Issue link: https://tmcpulse.uberflip.com/i/473041
t m c » p u l s e | m a r c h 2 0 1 5 22 Q | Can you tell us about your formative years? Where were you born and raised? A | I was born in Houston, and both of my parents were born here. My grandparents came to Houston in the 1920s and '30s, so this is home. I grew up in the Spring Branch area, where my mom also grew up. In fact, Beltway 8 goes right through the land where my grandparents had a farm. I have seen many changes in the city over the years. Q | What led you to attend Rice? A | When I was young, we would often take weekend trips to the zoo or just go for a drive. That was what you did on weekends back then. It often led to a trip through the Rice campus. My parents would say, 'If you're really smart, when you grow up you may be able to go to Rice.' And then they would laugh. We were liv- ing out of state when I graduated high school and Rice was the only school to which I applied. I was a merit scholar in high school and I knew I could go anywhere I wanted to go, so I came back to go to Rice. Q | Did you know early on in life that you would end up in a career in public service, or were you leaning toward a career in oil and gas? A | Actually, neither. At Rice, you are expected to have two majors. I ended up with three: psychology, sociol- ogy and anthropology. After college, I wanted to go to graduate school. I was going to become Margaret Mead, I guess. Teach anthropology somewhere. I attended HOUSTON MAYOR ANNISE D. PARKER, NOW IN HER THIRD AND FINAL TERM, SAT DOWN WITH TEXAS MEDICAL CENTER EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT AND CHIEF STRATEGY AND OPERATING OFFICER WILLIAM F. McKEON, TO REFLECT ON THE INITIATIVES OF WHICH SHE IS MOST PROUD—FROM INFRASTRUCTURE TO REDUCING THE HOMELESS POPULATION—AND WHAT SHE CONSIDERS HER FAVORITE PLACE IN HOUSTON. INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT Rice with a full merit scholarship. I wanted to work for a while after graduation so I could make enough money to pay for graduate school. I just never went back. Once you get out of school, it's hard to go back. I was a shy, brainy nerd—very socially awkward, not unlike a lot of my peers at Rice at the time. My family still can't believe I wound up in politics, because it never occurred to them that would be the direction I would take. My career actually began at Texas Gulf Oil and Gas where I worked for the only woman manager of a Fortune 500 company. The company always hired a lot of Rice students for summer employment. It was the very early days of those clunky, slow Apple computers. No one I was working with knew how to use them. They asked for volunteers to learn