He might have a lot yet to learn, but newly named Austin foundation director Jeff Lau exudes competence.
Perhaps it was absorbed while serving as an aide to Gen. Dennis Via, who recently got a fourth star (called a “pip”) snapped onto his shoulder boards.
Or it could come from his two-and-a-half year gig at a Wall Street firm before accepting a plea from a longtime friend to transform his Austin charity.
At any rate, Lau now heads the Andy Roddick Foundation. Previously known for its celebrity dinners — a concert gala with soul singer John Legend is slated for Sept. 21 at ACL Live — the group is evolving from a family-and-volunteer outfit that has given millions to children’s charities to one that directly mentors young people through sports.
Today, the tennis star and his childhood rival announced plans to convert an East Austin building into a youth center with eight courts where tennis will be used to teach character and discipline, a mission similar to that of the golf charity First Tee.
Upright and trim, Lau, 31, speaks with the crisp fluency and alert precision that one hears in leaders such as retired Gen. Colin Powell and, yes, President Barack Obama.
Born in Iowa City, Iowa, he arrived in Texas at age 2. His father, Steve Lau, a pharmacist at Seton Northwest, grew up in Hong Kong and studied at the University of Texas. His mother, Tina Yeh Lau, an accountant at Level 3 Communications, moved with her family to Taiwan when the communists took over China.
His only brother, Justin Lau, is preparing for his third tour of duty in Afghanistan as an Air Force pilot. How did both sons of immigrants land in the U.S. military?
“I think it’s more an accident,” the older brother say s. “We are close and he saw me go through West Point. It opened his eyes.”
By his own account, Jeff Lau was a hardworking, outgoing kid whose parents assigned summer homework. Still, he played a lot of tennis. He first encountered Roddick at age 9 during a Caswell Tennis Center tourney.
“I lost,” he says. “To my great disappointment.” Under coaches Jack Newman and Eric Schmidhauser at St. Stephen’s, Lau rose to the top 15 in the state for his age group.
“I was a power player,” he recalls. “An aggressive baseline player. Not the type to run around the court all day waiting for the opponent to make a mistake. I’d force things to happen.”
Lau was recruited by several Ivy League schools but selected the Military Academy for several reasons.
“My parents always had a deep reverence for West Point,” he says. “I was highly encouraged to visit. Which I did. And that changed my entire outlook.”
What he noticed most about that campus visit was the transformed youth.
“You saw men just a couple of years older than me — their posture, firm handshakes, eye contact,” he says “There was a guy I played tennis with in Texas and I stayed with him. … It was stunning what 12 months at West Point did for him. The changes in him were changes I wanted in me.”
Nothing in his Austin youth prepared him for the first days there.
“It was like getting hit by a ton of bricks,” he recalls. “No matter how much you thought you knew was coming, you are not prepared for it.” Lau’s identity was reshaped around four responses: “Yes, sir.” “No, sir.” “No excuse, sir.” “Sir/ma’am, I don’t understand.”
“You get a quick lesson in accountability,” he says. “So you become part of the solution.”
Lau finished in the top 15 percent of his class, so he “chose his own adventure.” In January 2003, he selected communications in Germany, which eventually put him under the command of Gen. Via.
“That was my real MBA, watching him every single day for 22 months,” he says. “To be the CEO of a 5,000-person organization with a footprint across dozens of countries.”
Harvard Business School built out his skills. His most memorable professor was Clayton Christensen, who promoted the theory of disruptive innovation.
“I discovered why juggernaut companies find themselves on the defensive and eventually obsolete,” he says. The MBA led to the mergers and acquisitions wing of a Wall Street firm.
“These transactions change business and industries forever,” he says. “I had learned a whole lot about Wall Street but ultimately found it unfulfilling. I really wanted to help build things.”
By a stroke of luck, Roddick called about running his foundation.
“He wanted to make it one that has the direct impact on children whose life arc you can still affect,” Lau says. “ He wants to create an institution that, if well built, will outlive him.”