming lifestyle,
each earning an MBA scholarship and
admittance into the TVL accelerator program,
a total potential value of $175,000.
These entrepreneurs-in-training will be
working with fellow TVL graduate students
on refining, market testing, and funding
their own startups while they get their
MBA degrees.
This is fresh thinking for a new age of
business education. More students, both
graduate and undergraduate, are innovating
their way into the business world with
cleverness, collaboration, and hard work.
McCombs continues to add resources for
student entrepreneurs with the arrival of Rob
Warren, who joins Rob Adams and the rest of
the Jon Brumley Texas Venture Labs team, as
the new assistant director of the TVL Investment
Competition. Previously the executive
director for entrepreneurship at the University
of Manitoba, Warren is tasked with
2 OPEN SPRING 2013 www.today.mccombs.utexas.edu www.today.mccombs.utexas.edu SPRING 2013 OPEN 3
kenny braun
thomas w. gilligan
The Princeton
Review named
McCombs fifth
in the nation
for graduate
entrepreneurship
programs.
increasing the impact of the competition
on Texas and U.S. business growth.
Meanwhile, the Herb Kelleher Center
for Entrepreneurship has released
groundbreaking research on innovation
and creativity, including Melissa Graebner’s
studies on entrepreneurship and
decision making and Violina Rindova’s
work on design thinking.
The Princeton Review named McCombs
fifth in the nation for graduate entrepreneurship
programs. We frankly seek to offer
the top entrepreneurship curriculum in the
country, and with your help that objective
is visible and rapidly approaching.
If this entrepreneurial chase excites
you, we hope you will partner with us to
contribute to the proven economic engine
that is The University of Texas at Austin.
Hook ‘em!

Startup
“I think physicians should be more
involved in management and
administrative issues to allow those
processes to be better aligned
with what goes on at the bedside.”
sTUDENT SNAPSHOT
What’s Missing in
Modern Medicine
A new breed of MDs thinks an MBA is the cure for
an ailing healthcare system.
By Kelly Fine
Neonatologist David Riley
was adept at placing central
arterial lines for sick newborns.
But navigating the inefficiencies
within the healthcare system was
a different story. Now, as a second-year
student in the Texas MBA at Dallas/Fort
Worth program, he is learning the management
skills to help keep his industry
from flatlining.
Riley graduated from the Stanford University
School of Medicine in 1997. After
his pediatric residency and neonatology
fellowship, he became a fully certified neonatologist
in 2004. He joined the Pediatrix
Medical Group of Texas in 2007 and began
caring for newborn babies needing intensive
care in hospitals around Fort Worth
and Tarrant County. He says he became
interested in pediatric medicine because
it is equal parts challenging and hopeful.
“Babies are incredibly resilient,” Riley
says. “They just have a miraculous ability
to heal themselves and get better.” Seeing
his young patients improve is particularly
significant for him. “It’s gratifying to know
that when you have a positive impact,
they have their whole life in front of them
and you sent them out into the world to
realize whatever potential they have.”
For Riley, that potential pushes him
through even the most difficult days.
“No matter how hard you’re working
and how tired you are, it’s easy to motivate
yourself when you’re dealing with
those kinds of outcomes.”
As a doctor, Riley says he can see what is
working well in healthcare and what isn’t.
While health professionals are providing
quality care and making innovative discoveries
every day, the industry itself could
benefit from a more businesslike organization
and streamlined processes, he says.
For example, while hospitals are moving
from traditional medical recordkeeping
to electronic record management,
administrative and insurance organizations
have been slow to make that
change, leading to duplicate records.
Riley says that his experience in the
healthcare industry encouraged him to
enroll in business school, and he hopes
he can use his MBA to further reforms.
“If you look at physicians and people in
the medical field, they don’t really know
too much about business. And when you
look at people in industry and certainly
when you look at politicians, they don’t
understand medical care very well,” Riley
says. “I felt like a lot of the decisions regarding
policy and the structure for reform and
funding were being made in a way that was
blind to what matters as far as providing
quality care and access to care.”
Riley chose to be proactive and educate
himself on the business side of healthcare.
He believes that reforms would be
more comprehensive if more doctors were
informed about business.
“I think some aspects of MBA training
should be incorporated into medical
school, such as basic management,
operations, and finance,” Riley says. “I
think physicians should be more involved
in management and administrative issues
to allow those processes to be better
aligned with what goes on at the bedside.”
Riley is not alone in this sentiment. According
to the Association of MD/MBA Programs,
there are more than 65 dual-degree programs
across the United States. Students in these
programs earn their MD and MBA simultaneously,
learning both the medical and the
business sides of healthcare.
According to Riley, his McCombs education
has helped him understand how
business processes work, and it has given
him a new perspective on how healthcare
management can be improved.
“Spending a good part of your life in
medicine, it’s very easy to essentially have
your head in the sand about everything else
that is going on around you,” Riley says. “I
never really thought a lot in detail about
what’s required to run an organization well
and efficiently. The biggest thing I’ve gotten
from my McCombs experience is that it’s
opened my eyes to all these different elements
that surround the function of a business,
from marketing to accounting to HR.”
Riley believes his business degree will
afford him more opportunities both inside
and outside of the medical industry. “It’s
invaluable,” Riley says. “It’s been incredibly
eye-opening to learn how the world
works outside of my field.”
Jonathan Zizzo
4
OPEN spring 2013 www.today.mccombs.utexas.edu
www.today.mccombs.utexas.edu
fall 2013 OPEN
5

6
Startup
$25 Million Gift to Fund
New Innovation-Minded
Graduate Business Building
UT President William Powers
and McCombs Dean Tom
Gilligan recently announced a
$25 million pledge from Dallas
businessman Robert Rowling, BBA ’76,
his wife Terry Hennersdorf Rowling, BBA
’76, and their family to fund the construction
of a 458,000-square-foot graduate
business building. Robert B. Rowling Hall
will house McCombs School graduate programs,
expand the teaching and meeting
facilities of the AT&T Executive Education
and Conference Center, and add 525 new
parking spaces.
Business and education have seen multiple
revolutions since the 1950s, when
the current McCombs building began
construction. The new building will offer
modern study environments, with flexible
spaces for team preparation, student-professor
meetings, recruiter visits, private
study areas, and teleconferencing.
“Robert B. Rowling Hall will be truly
transformative, enhancing the quality and
reputation of our already highly esteemed
graduate programs,” said Gilligan after
the announcement. The gift also begins a
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
three-phase project to replace and renovate
existing facilities.
The Rowling gift marks the launch of
an effort to raise $58.25 million in donations,
which along with other institutional
funds, are needed to complete the new
graduate building.
Rowling Hall will stand on the northeast
corner of Martin Luther King Boulevard
and Guadalupe Street, immediately west
of the AT&T Executive Education and Conference
Center, and is scheduled to open in
the summer of 2017. Ennead Architects,
an award-winning firm with experience in
large-scale, academic construction projects,
will design the building.
Rowling is the owner and chairman of
TRT Holdings, Inc., which owns Omni
Hotels & Resorts, Gold’s Gym International,
Tana Exploration Company, and
various other investment assets. He previously
served on the University of Texas
System Board of Regents and was also
chairman of the University of Texas Investment
Management Company. In 2005 he
was inducted into the McCombs School of
Business Hall of Fame.
The Rowling Hall Blueprint
A handful of priorities the
architects are designing for
> Long Hours: Students spend more than
60 hours per week at the school, often using
it for consulting initiatives and job interviews.
> Collaborative Learning: The new
building increases the number of team
rooms four fold.
> Student Engagement: Rowling Hall
doubles the amount of community space,
including gathering spaces, food service,
and meeting areas.
> Distance Learning: Improved classroom
and conference technologies will bring
far-flung classmates close together.
> Faculty-Student Interaction:
Improving access to faculty offices will make
it easier for students to work with professors.
Startup
Scholarship
A portable tailgating grill and a late-night
food and marketplace concept were the
winning ideas at the first-ever Texas Venture
Labs Scholarship Competition. The program
awards scholarships to entrepreneurs to
pursue their startup as part of earning their
MBA. Each scholarship has a potential value
of $175,000, including tuition (if accepted
to the full-time Texas MBA program) and a
spot in the Texas Venture Labs accelerator
program. GrillMobile’s Courtney Lefall and
Night Owl Market’s Sally Yoon beat out 10
others at the February competition.
@ MCCOMBSTODAY.ORG/MAGAZINE
for more on the winners and the scholarship competition
OPEN SPRING 2013 www.today.mccombs.utexas.edu
courtesy night owl market
chris philpot
Wooing Online Shoppers
What makes you most eager to buy a product online Positive Amazon reviews
A glowing recommendation from a friend A stylish photo on Pinterest
Research by professor Prabhudev Konana and case studies from social
commerce firm Bazaarvoice (founded by Brett Hurt, BBA ’94) analyze online
shoppers’ behavior to help e-retailers connect with potential customers.
Millennials
(consumers aged 18 to 34)
84%
say user-generated content
has an influence on what they
buy (vs. 70% of Baby Boomers)
58%
are willing to pay higher prices
when part of their money goes
to help causes they support
SOURCE: Bazaarvoice — Social Commerce Statistics
The conversion rate of online
shoppers who engage with customer
ratings and reviews is more than double
that of shoppers who do not view
customer reviews.
Percentage
of user-generated
content
(online reviews)
contributed by
age group:
19%
17%
18%
21%
25%
66+
YEAR-OLDS
55-65
YEAR-OLDS
45-54
YEAR-OLDS
35-44
YEAR-OLDS
25-34
YEAR-OLDS
SOURCE: Bazaarvoice —
Conversation Index Vol. 2
www.today.mccombs.utexas.edu
11.1%
30%
7
More than
50%
of online shoppers use
search engines during the
information search process.
6
1
2
Web sales were up by 11.1
percent in November and
December 2012 compared to
the previous holiday shopping
season, and traffic from social
media sites to online retailers
grew by more than 30 percent.
The average consumer checks
10.4
SOURCE: DoubleClick report,
cited in Konana research about
external reviews’ effect
on purchasing
decisions.
SOURCE: Bazaarvoice —
Social Commerce
Statistics
–Compiled by Rob Heidrick
5
SOURCE: Bazaarvoice — Dell case study:
“Ratings & Reviews help Dell.com shoppers
make purchase decisions”
SOURCE: National Retail Federation
8
3
98% 40%
98 percent of online shoppers read product
reviews on retailers’ websites, and about 40
percent consult external review websites in
their purchase decisions. Consumers
choosing among higher-end products are
more likely to visit external review
websites prior to purchasing.
4
9
Consumers can
only remember
5-9 chunks of
product information
at one time when
they shop online.
SOURCE: Konana research about online
buyers’ considerations.
More than 78% of
consumers do not consider
buying any alternative products
by the time they get to the web
page of a product they intend to buy.
SOURCE: Konana research about online buyers’ considerations.
70%
of shoppers use
their smart
phones to get
information
about a product
while shopping
in the store.
information sources before buying.
SOURCES: ComScore / E-Tailing Group surveys,
cited in Konana research about external
reviews’ effect on purchasing
decisions.
Product reviews on a seller’s
website are more influential
to customers shopping for
“low-involvement products”
— low-priced items with
basic functionality, such as
books and CDs — than they are to shoppers
who are looking to buy “high-involvement
products” such as digital cameras.
SOURCE: Konana research about external reviews’
effect on purchasing decisions.
AVERAGE PRODUCT RATING
from men:
4.32 / 5 stars
by the numbers
SOURCE: Bazaarvoice —
Conversation Index Vol. 3
from women:
4.43 / 5 stars
SOURCE: Konana research about external reviews’
effect on purchasing decisions.
SPRING 2013 OPEN
7

Startup
job well done
Asking for It
The negotiating trick that has
saved students millions
By Mike Agresta
Many of the most successful
people in business are
assertive negotiators. But
among the general population,
they are the exception rather than
the rule, says Doug Dierking, senior lecturer
of management.
“It’s very common for people to feel
reluctant to ask for things, even things
they really are entitled to,” Dierking
says. “If something is a mistake or an
inconvenience, people just accept the
inconvenience.”
To combat this timidity, Dierking and
other teachers of the popular “Art and Science
of Negotiation” class at McCombs
have developed an assignment that
encourages students to start negotiating—
in the real world.
The ASK assignment, as it’s known,
requires students to ask for something,
large or small, that they wouldn’t otherwise
request—an upgrade at a hotel or on
a plane, free cookies at a sandwich shop,
or a beneficial change to an important
contract. Students have about two weeks
to complete the assignment, and they
each must turn in a short paper explaining
the circumstances of the ask and their
negotiation approach.
Taken together, these small asks can
add up. In one Houston MBA class, the
total reached a stratospheric $5.16 million,
mostly due to students in the energy
industry who negotiated small changes to
enormous oil and gas contracts. Back on
earth, one evening MBA class averaged
$1,000 of negotiated benefits per person.
The assignment’s main lesson is one
that holds power long after a student
leaves the classroom: the most important
step to successful negotiating is to ask.
According to Dierking, a great negotiator
regards everyday situations as opportunities
for negotiation.
“We tend to only think about negotiating
in certain circumstances where it’s
thought of as okay, such as purchasing a
house or a car, or at a flea market,” he
says. “But in other cultures, people negotiate
for everything. I tell my students that
they can negotiate at Home Depot or even
the grocery store sometimes.”
The two keys to negotiation success,
Dierking says, are confidence and perspective-taking.
“Most of the time, when people look at
negotiation they only consider their own
perspective,” he says. “They only think
about what I want. People who are very
successful are good at putting themselves
in the other sides’ shoes.”
For instance: “Picking the right time is
important. If you’re at a store and there’s a
long line, and the ask would inconvenience
the person or make their job more difficult,
then it’s probably not the right time.”
Equally important, Dierking says, is to
ask for something reasonable, something
the requestee can conceivably grant. “If
you’re at a Lowe’s or Home Depot, you
have to get a store manager or assistant
manager,” he says. This principle also
extends to higher-stakes negotiations over
salary or contracts.
The ASK assignment discourages students
from offering requestees anything
in return.
“We’re building a specific skill that will
be part of a toolbox of negotiating skills,”
Dierking says. When askers feel trepidation
about completing the assignment, he
advises that they ask for something lowrisk,
such as free shipping.
According to Dierking, inexperienced
negotiators make three common mistakes:
asking for something that is not reasonable,
making a demand instead of an ask,
and not asking in the first place. The last,
of course, is the most common.
“The worst somebody can do is say no,
but you’ve already got no,” Dierking says.
“You’re working from no.”
thinkstock
ASKS
LARGE
AND
SMALL
Real benefits
students
asked for—and
received.
Reduced travel
costs for a volunteer
group heading to New
Orleans. (STRAT-
EGY: Appeal to the
requestee’s desire to
do good.)
Free satellite radio
subscription
A $10,000 raise
Use of expired
coupon
Monthly
reduction for
a cable or phone
bill. (Possibly the
most popular ask
among students,
Dierking says)
Forgiveness of
a $150 late fee
Reduction
in rates from
a consulting firm,
totaling $12,800 over
640 hours
Upgrade to a
suite at a hotel
Upgrade to
business travelers’
lounge and a first
class domestic seat.
(STRATEGY: When
someone, i.e., an
airline counter agent,
takes an interest in
your story—a big
presentation the next
day—it’s a good time
for an ask.
Extra sauce at
a chicken restaurant
where the policy is that
you have to pay for
it. (“A moral victory,”
Dierking says.)
THE BIG QUESTION
How Can the Tax
Code be Fixed
Judging by the wild national debate, taxes might need to join politics and
religion as a topic one should not discuss in polite company. But having
narrowly escaped the fiscal cliff and still facing a $1 trillion deficit, the
country can’t afford to ignore the issue. Accounting professor Lillian Mills
offers her suggestions for a more rational tax system.
Wh e r e I t h i n k w e n e e d
the fastest reform is on
the entitlement side.
When people hear “entitlements,”
they often think “welfare” in
a negative way. But Social Security and
Medicare are promises to all our elderly—
not just to the poor elderly. And our promises
exceed our capacity.
That’s partly because retirees are living
longer each generation. Remember
that when Social Security became law in
the 1930s, the average life expectancy
was about 65. As the number of retirees
grows, relative to the working populace,
it will not be possible to tax the
working populace sufficiently to fund
those entitlements—even if the majority
of Americans supported higher payroll
and income taxes.
Continuing to increase the full retirement
age for Social Security [it is currently
67, for those born after 1959] will
help some. Increasing the initial eligibility
age beyond 62 would help much
more. Gradually increasing the Medicare
eligibility age would reduce our costs
even more.
The benefit from increasing those ages
is not merely on the cost-containment
side. If a 53-year-old like me works until
age 70, I continue to pay income taxes
and payroll taxes before receiving a Social
Security payment or using Medicare. That
helps our national budgets.
We can’t afford to increase those ages
immediately on near-retirees. They need
to be phased in because we need time for
savings rates and job markets to adapt.
But we can build in larger future increases
now, and we should.
We also need additional tax revenues.
Our deficits and public debt show that our
current revenues are not sufficient to pay
for our current spending.
One way to raise taxes without raising
rates is through cutting “tax expenditures”—
the tax savings generated from deductions
and credits, or from making certain types
of income taxable that used to be exempt.
The largest tax expenditures include
the nontaxable compensation we enjoy
from employers: pension and 401(k)
contributions and healthcare. In addition,
many Americans receive substantial
deductions of mortgage interest and
property taxes, both of which make housing
less costly.
One proposal is to cap itemized deductions,
other than charitable contributions.
Limiting deductions to a fixed amount
would still permit low- and middleincome
taxpayers to fully enjoy subsidies
to housing like the mortgage interest
deduction—while limiting subsidies for
the most expensive housing.
Making an exception for charitable contributions
would still permit major gifts
that benefit recipients like universities. So
gifts to UT could still be deducted, subject
to the standard limit of 50 percent of
adjusted gross income.
On tax expenditures, Republicans and
Democrats may be able to find bipartisan
support. By curtailing them, Republicans
can keep promises not to raise explicit
tax rates, and Democrats can reduce the
impact on low-income taxpayers.
Unfortunately, many tax expenditures
have huge popular support, and the medical,
retirement, and real estate lobbies are
all-powerful. President Obama needs to
engage the country in this conversation
in a less political way, the way President
Reagan persuaded the country that we
needed a broader tax base to be able to
reduce some tax rates. Any tax reform will
require leadership from the top.
Department Chair Lillian Mills is the Wilton
E. and Catherine A. Thomas Professor
of Accounting. She researches tax compliance,
accounting for income taxes and
effective tax rates, and international taxation.
Mills was previously a senior manager
in taxation for Price Waterhouse
and is a former president of the American
Taxation Assocation.
Startup
The State of BBAs
Almost a third of
undergraduates,
31%
spend 21-30
hours per week on
homework, and
56%
plan on applying
to graduate
school, according
to a spring 2012
survey of students
that sought
to assess the
BBA program.
Students also said
they want more
international
business and
entrepreneurial
skills included in
the curriculum and
better connection
to recruiters
for smaller and
nontraditional
companies.
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10 OPEN SPRING 2013 www.today.mccombs.utexas.edu www.today.mccombs.utexas.edu
on record
A Not-So-Secret Diary
Four McCombs undergraduates shared their daily routines for the Wall Street Journal’s
Nov. 6 “A Day in the Life” column. Lindsey Mulford, Ezequiel Calderon Jr., Melissa Beaver,
and Eugene Hsiao snapped photographs and recorded their activities every three
hours from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m to report for the newspaper’s monthly feature tracking business
students’ campus life. Read Calderon’s and Mulford’s 8 a.m. entries below for a
A Day in the Life: Photos
from marketing junior
glimpse at how current students begin the day.
Ezequiel Calderon Jr.
Calderon
10:19 p.m.
“Started the day at 7:00 and, by this time, I have zoomed through
email and started to prepare for my 9:30 a.m. Finance class.
Mornings are my most productive time of the day, and I can’t say
no to the Texas sunrise from our off-campus apartment balcony.”
Mulford
“Good morning, world! Started today with a 6:40 a.m. Beyoncéfueled
elliptical session at our apartment building’s gym, but now
I’m back in bed with a smoothie. I begin most days by watching
ESPN—I have to be on top of everything to win my fantasy football
league. I’m about to head to Statistics. Rumor has it we
get our midterms back today.”
11:05 a.m.
8:09 a.m.
5:04 p.m.
2:23 p.m.
12:10 a.m.
Recommended Reading
Crisis management and innovation stand alongside a collection of
historical entries in the latest roundup of faculty and alumni books.
The Failed
Promise of
Originalism by
Frank Cross,
professor in the
Department
of Business,
Government and
Society, discusses
the originalist theory
of constitutional
interpretation and
how its practice
affects the American
judicial system
today, positively
or—as his research
more often finds—
negatively.
Edward Anderson,
associate professor
of operations management,
added
Innovation Butterfly:
Managing
Emergent Opportunities
and Risks
During Distributed
Innovation (Understanding
Complex
Systems) to his collection
of more than
25 published works.
The book, coauthored
by Boston
University professor
Nitin Joglekar, discusses
the causes
of minor, unforeseen
changes called “innovation
butterflies,”
within a management
system and the
necessary but difficult
task of controlling
their effect.
The crisis
management
research of Daniel
Laufer, MBA
’94, Ph.D. ’02,
was included in
Interdisciplinary
Approaches to
Product Design,
Innovation, and
Branding in
International
Marketing, edited
by Scott Swann
and Shaoming Zou.
Laufer’s chapter is
titled “How Should
a Global Brand
Manager Respond
to an Ambiguous
Product Harm
Crisis” and proposes
a framework for how
companies should
respond when their
product causes harm.
Shudde Bess
Bryson Fath, BBA
’37, published her
compilation of World
War II–era letters,
photos, and press
releases from the
Bastrop Advertiser
newspaper in
The Greatest
Generation: As
Reported in the
Weekly Bastrop
Advertiser During
World War II. Her
daughter, Betsy
Fath Hiller, acted as
co-compiler.
Systematic
Martini Lifestyle,
written by David
Hetherington,
MBA ’03, and
his wife, Tomoko
Hetherington, is
a guide to formal
entertainment for
young men. The book
teaches readers
how to plan and
host cocktail parties
and other formal
gatherings, as well as
how to employ those
social skills in the
business world.
Steven Fenberg,
BBA ’75, published
the biography
Unprecedented
Power: Jesse
Jones, Capitalism,
and the Common
Good. Jones
was a Houston
entrepreneur who
served as the
chairman of the
Reconstruction
Finance Corporation
under President
Franklin Roosevelt,
playing a key role in
guiding the country
out of the Great
Depression.
Shannon (Dorsey)
Johnson, BBA
’93, published
her first book,
Found in Black
Texiana. The book
is a collection of her
own contemporary
poetry, recipes,
letters, and stories of
Startup
her experiences as
an African-American,
Texan woman with
roots in Louisiana.
In The Texas Way:
Money, Power,
Politics, and
Ambition at The
University, William
Cunningham looks
back on his seven
years as president of
UT Austin and eight
years as chancellor
of the UT System.
Cunningham,
professor of
marketing, saw
the demise of
the Southwest
Conference and
the creation of
the Big 12, among
other significant
developments,
during his
leadership tenure.
SPRING 2013 OPEN
11

My whole work life beamed
at me through two big
monitors. When I shut
them off at night, I was
instantly home, but also still
technically at work. That
transition was increasingly
jarring for me.
from the desk of…
Renee Hopkins
Yahoo! banned it. Others love it. Where does
telecommuting fit in today’s office McCombs media
relations staffer and ex-telecommuter Renee Hopkins
reflects on working away from work.
“Where do you work” isn’t supposed to be a trick question, but it was
a trick for me to answer during the year I telecommuted for my job at
McCombs from 1,977 miles away in Nashua, New Hampshire, a small city
45 minutes northwest of Boston.
I
had
been living and working in
Boston when I accepted my job at
McCombs. But after one year on campus,
the move to Austin felt like a
mistake. When I told my manager I was
returning to New England, he offered me
an opportunity to work remotely.
I had a lot of reasons for going back north.
I thought I’d re-assimilate, eventually find
another job there, and that would be that.
But I never re-assimilated. I never
looked for another job, because I continued
to enjoy the challenge of finding and
writing McCombs stories and connecting
McCombs news, ideas, and experts with
reporters and editors.
By the time I’d been in New Hampshire
six months, I began to feel isolated professionally.
Sure, I could connect with peers
who were my friends in Boston. But it was
much harder to connect with McCombs.
I’ve been a reporter and editor when my
physical location didn’t matter much, but
working at and writing about McCombs
demands attention to the place as just that:
a place, and a dynamic one at that, with a
recognizable ebb and flow of activity.
Each semester, students appear in a
trickle, then en masse; the hallway bulletin
boards sprout notices of guest speakers, and
conferences convene at the AT&T Center.
Student organizations erect card tables on
the plaza, lavishing cupcakes on their peers
in the hopes of recruiting new members.
And then each semester unwinds: the
event calendar empties, students form
hives buzzing about finals and job offers,
professors eschew requests for media interviews
in order to grade exams and papers.
Commencement commences, the Tower
beams burnt orange congratulations to the
graduates, and campus enters hibernation.
Working at home, I missed being part
of the warp and weft of the McCombs fabric.
I missed hallway encounters and what
one friend calls “random collisions with
unusual suspects”—running into someone
only to have a conversation in which you
learn something new. And—even better—a
conversation in which you learn something
you would never have gone in search of.
Networks need weak ties as well as
strong ties, but in New Hampshire almost
all my McCombs ties became weak ones.
I kept up with local news online, and my
campus phone forwarded to my home
office. But then I’d call or email a new UT
colleague, and that person would be flabbergasted
when I declined the chance to
meet for coffee by explaining that I was
off campus. Really, really off-campus.
And despite the good intentions (and
mediocre technology) of conference phones
and video chat software, I felt like an incomplete
contributor, relying on the kindness
of others to see and hear things I couldn’t. I
was ever grateful to my colleagues for taking
on extra tasks—remembering to email
documents that were handed out in person,
sharing notes, passing along observations I
wasn’t there to make.
Telecommuting is brutally efficient. We
stay on task because we aren’t distracted
by campus happenings and hallway conversations
(chats with the dog don’t
count). I found myself working odd hours,
sometimes late into the New Hampshire
night, matching the hours of co-workers
in another time zone.
This was no anomaly: A recent study by
UT sociology professor Jennifer Glass shows
that most of the 30 percent of respondents
who work from home add five to seven hours
to their workweek compared with those who
work exclusively at the office.
I realized that New England wasn’t really
my home place, and to begin to determine
where that might be, I returned to McCombs,
my work place. And this time, when the wave
of faculty and students began to swell with
the new academic year, I was in its midst
instead of peering at it dimly through computer
monitors 2,000 miles away.
This morning I walked from where I
live on 45th Street to McCombs’ Graduate
School of Business building. I wanted
to feel the physical transition from home
to neighborhood to edge of campus, and
finally to the corner of Speedway and 21st
Street. Then I climbed the steps from the
sidewalk, swung open the heavy glass
door, and entered my work place.
Korey Howell Photography
From top: Lester Rosebrock, for the UT Health Science Center; thinkstock
THE NEW WORKFORCE
A Quiet Cancer Fighter
is Finding its Voice
Cancer can corrupt the body
in more than 100 different
ways. With 1.6 million new
cases projected for 2013, physicians
and researchers are in high demand
to fight the disease.
The Cancer Therapy and Research Center
(CTRC) in San Antonio offers comprehensive
care for patients throughout central
and south Texas and northern Mexico, but
many patients and doctors don’t know it
exists. Without the name recognition of
Houston’s MD Anderson Cancer Center
EARNING STATEMENT
and lacking internal marketing resources,
CTRC, which is part of The University of
Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio,
turned to a group of Texas MBA students
for a new marketing strategy.
“Nothing happens until a prospective
patient walks in the door,”
says Mark Watson, a member
of the CTRC Foundation’s
board of directors,
who first approached the
McCombs School for help.
“And to serve people at the
level we want, they’ve got to
find out about us.”
Marketing Department
Chair Wayne Hoyer and
lecturer John Highbarger
assembled a team of seven
students to evaluate CTRC’s
current marketing practices
and identify the largest
improvement areas.
“People don’t realize that
San Antonio has one of the
finest centers in the world,
and that’s a marketing problem,” Hoyer says.
The student team’s plan developed a
new tagline for the center and ideas for a
more user-friendly website and ongoing
social media campaign. They encouraged
CTRC to increase public outreach through
patient surveys, advertisements, and fund
“People don’t
realize that
San Antonio has
one of the finest
[cancer] centers
in the world, and
that’s a marketing
problem.”
raising events, as well as to establish personal
relationships with local physicians
to improve the referral program.
CTRC’s Watson says he was impressed
with the proposals and is championing them
to the foundation and the board of directors.
Team member Janet Mozaffari says the
experience gave her frontline exposure to
marketing details, from identifying the
problem, to targeting audiences, to creating
tactics. “It was cool to work on a project
from start to finish,” she says.
A finish that—hopefully—means more
patients discover the care they need is
closer than they realized. —Kelly Fine
Startup
ON THE JOB:
Neuro-oncologist
Dr. Andrew Brenner
at work in the
Cancer Therapy and
Research Center, a
facility Texas MBA
students consulted
with on brand
recognition
and marketing.
Gender
Pay Gap
Reversal
For the first time ever,
female Texas MBAs are
earning larger salaries than
their male colleagues. The
average post-graduate
base pay for Class of 2012
women from the full-time
program was $106,073,
compared to $104,631 for
men from the same class.
12
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13

Amy’s Ice Creams owner Amy
Simmons, MBA ‘92, grabs a
bite at her newest restaurant,
Phil’s Ice House.
Order Up!
photo by wyatt mcspadden
Chow down with our very own food network. NO RESERVATIONS REQUIRED by tracy *tandem bikes are never a good thing
14
mueller
OPEN SPRING 2013 www.today.mccombs.utexas.edu SPRING 2013 OPEN
15

ON THE MENU
César Chavez is credited with
saying, “The people who give you
their food give you their heart.”
Spend a few minutes around a restaurant owner and you’ll
quickly see how true that is. And while foodie television shows like
“Top Chef” and mainstays on the Food Network try to feed Americans’
seemingly insatiable appetite for culinary culture, they don’t
exactly reveal the true reality of restaurants. To get the full story,
we spoke with five alumni restaurant owners around the country.
Despite the brutal hours, high overhead, staff turnover, and
alarming failure rate, they open their doors each day, inviting in
patrons for first dates, sweet sixteens, business meetings, and
marriage proposals. Or at the very least, the small luxury of a warm
meal prepared by someone else.
“
Amy’s Ice Creams
and Phil’s Ice House
Amy Simmons, MBA ’92
Austin, San Antonio, Houston
If anybody gets the impression
that we’re the big guys, it hurts
my feelings,” says Amy Simmons,
owner of Amy’s Ice Creams and
burger joint Phil’s Ice House. “There’s
nothing corporate about us. It really
is organic. We love small business, we
love the creativity, we love competition
because it helps us be better. It
helps us all. There’s plenty of room for
everybody.”
Consider the company’s mission
statement: “To make people’s day.”
Simmons says it guides everything they
do and how they treat their investors,
employees, and customers. The philosophy
also helped Simmons keep the
company from straying too far from its
small business roots.
“Success typically is measured in
rapid growth, so I felt pressure,” she
says. “But I did step back and say, ‘Does
that match what feeds my soul’ and
the answer was, ‘No.’ It’s that personal
relationship with your community and
your employees where I feel I can make
the biggest difference in the world.”
That’s not to say Austin’s ice cream
maven is anti-business. She teaches
every employee about business principles
and involves them in cost reduction
and product improvement decisions.
“There’s nothing
corporate about
us. It really is
organic.”
Thanks to scoopers’ ideas and efforts,
Amy’s hasn’t needed to raise prices in
five years.
She also views her company as a
sort of business incubator, encouraging
employees to become entrepreneurs
while using Amy’s as a living case study.
Local businesses launched by former
Amy’s staffers include the Little City coffee
shop, Ozone Bikes, and Club DeVille.
“We want to let them know that they’re
not selling out by going into business, and
that there are really creative, compassionate
ways to go into business.”
Signature dish: Mexican vanilla ice
cream with strawberry crush’n
Biggest challenge of the restaurant
business: “Early on,
when finances are limited, it’s difficult
to attract people with experience elsewhere.
You have to find mentors outside
the business. It’s one of the reasons I got
my MBA—to have that network of brilliant
people.”
31 Flavors and Then Some:
Amy’s has created more than 1,000
flavors during its 27-year history. It
keeps up to 350 in rotation at one time.
Recent offerings include bacon, beer,
and habañero.
A Perfect Match: “Amy’s being similar
to Austin is not a mistake,” Simmons
says. “I spent two days here and knew it
was the perfect place to start the business.
It was an environment that felt
really at home for the concept.”
courtesy slow food truck
“Everything
is made from
scratch. We have
chef friends out
here who tell us,
‘Yours is the only
food truck that I
can eat at.’”
Oren Bass, BBA ‘05
Slow Food
Truck
Oren Bass, BBA ’05
Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Let’s get one thing straight:
owning a food truck is not a
hobby. Don’t be fooled by the
kitschy trailers, tongue-incheek
names, and pop-up locations.
This is serious business.
“It’s almost like opening up a new
restaurant every day,” says Oren Bass,
chef and co-owner of the Slow Food
Truck in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Between the permits, location
scouting, and marketing, packing and
unpacking the truck every day, cooking
everything fresh daily, driving all over
South Florida and setting up shop in
any one of the multiple locations where
the truck stops, Bass has his hands full.
Not to mention the catering business he
and his partner also run.
But Bass takes comfort in the laid-back
atmosphere surrounding a food truck.
And in a region known for its upscale
dining and nightlife, Bass—who
attended culinary school after graduating
from McCombs—says he is proud to
serve gourmet cuisine that rivals many
brick-and-mortar restaurants. The truck
won second place for fan favorite and
critics’ choice at the 2012 Las Olas Food
and Wine Show, despite being the only
mobile competitor out of nearly 70 participating
restaurants.
The truck’s name refers to the “slow
food” movement, founded on fresh,
local, seasonal, and sustainable food.
“We’re a chef-driven food truck,”
Bass says. “Everything is made from
scratch. We have chef friends who tell
us, ‘Yours is the only food truck that I
can eat at.’ ”
Signature dish: Beef short rib
sandwich and warm Florida lobster
roll. Bass says a customer once drove
an hour and a half just to buy one of
their sandwiches.
Favorite Fort Lauderdale hot
spot: The Las Olas neighborhood
Biggest challenge of the restaurant
business: The hours
Brush with fame: Finished in the
top 10 of the Food Network’s “America’s
Favorite Food Truck” online contest
in 2011.
16
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SPRING 2013 OPEN
17

Alex Taylor, MBA ‘03
“We design,
create, prepare,
manufacture,
package, deliver,
sell, and watch our
products being
consumed—all in
a very short
period of time.”
ON THE MENU
Drex Agency
Due Forni Pizza
and Wine Bar
Alex Taylor, MBA ’03
Las Vegas and Austin
Alex Taylor isn’t sure how
many restaurants, bars, and
coffee shops he has opened,
but it’s definitely more than
100. First it was launching new stores for
Starbucks across the Southwest after he
graduated from Duke University. Then,
as part of his MBA internship while at
McCombs, he helped open Craftsteak in
Las Vegas with celebrity chef Tom Colicchio.
He returned to Sin City after finishing
business school, opening dozens of
bars, restaurants, and lounges for casino
giants MGM Grand, Mandalay Bay resort,
and the Encore Resort and Casino.
In February 2011, Taylor and his
chef-partner Carlos Buscaglia finally
got the chance to open their own place,
a Las Vegas pizza and wine bar. Despite
the weak economy, the concept took off,
and they recently opened a second location
in the heart of Austin’s nightlife, at
Sixth Street and Congress Avenue.
If pizza and wine sounds like an
exceedingly basic concept, that’s the
point. Taylor says the key to surviving
in the food and beverage industry is to
keep the menu simple, since the rest of
the business is already so complicated.
“No business has the amount of
variables that a restaurant does,” Taylor
says. “We design, create, prepare,
manufacture, package, deliver, sell, and
watch our products being consumed—
all in a very short period of time.”
But for Taylor, every day spent managing
those chaotic variables is a day
that reminds him of home.
“My mother loved to have dinner parties,
and as kids we would help prep
during the day and then serve at night,”
Taylor remembers. “So I always associated
food with family and friends and
parties. And that’s what this industry
is to me; I get to throw a party every
single night.”
Signature dish: Baby octopus,
braised overnight, chilled and marinated,
then roasted to order in a
900-degree oven
Favorite Las Vegas hot spot:
Red Rock Canyon
Best meal he’s ever had:
26-course, six-hour dinner at Robuchon
in the MGM Grand
Biggest challenge of the restaurant
business: “Containing
my enthusiasm. I have a low tolerance
for bad restaurants, but I don’t want to
be a snob.”
18 OPEN SPRING 2013 www.today.mccombs.utexas.edu www.today.mccombs.utexas.edu SPRING 2013 OPEN 19

ON THE MENU
How Do You Roll
Custom Sushi
Yuen Yung, BBA ’96
Locations nationwide
Mess with a sushi aficionado’s
tuna roll and
apparently the claws
come out.
Just ask Yuen Yung, who received
“sushi hate mail” for desecrating the
ancient culinary art with the menu
offerings at his restaurant chain, How
Do You Roll, which lets patrons customize
their own sushi, including
using non-traditional ingredients such
as strawberries and grilled chicken.
“Sushi snobs were like, ‘Whoa, you
guys are blasphemous!’ ” says Yung,
not overly bothered by the outrage.
The general public seems to be more
forgiving, and the fast-casual chain is
taking off. How Do You Roll broke even
six months after it opened in October
2008 and has been profitable ever since.
Its headquarters are in Austin, but Yung
has sold 40 franchises, with 15 locations
open in Texas, California, Arizona, Florida,
and North Carolina.
It’s a surprising career turn for the
former wealth manager who swore
off the restaurant business after growing
up working in his parents’ Chinese
eatery in Houston. But one day on his
lunch break, in search of something
other than fast food, he bought premade
grocery store sushi. He was
underwhelmed.
“I thought, this is like dating somebody
I don’t like, but I guess it’s better than
nobody,” Yung says. The lack of availability
of quickly prepared, high-quality
sushi got him thinking about a business
concept. When his brother, a sushi chef,
came to Yung ready for a change in his
career, they decided to return to the family
business and open How Do You Roll
Yung realizes that even though at
times he hated working in his parents’
restaurant, the experience bonded
his family together. And now his own
family is getting in on the act. His wife
plans the company’s annual franchisee
conference, and when his 9-yearold
son wanted a Nintendo 3DS last
summer, he earned the money for it by
busing tables, just like Yung used to do.
“But he’s better at it than I was,”
Yung says. “He quickly learned the
power of taking care of people and
then they might tip you. He still asks
when he can go back to work.”
Signature dish: Custom rolls, so
it’s different for everybody.
Biggest challenge of the
restaurant business: Managing
growth and balancing patience
with attention to detail
Company philosophy: “We’re not
a sushi company serving people. We’re
a people company serving sushi,” Yung
says. “The thing we sell is freedom of
expression, and we want to make the
world better one stomach at a time.”
Favorite Austin hot spot:
Lady Bird Lake, running and walking
with the kids
Funky Chicken
Like a Vegan
3 Alarm
mango tango
Yuen Yung, BBA ‘96
courtesy How Do You Roll
“Sushi snobs
were like, ‘Whoa,
you guys are
blasphemous!’”
Crunch daddy
20 OPEN SPRING 2013 www.today.mccombs.utexas.edu www.today.mccombs.utexas.edu SPRING 2013 OPEN 21

The Kebab
Shop
Arian Baryalai, MBA ’10
San Diego, Calif.
Fish tacos may be the star of
the street in San Diego, but
The Kebab Shop hopes to
establish a new staple in
Southern California.
“The concept for The Kebab Shop
originated from Europe, where kebab
shops are as popular as hamburger
joints and taco shops are in the United
States,” says co-owner Arian Baryalai,
MBA ’10. “We seek to bring this dining
experience that so many Europeans
have been enjoying for years to the
U.S., while at the same time putting
our own spin on it.”
For The Kebab Shop’s six locations,
that means offering fresh
salads, grilled meat, seafood, and veggies
alongside the traditional döner
kebabs—spiced lamb, marinated
chicken, or falafel topped with fresh
vegetables and a creamy garlic yogurt
sauce, wrapped in flatbread.
Like so many restaurateurs, Baryalai
entered the business because of
his love of the food and his desire to
be an entrepreneur. His wife’s family
acquired the business in 2008, with
Baryalai serving as an informal business
and legal adviser. After graduating
from McCombs and spending a
year in investment banking, Baryalai
felt the pull to run his own business,
and he officially joined The Kebab
Shop, helping launch a new location.
ON THE MENU
Arian Baryalai, MBA ‘10
“We seek to bring this
dining experience that so
many Europeans have been
enjoying for years to the
U.S., while at the same time
putting our own spin on it.”
Signature dish: Lamb döner
Advice from a customer: “GET
YOUR OWN,” says one Yelp reviewer,
cautioning other patrons against sharing
a kebab, adding you will “regret
the decision [to share] when you get
to the end of your sandwich.”
Most challenging part of
the job: “Every day I am forced to
address different issues ranging from
intellectual property, real estate leasing,
and labor and employment law
to finance and accounting, operations,
and marketing.”
Favorite San Diego hot spot:
Extraordinary Desserts. “It is a great
place to go with friends and enjoy a delicious
piece of cake with a cappuccino.”
22 OPEN SPRING 2013 www.today.mccombs.utexas.edu www.today.mccombs.utexas.edu SPRING 2013 OPEN 23
courtesy THe kebab shop

100-hour weeks. Venture rounds. Vision
statements. Market validation. Customer
service. Conference calls. Client demands.
Not to mention date night, soccer practice,
and the PTA. How to manage life when an
concept photo
entrepreneur’s work is so much …
Illustrations by Brian Stauffer
More
By
Robert
Strauss
Than A
J.O.B.
24 OPEN SPRING 2013 www.today.mccombs.utexas.edu www.today.mccombs.utexas.edu SPRING 2013 OPEN 25

As the legend goes, upon arrival in
Mexico Cortez burned the ships on the
beach to demonstrate to his men that this
was an expedition of total commitment—
no escape route, no voyage home.
It turns out the legend isn’t entirely
true (Cortez had the ships scuttled, not
burned, and it was likely a political move
to avoid mutiny), but Alex Garcia likes to
think of the story as an example of what’s
required to launch a new business.
“Being an entrepreneur is being that
way,” says Garcia, MSTC ’12 and a lifelong
entrepreneur. “The boat brought
you here and now you have to burn it.
You have to have faith, and you have to
have someone by your side who has that
same faith.”
According to U.S. Census figures America
boasts some 27 million small businesses.
Each one of them has at least one
entrepreneur who may not exactly burn
boats but who can be eccentric, obsessed,
or sometimes oblivious to others—behavior
perhaps only a spouse can understand
or appreciate.
xplorer Hernando Cortez was already
a wealthy and powerful man when he
set sail from Cuba with nine ships, on
a mission to the New World for glory,
gold, and the Gospel in 1518. Despite
his short, thin stature, the Spaniard
cut an impressive figure, draped in a
black velvet cloak with gold tassels
and a feathered hat, a self-described
“gentlemanly pirate.”
“When you are in a relationship of equals,
which is ideally what a marriage is, or at
least is supposed to be, then you are used
to talking things through. There is nuance,”
says Meg Cadoux Hirshberg, a columnist for
Inc. magazine and the author of “For Better
or For Work: A Survival Guide for Entrepreneurs
and Their Families.”
“But in a business, things are moving
quickly, and there is often not time for
explanations. That is something a family
has to get used to with an entrepreneur,”
“In a business, things are moving
quickly, and there is often not time
for explanations. That is something
a family has to get used to
with an entrepreneur.”
Hirshberg adds. “That is a big difference
when a person is involved with his or her
business all the time.”
Managing the
Quirks
Kim and Ryan Pitylak, MBA ’12, started
dating as juniors in high school in Michigan.
Fourteen years later, Kim reflects that
she is grateful that she recognized Ryan’s
drive to be entrepreneurial early on.
“He always wanted to be in business for
himself, and I realized even back then that
there would be a different kind of time
commitment,” Kim says. Ryan is now partners
with a McCombs classmate, Chantal
Pittman, in a social marketing consulting
firm, Unique Influence Inc.
“You just have to be flexible in your
schedule when you take up with an entrepreneur,”
Kim says. “You can’t expect to
have dinner on the table at 6 every night.
But you can, if you do things right, have
a valuable and exciting relationship. The
dreams are somehow bigger than if you
had a ‘real job.’ ”
Sometimes those big dreams, and the
work required to achieve them, supplant
almost every other activity in an entrepreneur’s
life. For Ryan, a tough sacrifice
was ice hockey, his off-hours passion since
growing up in Michigan. So Kim took it
upon herself to come up with a substitute,
and now they play together in a Thursday
night kickball league in Austin. It’s a
less intense pastime than chasing a puck,
and it’s another chunk of carved-out time
they can share.
“If he has to take a call during the game,
it isn’t so crucial,” says Kim. “Plus, we are
there together. And he is so obsessed with
whatever he is into that he has become a
great kickball player, too.”
Of course, sometimes that obsessive
tendency moves in at home, too. When
the Pitylaks first started living together,
their small apartment was overgrown
with technology.
“We had more wires than Best Buy, and
Ryan was always on some keyboard, into
26 OPEN SPRING 2013 www.today.mccombs.utexas.edu www.today.mccombs.utexas.edu SPRING 2013 OPEN 27

“I have to admit, it was really
attractive to me to be with someone
so passionate about business. And
it is essential to have that attraction
when he comes home at 4 a.m.”
the middle of the night,” she says. “Clickclick-click-clack-clack,
it would be all the
time—so much so that when I would hear
fingers on a keyboard, it would be like fingernails
on a chalkboard.
“But I knew Ryan was accomplished in
so many ways, and I just had to put that
out of my mind. When we moved into a
bigger place, I insisted on having our bed
far away from any keyboard. I have always
admired him, but I have to admit things
are easier now.”
Role Playing
A 2011 Duke University study showed that
70 percent of entrepreneurs were married,
and 60 percent of them had kids. An
overwhelming plurality of them were firstborns,
with all their bull-in-the-china-shop
traits, but about half of them knew from
childhood experience about their potential
neuroses, since they came from entrepreneurial
families.
For Kate and Jeremy Bencken entrepreneurship
was baked in the genes. Kate’s
father had his own public relations firm
when she was growing up, while Jeremy’s
father ran an air conditioning maintenance
business.
“My mother (who is a school principal), on
the other hand, thought I was nuts for getting
into my own business,” says Jeremy, MBA
’03. “I guess she saw how hard it was for my
dad to make time, but I think it is because
she had a steady job that it all worked out.”
Going to college at Santa Clara University,
right in the heart of Silicon Valley in
the 1990s—the boomiest of boom times
in the entrepreneurial tech world—the
Benckens were like painters in 19th century
Paris, poets and folksingers in 1960s
Greenwich Village, or shortstops in the
Dominican Republic.
FAMILY MATTERS: FIVE TIPS FOR LIVING
WITH AN ENTREPRENEUR
1
Remind the entrepreneur that getting away is also part
of the business. “You have to recharge,” says Maheen Hamid,
who makes sure she and her husband, Adnan, and their 7-year-old
daughter take vacations. “It is wonderful to be committed to a successful
business, but you have to get away to get perspective. It is a
partner’s duty to make sure it happens.”
2
Don’t ask about the bottom line. “It is about achieving
a goal, not about money,” says Laura Kilcrease, McCombs entrepreneur-in-residence.
“Money will come, but entrepreneurs want the
ideas they have to be successful, even if they don’t become rich.”
3
Make appointments with the kids. “My husband
always coached our three children’s soccer teams,” says Meg
Cadoux Hirshberg, author of “For Better or For Work: A Survival Guide
for Entrepreneurs and Their Families,” and wife of Gary Hirshberg, the
founder of Stoneyfield Yogurt. “He was gone a lot, but when he was
“Entrepreneurs were all around us.
Everyone had a startup, at least in their
minds,” says Jeremy. The Benckens’ idea,
though, came almost by chance. They had
moved about 10 miles up U.S. 101 from
Santa Clara, Calif., to Mountain View for
their new jobs in 1999 but found it impossible
to find a reasonably priced apartment
in the midst of the boom. One day outside
their cramped, expensive place, a woman
looking for an apartment asked them what
they thought of their landlords. The light
bulb went off: the Benckens’ had the idea
for ApartmentRatings.com, a better way to
find apartments online through Trip-Advisor-like
recommendations.
And thus launched their intrepid venture
into the über-complicated world of
living with an entrepreneur—in this case,
each other.
“We were 24 and didn’t know better than
to work constantly,” says Kate, MBA ’04. “I
guess we never gave it a thought not to be
mutually supportive at home, too.
“I think given our personalities—we
are both kind of Type A, oldest children—
we were used to being in the fray,” Kate
says. “I won’t say there was no dividing
line, but it was hard not to talk about the
business all the time. We were excited
about it. It definitely would have been
harder if one of us was on the sidelines
and watching.”
home, he was fully present with them. When you are at the Girl Scout
meeting, don’t have your cell phone out mulling margins.”
4
Find a way to love what they do. You don’t have to
know everything about the business, but at least enjoy the
result. “What did I know about South American music” says Lindsay
Dixon, whose husband, Alex Garcia, MSTC ’12, ran an entertainment
business, primarily with Latin musicians. “But I became eager
to learn. It makes a big difference.”
5
Always talk it over. “When we went to an alumni gathering,
we heard from other spouses to see how they made their entrepreneurial
marriages work,” says Kim Pitylak, married to entrepreneur
Ryan Pitylak, MBA ‘12.“Invariably, it is because they didn’t forget their
problems, but talked them out. We have good communication and we
are both ready to tell the other what the issues are. Being an entrepreneur
can make family life stressful, but only if you let it.”
It was more that way, though, for
Lindsay Dixon. She was a high-school
teacher, the steadiest of jobs, when she
met Alex Garcia, MSTC ’12, the lifelong
entrepreneur with a fondness for Cortez’s
no-turning-back approach. Garcia had a
business setting up entertainment acts,
working with clubs and musicians for just
the right bookings and effects.
“We are total opposites professionally,”
Dixon says. “I am a big rule follower, but
he always wanted to work for himself.”
Indeed, like many of his fellow entrepreneurs,
Garcia displayed a knack for
business early on. When he was in elementary
school, he made sandwiches at
night and sold them to classmates for
lunch the next day. He had a newspaper
recycling business in middle school and
a cheese-making business in high school.
(You must be destined for entrepreneurship
when you’re a 16-year-old spending
Friday nights cranking out wheels
of brie.)
“I have to admit, it was really attractive
to me to be with someone so passionate
about business,” says Dixon. “And it is
essential to have that attraction when he
comes home at 4 a.m. after a concert.”
McCombs 2012-13 entrepreneur-inresidence
Laura Kilcrease, MBA ’92, says
it often really does work out better for
one spouse to be the entrepreneur and
the other to be the supportive one. But,
she warns, that does not mean that one
is lesser and one is greater in the relationship—just
that the entrepreneur
needs a net under him or her, and perhaps
the only one who can provide that
is a spouse.
“My husband knows that I am thinking
every waking minutes about some venture
or another,” says Kilcrease. “But you really
do have to make time for each other. Friday
night is definitely date night. You turn
off the cell phones for a while and enjoy
one another. It is imperative for even an
obsessed entrepreneur to have down time
with a spouse. You found each other on
down time, right”
Maheen and Adnan Hamid, both MBA
’03, co-founders of Breker Verification Systems,
were actually found for each other.
Theirs was an arranged marriage, and she
was still living in her native Bangladesh
when Adnan, the son of a diplomat, started
calling her from the United States and
sharing his dreams of starting a business.
“He had been a verification engineer and
he started talking about all this technology,”
Maheen says. “I didn’t know the technology,
but having been in an entrepreneurial family,
I understood business. I knew I could
help bring this to fruition. I could see what
he needed from me even early on.”
Adnan Hamid says it was a relief
that Maheen was on board right away.
Maheen, the company’s chief financial
officer, handles most of the business functions
of the company, while CEO Adnan
is, essentially, the technical chieftain. Both
acknowledge that their life works because
Maheen is the tiller of the family ship.
“When you are starting a company,
there is a lot that needs paying attention
to,” Adnan says. “She knew business from
her family and knew how to handle the
bumps and the ups and the downs. And
she knows when to tell me to stop. She
makes sure we take our vacations. I could
go all the time, but that would be counterproductive,
too.”
Entertainment promoter Garcia says
his first marriage burst because of his allin
entrepreneurial nature. Dixon, though,
found it “sexy.”
“It was definitely not something I was
used to, but the idea that he had lots of
ideas was attractive,” she says. “It’s not
that we had musicians coming to the
house playing music at all hours of the
night, but when your spouse is so enthusiastic
at any hour of the day, that can make
for an exciting relationship.”
Junior
Partners
It also helps when your kids buy in. The
Hamids say their 7-year-old daughter,
Saira, is already caught up in the entrepreneurial
world.
“She is a great marketing person,” says
Maheen, admitting that her daughter may
not know the intricacies of verification
engineering technology yet. “She is in this
entrepreneurial family and she will benefit
by it. She is already independent, I think,
because of it.
“At the age of 5, she came to me and
said in all seriousness, ‘I need a job with
Breker,’ ” says Maheen, noting that Saira’s
drawings are all over their boardroom,
since she is often there during meetings
(child care can be “challenging” for the
dual-entrepreneur family). “We all understand
that having our own business means
unpredictability and learning to go with
the flow. All three of us have gotten pretty
good at it.”
Children can be an inspiration to entrepreneurs,
too. Robin Chase, the woman who
created the $242 million car-sharing business
Zipcar, told Fortune Magazine that she
was about to give up on her dream before it
started when her 12-year-old daughter said,
“So does this mean you could become rich
and could give more money to UNICEF and
save lots of children’s lives Do it.”
“You hope your children buy in, too,”
“[Our daughter] is in this entrepreneurial
family and she will benefit
by it. She is already independent
because of it.”
says entrepreneur-in-residence Kilcrease.
Still, she says, the most important thing
is that the spouse is on board and can see
the proverbial forest for the trees.
“Early on, the entire family will forgo
time with the entrepreneur. The spouse
may have to take care of things in that
classic situation, but the reward in the
end will be the enthusiasm for life and,
hopefully, financial rewards, too,” says
Kilcrease, hoping not to sound too cynical.
“You may miss a couple of dinners,
but you will be driving that Ferrari and
you will like that.”
Financial gain and automotive perks
aside, the truth is that many entrepreneurs
would make for grumpy living companions
if not for the very work that makes
their home life so unpredictable.
“Frankly, the entrepreneur would be
miserable working the 9-to-5 job, so the
spouse has to recognize that,” Kilcrease
says. “You want an enthusiastic partner,
and entrepreneurship really does make
for an enthusiastic relationship.”
As long as you can live with it. O
28 OPEN SPRING 2013 www.today.mccombs.utexas.edu www.today.mccombs.utexas.edu SPRING 2013 OPEN 29

That’s
What
Friends
Are For
For CEOs, the company you keep
can help keep your company profitable.
New research from McCombs reveals
how executive friendships affect a firm’s
performance, for better or worse.
By Rob Heidrick
*please don’t ride tandem bikes with your colleagues
30 OPEN SPRING 2013 www.today.mccombs.utexas.edu SPRING 2013 OPEN 31

The conversation starts to pick up on
the cart ride between the 8th and 9th
holes. The CEO of a small but growing
business casually mentions that
he’s thinking about expanding the
company’s operations, investing in
new facilities, and hiring a larger staff.
His golf partner, a board member at
another firm, asks questions and offers
advice based on his own experience.
A productive discussion ensues and, by the end of the back
nine, the two part ways feeling more informed about their anticipated
investments.
This common scenario represents more than just a chance networking
opportunity. It could also yield measurable benefits for
each company’s economic performance.
Executives’ influence on company performance extends well
beyond the corporate boardroom. When they’re not at the office,
they serve on boards at nonprofit organizations and social clubs.
They play golf with former colleagues and get drinks with old
classmates. Often these associates are other executives who are
knowledgeable about the current business climate; when the
small talk winds down, the shop talk begins.
Just as someone would recommend a restaurant or movie to his
or her group of friends, executives who share social circles tend to
give each other advice: whether it’s a good time to make corporate
investments, open a new plant, or hire employees. In most cases
there is nothing underhanded about these conversations, provided
no inside financial information is being exchanged.
Cesare Fracassi, an assistant professor at McCombs who studies
executives’ social networks, says these interactions can equip
corporate leaders to make more educated decisions and improve
their companies’ financial performance.
“Social networks help to create more informed decisions,” Fracassi
says. “When I have more friends, I can decide what restaurant
I want to eat at, what movie I want to watch, and how to invest.”
Go with the Flow
In a recent study, Fracassi traced the social ties between 30,860
executives at 2,059 companies over the course of nine years,
identifying connections between those who overlapped at school,
held management positions in the same company, or had memberships
in common social clubs or nonprofit organizations. Next
he looked at company decisions, especially investment patterns.
Fracassi observed that companies led by socially connected
directors increased their investments at similar rates, while companies
with less-connected executives tended to follow more distinct
strategies. This occurs because when one member of a social circle
decides to ramp up his or her investments, the CEOs and directors
of other firms in the group are inclined to follow suit, Fracassi says.
“The more social connections two companies share with each
other, the more similar their investment policies are,” the study
reports. “In addition, two connected companies change their
investment policies over time more similarly than two companies
that are less socially connected.”
This tendency is known as informational cascade. And Fracassi
says it’s often a good thing.
It Pays to be Social
Being in the loop gives a firm access to a large volume of information
to guide financial decisions—but does all that insight
translate into good decisions Fracassi found evidence that when
a group of knowledgeable executives starts talking, it pays to be
part of the conversation.
“There is evidence that suggests that where the CEO and directors
are more socially involved, the company is more profitable,”
Fracassi says. “The information they receive helps the company
to make the right decisions.”
Specifically, companies that are positioned more centrally
in the web of social networks tend to have better economic
results—including greater firm value and a higher return on
assets—than those on the social fringes, the study reports. That
bump could result in a jump in performance of 5 to 15 percent.
Because the word-of-mouth information passed through social
networks flows freely and at a low cost, it’s advantageous for
companies to collect as much of it as possible.
“A strategic position in the network gives a player a competitive
informational advantage relative to other players that are
less connected,” Fracassi writes.
Keep Your Friends Close …
But Not Too Close
While the research indicates that staying connected to outside
social networks can benefit a company’s financial performance,
Fracassi says the opposite may be true for close social relationships
among directors within the same company—specifically
between the CEO and the board of directors.
In a 2012 paper, Fracassi and co-author Geoffrey Tate of the
University of North Carolina detailed the risks associated with
that type of scenario.
At most companies, board members are charged with monitoring
the CEO and holding him or her accountable for poor investment
decisions. But if the CEO and directors are connected through outside
social ties— say, they worked together in the past, went to the
same school, or are members of the same nonprofit organization
or club—the monitoring tends to be weaker.
In this scenario, the board tends to be more lenient toward the
CEO, even if he or she starts growing the company too rapidly by
making unwise acquisitions or unproductive investments. This,
in turn, can lead to a dip in the company’s share price, especially
for firms that have weaker shareholder rights.
The study also indicates that firms with powerful CEOs are the
most likely to add new directors who have pre-existing connections
to the executive, strengthening those social bonds
Fracassi says this outcome isn’t always the result of a conscious
distortion by directors who want to cut a friend some
slack. Rather, it’s that people are naturally more trusting of
someone they know.
“But this trust leads to CEOs making decisions that harm
shareholders’ value” in the form of unwise merger deals, he says.
Some argue that close ties can help improve the exchange
of information between executives at the same firm. But overall,
Fracassi’s research suggests that on balance, the negative
effects from these internal social ties often outweigh the
potential advantages.
“A well-functioning board of directors provides both valuable
advice to management and a check on its policies,” the study’s
authors write. “An effective director should not just ‘rubber
stamp’ management’s actions, but should take a contrarian opinion
when management’s proposals are not in the interest of the
firm’s shareholders.”
A series of legislative measures, including the Sarbanes–Oxley
Act of 2002, have taken aim at boardroom corruption, but Fracassi
and Tate have found little evidence that those policies
have significantly discouraged the practice of stocking boards
with familiar faces. The researchers identify internal networks
of CEOs and board members as “an effective target for future
governance reform.” O
Additional reporting by Jeremy Simon
TexasEnterprise.org for more stories featuring business research
@ and analysis from UT faculty.
32 OPEN SPRING 2013 www.today.mccombs.utexas.edu SPRING 2013 OPEN 33
previous spread: Peter Cade, Getty Images ; facing page: flashfilm

NETWORK
MEET liz williams
Selling America’s
Favorite Taco
Behind the scenes of one of 2012’s
biggest food stories.
By KELLY FINE
34
Taco bell has done it again.
From the “Yo quiero” chihuahua
to its Fourthmeal campaign
(encouraging those late night
drive-thru runs), the company’s marketing
tactics and menu have a knack for connecting
with consumers. But nothing has
created buzz like the Doritos Locos Taco
(the chain’s normal taco with a hard shell
made of Nacho Cheese Doritos). Since the
taco premiered in March 2012 more than
375 million have been sold.
“We’ve been planning for years and
were really excited when it finally
launched,” says Liz Williams, BBA ’98,
vice president of business planning and
strategy for Taco Bell at Yum! Brands, the
chain’s parent company. She joined Taco
Bell in 2011 and was part of the team that
launched the Doritos Locos Taco, which
has become the most successful item in
Taco Bell’s 50-year history.
Williams says that although they knew
the co-branding partnership with Frito-
Lay (which produces Doritos) would be
a hit, they were happily surprised by just
how successful it was. For 2012, the chain
saw 8 percent same-stores sales growth.
Taco Bell allotted $75 million for advertising
for the launch. The marketing plan
for the specialty taco included several
Danny turner
“Success isn’t just the
marketing and media;
it’s also operations as
far as getting a product
that our restaurants can
make quickly and easily
and make it delicious.”
OPEN SPRING 2013 www.today.mccombs.utexas.edu
www.mccombstoday.org
OPEN SPRING 2012 35 OPEN SPRING 2012 www.mccombstoday.org www.mccombstoday.org

NETWORK
Pencil it in
MAY
17-18
Commencement
It happens every year,
but it never gets old
watching proud graduates
cross the stage.
forms of media, relying heavily on social
media campaigns. Prior to the launch,
Twitter users were encouraged to compose
tweets using the hashtags #DoritosLocosTacos
and #Contest. The competitors
with the most retweeted tweets were
rewarded with a visit from the Taco Bell
Truck, stocked full of Doritos Locos Tacos
before they were released in stores.
“It’s a craveable
product to begin
with, but when
you put the power
of traditional
media and online
media together,
the launch was
even better.”
A recent Taco Bell commercial features
user-submitted photos on Facebook, Instagram,
and via email. People who posted
pictures of their tacos with the hashtag
#livemascontest were eligible to win prizes
such as a trip to Pacifica, Calif., and a $5,000
college scholarship.
“We used social media and influencer
engagement to enhance the launch and
saw great results,” Williams says. “It’s a
craveable product to begin with, but when
you put the power of traditional media
and online media together, the launch
was even better.”
The taco is leaving its mark on popular
culture, even receiving a favorable review
from New York Times food critic William
Grimes. The band Passion Pit sang the
taco’s theme song on “Saturday Night Live,”
JUNE
6-7
Learn
Innovation
Executive Education’s
“Strategic and Business
Model Innovation” course
teaches disruptive
strategies to create
new market opportunities.
SEPTEMBER
21
Alumni BBQ
Tailgate with McCombs
alumni before Texas
tackles 2012 Big 12
champs Kansas State.
actress Anna Kendrick tweeted about her
affinity for the DLT, and mixed martial arts
fighter Gian Villante admitted to eating
Doritos Locos Tacos after difficult matches.
“Success isn’t just the marketing and
media; it’s also operations as far as getting
a product that our restaurants can
make quickly and easily and make it delicious,”
Williams notes. “All the teams have
to come together to make it happen—
marketing, operations, and finance.”
Prior to joining Yum! Brands, Williams
honed her strategy chops at Dell
and then Boston Consulting Group, earning
her MBA from Northwestern University’s
Kellogg School of Management
along the way. As a working mother, Williams
says she was drawn to a position at
Yum! because of the work-life balance and
stays motivated by the knowledge that
her team’s work directly grows the Taco
Bell brand at home and abroad. She says
the sense of community and teamwork at
Yum! sets it apart from other large, international
companies.
“The thing I love about Yum! is the recognition
culture,” Williams says. “In my
team meeting we spend the first 15 minutes
just taking time to recognize what the
different team members have done to help
each other in the last month. Other companies
might take the time every quarter
to recognize someone, but at Yum! it’s in
the DNA every day.”
So what can fans expect for the Doritos
Locos Taco in the future Will there
be more where this blockbuster hit snack
came from Williams says that Taco Bell
is continuing to work on expanding the
Doritos Locos Taco line, and the product’s
growth is far from over.
“We’re continuing to work on other
‘flavors of the shell,’” Williams says, using
Taco Bell staffers’ favorite expression signifying
their devotion to all things taco.
“We launched the Cool Ranch Doritos
Locos in March of this year. Our favorite
line is, ‘Collect all two!’”
CAMPUS CALENDAR
@ www.mccombs.utexas.edu
for details on these and other events.
NOVEMBER
1-3
MBA Reunion
A weekend of nostalgia
and networking for the
classes of ’83, ’88, ’93,
’98, ’03, ’08, and ’12.
Young And
Distinguished
Two of the four recipients
of the 2013 Outstanding
Young Texas Ex Awards
are McCombs alumni.
Andrew Vo, BBA ’95, is
a managing director at
Accenture Management
Consulting in Houston,
leading the firm’s global
trading operations
practice. Vo, a member
of the BBA/MPA Alumni
Advisory Board, is also
the founder and senior
adviser of the Texas Iron
Spikes service organization,
which has actively
supported Special Olympics
Texas for nearly
two decades.
Stuart Bernstein, MBA
’05, is the senior investment
manager in the
investment division at
the Teacher Retirement
System of Texas, a $112
billion pension fund serving
the investment and
benefit needs of more
than 1.3 million public
school teachers in Texas.
He is also the founder
and chairman emeritus
of Young Texans Against
Cancer, which has raised
more than $1.7 million
and committed more
than 17,000 hours of
volunteer work for
cancer-related causes
across Texas.
© Axel Heimken
“We are all Lance Armstrong ... sort of.”
That was professor Robert Prentice’s
caution against thinking you’re immune
to ethical blunders, during his talk at the
eighth annual McCombs Alumni Business
Conference in February. More than 200
alumni gathered for the one-day series of
in memoriam
1925 Towery, Forrest Lee, BBA
Wallace Jr., Herbert Randolph,
BBA
1931 Ragsdale, Susanna L., BBA
1936 Colen, Albert B., BBA
1939 Hughes, Dorothy D., BBA
1942 Burton, Collins M., BBA
Mabry Jr., Clarence L., BBA
Spears, John M., BBA
1943 Williams, James D., BBA
West, Jack M., BBA
1946 King, Edith J., BBA
Sharp, R. Glen, BBA 1946
1947 Holladay III, Robert E., MBA
Ennen, Frederick W., BBA
1948 Hall, E. Wayne, BBA
Bell, John William, BBA
Goodson, James B., BBA
Sanders, Robert L., MBA
Rancich, Bennie Jo, BBA
Pearson, Fred, BBA
Velasco Jr., Ralph E., MBA
1949 Lane, William Caswell, BBA
Thompson III, George, BBA
Colbert, Gene E., BBA
Bruner, Paul Harold, MBA
1950 Schumann, Merritt J., BBA
Daly Jr., Mark R., MPA
Randolph, Zelah Dwight, BBA
Hoofard, Louis Joseph, BBA
Keller, Charles L., BBA
Runnels Jr., Charles C., BBA
1951 Glenewinkel, D. E., BBA
Block, Sharlene A., BBA
Pratt, Lloyd E., BBA
Wininger, Arthur W., BBA
Brooks, Durward Tilman, BBA
1952 Smith, Barbara T., BBA
Pilon, Jack I., BBA
Stanaland, Kenneth, BBA
Sealy, Lane T., BBA
1953 Waltrip, Kenneth M., BBA
1954 Strickland Jr., Richard F.,
BBA
Porter, Charles Ray, BBA 1954
1955 Elliott, Shirley C., BBA
Batson, Arthur Lee, BBA
1956 Chapman, Charles C., BBA
Callaway Jr., Wesley M., BBA
Thompson, Robert R., BBA
1957 Mahon, Everitt M., BBA
Taylor, Joan H., BBA
1958 Huffman, Ralph Derrell,
BBA
talks from faculty, including Lew Spellman
and Laura Kilcrease. John Doggett, senior
lecturer in management, served as the
emcee. The sessions sparked plenty of
discussion online, too, landing #UTBizConf
in Twitter’s trending topics that day.
Benkendorfer, Donald William,
BBA
Welch, James D., BBA
1959 Price, Jim D., BBA
Northcutt, John H., BBA
1960 Anderson, John Paul, BBA
Hawthorn, Neal A., BBA
Schieffer, Estelle S., BBA
Herring, Joe Ray, BBA
1961 Wehner, Judith S., BBA
Hankins, Phyllis S., BBA
1962 Wehman Jr., Ernest W., BBA
Gerhardt III, Edgar L., BBA
Renteria, Carlos R., BBA
Collins Sr., Wayne Clark, BBA
1963 Segrato, Joe L., BBA
Carson, Van W., BBA
Baker, James L., BBA
Hyde II, C. Brodie, MBA
1964 Chesley, G. Stuart, BBA
1965 Toland, Thomas Tucker, BBA
Roper, Frederick T., BBA
Ireland, H. Kelly, BBA
1966 Mauldin, Billy Wayne, BBA
1967 Hicks, Jack Scott, BBA
1969 Fernandez, Fidel Bernardo,
BBA
HONESTLY
SPEAKING:
Disgraced cyclist
Lance Armstrong’s
televised
confessional to
Oprah Winfrey upset
many, but we’re all
capable of fraud,
says professor
Robert Prentice.
Swift, Edward R., BBA
Smylie, Robert Passmore,
BBA
1971 Burch, Larry R., BBA
Sefcik, Douglass R., BBA
McEwen, Russ, BBA
Biesenbach, Donald E., MBA
1972 Smith, George R., BBA
Gray, Jefferson S., BBA
Brassard, Raymond M., BBA
1973 Brown, Jack D., MBA
Chalmers, Stephen C., BBA
Roberson, Curtis R., BBA
1975 Murphy, Julie, BBA
1976 Houser, Robert B., BBA
1978 Swenson Jr., G. Thomas,
BBA
1979 Morgan, Cyndy Selecman,
MBA
Willard, Mary Jane, BBA
1980 Sansing, John Edward, MBA
1981 Dietze, John F., BBA
1983 Silver, Martin H., BBA
1984 Shirey, Bobbie Sue, BBA
1985 Epstein, Shari, BBA
1988 Martinez, Christine R., BBA
2002 Ussery IV, Fred M., BBA
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SPRING 2013 OPEN
36 37

William Leffler, MBA ’91, chaired the
MDA-ALS Division’s 6th Annual Night
of Hope Gala in Atlanta, Ga., with his
wife, Rebecca. The black-tie event
raised more than $540,000 to fund
research for ALS, commonly known
as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Share
Your
News
We want to hear from
you! Submit your
news online at
www.mccombstoday.
org/classnotes.
Alumni News
Craig Wolcott, BBA, left
1976 Hays McConn in Houston
and opened law offices in Kerrville and
Rocksprings.
Kenneth R. Hanks, BBA,
1977 (MPA ’79) was named the
chief financial officer of NexBank Capital
and its banking subsidiary NexBank.
Noble Nash, BBA, joined
1985 Barclays as a director …
Computer Vision Systems Laboratories
appointed Kelly L. Kittrell, MBA, to its
board of directors.
Frost Bank elected Evans
1988 Attwell, MBA, to senior vice
president, private banking, River Oaks
Financial Center.
Domenico Sicilia, BBA,
1989 lives in Florence, Italy, and
is a senior marketing manager for GE
Wayne, responsible for the compressed
natural gas dispensers.
Diane (O’Brien) Kelly, BBA ’88, released
“Death, Taxes, and Peach Sangria,” the
fourth book in her humor mystery series
“Death and Taxes.”
Sanjay Gupta, MBA, was
1992 named chief marketing
officer and executive vice president of
Allstate Insurance … Michael Wolfe,
MBA, joined Brightstar Corp. as senior
vice president, chief information officer,
and chief technology officer.
Matthew Golden, BBA,
1997 was named a vice president
at Capital Southwest, a publicly owned
business development company.
Tom Yemington, MBA, was
1998 promoted to vice president
of sales and marketing for Acumera …
Waller Law elected attorney John Park,
BBA, as a partner. Park serves the automotive
and manufacturing, health care,
real estate, retail, and wireless telecommunications
industries.
Eric Deraspe, MBA, is
2000 CA Technologies’ director
of support, covering Canada. He now lives
in Toronto, Ontario, with his family.
Knightime Publishing, created
by Michael Lamke,
2001
MSTC, recently expanded to launch the
murder mystery book “Brainwend Kill,”
by Harley Stein.
Sri Jandhyala, MBA, has
2002 been appointed sales and
marketing vice president of SEMICOA,
a provider of semiconductor devices in
Costa Mesa, Calif.
Susan Saurage-Altenloh,
2003 MBA, was elected president
of the Board of Directors for The Qualitative
Research Consultants Association.
She is the founder of Saurage Research in
Houston … Scott Miller, BBA, created
the fast-growing home improvement services
companies Tex Painting and Tex Roofing
in Austin, specializing in working with
homeowners who want a turnkey service
in the painting and roofing industry.
Matthew Lemme, MBA,
2004 became a managing director,
portfolio manager, and senior research analyst
with Cushing MLP Asset Management.
Drew Bolton, MBA, married
Betsy Richwine in
2006
Atlanta, Ga. … Matt Cotcher, BBA,
started Hawktober, a nonprofit dedicated
to raising awareness for brain tumors.
Before the Baylor-UT football game on
Oct. 20, 2012, he held an awareness tailgate
with Floyd’s 99 barbershops and
styled supporters’ hair into orange and
white Mohawks … Aron Susman, BBA,
MPA, expanded the Houston-based commercial
real estate site TheSquareFoot.
com to include Dallas.
Forbes magazine named
2007 Rick Thielke, BBA, as one
of their Top 30 Under 30 in energy.
Christine Nguyen, BBA,
2008 married Nelson Yuan on
Oct. 27, 2012.
Viswa Subbaraman,
2009 MBA, was named artistic
director of Skylight Music Theater in
Milwaukee, Wisc … Sophilia Hsu, BBA,
became an associate at the law firm
of Chester pllc.
Alejandra Salinas, BBA,
2012 president of the College
Democrats of America, spoke at the Democratic
National Convention in September
… Carlos Dinkins, MBA, earned a spot
on the military’s “Top 40 Under 40,” published
in the Civilian Job News.
Gary LUVs
McCombs
Why the Southwest Airlines CEO keeps coming back to campus
and thinks you should, too. (HINT: It’s not just for football.)
With renovations under
way at its home base of
Dallas Love Field and
service beginning to San
Juan, Puerto Rico, it’s a busy spring for
Southwest Airlines and its CEO, Gary Kelly.
But even with a packed schedule, Kelly,
BBA ’77, makes it a point to give time to
McCombs. Kelly is a member and past
chair of the Advisory Council Executive
Committee, and says he relishes his continued
involvement with campus life. He
talked with us about his UT ties.
You are very busy. How do
you make time to give back
to McCombs
I think people tend to put on their calendar
what they’re passionate about. I love
The University of Texas and am very honored
that I can stay connected. I think the
university makes it really easy for us to
schedule the time to be on the advisory
council. And it’s just fun. It’s a real treat to
be able to come back to the university two
times a year, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Why do you have that passion
for your alma mater
I feel like we’re all very lucky to have The
University of Texas in our state. I think the
state has a number of opportunities for
growth in the future. It’s a fantastic place
to live. I don’t think you would find the
opportunities in our state unless you did
have that kind of higher-learning institution.
From a business person’s perspective
and in terms of the need to attract talent
to our state, you really need a top-notch
university like The University of Texas.
As you give back to the
school, what benefits do you
get in return
Broadening relationships and broadening
one’s network. Because it’s such a great institution,
it attracts really talented people in the
faculty, in the administration, in the student
body. I’ve enjoyed the friendships with the
faculty and the administration. It’s always
fascinating to see the students. I continue
to be so impressed with our young people.
What have been some of your
favorite or most meaningful
experiences in your trips back
to McCombs
First of all, it’s just an opportunity to get on
the calendar to come back to the university
and soak in all that it has to offer—football
games and other activities. The primary
benefit that I’ve gotten is meeting the
students, hearing the kinds of things that
they’re working on, listening to them about
where we’re fulfilling their needs and perhaps
where we might be able to do better.
I’ve got my University of Texas hat on,
of course, but I also have my Southwest
Airlines hat on. Staying in touch with the
academic side of the world is very helpful.
I’ve enjoyed that the most. And I have a lot
of friends that I’ve made on the Advisory
Council. It’s like a fraternity or sorority or
any other group of people. If you’re fond of
them and have a lot of things in common,
a lot of great relationships are established.
We have the opportunity, too, to work
with the dean on a vision for the campus.
And I found that very interesting. Any time
you have a change in the administration of a
school, or you’re contemplating any kind of a
change in the facilities or the campus, there’s
a little bit more work for the advisory council
to do. But for the most part, it’s just been trying
to be supportive of the faculty and providing
input on the curriculum and getting
to the students and listening to their needs.
For a McCombs alumnus
who’s not involved with the
school, what’s a good way to
get started
I would certainly recommend that they
join the Texas Exes. And then just look for
opportunities where you might be able to
plug in and provide support as an alumnus.
Certainly alumni can always provide their
financial support. But you just never know
when you’re going to get an opportunity like
I’ve had to serve on an advisory council. For
me, I’ve got two daughters and now two
sons-in-law; three of those four are actually
UT alums as well. That is icing on the cake!
You actually can continue your alumni participation,
if you will, by having children
attend the university. That’s just too sweet.
NETWORK
FIRST CLASS:
“When I
became CEO it
was a humbling
experience to
realize I was
responsible for
35,000 people,”
Kelly told students
during a 2011
campus talk.
38 OPEN SPRING 2013 www.today.mccombs.utexas.edu www.mccombstoday.org www.today.mccombs.utexas.edu www.mccombstoday.org SPRING 2013 OPEN 39
DAN SELLERS

exit interview
The Many Stories
of Stephen Magee
The finance professor opens up about confronting Castro,
dancing the Dougie, and ranching with rattlers.
What is the toughest part of your job
Getting enough sleep. My hyperactivity causes me to
stay up late.
If you had to choose another career, what
would it be
There could be no other job for me. I have always wanted
this because I get to be an academic entrepreneur.
What is the last movie you saw
“Django [Unchained],” about the tragic violence of slavery
in the Deep South. Despite the serious message of
the movie, it was also hilarious.
What are people surprised to
learn about you
I grew up in Lubbock and spent 10 summers on my
grandfather’s ranch working with cattle. Every job I
have had since then has been easy.
on earth. Then he would light up and become positively
charismatic. I never had a personal meeting with Nixon,
but I understand from Secret Service who worked for
presidents from Eisenhower through Gerald Ford that
Nixon was the nicest to the staff.
You’re now famous for your cameo
in the MBA student video “Teach Magee
How to Dougie.”
[Student] Carlos Dinkins said he would teach me [the
“Dougie” dance move] but he forgot, so I just had to
wing it. I didn’t know how to do it then, and I don’t know
how to do it now, as you will see if you watch it.
below: A 12-year-old Magee with a
rattlesnake he killed while working on
his grandfather’s ranch. “We would
get up before daylight and have to
wait some mornings until it was bright
enough to see to work.”
@ McCombsToday.org/magazine
for more Q&A with Magee and the video
showing off his dance skills.
What was the most fun you had in
your career
Debating Joe Jamail (the world’s richest lawyer) in
front of 500 people on the economic costs and benefits
of lawyers.
Describe yourself in three words.
Enthusiastic, inspiring, and kind.
What or who do you think is overrated
No one is overrated. Scientists estimate that man has
been on this earth for six million years. That works out
to each of us having 300,000 generations before us.
Each of our preceding generations successfully reproduced
without a single miss. If there is a .5 chance that
each generation would contribute to the next, the probability
that each one of us is here is .5 raised to the
300,000th power. That probability is a decimal point
followed by zeros reaching from here to Dallas before
a positive digit is encountered. Thus we are all walking
miracles and no one is overrated.
You were on Richard Nixon’s White
House staff, and you once presented a
paper in Cuba to Fidel Castro. Who was
more intimidating
I was lecturing at a conference in Havana in 2003.
Fidel Castro walked in and sat on the front row. At the
end of my talk, he motioned for me to come meet with
him. He would place his hand on my shoulder, look into
my eyes, and rail at me on the evils of Wall Street and
American capitalism. I wondered how many people had
looked into those yellow eyes as their last experience
Clockwise from top: courtesy University Communications; courtesy Stephen Magee
OPEN SPRING 2013 www.today.mccombs.utexas.edu
40