Wisconsin School of Business Update Magazine

Special Insert: Report to investors 2011 Wisconsin school of business

SPRING 2012

 2 Inside Grainger An inside look at new faculty, student applied learning, and noteworthy faculty research

 6 Class Notes Wisconsin business alumni share stories and pride for their alma mater

12 Innovation in Education Technology is transforming the educational landscape at the Wisconsin School of Business and around the world

Innovations in communication technology are reshaping our competitive landscape, driving us to reinvent ourselves…fast.

To reinvent ourselves, we must reconsider how we interact with one another and how we fund our school. This begins by recruiting great students, great staff, and great faculty, and launching our graduates to success. This year, five outstanding faculty members have joined the school, soon to be joined by a chief communication officer and a director of executive education.

To leverage our star faculty and leadership in experiential learning, we are raising funds to deploy new communication technology that will best serve our students.

With campus input, we are considering changes to program pricing while raising appropriate support to honor our commitment: that neither origin nor economic circumstance should be a barrier to participation in our community.

The enclosed Report to Investors provides a snapshot of our starting point. It incorporates some of the new metrics we are developing to measure success, such as reporting the number of students engaging in educational international experiences.

We aim to expand the international opportunities available to our students, while increasing the incentives to participate.

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I am pleased to share with you highlights of our journey, including the milestones you shared with us. We will continue to build on our collective success and together shape the future as pioneers in business education.

On Wisconsin!

Dean François Ortalo-Magné

François Ortalo-Magné Albert O. Nicholas Dean Wisconsin School of Business

contents SPRING 2012 2 INside GRAINGER New Faculty 2

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tudents Participate in Live Consulting S Engagements 3 International Programs Offer Students New Experiences and Knowledge 3 Length of Life: Worry About the Little Things 3 Entrepreneurship: Collaborate First, Compete Second 4 Facebook Goes Public, Creates Opportunities 5

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Alumnus Joe Saari’s Success: Financial Literacy 5 How You Can Help: G. Steven Burrill Business Plan Competition 5

6 Class Notes 12 INNOVATION in Education

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New Faculty Meet the newest faculty members to join the Wisconsin School of Business

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Thanks to resources provided by our alumni and friends, the Wisconsin School of Business hired five outstanding faculty members this year.

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Professor P. Dean Corbae produces research in monetary economics and macroeconomics. He has been awarded several large grants through the National Science Foundation and is a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

Assistant Professor Michael Gofman has research interests in financial intermediation, corporate finance, financial and economic networks, and portfolio theory. He received a grant for his research on sources and remedies of financial instability.

Assistant Professor Jim Guszcza specializes in predictive analytics and modeling. Also a senior manager at Deloitte Consulting, he provides a unique opportunity to link practice with scholarship. Learn about Jim’s research on page 3.

Visit bus.wisc.edu/update-faculty/ to learn more about faculty research.

Assistant Professor Gary Hecht focuses his research on managerial accounting, more specifically on subjective performance evaluation, discretionary compensation, and risk assessment. His research is supported in part by a grant from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Graduate School.

Assistant Professor Oliver Levine brings research interests in corporate finance, cross-sectional asset pricing, mergers, and acquisitions, and intangible capital. His research is supported in part by a grant from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Graduate School.

International Programs Offer Students New Experiences and Knowledge

Students Participate in Live Consulting Engagements This summer, Best Buy announced plans to reduce its domestic footprint. Its decision to scale back square footage by 10% over the coming years raised questions about optimal store layout and store size. A team of four MBA students in the Nicholas Center for Corporate Finance and Investment Banking and two undergrads dove into the challenge by analyzing consumer trends, macroeconomic factors, and interaction among the different product categories.

The team took a top-down approach—evaluating key store-

performance metrics and store concentration to identify candidates for overall store and perstore square footage reductions— as well as a bottom-up approach to assist with optimizing store layouts and overall store sizes.

The team presented its recommendations to Best Buy Controller and Nicholas Center Board Member Kirk Geadelmann (BBA ’90) at Best Buy’s Minneapolis headquarters. Best Buy management will use the analytics and recommendations to assist with the implementation of its new store-size and location policies.

Every year, more than one-third of Wisconsin School of Business undergraduate students study abroad at one of 25 partner universities around the world.

Adam Ziegler (BBA ’11), now working in global advertising operations at Google in Mountainview, California, traveled to Buenes Aires, Argentina, during his junior year. Buenos Aires offers a total-immersion program requiring students to have completed six semesters of college-level Spanish before studying there.

“Studying in Spanish, although challenging, enhanced my communication skills and fortified my international business knowledge,” said Ziegler of his time overseas. “Top companies in this age value graduates with international experience, and I firmly believe my global mindset gave me an edge over other job candidates.”

Adam Ziegler, BBA ’11, takes a break from his total immersion program in Argentina.

Length of Life: Worry About the Little Things Actuaries have been working to determine human longevity since the first life insurance policy was issued in the year 1583. James Guszcza, assistant professor of actuarial science, risk management, and insurance, provides an answer to this question in a recent Smart Money magazine article: “The Cost of Living Longer—Much Longer.”

“Don’t worry about the macro factors in health care, but rather a million little things.

Throw data point after data point into a giant algorithm and the longevity answer will be spit out,” Guszcza tells the magazine.

Guszcza, a Deloitte senior manager and a recent addition to the Wisconsin School of Business faculty, got his start working in the property and casualty side of the insurance industry. He has recently been using predictive

analytics with three colleagues from Deloitte to calculate longevity based on what you buy and how you spend your free time.

“Individuals who order a deluxe cable package and simultaneously pursue few sporting or exercise activities are more likely to live sedentary lifestyles and ultimately suffer a higher incidence of various lifestyle-based diseases,” says Guszcza.

Visit bus.wisc.edu/ update-life/ to learn more.

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The Wisconsin School of Business’ intellectual leadership in the field of entrepreneurship and innovation opens the door to meaningful interactions with industry, providing our students the platform to drive forward great ideas they develop while on campus.

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Innovation

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Entrepreneurship: Collaborate First, Compete Second Assistant Professor of Management and Human Resources Chad Navis is finding that collaboration between competitors can play a critical role in entrepreneurs’ success at garnering stakeholder support and resources for venture creation in untapped markets.

Entrepreneurs should help stakeholders clearly understand the value of the nascent market category—what it is fundamentally about, how it is different from existing categories, and the factors critical to its success, says Navis.

Paradoxically, his research finds that entrepreneurs may be more successful in tackling this challenge by working with their competitors—as opposed to against them—to establish the new market category. By doing so, Navis explains that competitors can help to promote a shared identity of the new category, use analogies or metaphors to highlight similarities with and differences from familiar markets, and frame the benefits of individual firms’ strategic alliances for the category as a whole. According to Navis, a premature emphasis on distinctiveness could fall on deaf ears or, worse, create unnecessary confusion that delays or prevents the development of a coherent, well-understood market category.

Once a shared understanding has begun to crystallize and the new market space has been recognized as “real,” the entrepreneur must then tackle the second challenge: to communicate the firm’s unique identity and competitive distinctiveness within the newly-established category.

Navis is finding that collaboration between competitors can play a critical role in entrepreneurs’ success Navis shares his knowledge and expertise with students campus-wide as part of his many roles: faculty director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Entrepreneurship Residential Learning Community (ERLC), advisor to Ph.D. students studying entrepreneurship and strategic innovation, and faculty liaison for the G. Steven Burrill Business Plan Competition and the Qualcomm Wireless Challenge.

Jon Eckhardt, associate professor of management, was a guest on Bloomberg TV’s “Money Moves” to discuss Facebook’s new $5 billion IPO and how it will affect the social landscape.

Eckhardt’s research into the IPO market—in particular, secondary shares— and the formation of commercial software markets for early handheld computing platforms provides a framework for thinking about Facebook’s decision and where the cash will go in the transaction.

He told host Dierdre Bolton that the social giant’s public offering “Facebook is a platform company with 845 million could create opportunities for other companies in users, and they have a the social sphere to test challenge…to find a way to revenue-generating ideas generate sales and revenue on the Facebook media platform. According to from this platform.”

Eckhardt, Facebook now faces a challenge not unlike its competitors in the social media industry: how to make—and continue to make—profits.

Visit bus.wisc.edu/update-facebook/ to view Eckhardt’s full interview.

Alumnus Joe Saari’s Success: Financial Literacy

entrepreneurSHIP

CONNECTION

Facebook Goes Public, Creates Opportunities

As a successful entrepreneur whose jump-start was the G. Steven Burrill Business Plan Competition (see color box below), Joe Saari (MBA ‘99 ) embodies resilience. Saari co-founded Precision Information, a leader in financial literacy educational products, with Ed Harris in 1998 after competing in the G. Steven Burrill Business Plan Competition at the Wisconsin School of Business. The pair worked diligently over the next five years, pursuing the creation of interactive educational experiences to enrich lives with a specific focus of providing unbiased financial education.

By 2008, the company had earned a number of marquee clients and had sold over three million copies of educational CD-ROMs under the Educated Investor® mark. That same year, the economic crisis and recession spoiled retirement plans and financial confidence across the country while strengthening the need for financial literacy. Saari saw an opportunity to expand Precision Information’s efforts to serve the over 100 million employees in the American workplace with self-managed, defined-

The program has since grown to deliver over 100,000 hours of online education to nearly 10,000 employees at 200 companies.

How You Can Help Wisconsin students cultivate their ideas by participating in the G. Steven Burrill Business Plan Competition (above), one of dozens of applied learning experiences led by faculty, alumni, and other business leaders. Get involved by being a volunteer judge, participating in workshops, providing seed funding for our entrepreneurs, and hiring our students. isit bus.wisc.edu/update-burrill/ V to learn more and get involved.

contribution retirement plans. He partnered with the Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions and John Hoffmmire of the University of Wisconsin-Madison to create a 10-week “financial education challenge,” where employees spent one hour per week in groups completing Educated Investor coursework. The program has since grown to deliver over 100,000 hours of online education to nearly 10,000 employees at 200 companies, with measurable results in employee financial literacy and confidence.

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@ Stay Connected with the Wisconsin School of Business!

Use your favorite social media tool to receive the latest news about the business school, fellow alumni, faculty and staff activity, special events, and more.

Tweet with the dean

@FOrtaloMagne

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Wisconsin Business Alumni

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▲ Kenneth Wright, BBA ’51, and his wife Ruth Wright were awarded a joint honorary doctor of science degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison at the May commencement. In October, Kenneth and Ruth also received the Lowell Thomas award from the Explorer’s Club.

Both the degree and the award were for research on ancient water management at Machu Picchu in Peru and Mesa Verde National Park.

Follow us @ WiscBusAlumni

1940-1959

Join the Wisconsin Business Alumni ® (Official) group

Norbert Vanden Heuvel, BBA ’50, MBA ’51, retired in 1986 and has travelled the world since then. At age 87, his travelling is slowing down somewhat, but has been thoroughly enjoyable.

Wisconsin Business Alumni 608-265-0575 bus.wisc.edu/alumni/

Jerald Hage, BBA ’55, developed and presented a set of recommendations for converting a bureaucracy into a learning organization. The recommendations stemmed from a request by the Liverpool School of Tropical

Medicine to investigate how they might improve the responsiveness of India’s health bureaucracy in order to correct problems in their malariacontrol program in Odisha, India.

Conrad Siegel, M.S. ’56, announces that Conrad Siegel Actuaries will celebrate 50 years of service next year.

It currently employs 30 actuaries as part of its staff of 100. Conrad himself still does some work for the firm, concentrating in the investment management division.

Tell us about you! alumni@bus.wisc.edu

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Andrew Singer, BBA ’67, is chairman and CEO of the Singer & Bassuk Organization in New York City. He has been recognized for his dedication to leadership and service in the real estate industry with two prestigious honors, receiving the Jack D. Weiler award from the UJA-Federation in 2009 and the Real Estate Board of New York’s Louis Smedbeck Broker Recognition Award in 2010.

▲ Jo Jean Janus, BBA ’58, announces that the Kehl School of Dance is celebrating 132 years in business and is currently operated by three of Jo Jean’s daughters: University of Wisconsin-Madison grads Jennifer (owner) and Jeanne, as well as Jo Ann, who specialized in dance at the University of Kansas. Jo Jean is currently president of P.E.O. Chapter BC and Madison Alumni Chapter, Phi Chi Theta Professional Business Women’s Fraternity. She was recently honored with an ATHENA AWARD nomination and remains an active volunteer for a number of well-known organizations.

1960-1969 Sheldon Bearrood, BBA ’62, and his wife Anina Raddant Bearrood, BBA ’61, will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary in 2012 at Wisconsin Dells with their two sons and five grandchildren. They took an Alaska Inside Passage Cruise in 2011.

▲ David Rice, BBA ’62, recently retired from Roger Williams University Law School faculty as professor emeritus after teaching there 15 years.

He has taught as a visiting professor/ lecturer at the University of WisconsinMadison, and is presently a visiting scholar at Boston College Law School.

He and his wife have lived in the Boston area since 1966.

Carl “Chip” Burghardt, BBA ’64, is celebrating Burghardt Sporting Goods’ 131st year in business with a new store set to open in March in Fox Point.

Four of his children are active in the business, and two are University of Wisconsin-Madison grads.

Eberhard Fuhr, MBA ’65, presented several lectures about the internment of resident Germans in the United States and their internment during World War II—he was one of these from the age of 17 until released at 22. His lecture in Kingwood, Texas, was to over 1,000 and filmed by the Texas Historical Commission.

John Gerold, BBA ’65, retired from Wollersheim Winery, Inc., on January 13, 2012.

Kenneth Stoeger, BBA ’66, retired in 2011 after 44 years in industry and consulting. He and his wife Maureen just returned from an 18-day National Geographic expedition to Mt. Everest, one of many trips on his bucket list.

Lawrence Kahn, BBA ’67, is currently teaching a negotiations course at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Marquette University. He is under contract to mediate for the USPS, U.S. Department of Justice, and various state courts and business associations. He continues his active private mediation practice and workshop speaker engagements.

Steve Cain, BBA ’68, is looking forward to relocating back to Chicago after spending 30 years in New York.

He will continue to raise venture

capital for start-up companies and arrange equipment leases for middlemarket companies.

Clarke Caywood, BBA ’69, Ph.D. ’85, edited the second edition of “The Handbook of Strategic Public Relations and Integrated Marketing Communications” for McGraw-Hill 2012.

Rick Cohen, BBA ’68, MBA ’69, was re-elected chairman of the board of the South Plains Food Bank headquartered in Lubbock, Texas.

Ken Sack, BBA ’69, retired from Case New Holland in 2009 after 32 years.

He volunteers at Habitat for Humanity in Racine building homes and is also active with Aviation Exploring Post, a co-ed BSA program for high school students.

1970-1979

▲ Brad Vincent, MBA ’73, is now semi-retired. This last year, he enjoyed visits with his daughter (B.A. ’96) and granddaughters in Wausau, Wisconsin, as well as his travels out west to several national parks and a stop at spring training.

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Debbie Lessin, BBA ’76, has launched BalanceLady Designs, a line of jewelry and art for hair made from repurposed woven necktie silk.

▲ Mary Ellen Howard, M.A. ’77, was granted a Miller Fellowship this year

by The McGregor Fund to study the impact of the Affordable Care Act on safety-net clinics for the uninsured.

In the process, she hopes to help Cabrini Clinic and their patients through the transition. She looks forward to hearing from her classmates.

1980-1989 Joseph Katcha, BBA ’82, has a daughter in college and a son who is a sophomore in high school. High Street Capital continues to grow, and he is helping to raise its fourth private equity fund focused on bringing operational improvements to Midwest middlemarket companies.

Stuart Manewith, M.A. ’82, celebrates the beginning of his tenth year with Blackbaud, the world’s leader in technology solutions for nonprofit organizations. He still happily resides in St. Louis, Missouri.

Dorothy Washington-Jones, MBA ’83, has just published her first book— an e-book titled “The Runaway Christmas Tree”—which is available on Amazon.com and BN.com.

Fay Shong, BBA ’84, transferred to Accenture’s London office this year to assume a global role in Accenture’s Energy Strategy Practice.

Stephen Hasbrook, BBA ’86, saw the Badgers win the inaugural Big Ten Championship in Indianapolis last December. Fantastic!

Mike Mistele, BBA ’87, recently joined Product Dynamics (a division of RQA, Inc.) as their director of research. Product Dynamics is a marketresearch supplier, specializing in product research for the food and consumer products industries.

▲ Michelle Gile, BBA ’88, has started

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▲ David Rosen, BBA ’84, cheered

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▲ Robert Eames, BBA ’78, MBA ’80, received tenure and promotion to full professor at Calvin College, where he is currently leading a group of students on a study tour of Brazil. The group is visiting the Amazon, Sao Paulo, the Port of Santos, and Rio. Ramesh Sharda, MBA ’78, Ph.D. ’81, is now the director of the Spears School of Business’ newly launched Ph.D. in Business for Executives Program, in addition to continuing to serve as the director of the Institute for Research in Information Systems.

on the Badgers at the Rose Bowl together with fellow alumna Susan Zucker, BBA ’84, and daughter Melia in Pasadena. On Wisconsin!

in a new role at Cardinal Health as the vice president, sales–payors for the Cardinal Health Specialty Solutions Group. In this new role, she is responsible for leading the payor sales team and contracting strategy for the clinical pathways, specialty pharmacy, and technology solutions areas.

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Dr. Andreas Leimbach, MBA ’87, followed a 20-year banking career by deploying his services in the renewable energy field. As a managing partner for SolarKapital, which is based in his native Germany, Andreas and his partners invest equity and expertise into corporations active in the solar sector.

Tell us about you! alumni@bus.wisc.edu

Turina Bakken, BBA ’88, M.S. ’96, was recently promoted to associate vice president of learner success at Madison College. Turina is also working on a Ph.D. in educational leadership and policy in the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Education.

Go Bucky!

Kenneth Winter, Ph.D. ’88, has returned to Madison as a visiting professor for one year in the Accounting and Information Systems Department.

Jack Zavoral, BBA ’88, M.S. ’91, is the proud owner of a t-shirt that says “UW-Madison Dad,” thanks to having a son in the engineering program and a daughter entering in fall of 2012.

William Franz, BBA ’89, was appointed the assistant center director–chief financial officer for the Alliant Energy Center of Dane County in November.

Kevin Hoskinson, BBA ’89, started a new job in October 2011 and will be moving from Colorado to California in June 2012. While not excited about the commute, he is looking forward to catching up with some Badgers to root on the University of WisconsinMadison!

1990-1999 Angela Bies, M.A. ’90, was tenured and promoted to associate professor of public administration in September 2011 at Texas A & M University. She was also recently awarded best journal article of 2011 in Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly.

is a book contract that will make his doctoral research more accessible to the popular science crowd.

Mark McGillis, BBA ‘90, went on to law school and currently works at Fortune & McGillis, SC in Racine, Wisconsin. His practice focuses on the areas of workers’ compensation, social security disability, and personal injury.

Alan Myers, BBA ’92, is making it happen in the world of private banking for Credit Suisse, the “world’s most admired bank!”

Aaron Baugh, BBA ’94, recently relocated to Dallas, Texas, to manage Rinnai America’s Residential Business Segment for North America. He is looking forward to connecting with other alumni in the area.

Jon Gitter, BBA ’96, and his wife Kristin welcomed their daughter, Kalin Marie, on October 30, 2011. Kalin joined big sister Emma.

Widodo Suryadi, BBA ’96, experienced a life-changing year in 2011.

His third son was born on January 1, 2011. He then moved on to a new job at Commonwealth Bank to assume the position of the head of wholesale banking.

Sally Wong, M.S. ’96, is celebrating her first anniversary living in Shanghai, and her fourth of living in China. She is going back to the workplace for the first time since last August and is learning all about market research in the China pharmaceutical industry.

▲ Rita Chen, MBA ’97, spent almost ▲ Bruce Donald Campbell, M.S. ’90, enjoyed his first year of post-doc after graduating from the University of Washington with a Ph.D. in systems engineering on December 16, 2010.

Paid trips to Singapore, Brittany, and South Africa for academic workshops and lectures are on tap for 2012, as

in Irving, Texas. She previously worked as a regulatory attorney and lives in Fort Worth, Texas, with her husband and children.

14 years in various corporate marketing roles at 3M, DreamWorks Studios, and Nestle, but is now moving home to Chicago for a marketing position in higher education.

Carmen Fahy, BBA ’97, was named CCO of Epiphany Funds, a small, socially responsible mutual fund family,

▲ Kristine Weeks, BBA ’97, welcomed two new baby Badgers into her family in April 2011: Asher and Tyler Weeks.

Sally Erdmann, BBA ’98, and her husband Tom welcomed their third baby, Carson James, on January 25, 2011. He joins big brother, Trent (almost nine), and big sister, Alyssa (10 years).

Adam Jay Bock, MBA ’99, published his second book on entrepreneurship, “Models of Opportunity: How Entrepreneurship Design Firms Achieve the Unexpected.”

Michael Johnstone, M.S. ’99, was hired this past summer as vice president, purchasing at Stoughton Trailers, LLC.

2000-2011 Sachin Pawar, BBA ’01, will be completing residency training in otolaryngology–head and neck surgery from the Medical College of Wisconsin (Milwaukee) in June 2012 and will be starting a fellowship in facial plastic and reconstructive surgery at Oregon Health and Sciences University in Portland, Oregon, in July 2012.

Jennifer Ciulla Van Ort, M.A. ’02, started as coordinator of development at Schenectady County Community College in September 2011. In this role, she is responsible for alumni affairs, special events, and the annual fund.

Gina (Clausen) Goldberg, BBA ’02, is expanding her business as an independent chocolatier with Dove Chocolate Discoveries.

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Will Wait, BBA ’01, MBA ’07, and Amy Lee, B BA ’03, recently started the “1% for Wisconsin” initiative by pledging 1% of their salaries as an annual gift to the Wisconsin School of Business (WSOB). “Our lives were transformed by our experiences at the WSOB and we want to ensure future students get the same transformational educational experiences we did,” said Wait. Lee added, “We hope ‘1% for Wisconsin’ becomes a new standard for leadership giving at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.”

Michael Holland, BBA ’02, was married in the Wisconsin State Capitol on December 3, 2011, to alumna Anna Piacentine, B.A. ’06.

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Tony McGrath, BBA ’02, has joined the law firm of Constangy, Brooks & Smith LLP as a founding member of the firm’s Madison, Wisconsin, office.

Tony represents employers in cases involving employment discrimination, sexual harassment, wage and hour violations, class actions, and other claims.

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David Murphy, BBA ’03, MAC ’04, and his wife Karen welcomed their first child, Emma, into the world on July 14, 2011.

Nick Schwalbach, BBA ’03, went on to earn his law degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is currently working as an attorney adviser for the Social Security Administration Office of Adjudication and Review in Milwaukee, helping adjudicate disability claims.

Meredith Sharma, BBA ’05, and her husband, Praveen Sharma, BBA ’05, welcomed a baby girl, Suri Himalaya Sharma, on May 8, 2011. She was named after the Himalayan trek they

Krista Sonneson, BBA ’07, purchased a piece of rental property, was accepted into Northwestern University’s master’s program, and was selected to speak on behalf of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Metropolitan Chicago at local events.

did in Nepal while Meredith was pregnant.

Benjamin Hawke, BBA ’06, MAC ’07, welcomed a future badger, Grant Hawke, into the world on June 12, 2011. He’s already a fan of “Jump Around!”

Paul Heckman, BBA ’06, spent over four years at Canyon Capital in Los Angeles. He left on good terms in March of 2011 and spent the late spring and summer visiting 18 countries in Europe.

Carrie Breisach, MBA ’07, and her husband Ryan welcomed daughter Evelyn Esther Breisach to the family on December 24, 2011.

▲ ▲ Kurt Kober, MBA ’07, along with Stephanie Tourand, MBA ’06, have joined two other business partners to create Red Clay, LLC. Red Clay is an online design community that creates beautiful, sustainable, home goods made in the United States. As Kurt and Stephanie say, “Red Clay is all about curating objects with a story.”

Laura Gramann, BBA ’07, not only started a new role within Google this year…she became the president of the Bay Area Badgers in California!

She also overcame her huge fear of heights and climbed to “Angel’s Landing” in Zion National Park.

Kai Kang, MBA ’07, and his wife Jing, both University of Wisconsin-Madison alumni, welcomed their daughter Emma on September 15, 2011.

▲ Zach Davis, BBA ’08, thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail, a 2,181-mile trail that extends from northern

Georgia to northern Maine. In January, he released his first book, a psychological and emotional guide to accomplishing this feat.

Krystle Felcaro, BBA ’08, has enjoyed a great few years since graduating and continues her work in public relations and the multicultural space.

From time to time she is able to travel for work on special assignments, such as setting up a news segment in Albuquerque, New Mexico, or executing a large-scale professional jalapeño eating challenge in San Antonio, Texas…in which she witnessed Pat “Deep Dish” Bertoletti eat 275 whole jalapeños in eight minutes!

Carolyn Prebil, BBA ’08, began working as the marketing director for Global LEAD, which takes college undergraduates abroad to Cape Town, Greece, and Ecuador for summer programs focused on leadership and service. She looks forward to helping grow the company to a national program with innovative marketing strategies.

Thomas Rivera, BBA ’08, is currently back in Madison in the full-time MBA program for corporate finance and investment banking (class of 2013).

Vitality Foodservice as well as the Coffee-mate brand team.

Gregory Branson, MBA ’09, expects 2012 to be another year of growth and expansion both personally and professionally. His wife, Mariagnes, and he are planning to purchase a new home to accommodate their growing family. His practice at Wells Fargo Advisors experienced strong growth in 2011, and he anticipates 2012 will provide the same opportunity for growth. He hopes his 2009 classmates are doing well, especially his friends from Market Pulse.

Sena Shellenberger, BBA ’10, started off the new year with an awesome trip to Los Angeles for the Rose Bowl.

She then started a new job at Google, which had been one of her goals since high school. She initially heard about the job from a Badger alum, and got more help from the Business Career Center as she was interviewing, so her Badger roots are staying strong!

She is very excited to continue meeting fellow Badgers at events in the Bay Area.

Vincent Siew, BBA ’10, is an entrylevel developer in Silicon Valley.

Brian Ward, MBA ’10, got married in December of 2011!

▲ Susan Gotrik, BBA ’09, is living at MIT with her husband and baby girl!

She is also working full time from home for 3M. Life is great! Go Badgers!

Jason Hall, BBA ’09, is a non-profit consultant for Giving Tree Associates.

Brad Hanson, MBA ’09, took an expatriate assignment in Germany and began his two-year contract on October 1st.

rently located in Afghanistan helping local entrepreneurs launch start-up businesses across a wide array of industries. He established an LLC in 2011, and is continually expanding his freelance graphic and web development portfolio.

Shira Weiner, BBA ’09, moved to Los Angeles in February 2011, and was very excited to play host to some of her favorite classmates and fellow Badgers during the many Rose Bowl festivities. When not cheering on Wisconsin from the west coast, she works as the operations manager for City Year’s Los Angeles site, a non-profit education organization that engages hundreds of young adults in a year of full-time service to help fight the national drop-out crisis.

Jacob Abel, MBA ’09, has moved to San Francisco to work at Nestle Dreyer’s Ice Cream as an associate brand manager on the Nestle Drumstick brand. For the past two years, he has been with Nestle Professional in Tampa, Florida, working on the integration of recently-acquired

Chris Martinez, BBA ’10, is living in New York City and is enjoying life, especially Mad River and the alumni he runs into during Badger games.

While Goldman Sachs has been challenging and exciting, he will be moving on to a new chapter of his life: in July, he will begin a new job working in

▲ Hussein Sharif, BBA ’08, is cur-

private equity at Apax in New York.

He has also been working on an online consulting business for companies and brands who need help staying relevant in today’s ever-changing online world.

▲ Eric Dolan, MBA ’11, notes that the overall professional and personal growth he experienced through the University of Wisconsin-Madison MBA program is trumped only by the keen instincts that now come second nature as a result of spending two years carefully examining business problems in real-world contexts. He is proud to be a Badger and excited to join the alumni community. On Wisconsin!

Tell us about you! alumni@bus.wisc.edu

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Illustration by Camilla S. Klyve

UPDATE

SPRING 2012  bus.wisc.edu

Innovation in Education: Building on Our Strengths

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The world took notice when professors from Stanford University announced they would share computer science classes online for free.

350,000 students enrolled. A computer algorithm assisted in answering students’ questions to the benefit of all. Tens of thousands stayed through the class completion.

We are on the verge of radical change in higher education. The Stanford experiment confirms the power of communication technology to transform the diffusion of knowledge.

It not only challenges the status quo, it threatens obsolescence for programs that cannot differentiate themselves in the online space and add value through live interactions.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison is engaged in a battle with universities around the world to deliver the lectures everyone else will subscribe to. Newcomers are joining in with innovative business models: SingularityU.org relies on small staff and visiting professors; AcademyBridge.com aggregates free content from existing business schools. The technology giants—iTunes U, Education.Skype.com, and Google—are getting involved, too.

At Wisconsin, we are participating in the battle and want to expand our contribution, building on the strength of our faculty. For example, the best-

selling intermediate accounting textbook features interactive Web material developed by our faculty in partnership with the publisher. This provides accounting professors around the world the option to delegate the lecturing to our professors through an online platform. While our students have access to the same

Higher education is more than transmitting knowledge through academic lectures and certifying knowledge through testing…thus, the renewed emphasis on experiential learning in business education. online content, they also have the opportunity to receive more advanced training from the same professors, live, in Madison.

Of course, higher education is more than transmitting knowledge through academic lectures and certifying knowledge through testing…thus, the renewed emphasis on experiential learning in business education.

On this front, the Wisconsin School of Business is a step ahead. We have

a long history of excellence in complementing large lectures with unparalleled experiential learning through small group projects, many of them made possible thanks to our dedicated alumni and friends. Students in our Applied Security Analysis Program manage actual dollars, optimizing a portfolio of securities in real time. They sweat the market downturns, enjoy the good runs, and report to a board of professional money managers. Our undergraduate and graduate real estate students pitch alternative development options to property owners and financiers as part of our residential and commercial development classes. Dell is sending our market research students to China to conduct research and then to their headquarters in Texas to discuss their findings.

The student experience we deliver through real projects cannot be scaled up with technology. Large-scale online interaction cannot replace the learning achieved when student reports are picked apart by business leaders who have a stake in the project’s outcome. The transformational experience provided through experiential learning at Wisconsin will remain a critical complement to the raw dissemination of knowledge that is moving to the virtual world.

In the ongoing race to explore and understand the future of higher education, we are eager to create even more opportunities to build on the strength and dedication of the Wisconsin network through life-long connections with alumni. How can we use technology to provide our alumni access to the knowledge produced here? Further, how can we enable alumni and friends to contribute in knowledge dissemination and even participate with us in knowledge production? Together, we will create solutions to further enhance the value of the Wisconsin alumni network.

Pat Thiele (Board Chair)

Robert Pollock

Former President and CEO PartnerRe Ltd.

President and CEO Assurant Inc.

Michael Casey

Todd Pulvino

Senior Managing Director The Blackstone Group

Principal CNH Partners L.L.C., AQR Capital Mgmt.

Sean Cleary President and CEO Cleary Building Corp.

Ann Schwister Vice President, Global Oral Care Finance and Accounting Procter & Gamble

John Davis CEO Great Northern Corporation

Richard Searer Former President Kraft North America

Laura Francis Vice President of Finance/CFO Promega Corporation

Sandra Sponem Senior Vice President and CFO Mortenson Construction

Jeffrey Hammes Partner Kirkland & Ellis L.L.P.

Stew Stender Partner Stewart Lawrence Group

Julie Howard President and COO Navigant Consulting, Inc.

Scott VanderSanden President AT&T Wisconsin

Peter Leidel Founder and Member Yorktown Partners L.L.C.

John Ver Bockel Senior Vice President and CFO Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc.

John Mulligan Chief Financial Officer, Treasury and Accounting Target Corporation

Don Walkovik Senior Managing Director Brock Capital

Mark Nerenhausen

Jeff Yabuki

Founding Director and Professor of Practice, Art Leadership Graduate Program Syracuse University

CEO Fiserv, Inc.

Bill Nygren Oakmark Fund Portfolio Manager Harris Associates, L.P.

Debra Perry Director, BofA Funds Series Trust and Sanford C. Bernstein Fund Korn/Ferry International

Nonprofit Organization U.S. Postage

PAID

Madison, Wisconsin Permit No. 658

5151 Grainger Hall 975 University Ave. Madison, WI 53706-1323

Save the Date for Homecoming 2012!

Saturday, October 27, 2012 Wisconsin vs. Michigan State Join Bucky and the UW band at the best tailgate party on campus! The Wisconsin School of Business will again hold a football ticket lottery for alumni and friends with priority given to donors. Packages include a game ticket and bash entrance fee.

Find out more online when you visit bus.wisc.edu/update-homecoming/.