Master of Collaboration
“Right livelihood,” the alignment of professional purpose and personal values, serves as Greg Marshall’s credo and foundation in his role as Rice University’s Director of University Relations and as the South Main Alliance’s board chair (2025-2027). For Greg, right livelihood is anchored in what he learned as a young man: it all starts with the “RICE” framework, responsibility, integrity, community and excellence, which he has lived and breathed since his undergrad years at Rice and into his 34+ year career with the university.
Rice University is deeply important to Greg. In addition to leading the Office of Public Affairs, he chairs the university’s annual United Way Campaign; represents Rice on the boards of the Rice Village Alliance and University Place Super Neighborhood, as well as SMA; and founded both the Rice Historical Society and the Rice Vote Coalition. He’s fascinated by the history of Rice and readily spins a recount of the university’s founding in the early 1900s on remote farmland along a dirt road far south from Houston’s nascent little downtown area.
And let there be RICE! Houston in 1912, as told by Greg
Greg is equally passionate about SMA’s work supporting the institutions, neighborhoods, parks, the “everything” that is the South Main corridor. He, like all the members of SMA, believes the corridor holds the true heart of Houston: the community and innovation flowing from it embody what makes the city special in every arena: around the state, nationally, globally... It is, in Greg’s words, “the crown jewel.” There is no corner of the world that Houston and its vibrant community doesn’t touch.
However, it’s the collaborative spirit of the city that makes it all work. Greg has a front-row seat to the flow of innovation from his own institution and its partnerships with other Houston organizations, businesses and families. It includes Rice Alum Howard Hughes and his tremendous impact on not just Houston’s economic future, but it’s global impact; the rise of NASA from the vision of a pair of Rice U roomies who twisted arms all the way to D.C. to make it happen; all the gumption and mad vision behind creation of the “Eighth Wonder of the World” Houston Astrodome. As Greg says, “it doesn’t matter who you are, it matters what you say and then what you do.” Houston enables invention: everywhere one looks, collaboration, vision, infectious entrepreneurship bubbles up, improving lives, creating prosperity and changing the world.