As the School’s Hearst Professional-in-Residence, Montemayor, a senior vice president at McGraw-Hill Cos. in New York, spoke to a dozen classes in April and gave a brief talk to the School’s Advisory Board on his final day on campus.
He told the board he was impressed with some of the students and faculty he had met and said he wished his professors at Texas Tech University -- from which he graduated with a journalism degree in 1975 -- had possessed as much professional experience.
Montemayor talked about his years as a reporter for The Dallas Times Herald, now defunct, and the Los Angeles Times, where he was part of a reporting team that won the Pulitzer Prize Gold Medal for meritorious service for a lengthy series about Latinos in the United States. Montemayor previously had been nominated three times for a Pulitzer. He also won a George Polk award, was a finalist for the Robert F. Kennedy award and won numerous Associated Press awards in a 10-year reporting career.
Montemayor told students to learn a second, perhaps even a third language and encouraged them to travel abroad. Such skills and experiences, he said, help to advance careers. He said he knew Spanish, Portuguese and was now learning Mandarin because of McGraw-Hill’s growing presence in China.
At McGraw-Hill, Montemayor oversees circulation and marketing campaigns for Business Week, McGraw-Hill’s flagship publication, as well as the 20 other magazines and trade journals; he also manages some of McGraw-Hill’s on-line properties. As busy as he is -- he traveled more than 40,000 miles last year -- Montemayor told classes he always appreciates talking to students because they represent the industry’s future.
"Call me," he told students, "if you’re in New York and want to talk about jobs." By the end of the week, he was nearly out of his stash of business cards.