As the current Chair of the BBA Advisory Board, John Briscoe, who graduated from the Texas BBA Program in 1981, is still committed to serving the UT and McCombs community years later. Briscoe looks back on his time at McCombs fondly and he attributes part of his success to the lessons he learned while studying in the accounting program and the connections he made with his peers and professors.
Please talk about your experience as a student here at McCombs.
I have a great recollection of my time at McCombs and the truth is I ended up at McCombs somewhat by accident. I always knew I wanted to go to UT and I don’t recall looking at any other schools as my oldest sister attended and my dad was an avid UT football fan and I attended a number of Longhorn football games and still remember the 1969 Game of the Century against Arkansas. But I came to UT to major in architecture, not business. After my first year, I realized that architecture was not my calling and transferred to Plan II, which allowed me to take classes in other schools at UT. My roommate at the time was an accounting major and he encouraged me to come to the business school and take some classes. I immediately knew this was where I should be and majored in accounting, but only by chance did I end up at the best accounting program in the U.S. I remember Dr. Welch and Dr. “Z” (Zlatkovich) as well as several other professors that inspired me and encouraged me to stick with the accounting program. I still have the Intermediate Accounting textbook by Welch, Zlatkovich, and Harrison, so I guess I qualify as an accounting nerd. Although it wasn’t the academics that I remember most, it was the friends and future colleagues that I met, later worked with, and had a great time with (sometimes too good of a time) at McCombs.
How did your educational experience change you?
Coming from a smaller town that did not have a great public school system, the first thing I had to learn was to study. I made mostly A’s and some B’s in high school without ever studying and at McCombs I learned that I had to work hard to do well in a very competitive accounting program where you rarely finished a major exam and everything was graded on a curve. I learned to take initiative and get to know the professors because if you had questions they weren’t going to find you, you had to find them and their office hours. In addition to a work ethic that benefited me in my career I learned about business and capital markets that continue to fascinate me and which I continue to study and learn as an investor.
Talk about your career path since graduating.
After graduating in 1981, I went to work at Peat, Marwick & Mitchell (now KPMG), which at the time was one of the “Big 8” in auditing, switched to Ernst & Whinney (now Ernst & Young) and after about 7 years in public accounting, I decided I wanted to be on the decision-making side of finance and not reviewing/critiquing the business decisions of others. Like most in the “Big 8” at the time, when you left you went to work for a former client, Sparkman Enterprises in Corpus Christi which owned and operated various companies in the energy sector. After 3 years, my wife’s company relocated to Houston and I decided Houston would provide better opportunities with more corporate headquarters and public companies even though I did not think I would like Houston that much. Turned out the move to Houston was the best thing for me and my career and I began to work at Baroid Corporation, which was later acquired by Dresser Industries and most of my 6 years was in the international side of finance with a lot of travel throughout Latin America and overseeing operations there. In 1997, my son came to live with me and as a single dad I knew the international travel would not work, so I went to work at Ferrellgas Partners in 1997, which was based in the U.S. with a division headquarters in Houston as division controller and the last three years I was at the headquarters in Kansas City as Vice President of Accounting. I wanted to get back to Houston, so in 2005 I went to work at Transocean Ltd. and held a number of different positions with the last as Vice President and Controller. In 2011, an opportunity was presented to join Weatherford International Plc as chief accounting officer and I became chief financial officer shortly thereafter. In 2014 I joined Bristow Group Inc. as chief financial officer and retired in 2015.
What are you most proud of in your career so far?
The people I worked with and believing that I had a positive impact on them, their careers, and on the companies and shareholders. As I look back on my career, I was always given a lot of opportunities, some maybe before I was ready. I believe for the vast majority of people, if you give them the opportunity to do more, they will surprise you and show you how much more they can do than you thought. It is easy to put limits around an individual’s ability and not take a risk with pushing their limits, but if you empower people with responsibility and accountability they will step up to the task and exceed your and maybe their expectations.
Has your career played out the way you expected?
I never knew how my career would play out. I can’t tell you I had a grand vision of where my career would lead. I learned quickly that I didn’t want to be bored in a job so I continued to ask for more challenges and responsibility. When I progressed to a higher level, I always felt like I could continue to progress. Just like I learned not to limit employees, I learned not to limit myself and learned that I thrived on change and whenever there was a merger or turmoil in the energy industry, those challenging times always led to the best opportunities for me.
One thing I always enjoyed was traveling to visit operating locations. I believe you can’t really understand the financial side of a business if you don’t see the operations first hand. Whenever I traveled to an operating location I always had a specific purpose of what I needed to accomplish, but I realized I always learned something new and usually many things that were not the purpose of the trip. Asking questions and listening are crucial skills for anyone in finance. I didn’t always have the answer, but I knew that someone in the organization did and you have to be open to seeking out new ideas and perspectives whether it is the service hand, machine operator or country controller.
How have you stayed involved with the school as an alumnus?
I have always had a passion of UT since I first attended a football game at about age 8. I have been a Life Member of Texas Exes since just after I graduated and although my involvement went in cycles depending on the challenges of being a single dad or a career that included a lot of international travel, I have always remained supportive of UT and McCombs. When the opportunity came to join the BBA Advisory Board in 2014 I was very excited to get more involved and to give back to a school that opened up so many opportunities for me.
How have you personally benefited from being a part of the network?
This is hard to quantify. There are so many great relationships that I developed either directly from McCombs events or indirectly when you meet a fellow alum and spend a few minutes discussing the school, professors, and common experiences in Austin. McCombs has a huge alumni base and everyone is always welcoming and friendly whether in Austin, Houston, New York, San Francisco, or London.
What are your goals for the future, career wise and in relation to McCombs?
Even though I consider myself retired, I have just moved onto a new phase of my career. I have become more involved with non-profits, professional associations, and I still stay very engaged with the energy industry as a consultant/advisor and investor. Part of this is also continuing my involvement with McCombs and I want to continue to remain involved with the school and the network.
Any other community involvement, hobbies, or tidbits you’d like to share?
I am an avid golfer and still love to travel although most of it is for pleasure now rather than business. We traveled to the UK earlier this year, just got back from Canada, and are now planning a trip to Greece in the spring. I am on the Board of Memorial Park Conservancy, the incoming president of Financial Executives International in Houston, and the chair of the supervisory board of Southern Federal Credit Union.
