S.A. businessmen Weston, Hixon and the Miller family added to the hall of fame.
Six additions were made Wednesday the Texas Business Hall of Fame, including Rackspace cofounder Graham Weston, as well as the Miller family of the Bill Miller BarBQ restaurant chain.
The six entered the Hall of Fame at the organization’s 37th annual induction dinner at the Convention Center.
Kendra Scott, the Austinbased fashion and jewelry designer and entrepreneur, also was among this year’s inductees. Scott runs the company with more than 100 retail locations in the U.S., and at 45, she’s the youngest woman inducted into the Texas Business Hall of Fame.
Richard Fisher, the former president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, as well as Tom Hixon, the late San Antonio real estate businessman and conservationist also were inducted.
So was Robert F. Smith, chairman and CEO of the Austinbased investment firm Vista Equity Partners. Vista manages over $50 billion in equity capital commitments, and owns more than 50 software and technology companies worldwide.
Smith, among the wealthiest people in America, donated $34 million earlier this year to Morehouse College, the allmale historically black college in Atlanta, to clear student debt for the school’s entire 2019 graduating class.
The Texas Business Hall was created in 1982, and inductees are chosen based on an open nomination process. A ballot of 20 finalists is circulated among current members of the hall, and pared down to six inductees each year.
Weston, who grew up outside New Braunfels, has been credited with accelerating the growth of San Antonio’s downtown, and he has invested heavily both in developing the local technology industry and in higher education.
Weston donated $15 million to the University of Texas at San Antonio, a record for a private contribution to the school. The funds are part of UTSA’s broader downtown campus expansion, including the development of a school of data science.
The Miller family — which includes Balous, Doug and John Miller, and Vivian Vance — operates 76 Bill Miller BarBQ restaurants throughout San Antonio, Austin and Corpus Christi. Balous Miller took the business over from his father in the 1960s, and grew the chain over the decades.
The Miller family donated $300,000 to help the city of San Antonio to fund patrols at school crossings, and the company also donated $1 million to purchase land for UTSA to build its downtown campus.
Other notable inductees to the Texas Business Hall of Fame include billionaire Warren Buffet, former energy executive and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, the late billionaire and politician Ross Perot, and Houston Rockets owner Tilman J. Fertitta.