TOP TALENT ACQUIRING & DEVELOPING LEADERS
school in the country. According to Battista, it’s working: “We’re very quickly building that reputation, and other top business schools are starting to follow suit.” Associate Director of Financial Aid Salomon Medina believes a university is an ideal partner for veterans seeking to rebuild their lives. “We’ve got the transition from civilian to warrior down; we don’t have the transition from warrior back to civilian very well,” Medina says. “Opening up education as a door to that transition is incredibly important … just by its very nature, an educational experience can be and often is a metamorphosis.”
In his former life, Jimmy Battista '13 was a U.S. Navy SEAL platoon commander — 18-hour days, high-stress missions, Middle East deployments and all the rigorous demands of an elite military team. These days, Battista helps handle acquisitions and divestments for international mining, and oil and gas company Freeport-McMoRan. The transition from active duty to a corporate career, he says, can be surprisingly tough. “I had 21 guys in my platoon deployed to some very dangerous places,” Battista says. “A few months later, you find yourself sitting in an office behind a computer, working on spreadsheets. It takes a while for that mindset and pace to settle in.” Connecting with other students facing the same challenge was one reason Battista, 34, helped start the Jones Graduate School of Business’s Veterans in Business Association (VIBA) in 2011. He also believed VIBA had the potential to grow well beyond informal networking. He was right. Today, VIBA hosts two annual events, raises money for veterans’ charities, provides networking opportunities for vets and nonvets, and offers invaluable support as students navigate the transition from military to MBA. Its success is one example of the leadership veterans are bringing to Rice University. They say that initiative is simply part of their skill set: identify an opportunity, create a plan and execute.
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Removing Barriers, Raising Profiles VIBA members are quick to applaud the school’s and donors' unwavering support and tireless efforts on both scholarship and programming initiatives. They also note Rice’s goal to have veterans or current service members make up 10 percent or more of the full-time MBA class by the 2015-2016 academic year. “Veterans bring a unique brand of creative leadership to class and on campus that enriches the educational experience of their peers,” Dean Bill Glick says. “That’s one of the reasons they are highly sought after among top-tier programs across the country. Their positive impact on the Jones School is unparalleled, and we believe that further support for veterans provides a boon to us as well as to the business community. This is key to our strategic investments to acquire and develop top talent.” Two initiatives demonstrate Rice’s commitment to attract and support high-caliber veterans: the Military Scholars Program (MSP) and an increased contribution to the Yellow Ribbon Program. The MSP, launched in 2013, is a generous package covering tuition, fees and approximately $25,000 in living expenses for a full-time MBA student. Donors have been enthusiastic, giving more than $1 million in 2012. Rice also boosted its contribution to the Post-9/11 GI Bill’s Yellow Ribbon Program. The Department of Veterans Affairs matches schools’ support dollar-for-dollar, but some students faced a funding gap after Congress capped coverage of private school tuition. Now, Medina says, the MSP, GI Bill and Yellow Ribbon help veterans cover the cost of attending the Jones School. “We want to remove any financial barriers as much as possible,” he says. VIBA also created two annual events, The Veteran Experience and the Rice Veterans Leadership Series, which launched to great success in 2013. VIBA President Mike Freedman ’14, a former Green Beret, says the events achieve multiple goals: providing valuable programming to the Jones School community, building ties with accomplished individuals who support the school and VIBA, and expanding networking opportunities.
“Leaders from the military are trained and experienced in identifying, evaluating and processing risk, and making good decisions in uncertain environments with limited resources. These skills are highly transferable, especially here in Houston and in the energy industry,” says Battista.
Freedman, 33, published his debut novel, School Board, in April, so it is fitting that the first Veteran Experience panel brought six awardwinning authors to Rice — Bill Broyles (Rice ’66), Ben Fountain, Bruce Jay Friedman, Karl Marlantes, Lea Carpenter and David Abrams. Each fall, Jones will host a panel of distinguished speakers.
VIBA is also pursuing a bigger mission — together with the Jones School administration — to make Rice the most veteran-friendly business
“It puts a spotlight nationally on Rice because it gets a lot of attention,” Freedman says. SPRING 2014 JONES JOURNAL // 27