Ross McCammon ('97) always wanted to end up in Austin at Texas Monthly. "This is where I wanted to go," he said recently while driving up Congress Avenue toward the Texas State Capitol.

But McCammon took what was possibly the most indirect route in getting to Austin from his native Dallas. Instead of heading south on traffic-choked I-35E, he turned east and gunned the engine all the way to New York City. There, he spent more than a decade building a successful journalism career -- editing award-winning stories and collecting bylines at some of the nation's biggest magazines along the way, including Esquire and GQ -- before flipping a U-turn and heading back to Texas.

In 2023, he finally arrived in Austin after being hired as Texas Monthly's deputy editor. In Fall 2024, McCammon was named editor in chief of the state's preeminent magazine. "I've worked at a lot of great places, but there's no better magazine than Texas Monthly. It took me 20 years, but I finally made it," he says.

Born and raised in Dallas' Oak Cliff neighborhood, in 1994 he started at UNT, where his father, Dan McCammon ('71), had graduated with a degree in business administration. He began taking literature classes and enrolled in the Great Books Program, which eventually evolved into UNT's Honors College. Its syllabus was packed with classic literature that was dissected and discussed through the lenses of philosophy, history and English. McCammon recalls it as a "defining experience" of his college career -- and his life.

"It was unbelievably difficult -- very high-level," he says, explaining that he likely wasn't entirely prepared to take the program at that time. "But it was these amazing teachers reflecting amazing ideas and an open-discussion format. It was just so cool." McCammon credits his coursework, in part, with helping set him on the path toward his career, which began during college when he took a part-time job as a fact checker for Southwest Airline's in-flight magazine. "I always wanted to tell stories and be an active participant in how those stories were told, both as an editor and as a writer, and magazine journalism really affords you that."

After graduating with a bachelor's in English from what is now the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, he spent a year working in American Airlines' magazine publishing division before briefly returning to UNT to "explore" drawing and design at the College of Visual Arts and Design. "It was great and it helped me learn to communicate effectively with designers -- and then I got it out of my system."

He returned to work at Southwest Airlines' Spirit magazine and, in 2005, was named its editor in chief. Inspired by his favorite magazine, Esquire, he set out to make the content more story-focused and engaging for its "captive audience" of in-flight readers. Among them was the director of talent acquisition at publishing powerhouse Hearst Magazines, who saw the magazine on a flight and contacted McCammon. A week later, McCammon flew to New York City to interview for a staff position with Esquire magazine's editor, who offered him the job on the phone as he was hopping into a taxi on the way to LaGuardia airport. "Within a month, my entire life changed," he says.

McCammon was at Esquire for more than a decade before departing in 2016 -- the same year he started on staff at GQ magazine and wrote a book titled Works Well with Others: Shaking Hands, Shutting Up, and Other Crucial Skills in Business That No One Ever Teaches You. It featured a "thought exercise" -- called "Two Beers and a Puppy" -- that went viral as a litmus test that involves drinking two beers with or allowing someone to look after a puppy to determine their value in one's life. "Right now, that's my greatest contribution," he jokes. "Here's to hoping I will eclipse that in my time as editor in chief at Texas Monthly, but it's a tall order."

After writing and editing for other magazines and online publications, including Men's Health and Popular Mechanics, in 2022, McCammon got a call from a Texas Monthly editor urging him to consider the available deputy editor role. Hesitant to move with his wife and two kids across the country, McCammon initially turned down the offer. But while working on a special project for the magazine, he visited its Austin headquarters.

As editor in chief, McCammon says he intends to shepherd Texas Monthly into the future with a healthy respect for its past. "We're all stewards of this 51-year-old institution. We're here to take care of it, and do right by it, and do right by the readers," who McCammon says want "great stories" -- not only on the magazine's pages but via video, podcasts and other platforms. Under his watch, he assures Texas Monthly won't deviate from producing its hallmark narratives and intriguing features that emanate from all corners of the Lone Star State. "I think Texas Monthly is in the conversation with some of the great magazines out there, and I want to continue that," he says. "I want Texas Monthly to be the place where you come not for just the best storytelling in Texas, but for the best storytelling in the country."