Ends Lecture 3/31/09

The group check during lecture was eye opening, only a few groups had everybody there and mine was definitely not one of them.  But whoever was not there missed a good guest speaker, so oh well.

Guy Deidrich was our guest speaker and he is the Vice Chancellor at Texas A&M.  He spoke to us about inertia and what we were going to do with our lives when we graduated from college.  What I thought was interesting is he recommended that the best time to start up a business is right out of college, unlike the usual advice which is continue with school or find a steady job and do that later.  His argument was that when you are in your 20's you have no dependents, you have energy, and you can deal with the stress more effectively. 

He told us how he got to where he was today, and I thought it was an awesome story that complimented his advice.  He was about to graduate and had gone to interview with some companies, but he wasn't satisfied.  Then he met a guy named Roger and they talked about starting a business together, and eventually actually followed that path.  They bought a building in Plano, but had no idea what their business was going to be yet.  They saw there was a lot of large companies coming to Plano and decided they could provide a service as a management consulting firm.  It turns out their first job was to lay off the people at Frito-Lay.  He told us how horrible it was firing people who needed their jobs and had been working there for 10 plus years.  After that experience they decided to change their business plan.  So they adapted and learned how to write software.  I thought this was an important part of their future as a business, because if they hadn't changed the face of their business to become part of the software revolution they probably would have been left behind.  I thought this was a good real life example of how we should never be static, but always pushing ourselves.  So he and his friend Roger began making software programs to help large companies become more efficient.  His business grew in three years to 150 people and he sold his company.  His next move was an online business called GSE market where he sold airport junk to get it out of the airport's hair.  Then eventually came to work at Texas A&M.  

I will have to say that his lecture was one of my favorites.  I always forget the resources this university has and all the great people that work here and are always available.