Paul Moxley, Chief Executive Officer, Texas Regional Bank
Janet Vackar, President, Bert Ogden Auto Group

The honor of Man and Woman of 2017 has gone to two people with exceptional credentials who are respected by the entire community serving on multiple boards, working with non-profits and contributing as leaders in major companies. Paul Moxley and Janet Vackar are making a difference in their community.

Paul Moxley, Chief Executive Officer, Texas Regional Bank, is normally a private man who prefers to keep his works and good deeds quiet. However, receiving this title of Man of the Year has Paul opening the vaults of his memories, remembering those who shaped him into the man he has become.

He recalled the strong influence of his mother and shared one of his favorite memories of her: she used to hang his little 5 or 6-year old ADHD body by his belt on the doorknob to keep him from creating havoc around her customers, his legs swinging wildly.

Uncle Dexter taught him his strong work ethic during those long summer days when Paul visited his uncle’s farm.

“I learned about getting up early, milking cows, and gathering eggs,” he said. “Uncle Dexter would put wooden blocks on my feet so I could drive a truck at 8-years old. One of the lasting things he taught me was after I arrived home late one day. He said, ‘If you’re going somewhere, you need to get there. If you’re leaving point A, you want to get to point B as fast as you can.’ For the rest of my life, I’ve been running from point A to point B.”

His football coaches oversaw him as his football career progressed, eventually earning him a football scholarship at Trinity University where he studied his dream career – engineering.

Paul’s Army sergeant made a soldier out of him.

“My sergeant kept me in line and moving in the right direction,” he said. “It was in Vietnam I learned respect for life, leadership, and gained an understanding of our government-military versus politics.”

Paul’s nature has always been to run hard, work hard, and play hard, and in Vietnam he added living life to its fullest.

Returning home and ready to dive into his engineering career, a major developer, Trammel Crow, changed his life with one sentence.

“Anybody can build, anybody can sell, but if you don’t understand money and how to manage money, you’ll never make it in this game,” Crow had said.

Paul met with Glen Roney of Texas State Bank, who steered him into his long time banking career.

Loving his work, helping the people, and giving to the community have become his life, thanks to so many mentors over the years. He has one last goal to reach.
“I want to sit in a rocking chair next to my wife, Paula, and be able to say, ‘I wish I had not done that instead of saying I wished I had done that.’”

To know life had not passed him by, that he lived it to the fullest he could, is his dream. At this rate, it’s a sure bet those many who influenced him along the way will help him reach his final objective.

Janet Vackar, President, Bert Ogden Auto Group, is a woman made up of the compilation of the people and happenings of her life. Yet, at her core, she is a nature sprite finding joy in all things, an astute businesswoman in her family’s corporation, and a woman full of laughter, love, compassion, and a fun sense of humor who keeps friends and family in stitches.

“I’ve been a ham since I was born,” she laughed.

She told the story of greeting her dad when he came home at night with her little “Cadillac” he had given her. She had it turned upside down in the driveway so he’d see her and be proud she was working on cars like him. Her joie de vivre was, and still is, contagious.

After school she moved to Houston and developed a successful dance/aerobic company with such clients as Dow Chemical Company.

“I put dance to steps and made that into an exercise program,” she said. “Everyone loved it.”

Marrying Bob, they moved back to the Valley when her dad suggested Bob work for him. A natural talent, Janet found her path, first in the commercials with her dad, and then in the community and the non-profit and board work she is so well known for. Her works include such things as hosting the Easter Seals telethon since 1984, supporting the Palm Valley Animal Shelter, and chairing the Doctor’s Hospital at Renaissance Cancer Foundation Gala.

Janet follows in her salesman dad’s knack for selling, first outselling her fellow Girl Scouts, when little, and then as a Junior League member for the first Dias Festivos.

“It was the most fun I’ve ever had in my life, and I was the top ticket seller and won the Lizzie Award,” she said.

That was, of course, until her grandchildren were born. These days the “Dale Gas” lady also has fun with her little ones. Keeping up her busy life, she finds happiness as a Secret Santa all year long with a heart as big as an ocean, she loves being incognito in her surprise gifting.

At the same time, Janet keeps her hand in the company her parents started, overseeing with Bob each addition to their multiple franchises.

Through her joys and her sorrows, the Valley has always been there for her.

“The people of the Valley gave me strength,” she said. “I didn’t want all my father’s hard work with the people to be forgotten when they were gone.”

Shaped and molded by the love the laughter, and the friendships she’s built, Janet had evolved into the well-deserved 2017 Woman of the Year.