From Laredo to Austin
Jeff was always a hard worker. As a student, he washed dishes at the Castilian dormitory and worked at the Texas Capitol to help pay for living expenses and to buy gifts for his younger siblings back home.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember when Jeff came home for Christmas break, he would bring gifts. One year, when I was about 8 years old, I got a UT football jersey,\u201d says his younger brother, Robbie Greenblum, B.A. \u201985, \u201cwhich made a big impression back then. Jeff was deeply connected to both UT and Laredo \u2014 he returned to Laredo regularly to be with family, friends and work summer jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Laredo, Jeff worked in his family\u2019s furniture business, which operated across the border in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. \u201cWe grew up constantly thinking and speaking in two languages and converting pesos to dollars in our heads,\u201d Robbie says. \u201cWe had to understand two cultures and two systems of government.\u201d<\/p>\n
The experience helped Jeff learn the practical ins and outs of international business and shaped his later professional interests. Highlights of Jeff\u2019s distinguished career include his service as a presidential appointee under President George H.W. Bush, as director of the Office of Africa at the U.S. Department of Commerce, and as a senior executive in the Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management at the Department of Energy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From Laredo to AustinJeff was always a hard worker. As a student, he washed dishes at the Castilian…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14274,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,11657],"class_list":["post-14273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-what-starts-here-campaign-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14273\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}