{"id":4876,"date":"2013-06-19T11:08:06","date_gmt":"2013-06-19T11:08:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vanderbilt.edu\/magazines\/vanderbilt-business\/?p=4876"},"modified":"2015-07-14T19:49:15","modified_gmt":"2015-07-14T19:49:15","slug":"on-their-own-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/on-their-own-time\/","title":{"rendered":"On Their Own Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just because you\u2019re a business professor doesn\u2019t mean you have to be all business, all the time, and Owen faculty are no exception. Among them are a champion trick water-skier, charcutier, screenwriter, barkeep (and builder) and owner of a multimillion-dollar company. They shine in the classroom\u2014why not out of it? Meet five professors who are doing just that.<\/em>
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

Going Green<\/h2>\n

\"Bob_Whaley\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Fifteen years ago, Bob Whaley and his wife, Sondra, MBA\u201982, visited Ireland and fell in love with the people, food, countryside and culture. Over the years, they have returned numerous times to visit, but going back just wasn\u2019t enough. So they decided to bring a bit of Ireland to Tennessee.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you go into the Irish pubs, the people are so friendly and charming\u2014they talk to you like they\u2019ve known you forever,\u201d says Whaley, the Valere Blair Potter Professor of Finance and professor of management. \u201cWe wanted to create that kind of atmosphere for ourselves and our friends, and so we did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whaley, who is also co-director of the Financial Markets Research Center, used his carpentry experience and the help of his college-age son to transform his home\u2019s entire lower level, including the garage, into a 1,500- square-foot Irish pub dubbed Whaley Tavern. Just like the ones in the Emerald Isle, this watering hole has Irish brews like Guinness and Smithwick\u2019s on tap, game tables and dartboards to keep patrons occupied, and Irish flags adorning dark wood paneled walls.<\/p>\n

The Whaleys entertain year around, but they go all out on St. Patrick\u2019s Day. Around 100 or so fellow Hibernophiles crowd the place to feast on Guinness stew and shepherd pie, shoot pool and sing shanties over a pint (or two). While he won\u2019t name-drop, Whaley says more than a few popular singer-songwriters have been known to stop by and perform (signed guitars on the walls are proof).<\/p>\n

With all this talk of Ireland, one has to wonder if Whaley has some Irish blood in his veins.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did some searching and I think my parents\u2019 lineage is English, not Irish,\u201d he says. \u201cI found a Jerusalem Whaley\u2014I\u2019m not sure I\u2019m a descendent, but you never know. I may have to go over there and do some digging.\u201d
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

Different Strokes<\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Jennifer Escalas isn\u2019t an enthusiastic swimmer, but that hasn\u2019t stopped the associate professor of marketing from launching and running what has become a $3 million-a-year swimwear company.<\/p>\n

She is married to swimmer Rafael Escalas, who competed in the 1980 and 1984 Olympic games for his home country of Spain. The two met during their undergraduate years at University of California, Los Angeles, where she was studying Spanish and he was an engineering major competing on the university swim team.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we started dating, his swim schedule was just something I put up with,\u201d Escalas says. \u201cI didn\u2019t realize how much dedication it took.\u201d<\/p>\n

After they married and moved to North Carolina and she entered the Ph.D. program at Duke University, they decided it was time to start their own company. He quit his engineering job and together they launched Agon Sport, a competitive swimwear company. He set up the factory in Spain and she took on the marketing and the books.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t have a stash of money,\u201d she says. \u201cWe maxed out credit cards and took out a second mortgage to get the business off the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n

The gamble paid off. In 2012, they created custom swimsuits for more than 1,800 swim teams\u2014including their 16-year-old daughter Elena\u2019s high school team. \u201cNike doesn\u2019t create custom suits, so we fill a really important niche,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

In the classroom, Escalas often uses examples of challenges encountered in her business and that has given her credibility with her students, she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t just write articles about how to run a successful, profitable business, I am actually doing that,\u201d she says. \u201cI think my students are far more impressed with that than my Ph.D.”
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

Writing the past<\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

By day, her world is black and white\u2014debits and credits, columns in a spreadsheet, numbers in a row. But by night Debra Jeter\u2019s world is sepia-toned and dreamlike, as she weaves words into short stories, screenplays and novels that draw on her life as a child in rural Kentucky.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m happier when I\u2019m writing,\u201d says the associate professor of accounting. \u201cI\u2019m more productive if I\u2019m preparing for class or interacting with my students if I\u2019ve got a project going. It makes my whole day go better.\u201d<\/p>\n

A recent project brought her talents to the national stage. The prestigious Sundance Film Festival chose Jess + Moss<\/em>, an art-house film she helped pen and executive produce with her son Clay, as an official selection. It\u2019s a bittersweet coming-of-age story about two cousins spending the summer at their grandmother\u2019s house for the last time.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe shot Jess + Moss<\/em> in a very short time period at my grandmother\u2019s abandoned farmhouse in Lynn Grove, Ky.,\u201d Jeter says. \u201cIt was shot on aged film stock to give it that grainy quality\u2014grainy the way my memories are of spending all my summers there.\u201d<\/p>\n

The film was well received by critics, which she attributes to Clay, a former child actor, who directed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was unbelievable for us at Sundance, seeing people lined up to see our film\u2014for the first time it was real,\u201d Jeter says.<\/p>\n

Jeter juggles numerous writing projects, including a script for a TV pilot about a real estate office in a small Southern town that is based on the lives of her father and sister.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir stories could fill several books,\u201d she says. \u201cI just don\u2019t think I\u2019ll ever run out of stories to tell.\u201d
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

The Art of the Meal<\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Craig Lewis has a secret identity. Students and fellow Owen faculty know him as the Madison S. Wigginton Chair of Management and a finance professor. His colleagues at the Security Exchange Commission in Washington, D.C., know him as the SEC\u2019s chief economist. And his family knows him as husband and father. But many don\u2019t know he is also a charcutier<\/em>\u2014a curer of meats\u2014a process he has mastered to create his own private-label sausages, pancetta, lardo, salami and coppa.<\/p>\n

It all started after a particularly delicious meal at Nashville\u2019s F. Scott\u2019s restaurant in 2005.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey served a nice duck prosciutto and I thought it was interesting,\u201d he says. \u201cI am an amateur chef, and I thought, \u2018I can do this.\u2019 Then I found this book called Charcuterie<\/em>, by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn, and it just went from there.\u201d<\/p>\n

To dry cure meat, he starts with a piece of farm-fresh pork, which he rubs with a special combination of curing salts over a period of weeks. Then the meat is wrapped in cheesecloth and hung to dry in a cool, humidity-controlled curing chamber for several months.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur house in Nashville doesn\u2019t have a basement, so at one point I bought a large dorm fridge, and rigged it up with a thermostat like microbrewers use,\u201d he says. \u201cI also wanted to be able to monitor it during the day so I put it in my office at Owen.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is no curing chamber in his office at the SEC, but Lewis admits to the occasional pork shoulder hanging in his coat closet in his D.C. home. When he returns to Nashville after his two-year appointment and leave, he looks forward to sharing his gastronomic skills with his colleagues and students once again.<\/p>\n

\u201cI enjoy getting my smaller classes together at the end of the semester for a nice meal,\u201d he says. \u201cCulinary experiences are such a wonderful way to bring people together.\u201d
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

A Need for Speed<\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Growing up in Bogot\u00e1, Colombia, Miguel Palacios never set out to be a competitive water-skier. But Columbia\u2019s warm, year-round climate makes water activities popular. One summer, 7-year-old Miguel went with his father to a nearby sports club and signed up for a water-skiing lesson. Before long, he was skimming across the water at electrifying speeds and performing gravity-defying jumps, spins and flips.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is the most awesome feeling in the world\u2014and it\u2019s only a little bit dangerous,\u201d says the assistant professor of finance with a grin, later explaining that it raises adrenaline without danger.<\/p>\n

Palacios quickly rose in the sport and earned a spot on Colombia\u2019s national water-skiing team. He continued to ski when he could while earning three degrees\u2014a bachelor\u2019s in mechanical engineering from the Universidad de los Andes, Colombia; an MBA from the Darden Business School at University of Virginia; and a master\u2019s in economics and Ph.D. in finance from the University of California, Berkeley.<\/p>\n

Competitive water-skiing requires very specific man-made lakes on which to perform and practice, so it\u2019s not convenient to train just anywhere. But even with a full course load at UC Berkeley, he managed to pull off a third-place ranking in the West Coast men\u2019s division for trick skiing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like speed,\u201d admits Palacios, who is also an instrument-rated pilot. \u201cIt\u2019s so different from what I try to achieve in my academic life, which takes a lot of focus and patience. When I ski, I can let go of everything that\u2019s on my mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

Palacios, who came to Owen in 2009, says he doesn\u2019t get out on the water as often as he would like. But when he does, it\u2019s at a competition-ready lake in nearby Manchester, Tenn.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me it\u2019s just pure fun,\u201d he says, \u201cbut water-skiing is also a good lesson for life. When you try, you may fall, but if you want to learn, you have to get back up and try again.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So what do Owen faculty do outside the classroom? Meet a champion trick water-skier, charcutier, screenwriter, barkeep (and builder) and owner of a multimillion-dollar company. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":5191,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[50,21],"class_list":["post-4876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-departments","tag-spring2013","tag-submain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/399"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4876"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4876\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8593,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4876\/revisions\/8593"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}