Mark Gavora

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Graduated with a degree in psychology from UTSA in 1990, Masters in Instructional Systems at Florida State University in 1992, PhD studies at Rice University (never completed). Was a military research psychologist in Phoenix working on true virtual environments and simulations, worked a bit with NASA in Houston on virtual training environments to help astronauts repair the Hubble telescope, decided I wanted to earn $$$ so I left government and built solutions for VISA/Mastercard while at EDS in Plano. Created elearning departments for Northern Trust and Hewitt Associates in Chicagoland then left to Atlanta where I led the southeast in self-service and portal solutions. Home Depot, UPS, Randstad, Emory University and Southtrust Bank based their service delivery on the work I did for Southern Co. Left Southern and thought I'd have some fun with my wife in Real Estate, but then became a father so I went back into corporate helping companies manage change associated with major transformations. Packed up and relocated to San Antonio because I decided I really liked it here and wanted to raise my family here. Started my own HR strategy and consulting business and helped realign CPS Energy's HR functions, then took a job as a Manager of HR Transformation with the Hackett Group and supported Motorola in a global divestiture into two separate companies. I handled the Asia Pacific operations (China, Japan, Australia, India, etc.) from Hong Kong. Of course you have not heard Motorola divesting into two businesses because they scrapped the effort with the crumbling economy. I spent about six weeks waiting for a new assignment however, the economy hit again and The Hackett Group laid me off in December. I restarted my business and am supporting a utility in Kentucky complete an entire business transformation and having a great time transitioning their operations to world-class. I am in talks to go to Saudi Arabia and mentor executives for Saudi Electric Company, but I'm hoping to find something in San Antonio.

Oh, I took up cycling, slimmed down to about 7% body fat and made the Rice University Cycling Team. Unfortunately, my other activities and recent family have bulked me out again so I am ironically about the same shape I was in when I graduated Clark, but less hair.

I had a rough time at Clark. Most of my friends were at ChurchHill. Come to find out, I had graves disease which really affects your mental state after prolonged hyper-thyroid exposure. I'd go through these phases of having a lot of friends, then losing them all, then wondering how I could behave the way I did and starting the cylce all over again. It turns out it was the graves kicking on and off. Unfortunately, I did not get diagnosed until my last year at UTSA, but at least going to grad school, I had a new lease on life. I finally got to figure out who I was and what I wanted to do. So while I wish someone would have figured this out earlier, I am happy it happed when it did.