In 1971, five UT graduates — Roy Spence, Judy Trabulsi, Steve Gurasich, Bill Gurasich, and Tim McClure — founded innovative advertising agency GSD&M. The agency is behind many of Texas’s best-known lines, including the iconic “Don’t Mess with Texas,” and after more than 50 years it’s still longhorn-led, with Duff Stewart as CEO. Stewart’s path to being an advertising exec, however, wasn’t linear. It featured stop-offs at the Texas Capitol building, commercial real estate leasing, and, of course, a lot of fun as a UT undergraduate. A few themes run all the way through his story, though — take care of your relationships, and leave the place better than you found it.
On (not) choosing a major:
I got involved again with UT’s Department of Economics when Jason Abrevaya, who then was head of the department, reached out. The department was launching a magazine and they wanted to interview me and I said “great.” So Jason came over to our offices and we were chatting. I said, “Why did you choose me? I’m a history graduate.” And he said, “No, you’re not. You’re one of us.” What had occurred was — and I do not remember this —I had enough hours for both history and economics, but at that time UT wasn’t offering double majors. So, I had to choose one and I guess I chose economics, but for years I told people I got a degree in history because I love it and I didn’t go to school to get a job, I went to school to learn, you know, something like that. But Jason set me straight. Then a few months later he called and asked, “Would you give the commencement speech to the school?” So I went and gave the talk at Gregory Gym to the economics graduates and all of their families, and I learned that economics had grown to become the largest degree-granting program in the university.
But I really loved history — I just loved learning about people — and economics was interesting because it is kind of like business. And I loved learning about both subjects because of the professors I had, like Tom Philpott and Robert Abzug in the history department and Cliff Grubbs and Harry Cleaver, Jr. in economics. They were just really interesting people who had done really interesting things.
I took a class in labor economics with Ray Marshall, who was at the LBJ school and also taught in the economics program, in the spring of 1984. That’s when he was the economic advisor to Walter Mondale in his campaign for president, and Roy and Judy from the agency were doing the Mondale campaign media, including the TV spots and communications. So these two worlds really overlapped — one where I was involved in an internship at the time at Cornerstone, which was related to the agency, and the founders are doing this national campaign, and then another where I’m going to class with the guy who’s Mondale’s economic advisor and talking about the campaign and the economics inside the campaign. On top of that my wife, Liz, who I met at the agency later, was working with Roy and Judy and the team in Washington, D.C. on the campaign during that time. So all these different things and people from my life came together in this one moment. Liz and I didn’t start dating until four years later, but lots of things were all wound up in this campaign and in this course.
On how not to treat a cowboy hat:
There used to be a place up Guadalupe off Maiden Lane called Uncle Nasty’s. My friends and I used to play Galaga there. We would study and then we’d meet for beers at around 10:30 at night. You could either have a pitcher of beer or a pitcher of margaritas, and I think it was $5. So, if you went with your friends, it was relatively inexpensive. And there was a place called the Silver Dollar where you could go country and Western dancing, which I cannot do, but they had nickel beer night on Wednesdays so I ended up there a lot. I got into trouble one time — I went around the tables and started stacking cowboy hats, which was not a good thing to do to people who own cowboy hats. That was a very early lesson that I learned in college: Leave a gentleman’s hat alone.
On giving back:
The founders of GSD&M formed an agency because they wanted to stay in Austin, stay together, and make a difference. They always were involved in political stuff as well as giving back to the university. It was GSD&M who actually came up with the “We are Texas” tagline for UT.
One of our founders, Roy Spence, was originally invited to participate in a group to identify the core values of the university, back when Dr. Robert Berdahl was president of UT. That led to Larry Lay, who was head of development back then, and Randa Safady, who’s now at the system, coming to us and asking for help with a slogan and a campaign idea for the first billion-dollar fundraising effort for UT. We presented the line, “We are Texas,” to them with the background of the Tower. Larry was not a UT person, but Randa was. Larry asked, “Where’s the rest of it? What else is there?” but Randa completely got it. If you went to UT, you got the braggadocious attitude. And Roy presented that to the development board with a video and it was overwhelmingly and resoundingly appreciated. There was a funny article in the Daily Texan about UT paying all this money to have this two-word tagline, but the truth is UT didn’t pay any money. It was all former UT graduates that did this for their school pro bono.
As each UT president has come along, the campaign has evolved, but we’ve been a part of it all and we’re all proud of it. It’s a big part of giving back to the university. Because I’ve worked for — and eventually became the CEO of — an organization that is so grounded in the university, and because a big part of what our founders are about is paying it forward and paying it back, making the place better than you found it, that’s just a lesson that I learned.