Southwestern Magazine | Spring 2019

9 SOUTHWESTERN CONSIDERING HOWMANY REVIEWS Brad Reynolds ’98 has posted on TripAdvisor , you’d think he’s had the travel bug since childhood. At the time of this writing, the expat has logged more than 6,800 reviews about destinations such as stunning New Zealand parks, Egyptian temples far fromtouristy pyramids, and a great beer house in Belgium. In 2015, he held the Guinness World Record for the most travel reviews. Dig deeper, though, and you’ll learn that the most prolific reviewer in TripAdvisor ’s history has shared tips on far-flung places for just eight years. The managing director and teacher at a language learning center inHongKong often churns out three posts a day over breakfast and a few more during lunch by drawing on a tenacity that stood him in good stead while at Southwestern. AskReynoldswhere the energy comes from, and he’ll sidestep. “I’ve always credited my success, particularly early on, to the preparation for lots of work and the strive for excellence that I learned at Southwestern,” he comments, recalling late-night study groups and rigorous classes he took while completing bachelor’s degrees in business and economics. He also helped coordinate a variety of cocurricularactivities,includingservingaspresident of the business associationone year and supervising intramural sports for two. Reynolds’s idea of travel thenwas fishing at places such as Lake Georgetown, a pastime he’d picked up during his youth in Oklahoma. Like his father, he began using a little book to record details about fishing trips, such aswhat he’d caught, when, where, and basicmeasurements—a habit of attentiveness hewouldlatercallupon.Forexample,aftergraduation, Reynolds settled into a new job with a consulting firm inTheWoodlands, where that same attention CONTINUED ON PAGE 44 Photos by Steve Peixotto A L U M N I S P O T L I G H T Education Trailblazer, Globe-Trotter Brad Reynolds ’98 by Barbra Rodriguez