Alumni Welcome New JSG FANs President

Meet Your New FANs Board

This fall, Doug Brown (B.S. 1984) assumes the presidency of JSG FANs, the Jackson School Friends and Alumni Network. As president elect, Brown created SMART Start, a summer job program for undergraduate students. He says he looks forward to expanding this nascent organization.

“I think the most exciting thing is that we have an opportunity to create an organization that provides tangible benefits in enriching people’s lives,” he says.

The organization enriches alumni by bringing them together for special events such as tailgates, tours, lectures, and reunions. It also benefits current students by connecting them with alumni interested in mentoring, conducting mock interviews, and providing summer jobs.

While the organization has successfully established active chapters in the major metropolitan areas of Texas, Brown says it’s time to reach out to and engage smaller communities. He says another challenge that he plans to work on is communicating to the alumni the goals, objectives and benefits of the organization. In other words, he wants to develop a strong identity for the group that’s immediately recognizable to alumni.

“In a very busy and complex world, people have many opportunities to share their time and efforts with organizations,” he says. “One challenge is to demonstrate why JSG FANs is beneficial to them. We have to engage people and then keep them connected.”

He says the program has an excellent foundation thanks to work done by outgoing president Dan Smith, the school’s assistant director of development for constituent relations Julie Paul, and others. With 4,500 alumni, he says JSG FANs has the critical mass to be successful.

“In some respects, it’s easy to engage people,” he says. “You’re tapping into what is a strong alumni base that has strong feelings and a commitment to the school. So it’s easy to organize those people. But day to day, going forward, if it’s going to have legs and staying power, you have to consistently engage people and grow that base.”

Brown decided to become president for many of the same reasons he hopes alumni will join the organization: to reconnect with friends and faculty, to stay up to date on the life of the school, and to say thank you.

“The university of Texas at Austin and the Department of Geological Sciences had a profound impact on my life and success, so I benefited personally and professionally as a graduate of the school,” he says. “And the degree has power in the market place that I’ve benefited from. So I wanted to give back some of my time and energy. I have much to share from my personal experience that might benefit some of the students that are there today.”