Robert R. Furgason, President of Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi announced that the university's first-ever publication, Our Time, by Melvyn N. Klein will be released soon.
Our Time is a compilation of columns that Klein wrote for the Corpus Christi Caller-Times from 1981 through 1999. The book is organized around many of the leading issues, people, and events in South Texas, the State of Texas, the United States, and the world during the last twenty years of the 1900's.
In the Foreword to the book, former Corpus Christi Caller-Times Publisher Edward H. Harte states, "Several themes recur in these columns. Mel often sees events as reflections of individual courage or enterprise, and propounds his view that individuals can and do make a difference. He finds lessons in the past, but his preoccupation is with the future, the accelerating pace of change and the challenges it presents."
Comments from readers of Klein's columns are impressive. Former President George H.W. Bush said, "I have read a number of your columns and have enjoyed your insights and commentary on people and issues of importance during the past 20 years." Also listed on the jacket and inside the book are comments about Klein's columns from the Reverend Robert Schuller, John Updike, Bill Greehey, Peter Holt, and Charles Butt. Robert G. McKelvey, a member of the Executive Committee of the Association of Rhodes Scholars writes, "These essays exhibit extraordinary breadth and depth: breadth in the wide range of interests and issues which engage Mel Klein; and depth in the insights and hidden truths he finds in people and events, great and little known."
With respect to one column, the Honorable Stuart E. Eizenstat, currently Under Secretary of the U.S. Treasury, wrote that, "One especially prescient (column) in 1988 forecast the end of Communism in the Soviet Union. His (Klein's) were among the first writings which foretold the dramatic shifts from military priorities to economic relationships which would occur from this cataclysmic event in our relations with Russia, as well as ways our relationships with Europe, Japan, India, and Pakistan would be affected."
Mr. Klein is the Managing General Partner of GKH Partners, L.P., an investment partnership.
Klein was the commencement speaker for TAMU-CC's Spring 1994 graduation ceremonies. At that time, Dr. Furgason said that he chose Klein "because he has had a wide variety of life experiences and is an excellent role model."
In 1995, Klein was selected for the prestigious Doctorate of Humane Letters from Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. Other recipients of this honor are Dr. Hector P. Garcia, Mary Haas and Edward H. Harte. Also in 1995, Klein was named an Adjunct Professor of Business at the university; he continues to hold that position.
Woolford Publishing assisted in the publication of Our Time. All proceeds to the author of Our Time are being donated to the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center for cancer research.