QUICK LINKS Alumni Web Site Give to McCombs Update Your Address B-School Alumni Directory McCombs News Texas Exes Online Services McCombs Merchandise We've got t-shirts and other McCombs wearables in the online store. From executive gifts to t-shirts to travel items - we've got something for the current or future business mogul! Investment Opportunity Make a gift to the McCombs School Annual Fund and help us achieve our goal of becoming the best public business school in the nation. Give now. Related Links Hermes Society Matching Gift Program Give Online The McCombs School of Business 2005-06 Investors' Report is available online and lists the 2005-06 donors and financial information.  ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT  Zach Petrone BBA ’05 The Big Apple Bleeds Orange for One Alumnus Passing on knowledge has always been important to Zach Petrone. As an undergraduate he served as president of the University Investors Association, founded the Investment Banking Association and wrote columns on personal finance for The Daily Texan. While at McCombs, he strove to connect students. In forming a new student organization, the Investment Banking Association, Petrone and his friends wanted to use their experiences with internships to help sophomore and junior students. “After completing our summers as analysts, a group of my classmates and I felt we had a wealth of knowledge about the investment banking recruitment process,” Petrone says. “We were interested in passing on that knowledge.” As a student, Petrone interned with Credit Suisse in Houston and Philip Morris in New York City. After graduating with a degree in finance, the Big Apple beckoned him back. He began his career at Greenhill & Company, a boutique investment bank that focuses on mergers and acquisitions and corporate restructuring. He stayed there until the summer of 2007 before jumping into the private equity game with Providence Equity. There, Petrone works as an associate, building financial models for investments and monitoring portfolio companies. The company completes media and communications deals, and in 2007 announced the largest leveraged buyout on record with the $48.5 billion acquisition of Bell Canada. For Zachary Petrone, kicking off his career in New York City has not meant leaving behind his Texas roots. If anything, he feels a stronger affinity to his alma mater and home state. “Anyone can get a great education from Wharton or Yale, but the atmosphere is not the same as at The University of Texas.” He says the McCombs name is reputable on the east coast, and many companies regularly recruit Texas grads. “The McCombs School name means something,” Petrone says, “The main schools that Greenhill recruits are at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Wharton, Virginia and Texas. I’d say we’re keeping pretty good company.” Petrone is excited about connecting McCombs alumni working in the area. With the creation of the BBA Alumni Network, Petrone sees an effective way to network with his fellow graduates. In January, he helped to organize a kick-off happy hour that drew over 60 alumni and created a buzz for the New York chapter’s official reception, which will take place in April. Even though he is over a thousand miles away from Austin, Petrone and his fellow McCombs grads keep the Texas home fires burning. “More and more UT alumni are working here, and there’s camaraderie,” Petrone says. “We get together and watch football games, and if there’s anything slightly Texan going on, we meet up.” One alumna in particular, caught Petrone’s heart. This past summer, he and fellow McCombs grad, Rebecca Thacker, BBA ’06 and MPA ’06, were engaged. Thacker works for Deloitte, and the two will be married on November 15, 2008 in Austin. Hire McCombs Alumni through the McCombs Job Board Search for a job or promote employment opportunities to both current students and alumni of the McCombs School of Business.  Both the Alumni Directory and the McCombs Job Board are accessible through your UT EID (University of Texas Electronic Identification). Click here for more information on finding your UT EID, or contact the Registrar's office at 512-475-7656. If you have any questions, please email us and refer to “Alumni Directory”  or “McCombs Job Board” in the subject and content of your message.

You are receiving this e-newsletter because you are a McCombs undergraduate alumnus or friend, so stay plugged in to what is happening at the school by updating your profile and preferences. Spring 2008 MBBA Launch Receptions Undergraduate Leadership Program Receives Accolades in First Year Gu Wins Award for Paper on E-Commerce Save the Date!  Attention Class of 1958  Mark your calendars for the Class of 1958 Reunion May 1-2, 2008.   We look forward to seeing you in Austin in May! For more information, visit the Texas Exes or McCombs' reunion Web sites. Top Stories Spring 2008 MBBA Launch Receptions This spring, the McCombs BBA Alumni Network will host launch events in Austin, Dallas, Houston, New York, San Antonio and San Francisco. These networking receptions will include appetizers and a cash bar. Attend one of these exciting events and reconnect with classmates, learn what is new at McCombs and the University and find out how you can get involved with an organization that will benefit you for the remainder of your professional career. City Date Time Location RSVP Austin Thursday, March 20, 2008 6:00-8:00 pm InterContinental Stephen F. Austin Hotel 701 East 7th Street Austin, TX 78701 Austin RSVP Dallas Tuesday, April 22, 2008 6:00-8:00 pm Royal Oaks Country Club 7915 Greenville Ave Dallas, TX 75231 Dallas RSVP Houston Thursday, April 3, 2008 6:00-8:00 pm Zula Restaurant Capitol at Main Houston, TX 77002 Houston RSVP New York Thursday, April 24, 2008 6:00-8:00 pm The Yale Club 50 Vanderbilt Avenue New York, NY 10017 New York RSVP San Antonio Thursday, April 17, 2008 6:00-8:00 pm Paesano’s Italian Restaurant 555 East Basse, Suite 100 San Antonio, TX 78209 San Antonio RSVP San Francisco Tuesday, April 1, 2008 6:00-8:00 pm Roe Restaurant 651 Howard Street San Francisco, 94105 San Francisco RSVP Undergraduate Leadership Program Receives Accolades in First Year The McCombs School’s Leadership Certificate Program (LCP), launched at the outset of the 2007-08 academic year, received a Bronze Award from NASPA, the leading organization for student affairs administration, policy and practice. A class of 76 undergraduate students was accepted to the LCP in its inaugural year. The LCP is a unique program among undergraduate business schools. It strives to enhance student learning and development as it relates to self-knowledge and leadership competence. “The Leadership Certificate Program is destined to become one of the hallmarks of the McCombs undergraduate program,” said Paula Murray, associate dean for undergraduate programs. “Now we have a venue to allow select students to develop their leadership skills as well as their academic skills. This sets us apart from other top undergraduate programs.” Read more. Faculty Members Gain Promotions Five McCombs faculty members have received promotions effective Sept. 1, 2008. They are Steve Gilbert (IROM), promoted to the rank of professor; Lorenzo Garlappi (Finance) and Hüseyin Tanriverdi (IROM), promoted to the rank of associate professor; and Doug Dierking (Management) and Christopher Meakin (IROM), promoted to the rank of senior lecturer. Gu Wins Award for Paper on E-Commerce A paper co-authored by Bin Gu, IROM assistant professor, was named Best Paper in Track at the 2007 International Conference on Information Systems held in Montreal. The paper, “Estimating Menu Costs in Electronic Markets,” examines the costs online retailers incur when they make price changes. Gu said that common wisdom suggests that IT advances allow online retailers to change prices quickly with less cost. In the paper, however, Gu measured the price adjustment costs of a major online retailer and found the company actually incurred significantly higher costs for each price change. But the price change costs were spread across a larger quantity of products, reducing price adjustment costs per product. In sum, Gu found, scale economies rather than IT enables online retailers to change prices more often. Read the paper. Texas Executive Education Offers Accounting & Finance for Non-Financial Managers Refresh your knowledge or learn the basics of accounting assumptions, accounting and financial terminology, and financial techniques, in Accounting & Finance for Non-Financial Managers, February 19-20, 2008. Faculty: Eric Hirst, Ph.D., Sanford J. Leeds, Esq., CFA, James A. Nolen, MBA. This program teaches you how concepts and strategies are integrated into your company’s big picture. You will learn the language of business and begin to understand the reality behind the numbers. Different types of information systems will be examined: control-based accounting structures for managing physical resources; and information-based accounting structures for planning, evaluating, and decision-making. You will learn how to address and communicate problems more effectively, how to identify relevant information, and how to apply the analytical skills needed to make better business decisions and take maximum advantage of business opportunities. Texas Magazine for Fall/Winter 2007 Now Online The latest issue of Texas magazine is now available for online perusal. Top stories include: “Leading in the 21st Century,” in which Dean George Gau provides a four-year progress report on our goal  to become the best public business school in the nation; “Excellence Across the Board,” an in-depth story on how faculty manage the difficult task of balancing classroom excellence while preparing top-level research; “The Rankings Race,” a look at the current state of affairs in the never-ending cycle of the rankings industry; a feature on Accounting Professor Bill Kinney, one of the leading auditing experts and researchers working today;  and Julie Irwin, associate professor of marketing and the new director of ethics education at McCombs, writes about her motivations in the “Why I Do What I Do” feature. Plus, much, much more! Read more. McCombs In The News Ethical Decision Making The Chicago Tribune, Dec. 25, 2007 A recent paper by Robert Prentice, professor of business law in the IROM Department, applies recent findings from neurology and psychology to how investors and their advisers make moral decisions. “Investment professionals whose ethics go astray frequently believe they hold solid moral values but succumb to the questionable culture of their organizations,” Prentice writes. “The urge to obey authority and conform to the group is deeply embedded in the human brain.” Another issue, Prentice contends, is that “people in the investment game who espouse simple-minded economic theory often assume a level ethical playing field in transactions with customers. Buyers and sellers are equally canny and unscrupulous. So, what can be wrong? Everybody does it.” Read more. Market Research on the Cheap BusinessWeek, Jan. 9, 2008 Large corporations spend millions on sophisticated surveys and focus groups from established researchers. But for entrepreneurs operating on a shoestring budget, there are ways to gather key information about your customers and prospects without hiring an outside firm. Rob Adams, McCombs management lecturer, director of the Moot Corp competition and author of “A Good Hard Kick in the Ass: Basic Training for Entrepreneurs,” provides one key tip: Research the same way you sell. “If you sell in person, survey in person. If you sell over the phone, survey over the phone,” Adams said. And for entrepreneurs who plan to sell primarily online, a Web survey can gauge interest. "If you get no results, that should tell you something,” he added. Read more. Brandl Gives Tips on Paying Off Holiday Debt KXAN, Jan. 17, 2008 Michael Brandl, senior finance lecturer, doles out some practical advice to television viewers who may have overspent during the holidays and who are now facing hefty credit card bills arriving in the mail. “It can often take years for people to pay off one Christmas,”  Brandl said. “The best thing you can do is pay as much as you possibly can, and that’s going to require sacrifice.”  Watch the story. View more McCombs School of Business News Online... McCombs Monthly Archives