Page 36 - Briefcase Volume 36 Number 2

DONOR

BARBARA ’75 AND DAVID QUACKENBUSH

Embracing Challenges and Paying It Forward with Planned Giving

Barbara Quackenbush moved to Houston in 1965 after Quackenbush, whose maiden name was Payton-Wright,
graduating from Birmingham-Southern College with a B.A. made the move to Houston with a Pi Beta Phi sorority sister
cum laude in Latin. After initially planning to teach that and landed a job as personal secretary to legendary heart
subject, she instead decided to be a secretary, a career option surgeon Dr. Michael DeBakey. After four years, she moved on
common to young women of that era. to become a secretary to the head of an accounting firm, but
“It was kind of understood that women would either be a did not feel challenged by her work.
secretary, nurse or teacher until we got married, had children “I found that very boring,” Quackenbush said. “So, I decided
and lived happily ever after,” Quackenbush said. “I truly never to become a legal secretary and was hired by Dan Arnold, head
thought of going to law school, business school, medical school of the real estate section of Vinson & Elkins, Houston’s largest
or anything else.” law firm.

36 UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON LAW CENTER