 I grew up in a small town in North Alabama called Fife. I graduated high school, went to a junior college basically because I didn't have a plan to come to Alabama. After a year in junior college, I realized I wanted to study at a four-year institution and pretty easy choice to come to Alabama. When I arrived at the University of Alabama, I guess I would say my life experiences were such that they were insufficient that I could imagine the possibilities and the opportunities I've had since then. I think I came here as a fairly naive small town kid who was just limited by my own life experiences at the time, which were not all that robust, if you will, when you think about it in today's very global world that we live in. Along the way, somewhere I grew up, I guess, and I transformed into a young man that had self-confidence, had the skill set, and I think most importantly, the courage. And I got over whatever anxiety I had pretty quickly, figured out how to get into the groove and understand what college life was all about. It was an extremely, extremely good experience. Alabama football fan, first of all, had other friends that were here. As I recall, it was very easy to fit in and feel like you were at home. I had always had a business or entrepreneurial spirit, wanted to learn business, figure out the game of business. I left here with that skill set that I needed academically, and I found an environment here that was very encouraging and challenging, of course. My senior year, I think that was the year I started to translate, going from not really having a good understanding of what the opportunities were that I might be capable of pursuing, realizing I was being instilled with the right toolkit. Probably most importantly was the courage and the self-confidence to go pursue those opportunities out in the wide world of business. And some of that courage didn't always come naturally, it was coming from some of the professors. Dr. Pruitt was the head of the HR program or chair of that program, I believe. She was a constant words of wisdom and encouragement in my ears, and Dr. Pruitt was always helping me kind of get over whatever worries and anxieties I had and try to show me that there is a big world there. I would also mention Dr. Lonnie Strickland and Ron Dooley, who I think are still teaching in the business school. There were a number of others, you know, it's always hard to pick out two or three, but those are two or three I can remember that were there when times might have been tough and I could have easily kind of had a narrower vision or a smaller vision about what I wanted to do with my life, who kept pushing me to say you can do more, you can do better, you know, go out there and try it. And I did and it's worked out very well for me. I started right out of the university with a company called Shell Oil Company in a refinery around the New Orleans area and immediately plugged into a pretty challenging job. The thing I learned right away is companies are wanting people that don't mind taking on responsibilities and accountabilities and I think maybe that's part of my upbringing. It felt like that was reinforced in Alabama as well, so I just applied the learnings I'd had academically and started learning about the professional world and had a chance to do jobs that were related directly to my degree and many that weren't. Set your goals, set your dreams high. Don't limit yourself by maybe what other people would say you can or cannot do. It makes Chills go up and down my spine just to think about a kid like me who came out of a small town and like I said, wouldn't have had the ability to dream about being a legend at the University of Alabama much less having the career and having the opportunities I've had. It's something that takes a while for it to sink in.