President of Southwest Airlines to speak at TCU breakfast event

Peanuts, anyone?

by John P. Meyer

TCU's Neeley School of Business has snagged Colleen Barrett, president of Southwest Airlines, to be their featured speaker at the Sept. 13 edition of the Tandy Executive Speaker Series, to be held from 7:30 to 9 (that's a.m., sleepyheads) at the Dee J. Kelly Alumni & Visitors Center. Dan Short, dean of the Neeley School, will host.

President Barrett - who is also corporate secretary for the airline - will be stepping down (along with co-founder and chairman Herb Kelleher) in 2008, but has promised to stay on with the company through 2013. She's been president of Southwest since 2001; she joined the company as a corporate secretary in 1978.

Individual tickets for the event are $20 each (open seating), and you can reserve an eight-person table for $250 - or about the cost of 2 1/2 round trip fares to Midland/Odessa. Just to put it in perspective. Prospective attendees should register by Sept. 5; go here to take care of that.

No word on the breakfast menu, but I know where the caterers can get their hands on a slew of peanuts.