More than 75 UT Dallas alumni, family and friends turned out in Taipei, Taiwan on April 18 for UT Dallas’ first international alumni event.  UT Dallas was represented at the event by Vice President for Development and Alumni Relations Dr. Aaron Conley, School of Management Dean Hasan Pirkul, and School of Management Director of Development and Alumni Relations Kyle Edgington.  The event is just one of the planned stops on the new Hello Tour started by UT Dallas to reach out to alumni and friends nationally and globally.

Event guests received an update on
UT Dallas from Dr. Conley, while Dean Pirkul shared news on the School of Management.  More than half of the event attendees were School of Management alumni.  According to Dr. Conley, the event was successful, thanks to the volunteer efforts in Taiwan by alumnus Jay Lee (MBA ‘08), “When we first considered this event, we checked our alumni database and found we only had five email addresses for alumni in Taiwan.  Jay was able to track down more than 50 which helped us distribute invitations, resulting in an outstanding turnout.”

While in Taiwan, the delegation also had meetings with two prominent business leaders, both of whom earned their graduate degrees from the School of Management at UT Dallas.  Steven Lee (EMBA ’05) is the Managing Director and CEO of McDonald’s Taiwan, which operates more than 350 McDonald’s restaurants there.  Yancey Hai (MA ’78) is the Vice Chairman and CEO of Delta Electronics, a world leader in switching power supplies, visual displays, industrial automation, and renewable energy solutions.  Dean Pirkul also met with leaders of two prominent universities, along with the Chairman and CEO of Ernst & Young Taiwan, to build academic partnerships between UT Dallas and Taiwan.

The UT Dallas Hello Tour started in Pittsburgh on March 18 and future stops are scheduled for Indianapolis on May 13 and Houston on June 18.  More cities are planned for later this year, including Austin and Washington, D.C.

For more information on Hello Taiwan, see the forthcoming News Center article at www.utdallas.edu/news.