Gary K. Hunter

The image of the salesperson shuffling from customer to customer with a satchel full of wares is ancient history.

Today’s sales force hits the streets armed with cell phones, PDAs, and laptops, plus spreadsheets and other software programs that provide the data and analytic capabilities needed to build and maintain customer satisfaction.

How can companies and their sales managers ensure that these high-tech tools are helping boost sales performance and providing a good return on their investments?

“Our research sets out to answer that very question,” said Gary K. Hunter, assistant professor in the Department of Marketing in the college.  Read more.

FOCUS ON

.: Business Alumni Traveling Happy Hours return.     

The signature Happy Hour series returns for its second year to continue providing the college’s alumni with the opportunity to mix and mingle with fellow business graduates in some of Miami’s favorite “hot” spots. 

This year’s theme is all about DRIVE—the drive of our alumni to succeed and become engaged members of their organizations and in our South Florida communities. Read more.

.: Real Estate Alumni Affinity Council (REACC) Networking Happy Hour scheduled for August 31st.

Mark your calendar for the upcoming Real Estate Alumni Affinity Council’s (REACC) networking happy hour scheduled for August 31st from 6:00-9:00 p.m. at the college's Downtown Center, located in the Macy’s building. Read more.

.: Meet Bill Wilson: An alumnus who knows how to network.

Bill Wilson

There is one thing Bill Wilson (MBA ’06, BBA ’04) knows: how to network. Wilson is a young, up- and-coming professional in government, born and raised right here in South Florida. He always has been a very proud Floridian. He was accepted to numerous universities, but when he visited Florida International University, he knew that was where he wanted to be. Read more.

.: Alumni Notes

• Accounting firm Kaufman, Rossin & Company has named Keith Ellenburg (BBA ’80) as a principal in the firm’s audit practice. Ellenburg is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Florida Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

• Roberto Pardo (BBA ’81) has joined the Board of Directors of the Cuban-American Bar Association.

• Mercedes M. Sellek (BBA ’89) has joined Katz Barron in Miami as an associate in the real estate department.

• Morrison Brown Argiz & Farra has added Rosa Bravo (MACC ’91) as a partner in its tax consulting unit.

• Kelly Blum (BBA ’92) has joined Cole Scott’s West Palm Beach office.

• Berger Singerman has added a shareholder in Miami: Gabriel E. Nieto (BBA ’94), who practices administrative and regulatory law with an emphasis on environmental and land-use matters.

• Cole Scott & Kissane has announced the addition of Steve Kerbel (BBA ’94) to its Ft. Lauderdale office.

• Rosary Plana Falero (MBA ’94, BBA ’91) has been promoted to managing senior vice president and manager of City National Bank of Florida's Private Lending Division for Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties.

• Morrison Brown Argiz & Farra has welcomed two partners, David Barbeito (MACC ’97) to its auditing and business advisory services and David Hollander (EMST ’97) to its auditing and tax consulting practice.

• Oscar Solares (BBA ’97) has been appointed director of imaging and cardiopulmonary services at North Shore Medical Center. Previously, he was director of pulmonary services.

• Miguel Armenteros (BBA ’00) has joined the law firm Damian & Valori’s business and employment litigation practice.

• Michelle Otero Valdes (BBA ’01) recently joined the law firm of Houck Anderson, P.A., focusing on all matters of admiralty and maritime law.

• Denise Gaffor (MBA ’01) is currently a doctoral student at Barry University, Fort Myers Graduate Center.

John Zdanowicz

The words of Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward’s secret source Deep Throat to “follow the money” in their Watergate investigation resonate today with multiple law enforcement agencies as they try to uncover money-laundering schemes and terrorist financing.

For sixteen years, John Zdanowicz, professor, Department of Finance, in the college, has worked with data the federal government uses to calculate the balance of trade. He’s been taking that data, which the government releases every month, and analyzing each transaction to measure the amount of money moving in and out of the country, noting anomalies.

.: Workshop takes a tropical twist: Farmer-to-Farmer program connects with tropical agricultural research.

Tropical fruit production and research take place in the two geographic extremes of the United States: South Florida, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands in the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean region; and Hawaii and Guam in the Pacific Basin.

While they face many of the same challenges, researchers in both regions had never come together in a single forum—not until the three-day Tropical Fruit Production and Handling Workshop held at the Holiday Inn Port of Miami on July 6-8, 2006.

The event sponsor was the Tropical and Subtropical Agriculture Research (T-STAR) program, which is funded by the Cooperative State Research Education and Extension Service (CSREES) within the U. S. Department of Agriculture. Read more.

.: Beijing provides dramatic backdrop to program coordinated by college's faculty member.

When Mary Ann Von Glinow, professor, Management and International Business Department in the college and director of Florida International University’s Center for International Business Education and Research (CIBER), stood on the stage of the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, it was the culmination of months of planning and the combined efforts of hundreds of scholars, a number of them from the college.

Von Glinow was program chair of the 2006 Annual Meeting of the Academy of International Business (AIB) at which scholars—executives to doctoral students—presented and heard about the most cutting edge research in their field. From the review process of more than 935 articles submitted from fifty-five countries requiring 1,121 reviewers, to the dinner in the Great Hall of the People adjacent to Tiananmen Square, there was ample opportunity for things to go wrong, but nothing did. Read more.

.: Executive MBA members get involved in team "rebuilding."

Teams abound in corporate America and in many of the programs offered by the Chapman Graduate School of Business. The benefits of a well-running team are a given, and companies expend time and money to ensure that their teams are functioning at their best.

So why would the Executive MBA (EMBA) program in the Chapman School dismantle the existing teams and reconfigure them midway through the program? Members of the twenty-seven person class certainly wondered, and worried. But the effort turned out well, thanks to the contributions of Operation Explore, a training and development firm based in Palm Beach Gardens, FL. Read more.

.: Eighteenth BBA+ Weekend group graduates.

Fifty-one of the fifty-three students who began the BBA+ Weekend program in the fall of 2004 will graduate in the summer of 2006. A celebratory dinner took place on July 7, 2006, in the Graham Center Ballroom for the group—the eighteenth and the largest to complete the program in its ten-year history. With its lock-step, technology-enabled, customized curriculum, the BBA+ enables students who have associate degrees and are majoring in either management or international business to earn a business degree in just seven twelve-week sessions.  Read more.

.: How many lives will you save?

Members of the twentieth BBA+ Weekend class have launched Business Students Saving Lives (BSSL), a civic engagement project in their Business in Society class, to raise funds to benefit Salva Mi Vida, a private organization in Honduras that helps poor children who have cancer. They have adopted the phrase “How many lives will you save?” as their rallying cry.

A year’s sponsorship—which covers expenses including medications, transportation, hospital stays, and sometimes, funeral costs—is just $18.25 per child. Salva Mi Vida officials have guaranteed that all BSSL support will go toward those ends. Individuals or corporations interested in supporting the BSSL effort can find more information, including a link to a site for web donations, at http://www.fiu.edu/~bssl/index.htm.

“This is a well-known children’s pediatric cancer foundation in Honduras,” said Robert Hogner, associate professor, Department of Management and International Business, coordinator of the college's Civic Engagement Initiative, and the instructor of the course. Read more.