September 25, 2019 | UHCL Staff
Phyllis Saathoff-Oliver, Mary Anne Brelinsky and Vance Etnyre will be the honorees at University of Houston-Clear Lake’s 45th Anniversary Alumni Celebration on Saturday, Oct. 12 at 6 p.m. at the university’s Recreation and Wellness Center. The three honorees will receive the Distinguished Alumni Award, the Early Achievement Award, and the Outstanding Professor Award, respectively.
“It’s important to honor our alumni because they are the bedrock and the foundation of taking the university beyond its doors,” said UH-Clear Lake’s Director of Alumni Engagement Carri Hill. “These three are special because they embody the success possible at UHCL. We have a beloved professor who’s spent 40 years equipping students to achieve their professional and personal goals. And we have two strong alumni women who have taken the education they’ve received here and flown to great success.”
Saathoff-Oliver, Port Freeport executive director and CEO, earned her Bachelor of Science in Accounting at UH-Clear Lake in 1985. She had moved to Bay Area Houston during her junior year at another university in West Texas. She said she needed to find a university where she could continue her education, become prepared to enter the field of public accounting and pass her certified public accountant exam. “Every person I asked in the area recommended UHCL without hesitation,” she said. “It was a university accustomed to transfer students, and everything I’d heard was proven to be true. I had outstanding professors in all my courses which gave me great confidence going into the CPA exam.”
Finding a job was especially easy, Saathoff-Oliver remembered. “Companies came to campus to recruit students. You didn’t have to seek opportunities, they came to us,” she said. “Who knew that coming from West Texas to Houston, this education would lead to a leadership role with global connectivity that has helped our region prosper?”
She added, “UHCL afforded me the knowledge and skills foundation necessary to lead a dynamic and fast-growing port that has seen remarkable economic expansion and job creation. The professional opportunities have been more than I could have anticipated, and it’s a great journey that I’m continuing.”
Al Durel, director of operations for Port Freeport, said there are many reasons why he has chosen to continue working on Saathoff-Oliver’s staff for 20 years. “There’s been very little turnover on the staff at the Port, and that’s a tribute to her,” he said. “She hires good people and she has established an atmosphere of mutual respect that goes all the way up the chain. When you’re out working and you look around to see who’s there with you, you will always see Phyllis.”
Brelinsky, president of EDF Energy, said she discovered and developed many of her leadership skills while she was working on her MBA at UHCL. She graduated in 2000. “My courses were very focused on practical applications, not just theoretical study,” she said. “Most of my classes had some component of working with peers, which applies very well in industry. That’s where I learned to work with diverse groups, hone in on skill sets, and then as a group, learn to perform better.”
She said her education had broadened her horizons in ways she couldn’t have fathomed, simply by changing her academic purview. “I learned to emphasize both the technical aspects of my job as well as the ‘people’ aspects of learning how to function on a team, and that was incredibly valuable,” she said. “With an MBA from UHCL, I was able to get an energy manager role at Dynegy, dispatching a power plant. My MBA was my ticket. I was off to the races.”
George Hope, director of power origination at EDF, said that Brelinsky was one of those rare people who had excellent technical abilities as well as an exceptional skill building customer relationships. “When she starts talking, people can see she’s extremely knowledgeable but she also makes people feel very comfortable,” he said. “She can relate to all levels of the business and she can handle any situation. A lot of our negotiations are intense and competitive, so we’re looking for the edge. She can always save the day.”
After having spent nearly 40 years as a professor at UHCL, Etnyre said the reason he’d stayed was simple. “I like it here,” he said. “It’s a great place to teach. I began working together with two other faculty members who came in 2001, and we decided to put together a new, modern Management Information Systems curriculum that had not been available to students before. It’s been very satisfying for me to do this work. It’s why I stuck around so long—I was given the space to develop new things and to innovate.”
He said he’d begun teaching decision sciences, then moved to other courses such as environmental management and accounting. “Each time I was given the opportunity to develop new teaching materials and that’s what I really enjoyed,” he said. “Here, I could create material and teach it. Being a professor is really the coolest job.”
Professor Emerita of Accounting Joan Bruno said Etnyre had always taken the initiative to assume additional responsibilities. “He would recognize a need and simply step up fill it himself,” she said. “He was responsible for bringing the enterprise resource platform, SAP, to UHCL’s Master of Science in Management Information Systems program. He has always been extremely supportive of students and a great mentor to junior faculty.”
Hill said, “Our alumni are our biggest constituent group at UHCL. They are the ones who take their success into the workplace and the community and activate the education they received here.”
For more information about the Alumni Celebration or to purchase tickets, visit www.uhcl.edu/alumni/events/celebration.
