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Feature MBA MPA
When Utah’s Office of the State Auditor wanted to create an early-warning system to identify cities with weakening fiscal health, state officials applied to be a client in BYU Marriott’s GoodMeasure program.
In the final round, it seemed one of the judges had found a vulnerability in the investment plan that BYU Marriott’s graduate team presented for the 2017 regional Venture Capital Investment Competition. But with more clarification that surprised the judges, the team knocked it out of the park.
It seems like only a few years ago that I sat where you are sitting. I was an English major, and that meant that I liked reading and writing. It also meant that I had no idea what I was going to do with my career.
The Sound of Music swept the box office, Martin Luther King Jr. led thousands to Alabama’s capital, and the first commercial satellite launched into orbit. The year was 1965, and the BYU MPA students of the inaugural class were collecting their diplomas and preparing to embody the credo “Enter to learn; go forth to serve.”
Not long after putting their pencils down on the last bubble sheet, many Marriott School students say good-bye to their final exams and to Y Mountain, leaving Provo in pursuit of internships and experience. 
In 1961 a gallon of gas cost thirty cents, JFK was president, and Barbie was first introduced to Ken. And in the basement of the Jesse Knight Building something groundbreaking was happening: the BYU MBA was born.
Give Gary Williams ten minutes to explain Cougar Capital and you’ll be sold. Give him an hour and you’ll not only want to invest but you’ll wonder why more universities aren’t doing the same thing with their business programs. And if you give him two years as an MBA student at the Marriott School you’ll develop such a diverse portfolio of knowledge and skills in venture capital and private equity you might just make a career of it.
Looking Back–A Century Since His Birth