The Herb Kelleher Entrepreneurship Center would like to thank the donors behind our programming for their generous support of Texas Entrepreneurs. Through their gifts, our donors enable Longhorn founders to launch and grow startups from a position of strength and confidence. Their commitment ensures that generations of student entrepreneurs will have the resources, community, and opportunities they need to succeed.
At the HKEC, we believe that ‘What Starts (Up) Here’ truly does change the world and we are grateful to our donors for making that vision possible.
Gwen and Frank Gordon Forty Acres Founders Endowed Excellence Fund
Stephen Maeker Forty Acres Founders Endowed Excellence Fund
Kim and Michael Tucci Forty Acres Founders Endowed Excellence Fund
Thomas and Libby Mathai Endowed Excellence Fund for Entrepreneurship
Ed and Connie Easley Forty Acres Founders Endowed Excellence Fund
Mr. Maeker has extensive director/senior director level experience in franchising with franchising industry leaders Mobil Oil, TGIFriday’s, Jack in the Box and Papa Murphy’s Take N Bake Pizza. He is a nationally published & award winning franchise consultant with industry leader FranChoice. He is a co-author of international best seller <i>Franchising Freedom</i>. He and his wife Christy are also top performing multi-unit franchisees in Sola Salon Studios, one of the 160+ franchisors that he represents. Mr. Maeker has two grown children, Sydney and Barnes, and a French Bulldog named Harold. He and Christy are both elders at Grand Lakes Presbyterian Church in Katy, Texas.
After 20 years in retail and merchandising executive leadership, Michael Tucci founded Rebel Capital, a growth investment company, in 2016. His previous roles include CEO and managing partner of Rag & Bone, president of North America Group and North America Retail for Coach, Inc., and executive vice president at Gap. Michael began his career at Macy’s, where he became president of specialty store division, Aeropostale. Michael is an advisor for Allbirds, a direct-to-consumer shoe brand and past director of The Fresh Market. He is the chief of corporate development and a board member of the STEER for Student Athletes, a committee member of Trinity College’s The Future of Athletics Campaign. He lives in Rye, New York with his wife Kim and they have four children, including Ellis Tucci, a finance major in McCombs.
Brian is an entrepreneur, investor, author, and is currently the Founder & Executive Chairman of AlertMedia, a company he started in 2013. AlertMedia is now the world’s leading provider of emergency communication software, used by over 2,500 enterprise companies in 130+ countries to keep employees safe from threats to their health and safety. Before AlertMedia, Brian co-founded Xenex, where he and his team developed a germ-killing robot, now used in over 700 hospitals around the world, preventing infections and saving thousands of lives each year. He is also an investor and adviser to dozens of early stage startups through his investment firm, Marketdriver Ventures. Brian’s focus on starting companies with a positive impact stems, in part, from his experience working at Enron, where he was part of mass layoffs when the energy giant went bankrupt in 2001. He turned his Enron experience and the lessons learned into a best-selling book and later a movie. Brian is a graduate of the University of Southern California and received his MBA from the University of Texas.
Thomas Mathai resides in Plano, TX, and serves as the Vice President of Continuous Improvement for the Lakeside Book Company, a portfolio company of Atlas Holdings. With over 20 years of experience in Operations, Thomas has worked with notable organizations such as Valspar Coatings, Coca-Cola, Red Bull, and General Dynamics.
In 2021, Thomas and his wife, Libby, collaborated with the UT Southwestern Medical Foundation to establish the Thomas and Libby Mathai Scholarship for Women in STEM Fund. This scholarship aims to provide financial support to young women pursuing studies in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) by offering a summer internship through UT Southwestern’s esteemed STARS Program.
Recently, the Mathais extended their philanthropic efforts by funding a scholarship at the Herb Kelleher Entrepreneurship Center. Their goal is to fully endow this scholarship in the upcoming year.
Outside of work, Thomas enjoys staying active through workouts, including in oil painting, exploring new destinations, and reading. He also contributes to the community as a board member of the Plano YMCA and actively participates in church and Campus Crusade activities. Thomas and Libby have two sons. Noah studies Biomedical Engineering at UT Austin ’25 and Micah is in High School ’25.
Check back soon for more information…
Billy is a lifelong entrepreneur, turned investor, who resides in San Antonio. A fourth generation Texan and Dallasite, following graduation from UT in 1981 he joined a family business, Chair King Furniture, bringing that retail concept to the San Antonio and Austin markets. In 1984, he co-founded Travis Telecom, initially the private telephone and cable operator in Dobie Center, and subsequently a long-distance telephone provider in the Austin, San Antonio and Midland-Odessa. In 1989, he co-founded Call Home America, the country’s largest provider of inbound 1-800 telephone services to parents of college students.
Since 1994, he has been a principal in Nueces Partners, a diversified investment partnership with interests in consumer products, energy service, technology, and telecommunications, as well as a substantial real estate portfolio. He’s been a licensed Texas real estate broker since 1986. He also leads a family ranching operation in Bexar and Medina Counties.
A longtime supporter of Entrepreneurial Education, he taught the first Entrepreneurship and Venture Creation course, as an upper division business elective, ever offered at Trinity University, from 1996-2008. Since 2018, he has served as the Investor-in-Residence at Trinity University, in support of both the University and its Entrepreneurship Department.
In 2023, Mr. Freed endowed the Freed Family Pitch Competition, formally DisrupTexas, through the Herb Kelleher Entrepreneurship Center (HKEC). He also serves on the advisory board for HKEC, a co-curricular student center within McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin.
He has served on numerous boards of private companies, bank and non-profit organizations. He is currently the Board Chair of the San Antonio Zoo, and recently completed a term as the Chair of the Texas Cavaliers Charitable Foundation.