Mays Impacts

Discover the entrepreneurial talent that is being developed at Texas A&M University at Aggie PITCH on Tuesday, April 2 from 5 to 9 p.m. at the Texas A&M Hotel and Conference Center. Aggie PITCH is hosted by the McFerrin Center for Entrepreneurship and brings together the top entrepreneurial talent from across Texas A&M in a unique and engaging competition environment.

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The McFerrin Center for Entrepreneurship isn’t focused on launching a certain number of student startups or churning out the most student entrepreneurs in higher education. Rather, the staff behind the “hub for entrepreneurship at Texas A&M University” is focused on providing opportunities that enable student entrepreneurs to succeed.

From its inception, Essentium was poised to be a lucrative venture. Their innovative and disruptive technology in the 3D printing and additive manufacturing space quickly set them on a pathway for success. They combined the grit of Aggie entrepreneurs with the resources of the McFerrin Center for Entrepreneurship.

Blake Teipel ’16, co-founder of Essentium and TriFusion devices, became an “unexpected entrepreneur” during his time as a Ph.D. student at Texas A&M and got involved with the McFerrin Center as he was launching his startup. “When I encountered the McFerrin Center I encountered excellence. I encountered integrity. I encountered leaders who cared about the students at every level,” said Teipel.

Teipel and co-founder Brandon Sweeney ’18 quickly took advantage of every asset that the McFerrin Center offered. “We were able to learn how to start a company. I was able to learn how to pitch an idea and cast an idea in ways that would be accessible and understandable to a wide audience.” Their hard-work and tireless efforts quickly paid off and during their time as students Essentium won multiple business plan competitions, including 1^st place at the Rice Business Plan Competition, where they were awarded almost $500,000.

Three years after launching their business, Essentium closed $22.2 million in Series A funding, one of the highest in the history of additive manufacturing. “If I had not been able to participate in the McFerrin Center in a multi-faceted way I think it’s really unlikely that we would have been able to have the success we’ve had,” Teipel said.

“Blake, Brandon, and their entire Essentium team are shining examples of the impact McFerrin Center aims to have on Aggie entrepreneurs. Watching them mature from raw concept in our Raymond Ideas Challenge all the way through Startup Aggieland, and now making such a huge splash in today’s marketplace…we couldn’t be prouder of their success, and their testament to the power of the Aggie Entrepreneurial Ecosystem,” commented Blake Petty, Director of the McFerrin Center for Entrepreneurship.

Texas A&M University’s Mays Business School and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center are launching a program to develop transformational leaders in the ever-important health care industry.

Undergraduate Mays students, particularly finance majors, will apply their education in complex revenue cycle operations and health care administration with the primary goal to define, measure, analyze and improve revenue cycle processes in a three-month rotation.

Students will gain exposure to Revenue Cycle Analytics and Business Analytics Departments, including but not limited to the Division of Finance; Financial Clearance Center; Patient Access; Patient Business Services; Health Information management; Revenue Capture and Coding; Treasury Services and Operations; Managed Care; and Clinical Revenue and Reimbursement.

“The Educational Experience Program is a high-impact internship that will reshape how our students advance the world’s prosperity, our vision at Mays Business School,” said the Head of the Department of Finance, Sorin Sorescu. “We have been discussing the right fit and right time with leaders at MD Anderson for several months, and I am thrilled this program is coming to fruition with the incredible individuals at this great organization.”

“We’re excited to partner with Mays Business School in a program that will create a win-win situation for everyone involved,” said Connor Burdine, executive director, Revenue Cycle Analytics for MD Anderson. “We know the talented students from Texas A&M will bring diverse perspectives, and we will be able to utilize the work ethic and intellect of these students to help solve business challenges faced by the broader health care industry.”

The Mays – MD Anderson Educational Experience Program is open to sophomore and junior undergraduate majors at Texas A&M University, with a preference for finance majors. Application information is available through Brandy Tuck in the Department of Finance (btuck@mays.tamu.edu), and the first class will intern in summer 2019.

Research in Mayo Clinic Proceedings emphasizes doctors’ need to facilitate hope

Hope is an elusive but essential element of the healing process – and it is something in which clinicians can actively participate and guide patients and their families.

In a paper “Finding Hope and Healing When Cure is Not Possible,” published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings, the authors, which include Texas A&M University Distinguished Professor and Regents Professor Leonard Berry, outline the importance of intrinsic hope – the hope centered on being in the present rather than on working toward future goals.

Clinicians can play a pivotal role in giving family members time “out of the fight” to reflect and plan for an unknown future. As patients face the end of life, physicians still have a profoundly important healing role to play: facilitating the evolution of hope.

The authors come from all sides of the issue: a clinician with 40 years in practice, including 25 years in hospice and palliative care settings; a health services researcher who has interviewed and grieved with parents whose children have incurable cancer; a critical care physician who has endured and recovered from critical illness; and a health services researcher who has published extensively on cancer care delivery. They are:

• Brad Stuart, M.D., Chief Medical Officer of Coalition to Transform Advanced Care
• Tracey Danaher, Ph.D., Professor of Marketing at Monash University
• Rana Awdish, M.D., Director of the Pulmonary Hypertension Program at Henry Ford Hospital
• Leonard Berry, Ph.D., University Distinguished Professor and Regents Professor at Texas A&M’s Mays Business School

They explore the evolution of hope for patients and their families during the course of incurable illness, while also examining how clinicians can actively participate in, and even guide, the healing process. They also discuss healing in the context of incurable childhood brain tumors and include many comments from parents, but the principles and approaches they present apply to the care of incurable patients of any age or diagnosis.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1OlWRef7rA&feature=youtu.be

Shannon Deer, Assistant Dean for Graduate Programs at Mays Business School, hosted the 2019 Mays Business School Energy Symposium on March 15 at Texas A&M University’s CityCentre campus in west Houston. Attendees included current and former students representing Mays Houston-based degree programs in all areas of the energy sector.

Energy is one of the three Strategic Initiatives in Mays’ Strategic Plan.

Guy Baber ’06, Vice President of Investor Relations at Marathon Oil Corporation, delivered the keynote. He began with his family’s history in the field and his personal passion and commitment to the energy sector. His discussion included how market forces have changed the upstream landscape over the past several years and how investor preferences continue to evolve. He then fielded questions from those in attendance and remarked on how the industry will likely reach equilibrium once U.S. operators commit to growing production responsibly and living within cash flows.

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Attendees at the annual Women in Technology Conference celebrated the 20^th anniversary “Beelieve it or Not.” With a theme of hard-working bees, the conference brought together women to network and learn from others currently building their careers in information technology. It was hosted by the Center for the Management of Information Systems (CMIS) on March 1 in the Annenberg Center at George Bush Presidential Library at Texas A&M University.

Female students with an interest in information technology participated in roundtable discussions on topics such as lessons learned from senior executives, managers, professionals, and new graduates in the workforce. They discussed advice such as leadership, work-life balance, and new technology trends.

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Philippe Hercot, Executive Professor of Finance and Director of Aggies on Wall Street at Mays Business School, received the Aggies Celebrate Teaching! – Recognizing Transformational Learning’s Teaching Excellence Award on March 21.

Each year, the Center for Teaching Excellence at Texas A&M University welcomes nominations for this award from all current undergraduate and graduate students in College Station, Galveston, Qatar, Health Science Center, School of Law, and College of Dentistry. Students write 1,000- to 1,500-word essays giving evidence of and reflecting upon the professor’s impact on their lives. The criteria included challenging students to think in new ways, inspiring students to learn more deeply, supporting learning through transformation of educational experiences, and impact on students. Out of the numerous nominations submitted by a wide range of students, only six were selected for this prestigious award.

Hercot is the first recipient from Mays Business School.

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By Carleigh Lenz ’19

Scott Moscrip ’93 began his first successful company, Truckstop.com, in 1995 when internet entrepreneurship was on the absolute cutting edge. Truckstop.com provides a matching service for trucks and freight – “the eHarmony of shipping,” as Moscrip calls it. Some of Moscrip’s entrepreneurial roadblocks were clearly unique to the time (his early customers did not know how to access the Internet), but his experiences provided him with timeless lessons on entrepreneurship. Moscrip shared some of the lessons he learned from his successes and failures with students in the Mays Business School on March 1 as part of the Mays Innovation Research Center’s Professional Speaker Series.

The trucking industry is complicated in that each party is hostile toward the other. Truckstop.com provided companies and truck drivers with a neutral intermediary position to keep everyone happy. Mr. Moscrip found that the best way to please all parties involved is to be transparent. Much of the tension between the parties stems from distrust, but the transparency provided by Truckstop.com eased the nerves of Mr. Moscrip’s customers. He has worked hard to pay close attention to his customers’ requests and often hosts customer retreats to hear what people need from his service. He then uses his customers’ feedback to modify Truckstop’s service.

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Each year, the Deloitte Foundation awards $25,000 grants to 10 outstanding accounting Ph.D. candidates through its annual Doctoral Fellowship program. Jennifer Glenn, a Ph.D. student at Mays Business School, received this prestigious award this year.

Glenn is the third Mays Ph.D. student to receive this award. The most recent Mays Ph.D. student to receive this award was Brant Christensen in 2013; prior to that, Mike Drake received the award in 2007. The award is intended to support Glenn’s final year of coursework and also the next year in the completion of her doctoral dissertation.

Tonie Leatherberry, the president of the Deloitte Foundation, explained the significance of the Deloitte Foundation grant by stating:

“Growing the pipeline as well as strengthening the quantity and quality of accounting professors is critical to developing the next generation of future leaders. The financial support from the Foundation can help this year’s recipients complete their academic career journey and could have a significant impact on the thousands of students they will teach over time.”

The Deloitte Foundation invites about 100 universities to apply each year for this grant, and 52 students applied this year upon nomination by the accounting faculty of their institution. This is an increase of over 70 percent from 2018, and this award continues to become more competitive in nature.

The Deloitte Foundation is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1928 that uses a variety of initiatives to support education in the United States. The Foundation specifically focuses on developing talented leaders in teaching, research, and curriculum innovation. In addition to sponsoring graduate students and educators, the Foundation also provides benefits to middle and high school students and undergraduates through several national programs.

By Richard Castleberry, Director of Full-Time MBA

There are not too many individuals who, when choosing between studying for an MBA and going onto medical school, decide to do both, However, there are not many Ahad Azimuddin(s) in the world. He is an MD/MBA student in Mays Business School.

Upon completion of his MBA degree in August 2019, Azimuddin will switch gears to focus on medical school. His primary interest is in surgery and taking “healthcare” to a whole other level. His focus on the “business of medicine” is off to a great start.

Azimuddin joined Texas A&M University’s MD/MBA Program at Mays Business School after obtaining his bachelor’s degree from the University of Houston in biomedical sciences; liberal studies; and minors in chemistry, medicine and society, and economics. While studying for his bachelor’s degree, Azimuddin worked as an undergraduate researcher for the University of Houston College of Pharmacy. Since joining the MD/MBA Program in July 2018, he has already left an indelible, positive mark on his class, and continues to impress.

Earlier this year, Azimuddin took advantage of an opportunity offered at Texas A&M’s McFerrin Center for Entrepreneurship and entered the Raymond Ideas Challenge. The campuswide competition encourages undergraduate and graduate students to dream up the next great product or service. Each entry must include a 45-second video pitch of your idea. So Azimuddin submitted his 45-second video pitch of his medical device “L-Clip” idea (a pressure-sensitive medical device for a laryngoscope), and won the $3,000 first-place prize. He won with the Best Idea, as well as the Video Pitch, which brought him another $1,000 prize. …Read more

By Nicole Schubert ’19

Leadership and Marketing at Southwest Airlines

Ryan Green, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at Southwest Airlines, spoke to the  Mays Business School MS-Marketing students on Feb. 28 as part of the Mays Transformational Leader Speaker Series. Green is a 1999 graduate of Mays Business School and a member of the Dean’s Advisory Board. Integrity, leadership, drive for excellence, and traditions are all qualities that drew him to Texas A&M University and later to Southwest Airlines.

As CMO, Green has a wide scope of responsibilities, including:

• Go-to-market efforts
• Digital platforms
• Loyalty, partnerships, and products
• Customer experience
• Insight and analysis across all the areas listed above

Green said branding and advertising have been the newest and most challenging areas for him. He attributes this challenge to his strengths (Achiever, Analytical, Significance, and Relator as determined Clifton StrengthsFinder), which do not align as well to those areas of marketing. He balances this by enlisting people around him who are strong in this area. …Read more