Alumni & Friends : Alumni Profiles

Epitomizing the Breed

Conway Grayson
BSBA '65, MBA '68

If there is a “type” predominant among the ranks of those who hold Eller MBAs, it must be described as paradoxical in nature. While Eller MBAs are as eager to achieve professional success as MBAs anywhere, they are also uncommonly determined to balance professional work with a personally satisfying lifestyle. And while Eller MBAs regularly take roles and succeed in large organizations, they also demonstrate a distinct preference for personal enterprise. Conway Grayson exemplifies the breed.

A Phoenix native, Conway was a division director at the Atomic Energy Commission for fifteen years before “retiring” in the mid-1980s to start a one-man mortgage brokerage firm, creating a market niche arranging bridge loans to finance the building of infrastructure on land targeted for commercial and residential development. Speaking from his home and office in Wickenburg, Arizona, a community of 5000 best known for its dude ranches, Conway recently reflected on his career and Eller College experience.

“My MBA matured me, taught me to compete,” he recalls. A “bright but not serious” undergraduate, he credits a helpful UA registrar with prompting him to finish an education interrupted by the military draft. “When I returned, I had no idea what credits I needed to graduate. She said I needed eight units of “A” or fifteen of “B” and I’d be done. I earned my “As” and got my degree. I applied to the MBA program after reading in the Wall Street Journal that MBAs were getting good offers. It sounded good to me.” The casual approach to his education changed abruptly in graduate school. “I saw this was serious. I saw I had to hustle. I was competing at a different level, among people on a mission. Recognizing it changed my life.”

The people included Tom Kalinske, now CEO, LeapFrog Enterprises, who Conway calls “first in the class by a mile to my #2.” Their shared experiences gave Conway his favorite illustration of Arizona MBA moxie. “We had a visiting professor from Harvard who got us interviews at the J. Walter Thompson ad agency in New York, where we were the only MBAs from outside the Ivy League. We interviewed and got offers and then were invited to dinner with the recruiter and other candidates. At dinner we learned that Martin Luther King had been shot in Memphis and the recruiter, who commuted, wanted to get out of the city in case of riots. He encouraged us to stay and we did, the conversation eventually turning to our offers. We learned that Tom and I had been offered thousands less than the Ivy League MBAs. The next day we went back and declined the jobs. When they asked why, Tom said, ‘Because you offered the Ivy Leaguers more than you did us and we’re just as good.’ They matched our offers that day.”

Unhappy in New York City, Conway stayed a year then returned west. At the Atomic Energy Commission he orchestrated the execution of nuclear blasts for development projects around the world until negative public sentiment and test-ban treaties largely ended the initiatives. At that point the entrepreneur in the MBA emerged, and Conway left big organization forever to start Shibumi--Japanese for “rare quality”--brokering financing for raw land development. “I could have launched a full-service mortgage loan company, hired staff, built a hierarchy. But I’d rather be in a position to make stuff happen. I draw on a network of friends and associates from the past 30 years. I do things banks can’t, find investors, work things out for people. I’m out here in Wickenburg, but I’m wired to the world. It pays, and it’s a good life.”