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Thanks to Carolyn:
It's a far better place to learn
Halfway through the phone interview for this story, Carolyn Gough paused. "But I want to hear about you," she says. "Tell me what's going on with you."
Carolyn Gough is retiring as executive director of The Franchise Center at UTEP, which she helped build into an award-winning education program.
When I repeated the story to her boss Frank Hoy, the dean of the college of business at the University of Texas, El Paso, he laughed. That is so like Caroline, he admits. Gracious to a fault.
Gough is retiring at the end of the month and while The Franchise Center at UTEP will go on without her as the executive director, it won't be the same.
"She's incredible," Hoy says, adding that he's talked her into staying on in a consulting role.
Ironically, he says, Gough is almost stereotypical - "the good-looking doctor's wife who volunteers" for various highbrow charities in the community. But there is so much more to Gough than what meets the eye.
That stereotype is exactly the person Hoy was looking for when the university decided to expand its business program to include a franchise focus. Hoy previously had used the skills of a socialite, another's doctor's wife, to connect the family business center with the El Paso business community. The role requires someone who is ingrained in the community and well connected.
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Carolyn Gough says that it's time to retire from UTEP's Franchise Center because the program is now on solid footing. She also has grandchildren to spoil. |
A few days later the woman "burst in and said, 'I found someone who will clean bathrooms,'" he says, sheepishly.
Although Gough never had to clean bathrooms, she did raise money for the program, found sponsors, talked franchise experts into donating their time to come to El Paso to speak and built the center into an award-winning franchise education program. The program itself is self-funded, Hoy explains, there was no state money. So Gough, who served as a volunteer for the first six months or so, was responsible for finding enough money to keep the center afloat, which included paying her salary. And she did it for 14 years. Even more impressive: While she ran The Franchise Center, she continued her volunteer role in the community, everything from The American Heart Association (her husband's a cardiologist) to the symphony orchestra.
"It's not unusual for her husband to come home and find 150 people in their backyard for some charity event," Hoy says.
The art of the deal
Gough was raised in a farm community in Kansas - where deals were done on a handshake. She learned her appreciation of music from her mother, who played the organ for the local church.
Her upbringing also taught her the value of volunteerism. "What if we didn't have volunteers stepping up - where would we be? It's part of America," she says. "I'll probably be doing it (volunteering) until I can't remember who I am."
Gough majored in fine arts at the University of Kansas where she met her husband, David. The two married and she became an Army doctor's wife. They spent three years in Europe and three in San Francisco before another Army doctor talked David into going to El Paso to form a practice with him.
While El Paso's dry wind reminded her of home, the border town was nothing like Kansas - or the art-filled San Francisco. "At first I was in culture shock," she admits. "But El Paso's coming around. We've been there 20 years."
Gough was also a former Miss Kansas, a fact Hoy mentioned, not Gough.
It was Gough's ability to organize and fund projects linking the business community to the arts that convinced Hoy she was the right person for the new franchise center at the university.
The business school was helping Vietnam veterans get back to work at the time, and Hoy wanted to expand on the offerings and present a pragmatic program of what franchising could do for entrepreneurial-minded people.
The program started small and gained steam over the years - becoming international in scope. Gough brought in top-notch franchise professionals to talk to the students, such as Sid Feltenstein, chairman of Sagittarius Brands; Linda Hanesborg, vice president of PR & marketing for Express Personnel; Steve Hammerstein, CEO of ICED, Mary Ellen Sheets, founder of Two Men and a Truck; and Bill Cherkasky, past president of the IFA.
Since the presenters made the trek on their own dime, Gough wanted a unique way to reward them, which is why she asked presenters the disconcerting question about their shoe size.
Gough formed a partnership with a Western boot manufacturer in town and presented each speaker with a pair of boots as a thank you. When the president of the cowboy boot company retired, a new partnership was established with another local company that manufactures innovative running shoes.
The gift prompted at least one speaker to take up running again, she says proudly.
It's Gough's "interpersonal abilities" that not only attracts volunteers to the franchise program, but that keeps them coming back, Hoy says.
It's her passion for the program that really struck Franchise Times Publisher Mary Jo Larson when she volunteered to speak at the center.
That is also what impressed Stan Berenbaum, CEO of American Leak Detection in Palm Springs, California.
"I got involved because Carolyn called," he says. "I could tell immediately that she has real passion for franchising and improving the lives of others. How can you turn that down?"
American Leak also provides two scholarships.
The centerpiece of the program is the Franchise Management Certificate Program which provides participants with a step-by-step course in franchising, through a teaching staff, plus "street-smart" volunteers - high-level franchise professionals.
One quarter of the people who come through the program are women and half are Hispanic, Gough says. In the center's 14 years, they've had 700 participants. And while not all of them buy a franchise, that's seen as a positive, since the objective is not to sell franchises, but to educate and inform people about the risks and rewards of going that entrepreneurial route.
One of Gough's favorite success stories has a strange twist. Two sisters who came through the program 10 years ago became franchisees of a concept called Party Animals. The franchisor went bankrupt, but the sisters stayed afloat. "They now come to tell how to survive when the franchisor doesn't," Gough says.
UTEP has also established centers with other schools, such as the University of JJ Strossmayer in Osijek, Croatia.
Now is a good time to "retire," Gough says, because "social security has kicked in and the program's doing so well." Plus her husband is starting to wind down. "David's down to 55-hour weeks," she says. But even more important is having the time to spend with her grown children and "seven-and-counting" grandchildren.
Gough has left some pretty big shoes to fill. Thank goodness her successor will be privy to a good pair of running shoes, so she can keep up.
Testimonials from guest speakers
"The first thing that struck me when I meant Caroline was that she was a tall, blond beauty from Texas. As I've gotten to know Carolyn over the years her beauty flows inward as much as outward. She has such a passion for franchise education for people from all walks of life. If you have visited or spoken at The Franchise Center in Texas, I'm sure you've been invited into her home and have become accustomed to receiving her hand-written, thoughtful notes. The franchising world is losing an inspirational and wonderful professional that I know many of us will never forget."
- Melanie Bergeron, CEO, Two Men and a Truck
"Carolyn is a leader in the field of franchise education. Her work at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) established a model program for others to follow. In my book, she gets an 'A+' for effort and for excellence."
- John Reynolds, vice president, new business development & president,IFA Educational Foundation
"When I think of Carolyn Gough two words come to mind "First Class". She has been a promoter and educator of franchising and we will remember her contribution for years to come."
- Dina Dwyer-Owens, CEO, They Dwyer Group
The reason I fell in love with the El Paso program was because I fell in love with Carolyn's passion - it's palpable. She cares so strongly about the success of her students and that's her No. 1 priority: that they are truly educated before they jump into franchising.
- FT Publisher Mary Jo Larson
All I can say is that she approached the program at UTEP with a passion that is rarely seen. She would not accept anything less than the absolute highest quality for the program and she worked tirelessly to bring some of the best people in franchising to El Paso. Her retirement will be a loss to UTEP but I know that the solid foundation that she built for the program will ensure its continued success.
- Lawrence "Doc" Cohen, franchisee and former IFA Chair
