ALUMNA

Maddie Sepcic ('19)

Maddie Sepcic, a logistics and supply chain management alum, recently launched her own swimsuit and activewear company Cabo Couture. Before diving all-in as an entrepreneur, however, she was employed at logistics company Expeditors International as an order management agent.

"I had my own clients at Expeditors International, including Dillard's," says Sepcic, who credits UNT with helping her develop her logistics skills and land the job at Expeditors International during a career fair. "I helped Dillard's see what was being exported from its suppliers and what was being imported to the U.S. It was cool."

After a year of putting her logistics skills into action, Sepcic decided to start her own company. For quite some time, she had been dreaming of doing her own thing and launching a women's apparel brand. During her lunch breaks, she'd work on Cabo Couture, making purchase orders and designing her packaging.

"You know, it sounds kind of crazy to quit your job in the midst of a global pandemic," she says. "I walked away from a career I would have probably gone really far in. But I knew in my heart that I needed to do something more."

Starting a small business during the COVID-19 pandemic, however, has offered new challenges for Sepcic to overcome. So far, she's been trudging through them with a positive outlook and hard work.

"I'm the type of person that takes challenges and turns them into factors of motivation and change," says Sepcic. "I think the pandemic challenges me to be able to pivot when necessary and allows me to relate to my customers more.  Also, if COVID-19 hadn't occurred, I don't think I would have found the courage to take the chance and start my business."

The idea behind Cabo Couture was originally inspired by the city of Cabo San Lucas in Mexico, Sepcic's favorite place. She wanted the clothing to represent Cabo's fun and vibrant culture while keeping function in mind. She chose colorful yet premium fabrics that were comfortable enough to lounge in, yet strong enough to endure high-intensity workouts.

"My business was created out of my feelings on the pandemic in that I wanted to feel the way I did while traveling no matter where I was. I wanted the pieces to evoke the same feelings I feel while in Cabo," Sepcic says.

With the help of her blog, The Dallas Heiress, and Instagram, she was able to reach several costumers, but she's not solely online. Already, Sepcic's products are available in shops around the world, including The Glass Box -- a boutique in the Cape Hotel in Cabo San Lucas -- and House of Mo in Dallas.

"It's super rewarding to see my clothing on a rack and to know that someone is going to wear them," Sepcic said. "Strangers wearing my stuff? That blows my mind."

Sepcic has some big goals regarding the growth of Cabo Couture, such as becoming bicoastal, getting her products into a big retail store like Nordstrom and having her own physical store. Her biggest goal, though, is to inspire people.

"One of the hardest things about launching this business was taking that risk of leaving my job and going into something I had skills in but had never truly done. I had never designed clothing, so there were a lot of risks involved," Sepcic says. "The whole thing was hard, but I think that's what makes it more rewarding in the end."

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Published by Brittney Dear in UNT North Texan Fall 2020

ALUMNUS

Brint Ryan (BS/MS '88)

Brint Ryan and his bandmates were grooving at Big Spring High’s senior talent contest. But near the end of their five-song set, the amplifiers suddenly quit, and the music died. Maybe the hard rock was too raucous or the lyrics too suggestive for the Bible Belt community—“We’re gettin’ funny in the back of my car; I’m sorry, honey, if I took you just a little too far… By morning you’ll be mine, yes, all mine…” Whatever the case, a government teacher named Tommy Adams cut power to the mics and Ryan’s rhythm guitar, as the class president and his garage band covered Van Halen’s 1978 hit, “Feel Your Love Tonight.”

It’s hard to silence Ryan now.

The Washington Post calls Ryan a Republican mega-donor with outsized influence. He made a news-grabbing run for the Dallas City Council and built his Ryan LLC into a thriving tax consulting firm with nearly 3,000 employees in 50 countries, generating an estimated $630 million in revenue for 2020. In one notable case, the firm clawed back more than $100 million in taxes overpaid by Texas Instruments. The goal is to make Ryan LLC globally branded “as the Amazon of tax,” the company’s founder says over iced tea at his 20,000-square-foot home, an estate on Strait Lane that’s tax-appraised at $17.9 million.

Last year, Ryan was the recipient of the prestigious Horatio Alger Award, which recognizes “personal initiative and perseverance, leadership, commitment to excellence, belief in the free-enterprise system and the importance of higher education, community service, and the vision and determination to achieve a better future.” Cited was Ryan’s overcoming a difficult, working-class upbringing.

His teenage parents had eloped to Mexico to marry. Both abused alcohol, which led to arguments and physical violence, states a remarkably frank company biography. Ryan and his sister picked up the drinking habit, too. A DWI accident would leave her wheelchair-bound—a wake-up call for Ryan that was tragically reinforced when his mother was run over and killed by a drunk driver. Sober since November 1990, Ryan says, “I felt I was headed down the same path.”

A seventh-generation Irish-American, George Brinton “Brint” Ryan was the eldest of four children. His mother sold insurance. His father, a gas plant worker, had played on a state champion basketball team and pushed Ryan into sports. But he was never the athlete his dad wanted. He loved music, and when he asked for a $145 eight-track stereo, Ryan was told to get a job, sparking a tireless work ethic. He threw papers for the Big Spring Herald, then sacked groceries at Safeway. He worked 20 hours a week at a Piggly Wiggly in college, getting hired as a bag boy and ending as an assistant manager.

Ryan attended North Texas State (now the University of North Texas), which would change his life trajectory. But it wasn’t an easy transition. “I was scared to death, I mean absolutely scared to death,” he says of arriving in Denton as the first in his immediate family to attend college. “It was 1982, and I didn’t know a soul. I was sitting there, a kid from Big Spring in this new world, looking at the backgrounds of other people.” Not until then did Ryan realize where his family stood on the socio-economic ladder. “It was truly intimidating,” he says. “I was so focused; I poured myself into my work. When I got a 3.9 my very first semester at North Texas, I was so upset because—you know what?—I made a B in Phys. Ed. That blew my 4.0. I got a four-point my next semester.”

When he left for college, Ryan couldn’t wait to put Big Spring in the rearview mirror of his secondhand Buick. (“I wanted to get out of there; I wanted to get away from my dad,” he says.) But the prodigal son returned decades later to restore the Hotel Settles, a 1930s, 15-story edifice that towers over the city. 

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Published by Barry Shlachter in D CEO January-February 2021