Vincent,

 We met last year when you were visiting The University, and talking
primarily with our finance faculty.  As you may have heard, I tried to call
to talk with you about the possiblity of a guest speaker in my class on real
options from your group at Enron.  Naturally, I would be delighted if you
could speak, but I could also appreciate the possibility that someone else
might also be a good choice.

  I have attached a copy of the course syllabus for your information.
This is the first time this course has been offered at UT, and I was
motivated to do so because of the "buzz" regarding the topic in industry.  I
have about 30 MBA students in the class, many of whom were in the energy
finance classes offered by Sheridan Titman and Ehud Ronn (both of whom have
been very supportive of the development of this class).  My own background
is decision analysis rather than finance, so I tend to approach the topic
with that perspective.  As you can see, I have covered both traditional
decison analysis topics and a review of the options literature.  At the
present time, I don't think there is a really complete textbook that fits
the course at the MBA level, so I've tried to focus on how to do things in
practice, and have provided software (DPL, spreadsheets, @Risk, etc) as
tools for the students to use.

 The course is scheduled on Thursday afternoons from 3:30 to 6:30,
which is a time that I chose to make possible the participation of some
Executive MBA students from Houston (3 are participating).  I look forward
to hearing from you about the possiblity of a speaker, or any other
suggestions that you might have.

James S. Dyer
Fondren Centennial Chair in Business
Department of Management Science and Information Systems
CBA 5.202
The University of Texas at Austin
Austin, Texas 78712-1175

Email:  j.dyer@bus.utexas.edu
Telephone:  512-471-5278
Fax:  512-471-0587