Return on Investment
ConocoPhillips Supports CEFER and Other Programs
Ever since the Lucas Gusher blew on January 10, 1901, oil has been an integral part of the Texas economy. Accordingly, the McCombs School aims to provide a world-class business education for students who hope to work in the global energy industry.
We are grateful for our long-standing relationships with oil and gas companies, and acknowledge ConocoPhillips, the third largest integrated oil and gas company in the country, for its recent donation of more than $250,000 to support a range of McCombs School programs. Included in the donation is sponsorship for the Center for Energy Finance Research and Education (CEFER), our preeminent academic program in energy finance. Additionally, ConocoPhillips’ generous gift names an interview room in the Ford Career Center, contributes funds for Texas Leader Scholarships and supports our Supply Chain Management Consortium.
ConocoPhillips’ gift also provides unrestricted funding for the Department of Finance and for Dean Gau’s discretionary funds to allow the McCombs School to pursue new initiatives and to achieve our goal of becoming the best public school in the nation.
We are pleased to have ConocoPhillips as a strategic partner. We especially thank Jim Mulva (BBA 67, MBA 68), ConocoPhillips’ president and CEO, who also serves on the McCombs School Advisory Council. Under his direction, ConocoPhillips has quickly become one of our strongest corporate supporters. Jim Mulva’s continued leadership and dedication to the McCombs School will encourage our students to follow his example and, in his words, learn “the value of hard work and the rewards of pushing your limits.”
Nash Phillips and Clyde Copus Honored through Endowment
To honor the lifetime achievements of Nash Phillips and Clyde Copus, homebuilders in the Austin area, their business associates, former employees and friends recently established an endowed scholarship in their names at the McCombs School.
The two realtors founded Nash Phillips/Copus Builders, Inc. (later known as NPC) in 1945 when they saw returning WWII veterans drive a huge demand for housing. Over the course of their partnership, they built thousands of homes and had remarkable influence within the industry. Described as “an incubator for the real estate industry,” NPC inspired a host of younger professionals with its innovative ideas and remarkable success. Once the largest private homebuilder in the U.S., NPC succumbed to the Texas real estate bust of the late 1980s, but not before spawning hundreds of new ventures across the U.S.
One of those inspired was Ron Hammonds, a former employee and long-time friend of the two visionaries, who founded Hammonds Homes and now operates a development company in Houston. Hammonds spearheaded the drive to honor the pair with an endowment at the McCombs School.
“We just got together and said ‘How can we celebrate and commemorate what they have done?’” Of the scholarship, Hammonds says that it “is intended to honor two wonderful men and keep alive the entrepreneurial spirit they cherished during their careers.”
The Clyde Copus and Nash Phillips Endowed Scholarship will support students pursuing studies in real estate at the McCombs School.
To donate to this scholarship in honor of these two legends of Central Texas real estate, please contact Sandy Dorman, Director of Individual Giving and Endowments, at sandy.dorman@mccombs.utexas.edu or (512) 475-8179.
New Plaques Recognize Endowment Donors
All that glitters is not gold; indeed, at the McCombs School, what glitters is bronze. In the fall of 2002, shiny bronze plaques began lining the school’s walls. The plaques recognize a group of alumni and friends who contribute immensely to the success of the McCombs School: endowment donors.
Endowments are the primary means of establishing long-term support for our students, faculty, programs and facilities. They ensure that the McCombs School maintains and enhances its reputation as a world-class business school.
To thank our generous donors, the McCombs School embarked on a project to honor every endowment with a permanent plaque. We unveiled the new plaques in February 2004 at the Endowed Scholarship Reception, our annual event that honors student holders of endowed scholarships and their donors. The reception gave our guests an opportunity to view the many different types of endowments that we recognize.
Plaques in the Hall of Honors pay tribute to donors who establish faculty endowments. One of the most recent plaques acknowledges the current and former employees of Deloitte and Touche. Together, they pledged to raise one million dollars for an endowed chair to support a faculty member in the Department of Accounting.
Endowed scholarship plaques adorn the walls outside our program offices, honoring donors who contribute scholarship funds for business students. For example, 315 donors recently established the Cunningham Endowed Scholarship for BBA and MBA students. The endowment honors Dr. William Cunningham, former dean of the McCombs School, president of The University of Texas, and chancellor of the UT System. Fifteen to twenty students receive scholarships from this endowment every year.
Likewise, last year 16 MBA students received support from the Ryoichi Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellowship Fund. This fellowship was established by the Nippon Foundation in honor of its founder, Ryochi Sasakawa, who wished to prepare a new generation of leaders to assemble the framework of a more cohesive international community. His generosity provides our MBA students opportunities to study abroad and to develop the skills they need to be successful in an increasingly global market.
Donors often create endowments to honor family members, friends, teachers, colleagues or others who have touched their lives. One fitting example is the Carlene Kouba Behrens Memorial Endowed Presidential Scholarship. Carlene (BBA 78) was a proud Longhorn, CPA and mother who fought a courageous battle against cancer. Her friends and family established this endowment in her memory, and their hope is that her spirit will inspire future business leaders.
A third category of endowments, program excellence funds, are unrestricted funds that allow a quick response to unforeseen opportunities as they arise. Texas native and entrepreneur Red McCombs established one of our largest excellence funds in 2000. Because unrestricted funds are a key asset in a rapidly changing business and educational climate, the McCombs School is using 90 percent of his $50 million gift to match approved contributions to new and existing endowments, dollar for dollar.
Following Red McCombs’ example, Gary Crum (MBA 72) and Robert Graham
(MBA 73), established the AIM Investment Center Endowed Fund to
permanently finance the operations of the AIM Investment Center.
They, along with 63 employees of the AIM Management Group, also
contributed funds
to establish the AIM Reading Room Endowment Fund, which supports a
quiet study area for MBA and BBA students.
We invite our alumni and friends to walk down our hallways to view the new plaques displaying our donors’ lasting commitment to a world-class business education.
McCombs MBA Alumni Network Makes Tremendous Strides in 2003
The mission of the McCombs MBA Alumni Network is to:
- Provide Reach: Promote McCombs as a leading business program by providing a venue for connecting, knowledge sharing, and business advancement on a global basis.
- Deliver Value: Deliver value to students, alumni, the MBA program, the McCombs School and the business community.
- Foster Loyalty: Create and foster the tradition of a
lifelong McCombs MBA Community. - Encourage Exchange: Build a constructive and strategic channel of communication between alumni and the school that encourages business exchange and program development.
This year, thanks to the efforts of our alumni volunteers, the network has:
- Grown to over 20 chapters worldwide.
- Interviewed prospective MBAs in 35 different states and 28 different countries.
- Hosted summer and winter receptions in 14 major U.S. cities and 8 international cities.
- Sponsored Plus Global student and alumni events in 6 of the 7 countries visited.
- Spearheaded task forces such as Experienced Alumni, Alumni Recognition, Annual Giving and Career Networking.
- Launched our new McCombs Exchange magazine, a networking and career resource for the MBA community.
- Hosted hundreds of alumni volunteers on campus for
panels, speakers, mentor programs and corporate recruiting.
Volunteer interviewer Andrea Rene Louis, MBA 01 says, “For me, it’s an opportunity to keep in touch with the school and its students, and the student gets a chance to speak with someone who has been where they want to go…it’s invaluable!”
Alumni are our greatest asset. Thank you for contributing to our continued success. If you are interested in getting involved with the MBA Alumni Network, visit: http://mba.mccombs.utexas.edu/mma/involve/.
Hermes Represents Business at Spring Fling, Explore UT
In 1922, the year the Department of Business officially became the School of Business Administration, there was a growing need to define its identity on campus and foster community among its students. The Business School’s utter domination of intramural sports was becoming somewhat old hat, so the students decided to host a convivial gathering, in the form of a banquet. The schools of law and engineering had held similar events, and naturally the business students of the day felt it was their duty to outdo these other schools on campus.
And so it was that Hermes was introduced to great acclaim at the 1922 banquet as the “patron saint,” or mascot, of the Business School, intended to rival the Law School’s Peregrinus and engineering’s Alec.
Why Hermes? Hermes, or Mercury as the Romans later knew him, was the
Greek god of commerce, language and measurement, and the protector
of merchants and travelers. Light-footed and lighthearted, Hermes
was also ingenious, a clever inventor, and a shrewd negotiator. As
the swift messenger
of the gods, Hermes is famed for crossing boundaries and enabling
communication and cross-cultural understanding.
It’s no surprise, then, that Hermes, a symbol of success and efficiency in business enterprise, was chosen to represent business students.
Hermes appeared at this first banquet in the form of a rather crude wooden statue. But students subsequently hired noted woodcarver Peter Mansbendel, whose carvings also adorn the Main Building, to create a more permanent version, which was revealed at the 1931 banquet. Mansbendel’s statue is painted green to resemble the patina of weathered bronze.
For many years, the Hermes statue was
carried in Business School graduation ceremonies and passed from the
seniors to the junior class. Eventually, however, the well-meaning
handling of students and faculty took
a toll on the wooden sculpture, and it was dropped from the
ceremonies.
It wasn’t until the 75th anniversary celebration of the Business School, held in 1997, that Hermes resurfaced. Newly restored, Hermes now resides near the dean’s office, ever ready to represent to the campus and the world the excellence of the McCombs School and its students.
Rediscovery of the traditions of Hermes at McCombs has also led to modern reinterpretations. Incoming McCombs School students now receive Hermes t-shirts, the Business School’s Explore UT offerings include professional advice from Hermes, and instead of a banquet, the school hosted a “Spring Fling” this year for students, faculty and staff, complete with snacks, games and, of course, Hermes.
McCombs Matching Gift Program
Endowments provide a permanent source of income for the future, helping keep the McCombs School on target to become the best public business school in the country.
This is a perfect time to establish a permanent, named endowment at the McCombs School. Why now? Because the McCombs Matching Gift Program has just been relaunched, offering more opportunities than ever.
Now, through the McCombs Matching Program, select new endowments are eligible for 1:1 matching. In effect, your contribution is doubled through this program, resulting in twice the long-term benefit for the school.
Although priority will be given to endowments that can be utilized school-wide in the most flexible ways, select departmental endowments are also eligible to be matched. In this way, you can help strengthen an area of special interest while making a lasting contribution that will provide for the future of the McCombs School.
For more information, please visit the McCombs Matching Gift Program webpage or contact Sandy Dorman at sandy.dorman@mccombs.utexas.edu or (512) 475-8179.
For information on specific programs at the McCombs School, consult our contacts page. For media information, contact the Communications Director by phone at 512-471-3314 or by email at CommunicationsDirector@mccombs.utexas.edu.
