by Michael Agresta
One weekend in 1952, not long after Gene Walker, M.S. ’55, had transferred from Rice University to The University of Texas at Austin to complete his undergraduate studies in engineering, he went to San Antonio on a double date. At the last minute, the foursome in the car grew to a fivesome when a friend of his buddy’s date asked for a ride to visit her family for the weekend.
As soon as the newcomer entered the car, she captured Gene’s attention — at the expense of his date. “I was sitting in the backseat of this old Packard,” he recalls. “Sitting in the front passenger seat was the hitchhiker, Kathleen Kelley. I was so smitten with her.”
Fast forward to August 27, 1955, when wedding bells pealed for Gene and Kathleen at Christ Episcopal Church in San Antonio, not far from where that Packard had dropped the enchanting hitchhiker a few years earlier. Their marriage lasted 66 years — until Kathleen’s death in December 2021. Their bond now lives on not only through children and grandchildren, but also through a gift Gene made in Kathleen’s name to endow travel, conferences and other expenses for Plan II undergraduates at UT.
Kathleen was always proud she went to Plan II. She appreciated the quality of the courses and professors.
Kathleen finished Plan II with a B.A. in 1955, the same year Gene got his master’s degree in mechanical engineering from the Cockrell School. “Kathleen was always proud she went to Plan II,” Gene recalls. “She appreciated the quality of the courses and professors.” A highlight of her experience was writing a senior thesis on the long-term development of the historic La Villita village of San Antonio. Her thesis advisor was Dr. Harry Huntt Ransom, who helped found Plan II and later became University president and namesake of the Harry Ransom Center.
Winning over Kathleen was no easy task for Gene. “She had a lot of fellows who pursued her,” he says. “I had to work pretty hard to court her.” After her passing, he discovered a letter she’d written to her parents after a date early in their courtship. She told them that the reason she agreed to go with Gene to the UT-Oklahoma football game in Dallas was that he’d promised to take her to see the musical “The King and I” in town as well. “She wasn’t interested in athletics. That’s what got her to say yes,” he says.
Later, as the pair grew closer, they took a day trip to Laredo and Nuevo Laredo. “In those days, you didn’t take a young lady someplace you’d have to spend the night,” remembers Gene. In a jewelry store, Kathleen noticed a turquoise ring she liked, and Gene bought it for her on the spot. “I’m told she decided to marry me then,” he says.
By then, Gene was receiving a salary at Cockrell, first for his research work establishing parameters for welding metal sheets together, then for teaching undergraduates. After graduating, he got a job with General Electric. The big suspense around the time of their wedding was where the young couple would be asked to relocate for his first years on the job. Gene got the news the day of the rehearsal dinner. “That day I told everyone, ‘We’re going to Holland,’” he recalls. “You could see the faces drop all over the room. Then I added, ‘Holland, Michigan.’”
The early years of the marriage were spent in cold climates. After Michigan, the couple decamped to Cincinnati, Schenectady (GE’s headquarters), and eventually Boston, where Gene attended Harvard Business School. Kathleen taught elementary school. “She was a natural teacher. She did extremely well,” Gene says. When the couple had children, she took time off to raise two boys.
After Harvard, Gene and Kathleen decided to leave the cold weather and return to Texas. They settled in Dallas, where their daughter was born. Gene had grown up between Fort Worth and the nearby small town of Weatherford, where his family has owned ranchland since 1885. In Dallas, Gene found a series of roles in investment and business management. Perhaps his biggest breakthrough was creating and leading a wholly owned subsidiary of the optical technology company Recognition Equipment, which in 1969 built and installed the first ATMs.
Later Gene became a turnaround consultant, advising companies that had run into trouble, and in some cases taking over briefly as CEO, though he tried to avoid that drastic measure. “It’s like being called and asked if you’d like to be captain of the Titanic, and by the way we’ve already hit the iceberg,” he jokes.
As their children reached school age, Kathleen took both personal and academic interest in theories of childhood education, eventually playing a key role in founding the first accredited Montessori school in Dallas, now known as the Alcuin School. Kathleen would end up teaching for a total of 25 years, first in private schools, then in public Montessori schools. Gene notes that many of her students made it into Dallas’s arts magnet high school, to the point that teachers there knew of her reputation.
Kathleen received many letters of appreciation from former students and parents; Gene reads from one: “We feel blessed that you had John for three years. He learned his lessons well, but, more important, you taught him how to look at different situations and find solutions. That skill will go with him the rest of his life.”
After Kathleen’s long illness, which began with breast cancer in 2003, Gene began looking for a way to honor her memory. The gift in her name to Plan II appealed to him because each student travel grant will be given in Kathleen’s name, and he was able to gift an IRA directly to UT without accruing taxes. Additionally, the gift did not have to be enormous. “I don’t have millions,” he says. “The grants are going to be a few thousand dollars each.”
Gene’s gift is deeply in tune with the spirit of the Plan II program. “It’s such a wonderful way to honor Kathleen’s legacy: to help current and future Plan II students expand their education beyond the bounds of campus,” says Plan II Director Alexandra Wettlaufer. “We are dedicated to learning in all its forms. Kathleen understood that, and Gene does as well. We’re grateful.”
For Gene, the gift is also a symbol of his long, fruitful partnership with Kathleen, and of their complementary interests in the sciences and the humanities. “There is a permanent need for everyone to have a broader education,” he says. “People in the liberal arts need to know more about the sciences, and vice versa. We live in a world where our direction is dictated by technology. You don’t have to be an expert, but you need to understand implications.”
