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Teacher, Mentor & Friend
T-birds find adventure in faraway places, that’s a fact. Whether it’s something that’s already in their DNA, or an infu sion that occurs through their Thunderbird experi ence, doesn’t really matter. Once bitten, forever a carrier.
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Nancy Napier ’75 is a case study. Her work and her curiosity took her from Boise, Idaho to Southeast Asia. To appreciate her im pact, all you need to know is that Napier recently was awarded, the Viet nam Medal of Friendship, approved by Vietnam’s president.
IT ALL BEGAN WITH AN EMAIL
Nearly 20 years after graduating from Thunder bird, Napier began working in Vietnam. It started as a 12-week training workshop with the Hanoibased National Economic University (NEU) to “train the trainers” It was a program was funded by a Swedish government agency to help the country move toward a marketoriented economy, under a Vietnamese government initiative called “Doi Moi,” while maintaining its domi nant socialist government.
A JOB MADE FOR A T-BIRD
Napier’s first visit evolved into a nine-year, $8.5 million capacitybuilding project managed by Boise State University, where she now serves as a Distinguished Professor. The program trained Viet namese university educators and business people, many of whom had been trained in Soviet-bloc countries, in market economics and western style business skills and practices.
“I was curious, I wanted to try something new and Vietnam had an appeal,” said Napier. “Once the project manager and I hit it off and she asked us to take over their MBA pro gram, it became a project of love.”
Participants in three cohorts spent several months on campus in Boise and interned at “Project of Love” leads to Medal of Friendship numerous cooperating Boise-based companies and agencies. Ultimately all earned their MBAs from Boise State before commencing the next step in the program—develop ing and delivering their own MBA programs at the National Economics University. The program ultimately graduated 84 MBAs, who now teach, do research, and are in administration throughout the country. Several of the business people who graduated have started their own successful firms and work for foreign and Vietnamese companies.
“The goal was to create an international standard business school and it began as an effort to train university professors so they could in turn, train Vietnamese managers,” Napier said.
The program helped Vietnam’s National Eco nomics University develop and deliver its own MBA programs. It included de veloping facilities, financial systems, IT standards for the business school and it provided training workshops, conferences and consulting support to small businesses in Vietnam.
“It was a way to re member why I went into teaching – giving knowledge and power to people who were eager to learn,” Napier said. “It continued to be a way that my university could help a transitioning economy move into the international position of a trading and business partner.”
After the project ended in 2003, Napier contin ued to teach in the VN university’s program and continued to do research with her colleagues in the country. Today, Napier coleads a residency in Hanoi every year for Executive MBAs.
Winning the Medal of Friendship is rare for foreigners in Vietnam. Napier called the experi ence “quite emotional”. “Vietnam and the people there are like family to me,” Napier said.
