The Culverhouse College of Commerce Executive Magazine - Fall 2005 Edition

Fall 2005/Winter 2006

FBI Is on campusf i n d o u t w h o ' s o n i t s l i s t

The

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TableofContents

Fall 2005 cba.ua.edu

Alton Sizemore, Culverhouse

School of Accountancy

graduate, packs a pistol for

the FBI. When it comes time

to make the arrest, I want to

be there, Sizemore says. But

the only good arrest is one in

which no one gets hurt.

TheExEcutivE Fall 2005/Winter 2006VOLUME 10 ISSUE 2

Published twice annually in the spring and fall for alumni and friends

of The University of Alabamas Culverhouse College of Commerce

and Business Administration.

Dean: J. Barry Mason

Editor: William R. (Bill) Gerdes

Designer Senior: David Jones

Contributing Writers: Bill Gerdes,

Chrishan Emonina

Contributing Photographers: Laura Shill, Rickey Yanaura,

Chrishan Emonina

Office of Development,Alumni and Corporate Relations:

Charlie Adair, Diane Harrison,Nidia Spence, Susan Newman,April Thornton, Pam Junkin

Culverhouse College of Commerce and Business Administration

Box 870223Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0223

Comments, suggestions, questions:(205) 348-8318

[email protected]

The University of Alabama is an equal- opportunity educational institution/employer.

MC7117

OntheCover

4 Deans Message

6 New Round of College Ads Ready to Roll

8 Faculty NewsNew faculty appointments announced.

Insurance journals founded by UA finance professors top the list of elite journals.

Conerly is new head of Information Systems, Statistics, and Management Science.

Pecorino named Hayes Professor of Economics.

Faculty spend vacations abroad

12

14 Five Inducted into 32nd Alabama Business Hall of Fame

22 Student NewsUA EMBA graduate hits the big time with state-of-the-art technology.

UA chapter of Alpha Kappa Psi is one of countrys best.

Graduate interns with prestigious Heritage Foundation.

24 Development NewsCarl and Ann Jones give $1 million to UA.

Jim and Doris Nelems make $100,000 gift to College.

28 Alumni NewsRichard Anthony named CEO, president of Synovus.

Shane Spiller named president of Spiller Associated Furniture Stores.

0 Alumni Notes

FBI on Campus

18

4 Culverhouse College of Commerce

DeansMessage

Welcome to the Fall 2005/Winter 2006 issue of The Executive, the flagship publication of the Culverhouse College of Commerce. I also invite you to visit our recently revised website at http://www.business.ua.edu, a major part of our ongoing effort to serve students, faculty, staff, alumni, and others who need information about our programs and activities. We invite your feedback and suggestions for improvement. Excellence is always our goal, and we want our website to reflect this goal by being an efficient and useful source of answers to your questions.

The Culverhouse College of Commerce has long been a major provider of quality business educa-tion as evidenced by our long list of notable and highly successful alumni, some of who are profiled in this magazine. Indeed, our alumni are a major strength of the College, providing financial resources, job opportunities, and sources of current business knowledge for each new generation of students.

In addition to loyal alumni, an excellent learning envi-ronment results from a strong team of bright, motivated students; concerned faculty capable of engaging students in developing the skills required in the 21st-century economy; and a caring group of advisors, departmental personnel, and technical staff who work together to engineer courses, activities, and services that enable each student to reach his or her goals.

Our primary objective is to help students achieve their potential in becoming highly skilled employees in modern business enterprises. A strong classroom experience is at the core of this objective. We continuously evaluate and revise our curriculum to make sure we are on the cutting edge of business education. Along with state-of-the-art facilities and excellent support staff, our curriculum is a major factor in explaining the success of our graduates.

Business education is more than sitting in a class-room. In addition to outstanding classroom instruction, the Culverhouse College of Commerce provides numerous opportunities for students to develop the problem-solving, communication, and leadership skills demanded by employ-ers. Active learning through technology, cases, projects, internships, and other experiences expands the learning opportunities afforded our students. Students have an opportunity to learn from some of the top scholars in their disciplines. Most courses, from freshman to Ph.D., are taught by faculty who are dedicated both to quality education and to expanding our understanding of business and economic issues. Scholarship is contagious. It creates knowledge and informs those who are exposed to it about the current state of our society, its problems, and its future. A careful blend

of scholarship, outreach, and classroom instruction creates an advantage for our students that is hard to duplicate.

In closing, let me say that we will continue our unrelent-ing quest for quality. We will do what is necessary within the ethical boundaries to be recognized as a national player on the business education front. Thank you for being a part of making this happen, and I look forward to visiting with you when you are on campus.

Yours cordially,

J. Barry Mason, Dean andThomas D. Russell Professor of Business Administration

Our primary objective is to help students achieve their potential in becoming highly skilled employees in modern business enterprises.

CulverhouseNews

Hey, come visit the new websiteNew look, new menus, new photos, campus tour

If you have visited the Culverhouse College of Commerce website lately (http://www.business.ua.edu), you no doubt have noticed a number of changesa new look, new drop-down menus, rotating photographs, and a Headlines feature with the latest College news. The more observant browser may notice that the address has been changed from cba.ua.edu to business.ua.edu, but either address will get you to the same place.

Most of these changes are the work of William Barry, Web and instructional developer with the Culverhouse Technology Group.

The biggest change has been the installation of new software that allows the various contributors to the website to access the areas they are responsible for and make the changes directly, thus making the information contained on the Web much more up-to-date and usable for visitors, Barry said.

William Barry has done a great job of updating the web-site and making it much more user friendly and contempo-

rary, said Rob Ingram, senior associate dean, who directed the website overhaul. Research shows that when todays prospective students are seeking information about colleges and universities they are interested in attending, they rely very heavily on the Internet and websites. This also is true of prospective faculty members, so it is extremely important that we present a comprehensive and up-to-date website to the public and one that is logical and easy to use. I think we have hit the mark with the new version.

A website, of course, is a work in process and is never finished, Barry said.

You have to continue changing, updating, adding new features, and keeping up with the competition. But I think now we have the responsibility for changing things in the right hands, the people who know the minute something has changed and can go to the website and update the page.

More than 1,322,422 visits were made to the Colleges website over the past year, the busiest months being September, October, and November. v


Message From The Dean

Culverhouse College of Commerce

CulverhouseNews

Keep your eyes open for another round of advertise-ments featuring alumni of the Culverhouse College of Commerce. Ads are scheduled to run in Alabama Alumni; BusinessAlabama; The Wall Street Journal, southeast edi-tion; BizEd, the magazine of the AACSB International, the business school accrediting organization; and various newspa-pers around the country.

The new ads will feature Marillyn Hewson, president of Kelly Aviation LP, a joint venture between Lockheed Martin Aircraft and Logistics Centers, and GE Aircraft Engines (GEAE); Tom Hough, Southeast managing partner for Ernst and Young and a member of the College Board of Visitors; Shaun Alexander, former Tide running back now with the Seattle Seahawks; Paul Clark, president and CEO of ICOS Corporation, Bothell, Washington; Katie Marchiony, field asso-ciate with Stockamp and Associates and a member of the 2005 USA Today All-USA College Academic Team; and Richard Anthony, CEO of Synovus Corporation.

This is a very impressive lineup, said J. Barry Mason, dean of the College. It demonstrates the wide breadth and depth of our alumni base and certainly underscores our tagline of Start here, go anywhere. We are very grateful and honored that each person was willing to participate. Each has a very important success story to tell.

The ads are once again being created and placed through Sullivan-St. Clair Advertising and Public Relations of Mobile. v


CulverhouseNews

Hines continues Bruno Business Library tradition; wins UA excellence award

Todd Hines, a business reference librarian at the Culverhouse College of Commerces Angelo Bruno Business Library, has received the University of Alabama Library Leadership Boards Faculty Excellence Award, the third time since 1999 the award has been presented to a Bruno librarian.

The award recognizes outstanding contributions to University libraries and the profession of academic research librarianship. The award was created in 1999 by the UA Library Leadership Board.

Hines has been a business reference librarian at the Bruno Library since 2002. He is a uniquely qualified business librarian with a masters in business administration from George Mason University and a master of science in library science from the Catholic University of America.

I knew I wanted to be a business librarian, and the Bruno Library has a strong national reputation in the business library community, Hines said.

The Bruno Library is a state-of-the-art library that serves the business information needs of the students and faculty of the Culverhouse College of Commerce and the Manderson Graduate School of Business. User service is a major emphasis for the Bruno Library, and Hines has a great reputation as being a librarian with a strong service orientation.

I really enjoy what I do, and I try to keep up on current business events and research, which I believe help me to provide good service to Bruno Library patrons, Hines said.

The Culverhouse College of Commerce faculty and administration are very supportive of the business library. The library is located within the business school complex and houses the Colleges Sloan Y. Bashinsky Sr. Computer Center, which provides business library and computer laboratory services for seamless access to information for business students, faculty, and staff.

I enjoy working with all the different types of patrons, Hines said. Undergraduate students usually need very different research assistance than the business professors, and the users from the Tuscaloosa business community usually

User service is a major emphasis for the Bruno Library, and Hines has a great reputa-tion as being a librarian with a strong service orientation.

have very different research needs than the academic users.The UA Library Leadership Board chooses award

recipients based on their contributions to the UA libraries and to the overall profession of academic research. The award provides a stipend and a plaque to the winner. v

Todd Hines


DR. BRuCE BARREtt is an associ-ate professor of statistics. His specialty areas are linear regression, data analysis and regression diagnostics, statistical computing, and simulation.

He received a bachelor of science from the College of Charleston and both a master of science and doctor of philosophy from Clemson University.

Among Barretts publications are articles in the Journal of the American Sta-tistical Association, Management Science, Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics, and Computational Statistics and Data Analysis. His professional interests include exploratory and graphical meth-

from Southern Methodist University.Conerly has published numerous

papers dealing with the practical use of statistics to solve real-world problems. He has published articles in publica-tions such as Technometrics, Journal of the American Statistical Association, Ameri-can Statistician, and Journal of Statistical Computation and Simulation. He has directed nine dissertations in applied statistics and served on more than 40 dissertation committees in other areas at The University of Alabama. He was appointed as an adjunct research scien-tist at the UAB Cancer Center in 1998. He is a member of the American Statis-tical Association.

FacultyNews

ods of analyzing real data sets, robust resampling methods, rank-order weights, and multivariate methods.

DR. MiChAEl D. COnERly is pro-fessor of statistics and director of the applied statistics program.

His specialty areas are regres-sion analysis, data mining, statistical computing, graphics and data visual-ization, process control, multivariate quality control, forecasting, and statis-tical education.

He received his bachelor of science from Lamar University and his master of science and doctor of philosophy

Faculty Appointments AnnouncedDean J. Barry Mason announced the following appointments:

Young J. Boozer Teaching Excellence Faculty FellowDr. Bruce Barrett

Fred and Martha Bostick Faculty FellowDr. Michael D. Conerly

Derrell Thomas Endowed Teaching Excellence Faculty FellowDr. Kim Sydow Campbell

Derrell Thomas Endowed Teaching Excellence Faculty FellowDr. Alexander E. Ellinger

James I. Harrison Family Endowed Teaching Excellence Faculty FellowDr. J. Brian Gray

James D. Nabors Instructional Excellence Faculty FellowDr. David Mothersbaugh

J. Reese Phifer Faculty FellowDr. Frank H. Page Jr.

Front row, from left: Dr. David Mothersbaugh, Dr. Kim Sydow Campbell, Dr. Michael Conerly; back row, from left, Dr. Paul Pecorino, Dr. Brian Gray, and Dr. Bruce Barrett

FacultyNews


DR. KiM SyDOW CAMPBEll is associate professor of management communication.

Her specialty areas are environ-mental communication, health literacy and communication, leadership com-munication, publication management, qualitative research methods, and tech-nical communication.

She received her bachelor of sci-ence and her doctor of philosophy from Louisiana State University.

Campbells research has appeared in Business Communication Quarterly, College Composition and Communication, Health Care Management Review, Envi-ronmental Professional, Journal of Business Communication, Journal of Business and Technical Communication, Journal of Technical Writing & Communication, Management Communication Quarterly, Technical Communication Quarterly, and Technical Communication. She has served as editor in chief of IEEE Transactions on Professional Communica-tion since 1997 and is a former faculty member at the Air Force Institute of Technology and at Auburn University.

DR. AlExAnDER E. EllingER is an associate professor of marketing and supply chain management. His spe-cialty areas are logistics, supply chain management, and customer service.

He received his bachelor of science from Bryant College and his doctor of philosophy from the University of Georgia.

Among Ellingers publications are articles in Business Horizons, Human Resource Development Quarterly, Industri-al Marketing Management, International Journal of Logistics Management, and International Journal of Physical Distribu-tion and Logistics Management.

He won numerous Best Paper Awards for his publications in Supply Chain ManagementAn International Journal (1996), International Journal of Physical Distribution and Logistics Management (1997), and the Journal of Business Logistics (2002).

Ellinger has served as educational and membership chairperson for the Council of Logistics Management

Delaware Valley Roundtable, and is also on the editorial board for Supply Chain Management. He is a member of the Council of Logistics Management, Academy of Marketing Science, and Society for Marketing Advances.

DR. J. BRiAn gRAy is professor of statistics. His specialty areas are applied statistics, exploratory data analysis, data mining, regression analysis, and statisti-cal computing and graphics.

He received his bachelor of science from The University of Alabama at Birmingham and his master of science and doctor of philosophy from Clemson University.

Gray has published research arti-cles in journals such as Technometrics, Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics, The American Statistician, Com-putational Statistics and Data Analysis, Journal of Statistical Computation and Simulation, and Statistics and Computing.

Gray received the Wilcoxon Prize for Best Practical Application Paper in Technometrics in 1984. He coauthored the books Basic Statistical Ideas for Man-agers and Business Cases in Statistical Decision-Making: Computer Based Appli-cations. He is an active member of the American Statistical Association.

DR. DAviD MOthERSBAugh is an associate professor of marketing.

His specialty areas are consumer research, advertising effects of search and decision making, economic signaling effects of promotions, language effects in advertising, consumer knowledge, interpersonal influence, and computer-mediated marketing environments.

Mothersbaugh received his bach-elor of science and master of science from Pennsylvania State University and his doctor of philosophy from the Uni-versity of Pittsburgh.

Mothersbaugh has had numerous articles published in journals such as the Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Retailing, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Consumer Affairs, Business Communication Quarterly, and Psychology and Marketing.

He has also chaired sessions and presented papers at various national conferences and is an ad hoc reviewer for the Journal of Consumer Research and Journal of Consumer Psychology. He is a member of the executive board of the Direct Marketing Education Founda-tion and the Society for Consumer Psychology, for which he serves as cochair of the annual SCP-Sheth dis-sertation proposal competition. He received the Jagdish Sheth Dissertation Research Grant and was the American Marketing Association Consortium Fellow from the University of Pitts-burgh in 1993.

DR. FRAnK h. PAgE JR. is profes-sor of finance. His specialty areas are corporate finance, asset pricing, micro-economics, and game theory.

He received his doctor of philoso-phy from the University of Illinois.

Page is the associate editor of both the Journal of Public Economic Theory and Economics Bulletin. He has pub-lished articles in the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Journal of Economic Theory, Journal of Mathematical Economics, International Journal of Game Theory, Economic Theory, Economic Let-ters, Canadian Mathematical Bulletin, and Mathematical Social Sciences.

He has presented papers at the London School of Economics, Institute for Fiscal Studies (University Col-lege London), University of Warwick, Cambridge University, the University of Paris, CORE (Belgium), Tilbung University, Hebrew University, and the Russian Academy of Sciences. He was the organizer of the 1996 NSF/NBER Decentralization Conference and the 1998 International Confer-ence on Public Economic Theory (the PET Conference) sponsored by The University of Alabama, Culverhouse College of Commerce and Business Administration, Mercedes-Benz U.S. International, the National Science Foundation, and the Association for Public Economic Theory. v

FacultyNews


Two insurance journals founded by University of Alabama finance professors top the list

T he Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance Theory, founded by Dr. Harris Schlesinger, professor of finance and the Frank Park Samford Chair of Insurance at The University of Alabama, has received the top quality score among eight elite insurance and risk management core journals.

In second place was the Journal of Risk & Insurance, founded by Dr. John Bickley, retired professor of finance at UA and founder of the Insurance Hall of Fame. Schlesinger has been an associate editor of the Journal of Risk & Insurance since 1985. In addition to their editorial positions, Bickley and Schlesinger each have served as president of the American Risk and Insurance Association, which publishes the Journal of Risk & Insurance.

It is significant that the top two insurance journals both had founding editors from the Culverhouse College of Commerce, said Dr. Rob Ingram, senior associate dean. It is yet again an indication of our facultys research prowess and its heavy involvement in achieving two primary goals of

a top-echelon business school: attaining knowledge through research to assist their peers at other institutions and serving the needs of students.

The rankings are reported in the most recent issue of Risk Management and Insurance Review in an article by Tamela D. Ferguson, professor of business administration at University of Louisiana at Lafayette; Mark S. Dorfman, univer-sity chair of insurance at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte; and William L. Ferguson, chair of insurance and risk management at University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

The authors wrote in the report that this research provides an assessment of

the utility and quality of risk management and insurance (RMI)-related journals using professorial expert opinion.

The authors use objective ratings (Social Science Citation Index factors) and subjective rankings based on survey-response data.

The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance Theory was started jointly by Schlesinger and Henri Louberg (University of Geneva) in 1990. Louberg spent a semester at UA in the fall of 1990 helping organize the journal. Louberg and Schlesinger were the founding co-editors of the journal. Louberg remained in that position until 1994; Schlesinger remained editor until 1998 and is currently an associate editor.

Schlesinger said that in 1994, four years after the journal was founded, a survey of business school deans ranked the journal 11th in quality among 60 finance journals, and second among insurance journals behind the Journal of Risk & Insurance.

Schlesinger also recently published Economic and Financial Decisions under Risk, along with Louis Eeckhoudt and Christian Gollier through Princeton University Press. Eeckhoudt is professor of economics at the Catholic Faculties of Mons (Belgium) and Lille (France) and associate member of the Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE), Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium). Gollier is professor of economics at the University of Toulouse and a Research Fellow at CESifo, a joint venture of the University of Munichs Center for Economic Studies (CES) and Germanys Ifo Institute. The book is an introduction to risk, risk mea-surement, and risk aversion. v

It is yet again an indication of our facultys research prowess and its heavy involvement in achiev-ing two primary goals of a top echelon business school: attaining knowledge through research to assist their peers at other institu-tions and serving the needs of students.

Dr. John Bickley, seated, and Dr. Harris Schlesinger

FacultyNews

Fall 2005 cba.ua.edu 11

Pecorino named Hayes Professor of Economics

Dr. Paul Pecorino has been named the James Patrick and Elizabeth B. Hayes Professor of Economics.

Pecorino earned his bachelor of arts from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and his doctor of philosophy from Duke University.

His specialty areas are public economics, law and economics, and international economics.

Professor Pecorino has published articles in the American Economic Review, Journal of Legal Studies, Journal of Monetary Economics, Journal of Law and Economics, Journal of Public Economics, Journal of Labor Economics, Public Choice, and Journal of Health Economics. He is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society as well as the American Economic Association, Southern Economic Association, and American Law and Economics Association. He also is a member of the edito-rial boards of Public Choice and B. E. Journals in Economic Analysis and Policy and an associate editor at the Southern Economic Journal. v

Conerly named new head of Information Systems, Statistics, and Management Science

M.B.A. students recognize three professors for excellence

Dr. Michael D. Conerly, profes-sor of statistics and director of the applied statistics program, has been named head of the Depart-ment of Information Systems, Statistics, and Management Science, effective August 16.

Conerly replaces Dr. Edd Mans-field, who served as department head for the past eight years.

Edd Mansfield has been extreme-ly helpful to the College and department

for the past eight years. We are grateful to Edd for his service and appreciate Mikes willingness to take on this role, said Dr. Rob Ingram, senior associate dean.

Mansfield will return to teaching.Conerlys specialty areas are regression

analysis, data mining, statistical comput-ing, graphics and data visualization, multi-variate quality control, and forecasting.

He received his bachelor of science from Lamar University and his master of science and doctor of philosophy from Southern Methodist University.

Conerly has published numerous papers dealing with the practical use of statistics to solve business problems. He has published articles in publications such as Technometrics, Journal of the Amer-ican Statistical Association, The American Statistician, Journal of Quality Technology, and Journal of Statistical Computation and Simulation. He has directed nine disser-tations in applied statistics and served on more than 40 dissertation commit-tees in other areas within the College and University. He is a member of the American Statistical Association. v

Three faculty members were hon-ored earlier this year by students in the master of business admin-istration programs.

Dr. Thomas L. Albright, professor of accounting, was awarded the First Year Faculty Excellence Award, and Dr. Chad Hilton, associate professor of managerial communication and director of international business programs, was selected as the recipient of the Second Year Faculty Excellence Award.

The M.B.A. Faculty Excellence Award winners are selected by second-

year M.B.A. students who feel that these professors have shown an out-standing commitment to the program through exceptional instruction.

Dr. James F. Cashman, professor of management, was the winner of the Faculty Bravo Award. Cashman, the John R. Miller Professor of Management, was recognized for his inventive approaches to problem solving and for challenging his students to look beyond traditional thought processes. v

FacultyNews

Culverhouse professors spend summers in variety of ways

OK, youve heard the clich: It must be nice to be a university professor and get the whole summer off.

Well, sort of. Professors at the Culverhouse College of Commerce spend their summers in a variety of ways, but most of them use the time to advance their knowledge, do important research, forge over-seas collaborations, or help make the world a better place in which to live.

Here are some examples of how faculty members spent the summer.

Dr. Benton Gup, professor of finance and Robert Hunt Cochran/Alabama Bankers Chair

Gup started the summer by attend-ing the Financial Management Association European meeting in Siena, Italy, in June. At the meet-ing, he presented a paper, Basel II: Operational Risk, Moral Hazard, and Corporate Culture. In July, Gup visited Sydney, Australia, and Montevideo, Uruguay. As the keynote speaker at the Australasian Institute of Banking and Finance, Gups presen-tation was titled Immigration and Informal Value Transfer Systems. He also presented a seminar at the University of Technology, Sydney, and worked with faculty members. In Montevideo, Gup worked for 10 days with an international monetary fund mission, which dealt with the countrys bank-ing issues.

Dr. Frank Page, professor of finance and Board of Visitors Research Fellow

Like Gup, Page was on the go beginning early June. Page visited the economics research lab at the University of Paris I (Pantheon-Sorbonne) from June 712 to work on analyzing strategic contracting problems as games of network informa-tion. While in France, Page traveled to Marseille to attend the 2005 Public Economic Theory Conference. At the conference, Page presented his paper, Budget Balancedness and Optimal Income Taxation, which was coauthored by Marcus Berliant of Washington University. In Marseille, Page also attended a small conference where he presented Strategic Basins of


FacultyNews


Attraction, the Farsighted Core, and Network Formation Games, coauthored by Myrna Wooders of Vanderbilt University. Page again presented the paper in July at the Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory confer-ence in Vigo, Spain, and at the Stony Brook International Conference at Stony Brook University in New York.

Dr. Harris Schlesinger, professor of finance and Frank Park Samford Chair of Insurance

Schlesinger has been in Europe every summer for 21 years, teaching and doing research, and he has spent the last three summers at The University of Kontanz in Kontanz, Germany. This summer Schlesinger taught graduate students insurance management. He also did research with other professors on a theoretical analysis of portfolio choice. The paper titled Assets Allocation with Non-Market Wealth and Rollover Risk was presented by Schlesinger in England at the University of Manchester and the University of Lancaster; in Switzerland at the University of Zurich; and in Germany at the University of Ulm. Schlesinger also presented a paper on utility premium of which he was coauthor. In Kontanz on a clear day, Schlesinger said, he had a great view of the Alps from his office and bedroom.

Dr. Sharon Beatty, professor of marketing and Reese Phifer Fellow

In only five weeks, Beatty visited seven coun-tries and 12 cities.

Beatty began her trip in Milan, Italy, where she presented two papers at the European Marketing Academy Conference. The paper titled Critical Service Encounters: An Extension in the Online Environment was coau-thored by her current doctoral student, Alicia Dixon and former stu-dent, Betsy Holloway. The second paper, Using Perceived Corporate Reputation as an Attitudinal Segmentation Criterion: Findings from Germany, was coauthored by Holloway, Keith Dinnie, and Gianfranco

Walsh. Both Dixon and Holloway accompanied Beatty to the conference.

After the conference, Beatty traveled to Paris, London, Oxford, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Amsterdam, and finally

to Hannover, Germany. It was there Beatty lectured a group of undergraduate students at the University of Hannover on international retailing issues.

Before Beattys European travels ended, she met a number of foreign colleagues with whom she collaborated on research. She had also traveled on every mode of transportation possi-ble. Whether by train, ferry, bus, plane, and even a private car on the Autobahn at 155 miles per hour, Beatty rode them all.

Once back in the states, Beatty traveled to San Francisco for the American Marketing Associations national confer-ence, where she made three presentations and participated in a panel discussion. Before heading back to Tuscaloosa, Beatty visited Napa Valley for some much deserved rest and relax-ation that included massages, mineral and mud baths, and great wine.

Dr. Anup Agrawal, professor and Powell Chair of FinanceAgrawal visited Moscow in August for the annual meet-

ing of the European Finance Association. He presented his paper, Do Analyst Conflicts Matter? Evidence from Stock Recommendations. The paper was coauthored with Mark Chen of the University of Maryland. While at the meeting, Agrawal also chaired a session on corporate fraud and dis-cussed a paper on corporate governance.

Dr. Amelia Baldwin, associate professor of accountancyBaldwin used the summer to build her body and a

church. Baldwin completed her first 100-kilometer bicycle ride that included climbing one 2,000-foot mountain dur-ing the 3-State, 3-Mountain Challenge held in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in May. Baldwin also completed her first sprint triathlon (swim/bike/run) and was ranked fourth in her divi-sion. Cycling 100 miles, running 10 miles, and swimming two to three miles a week have helped Baldwin lose more than 100 pounds over the past two years. Despite a busy workout regi-men, Baldwin has still been able to find time to volunteer. As part of the group Builders for Christ, Baldwin spent one week in June helping build Sycamore Ridge Community Church near Dayton, Ohio. In July, Baldwin did volunteer pharmacy work on a mission trip to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Dr. Grant Savage, professor of health care management and HealthSouth Chair

Savage has traveled abroad for the last 15 years, but this year he devoted most of his summer to completing an edited book on international health care management and draft-ing a self-study for recertifying the undergraduate program in health care management. However, Grant did travel to Boston in June for the annual meeting of the Association of University Programs in Health Administration and was elected to the board. He also attended the meeting for the Academy of Management that was held in Hawaii. v

HallofFame


oF ive of the states leading business and civic leaders were inducted into the Alabama Business Hall of Fame recently at the Bryant Conference Center on the University of Alabama campus.

This year marked the 32nd anniversary of the hall of fame, sponsored by the Board of Visitors of UAs Culverhouse College of Commerce and Business Administration. The five inductees exemplify hard work and determination as well as a commitment to excellence and the entrepreneurial spirit.

Inductees for 2005 are Colonel William Tandy Barrett (deceased), James Stanley Mackin, Charles Caldwell Marks, Mark C. Smith, and John Alexander Williamson (deceased).

The black-tie event featured dinner and a keynote address by James J. Padilla, presi-dent and chief operating officer of Ford Motor Company and a member of the companys board of directors. He is responsible for the global automotive business, overseeing market-ing, manufacturing, engineering, and other operations in more than 200 markets with 327,000 employees.

More than 110 prominent business leaders have been inducted into the business hall of fame, and their likenesses are embossed on plaques that line the walls of the Hall of Fame Room in Bidgood Hall on the University campus.

Col. William Tandy Barrett James Stanley Mackin Charles Caldwell Marks

Mark C. Smith John Alexander Williamson


COL. WILLIAM TANDY BARRETTMilitary Hero, Avid Outdoorsman(19001992)

Some people are born leaders. Colonel William Tandy Barrett was one of those. He was a military leader, a leader in the laundry business, and a civic leader.

Barrett was born in Russellville, Ala-bama, in 1901 and moved to Tuscaloosa in 1915. During high school, he was an all-around athlete; as a senior, he was captain of the football team. He graduated from Tuscaloosa High School in 1919 and entered The University of Alabama to study busi-ness management.

He worked his way through college, graduating in 1924. He often singled out Dean Lee Bidgood and Dr. H. H. Chap-man, professor of business statistics, as men who made a difference in his life. In grati-tude, he later established the Colonel W. Tandy Barrett Scholarship in the College of Commerce and Business Administration.

Barrett enlisted in the Alabama National Guard in 1923. He received his commission in 1924 while training as a cadet in the University of Alabama ROTC program and advanced to the grade of cap-tain by 1929, when he assumed command of Company D. He commanded the company for over 11 years, including its call to active duty in 1940.

He was then assigned to the staff of the Third Battalion, 167th Infantry, in 1941; was selected as part of the cadre for the for-mation of the 84th Infantry Division in 1942; and then became commander of the Third Battalion, 333rd Infantry Regiment. He led the 333rd into action in Normandy and the German heartland, where the bat-talion engaged the enemy from October 1944 to January 1945, including the Battle of the Bulge.

Upon his return to Tuscaloosa, he rejoined the Alabama National Guard as executive officer of the 16th Infantry Regi-ment. In 1950 he was promoted to colonel and transferred to the U.S. Army Reserve where he was assigned to the command and general staff college program from which he retired in 1960.

In 1965, Barrett was presented the Gold Medal of Merit by the Veterans of Foreign Wars; in 1983, he received the Distinguished Service Medal, the highest honor the Alabama State Military Depart-ment awards.

Before World War II, Barrett worked for Perry Creamery. In 1946, upon his return to Tuscaloosa, he and his good friend Ernest Rainy Collins converted the Northington General Hospital laundry into a commercial operation. The business grew into West Alabamas largest laundry with eight outlets in Tuscaloosa and Northport.

Barrett was dedicated to his profession and served as a board member of the Ameri-can Institute of Laundering, president of the Alabama Institute of Laundry and Dry Cleaning, and vice president of the South-ern Laundry Association.

He was a director of the Tuscaloosa Chamber of Commerce and president for two terms. He received the rare honor of being named the chambers Member of the Year for two consecutive years, 1977 and 1978.

Barrett was chairman of the Tuscaloosa County Industrial Development Authority, 197478; president of the Industrial Devel-opment Board for the city of Tuscaloosa; president of the Tuscaloosa Exchange Club; a member of the Tuscaloosa Hous-ing Authority board; a director of Central Bank of Tuscaloosa; and a director and director emeritus of City National Bank of Tuscaloosa. He also was a Mason, a Shriner, and a member of First Presbyterian Church.

In addition to his civic activities, Bar-rett was an avid sportsman and served as secretary/treasurer of the Dollarhide Hunt-ing and Fishing Club for 40 years.

Barrett, who was married to the for-mer Mattie Winn Nicholson of Centreville, passed away in 1992 at age 91.

JAMES STANLEY MACKIN(1932) Successful Banker, Civic Leader

James Stanley Mackin, retired chief executive officer of Regions Financial Corporation, rose to the top of the banking industry utilizing his vision and an uncanny sense of what was right for his company. With Mackin holding the reins, Regions grew from a company with $6.3 billion in assets in 1990 to one with $43.7 billion prior to his retirement in 2001.

Mackin was born to Louis and Aileen Tanner Mackin on July 30, 1932, in Birmingham, and grew up on the citys Southside. He graduated from Auburn Uni-versity with a bachelors degree in industrial management and also graduated from the

Stonier Graduate School of Banking and the Commercial Lending School at the Univer-sity of Oklahoma.

After his graduation from Auburn in 1954, Mackin served in the United States Navy on active duty from 1954 to 1958 before he returned to Birmingham to enter the construction and real estate busi-ness. He served in the United States Naval Reserve from 1950 to 1961 before retiring as a commander.

In 1966, Mackin entered the banking world. He took a job in the Commercial Loan Department with Birminghams Exchange Security Bank. By 1971, he was serving as the head of his division in what had become First Alabama Bank. He served in numerous positions within the company: vice president, senior vice president, executive vice president, and senior executive vice president. He continued to head the Commercial Loan Division until 1983.

In 1983 Mackin was elected president and CEO of Regions Bank. Three years later, he was elected chairman and CEO of the bank and also elected central region president of Regions Financial Corpora-tion. He held those titles until January 1990, at which time he was named president and chief operating officer of the corporation. In August of the same year, he was elected chairman and CEO of Regions Financial Corporation.

Mackins leadership and vision led Regions growth not only in assets, but also made the company a major presence in the South.

In 1998, Mackin stepped down as CEO but remained chairman of the board until May 2001 when he reached the mandatory retirement age that he had established for bank employees.

Mackin is a 1998 inductee into the Alabama Academy of Honor, which was created by the state legislature in 1965 to honor living distinguished citizens of the state. That same year, he was honored as a Builder of Birmingham by Re-Entry Ministries.

During his banking tenure, he was a member of the American Bankers Asso-ciation, Alabama Bankers Association, American Institute of Banking, Internation-al Financial Bankers, Association of Bank Holding Companies, Reserve City Bank-ers, Bankers Roundtable Board, and Robert Morris Associates.


Mackin has also invested heavily in his community through civic involvement. He has served as a board member for the SETON Health Corporation, Alabama Pub-lic Television Foundation, Birmingham Operaworks, and John Carroll Foundation. He is a member of the Kiwanis Club of Bir-mingham, Operation New Birmingham, Leadership Birmingham Class of 1984, and Auburn Universitys business school board.

Mackin has served as the president of the Better Business Bureau for North Cen-tral Alabama as well as on the board of directors for both the Boys Club and the Jefferson County Boy Scouts.

He is a 1991 recipient of the Distin-guished Alumnus of the Year award, the highest alumnus honor given by the Auburn College of Business. In 1996, the J. Stanley Mackin Eminent Scholar Chair in the Col-lege of Business was established in his name by the board of directors of Regions Bank.

Mackin married Mary Jo Williams on June 7, 1954. They are the parents of James S. Mackin Jr., Leah McKinney, and Brian W. Mackin, and have nine grandchildren.

CHARLES CALDWELL MARKS(1921)Astute Businessman, Civic Leader

Overlooking Birmingham is a statue of Vulcan, the Roman god of fire and forge. As a young boy, Charles Caldwell Marks used to climb through a trap door between Vulcans feet, stand by the top of the statues head, and gaze down upon the city, a city on which he has had a tremen-dous impact.

When he was nominated for the Bir-mingham Business Hall of Fame, he was described as an accomplished businessman as well as a dedicated servant leader who has worked hard to move this community and this state forward.

Marks was born on top of Red Mountain to Charles Pollard Marks and Isabel Caldwell on June 1, 1921, and as a young man enjoyed hunting and fishing and traveling with his parents. Most of his early education came at Birmingham University School.

He attended the University of the South and graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1942 with a bachelors in physics. After leaving Sewanee, Marks pursued graduate studies at Cornell University, Harvard Uni-versity, and The University of Alabama.

After graduation, he joined U.S. Steel but cut his employment short to join the United States Navy as World War II heated up. He enlisted as an officer candidate, then became a midshipman and served as a lieutenant aboard ship in the Atlantic and Mediterranean, with part of his time spent in escort duty protecting civilian freight-ers. Markss duties as an engineering officer proved to be valuable in civilian life.

In 1945, Marks married his f irst wife, Jeanne Vigeant, and moved into a duplex in Mountain Brook and began raising a family.

After World War II, on April 1, 1946, Marks and his friend Bill Spencer bought the Owen Richards Company, a small mill supply firm in Birmingham, thus begin-ning a long and illustrious business career. They sold most of the firms inventory of other products and decided to focus on ball and roller bearings, gears, and mechanical power transmissions. Marks and Spencer changed the firms name to Motion Indus-tries and took the company public in 1972. Marks served as president of Motion Indus-tries until his retirement in 1983.

Markss next major project was helping in the formation of BE&K, a Birmingham-based, top construction company that specializes in high technology engineering, construction, environmental, and mainte-nance services for the process industries. It was a natural fit because Motion Industries and BE&K had many of the same clients.

A success in the business world, Marks has also been very involved in civic life. He has served on many boards and in numerous leadership positions, including a stint as cochairman of the United Way, a member of the board of directors of the Birmingham Museum of Art, and a presi-dent of Childrens Hospital.

He was the managing director of the Alabama Education Study Commission, a founding director of the Executive Ser-vice Corporation of Alabama, and has also served on the boards of governors of the Indian Springs School, Highlands Day School, and Brooke Hill School.

The 1987 recipient of a distinguished alumnus award from the University of the South, Marks has also been a trustee, chair of the board of regents, and vice president of the universitys alumni association.

Marks has also been awarded two honorary degreesdoctor of civil law by the University of the South in 1989 and doctor

of laws by The University of Alabama at Birmingham in 1990.

He has also served as the president of the Childrens Aid Society, chairman of the Birmingham Committee for 100, president of the Workshop for the Blind, director and vice president of the Birmingham Cham-ber of Commerce, and chair of the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Birmingham. He was one of five persons selected to meet with President Kennedy in Washington during the civil rights demonstrations in Birmingham.

In the fall of 1998, Marks was selected by the Kiwanis Club and inducted along with five other men to the Birmingham Business Hall of Fame.

At present, Marks serves as director emer-itus for several companies, including Genuine Parts Company, BE&K Inc., UAB Research Foundation, and The Childrens Hospital.

Marks is married to Alice Scott Marks. He and his late wife, Jeanne V. Marks, had three childrenMargaret M. Porter, Ran-dolph C. Marks, and Charles Marks.

MARK C. SMITH(1940)Engineer, Entrepreneur

Mark Smith vividly recalls the day he shook the hand of Dr. Wernher von Braun, the German scientist who served as director of NASAs Marshall Space Flight Center and as the chief architect of the effort that propelled Americans to the moon.

Smith had just graduated in 1958 from Birminghams Woodlawn High School. During high school, Smith became a ham radio buff and developed an interest in science. Upon winning first place in a sci-ence fair at Woodlawn, Smiths prize was a handshake from von Braun. The young high-school graduate saw this as a grand opportunity and boldly asked von Braun for a summer job. Smith went on to attend the Georgia Institute of Technology, and over the next three summers he worked at NASA in Huntsville and in Cape Canaveral.

During the summer preceding his last year of college, he was employed with SCI Systems, and upon earning an electrical engineering degree from Georgia Tech in 1962, he began full-time employment with SCI as an engineering manager. In 1969, his entrepreneurial spirit took hold and he left SCI to cofound Universal Data Systems (UDS)out of his home garage and with

HallofFame



$30,000 in savings. UDS, the first data communications company in Alabama, was quite successful. In 1979, with annual rev-enues of about $20 million, UDS was sold to Motorola. At that time, Smith became president of the UDS-Motorola Division.

In 1985, the proven visionary was ready to take on yet another challenge: he left UDS and cofounded ADTRAN. As chief executive officer and chairman, Smith led the start-up company of seven employees to become a publicly traded company in 1994, the same year ADTRAN announced a $50 million expansion of its facility. Today, with more than 1,600 employees and annual revenues approach-ing $500 million, the company is a worldwide leader in providing high-speed network access products to the telecommu-nications equipment industry.

During 2000, Smith took time off for treatment of throat cancer and in 2001 returned to his activities as CEO and chairman, although he admits to slowing down some.

Smith has been honored with numer-ous awards, including an honorary doctor of science in 1986 from The University of Alabama in Huntsville. In 1995, he was inducted into the state of Alabamas Engineering Hall of Fame and was also named Entrepreneur of the Year in the high technology/electronics category of the southeastern division. He was the 1995 recipient of Georgia Techs Distinguished Engineering Alumni Award and the 1998 recipient of the Huntsville/Madison Coun-ty Chamber of Commerces Distinguished Service Award. He was selected CEO of the Year in 2000 by The Birmingham News, and was recognized by the Alabama Informa-tion Technology Association with its 2004 Lifetime Achievement Award.

Through his many civic, philan-thropic, and business involvements, Smith has helped establish Huntsvilles modern identity, and he continues to be actively involved. He was recently named Person of the Decade for 19902000 in Huntsville for his positive thinking and fearlessness.

Smith is the son of Gerald A. and Verna Smith. He is married to the former Linda Jones of Greenville, Georgia, and they have a daughter, Cynthia Smith Mc-Kernan of Houston; a son, Clay, of Dallas; and seven grandchildren. He enjoys fish-ing and boating, especially aboard the boat, High Tide II, which he pilots up the Ten-

nessee River every two years to watch the Alabama-Tennessee game.

JOHN ALEXANDER WILLIAMSON (19182004)Naval Hero, Auto Industry Giant

By his own admission, John Alexander Williamson was a risk taker, which, as he wrote in his book, would stand me in good stead in the Pacific.

Williamson was born in Brighton and moved to Birmingham when he was two years old. He attended Hemphill School, skipping several grades and later starting at Ensley High School one and a half years younger than his classmates. In 1939, he graduated from Birmingham-Southern Col-lege where he majored in mathematics and minored in English.

He began his professional career selling Chevrolets for Drennen Motor Company. World War II was brewing, so Williamson joined the United States Navy, eating heavily in order to gain the needed weight to be accepted.

He was a veteran of both World War II and the Korean conflict and was decorated for bravery and leadership.

Williamson commanded a subchaser in the Caribbean and a destroyer escort in the Pacific during World War II. As execu-tive officer of the destroyer escort, USS England, he directed his ship in attacks that sank six Japanese submarines in 12 days. His ship was credited with materially impacting the course of the Pacific campaign, and he received the Presidential Unit Citation. Wil-liamson also held the Legion of Merit for Combat and the Silver Star Medal for Com-bat in the Pacific Area.

While serving as an instructor in anti-submarine warfare and seamanship at the Subchaser Training Center in Miami, he developed a man overboard recovery proce-dure that was later named the Williamson Turn. This procedure is still used in the U.S. Navy as well as in other navies and the merchants marine, and is credited with sav-ing countless lives at sea.

After his military service, Williamson returned to Birmingham and worked as a car salesman with Don Drennen. Later, he was a district manager with General Motors. Williamson became prominent in American automotive affairs through his consulting and training activities, which developed into a lifelong mission of build-

ing businesses that met customers needs with high levels of professionalism and integrity. These activities led to the creation of several allied business firms, including his career-long core-consulting firm, John Williamson and Associates, later known as Williamson, Merrill, Taylor, and Darling and then as Vantage Associates.

He was founder and chairman of Key-Royal Automotive, which sought to attract bright, young people into the retail auto-mobile field, teach them the business, and help them become independent dealers. Key-Royal grew to over 25 retail dealerships throughout the United States and operated a training arm that worked with automobile manufacturers and dealers around the world.

Williamson also was a founder of Bir-mingham-based CARS Inc., which was an early pioneer in the integration of com-puters and technology in the automotive business. CARS eventually became pub-licly-traded DYATRON, which later merged into SunGard Data Systems, a company that specialized in the operations of computers and computing systems utilized in the auto-mobile, banking, personnel, brokerage, and mortgage banking industries.

Just as he had been highly decorated for his military service, Williamson was also recognized in civilian life. He received the National Freedom Foundation Award for his open address to the United States Congress, After 200 Years, A Citizen Speaks to Con-gress, published July 4, 1976.

In 1999, he was presented the Depart-ment of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service, the highest medal that can be bestowed on a civilian.

Williamson tirelessly sought to help others, both directly and through charitable and civic endeavors, devoting particular attention to the Boys and Girls Clubs, Boy Scouts, IMPACT Family Counseling, Re-Entry and Kairos prison ministries, and Rotary Club. v


Culverhouse School of Accountancy graduate packs a pistol for the FBI

Anyone who thinks being an accountant is dull work should spend a day or two with Alton Sizemore.Sizemore, a graduate of the Culverhouse School of Accountancy at The University of Alabama, is the assistant special agent in charge of the Birmingham office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). If his name sounds familiar, it may be because you read it in the newspapers during the trial of former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy. Sizemore was the agent who submitted affidavits asking a judge to approve a search warrant for HealthSouths headquarters in March 2003.

I have often said that accountants make the best FBI agents, Sizemore told a group of 28 high-school students participating in the Capstone Business Academy, a summer program for rising seniors interested in a career in business.

The focus of most crime is money. It fol-lows the money. Even terrorists commit fraud to fund their terrorist activities.

Sizemore, along with Ricky Crosby, a special agent assigned to the Tuscaloosa Resident Agency, kept the students mesmerized with their accounts of FBI life.

When it comes time to make the arrest, Sizemore said, I want to be there. But the only good arrest is

the one in which no one gets hurt.As the assistant special agent in

charge, Sizemore is responsible for making sure we have a good plan and adequate manpower on the arrest scene and adequate firepower. Firepower, for Sizemore, is a .45 caliber pistol on his belt and shotgun in his car. The FBI also uses other

high-powered weapons, including the .50 caliber long-range sniper rifles

being used by U.S. forces in the Middle East and other hostile areas. The .50 caliber

rifle is only used to disrupt improvised explosive devices when a water cannon will not penetrate the container holding the explosive device.

Sizemore, 54, attended UA on a track

scholarship and also ran cross-country. He has a son and daughter and is a grandfather of two. His son attended UA and majored in accounting and also earned his masters in accounting at UA. His daughter and son-in-law also attend the University.

Sizemore, who has been with the FBI for 25 years, majored in accounting with the objective of becoming an FBI Agent. At one time the FBI preferred its agents to be either accountants or attorneys. Now the FBI is also looking for individuals with computer science, intelligence, engineering, physical science, and foreign language backgrounds.

Not surprisingly, the FBIs top priority these days is counterterrorism. After 911, it all changed, Sizemore said. The FBI moved more than 1,000 agents from drugs to terrorism. He said that from 1980 through 2001, the FBI had prevented 133 terrorist acts.

While wiretapping is a staple of television whodunits, Sizemore said the FBI has limited wiretapping activities because the approval process makes wiretapping the technique of last resort.

You have to show that nothing else has been productive, he said, noting that the average wiretap application takes 60 days to be completed. Even when activated, the wiretap has to be cut off (minimized) if anything is being discussed other than the illegal activity outlined in the approval process. A federal judge approves and closely monitors the entire process.

Sizemore told the students that, as FBI agents, he and other agents adhere to a strict set of core values that include rigorous obedience to the U.S. Constitution; treating everyone with dignity and respect, regardless of what they are accused of doing; fairness; compassion; and personal integrity.

Society has to believe that we are the good guys, he said. Every day ethical situations come up. As a law enforcement officer, there will be a far greater number of instances when you will need to demonstrate moral courage rather than physical courage.

Foreign counterintelligence follows counterterrorism as a priority, Sizemore said, and while the CIA is responsible for overseas counterintelligence, the FBI monitors foreign

Alton Sizemore

I have often said that accountants make the best FBI agents. The focus of most crime is money. It follows the money. Even terrorists commit fraud to fund their terrorist activities.

continued on page 20


CoverStory

shy away from confrontation with law enforcement, Sizemore said.

White-collar crime, another priority, includes bank frauds, business frauds, fraud against the government, and medical frauds.

Asked about the recent acquittal of HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy, Sizemore said, My job is to get the truth. The fact that a defendant is acquitted shows our system of justice is the fairest in the world. As long as I know we put forth our best effort in

investigating the allegations and presenting the case to the United States Attorneys Office, Im satisfied to leave the outcome to the jury.

Investigating violent crimes, such as bank robberies, kidnapping, and extortion; supporting other law enforcement partners at the local, state, and federal levels; and keeping up with technology are also included on the FBIs list of priorities, Sizemore said.

For more information about the FBI, go online to http://www.fbi.gov. v

counterintelligence operations in the U.S. He said Alabama, with its concentration of military bases and the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, is high on the list of targets of foreign intelligence operatives.

Sizemore said half of the nations terrorism threats reach the FBI via the Internet, making cyber crime another top priority for the FBI.

Ninety percent of businesses surveyed reported cyber crime breaches within the past 12 months, he said. The businesses surveyed reported 223 incidents of cyber crime, which amounted to $456 million in losses, although only 34 percent of the businesses reported the loss to law enforcement. The cyber crimes ranged from identity theft to credit card fraud to child pornography to online extortion.

Public corruption in law enforcement, legislative bodies, and the judiciary is next in line in priority of concern, Sizemore said, followed by civil rights violations and criminal enterprises, the FBI term for organizations such as La Cosa Nostra, Euro-Asian gangs, South American drug cartels, and the violent MS-13.

MS-13, a youth gang with its origin in El Salvador, has established a major criminal presence in the United States, bringing a new level of violence and brutality. Also known as La Mara Salvatrucha, MS-13 had its roots in El Salvador during the bloody civil conflict that tore that country apart in the 1980s. Members were distinguished by their propensity

for extreme violence, often favoring the use of machetes to attack their victims.

These gang members are looking for violence and do not

CoverStory


My job is to get the truth. The fact that a defen-dant is acquitted shows our system of justice is the fairest in the world. As long as I know we put forth our best effort in investigating the allegations and presenting the case to the United States Attorneys Office, Im satisfied to leave the outcome to the jury.

continued from page 19


CoverStory

Twenty-eight rising high-school seniors from around the Southeast participated in the second Capstone Business Academy over the summer. The students, who are interested in careers in business, attended presentations by faculty members and by members of the business community and took part in a number of team-building exercises. The academy also included a trip to Atlanta for a Braves game and visits to several Atlanta businesses. For information about next years Capstone Business Academy, contact Lisa McKinney at [email protected] or at (205) 348-6679.

StudentNews

Technology Research Consultants University of Alabama EMBA graduate hits the big time and gets an assist from her alma mater

A recent graduate from The University of Alabama has used her executive master of busi-ness administration, her ability, and her determination to produce a remarkable success story.

In two and a half years, January Dennison and her husband, John, start-ed a small business and turned it into a multimillion dollar enterprise. Her suc-cess has led to her selection as Florida Small-Business Person of the Year in 2004. And in order to continue to grow the business, she is using the resources of The University of Alabama through its Alabama Productivity Center (APC).

In February 2003, Dennisons com-pany, Technology Research Consultants (TRC) of Haines City, Florida, won its first significant Department of Defense (DOD) contract. The companys niche is supplying parts that the DOD can no longer obtain from the original vendor.

TRC has been identified as an Army Material Command small-business success story by the AMC commanding general.

The Department of Defense has a very strong small-business program, which enables contract opportunities for both woman-owned small businesses and small disadvantaged businesses. TRC has been able to effectively lever-age the contract opportunities that this program affords, Dennison said.

Meanwhile, Dennison has remained close to The University of Alabama. She has subcontracted Dr. David Miller and the Alabama Productivity Center to assist TRC in establishing and stream-lining the business and manufacturing processes within her company. The Alabama Productivity Center, a non-

profit organization at The University of Alabama, works to improve companies quality, productivity, and competitive-ness through the use of the Universitys research and educational resources.

Dr. David Miller is a renowned expert in the subject matter, and TRC continues to increase our profitability by implementing the recommendations of Dr. Miller and the productivity cen-ter team, Dennison said.

Miller said Dennison is a strong believer in using universities as assets to the business. But when she was unable to generate any interest from other universities, Dennison turned to UA and Miller.

Miller said that the support that the University is giving to TRC is a great example of the win-win situa-tion that can be created when creative business people utilize university fac-ulty, students, professional staff, and laboratories. He pointed out that the University is locating three students on-site at TRC for the summer, and that the rest of the productivity center team makes frequent visits and teleconfer-ences to guide the effort.

TRC benefits by having access to state-of-the-art technologies and concepts at very low costs, Miller said. This access is delivered primarily by very skilled and motivated graduate stu-dents. In TRCs case, our team consists of a second-year M.B.A. student who has an industrial engineering under-graduate degree, an incoming M.B.A. student, a senior in operations manage-ment, a professor in the same area, and two full-time professional field staff with 45 years of business experience.

The winning for the University comes from the fact that the experience that our students are getting by being immersed in a company such as TRC is invaluable to their professional educa-tion. And being mentored by managers such as January and John Dennison is a unique opportunity for the students.

January is very interactive, and she is a phenomenal manager. The students learn a management style and get a

firsthand look at growing and develop-ing a business.

Miller said APC has a long-range plan for supporting TRC on the busi-ness side of things, and we are helping her apply lean manufacturing principles to her operation to provide the infra-structure to grow.

After years of on-the-job training with Teledyne, Dennison decided to earn her EMBA to validate her knowl-edge of fiduciary responsibility and profit management.

I chose the UA EMBA program because it provided a broad introduction of management techniques and effective application discussions, she said.

Dennison has taken TRC from a small sole proprietorship to a large corpo-ration with her education and expertise. UA provided the road map, and I imple-mented the concepts, she said. TRC is $105 million richer for it today. v


The winning for the University comes

from the fact that the experience that our

students are getting by being immersed in a company such as TRC is invaluable to their

professional education. And being mentored

by managers such as January and John Dennison is a unique opportunity for the

students.

UA graduate interns with The Heritage Foundation in Washington

UA chapter of Alpha Kappa Psi business fraternity one of the best in the country

You may not know what ACRs are, but the members of Alpha Kappa Psi business fraternity certainly do.

Out of the fraternitys 185 chapters throughout the United States and Unit-ed Kingdom, UAs Alpha Rho chapter scored 103,000 points on the Annual Chapter Report (ACR) and is ranked third among all chapters. The score, a first for the UA chapter, means that The University of Alabama has one of the best chapters in the country. There were only three other schools to score more than 100,000 points. The only two schools to finish ahead of UA were Rutgers and American University.

The ACR score is so important because awards are given out by the number of points accrued, said Dr. James Cashman, professor of management and Alpha Kappa Psi faculty advisor.

The ACR rates the chapter in the areas of knowledge, integrity, service, brotherhood, and unity. Already having received the top award for Outstanding Chapter in the Southern Division at the end of the spring semester, the chapter has also been nominated for the chapter of the year award, which will be given out at the Alpha Kappa Psi national convention.

There is a chance that we can become the best in the nation, Cashman said.

Drayton Green, incoming Alpha Kappa Psi president, is already focusing on making the fraternity better for next year.

We are going to continue what we have done in the past, but we hope to expand our name in the business school, Green said.

He also plans to increase membership for the upcoming year over last years total of 71.

Any student in the business school with a 2.0 grade point average is eligible to

become a member. All potential members must submit an application and rsum. Eligible applicants will be interviewed and must complete a seven-week pledge process.

Cashman attributes the success of the fraternity to past and current leadership.

We have a group of youngsters who have found a way to care enough about what they are doing to spark a fire in many more. v

After receiv-ing her masters degree in applied eco-nomics at The University of Alabama earlier this year, Erin Green received an unexpected e-mail invitation

from The Heritage Foundation to apply for an internship.

She accepted and reported for duty on June 6.

The Heritage Foundation, founded in 1973, is a public policy research orga-nization located in Washington, D.C. Its mission is to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on

the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, tra-ditional American values, and a strong national defense.

Green, 23, a Montgomery, Alabama, native, worked at the founda-tions Center for Data Analysis where she dealt mostly with policy initiative and wrote academic papers about the foundations position on policies such as the minimum wage, No Child Left Behind Act, and withholding amount of the child tax credit.

As an undergraduate at the University, Green participated in the Blount Undergraduate Initiative and received her bachelor of science in eco-nomics. She said Dr. Forrest McDonald, professor emeritus of history, fueled her passion for public policy and conser-vatism. He is an example of what the

founding fathers stood for. I learned a lot from him.

Now a senior analyst with Compass Bank in Birmingham, Green desires to work on a state-level grass roots initia-tive and be involved in either education or economic development.

I want to be able to shape policy without holding a political office. I would like to be on the policy side of politics.

Green said Culverhouse College of Commerce Dean Barry Mason and Dr. Michael Hardin, professor of statistics, were key contacts in helping her prepare for her career.

Although I was in grad school for one year, Dean Mason was very sup-portive. Dr. Michael Hardin linked me up with the people I interviewed with at Compass Bank. v

StudentNews


By Chrishan Emonina

By Chrishan Emonina

Drayton Green, left, and Dr. James Cashman

Greene

Commerce Executives Society plays important role in filling funding gaps

Last spring I encouraged everyone to stay connected by

referring outstanding students

signing up for our e-newsletter

keeping us updated on your professional development

sharing your business experience

joining the Commerce Executives Society

contributing financially to the College

This fall I want to focus on the Commerce Executives Society (CES). CES is a source of discretionary funds that enables the College to fill funding gaps and create opportunities for our students and faculty.

If I were to list everything that CES funds impact, we would need an additional five pages. They only gave me one, so here are a few select highlights from last year.

$30,000 was made available for student scholarships.

Complete funding was provided for the Commerce Associates, Culverhouses student ambassadors. This included clothing, supplies, materials, and a partial scholarship for each member.

$18,000 was provided to assist professors with their research expenses.

$11,413 was used to recognize students and their achievements.

For the coming year, CES funds will also be used to provide seed money to the M.B.A. Association as it takes over the retail operations for Culverhouse promotional items. This will be a tremendous opportunity for them to gain valuable merchandising experience and to raise funds for the M.B.A. scholarship endowment.

Without your generous donations, these projects would not have been possible.

For those of you who are members, thank you for your support. If you are not a member and would like to join, it is now easier than ever. Just visit our website, www.business.ua.edu, and follow the Giving to the College link at the bottom right of the page.

Thanks again for all of your help.

DevelopmentNews


By Charlie Adair Director of DevelopmentCulverhouse College of Commerce


Carl and Ann Jones give $1 million to UA; Regions Financial to match gift

Carl E. Jones, outgoing chief executive officer of Regions Financial Corporation, and his wife, Ann Karpinski Jones, both University of Alabama gradu-ates, have donated $1 million to UA, which will be matched with another $1 million by Birmingham-based Regions Financial Corporation, one of the nations top 15 financial services providers.

The gifts will establish an endowed scholarship fund to sup-port the education of students in both the Culverhouse College of Commerce and the College of Arts and Sciences. Students selected will receive the Carl E. and Ann K. Jones Regions Endowed Scholarship.

Carl Jones, who received his bachelors degree in banking and finance from the University in 1962, has served on the Presidents Cabinets of all UA presidents since the 1970s. He has also served on UAs National Advisory Board, the Campaign for Alabama Steering Committee, and the Board of Visitors of the Culverhouse College of Commerce and Business Administration.

Ann Jones, who received her bachelors degree in mathematics from UA in 1962, has served as chair of the Leadership Board for the UA College of Arts and Sciences and as a member of the Advisory Board for the Blackburn Institute.

We are most appreciative of these generous gifts in honor of Carl and Ann, said J. Barry Mason, dean of the Culverhouse College of Commerce. The Joneses have been steadfast and loyal supporters of the University, the business school, and the College of Arts and Sciences. Their wise counsel and advice over the years have been invaluable. This generous gift will provide opportunities for many stu-dents, who in turn will be able to give back to the state and the University.

Regions president and CEO Jackson W. Moore, who is also a UA graduate and current member of the UA Presidents Cabinet, said the company was pleased to honor Carl Jones, who began his career with Regions in 1962 and was named CEO in 1998.

It is particularly fitting that we honor Carl and Ann in the form of a scholarship, given that one of Regionss values is growth and learning opportunities for performance-oriented associates, said Moore, who succeeded Jones as CEO of Regions July 1. Jones will continue to serve as the companys chairman of the board until July 2006.

It was important to us as a company to properly recog-nize Carl and Anns years of dedicated service to Regions, to the University, and to the state of Alabama, Moore said. We appreciate the Universitys partnership in this effort, and

would like to thank the Joneses for the generosity and leader-ship they have demonstrated by making their own personal contribution to the scholarship fund.

Priority consideration for the Carl E. and Ann K. Jones Regions Endowed Scholarship will be given to full-time undergraduate students who are dependents of employees of Regions Financial Corporation and any of its subsidiaries. Each scholarship will provide the recipient with full tuition for up to four years. The first of the scholarships will be awarded to students enrolling for Fall Semester 2006. Students will be able to apply online at scholarships.ua.edu.

While a student at the University, Carl Jones was a member of the Jasons, Omicron Delta

Kappa honor society, Delta Sigma Pi, and Beta Gamma Sigma. As a student, Ann Jones

served as president of Delta Gamma soror-ity and president of Associated Women Students. She was honored with the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award, one of the Universitys top student awards. After college, she served as a college counselor and middle school math and English teacher at UMS-Wright Preparatory School

in Mobile and as president of the Junior League of Mobile. In Birmingham, she has

been a member of the board of the Alabama Symphony Orchestra.After graduating from the University, Carl

Jones joined Regionss predecessor, Merchants National Bank, in Mobile as a participant in the banks management training program. He pursued and achieved graduate degrees from both the Graduate School of Banking at Louisiana State University and the Graduate School of Credit and Financial Management at Dartmouth College. He was elected president of Regions Bank in Mobile in 1978 and was promoted to CEO at the Mobile bank in 1981, later going on to be named regional president of southern Alabama in 1981 and regional president for Louisiana in 1993.

In 1997, Jones brought his community-banking, values-oriented perspective to the position of president of Regions. He was named CEO in 1998, and he assumed the additional role of chairman of the board in 2001. He has guided Regions through mergers with First Commercial Corporation, Morgan Keegan and Company, and, most recently, Tennessee-based Union Planters Corporation.

Regions Financial Corporation is a full-service provider of retail and commercial banking, trust, securities broker-age, mortgage, and insurance products and services. With its merger with the former Union Planters Corporation complete, Regions had $84.3 billion in assets as of March 31, 2005. v

Thank You

DevelopmentNews

DevelopmentNews


Jim and Doris NelemsThe Marketing Workshop Inc. founders make $100,000 gift to College

Jim Nelems, president and chief executive officer of The Marketing Workshop in Norcross, Georgia, chuckles when he recalls meeting his wife while they were students at The University of Alabama.

We were both working in the busi-ness library at the time. I worked on one side of the library, and she worked on the other side. There was another librarian there who kept insisting that we needed to meet each other and intro-duced us, he said.

Forty-three years later, Nelems runs one of the most successful marketing research firms in the nation, and his wife, Doris (Dot) Nelems, is the chief financial officer.

Its not hard to understand why Jim Nelems has fond memories of Tuscaloosa and why he holds the University in high regard. His parents-in-law met in Tuscaloosa; his mother graduated from UA; his daughter, Sherri Nelems Taylor, earned her masters degree at UA, where she met her hus-band, Scott Taylor; and Nelemss son, David, attended UA.

That high regard has resulted in a $100,000 contribution to the University to promote faculty excellence at the Culverhouse College of Commerce through the James H. and Doris G. Nelems Endowed Support Fund for Faculty Excellence in Marketing Research.

Jim and Dot Nelems are longtime friends and supporters of the College, said Dean J. Barry Mason. Over the years they have provided valuable assistance in a number of ways, most

the only marketing research firm in the South to be ranked. I also have seven employees who are UA graduates and two from Auburn.

Nelems has more than 300 employ-ees in his businesses.

The University of Alabama enabled me to get a job, first of all, and it enabled me to get the kind of job I wanted to have, Nelems said. The UA business school has a good reputation, and the University and the business school are realistic about things and are personable. I am particularly grateful to Dr. Morris Mayer, who was my advisor and then my daughters advisor 30 years later.

Nelems is a published author. His book, Research to Riches: The Secret Rules of Successful Marketing Research, is an insid-ers guide to marketing research.

Nelems and his wife manage to occasionally return to Tuscaloosa during the football season and regularly attend the College's Commerce Executives Society luncheons held in Atlanta, where names are drawn for door prizes, often footballs or basketballs auto-graphed by UA coaches.

Weve had the good fortune of winning three footballs and two basket-balls, he said. v

recently through their research efforts on our branding initiative.

When you have a firm assisting you that ranks among the top marketing research firms in the nation, you know you are on the right track. We are ever so grateful to the Nelems family for its financial support, research support, and wise counsel.

Jim Nelems received two marketing degrees from UA: a bachelors in 1962 and a masters in 1963. He founded The Marketing Workshop Inc. in 1972 and also is owner and founder of Compass Marketing Research, a subsidiary firm established in 1980. He served as direc-tor of marketing research for Henderson Advertising Agency and has taught marketing at Furman University and the University of South Carolina.

In 2002 he was named Atlantas Marketer of the Year.

The business is going well, he said. We are the oldest and largest mar-keting research firm in the South and we are ranked No. 44 in the country. Were

The University of Alabama enabled me to get a job, first of all, and it enabled me to get the kind of job I wanted to have.

CollegeNews


By Chrishan N. Emonina

Pursuing doctoral degree in applied statisticsShywanda Moore receives award from Southern Regional Education Board

Shywanda Moore remembers her grandfather, a former algebra teacher, with a lot of fondness.He could apply any everyday situ-

ation to math, she said. So it is no coincidence that Moore, who is pursu-ing a doctoral degree in applied statis-tics, attributes her love for mathematics to her grandfather.

That love for math is one of the ingredients that made her a 200506 Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) State Doctoral Program award recipient. This award, given to out-standing minorities pursuing a doctoral degree, is part of a nationwide initiative, The Compact for Faculty Diversity, to produce more minority Ph.D.s and to encourage them to seek faculty positions.

My professors also talk about life experiences and relate them to the coursework, which really helps, she said.

Asked about receiving the SREB fellowship, Moore said she was a happy camper who almost didnt receive the award.

There were two different deadline dates given, and I did not know which date was correct. Moore had to call the SREB program coordinator to make sure she had time to submit her applica-tion. Luckily, she made the deadline.

The SREB award will give Moore $15,000 a year for living expenses, pay for her to attend the annual Compact for Faculty Diversity Institute on Teaching and Mentoring for three years, and give her access to professional development funds.

Dr. Michael Conerly, head of the Department of Information Systems, Statistics, and Management Science, told Moore about the SREB fellowship.

I knew the department had some minority scholarships, and SREB was

the best one since it pays for up to five years, Conerly said. Shywanda has done a great job. Before meeting her, I knew just by looking at her transcripts that this is somebody that is serious.

Since being founded in 1993, the doctoral scholars program has supported more than 580 scholars who attended 83 institutions in 29 states. SREB states share resources, work to expand their minority applicant pool, support quali-fied candidates with financial assistance for up to five years of graduate study, and assist graduates and higher educa-tion institutions in identifying employ-ment opportunities.

To retain the fellowship, Moore will have to maintain a 3.0 grade point average and attend the Compact for Faculty Diversity Institute on Teaching and Mentoring for three years. She also cannot receive any other financial support, such as other fellowships and scholarships, all of which will not be a problem, according to Moore.

We have to keep at least a 3.0 to stay in the program anyway, and not having to work will give me more time to study.

Before receiving the SREB fellowship, Moore was a graduate teaching assistant and taught a statistics course in summer school. She said she loves to teach and hopes to teach at the University after she receives her doctorate.

Before coming to The University of Alabama in 2004, Moore taught developmental mathematics at Meridian Community College in Mississippi for four years. A wife and the mother of one son, Moore has a masters in sec-ondary education from Mississippi State University and a bachelors degree from Southern Mississippi University. v

AlumniNews

University of Alabama graduate Richard Anthony elected CEO and president of Synovus

R ichard E. Anthony, who earned his bachelors degree in finance at The University of Alabama and his master of business administration at the University of Virginia, has been elected chief executive officer and president of Synovus, advancing into the role previously held by James H. Blanchard, who became chairman of the board.

The company also announced that Blanchard would retire as an executive employee of the company in October 2006, at which time Anthony will assume the position of both chairman and CEO. The company said leadership changes are part of the implementation of a carefully developed, longrange succession planning process that began in the spring of 1999.

As we have prepared over the past several years for a smooth transition in our company

The Culverhouse College of Commerce Executive Magazine - Fall 2005 Edition

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Transcript of The Culverhouse College of Commerce Executive Magazine - Fall 2005 Edition