Why These Aggies Are Encouraging Entrepreneurship and Service in Today’s Students

From pizza-box antenna projects and late nights at Evans Library to spontaneous outings and Friday meetups at Duddley’s Draw, Michelle ’92 and Paul Deere ’92 built their favorite college memories through study sessions and just enough not-so-study-based experiences. A chance encounter at their apartment complex sparked a lifelong partnership, and ever since, the Deeres have been inseparable in life and in their shared commitment to giving back to the campus and community that gave them so much.

That mix of persistence and playfulness not only fueled their enduring bond but also laid the foundation for the entrepreneurial drive, scientific curiosity and service-oriented spirit that has defined their careers.

A Note on the Door

Both first-generation college students, Paul and Michelle arrived at Texas A&M University with different paths but similar hopes. Paul grew up in a single-parent household in rural West Texas, where he constantly heard about Texas A&M’s impact on farmers and ranchers. “All my uncles were farmers, and they saw the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service out there and thought those guys were pretty smart,” he recalled.

Michelle, raised in Lockhart, Texas, had an Aggie uncle who planted the seed early, and Texas A&M offered the perfect balance of being in Texas while still far enough from home to feel like a new experience.

It wasn’t until their junior year, however, that their Aggie journeys converged.
 

Paul vividly remembers sitting on the windowsill of his College Main apartment one fall evening when friends began to stop by for an impromptu post-football hangout, which attracted the attention of Michelle and her friends. By the end of the evening, Paul and Michelle had discovered they were both engineering majors (though Michelle would soon pivot to genetics). When Michelle mentioned she was struggling with statics, Paul immediately offered his help. The next morning, he found a bright yellow sticky note on his door with her phone number.

Soon, they were holding late-night library sessions that inevitably spilled over into laughter, conversations with friends or spontaneous outings. In between projects, Aggie football and Friday afternoons at Duddley’s Draw, the couple’s study sessions turned into a bond that carried beyond graduation. A year after graduation, they married and launched into a new chapter of entrepreneurial ventures and scientific careers together.

From Garage Repairs to an Award-Winning Company

One of Paul’s favorite innovation-related college stories comes from a semester-end project in antenna engineering. “My lab partner and I waited until the night before, and nothing was working,” he recalled. “We’d ordered a pizza, and at about 4 a.m., we finally decided to thread wire through the cardboard pizza box. To our amazement, it worked! We were pulling in channels from Waco, Houston and Dallas.” When their professor realized what they had done — pizza grease and all — he couldn’t help but laugh.

Paul’s entrepreneurial spark wasn’t a surprise to Michelle. “When we were dating, he said he was going to have his own business someday,” she said. That dream became reality in 2003, when Paul launched Tolteq Group LLC, a company that designed and manufactured measurement-while-drilling equipment for the oil and gas industry.
 

The Greatest Investment

But for both Paul and Michelle, their proudest investment isn’t in companies or classrooms. It’s in students. Together, they give through Michelle’s science fair involvement and have endowed scholarships through the Texas A&M Foundation to support Aggie engineering students, students from Leander ISD studying electrical and computer engineering, and first-generation students from Leander ISD studying genetics in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences’ Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics.
 

They also support the Department of Horticultural Sciences’ Spirited Learning program, which promotes community-building among students, faculty and horticultural professionals. “Education created opportunities for both of us that we would never have had otherwise,” Paul said. “We want to open those doors for others, and the Texas A&M Foundation allowed us to do that through endowed scholarships.”

Michelle put it simply: “Somebody poured into us originally through scholarships we received that told us that people believed in us. Now, it’s our turn to do the same.”

Their giving isn’t just financial; it’s relational, too. They make a point to meet their scholarship recipients, share meals and stay connected.

“I always tell them that I’m on campus and they should come say hello,” Paul said. “Having that relationship and watching them chase their own dreams is the real reward. That’s a future worth investing in over any business.”