Thirty Days of Thanks – Aggieland

In case you missed the release on the Schipul site and all of our extremely excited tweets – Schipul is honored to be number 83 on the Aggie 100 – the list of the top Aggie owned businesses!

Aggie 100 winner
Aggie 100 award winner (photo by Bill Erickson)

I was honored to attend the ceremony not only as a Schipulite – but as an Aggie myself (class of 2007 – Whoop!).

Some interesting facts about this year’s class:

  • Schipul is honored to be on the short list of 12 companies who have made the list for 4 out of the 5 years
  • Our fearless leader Ed Schipul is a class of 1990 Political Science major. The class of 1990 is the most represented class in the 2009 list
  • The 2009 Aggie 100 employ over 10,000 employees and did over 7.6 billion in revenue last year
  • The college of engineering represents over 50% of the list
  • The keynote speaker was A&M track and field coach Pat Henry – who talked about bouncing back in hard times by quoting Mike Tyson: “Everybody has a plan… until they get hit”

We spent the afternoon at the awards reception, and then spent some quality time bonding at the Dixie Chicken – the most famous bar in College Station. The Chicken is the home of the famous Aggie ring dunk tradition (where Ags christen their rings by dropping them in a pitcher of beer and drinking the whole thing as quickly as possible) – and it’s the location where my parents met in the late 70’s.

Dixie Chicken by eschipul
The Dixie Chicken in College Station

A perfect afternoon enjoying cheese fries and playing dominoes was the cherry on the cake of a great day. I am extremely thankful for Aggieland and the wonderful people in it. A&M is a place like none other and I loved my time there – and the opportunity to go back!

Another huge thanks to Ed for letting me be a part of the tradition!