The titles John (“Johnny”) Butler has held over his impressive 48-year tenure at The University of Texas at Austin—including currently the J. Marion West Chair for Constructive Capitalism, Faculty Director of Jon Brumley Texas Venture Labs, and Darrell K. Royal Regents Professor in Ethics and American Society—could (and do) take up pages. He holds positions on several boards, has received dozens of awards, has authored multiple books and hundreds of articles, was selected for the election committee advisory board for then-Texas Governor George W. Bush in 2000, and was the Distinguished Visiting Professor at Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo, Japan for 14 years. In addition, Dr. Butler has served as a consultant for many firms and the U.S. Military. He has appeared on over 30 radio and television programs, including Eye On America (CBS Nightly News), The Jim Lehrer News Hour, and Public Radio. His book All That We Can Be: Black Leadership and Racial Integration the Army Way (with Charles C. Moskos) won the Washington Monthly Best Book Award.

At home on the Forty Acres, Professor Butler taught courses on entrepreneurship, blending his business expertise with his knowledge of sciences, sociology, and psychology to dive into some of the world’s most successful businesses and innovators—Southwest Airlines, Dell, Facebook, and more. One of his entrepreneurship courses was open to students outside of McCombs, where he guided them on how to turn their ideas into viable businesses. It is Dr. Butler’s hope that his students embarking on journeys in the business world hold on to their own creative passions.