Supporting Success

Paul Foster, BBA '79, wasn't the first Baylor freshman to struggle adapting to college life, but he hopes the creation of the Paul L. Foster Success Center will make him among the last to suffer through alone.
Foster's lead gift allowed the Success Center to brings together five offices--Academic Advisement, Academic Support, the Office of Access and Learning Accommodation, Career Counseling, and Career Services--all under one roof in the heart of campus for "one-stop shopping," as Foster calls it.
"I think a facility like this just makes a huge difference," he says. "You come here and you're like, all right, I need this, this and this. I need help with my major, I'm going to lose my scholarship, I need to find a job; I need--whatever it is. I had a lot of issues, and I think something like this would have been helpful."
An "A" student in high school, Foster came to Baylor on a full scholarship. But as a naïve 17-year-old from a small town in New Mexico, he had trouble adjusting to college life; by the end of his first year, poor grades had cost him his scholarship.
"I'd always worked hard, I'd always had jobs. I had a paper route when I was 11 years old, so I think I had good values in that way. But academically, I'd never really had to work at anything," Foster says. "I never did develop what I would call good study habits.
"There wasn't anywhere to go to sort of figure things out. If there was, I wasn't aware of what or where that was. And you just kind of had to make your way. Everybody did, everybody figured it out, I guess.
"It would have helped me [to have a place like the Success Center], because there were times when I was desperate, and if I'd had somewhere to go or somebody to go to, I probably would have done it, and I think it would have made a difference."
To pay his way through school, Foster had to work multiple odd jobs around the city.
"I drove a school bus for La Vega Independent School District. ... I worked for this guy that owned the Mr. Gatti's Pizzas here and in Austin, doing the bookkeeping and payroll and all that for him. ... I was the bookkeeper for the City of Robinson. I did all the fund accounting for the fire department and water department and the police and city general fund and all that. I did a lot of different things."
Foster still managed to graduate in four years, even after switching from pre-med to business, and began his career as an internal auditor for Southern Union Gas Company. Today, he is president and CEO of Western Refining Co., a company he formed in 1997 that has become one of the largest suppliers of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel to the Phoenix, Tucson, Albuquerque and 
El Paso markets. 
"The Success Center is a resource for students to get help, whether it's academic help or learning how to study or trying to find a job when you're about to get out of school or whatever it is," he says. "I looked back and felt like that was a piece that, for me, would have made a big difference, so I was convinced that this Success Center was something that would make a difference for students for decades to come.
"The decision to make the contribution ended up becoming a very easy decision for me. I'm thrilled to be in a position to do it. I'm forever thankful to Baylor for giving me opportunities in life, and just very proud to be associated with it."