McCombs TODAY

Fresh from a 20-year appointment at the University of Southern California, Dean Thomas Gilligan dives into Texas during a semester marked by unprecedented economic events. His mission: learn fast, listen well and DREAM BIG.

Tom Gilligan must be taking his vitamins. His first semester as dean of the McCombs School of Business has seen more than the usual array of new-school-year activity. From the Wall Street meltdown of mid-September to the Presidential election to the university’s launch of a $3 billion capital campaign, fall 2008 has, by all accounts, been a whirlwind.

In addition to these “macro” events, Gilligan’s own schedule has been chock full of appointments with McCombs faculty and staff, university leaders, alumni, donors, corporate partners and other school stakeholders. While he has been getting up to speed on all things Texas, his family has remained in Los Angeles so that his eldest daughter could finish her senior year of high school there.

But throughout it all, the dean has remained unflappable. For Gilligan, focus, energy and drive have never been lacking.

“Tom is a person of enormous energy and commitment and discipline,” says Brian Roberts, vice president for information technology at the university. Roberts and Gilligan studied for their Ph.D.s together at Washington University in the early 1980s. Those traits, combined with his experience as vice-dean for undergraduate programs and then interim dean of USC’s Marshall School of Business—a school of similar size and makeup—helped lay the foundation for Gilligan to take the reins at McCombs during a time of historic changes in the business world and the world at large.

Read the full article in Texas magazine…