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DALLAS, Texas (SMU) - In its 10th year of recognizing outstanding alumni, the Cox School of Business honored six graduates at the Distinguished Alumni Awards Luncheon Friday, May 18. Gary T. Crum, Paul B. Loyd, Kenneth R. Morris, and Sherrill I. Pettus were named as Distinguished Alumni. Bradley K. Heppner and Robyn Ballard Ziperski were awarded the Outstanding Young Alumni award.

Alumni are nominated based on their demonstrated civic and business leadership and success in their field of endeavor. Outstanding Young Alumni must be 40 years old or younger. Honorees have included both graduate and undergraduate alumni.

DISTINGUISHED ALUMNI
Gary T. Crum, founder of AIM Management Group, Inc., graduated in 1969 with a BBA in finance. Over the last 25 years, he has taken the AIM Management Group from a two-person operation to the nation's eighth largest mutual fund company with approximately $190 billion in assets under management and 9 million shareholders (as of December 31, 2000). Recently Barron's magazine named AIM the "Top Diversified Management Group of the '90s."

Paul B. Loyd graduated in 1968 with a BBA in economics. Since that time, he has accumulated more than 28 years of experience in the offshore drilling industry. In 1970 he joined Reading & Bates' management training program. He worked as a rig-based assistant toolpusher and served in area operation offices in West Africa, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the United States. In 1991, he became chairman of Reading & Bates Corporation. With the 1997 merger of Reading & Bates Corporation and Falcon Drilling, Inc. as well as the subsequent acquisition of Cliffs Drilling Company in 1998, R&B Falcon Corporation became the world's largest and most diversified offshore drilling company. Loyd recently retired as chairman of R&B Falcon Corporation.

Kenneth R. Morris earned a BBA in 1972. Some years later, after acquiring his MBA, consulting, and working for a computer software firm, Morris co-founded PeopleSoft. The company is one of the leading developers of enterprise software: the programs that handle accounting, payroll, human resource administration, and manufacturing systems for large organizations. Morris retired from PeopleSoft in 1998.

Sherrill I. Pettus, owner and president of Southern Bleacher Company, graduated with a BBA in 1970. In the course of his 30 years at Southern Bleacher, Pettus became responsible for selling, purchasing, financial negotiations, marketing, sales strategy, and forecasting. He and his wife Jo Ann acquired the company in the 1980s. Today Southern Bleacher Company is the largest steel stadium manufacturer in the country, responsible not only for high school football stadiums, its primary market, but for colleges and high-profile speedways including the grandstands at Texas Motor Speedway.

OUTSTANDING YOUNG ALUMNI
Bradley K. Heppner graduated in 1988 with a BBA in finance and went to work as an analyst at Goldman Sachs. In 1996, he acquired The Crossroads Group, with the financial support of Charles M. Harmon, his mentor at Cox. Since that time, Heppner has grown The Crossroads Group, one of the nation's oldest venture and strategic private equity firms, into a global presence, increasing its investment portfolios by over four times and boosting revenues and earnings beyond that.

Robyn Ballard Ziperski, European treasurer for the corporate treasury department of Goldman Sachs International in London, earned a BBA in 1987. After graduating, Ziperski was hired by a Cox graduate to work as a financial analyst for Goldman Sachs where she focused on real estate finance. Over time, she has been involved in other types of financing, including large municipal projects from airports to power plants as well as hospitals and universities. In 1996, she joined Goldman Sachs' corporate treasury department.