F. Scott Fitzgerald was wrong. There are second acts in American lives — and third and fourth acts, too. Increasing numbers of workers are bowing out of Act I to pursue careers that offer more fulfillment and a greater sense of well-being.

In her role as a senior financial analyst at a large retail company, LaTisha Cotto MBA ’14 would crunch numbers from sunrise to sunset. She ate lunch at her desk, usually fast food. Work often spilled over into the weekends, but she didn’t complain. After all, she was taking home a six-figure salary and she liked the prestige of her role.

Once, when Cotto ran herself ragged and came down with bronchitis, she still went in to work. It was end of quarter and, her boss said, “all hands on deck.” Then, Cotto started having serious stomach pains and feeling more exhausted than usual. Her doctor gave her the news. She’d developed ulcerative colitis, an autoimmune disorder affecting the gastrointestinal system. It’s a condition that’s exacerbated by a poor diet and stress.

“That really made me stop and say ‘What am I doing to myself?’” says Cotto, who’s now a life coach and motivational speaker. “I was so busy with work that I couldn’t nourish myself properly.” Cotto started to reevaluate her career goals. “I realized I wasn’t feeling a sense of deep fulfillment,” she says.

Cotto, who years earlier had worked as a career development coach, quit her corporate job in 2016 to become a full-time life coach. She took a sizable pay cut, but now she’s in her element, creating podcasts and helping her clients have “aha moments” about their own life goals. “This is where my heart is,” she says, “helping people.”

The Rice alumna isn’t alone in reconsidering a high-paying but high-stress job. More and more workers, and especially millennials, are choosing jobs that are less lucrative, but more personally fulfilling and conducive to their wellbeing. The more meaningful and more flexible work also gives people more time with family and friends. It’s a trend that’s evolved along with the explosion of the gig economy, and as millennials continue to push for jobs that do good and offer a more optimal work-life balance.

The ability to choose

By the end of July 2018, an unusually high 2.4 percent of working Americans had voluntarily quit their jobs, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The voluntary quit rate was last that high in April 2001. And it’s only ticked down slightly in 2019, to 2.3 percent recently.

The higher people climb on the corporate ladder, the more that number increases. Jing Zhou, a management professor at Rice Business, found in a recent study that 30 percent of top corporate employees leave their firms within one year. Meanwhile, a Deloitte survey showed that 43 percent of millennials planned to quit their job within two years. One contributing factor? As the global wellness industry has exploded, more people are recognizing the ways their lifestyle choices — including their choice of career — impact their health.

Yet workplace stress still runs rampant. The consulting firm Korn Ferry found that around two-thirds of professionals say their stress levels at work are greater than they were five years ago. For 76 percent, stress has had a negative impact on their personal relationships. Chronic stress has been linked to health issues including depression, digestive issues and heart disease, while new research has increasingly linked high stress to compromised gut health, which can lead to mental and physical illnesses.

Cotto is happier since leaving her high-stress job, she says, and her ulcerative colitis has gone into remission. Her new job has also given her more time to spend with her daughter. “When you’re working for a company, you don’t really have lot of wiggle room to say, ‘You know, I really don’t want to work on this project,’” she says. “There’s something to be said about having the ability to choose.”

Zhou agrees; the research backs this up. “In general, when people have autonomy and they do what they love, they’re happier,” she says. Autonomous workers are allowed to make their own decisions: they contribute ideas and work with limited supervision. They feel trusted. And this freedom, along with the ability to shape one’s environment, helps workers perform at their highest level.

Researchers from the University of Birmingham recently studied data on 20,000 workers and determined that the higher an employee’s autonomy, the greater their job satisfaction and well-being. Women appreciated autonomy more when it related to scheduling and their work location, while men liked autonomy related to the pace of their work and how they allocated tasks.

Playing the long game

One reason workers are feeling emboldened to quit unfulfilling jobs is that, unlike our parents’ generation, companies no longer offer lifetime, secure employment. “The traditional ‘company man’ model no longer works. It’s been a gradual shift,” Zhou says. Now, instead of thinking about what skills their next company will want, “people are saying, I’ll just start my own,” she says.

That was certainly the case for Alex Porter, MBA ’18, who left a career in oil and gas to get his MBA at Rice Business, then started a brewery with his family. He’s now the managing owner of Southern Yankee Beer Company in Spring, which opened last fall.

Porter spent eight years in oil and gas construction, traveling the world to far-flung destinations like Singapore and Australia and overseeing billion-dollar jobs. Although he enjoyed the work, ultimately he became frustrated with the way his company was managed. “The corporate culture was really poisonous,” Porter says. “There was a lack of independence. I needed to make a change.”

As a child, Porter had watched his father homebrew in their garage. Eventually, Porter pitched in, and he loved it. Around the time he started to feel disillusioned with his job, his sister, Sydney Porter, was graduating from college. “We sent her to brew school,” Porter says. Then, he enrolled at Rice Business with the goal of learning how to run a small business. During his second year in the MBA program, he was laid off.

“I thought to myself, ‘I can go recruit into some consulting job and save money for a brewery, or I can bootstrap it right now.’” He chose the latter.

Porter’s father invested in the brewery and works on strategic planning, while Sydney is brew master. The brewery broke even in its first month, Porter says, and became profitable shortly thereafter. Since then, they’ve added food service and additional employees, and they’re considering a second location. Porter works more hours now as an entrepreneur, and his take-home pay has shrunk, but he doesn’t mind.

“I’m making way less money, but I’m happier,” he says. “Working with family is great and getting to drink beer at work is nice.”

A corporate job might offer safety, Porter adds, but “with safety comes complacency.” He’s confident that in a few years he’ll have a pay scale similar to what he once had. “But it will all be from my own company,” Porter says. “I’m playing the long game.”

A more fulfilling career

For alumna Susan Brown Snook ’85, leaving behind a career as a CPA to become an Episcopalian minister was less about parting with a stressful work environment and more about following her calling. She grew up in the Episcopal Church and was active in her local church throughout high school. In college, she studied English. At the time, she didn’t realize that becoming a minister was a career option, she says.

Her CPA career spanned a decade. “I worked hard and I was promoted early,” she says. “I was successful. But, I became conscious of not being happy. I wasn’t all that interested in what I was doing.” Having her first child was a wake-up call.

“It made me aware of a whole side of myself, my life, my hopes for my future that I had been neglecting when I was concentrating too hard on just being successful in my career,” says Snook.

So she started volunteering at her church, and then returned to school to get her Master of Divinity degree. She was ordained as a priest, and recently became the first woman to be elected Episcopal Bishop of San Diego.

“I get to call people together around a vision of transforming the world with God’s love, and that’s the meaning of life to me and what I love to do,” Snook says. “I’m still a successful, professional woman. I just moved into a field that’s more fulfilling to me.”

Smart business decisions

Alumni say their move to more personally fulfilling careers hasn’t come without some bumps in the road. They’ve had to shift their mindset and make lifestyle changes and sacrifices.

Cotto gave up frequent Door Dash orders from her favorite Peruvian restaurant and started preparing more meals at home. She parted ways with the Starbucks barista who knew her daily order by heart.

As a solopreneur, Cotto is in charge of every aspect of her business, from marketing to sales to invoicing, which can be tiring. “Entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart,” she says. “It’s been an adjustment.”

Lessons learned at Rice Business have helped with that adjustment. For Cotto, it was the entrepreneurial classes she took. It’s been the same for Snook, who says an understanding of finance and accounting has been extremely useful for the work she’s done in the church. Cotto adds that for entrepreneurs pursuing their passion, it’s key to always treat the endeavor like a business.

Zhou says that many people start their own business with good intentions as they seek out greater flexibility and autonomy. But they also need to make sure they’re making smart business decisions, she says.

“You need to identify customer needs, create value for customers that other existing businesses cannot provide them with, and then you fill in the holes and create a profit,” Zhou says. “If a business is not successful, it’s even more stressful working for yourself. You still need to work hard.”

Lessons for employers

For employers, there are important lessons to learn from workers leaving corporate America. More companies must respect and nurture employee creativity, Zhou says, and realize that doing so will require a certain amount of risk taking.

“In general, workplaces are set up to be efficient,” Zhou says, “and they don’t encourage employees to express creativity. Companies need to adjust their expectations.”

A worker’s immediate supervisor plays a huge role. If he or she is inspiring and embraces creativity, that will trickle down to employees. If not, these leaders should be taught how to foster creativity, says Zhou.

These lessons haven’t been lost on corporate America. Companies like Google have started to embrace autonomy, giving employees time to pitch and work on their own projects. Zappos introduced a new self-management system, Holacracy, while Southwest Airlines encourages its employees to express themselves creatively. One video of a flight attendant rapping the plane’s safety information went viral.

Cotto says she’s hearing more and more of her clients, millennials especially, ask questions like “Am I happy at work? What is it that I really want?” and, “Is this job really helping me make a mark?” A lot of people simply stay where they are, unhappy, because they’re unaware of the options available to them, Cotto says. She asks clients to create a Pinterest board, pinning images that appeal to them, then looking for patterns and themes.

“I hear a lot of ‘shoulds’ with my clients,” she says. “People create an entire career on what their mom told them they should do because it’s a safe and secure job. Or, they don’t act on longings they’ve had.” For many, clues abound about what they really want to be doing — but those hints go unheeded. “Most of the time you’re just too busy to pay attention,” Cotto says.

Deborah Lynn Blumberg is a Houston-based freelance writer specializing in health and wellness and business and finance.

As the fitness market flexes new muscle, gyms are adapting to offer not just a workout, but a full-body wellness experience.

In a trendy Houston neighborhood, people in workout wear hurry past a restaurant serving locally sourced food, up the stairs of a boutique shopping center and into one of the city’s many high-end fitness studios. They are carrying babies.

Breezing past the front desk of DEFINE Body & Mind, they enter a group workout room that feels more like a sanctum than a gym. Other parents with babies strapped to their chests are already there, hoisting weights and flexing resistance bands.

“DEFINEbaby” is a class for moms and dads who want to break a sweat with their newborns. It’s also a testament to how deeply fitness has become ingrained into our lives. Workout classes have become so ubiquitous that children are now attending before they can even walk.

In 2019, the fitness industry is projected to hit a new high of roughly $36.5 billion in revenue, according to the market research group IBISWorld. This peak represents more than a decade of solid growth in fitness club memberships, which have risen by more than 33 percent since 2008.

Some analysts have speculated that the sustained expansion is due to rising health consciousness among younger people who were growing up as diagnoses of obesity, diabetes, and other health issues skyrocketed.

But Rice Business alum Henry Richardson, PMBA ’09, the founder of DEFINE, says the story is more complicated than that. As he and other fitness entrepreneurs have noted, the entire culture of exercising has changed during the past decade. Gyms have gone from selling a membership to selling a lifestyle — logo athleisure wear included.

Exercising is no longer just about results, Richardson says. Increasingly, it’s also about finding a community.

He designed the DEFINE experience with that idea in mind, he says. The feeling of belonging is built in, from the welcoming, light-filled workout room to the lime body wash in the showers to the fact that the classes are designed for everyone, including pregnant women and seniors.

Data show that an elevated marketing and branding approach is working. Boutique studios like Richardson’s have seen the biggest boom of all sectors of the fitness industry in the last decade.

A Growing Market

While cities like New York and L.A. have long been known for fashion-forward fitness, Houston has also proved to be a boomtown for boutique gyms. When Richardson moved back to his hometown from New York in 2007, Houston’s fitness landscape was so barren that you could conjure up an image of tumbleweeds to describe it. There was one lonely yoga studio in town.

Today, the city has made a 180-degree turn. The luxury health club Equinox established a Houston outpost in 2015, taking up residency in the tony River Oaks District. And the high-end fitness chain Life Time, which opened its first facility here in 2004, now has nine in the greater Houston area — two of which opened in the past year. A Greenway Plaza location is scheduled to open later this year.

Meanwhile, Rice Business alum Molly Carter, MBA ’14, opened a boutique fitness studio, The Preserve, in River Oaks last year. Carter describes the gym as beautiful, upscale, and personal.

“I built the gym that I wanted to go to,” she said.

From the striking modern building, with glass walls to bring the natural world inside, to its futuristic “kinesis” cable-resistance machines, The Preserve is an homage to what Carter describes as a new national obsession with working out.

More than ever, word-of-mouth is what gets new people to walk through the door, she says, so she’s sought to create an experience so unique and appealing that when people leave, they want to tell others about it.

The presence of The Preserve in the Houston fitness market is one sign of how competitive — and potentially profitable — the region has become for exercise entrepreneurs. You can find another in a downtown high-rise where Gympass, a Brazilian company that moved to the United States two years ago, recently opened up an office.

Gympass, which bills itself as a fitness discovery platform, says it’s out to “defeat inactivity,” with a goal of getting the estimated 1.4 billion people who still don’t engage in physical activity off their couches. It’s a lofty goal, but that’s what drew Rice Business alum Juan Castellanos, MBA ’16, to the company, where he’s now the global head of client operations. As someone who cares about health and fitness, he was intrigued by the fact that Gympass was trying to make exercise more accessible.

“We always think about fitness in these boxes. ‘Oh, I have to get a gym membership, I have to do this or that.’ That’s kind of the old model,” says Castellanos. The new model is more sophisticated, he says — it’s about helping people find an activity they actually enjoy. Gympass offers its users, who are the employees of more than 2,000 companies that have purchased a membership plan, access to more than 900 different activities. “How do you get people up? You give them different things to try. Even if you dislike traditional workouts, you can try 365 different things every day for a year to find something you might like,” Castellanos said.

A two-minute walk from one of the many spin studios in Houston, Gympass’ downtown office integrates elements of a workout facility: stacks of energy bars sit to the right of the reception desk, there are soccer balls and basketballs in a conference room, and inspirational quotes dot the walls. Yet Gympass has a slightly different vibe than the gyms it partners with, humming with the energy of a start-up.

Its sales staff target employers, not would-be members. And they’re selling them a very different product: Buy a membership package with Gympass, which partners with workout facilities in Houston and around the world, and offer it as part of a benefit package to employees to improve recruitment and retention, increase productivity, and promote health and wellbeing.

Building Brand Strength

Gympass is essentially a connector service, introducing people to the fitness communities that Richardson, whose franchise is one of the studios users can access through the platform, and others have created. Castellanos’ job is to make sure that their experience is seamless, whether they’re using the Gympass site to look up a class or to check in at a new gym they haven’t visited before.

That seems daunting when you consider that the company partners with more than 48,000 fitness facilities across the country and abroad. Yet it’s critical that amid innovation, companies provide consistency in order to maintain their customer base.

“It doesn’t matter where you go with Starbucks, you want to have the same cup of coffee,” Castellanos said. “Same with us. Our brand is still to defeat inactivity regardless of where you are.”

Building a strong brand identity will be key to long-term success in an increasingly competitive market, researchers say. Not only is the industry prone to being rocked by fads, with consumers lunging from Zumba classes one day to high-intensity interval training the next, but it is also competing against streaming services, the internet, and other entertainment businesses for slices of people’s free time.

Jaeyeon Chung, an associate professor of marketing at Rice Business, said researchers generally believe that companies who can get customers to “embrace the brand as an understanding of self” fare better year after year than those who don’t.

“People tend to choose products that represent their current self-image or their desired self-image,” she said. If you think you’re great at yoga, you buy high-end workout pants. Or if you want to be perceived as wealthy, you purchase a lower-priced item from Chanel.

That means companies such as DEFINE and Gympass must offer something that appeals to both people who perceive themselves as fit and those who want to get in better shape to continue to grow. Community, accessibility, responsive customer service and product diversity — themes that Richardson and Castellanos both prioritize — are all elements that appeal to both types of customers.

Setting The Bar Higher

The challenge in the future, said Richardson, will be to continue to replicate the brand in new locations. DEFINE started with four studios in Houston; then Richardson decided to turn it into a franchise to grow the brand. Now there are studios in Austin, Colorado, South Dakota, and beyond.

“We are at a phase of the business where I want it to be the right group versus just to open up another store, and so consistency and quality is what fuels me,” he said.

More and more, expansion is likely to come on two fronts: internationally and virtually. According to researchers who track the industry, hedge funds are dumping large amounts of money into the sector to fund both the development of new fitness apps and the plumbing of different markets.

ClassPass, which allows people to try out workout classes at different gyms, recently announced it was expanding into Asia and the Middle East. And Peloton, an exercise equipment and virtual training company, has filed for an IPO.

Richardson is tacking in the same direction. In 2017, he helped a family friend launch the first international storefront for DEFINE in Dubai, and this summer he is getting ready to launch DEFINE online, which will offer live and taped classes to members.

Meanwhile Gympass, which is already in Latin America and Europe, announced in June it had netted a $300 million investment from SoftBank, a Japanese holding company, to expand into Asia.

Such rapid growth in an industry, however, raises the question of whether the fitness bubble is near bursting. Richardson acknowledges that the industry could be reaching a tipping point, with too many types of studios in too many locations. On the other hand, he says, there still seems to be a large segment of the market who are just being introduced to new fitness concepts, and ready to give them a try.

If you ask Castellanos, anything could happen.

Fifty years ago, for example, no one guessed that a dancer named Judi Shepherd Missett, who launched Jazzercise in a basement, would go on to build a $2 billion company — nor did they think women would fuel a huge expansion in the fitness industry.

Castellanos hopes Gympass and other innovators will see similar success in reaching a new demographic: the more than 1 billion people who don’t work out at all.

“When you have a company like us that is literally redefining how people think about their lifestyle, or exercise, or level of activity,” he says, “why not?”

Hannah Sawyer is a writer in Houston.

Based on research by Brian Rountree, Andrew B. Jackson and Marlene Plumlee

• A new, data-intensive technique can create a better profile of a firm and its profit forecast.
• Three firm-specific components — market, industry and idiosyncratic factors that are unique to a given firm — are enough to markedly improve the accuracy of a company’s profit forecasts.
• Investors can apply these more accurate projections to their calculations of a firm’s overall value. 

Earnings summaries are the corporate version of a Magic 8 Ball, something used to forecast future performance and profit. But Rice Business professor Brian Rountree has found that magic has its limits, and that by delving into a few additional areas of interest, investors can get a more accurate prediction of a company’s future earnings than current techniques allow.

Plenty of studies analyze how to use performance summaries to calculate a firm’s potential and future profits. Building on the abundant literature around this approach, Rountree, working with colleagues Andrew B. Jackson of the UNSW Australia Business School and Marlene Plumlee of the University of Utah, devised a new, additional technique for forecasting profits. By dissecting an assortment of operating details, the researchers discovered, it’s possible to create a more precise forecast of a company’s financial future.

Rather than replacing prior work on the subject, Rountree’s team delved deeper into the significance of details within existing data. Their focus: whether including a firm’s market, its overall industry and any unique activity specific to the firm makes for a more reliable profit forecast. Their conclusion: Firms can indeed improve their predictions if they separate returns on net operating assets (RNOA) into separate components and use those figures in their projections.

Normally, firms use market and industry related data to create future profit predictions. For example, a major oil company might use data on market conditions and the overall state of the oil industry to build its profits prediction. The resulting financial literature might be peppered with statements such as, “Like the rest of big oil…” or “The overall market for oil remains soft.” 

While this type of data is typically used to make projections, Rountree and his colleagues used the market and industry information more formally by creating the equivalent of stock return betas — a statistical measure of risk — for corporate earnings. In addition, they allowed for adding firm-specific information to market and industry information to help forecast earnings. 

To conduct their study, Rountree’s team used Compustat quarterly data to calculate firm, industry and market RNOAs from 1976 to 2014. Next, they broke these figures down and separated the results into different categories. 

Their resulting formula differs from the conventional approach because it doesn’t rely on one average set of market and industry-related data for each firm. Instead, it assumes varying factors for each company. The devil is in these details: Calculating specific market, industry and firm-idiosyncratic components improves the chances of forecasting profits correctly. 

Correctly breaking down and separating profitability details to plug into the new formula is no small task. Separating company data into just three components requires up to 20 quarters of figures about prior profitability. 

Once the information is processed, a researcher must then be vigilant for “noise” — incidental, irrelevant data that can lead to errors. Finally, Rountree warns, the breakdown process may not work as well for forecasting bankruptcy as it does for profits.

Used correctly, however, the technique is a practical new tool. By breaking down profitability into market, industry and firm-specific idiosyncrasies, researchers can improve forecasts strikingly compared to conventional calculations of total RNOAs.

The most accurate profit forecasts in other words, demand more than just a figurative shake of an industry Magic 8 Ball. To find the most reliable information about future earnings, a company instead has to flawlessly juggle years’ worth of specific details about their particular firm. But the reward of planning based on a correct forecast can pay for itself. 

Brian Rountree is an associate professor of accounting at Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University. 

To learn more, please see: Jackson, A. B., Plumlee, M. A., & Rountree, B. R. (2018). Decomposing the market, industry, and firm components of profitability: Implications for forecasts of profitability. Review of Accounting Studies, 23, 1071-1095.

If you’ve been checking our website recently, you’re not alone: this is a highly strategic time to earn an MBA! And you may have seen that we offer standardized test waivers. What’s not to love about skipping the GMAT or the GRE? Here are some answers about the process: who’s eligible for a waiver, who’s most likely to get one – and above all, why you should think twice about seeking a waiver unless it’s absolutely necessary.

I can’t stand standardized tests. Why are they required?

We know. Tests are a pain. But scores such as those from the GMAT and GRE show if you have the quantitative abilities to shine at Rice Business. And remember, even if you qualify for a waiver, you’ll have to make a compelling case for your skills in other ways. On the other hand, a test score in our range quickly and definitively says: yup, you’re Rice Business material.

Tests also show more than quantitative chops. It takes time, work and money to take a test. To us, this translates as commitment. Rice Business chooses – and rewards – committed learners. 

Tests also do a lot more than help you get in. GMAT scores matter when we give out scholarships. And once it’s time to job-hunt, employers in industries like consulting and investment banking will ask for test scores, so you may need to take the test anyway. In other words, there’s no easy way out. Rice Business is fast-paced and rigorous – and so is the business world. Tests are an efficient way to show your strength.

Do you look at waiver holders differently for MBA admissions?

You could argue that the bar is higher. The average Full-Time MBA Rice Business GPA is 3.5. With a test waiver, your GPA needs to be higher than that.

So what are the requirements to earn a waiver?

If you're applying to our MBA programs and want to be considered for a waiver, you need a minimum of three years of work experience and at least one of the following: 

1. A bachelor's or master's degree, with strong academic achievement in a STEM or quantitative subject area
2. A terminal degree (e.g. MD or PhD)
3. A quantitative professional certification (e.g. CPA, CFA)
4. Other standardized test scores showing strong quantitative skills (e.g. MCAT)

Why should I know all this before seeking a waiver?

Because waivers are hard to get! And skipping a test now may not save you from having to take the exact same test later. We don’t want you to spend your time seeking a waiver when you could boost your chances of acceptance by taking a test. At Rice Business, we’re big believers that the harder you work, the luckier you’re going to get. 

Target Retirement Funds are touted as a simplified investment option for people saving money for their golden years, but Rice University researchers have discovered retirees can be shortchanged by a curious behavioral phenomenon known as “zero bias.”

These funds, also known as TRFs, are built based on a goal retirement year, with choices ending in either a zero or a five (such as 2030, 2035, 2040 or 2045). As it turns out, investors are more likely to select funds labeled with years ending in zeros rather than fives.

“Zero bias” can affect how much money people have for their retirement, according to new research from Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business.

The study, based on an analysis of data from 84,600 investors and published this month in the Journal of Consumer Research, found that people born in years ending in eight or nine tend to choose TRFs for retiring at age 60, while those born in years ending in zero, one or two tend to project retiring at 70.

Those choices can significantly lower or increase retirees’ wealth by altering contribution amounts and exposing investors to risk incompatible with their age profile, according to study author Ajay Kalra, the Herbert S. Autrey Professor of Marketing at the Jones School, and co-authors Xiao Liu of New York University and Wei Zhang of Iowa State University.

“Zero bias” is particularly costly for people who are risk-averse and select later TRFs, but it benefits risk-averse consumers who choose early TRFs, according to the paper.

“The preference for zero-ending TRFs implies that some individuals intend to retire either at the age of 60 or 70, rather than 65,” the authors wrote. “The bias is consistently evident for people born in the 1950s through the 1980s.”

The authors said it is more common for investors to round up than round down.

“We find that the ‘zero bias’ affects investors in two substantial ways,” they wrote. “First, it may lead to an investment portfolio with an incompatible level of risk. Second, the choice of the TRF appears to impact the amount people contribute towards their retirement savings.”

The authors argue that this may lead people to believe they have more time to build their investment portfolios, significantly lowering the total wealth accumulated by retirement – especially for those born in years ending in zero, one or two and who select a TRF past 65. The bias also hurts retirees born in years ending in eights and nines and who are more likely to select TRFs with earlier target years.

“Our simulations find that approximately 34% of people born in eight- or nine-ending years select early TRFs, and all of them end up financially worse off,” the authors wrote. “On the other hand, about 29% of people born in years ending 0-2 select later TRFs and end up better off except for those who are risk-averse,” the authors wrote. “In general, the losses of those selecting the mismatched TRFs (inconsistent with retiring at 65) are greater than the gains.”

For more research and insights, visit the Rice Business Wisdom website at https://business.rice.edu/wisdom.

“When the fire chief asked for a three-year fleet study, I was able to apply concepts from my analytics class and give him everything he needed. He said, ‘I can see your MBA is paying off already.’ I really hope to keep applying what I’m learning in class and from my cohort so the fire department can be more efficient, more fiscally responsible. It doesn’t have to be done the same way it’s always been done. You can ask why. When you have the language of business behind you, you can ask the right questions and come up with the right answers.”

Shortly before Hurricane Harvey, Ruy Lozano, a 20-year veteran of the Houston Fire Department, was promoted. The former paramedic, high-rise firefighter and bilingual public information officer was appointed assistant fire chief in charge of the resource management division. That meant he oversaw the department’s infrastructure — 93 fire houses and a fleet of about 300 vehicles, including 88 fire engines, 38 ladder trucks and 100 ambulances. He was also in charge of the procurement of equipment, budgeting and strategy. During Hurricane Harvey, he had to give the chief constant updates. “I had been in the position about a month. We lost fire trucks, fire stations and equipment. There was so much damage. I thought, how do we recover? You have to have a procurement plan. It’s so important to master your business processes. I knew immediately I had to get an MBA.” 

“My goal is twofold. Professionally, I would like to become involved in hospital administration to be able to effectively apply my medical training, entrepreneurial experience and newly acquired business knowledge to improve health care in a more acute and complex setting. Personally, my aspiration is to create a nonprofit organization, one that works to improve the health and better the lives of families in resource-poor communities globally.”

After seven years, Victoria Hopkins ’20 sold her urgent care clinic, accepted an offer with the U.S. medical staff stationed outside of Seoul, South Korea and joined the inaugural cohort of the MBA@Rice program. Born in Pusan, South Korea, Victoria came to the U.S. when she was three. Before starting medical school, she returned to work as an English teacher and discovered her Korean cultural heritage. Now she has the opportunity to share this with her husband and children when they move to South Korea this fall. “The new online MBA program at Rice allows me to learn while living abroad in Asia with my family. I couldn’t do it otherwise.” Victoria earned her B.A. and M.D. at Brown University and an M.P.H. at Harvard School of Public Health. She is one of 26 students in the new online program.