John S. “Johnny” Butler, the McCombs Professor of Management, director of the Herb Kelleher Center for Entrepreneurship and director of the IC2 Institute at the University of Texas-Austin, recently received the Special Achievement Award at the 2009 Tech Innovation Awards sponsored by the Austin Business Journal.

Butler was recognized for helping expand entrepreneurship at UT and promoting the ICÇ Institute – an organization dedicated to the creation of new ventures throughout the world – in Mexico, India, Poland, Portugal and Korea. The award was presented on Oct. 14.

“This was a great award to receive,” said Butler during a recent  telephone interview.

John S. “Johnny” Butler accepts the Austin Business Journal’s Special Achievement Award from Laura Kilcrease of Triton Ventures, an ICÇ Institute Advisory Board Member. COURTESY PHOTO Advertisement

“At UT, we concentrate on the creation of companies and wealth. We’ve done a great job in Texas.”

A native of Franklinton, Butler was a 1965 graduate of Washington Parish High School, where he was an All-District basketball player and first chair trombone player in the school band. He is the son of the late Thomas Jefferson Butler, who was a county agent, and Johnnie Mae Butler, a retired elementary school teacher who resides in Franklinton. 

“My father was a county agent, so I grew up with the (Washington Parish) fair,” Butler said.

“I’ve got four brothers and sisters and everybody went to college. I had a great time growing up in Franklinton. The teachers in high school prepared me well. It was the best place in the world to grow up.”

As he mentioned, Butler is a fourth-generation college graduate. He earned a bachelor’s degree from the LSU College of Arts and Sciences in 1969 and a Ph.D. from Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill., in 1974. He serves on the LSU Alumni Association National Board of Directors.

At UT, Butler holds the Gale Chair in Entrepreneurship and Small Business in the Graduate School of Business; a joint appointment in the College of Liberal Arts, where he holds the Darrell K. Royal Regents Professorship in Ethics and American Society; and is the Sam Barshop Fellow at the IC2 Institute.

A Vietnam veteran, he was awarded the Bronze Star for valor in combat.

For the last seven years, Butler has occupied the Distinguished Visiting Professor position at Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo, Japan, and last year was named a distinguished Libra Professorship at the University of Southern Maine. He is currently management consultant for State Farm Insurance Companies. He also served on the Economic Advisory Team of Gov. George Bush’s 2000 Presidential Campaign.

Butler’s research is in the areas of organizational behavior and entrepreneurship/new ventures.

He has appeared on more than 30 radio and television programs, including Eye On America (CBS Nightly News), The Jim Leher News Hour, CBS Radio Talk Show, The Osgood Report  and Public Radio. This year, his research has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, Time Magazine, U.S. News and World Report, and other newspapers and magazines across America.

His books include Entrepreneurship and Self-Help Among Black America: A Reconsideration of Race and Economics; All That We Can Be: Black Leadership and Racial Integration the Army Way (with Charles C. Moskos – Winner of the Washington Monthly Best Book Award); Immigrant and Minority Entrepreneurship: The Continuous Rebirth of American Communities (with George Kozmetsky, forthcoming); and, Forgotten Citations: Studies in Community, Entrepreneurship, and Self-Help Among Black-Americans (with Patricia Gene Greene and Margaret Johnson, forthcoming).