[MUSIC]
Welcome to the 53rd Arbuckle Award
celebration, and
especially I'll like to welcome
tonight's honoree Ken Hersh and
his friends and family members.
>> [APPLAUSE] >> Ken arrived at the
GSB along with actually many people
in this tent tonight in 1987.
He came from Texas by way of
Princeton and Morgan Stanley.
At the GSB he was
an RJ Miller Scholar, all of you
who are students take note.
>> [LAUGH] >> And it
was at the GSB that he met another
former Arbuckle Award winner and
a member of the NBA class of 1968,
Richard Rainwater.
And Richard, as many of you know,
had a tremendous eye for talent.
And it was along with Richard and
a few others that Ken
founded Natural Gas Partners and
really pioneered a whole new era of
private equity investing.
And that, of course, one of the
first chapter in Ken's leadership.
He went on, after stepping down as
CEO of MGP, to be the CEO of
the Bush Presidential Library.
And in that role, he's made
enormous contribution to this
country in fulfilling the library's
vision of education and
engagement to create opportunity
and strengthen democracy and to
advance freedom around the world.
During the pandemic, I asked Ken if
he would join a task force that I
was assembling to think about
the intersection of business,
government, and society and
the changing landscape for business
leaders in the current environment.
And Ken had a consistent and
important message in those
meetings, which was all about
the GSB's responsibility to develop
leaders who would be open minded,
who would welcome opposing views,
who would be fundamentally curious.
Not judgmental when confronting
different perspectives, and about
the role that the school can and
had to play in preparing students
for leadership in a world that was
increasingly polarized.
>> But when I think of Ken,
I think of someone who's built
an amazing business, who's letting
amazing family and actually John
asked a few people to stand up
tonight, but I just am curious.
How many of you came in from Texas
for this evening,
would you all stand up?
>> [APPLAUSE] >> Stand, yeah.
>> [APPLAUSE] >> And
that's a pretty amazing legacy to
make the trip to be out here for
this event.
>> He put together the business
template of what became natural gas
partners in his summer job.
And during his second year while he
was a full time student,
he became a co-founder of NGP.
This is while he was a student.
During his time as the managing
partner at NGP, the firm,
and Ken always emphasize the firm,
achieved a 30% compounded rate of
return over 27 years.
In spite of some pretty wild oil
and gas price gyrations which
happen all the time, Ken and
his partners were pacesetters in
establishing leadership principles
and creative financial structures
in the highly competitive private
equity energy business.
More importantly with the emphasis
on the firm, they created a culture
of transparency and teamwork and
consciously overshared equity.
Not surprisingly,
there was virtually no turnover.
With pleasure, I am honored to
introduce the outstanding Arbuckle
Award winner of 2023, Ken Hersh.
>> [APPLAUSE] >> Before we get
started, I want to thank Dean Levin
and Derrick and the incredible team
here at Stanford and
the Arbuckle family,
as well as the past honorees.
Being on the same list as you all
is very humbling.
And I want to thank Bob, Bob Jaffe,
you've known me a long time.
You are my boss's boss's boss in my
first job out of college in 1985.
You were old that, no, sorry,
that's a different speech.
>> [LAUGH] >> I ran numbers for
you, I put them into presentations,
I collated them, I delivered them
to you, and thankfully you rarely
checked my work.
>> [LAUGH] >> And
I really appreciated your trust.
Really, it meant something to
me and I felt good.
I said, well,
he's not even really checking this.
In fact, it was that trust that
allowed me to proudly present to
you with a pitch deck right before
a big meeting.
Not for a client's initial public
offering but rather in a time
before spellcheck and
grammar check, a boldface pitch for
an initial pubic offering.
>> [LAUGH]
>> A lesson in proofreading that I
will never forget.
>> [LAUGH] >> Thanks for
not firing me on the spot.
Those who are here who work for
me now know where my incredible
angst about proofreading came from,
you who you are.
Then some 20 years later I tried to
hire you, Bob, twice and
you turned me down.
And so those are lessons
to all the students here.
Keep an eye on your next boss
because he or she may make a great
employee someday.
>> [LAUGH] >> And as to the many
folks who used to work for me,
as you go build your empires,
please don't forget about me.
>> [LAUGH] >> I'm still around.
When Dean Levin called me about
this, I was flabbergasted to put
it mildly.
It's not something that I would
even put my name out there for.
In fact,
I think if you threw a dart in this
tent you could find many honorees.
And I was speechless and for
those closest to me you know how
not normal that is.
And in short,
I really think that I have lived by
a very simple concept.
In life there's only one gear,
forward, no neutral, and
definitely not reverse.
I made a living investing in a very
capital intensive business that has
been defined by booms and busts.
And yet my partners and
I persevered and created a
methodology that took a lot of that
volatility out of the business.
And in so doing,
had a part in changing the world,
helping to finance a part of the
unconventional shale revolution.
Kind of amazing for some Stanford
liberal arts guys with an MBA.
I strive to make my community
better by being a contributor,
not a bystander, a connector
instead of a divider, and always
a resource to help when I can.
I want to leave the world a better
place than when I found it.
And I realized a few years ago that
there was more to life than energy
private equity.
Imagine that.
I hope that I can inspire others to
keep moving forward who might have
otherwise stalled out, and
I hope that I've made Stanford
a better place than I found it.
Longtime performer Danny Kaye
said that life is a big canvas,
and you should throw all the paint
on it you can.
I never feel like I've
done enough paint throwing but for
now this will have to suffice.
I am humbled and
honored by all of you tonight,
thank you very much.
>> [APPLAUSE] >> Thank you.
>> [APPLAUSE]
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