![]() "When I became cognizant of the opportunity, I was hungry," says Ryan, who as a kid spent sweltering summer days digging postholes on his grandfather's ranch - and nothing, he likes to remind those unfamiliar with the arid climate, will turn you into a college boy faster. The boy who never conceived of living large now envisioned a future as bright and expansive as a West Texas sunrise. He learned from ► professors like Horace Brock and Hershel Anderson - experts in accounting whose classes ultimately inspired Ryan to choose a career in accounting - and witnessed the thriving corporate culture of DFW, where polished businessmen strolled into glittering downtown skyscrapers and rode elevators to their penthouse offices. He arrived at North Texas State University with $300 in his pocket - "a fortune to me at the time," he says - and a plan to major in English, thanks to a high school teacher who had nourished his love of reading and writing.ĭaily, new possibilities unfolded. In the fall of 1982, he slid behind the wheel of the 1979 tan Buick Regal his grandfather bought for him that summer and drove 291 miles to Denton. Why not go all in, he figured, and get the hell out of West Texas? So Ryan was already bucking expectation when he decided to join the ranks of the university-bound students among his graduating class of 260, many of whom were headed 100 miles further west to Lubbock. Anyone who didn't already work there assumed they one day would. Views of a different life were obscured by the pump jacks that dotted the West Texas landscape, announcing the refinery that was the town's biggest employer. Brint Ryan ('88, '88 M.S.) never dreamed too big, especially since opportunity rarely meandered that far down Interstate 20. ![]()
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