Texas-Sized Tribute: Rowling, Steinhart, Martinez Tucker are Newest Hall of Fame Members
by Whitney Presley

The McCombs School is pleased to announce its 2005 inductees for the 22nd anniversary of the McCombs School of Business Hall of Fame. Induction into the Hall of Fame is the highest honor the school can bestow on its alumni and friends. Nominated by McCombs faculty and Advisory Council members and chosen by a select committee of McCombs faculty, staff and alumni, these individuals have contributed significantly to business practice and “by their exemplary civic, philanthropic and educational activities, have advanced humanity.” For 2005, the honorees are Robert B. Rowling, owner and chairman of TRT Holdings, Inc.; Ronald G. Steinhart, retired chairman and CEO of Bank One Commercial Banking Group; and Sara Martinez Tucker, president and CEO of the Hispanic Scholarship Fund.

Robert B. Rowling (BBA ’76)

Robert B. Rowling is the owner and chairman of TRT Holdings, Inc., a privately owned, diversified holding company that owns the Omni Hotels chain, Gold’s Gym International, Tana Exploration, Waldo’s Dollar Mart in Mexico and numerous investments in public companies and various real estate ventures. He oversees TRT’s active oil and gas exploration program in the Gulf of Mexico and serves as the chairman of Omni Hotels, which he purchased in 1996. Omni Hotels was ranked highest in guest satisfaction among upscale hotels in 2005 by J. D. Power and Associates.

Although solid investments and a driving entrepreneurial spirit have fueled Rowling’s career, it was an early lesson that gave him his greatest motivation for success. “When life knocks you down (as it always will at some point) get up and keep fighting,” said Rowling. “The most important quality to possess in business is tenacity. ‘An ounce of tenacity is worth more than a pound of brains.’”

Rowling attended the U.S. Air Force Academy and graduated with honors from The University of Texas at Austin in 1976 with a BBA. In 1979, he received his JD with honors from Southern Methodist University School of Law. “In addition to the academic experience” he had at UT Austin, Rowling said, “I gained life-long friends and business associates which I still network with today.”

Those experiences have also inspired him to give back to the university community. Rowling is a past member of the advisory councils for The University of Texas Longhorn Foundation and the McCombs School of Business. In July 2004, Rowling was appointed to The University of Texas System Board of Regents, a position to which he was recently reappointed.

This dedication to the education of students at all levels has influenced his community and national volunteer involvement as well. Rowling currently serves on the board of trustees for Young Life and is chairman of the board of the Southern Methodist University Willis M. Tate Distinguished Lecture Series. He is the recipient of the 2003 SMU Dedman Law School Distinguished Alumni Award and was inducted into the Texas Business Hall of Fame in October 2003. In 2005, he was inducted into the All-American Wildcatters.

Tenacity, it seems, has also influenced his civic involvement. “At this stage of my career I am motivated more by the relationships I have built over the years than by the business deals I do. I still enjoy the ‘thrill of the deal’ but I also enjoy my family, children and friends much more than I did when I was working continuously. I am motivated to be a good steward of the assets God has given me,” Rowling said.

Ronald G. Steinhart (BBA ’62, MBA ’63)

Ronald G. Steinhart currently serves as a director of Carreker Corporation and United Auto Group, Inc. and as a trustee of Prentiss Properties Trust and MFS/Compass Group of mutual funds. He was active in the Dallas financial community for more than 37 years and retired as chairman and CEO of the Bank One Commercial Banking Group in 2000.

Steinhart earned his BBA in 1962 and an MBA in finance the following year from The University of Texas at Austin and is a Certified Public Accountant. Reflecting on his time on the Austin campus, Steinhart said, “I will always remember my amazement when arriving at The University of Texas from Beaumont and observing the immense resources of the university and the vast array of business courses taught by a dedicated faculty that were available to me.”

Steinhart went on to establish a successful career in the banking industry. Between 1969 and 1980, he teamed with investors to charter or purchase six banks. Steinhart then joined the senior management of InterFirst Corporation in 1980 and became president and COO a year later. In 1988, he led a group of investors that founded Deposit Guaranty Bank with private equity funds totaling $275 million. Renamed Team Bank following the acquisition of the former Texas American Banks in 1990, Steinhart served as the bank’s chairman and CEO. In November 1992, Team Bank—which had grown to over $5.5 billion in assets—merged with Bank One Texas, and he was named president and COO. Subsequently, Steinhart was appointed chairman and CEO of the Bank One Corporation Commercial Banking Group and a member of the management committee.

Steinhart credits much of this success to his business education. “Though the education I received and the life-long relationships I developed at the College of Business were major reasons for whatever success I have enjoyed,” he said, “they don’t even compare to the depth and breadth of what’s available to the McCombs student today.” His commitment to the students of today is reflected in his service to the university. A life member of the McCombs Advisory Council, Steinhart was the chairman of UT’s Capital Campaign that raised 1.6 billion from 1997 to 2004 and has served as past chairman of the Development Board and as a member of the Executive Committee of the Chancellor’s Council of The University of Texas System. He is also one of a select few to have been awarded both the Outstanding Young Texas Ex Award and the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the Texas Exes.

An active civic volunteer in both his community and nationally, Steinhart was appointed by President Bush in 2002 to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, overseeing the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. He is also a director of the State Fair of Texas, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas Center for the Performing Arts and Southern Methodist University’s Willis M. Tate Distinguished Lecture Series. He serves as a trustee of the Dallas Foundation, Temple Emanu-El Foundation and Dallas Medical Resource.

Steinhart has received the J. Erik Jonsson Award for Volunteerism from the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas, the Silver Beaver Award from the Boy Scouts of America, the Superintendent’s Award from the Dallas Independent School District for leading the successful campaign to approve a $1.37 billion bond issue and the Downtown Renaissance Award from Neiman Marcus. He was also inducted into the Dallas Business Hall of Fame by Junior Achievement.

Sara Martinez Tucker (BJ ’76, MBA ’79)

A staunch supporter of education, Sara Martinez Tucker serves as president and CEO of the Hispanic Scholarship Fund (HSF), the nation’s leading organization supporting Hispanic higher education. She recently was named among the “25 Most Influential Hispanics in America” by Time magazine and holds the record of the shortest amount of time between receiving the Outstanding Young Texas Ex Award (2000) and the Texas Exes Distinguished Alumnus Award (2005). She has served the university on the Commission of 125, the Communication Advisory Council, the Natural Sciences Advisory Council and as a member of the President’s Associates, the Chancellor’s Council and the Littlefield Society. Before joining HSF, Martinez Tucker was the first Hispanic female executive at AT&T, where she enjoyed a 16-year career.

A native of Laredo, Martinez Tucker received her undergraduate degree in journalism, graduating with honors from The University of Texas at Austin. She was a general assignments reporter for the San Antonio Express before returning to UT Austin, where she received an MBA with high honors. In addition, she holds an honorary doctorate of laws from the University of Notre Dame and an honorary doctor of humane letters from Boston College.

When she delivered the keynote address at UT Austin’s commencement ceremonies this past year, her theme was one of personal passion. “When you’re a student, you’re pursuing things that interest you,” Martinez Tucker said. “When you get out in the working world, you begin to pursue things that matter to others, losing your sense of self and what defines you. You need to find ways that ensure you keep pursuing things that matter to you to keep your sense of self.”

Martinez Tucker has funneled her passion for her community and education into her current work with HSF. HSF has, since 1975, awarded $170 million in college scholarships to 73,000 deserving students at 1,700 universities and colleges throughout the United States, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Guam. Martinez Tucker, however, has a loftier goal for the organization—doubling the proportion of Hispanics holding college degrees to 18 percent by 2010.

“Every day I wake up driven to make a college education possible for kids like me,” said Martinez Tucker. “If a Hispanic child wants his or her heritage to be their destiny, great! But I want them to have a choice—and, with an education, they can choose their own destiny.”

Under her leadership, HSF continues to expand its ability to meet the needs of Latino students and families. Her accomplishments include growing the organization’s annual budget from $3.5 million to more than $40 million; raising a landmark $50 million grant from Lilly Endowment Inc.; and successfully stewarding the Hispanic portion of the $1 billion Gates Millennium Scholars Program.

Recognizing that scholarships alone will not get HSF to its goal, she led the launch of community outreach programs to raise college expectations in Latino families and communities. To date, these programs have directly touched more than 65,000 students, parents, HSF alumni and community members.

Martinez Tucker was named director to the Student Loan Marketing Association by President George W. Bush in 2001; in September 2005, U.S. Department of Education Secretary Margaret Spellings appointed her to the Commission on the Future of Higher Education. A founding member of both the National Center for Educational Accountability and the National Scholarship Providers Association, she has served, since 2001, on the seven-member North American Diversity Advisory Board for Toyota.

For additional information, including a list of former inductees, or to submit a nomination for future Hall of Fame candidates, visit http://www.mccombs.utexas.edu/dean/halloffame.
 

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