OF THE
At Celanese Corp., a $6.3 billion global conglomerate, Lori Ryerkerk makes social responsibility a priority.
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CONTENTS DECEMBER 2020
VO LU M E 1 5 | I S S U E 0 9
24
CEO of the Year: Lori Ryerkerk As chairman, president, and CEO, she makes corporate social responsibility a priority at Irving-based Celanese Corp., a $6.3 billion global chemical manufacturer. story by BRANDON J. CALL photography by TREVOR PAULHUS
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What Are These Hospitals Doing Right? North Texas is home to two of the top 10 hospitals in the nation when it comes to saving lives, saving money, and serving social justice. story by WILL MADDOX
P H OTO G R A P H Y BY S E A N B E R R Y
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Creating a Buzz How an ex-Plano high school teacher, Merrilee Kick, founded a quirky libations brand and built it into a $70 million global enterprise stories by BRANDON J. CALL photography by SEAN BERRY
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CONTENTS
22
10 EDITOR’S NOTE
DOSSIER 1 3 YO U N E E D T O K N O W
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Dupree Scovell, Woodbine Development Corp. 16 MEET THE 500
Bobby B. Lyle, Lyco Holdings 1 6 L O C A L LY S O U R C E D
Erin Hooley, Bailey’s Blossoms 1 8 R E S TA U R A N T S
Nikky Phinyawatana, Asian Mint 2 0 O N T H E TA B L E
Scott Harper, Dialexa 22 SMALL BUSINESS
FIELD NOTES 43 LESSON LEARNED
Anthony Goonetilleke, Amdocs 44 ECONOMY
The free-market state has work to do on regulations that stifle competition and entrepreneurship. 40 ON TOPIC
Christopher Trowbridge of Bell Nunnally, Sheryl Adkins-Green of Mary Kay, and Zach Fee of UMB Bank share what 2020 has taught them. 48 THOUGHT LEADER
When it comes to giving back, find that sweet spot between what you can afford and where you can drive the most impact, advises Lawrence King of Headstorm.
18
54
OFF DUTY
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51 ART OF STYLE
Terry D. Loftis, The Arts Community Alliance (TACA) 5 2 FAV O R I T E T H I N G
Adrienne Faulkner, Faulkner Design Group
OF THE
5 4 W E L L -T R AV E L E D : CALIFORNIA WINE COUNTRY
Kathryn Hall, HALL Wines
At Celanese Corp., a $6.3 billion global conglomerate, Lori Ryerkerk makes social responsibility a priority.
56 ROOTS
Hesham Elgaghil, Avondale Group 64 END MARK
Architect William Sidney Pittman
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ON THE COVER:
CEO of the Year, Lori Ryerkerk of Celanese Corp., photographed by Trevor Paulhus.
R O OT S C O U R T E S Y O F H E S H A M E L G A G H I L ; T H O M A S C O U R T E S Y O F T E A M D E L E G A T E ; H A L L S T. H E L E N A C O U R T E S Y O F H A L L W I N E S ; S C OV E L L C O U R T E S Y O F W O O D B I N E D E V E L O P M E N T C O R P . ; P H I N YAWATA N A C O U R T E S Y O F A S I A N M I N T .
Tonya Thomas, Team Delegate
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C E LE B RATING
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P U B L I S H E R Gillea Allison
EDITORIAL EDITOR Christine Perez MANAGING EDITOR Will Maddox ONLINE MANAGING EDITOR Bianca R. Montes ASSOCIATE EDITOR Kelsey J. Vanderschoot CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Richard Alm, Brandon J. Call, W. Michael Cox EDITORIAL INTERNS Elizabeth Beeck, Maria Hieber, Jenny Rudolph, Mariah Terry
ART DESIGN DIRECTOR Hamilton Hedrick STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Elizabeth Lavin JUNIOR DIGITAL DESIGNER Emily Olson
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WEB EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Matt Goodman
MAIL 750 N. Saint Paul St., Ste. 2100, Dallas, TX 75201 The magazine assumes no responsibility for the return of unsolicited manuscripts. WEBSITE www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-ceo MAIN OFFICE 214-939-3636 ADVERTISING 214-939-3636 x 128 REPRINTS 214-939-3636 SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES For immediate assistance, call 214-939-3636 x 232. For other inquiries, e-mail customerservice@dmagazine.us. SUBSCRIPTIONS 11 issues for $54 in the United States, possessions, APO and FPO; $70 per 11 issues elsewhere. Please provide old and new addresses and enclose latest mailing label when inquiring about your subscription. For custom publishing inquiries, call 214-540-0113.
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The Reinvented Future Awaits
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well, it’s done. i’ve turned my son’s old room into a home office. A desk sits where his bed used to be; his trophies and sports memorabilia are all stored away, replaced with back issues of D CEO. For the last eight months, my workspace has rotated between the dining room, living room, and the kitchen counter. Creating a more permanent solution forced me to face two big realities. First, Jon, my baby, has moved out for good. And second, even when D Magazine Partners’ office is fully open and operational again, we’ll all likely continue to work from home at least part-time. The world, as we knew it, has changed. But in the chaos of 2020, some positives have emerged. The global pandemic accelerated innovation and forced us to adapt to new technologies. At D CEO, we learned that we can still produce a great magazine entirely off site and with reduced resources. Because our interns now work virtually, we’ve been able to hire the best of the best from across the country. And instead of weekly meetings, they’re able to join our daily Teams calls and get a more in-depth experience. We’ve also seen an increase in event attendance, as people have been able to attend online. Just last night, we held a “Defining the Future of Oil & Gas” panel event, featuring some of the region’s top energy industry leaders. In the past, we’ve had to turn people away due to space limitations at The Petroleum Club; this year, more than 200 people joined us virtually, in addition to those who were able to attend (properly socially distanced!) in person. The pandemic forced us to reconsider doing things the way we have always done them. It also made us focus on our highest and best use and double down on our core mission of connecting readers; in these times, that’s more important than ever. As we head into 2021, there’s no doubt in my mind that the collective we—especially in a market as robust and dynamic as Dallas-Fort Worth—will emerge stronger than ever.
Christine Perez Editor
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DECEMBER 2020
DOSSIER TRENDS
to
WATC H
a n d
NORTH TEXAS NEWSMAKERS
YOU NEED TO KNOW
Dupree Scovell Doesn’t Shy Away From Tough Conversations The Woodbine Development Corp. managing partner uses his influence to address the racial divide in commercial real estate.
P H OTO G R A P H Y C O U R T E S Y O F W O O D B I N E D E V E L O P M E N T C O R P .
story by BIANCA R. MONTES
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DOSSIER
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way: How do you take an old white industry and wake it up a little bit?” In early August, Scovell gathered a diverse group of real estate influencers. Attendees ranged from the old guard—think John Scovell, Fred Perpall, Tom Leppert—and next-gen leaders of varying ethnicities. The criteria: Can you influence hiring and do you have the ability or responsibility to shape your organization’s culture? As tight as the Dallas real estate community is perceived to be, Scovell says many White people in the room were surprised to discover that so many people of color were working in the industry. “Depending on where you live and what school you go to, what your company looks like, and an emerging leader in commercial real whether you’re a member of some kind of social estate, Dupree Scovell has spent the past few club, there’s a good chance within that bubble years working behind the scenes with his broththere is not much diversity,” he says. “That is just er King to grow and diversify Woodbine Develthe way Dallas is organized.” opment Corp. The company was founded by his Not one to shy away from tough conversafather, John Scovell, and oil icon Ray Hunt in tions, Scovell says he asked those in attendance 1973. With projects across the country, mostly in to share both their earliest racism experience the hospitality space, it’s best known locally for and the most recent. “You could almost hear changing the Dallas skyline with the iconic Rethe air going out of the room union Tower. when someone shared that their Its portfolio, valued at about “HOW DO YOU [Black] son was pulled over last $1.75 billion, includes more than week in an all-White neighbor8,000 hotel rooms, 4.3 million TAKE AN OLD hood, searched, and told to get square feet of office space, and WHITE out of the car when he was drivmore than 1 million square feet INDUSTRY AND ing home from St. Marks,” Scovof special event venues, plus nuWAKE IT UP A ell says. “That is the definition of merous spa, golf, and fitness projLITTLE BIT?” White privilege. We don’t know. ects. The brothers’ new approach We don’t see it. So, it must not has set up Woodbine to weather DUPREE SCOVELL exist because we don’t have those a downturn spurred by a global Woodbine Dev. Corp. personal testimonies.” pandemic and secured capital for Although still in its infancy, struggling assets. Scovell says his vision for the Now, Scovell is focusing on an new group is two-fold. The first issue he believes will set the tone goal is to build friendships and connections. for the next generation: systemic racism. Dis“Once those are formed, then transactions start mayed by what he calls a lack of unity surroundto happen,” he says. The second is to highlight the ing the May 25 murder of George Floyd and the firms that are leading the way. “We are putting protests that followed, Scovell says it became aptogether some of the brightest minds in Dallas parent that there was much work to be done. who happen to be on their diversity councils for Understanding that corporations can be sigtheir companies and are looking if there is a set of nificant drivers of change, Scovell looked to his criteria, a set of standards we can all subscribe to influential network of business leaders to start and help change to happen. That is hiring, that is a conversation. “I can at least be a river guide, board representation, that’s executive committee which is me saying I can get the right people in representation—that’s brass tacks.” the room to ask, and I will put it in a non-PC
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GROWTH S T R AT E G I E S
Minding the Family Business SCALING UP Since taking over as managing partners at Woodbine, brothers Dupree and King Scovell have expanded from operating in two states to 11.
DIVERSIFICATION Once solely focused on resort-style properties, Woodbine is now developing up and down the hospitality scale, from select service to suburban.
MANAGEMENT Over the past eight years, the company has gone from one or two operating partners that manage its assets to eight.
INVESTORS It also has gone from one or two capital partners to working with 10 to 15 different institutional investors; additionally, it launched its own fund.
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DOSSIER
L O C A L LY S O U R C E D
Flourishing Enterprise
BOBBY B. LYLE Founder, Chairman, and CEO LYC O H O L D I N G S
the name behind southern methodist university’s engineering program and a member of the school’s board of trustees, Bobby Lyle founded Lyco Energy Corp. and helped launch a number of private companies and joint ventures. At one point, he also served as an interim dean of SMU’s business school. He has been deeply engaged in the community for decades, serving in leadership roles and supporting organizations that range from Texas Trees Foundation and City Year to St. Philip’s School and Southwestern Medical Foundation.
EDUCATION: University of Massachusetts-Amherst (EdD–Strategic Planning and Leadership), Southern Methodist University (MS– Engineering Management), Louisiana Tech University (BS–Mechanical Engineering) BEST ADVICE: “Never underestimate your ability to achieve whatever you can dream.” DINNER PARTY: “I’d have dinner with Fred Perpall in order to better understand what it is like to be a Black business leader in Dallas in 2020. I would also choose Mark Cuban in order to hear the ‘inside’ story about Shark Tank.” NONPROFIT CAUSE: “The Salvation Army has special meaning to me because it serves those experiencing the greatest need in our community
without discrimination. It is available to serve those in need of food, shelter, clothing, and loving care 24/7, 365 days a year.” FIRST JOB: “I worked as a structural test engineer at General Dynamics in Fort Worth. I learned that I did not want to work for a large company where I did not have the opportunity for significant ownership.”
the nation—one that is accessible to every child, without exception.” 2020 TAUGHT ME: “It taught me patience, combined with the urgency of ensuring equal opportunity for all members of our community.” LOOKING AHEAD: “I’m excited by the potential I see in my children and grandchildren. In fact, I’m excited by the potential I see in all children, if we simply encourage and nurture them to achieve what they dream is possible.”
BUSY MOM
Erin Hooley, with her six children and husband, uses social media to engage with customers and build her brand.
when mother of six erin Hooley began making hair accessories to provide her family with additional income during the 2008 recession, she never thought the hobby project would turn into a children’s clothing company, Bailey’s Blossoms. An e-commerce brand with clothing primarily sold online, the company also provides products to more than 1,000 retailers across the country. Bailey’s Blossoms has seen phenomenal growth during COVID-19, with annual sales approaching $12 million. Named after her oldest daughter, Hooley’s company employs a 35-person team and has launched sister brands for tweens, teens, and mothers. With no college degree, Hooley says she relies on her innate leadership skills and engagement through social media to spark ongoing growth. “We’re trying to build the culture that Bailey’s is a community where people become part of the brand,” Hooley says. “We put the person back in the story again; this is not just about outfits and clothing.” —Jenny Rudolph
LY L E BY J A K E M E Y E R S ; H O O L E Y C O U R T E S Y O F B A I L E Y ’ S B L O S S O M S
Erin Hooley has grown Bailey’s Blossoms from a passion project to a $12 million clothing brand.
MEET THE 500
FUN FACT: “At age 10, I played the ukulele and performed in my cousin’s country and western band in Junction City, Arkansas.” HOBBY: “I enjoy fishing, traveling with my wife, and helping to start new businesses.” A BETTER DFW: “Dallas would be even better with a commitment to developing the best educational system in
This Q&A is extended content from Dallas 500, a special edition produced by D CEO that profiles the region’s most influential business leaders. Visit www.dallas500.com for details.
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DOSSIER
R E S TA U R A N T S
story by KELSEY J. VANDERSCHOOT
03 1 86
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spicy, salty, and savory were not always restaurateur nikky HER MENU Phinyawatana’s flavors of choice; she once hoped that sweets would be her FEATURES calling. After finishing her undergrad at Babson College, she journeyed FOOD SHE back to Dallas to help her father with his food delivery business and chase GREW UP her dream of opening her own dessert bar. “Fifteen or 16 years ago, it just WITH AS A didn’t make sense economically,” Phinyawatana says. “I looked around and “HALF-THAI, said, ‘We’re really missing just a Thai restaurant, Bangkok-style, the kind that I grew up with in Thailand.” HALF-TEXAN.” Phinyawatana and her husband answered the call in 2004 with Asian Mint, introducing Dallas to a branch of cuisine that was just starting to gain traction. “When people would think about Asian cuisine, they would think about Chinese food,” Phinyawatana says. The majority of her menu is made up of the Thai food she grew up with as a “half-Thai, half-Texan” young woman in Thailand, with Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese dishes mixed in. Phinyawatana’s talent and passion came through, and both diners and investors noticed. Offers to franchise or purchase her concept started popping up only a year in, when she was 28. She wasn’t, and still isn’t, ready to relinquish control, having grown Asian Mint to include four locations across Dallas and serving roughly a million customers per year. She is focused on fine-tuning her supply chain to include more locally sourced and organic options, and perhaps expanding into new markets, such as Austin. “My kids are fairly grown up—they’re 11 and almost 7—and I have now a bigger team. So, growing outside of Texas or outside of Dallas—why not?” She also is excited about growing her spinoff, Nikky Feeding Souls, which educates consumers about Thai food through virtual cooking classes, informational videos, and trips to Thailand. It allows Phinyawatana to give back through donations to global and local groups like the Texas Restaurant Association and The Hockaday School, of which she is a proud alumna. She hopes to grow the brand’s online platform to one day reach Netflix, Disney, or Amazon. “Being a multiFOODIE FUN cultural, Asian-fusion person who has Virtual cooking classes lived and traveled around the world, I feel and informational videos are part of Nikky like I can bridge that gap and bring a lot Phinyawatana’s Asian Mint spinoff, Nikky of love and inspiration, if I could get on a Feeding Souls. bigger platform,” she says.
P H OTO G R A P H Y C O U R T E S Y O F A S I A N M I N T
With Asian Mint and her new spinoff, Nikky Phinyawatana brings Bangkok Thai to Dallas, and beyond.
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Scott Harper Finds His Footing Ten years in, the Dialexa CEO is leaning into growth while maintaining an innovative and familial culture.
during a pandemic, where time feels like it’s standing still, Dialexa founder and CEO Scott Harper is embracing personal change. A decade ago, he launched his tech consulting firm in a garage. It now employs more than 150 people and recently doubled its physical footstory by WILL MADDOX print with new space in the East Quarter downillustration by JAKE MEYERS town. Dialexa clients range from high-growth startups to Fortune 500 corporations. Fresh off a hunting trip where he trekked through the mountains of New Mexico, Harper joined me for a patio lunch at Sevy’s Grill. He opted for the Bay of Fundy salmon; I had the grilled chicken salad with apples. At any given time, he says, “WHAT GOT YOU FROM Dialexa works with about 15 A TO B DOESN’T GET different companies. Some are more established names YOU FROM B TO C.” looking to invest in technology to create a strategic advantage; others are bringing new products to market. Recent projects have involved launching an autonomous robotic lawnmower company and helping an “extremely large” automaker transform its relationship with dealerships. Dialexa is neither marketing nor back-office tech support; instead, it facilitates the convergence of technology with the core of what businesses do, creating custom solutions that turn
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any organization into a tech company. Local clients include Topgolf, MoneyGram, and Sabre Corp. “It doesn’t matter if you’re automotive, commercial real estate, or telecom, you’re going to differentiate and win with technology in the future,” Harper says. Like many businesses, Dialexa experienced a significant hit during the pandemic, as companies took a breath to figure out what outside services they could afford. “It’s not like a traditional recession, where you have some runway to do something,” Harper says. “This was near immediate–we had clients whose revenues essentially went to zero.” But business has rebounded nicely, and Dialexa is now hiring new employees and continuing to grow. As the company expands, Harper’s role has grown, too. From doing everything needed in the early days, he now spends most of his time on strategy, client relationships, and casting vision. Still, he wasn’t always clear-eyed about the transition. “You have to embrace that journey, or else you can feel very lost,” he says. “What got you from A to B doesn’t get you from B to C. You’re constantly in that reinvention of yourself, and you have to look at what’s most valuable for the business and what you enjoy doing.” Harper is hyper-focused on the company’s inputs, such as hiring the smartest people he can and creating a space and culture that makes employees excited about coming to work. He tries to maintain a family dynamic, even as the company grows. “I don’t look at it as change—it’s an evolution and a progression,” he says. “I think that we’re getting better and better over time. That’s how I see it.”
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T E X A D I A PA R T N E R S W I T H CFT FOR BUSINESS ON THEIR C H A R I TA B L E G I V I N G Steve Burke and Dawna Payne with CFT4B’s Sejal Desai (right)
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DOSSIER
SMALL BUSINESS
Administrative matchmaker Tonya Thomas connects entrepreneurs and executives with virtual support.
P H OTO G R A P H Y C O U R T E S Y O F T E A M D E L E G A T E
story by ELIZABETH BEECK
tonya thomas was surfing the internet one day about TEAM two decades ago when she stumbled on a virtual assistant training DELEGATE’S program. At the time, she worked as an executive assistant for a REVENUE GREW construction company that employed her husband, which required 30 PERCENT IN frequent cross-country moves. “When I saw the course, I thought, AUGUST AND ‘OK. This is perfect,’” she says. “So, I took the training program, 46 PERCENT and I’ve been doing it ever since.” Thomas founded The Small Office Assistant, a virtual assistant IN SEPTEMBER. company, in 2001. She quickly became uninspired with the work, finding herself in a technical role more than the CEO role. “I was having a coaching session with someone I was working with, and she said, ‘You don’t have a business, you have a job you created for yourself,’” Thomas says. That inspired her to rebrand the company and revamp its business model. The result: Team Delegate, a fully remote executive assistant company that pairs executives and businesses directly with an assistant who best fits their needs. Thomas is the matchmaker, assisting with the client onboarding process using her proprietary delegation system. Most clients are privately-owned companies that require general administrative work and C-Suiters who need a personal assistant to help with inbox and calendar management. Having a virtual assistant as opposed to an in-house assistant is beneficial for clients in a couple of ways, Thomas says. “Anytime we do something, we do it, and that’s it. There’s no downtime,” she says. There are also cost savings; the assistants work as independent contractors, meaning there are no extra taxes associated with their work. In an increasingly virtual world, remote services like those that Team Delegate offers are becoming more in demand. Thomas says her company saw August revenue increase by 30 percent and September revenue increase by 46 percent. “There’s explosive growth in the industry,” she says. This is particularly true on the corporate side, she THE DELEGATOR Many of Tonya adds. “Now that a lot of companies Thomas’ Team are going remote, they are more Delegate clients are private companies or open to the idea of using virtual execs who need help getting control of services,” Thomas says. “They see their calendars and that it works, and it works well.” email inboxes.
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TRAILBLAZER LORI RYERKERK MAKES SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY A PRIORITY AT $ THE 6.3 BILLION CELANESE CORP. story by BRANDON
J. CALL
photography by TREVOR
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PAU L H U S
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I
IN THE 1980S, A 21-YEAR-OLD, BLONDE-HAIRED WOMAN FROM IOWA
moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to join what’s now ExxonMobil as a chemical engineer. “I was the only female hired the year that I joined,” recalls Lori Ryerkerk, a 34-year veteran of the oil and gas industry. “It’s not to say that Exxon isn’t a great company today, but at the time I started there, it was a very old-fashioned, male-dominated company. You didn’t talk about your family, and you certainly didn’t bring your kids into the office.” At one point, a friend of Ryerkerk’s shared some comments that had been made privately by a senior manager: “Lori is really good,” the exec said. “Hopefully, she won’t mess up and go have children.” Ryerkerk says she heard just about every comment one could imagine: “‘You shouldn’t be here. You’re taking a man’s job. Why aren’t you at home?’ All that. But you know what? I couldn’t control what anyone else thought about me. I could only control how I chose to respond.” She responded with sheer grit, putting her head down and getting to work. It helped that she grew up the youngest of five children, so she had some pretty thick skin, too. The experiences Ryerkerk gained in those early years of her career, both good and bad, formed lasting impressions of the leader she’d strive to one day become. And they powered her ascension to the C-Suite in her trailblazing career at Exxon—then for a couple of years with independent Hess Corp., before leading manufacturing operations of Royal Dutch Shell in Europe and Africa.
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“When we engaged with Lori, it became very apparent that she was the one for Celanese.” M A R K RO H R | Fo r m e r C EO, C e l a n e s e C o r p .
When former Celanese Corp. CEO Mark Rohr announced his transition into a chairman role in 2019, Ryerkerk was six months into her retirement. “I often joke that’s the only thing I ever failed at,” she says with a laugh. But, with her broad international operations experience, Ryerkerk was the perfect candidate to lead Celanese, an Irving-based conglomerate that makes products used in everything from paints to textiles and generated $6.3 billion in revenue last year. “We were adamant about finding a CEO who would not only follow the aggressive growth trajectory plan laid out, but at the same time, we wanted to find someone who would continue to make the huge strides we’d made in improving diversity and inclusion,” Rohr says. “We spoke to many qualified individuals, but when we engaged with Lori, it became very apparent she was the one for Celanese.” The initiatives that the company began to implement under Rohr—like being one of the first to come out against the Texas State Legislature’s so-called bathroom bill in 2017 and founding a philanthropic arm to deeply support community engagement— closely aligned with Ryerkerk’s own leadership philosophies and lived experiences. She wanted to not only continue making strides with diversity and inclusion and corporate citizenship, but also expand and grow the initiatives because she viewed them as an integral part of the company’s overall success. That’s one of the reasons Celanese named Lori Ryerkerk its chief executive in April of 2019—and why D CEO magazine named her its CEO of the Year for 2020.
At
E X XO N, RYE RK E R K SHOT U P THE COR PO-
RATE ladder, promoted to a supervisor post by the time she was 25. It wasn’t uncommon for her to work 14-hour days. But three years later, when she gave birth to her first child, a daughter, it changed her. “Becoming a mother made me a better leader,” she says. “I realized there’s a lot of other things people could be doing. I also began to value my own time more, and I got a lot better at time management because I wanted to get home.” By the time her son was born eight years later, the staunch culture had begun to feel even more restrictive. “I felt like I had to leave a very important part of myself at the door,” Ryerkerk says. “I remember after my son was born—he was just a few months old—I had to be back at work for a very important meeting. I
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couldn’t line up a sitter, so I brought him into the office. I fed him and put him to sleep in a friend’s office. “There were other times when someone would walk into my office, and my son would be sleeping on the floor on a blanket,” she continues. “When I began doing that, people started realizing I was a real person. I had a family and kids. It made me more of a human in their eyes.” This was the mid-1990s, and people weren’t talking about authentic leadership yet. But Ryerkerk says her humanity made her more relatable to others on her team. “People who work for you want to know you’re a real person and that you make mistakes and get stressed just like they do,” she says. “Showing that vulnerability isn’t a weakness; it helps people feel comfortable to show their own vulnerabilities.” She continued to scale the corporate ladder at Exxon, segueing out of P&L and into public affairs and government relations. After a brief stopover with indepenAs one of just 38 women dent exploration and production leading a Fortune 500 company Hess Corp., where Rycompany, Ryerkerk has erkerk says she “learned the valpaved the way for other female professionals pursuue of cash flow,” she joined Shell, ing STEM vocations in enwhere she led a team of 30,000 ergy. “I was the first female employees and contractors as exchemical plant manager at Exxon,” she says. “I was the ecutive vice president of global second refinery manager. manufacturing. I held so many jobs in my Since taking charge, Ryerkerk career where I was the first, has steered Celanese through a or maybe the second, and frankly, it was hard. When number of big business moves. I looked around and saw In April, the company closed on people doing my job, I a deal to buy a polymer powders didn’t see myself.” And still, business under the Elotex brand, she persevered. “Critical mass is everything,” from Nouryon. And in October, it Ryerkerk says. “Until wrapped up the sale of its 45 perthat, you’re the outsider. cent equity stake in Polyplastics to You’re the one not at the Daicel Corp. for $1.6 billion. Celbathroom sink having the important conversation. If anese’s third-quarter 2020 results you’re the one in the other beat analyst expectations, with bathroom, you have to $1.41 billion in sales and diluted work even harder to get earnings per share of $1.76. into those conversations.”
CRITICAL MASS IS EVERYTHING
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In
H E R FIRST YE AR, RYE RKER K HAS A LSO
led an incredibly robust corporate citizenship platform at the company, encouraging employees to give back to the communities in which they live and work. “Corporate social responsibility is more than just an initiative,” says Mary Elyse Farah, president of the Celanese Foundation. “It is interwoven into the very being of our company culture—and it is a belief that is supported at the very highest level by Lori.” Celanese and Social Venture Partners Dallas won Collaboration of the Year honors in D CEO’s 2020 Nonprofit and Corporate Citizenship Awards for a capacity-building initiative for area nonprofits. Under Ryerkerk’s direction, the company took nine of its rising stars out of their full-time jobs for four weeks and reassigned them, with pay, to support three South Dallas nonprofits: After8toEducate, Bonton Farms, and Miles of Freedom. The leaders fully immersed themselves in the communities and completed projects that provided long-term impact. “Lori carries on the legacy of corporate social responsibility at Celanese—and makes it her own,” says Tony Fleo, CEO of Social Venture Partners Dallas. “For us, it makes helping the community much easier to have such a willing partner and champion in Lori. It’s a tribute to a person whose heart is in the right place when it comes to the community and the impact she can have.” Another area of focus for Celanese is its sustainability efforts. In 2020, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recognized the company as an Energy Star Partner for a fifth consecutive time, and with Sustained Excellence recognition for a third time. And last year, under Ryerkerk’s guidance, Celanese received a perfect score on the Human Rights Campaign’s Equality Index of corporate diversity and inclusion for the second year in a row. “Employees want their leaders to be visible,” Ryerkerk says. “They want their leaders to be authentic, speak their language, and relate to what they’re going through. People want their leaders to care about social issues and sustainability. That wasn’t the expectation 30 years ago, when I was starting out.” In April 2020, a year after Ryerkerk was named president and CEO, the Celanese board elected to add chairman to her title. She replaced Rohr, who retired in June 2020 after 13 years with the company. It was a ringing endorsement of her performance. Despite her remarkable career and impressive achievements, Ryerkerk reminds herself to stay humble. “My son is 22; he’s now a senior in college,” she says. “My title means nothing to him. I’m just his mom. A few months ago, he came into the office—and he’s tall, so he writes on my whiteboard, ‘Too tall for you’ with a smiley face on the very top where I can’t reach it. It is still there all these months later. For me, it is a great reminder that I’m still just a mom. We all need that reminder to stay humble,” Ryerkerk says. “At the end of the day, we all get out of bed, and we come to do our job to the best of our abilities. And that’s all we can really ask of people.”
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Power Players Celanese’s Lori Ryerkerk is one of just 38 women leading Fortune 500 businesses. But she’s getting some company locally, with three other North Texas industrial powerhouses naming women as CEOs in the last year or so.
BNSF
HILTI
TRINITY INDUSTRIES
BNSF announced in September 2020 that its executive vice president of operations, Katie Farmer, will become president and CEO of the company on Jan. 1, 2021, making her the first woman in North America to helm a major railway operator. Part of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway family and based in Fort Worth, BNSF operates about 32,500 miles of track and has about 36,000 employees.
It has been a little more than a year since Martina McIsaac was tapped to oversee North American operations for Hilti, a multinational manufacturer of tools and other products and services for the construction industry. She joined the company in 2014 and previously ran things in Canada. Founded in 1941 in Liechtenstein, Hilti employs about 30,000 people around the world.
Founded in Dallas in 1933, Trinity Industries is a multibillion-dollar company that is heavily involved in the railcar business, highway products, and logistics. In February 2020, it named E. Jean Savage its new CEO and president. Savage, who had served on Trinity’s board since November 2018, was a longtime executive with Caterpillar, most recently leading its surface mining and technology division.
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North Texas is home to two of the top 10 hospitals in the nation when it comes to saving lives, saving money, and serving social justice. story by WILL
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Dallas-Fort Worth is home to some of the best medical care in the world. Specialists cure rare conditions, experimental surgeries extend patients’ lives, and innovators find new ways to identify and fight cancer and brain disorders. But access to that care, for many, is often reflective of the dystopian movie Elysium. In the film, the rich and powerful live in a space habitat in the Earth’s orbit, benefitting from medical technology that can instantly cure all diseases, regenerate body parts, and reverse the aging process. The people of Earth can see the spacecraft and their salvation, but have no access to it and are left to suffer in what remains of the planet. In many ways, this serves as an analogy to the state of healthcare in the region. Fort Worth
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The street medicine program from JPS Health Network in Fort Worth has a brick-and-mortar clinic as well as a mobile unit that treats those experiencing homelessness in Tarrant County. “The core principle is taking healthcare direct-
ly to our patients and meeting them in their reality,” says Joel Hunt, director of the system’s Acclaim Street Medicine. “Wherever that is, both literally and figurative: We go under bridges, parks, sidewalks, in the woods, and the camps.”
is home to the ZIP code with the lowest life expectancy in the state–66.7 years, a full 12 years below the national average. Texas’ worst-in-the-nation insurance rate means that many will never have access to advanced, life-saving practices at the area’s highest-performing hospitals. Dallas is second only to Houston among large cities when it comes to uninsured residents, and Fort Worth is not much better, which means safety net hospitals must pick up the slack. Why should businesses care about the status of the region’s public health systems? If a health system can positively impact a community’s health, it can reduce costs for everyone. Hospitals in North Texas deliver millions in charity care to uninsured residents in their emergency departments, and much of those costs are not recouped. In 2016, Texas hospitals gave out $26 billion in uncompensated care, according to the State of Texas. Those costs get passed on to consumers and employers when hospitals increase their rates. According to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, hospital costs increased more than 200 percent between 1998 and 2018, far outpacing inflation. The National Council of State
The program is part of the humanitarian and community work the health system does, but it also improves efficiency and reduces costs. Many of those experiencing homelessness are high utilizers of the costly emergency
department, or they end up with expensive inpatient treatment. “Being able to connect people to other kinds of specialists and working on preventing exacerbations of chronic diseases is another big thing that we do,” Hunt says.
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EXCELLENCE IN
“WE KNOW that you can have the HIGHEST QUALITY CARE out there, b u t i f t h e P O P U L AT I O N C A N ’ T G E T AC C E S S t o i t , t h e n i t D O E S N ’ T H E L P. ” Dr. Frederick P. Cerise | President and CEO, Parkland Health & Hospital System
HEALTHCARE AWARDS 20
Legislatures reports that an individual’s yearly insurance premium increased from around $2,000 in 1999 to more than $6,000 in 2018. For a family, premiums skyrocketed from approximately $6,000 in 1999 to nearly $20,000 in 2018. Employers, employees, and health systems are picking up the tab for an unhealthy population. Taxes paid by individuals and businesses also fund safety-net hospitals, so more efficient care that addresses problems before they become expensive means savings for everyone. But fortunately for North Texas, the region is home to two of the most accessible and valu-
Parkland CEO Dr. Frederick P. Cerise, left, began his career treating patients as an internist.
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able hospitals in the nation, according to the “Best Hospitals for America” list published by Washington Monthly. The publication partnered with the nonpartisan healthcare think tank Lown Institute to evaluate 3,200 hospitals, ranking those that “save lives, save money, and serve social justice.” John Peter Smith (JPS) Health Network was ranked No. 1 hospital in the nation in the ranking, and Parkland Health and Hospital System came in at No. 9. The study didn’t just look at patient care, as many others do; it also analyzed the impact on the greater community. The region and country are home to some of the most skilled physicians and cutting-edge technology in the world, but the health of North Texas and the U.S. lag behind many others who are not at the apex of patient care and performance. This evaluation system seeks to analyze the overall contribution to the health of society into ac-
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ADDRESSING DISPARITIES Safety-net hospitals and networks have to deal with the downstream effects of the social determinants of health like a lack of housing, education, employment opportunities, and healthy food. When those factors aren’t present in a community, they negatively impact the health of a population. The system wants to decrease expensive treatment or uncompensated care, so there is an incentive to work with organizations that address those needs and keep people healthy and away from the hospital. “We’re trying to figure out how to address the disparities that people are having, particularly in the area of food,” says JPS CEO Robert Earley. “Is it smart to say, we’re going to link a food program to your prescription? Because if I only provide a prescription, then it’s a one-generation answer. If we can get people in a different situation from an eating standpoint, we create a second and a third-generation solution.”
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“ I f w e c o u l d g i v e E V E R Y B O DY C A R E a n d E V E R Y B O DY WA S H E A LT H Y , a n d t h e y d i d n’ t n e e d o u r s y s t e m h e r e , t h a t w o u l d b e w o n d e r f u l f o r u s .” Robert Earley | President and CEO, JPS Health Network.
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count. It analyzed patient outcomes (mortality, safety, satisfaction), civic leadership (access, community benefit, charity care), and value (overuse of low-value tests and procedures).
PUTTING CARE IN PATIENTS’ HANDS Although health systems were already looking to meet patients where they are to reduce barriers to care, the COVID-19 pandemic accentuated the need to keep patients away from hospitals. Not only have JPS and Parkland improved telehealth capabilities, they are also working to help patients to receive treatment at home or even do it themselves. The hospitals have several programs for patients to treat themselves at home, including administering their antibiotic infusions and dialysis. Not only is this more convenient for the patients, it also saves costs by reducing lapses in treatment and keeps the patient out of the hospital, Cerise says. “That’s going to take some of the pressure off the system and let us serve the more severely ill people at the hospital,” he says. “It’s going to be more convenient for patients and cheaper overall.”
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T H E FU LL PICT U RE O F CARE It takes a generous spirit to join the healthcare field. There are probably easier ways to make a living, but those who choose to take their talents to a safety net hospital bring an attitude of service. “We have a lot of people who are genuinely mission-driven when they come through the door, and that helps when you’re trying to enhance your culture,” says Robert Earley, president and CEO of JPS. The recognition helped solidify and encourage their efforts to take care of the most vulnerable in society. “There is a reason that I come in at 3 o’clock in the morning,” Earley says, explaining the mindset of his employees. “I deal with the tears, and I deal with the sadness because I also deal with the greatness of knowing how many people walk out of here in better shape.” At Parkland, Dr. Frederick P. Cerise, president and CEO, says the rankings provide the full picture of care and community impact. “We know that you can have the highest quality care out there,” he says. “But if the population can’t get access to it, then it doesn’t help. To have rankings that look at hospital systems investment in ensuring that everyone has access to care is critically important.” An essential part of what makes these facilities so valuable is how they provide healthcare access to the community as a whole. A health system’s impact has never been more critical than during a pandemic—one that disproportionately impacts communities of color and more impoverished populations. Although private healthcare systems avoid certain areas because there are no profits to be made, these
hospitals target underserved regions. “Does the population we serve reflect the demographics or the public catchment area?” Cerise asks. “We invest heavily in free clinics or reduced fee clinics and other access points in the community.” Parkland targets both brick-and-mortar primary care clinics in high need areas, schoolbased clinics in Dallas’ public schools, and has expanded its telehealth and home-based care options to allow those with transportation issues to better access care. There are 12 community-based health clinics around Dallas and 12 school-based clinics that serve patients for no or reduced cost. Because of transportation, employment, financial, childcare, or other obstacles, many patients cannot see the physician, so bringing care to the patients can help improve health and eventually reduce costs down the line. “And when they see medical care, it’s because they can’t perform their job,” Earley says. The acuity levels become elevated. We are often not dealing with somebody that we’re helping at the beginning. Oftentimes, we’re helping mid-crisis or at the tail end of the crisis.” This situation results in poor outcomes. “We’re trying to figure out better access models,” Earley says.
Top: Safety net hospitals like JPS care for Fort Worth’s diverse population, regardless of the ability to pay.
Right: A patient receives treatment at Parkland, which was recognized for balancing quality with efficiency while improving access.
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“How do you get clinics that are closer, how do you get care, how do you do virtual medical care, so that people don’t have to leave their house?” The push for expanding access to those in need is what separates JPS and Parkland from hospitals around the country.
E FFICIE NT CARE Even though the U.S. has poorer health outcomes than many other wealthy nations, the country spends more on healthcare than any
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BETTER ACCESS TO CARE With transportation a significant hurdle to accessing care, Parkland is adding two health clinics in vulnerable areas, as part of its community primary care practices network. The first is in the former Red Bird Mall in southern Dallas; a second is at the Jubilee Park Community Center in southeast Dallas. The 43,000-square-foot clinic at Red Bird will offer a full range of services, including geriatrics, pharmacy, behavioral health, radiology, nutrition, and more. The Jubilee clinic is part of a center that offers other services like education, housing, and workforce development. “It’s just a very holistic approach because we know that there are a lot of many non-health factors that impact the health of an individual in the community,” says Christina Mintner, senior vice president of population health and Homeless Outreach Medical Services at Parkland.
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other country. Part of that issue is the citizens’ poor health, but another problem is the overutilization of expensive treatments and tests. The highly-ranked hospitals in Washington Monthly’s list place a premium on efficient care and avoiding overtreatment. “We have a genuine sensitivity to the community, Earley says. “We have community partners that no one else has. We have four elected county commissioners and a county judge that ultimately vote on our budget.” Being held accountable to elected officials and the voters adds pressure to
provide the most efficient care. “There’s not an incentive to do more. You don’t have a financial incentive to over-utilize,” says Cerise. “The incentive for us is to be as efficient as possible with those dollars to serve a large population.” Although it might sound counter-intuitive, these public health systems are incentivized to eliminate the need for high-cost hospital operations, saving their system and society at large money along the way. “We’re one of the few health networks in the world that want no patients,” Earley says. “We would be happy not to have any patients. If we could give everybody care and everybody was healthy, and they didn’t need our system here, that would be wonderful for us.”
CEO Robert Earley says his team at JPS is “genuinely mission-driven when they come through the door.”
S TO R Y O P E N E R S H U T T E R S T O C K ; OT H E R P H OTO G R A P H Y C O U R T E S Y O F P A R K L A N D H E A LT H & H O S P I TA L S Y S T E M AND B R I A N M A S C H I N O O F J P S H E A LT H N E T W O R K .
Upstream behavioral health services can help patients stay out of the costly emergency department.
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2020 EXCELLENCE IN HEALTHCARE FINALISTS O R G A N I Z AT I O N S
I N D I V I D UA L S
C O M M U N I T Y O U T R E AC H
H E A LT H C A R E T R A I L B L A Z E R
Baylor Scott & White Health
Dr. Christopher Crow,
Children’s Health
Catalyst Health Network and StratiFi Health
Methodist Health System S TO R Y O P E N E R S H U T T E R S T O C K ; OT H E R P H OTO G R A P H Y C O U R T E S Y O F P A R K L A N D H E A LT H & H O S P I TA L S Y S T E M AND B R I A N M A S C H I N O O F J P S H E A LT H N E T W O R K .
Texas Health Resources
H E A LT H C A R E A DVO C AT E Vishal Ahuja, Southern Methodist University
S E R V I C E I N N OVAT I O N
Mary Ann Contreras, JPS Health Network
MediBookr
Dr. Sean Raj, Baylor Scott & White Health
Neuro Rehab VR
Dennis Wade, Santé Center for Healing
SmartLight Analytics VitalTech Holdings, Inc.
H O S P I TA L E X E C U T I V E Dr. Miguel Benet, Medical City Healthcare
P R OV I D E R I N N OVAT I O N
Jim Hinton, Baylor Scott & White Health
Access Physicians
Jim Scoggin, Methodist Health System
Catapult Health
Vanessa Walls, Children’s Health
UrgentCare2Go Southwest Transplant Alliance
H E A LT H C A R E E X E C U T I V E Dan Chambers, Key-Whitman Eye Center
MEDICAL RESEARCH
Alison DiPilla, IBH Population Health Solutions
Baylor Scott & White Research Institute
Awstin Gregg, Connections Wellness Group
Methodist Health System
John Olajide, Axxess
University of Texas at Arlington North Texas Genome Center H E A LT H S Y S T E M I N N OVAT O R WELLNESS PROGRAM
Jon Albrecht, Methodist Health System
Baylor Scott & White Health
Devon Armstrong, JPS Health Network
Texas Health Resources
Winjie Miao, Texas Health Resources
University of Texas Southwestern
Dr. Madhukar Trivedi, UT Southwestern
Whitley Penn H E A LT H C A R E I N N OVAT O R C OV I D - 1 9 I M PAC T
Elyse Dickerson, Eosera
Catalyst Health Network
Henry Hermann, St. Vincent de Paul Pharmacy
Health Hacking Crisis Network
John McCracken, University of Texas Dallas
Strukmyer
William C. Short, Accresa
Tenet Healthcare UT Southwestern
H E A LT H C A R E P R AC T I T I O N E R Dr. Jeffrey Butterfield, Methodist Health System
H E A LT H S Y S T E M
Dr. Mark Casanova, Baylor Scott & White Health
Baylor Scott & White Health
CDR Joyce T. Davis, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
Children’s Health
Dr. Kristine Guleserian, Medical City Children’s Hospital
JPS Health Network Texas Health Resources
H E A LT H C A R E VO L U N T E E R Glenn Lacy, Baylor Scott & White
C O L L A B O R AT I O N
Medical Center – Grapevine
Prism Health North Texas and Uptown Physicians
Malia Litman, Children’s Health
Texas Health Frisco and UT Southwestern
Nell Martin, Texas Health Presbyterian Dallas
Urgent Care for Kids and Quidel
Cindy Merren, Methodist Mansfield
Ventana by Buckner and Baylor Scott & White Health R E A L E S TAT E D E A L
Medical Center L I F E T I M E AC H I E V E M E N T
Crossover Health and Amazon
I N H E A LT H C A R E
Medical City Heart and Spine Hospitals
W. Stephen Love, DFW Hospital Council
Methodist Midlothian Medical Center
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How an ex-Plano high school teacher, Merrilee Kick, built a quirky libations brand into a $70 million global enterprise. story by BRANDON
J. CALL BERRY
photography by SEAN
CREATING In coming up with BuzzBallz’s signature shape, Merrilee Kick was inspired by a crystal snowball she picked up on a trip to Scandinavia.
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Merrilee Kick, the founder and CEO of BuzzBallz/ Southern Champion, at her Carrollton headquarters and production facility.
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O
ON A HOT T EXAS A F T ER N O O N I N TH E MI D- 2 0 0 0 S ,
then-Plano West Senior High School teacher Merrilee Kick was sitting by her pool grading papers when she had a hankering for an alcoholic beverage. How cool would it be, she thought, to sip a cocktail out of a plastic container so she wouldn’t have to worry about breaking a glass bottle? Kick didn’t want to miss out on any pool time, either, so the concoction needed to come pre-mixed and ready-to-drink. She also wanted a beverage that wouldn’t fill her up or make her feel bloated—and, most important, it needed to be strong enough to get her buzzed. When Kick couldn’t find anything on the market that fit the bill, she decided she’d have to make the alcoholic beverage herself. And that’s how the multi-million-dollar enterprise BuzzBallz/Southern Champion was born. Just don’t confuse her beverages with brands like Smirnoff Ice or Mike’s Hard Lemonade. “We’re completely different,” Kick says. “They’re trying to fool you with branding into thinking there’s vodka in them. Malt beverages are limited and can’t go above about 12 percent, or it starts tasting skunky. … They also say they’re trying to protect you from drinking too much by keeping the alcohol content lower. Don’t believe it.”
‘ST RO NG -MINDE D ST U DENT’ Kick came up with BuzzBallz’s signature spherical shape thanks to a memento she had lying around the house—a crystal snowball from her family’s travels to Scandinavia. She was at a sporting goods store when a can of tennis balls served as inspiration for a pop-top she could use. Kick enlisted engineering polymer experts at the University of North Texas to help perfect the can’s design. She then sought out advice from the Texas A&M department of food science on the type of plastics to order. The multitasking mother of two was soon mixing up cocktails in her garage, using store-bought ingredients and a hand-crank pop-top machine, so she could create prototypes to pass out and get feedback from family and friends. Meanwhile, her employer, Plano Independent School District, was picking up the tab for executive MBA classes at Texas Woman’s University. Each morning Kick would go to school to teach marketing and entrepreneurship classes to high school students. Afternoons, evenings, weekends, and any extra time she could spare were dedicated to perfecting a business plan and conducting market research for the burgeoning beverage business. “Some people go to business school for the vanity degree,” Kick says. “I was there to get shit done.”
SOUTHERN CHAMPION BRANDS Along with its robust BuzzBallz and spinoff brands, Southern Champion has gotten into the spirits business with premium rums, gin, bourbon, and vodka.
038
BUZZBALLZ
BUZZTALLZ
UPTOWN COCKTAILS
XIII KINGS VODKA
ANDREW JOHN’S PREMIUM GIN
PELICAN HARBOR RUM
CROOKED FOX BOURBON WHISKEY
The brand that started it all now comes in 15 flavors, from Lotta Colada to Ruby Red Grapefruit.
A spinoff winebased line in cans comes in six flavors, including Horchata and Stiff Lemonade.
Flavors in these premium, 1.5-liter, wine-based drinks include Mango Margarita and Chocolatini.
Made from the purest water and American corn, the vodka is eight times distilled and five days filtered.
This spirit is infused with juniper, pine, and orange peel, lime, coriander, anise, and black currant.
The black and white liquors are a blend of premium rums sourced from six Caribbean countries.
Matured in wooden casks, the bourbon has won numerous awards in international competitions.
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Group projects weren’t necessarily one of Kick’s strong points, remembers Kick’s former professor Mahesh Raisinghani. When students in the global business class he was teaching in the mid2000s were put into three- and four-person groups, Raisinghani recalls having to step in to mediate when conflicts in Kick’s group nearly cost the group an “incomplete” for the course. “I got wind of a conflict in Merrilee’s group pertaining to expectations of team members,” he says. “I remember Merrilee as a very strong-minded student. … She always had a very clear vision for her company. And she certainly followed through on
GOING DOWN THE LINE After the BuzzBallz containers are created and printed, they go into an unscrambler, which sets them upright and rinses them. They then travel to the filler line (1), which loads them with pre-mixed cocktails (2). Next, the seamer puts on the pop-top lids, and the ballz make their way down the line for packaging (3). The orange and white boxes go into an erector (4), which glues and gets them ready for a robotic system that fills the 24-packs and readies them for shipping.
that vision.” When TWU students were tasked with writing a comprehensive business plan for a new or existing company in their final semester, it was no surprise when Kick chose to create a strategy for a new cocktail enterprise. Derek Crews, who was Kick’s capstone project adviser, says the company wasn’t yet called BuzzBallz. Back then, it was known as PartyBalls. Ever the straight-A student, Kick’s business plan impressed, Crews says, though the company name was already registered. “And I certainly wasn’t going to be that one guy who gave her a B,” he says.
A FAMILY AFFAIR After graduating with her MBA, Kick got her family more involved in the new beverage company. She needed her younger— and hipper—sons to help think of unique, thought-provoking product names. As far as flavors went, Kick kept it simple with
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BuzzBallz’s familial culture came through in Merrilee Kick’s efforts to solve virtual learning challenges for employees with school-aged children.
THE NEST When the pandemic pushed students out of their classrooms, it left parents across the country in a bind. Knowing that many of her employees were in dual-income households, Kick responded in a unique way—by providing
Tequila ’Rita margarita, Cran Blaster cosmopolitan, and Lotta Colada pina colada, to start. As time went on, she got bolder with both flavors and names, introducing cream-based Horchata and Choc Tease, as well as Stiff Lemonade and Strawberry Rum Job. “My favorite part was coming up with cocktail names, colors, branding, and figuring out which flavors would be most popular,” says Alex Kick, Merrilee’s oldest son, who was a junior in high school back in 2009, when BuzzBallz was officially founded. “It became a regular topic of conversation around the dinner table for our entire family. We’d bounce ideas off one another.” Merrilee’s husband, Tim, was not sold at first on the libations venture. He went so far as to set up a separate checking account and wouldn’t let his wife use his 401(k) savings to obtain initial financing. So, Merrilee leveraged a family inheritance for her first line of credit to purchase manufacturing equipment. “We put my grandmother’s cattle in Oklahoma up for collateral on the loan,” Alex says. “To this day, we repay her by letting her take any extra empty barrels [we no longer need] up to her ranch. She resells them to all the farmers for cow and deer feed. And she’s got a pretty cool little Craigslist operation going for herself up there.” Both of Merrilee’s sons continue to help her run the business. Alex is president; Andrew is vice president. Merrilee’s husband, Tim, is also part of the family-owned and -operated enterprise. Moreover, BuzzBallz is still 100 percent privately funded, with Merrilee maintaining 90 percent ownership. Each of her sons owns 5 percent. “My mom is spunky, energetic, and full of personality,” Alex says. “She works her ass off, and that’s something we all try to emulate.”
A L E A P O F FA I T H One of the first big distribution deals for BuzzBallz came in 2010, when Glazer’s/Southern Distilling ordered five pallets
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S O U T H E R N C H A M P I O N B OT T L E S A N D T H E N E S T I M AG E S C O U R T E S Y O F B U Z Z B A L L Z / S O U T H E R N C H A M P I O N
virtual learning space at work. A company of product. Alex remembers recruitconference room was ing some of his high school friends turned into what’s to help unwrap empty containers, so now known as “The they could be loaded onto the producNest.” Children attend virtual classes with tion line. The process was incredibly the supervision and tedious because the containers came support of a Texas from the manufacturer tightly packed Education Agencyin cellophane wrap; it took the teenage certified teacher and cohort nearly an entire weekend to get teacher’s aide, during the hours of the the products fully ready to be filled. production team’s Blair Casey was a vice president first shift. at Glazer’s at the time, leading the North American distribution of Gallo Wines. He also oversaw convenience store distribution for Glazer’s in Texas. After being unable to secure a deal to get a larger brand into local convenience stores, Casey placed an order for the quirky, ball-shaped spirits, and to his surprise, the product moved quickly. Distribution began in convenience stores around Dallas, and then expanded to Austin— thanks in part to Alex, who by this time was a BuzzBallz boxes make their way to the student at The University of Texas at Austin robotic packer, where they will be filled and helped open the door to distributors there. with the spherical containers containing “Merrilee is this trailblazer in a very, very the pre-mixed drinks.
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male-dominated industry,” Casey says. “That’s what I love about her. She persevered in a very difficult world—and she succeeded above and beyond. Through grit and determination, she built the brand from the ground up by knocking on lots and lots of doors.” The brand sold about 23,000 cases the first year by focusing mostly on one-off, independent chain orders. Expanding out-ofstate by its second year, BuzzBallz turned a $100,000 profit. By year three, the company had more than doubled in size and hit $2 million in revenue. Merrilee and Casey kept in touch during this time and met for the occasional working lunch. In the ultimate full-circle moment in 2017, she convinced Casey to leave his cushy executive post with Glazer’s and join her scrappy brand to help guide its sales. “All I have to say is that Merrilee is very persistent,” Casey says. “After saying, ‘No,’ more than a few times, finally, I said, ‘What the hell? Let’s do this. I think I can really help this company grow to the next level.’ And away we went. … It was an ultimate
leap of faith, not unlike the one Merrilee took to start the company. She’s not afraid to take a risk. But that’s how she has gotten to where she is today.”
S KY’S T H E LIMIT Moving to BuzzBallz turned out to be a good bet for Casey, who has helped guide the company to 121 percent growth in product sales since he joined in 2017. His focus has been expanding BuzzBallz’s national footprint inside major convenience-store retailers—7-Eleven, Circle K, and Buc-ees—as well as zeroing in on placement into major grocers like Kroger, Albertsons, Target, and Walmart. “It has been a blast,” Casey says. “This year, we’re on target to reach 1.6 million cases.” In 2019, BuzzBallz hit a major milestone: selling one million cases of product in a year. Today, the company employs about 100 workers at its Carrollton headquarters. Its products are available in 45 states, with 21 international distributors. Kick predicts 2020 revenue to be in the ballpark of $70 million to $75 A three-pack version of the Tequila ’Rita; million. Kick’s take on the popular cocktail uses And, in a transformative move, the agave and lime to achieve a balanced company recently introduced premium tart and sweet taste. spirits including Crooked Fox bourbon, Pelican Harbor rum, Andrew John’s gin, and XIII Kings vodka. It also added a line of wine-based Uptown Cocktails to its robust BuzzBallz platform, which now includes 15 flavors in different party-on-the-go sizes. According to Casey, there’s still “plenty of runway ahead” for the brand, with the potential to easily reach four million cases in annual sales by the end of 2022. One big opportunity for growth: Hard seltzer. Boosted by popular brands like White Claw and Truly, it’s currently a $9 billion industry nationally, with projections to grow to $20 billion within the next four years. In early 2020, BuzzBallz/Southern Champion received a brewery license to enable it to work with malt—making it the first woman-owned distillery, winery, and brewery under one roof in the United States. “I wish that there was a mentor along the way that I could point to,” Kick says of her remarkable success. “But there really wasn’t anyone guiding me or holding my hand. It was me. It was sweat equity and busting my ass. And a lot of times it was sheer fear—fear of poverty and fear of failure.”
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N O R T H T E X A S B U S I N E S S A D V I C E , A N A LY S I S ,
a n d
C O M M E N TA R Y
LESSON LEARNED
The Power of Humility Anthony Goonetilleke, Group President AMDOCS
SHUTTERSTOCK
“when i was young, the grandfather of a good friend passed away. that was the first time I realized the mortality of those I loved, and that they wouldn’t be around forever. Noticing my sadness, my grandfather asked me to fill a bucket with water. He told me to make two fists and slowly insert them deep into the bucket, and then asked me to stay there for five minutes. To a little kid, this felt like an eternity. Then, he instructed me to slowly take my fists out of the bowl without spilling any water. He looked down at me and said, ‘Do you see the big hole left behind when your hands came out?’ Of course, there was no hole, nor any indication that my hands had ever been there. My grandfather stated simply, ‘As much as I love you, and you love me, that is how life will carry on once I am gone.’ His words instilled in me a perspective of humility and to never think too highly of yourself, no matter how good you believe you are. I often recall the story of the bucket of water when a key employee resigns or when faced with a crisis; I realize that although it might be tough, others will step up. We will find someone new. Or we might even reshape the role to fit someone else.” —As told to Christine Perez
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FIELD NOTES
ECONOMY
Unshackling Texas’ Economy The free-market state has work to do on regulations that stifle competition and entrepreneurship. AND
RICHARD ALM
A
after decades of wrangling, texas changed its laws to allow small-time brewers to sell beer directly to customers in 2013, punching a hole in a system that had given exclusive distribution rights to wholesalers and retailers. The brewers could only serve beer in their taprooms until 2019, when another law expanded their right to sell for off-premise consumption. The beer industry still sells its lagers and stouts under the state’s thumb, but these small law changes created opportunities for small-scale entrepreneurs and gave beer drinkers more variety. Beer isn’t an anomaly. Despite all its free-market bravado and plaudits for being business-friendly, Texas still imposes many restrictions on conducting business within state borders. Don’t take our word for it. The State RegData project at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center ranked Texas fifth-worst among states in total restrictions in 2020. Low taxes and rightto-work laws may give Texas free-market street cred. But when it comes to regulation, the state ranks closer to highly restrictive California and
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S H U T T E R S T O C K ; CHART SOURCE G E O R G E M A S O N U N I V E R S I T Y
story by W. MICHAEL COX
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FIELD NOTES
Occupational licensing keeps supply low by charging fees and putting other burdens on people just trying to make a living, and Texans must pay higher prices for goods and services. Pre-screening may not be needed to cut hair, fix broken locks, or weigh feeds and grains; it’s a conversation worth having. Created in 2003, the Texas Enterprise Fund provides subsidies to businesses that relocate to the state or expand existing operations. As of April 30, the fund had allocated nearly $680 million in taxpayer money to more than 104,000 projects. Many states try to prime the economic development pump, but the Texas Enterprise Fund is the nation’s largest. Economic research often shows that taxpayers aren’t getting much bang for the buck from subsidies. Our Bridwell Institute colleagues, Dean Stansel and Meg Tuszynski found that targeted incentives often help big businesses. Still, they do nothing to spur the job-creating activities of small-scale entrepreneurs. If Texans genuinely believe in free markets, getting the cronyism of unnecessary regulation out of the economic system would be an excellent way to show it—when the state needs to boost jobs and growth.
B E H I N D T H E DATA
Room for Growth How did Texas end up on a list of states with the heaviest regulatory burdens? RegData researchers determined the number of prohibitions and obligations contained in each state’s regulations and applied it to the Texas Administrative Code, yielding 263,369 restrictions in the database for 2020. The most heavily regulated states were California at 395,608 and New York at 296,296. This isn’t the company Texas usually keeps when it comes to free enterprise. Meanwhile, the 2020 Economic Freedom of North America report ranked Texas the fourth-most economically free state. Why the difference? The economic freedom scores give high marks for smaller government on taxes, spending, and labor markets. But regulation sometimes means companies get a helping hand from the government.
W. Michael Cox is a professor of economics in the Bridwell Institute for Economic Freedom at SMU’s Cox School of Business. Richard Alm is a writer-in-residence at the Bridwell Institute.
States With Most and Least Regulation 450,000 400,000 350,000 300,000 250,000 200,000 150,000 100,000
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New York than lightly regulated Idaho and South Dakota (see chart). Some laws and regulations that govern economic life serve legitimate purposes, such as protecting private property and ensuring public health and safety. However, many others do little more than vouchsafe the financial interests of entrenched producers or sellers, usually by squelching competition. Deciphering between good and bad regulation is rarely straightforward because private interests typically dress the government favors they seek in the garb of public interest. Politicians and academics regularly decry regulatory favoritism, but the system endures largely on the tyranny of the status quo. In 2020, the global COVID-19 pandemic gave the status quo a kick in the teeth, creating an opportunity to relax regulation. Loosening Texas’ restrictions on brewing took years, but the early months of the coronavirus crisis brought quick approval of restaurant sales of alcoholic beverages for take-out and home delivery. The state waived regulations on doctors treating patients remotely, and the use of telemedicine took off. To increase the supply of healthcare workers, Texas eased several rules on licensing and training for doctors and nurses. Notaries can now do their jobs remotely. A few baby steps toward greater economic freedom may seem trivial in the face of government dictates that shut down large swaths of the economy. The pandemic will end, and the emergency restrictions will fall away, but why stop there? Texans seem to like restaurants delivering cocktails and virtual visits to the doctor—why not keep these policies in place? Next, the state should look for other superfluous economic activity constraints; the RegData implies they won’t be all that hard to find. The payoff would be faster growth at a time when Texas’ economy, its citizens, and its public finances need to recoup the losses from the pandemic-induced recession. The Texas Public Policy Foundation, an Austin research group, called occupational licensing “the most strenuous form of labor market regulation.” All states require licenses for some jobs—often for good reason—but the practice has mushroomed nationwide, going from 5 percent of occupations in the 1950s to 22 percent today. In 2019, the state comptroller reported that Texas had 49 licensing boards, second-most among states.
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FIELD NOTES
ON TOPIC
“In this year of uncertainty, perseverance, and pandemic, what has 2020 taught you?” edited by CHRISTINE PEREZ
CHRISTOPHER TROWBRIDGE
SHERYL ADKINS-GREEN
ZACH FEE
Managing Partner B E L L N U N N A L LY
Chief Marketing Officer M A R Y K AY
President of Regional Banking UMB BANK
“2020 taught me, or reminded me, that behind every business, there is a human factor that greatly influences the success or failure of the company. When people fear for their health, are feeling ignored or disenfranchised, or are facing discrimination and systemic racism, a leader cannot ignore the experiences or feelings of team members. Encouraging healthy dialogue, communication, and action makes a business stronger.”
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“2020 has deepened my gratitude and appreciation of the most important things in life—the things that money can’t buy, such as being with family and friends to celebrate special occasions or high-fiving a colleague in the office. I have learned that one’s sense of purpose and determination can overcome almost any obstacle and that roadblocks and detours can lead up to bigger, better opportunities.”
“This year has taught me that now more than ever, relationships matter. I have to make a more conscious effort to create and continue relationships with my colleagues and clients, all without the benefit of meeting in person. It’s not easy, but it’s paramount. Our business is built entirely on relationships and, not to sound too corny, but those relationships are what will get us through to the other side of this.”
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Thank you to our Healthcare Heroes! Tenet Healthcare is grateful to be named a finalist in D CEO’s Excellence in Healthcare Awards for 2020 in the category of Outstanding COVID-19 Impact. Congratulations to our dedicated caregivers and supporting staff for earning this recognition of resilience. We honor and thank them for carrying hope forward.
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FIELD NOTES
2.
THOUGHT LEADER
New Ways to Give Back
YOU CAN’T DO IT ALONE. Meaningful change is rarely accomplished by one individual. Your business network and local organizations have amazing folks with experience in social advocacy and charitable efforts. A phone call with one of these advocates can unlock unique perspectives on how and where you can invest your time. You’ll also want to engage your team early to create dialogue and build interest for upcoming efforts. Initial discussions will quickly reveal who you can rely on as advisors, volunteers, and partners.
Find that sweet spot between what you can afford to contribute and where your team can drive the most impact, advises Headstorm CEO Lawrence King.
M
OLIVER BAKER
3.
1.
4.
REMEMBER YOUR VISION. Your firm may already have a commitment to social responsibility written into a vision statement or other formal document. Does your team resonate with that vision? If so, find out what they care about and how much they are willing to pitch in. If not, it’s time to rally the troops and have a conversation about your firm’s give-back culture.
BE AGILE. After starting an initiative, gather feedback and data to see if your investment makes sense. Remember, the equation is impact versus effort. Is the team fulfilled with the chosen causes? Is meaningful change being created? How much time is being spent across the various initiatives? Form a committee to gather and present these data points on a regular basis.
ost of 2020 has been spent navigating uncharted waters full of difficult decisions and rapidly changing dynamics. But in no way does this mean that a company’s role as a community partner and social advocate takes a back seat. In fact, if you share my belief that resolving COVID-19 and bringing broader change to society requires a partnership between private, public, and government entities, now is the time to step up. That doesn’t mean we all need to stop worrying about P&Ls, payroll, or the other responsibilities we have as business leaders, but rather that we thoughtfully consider how our teams can contribute. At Headstorm, we found tech-focused opportunities like educating high schoolers about AI and helping cities optimize public spaces left underutilized due to the pandemic. I advise finding that sweet spot between what you can afford to contribute and where your team can drive the most impact.
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START SMALL, BE EFFECTIVE. Once you have a list of causes that resonate with your staff, and an idea of how your team’s expertise can translate to value for a cause, get started. Local communities and organizations have plenty of resources (and needs) that can help you figure out what makes the most sense for your business.
Lawrence King is founder and CEO of Headstorm, a data and software firm based in Addison.
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TEMPLE
FORT WORTH
BUMC DALLAS
BUMC DALLAS
BUMC DALLAS
BSW THE HEART BSW THE HEART HOSPITAL PLANO* HOSPITAL PLANO*
There’s no better reward than doing what you love. And we are grateful to care for you, when and where you need us. With enhanced cleaning, patient screening and virtual waiting, our commitment to serving you safely has never been stronger. Learn more at BSWHealth.com/SafeCare.
.
*Joint ownership with physicians Not all hospitals recognized in all specialties. See USNews.com/BestHospitals for complete listings. Physicians provide clinical services as members of the medical staff at one of Baylor Scott & White Health’s subsidiary, community or affiliated medical centers and do not provide clinical services as employees or agents of those medical centers or Baylor Scott & White Health. ©2020 Baylor Scott & White Health. 99-ALL-197054 GD
Leslie Berryman
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7.75”W x 4.875”D
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D CEO Excellence in Healthcare
CMYK
Due to pub 10/16/2020
Greg Draper
H E A LT H CA R E EXCELLENCE Caring for North Texas communities and beyond, Medical City Healthcare is here when you need us. Whether you need a physician, a fast emergency room, a virtual visit or a network of experts, look for the Medical City name to find safe, high-quality, patient-centered care for your entire family.
MedicalCityHealthcare.com
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FEI Dallas Congratulates all Finalists of the D CEO 2020 Financial Executives Award Special Recognition to FEI Members: Shane Arledge-Learfield IMG College
FEI DALLAS IS PROUD OF OUR MEMBERS
Jeff Chesnut-Alliance Data Systems WHO RECEIVED FINALIST HONORS IN THE D CEO 2014International FINANCIAL EXECUTIVES AWARDS Ron Herbert-Fastsigns
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The preeminent professional organization for CFOs and other senior financial executives
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Brian Miller-Tyler Technologies Amber Kinney, CFO, AT&T Performing Arts Center Christina SmithMortgage , CAO, FTS International Lance Phillips-Capstead Corporation John Walker, COO & CFO, KidKraft
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Join Today Tom Beitel | 972-987-3352 www.financialexecutives.org/join Rick Pelini | 972-497-5410
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CHAPTER INFORMATION Jackie Dunn | 469-241-0079 | jackie.dunn@feidallas.org
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OFF DUTY THE PERSONAL SIDE
o f
DFW BUSINESS LEADERS
ART OF STYLE
P H OTO G R A P H Y C O U R T E S Y O F T A C A
TACA PRESIDENT AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR TERRY D. LOFTIS IS ‘OLD GUY CHIC.’
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M Y FAVO R I T E T H I N G
A Global Link to the Past
P H OTO G R A P H Y C O U R T E S Y O F A D R I E N N E F A U L K N E R
WHAT I DO: “I’m the president and executive director of TACA, The Arts Community Alliance. We support excellence and impact in the arts in North Texas through grantmaking, capacity-building, and thought leadership.” STYLE ICONS: “Sammy Davis Jr., Nat King Cole, and André 3000. I would never attempt André’s fashion choices, but admire the diversity of his look.” ON THE JOB: “It depends on my day and what I have scheduled. If I don’t have external meetings scheduled, I’m likely pretty casual, although probably still wearing a bow tie.” WHAT INSPIRES ME: “More than anything, my mood each day—and during COVID, what I can easily fit into! That said, I try to mix it up and tend to wear a lot of color.” STYLE DEFINED: “Dapper, professional, and somewhat out of the box— old guy chic. My closet is lined with Ferragamo, Eton, Hickey Freeman, Oxxford, and Turnbull & Asser. Dressing down would be Converse shoes, Lucky jeans, and some Banana Republic.” FASHION ESSENTIALS: “My fountain pen and Hydro Flask” GO-TO LOOK: “A bow tie is pretty consistent if I’m leaving the house for work or otherwise.” ACCESSORIES: “David Yurman, Acqua Di Parma, and a groovy tie” WEEKEND LOOK: “My look changes to Chuck high-tops, jeans, and a t-shirt or polo.” FAVORITE STORE: “Neiman’s flagship downtown”
Adrienne Faulkner lines the walls of her office with her grandfather’s masks. a whlie back, the ceo of faulkner design Group, Adrienne Faulkner, was rummaging through boxes of her grandfather’s belongings when she stumbled upon quite the discovery. “All of a sudden, I started uncovering and unwrapping masks.” Each is unique, and they come from all around the world. Faulkner’s favorites originate from Greece, Rome, and Africa. The masks are as intriguing as Faulkner’s grandfather himself—prominent Dallas architect George L. Dahl. He is best known for his contributions to Fair Park and the 1936 Texas Centennial Exposition. “Subsequently, I found his whole library,” Faulkner says. “I found a lot of his memoirs and pictures; I’ve got a treasure trove.” Dahl considered each mask to be a reflection of a person’s soul, a thought that resonates with Faulkner as she continues to expand his collection. “We all wear masks in the different roles that we play,” Faulkner says. “I’m a mother, and I’m a CEO. I’m a best friend and a sister.” —Elizabeth Beeck
MASKED-UP
Some of the masks collected by George L. Dahl (top and above left) date back to 4000 B.C. in Egypt.
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PEACEFUL RETREAT
The tranquil Kenwood Inn & Spa is located in Sonoma’s Moon Valley.
MEANT TO LAST For more than a century, five generations of the Kunde family have farmed their 1,850-acre estate.
W E L L T R AV E L E D
Kathryn Hall’s second home in Napa Valley offers spectacular views and flavors worth savoring. story by KELSEY J. VANDERSCHOOT
RIVER VIEW
Wild berries grow along the Napa River, which runs behind Milliken Creek Inn on the Silverado Trail.
COMFY SPOT
Built in 1901, Healdsburg Inn on the Plaza offers all the comforts of a classic California boutique hotel.
FRESH MENU
The elegant Barndiva features rotating dishes, such as scallops with a lemongrass and ginger sauce.
HOMEGROWN
Northern California’s diverse altitudes and terrain allow many wine varietals to thrive.
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P H OTO G R A P H Y C O U R T E S Y O F H A L L W I N E , H E A L D S B U R G I N N O N T H E P L A Z A , K E N W O O D I N N & S PA , M I L L I K E N C R E E K I N N , B A R N D I VA , AND V I S I T N A PA VA L L E Y.
California’s Wine Country
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P H OTO G R A P H Y C O U R T E S Y O F H A L L W I N E , H E A L D S B U R G I N N O N T H E P L A Z A , K E N W O O D I N N & S PA , M I L L I K E N C R E E K I N N , B A R N D I VA , AND V I S I T N A PA VA L L E Y.
HALL St. Helena is at the historic Bergfeld Vineyard at the base of the Mayacama Mountains.
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state governors were shifting restrictions to try to quell COVID-19 resurgences when I made my journey home to Northern California Wine Country in July. An international food and beverage destination, I was excited to experience the Valley as a tourist—and an adult. I began the journey on Napa’s Silverado Trail, where many wineries are housed. For accommodations, I chose Milliken Creek Inn, a short drive away from wine tasting and downtown dining. Taking a moment to settle in, my travel partner and I rested on one of the hotel’s ample outdoor chaise lounges and took in views of the Napa River, which is seasonally skirted by fresh wild blackberries. I thought back to the times I had gone trekking through local creek beds like this one with my dad to pick the berries as a girl. The next day’s tasting took me to HALL Rutherford, where Kathryn Hall’s award-winning reds and breathtaking art collection provide an elevated taste of the Valley. Tucked into the surrounding hills, the wine tastings are limited to just 15 people a day. Visitors stroll intricate caves covered in Austrian bricks, an homage to Hall’s service as ambassador to Austria, and decorated
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by an ornate, tree-shaped chandelier covered in 1,500 Swarovski crystals. We chose HALL’s Appalachian tasting to learn the differences among Napa’s growing regions and understand the effects of its various soil types and elevations. From Rutherford, we drove to Kenwood, a small town on Sonoma Valley’s northern side. We relaxed at Kenwood Inn, lounging poolside before heading to dinner nearby at Salt & Stone. I had a delicious meal of Northern California coast oysters to start, crispy-skin duck breast with rice pilaf and cherry salad for the main course, finished by a slice of moist shortcake topped with locally grown strawberries and whipped cream. The next morning began with a walk on Sonoma Square, visiting shops and eateries filled with locally made goods. We stopped in at Figone’s Olive Oil—one of only three olive oil producers in the country to independently produce its products from orchard to bottling—for its Sevillano Extra Virgin Olive Oil and 25-year aged Traditional Balsamic Vinegar. We then headed to a mountain-top tasting at Kunde Estates—1,850 acres of planted land encompassing many grape varietals. At 1,400 feet, the view provided insight into the region’s layout and glimpses of neighboring San Francisco Bay while we sipped buttery whites, reds, and slightly dry rosés. We ended the journey with a trip into Dry Creek Valley, staying at Healdsburg Inn, where we had easy access to boutiques, bakeries, restaurants, and tasting rooms. I hopped into the famous Oakville Grocery to stock up on some lunch favorites for the next day. A few doors down, JCB offers some of the region’s best sparkling wine. Just off the square, we dined at Barndiva’s elegant garden, pairing our meal with a bottle of Twomey, a red produced by Napa’s Silver Oak label. The scallops I chose were topped with a delectable lemongrass and ginger sauce. And though labeled an appetizer, sweet goat cheese croquettes with lavender and honey were the perfect night’s end.
T R AV E L T I P S
Taking a Run Along the Scenic Route Kathryn Hall, entrepreneur and former ambassador to Austria, and her husband, real estate investor Craig Hall, spend a lot of time in their second home in Rutherford, California. She took over her family’s wine business in the 1970s and has grown it into a flourishing, award-winning enterprise. While there, Hall enjoys running and biking on a new trail along Highway 29, which runs from Napa through the town of Yountville. “There are a lot of wonderful places to run in the Valley,” she says. Hall also enjoys dining at La Calenda, Thomas Keller’s Mexican restaurant in Yountville, which she says has “wonderful food and the best margarita in the Valley.”
WOW FACTOR
HALL Rutherford features a treeshaped chandelier covered in 1,500 Swarovski crystals.
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CLOSE SIBLINGS Below: Elgaghil with his older sister, Dina. The family was still living in Cairo when this photo was taken.
A NIGHT OUT
Above: Elgaghil, with his sister, Dina, and mother, Magda, who was a translator in Egypt before coming to America.
FAMILY TIME
Below: A young Elgaghil with his parents and sister. The family moved to the U.S. when he was about 4 years old.
ROOTS
HESHAM ELGAGHIL
as told to MARIAH TERRY illustration by JAKE MEYERS
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hesham elgaghil worked at Park Place Dealerships for 20 years before Ken Schnitzer sold the company in July 2020. Just a few weeks later, Schnitzer tapped Elgaghil to serve as president of his new venture, Avondale Group, which sells ultra-luxury brands like Rolls-Royce, Aston Martin, McLaren, and Bentley. He recently shared his story with D CEO: “I was born in Cairo, Egypt; I came to the United States when I was about 4 years old. My father was a high-ranking official in the Egyptian military, and my mother was a translator. They had careers, and they sacrificed it all, leaving behind our extended family because they knew that my sister and I would have better opportunities in America. My parents’ influence shaped my belief that there’s always a solution to a problem; we should accept nothing from ourselves but our best effort. I saw my parents provide an example
of those traits every day. … In Egypt, there was a family living in a tent in between our home and our neighbor’s home. My mother took care of that family like they were her own, and that always stuck with me. So many people out there need support; the question is, what are we doing about it? In Cairo, there was a deep sense of community. Everybody cared for each other; it didn’t matter what status somebody was in the community. I’m very fortunate to have had people along the way who cared about how I was going to end up. Without those people, I certainly would not have the level of success that I’ve been able to achieve. I think it’s important to remember that we all have to help build others up. I feel a responsibility to pay that kindness forward.”
P H OTO G R A P H Y C O U R T E S Y O F H E S H A M E L G A G H I L
President AVO N DA L E G R O U P
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10/28/20 9:30 AM
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Higher Education Guide SHUTTERSTOCK
In a year of acute economic disruption, more professionals and executives are turning to higher education to help them make a strategic career move. Fortunately, Dallas-Fort Worth has numerous colleges, universities, and higher education programs offering advanced degree programs recognized throughout the country for excellence and results. Whether the next step is a second degree, an MBA, or an executive MBA, the pursuit to set you apart from the rest starts here.
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H I G H E R E D U C AT I O N G U I D E
SMU Cox School of Business Businesses need quality leaders to grow, innovate, and thrive. How does an MBA from SMU Cox prepare professionals to assume leadership roles?
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In August 2020, SMU Cox launched the new NextGen MBA Curriculum, designed to shape future leaders who are not just job-ready, but also future-prepared. The NextGen Cox Curriculum integrates three foundational pillars to develop graduates who can confidently navigate any business environment. Cox graduates are equipped with a curriculum anchored in analytical rigor, refined leadership skills to support complex problem solving, and knowledge with practical application gained through hands-on experiential learning.
What types of partnerships should higher education, businesses, and the community be engaged in?
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Like many organizations, SMU Cox promotes partnerships that support diversity and inclusion. One way we advocate for inclusive leadership is through our Latino Leadership Initiative (LLI). Research shows a nationwide lack of diversity at the executive level. As the country’s demographics shift, that lack of diverse leadership limits potential for business growth. The LLI builds a pipeline to support recruitment, development, and retention of high-performing, diverse talent. The LLI delivers executive leadership programs for individuals and customized corporate solutions.
What are some of the things MBA applicants should consider to be certain the program they choose provides lifelong learning and networking opportunities?
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We encourage applicants to research program attributes and the school community. Applicants should look for a program that meets their current needs, but also supports future development. In 2020, SMU Cox celebrates 100 years of business education. To support lifelong learning, Cox offers a range of degree and non-degree programs. By joining SMU Cox, students gain access to the broader SMU community, hundreds of corporate partners, and our worldwide alumni network— 40,000+ members strong.
How has SMU Cox demonstrated agility and perseverance through COVID-19?
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In March 2020, SMU Cox swiftly and successfully pivoted all courses online, leveraging knowledge and assets from our Online MBA. This fall, we welcomed one of our largest and most competitive MBA classes, including members of the new MBA Direct program. The MBA Direct is designed for recent college graduates and early career professionals who want to accelerate their professional goals of achieving an MBA while working full-time. The three-year program enables students to gain valuable work experience while earning their degree, preparing them to take on MBA-level jobs upon graduation.
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Southern Methodist University Business School Name: Cox School of Business Admissions/Recruitment Contact: Jason Rife, Executive Director, Graduate Admissions & Career Management Center mbainfo@smu.edu 214-768-1214 Format Options and Length: Full-Time Two-Year MBA: 21 months Full-Time One-Year MBA: 12 months Professional MBA: 24 months, flexible schedules (evenings/weekends) Executive MBA: 21 months, alternating weekends (Friday/Saturday) Online MBA: 27 months (evenings/weekends) MBA Direct: 33 months (evenings) Campus Location: Dallas Total MBA Enrollment (all programs): 946 MBA Tuition: Full-Time Two-Year MBA: $112,054 Full-Time One-Year MBA: $75,387 Professional MBA: $101,950 Executive MBA: $126,495 Online MBA: $91,624 New MBA Direct: $93,386 Rankings: EMBA – No. 16 in the U.S., Financial Times, 2020 No. 6 Potential to Network, The Economist No. 10 Faculty Quality, The Economist No. 6 MS in Management in the Nation, The Economist Accreditation: Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, AACSB
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SMU Cox helps professionals ascend to the highest ranks of business. In fact, over 500 CEOs, CFOs, and board members in Texas are SMU Cox alums. If your business is looking to shape future leaders or solve organizational challenges, we’re ready to help. Learn more at SMU.edu/DCEO. SMU does not discriminate in any program or activity on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, age, disability, genetic information, veteran status, sexual orientation, or gender identity and expression.
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H I G H E R E D U C AT I O N G U I D E
TCU Neeley School of Business Businesses need quality leaders to grow, innovate, and thrive. How does an MBA prepare professionals to assume leadership roles?
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An MBA should focus on strategic thinking—not just what’s trending now, but skills that allow you to adapt to any situation. It should also help you understand all aspects of a business, so you can not only move into any department, but develop strategies for the organization as a whole. Lastly, personalized coaching and personality assessments are important—being able to understand how different people think will prepare you to lead no matter how business evolves.
What should higher education institutions do to ensure their MBA programs are aligned with the specific needs of employers in the region?
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It’s important to stay connected. Our faculty regularly consult for leading businesses; we’re always gathering feedback from alumni and other business executives in the community. We ensure our students connect with a variety of businesses during the program—for instance, touring companies on our international trip—and we work with companies like Korn Ferry to ensure the most sought-after competencies are embedded in our curriculum.
What are the advantages of investing in an Executive MBA?
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Compared to earning an MBA immediately after your undergrad, an Executive MBA will give you a more advanced education through more experienced classmates. You learn as much from them as from your professors. There are also many chances to experiment with different leadership styles and strategies, hands-on. And because you continue to work while in the program, you can apply what you’re learning right away.
What are some of the things MBA applicants should look for to be certain the program they choose provides lifelong learning and networking opportunities?
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Look for a program with personal leadership coaches who will take the time to get to know you and help you make a strategy for long-term success. Look for ongoing opportunities like seminars, workshops, and executive education. Look for an engaged and involved alumni network that is an extension of a classroom environment which fosters deeper, lifelong relationships. These will be invaluable to you both personally and professionally.
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Texas Christian University Business School Name: Neeley School of Business Campus Location: Fort Worth MBA Enrollment (All Programs): 360 Accreditation: Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, AACSB Admissions/Recruitment Contact: TCU MBA: Stephen Jenkins, 817-257-4671, mbainfo@tcu.edu TCU Executive MBA: Kevin Davis 817-257-4681, emba@tcu.edu TCU Neeley Graduate Programs: Full-time Programs Full-time MBA Master of Accounting Master of Science in Business Analytics Evening/Part-time Programs Professional MBA Energy MBA Health Care MBA Master of Science in Supply Chain Executive Programs Executive MBA Executive Education Rankings: MBA The Princeton Review No. 8 Best Administered MBA Program The Economist No. 1 Faculty Quality Bloomberg Businessweek No. 4 Full-time MBA in Texas U.S. News & World Report No. 56 Full-time MBA in the U.S. EMBA The Economist No. 1 in Texas
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H I G H E R E D U C AT I O N G U I D E
WGU Texas College of Business 1
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What should prospective students know about WGU Texas? WGU Texas is a state affiliate of Western Governors University, a nonprofit, accredited, 100% online national university, and was established through an executive order by the Texas Governor in 2011 to expand access to higher education. WGU Texas offers more than 60 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in the high-demand career fields of business, K-12 teacher education, information technology, and health professions, including nursing.
How does WGU Texas’ program ensure that it is aligned with the specific needs of employers in the region or executives looking for continuing education?
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Business School Name: College of Business Admissions/Recruitment Contact: 877.214.7011, online at https://www.wgu. edu/admissions.html Austin Office: 512.225.6634, texas@wgu.edu
Our skills-based degree programs effectively prepares graduates for the workforce because we work directly with industry in defining competencies and build a master curriculum that teaches students these skills.
Format Options and Length: Two sixmonth terms per year. The average time to graduate with a bachelor’s degree is two years, and 12-18 months for a master’s degree.
What types of partnerships should higher education, business, and the community be engaged in?
Campus Location: 100% Online; Administrative Office: 12515 Research Boulevard, Building 8, Suite 250, Austin, Texas 78759
WGU Texas is engaged in strategic partnerships with corporations, school districts, and healthcare facilities to provide high quality, affordable, and flexible degree programs for their employees to upskill or reskill. We also partner with community colleges, providing a seamless and efficient transfer process for graduates who want to earn a bachelor’s degree. These partnerships support the development of a highly skilled workforce while improving local communities and the state’s economy.
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WGU Texas
What makes WGU Texas unique from other universities? WGU Texas pioneered competency-based education which measures skills and knowledge, not seat time, and remains the only institution offering these degrees at scale. The faculty provide personalized, one-on-one learning support that include program mentors who are assigned to students on their first day of enrollment through completion, to course instructors who guide students through course content they must master to pass course assessments.
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Total Program Enrollment: 42,651 Tuition Range: Flat-rate tuition per sixmonth ranges from $3,225 - $4,180 (plus $145 resource fee) Rankings: WGU Texas is consistently recognized as a leader in higher education, offering high-quality programs and courses. For more than 10 years, WGU Texas has been recognized as the No.1 most affordable and military-friendly online school and is ranked by OnlineU as one of the top 20 best online institutions based on ROI. Accreditation: WGU Texas’ College of Business programs are accredited by the Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs (ACBSP). WGU Texas offers programs through the accreditation of its national partner, Western Governors University. The Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities (NWCCU) first accredited WGU in 2003 and reaffirmed it in 2016, noting WGU’s “institution-wide focus on helping students succeed.”
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DEEP ELLUM LANDMARK
Built in 1916, the Knights of Pythias Temple is now The Pittman Hotel.
HIGHS AND LOWS
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1875 to a former slave laundress and an unknown Anglo father. After earning a degree in architectural drawing from Tuskegee Institute, he went on to become the first African American man to graduate from Drexel Institute. In 1906, he was selected to design the Negro Building for the World’s Fair—making him the first African American architect to receive a federal contract. This led to his recognition as one of the most accomplished Black architects in America. Following his marriage to Portia Washington, the daughter of Booker T. Washington, Pittman moved to Dallas, becoming the first practicing Black architect in Texas. Although many of his buildings have been demolished over the years, the Knights of Pythias Temple in Deep Ellum, which was financed by Black Dallasites and built by the Black-owned Walton Construction Co., still stands. It was recently restored to its original grandeur and redeveloped by Westdale Real Estate as The Pittman Hotel, a 164-room, boutique property. After his architecture career plateaued, Pittman worked as a carpenter and published a weekly newspaper, The Brotherhood Eyes, a tabloid-style publication that shared his criticisms of Black community leaders. He died in Dallas, penniless, at the age of 82. illiam sidney pittman was born in
Designing Early Dallas WILLIAM SIDNEY PITTMAN April 21, 1875 – March 14, 1958
story by MARIA HIEBER
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B U I L D I N G C O U R T E S Y O F S M U ’ S D E G O LY E R L I B R A R Y , G E O R G E W . C O O K D A L L A S / T E X A S I M A G E C O L L E C T I O N ; WILLIAM SIDNE Y PIT TMAN PORTR AIT COURTESY OF T E X A S H I S T O R I C A L S O C I E T Y.
After profound early success, William Sidney Pittman’s architecture career plateaued.
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