Engage Spring 2013

The official magazine of the Spears School of Business, Oklahoma State University

VOL. 3, No. 1, SPRING 2013

Center for Health Systems Innovation Solving medical industry challenges with a unified approach

OSU Spears School of Business

Speaker SerieS Tulsa Business Forums

Presented by the Spears School of Business and Corporate Sponsors

Tom Brokaw NBC News Special Correspondent & Managing Editor NBC Nightly News “The Voice of a Generation”

Make your reservations: cepd.okstate.edu/tbf

Tulsa

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Tuesday, April 2, 2013, 10–11:30 a.m.

Mabee Center, Tulsa

executive management briefings

Make your reservations: cepd.okstate.edu/emb

Oklahoma City

Tuesday, April 2, 2013, 4–5:30 p.m.

Civic Center, OKC

For sponsorship opportunities and more information contact the Center for Executive and Professional Development 1.866.678.3933 | cepd.okstate.edu

letter from the Dean

Gary Lawson, university Marketing

Dear Spears School and OSU supporters: One of the strategic priorities of the Spears School of Business is to “advance high-impact scholarship.” In a nutshell, the goal is to conduct research that meaningfully advances the business and economics disciplines while maintaining a portfolio of scholarly activity that substantially influences business practices. We want to be known as thought leaders in both academic and management circles. Clearly, this priority is on the critical path for achieving our vision of positively transforming organizations and making a difference.

In addition to discipline-specific research, the high impact scholarship priority also implies an emphasis on multidisciplinary thinking and practice. This accurately reflects the complexity of real-world problems and opportunities that are seldom confined to a single function or organizational unit. Through this multidisciplinary focus, we will create an environment that fosters understanding and cooperation between Spears School departments while helping to break down silos within stakeholder organizations.

So how are we doing in these respects? I think you will agree from reading this issue of engage@spears that we are definitely on track.

These stories cover an important structural change: the launch of the Watson Graduate School of Management within the Spears School. This new entity will not only shed a bright light on our graduate education programs and research, but also house our multidisciplinary degrees including the MBA and the Ph.D. in Business for Executives, which specifically exists to bridge the gap between theory and practice.

In a similar vein, we have news about the recent launch of the Center for Health Systems Innovation, a collaboration between the Spears School and OSU’s Tulsa-based Center for Health Sciences.

With a solid footing in entrepreneurship and business analytics, the Center for Health Systems Innovation will be a catalyst in finding new market-based solutions to address the global challenges of health and health care.

And if you need further evidence that the Spears School is producing scholarship that simultaneously impacts both theory and practice, take a close look at the work being done by professors Charlotte Wright (oil and gas accounting) and Dan Rickman (economic effects of state income taxes), and the collaboration of professor Tracy Suter and Ph.D. in Business for Executives student Toby Joplin (creativity vs. execution in organizations).

These stories, along with others about the generosity of our donors, the success of our alumni, the caliber of our students and the awards and recognition we’ve received, should make you awfully proud!

Lawrence “Larry” A. Crosby, Ph.D. Dean, Spears School of Business

spring 2013 engage@spears

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Table of contents

A publication of Oklahoma State University Spears School of Business • Vol. 3, No. 1, Spring 2013

ON THE COVER

The new Center for Health Systems Innovation The joint effort by the Spears School of Business and the OSU Center for Health Sciences aims to harness entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation to improve health and health care.

DIVISIONS

New graduate home The Watson Graduate School of Management is the new home of graduate education within the Spears School of Business.

DONORS

Generous Cowgirl Jennifer Grigsby puts her money where her heart is: the Spears School.

PROGRAMS

Bridging gaps The Spears School’s Ph.D. in Business for Executives program’s groundbreaking vision for executive leadership is turning out to be more than its first cohort could have imagined.

ALUMNI

Ringed in OSU alum Lauren Hallam credits the sports management program for preparing her for a job that landed her a World Series championship ring.

STUDENTS

Living a dream Spears junior Katy Allen can remember cheering OSU on as a tyke, and her love for her school has never wavered.

RESEARCH

Taxing the debate Dan Rickman of OSU’s Center for Applied Economic Research has studies that could be applied to today’s arguments over taxes.

Connecting costs Charlotte Wright finds the complexity of oil and gas fascinating — and her insight has had a major impact on the field.

Transitions

34-36

Honors 38-44

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4 8 10 12 18 22 26 30

Table of contents

Dollie Mitchell/spears school

OSU Spears School of Business Dean Larry Crosby

Associate Deans Mark Weiser Carol Johnson

Spears School Marketing and Communications Terry Tush

Editor Dorothy L. Pugh

Art Director Valerie Cummins Kisling

Contributing Writers Matt Elliott Dollie Mitchell

Photography Phil Shockley Gary Lawson

Graphic Designer Kevin Cate

Spears School Department Heads Robert Cornell, School of Accounting Jim Fain, Department of Economics and Legal Studies in Business Bruce Barringer (interim), School of Entrepreneurship John Polonchek, Department of Finance Ken Eastman, Department of Management Rick L. Wilson, Department of Management Science and Information Systems Joshua L. Wiener, Department of Marketing

Contact Spears School of Business Oklahoma State University 201 Business Building Stillwater, OK 74078-4011 405-744-5064 ssb.news@okstate.edu spears.okstate.edu

Oklahoma State University, in compliance with Title VI and VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Executive Order 11246 as amended, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, and other federal laws and regulations, does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, age, religion, disability, or status as a veteran in any of its policies, practices or procedures. This includes but is not limited to admissions, employment, financial aid, and educational services. Title IX of the Education Amendments and Oklahoma State University policy prohibit discrimination in the provision of services or benefits offered by the University based on gender. Any person (student, faculty or staff) who believes that discriminatory practices have been engaged in based upon gender may discuss their concerns and file informal or formal complaints of possible violations of Title IX with the OSU Title IX Coordinator, Mackenzie Wilfong, J.D., Â Director of Affirmative Action, 408 Whitehurst, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK 74078, (405) 744-5371 or (405) 744-5576 (fax). This publication, issued by Oklahoma State University, as authorized by the dean, Spears School of Business, was printed by Royle Printing at a cost of $6,769.20/ 7,062.12. Job # 4565 3/13

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cover story

OSU’s Center for Health Systems Innovation addresses industry challenges by working to create comprehensive, market-based solutions.

istock

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klahoma State University’s new Center for Health Systems Innovation is the first in the nation dedicated to harnessing entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation to improve health and health care systemically.

Health care visionaries from some of the world’s top organizations were in Stillwater in January to celebrate the opening of the center.

The new Center for Health Systems Innovation, a collaborative effort of the Spears School of Business and the OSU Center for Health Sciences, will focus on creating a comprehensive and coherent vision for health care problem-solving through market-based solutions.

“Could there be a more important issue in America today, and certainly in our state, than health care?” says OSU President Burns Hargis. “It is pretty clear that we cannot attempt to solve it with just money.

It’s going to have to be solved with creativity and innovation, and that is precisely what this center is all about.”

The idea for the CHSI was initially discussed in March 2012 when the Spears School hosted the first International Conference on Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Health Care. The conference’s objective was to help business, government and society pierce the confusion about health care across the United States and get a realistic grasp of the future.

in recent memory. He met the other board members at the Jan. 23 opening of the center, housed on North Boomer Road just blocks from the OSU campus in Stillwater.

Other board members include: • David Aylward, senior adviser in global health and technology at Ashoka; • Shakti Kumar Gupta, head of hospital administration at All India Institute of Medical Sciences; • Jason Hwang, physician/researcher and co-founder of Innosight, and co-author of The Innovator’s Prescription (with Clayton Christensen); • Nicholas LaRusso, medical director at the Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation; • Dr. Roger C. Montgomery, medical director at Cherokee Nation Health Services; • Lynn Mytelka, innovation policy specialist and former director, United Nations University Institute for New Technologies; and • William Palva, health and biotech venture capitalist, partner at Sevin Rosen Funds and head of the Oklahoma Life Sciences Fund. continues

Gary Lawson/University Marketing

CHSI board member Neal Patterson, an OSU alumnus who is co-founder and chief executive officer of Cerner Corp., the world’s largest independent maker of health information technology systems, has been instrumental in the creation of the center with recent gifts totaling $6 million.

“There’s a lot going on inside health care right now, and has been for a very long time, but there is kind of a convergence, and part of that convergence is the macro-economics of health care,” says Patterson.

“There’s a big collision going on. The solution to that collision is basically going to have to be innovation, and we’re going to have to innovate our way to a different kind of health care system — one that is much more adaptive, one that is much more focused not only on care and treatment but also on the health part of the equation.

“There is a window for true innovation and entrepreneurial innovation into health care,” he says.

Patterson calls the first meeting of the board members one of the best discussions he has participated in

Rubin Pillay (from left), interim executive director of the Center for Health Systems Innovation; OSU President Burns Hargis; Cerner Corp. founder and CEO Neal Patterson; Kayse Shrum, provost of the OSU Center for Health Sciences; and Larry Crosby, dean of the Spears School of Business, celebrate the opening of the OSU Center for Health Systems Innovation. spring 2013 engage@spears

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Gary Lawson/University Marketing

cover story

Cerner Corp. CEO Neal Patterson on the new center: “Health care needs some new directions, and if it works, that’s going to be a lot more important than anything else I could support.”

continued from page 5

Patterson believes that OSU and the new center can make a difference in the future of health care around the world.

“There is an awful lot of uncertainty in health care, and much of it is driven from the fact that we can’t foresee the costs continuing to rise as they have for basically the past 40 years. But that creates a lot of opportunities, and pressures, to change and to stimulate the entrepreneurial spirit,” says Patterson.

“Having come from (Oklahoma State University) allows me to take something I know, that I’ve worked on for many decades, and see if we can create synergy with that here. The fact is there are an awful lot of strong positives here that I think can be synergistic.

I’m not trying to be the spotlight. I would love for the university to be the spotlight. If this works, (location) won’t matter. Stillwater will seem like the perfect place for it,” he says.

“I think it’s about ideas, and it’s about finding things of importance and value and discovering some new directions. Health care needs some new directions, and if it works, that’s going to be a lot more important than anything else I could support.”

The center will foster an academic environment where interdisciplinary collaboration and 6

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coordination leads to researchers pooling their resources as they work to discover and implement market-based solutions for the transformation of health and health systems through creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship.

“We are living through what is arguably the most challenging time for the health care industry.

Globally, health systems are characterized by rising costs, poor access and diminishing quality and safety of care,” says Rubin Pillay, interim executive director of the center.

“Clearly the time has come for a radical reconsideration of the current system dynamics with the goal of optimizing health care delivery and increasing the value proposition for all stakeholders. It is a time of business unusual and now, more than ever, we need health management professionals, academics and practitioners alike, to adopt and propound innovation and entrepreneurial thinking and behavior as a major catalyst to produce positive change in health care from an individual to global level,” says Pillay.

For more information, visit the center’s website at chsi.okstate.edu. @

Check out the Spears School of Business on

OState.tv

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New Watson Graduate School of Management approved The Watson Graduate School of Management is the new home of graduate education in the Spears School of Business. It will house interdisciplinary programs such as the Master of Business Administration and the Ph.D. in Business for Executives, and serve a coordinating role with discipline-specific programs.

As such, the Watson Graduate School will see to the recruitment and retention of graduate students and help assure the quality of their educational experience.

It will also have responsibilities for stimulating high-impact research through various centers, seed funds, incentive awards and external grants.

Initially, the school will be headquartered in the current business graduate programs office in Gundersen Hall. When a new business building is constructed, the school will occupy a prominent location there, says Spears School Dean Larry Crosby.

The new school will carry Chuck and Kim Watson’s name. The OSU alums and longtime supporters’ recent gift of cash, pledges and an estate commitment, when combined with matching gifts, will have a total impact of $36 million. The gift will establish the Watson Graduate School of Management and assist in the construction of the new business building.

“Thanks to the generosity of Chuck and Kim, the Spears School has taken another step toward creating an improved educational experience for our graduate

students,” says Crosby. “We truly thank Chuck and Kim for their leadership and the guidance they have provided and for their economic support of our programs.”

The new school will absorb the existing functions of the Graduate Programs Office of the Spears School, and all personnel and activities will be housed in the Watson Graduate School of Management.

The new Watson Graduate School of Management will collaborate with the University Graduate College to help localize the policies and programs of the graduate college, assist in the pilot roll-out of new initiatives, and identify and flag emerging issues in graduate education.

A nationwide search will find a vice dean to head the school, Crosby says.

The OSU Board of Regents approved creating the school on Oct. 26, and the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education gave its approval on Dec. 6. @

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engage@spears spring 2013

The Spears School Needs You

The Associates

is a select group of individuals whose experience, counsel and participation have had a profound impact on the Spears School of Business’ ability to provide a quality educational experience for its students.

Benefits include: • Assisting the Spears School of Business to become a top-ranked business school.

• Early notification about school-sponsored events.

• Social functions and opportunities to network with business professionals.

• Opportunities to interact with students and faculty.

• Meetings with other Associates twice a year.

For more information please contact: Erica Charbonneau Senior Director of Development Spears School of Business Office 405.385.0722 Email echarbonneau@osugiving.com

spring 2013 engage@spears

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Generous Cowgirl Jennifer Grigsby’s $1 million gift is just one way she gives back When Jennifer Grigsby walks into the Business Building, she envisions a new state-of-the-art building that allows business students to succeed in a technologically advanced world.

Grigsby, an Oklahoma State University alum, foresees her son Reid getting résumé help in the Chesapeake Energy Student Success Center or her younger son, Jack, putting the finishing touches on a class project in a team room.

Reid may be 12 and Jack only 9, but their parents have visions of future trips to Stillwater to visit their two sons. “OSU is all they know. They’re Cowboys.

They’re going to school here,” she says.

But Grigsby does not believe Reid, Jack or other future OSU business students will be sitting in the same classrooms she did when earning her accounting degree more than 20 years ago. She says future generations need the new four-level business building (three floors will be above ground).

“I want my boys to be proud of the school they attend,” Grigsby says. “I see the pride in our athletes as the athletic facilities have improved, and I see how that translates to better performance. I think that model should work on the academic side. I think we have to think of all kinds of different ways of making the learning experience in the business school better for our future students.

“When I look around campus and see the tremendous projects going on, it’s apparent that the Spears School of Business could do so much more with a new building. Other than the Watson Trading Floor, which wasn’t there when I was at OSU, that building is exactly the same. It wasn’t appealing in the late ’80s; it’s certainly not appealing now.”

Grigsby is helping that change with a $1 million gift toward the construction of the new building, which will replace both the current Business Building and Hanner Hall. She was also involved with the $5 million gift from Chesapeake Energy, where she has worked for 17 years, for the Chesapeake Energy Student Success Center in the new building.

This isn’t Grigsby’s first gift to OSU. In 2009, her gift paired with the Boone Pickens’ match to total $500,000 to endow a scholarship for the third base position for the Cowboys baseball team in honor of her father, Gary Reid. He played third base from 1961 to ’63 for the Cowboys.

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“Jennifer is always one of the first to offer assistance when she realizes there’s a need at the Spears School and Oklahoma State University. In addition to giving financially, she also graciously volunteers her time and expertise for numerous groups on campus, including the School of Accounting advisory board,” says Larry Crosby, dean of the Spears School of Business. “Her generous gift will definitely make a difference in the lives of future business students.”

As a daddy’s girl growing up in Oklahoma City, Grigsby joined her father at as many Cowboys football, baseball and wrestling events as possible. There was little doubt where she would go after she graduated from Putnam City North High School.

But before packing for Stillwater, she made one thing clear to Gary Reid, a longtime accountant. “When I went to school I remember telling him, ‘I don’t know what I’m going to major in, but I definitely don’t want to look at numbers and sit behind a desk like you all day, Dad,’ ” says Grigsby.

She initially enrolled in the College of Engineering but changed to sports journalism after a year, dreaming of becoming an anchor on ESPN. By the end of her sophomore year, though, Grigsby had switched her major again, to accounting.

She joined Chesapeake Energy in 1995 as a seniorlevel accountant and was promoted to assistant treasurer in 1998, corporate secretary in 2000, vice president in 2006 and senior vice president in 2007.

“I am extremely proud to be part of the 16-member executive management team of a company that had fewer than 200 employees and $300 million in assets when I joined, and today is a Fortune 500 and S&P 500 company with more than 13,000 employees and more than $46 billion in assets,” says Grigsby, who oversees the firm’s treasury, corporate secretary, risk management and stock plan administration groups.

The 43-year-old mother of two says her biggest challenge in life is balancing work and family time.

“I’m trying to find good balance between managing my work load properly and my desire to do a good job here and trying to contribute to the success of this company while at the same time spending time with my family, seeing my boys grow up and being a part of their lives, and also being an active member of my community,” says Grigsby, who serves on the OSU

Foundation board of trustees, is a volunteer member of the OSU Alumni Association board of directors, serves on the School of Accounting’s advisory board, and is a co-chair of the Branding Success campaign.

One of her top priorities is helping to get the new building constructed for OSU’s future students.

“I am very passionate about the business school project,” she says. “That is a real focus of mine. ” Grigsby focuses on “over-delivering in all that you do.

I love that,” she says. “Whatever you do and whatever your approach is in life, over-deliver. I so appreciate my employees, and I so appreciate the people I work with outside the office when we’re embarking on a project, and they over-deliver. I think it’s just a great way to approach anything.”

She expects OSU to over-deliver with its new building for future business students.

And maybe one day, a couple of those students will be named Reid and Jack.

Grigsby certainly hopes so. @ Terry Tush

Photo Provided

“I love the fact that we’ve embraced who we are, why we exist as a land-grant university, and how in everything we do, we expect to be the best at it. I love it that we are doing that in the business school,” she says. “I love that we are focusing on building a beautiful business building that will be conducive for students coming to the building and staying. We’re really creating spaces where students can collaborate and where they can be comfortable learning together, where they will feel comfortable spending time together, and it will really make a difference in the learning experience of our future business students.”

Jennifer Grigsby supports her love for OSU with financial donations. “I love the fact that we’ve embraced who we are, why we exist as a land-grant university, and how in everything we do, we expect to be the best at it. I love it that we are doing that in the business school,” she says. spring 2013 engage@spears

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Making an impact

Toby Joplin (left), a member of the first cohort of the Spears School’s Ph.D. in Business for Executives program, and associate marketing professor Tracy Suter worked together on a landmark project.

Gary Lawson/University Marketing

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Ph.D. in Business for Executives program bridges the gap between lab and real world

By Terry Tush

The members of the inaugural class of the Spears School of Business’ Ph.D. in Business for Executives program may have thought they knew what lay ahead when their orientation began on Jan. 13, 2012 — but the program’s groundbreaking vision for executive leadership is turning out to be more than they could have imagined.

That vision began when program directors Ramesh Sharda and Craig Wallace, faculty members in Oklahoma State University’s Spears School of Business, put together a detailed, comprehensive plan for the Ph.D. in Business for Executives with inspiration from Dean Larry Crosby. Nearly 500 executive leaders showed interest in the program before the first cohort was selected.

Toby Joplin is one of those first 18 currently in the second year of the program. The 53-year-old holds an MBA but thought the time-consuming demands of his career would veto a doctorate.

Joplin was attending the Spears School’s 50th anniversary celebration of its MBA program in 2010 when he learned about the new program from thenAssociate Dean Robert Dooley.

“It’s been a lifelong dream of mine to get my Ph.D., and just has never worked out since I was working full time. When he told me about the new program, it was the perfect format for me, and I thought this is perfect,” says Joplin, vice president and chief financial officer at RL Hudson & Co., a supplier of custom-molded rubber, plastic and polyurethane parts, headquartered in the Tulsa suburb of Broken Arrow, Okla.

The executives travel to the OSU-Tulsa campus for three days each month and connect with professors through conferencing technologies and online platforms between sessions. The first cohort includes executives from seven states.

Sharda and Wallace blended elements from the business-related Ph.D. and the Doctor of Business Administration, both of which are research focused, to create a true research-based doctoral program

that targets executives who want to make a difference in the corporate world.

“Bridging the gap between academic research and industry needs and practices is exactly the goal of this new program,” says Sharda. “The first cohort is well on its way to help OSU make progress toward this goal.”

Two associate professors, Tracy Suter in marketing and Bryan Edwards in management, introduced the Ph.D. participants to a research project involving their two classes: Suter’s “Creativity, Innovation & Leadership” and Edwards’ “Advanced Methods in Management Research (Research Methods II).”

The research project, entitled “Creativity and Execution: Dual Climates for Enhanced Customer Service Performance,” would determine whether creativity and execution could coexist in a single company — and whether their integration would lead to better outcomes for the customer.

“Just left to my own biases, I would have thought that those two factors, creativity and execution, would have pulled at each other,” says Joplin. “If you are good at execution and discipline, you may not be as good on the innovation side. But if you’re really good at innovation, it might be like herding cats with all these creative people with no regard to timelines, budgets and so forth.”

The program and its research projects are founded on making business decisions based on facts to provide a company with information to make the best choice at that time. The research findings should lead to evidence-based and innovation-driven results that take the guesswork out of decision-making.

Joplin recruited three of the six companies that participated in the study — Arvest Bank, Union State Bank and his own firm, RL Hudson.

“The study was focused on not just coming up with ideas but also on putting the best ideas into practice,” says Suter. “What we wanted to see in terms of business practice was the ability to serve customers better. That was the performance metric that we wanted to ultimately consider.”

Joplin says he was apprehensive when he began collecting the data.

“I spent enough time as an auditor that I have a healthy skepticism toward things until I see them proven,” he says. “I think there was always a certain continues

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continued from page 13

amount of skepticism, where I’d have the opinion, ‘It’s great you’ve done this research of 100 freshmen psychology students, and it indicated certain things.

But that’s a different demographic in 19-year-old college students that are motivated by pizza and other things. In a diverse workplace, I don’t know if that’s generalizable.’ I think I’ve always had a certain amount of skepticism toward research projects like that.

“I didn’t know what to expect. It made sense to me that organizations that are good at execution would deliver better results. Just from reading the business press, I think innovative companies have a certain competitive advantage over the companies they compete against because the Apples, the Googles and the Intuits of the world have been successful because they are innovative. But what was interesting to me was the interaction. ... There was actually a more powerful effect on the customer experience for the companies that have a climate supportive of both executive and creativity or innovation.”

The two-time OSU graduate (Joplin earned both his bachelor’s degree in accounting and his MBA in Stillwater) was looking forward to sharing his findings with RL Hudson’s executive team.

Second cohort gets an international look

“As we’re looking at potential investment opportunities, this is going to give us greater confidence to invest in research and development and the innovation of new products, as well as to invest in systems that give us the ability to execute better,” he says.

“Because we know, based on research and not on our gut feeling or what some fishing buddy or someone at the country club told us, this will have a much more significant impact on our customers. And at the end of the day that’s why we’re here: to serve our customers.”

But even though Joplin’s evidence-based research showed that both creativity and execution can coexist and enhance a customer’s experience, some still disagree.

The OSU executive doctoral students ran headlong into such an opposing view during an online discussion led by a visiting professor, who maintained his findings indicated a conflict between creativity and execution.

“His opinion was different from the findings that we had in our research,” Joplin says. “It was intellectually stimulating to know that we had research that contradicted that, and we could back it up, and it wasn’t based on anecdotal evidence or that we had results from just one company. But we had the

The second class of the Ph.D. in Business for Executives in the Watson Graduate School of Management features 18 participants, with students coming from The Netherlands, Canada and seven states.

The three-year program kicked off in January with an orientation session at the Helmerich Research Center on the OSU-Tulsa campus. The members of the second cohort include: John Bergstrom, national account executive, Russell Investments Harlan Beverly, vice president of marketing, Creeris Ventures Michiel Bosman, chief executive officer, Bosman GGZ Daniel Cowan, vice president, strategy and corporate development, Aegion

Scott Miller Photography

John Gajda, executive director, TARC

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Akshay Gehlot, systems analyst consultant, Williams Cos.

scientific research that backed up what we had done, and it was contrary to what he was saying.”

That is exactly the type of innovation that Sharda, Wallace, Suter and other OSU professors envisioned with the executive leadership program.

‘More’

“As this situation came up, I really, really tried hard to reinforce this is exactly what you signed up for when you enrolled,” Suter says. “You’re getting exactly what we talked about when you signed up. It’s evidencebased, innovation-focused, and it should impact the way you think about future business decisions.”

Program exceeds student’s expectations

Joplin says OSU’s new Ph.D. program is making a difference, and he’s fortunate to be witnessing it firsthand.

“I’m really excited about the program. I think it has a great potential to bridge the gap between academia and practitioners because sometimes executives or managers in business will read an article and say, ‘That’s nice in the laboratory but this is the real world.’ There’s a gap there … but to me, this program bridges the gap,” he says.

“We are working on problems that matter to the business community. It’s not some research project or clinical project being done in an ivory tower. We’re researching and working on problems that actually impact business.” @

Shane Goodwin, managing director, head of Southwest Investment Banking, Wells Fargo Securities Justin Keeler, controller, Schneider Oil and Gas George Mayleben, trial consultant, Digital Litigation Solutions Gregory Miller, president and chief executive officer, CrossCom National Mark Mitchell, vice president and controller, Starwood Vacation Ownership Robert Reid, executive director, J.F. Maddox Foundation Soheila Rostami, former corporate environment health and safety senior manager, exp Global Inc. Walter Slipetz, former global director of environment health and safety, exp Global Inc.

Toby Joplin doesn’t hesitate when asked to summarize his first year in the Spears School’s new Ph.D. in Business for Executives program.

“I think if I had to describe it in a single word, it would be more. It’s been more than I expected in so many different ways,” says Joplin, vice president and chief financial officer at RL Hudson & Co. “The content has been more and better than I had hoped. It is just so stimulating. The research we’re doing and the things we’re learning, and the interacting with the other executive Ph.D.s has been even better than I expected,” he said.

Joplin knew some of the Spears School’s top faculty would be involved in the doctoral program. But the quality of professors has still impressed him.

“Even though I have quite a history with OSU [his bachelor’s and MBA are from OSU], I’ve been very impressed with the professors. They’ve been more than I expected,” Joplin says.

The program’s workload, on top of his demanding schedule at RL Hudson, has also been more than he expected. Still, he enjoys spending his evenings and weekends on research projects and does not regret following through on his lifelong desire to pursue his third degree.

“Honestly, the work has been more than I expected. My job at RL Hudson is probably 55 hours a week, and the Ph.D. program has been a rigorous test. I can’t tell you who’s on American Idol or who’s been voted off the island because I spend a significant amount of time on the Ph.D. program,” he says. “It’s a labor of love. I’ve really enjoyed it.

“I think it’s actually made me more and better than I thought it would. It is preparing me to do my job better.” @ Terry Tush

Zachariahs Varughese, vice president, Cancer Treatment Centers of America Sam Wang, chief operating officer, Chiro One Wellness Centers Steven Wilson, founder and president, Steven L. Wilson & Associates, CPAs spring 2013 engage@spears

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W A T S O N

g r A D U AT E

S C h O O l

O F

M A N A g E M E N T

What our Executive Doctoral Students have to say …

David Altounian

Dessie B. Nash

Founder Motion Computing Austin, Texas

Tom Totten

Vice President Market Investment Director U.S. Trust, Bank of America Private Wealth Management DeSoto, Texas

“The program has introduced me to research tools and materials that I’ve already been able to put to use in my daily work. The opportunity to be able to integrate academic approaches and practitioner approaches is what makes this program unique.”

“The open discussions and idea exchanges in the program have allowed me to implement several immediate changes in my department. We have been able to redesign our client outreach program to be more proactive and targeted.”

Chief Executive Officer Nyhart Indianapolis, Indiana

“The program has not only taught me to become an evidence-based leader, but also is transforming Nyhart to becoming more evidence based in our decision making.”

Applications now being accepted for 2014. p h d e xe c.ok st at e.ed u Inquiries

405.744.9000 | phdexec@okstate.edu

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Gates offers insight during visit to Oklahoma Robert Gates’ résumé establishes his expertise in world affairs — defense secretary from 2006 to 2011, 26 years at the CIA and the National Security Council, and more as he served under eight presidents.

Genesee Photo

Still, he didn’t hesitate to speak out on domestic issues during his two-day visit last year to Oklahoma as part of the Spears School of Business speaker series.

Gates spoke to the Oklahoma City business community as part of the Executive Management Briefings on Oct. 23, addressed the Tulsa Business Forums on Oct. 24 and traveled to Stillwater later that day, where OSU students, faculty and staff heard him.

He offered his takes on the 2012 presidential election and the nation’s defense at each venue.

“At some point, financial insolvency at home becomes strategic insolvency abroad,” he said. “We cannot sustain our leadership position militarily or politically around the world if we don’t have a strong economy here at home. That’s just the reality.

“So, I think addressing that domestic issue actually is one of the most significant elements of the national security policy as well.

As my comrade in arms, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, put it when we were still in office, the debt really is one of our biggest security problems.

“The other big issue is really what I would call the arc of instability from the Middle East … Syria, Libya, Egypt, all the way to Pakistan. There is a lot of turmoil and a lot of instability, and I think this is going to get harder before it gets easier. Really, of all the countries in the world, I can’t think of any that have the potential to be as influential as we do.”

Future events The Center for Executive and Professional Development in the Spears School will be bringing one more speaker to Oklahoma as part of the 2012-13 series.

Tulsa Business Forums April 2 — TOM BROKAW, NBC Nightly News anchor from 1982 to 2004 and author, 10-11:30 a.m., Mabee Center

Robert Gates linked domestic issues with their global impact during his October speeches in Oklahoma.

The news of Osama bin Laden’s death at the hands of U.S. Navy SEALs thrilled many in 2011. Gates was with President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and many others in the war room at the White House as the attack unfolded.

Executive Management Briefings, Oklahoma City April 2 — TOM BROKAW, NBC Nightly News anchor from 1982 to 2004 and author, 4-5:30 p.m., Civic Center

Gates called the death of the founder of al-Qaeda and the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks bittersweet as it brought back some painful memories.

“For me, I think it was in some ways more meaningful than for the rest of them because I’ve been in that situation 30 years before, almost exactly 30 years before, when the attempt to rescue our hostages in Tehran failed, and the failure began with a crashed helicopter,” Gates said. “So I about had an aneurysm when that helicopter went down. But what you saw was 30 years of reform, change, adaptation, training and investment in the skills of the team that went in there.” @

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Playing to win Sports management program prepares OSU grad for career

Story and Photos by Dollie Mitchell

nly two years out of college, Oklahoma State University alumna Lauren Hallam already has one of the rarest of career prizes: a World Series championship ring. The 2010 graduate was a direct sales representative for the St. Louis Cardinals when the Major League Baseball team won the World Series in 2011.

Hallam says the opportunity to work for the Cardinals was a dream come true: “Even in elementary school I said, ‘When I grow up, I want to work for the St. Louis Cardinals.’ ” Her grandfather was a longtime Cardinals fan, and her family in Edmond, Okla., watched the team’s games on TV and often traveled to St. Louis to attend games.

“When I came to OSU, I knew what I wanted to do,” says Hallam, who gained valuable experience with the Sports Management Institute in the Spears School of Business.

She had begun her sports career even before college.

In high school, she got an internship with the NBA’s New Orleans Hornets during the team’s relocation to Oklahoma City after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Crescent City in 2005. “I worked in the Hornets’ community relations department for about a year and a half and loved it. I really liked the community relations aspect,” says Hallam.

During her years at OSU, she held several other internships and was part of the Sports Management Club — all of which helped her win the sales position with the St. Louis Cardinals.

The team’s playoff run surprised sports fans and its own employees. “I never would have guessed it.

We were 11½ games back from making the postseason,” Hallam remembers. “From an office standpoint, we didn’t even do post-season invoicing. Our 18

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Lauren Hallam was surprised by the team ring. “When I learned that I would get a ring, I was like a little kid at Christmas. It was so exciting.”

season-ticket holders didn’t even have tickets for our post-season games, so it was a scramble.”

The scramble ended with the Cardinals beating the Texas Rangers in seven games. Hallam and other members of the Cardinals’ organization received World Series championship rings. “When I learned that I would get a ring, I was like a little kid at Christmas. It was so exciting,” says Hallam.

GROUP APPEAL Excitement aside, Hallam began to realize her desire to work more closely with nonprofits, churches and military groups as a group sales executive. But the Cardinals didn’t have that job open.

In January 2012, Hallam went to work as a group sales executive with the NBA’s Phoenix Suns and the WNBA’s Mercury, allowing her to work directly with the community. She admits it was difficult to leave her favorite team but the chance to work with the community was too appealing.

With the Suns, Hallam currently focuses on nonprofits, schools and churches. “The best part of my job is getting to work with amazing organizations and people every day,” says Hallam. “It’s not sitting behind a desk, at a computer. It’s a lot of meeting with customers and potential clients and finding out what’s best for them.”

Hallam says about 20 percent of her job involves interacting with the athletes and coaches; her department organizes the players’ participation in events or fundraisers.

The OSU grad is making her mark in Phoenix. She brought the idea of a “Military Appreciation Night” with her from her time in St. Louis. continues spring 2013 engage@spears

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“Military Appreciation Night was something that was huge when I was with the St. Louis Cardinals. When I started with the Suns, we didn’t really have a specific event designated to honoring servicemen and women,” says Hallam. The first such night was held on Veterans Day at a game against the Denver Nuggets. The Suns donated more than $140,000 worth of courtside seats to uniformed personnel.

INTERNSHIPS KEY Hallam credits her internships for her career rise.

“Internships were my biggest way to getting into sports,” she says. “If I could offer advice to students, I would tell them to find ways to make their projects apply to a professional sports team.

“I feel that the Spears School prepared me for the real-life application. It wasn’t just, ‘Here’s a paper, now do it.’

There was never an assignment that didn’t have a reason behind it.”

Lauren Hallam

“Think: ‘If I worked for the St. Louis Cardinals, what’s something I could do to make this a successful project?’

Thinking outside the box and keeping class projects was also important. I’ve used some past projects in interviews.

I used a project I did in professor [Bryan] Finch’s [adviser for the Spears School’s Sports Management Institute and visiting professor in the Department of Management] class, and the Cardinals executives loved it.”

The Spears School’s Sports Management Institute helps OSU students find internships and offers opportunities to visit with professional sports executives during schoolsponsored trips across the nation.

“Lauren made the decision to jump into the internship opportunities that she had as a student,” says Finch. “She was able to get experience in several different sports, and this set her apart from the other competitors for the job opening with the Cardinals. Teams like to see people who will hustle and go the extra mile on the field as well as in the business office.”

Hallam says, “I feel that the Spears School prepared me for the real-life application. It wasn’t just, ‘Here’s a paper, now do it.’ There was never an assignment that didn’t have a reason behind it. So that was the best thing about earning my [sports media] degree at OSU.” What are Hallam’s future goals? “In 10 years, I would like to be director or vice president of sales for a professional team,” she says.

Might that team be her childhood favorite, the St. Louis Cardinals, once again?

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“The Cardinals will always be my favorite team. Careerwise, it just made more sense to make the move to Phoenix. The culture at the Suns is something I had heard about; after being here for almost a year now, I couldn’t have made a better move.” @

Spears School Outreach?

The Center for Executive and Professional Development…

Women’s Business Leadership Conference Wednesday, March 6, 2013 | Tulsa, OK

Spring Break in Italy

Tom Brokaw NBC News Special Correspondent and Former Managing Editor, NBC Nightly News Tulsa Business Forums Tuesday, April 2, 2013 10:00 – 11:30 a.m. | Mabee Center

Energy Conference Tuesday, April 23, 2013 | Oklahoma City, OK

• Offers more than 50 public professional

development programs annually to executives, managers, and professionals on topics reflecting the departments in the Spears School of Business.

• Has played the lead role in hosting flagship

speaker series programs—Tulsa Business Forums and Executive Management Briefings.

• Offers short-term study abroad and travel

programs with Spears School faculty to gain 3 or 6 hours credit in such countries as Austria, Canada, Costa Rica, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, England, South Africa, Spain, as well as U.S. cities Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, and Washington, D.C.

Healthcare Conference Tuesday, February 28, 2013 | OKC

• Offers 275 distance learning courses

annually that enable completion of an undergraduate business degree in general business or management.

Other graduate degrees and certificates available through distance learning: • Master of Business Administration (MBA) • M.S. in Entrepreneurship • M.S. in Management Information Systems • M.S. in Telecommunications Management Graduate Certificates: • Business Data Mining • SAS Business Analytics (for MBA students) • Information Assurance

Contact us at 1.866.678.3933 or 405.744.5208 or cepd.okstate.edu to see how we can help you and your organization.

Executive Management Briefings Tuesday, April 2, 2013 4 – 5:30 p.m. | Civic Center | OKC

• Facilitates a face-to-face Ph.D. in

Business for Executives degree at OSU-Tulsa attracting students from across the nation.

• Offers on-site programs at

corporations and organizations to help with professional development in topics such as leadership, influence skills, leading change, team building, emotional intelligence, and conflict resolution.

spring 2013 engage@spears

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GARY LAWSON/UNIVERSITY MARKETING

Katy Allen: “I think having a competitive nature is going to take you a long way just because you’re not going to quit.”

Living her dream Katy Allen making the most of life at OSU and Spears School

By Terry Tush

Oklahoma State University junior Katy Allen is making the most of her college experience — and it shows in the array of titles she holds, from homecoming royalty to Spears ambassador, Scholar Leader and Spirit Scholar to Spears Student Council executive member. Even with all that, she maintains a 4.0 grade point average and says she will miss the day when Kappa Alpha Theta activities, intramural sports and class projects are not on her daily calendar.

“I don’t think I’ll be ready to move on,” says Allen, who will graduate in May 2014 with a bachelor’s degree in human resource management with a psychology minor. “I’m enjoying being a college student and all that I’ve experienced at Oklahoma State and in the Spears School.”

The daughter of OSU graduates Robert and Lynne Allen of Edmond, Okla., she grew up watching her older brother, Zach, play football for the Cowboys (2005 to 2008) and dreaming of her own future in Stillwater.

Her days as an OSU fan began early: “I remember sitting on my mom’s lap in my (homemade) cheerleading uniform, thinking I was a real cheerleader when I was 3 or 4 years old. I was in orange and black from the get go,” she says.

And Stillwater has lived up to her dreams. “Oh, my gosh, it’s definitely been everything I expected and even more,” Allen says. “For the longest time I was looking forward to being here, and the anticipation was incredible ... and finally to come to school at OSU and experience it for myself and not through other people — there’s nothing that can match that.

“There are opportunities to develop as a person that I didn’t expect at all. You get out what you put in, and developing that mindset early with friendships and relationships was important to me. You put yourself out there and those experiences will come to you,” she says.

Many of Allen’s opportunities are taking place in the Business Building. Not only is she an outstanding student, she is involved in many leadership opportunities within the school, including serving as the multimedia and marketing director of the Spears

Student Council. She’s also a Spears ambassador, part of a group of students dedicated to enhancing the image and scope of the Spears School through recruiting. Her honors also include being a Scholar Leader and a Spirit Scholar.

Ph oto

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ID ED

“Katy Allen is an amazing example of excellence and engagement at the Spears School of Business,” says Bob Cornell, head of the School of Accounting. “She exemplifies the Spears School mission to dream big, stretch her leadership potential, transform organizations and make a difference in the world. Not only is Katy incredibly bright, she is always cheerful and enthusiastic. She excels as a student leader and inspires those around her to be their best selves. We are proud to claim Katy as an OSU Cowgirl.”

She won’t settle for anything but the best. A former standout basketball player at Edmond Memorial High School, she is competitive in all she does. Allen was a member of the Lady Bulldogs basketball team that went to the Class 6A high school state tournament and today plays intramural sports.

Katy Allen was cheering for OSU long before she enrolled here.

It’s that competitive spirit that sets Allen apart from others, and she believes it will be an asset when she begins her career after leaving OSU. “I think having a competitive nature is going to take you a long way just because you’re not going to quit, continues spring 2013 engage@spears

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GARY LAWSON/UNIVERSITY MARKETING

Katy Allen was one of five candidates for Homecoming queen in 2012.

continued from page 23

you’re going to accept a challenge, you’re not going to back down from anything, and you’re not going to let anybody talk down to you,” she says, having been one of five Homecoming queen candidates in 2012.

“I think it translates specifically to having selfconfidence because if you’re competitive and you’re wanting to win, you obviously have the confidence that you can win,” she says.

“I think having that drive to compete and wanting to do the very best in all you do will translate into the real world — the job market, into relationships, into family life,” says Allen, who aspires to use her human resources management degree as a recruiter.

She was a tax accounting intern with Chesapeake Energy last summer, and this summer will travel to Thailand with the Spears School Scholar Leaders.

“Who wouldn’t want to take a 10-day trip halfway across the globe with 15 of your best friends? It’s going to be awesome,” she says. “It’s great to get that experience and to see other cultures. I believe this experience will make me more marketable when looking for a job because I think you need some kind of international experience that will set you apart.”

“Katy is truly exceptional and really makes an impact,” says Mark Weiser, associate dean of the Spears School who is leading the trip to Thailand.

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“She is facing the same challenges of every student approaching graduation and the job market, and she confronts them with a very pleasant determination.

She delivers what she promises and does so with a smile and friendly attitude. Katy is the kind of person to whom people are naturally drawn. Katy will do well, and she will be a great ambassador of the Spears School as she strikes out into the workplace.”

The 21-year-old appreciates the opportunities she’s had in the Spears School.

“I never thought when I entered college how my degree or how college in general would transfer into a career. It’s been so easy because of all the help the Spears School gives to students. You get all the experiences from different clubs and different professors, and it all perfectly translates into all these different job opportunities that are right there at our fingertips,” says Allen.

“I feel like the business school is a small world because you start networking and joining different organizations, and they are all so helpful. Business Student Council has been a blast, the Spirit Scholars, Scholar Leaders and ambassadors, all of those experiences and all those relationships have helped mold me into a businessperson. It’s provided a great college experience, but it’s a segue to the real world.” @

SUPPORT THE

VETERANS ENTREPRENEURSHIP PROGRAM The Veterans Entrepreneurship Program (VEP) offers cutting edge, experiential training in entrepreneurship and small business management for disabled veterans.

WE NEED YOUR HELP!

VEP is completely free to our veterans. Your donations enable us to cover all costs of transportation, accommodations, meals and instruction.

To make a contribution: OSUGiving/VEP

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Telling the truth on taxes OSU economist Dan Rickman tackles difficult economic questions in his research

Dan Rickman: “I always heard the income tax was the worst more than other taxes.”

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GARY LAWSON/UNIVERSITY MARKETING

tax. … [But] I didn’t find that income taxes discouraged growth

By Matt Elliott

A friend and colleague of OSU economist Dan Rickman’s once said he feels like a speed bump on the road to bad ideas.

At press time, the pair’s income tax research was slated for publication this year in the journal Papers in Regional Science.

“Sometimes that’s useful enough,” says Rickman, the director of OSU’s Center for Applied Economic Research.

Other works of Rickman’s poke further holes in the arguments over taxes.

Much of his work is devoted to studying regional economies within Oklahoma — an essential part of OSU’s land-grant mission. But other work is his “speed bump” stuff, looking at the implications and effects of economic policy decisions and understanding economies.

A popular political topic of late has been cutting Oklahoma’s personal income tax. A plan to cut taxes from 5.25 percent to 4.75 percent was shelved last year. But the debate over cutting the tax — estimated to provide $3 of every $8 of state revenue — is likely to continue in 2013.

Perhaps leaders should read up on Rickman’s work.

In 2008, he worked with graduate student Yihua Yu to find out what taxes hurt growth the most. The two examined counties all over the United States in terms of their tax policies, budgets and economic performance.

“I always heard the income tax was the worst tax,” Rickman says.

He found that income, property and sales taxes all generally discourage growth. Taxes hurt because people have less money to spend.

But “I didn’t find that income taxes discouraged growth more than other taxes,” Rickman says.

Leaders who seek to limit government spending often promote cutting income taxes. Here’s the rub: Rickman also found that, done correctly, government spending encourages growth, such as in spending on public safety, education and highways.

MESSING WITH TEXAS The debate over Oklahoma’s personal income tax often centers on how the state is faring against other states, such as Kansas or Texas.

Some tax cut proponents argue that Texas has better economic growth than Oklahoma, citing the Lone Star State’s lack of a personal income tax among other reasons.

But it’s a difficult comparison to draw and may not be true.

“Texas has Houston,” Rickman says. The Port of Houston is second in the nation in total tonnage handled. Also, the sprawling mass of petrochemical complexes outside the city of about 2 million includes some of the world’s most profitable corporations.

Oklahoma doesn’t have a Houston — or an international border.

Using statistical research methods, Rickman decided to control for such differences (and others such as reliance on manufacturing or energy, prevalence of metropolitan areas, etc.) in examining the economic performance of counties in bordering states.

Focusing on the 1990s and 2000s, he examined percapita income growth, immigration, poverty and total employment. During that time, Oklahoma and Texas performed equally well when adjusted for their differences. He found less income growth, too, in areas that had higher rates of immigration.

“After you account for these differences, there was no evidence something special was happening in Texas,” Rickman says.

The trick is to find the correct combination. And that’s a challenging trick to pull off, requiring knowledge and nuance. continues spring 2013 engage@spears

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More problems with cuts He points to other examples of income tax cuts causing problems.

Kansas blew a hole in its budget with an income tax cut that took effect Jan. 1. The Kansas City Star reports that cut will create a $295 million shortfall — and that doesn’t count a cut to sales taxes that will take effect in July.

The cuts aim to promote growth by lessening the tax burden. But, as Rickman’s research indicates, the irony is growth is harmed by the inevitable cuts in spending that result if other changes aren’t made.

“The empirical evidence doesn’t support claims that you get growth that then provides tax revenues to offset those lower tax rates,” Rickman says.

That’s not a story everybody likes to hear, he admits.

But he’s content to be the speed bump on the road to bad ideas.

“We don’t as members of academia want to be so arrogant asto say that we have all the answers. On the other hand, I hear an awful lot of bad ideas come up that people start talking about with 100 percent

certainty. We should put a big speed bump into those and make them slow down.”

Rickman provides a host of other services to his state. His research is invaluable in modeling and analyzing what goes on inside local economies and making forecasts. His projections are routinely relied upon by state leaders and others making economic policy.

In addition to his economic analyses, Rickman is a regularly published author whose work has appeared in the American Economic Review, Journal of Urban Economics, Journal of Economic Geography and the Journal of Regional Science. He co-edits the journal Growth and Change.

A Regents professor of economics, Rickman came to OSU in 1996. The Wisconsin native has a doctorate and a bachelor’s from the University of Wyoming.

He has taught at universities including UNLV and Georgia Southern, where he also participated in statewide economic development. His career includes working in economic modeling and analysis for a consulting firm. An avid outdoorsman in his spare time, he lives in Stillwater with his wife and two children. @

GARY LAWSON/UNIVERSITY MARKETING

Dan Rickman was one of the featured speakers at the 2013 Oklahoma Economic Outlook Conference, which was held in Oklahoma City.

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2012 JOURNAL RECORD AWARD WINNER

P R O G R A M

M A K I N G

A

D I F F E R E N C E

weinspire@okstate.edu

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Powerful impact Charlotte Wright’s research continues to influence oil and gas policy.

Charlotte Wright: “Every time I look at a project, my question is: ‘Is it relevant to someone in the investment community?’ “

GARY LAWSON/UNIVERSITY MARKETING

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By Matt Elliott

A Spears School accounting professor’s research has had an impact on the entire nation, with her findings being used to formulate oil and gas accounting policy in the United States.

Much like the oil and gas accounting program at OSU, experts of Charlotte Wright’s ilk are few and far between. Her 1985 paper “Accounting for Environmental Reclamation Costs,” published in the Journal of Petroleum Accounting and Financial Management, was a particularly influential work.

Oil and gas accounting is such a challenge because of how accounting is structured, says Wright, and that’s why she enjoys it. Its complexity can make investing in energy businesses risky for shareholders in a market in which investor knowledge is critical to the economy’s function.

“Every time I look at a project, my question is: ‘Is it relevant to someone in the investment community?’”

Wright says. “Is it relevant to an oil and gas company? If the answer is yes, then there’s social value to that activity, and there ought to be, especially at a land-grant university like Oklahoma State.”

Connecting costs Accounting focuses on historic costs. In other words, what you see on a company’s financial records such as a balance sheet (a list of assets, liabilities and ownership equity) reflects what was paid in the past — historic costs.

But what if the value of an asset isn’t reflected — not even remotely — in the amount a company paid to acquire it? Such is the case with oil and gas reserves, which are best understood usually through the estimates of geologists and engineers.

Even if those professionals have a good idea of what a reservoir contains, the value of its hydrocarbons swings with the boom and bust of the market.

“There’s a total disconnect,” Wright says. “There’s virtually no correlation between the cost of finding the oil and gas, and the equipment and facilities to produce the oil and gas, and the value of the reserves.”

Another big challenge is how companies reflect the cost to shut down and clean up their operations at a production site once they’re finished.

“An investor wants dividends and a return on their investment,” Wright says. “The historical cost of finding the oil and gas isn’t really an indication of the future cash flow that would go to pay them dividends.”

One of the first programs Wright worked on was while she was a graduate student at the University of North Texas’s Petroleum Accounting Research Institute. The project was to figure out how much it would cost to decommission and restore Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay oil field.

The field is the largest in North America. At the time of her study, scholars had begun to wonder whether the cost — believed to be in the billions — to shut it down and clean it up should be included in its companies’ financials for investors.

“How do you reflect that cost to the investor? They’d want to know about a large cash outflow in 20 to 30 years.”

She published the paper, and, although it took a few years, her ideas caught on. In 2005, the Financial Accounting Standards Board began requiring companies to disclose those costs.

“The model was very similar to the one I proposed back in 1985,” Wright says. “I got virtually a call a week from somebody someplace in the world who had read that article.”

International role The influence of Wright’s research doesn’t end there.

She is a member of the energy industry committee that advises the International Accounting Standards Board, the international equivalent to the United States’ FASB, assisting the board that establishes the accounting standards for nearly every developed nation outside of the United States. continues

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continued from page 31

Another area that interests her is reserve announcements and how the market reacts to them. Wright’s dissertation was on that subject, and she found that markets respond best to information about reserve successes and failures instead of, say, information about earnings or acquisitions.

These days, companies must disclose their reserves, but the Securities and Exchange Commission doesn’t require those numbers to be audited or checked by a third party, such as an outside accounting firm hired to check a company’s books.

That is, unless a company has a history of misstating how rich its holdings are.

“A few years ago, for example, Shell revised their reserve estimates by about a third, and that had a huge negative impact for several years on Shell’s stock price. And I think it influenced investors to perhaps not rely quite as much on Shell’s reserves because they use their own engineers to make those determinations.”

But her most recent research looks at how the reserve reporting rules enacted by the SEC in 2009 affect investors and market prices. More information will be available as time goes on, but the SEC changed significant regulations dealing with how companies report them.

RESERVE CHANGES One of the big changes was the price assumption companies use when they estimate their reserves, Wright says.

The SEC has never permitted companies to arbitrarily assume what price oil will be selling at in five years. They had to estimate the value of their reserves using the price on Dec. 31.

The problem was, Dec. 31 only comes once a year, and for some reason the price of oil on that date was often lower than the typical price.

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In 2009, that was changed to the average of the prices in effect the first day of the month for the previous 12 months.

Another change Wright is studying is the effect of rule changes on tar sands.

It used to be that companies couldn’t list those in their reserves because, when the rules were written nearly 30 years ago, tar sands were inaccessible.

Today’s technology allows them to be developed.

Also, the inclusion rules regarding proved, probable and possible reserves have changed.

It used to be companies could only report “proved” in a reserve list, Wright says. “Proved” means there’s at least a 90 percent likelihood that reserve estimates are accurate.

“Probable” is as likely as not — a 50-50 chance. Now, companies can include both probable reserves and possible — reserves where there is an even smaller likelihood (about 10 percent) that they contain what geologists believe they have.

It’s all part of the ins and outs of the industry. And, thankfully for OSU, it has one of the leaders of the field at its School of Accounting, a gem in the department which has an even more rare program in oil and gas accounting, a discipline not found at most universities in the nation.

Wright came to OSU in 1982 after finishing her doctorate at UNT. She won OSU’s Regent’s Distinguished Research Award in 2011, was named an outstanding accounting educator by the Oklahoma Society of CPAs in 2009 and won the American Woman’s Society of CPAs National Literary Award in 1985. Her textbook, Fundamentals of Oil and Gas Accounting, is required reading in most courses in the subject and is in its fifth edition. @

Get Connected If you’re not following OSU’s Spears School of Business through social media, you must feel lost. In addition to providing content via its website (spears.okstate.edu), the Spears School can be followed via its Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LInkedIn, and Flickr accounts.

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Transitions

10 win new appointments Endowed chairs and professorships are reserved for the most distinguished scholars and teachers. Endowed chairs and professorships provide funds to the holders in support of their teaching, research and service.

The following are the new appointments in the Spears School for the 2012-13 academic year:

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Don R. Brattain Professorship Matt Bowler, ­associate professor, Department of Management

Joe Synar Chair Bryan Edwards, associate professor, Department of Management

Judy Freeman Johnson Professorship in Accounting William Schwartz, associate pr­ofessor, School of Accounting

Greg Massey Professorship in Finance David Carter, ­professor, Department of Finance

Williams Cos. Professorship in Business Joel Harper, ­associate professor, Department of Finance

Don and Cathey Humphreys Endowed Chair in International Studies Kevin Voss, as­­­s­ociate professor, Department of Marketing

Anadarko Petroleum Corp.

Chair Robert Cornell, associate ­professor and head, School of Accounting

Jay and Fayenelle Helm Professorship Ali Nejadmalayeri, associate professor, Department of Finance

Neal Patterson Chair Dursun Delen, ­professor, Department of Management Science and Information Systems

Ed Keller Endowed Professorship in Finance John Polonchek, professor and head, Department of Finance

Transitions

gary lawson/university marketing

Retirements of Education’s long-range planning committee and a board member for Stillwater Domestic Violence.

“Two things stand out to me about Bud Lacy. The first is his positive and optimistic personality and outlook on life,” says Gary Meek, a longtime OSU accounting professor who retired in 2011. “No matter how bad things seem, the glass is always half-full with Bud. “The second is that he truly believes in the common good, and his goal is always to make things better for everyone. It’s never about him. Both of these points are why he was so effective as an OSU professor and administrator, and city councilman and mayor of Stillwater. You don’t have to be around Bud very long before you want to be his friend, and I feel fortunate to have been his friend for 30 years.”

“Just teaching in general is what I’ll miss the most. I enjoyed the teaching part of it, getting to work with the students,” says Lacy, who plans to teach at Colorado State University after he and his wife, Gloria, relocate to Colorado. @

DOLLIE MITCHELL/SPEARS SCHOOL

Bud Lacy, an associate professor who headed the School of Accounting in the Spears School of Business, retired in August after 32 years with Oklahoma State University.

Lacy’s distinguished career included serving as the School of Accounting’s head (2011-12), the master’s program coordinator (1991-96 and 2010-11), the doctoral program coordinator (1986-91), chair of the OSU Athletics Council (1994-95) and the OSU faculty council (2008-2010).

Standing on the sideline has never been an option for Lacy, who was born and raised in Los Angeles. He spent four years in the Marines and had one tour of duty in Vietnam, where he received two Purple Hearts. He attended Cal State-Northridge, where he earned both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees, before earning his doctorate at the University of Colorado.

He taught at the University of Colorado and the University of Wyoming before being recruited to Stillwater by Wilton T. Anderson, former head of OSU’s School of Accounting.

Lacy quickly made a name for himself at Oklahoma State University and in Stillwater. He served as the chair of the city’s audit committee (1986-91), as a member of the Planning Commission (1990-96), and on the City Council (1996-2001).

He was elected mayor of Stillwater in April 2003 with 60 percent of the vote.

He also served as past president of the Stillwater chapter of Habitat for Humanity, is an honorary life member of the Stillwater Rotary Club, a 2003 graduate of Leadership Stillwater, served as an executive committee member of the Chamber of Commerce, was a member of the Stillwater Board

Michael Applegate, a professor in the department of Economics and Legal Studies in Business, retired in January after 39 years at Oklahoma State University.

Applegate taught nearly 5,000 students during his tenure at OSU. He chaired 14 doctoral dissertations and guided research for numerous graduate students. For many years, he was the adviser for the Gold Key honor society.

continues spring 2013 engage@spears

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“Dr. Applegate has been one of the mainstays in the economics department for a very long time, and as such, he has touched the lives of many students. His outstanding teaching, research and service provide a wonderful example of a successful academic career,” says Jim Fain, professor and head of OSU’s Economics and Legal Studies in Business department.

“He has been a kind and wonderful colleague for many years.”

Applegate has been recognized for his work, including receiving the Merrick Foundation Teaching Award from OSU. “I’m not sure what my greatest accomplishment has been, but I hope that I influenced a lot of students for good,” he says.

“Mike Applegate has had a very positive impact on both his students and his colleagues during his nearly four-decade tenure at OSU. As one of his former students, I can personally vouch for his strong classroom presentation skills and his willingness to incorporate innovative teaching approaches in his courses,” says Tim Ireland, a professor in management science information systems.

Applegate spent his entire career at OSU, except from August 1984 to August 1986, when he served as a chief of party of the Zambia Agriculture Training Planning Institutional Development Project.

“His friendly, upbeat demeanor, along with his dedication to teaching the fundamental economic principles of our society, has long been appreciated by all,” says Ireland.

Applegate grew up in southern Utah and earned his bachelor’s degree in economics with a minor in political studies from Brigham Young University in 1968. He earned a doctorate in economics from Iowa State University in the winter of 1973.

‘Accounting evangelist’ Wilton T. Anderson dies Wilton T. Anderson, who spent 22 years as head of the School of Accounting at Oklahoma State University, died Nov. 15, 2012, in Oklahoma City. He was 95.

Dr. Anderson began his OSU career in 1960 as the chief of the accounting area in the business school. He retired in 1982 with many accomplishments under his belt. Perhaps one of his most visible was his instrumental role in getting the name changed from the “Department of Accounting” to the “School of Accounting” in 1981.

Dr. Anderson literally wrote the textbook on the principles of accounting, and through his professionalism and high standards, he led the school to national prominence and launched the careers of many of the school’s most prominent alumni.

His colleagues called him an “accounting evangelist.” He served as president of the American Accounting Association, which honored him with an Outstanding Educator Award in 1973. He was an organizer of the Oklahoma Accounting Educators Association. He was named to the Oklahoma Accounting Hall of Fame in 1978 and the Oklahoma Higher Education Hall of Fame in 1999.

OSU alumni and friends established and endowed the Wilton T. Anderson Professorship in Accounting, the Wilton T. Anderson Distinguished Graduate Fellowship and the Wilton T. Anderson Chair in Accounting.

Since 1979, the School of Accounting in the Spears School of Business has honored outstanding graduates as distinguished alumni at the Wilton T. Anderson Hall of Fame and Awards Banquet.

A memorial service was held Dec. 10 at First Presbyterian Church in Stillwater.

Colleagues, alumni and friends interested in providing a gift to the School of Accounting in Dr. Anderson’s name can do so by mail or online. Checks should be made to Oklahoma State University Foundation and mailed to: Oklahoma State University Foundation, 400 S. Monroe, Stillwater, OK 74074.

Gifts also may be made online at www.osugiving.com/ givetospears.

Choose the “Memorial Fund” designation and enter “in memory of Wilton T. Anderson” in the “Additional Comments” block on the second Web page. @

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Thank you to our speakers, faculty, and students for making the Spears School Speakers Bureau’s first year successful!

To sign up as a speaker for the Spears School Speakers Bureau go to spears.okstate.edu/sssb or contact: Jeretta Horn Nord Professor of Management Science and Information Systems and Jeanine Rhea Oklahoma International Women’s Forum Professorship Executive Director, Spears School Speakers Bureau Oklahoma State University Stillwater, OK 74078 405-744-5091 jeretta.nord@okstate.edu

Honors & Awards

OSU teams impress at 2012 SAS contest Four Spears School of Business students were recognized as one of the nation’s top teams at the SAS Analytics shootout competition at the 2012 Analytics Conference in Las Vegas.

The team, made up of Oklahoma State University’s Isaac Pisors and Matthew Dale Rumsey, distance-learning students in the graduate certificate program in business data mining; Shirmeen Virji, a full-time management information systems master’s student; and Juan Ma, a full-time student in industrial engineering, finished second out of more than 50 teams competing in the shootout.

This is the sixth consecutive year that at least one OSU student team has placed in the top three of the shootout, the largest data-mining competition in the world, allowing students to demonstrate their expertise in the field alongside industry professionals.

Parijat Ghosh, Predicting User Ratings and Recommendations of Airlines Sree Deepak Kothapalli, Data Visualization in Higher Education-Enrollment Management Srihari Jaganathan, Building Predictive Models with Small Data Siddhartha Reddy Mandati, Application of SAS Text Mining to Summarize E-commerce Customer Reviews Srikar Rayabaram Prabhakar, A Comparison of Rapid Predictive Modeler vs. Enterprise Miner Sriram Ghattamaneni, Decision Tree Based Splitting Rules to Predict Check Deposit Fraud; and The Game Prophet Swati Grover, Analysis of Change in Sentiments Toward Chick-Fil-A Vengatasubramani Dhatchinamoo, Predicting Amazon’s BestSeller Rank for Books Yu Fu, Impact of London Olympics 2012 on the Economy of England @

“I am very proud of our students’ accomplishments in the shootout,” says Goutam Chakraborty, professor of marketing and founder of the SAS and OSU Data Mining Certificate program. “This is a really tough field, with many universities vying for the five teams that are recognized publicly at the conference in front of about 1,000 professionals.

Oklahoma State University has one of the largest contingents of current students and working professionals who are former students at the Analytics Conference each year. In 2012, about 35 representatives of OSU and the Spears School gathered at the Las Vegas event.

Photo/Provided

“Through the history of this tournament, OSU student teams have won more awards than any other university’s team. This clearly demonstrates the strength of our data mining and analytics program, our faculty and students.”

Photo/Provided

In addition, two other OSU student teams received honorable mentions. The trio of Atul Thatte and Gautam Mehta, distance-learning students in the graduate certificate program in business data mining, and Vinay Emmadi, a full-time management information systems master’s student; and a team with Jeffin V. Jacob and Swati Grover, full-time MBA students, Aditya Gokhale, a full-time management information systems master’s student, and Srihari Jaganathan, a distance-learning student in the graduate certificate program in business data mining, received honorable mentions.

A total of 15 OSU students presented posters at the conference. They and their subjects include: Akkarapol Sa-ngasoongsong, Multi-Step Sales Forecasting in the Automotive Industry Ganesh Badisa, Evaluation of Movie Reviews by SAS Text Mining Jiawen Liu, Opinion Mining of Android App Review Mantosh Kumar Sarkar, SAS Sentiment Analysis Studio to Help Uncover Customer Sentiments Musthan Kader Meeran Mohideen, Management Intervention in a Hospital using SAS Text Miner Pankush Kalgotra, Neural Network and Bidding in Sports League; and Square Matrix Parallelization in Big Data

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OSU’s team receives a $3,000 check for placing second in the SAS Analytics shootout competition. Joining Spears School marketing professor Goutam Chakraborty and SAS officials are (from left holding the check) Shirmeen Virji, Juan Ma and Matthew Dale Rumsey. Not pictured is Isaac Pisors.

Honors & Awards

OSU drives to a Chevy win A Spears School of Business student-run marketing agency has received top national honors for its Chevrolet Campus Challenge promotions campaign. The Orange Innovation Group from Oklahoma State University won the competition’s top award, the Second Milestone Award.

“The team surely impressed us with OSU’s successful and creative event plans, professionalism and noteworthy results,” says Kelsey Delagardelle, account manager at EdVenture Partners, a marketing education consultancy group that brought together the OSU students and Chevrolet. @ Dollie Mitchell/SPEARS SCHOOL

Orange Innovation team members are Brad Benjamin, Madison Brooks, Taylor Cockrum, Zachary Dezort, Tyler Dodson, Christina Ellis, Lauren Gurley, Libby Herzig, Elise Ingram, Joy Lewis, Rachel Noland, Lindsey Nordling, Josh Richie, Greg Taylor, Ashley Tellez, Katy Vaughn and Emy Williams.

The campaign was part of the Chevrolet Campus Promotions, a program that gives students from 19 schools across the United States a chance to experience the design and implementation of an integrated marketing communications plan.

OSU shared the first-place Second Milestone Award with Texas A&M University.

OSU’s Orange Innovation Group.

NASDAQ honors Riata Center The Riata Center for Entrepreneurship continues to garner national recognition.

The Oklahoma State University entrepreneurship outreach program received one of its most prestigious honors when it was selected for the NASDAQ Center of Entrepreneurship Excellence Award in the fall.

The award has been presented annually since 2000 by NASDAQ, in association with the Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers. The consortium is the premier organization for university and collegiate entrepreneurship centers, with close to 300 members attending its national conference each year. The NASDAQ award recognizes the unique achievements and outstanding efforts of top entrepreneurship centers across the world.

Nola Miyasaki, director of the Riata Center, accepted the award during the consortium’s annual conference in October in Washington, D.C. “It’s even more rewarding when peers across the nation select your program as the best,” says Larry Crosby, dean of the Spears School of Business. Previous recipients nominate programs for the award, and a panel of winners and NASDAQ executives handle the judging.

Photo Provided

The OSU entrepreneurship program is one of the youngest to receive the NASDAQ award. The Spears School has offered entrepreneurship courses since the 1990s, but the School of Entrepreneurship was launched in 2008 and the Riata Center in 2009. In a very short period of time, they have created a significant impact on the campus as well as nationally and internationally.

OSU’s program was one of only a handful in the U.S. to have both its undergraduate and graduate programs recognized as the best, according to the Princeton Review and Entrepreneur magazine. The graduate program is ranked No. 14 and the undergraduate level at No. 22 in the 2012 Princeton Review/Entrepreneur rankings. More than 2,000 programs were reviewed in the 10th annual survey that ranks the top entrepreneurship programs in the nation.

“These are exciting times to be a part of the OSU Spears School of Business, its School of Entrepreneurship and the Riata Center for Entrepreneurship,” says Crosby. “The rapid success and recognition of our entrepreneurship programs is testament to the caliber and dedication of the faculty, staff, students and alumni supporters who are behind these efforts.

It is also further evidence of the progress

Nola Miyasaki (center), director of the Riata Center, accepts the NASDAQ award.

OSU is making toward becoming a premier land-grant institution by addressing issues of vital importance to the prosperity of Oklahoma, the nation and the world.”

The NASDAQ honor lauds the accomplishments and unique structure of the Riata Center and OSU’s School of Entrepreneurship, which together have made advancements in entrepreneurship research, outreach to emerging ventures, entrepreneurship curriculum, community collaborations and special projects. @

spring 2013 engage@spears

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Honors & Awards

Scholarship banquet recognizes donors, students Nearly 475 students in the Spears School of Business will receive scholarships totaling more than $825,000 during the 2012-13 school year, thanks to the generosity of numerous individuals, families and corporations.

Jack and Janice Branstetter and their daughters Kristen and Nikki join Spears School Dean Larry Crosby in honoring Kristen Kelley and Angela Victorio, the recipients of the Olin D. Branstetter Memorial Scholarship.

Students had the opportunity to visit with the donors who support their educations during the Spears School Scholarship Banquet in August at the ConocoPhillips OSU Alumni Center. @

Megan Copeland, Aaron Cromer, Rachel Dollarhide and Allison Meinders are the recipients of the Chesapeake Rural Scholar Leaders Scholarship. With them is Dean Larry Crosby.

Fred and Janice Gibson (left) join Dean Larry Crosby (right) in presenting the first Fred and Janice Gibson Endowed Scholarship in the Spears School to Natalie Fieldsend.

Dan Gilliam (front row, left), manager of finance processes and controls for Phillips 66, joins Dean Larry Crosby (far right) in congratulating the recipients of the ConocoPhillips Finance Scholars Scholarship. Those receiving scholarships are (in alphabetical order) Nicholas Berghall, Amanda Bonk, Alex Campbell, Sarah Fielding, Lynley Fox, Yves Mafolo, Matthew Maguire, Rais Shameer, Charles Welch, Christina Wiser and Loren Wortham.

Dean Larry Crosby (right) congratulates Williams Scholar Leader Scholarship recipients (in alphabetical order) Emily Cain, Madison Cotherman, Jonathan Fain, Beaux Fulton, Shae Godsey, Mason Miller and Julia Whitley.

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PhotoS Provided

Honors & Awards

Spears School’s online programs win national recognition The new Watson Graduate School of Management’s online master’s programs have been ranked in the top 20 percent in the country by U.S. News and World Report.

OSU was ranked No. 37 in the magazine’s Best Online Education Program rankings, released in January.

This is the first time U.S. News has ranked online programs, and nearly 200 schools across the United States were evaluated in the 2013 rankings.

“We are very pleased to hear of this recognition. We take graduate business education very seriously at OSU and the Spears School, as evidenced by our recent creation of the Watson Graduate School of Management,” says Larry Crosby, dean of the Spears School of Business.

It’s not the first time the Spears School has been highlighted by U.S. News. The

school was ranked among the top 15 percent of business schools in the nation during the 2012 rankings, and its parttime MBA program was among the top 30 percent.

In addition, the Spears School’s programs have been recognized as some of the magazine’s “Best Buys,” for providing some of the best high quality, affordable online business degrees in the U.S.

93 online master’s in management programs.

•

The master’s in management in information systems, No. 8 among 93 online peer degree programs.

“We also strive to be a leader in online graduate programs, offering very high quality at a reasonable price. This is accomplished, in part, by maintaining consistent excellence across our online and onsite courses, providing the same graduate faculty, the same curriculum and the same course requirements,” Crosby says. @

The ranked programs from OSU include: •

•

The MBA program, No. 10 among the 139 online MBAs from AACSBaccredited business schools in October.

The master’s in telecommunication management program, No. 7 among

Factors in U.S. News rankings Student engagement

28%

Admissions selectivity

25%

Peer reputation

25%

Faculty credentials & training

11%

Student services & technology

11%

Bringing home a trophy The Interns split a cash prize of $10,000 ($2,000 each) for winning the trip to Washington. As the Hamilton Award winners, each will receive an internship with PwC.

The Interns, a team including Spears School students Mollie Field, Samantha Garrison, Stephanie Giardina, R.J. Parr, Chase Sprueill and faculty adviser Monika Turek, traveled to PricewaterhouseCooper’s national office as one of the final five teams competing for the top prize in the xTax (short for Extreme Taxation) category.

“Professor Turek has done an amazing job leading some of our finest students to victory in the PwC xTax competition,” says Robert Cornell, head of OSU’s School of Accounting. @ DOLLIE MITCHELL/SPEARS SCHOOL

A team of accounting students in Oklahoma State University’s Spears School of Business brought home a national championship trophy from PwC’s xTreme Games in Washington, D.C.

Last fall, 460 teams and 2,300 students across the country competed in campus competitions, which narrowed the field to five. Other teams at the national contest were from Baylor University, Penn State, the University of Wisconsin and Binghamton University in New York.

OSU is the first university to win nationals in its first year of competing.

“We hope this is the beginning of a great tradition for the OSU School of Accounting,” says Turek, the team’s adviser.

OSU’s team of the Interns included (from left) students R.J. Parr, Mollie Field, Chase Sprueill, Samantha Garrison, Stephanie Giardina and adviser Monika Turek. spring 2013 engage@spears

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Honors & Awards

Spears School Hall of Fame adds 3 alums Hall of Fame honorees A group of distinguished graduates was honored at the annual Spears School of Business Hall of Fame banquet during the fall semester.

Three alums were inducted into the Spears School Hall of Fame: Roger Cagle (MBA, 1975), Joseph Eastin (bachelor’s in business administration, 1992) and Tiffany Sewell-Howard (MBA, 1994). Also, Oklahoma State alums Sara Brown, Matt Jeffrey, Daniel Roe and Taylor Shinn were honored as the Outstanding Young Alumni award recipients.

The annual Spears School Hall of Fame Banquet recognizes OSU graduates who have distinguished themselves in their professional careers, displayed effective leadership, made exemplary contributions to their communities and given meritorious service to others. Induction into the Hall of Fame is the highest honor the Spears School can bestow. photos/Genesee photos

Roger Cagle is the executive vice president, deputy chief executive officer and chief financial officer for Londonbased SOCO International.

A Heavener, Okla., native, he joined Exxon after graduating from OSU and quickly advanced before departing in 1979 to join Superior Oil Co., North America’s largest independent oil producer at the time. Cagle co-founded Conquest Exploration in 1981, and was chief financial officer and vice president of finance before the company was acquired in 1991. He moved into consulting work before co-founding SOCO International in 1997. He has been instrumental in driving the company to its current position in the independent oil and gas exploration and production industry.

Cagle earned his MBA in finance from OSU in 1975. He lives in London with his wife, Cynthia.

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Joseph Eastin is president and a principal of ISNetworld, which is headquartered in Dallas and has offices in Calgary, Sydney, London, New York and Los Angeles.

Prior to joining ISN, Eastin worked for Entergy Corp., an integrated energy company headquartered in New Orleans.

He has helped build ISNetworld into one of the fastest growing privately held companies in the United States, as so named by Inc. magazine for the past six years. ISN manages and amalgamates performance, safety and compliance data for oil and gas, manufacturing, pharmaceutical and other organizations.

More than 42,000 companies subscribe to its services. Under Eastin’s leadership, ISN has grown from three employees in 2001 to more than 300 employees today.

He currently serves as a board member for the Riata Center for Entrepreneurship and the Board of Governors for OSU. Eastin earned his bachelor’s degree in business administration from OSU in 1992. He is married with four children and lives in Dallas.

Honors & Awards

Young Alumni In 2001, the Outstanding Young Alumni award was established to recognize alumni who have provided significant service and achievement early in their professional careers.

Sara Brown, a 2005 Spears School graduate, is a contract negotiator for the Air Force Research Laboratory. She has worked in contract management at Air Force Materiel Command at Tinker Air Force Base, U.S. Special Operations Command in Tampa, Fla., and Space and Missile Systems Center in Albuquerque, N.M., and Los Angeles.

Matt Jeffery, who graduated in

Tiffany Sewell-Howard

is the chief executive officer of Charles Machine Works Inc., manufacturer of Ditch Witch products, headquartered in Perry, Okla.

Since 2000, she has held the positions of chief operating officer, director of information technology and e-marketing manager at CMW. Before joining CMW, she served on its board for four years while she ws the marketing director at Primedia Inc., a New York publishing company. Sewell-Howard has started several companies, including an advertising agency, an industrial waste recycling company and an Internet marketing and web development company. She has served in executive leadership positions for the Association of Equipment Manufacturers and Association of Equipment Distributors. She has served on the OSU MBA Advisory Council and the Riata Center Advisory Board.

Sewell-Howard earned both her bachelor’s degree in 1990 and her MBA from OSU in 1994. She lives in Edmond, Okla., with her husband, Dan Howard, who practices law in Oklahoma City, and their 2-year-old twins, Hayden and Morgan.

2003, is a contracting officer for the Department of Energy. He has eight years of experience in contract management at Air Force Materiel Command, U.S. Special Operations Command, Space and Missile Systems Center and currently with the Department of Energy.

He married Sara Brown in 2005, and the two created and sponsor the Spears School of Business Jeffrey-Brown scholarship for an incoming OSU freshman.

Daniel Roe, a 1999 graduate, is vice

Know a distinguished graduate?

The Spears School of Business is accepting nominations for the SSB Hall of Fame and Outstanding Young Alumni awards for 2013. Nominations are due by March 15.

The Spears School Hall of Fame award, the highest honor for its alumni, began in 1964 to recognize and honor business graduates who distinguish themselves in their professional careers, display effective leadership,

president of global operations and support for SolArc Inc., a software firm that provides enterprise-level solutions for commodity trading and risk management companies. He has served in several escalating roles at SolArc, from team lead to director of support, product manager and his current role. He currently leads a team of 50 employees in the United States, Europe and Asia.Â

make exemplary contributions

Taylor Shinn, who graduated in

graduates from the Spears

2007, is senior director of corporate development for Chesapeake Energy Corp. Upon graduating from OSU, he joined Chesapeake in its Oklahoma City headquarters after interning with the company the previous two years. In his current role, he manages national affairs, corporate business development partnerships and market development initiatives for the company. @

School of Business who are

to their communities and give meritorious service to others.

Go to spears.okstate.edu/ alumni/honors/halloffame/ for Hall of Fame details.

The Outstanding Young Alumni award recognizes recent

on an accelerated pace to a successful career after their success at OSU. Go to spears. okstate.edu/alumni/honors/ outstandingalumni/. @

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Honors & Awards

Entrepreneurship programs gain national recognition For the second year in a row, Oklahoma State University’s School of Entrepreneurship is one of only a handful of schools to have both its undergraduate and graduate programs recognized as being among the best in the United States, according to the Princeton Review and Entrepreneur magazine.

is still relatively young, its impact is being felt not just in Oklahoma and not just in the southwest part of the nation but all across the United States. These are exciting times to be a part of the Spears School of Business, the School of Entrepreneurship and the Riata Center for Entrepreneurship.”

The Spears School’s entrepreneurship program, which started in 2008, has made a name for itself across the nation.

The OSU School of Entrepreneurship debuted in the top 25 a year ago when the graduate program was ranked No. 23 and the undergraduate program made its debut at No. 24.

The School of Entrepreneurship in the Spears School of Business is ranked No. 14 in the graduate program rankings of the nation’s top schools, and its undergraduate program achieved a No. 22 ranking. More than 2,000 programs were reviewed in the 10th annual survey that ranks the top entrepreneurship programs in the nation.

“The OSU School of Entrepreneurship and the Riata Center feature a unique mix of the most comprehensive entrepreneurship curriculum in the country, cutting-edge research and impactful outreach programs,” says Bruce Barringer, interim head of the School of Entrepreneurship. “We’re also active in reaching out to other colleges within the university to offer courses and mentor students who are interested in

“Being recognized for the second consecutive year is truly an honor that everyone associated with the School of Entrepreneurship and the Riata Center for Entrepreneurship should take great pride,” says Larry Crosby, dean of the Spears School of Business.

“I think this award shows that even though the entrepreneurship program

launching entrepreneurial ventures. We are grateful to the Princeton Review and Entrepreneur magazine for their recognition.”

The OSU entrepreneurship program has received national recognition from several organizations in recent years for its excellence in a number of areas.

OSU’s School of Entrepreneurship’s recent honors include the 2012 National Model Undergraduate Entrepreneurship Program Award, given annually to one university in the United States by the U.S. Association of Small Business and Entrepreneurship, and ranking No. 9 in the 2011 Top 20 University Entrepreneurship Clubs (Fledgewing. com) and No. 10 in the 2011 Research Productivity World Ranking (M.J. Neeley School of Business at Texas Christian University).

To view the rankings online, go to entrepreneur.com/topcolleges or princetonreview.com/ top-entrepreneurial-colleges.

Winning a suite view from the Spears School Photo Provided

Shellie Seabolt and her father Joe Surface join Dean Larry Crosby (right) and others in the Spears School suite for the game against the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

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For the winner of the “Suite View from the Spears School Suite” contest on social media last year, Oklahoma State’s football game against the University of Louisiana at Lafayette was a sweet view indeed.

and will cherish the memory,” says Seabolt.

Alumni, donors and other supporters entered the contest by following the Spears School on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. The winner was Shellie Seabolt, a lifelong Spears School supporter and Cowboys fan. Seabolt, who earned a bachelor’s degree in general business and a minor in human resources from OSU in 2002, attended the game with her father, Joe Surface.

“The orange energy in the Spears School of Business suite was so phenomenal.

The hospitality was outstanding, and I was very proud of our Cowboys,” says Seabolt, whose husband, two sisters and two brothers-in-law are also OSU alums.

“My father and I felt like we were at home. The experience was one of those priceless events, and we truly enjoyed

To stay connected with the Spears School via social media, visit spears.okstate.edu/social.

The pair, along with Dean Larry Crosby and others, watched the Cowboys’ 65-24 win over the Ragin’ Cajuns from the suite in the west end zone of the stadium.

The Spears School suite is provided through the generous support of Dennis and Cindy Reilley.

SPEARS SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

Among the Best in the U.S.

RANKINGS NO.

100 90

Percent ranking

Oklahoma State University’s Spears School of Business is in the top 14.9 percent of business schools in the United States, according to the 2012 rankings by U.S. News and World Report.

The Spears School is ranked one of the top 97 schools out of the 651 business schools accredited by The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB).

Spears School Top 14.9%

80 70 60

NO.

50 40 30 20 10 0

2012 U.S. News and World Report’s Business School Rankings

100 90

Percent ranking

Oklahoma State’s part-time MBA program is in the top 28 percent in the U.S. News and World Report rankings, listed at No. 95 of the 335 programs surveyed in 2012.

80 70

(TheBestSchools.org)

40 30 20

(GetEducated.com)

NO.

2012 U.S. News and World Report’s Part-time MBA Rankings

14

School of Entrepreneurship’s 2012 undergraduate ranking (The Princeton Review/ Entrepreneur Magazine)

10 0

10

OSU’s Online MBA program ranking as a Best Buy

60 50

1

OSU’s Online Master’s in Entrepreneurship program ranking of the 10 Best Online MBA Entrepreneurship Programs

NO. Spears School Part-time MBA Top 28%

1

OSU’s finish in the Big 12 MBA Case Competition, the third time in six years that an OSU team has won the event

NO.

22

School of Entrepreneurship’s 2012 graduate ranking (The Princeton Review/ Entrepreneur Magazine)

Business Building, Stillwater, OK 74078-4011

Non-Profit organization U.S. POSTAGE PAID Stillwater, OK Permit No. 191

Gathering of Deans

The Spears School of Business has had just nine deans since 1929, and five of them were present at the school’s medallion ceremony on Oct. 26, 2012. From left: current Dean Larry Crosby (since 2010) visits with Sara Freedman (2006-2010), Gary Trennepohl (1995-1999), Robert Sandmeyer (1977-1994) and Richard Poole (1965-1972).