Why did Waller pick Austin again?

Texas is a big place and home to three of the most populated incorporated cities in this country. Houston ranks fourth with a little more than 2 million folks inside its defined city limits. San Antonio, surprisingly, ranks seventh with 1.3 million residents and Dallas is ninth with 1.2 million. But Austin is No. 14, with more than 790,000 folks.

So why would Nashville's largest firm pick that latter as the destination of choice for its first foray into the Lone Star State? John Tishler, chairman of Waller, works from the Nashville office but travels frequently and wasn’t available telephonically. But he did respond by email Wednesday to several Nashville Post questions along those lines. The following is the bulk of that exchange.