ASU professor Loui Olivas mentored thousands of students. Now he's being honored

As a first-year business student at Arizona State University, Michael Trejo used to punctuate his speech with a lot of "yeahs" and "anyways."

Then he met Loui Olivas, a no-nonsense ASU professor and military officer who is now being honored with an endowed academic chair in his name at ASU, the first for a Latino at a U.S. business school.

Olivas kept a tally on a sticky note every time Trejo said "yeah" instead of "yes, or "anyways" instead of "anyway." The agreement was that Trejo would buy Olivas lunch for the amount of the tallies.

"He kept the sticky notes for like three years," Trejo said. Olivas never made Trejo buy him lunch. But it was "his way of helping me speak more professionally."

The mentoring paid off. After graduating from ASU's W.P. Carey School of Business, Trejo landed his dream job working on Wall Street as an investment banker. With Olivas' guidance, Trejo also earned an MBA from Harvard Business School and a master's in public policy from Harvard's Kennedy School.

Trejo credits much of his success to Olivas. Olivas mentored Trejo as the faculty advisor to the Hispanic Business Student Association. Olivas also tapped into his vast network of connections to help Trejo penetrate the cloistered world of Wall Street. He introduced Trejo to Gary Trujillo, another HBSA alum, who told Trejo about a program that sends minority students to Wall Street. "Nine months later, I'm working at Citigroup in New York City," said Trejo, 36, president of Standard Printing Company. Trejo and Trujillo are now business partners.

Olivas' mentorship of students over the years was one of the reasons ASU created a chair at the W.P. Carey School of Business in his honor. The Loui Olivas Chair in Management is the first endowed chair named after a Latino or Latina scholar at a top-ranked U.S. business school, the university said.

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First Olivas chair will be supply chain management professor

The new chair was announced in September at the L'ATTITUDE Conference, a gathering of Latino and Latina business leaders in Miami.

"Loui Olivas has epitomized the ideal definition of an educator and professor," said Sol Trujillo in a written statement. The global business executive and his wife, Corine, were instrumental in funding the professorship named in honor of Olivas. Olivas said the chair eventually will be fully endowed at $2 million.

"His drive to get (students) to think big and achieve more always caught my eye, especially for the Latina(o) student. He inspired and sometimes cajoled them to achieve big," said Sol Trujillo of the Trujillo Group LLC.

The first professor to earn the title is Veronica Villena, an associate professor of supply chain management, ASU officials said.

Villena, 43, is a native of Peru. She has a master's degree and doctorate in supply chain management from IE Business School in Madrid and joined the ASU faculty in 2021 from Pennsylvania State University.

Villena said she is inspired to continue Olives' dedication to the success of students, especially Latino students.

"It is a big achievement for Dr. O, for what he has done for the Latino students, and definitely for me it's a big honor to have this chair in his name," Villena said.

In 2022, ASU was designated a Hispanic-serving institution by the U.S. Department of Education after Latino undergraduate enrollment at the school exceeded 25%.

"I'm very pleased that when I get into the classroom, seeing so many Latinos enrolled," Villena said. "That is very unique, and I think ... they can identify with having another professor who is Latino."

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Olivas moved by 'most prestigious' higher ed honor

During a recent interview, the 77-year-old Olivas became emotional at times recounting his life story, from growing up in a working-class Mexican-American family in Phoenix to now being honored with an academic chair in his name. He likened the achievement to winning a gold medal at the Olympics or a Pulitzer Prize.

"I'm at a loss of words," Olivas said. "What does it mean to have a chair named after you in academic terms? Well, it's not actually a physical chair. It's the most prestigious (honor) that exists, in my opinion, in higher ed."

Despite his humble roots, Olivas rose to become one of the highest-ranking Latinos at ASU and a well-known Latino community leader. He retired from ASU in 2009 as assistant vice president for education partnerships, after a career that spanned 30 years, including 18 as a professor focusing on entrepreneurship, small business management and Hispanic marketing. During that time, Olivas mentored thousands of students, many of them Latinos who also rose to prominence.

To his students, he is known as Dr. O.

"We all have a connection back to Dr. O," Trejo said. "We all had something that he helped us with when we were in college — probably me more than many others, but everybody's got a Dr. O story."

Gema Duarte Luna, a marketing executive, was mentored by Olivas while she was a student at ASU in the early 1980s and a member of the Hispanic Business Students Association.

"Dr. O was our advisor and mentor," Duarte Luna said in an email. "He pushed us students to achieve academically, to develop our leadership abilities and to care about giving back to our community. So many of us were first generation college students who needed a role model and champion. Dr. O. was that person. He reflected success professionally, personally and as a leader in our community. "

Olivas is leading the way to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the HBSA in 2024, Duarte Luna noted.

David Adame said Olivas and his wife, Nena, often hosted students in their home, where at the end of the night Olivas would take out his guitar and sing.

"He was more than just an advisor. For me, he was like a second father. He not only provided educational counseling but life counseling," said Adame, who earned bachelor's and master's degrees in business from ASU and is the former president and CEO of Chicanos Por La Causa.

'Me, a professor?' Olivas' professional trajectory evolved over time

Olivas is a fifth-generation Arizonan whose Mexican-American family lived in Arizona, in the region that is now the Phoenix area, when it was part of the Mexican state of Sonora. His great-grandparents were prosperous cattle ranchers when the land that is now Arizona was still part of Mexico. They lost everything when the northern half of Mexico was ceded in 1848 to the U.S. following the Mexican-American War, Olivas said.

"I like to tell people, my family was here before the border crossed us," Olivas said.

Olivas was one of five children, four boys and one girl. He grew up on the east side of Phoenix in a racially and ethnically mixed neighborhood near 24th and Jefferson streets in Phoenix.

His father, Angel Olivas, had a third grade education and drove a garbage truck for Phoenix. When he retired after 35 years, he was given a watch, Olivas said.

His mother, Frances Olivas, wrapped gifts at Korricks, the now-defunct downtown department store.

In high school, Olivas was not a serious student. Earning Cs and Bs was good enough. But he excelled at sports and played football, baseball and wrestled at Phoenix Union High School.

His oldest brother, Angel, was the first in his family to attend college, which inspired Olivas to follow in his footsteps.

Olivas enrolled at ASU in 1965. To help pay tuition, he joined the Arizona Air National Guard. He retired after 29 years as a colonel.

Olivas studied business at ASU and worked at Montgomery Ward department store as part of a management training program. But senior year he changed his mind and decided to become a teacher. He graduated a year and a half later with a double major in business and education.

Olivas taught business classes at Alhambra High School after graduation, and coached freshman football and JV wrestling. Olivas then joined the faculty teaching business at Scottsdale Community College and completed a master's in business education at ASU.

Olivas said he was recruited to join Western Savings and Loan Association as director of executive development and training because of a career development conference he created while at Scottsdale Community College. While at Western Savings and Loan, Olivas completed a Ph.D. in education at ASU.

Olivas then worked for a year as director of training for the city of Phoenix before he said he was invited to join the faculty at ASU's college of business as an assistant professor.

Olivas remembers the offer "freighted the hell out of me."

"I thought, 'Hold on. Me, a professor? Me working with professors who I took classes from? Wow,'" Olivas said.

Although he retired from ASU in 2009, Olivas still has an office at the business school and continues to mentor students in the Hispanic Business Student Association.

Flor Uribe was working three jobs, including at a fast food restaurant, to pay for college as a first generation business student when she met Olivas in 2014.

Olivas was concerned Uribe was working too many hours and not leaving enough time for her studies. He suggested she quit the fast food job and offered her a job at the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education, a nonprofit where Olivas was the founding president.

"I did the not-so-fun stuff like the bookkeeping for his organization," Uribe said. But the hours were flexible, and the job was a good experience.

"I handled financials for the whole organization, which gave me great exposure early on," Uribe said. "He would meet with me every week and just go over my work and give me very direct feedback and make sure that I always stayed on track."

Olivas also lifted her up when she doubted herself, said Uribe, 29, who earned bachelor's and master's degrees at ASU and is now a manager at the Gilbert offices of Deloitte, the global accounting firm.

"I was super shy, and I'm very introverted," Uribe said. "But Dr. O would always tell me, 'Mija, why are you being so shy? You can do it.'"

Daniel Gonzalez covers race, equity and opportunity. Reach the reporter at daniel.gonzalez@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8312.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: ASU creates endowed chair for revered Latino professor Loui Olivas