Anne Q. and Brien P. Smith Endowed Presidential Scholarship in Business

Feb 9, 2012 | EPS/EPF

Anne and Brien Smith met during their junior year at The University of Texas at Austin in a McCombs School of Business finance class. Anne and Brien can still find the classroom in BEB where they had their first class together.

The couple had their first date during the Christmas break of 1978-79. They married the following December in Austin. Both graduated in 1979, earning BBAs with a concentration in finance. Brien went on to earn his MPA in 1981 from McCombs. The couple moved to Dallas shortly afterward and have lived there since.

The degrees Anne and Brien earned at the McCombs School of Business provided the critical foundation on which they built their lives, family, and success. Both fondly remember attending Ronya and George Kozmetsky’s Saturday classes for graduate school couples that predated the Kozmetskys’ book Making It Together: A Survival Manual for the Executive Family. Beyond the academic experience the Smiths shared, the Kozmetskys’ class provided the Smiths the tools they needed to enjoy more than 30 years of marriage.

Through their gift to the University, the Smiths want to create opportunities similar to those that UT gave them as students. Building a comparable foundation for Texas students is a means of recognizing the contribution the McCombs School made to Anne and Brien’s lives.

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