Ep. 62 – “Texas Sustainability” Featuring Dick Weekley (Texans for Lawsuit Reform)

Texans have forever prided themselves on our hardworking, gritty and friendly nature. We were lucky enough to visit with Dick Weekley this week who embodies all of those qualities and more. Dick is a true champion for the State of Texas - as a Texas Business Hall of Fame honoree, a philanthropist with several Texas based organizations, and with the work he and the team at Texans for Lawsuit Reform (TLR) are doing to keep Texas the pro-business place it is.

After graduating from SMU and doing a tour of duty with the US Navy in Vietnam, Dick returned to his hometown of Houston and was simply looking for a job. Today we heard the story of how he and his brother David got started in the home building business (and ultimately built David Weekley Homes into the largest private homebuilder in the U.S.) and how he began to get involved in the litigation-plagued days of the early 1990s and ultimately co-founded TLR. As you will hear, TLR is an advocate for businesses across the state by both fighting against abusive lawsuits to businesses and also supporting pro-business reforms. The work they have done for the state has transformed Texas over the past two decades into a model for the rest of the country as a great place to do business. If you are interested in learning more, we are attaching the link to their webpage here.

We would be remiss if we didn’t also mention the philanthropic work Dick has led for the City of Houston through the Quality of Life Coalition of Houston. They are a group of over 70 organizations from the civic, business and environmental communities to work to beautify and develop the city. We can thank them for the beautiful 150+ miles of hike and bike trails along the bayous!

It was a fantastic discussion and we couldn't be more thankful to Dick for his time and the work he is doing for Texas. TLR isn't just helping Texas though... it's creating a pro-business model for the entire nation. A full complete copy of the slides from today's presentation can be found here.

The TPH team kicked off the session with some thoughts around price formation: Mike Bradley discussed the market's concerns about policy-fueled inflation, unintentionally candid sentiments from Treasury and the party line from the Federal Reserve; Matt Portillo continued the theme with observations on supply-chain disruptions and cost-push dynamics across the automotive sector. Colin Fenton shared a few tactical commodity slides to remind us the paths of commodity prices can stumble and fall even in inflationary environments. He then analyzed the fine print behind recent legislation proposing a ban on sale, purchase, and registration of gas cars in Washington by 2030, as a lead-in to our conversation with Dick.

As always, we hope you find this week's episode interesting, informative and thought-provoking. Thank you for friendship and support!