Students Gain Hands-On Experience Through Field Trip to Pyramid Breweries
This spring Professors Eli Berniker and Carol Ptak took two vans of students down to Portland
Pyramid Breweries in Portland, Oregon to do a major operations research
project for the company. Sean Roach, a junior business student in
Professor Ptak’s Creating Value in Goods and Services Operations class,
said that this trip “was definitely one of the coolest experiences I've
had while in the School of Business.”
The Creating Value in Goods and Services Operations classes have been learning
strategies to eliminate non-value by adding steps in processes in order
to boost effectiveness and profitability. This trip gave students the
opportunity to see production processes in person and talk with both
the leadership at the brewery as well as the head of sales at their
distributor, Columbia Distributing.
The students will use the information gained from this experience to
act as consultants in their final presentations. They will use the
process model to demonstrate how their recommendations will benefit the
company's operations and bottom-line.
Roach found this trip to be very beneficial, “Besides the educational aspect of the trip, it was a blast to hang out
with Professors Ptak and Berniker outside of the classroom! I learned
just as much from our informal conversations about their experiences as
I did at the Brewery. This is the type of professor-student
relationship that PLU and the School of Business should take pride
in."
NEWS
School of Business Joins MSDN Academic Alliance
The School of Business recently became a member of the Microsoft
Developer Network (MSDN) Academic Alliance, an annual membership
program for departments that teach and utilize technology, such as
Computer Science and Engineering departments. The membership provides a
complete, inexpensive solution to keep academic labs, faculty and
students on the leading edge of technology. Josh Page, IT Support
Specialist for the School of Business, made this membership possible for the School of Business. “I researched the possibility of the School of
Business becoming a member and it turned out that having access to this
software was very cost effective for us and a huge benefit for our
business students and faculty.”
For only $864 a year, School of Business faculty and students have
access to the latest versions of Microsoft Access, Microsoft Vision,
Microsoft Visio Studio, Microsoft Project and several other Microsoft
titles on the School of Business computers. This program will save the
School of Business thousands of dollars by providing permission to copy
the programs onto multiple computers.
Page realizes the impact of technology on education. “It is important that the School of Business provides its students and
faculty with the most up-to-date technologies and resources. This
membership will only add to the quality education our students receive.”
Marketing Management Class Reaches Out To Local Community
Professor Merl Simpson’s Marketing Management class is developing
marketing plans for various Garfield Street businesses, the
Spanaway-Parkland Chamber of Commerce, and the Garfield District. There
are nine ongoing projects that are intended to deliver a marketing plan
to the respective companies/organizations at the end of he semester.
This effort is akin to the projects that students completed in the fall
semester Marketing Research course, most recently with Professor Susan
Harmon.
Professor Simpson hopes that this project will help the marketing
students gain real-life experience. “Together we are interested in
having our students learn about marketing from an experiential
standpoint, as opposed to a more lecture-case based format. We believe
that they will learn far more about the marketing content involved in
the respective courses by this community-based service learning
approach – and contribute significantly to community outreach efforts.”
Mark Mulder, Director of Auxiliary Services at PLU, has played a large
role in these projects as well. Simpson and Mulder worked together to
engage these projects in the community before the semester
started. “Mulder has a wealth of background and understanding
about the various initiatives underway to "build" the community of
which PLU is a major part.”
Marketing students Collin Long, Jennifer Tompkins, and Cortney
Krawiecki are working with Northern Pacific Coffee Company (NPCC),
located on the corner of Garfield and C Streets. Being a popular hang
out for PLU students, Long was eager to help form a marketing plan for
the coffee shop. “It seems that almost every student or faculty member
you speak to has heard of or has been to NPCC. Also, knowing NPCC as
a customer first gave me a chance to think back about how I felt about
the coffee shop before I knew I would be working on a marketing plan
for them.”
Long, Tompkins and Kraweicki are directing their focus on NPCC’s
visibility. They hope to increase the promotional activities of the
coffee shop as well as their amount of signage. Long enjoys the
hands-on aspect of this project. “Service learning gives real world
experience, which is a learning dynamic that cannot be obtained easily
in a classroom.”
Reception Honors School of Business Students
Congratulations to the following business students who were honored at
the 2007 Honors Reception for the School of Business held on April
13th!
Beta Gamma Sigma Inductees 
Juniors: Rachel Hatlen, Benjamin Perry
Seniors: Claudia Davila, Anthony Gomez, Quinton Kakaley, Tara Klarr, Sun Joo Lee, Michelle Middleton
(MBA students pictured from left to right): Christian Wong, William Whitmore, Yoav Sibony
Not pictured: Sundra Samavedi
 Academic Excellence in Finance: Gwen Ha
Wall Street Journal Award: Claudia Davila
Marketing Student of the Year: Emma Coulson (pictured left)
Outstanding MBA Student of the Year: Christian Wong
Faculty Merit Award: Joe Attinello
Graduate Fellowship Participants
MinRak Choi, Karah Feneis, Rune Hejrskov, Natasha Jarmaillo, Byung Ryou, Fating Yuan, Ke Yuan
For a complete list of scholarship recipients, click here.
Call For Washington Business Week Volunteers
PLU serves as a host-site for the Washington Business Week camp for
high school students. This year the program runs Sunday, June 24th
through Saturday, June 30th. Organizers are now actively looking for
PLU alumni, staff and MBA students to serve as judges and company
advisors for this summer.
For more information about the program, visit the WBW website at www.wbw.org, or contact Megan Rubie at (253) 815-6900, (800) 686-6442 toll free.
School of Business Faculty Publications
Chung-Shing Lee has been notified that his manuscript,
"Analysis of Competitive and Cooperative Technology Strategies of
Electronics Firms In the Greater China Region", is scheduled for
publication in a forthcoming issue of Journal of International
Technology and Information Management.
Thad Barnowe and Dave McNabb received notification
that their co-authored paper, "E-Government in China: Does It Facilitate
or Hinder Citizen-Government Interaction?", has been accepted and will
be included in the program of the Pan-Pacific Conference XXIV to be
held in Dunedin-Queenstown, New Zealand June 2-4, 2007.
Chris Lee co-authored a paper with Dr. Joe Bradely,
assistant professor of accounting at the University of Missouri at
Rolla, entitled "ERP Training and User Satisfaction." The paper was
accepted for publication in the forthcoming issue of the International
Journal of Enterprise Information Systems (Volume 3, Issue 4,
2007). This research was supported by the 2006 PLU School of Business Summer Research Grant.
Last December, the Korean Scientist and Engineer Association invited
ePLU/E-Commerce Technology Management Center for a presentation on IT
Application at its northwest regional conference. Dr. Chung-Shing Lee and Dr. Chris Lee together
prepared for the presentation titled "Strategic Information Systems for
Value Creation in a Global Competitive Environment," which was
published in the Proceedings of the 2007 Korean Scientist and Engineer
Association Northwest Regional Conference.
Fred Wolfe, Bruce Finnie and Linda Gibson
received notification that their paper, "Cornish Miners in
California:One Hundred and Fifty Years of a Unique Socio-Technical
System," has been accepted for presentation at the 2007 Academy of
Management Annual Meeting, August 3-8, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Dave McNabb and Dean Emeritus Gundar King were
notified that their paper, "Policy, Responsibility, and the Crisis of
Trust: Implementing CSR Policies and Procedures in Latvia" has been
accepted for presentation at the Academic Business World International
Conference to be held May 28-30 in Nashville, Tennessee.
Chris Lee presented a paper entitled, "A Comparative Study
of Data Mining Models in Marketing" at the Spring 2007 Allied Academies
International Conference in Jacksonville on April 12, 2007. The paper
received a distinguished research award from the Academy of Information
and Management Sciences.
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BBA accepted into Dartmouth
Congratulations to Jake Dixon BBA
'03! He was recently admitted into the Tuck School of Business
MBA program at Dartmouth and will begin his studies Fall 2007.
BBA Hymes awarded WSCPA Scholarship for 2007!
Congratulations to Kalia Hymes for winning
the Washington Society of Certified Public Accountants (WSCPA)
scholarship! This scholarship is awarded to accounting majors who
attend a University in Lewis, Thurston, Grays Harbor, or Pierce
Counties. The Pierce County Chapter Accounting Scholarship is a $1,000
scholarship as well as a one-year membership to the Washington Society
of Certified Public Accountants.
MBA Executive Leadership Series featured wide array of topics
Don Gaines, MBA '84, VP of
Finance/Treasurer of Puget Sound Energy, offered insight into the roles
of a VP of Finance/Treasurer by speaking about his personal experience
at Puget Sound Energy.
Neil Crist, BBA '99, co-founder of Jobster.com, spoke about the
challenges of getting a startup company off the ground and
restructuring a company.
 Ray
Heacox (pictured left), BA '76, president of King 5 Television, spoke
about the importance of leadership and how companies need to be able to
respond to new technologies.
Lorette Koellner, president of Boeing International, presented about
ethics and ethical standards in large international business.
Lynn Brewer, Enron Whistleblower, speaks to PLU students
 Former
Enron executive Lynn Brewer visited PLU and spoke about her experience
at Enron and about leading an ethical life. To read the Campus Voice
article about her presentation, click here.
DeLange joins faculty
The School of Business welcomes Professor
Marlo DeLange, J.D., to the faculty. DeLange began her legal
career as a securities enforcement attorney with the Washington
Department of Financial Institutions. In 2000, she went into
private practice as an associate with Gordon, Thomas, Honeywell,
Malanca, Peterson & Daheim LLP. DeLange joined Vandeberg Johnson
& Gandara LLP in August 2004.
DeLange served as an adjunct business professor at PLU during the Fall
2006 and Spring 2007 semesters. She teaches Business Law & Ethics
courses.
"Accounting 4 Life" team raises money and awareness at Relay for Life
School of Business professors Carol Ptak
and Fern Zabriskie headed up a Relay For Life team named "Accounting 4
Life" for PLU’s Relay For Life cancer walk on April 20th.
Ptak and Zabriskie’s team was made up of 22 faculty and students and
raised a total of $615. PLU raised over $46,000 for the American Cancer
Society.
“Most of us know several people who have survived or lost the battle to
cancer, and it may be in our individual futures. Supporting the
research and care provided by the American Cancer Society is a
worthwhile use of our time and money, but reaching out to touch and
support family, friends, colleagues and strangers who have been
impacted by the disease is one of the best things we can do!” Zabriskie
said.
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