Walton College Alumni to Be Honored at Banquet

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Three outstanding alumni of the Sam M. Walton College of Business – a Walmart senior vice president, the founder and chief executive officer of Total Transit and a retired senior vice president at Hewlett-Packard – will be recognized for their business leadership and accomplishments at the college’s 2013 awards banquet.

The banquet will be held at 6 p.m. Thursday, April 18, at the Fayetteville Town Center.

The following awards will be presented:

• Outstanding Service Award – Ann Bordelon, Bachelor of Science in Business Administration in accounting and computer information systems, 1989.
• Entrepreneur of the Year Award – Craig Hughes, Bachelor of Science in Business Administration in marketing and transportation, 1976.
• Lifetime Achievement Award – Charlie McMurtry, Bachelor of Science in Business Administration in marketing, 1970.

Ann Bordelon

Ann Bordelon

Bordelon was appointed senior vice president and chief financial officer, Walmart Asia, in February 2013. She joined Walmart in 2003 as assistant controller and has served in a variety of finance and accounting roles, most recently as senior vice president and chief financial officer of Sam’s Club. Prior to joining Walmart, Bordelon was a senior manager in Ernst & Young’s Assurance and Advisory Services Business. She also worked for Tyson Foods in finance and accounting positions. Bordelon is a 2004 graduate of Walmart’s Business Leadership Series and a 2006 graduate of Dartmouth College’s Global Leadership 2020 program in the Amos Tuck School of Business. Bordelon was appointed as a charter member of Walmart’s President’s Global Council of Women Leaders and also works closely with the National Association of Female Executives, Network of Executive Women and the International Women’s Forum. She serves on the U.S. Financial Accounting Standards Board and International Accounting Standards Board Joint Working Group on Lease Accounting and is a member of the Walton College Dean’s Executive Advisory Board. Bordelon currently resides in Hong Kong with her husband, Gene, and son, Edward. Her daughter, Lindsay, is a freshman at the Walton College.

Craig Hughes

Craig Hughes

Hughes, is founder and chief executive officer of Total Transit Inc., in Phoenix, Ariz., which operates the largest hybrid cab fleet in North America. The company kicked off its Prius project on Earth Day in 2008, putting 20 Prius taxis on the street with a promise to have 250 hybrid cabs in three years. Its Discount Cab division now operates over 700 hybrid taxis, saving more than 2.5 million gallons of fuel a year. Total Transit, founded in 1984 by Hughes and his wife, Christine, currently operates a taxi dispatch center that handles more than 11,000 calls a day on average. Over the past several years, the company has shown an average annual growth rate of 25 percent, with 40 percent growth in 2012. The company won Innovator of the Year in 2012 in the Arizona Corporate Excellence awards for its Virtual Dial-A-Ride. Total Transit currently manages medical transportation statewide in Arizona and California and locally in Houston, Texas. In the Phoenix area, the company manages express bus routes, community circulators and dial-a-ride. The company prides itself on community involvement, with all corporate leaders on a leadership committee or involved with a non-profit corporation. Other awards garnered by Total Transit include a 2010 Green Pioneer Award, 2011 Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year finalist and a 2011 Arizona Corporate Excellence award as one of the 50 largest private companies in the state.

Charlie McMurtry

Charlie McMurtry

McMurtry, who lives in Bella Vista, had a 40-year career with Fortune 500 companies, including NCR, Walmart, Dell and Hewlett-Packard. He retired in August 2012 as a senior vice president in Hewlett-Packard’s Information Technology Division. McMurtry started his career in a sales position with NCR in Little Rock, working in their newly formed computer sales division. During his more than 14 years there he held numerous positions in sales and systems engineering. As an account executive responsible for Walmart, he helped NCR gain its first foothold with the retail giant. In 1987, he joined Walmart in its IT Division, spending 14 years there, including time as vice president, applications development. McMurtry was responsible for developing the systems strategy for Walmart’s Hypermart Store, which led to their Supercenter concept. He also was responsible for Walmart’s vendor information-sharing strategy, Retail Link. McMurtry served on the Walton College Information Technology Research Institute board from 2004 to 2012. In 2008, he was elected into the Arkansas Academy of Computing and became a member of its executive board in 2013.