HASLAM MAGAZINE SUMMER 2017
Atlanta’s TWIN TITANS Ron & Don Frieson
Haslam Magazine is the alumni publication of the Haslam College of Business at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
Executive MBA for Global Supply Chain
SUPPLY CHAIN GRADUATE PROGRAM NATIONALLY
(Gartner 2016)
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ADVISORY BOARD
This board of 40 senior executives advises us on industry best practices and how we can maximize our impact on supplying talent and innovation to industry.
CONTENTS
Cover photo: Ron and Don Frieson photographed on the helipad at Ventana’s Atlanta.
Atlanta’s
SUMMER 2017
SUMMER 2016
TWIN TITANS Ron & Don Frieson
COVER STORY
DEPARTMENT NEWS
| 4
12
GIVING REPORT | 30
THOUGHT LEADERSHIP
PEOPLE
4 Haslam College of Business faculty
30 Development and Giving Report 32 Russell Lamb’s science of
are cited by global news sources.
decision making
RESEARCH
36 Mike and Pam
6 Stephanie Noble digs into the
Koban ensure the continued pursuit of learning in rural communities.
power of the color gold.
PEOPLE
8 John Bell, supply chain aficionado
38 Newly
established endowments
11 Angel Norman’s Excel Certification class adds value to student resumes.
STUDENT NEWS | 23 PEOPLE
24 James Shamiyeh’s world of opportunity
18
FEATURED
39
26 Art bleeds into life for
Pam Taylor goes beyond the numbers at Zoo Atlanta. #HaslamWorld
Global Leadership Scholar Sara Elizabeth Seaman. NEWS
28 Haslam’s Sports Analytics Club: making a passion into a profession
DEVELOPMENT
31 Haslam Connects marries corporate sponsorship with student pride.
34 The Young Alumni Board brings engagement, ideas to college. EVENTS
30 Save the Dates ALUMNI NEWS | 40 PEOPLE
40 Cam Murphy,
a Forbes’ 30 Under 30, puts his A&D degree to use.
41 News 43 In Memoriam
FROM THE DEAN
PERHAPS NOTHING IN THIS WORLD has
as much power to change individual lives and the course of economies and societies as does investment in our young people. Such investments take many forms: health, formal education, quality time spent with adult mentors and loving parents. One of our cover subjects, Ron Frieson, eloquently summed this up in speaking of his commitment to his employer, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, when he said, “I’m very proud to be at a place that has a mission of caring strictly for kids. What I do every day is so much fun in addition to the fact that I’m helping people. Every day, I recognize why I work hard.” For those of us in higher education, that evidence of why we work hard is particularly apparent each May, when our students become graduates embarking on new lives, with fresh eyes and open minds. That spirit of creating and sharing knowledge, pillars of our Haslam College of Business mission, stays with us, and we hope it resonates in our new graduates as they head off into the world. It has stayed with the Friesons and it has stayed with Pam Taylor, who enjoys continuous learning in her position at Zoo Atlanta. It’s not every day one of our alumni finds herself negotiating contracts 2 | HASLAM MAGAZINE
involving reptiles and rodents, but such is the adaptability and strength of a Haslam graduate. Other alumni featured in this issue (Mike and Pam Koban and Russell Lamb) have led preeminent careers in their respective fields and are outstanding examples of individuals using their experience and influence to help our students ensure their successful futures. Similarly, our new Young Alumni Board, also featured, is using its voice to shape the future direction of the college and provide early career connections for current students. Stephanie Noble, a professor of marketing, is an example of a Haslam faculty member who places shared emphasis on teaching, mentoring of students, and the quality of her research. Yes, faculty members can and do all three! Professor Noble has been researching the strength of suggestion—more specifically, how attributes like color may influence how we view our service in restaurants and the quality of the products we purchase. Hers is thought provoking work potentially impacting how companies market their products to take advantage of perceived prestige. Look for people who care deeply about education, about students, about their professions and communities, for people who reach out with their time and resources again and again, and you’ll find them here on Rocky Top. It’s a place of which we can all be proud to be a part. We recognize and appreciate all that you do to make Haslam, and your communities and workplaces, better. With gratitude,
HASLAM M
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Haslam Magazine is the alumni publication of the Haslam College of Business at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
HASLAM COLLEGE OF BUSINESS EXECUTIVE LEADERSHIP STEPHEN L. MANGUM Dean
BRUCE K. BEHN
Associate Dean for Graduate and Executive Education
MICHAEL “LANE” MORRIS
Associate Dean for Undergraduate Programs and Student Affairs
CHARLES NOBLE
Associate Dean for Research and Faculty
BETSY ADAMS
Assistant Dean of Finance and Administration
HASLAM MAGAZINE TANYA G. BROWN
Executive Director of Marketing and Public Relations | Editor-in-chief
WILLIAM R. “CHIP” BRYANT
Interim Vice Chancellor of Development and Alumni Affairs
MEREDITH HULETTE
Senior Director of Development and Alumni Affairs
JESSICA LEIGH BROWN Writer
JILL KNIGHT
Design and Production
CHARLES BROOKS Photographer
GERHARD SCHNEIBEL AND KATIE WILLIAMS
News Lists and Compilations
Haslam Magazine is published twice a year by the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Haslam College of Business and is printed by University Printing & Mail.
WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU! Haslam College of Business 328 Haslam Business Building Knoxville, TN 37996 - 4140 865-974-5061 | haslam.utk.edu Fax: 865-974-1766 | E-mail: tgbrown@utk.edu
Stephen L. Mangum Dean and Stokely Foundation Leadership Chair Haslam College of Business
FACEBOOK.COM/ HASLAMCB HASLAM COLLEGE OF BUSINESS INSTAGRAM.COM/ HASLAMUT TWITTER.COM/ HASLAMUT
2017 – 2018
ADVISORY COUNCIL TO THE DEAN
MOLLY ADAMS
Executive Vice President Global Product Development Disney Consumer Products, Inc. Los Angelas, California
TOM BELL
Chairman Mesa Capital Partners Atlanta, Georgia
JOHN BOLL
President G.A. Richards Group Grand Rapids, Michigan
Lifetime Member
President (Retired) Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company Fort Worth, Texas
DENNIS R. HENDRIX Chairman (Retired) PanEnergy Houston, Texas
CHARLES “JERRY” HENRY, JR.
Director Lennox International MWH Global Westlake, Texas
RANDAL D. BOYD
JOSEPH E. JOHNSON
RICHARD W. CARDIN
WILMA JORDAN
Chairman, CEO, and Founder Radio Systems Corporation Knoxville, Tennessee
THE HASLAM COLLEGE OF Business at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, is indebted to a host of visionary advisors who help us implement our mission and keep us connected to the world in which our graduates will serve. These professional and business executives meet regularly with the deans and faculty to discuss current business issues and develop plans and strategies to guide the college’s future. Members of the Advisory Council to the Dean also have assisted the college in numerous other ways, including the recruitment and employment of top students, the placement of students in summer industry internships, and the support of fundraising efforts that are so crucial to the college’s students, faculty, and programs. Formed in 1975, the council plays a vital role in guiding our college as we continually strive to improve our performance and reputation as a national leader in management research, education, and practice.
RALPH D. HEATH
(Retired) Arthur Andersen Loudon, Tennessee
PAUL A. CASTAGNA
Co-Founder, Chairman, and CEO Golden Gate Financial Group, LLC San Francisco, California
AGENIA W. CLARK
President Emeritus The University of Tennessee Knoxville, Tennessee
Founder and CEO The Jordan, Edmiston Group, Inc. New York, New York
REED A. KELLER
PWC Partner/Private Investor (Retired) Atlanta, Georgia
JOSEPH M. O’DONNELL Investor Boca Raton, Florida
ED PERSHING
Co-founder and CEO Pershing, Yoakley & Associates Knoxville, Tennessee
MINTHA E. ROACH
President and CEO Knoxville Utilities Board Knoxville, Tennessee
MARTIN ROBINSON
General Partner WEDGE Capital Management LLP Charlotte, North Carolina
KING W. ROGERS III Attorney, Of Counsel Glankler Brown, PLLC Memphis, Tennessee
A. DEAN SKADBERG (Retired) Procter & Gamble Knoxville, Tennessee
GREG SMITH
President and CEO Girl Scout Council of Cumberland Valley Nashville, Tennessee
CHRISTOPHER P. KINNEY
Senior Managing Partner SteelRiver Infrastructure Partners New York, New York
Executive Vice President, Supply Chain, United States Walmart Stores Inc. Bentonville, Arkansas
JOHN COMPTON
CHRIS LAPORTE
DAVID STEVENS
JOE R. CRAFTON JR.
WILLIAM LEE
WILLIAM B. STOKELY III
JOSEPH A. FIELDEN
A. DAVID MARTIN
MICHAEL STRICKLAND
Partner, Private Equity Clayton, Dubilien & Rice Knoxville, Tennessee
CEO (Retired) Crossmark, Inc. Dallas, Texas
President and CEO J.A. Fielden Co., Inc. Knoxville, Tennessee
EMERSON H. FLY
President Emeritus The University of Tennessee Loudon, Tennessee
RON FORD
Chairman Coastal Financial Holdings Houston, Texas
(Retired) Killarney Advisors, Inc. Robbinsville, North Carolina
Retired Executive Knoxville, Tennessee
AMY MILES
Chief Executive Officer Regal Entertainment Group Knoxville, Tennessee
JOHN (JACK) MILLS
CFO, Silgan Containers LLC Woodland Hills, California
Partner JB&B Capital, LLC Knoxville, Tennessee
DEE BAGWELL HASLAM
JIM NEWSOME
CEO, Rivr Media; Owner, Cleveland Browns Berea, Ohio
JAMES A. HASLAM II
Founder and Chairman Emeritus Pilot Corporation Knoxville, Tennessee
President and CEO South Carolina State Ports Authority Charleston, South Carolina
Private Equity Healthcare Services Naples, Florida
Chairman and President The Stokely Company Knoxville, Tennessee
Chairman Bandit Lites Knoxville, Tennessee
R. ANDREW TAYLOR
Partner Gerber/Taylor Associates Memphis, Tennessee
MIKE WEST
Chairman and Senior Partner Back Porch Solutions, LLC Knoxville, TN
ALAN WILSON
Chief Executive Officer McCormick and Company, Inc. Naples, Florida
JERRY NINE
Chief Operating Officer (Retired) Skillsoft Nashua, New Hampshire
HASLAM.UTK.EDU | 3
We’re generating data at a phenomenal rate. The businesses are realizing that they can use this data to make more money.” Middle managers are actually the most important in shaping culture. If you supervise five or 500 employees, you can give justification and explanations for what you do, and be just and equitable in giving out promotions and rewards. You have the power to shape the environment your employees work in, even if it’s different from the prevailing sentiment and values of the rest of the organization.” TIM MUNYON, associate professor of management, on workplace culture.
—iMeetCentral, June 9, 2016
MELISSA BOWERS, Beaman Professor of Business and director of the Master of Science in Business Analytics, on the growing popularity of business analytics degrees.
—U.S. News & World Report, February 6, 2017
It’s hard for me to imagine Carrier made its decision on whether to be in Indiana or Mexico on $7 million, so there had to be something else driving them to keep them there in my view. Mexico doesn’t always win on these even without the president being involved.” BILL FOX, director of the Boyd Center for Business and Economic Research, Chancellor’s Professor, and William B. Stokely Distinguished Professor of Business, on then President-elect Trump’s effort to save jobs at Carrier Corp.
—Global Finance, December 2, 2016 People go where there’s jobs, and we’ve had a lot of job creation. Tennessee surpassed its 2008 prerecession jobs peak in 2014 and gained another 94,100 jobs in 2015.” BILL FOX, director of the Boyd Center for Business and Economic Research, Chancellor’s Professor, and William B. Stokely Distinguished Professor of Business, on Tennessee’s job market.
—PBS Newshour, September 30, 2016
To be able to enhance our students’ supply chain knowledge with tangible technical skills that result from hands-on experience with a leading supply chain technology solution like Cloud Logistics will make our students even more valuable in the marketplace as they will be ready to make an impact with their future employers on their first day on the job.” RANDY BRADLEY, assistant professor of information systems and supply chain management, on technology education for supply chain students.
These programs are gaining popularity at the state level and would be hard to walk back even if there is no support at the federal level. It is difficult to imagine how this patchwork of very different programs would have coalesced under one federal movement.” CELESTE CARRUTHERS, associate professor of economics, on the future of free public higher education programs.
—The Washington Post, November 14, 2016
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—Yahoo Finance, January 3, 2017
Innovation happens through collaboration. And the best organizations are not only harnessing innovation from their employees, but also from outsiders such as suppliers or competitors.” KATE VITASEK, on how innovation and collaboration feed on each other in a competitive business environment.
—Forbes.com, January 4, 2017
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Even if airlines would offer cash back (just like major credit cards), the clearest reward available, consumers would still be disadvantaged because it would motivate them to spend more because they will save more. This is a strange psychological technique, but it works.” MICHEL BALLINGS, assistant professor of business analytics, on whether airlines or consumers benefit more from rewards programs.
—WalletHub, January 19, 2017
CEOs play less golf when they have more overall wealth invested in their firms. They also pull out their golf clubs less often when their annual compensation is tied more closely to firm performance…Separate tests focusing on operating performance and stock market valuations both suggest that high levels of CEO leisure are associated with underperforming firms.” ANDY PUCKETT, associate professor of finance, writing about his research, which highlights the correlation between company underperformance and high CEO golfing rate.
—Harvard Business Review, November 30, 2016
It may be that auditors responsible for some of the most egregious misstatements were dismissed before the ratification vote. Still, the fact that proxy advisors recommended rejection of only 12 percent of auditors who were present during the restated period warrants concern.” LAUREN CUNNINGHAM, assistant professor of accounting and information management and director of research for the Neel Corporate Governance Center, on the value of proxy advisors in vetting auditing firms.
—Accounting Today, February 24, 2017
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DEPARTMENT & FACULTY NEWS
Mintha Roach (HCB, ’74) president and CEO of the Knoxville Utilities Board, spoke with a group of students, faculty, and staff in early March during the second annual Women in Business, Entrepreneurship, and Leadership Summit.
Haslam recognized its veterans on November 10, the birthday of the US Marine Corps, and featured Marine Colonel Kenneth Dunn as its keynote speaker. Haslam was named an outstanding business school in Princeton Review’s annual guide, “The Best 294 Business Schools: 2017 Edition.”
$1.7MILLION
Randy Bradley and Bogdan Bichescu (along with an engineering colleague) received a four-year, $1.7 million National Science Foundation grant that will fund supply chain information technology research.
APP
WOMEN IN BUSINESS, ENTREPRENEURSHIP, AND LEADERSHIP SUMMIT
Researchers at the Construction Industry Research and Policy Center teamed up with the Tickle College of Engineering to produce the “Roofing Safely is NO ACCIDENT” app, to help cut down on fatalities among construction workers on roofing projects. Almost 99 percent of Haslam’s faculty and staff donated back to the university during the campus-wide, Big Orange Family Campaign. Haslam had the highest giving rate of any college on campus.
BIG ORANGE GIVE, the university’s annual online giving campaign, raised
$119,000
to support growth at Haslam.
COLLEGEWIDE
TOP 10
The Haslam College of Business was featured by Find-MBA.com as one of the top ten schools worldwide for placing students in careers related to supply chain management and business analytics and big data in the site’s 2017 ranking.
13th
Poets & Quants recently listed Haslam’s undergraduate degree thirteenth among public universities. Haslam ranked thirty-second among all institutions and tenth in quality of educational experience.
29th
The Haslam MBA jumped nine spots in U.S. News & World Report’s 2018 Best Graduate Schools ranking. The college is now twenty-ninth among public universities nationwide and fifty-fourth overall.
TOP 50
Accounting Degree Review, a resource website for current and prospective accounting and finance students, named both Haslam’s undergraduate and graduate accounting programs in the nation’s top 50 in its 2017 super rankings quality of educational experience.
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News from the faculty, departments, centers, and programs of the Haslam College of Business.
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w THE
RESEARCH
STEPHANIE NOBLE
EFFECT
How Brands are Priming Our Prestige BY KATIE WILLIAMS WHEN YOU PICTURE MCDONALD’S,
Hardees, Wendy’s, or KFC, what do you see? It’s no coincidence that red and yellow dominate the world of fast food marketing with the former grabbing our attention and stimulating our hunger, while the latter evokes happiness. Most consumers are aware of this subtle manipulation from the myriad psychology and pop-culture pieces written on color associations as well as through our own self-awareness. We know that red excites us and blue relaxes us. Less dichotomous hues get trickier for consumers—and researchers—to evaluate, but smart brands use them nonetheless. A new study co-authored by Stephanie Noble, a marketing professor in the Haslam College of Business, examines a color pervading the marketing world that previously escaped much research attention: gold. “Companies like Apple and Hyatt use gold to associate their brand with luxury and exclusivity,” said Noble. “It’s a natural correlation. We get golden trophies and medals for winning first place, and phrases like ‘Golden Age’ convey best.” Previous marketing research had not examined whether the use of gold has any effect on consumers. Noble’s study not only confirms the association of gold with status but also suggests the presence of the color influences our spending habits. “When the color was present in the form of a bill fold or a table cloth, people expressed a heightened evaluation of a restaurant’s status and their own status,” Noble says. “Their tips were also 2 percent higher.” That 2 percent increase would translate into $1,164 more income per year for
6 | HASLAM MAGAZINE
“Well, in fact I did win the spelling bee in fifth grade, and yes, you are a fantastic server. I believe I’ll show you how accomplished we are with a magnificent tip!” servers and a $2.7 billion boon for the restaurant industry as a whole. The study determined this increase through a two-week field experiment at an independently owned restaurant during lunch hours. A total of 252 customers participated, with an even split between gold billfolds (check holders) and black billfolds used during consecutive weeks. Subsequent experiments presented the same scenario and either asked respondents to evaluate the status of the restaurant, using tablecloths instead of billfolds, or compared gold billfolds to orange ones in an effort to control for novelty. In a final experiment, researchers primed participants to be thinking about status by writing a short essay about a time in which they held prestige. “If people really did tip more because the color gold evokes feelings of superiority, they should exhibit the same behavior if we evoke those feelings by another means,” Noble says.
As it turns out, they did. Consumers with golden tablecloths or golden billfolds felt more important and tipped more, and those who recalled a moment of their own significance did the same. Despite our descriptive norms, studies have shown that factors well beyond service or the quality of food influence tipping. Atmosphere has a significant effect, and even more, how guilty or magnanimous we feel. Noble and her colleagues chose tipping to demonstrate their hypothesis because of its association with status in previous research studies, since context can change a color stimulus significantly. “Tipping has been proven as a means of projecting self-perception,” Noble says. “Brands can make the most of gold’s association with status on products that are already status symbols or for programs like customer loyalty cards.”
DEPARTMENT & FACULTY NEWS Russell Zaretzki, working with researchers at two other East Tennessee institutions, found a correlation between the life expectancy of metastatic breast cancer patients and a treatment plan based on primary tumor receptors rather than metastatic tumors.
BUSINESS ANALYTICS AND STATISTICS
NEWS FROM INFORMS
(The Institute for Operations Research and Management Sciences)
FINALIST
The Master of Science in Business Analytics (MSBA) was the runnerup for the George D. Smith Prize, the highest honor presented to an educational institution by INFORMS, the premier professional association for analytics professionals.
Hamparsum Bozdogan’s work, “Hybrid kernel density estimation for discriminant analysis with information complexity and genetic algorithm,” was published in Knowledge-Based Systems.
STAFF Rich Brown, senior director of development, was recognized as one of the Knoxville Business Journal’s “40 Under 40.”
Betsy Adams joined the Haslam College of Business as assistant dean of finance and administration on October 10, 2016.
Sidi Kazunga, of Haslam’s Office of Undergraduate Programs, was honored for her advising work with a National Academic Advising Association Mid-South Region Award. She also was nominated for a national award.
A research study co-authored by Wenjun Zhou was presented at the 2016 Knowledge Discovery and Datamining conference and covered by The Economist.
Michell Ballings’s research entitled, “Evaluating the importance of different communication types in romantic tie prediction on social media,” was published in the Annals of Operations Research. Ballings also was awarded Haslam’s 2016 Excellence in Teaching Award for teaching in data analytics.
PROGRAM CHAIR
Bogdan Bichescu served as program chair for the annual conference of the Institute for Operations Research and Management Sciences (INFORMS). Melissa Bowers, Christine Vossler, and Sean Willems joined him on the conference’s organizing committee.
INTERFACES
Sean Willems became deputy editor of Interfaces, a research publication of INFORMS.
THE DEPARTMENT LAUNCHED THE NEW SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING ANALYTICS CLASS, ONE OF THE FIRST COURSES APPROVED FOR UT’S NEW SERVICE LEARNING DESIGNATIONS.
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FACULTY FOCUS
JOHN BELL
DELIVERY WITH FOCUS
J J
JOHN BELL BEGAN HIS military
career in 1986, when he went to the United States Air Force Academy as an undergraduate student. He spent the next twenty-four years on active duty, serving as a logistics and aircraft maintenance manager. “I was stationed at eleven different bases during my time in the Air Force,” he says, “including a few years in Europe.” For several years before he retired as a lieutenant colonel in 2010, Bell actively pursued a second career in academics after earning a master’s in logistics management from the Air Force Institute of Technology and a doctorate in management from Auburn University. “I taught night school at Georgia College, published research, and put myself in a position to have an academic career waiting for me when I retired from the military.” While attending conferences on supply chain research, Bell met several faculty members from the Haslam College of Business. He admired the college’s nationally ranked supply chain program and the leaders in the field who were part of it. “I was attracted to come here and work with
8 | HASLAM MAGAZINE
them,” he says. “I feel fortunate that there was an open position when I was ready to begin my full-time academic career.” Bell brings his wealth of realworld logistics experience to Haslam students. “I tell stories in class about shipping materials around the world,” he says. “It helps to have experience as a practitioner, rather than just teaching them from a book.” Currently, he teaches a survey course in supply chain management that is required for all business students. “I see almost a thousand students a year from all majors within the college,” he says, “and give them a taste of supply chain.” As a researcher, Bell’s interests center on physical logistics networks and risk management. “I like to look at where we position warehouses around the world and how we deliver goods to customers,” he says. “I spend a lot of time studying vehicle routing and how to make that efficient when we do distribution.” Over the past few years, Bell has delved deeper to focus on how urbanization affects delivery methods. “My research asks, how do we reach people where they live in an urban environment? For example, do we drive a forty-foot tractor-trailer into downtown Manhattan? Sometimes the solution is to use smaller vehicles or deliver on foot, and sometimes it gets more dynamic.”
Growing consumer concern about fair trade and sustainability is the biggest issue in supply chain and logistics management today, according to Bell. “People are concerned about where their food is coming from and whether there’s slave labor in the supply chain,” he says. “It’s going to be a great area for research. How do we build visibility for supply chains to foster trust between consumers and companies?” When he’s not researching, consulting, or teaching, Bell enjoys spending time with his wife, Melanie, and their children. He’s also an avid fly fisherman. “I make it back to Montana each summer to visit and go fishing,” he says, “but I love fishing— and living—in Tennessee. I can’t imagine being anywhere else.”
DEPARTMENT & FACULTY NEWS Lauren Cunningham traveled to Washington, DC, in late October 2016, for a joint conference of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board and Journal of Accounting Research, stopping at the Securities and Exchange Commission to present her research.
MARKETING & SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT John Bell, Diane Mollenkopf, Mike Burnette, and J. Scott Meline, collaborated with executives from SC Johnson to co-author a white paper on supply chain transparency.
Erin Henry’s paper, “Increased Tax Disclosures and Corporate Tax Avoidance,” which she co-authored with Erin Towery (UGA) and Norman Massel (LSU) was published in the December edition of the National Tax Journal. Linda Myers’s paper, “Does the Timing of Auditor Changes Affect Audit Quality? Evidence from the Initial Year of the Audit Engagement,” co-authored with Cory Cassell (UARK), James Hansen (Weber State), and Tim Seidel (BYU), was accepted for publication at the Journal of Accounting, Auditing & Finance. In January, Myers was one of twenty faculty members selected to participate in the American Accounting Association’s New Faculty Consortium.
ACCOUNTING & INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
Neeraj Bharadwaj was invited to serve as the chair for the fifth Marketing Strategy Meets Wall Street conference dedicated to furthering research at the marketing-finance interface. Ernie Cadotte was honored by Catholic Charities of East Tennessee with the Creating Hope Award at their annual dinner on March 9 for his work on the Barefoot Benefit, which raises money for Samaritan Place, an emergency shelter for senior citizens. Chris Craighead’s co-authored paper, “On the Same Page? How Asymmetric Buyer-Supplier Relationships Affect Opportunism and Performance,” was accepted for publication in the premier journal, Production and Operations Management.
Peter Olinto, a Becker Professional Education National Instructor, visited Haslam on March 2 to speak to Master of Accountancy students.
Haslam Distinguished Visiting Scholar Dhruv Grewal of Babson College gave a lecture on marketing to faculty and students on November 17, 2016.
BOYD CENTER FOR BUSINESS & ECONOMIC RESEARCH
A report from the Boyd Center, which stated that the Tennessee and US economies are projected to stay on ‘steady footing’ in 2017, but some unknown factors, like a new administration and Congress, could have an effect on the path of growth, received broad media coverage across the state. A report by the Boyd Center reviewed the economic impacts of two proposals put to Tennessee’s General Assembly addressing long-term funding of roadway infrastructure.
Stephanie Noble was invited to co-chair the next two years of the Frontiers in Services Doctoral Consortium, a conference geared toward training doctoral students who specialize in services research. Wendy Tate’s co-authored research papers describing new models for creating resource efficiency in the automotive industry were presented at global conferences held in Austria, Norway, Finland, and Germany.
REPORTS For the third year in a row, the estimated number of uninsured people in Tennessee dropped. The percentage of uninsured people statewide—5.5 percent—is the lowest in the past twenty years.
On December 1, 2016, Eastman Chemical Company made a gracious donation to underwrite the cost of travel for student case competitions.
Under the leadership of Alex Zablah, the Biometrics Business Lab was established in the fall of 2016. The lab is equipped with biometric tools that enable researchers to better understand the subconscious processes that drive consumers’ decision making.
Sandra MacQuillan, chief supply chain officer at Kimberly-Clark, keynoted the Supply Chain Forum on November 9, 2016. The NeXxus group presented MacQuillan with its first ever Distinguished Women in Supply Chain award.
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DEPARTMENT & FACULTY NEWS Andy White joined scholars from universities and think tanks across the country at Columbia University for the National Security Scholars Conference in November 2016.
In October, Jody Singer, deputy director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, spoke to members of the Aerospace and Defense Institute about the journey to Mars.
GRADUATE & EXECUTIVE EDUCATION Four-Star General Gregory “Speedy” Martin spoke to the Global Supply Chain Executive Development program on March 6.
Christian Tröster of Kühne Logistics University in Hamburg, Germany, recently taught a guest lecture on cross-cultural management to the Executive MBA for Global Supply Chain class.
Anne Smith, management department head and King and Judy Rogers Professor in Business, served as an honorary UT men’s basketball coach. Doctoral student Michael Lerman joined her as a guest.
MANAGEMENT David Gras, along with professors from Northeastern University and Concordia University, travelled to Cape Town, South Africa, to research how mental models impact small businesses in an impoverished setting. Pat Richardson, a lecturer, and Randal Pierce, an assistant professor of management, retired in December 2016.
Lee Scott, chairman of the BDT Capital advisory board and former CEO of Wal-Mart, spoke in early November at the First Tennessee Foundation Graduate Business Symposium. 10 | HASLAM MAGAZINE
The management department undertook several wellness initiatives including a homecoming walk/run and a ‘hot potato’ game where faculty and staff passed around a bosu ball with instructions for an exercise each participate had to complete.
DEPARTMENT NEWS
REAL WORLD SKILLS
CERTIFIED EXCELLENCE
Students Earn Excel Certification as Part of Undergraduate Coursework
S SIX YEARS INTO TEACHING
a course on business software applications, Haslam College of Business professor Angel Norman introduced a new opportunity to her students: the chance to earn Microsoft’s specialist certification in Excel. While the course already focused on Excel, it now fully prepares students to take both the specialist and expert certification exams created by Microsoft. “The class isn’t taught to the test, but students have enough knowledge and skill coming out of what we’ve covered to easily pass the specialist exam,” Norman says. In fall 2016, the first time the college offered students the chance to take the certification exam on campus, the overall pass rate was an impressive 83.8 percent. “Out of 370 students who took the exam, 310 passed with 70 percent or higher, and we actually had five students who made perfect scores.” Anna Frye, a senior majoring in business analytics and marketing, took Norman’s class
and earned her expert certification in Excel. “I thought the course was really helpful and practical,” Frye says. “I used Excel a lot in my internship, and I know most businesses want you to have those skills. I think earning the badge helps you stand out, and it’s great to get it just from taking a class that all business students are required to take.” Attaining the ability to offer the exam, however, took some behind-the-scenes work. Students cannot take the test on their own personal laptops because the computers must be certified and have special software on them, so Haslam needed to purchase ninety new computers. Norman teamed up with several other faculty members, administrators, and IT specialists to prepare two classrooms according to Microsoft specifications for administering the exams. Norman’s students immediately responded with interest in earning the certification. “It’s a professional credential that they can actually put on their resumes, and I think because of that tangible goal, I saw student engagement go way up in the class,” she says. “They come with
great questions and I really enjoy teaching them.” Norman sees many positive outcomes for students who earn the certification. “They’re given electronic badges that they can post on LinkedIn or other professional social media sites,” she says. “It’s a widely recognized certification, and a lot of industries like seeing it. Ultimately, it makes students more marketable to recruiters because spreadsheet skills are highly valued.” Lane Morris, associate dean of undergraduate programs and student affairs, agrees. “Recruiters are always looking for the small difference, and this is another way for students to stand out,” he says. “Third-party certifications also help them demonstrate that they are high performers after they enter the marketplace.”
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TWIN TITA Ron & Don Frieson
at Ventana’s, en on the helipad Photographs tak Atlanta. ility, in downtown a private event fac Frieson. n Ro d an n Do Left to right:
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I
INSEPARABLE FOR THE FIRST FEW DECADES of their lives, identical twins Ron
and
Don Frieson came to the Haslam College of Business together in the late 1970s. Since then, their careers have taken them across the country and the globe, but both have settled down in Atlanta. In February 2017, Don retired as executive vice president of the Walmart Corporation, while Ron continues to serve as foundation president at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. Generous with their time and resources, the Friesons enjoy giving back to their communities and university.
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A Solid Foundation RON AND DON SPENT THEIR childhood in
Memphis, nurtured by parents and grandparents who instilled strong values and encouraged them to pursue education. “I had the great honor of being recruited by Fred Brown for the minority engineering scholarship at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville,” says Don. “I got on campus that fall and absolutely loved it.” For Ron, it was an easy decision to choose the same university. “Since we’d been together our entire lives, it was natural for us to go to school together,” he says. “It was a great opportunity for us to move across the state and experience a different area.”
“The college is comprehensive in what it gives you. It teaches you to work on a team, to think broadly, and to become a thought leader.” —DON FRIESON
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As freshmen, Ron and Don immersed themselves in the college culture and enjoyed interacting with students from other areas of the country and the world. “The year we came to campus, 1976, South Africa was going through apartheid,” remembers Ron. “On campus there was a big call for the university to divest its interests in South Africa. That was my first interest in political issues, and the university’s newly created Black Cultural Center was attuned to that. I began to understand that the world was a lot larger than I had imagined.” While Don pursued an engineering degree, Ron began his college career in accounting. John Wachowicz, Ron’s favorite professor, had a passion for finance that proved infectious. “He connected me with a skill set that I would use for the rest of my career,” he says. “Ultimately, I became a finance major when I realized it was less about rules than about understanding the connection between business and numbers.”
Expanding Horizons RECRUITED OUT OF COLLEGE BY
the Kroger Company, Don moved to Nashville to pursue a career. “I spent a few years there, and moved on to Schnieder National Carriers,” he says. Meanwhile, he earned a degree at the Haslam College of Business. “I was an operations management major, so the job at Schnieder was right in my purview.” Don stayed with the company for the next thirteen years, and in 1999, Walmart recruited him as a district manager because of his management experience. From there, Don’s horizons continued to expand. “I entered the company with my previous experience as a transportation and logistics professional,” he says. “I worked across transportation, warehouse, and logistics at Walmart until I was asked to go run stores.” Don and his family relocated to Baltimore, Maryland, and stayed there for about a year and a half, supporting stores across the northeastern United States. Eventually, Walmart asked Don to move back to Bentonville, where he became president of their central division of stores. “It was a huge responsibility for me, with more than $62 billion in
revenue each year,” he says. “I supported that for three years before going back to supply chain.” He then served as senior vice president for half the United States, assuming responsibility for all the warehouse and transportation operations across the eastern half of the country. “Then I got an awesome experience,” he says. “Walmart International bought a company in South Africa called Massmart Holdings, and I was asked to go over and lead the integration between the two companies.” Don spent the next two years living in Johannesburg, South Africa, traveling extensively across the continent to identify new store sites and grow the business. In 2012, Don joined Sam’s Club as senior vice president for replenishment and planning. Eventually, he was promoted to executive vice president of
operations, the position he retired from this year. Meanwhile, his twin brother’s career took a different but equally impactful trajectory. As a Haslam student, Ron had the opportunity to participate in cooperatives with the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, giving him a taste of finance and banking. “I ended up being recruited through on-campus interviews to a bank in Alabama that ultimately became Regions,” he says.
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ltural Frieson Black Cu exterior wall of the n Frieson, the frieze on the Do of s; n can rtio eri po A Am n m: by Africa Top to botto impactful lives led ingtime some of the many Ron Frieson; A spr mni Council) and Center recognizes Alu ck Bla UT the Frieson the at of ff t sta en d sid an pre nts st se with stude Tara Davis (pa 15. ; Ron and Don po ony, October 2, 20 view of the center nter naming cerem Black Cultural Ce
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Ron worked in Birmingham for a > few years before encountering a new opportunity. “One of my customers from the bank recruited me to join his company, which had just been acquired by BellSouth after the divestiture of AT&T,” he says. “It was a great experience, and eventually that company transferred me to Atlanta.” Over the years, Ron’s twentyfive year tenure with BellSouth took him to Sao Paulo, Brazil, and several cities across the southeast, but he kept coming back to Atlanta, the company’s home base. “It really became home for me,” he says. Ron retired as the president of BellSouth Georgia, a role in which he oversaw 18,000 employees. “I was the first African American to serve as executive liaison for a group president, and the first and only African American to serve as a state president of operations for BellSouth,” says Ron. “I felt very comfortable and very prepared, given the trajectory I’d been on—and my education at the Haslam College of Business had a lot to do with that.” After his retirement from BellSouth, Ron’s entrepreneurial spirit emerged. He opened a restaurant and wine store in Atlanta, operating the business for several years before taking an opportunity to serve in the nonprofit world. Currently, Ron is president of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Foundation and External Affairs. He oversees fundraising efforts of all kinds, from corporate partnerships to special events. “I’m very proud to be at a place that has a mission of caring strictly for kids,” he says. “What I get to do every day is so much fun in addition to the fact that I’m helping people. Every day, I recognize why I work hard.”
“What I get to do every day is so much fun in addition to the fact that I’m helping people. Every day, I recognize why I work hard.” —RON FRIESON
Generous Giving
BOTH DON AND RON ACKNOWLEDGE the importance of their
education in shaping their careers. “The college is comprehensive in what it gives you,” says Don. “It teaches you to work on a team, to think broadly, and to become a thought leader. I appreciated the project-based approach that mirrors the types of activities that you do in the workplace.” Ron says his education at UT prepared him for his career in other ways, too. “At times we were in classes where maybe there were just one or two other people of color, yet I felt like I really belonged,” he says. “That experience helped prepare me to encounter the same kind of demographic later in the workplace, and I wasn’t intimidated.” The Black Cultural Center played a vital role in enriching the brothers’ experience on campus. “It was a home away from home,” says Don. “When you go into a new environment, you’re always looking for people you can identify with, and the BCC provided that for us.” In 2015, the Friesons gave a $1 million gift to the center, which was renamed the Frieson Black Cultural Center in their honor. “Ron and Don are both amazing, giving, inspirational men who have been involved with the center for years,” says Tanisha Jenkins, director of multicultural student life for the university. “They have often come to campus and engaged in conversations with our student leaders, providing the students with motivation as they move forward in their collegiate experience and beyond.” Ron and Don also make an effort to stay connected to Haslam and take a particular interest in connecting with current students. “They really want to engage with students and have that human contact,” says Tyvi Small, executive director of talent management, diversity and community relations at the college. “Many students I work with see them as shining examples of how they could be successful professionally, but also give back to what’s important to them.” Ron serves on the University of Tennessee Foundation Board and the Haslam College of Business Dean’s Advisory Council, while Don serves on the UT Alumni Board of Directors. Together, the Friesons have established a scholarship in their sister’s honor. Beyond UT, the brothers have given generously of their time and resources to a host of nonprofit organizations. Lifelong friend Robert Lewis says the Friesons’ generosity reflects their solid values. “Ron and Don always strive for excellence in everything they do, including generosity with time, talents, and resources,” Lewis says. “They really understand their responsibility to give back to their communities.”
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BEYO the Numbers
ALUM EXPANDS WORLDVIEW AND EXPERIENCES IN CFO ROLE AT ZOO ATLANTA
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YOND
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Pam Taylor’s
(HCB, ’91) career has taken her deep into the corporate world—and the animal kingdom. After spending years in corporate accounting, Taylor decided to take a position at Zoo Atlanta in 2003, and she’s never looked back. She currently serves as the zoo’s chief financial and administrative officer.
BiG Orange Beginnings
B
orn and raised in Knoxville, Taylor grew up in the shadow of the University of Tennessee. “My mother worked in the Department of Human Resources for twenty-three years before she retired, and my father obtained his master’s in civil engineering from the university in the mid-1960s,” she says. “My family was entrenched in all things UT. I went to football and basketball games as a baby.” As a result, the institution was a natural fit for Taylor. “I knew in high school that I wanted to study at UT and go into accounting and business,” she says. “It’s the place I wanted to go, and where I was meant to go.” Taylor poured all her energy into her accounting studies, learning some other important things along the way. “When I was growing up, Knoxville wasn’t as diverse as it is now, so going to UT was my first experience being around people of different languages, from different parts of the state and the world,” she says. “As a child, we didn’t do a lot of traveling, but today my husband and I love to travel, and I think that came from meeting people from all parts of the world at college. It helped me realize that there’s more to life than the city where I’d lived my entire life.” A naturally independent learner, Taylor also realized the importance of teamwork while tackling the accounting program. It was her first experience depending on the talents and drive of other people. “You can be really great at something but it’s only going to take you so far,” she says. “Then you have to share your strengths and rely on other people along the way to fill in the gaps.”
FROM BIG SIX TO ZOO ATLANTA
T
aylor earned her bachelor of science in business administration, with a focus on accounting. While still at Haslam, she interviewed with several big six accounting firms, receiving offers from three different firms. She chose a position at EY in Atlanta. “My husband, Robert (HCB, ’88), had graduated a few years before I did and was working in Knoxville, but was looking for a change,” she says. “Atlanta was about to explode with job growth and opportunity. It seemed like a good fit for us.” In 1994, she left EY to take a position as director of tax at Norrell, which was later purchased by Interim Services Inc. Taylor decided against a move to Florida after her job was eliminated during the merger. Instead, she took a six-month hiatus and traveled across Europe and the United States with her husband, who at the time was running his own business. While traveling, she heard from a former colleague who was working at Zoo Atlanta. “They were looking for a director of finance, and I joined the team in that position in 2003,” Taylor says. “I held that role for eleven years, and became the zoo’s chief financial officer in 2014.” Two years later, Taylor became chief administrative officer as well, adding human resources, information technology, and facilities to her areas of responsibility. Taylor says her lengthy tenure at Zoo Atlanta surprised her. “In 2003, I would’ve told you that I would work at a nonprofit for about five years and then move on, but I can’t see myself going anywhere else now,” she says. “I feel so fond of my organization.” Soon after joining the zoo, Taylor realized she wasn’t in the corporate world anymore. “I remember coming here and the curator of herpetology sat in the office next to me,” she says. “Early on in my tenure, I was listening to him have conversations in Spanish with research teams in Guatemala about when turtle eggs were going to hatch.” It was a far cry from her previous role in the accounting department at a Fortune 500 company. “The first contract I negotiated as director of finance was for the purchase of frozen mice for our reptile population,” she laughs. “I thought, ‘What am I doing?’”
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A WELL-ROUNDED LIFE
A
s time went by, Taylor began to enjoy the diversity of her tasks and coworkers and relish the chance to expand her knowledge in many directions. “My colleagues have degrees in zoology, biology, and animal behavior,” she says. “These are people I never would’ve been surrounded by in a different organization, and I’m a much smarter, more well-rounded person today because of them.” Because she wears so many hats in her role at Zoo Atlanta, Taylor has learned to adapt her communication style based on the situation. “I can stand in front of our board of directors and be the CFO, but I can also sit and chat with marketing folks about what they need to consider before launching a new campaign,” she says. “I’ve had the chance here to partner with people in many other departments, and hopefully I’ve been able to give my skills back to the zoo as well.” Hayley Murphy, vice president of animal divisions at Zoo Atlanta, appreciates Taylor’s versatility and enthusiasm. “She’s often out there on the grounds managing things that are above and beyond her background and training, but she does a great job,” Murphy says. “I have a tremendous amount of respect for her.” Long-time friend and former Zoo Atlanta coworker, Nancy Sestak, says Taylor brings a great deal of personal integrity to her work. “She’s an excellent leader and manager of people, and she is conscious of the fiduciary responsibility she has at Zoo Atlanta,” Sestak says. “She takes that responsibility seriously, and lives it out with her thoughtfulness about decision making and the way she applies her skills.” When she’s not at work, Taylor and her husband love to travel and spend time with their family, including several nephews and a niece. “She is a fierce Vol,” says Bob Bland, Taylor’s father-in-law. “Even to the point of calling plays for the coaching staff from her seat in Neyland Stadium.” Taylor’s career has run the gamut from big six accounting to a Fortune 500 company to a nonprofit. Through her varied experiences, she’s found her niche at Zoo Atlanta. “I cannot replace what I’ve gained from this experience,” she says. “Working with people who are passionate about what they do is very rewarding.”
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To share your news with the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Haslam College of Business community, submit it along with any relevant images to Haslam@utk.edu. Please use “Student News” in the subject line.
STUDENT NEWS COLLEGEWIDE
SCHOLARS
Haslam students numbered among UT’s two candidates for Schwarzman Scholars, a prestigious one-year graduate and leadership development program at Tsinghua University in Beijing. The university also nominated five Haslam candidates for the Fulbright US Student Program, an opportunity for international graduate study, teaching, and advanced research in more than 140 countries. Senior Global Leadership Scholars presented their research in the West Wing on November 18. During a professional development trip to Atlanta, twenty-one students visited the Tennessee Valley Authority, Georgia-Pacific Corporation, PepsiCo, and iCreate, Inc.
A team of four students participated in the National Diversity Case Competition on January 13–15.
Members of Delta Sigma Pi and NeXxus collaborated to host Ashley Cash, a career and leadership coach, before the 2017 spring job and internship fair.
Twenty-seven students visited First Tennessee Bank, New Memphis Institute, FedEx, AutoZone, and Internatixonal Paper during a professional development trip to Memphis. TWENTY-TWO STUDENTS JOINED THE NEWLY FORMED STUDENT LEADERSHIP COUNCIL, WHICH REPRESENTS STUDENT ORGANIZATIONS AND ADVOCATES FOR STUDENT CONCERNS TO COLLEGE ADMINISTRATORS.
Seventeen rising sophomores embarked on an experience in Cuba during winter break, learning about the economic and historical context of the United States-Cuba relationship.
The fall 2016 Boyd Venture Challenge awarded a total of $35,000 to four student startup companies to advance their businesses. Prometheus Group LLC, founded by MBA candidate Christopher Ruel and senior Jared Smith, was awarded $17,600. SimPath, founded by doctoral students Rob Moseley and Ben Mohr, was awarded $10,000. GeoAir, founded by MBA candidate Alex Adams, was awarded $5,000. In With the Old founded by junior Baker Donahue, was awarded $2,400.
GeoAir, a startup company founded by MBA candidate Alex Adams, won top prize at the fall 2016 Vol Court Pitch Competition. Second place went to Taylor King’s ReInvent, an upcycling company that helps people take recyclable materials and transform them into works of art with the help of a local artist. Third place went to Prometheus Group LLC, a consultancy group that focuses on risk management and travel security, reducing the cost of risk assessments for travelers while improving efficiency. The company was founded by Christopher Ruel, an MBA candidate and US Army Special Forces veteran, and Jared Smith, a senior in honors computer science and project leader at Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Cyber Warfare Research Team.
THE DIVERSITY JOB FAIR SAW PARTICIPATION FROM SEVENTY-THREE COMPANIES AND 127 HASLAM STUDENTS.
VOL COURT PITCH COMPETITION Junior Florin Matei won the top prize at this year’s spring Vol Court Pitch Competition for Simple Supplements. Second place went to junior Matthew Young’s Sparrow Drones. Third place went to RNA Technologies founded by doctoral student Sushmitha Vijaya Kumar.
Students explored the Cloud Forest, visited Coopedota R.L. coffee, and learned about business at a local farm in Santa Maria de Dota during a visit to Costa Rica over winter break.
Haslam hosted the annual PepsiCo Power of One: Diversity Leadership Development program, a four-week program developed to prepare and educate students on the changing dynamics of workplace diversity, with thirty students attending.
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A
A WORLD OF OPPORTUNITY James Shamiyeh in an intensive care unit at the University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville.
AS THE SON OF A GENERAL SURGEON,
James Shamiyeh always felt he would one day follow in his father’s footsteps. “He had a strong influence on me,” Shamiyeh says. “He never pressured me to go into medicine, but I saw his commitment and love for it.” Even while earning a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Georgia Tech, Shamiyeh held onto his desire to pursue medicine. “I was motivated by the diverse skills it requires on a daily basis—the intersection of science, experience, interpersonal skills, and dedication,” he says. “I knew I wouldn’t be bored.” While he was attending medical school at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis, Shamiyeh became interested in pulmonary and critical care. “The patient situations are highly complex and require extensive knowledge of multiple organ systems,” he says. “It also appeals to my engineering background. I’ve always been fascinated by the function of the lung, which is based on a variety of physics principles.” Shamiyeh relocated to the University of Alabama, Birmingham, in 1998 and completed a three-year residency in internal medicine followed by a one-year chief residency and a three-year fellowship in pulmonary and critical care. During his fellowship, Shamiyeh earned a master’s of science in public health from the University of Alabama. In 2005, he took a position at the University of Tennessee Medical Center (UTMC) in Knoxville. “At UTMC, I’ve been involved with an increasing number of administrative duties, but have been a practicing and teaching physician the entire time,” says Shamiyeh. “I’m a clinical assistant professor of medicine, so I’m involved in teaching residents and fellows.”
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STUDENT PROFILE
JAMES SHAMIYEH
Shamiyeh served as co-director of the critical care unit for several years, and later as chief of staff for the hospital and chair of the credentials committee. In 2015 he led a hospital wide sepsis initiative, and in September 2016, he became the medical director of the Heart Lung Vascular Institute. Shamiyeh’s increasing involvement in hospital administration ignited his interest in the Physician Executive MBA program at the Haslam College of Business. “The ideas about performance improvement, processes, and flow applied to the medical field are so sensible and practical to me,” he says. “My goal is to grow and develop as a hospital leader, and PEMBA is helping me realize there’s a world of opportunity out there.”
STUDENT NEWS Master of Accountancy students Kylie Reed, Rebekah Damron, Katie Robirds, and Kelly Schroeder took second place in the American Tax Association “Why Tax?” video contest for their rap about why they find the taxation subject matter interesting.
ACCOUNTING & INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
Ten students attended the National Association of Black Accountants Southern Region Student Conference October 6–8 with half receiving interviews or scholarships.
GRADUATE & EXECUTIVE EDUCATION
In February, Roz Brooks, the managing director of PwC’s government, regulatory affairs and public policy office in Washington, DC, hosted a student leadership breakfast for fifteen students. Doctoral candidate Justin Short recently presented his working paper, “CFO Outside Directorships: What Happens to the Home Firm?” at the AAA’s auditing midyear meeting in Orlando. Michelle Harding, a doctoral student in accounting, accepted a tenure-track faculty position at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
BUSINESS ANALYTICS AND STATISTICS
MSBA STUDENTS VOLUNTEERED AT BEARDSLEY FARM IN OCTOBER 2016.
Students from the Master of Science in Business Analytics (MSBA) and MBA programs visited Boeing, Dynetics, Avion Solutions, the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, and the Army Materiel Command during a trip to Huntsville, Alabama, February 22–24.
Executive MBA for Strategic Leadership students visited Mondelez International in Lima, Peru, to learn how multinational companies compete in Latin America.
The Executive MBA for Global Supply Chain class visited the Airbus A320 final assembly line and highly automated distribution facility of Reyher, a distributor of industrial fasteners, in Hamburg, Germany.
With faculty sponsorship from Wenjun Zhou, a student project entered the finals of the Syngenta 2016 Crop Challenge in Analytics and will be presented at the INFORMS Analytics Conference.
Six students traveled to CAT Financial in Nashville to shadow a representative there for a day.
FINANCE Jonathan Workman, Alex Wright, Alex Calleja, Ryan Caveney, and Nathan Hunt represented Haslam’s Tennessee Capital Markets Society, taking second place against twenty-four other schools in a private business valuation competition.
Students in the Financial Management Association took a three-day trip to New York City to visit the NYSE, Bloomberg Corporate Headquarters, investment banking firms, public accounting firms, and other financial institutions.
A trip led by the Aerospace and Defense Business Institute gave fifteen graduate students an opportunity to visit some of the nation’s top aerospace and defense industry employers in Huntsville, Alabama, on February 23–24.
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Seaman with a copy of her painting A Vol’s Best Friend (acrylic on canvas, 36"x 18"), that she donated to the 2016 Haslam Alumni Awards Gala silent auction. For information about purchasing A Vol’s Best Friend prints, please contact art.saraliza@gmail.com.
MANAGEMENT
A On February 9, students from across campus attended an etiquette dinner sponsored by Haslam’s Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM). Students heard from Debbie Mackey regarding interview dress and Mary Mahoney on dining etiquette.
$30,000 Jacob Raplee, a graduate student at Haslam, authored a report on in situ monitoring of electron beam additive manufacturing that will be published in Nature’s Scientific Reports. 26 | HASLAM MAGAZINE
The nonprofit management class awarded a total of $30,000 to fourteen area nonprofits on November 29. The class also raised funds to give to the “Deworm the World” initiative in honor of the course’s professor Alex Miller.
The East Tennessee Compensation and Benefits Association’s local chapter of World at Work awarded scholarships to management students Mauricio Robles, Su Kang, and Billy Spencer. Haslam’s SHRM student chapter collected more than 200 shoeboxes for Samaritans Purse. The organization also volunteered at the Fantasy of Trees.
STUDENT NEWS
A
STUDENT PROFILE
SARA SEAMAN
ANALYTICS, INSPIRED
AS A FOUR-YEAR-OLD, Sara
Seaman woke early to create art with crayons and paper. “I think I drew before I walked,” she laughs. “I’ve always loved it.” A Knoxville native, Seaman took art classes in high school but decided to pursue business at the college level. She fell in love with the university on a campus visit and decided to apply. Seaman wasn’t sure what she wanted to do within business, so she started out in marketing to try to incorporate her artistic creativity, but found she missed her other passion, mathematics. “I love technology and math, so I decided to take a few courses in business analytics and found I love it,” she says. “It’s provable and numbersbased, but there’s also a measure of
creativity in arranging the data and coming up with solutions.” Seaman is part of the Global Leadership Scholars (GLS) program at the Haslam College of Business. “I’ve been really thankful for that program because it creates a community where we push each other personally and professionally,” she says. “We learn about leadership styles, and when you know the type of leader you want to be, you discover the avenue you want to take with your career.” Seaman also has served as a Haslam Ambassador and held leadership positions in business fraternity Alpha Kappa Psi and campus ministry Reformed University Fellowship. Opera Solutions, an analytics consulting firm, recruited Seaman
James Munoz, Nayla Antypas, Rohan Jain, and Bhavna Bahri represented Haslam at the Sourcing Industry Group Summit for the first time March 13–16.
during a campus event at Haslam in the fall of 2016. “I’ll be moving to New York this fall to become a solutions analyst in their Jersey City office,” she says. “I was really impressed with them from the start and am excited to work with them on a wide variety of projects.” While Seaman prepares to pursue a career in analytics, her long-term goals include art. She painted a portrait of UT mascot Smokey and donated it to the silent auction at Haslam’s yearly gala in 2016. Since then, she’s focused her senior thesis on creating a business plan for becoming a professional painter. “Long-term, I hope to distribute my work to galleries and sell from my website,” she says. “Most of all, I want to keep creating art.”
Haslam’s student chapter of the Counsel of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP) organized a collegewide case competition on November 4. PepsiCo sponsored the event, and six representatives from the company helped judge it.
The Supply Chain Management Scholars of Distinction visited the headquarters of Pilot Flying J in February, witnessing the company’s day-to-day operations and speaking with company founder and Haslam namesake James A. Haslam II.
Haslam’s CSCMP student chapter organized a trip for ten students to Charleston to tour the Boeing facility and the Port of Charleston.
MARKETING & SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT
Joshua Caddell and Michael Stovall will attend the CSCMP annual conference as recipients of the Caterpillar Supply Network Fellow program in its inaugural year. Approximately 200 people ran in the seventh annual Barefoot Benefit on October 16, organized by students in a marketing class. This year’s event was the largest to date, raising $9,700 for Samaritan Place.
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STUDENT NEWS
SPORTS ANALYTICS CLUB BY KATIE WILLIAMS
Judkins and Pinkard in the Ray and Lucy Hand Digital Studio, the home of VFL Films.
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“PUTTING MY PASSIONS to work, that is
the dream.” Michael Judkins, a student in Haslam’s Master of Science in Business Analytics, aspires to a career marrying his two loves: sports and analytics. Caitlin Pinkard, a senior studying statistics, shares that dream. “I’ve always liked statistics—putting numbers to decisions,” she says. “I’ve always loved football. My advisor suggested that I get into sports analytics because there aren’t a lot of people doing it yet.” The two serve as the president and vice president of UT’s Sports Analytics Club, a rapidly growing student organization in an even faster growing field. Sports analytics has its roots in Moneyball, a strategy employed by Oakland A’s manager Billy Beane that lead his 2002 team to beat competitors with three times its budget. Beane, and his analytics
advisor Paul DePodesta, ignored hallmark statistics like batting average in favor of data-based indicators of success. Theo Epstein used the same tactics to take the Boston Red Sox to their curse-breaking World Series win in 2004 and the Chicago Cubs to theirs just last year. The rest of the sports world is taking note. “People have seen that analytics work, that Moneyball can help win games and make money,” Judkins says. “More sports and more teams are buying in. Teams don’t really care what works, just that it works.” Today, sports professionals use analytics for everything from scheduling games to identifying biometric performance and optimal hydration levels, but it took years for the practice to be accepted in baseball. Analytics is just now breaking into the realm of football. The Cleveland Browns hired Paul DePodesta as their chief strategy officer in January 2016. Pinkard witnessed analytics’ debut to the NFL firsthand last summer during her internship with the Browns. She worked on projects studying player psychology versus performance and helped scouts identify the statistical outliers to look for in recruits. “It’s not surprising the Browns are on the cutting edge of analytics in the NFL,” Pinkard says. “They have a full department devoted to it because analytics have been most proven for underdog teams, and their owner has a business background.” Pinkard’s observation highlights a strong relationship between business strategy and sports analytics. DePodesta holds an economics degree from Harvard University. Michael Lewis, the journalist who wrote Moneyball, covered the same statistical transformation on Wall Street. Although still a burgeoning field, analytics have been informing business decisions for more than two decades, with smart professionals translating those analytical skills to the sports world. “Someone who went through an MSBA already has the tools to understand that type of data,” says Tyler Berlin, a recent graduate of Haslam’s MSBA and the founder of the Sports Analytics Club. The club already boasts nearly eighty members spanning undergraduate and graduate studies of all majors. Last fall, it brought a panel of five industry professionals to its inaugural Sports
Analytics Seminar. Speakers included representatives of the sports industry such as Andrew Healy, an analyst for the Cleveland Browns, and Stephen Prather, co-founder of Sportsource Analytics, as well as Chris Groer of KPMG, who uses optimization models to create schedules for the NBA and NCAA. Each spring the club conducts a campus-wide, sports analytics case competition in preparation for the national First Pitch Case Competition during MIT’s Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, affectionately known as the “Super Bowl of Analytics.” Twelve Haslam MSBA students numbered among the conference’s 4,000 attendees last year when they competed in the case competition. The team did not place, but Berlin still buzzes about the opportunity to handle real data on a major sports organization’s most challenging issues. “We helped Ticketmaster better understand how to market to millennials,” he says. “We helped them create a marketplace for their tickets to change hands.” Judkins looks forward to a similar opportunity this summer during his internship with DraftKings. “They are huge on analytics,” Judkins says. “It’s an environment where every decision is informed by analytics.” That environment suggests enormous potential for business minds like Judkins, Berlin, and Pinkard, who can spot competitive advantages in the data and change the way the world thinks about sports. Teams like the Browns know what analytics did to help the Cubs go all the way, and they appear hungry for similar gains.
DEVELOPMENT & GIVING REPORT THE DEAN’S CIRCLE The Dean’s Circle was founded in 2009 to recognize leadership-level annual gift donors who provide ongoing support through gifts to the College Fund during the current fiscal year (July 1-June 30). This esteemed group of supporters consists of alumni and friends who have gifted $1,000 or more and young alumni (those who have graduated within the past 10 years) who have gifted $500 or more. Members of the Dean’s Circle are recognized on the college’s “Donor Wall of Fame” as well as in other ways, such as being invited to special events. Please join us in recognizing those who have made fiscal year 2016* leadership-level gifts and have become members of the 2015–2016 Dean’s Circle:
21st Mortgage Corporation Jeffrey S. Abbott Franklin & Stellyne Albertson Ronald L. & Jean A. Alexander Gregory Antoine Todd E. Archer Theodore E. Arnold IV BB&T Corporation Dan M. & Mary Bechtol John & Tyra Behrens Tom & Jennifer Bell James & Murray Benz Leonard J. & Laura B. Berlik Bob & Loraine Berry Mike & Nancy Berry David W. Blackwell Douglas B. & Lori W. Blalock
SAVE THE DATES 30 | HASLAM MAGAZINE
Bill Blevins John Boll Christopher & Pamela Bollinger Scott & Christi M. Branscom Paul & Shirley Pih Broadbery Jim & Diedra Brogan Steven R. & Jill Brown Andy & Shelia Bruner Chip & Kym Bryant Bush Brothers & Company Sharon L. Busse Richard W. & Nancy S. Cardin David & Penny Carver Howard E. & Debra L. Chambers John & Carol Childress Robert E. Christopher Jessica L. & Chip Clark Gary & Marsha Clayton Ben E. Cook Scott & Jill Craig Lee & Jennifer Cross Michael & Helen Crotty Clay & Anita Davis Mark & Darby Davis Dennis & Kim Denton Kerry A. & Martha Dodd Candice M. & Ryan Doolan Thomas J. Dorich Daniel H. Dougherty Michael & Anne Easterly James B. & Sharon H. Edwards Mark & Conchi Emkes Aaron T. Fausz Lester E. Finnell First Tennessee Bank Neil & Suzanne Fischer Michael Flanary Emerson & Catherine Fly Shirley A. Flynn Edwin B. Fort David Scott Freeman William E. & Lynn P. Freeman Lee & Connie Fry G.A. Richards Company Lyle & Judith Gardner Donald E. Garretson Les D. Gray Eric B. Hardesty John & Harriett Harty
SEPTEMBER 30
OCTOBER 14 NOVEMBER 3
James A. & Natalie L. Haslam John D. & Renee D. Hawkins Amy S. Hawkins Ted Helms Kennon & Pamela Hendrix Rosalyn L. Hess Ronald S. Holcomb G. David Hollins Benjamin D. Horn Daniel W. & Natalie Hudson Robert R. & Sharon Huette Stan G. & Teresa L. Hurt David A. & Deborah A. Ingram J.A. Fielden Co. Inc. Kyle & Amy Johns Joseph & Kimberly Johnson Joseph & Patricia Johnson H. Russell & Florence F. Johnston Clayton M. & Deborah Jones Bob & Molly Joy James J. & Penny R. Keras Chris & Donna Kinney Eric & Rebecca Klindt Mike A. & Pamela R. Koban Tom & Karen Ladd Barney L. Lane Bill & Laura Lane Tillman L. Lay Michael & Tina Lobel William & Brenda Locke Jeffrey D. Longmire Zanda J. Lynn Steve & Troba Mangum Bob & LeaAnn Marshall P.J. & Danielle Martin Whitney J. Martin Mary McAdams Stephen R. & Annette K. McBrayer Robert A. & Jennie T. McCabe Timothy & Tracy McKeon George R. & Margaret A. Melton Bob Mertz Harry F. & Suzanne M. Miller Karen J. Moore Charles & Sherry Morgan Melvin G. Moseley, Jr. Thomas C. Mottern
Haslam Tailgate (vs. Georgia) Accounting Day
Haslam Tailgate (vs. South Carolina)
9th Annual Alumni Awards Gala
NOVEMBER 18 Haslam Tailgate (vs. LSU)
Gerald T. Niedert Jerald & Kimberly Nine, Jr. Michael E. Norwood Samuel & Cheryl Oakley Marty M. Ozburn Kiran & Jocimara Patel Paul & Barbara Perutelli Ryan Peters & Megan Parker-Peters Pilot Flying J Pinnacle National Bank Steve & Lynn Pittman Donald G. & Kimberly Pounders James J. & Sandra G. Powell Donald B. & Nancy O. Preston Pugh CPAs PYA Radio Systems Corporation PetSafe Michael & Shannon Reeves Regal Entertainment Group Regions Bank Amanda & Michael Respeto John P. Reynolds Russell B. Richards Timothy & Barbara Rizer Ronny & Marta Roberts William Robinson Brad & Christine Rolland Jim & Susan Sayrs George & Ann Schultz James A. Schwab Clayton & Sarah Scott Gregory M. Sekelsky Scott & Kathryn Selbach Dean & Ann Skadberg Frank & Deanna Slagle Gregory L. & Lisa V. Smith James F. Smith, Jr. SouthEast Bank Mandyam & Kanchana Srinivasan Blair Steakley Steiner & Ellis PLLC Virgil & Clara Stephens Randolph B. Stephenson Temple & Gary Stevenson Michael T. Strickland Aaron Michael Sullivan SunTrust Bank East Tennessee
Deborah S. Sutherland Marshall M. Sweeney III Michael Taber Herman & Karen Tallman Mark E. Tasman Andy & Joanie Taylor B. Lance Taylor Marshall & Anne Taylor Samuel H. & Linda G. Taylor Joe & Sheryl Teague TeamHealth Inc. Grover Thurman Neal & Cathy Townsend Charles H.Trivette Clayton Bank & Trust Normand D. Turgeon Willie O. Turner, Jr. William L. Vallett, Jr. Andrew J. Venable Frank F. & Jane H. Venable David C. Verble John J. Waskom Brent Wilder James Wiley Mark Willoughby Jody & Jeffrey Winslow Walter Mark Work Joseph T. Wyrick Morgan M. Zook *This list reflects members for fiscal year 2016. (July 1, 2015–June 30, 2016).
THE GLOCKER SOCIETY The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, must have seemed an unlikely choice for Theodore Glocker when he arrived in 1913 because there was no business school or even a business program for him to lead. But by 1914,
under Glocker’s visionary leadership, the School of Commerce had been formed to educate students on issues relating to banking and corporate finance. Glocker’s dynamic leadership carried the school from its humble beginnings through countless transitions and growth in student enrollment, facilitating the school’s accreditation as the College of Business Administration in 1947. In 1952, the Glocker Business Administration Building was dedicated in honor of its first dean and loyal leader, Dr. Theodore Wesley Glocker Sr. Members of the Glocker Society share the vision, passion, and commitment to excellence in education that the college’s beloved dean demonstrated almost 100 years ago. Those who are part of this prestigious group stand out among their peers and are recognized for lifetime giving to the college of $1 million or more. Because of these great leaders, the UT Haslam College of Business’ next 100 years will be even brighter than the first.
The Anderson Family Anonymous BB&T John H. Boll Randy & Jenny Boyd Charles W. & Candy Ergen John W. & Janice B. Fisher Bill & Crissy Haslam Jimmy & Dee Haslam James A. & Natalie L. Haslam II Dennis & Jennie Hendrix Home Federal Bank of Tennessee Christopher P. & Donna G. Kinney Michael W. & Suzanne S. Masters William B. Stokely, Jr. Foundation R. Andrew Taylor *This list reflects members as of March 31, 2017.
continued on p. 34 >
WATCH THE HASLAM eNEWSLETTER, WEBSITE, AND SOCIAL MEDIA FOR DETAILS AND ADDITIONAL ALUMNI EVENTS COMING THROUGHOUT 2017.
SIX TIMES PER YEAR,
Haslam Connects Brings Smiles, Support to Students
Haslam Connects helps strengthen the link between students and their college. This year, the program created opportunities for more than 6,000 face-toface student interactions. “Its purpose is to instill pride in the education the students receive,” says Krista Loken, assistant director of annual giving and alumni engagement. “With the generous support of our corporate partners, Haslam College of Business items are distributed to the student population three times each semester.” Haslam Connects uses social media, student-focused emails, on-campus signage, and giveaway events to engage students and introduce them to the college’s four Haslam Connects corporate partners: 21st Mortgage, NavMD, PYA, and Veritiv. During each one- to two-day event, the college distributes more than 1,000 seasonal items such as t-shirts, “energy” snacks, and hats to students. Each item is branded with the college name, and with the logos of corporate partners. The event sparks a spirit of unity among students, staff, and faculty members. “I think of the Haslam College of Business as a team, and branded gear strengthens my pride for my team,” says Schahrzad Mehdian, an MBA candidate. “I love to display my cups, sweatshirt, mugs, and other gear across campus and at my internship.” Mehdian believes the event will yield future rewards for the college. “I think Haslam Connects displays the college’s sincere appreciation for each student, which is essential in establishing a loyal alumni base,” she says. “Students can reciprocate that appreciation with future support and good word-of-mouth marketing for the college.”
HASLAM.UTK.EDU | 31
STEERING ECONOMICS FROM THE NATION’S CAPITAL TO HIS ALMA MATER
BEAUTIFYING ROCKY TOP
R
RUSSELL LAMB IS PASSIONATE about economics. “In my
LEADERS IN PHILANTHROPY
RUSSELL LAMB
32 | HASLAM MAGAZINE
opinion, it’s the queen of the social sciences,” he says. “Majoring in economics teaches you to think analytically and is good preparation for a lot of things, including careers in business.” Lamb’s journey in economics began at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, in the 1980s. He earned his bachelor’s degree in 1987 before pursuing a master’s from the University of Maryland and a doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania. Lamb has fond memories of days as a UT student. “I had great teachers, including the late Hans Jensen, who was my faculty advisor,” he says. His enthusiasm for his subject shines through in his voice as he jokes about staying in school as long as possible to spend more time learning about his craft. After finishing a PhD at the University of Pennsylvania, Lamb landed a coveted job at the Federal Reserve Board in Washington, D.C., which he recalls as a wonderful experience. “You’re working for the place that runs the world,” Lamb says. “I learned a lot about being a practicing economist and making a living through economic analysis.” After five years at the Federal Reserve, Lamb had the opportunity to return to academia as a faculty member at North Carolina State University, but being an academic
LEADERS IN PHILANTHROPY DEVELOPMENT & GIVING LAMB REPORT
AN AVID SOCCER PLAYER, biker, swim-
mer and gardener, Ernie Cadotte spends much of his free time enjoying the great outdoors of Tennessee. His wife, Bonnie, shares his passion for nature, especially the “I’ve been happy to mountains. be able last The Cadottes to serve and give the few came to Knoxville in the 1970s when Ernie joined the faculty at the years because without a good Haslam College of Business. Today, Ernie economics program,studies youlearning can’tprocesses, assessment, have a great business college— entrepreneurial decision-making, and customer satisfaction as the college’s John W. or a great university.” Fisher Professor of Innovative Learning. wasn’t the right fit. A gifted communicator, Lamb Ernie and Bonnie raised their three realized he was better suited to consulting work Kate, and John, in East children, Joseph, than academic research. “It’s been perfect for mecame here from the Detroit Tennessee. “We for all sorts of reasons,” he says. “I love explaining area,” says Bonnie. “Knoxville is smaller, economics to people who aren’t slower-paced, familiar with and has been a great place to it, and my role includes a lot of raise explaining and a family.” teaching along with the technical work.” Soon, though, the outdoor-inclined Since 2004, Lamb has served as an noticed the lack of natural beauty Cadottes economics consultant based in the on the Knoxville campus. “It’s a wonderful Washington, DC, area, focusingeducational on institution, but there was a lot antitrust economics. He has testified of cement,” says Ernie. “The campuses I’d in US District Court in five states been on previously all had beautiful landregarding antitrust liability andscapes, open spaces, and wooded areas.” impact and economic damages from Before construction began on the Glockanti-competitive conduct. Lamb has er Building, Ernie noticed that the tennis had an active practice in Canadacourt across the street had been repurposed as a parking lot. “I looked at that and started talking with some people about it,” he says. “I suggested, ‘When they’re done, why don’t we turn it into a park?’” As demolition and construction began on the new Haslam College of Business building, the Cadottes met with university planners and spearheaded a campaign to create a campus park next to the new building. “Bonnie and I met with central administrators and proposed the idea of putting a small park where that tennis court was,” Ernie says. “The idea was that Bonnie and I would donate money and if the Haslam fund and the University would donate the same amount, we’d have a decent pool from which to work.” The funding did in fact come together and as the park idea progressed to the planning stage, Ernie and Bonnie remained involved, meeting with campus administrators and
since 2007 as well. In late 2016, Lamb co-founded landscapers throughout “The Monument Economics Group,the anprocess. Arlington, Virginia-based traditional way of thinking was very funcbusiness and economic consultancy that provides advisory tional,” says. “We went back and services to lawBonnie firms and government organizations. forth, and they eventually agreed to a Despite his far-reaching career, Lamb more holds a special planDepartment with less cement. It was a little bitHaslam affinityopen for the of Economics at the a shift for UTInto2006, be more in soft Collegeofof Business. he interested became part of the spaces, trees, wide lawns, spots tocouncil. sit and “They were department’s first economic advisory read, to stretch meet people instead of in the ’90s, coming out and of a places difficult of budget cuts just walkways.” but I’ve watched the department flourish over the past Through the efforts theNeilson’s Cadottes,leadership,” decade under Bob Bohm’s andofBill the park took shape as Blueberry Falls, he says. “I’ve been happy to be able to serve and give the last a combination of two of Ernie’s favorite few years because without a good economics program, you outdoor elements. “I love waterfalls, anduniversity.” can’t have a great business college—or a great even our backyard home,” Over thebuilt pastone fewinyears, Lamb hasatgiven generously says. “The other thing is,professor I love fruitemeritus and towardhethe endowment honoring have a big berry patch in my yard with 200 Bob Bohm and established the Economics Excellence blueberry plants.” Endowment in 2011. He believes in giving back because of As the ideasimpacted took shape, university ofthe way scholarships his life as an undergraduate ficials jumped on board. “Everybody fell in I came student. “I grew up in Newport,” he says. “When and started to get excited about it.” Bonnie to UT, I had scholarships that covered books and tuition. says.is“Willow Garden LandscapMy giving a way ofRidge repaying thatand debt. I’d like to think inguniversity of Oak Ridge designed the water that the has gotten a pretty goodfalls return on its and did great job. It’s become one of the investment in ame.” most photographed places on campus.” Later, the Cadottes also helped to expand Blueberry Falls beside the new student union and are especially happy with the cascades they added to the park. There are more than sixty blueberry bushes throughout the park for everyone to enjoy in June. The Cadottes continue to enjoy the process of seeing UT’s campus cultivate green spaces. “Students are working hard, and they need places to rest, to talk to their friends, and to get outside,” Bonnie says. “They need beautiful places.” “For me, the thanks is in the giving,” Ernie says. “This campus is my home, and who wouldn’t want to make their home more beautiful?”
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HASLAM.UTK.EDU | 33
ALUMNI DEVELOPMENT
YOUNG ALUMNI BOARD
Haslam Young Alumni Board Members* HANNA BACON Barge Waggoner Sumner & Cannon ____________ Nashville, TN
I
BRINGING ENGAGEMENT, IDEAS TO HASLAM IN EARLY 2016, the college introduced
the Haslam Young Alumni Board, a group designed to reconnect recent graduates and generate ways to support the college’s growth. The board currently has twenty-three members, age thirty-five and under, meets twice per year, and works directly with the Office of Development and Alumni Affairs to promote and support alumni programming. “The value for alumni is that they remain a part of something special that can help their future career prospects,” says board member Phillip Furlong, who serves as vice president and private wealth advisor at Regions Bank East Tennessee/North Carolina. “These networking and mentorship opportunities can make a big difference in a person’s career.” Through the board, Haslam gains stronger relationships with some of its brightest alumni. “I have been blown away by the members of this board,” Furlong says. “They are very diverse and talented.”
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Samara Sadrin, senior associate at PwC’s Logistics Center of Excellence, says the board give members the opportunity to share ideas, thoughts, and feedback about how to make improvements. “As an alumni board member, I constantly think of how I can promote and serve as an advocate for the college at my workplace, and I’m sure the other members are doing the same.” Krista Loken, assistant director of annual giving and alumni engagement, recognizes the board’s value for current students. “I’ve seen these alumni become more active, not only with this board, but with other initiatives throughout the college,” she says. “For example, we began a Young Alumni Mentor Program, in which we pair sophomore students with alumni in their perspective fields of interest. We utilized this board to help get feedback on the program prior to its launch, and several expressed interest in becoming mentors.”
CHARLES BLALOCK TopJump Trampoline Park ____________ Pigeon Forge, TN DANIELLE CASSON Jefferies, LLC ____________ Charlotte, NC JONATHAN EMKES Built Technologies, Inc., ____________ Nashville, TN HEIDI FAUST PepsiCo ____________ Chicago, IL ROBERT FORD KPMG LLP ____________ Atlanta, GA PHILLIP FURLONG Regions Bank ____________ Knoxville, TN MONICA GREENE LifePoint Health ____________ Brentwood, TN STEPHEN GUERRETTE Alcoa Inc. ____________ Knoxville, TN JASMINE HAMMONS Dell, Inc. ____________ Austin, TX JULIA HUNT Mars Chocolate North America ____________ Knoxville, TN
CHRISTOPHER INKLEBARGER Bourne Partners ____________ Charlotte, NC KYLE JOHNS Atlanta Capital Management ____________ Atlanta, GA KURT KRUSHENSKI KPMG LLP ____________ New York, NY CAMERON PUCKETT Pinnacle Financial Partners ____________ Knoxville, TN MICHAEL REYNOLDS FedEx Services ____________ Memphis, TN SAMARA SADRIN PwC ____________ Chicago, IL COLIN SCHNEEWEISS FTI Consulting ____________ Nashville, TN TODD SKELTON State of Tennessee— Office of the Governor ____________ Nashville, TN RYAN SOWELL British Telecom ____________ Reston, VA WADE STONEBROOK KPMG LLP ____________ Knoxville, TN LANCE TAYLOR University of Tennessee, Knoxville ____________ Knoxville, TN * Members serve a two-year term.
DEVELOPMENT & GIVING REPORT
THE ARCHWAY SOCIETY Throughout the history of UT’s Haslam College of Business, the arches of the business building have welcomed countless students eager to excel academically and become successful leaders in their chosen fields. The tradition continues with today’s students, who pass through the original stone arches of Glocker that have been preserved as well as through the new steel arches that connect the restored Glocker Wing to the newly built classrooms of the James A. Haslam II Business Building. The Archway Society recognizes private support and development of the college’s programs. Even as the business building’s arches represent a link to the past, this society’s membership understands the importance of creating a bridge to the future by establishing active endowments benefiting the Haslam College of Business students. Through their unwavering support, these generous alumni and friends of the college uphold the tradition and provide tomorrow’s graduates with the opportunity to pass through these regal arches and into a brighter future.
AAA Cooper Transportation Family & Friends of Casey Adams F. Whit Addicks Frank M. Addicks Mary H. Allen W. Mark Allen Howard B. & Wendy C. Allenberg American Society of Women Accountants, Knoxville Chapter #92 Amway Corporation Bruce A. & Monique W. Anderson The Anderson Family David & Cynthia Arnholt AT&T Company James H. Atchley Kelvin & Sheryl Ault Matt & Leigh Avery Steve & Ann Bailey Jim Baker Bank of America Jennifer Banner Robert O. & Phylis L. Baron R. Stewart Bartley Brodie & Grace Baynes
BB&T Randall S. Beard Robert H. Bebber J. Garrett Begley Allen & Karen Bell Tom & Jennifer Bell The Berkline Corporation Len & Laura Berlik James & Patricia Bernal Mike & Nancy Berry Bible Harris Smith P.C. Raymond E. & Barbara I. Bible Don C. Birdwell, Jr. Harold A. Black Peter J. & Evelyn R. Blau Bill Blevins Board of Directors of the Consumer Credit Union Jennie K. Bonham R. Stanley Bowden II Randal D. & Jenny Boyd Parks & Kertrina Brame Thomas E. & Sarah Alice Bronson Brown Stove Works Inc. David A. Brown II H. Carey Brown Martin & Ann Brown Steve & Jill Brown Tony & Tricia Bryant Christopher Burgin Renda J. Burkhart Randy Burleson Andrew N. Burns Rhea & Ada Burns C.H. Butcher Charles A. & Dorothy H. Butler Jim & Celeste Butler Jane E. Campbell Joseph V. & Terri Carcello Richard W. & Nancy S. Cardin Larry & Vivian Carroll Samuel R. Carter, Jr. Paul & Beverly Castagna Mary O. Chambers Charles E. & Agenia Clark William R. & Sara B. Clark Gary & Marsha Clayton Kevin & Michelle Clayton Duke Clement, Jr. Steve & Gail Waters Clendenen David D. Coleman David & Annie Colquitt Charlene Connell Michael & Kimberly Copperthite E. Terry Cowles Reaves M. Crabtree James & Mira Craine James A. Crossman CSX Corporation L. Michael & Carolyn B. Cuddy Dale & LaVerne Culbertson Marc & Kelli Davenport Jeff W. & Janet P. Davis Deloitte
Delta Nu Alpha Volunteer Chapter 135 Family & Friends of Todd Shelton Denson Thomas E. Desmond DHG PLLC G. Mack & Nancy R. Dove Charles W. & Sarah J. Duggan Duke Energy Corporation Theresa Sharp Dyer David Ecklund R. Kevin Edwards Equality Coalition for Housing Opportunity Charles W. & Candy Ergen Norman D. & Deborah K. Estep David Evans EY Foundation Alan Fan Don C. & Sandra H. Fancher Farm Bureau Insurance— Tennessee Federal Express Corporation Financial Management Association of Greater Knoxville First Tennessee Foundation John W. & Janice Fisher Lyle M. & Marcella J. Flaskerud Richard D. & Kim J. Fletcher Brian & Heather Foley James B. & Joanne Ford Kimberly B. Ford Robert & Catherine Ford Ronald D. Ford Duncan M. Fort III Family & Friends of Liston Marshall Fox William F. Fox James C. & Marsha S. Foxworthy Marshall A. & Ashley C. Franklin D. Winston Frazier Friends of Phillip Fulmer Tom T. Gallaher The GAR Foundation Charles Garrison Phyllis N. Garrison Ken C. & Peggy E. Gilbert Gary N. Given Nan M. Given Family & Friends of Janet Gochberg James M. Gower III Lara Robinson Green Paul & Pat Green William C. Greer Sam & Leslie Grigsby John Hajjar Allen P. & Grace Halliday William P. & Dorothy Halliday, Jr. William P. Halliday III Steven D. & Jane J. Harb James L. Harlan II Roy L. Harmon, Jr. Jerre & Barbara S. Haskew James A. & Natalie L. Haslam II
Jimmy & Dee Haslam III Will & Hannah Haslam Bill & Crissy Haslam John D. & Renee D. Hawkins Tom S. Hawkins, Jr. Blaine & Robin Hawkins E. Jane Hazlewood Ralph D. & Janet K. Heath Jeff L. & R. Diane Hemphill C. Kennon (Ken) Hendrix Dennis and Jennie Hendrix Foundation Jerry & Kay Henry Robert Z. Hensley William K. Hensley Jennifer L. Holder J. Fred & Wilma D. Holly Home Federal Bank of Tennessee Douglas A. & Brenda Horne Cornell C. & Frances B. Houston Humbolt Express John F. Humphrey Metal Fabricators Inc. Robert P. & Barbara H. Hunter, Jr. Edwin C. & Elizabeth C. Huster, Sr. Illinois Central Gulf Railroad Elizabeth A. Ingalls David A. & Deborah A. Ingram Philip & Margo Jacobs William & Elaine Jenkins George R. Johnson JW & Whitney Johnson Lynn C. Johnson Mark & Beverly Johnson David P. & Jeanne Claire Jones Mason & Emily Jones Wilma Jordan Ronald & Joan Justus Family & Friends of Allen H. Keally William H. Keith Reed & Cathey Keller Jim Keras Family & Friends of Jack Key Ben & Margaret Kimbrough, Sr. John Rutledge King Martha W. King Chris & Donna Kinney Knoxville Community Housing Resource Board Inc. Michael A. Koban, Jr. Paul & Tammy Koonce Russell L. Lamb James S. Lattimore, Jr. Brenda G. Lawson Fred R. Lawson William E. & Pamela R. Lee Thomas S. Lewis, Jr. Michael K. Littlejohn Michael A. Lobel Howard H. Lunsden continued on p. 38 >
HASLAM.UTK.EDU | 35
Mike and Pam Koban in the Hughes Public Library, Rugby, Tennessee. The library opened October 5th, 1882. The original collection of 7,000 volumes, preserved by Historic Rugby, demonstrates the importance of education to settlers of this village.
A
A FIRST-GENERATION COLLEGE graduate, Mike Koban (HCB, ’73)
came from a family that valued education. “My grandparents were immigrants from Eastern Europe,” he says. “They never spoke English fluently, but they always wanted me to go to college.” Mike’s parents, too, strongly supported his decision to attend the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, in the fall of 1969. Pam Koban (A&S, ’73) soon joined him, transferring from a small private all-female college in her home state of Colorado. “He was already in love with the university and I fell in love with it too,” she says. “I have fond memories of sitting on the Hill at dusk with friends, playing the guitar, and singing our alma mater. Moments like that stay with you all your life.” Pam also came from a family that valued education. Her grandmother taught at a one-room schoolhouse in rural Colorado in the early 1900s, riding a horse to work each morning.
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LEADERS IN PHILANTHROPY
MIKE AND PAM KOBAN
DEVELOPMENT & GIVING REPORT
LEARNING FINDS ROOTS IN RURAL COMMUNITIES
Mike received his bachelor’s degree in finance and Pam graduated with a bachelor’s degree in psychology. The pair married and moved to Memphis to be near Mike’s family, both attending graduate school there. They then relocated to Nashville, where Mike began working for Commerce Union Bank, but his path soon changed again. “I landed a job with Hospital Corporation of America and worked there for eleven years until the company split into two parts in 1987,” says Mike. He joined the new company, HealthTrust, as vice president of finance and later became a board member. After HealthTrust sold several years later, Mike decided to start his own hospital management company and later, a surgery center business. Meanwhile, Pam worked for the University of Tennessee at Nashville for several years before joining the University of Tennessee System in Knoxville. Later, she also worked for the Tennessee Board of Regents system in Nashville. “Having experience in both at that level was so enlightening,” Pam says.
“I learned a great deal about the two systems, their differences and similarities.” While at the Tennessee Board of Regents, Pam says she held the record for the most maternity leaves taken in the shortest time. “We had three children in three and a half years,” she laughs. “After that, I waved the white flag and decided to retire.” Pam remained involved in her children’s and the state’s educational systems. She is a trustee at Montgomery Bell Academy in Nashville and three years ago, she was invited to serve a five-year term on the Tennessee Higher Education Commission. Mike and Pam also have supported education through their generosity to the Haslam College of Business. They named a classroom in the Haslam Building in honor of Mike’s great-grandfather and a team room for his father and grandfather. The Kobans have created a scholarship bequest in addition to providing yearly support for cash award scholarships earmarked for students from rural areas. “We picked rural areas because our families are from small towns,” says Mike. “In a city, there are more places to go to find support for pursuing education. In many rural areas, students have limited access, and it’s hard to find assistance.” The Kobans enjoy meeting their scholarship recipients and sharing their vision of giving. “We’ve been lucky in our lives and we always say, ‘Remember to do the same for someone else when you can,’” says Mike. “Giving makes you a lot happier than receiving.”
HASLAM.UTK.EDU | 37
NEWLY ESTABLISHED ENDOWMENTS* *Endowments established between September 1, 2016 – March 31, 2017.
Beverage Control Inc. Endowed Business Scholarship First Tennessee Foundation Endowed Professorship Hawkins GLS Scholarship Endowment Heath Endowments for the Integrated Business and Engineering Program Larry and Mary Jo Leahy Endowed Business Scholarship Ray & Joan Myatt Faculty Endowment Gerald T. Niedert Endowed Professorship John & Johanna McCormick Scholarship Endowment Robert C. & Judy R. McMahan Finance Excellence Endowment
38 | HASLAM MAGAZINE
continued from p. 35 > Clifford F. Lynch Richard & Patricia Mallicote Stephen L. & Troba Mangum J.P. & Gladys Maples Ella Mae Marsh Walter C. & Elizabeth K. Marshall A. David & Sandra L. Martin Helmer & Elizabeth Martin Ralph Masengill, Jr. Cheryl Massingale Lynn Massingale Michael W. & Suzanne S. Masters John M. McCall II McCormick & Company Inc. S. Lloyd McCulloch Wade McGregor Jack B. McKamey Janet McKinley David E. & Nancy H. McKinney G. Adam & Tabatha F. McClain James C. McSpadden George & Margaret Melton J. Tom & Brenda Mentzer Dan & Amy Miles Alex Miller The Miller Family Virginia Sliger Milligan Jack & Trish Mills Les Mirts Lynn Mirts Anne Y. Modlin Phillip W. Moffitt Fulton Beverly Moore, Jr. John R. Moore Richard L. Moore, Jr. Roger M. Moore, Sr. Thomas F. & Linda L. Morris Mortgage Bankers Association of Knoxville Ray & Joan Myatt Terry L. & Robin A. Neal C. Warren & Annelle Neel Nestle USA Charlie & Carolyn Newcomer James I. & Kathy Newsome III Gerald T. Niedert Jerald A. and Kimberly M. Nine, Jr. Family Foundation Joseph & Barbara O’Donnell Linda N. Ogle F. Perry Ozburn, Jr. John Wallace Page Robert G. & Mary L. Parks, Jr. Kiran M. Patel Family & Friends of Edwin “Pete” Patton Kenneth W. & Wanda N. Patton Charles & Carolyn Pearson J. Thomas & Suzanne Perry Richard & Debbie Perry Edward V. Pershing David Peters Norman H. Post Patricia Pratt
Provident Life and Accident Insurance Company Sharon M. Pryse Pugh CPAs Will J. Pugh Family & Friends of Will J. Pugh Will J. Pugh, Jr. The Quaker Oats Company Tom & Kim Quillen David & Sharon Ramsey W. Harold Read Regal Entertainment Group Foundation Regions Bank Reliance Water Heater Company S. Herbert Rhea Jon G. & Mintha E. Roach Worrick G. Robinson IV Martin L. & Carol Fri Robinson Scott & Dianna Roe King W. & Judy P. Rogers III William T. & Gayle M. Rogers Gary & Donna Rose Michael D. Rose Brett W. Rousch Charles S. Runnion, Jr. Ali Safavi Sampson Enterprises David & Jane Schumann Dane & Meg Scism Aileen Seilaz Scott A. & Kathy W. Selbach David G. & Swannee Sexton Eugene T. Seymour Family & Friends of Jim R. Shelby Jimmy R. & Billie M. Shelby Howard W. (Bud) & Barbar Sherrod Stewart G. & Ann T. Siewert Toby C. & Betsy Silberman Barrett & Betsy Simonis Taylor & Jean Simonton A. Dean & Ann H. Skadberg Frederick S. Slagle Eva DiAnne Smith Greg & Lisa Smith James F. Smith, Jr. Orville N. Smith Richard A. & Ann S. Smith Thomas S. Smith David H. Stacey III Stage Stores Inc. Andrew H. & Emily B. Stallings Jeanne P. Martinson Statham David & Deborah Stevens William B. Stokely III William B. Stokely, Jr. Foundation Ron Suedekum Joseph W. Sullivan III SunTrust Bank of East Tennessee R. Andrew Taylor Sharon M. Taylor Tennessee Executive Development Program Alumni Tetra Recycling
Third National Bank Arthur A. & Hasseline E. Thompson Karen Trent Mary Trotter William L. Vallett, Jr. Arthur Van Buren The Family of Roland C. Van Dorselaer Frank Venable A.L. Viles Kate Vitasek George A. Wagoner James W. & Candy P. Wansley Carolyn G. Ward James C. & Corinne P. Ward III William Way Alan R. Whitman Friends of Jan R. Williams Rod & Karen Williams Tim Williams Willis Corroon Corporation of Tennessee Jack Willis Kenneth L. & Shari Wills Alan D. & Wendy R. Wilson Edward E. & Anne A. Wilson John Q. & Wanda W. Wisecarver Ronald H. Wolf H. Pat Wood Neville J. Woods Elise Roby Yanders *This list reflects active endowments as of March 31, 2017.
THE 1914 SOCIETY When the School of Commerce began in 1914, it had only eleven students and one faculty member. While their numbers were few, their shared passion for leadership in business practices and education was strong. As the college has grown and changed, the passion shown by its original students and faculty has perservered. Each year, hundreds of future business leaders graduate and join the ranks of our loyal alumni, reaffirming the importance of a continuing legacy to inspire future growth and success for the college. 1914 Society members reflect the values of the founders of the college, and understand the importance of continuing that legacy. Members show their commitment through bequests, charitable remainder trusts, charitable gift annuities, life insurance gifts, or retirement beneficiary designations.
DEVELOPMENT & GIVING REPORT Anonymous Martha Arnold Dan B. Ashby Jonathan C. Bailey John V. Barker Jeff & Denise Barlow Alvin G. & Sally M. Beaman Raymond L. Bell Edward J. & Carolyn P. Boling John Boll Randal D. & Jenny H. Boyd Charles W. & Sherry Brinkley, Jr. Shirley Pih Broadbery Steve & Jill Brown Don & Joan Bruce Harry J. Bruce Robert L. Bryan & Delores Lyons Cameron Burnette Andrew Burns Paul A. & Beverly Castagna William R. Clark David D. Coleman Henry J. “Jerry” Collins John C. Compton Scott V. & Julie C. Cooper Samuel L. Coulter Joe R. Crafton, Jr. L. Michael & Carolyn B. Cuddy Dale & LaVerne Culbertson Thomas & Rachael Desmond Donald N. Edmands Anne-Todd Eisner Kenneth L. & Gina R. Evans, Jr. Don & Sandra Fancher Larry W. Felts John W. & Janice B. Fisher Ron D. Ford Roberta J. Fox Donald W. & Suzanne H. Freeman Phillip & Jinny Furlong Leslie D. Galloway Sarah F. Gardial Susan Golicic Edward D. Gray, Jr. Gregory A. & Katherine R. Hamilton Lee. Harkleroad III Stephen J. & Donna K. Harrison F. Reed & Kathrine Hayes E. Jane Hazlewood Regina Holt Frances B. Houston David R. Howard Stan & Teresa Hurt Lynn C. Johnson H. Russell & Florence L. Johnston, Jr. Charles B. Jones, Jr. Ben S. & Margaret Kimbrough, Sr. Michael A. Koban, Jr. Steve & Cindy Kroeger Jeffrey & Shannon Land Chris & Quinita LaPorte Ron E. & Carolyn B. Lawrence Fred R. & Sharon Lawson William E. & Pamela R. Lee Ed Lester Carl F. & Mary L. Maples, Sr.
A. David & Sandra L. Martin Larry B. & Jane H. Martin Whitney Johns Martin Janet L. McKinley Robert C. & Judy McMahan Scott D. McWilliams George & Margaret Melton Gregory H. Meyer David & Sien Moon Roger M. Moore, Sr. Charles W. & Sherry R. Morgan Ray Scott & Joan Stroud Myatt, Jr. Pamela C. Neal Gordon H. & Camoline D. Newman James & Kathy Newsome III Dennis H. Owen Robert G. & Mary L. Parks, Jr. Ed & Karen Pershing Johnny & Kimberly S. Pitts Patricia D. Postma Gary Pratt Will J. Pugh Richard E. & Ann P. Ray W. Harold & Elizabeth Robinson Read Martha Butler Rector William & Carole Reeves Jon G. & Mintha E. Roach Martin L. & Carol Fri Robinson King W. & Judy P. Rogers III Brett W. Rousch Louis C. & Sherlene C. Schumacher Scott & Kathy Selbach James B. Selleh Bill H. Sims Jr. A. Dean & Ann E. Skadberg, Sr. Sarah Ellen Skinner Fred W. & Lynn H. Smith III Randall E. & Jennifer Smith David Snapp Aaron J. Snyder George A. Spiva, Jr. Douglas L. Standifer Connie Dorrough Steinmetz David & Deborah Stevens Robert S. Talbott Herman Jesse & Karen Tallman W. Kirk Taylor Joe P. & Sheryl S. Teague B. Ray Thompson J. Neal & Cathy Townsend James H. & Connie P. Vavalides Mark L. Venrick Charles A. & Nancy G. Wagner James W. & Candy P. Wansley James C. & Corinne Ward III Paul Warren & Angela Washington William Way Charles R. West Bill & Kay Whitman Jan R. & Elaine Williams Kenneth L. & Shari Wills Mike & Nadine Woodall Morgan M. & Kathryn Zook
Where in the world is Haslam? WHETHER YOU’RE IN LONDON, Cuba,
or Cairo, or maybe somewhere closer to home, we want you to let us know where you are! Show us your Haslam pride with a picture posted to social media. Tag your post with the hashtag #HaslamWorld. Need some Haslam gear to take with you? We’ve got you covered, just visit our online store at TINY.UTK.EDU/ HASLAMSHOP.
From top to bottom: Global Leadership Scholars spelling HASLAM in front of Big Ben during their semester in London. First-year students in front of the Havana Cathedral during their trip to Cuba in December. Global Leadership Scholars on a camel ride in Morocco over spring break.
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*This list reflects planned gifts as of March 31, 2017.
HASLAM.UTK.EDU | 39
ALUMNI PROFILE
CAM MURPHY
FLYING SAFE SKIES
ADMBA Alum Growing Aerospace Maintenance Company With Family Vision BY GERHARD SCHNEIBEL
C CAM MURPHY CAME OF AGE in
the business of commercial aircraft maintenance. As a young man under thirty taking a leadership role in his family’s company, he chose the Haslam Aerospace and Defense MBA to gain strategic perspective.
40 | HASLAM MAGAZINE
“I’m really excited to come into work every day because I believe we have a bright future,” says Murphy, who is managing director at his family’s Miami-based FEAM. “I feel like I’m building a dream team as we grow. My father definitely hand-picked some amazing people, and I’m constantly learning from them.” Murphy, who was recently featured in Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list for Manufacturing and Industry, credits his father, Fred, with growing the company from a two-person shop in 1993 to a 700-employee company operating in twenty-seven cities. The third-party service FEAM provides at airports is known as “line maintenance” and includes airplane repairs done at the gate. The younger Murphy now applies his University of Tennessee, Knoxville, education to his management role late into every night with a determined and open leadership style. “I’m a night owl,” Murphy says with a chuckle. “I give my cell phone to everyone within the organization and tell people that I will always respond. I never want to be separated from what our people do day-to-day, or for them to feel they cannot give feedback. I drive everyone here crazy with lean and continuous improvement strategies.” Murphy explains that completing the Haslam ADMBA gave him the ability to combine the pieces of his knowledge into coherent strategy. “The training I got from my Haslam MBA catapulted me like you can’t even imagine,” Murphy says. “I’m at the
point where I analyze and make datadriven decisions, and nothing comes from the gut. I’m a firm believer in operations excellence. The training in Lean Six Sigma and the Theory of Constraints changed my entire perspective on business.” Murphy learned to approach business problems as opportunities because “that can be a path to higher efficacy,” he says. “Our customers really are strategic partners. We succeed when they do. That type of strategy and thinking made a huge impact on me.” Despite being honored by Forbes and having been the youngest student in an MBA class that included executives from organizations including Boeing, Rolls Royce, Lockheed Martin, and the Air Force, Murphy practices humility in guiding the company his father built. “Every blessing can be a burden,” he says. “Our burden right now is that we have growing pains. My father dedicated every day of his life to this business—he and my mother—so I’ve really got to thank them for that foundation. Their dedication motivates me when I think of the sacrifices they made. Many of the people from the organization have seen me grow up from when I was a baby, so I always talk about the FEAM team or the FEAM family. Their day-to-day efforts truly make the impossible possible for all of our customers. I never want us to lose the culture of treating each other within the organization like family and team members because teams have common goals. Our common goal is to satisfy our customers.”
To share your news with the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Haslam College of Business community, submit it along with any relevant images to Haslam@utk.edu. Please use “Alumni News” in the subject line.
ALUMNI NEWS ’70s Alvin McConnell (ProMBA, ’09) was promoted to corporate planning manager for Eastman Chemical Company in Kingsport, Tennessee.
Bill Harrison (HCB, ’78) was recognized as a CFO of the Year for 2016 by Arkansas Business.
Michael Strickland (HCB, ’77) of Bandit Lites accepted the award for Lighting Company of the Year at the Parnelli Awards in Las Vegas on October 22, 2016.
Jerome Julian (HCB, ’84) was named president and CEO of United Way of Washington County, Tennessee.
’00s
Umar Chouhdry (PEMBA, ’07) was named medical director of Fidelis Care.
’80s John Clayton (ProMBA, ’05) is now vice president of project integration for Navarro Research and Engineering in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
David Clark (HCB, ’82) was promoted to president of Affinity Group/Paramount Marketing.
Brad Crawford (MBA, ’04) was named the chief operating officer for the Memphis office of Diversified Trust.
This update reflects information known as of March 31, 2017, and is listed first by decade, then alphabetically.
Harry L. Gross, Jr. (HCB, ’84), has been named Knoxville city president for SunTrust Bank.
Jason Podvin (ProMBA, ’06) was promoted to director of global benefits with Eastman in Kingsport, Tennessee.
Matthew Thornton, III (EMBA-SL, ’01), senior vice president of US Operations for FedEx Express, has been named to Ebony Magazine’s 2016 Power 100 list of the most influential and inspiring African Americans.
Jim Wigfall (ADMBA, ’08), a vice president of the shared services group providing business support to Boeing Commercial Airplanes and the Boeing Capital Corporation, was named to the Citadel’s Science and Mathematics Council.
John Hunter (ProMBA, ’09) was promoted to vice president at Barge, Waggoner, Sumner and Cannon in Knoxville.
HASLAM.UTK.EDU | 41
ALUMNI NEWS ’10s Missy Crowe (ProMBA, ’13) was promoted to director of casino operations at Harrah’s Casino Resort in Cherokee, North Carolina.
Kate Athmer (MBA, ’10) published a book, Millennial Reboot: Our Generation’s Playbook for Professional Growth.
Issam al Delaigan (EMBAGSC, ’16) was selected to develop a corporate strategic sourcing focus for King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center. He will be relocating from Jeddah to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Joel Baker (ProMBA, ’14) is now director of manufacturing for Boeing Defense in St. Louis, Missouri.
Anthony Bruno (PEMBA, ’13) has been named to the newly created position of chief medical officer and vice president of medical affairs at Wayne UNC Health Care.
Ali Idrees (EMBA-GSC, ’16) was promoted to manufacturing director of the gum, candy, beverages, and biscuits category for the Middle East, Europe, and Africa region of Mondelez International. He will continue to be based in Dubai.
Kelvin Nunn (ADMBA, ’15) is now chief of staff of the Program Executive Office Aviation of the Army.
James Lawson (EMBA-SL, ’13) is now a director of strategic accounts at ChemTreat.
Russ Epting (EMBA-SL, ’12) is now a vice president at CSX Corporation.
Bryan Furlong (ProMBA, ’16) was promoted to senior investor relations financial analyst at Regions corporate headquarters in Birmingham, Alabama.
Lee Leavell (HCB, ’13), a senior audit associate for KPMG in Atlanta, was recently presented the Local Chairman’s Award for her outstanding performance.
Jay Lown (EMBA-SL, ’15) is now an international sales manager at Heatec Inc., an Astec Industries company.
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Meghan Millwood (ProMBA, ’11) was promoted to vice president of human resources with ORAU in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
Justin Langley (HCB, ’16) was selected for KPMG’s Master of Accounting and Data Analytics program. Nick Edwards (ProMBA, ’10) is now director of sales and marketing for Sequatchie Concrete Services in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Rich Brown (ProMBA, ’15), senior director of development at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, was named to the Knoxville Business Journal’s “40 Under 40” list of young leaders in the greater Knoxville area.
Shawn Hopper (EMBA-SL, ’14) is now a legal administrative assistant at the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Michelle Odom (ADMBA, ’16) has been promoted to financial management analyst chief at the Air Force’s Oklahoma City air logistics complex.
Andres Oviedo (EMBAGSC, ’16) was promoted to senior director of the Mexico cluster in the North America region at Mondelez International. He has relocated from Buenos Aires, Argentina, to Monterrey, Mexico.
Brad Ranly (EMBA-SL, ’15) is now director of operations and transformation at the TWB Company, Worthington Industries.
IN MEMORIAM Emran Rouf (PEMBA, ’15) is now vice president & medical director for Scott and White Health Plan in Temple, Texas.
Rick Smith (EMBA-HCL, ’16) was promoted to vice president of operations for the South division of Molina.
Courtney Stewart (EMBA-SL, ’12) is now a datacenter operations facility manager at Google.
’30s WILLIAM GORDON PEARCE (’38) a veteran of World War II and the Korean conflict, died shortly after celebrating his 100th birthday, which was on December 26, 2016.
’40s EDWARD “BUD” SANFORD ALBERS, JR. (’48), a World War II veteran, died peacefully at home on October 7, 2016. He was president of the Albers Drug Company. ABRAHAM GORDON KENNEDY (’49), died February 25, 2017. He was a World War II veteran and worked on electrical engineering projects for the Westinghouse Corporation. MARVILENE ROSS SCRUGGS KNOX (’48), died on March 9, 2017.
Geogy Thomas (PEMBA, ’13) was named the 2016 Family Physician of the Year by the Tennessee Academy of Family Physicians.
BETTY DABBS SCHRAM (’45) died February 27, 2017. After a stint in local radio, she moved to New York City to study acting and later raised her family in Memphis, where she continued in theater and worked many years as an interior decorator. JACK WEST (’49) a World War II veteran, died November 20, 2016. He worked at Beaty Chevrolet for more than 50 years and retired as vice president.
’50s Shawn White (ProMBA, ’16) was promoted to vice president of global rights management at Scripps Networks in Knoxville. Chris Wilson (ProMBA, ’11), director of sales for the South Pacific and Canada at DeRoyal, was named to the Knoxville Business Journal’s “40 Under 40” list of young leaders in the greater Knoxville area.
DAN CLINTON ARMSTRONG, SR. (’50), a World War II veteran, died on March 28, 2015. He spent many years in the business world before entering the seminary, and later, politics. DOUGLAS M. ATCHLEY (’56), who retired from Highway Transport, died on February 6, 2017.
BARBARA HATLER COLEMAN (’59) who spent twenty years as an oncology social worker, died September 27, 2016. JAMES CHALMERS COWAN, JR. (’56), who worked for sixty years in the trucking industry, died November 1, 2016. LEO DALTON HOLLOWAY, JR. (’50) a retired United States Air Force major and veteran of World War II and the Korean conflict, died December 10, 2016. FLOYD ATKINS JOHNSON (’56), a Korean conflict veteran who worked for the Interstate Commerce Commission and the Department of Energy, died February 26, 2017. VIRGINIA LOU LANGSTON (’52) who made her career as an educator, died on November 13, 2016. SAMUEL ALEXANDER MARS, JR. (’50) died September 24, 2016. A former oil executive, he served on the board of Lincoln Memorial University for decades. WALTER C. ROTHERMEL, JR. (’54), who worked in the paper industry for forty years, died October 8, 2016. DOROTHY BERNICE RUTHERFORD MCCOLLUM (’51) died on January 9, 2017. She worked at Southern Railway. RUDY STEPHEN TRBOVICH (’58) died on November 27, 2016. WILLIAM LEWIS WOOD, JR. (’50) died September 14, 2016. He practiced engineering and was a member of St. Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral. HAROLD P. WOOD, JR. (’51) a Korean conflict veteran, died February 9, 2017. He worked for Boeing, started his own business, and coached youth sports in African-American communities.
HASLAM.UTK.EDU | 43
IN MEMORIAM
’60s GRAY “CHUCK” ARNOLD (’64) died on December 25, 2016. He was president of Consultec for more than thirty years. RICHARD THOMAS BELL (’63), died February 9, 2017. He was a member of Christ Covenant Presbyterian Church in Knoxville and an Eagle Scout active in scouting up until the time of his death. JAMES “JIM” ARTHUR CATLETT (’61), died November 29, 2016. CARLOS EDWARD “BILL” GREGORY, JR. (’68, ’95) a Vietnam veteran who worked for the TVA during twenty-five years of government service, died December 3, 2016. SIM LONG (’69) a National Guard veteran, died November 1, 2016. He worked for Goody’s Family Clothing for thirty-three years. LOUIS ROYAL (’60) a US Army veteran, died February 3, 2017. He was head coach of the University of Tennessee men’s tennis team from 1968-1976 and was director of tennis for the city of Knoxville. WILLIAM ALLMAN WAITE (’66) who was a commissioner of the Rutherford County, Tennessee, Consolidated Utility District for twenty-eight years, died on November 19, 2016.
’70s THEODORE CHARLES “CHARLIE” CHITWOOD, II (’73), died on November 1, 2016. NILES CRAIG CLARK, JR. (’71), a retired US Army colonel and Vietnam veteran, died on February 12, 2017. He was an aviator and maintenance test pilot during his service and raised beef cattle and grew timber in South Carolina afterwards.
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PETER J. COODE (’77), who retired from PwC in 2013, died October 2, 2016. RONNIE D. DELOZIER (’72), who worked for Watkins Motor Lines for twenty-three years, died January 22, 2017. C. DAVID “TACK” HARMON (’71) died on February 12, 2017. He made a career in finance. TERESA ANN TIDWELL MOORE (’77) died September 1, 2016. She taught at Gallatin High School and was an associate professor at Volunteer State Community College.
’80s MICHAEL COLLINS (’85) died on October 24, 2016. DAVID COWAN (’84) recently passed away. JOHN KEITH DANKS (’84) died January 9, 2017. His wife and daughters are carrying on the company that he started, Three Little Pearls, which sells jewelry made by hand from freshwater pearls and donates to world hunger organizations. LISA “SUZY” DEUTSCH (’89, ’93) died on November 17, 2016. She worked for Nissan, Modus Media International, Accenture, Federal Express, and as an independent contractor.
DAVID ANDREW JAMES (’83) died February 28, 2017. He spent his career working for Harte Hanks and coached football at his grade school, Our Lady of Lourdes, for thirty-three years. ALAN THOMAS LYLE (’82) died October 26, 2016. He worked for Food Lion, Inc., in recent years. CLEO W. NORMAN (’81), a US Army veteran who worked for the TVA, died September 30, 2016.
If you have an obituary for a University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Haslam College of Business alumnus, please submit it to us at Haslam@utk.edu using “In Memoriam” in the subject line.
’90s RONNIE BEELER (’97) and his wife, Paula Beeler, both died in a car accident on January 30, 2017. He was the chief financial officer of Fort Sanders Regional Medical Center.
’00s TIM SPIRES (’07) died February 19, 2017. He was president and CEO of the Tennessee Association of Manufacturers and the Chattanooga Regional Manufacturers Association.
’10s BETSY ANNE KNIGHT CRAWFORD (’11) died on February 19, 2017. She worked as a security specialist at Y-12 for more than thirty-five years.
JOE C. DUNN (’84), a World War II veteran who spent his career researching and developing agricultural chemicals, died April 14, 2016. WILLIAM HEWGLEY (’82, ’83) died October 28, 2016 at Methodist Medical Center in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. ROSS BENNETT HUMMELL (’82) was laid to rest on October 29, 2016.
This update reflects information known as of March 31, 2017, and is listed first by decade, then alphabetically by year of graduation.
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Receiving this scholarship reinforced my belief that hard work is rewarded. With each test I take, I always think of those who make my education possible. As I continue through my undergraduate career, I am so thankful.”
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