McCombs School in the News
March 2003

Latest Survey Ranks McCombs MBA #17 in Nation
U.S. News and World Report, April 7, 2003
The McCombs MBA placed #17 in the latest annual survey of best graduate schools from U.S. News and World Report. The school received top twenty rankings in ten of the publication's eleven specialty areas: Information Systems (3), Accounting (4), Entrepreneurship (7), Marketing (10), Quantitative Analysis (13), Productions/Operations Management (14), Finance (16), International Business (16), Supply Chain/Logistics (17), and General Management (19). U.S. News rated the Option II program #14 among executive MBAs.
View Adobe PDF of the Rankings.

Moot Corp Preparations Bring New Ventures to Houston
Houston Chronicle, Associated Press, April 5, 11, 2003
Organic Energy Systems, the MBA team that won the preliminary UT round of Moot Corp to earn a spot in the International Moot Corp competition on April 28, was one of six teams briefly profiled as a finalist in the Southwest Business Plan Competition held at Rice University April 5-6. Organic Energy makes and markets economical and environmentally friendly distributed-energy systems using next-generation biomass fuel technologies. Put in more Texas-friendly terms, they turn cow manure into electricity. Students from 28 schools participated in the Rice competition. The Wharton team won with a plan for software and hardware for MRI's that enable virtual bone biopsy, revolutionizing the treatment of osteoporosis. Qualifying teams now head for UT Austin and the most lucrative business plan competition in the country.

Brown Shows That Consistency Pays with Mutual Funds
Registered Representative, April 1, 2003
There's no foolproof way to pick mutual funds that consistently outperform, but McCombs finance professor Keith Brown and Fidelity Investments executive W.V. Harlow have found a way to at least improve your odds. Financial reporter Lynn O'Shaughnessy summarized their advice as, “Buy funds that stick to their knitting.” In an analysis of 3,177 stock funds tracked over a 10-year span (1991-2000), Brown and Harlow found conclusively that “funds that stayed faithful to their investment style enjoyed higher returns than funds that roamed all over the style box.”
Read the complete article

Network Security Problems Only Increasing, says Leibrock
Austin American-Statesman, March 31, 2003
“The problem of network security is only going to get bigger,” said McCombs assistant dean for technology Larry Leibrock. In an article on cyber attacks, Leibrock prognosticated that problems will continue until juries start awarding big financial judgments against organizations that leave private and personal data unprotected. He described the Slammer worm that struck networks in January as a dress rehearsal for problems to come. “There was no real payload to the virus,” Leibrock said. “It didn't destroy data. It was a proof of a concept. It describes the fire next time.” The article described the efforts of Leibrock's staff of 14 network technicians to battle the virus.

Cadenhead, Entrepreneurship Program Rank Highly in Survey
Entrepreneur, April 2003; Austin American-Statesman, March 29, 2003
“The entrepreneurship program at the University of Texas' McCombs School of Business ranked among the best in the country in a national survey by Entrepreneur magazine,” reported the Statesman in a reference to the April edition of the national magazine. In a survey of entrepreneurship program directors, McCombs placed fourth nationwide. Gary Cadenhead, the director of Moot Corp, ranked individually as the #3 entrepreneurship program director in the country according to his peers. The top program in the country was Babson College and the top director Don Kuratko, at Ball State University.

Brandl Advises Americans to Pursue Normal Economic Activity
KVUE, March 25, 2003
In an interview with KVUE reporter Olga Campos, McCombs finance lecturer Michael Brandl discussed the economic impact of the Iraq war on the domestic economy. The uncertainty of the war, said Brandl, leaves consumers and businesses in a state of confusion. “Household consumers are uncertain whether they are going to be able to have a job to repay the loan they are going to take out when they buy the new car or if they finance the new house.” Companies, in turn, are unsure if they can sell the output they are producing. “The best thing that people can do is to not let the enemy and the terrorists win. Continue on with your regular economic behavior and keep the troops in your hopes and prayers.”

McCombs Alum Comes Out of Retirement, Joins EDS Again
Dallas Morning News, March 21, 2003
Electronic Data Systems Corp., a Plano-based technology services company, brought back veteran executive Jeffrey Heller (BBA 68) to be its new chief operating officer. Heller started with EDS in 1968 as a systems engineer and worked his way up to vice chairman. To stay busy in his retirement, Heller is a member of the Southwestern Medical Foundation and the UT Engineering Foundation’s advisory council, but he was ready for more. “I worked here a long time,” he said. “I missed it some, and I am looking forward to the opportunity.”

MBA Alumnus Leads WebOffice Venture Into Data Communications
Austin American-Statesman, March 17, 2003
When the Run-Tex chain of athletic shoe stores wanted a simple and inexpensive way to tie together the cash registers at its stores, they turned to Austin startup WebOffice Inc. The 3-year-old tech venture has devised a clever way of solving a big problem: enabling the various locations of a business to share key information quickly and easily without having to employ rigid, centralized controls. The system is based on the insights of its two founders, Lan Vu and Luan Nguyen, both sons of immigrant families from Vietnam who met as students at The University of Texas at Austin, where Nguyen earned his MBA in 1993 (after earlier securing a PhD in electrical engineering).

Study Supports Insurance Industry Assertions on Credit
San Antonio Express-News, FW Star-Telegram et al., March 7, 2003
“Have bad credit? Chances are, you’re also more likely to file an insurance claim,” writes J.A. Dyer of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, summarizing a study just released by the Bureau of Business Research at the University of Texas at Austin. The study of more than 153,000 auto insurance policies found a “statistically significant” relationship between a person’s credit history and tendency to incur losses on an auto insurance policy. “In general, lower credit scores were associated with larger incurred losses,” wrote study co-authors Bruce Kellison (BBR), Patrick Brockett (MSIS), Seon-Hi Shin and Shihong Li (PhD). Brockett and Kellison testified to the State Senate on the study on March 11.

Prentice Says Batson Report Cuts Both Ways
Washington Post, March 7, 2003
In the latest installment of the Enron saga, Neal Batson, a court-appointed attorney, issued the most comprehensive report to date of the complex accounting and tax transactions that Enron’s executives, lawyers and accountants used to shelter assets before and during the firm’s meltdown. The report offers limited hope for thousands of Enron’s creditors. “It could provide a roadmap for the prosecutors to figure out how to explain this to a jury,” said McCombs business law professor Robert Prentice (MSIS). But in places, added Prentice, the report may also provide ammunition for defense attorneys, as he elaborated in the article.

Dean Gau Promotes Plus, McCombs Approach to ‘Soft Skills’
BusinessWeek Video Views, March 7, 2003
In a “Video Views” interview with Business Week editor Brian Hindo, McCombs Dean George Gau described the MBA Plus Program, a two-week, non-graded component that cultivates “communication skills, collaboration skills, leadership, ethics, and global perspective.” Asked if soft skills seem relevant in a down job market, Gau noted that Plus does not take away any time from the school’s traditional academic curriculum, and that a combination of academic and soft skills seems important “no matter what the employment market is.” Recruiters, he also noted, have been extensively involved in the program and their initial feedback has been extremely positive: “They love the experiences, the ability to work with students and to get exposure to them in a non-recruiting environment. They find that of great value.”

Undergrads Take 2nd Place in International Case Competition
Austin Business Journal, March 6, 2003
Four McCombs undergraduates took first runner-up honors at the University of Southern California’s recent Marshall International Case Competition with a plan to help the record industry adjust to changes in distribution markets. The students – finance seniors Angel Donchev, Webb Stevens, Maria Yuan and MSIS senior Phillip Loya – initially beat 13 other McCombs teams to enter the USC competition. “Case competitions are much closer to real-business experiences than most college classes,” said Stevens. “A case competition requires you to work with a team and if the team dynamics are not well-matched or someone is not pulling their weight, you fix the problem or you lose.”

Flourine on Call Wins Damages Award
Austin American-Statesman, March 6, 2003
In a February 20 verdict of surprising magnitude, U.S. District Judge James Nowlin of Austin awarded local firm Fluorine on Call a $150 million judgment in a breach-of-contract case against Fluorogas Ltd., a gas-equipment maker owned by London-based BOC Group PLC. Flourine on Call provides industrial gasses for use in making high-tech devices like flat panel display screens. McCombs business law professor Mark Baker (MSIS) called the case “a huge business verdict, one of the largest I can recall for some time.” Baker said such amounts are more often awarded in personal injury or product liability cases.

Kinney Points to Controversy over International Registration
Reuters, March 4, 2003
The new U.S. accounting oversight board was poised to defy European Union resistance to its legal reach on March 4 by voting to require U.S. and non-U.S. accounting firms to register with it, according to a Reuters dispatch widely reported internationally. Though passage was seen as likely, experts like McCombs audit specialist William Kinney were less than sanguine about its ultimate prospects. “This is a very controversial issue,” said Kinney, “because it approaches the limits of how far U.S. law can go around the world.”

Westphal Defends Composition of Shuttle Investigation Board
Houston Chronicle, March 3, 2003
Reacting to public scrutiny over the composition of the Space Shuttle Columbia Accident Investigation Board, McCombs professor James Westphal (Management) defended the board’s heterogeneous composition. Critics contend that the board needs more scientists, but Westphal agrees with those who favor a healthy mix of scientific and non-scientific members, including experts in investigating accidents and organizing post-accident probes. “Scientists will provide you with facts,” Westphal said. “The other directors will be making judgments.” Westphal also suggested that the board should limit its size. “If there is one thing we know about large groups, it’s that they become dysfunctional,” he said.

 

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