He was a long-time Chairman of the Board of Regents of the University of Houston, Chairman of its Drive to Tier One and is now Chairman of its Political Action Committee. He is a Director Emeritus of the Greater Houston Partnership, having served a long time as its Higher Education Chairman.
In the 50s and 60s he served in the Executive Office of the President under Presidents Dwight Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy. He witnessed the Atom bomb test in Nevada and the Hydrogen Bomb test at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific.
In 1958, he was awarded the Arthur Fleming Award as One of the Ten Outstanding Young Men in Federal Service. Out of 600 who received this award since 1948, Wikipedia lists him one of the top twenty along with Astronaut Neil Armstrong (moon landing), Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Senator Elizabeth Dole, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Fed Chairman Paul Volcker, and TV network’s John Chancellor.
He was invited and spoke to a joint session of the New Mexico Legislature. He was appointed Special Ambassador to Nicaragua by President Lyndon Johnson. After World War II, he served for two years as a Naval Officer in Japan, having graduated first in his class in officer’s school.
He married his college sweetheart on the day he graduated from UH, 69 years ago. They have 5 kids, 16 grandkids and 16 great-grandkids, one of whom is in college.
Why did you become an entrepreneur in the first place?
I was serving in the executive office of the president under Dwight Eisenhower I was about 30 years old, and I had the civil service rank of a three-star general. I told my wife that we were living the good life and I thought I ought to make a career out of federal service.
She explained that she did not marry me to become the wife of a federal employee and she wanted our kids to go to private school, she wanted to be a socialite, and she wanted to live on River Oaks Blvd in Houston (We have had kids and grandkids at Kinkaid school now for 52 years, she became a ball chairman type, and we lived for thirty years on River Oaks Blvd).
So, I resigned my position with the executive office of the president and became a real estate developer full time.
As an entrepreneur, how do you deal with fear or rejection?
My father taught me that to be an Entrepreneur and succeed in business you had to have guts and determination. He didn’t mean guts to get into a fight he meant guts to make a pitch with no fear of rejection, it worked. I’ve always been able to make a pitch that’s highly in my favor, keep a straight face, and rejection would have no effect on me.
