Tag Archives: Texas BHP

Alumni Spotlight: Tera Highbarger Hogan, Class of 2004

Date
Posted by
Comments0
Alumni Spotlight: Tera Highbarger Hogan, Class of 2004

TeraTera Highbarger Hogan, BHP 2004, is the incoming chair of the BHP Advisory Board. Tera is currently a Staffing/Recruiting Manager for Google, based out of their Austin office. Before joining Google, Tera was a management consultant at Accenture for many years and worked for Novotus, both in the area of program management.

Why did you decide to get involved through serving on the BHP Advisory Board and do you have any goals for your time as chair of the advisory board?

I really enjoyed my time in BHP and valued the programs that BHP offered. As an alum I want to be a part of making sure our great base of alumni is doing what it can to support the program. During my term, I will look for ways that alumni can provide more support and help to the program and how we can raise the profile of the program nationally. I would love to see more out-of-state applicants and more diversity of in-state applicants.

You had many roles at Accenture and stayed there for eight years. What did you most enjoy about working for Accenture and how did you develop professionally during that time?

What I enjoyed most about my time at Accenture was getting to see a variety of types of work and clients. I was exposed to a breadth and depth of businesses early on in my career. I was also fortunate to have a lot of client relationships at senior levels, especially considering how early I was in my career. Each project was different than the one before. I had to come in and learn a new area, identify what the clients’ needs were and be able to deliver on those. Throughout my experience at Accenture, I built my client relationship and program management skills and ensured that the clients’ needs were met.

You spent the majority of your career in program management and then switched to recruiting. What prompted that change?

I loved my time at Accenture and wouldn’t change that for anything. It was a great place to start my career. I had been doing the same thing for a while though, and I was interested in other types of work and in being in a business, instead of just being a consultant for one. I was also looking to get off the road and spend more time in Austin. I decided to take a job with Novotus, a recruiting firm where I was still leveraging the program management and client relationship management skills I had built.

I have always been most interested in the people side of business. When I was working for Accenture, I enjoyed career development with my staff and recruiting activities, so I was drawn in by these parallels and the opportunity to spend more focus on people.

What are the challenges of recruiting and staffing for a company the size of Google?

The volume, scale and complexity of Google is a challenge in everything we do. Google is looking to hire the best of the best for each and every role. There is such a variety of things at which people excel and for which they could be a good fit. Matching people with their perfect dream job, not just the next job, is our goal.

My teams are focused on passive candidates – people who haven’t applied, but that we have gone out and found because they are the best in their field. We get in touch with them and get to know them, to find out what they are interested in pursuing. We find out what they are passionate about and what their goals are to see if we can make that happen for them at Google.

Google has long been considered one of the best and most fun places to work. How do you sell your recruits on working there and what do you enjoy about working there?

We sell our recruits more on the work they will be doing. The fun is certainly a piece of it, but what they are most interested in is working on cool, challenging projects and how they can really change the world by what they will be working on. It is a fun, laid back environment to work in with free meals on campus, scooters – all those fun things. We work hard, but we also have fun.

As a recruiter, what advice do you have for students interviewing for jobs and internships?

Do your homework on the company and be yourself during the interview. They are assessing if you are a good fit for the job as much as you are assessing if it is a job you would want. You will be doing this job 40 hours a week, at least, so you want something that is a good fit and that you will enjoy. Also, don’t stress so much, it will all work out!! It’s easy to get wrapped up in thinking this is what you will be doing forever, but that isn’t the case, and really you’re looking for the best starting point for you (which won’t be the same as everyone else).

How did BHP prepare you for the work you have been doing?

The small classes and project focus of BHP prepare you for the real world because that’s how the real world is structured. You have to work with others to solve problems. There are also many times when you will have to work with people you don’t have authority over and in school you practice that when working with peers on group projects.

What are some of your best memories from your time at UT?

Making new and lifelong friends, and spending time with those friends. Also having a flexible daily schedule, which you don’t get when you start working. I have been in a book club with some of my BHP friends who live in different cities, and even different continents, for over 10 years now. The BHP friends you make are always going to be people who understand things you are facing in your career and will be there to provide great advice and guidance, because they are probably walking down a similar career path to you, even if it is in a different industry.

HBA Hosts Successful Incredible Race for McCombs Students

Date
Posted by
Comments0
HBA Hosts Successful Incredible Race for McCombs Students

2015 Incredible Race

This past Sunday, the Honors Business Association held its third annual Incredible Race event, open to all McCombs students.  Organized by the External Affairs committee, this event is an effort for HBA to both connect with other McCombs organizations while also giving back to the Austin community.

In the race, teams of two were given cryptic clues to find the location of eight stations hidden around UT. Once they found the location of a station, they had to complete the station’s challenge to gain access to another clue. The first three teams to find all eight stations and complete the eight challenges were declared the winners.

This year, HBA chose to donate all event proceeds to the Micah 6 Food Pantry, a food bank for the homeless and impoverished located right next to the UT campus. HBA has been consistently volunteering at the pantry for several years, so this year’s Incredible Race became an opportunity to contribute financially to an organization to which HBA has gotten quite close.  HBA raised approximately $150 for the pantry.

This event is also HBA’s avenue to connect with other McCombs student organizations, as HBA traditionally partners with another McCombs organization to plan the race. This year, in an effort to grow HBA’s presence in the McCombs community, HBA worked with five McCombs organizations (a record-breaking number) to organize the event. These organizations are:

  • Asian Business Students Association
  • Black Business Students Association
  • Delta Sigma Pi
  • Hispanic Business Students Association
  • University Securities Investment Team

All in all, this year’s Incredible Race was a great success. Despite the fact that this event only started two years ago, it has grown tremendously. Hopes are high that it continues to grow and make an even bigger impact in the McCombs and Austin communities.

A huge thank you to the volunteers from all of the organizations that participated, and all of the participants who made this event a success!

2015 Incredible Race 2

BHP Team Participates in International Case Competition

Date
Posted by
Comments0
BHP Team Participates in International Case Competition
mcgill1

The BHP team posing with their ambassador, Caroline.

 

Over Spring Break, BHP Students Angela Morisette, David Yu, Jany Xu, and Sabeeha Islam travelled to Montreal, Quebec to participate in BHP’s first international case competition entry in several years. They participated in the McGill Management International Case Competition (MMICC), hosted by McGill University, alongside teams from 10 other international schools including Shantou University, U. of Portugal, Queensland University, just to name a few. The case competition, which was 32 hours in length, was sponsored by McKesson Canada and revolved around how to shift the strategy of their Hospital Automation Solutions to better equip McKesson for future success.

In the 32-hour case crack period, the team didn’t have access to phones, their personal computers, or any other outside help – the only resources they could use were the internet (no sites with log-ins, though) and two textbooks that they brought. The team first spent some time doing some solo research to get to know McKesson as a company and the Canadian healthcare landscape, then came together to begin creating a strategy solution. The team ultimately decided on branching into remote, home hospital visits via webcam to automate patient visits for low-grade illnesses and patients that simply required referrals to specialists. The team presented twice to a panel of about 12 judges and fielded a total of 20 minutes of questions.

“This was definitely not like a case competition I had ever experienced,” Angela noted. “MMICC really pushed our team to be efficient, smart, and strategy-oriented. I never realized how much a team of peers working together could accomplish in such a short time period!”

But MMICC was so much more than a case competition for the BHP team; it was an international experience. The moment the team arrived at the airport, they were greeted by their loving ambassador, Caroline. Caroline is a Canadian native, and she served as the team’s host for the entire week-long competition. Every night, there were activities planned that Caroline would lead the team to that fostered camaraderie among the different teams.

One night, Team Texas (as affectionately referred to by all participants) would become friends with a team through singing along to Drake with Simon Fraser University. The next day, Team Texas hiked up Mount Royal (Montreal’s beautiful nature park) and made snowmen with Shantou University. The following days leading up to the actual case crack included activities such as an across town scavenger hunt, tours of Montreal’s history museum, and wonderful dinners. The team became friends with those from all universities and learned about different cultures.

“The McGill Case Competition was more like a mini-study abroad experience. Never have I learned so much so quickly, made so many memories, or met so many wonderfully diverse people in such a short time period. This will definitely be one of my favorite memories from McCombs/BHP for years to come”, Sabeeha noted.

As the week came to an end, the team went out one last time with Caroline to Montreal’s famous “Juliette et Chocolat” dessert shop for a sweet ending to a fulfilling week. The team talked with Caroline fondly about the memories they had developed in just 6 short days, and laughs were had by all.

As Team Texas boarded the cab to head back to Austin, they were sad to leave their new friends and such a beautiful  city, but fulfilled to have been given the chance to represent UT, McCombs, and BHP. They were also pleased to have spent their Spring Breaks in such a meaningful way meeting international peers from across the world.

Alumni Spotlight – Mark Rogers, Class of 2007

Date
Posted by
Comments0
Alumni Spotlight – Mark Rogers, Class of 2007

 

Mark RogersMark Rogers, BHP ’07, followed his passions as they led him from banking in London to opening a charter school in Austin. He held on to the confidence and inspiration he received from his BHP peers as he made various career changes and has now become an award-winning teacher. Mark will deliver the keynote address at Discover BHP, an event for all newly-admitted BHP students, this coming Saturday.

Could you take me through your career path since graduation, and how you ended up teaching at Meridian World School in Austin?

I had an internship at Morgan Stanley in London after my junior year at UT. Living in Europe was a dream of mine ever since my best friend moved to Europe when I was 16. He moved to London and I visited him and became entranced by the city. My goal was to live and work there ever since I was a sophomore in high school. When internship time was coming around, I emailed various managing directors within Morgan Stanley and sent them my CV and lots of cover letters. By the end of the process, they decided to give it a shot. The summer went really well and it was everything I hoped it would be both personally and professionally. I got to travel, meet a lot of very interesting and diverse people, and I fell in love with the idea of moving abroad. I received a full-time offer, and it was only then that I began to consider what that meant – leaving all family, all friends, and being 6,000 miles away. That was very tough because I think the gravity of it never hit me until I got the offer. I accepted the job and moved, and despite how difficult the process of moving that day and saying goodbye to my family was, as soon as I landed and as soon as things started to get going, it did feel right. It did feel like I made the right choice.

The two years go by, and I’m ready to move back, and I go to a friend’s wedding and that’s where I met my wife. It was there, for the first time ever, that someone opened my eyes to education as a full-time career choice that could be so fulfilling and still economically viable. I decided to get my teaching certificate and see what happened. I did get a job in education and helped open a charter school in 2011. I still teach Calculus, Statistics, and Theory of Knowledge there today.

When you were in college, did you think this is where your career path would lead you?

No way. I wouldn’t have felt confident enough to take these risks if I didn’t surround myself with people in BHP who took calculated risks like these, and the teachers who encouraged risk-taking and creative thinking. There was a good entrepreneurial spirit about the program. Even though I left to go to Morgan Stanley, I feel like I would still be in a job that I felt like I had to be in if I hadn’t been exposed to those calculated risk-takers in BHP.

Did you experience any culture shock, starting out your post-graduate career in London

Oh yeah. Going to work at a bank, you need a suit. I had my two suits from college – one was a holdover from high school, the other I had gotten in college. I had these two suits and then I had maybe 10-11 dress shirts. I go into the office wearing my college suit and one of my colleagues says “Rogers, you’re wearing your dad’s suit today, huh?” In America, especially men wear baggier suits and so every time I came in in that suit, he called it my dad’s suit. I maybe lasted two weeks before I took my first paycheck to buy myself a suit that wasn’t baggy so my colleague would stop saying that I was wearing my dad’s suit.

How did your BHP education prepare you to succeed in such diverse industries?

The smaller class size promotes discussion, and it’s that type of exposure to different ideas and student engagement, especially, where it’s just better to learn. In classes that get above 40, it gets tough on the teacher and that type of conversational learning doesn’t scale. In small classes, you had a relationship with your peers and your teachers.

What are some of the challenges and rewards of a career in education?

The challenge is that I know exactly what an education can do for you, and on the other side of that coin, I know what missing out on education can do for you economically. So the biggest challenge for me is helping students who need significant help getting to that point where they have the skills necessary to be successful. And that’s incredibly challenging because you, at times, are making up knowledge and skills gaps that span years. I know how important it is, specifically with math, especially with their finances as they get older. I think about that when I’m working with these kids and we’re trying to close gaps. It’s on the front of my mind.

When you actually fill the gap, when they gain the skill, and when they start performing on grade level, rising to challenges, and gaining confidence, there’s just no better feeling. You get these success stories. I have students who were two grade levels behind, and now they’re performing a grade level above. It’s a two-way street. They just do such a good job of staying the course.

Do you have any advice for current BHP students?

Small changes made over a long period of time can yield the most incredible impact. I guess the advice is: think about something you want to change that’s really small, that you can tackle, but do it every single day. You’ll look back in a year or in two years, and you’ll think back to that day you decided to make the change, and it will amount to something that has greatly improved your life.

*This post was written by Rachel Solomon, a BHP senior and co-chair of Discover BHP 2015.

Alumni Spotlight – Mitch Kreindler, Class of 1984

Date
Posted by
Comments0
Alumni Spotlight – Mitch Kreindler, Class of 1984
Mitch and his daughter, Erin, who is a sophomore at UT Austin.

Mitch and his daughter, Erin, who is a sophomore at UT Austin in the College of Natural Sciences.

Mitch Kreindler, BHP ’84, JD ’87, is the founder of Kreindler & Associates, a Houston law firm representing whistle blowers pursuing the recovery of taxpayer dollars from fraud perpetrated against the government. Mitch practiced law for several high profile firms before starting his own. He serves on the BHP Alumni Advisory Board.

How did your business degree prepare you for law school?

I knew early on that I wanted to go to law school. My BHP degree helped with law school and law in two ways. First, it gave me an understanding of basic business concepts and how business works, which is a lot of the law. It is important to understand all the business components of cases. In law school, there were students who had no business background and felt lost in classes like contracts and corporations. Having a business background helped me feel comfortable with principles that underlie the law. Second, BHP helped me develop a lot of basic skills in terms of analytical thinking that apply throughout life, but especially when practicing law.

Describe what you do.

I represent whistle blowers who are trying to stop companies and individuals from ripping off the government and return money to the federal or state treasury. There are federal and state statutes that create a public-private partnership between the government and private parties. Through that partnership an individual and an attorney can file a lawsuit on behalf of the government, asserting that someone has committed fraud against the government. We work with the government to investigate these allegations with the hope they will join our suit and obtain a recovery. If the government doesn’t join the case, the whistleblower can pursue the case on their own, and we engage in litigation with the bad guys. These are very unique statutes. There are really no other statutes like them.

The statutes provides that the whistleblower will be rewarded for their efforts with a bounty that is a percentage of what the government recovers, historically around 17-18 percent. The lawyers, working on a contingent fee, take a percentage of that percentage. These cases take 3-7 years to resolve. Whistleblowers really have to believe in the mission of what they are doing. In my twenty years of doing this, I only have had one client who came to me saying he was motivated by money. Every other client has been concerned about the public harm, fraud or retaliation for complaining about the fraud.

What is it that you have enjoyed most about practicing law?

I am always representing the underdog who is trying to do what is right against strong, powerful, corporate resources that are doing what is wrong. It is in the public good and it is feel-good work. Most people won’t think of being a lawyer as a helping profession, but it really is because you are helping clients fix a problem, and I like that. Students who are considering law school need to think why they want to be a lawyer. What is it that really is interesting to you? It is important to pursue your passions and interests, but don’t pursue them blindly and close yourself off to other opportunities that present themselves.

Why the decision to start your own firm and focus on whistleblowers?

I had always thought about starting my own thing. My father always said make sure by the time you are 40, you are controlling your own destiny. That was his mantra. When I started doing this whistleblower work, there were a lot of small firms engaged in this area of the law, so it was easy to have my own small shop and was a good fit for me.

Is there any case that really stands out to you?

The cases that stand out most in my mind are the ones where I have been most able to help the client. They might not be the ones where we recovered the most money, but the ones where the clients were really serious about their claims and by filing those claims, we were able to put a company out of business or stop a fraud and obtain a righteous result. The client put themselves on the line in a significant way. They did what was right and because of it, they did something that was for the public good.

It takes a special person to be a whistleblower. We all know the difference between right and wrong, but not everyone will stand up to do what is right. It is a difficult path. They decide they need to do the right thing, not the easy thing. They have a strong moral compass and are willing to do what is right, even though it subjects them to a lot pain. It is a part of our culture that we value loyalty, sometimes more than honesty, so whistleblowers are frequently ostracized and in a lonely place. It amazes me that people want to do this, but thankfully there are people who have a strong moral compass because there is a lot of fraud that would not be stopped without them.

Empowering whistleblowers has become government policy in the last 15 years in a big way as a result of Enron and the mortgage fiasco in the late 2000s. The Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd Frank legislation greatly advanced the cause of the whistleblower. We now have an SEC whistleblower office. They are now recognizing that it’s the people on the inside who know what is going on and who we need to stop the fraud that is occurring. There are now more tools and protections provided for individuals who report their companies.

You were student body president at UT and president for the Business Student Council. Why have you remained involved with campus, particularly the BHP Advisory Board?

Since I was young, I have had a sense of wanting to get involved so I could help get things done. I am interested in policy-related issues and governance types of organization. Nothing gets done unless someone does it, so I wanted to help make things happen. You have to pick your niche. After you get out of college, it is hard to get involved in organizations. Pick what is important to you and where you want to spend your volunteer time, which is why I am still involved in BHP, because it has always been important in my life.

Do you have a favorite memory from your time at UT?

I have a lot of favorite memories and most involve experiences with people. It really does come down to relationships and not just relationships with fellow students. My fondest memories are in the dealings I had with professors, particularly a business law professor and math professor I kept in touch long past graduation, as well as a few key administrators. I sat on the committee that chose Bill Cunningham as dean of the business school, then again on the committee that selected him as president. I joked with him that he owed his success to me since I was the common element in the selection processes, which obviously wasn’t true, but I had a great relationship with him. I keep in touch with many fellow BHP students and have really valued those relationships.

For students interested in law after BHP, what advice would you have for them?

If they stay at UT, they should immerse themselves in the law school as though it was at an entirely different university.