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t m c » p u l s e | j u ly 2 0 1 4 25 That was formative for me to understand another peoples values, even within the United States. Q | Tell us what led to your interest in history. A | Two interests in my family came together. By this time in high school, I was reading about Civil War battles and leaders and really beginning to understand how critical that period of time was to the creation of America as we know it today. And my mother loved old antebellum mansions. So the summer after my soph- omore year in high school, we all piled in the family station wagon, which was a cultural right of passage in the 50s and early 60s. Everybody got in and you weren't a mile down the road before you were getting into a fight with your brother or sister. That's how it was. So we go to Virginia to tour the old homes and the battlefields, and we make the trip to Charlottesville to see Monticello. While there, we hear all about the University of Virginia. I put one foot on Mr. Jefferson's Lawn, and said, 'This is where I want to go to school.' I was fortunate enough to be admitted. It was after I applied and was admitted that I learned it was all men. It was the last major public university to go coed, and that kind of shows you the depth of my research. Q | What were the series of happy decisions or accidents that finally brought you to Texas? A | Well, in looking back…the first was going to UVA. It was luck, or it was something, that caused the Coca Cola Company to hire a history major that had never taken a business course in his life. By that time I was married, I was a UVA graduate, and had just been discharged from the Marine Corps. My wife and I lived in Atlanta; Lansing, Michigan; back in Chicago; Des Moines, Iowa; Kansas City; St. Louis; Miami and then moved to Texas in January of 1987. During that journey I was very fortunate, in both soft drinks and beer, to learn how to 'turn a company around.' And so that journey led us here. Back then, it was Southwest Distributing. There wasn't anything fundamentally wrong or broken, but it was a single dimension busi- ness. They were beer distributors. I view our role as being marketers, especially in a city as big and diverse as Houston. You have to understand your market, break it into as many pieces as you can, and then you will be successful. I guess becoming a turnaround guy through on-the-job training would be my answer. Q | Going back, what was one of the most significant artifacts that you collected as a child that you still have today? A | It was discovered at the Antietam Battlefield, in a place where a lot of Texas troops fought, in a cornfield. It was a bayonet, clearly used by a Confederate. It is four-sided, if you look at the tip. There are four sides rather than the typical three-sided bayonet. It was lost in the carnage at the cornfield. Back before the national park owned the land, it was owned by an elderly couple. They ran a little gift stand right there near the Sunken Road, and she gave it to me. We sat there and talked, and I was probably all of 12 or 13 years old, and I have always remembered both the kindness and her description of taking care of the land. And today, Antietam is probably as pristine as any battlefield, and I give credit to that woman, her husband, and the other people there. That's the one I remember. Q | Having served in the service, are military artifacts more meaningful to you? A | What's most meaningful to me is the connec- tion to the individual. They say service is 95 percent boredom and five percent terror. And there is so much of a connection to the soldiers from the American Revolution to the Civil War, to today's troops. The equipment is different, but the individual is basically the same. The Civil War was the first war that was photographed. We have a couple thousand images of soldiers, their letters, and even pieces that have soldiers' art. They couldn't describe a camp scene, but they drew it. And I think that's so personal. That's what, to me, transcends the years and connects today's military with that of our forefathers. Q | You have an amputation kit in your collection… A | It's personal to me. I know of six of my ances- tors that fought in the Civil War. One lost an arm at Antietam. (I didn't know the details of his service back when I was going to the battlefield, but I have learned it subsequently.) He loses an arm, goes back to Massachusetts, recovers, is commissioned, goes back into the Union Army, commands what is then called the United States Color Troops, fights in five more battles, and then winds up living after the war in Charleston. Another artifact I have is a crutch with a stump on it. It was made by a Tennessee Confederate in the Calvary. He lost his leg at Shiloh, made the crutch and then walked about 80 miles to his home in western Tennessee. We have that crutch. This personalizes it. Q | I understand you have grand plans for the Nau Center for Texas Cultural Heritage. Can you tell us a little more about that? A | We are going to tell the story of 29 counties, from Beaumont down to Goliad, and of course the greater Houston region. When you step back and think about all of the cultural resources that we have, we are miss- ing a place to learn about the heritage and the cultures that created Houston and the region today. I think we are missing an economic development opportunity created by tourism, especially when we have conven- tions in town. Because, we don't have an easily accessible visitor's center. We have 1.8 million conventioneers and their guests that come into Houston every year, and we are viewed as a city that destroyed its past, knocked down the old places, built steel and glass. That's not really the case. We will provide a resource to visitors, school children and residents to help them understand the sites of the region. We have old homes, we have churches and this part of Texas has many, many famous old courthouses. With the exception of the Alamo, we have every major site from the Texas Revolution. Our region is where the declaration was signed and where the Constitution was formed. People from around the country come here and they don't know that. The Nau Center will provide a place to reflect on our past and learn about the people that had these really big ideas. Why are we one of the biggest ports in the U.S., 40 miles inland? That took big ideas and the support of the community to make it happen. My wife and I have lived in many different cities. We found this freedom in the people and the mindset here in Houston, and given my background in history, we see the Nau Center as a way for us to give back to the community. Most importantly, I think it is really to the credit of the leadership of Texas, both in Austin and the academic leadership, that 7th graders are required to take a course in Texas history. Our facility will help give them a place to connect faces, names, events with what they see in a textbook. This is not going to be the kind of museum that you and I grew up with, where you go in and it's case after case of old stuff. We put a group of educators together, a number of them were elementary edu- cators, and I said, 'Tell me, what do we need to do to educate a 7th grader?' Without any hesitation, this person looks at me and says, 'You're going to have to entertain them before you educate them.' We have a firm from California and about half of their staff are former Disney writers. The facts are going to be his- tory, but there is going to be an entertainment element utilizing technology. We will be the first 21st century visitors center. And the first 21st century, true heritage center in the U.S. If Houston is today what the rest of the country will look like in 40 or 50 years, I think we have, if not an obligation, an opportunity to tell the story of how all of those people have come together and work as one. Because we do. And there is friction among groups. There is friction no matter what your ethnicity. That's just human nature. But the reality is that Houston really works together. You go back to the 60s. How did Houston desegregate over 48 hours and it just happened? Well, there is a story there. Why was Houston the only major city that didn't have riots in '68 and '69? Those are great stories. And people will learn about them and help us, the city of Houston, educate the rest of the country.