The days in the onion field were long and hot. Then, almost as a final indignity to the Sunday-to-Sunday drudgery, the boy and his family would stand in line with their little cards,  reporting how many sacks they had picked that week. Only after the laborers had turned the cards in would they get paid. 

What struck the boy was who took the cards. Crowned with a cowboy hat, the man was, by far, the nicest-dressed person there. He would write out checks and tear them from a three-ring binder. The boy didn’t know English yet, but he fully understood what he saw. His goal was set at that moment. 

“That is who I want to be,” he told his parents. “The person who signs the checks on the front, who hires the people.”

As time passed, the boy better understood why: If he had his own business, the control would be all his. If he wanted to see his kid’s soccer game, no problem. He could manage his own time and never have to pick another onion.

In time, Aron Marquez would become a first-generation American success story. He now co-owns multiple businesses, including Fraser & Thompson Whiskey with music superstar Michael Bublé and Flecha Azul Tequila with noted actor Mark Wahlberg and pro golfer and fellow OU alum Abraham Ancer. Marquez also co-founded Free Rein coffee, sold at HTeaO franchises, Walmart and H-E-B.

“Aron has a rare combination of vision and discipline,” observes OU 2007 alumnus Jonathan Price, a partner with family-owned capital investment company Larger Cross Partners, LLC, of Dallas and the son of late OU 1973 alumnus Michael F. Price, for whom OU’s Price College of Business is named.

“Aron doesn’t just spot opportunity—he builds the systems, teams and culture necessary to execute at a high level, which is why he’s been able to create sustained success across multiple ventures,” Price says. 

As a lifelong OU fan, Marquez’s path to the Sooner Nation was atypical. His parents didn’t attend high school; no one in his family had graduated from college. Marquez, too, went right to work from high school. He earned an associate’s degree while working full-time at an oil refinery before starting an online bachelor’s degree that stalled out. 

The drive for success intensified after 2012, when he founded Wildcat Oil Tools, LLC, an international oil field service and technology company that has since expanded facilities across three states.

“When you start your own business, and when your family relies on you, you don’t need an alarm clock to wake up in the morning,” Marquez says. “You don’t need any self-help books or motivation. There’s nothing that will motivate you more than having the pressure of being the breadwinner of your family.”

Marquez’s approach to business also was formed on the golf course. “There isn’t another sport that teaches more life skills. It’s the best way to meet people,” he says, adding that golf is how he, Ancer and Wahlberg first connected and became business partners.

Yet, for all his accomplishments, Marquez felt incomplete. How could he communicate the importance of a college education to his family without a bachelor’s degree? How could he establish generational ties with a university if he wasn’t an alumnus?

“I wanted to create an aspirational path for my kids,” says Marquez, author of an autobiography titled, Never Settle. 

Marquez did just that when he completed an OU bachelor’s degree in organizational leadership through the College of Professional and Continuing Studies in 2020 and applied for Price College’s MBA program. His philosophy as a student was simple: “What else can I learn and how can I help other students?” Marquez knew he could explain to fellow students how principles in a textbook applied in business. But his classmates provided a new perspective—and a lesson or two. 

“It’s amazing the way an 18-year-old, 19-year-old young adult thinks,” Marquez says. “Being around them allows you to develop more of an open mind.” What stood out, though, was how his classmates’ facility with technology allowed them to “quickly bridge the gap between an education and real-life experience just by the information at their fingertips,” he says. 

Marquez had previously relied on experience to steer his business. OU taught him how to conduct research and gain a wider base of knowledge. “I learned that if I’m going through an issue, someone else has already solved it,” he says.

Marquez believes OU has given him something far greater than a degree—his family now has an example to follow. His niece Jazmine Marquez graduated from OU in May; his nephew Isaiah Robes will follow in 2027. Marquez hopes his sons, Patrick and Mateo, will someday become OU students and enjoy the traditional college experience he missed.

“I really feel part of the whole OU family, and I have met some incredible people along the way,” he says. “It’s such a blessing to be associated with the University of Oklahoma.” 

Pete Croatto is a freelance writer living in central New York.

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