Newsletter September 2026

From the Resolute Keyboard

Once again, we have had a very busy month. At this point, I am starting to think this may simply be our new normal.

Football season is back, and with it comes a surprising amount of coordination. Our Watch Parties require much more than reserving space at Pinche Gringo. We have been working closely with Jon Campbell and the cultural team at Pinche Gringo Group, building on a relationship that goes back to our Tex-Mex Day.

A special thank you goes to Patrick Hendrix, who has become an extremely supportive member of our Board. He has been handling Instagram, coordinating with Pinche Gringo, and making sure that the stray Longhorns who wander into one of our events understand that there is an active Texas Exes community behind what they are seeing. That last part matters. Every new face is an opportunity to bring another Longhorn back into the family.

There has also been quite a bit happening behind the curtain with LLILAS. This year’s Latin American Studies Association conference took place in Paris, where LLILAS Director Dr. Adela Pineda Franco had the opportunity to speak with Dr. Claudia Gil de la Piedra, who has become the coordinator of our literature and art courses.

That literary conversation continues at our next breakfast on October 13, when fellow Longhorn, lawyer, and author Rolan Pelletier will join us to talk about his novel Era tan diferente cuando estabas tú. After seeing how much interest our literature activities have generated, I am especially happy to see those conversations finding their way into our regular Chapter gatherings as well.

RSVP for our next Breakfast on October 13

Next year LASA comes to Mexico City and we are already working with LLILAS on something considerably larger. We recently had the pleasure of welcoming LLILAS Director Dr. Adela Pineda Franco and Assistant Director Paloma Díaz to Mexico City. Over dinner, we talked at length about how we can continue expanding the literature initiatives we have begun together, and we also started looking at possible venues for a special gathering during LASA 2027.

With more than 100 UT academics expected to be here, LLILAS and the Mexico City Chapter are planning an event especially for them. I have a feeling we may be preparing to break the record for the largest Longhorn gathering we have ever held in Mexico City.

I also want to recognize our Scholarship Committee, which operates independently from the Chapter Board. This year they reviewed four excellent incoming Longhorns from Mexico and selected Karime Gonzalez Mejia for our 2026 Hook ’em Horns Scholarship. Their work is one of the clearest ways our alumni community can create a direct connection between Mexico and the Forty Acres.

And yes, I am still enjoying seeing Texas at No. 1.

I am especially happy that this month our Hook’em section includes the perspective of someone who actually worked inside the Texas Football strength and conditioning program, Rubén “Coach Duck” Contreras. More broadly, almost every part of this newsletter now has its own contributor. That may be what makes me happiest about this edition.

Thank you to Claudio, Pepe Usabiaga, Bernadette Lara, Javier Cervantes, Mark Alexander, Richard Hanson, Coach Duck, and everyone else who contributed ideas, time, and words. I genuinely think this is our best newsletter yet, and the reason is simple: more of the community is helping create it.

Finally, please do not leave this edition without reading Richard Hanson’s Project Worldwide article. His work with Tejiendo Alianzas in Oaxaca still amazes me as much as it did during our first phone conversation.

For us, Project Worldwide is a year-round commitment. Mark your calendar for October 21 and join Richard for our webinar. Let’s fill the room, learn what fellow Longhorns are already doing for Oaxaca and Mexico, and see if we can set another participation record together.

Hook ’em!

José Antonio “Toño” Pedraza
President | Texas Exes Mexico City Chapter
Texas Exes | Life Member

Breakfast Brief: The New North American Region, Over Coffee

By Claudio Jimenez

Our September breakfast with Mauricio Jaramillo Reyes gave the group a chance to look at the changes taking shape across North America through the eyes of someone who works directly with international trade and investment. Mauricio invited questions from the start, setting the tone for an open, professional conversation around the table.

Mauricio, President for Mexico and Secretary of the Board of the Texas-European Chamber of Commerce, brought the perspective of someone working directly across international investment, trade, manufacturing, technology, and cross-border business. From there, the conversation moved naturally across several issues that are increasingly difficult to separate.

The T-MEC review and the future of regional trade were at the center of the discussion, including questions around labor value content and how changing rules could affect companies operating across North America. The group also touched on artificial intelligence regulation in Mexico, cybersecurity and security as conditions for regional growth, stronger compliance systems, digital contracts, blockchain, and emerging business models built around AI.

What made the session especially useful was the format. Mauricio treated the breakfast as a working conversation, giving members plenty of room to ask questions and connect broad geopolitical and regulatory changes with the practical decisions many of us face in our own companies and industries.

The discussion raised questions worth following closely: How should businesses prepare for a changing trade environment? Which technologies will become part of the region’s infrastructure? How will regulation, security, and compliance shape the opportunities ahead?

It was also another good reminder of what happens around these breakfasts beyond the scheduled topic: reconnecting with classmates, meeting other Longhorns, and strengthening the professional and personal relationships within our Mexico City community.

If you missed this one, register here for our next breakfast on October 13, when fellow Longhorn Rolan Pelletier, lawyer and author, will join us to discuss his latest novel, Era tan diferente cuando estabas tú, and the intersection of literature, law, loss, identity, and reinvention.

Don’t Miss It

Save your spot for our October Project Worldwide activity

Hook’em: What I Saw in the Fourth Quarter

By the Rubén “Coach Duck” Contreras Salazar.

Rubén “Coach Duck” Contreras Salazar is a Mexico City-born football and strength coach who worked inside the Texas Football strength and conditioning program, contributing to the preparation and development of Longhorn athletes within the culture built by Head Coach Steve Sarkisian and Director of Football Performance Torre Becton. His work placed him directly in the day-to-day environment where strength, conditioning, discipline, accountability, and resilience are developed throughout the season. A former player and coach with more than 15 years of experience, Rubén now leads Duck4 Performance and is the founder and CEO of Bullnox4 in Mexico. His perspective on the Longhorns comes from having seen firsthand how the program prepares players physically and mentally for moments like the fourth-quarter comeback against Ohio State.

With 15 minutes left against No. 1 Ohio State, Texas was down 23-3.

Anyone who has spent time inside a football program knows what a moment like that exposes. By the fourth quarter, players are tired, adjustments have been made, and there is little room for mistakes. What remains are the habits you have trained all year.

That is what stood out to me about Texas.

The Longhorns scored 21 unanswered points to win 24-23. Their final three possessions were touchdown drives of at least 12 plays and 72 yards each. That requires patience, conditioning, communication, and the ability to execute one assignment after another while the pressure keeps increasing. The defense held Ohio State scoreless in the fourth quarter and gave the offense the opportunity to finish the comeback.

Having worked inside the Texas strength and conditioning environment, I know how much preparation goes into developing that response. Coach Torre Becton and his staff work every day on strength, speed, power, discipline, consistency, accountability, and performing while fatigued. Those qualities eventually become part of how a team responds under pressure.

Coach Steve Sarkisian has challenged this group to become tighter and compete together. Against Ohio State, we saw that preparation become visible.

Texas followed the win with a 30-6 victory over UTSA and enters this week ranked No. 1 in the country. Now comes another test: No. 14 Tennessee, on the road at Neyland Stadium.

As a coach, I’ll be watching how Texas responds after a bad play, the body language, the line of scrimmage late in the game, and whether eleven players keep doing their jobs when fatigue and pressure arrive.

That is where preparation shows up.

Join us Saturday for the Tennessee Watch Party and watch it with your fellow Longhorns in Mexico City.

Hook ’em. 🤘

Horns & Hobbies: The Books We Didn’t Know We Were Missing

By Pepe Usabiaga, Texas Exes Monterrey Chapter

One of the best signs that a literature course has worked is leaving it with a longer reading list than when you started. That was one participant’s reaction to our recent SIG Literatura atelier, Cuentos inquietantes mexicanos del siglo XX.

Led by Dr. Claudia Gil de la Piedra, the course brought together Juan Rulfo, Ramón Rubín, Guadalupe Dueñas, Adela Fernández, Ana de Gómez Mayorga and Francisco Tario. For one reader, Rulfo was the only familiar name at the beginning. By the end, Tario, Dueñas and the others had become writers worth adding to the home library. As the participant put it, “my library and I came out richer.”

That discovery was only part of the appeal. Claudia’s approach places each story inside the world that produced it. The conversations connected the authors to their time, geography and social circumstances, while also tracing relationships among the writers themselves and with better-known figures in Mexican literature. That context helped turn individual stories into pieces of a much larger literary map.

It also gave us another way to look at subjects that continue to resonate: family, social roles, inequality, loneliness, rural and urban Mexico, and the strange spaces where everyday life begins to feel unsettling.

That is becoming one of the pleasures of our literature activities: discovering writers we might never have picked up on our own, and then having other Longhorns with whom to discuss them.

The literary conversation continues on October 13, when fellow Longhorn, lawyer and author Rolan Pelletier joins our monthly breakfast to discuss his new novel, Era tan diferente cuando estabas tú, and the path from law to fiction. And just in time for Halloween and Día de Muertos, Dr. Claudia Gil de la Piedra will also return with our seasonal literature course, Literatura para noches inquietantes: Fantasmas, monstruos y lo sobrenatural.

If books are one of your hobbies too, come join the conversation.

Know Your Longhorn: Ana Eisenhauer

By the Bernadette Lara

Ana Eisenhauer has spent much of her career navigating change, and lately she has been creating some of her own.

A chemical engineer by training, Ana moved to the United States shortly after college for what was supposed to be a one-year project. The company offered her a permanent position in Texas, and that temporary move turned into 18 years in Houston.

Her career eventually expanded far beyond engineering. Over the years, Ana held leadership roles at Dow, KBR, TRC Companies, and most recently Brenntag, where she served as Regional President for Mexico and Central America. Her work has crossed strategy, marketing, commercial operations, transformation, and P&L leadership. She also earned her MBA from UT Austin in 2008.

Texas Exes has also been part of her story for years. Ana joined the Boston Chapter board in 2021, just as alumni groups were emerging from the pandemic. She later served as Chapter President, helping rebuild activities and bring the community back together. The chapter remains active today, something she is understandably proud of.

In 2025, Ana moved to Mexico City with her husband and youngest son. She admits she arrived without especially high expectations. That changed quickly. The family has settled in happily and now thoroughly enjoys life in CDMX.

Then, in 2026, Ana made another deliberate turn. She began studying and writing more deeply about organizational behavior and launched The Unwritten Rules, where she publishes essays and videos about the informal dynamics that shape leadership, careers, and decision-making. That work has also taken her into the classroom as a professor at Universidad Incarnate Word in Mexico City. 

She describes teaching as a chance to share lessons other leaders might otherwise have to learn through trial and error.

Ana has also jumped into chapter life here. One recent favorite has been the literature courses, which she says have been both fun and genuinely educational, especially as a way to learn more about Mexican history and culture.

For her, Texas Exes activities offer exactly what she values: new people, new subjects, and experiences she probably would not encounter otherwise.

Hook’em, Ana!

Project Worldwide: From Texas Classrooms to Community Partnerships in Oaxaca

By Richard Hanson

Over the past several years, one of the most rewarding parts of our work at Tejiendo Alianzas has been seeing what happens when universities and rural communities work together around real problems.

In Oaxaca, our focus is on creating sustainable employment, strengthening local capacity, and supporting community-led solutions. That has taken us into small-business incubation, renewable energy, STEM education, regenerative agriculture, and several projects where students and professionals can contribute useful knowledge while learning directly from the communities themselves.

The UT connection is already substantial. In 2026, around 20 Cockrell School engineering students participated in solar-energy installations and STEM workshops that reached more than 260 rural middle-school students. Nine McCombs MBA students worked on the market viability of an agave-mesquite regenerative agriculture model, while two UT Austin Social Work interns contributed to other community initiatives.

Across seven universities, we engaged 68 students this year, bringing cumulative participation since 2017 to more than 300 university students, engineers, and consultants.

The projects themselves are equally varied. In San Dionisio Ocotepec, engineering teams have been helping DAVA Artisan Design, a women-led footwear and leathercraft enterprise, improve production processes while supporting year-round local employment. In Santiago Suchilquitongo, solar infrastructure is helping power a middle school, support hands-on STEM activities, and improve access to water. Other initiatives are exploring mesquite-based food products, traditional palm crafts, and ways to restore farmland affected by intensive agave cultivation.

Now I would like to open that conversation to the broader Texas Exes community.

On October 21, I will be joining the Mexico City Chapter online to share more about what we are doing in Oaxaca, what we have learned from these collaborations, and where professionals, mentors, experts, partners, and institutions may be able to contribute knowledge, connections, and ideas.

If you have ever wondered how your own experience might be useful in a community-based project, I hope you will join us.

Register now and be part of the conversation.

Meanwhile in Austin: What I Brought Back from the CNLC

By Dr. Javier Cervantes

On September 4, I had the opportunity to represent the Mexico City Chapter at the annual Texas Exes Chapter & Network Leadership Conference (CNLC) at the Etter-Harbin Alumni Center. I had attended these meetings years ago when I served as Chapter President, and this year’s gathering felt especially well organized and welcoming.

More than 100 chapter and network representatives participated. To my surprise, Mexico City was the only chapter from outside the United States represented in the room.

Texas Exes President and Chair Lee Beckelman (on the photo with me) opened the day by emphasizing the role chapters and networks play in keeping alumni connected with UT. Later, UT President Jim Davis spoke about the University’s future and several priorities that are already reshaping the Forty Acres.

The Tower naturally occupied a special place in that conversation. Its restoration is well underway, including work on the exterior, interior spaces, entrances, observation deck, clock and surrounding areas. For those of us who have known the Tower for decades, seeing how seriously UT is preparing this symbol for future generations was particularly striking.

David Livingston, UT’s Vice President for Development, also spoke about philanthropy supporting scholarships, faculty, research and major projects. Another important priority is the emerging UT Medical Center, which will bring together Dell Medical School, UT’s research strengths and MD Anderson cancer care.

During the afternoon, I joined a panel session on building stronger alumni connections. Listening to other chapter leaders was encouraging. Many of their challenges sounded familiar: attracting volunteers, finding activities that appeal to different groups, and keeping alumni engaged.

It also made me appreciate what is happening in Mexico City. Our breakfasts, Special Interest Groups (SIG's), social media, sports gatherings and growing variety of activities compare very well with what I heard from chapters across the United States.

The conference closed with a group photo and a relaxed happy hour over wine, salads, and cheese, giving us one last chance to keep the conversations going and connect with fellow Texas Exes from across the country. I left Austin with new ideas, useful contacts, and an even stronger appreciation for what we are building in Mexico City.

Meanwhile in Mexico: Meet Our 2026 Hook ’em Horns Scholar

By Mark Alexander

This year’s scholarship committee had an unusually difficult choice.

Four first-year UT Austin students from Mexico applied for the Mexico City Chapter’s Hook ’em Horns Scholarship. Two came from the Mexico City area, one from Monterrey, and one from Puerto Vallarta. Their academic interests ranged from Petroleum Engineering to Economics and International Relations, and the group was evenly divided between women and men.

The chapter ultimately selected Karime Gonzalez Mejia, a freshman from the Mexico City area with an interest in Economics, as the recipient of the Hook'em Horns Scholarship.

Karime graduated from Prepa Tec Multicultural at Tecnológico de Monterrey’s Santa Fe campus with a 96.53/100 average, earning an academic merit scholarship, academic excellence recognition, and an honorific mention at graduation. Her language profile includes Spanish, English, German, and French, and outside the classroom she has competed in triathlons, running, and long-distance cycling.

Her application also reflected community involvement through volunteer projects focused on children, teamwork, and housing.

The selection itself is only part of the story. With help from Texas Global, the scholarship invitation reached 20 incoming freshmen from Mexico this summer. Two of this year’s four applicants came directly through that outreach, a useful example of how collaboration between Austin and our chapter can help us find and support new Mexican Longhorns.

Karime has already sent the chapter this short thank-you video and has been invited to stay in touch during her first year. We hope to welcome her at one of our breakfasts when she is back in Mexico.

For a chapter based more than 1,500 kilometers from the Forty Acres, helping a new Mexican student begin her UT journey is one very tangible way to keep that connection growing.

Hook ’em, Karime!

Support Our Scholarship & Project Worldwide

Bring’em Back

how to

Our chapter gets stronger every time a Longhorn finds their way back in. If you know a UT friend who has gone a little off the radar, bring them back.

The easiest way is to use the “Invite a Friend” option after registering for any Luma event. 

And yes, we are keeping score:

  • 1 point for every new person you bring back through the "Invite a Friend" option
  • 💸 1 point = 20% off any chapter event
  • 🎁 3 points = one free breakfast
  • 🤘 More points = official Co-op merch straight from Austin

When someone joins through your Luma invite link, we can see who brought them in, so every successful comeback counts. You can also send them straight to our official chapter registry at https://bit.ly/texasexescdmx

Let’s #BringEmBack together, one Longhorn at a time.

Click Here

Subscribe to our Luma calendar. If you received this newsletter by email, you are already subscribed. If not, click here and hit Subscribe.

Join the official Texas Exes Mexico City registry. Register at https://bit.ly/texasexescdmx to become an official chapter member. This will also subscribe you to the calendar, so it is the easiest one-stop shop.

The above already complicated? New to the chapter? Start with The Guide. We have an official chapter guide to help you get oriented. Click here.

Visit The Official Texas Exes website. Check out the main Texas Exes Mexico City Chapter home page here.

Questions, comments, or feedback? Email us at mexicocitychapter@texasexes.org

September 2026 | Issue No. 6 | 416 subscribers | Previous issues