Issue link: https://tmcpulse.uberflip.com/i/980339
t m c » p u l s e | m a y 2 0 1 8 11 " My mom was not a big advice-giver, but she was a very inspirational person. My mom was one of the first African- American Studies professors in the country. My mom and dad were both deans and a lot of people tell me, 'Oh, you're in administration; administration is so bad.' But my mom believed administration is a good thing, especially if you think about all the things she was able to accomplish as a dean at a time when women had very little opportunity. She was able to create most of the policies about women's rights, she created safe places for women in academics to succeed, she wrote all the date-rape policies—and I got to see that. She never gave me advice about what to do—ever—but I admired her, so it's not surprising I'm a dean, too. " — PAUL KLOTMAN, M.D. President, CEO, and Executive Dean of Baylor College of Medicine " My father's parents started a bra company in Atlanta, Georgia, called the Lovable Company. My father graduated from high school at 10 and then went to Oglethorpe College. He rode the trolley every day, by himself, to college. He graduated at 14, then went door-to-door selling bras for his parents. He moved to New York and grew the marketing end of the business, and by the 1950s, it was the most successful bra company in the world. In the mid-1960s, my father told my brother and me that—this being a family business—we needed to spend half of every summer doing manual labor at the company, as long as we were interested in going into the family bra business. I learned to cut bras in Puerto Rico. In Los Angeles, I learned how to ship bras. In Atlanta, I learned quality control. I went to Princeton and, by then, I still hadn't decided whether I planned on going into the family bra business. That summer, my mother took me out to lunch and told me, 'You don't want to go into business with your father.' Basically, she said that my father was wonderful, but I didn't want to be in a situation where I'd always have to do exactly what he said. She told me to go out and do something for myself. " — ARTHUR "TIM" GARSON JR., M.D. Director of the TMC Health Policy Institute " She has given me a lot of advice, but the one that I always remember—and I have it on my wall in my bedroom—is that happy girls are the prettiest. It just reminds me to be joyful and positive. " — PEYTON RICHARDSON Texas Children's Hospital patient who was treated for acute lymphocytic leukemia Klotman with his mother, Phyllis R. Klotman, former dean for women's affairs at Indiana University, Bloomington. Richardson with her mother, Carrie Richardson. Garson and his mother, Patricia Garson, in the late 1950s. " It's not about what my mom said, necessarily, but it was what she showed us. I'm the oldest of three, and she was always supportive of us. We knew unconditional love from her. We saw what a hard worker she was. She worked for the same organization most of her career, so we learned loyalty from her, and we were influenced by her work ethic. There was never any pressure from our mom, as she wanted us to find our own way. If we decided to go to college or not, she would have supported either decision. One of her big rules was no lying. Honesty was a big deal to her and was something she instilled in us. Honesty and loyalty remain important to me today, and I attribute these characteristics to the way she raised us. " — JERRY ASHWORTH Senior Vice President and CEO of TIRR Memorial Hermann Hospital Ashworth and his mother, Irene Berrier.