Senior finance major and Corps of Cadets member Scott Lovett ’13 received the 2013 Kupfer Distinguished Scholar Award. The award, founded by Gerald Ray ’54 and Donald Zale ’55, was created to recognize students who show outstanding academic achievement and exemplary leadership skills in the Texas A&M Corps of Cadets. Ray and Zale established the award to honor their friend Harold L. Kupfer, who made lasting contributions to the Texas business community.

Lovett serves as the Commanding Officer of 1st Regiment in the Corps of Cadets and as a Squad Leader in the Tree Platoon, Ross Volunteer Company. He is also a member of the Banking Program at Mays Business School, the Senior Operations Chair for this year’s Nichol’s Rising Leaders Conference, and was recently selected to serve as a Texas A&M Foundation Maroon Coat. Lovett plans to pursue a master’s degree at Texas A&M before starting a career in commercial real estate development.

About Mays Business School

Texas A&M University’s Mays Business School educates more than 5,000 undergraduate, master’s and doctoral students in accounting, finance, management, management information systems, marketing and supply chain management. Mays consistently ranks among the top public business schools in the country for its undergraduate and MBA programs, and for faculty research. The mission of Mays Business School is creating knowledge and developing ethical leaders for a global society.

Frank Raymond

Soon Raymond began exploring ways to connect with Mays on his own, funding scholarships and serving as a judge for the Center for New Ventures and Entrepreneurship’s (CNVE) Ideas Challenge, in which students from across campus vie to pitch their proposals for products or services to a panel of judges. Raymond’s son, who shares his excitement about innovative ideas, typically joins him.

Now, Raymond and his wife Jean have created the Frank J. and Jean Raymond Foundation Ideas Challenge fund, committing to contributions of $50,000 per year for the next 20 years. These funds will support the Raymond Ideas Challenge and allow the CNVE to increase its impact on the entrepreneurial mindset of Texas A&M University students.

In addition to this gift, the Raymonds also provide scholarships for Mays students with an interest in entrepreneurship.

“Frank and Jean are true champions of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial thinking at Mays,” said Mays Dean Jerry Strawser. “Their generous support of our students and encouragement to have our students develop ‘great ideas’ will have an impact on their lives for many years to come.”

“You always hope what you’re doing will help these outstanding young people to be better students and that it will ease their burdens a little bit,” Frank Raymond said.

Raymond says he hopes his gifts will have another benefit to Mays: “I’m hoping to attract others to building on what I’ve done.”

About Mays Business School

Texas A&M University’s Mays Business School educates more than 5,000 undergraduate, master’s and doctoral students in accounting, finance, management, management information systems, marketing and supply chain management. Mays consistently ranks among the top public business schools in the country for its undergraduate and MBA programs, and for faculty research. The mission of Mays Business School is creating knowledge and developing ethical leaders for a global society.

Veronica Bahena

When she did start thinking about college her junior year of high school, Bahena says the process seemed complicated and the school too expensive.

That year she met Officer Javier Hernandez, who had started an organization in the Manor school district to help young Latinos reach their full potential as middle school and high school students. “He changed my life,” Bahena says of Hernandez and the Latino Leaders of America. In LLA, students attend regular meetings and get the opportunity to meet Hispanic leaders, such as Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo. Recently, the group visited College Station to learn about life as a student at Texas A&M.

“The LLA has a very clear mission: empowering students,” says Henry Musoma, a professor of Veronica’s in Mays Business School who helped organize the LLA’s trip to Texas A&M. “They help students to see the possibilities, not the limitations.”

A large part of what Bahena learned from the LLA was to be proud of her heritage, and to prevent any potential stigmas from holding her back. “The LLA focuses on teaching you about your culture, and that’s how you start,” explains Bahena. “You start building yourself up to where you know your background and you know where you came from, and you’re not afraid to say, ‘Yes I’m Mexican, and I can do more than just working in construction or cleaning restrooms or working in a restaurant.’ It gave me the idea that I can be a Latina who can make an impact in my community and be a role model for the younger girls.”

Once Bahena had built up confidence in herself and her heritage, she started taking the necessary steps to prepare herself for college. She says she decided to challenge herself and started taking a full load of AP classes. Her GPA dropped at first, she says, but she was able to bring it back up. Bahena graduated 12th out of 222 in her class, and admits if she had continued to take easier classes, she might have been able to graduate higher, but said “it wouldn’t have been the same feeling to graduate in the top 10 percent knowing that I didn’t fully challenge myself.”

Now at Texas A&M, Bahena continues to challenge herself as a member of the Corps of Cadets. Women make up about 10 percent of the Corps, making Bahena a double minority.

At times when things get rough and an easier life seems attractive, Bahena reminds herself she has to be a voice for women in the Corps. She says her sergeant also tells her that over the next few years she has the opportunity to be a leader for the incoming classes of women in the Corps. Bahena is also a Regents Scholar, which is reserved for students whose parents do not hold four-year degrees and whose income is below a certain threshold.

“Her drive is strong,” Hernandez says of Bahena. “There’s nothing that’s going to stop her from reaching her goals.”

Though Bahena is currently undecided in her major, she is very much aware of what she wants to do with whatever degree she gets. “The point of coming to college is to create an impact in the community, not just for ourselves,” Bahena says. “I want to be a part of a corporation that is helping in the community.”

Bahena is already making an impact. Last semester she met with girls on the soccer team from her high school who aren’t members of the LLA, and she is working with Hernandez to possibly set up something over the summer to share what she learned in the LLA. Bahena also says she wants to talk to girls at the middle-school level, because she believes that is where the desire to go to college should first be cultivated.

“Everything I’m doing right now, I’m doing for them,” says Bahena of the younger members of the LLA. “From my perspective, everybody’s smart; you just have to want it and be determined to get it. Don’t let anybody tell you you’re not smart or you can’t do it, because you can.”

About Mays Business School

Texas A&M University’s Mays Business School educates more than 5,000 undergraduate, master’s and doctoral students in accounting, finance, management, management information systems, marketing and supply chain management. Mays consistently ranks among the top public business schools in the country for its undergraduate and MBA programs, and for faculty research. The mission of Mays Business School is creating knowledge and developing ethical leaders for a global society.

“The class load and workload required to complete the Professional Program is challenging,” Robertson says of his experience. “It requires students to learn to manage their time between classes, projects, tests and outside responsibilities. Juggling all these different demands and still successfully completing the program entrenched a work ethic serves me well in my job today.”

The PPA program started just over 20 years ago after Texas lawmakers mandated that accounting students have 150 hours of accounting education instead of 120. Accounting faculty at Mays responded with a combination of courses that prepare students not only for careers as accountants, but also for possible careers in other business fields.

“We felt that the spirit of the increased requirements was to have students develop more skills and to have a broader understanding of business,” explains James Benjamin, accounting department head and one of the architects of the PPA program. “Since many CPAs ultimately take jobs outside of public accounting, we feel that master’s degrees in other fields may help with career advancement.”

In August 1992, 30 students entered the PPA program in August 1992 – a small number compared to the current roster accepted year of almost 250 students. PPA students receive their bachelor’s in accounting and then choose a master’s degree from one of five programs: marketing, finance, accounting, management information systems or entrepreneurial leadership. Offering a variety of master’s degrees makes the PPA program at Mays unique, Benjamin says. It has propelled the program to one of the world’s top-ranked.

“We are consistently one of the top suppliers of new hires for the Big Four accounting firms,” Benjamin says of the program’s success.

Also, more students in the Mays program pass the CPA exam than in any other school in Texas.

Matthew Josefy ’04 finished the PPA program with his master’s in finance, and worked for companies like PricewaterhouseCoopers and Bank of America before returning to Mays to work on his PhD in management.

“It was only as a professional that I realized how unique the intensity of the recruiting efforts directed at the graduates of the program really were,” Josefy says of the opportunities the program creates. “It provides a reliable launch pad for incredibly talented students. Even in the midst of what I hope was the most severe downturn in our lifetime, the vast majority of the graduates of the program were receiving solid job offers.”

Kaitlyn Lentz, who will graduate from the program in May, says it appealed to her because of the opportunity to develop both her talent for accounting and her passion for marketing. She has a job lined up at Marathon Oil after graduation, and says she feels prepared for a dynamic career in any industry.

“From my experience in the PPA program, I have learned to individually approach problems and challenges,” she asserts.

About Mays Business School

Texas A&M University’s Mays Business School educates more than 5,000 undergraduate, master’s and doctoral students in accounting, finance, management, management information systems, marketing and supply chain management. Mays consistently ranks among the top public business schools in the country for its undergraduate and MBA programs, and for faculty research. The mission of Mays Business School is creating knowledge and developing ethical leaders for a global society.

Audrey Henderson ’13

Audrey Henderson ’13 is a senior business honors and marketing major, creative studies minor and advertising certificate student from Lake Jackson, Texas. She is the first student from Texas A&M to receive the recognition. Selection for this program involved a nationwide search for the top 50 advertising, communications or marketing college seniors based on their demonstrated interest in the advertising industry, leadership potential and community service. Henderson will be attending the Building Bridges for Our Future Awards Luncheon in New York City in February, as part of a three-day, expense-paid trip provided by AAF.

As an undergraduate, Henderson has held multiple leadership positions within the Aggie Advertising Club and Texas A&M’s award-winning National Student Advertising Conference team. She was recently selected as a member of Mays Business Fellows Group XXXI and is a member of Alpha Mu Alpha, the national marketing honorary society. Henderson has also served for three and a half years as a mentor to elementary students through H.O.S.T.S. at Navarro Elementary School. Her work experience includes a marketing internship in the Windows Phone 7 department of Microsoft and an advertising account coordinator internship with The Atkins Group in San Antonio. She is currently employed as the communications coordinator for the Business Honors program.

“It is a huge honor to be named one of AAF’s Most Promising Minority Students,” Henderson said. “I am looking forward to representing Texas A&M University at the program in February as well as connecting with and learning from industry leaders and other students who are just as passionate about the advertising industry as I am!”

The Most Promising Minority Students program and its finalists will be featured in Advertising Age, USA TODAY, and the official Most Promising Minority Student program book. Additionally, each finalist’s résumé will be included in the 2013 Most Promising résumé database that will be available to human resources and media professionals across the nation.

James P. Kelly ’13

Kelly, who is from Houston, is president of the MBA Association at Mays. He enlisted in the Army in 2001, and deployed to Iraq in 2003 as a sniper with the 4th Infantry Division. He holds a bachelor’s degree in finance from Sam Houston State. He has been married for 10 years and has three children.

The foundation annually awards one scholarship at each of the program’s 19 participating Texas universities. The undergraduate and graduate students selected are all focusing on entrepreneurial studies at Texas universities.

The awards were presented at an Oct. 30 luncheon in the recipients’ honor at the Hilton Americas Hotel in Houston.

That evening, the scholars were presented at a gala for 900 attendees, who also witnessed the induction of five Texas Legends into the Texas Business Hall of Fame – including Donald Adam ’57 of Bryan. The Bryan native, a longtime businessman, was a 1993 Mays Outstanding Alumnus and a 2012 Distinguished Alumnus of Texas A&M.

Musoma designed a semester-long research project with colleague Richard Johnson for their almost 500 students. Students submitted up to five potential research topics each, then received an assignment for a topic to work on in groups. Musoma and Johnson wanted to give students the opportunity to come up with something on their own, as opposed to confining them to what Musoma calls “a mundane topic.”

Freshman Business Initiative (FBI) students presented the research they conducted during the fall semester to peers and faculty during a poster presentation session.
(view more photos)

“When you ask questions, you get answers,” says Musoma of what he wanted students to get out of this project. He also wanted to give students the experience of working in teams early on.

Some of the topics the students came up with were:

• Whether getting a master’s degree was worth it, depending on the major;
• The shelf life of various majors in the job market;
• What makes an entrepreneur successful; and
• Whether involvement in extracurricular activities matters when it comes to getting a job.

FBI students gathered in the Wehner lobby Monday to share their projects. Some students got the results they were looking for, while others learned that research doesn’t always go as planned.

“I think we would have done something that could have been represented quantitatively,” says freshman Jacob Clanton ’16, whose team tried to figure out what makes an entrepreneur successful. He says once they started researching their topic, they realized their question was somewhat vague and difficult to answer. They did find, however, that overall a good attitude and commitment are important parts of what makes an entrepreneur successful.

Another group who looked at the impact of extracurricular involvement on job prospects was able to find that heavy involvement in one or two organizations is what employers are really looking for.

“They wanted you to be involved in something you could get lifelong skills from,” freshman Greta Peterson ’16 says of the employers her team members interviewed.

When asked about the project experience, Peterson says it was interesting to be on the other side of an interview for the first time, writing and asking the questions. As for working in a group, Peterson says everyone had to learn when to step up to the plate, because not everyone is able to make the same contributions or be available all of the time.

Taking a look at all of the different projects and the range of questions students are asking, it is clear to see that Musoma was able to get the desired outcome he wanted for his students.

“Curiosity didn’t kill the cat,” he explains. “It won the Nobel Prize.”

Graham, who is hardly a stranger to any challenge, is blazing a fresh path through academia with the goal of creating profitable businesses to encourage economic growth and help the underprivileged abroad.

Joshua Graham ’14 is combining studies at Mays and the Bush School with an eye towards bringing social entrepreneurship to the Middle East.

He is working toward two certificates at Mays in Entrepreneurship and Business, while pursuing his master’s degree in International Affairs with a focus on International Economics and Development at the Bush School of Government and Public Service.

“At A&M right now you cannot apply for two graduate degrees at the same time,” Graham explains. “I have a habit of creating paths and avenues and opportunities where many don’t exist.”

Graham applied to numerous joint MBA/Masters of International Affairs programs, but wanted to come to Texas A&M despite the lack of a similar program. So Graham improvised, choosing the master’s program at the Bush School and selecting two essential certificates at Mays.

“The business education will provide me with the necessary skills to be a successful entrepreneur and have the basic business skills and education that are important to success in the private sector,” he says.

This is Graham’s second go-around at Texas A&M, having first attended the Bush School in the spring of 2003 for a graduate certificate in Advanced International Affairs. In the fall of 2012, Graham returned to Aggieland with a very unique goal in mind.

“I’m wanting eventually to do social entrepreneurship in the Middle East,” Graham says of his future. “I want to basically be in a capacity to build companies, hire locals, sell off the companies and use profits to build orphanages and schools in places like Gaza or the Palestinian camps of Lebanon, or the slums of Cairo.”

Specifically, Graham wants to bring Western technologies to the Middle East that are applicable in emerging markets. While working at the Office of Technology Commercialization at Texas A&M, he has been exposed to some of the technologies he’s thinking of. For example, a technology that can effectively remove harmful materials from water and soil could revolutionize agriculture in the Middle East and help spur economic growth in the area.

Graham’s relationship with the Middle East is not just a future plan, but something that has been developing since his first visit there in the summer of 2000. The trip came three months before the half-decade long period of violence known as the second intifada began between the two countries. This and other experiences abroad gave Graham a new perspective on the world, and when he returned to the United States, he decided against his original plan to be a high school history teacher and basketball coach.

“I changed my career path and went to D.C. for an internship on Capitol Hill,” Graham says. “My first day on Capitol Hill was 9/11.”

That was when Graham’s interest in the Middle East intensified. Instead of moving back to sunny L.A. to resume his original life plans, Graham enrolled in the Trinity Forum Academy on the Chesapeake Bay in eastern Maryland.

“I researched the Islamic civilization, the Islamic way of war, [and] religion’s role in international affairs.”

From there, Graham worked in various roles for the government, including working for members of congress and serving side by side with the military in the Middle East. He has certainly come a long way from that first visit. His vision for the region at first seems out of place coming from a man who spent Easter Sunday in 2008 in a hardened bunker in Iraq instead of a chapel, but he hasn’t let all of the negative experiences cloud his perspective.

“It’s gone from kind of a pure frustration-fascination with the history, to a hate-love relationship to a love-hate relationship and then finally, one that wants to be engaged with it for my career,” Graham says about how his feelings towards the Middle East have evolved over time. “I can always learn from other people, no matter their background, their nationality, or their perspective. To serve your fellow man is a tremendous privilege.”

Jillian Netzel ’13

This year’s thought leader panel will be teamed up with mentors from Initiative, a global creative agency. Throughout the one-year appointment, teams will work together on a client project and will have opportunities to interact with industry executives, shadow employees, and interact with members serving on Future Boards in Europe and Latin America.

Netzel, a senior marketing major and advertising certificate student from Houston, was selected from a pool of applicants across the country. She submitted a video resume that described a creative achievement, explained her potential contribution to the board, and identified a creative and effective media campaign. University students from around the country applied for the 13 slots.

Netzel said, “I am looking to forward to working with Initiative’s Future Board members and gain advice on the industry based on their personal experiences. I am also just thrilled to be a part of this influential group of young people who want to learn more about advertising just as much as I do.”