Last updated on September 13, 2025
During my time at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA), I was fortunate to be part of the inaugural College of Business Leadership Challenge Program. Launched in 1992 by the Center for Professional Excellence, the program aimed to develop leadership skills among undergraduate students, preparing us for future roles in business and community engagement.
This pivotal experience would not have been possible without Dr. Gary Raffaele. He recommended me for the program and became a professor and mentor I was fortunate to study under multiple times. As the leader of the Human Resources program within UTSA’s College of Business, where I earned my degree, Dr. Raffaele’s teaching went far beyond textbooks. He challenged us to think critically, pushed us to engage beyond the classroom, and encouraged us to develop a broader perspective on leadership. His mentorship shaped my participation in the Leadership Challenge Program and, by extension, my earliest exposure to the way business and community engagement intersect.
The curriculum covered the fundamentals you would expect: leadership, collaboration, finance. But the most profound takeaway for me came from our work with the United Way Fund Distribution Committee. Unlike a classroom exercise, this was hands-on. We were given the opportunity to sit in on committee meetings, visit nonprofit facilities, and hear directly from executive directors and founders about the critical work their organizations were doing.
As young students, we were not the decision-makers responsible for allocating funds, but we had a front-row seat to the process. We witnessed firsthand the complexity of community needs and the impact of charitable contributions. At that stage in my life, I intellectually understood that there were people in need, but experiencing it up close changed my perspective forever.
Meeting recipients of these services, listening to their stories, and seeing the direct impact of nonprofit efforts gave me a deep appreciation for how crucial community support systems are. Looking back now, I realize this was likely an intentional part of the program: to instill in future business leaders a sense of responsibility to contribute beyond corporate walls and into the communities they serve.
Dr. Raffaele often reminded us that “you cannot lead people you do not understand.” That line has stayed with me. Leadership is not about standing above but standing with. You cannot ask people to follow you if you have never bothered to see the world from where they stand. The United Way experience drove that point home in a way no lecture alone could have accomplished.
As my career progressed and I took on greater responsibility, the lessons from those early days stayed with me. Serving later on nonprofit boards, I carried the memory of those committee meetings and site visits. Sitting around the table discussing budgets or program design, I remembered the faces and voices of the people whose lives those decisions would affect. It was never just numbers on a page. It was impact in action.
The understanding I gained from the United Way experience, combined with the guidance of Dr. Raffaele, shaped my views on leadership and reinforced my commitment to giving back. In business, it is easy to get caught up in strategy, profit, and performance. Those things matter, but they cannot come at the expense of people. The best leaders I have known understood this instinctively. They could drive results, but they never lost sight of the fact that people are not statistics. They are individuals with stories, needs, and dreams.
The gift of perspective is not something you learn once and carry forever. It requires practice. It requires humility. And it requires the willingness to admit that your way of seeing the world is not the only way. That is what the Leadership Challenge taught me, and what mentors like Dr. Raffaele reinforced: leadership without empathy is just management dressed up in a title.
Dr. Raffaele may never fully know how much those lessons meant to me, but his influence has rippled through every boardroom, classroom, and community project I have been part of since. His recommendation opened a door that led to one of the most formative experiences of my life, and his teaching helped me walk through it with purpose.
For that, I will always be grateful.
About the Author
David Vega is the author of Fool for Thought: Reflections on Life, Identity, and Open-Mindedness and CEO of Rockwall Capital Group, which owns The Rockwall Times. His weekly Life Happens column reflects on perseverance, leadership, and purpose, inspired by his own journey from humble beginnings to executive leadership. Active in the Rockwall community, David serves on several non-profit boards and enjoys giving back to the place he calls home with his wife and children. Learn more about his work at foolforthought.life
