Roy Rumbough, accounting adjunct faculty member, recently captured the attention of D CEO magazine, which named him the “Outstanding Chief Accounting Officer” in the publication’s Dallas Financial Executive Awards 2016. Rumbough is vice president, corporate controller and chief accounting officer of Lennox International.
He teaches Advanced Financial Reporting, an evening summer course at JSOM.
“This is my second summer to teach,” Rumbough says. “It’s crazy as a second job, working all day, then teaching a four-hour accounting class in the evening, but teaching at UTD is a lot of fun for me. I love the international aspect of the campus and the working students getting their degree through evening classes. The effort of both of these groups of students inspires me.
“We have hired a lot of UTD graduates,” he says. “They are mature and hit the ground running.”
Rumbough’s team also hires interns from UT Dallas and has been doing so for at least five years. “They work 20 hours a week. We give them real work, and they are considered part of our team in all aspects. Many other finance departments (at Lennox) have seen how successful I have been with my intern position and are doing the same thing.”
Kathy Zolton, accounting senior lecturer, hosted Rumbough as a guest lecturer numerous times and subsequently persuaded him to teach a summer class.
“When I first met Roy, Lennox had reached out to the Jindal School, and he became involved,” she says. “He is an engaging and charismatic person, and I saw that he would be a great person in front of a classroom. Roy is very high up in his company but treats everyone in a very down-to-earth manner. He is good at talking to students about how to be successful in your life and career. He has hired, over the years, multiple interns and graduating students, and trains them, and they do great. Then he lets them move onto other things, which is pretty selfless.”
Rumbough has been in his position with Lennox for the past 10 years. Prior to that, he served in various positions at Maytag Corporation, including vice president, corporate controller. He also has worked at public accounting firm Deloitte and Touche.
Rumbough says he loves teaching so much that he would be interested in teaching accounting on a full-time basis, preferably at UT Dallas.
