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UW EMBA Alumni Highlights!
Spring Quarter 2007
If you have not received our Alumni Newsletter via e-mail, please update your contact information at http://depts.washington.edu/emba/alumni/update.
 This
issue includes information on:
Upcoming EMBA Events and News
Program Updates
Recruiting
Congratulations to our 78 recent graduates representing small businesses through Fortune 500 companies, from the public sector and myriad industries including: aerospace, consulting, energy, high technology, healthcare, financial services, Native corporation and others. Classroom discussions included insights from Puget Sound residents, as well as residents of Alaska, Idaho, Massachusetts and Oregon.
 
 
The Annual EMBA Summer Barbecue will be held on Wednesday, July 25 from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m. outside of Undergraduate Commons – all EMBA Alumni are welcome! Please come and enjoy good food, reunite with classmates and faculty, and network with other alumni.
Encourage your classmates to attend. Please R.S.V.P. by Friday, July 20 to Belina Makonnen at belinam@u.washington.edu or (206) 616-6435. Hope to see you there!
Karma’s Breakfast will be held on Tuesday, November 6 from 7:30 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. at the Washington Athletic Club. Invitations will be mailed in early fall.
For everyone who wants to stay in touch with classmates and is used to online networks such as LinkedIn, we’re pleased to let you know that the University of Washington Alumni Association is partnering with Affinity Circles, Inc. to provide HuskyConnect, an online network of ~ 300,000 UW Alumni. HuskyConnect will enable participants to customize their profile information, post resumes, job openings, etc. Watch for an e-mail announcement from the UW Alumni Association.
The EMBA Program Office has partnered with the UW Alumni Association Travel Office to join an “Alumni Campus Abroad” trip October 19 - 27, 2008 to the Chianti country of Tuscany http://www.washington.edu/alumni/tours/2008/chianti.html! If sufficient EMBA Alumni sign-up, Belina Makonnen from the Program Office will attend the trip. The trip itinerary and tentative pricing are posted on our Alumni Web site at http://bschool.washington.edu/emba/PDF/chianti-itinerary.pdf. If you are interested, advance reservations should be made right away with the Travel Office at (206) 685-9276.
Members of the Class of 2007 have launched the Executive Excellence Campaign 2007, including making new EMBA logo wear items available until June 30th. Additional information and an order form are at:
http://bschool.washington.edu/emba/PDF/emba_excellence.pdf
Mic Dinsmore (EMBA 1999) has been appointed by Dean Jim Jiambalvo to be Edward V. Fritzky Endowed Visiting Chair in Leadership. This endowment is established in honor of Edward V. Fritzky, Former CEO of Immunex Corporation, for his significant contributions and support to the Pacific Northwest in particular to local businesses, and the business community. On Wednesday, May 16, the UW Business School held a special dinner at the Columbia Tower Club to honor Mic.
Lieutenant Travis Matheson, Washington State Patrol (EMBA 2005) has been selected as a National Finalist for the 2007-2008 White House Fellows Program!
28 second year students from Regional 23 and North America 8 attended the 2007 International Study Seminar to Buenos Aires, Argentina, San Jose dos Campos and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil from March 10 to March 17, 2007. Dick Moxon, a former EMBA Faculty who taught the International Management course was the Faculty Advisor. Dick is a Programs Consultant at Global Partnerships, an organization which supports the expansion of microfinance by investing capital and management expertise in microfinance institutions (MFIs), which in turn make financial services available to poor people. Louise Kapustka, Bob Bowen, Suresh Kotha, Jane Kennedy (MBA Faculty) and Belina Makonnen also accompanied the students.
In Buenos Aires, the students attended a lecture on “Argentinean Economy after the Crisis” at IAE (Escuela de Direccion y Negocios) ranked by Financial Times as one of the top 20 MBA Programs. The students had lunch with IAE’s EMBA students as well as visiting MBA students from the Darden School. We then visited Telefonica, one of Latin America’s largest telecommunication companies. Culturally, we attended a Tango Dance and Dinner. The highlight of this trip was the visit to three microfinance organizations (Entretodos, Pro Vivienda Social, and Alternative 3). The students were touched and inspired by what they saw and experienced during these visits. As a result the students from both classes contributed money which they sent to RADIM the organization that provided micro-credit to the small family businesses. In San José dos Campos we visited Embraer, one of the largest aircraft manufacturers in the world which focuses on specific market segments with high growth potential in commercial, defense, and executive aviation. Then we visited Petrobras, one of the world’s key producers of Ethanol. In Rio we visited the VW Plant and GLOBO, the largest television content producer in Brazil, and is ranked among the best in the world. The trip concluded with a farewell dinner at Porcao a popular Brazilian barbecue restaurant. It was an amazing experience.
Student comments about the micro-finance organizations:
“The most compelling observation was going to Lauda's home to see her candy making operation and her emotional explanation of her business and her experience with microcredit. She began to cry while she was conveying how grateful she was for the loan, how she used the money, and how the money has helped her business grow. Her emotions felt authentic and the scene reiterates the impact of microfinance on one family in a developing country.”
“Entretodo’s vision for positively impacting Argentinean society is spot on. As I’ve also seen here in America, women often have fewer opportunities for bettering their financial circumstances than men do. Entretodo’s platform for helping others to help themselves grants long term results in the lives of those affected”
“The visits to the two client's homes were so wonderfully compelling. This was real "rubber hits the road" stuff, where an organization has moved beyond lip service and is actually making a significant positive impact on a community.”
The fourth Annual Executive MBA Business Plan Competition was held on Saturday, June 2. Study groups from Regional 23 and North America 8 second year classes presented their business plan to a group of judges including venture capitalists, faculty and entrepreneurial alumni. Suresh Kotha, who teaches the Corporate Entrepreneurship class during spring quarter was the competition moderator.
 This year’s winner is “Cardea Air” (Hernan Guerrero, Scott Lentz, Ken Price, and Jaime Ludke members from the North America 8 class). Cardea Air’s business plan is to transform international premium class travel by providing a superior non-stop travel experience to under-served markets. Cardea will provide a comprehensive service offering that encompasses the entire journey including limousine service, expedited ticketing and security clearance and premium departure lounges. In-flight amenities will include custom-designed seats that convert into fully flat beds with over 20 square feet of personal space, gourmet meals, premium entertainment service and wireless internet access.
The competition has helped spark several Alumni to launch business ideas including:
Dreamclinic (http://www.dreamclinic.com) -- Larisa Goldin (EMBA 2004), President, established Dreamclinic, which offers the most popular styles of massage to meet the needs of most individuals including: stress reduction; focused work; and post injury treatment. Dreamclinic was recognized as “Seattle's Best Sports Massage for 2006” by Seattle Magazine. As a gesture of support for the UW EMBA Program, Dreamclinic is extending a 10% discount on any of its services, one hour or longer, to the UW EMBA alumni, students and faculty through December, 2007.
StickyDrive (http://www.stickydrive.com) -- Brian Johnson and Sol Lipman (EMBA 2005), Co-founders, have an operating software platform for removable memory, that provides a useful interface, organizes digital content, and most important, enables applications to be portable inside flash drives, iPods, even cameras.
Tabbler (http://www.tabbler.com) -- Jan Michael (EMBA 2004), Founder, has created a unique & cost-effective tabbing solution for self-mailers! Tabbler™ fills the gap between using expensive automated tabbing machines and manually affixing tabs.
Vivace Corporation (Baby EZ Rider) – Dave Cochran (EMBA 2006), Founder, EZ-Rider has started Vivace Corporation to develop the product that was the focus of his team's business plan competition entry. The "Baby EZ-Rider" (a device to quiet fussy infants by simulating a soothing car ride in the comfort of the living room) was debuted at a major trade show in April.
A committee of Faculty representing each discipline and Alumni have reviewed and made recommendations for taking the EMBA curriculum to the next level. The review included benchmarking against the top 25 EMBA programs, as well as a survey of graduates from our 2004 – 6 classes. Following the committee recommendations and, in-line with the Business School's vision of focusing on leadership and strategic thinking, we’re making several additions to the EMBA Program curriculum, effective fall, 2007. Charles Hill’s General Management and Strategy course will be split between first quarter, Year 1 (to help set the context for discussing strategy in other courses. The first section will provide students an overview of strategy, specifically the concept of competitive advantage, business level strategy and industry analysis using Porter’s model) and the final quarter, Year 2 (a capstone course). Additionally, we’re pleased to be offering a second Marketing class in Winter Quarter of Year 2.
Karma Hadjimichalakis’ 2006 Breakfast presentation entitled “The Economy in Transition: Will the Landing be soft?” was held on Wednesday, November 15, 2006 at the downtown Seattle Washington Athletic Club. The event provided 120 alums an opportunity to reunite and hear from Karma on the U.S. and World economies. For the first time, we were able to record Karma’s remarks. Please go to the following password protected link (username: embaalumni --- password: execmba) to watch the presentation.
http://depts.washington.edu/emba/karma/
 
 
Karma and Professor Ed Rice gave their annual MBA State of the Economy Forum for the UW MBA Alumni on Wednesday, March 28. Sara Hemphill (EMBA 1990) was the emcee for the event. We are including the link for the session as a follow-up to Karma’s Breakfast since a lot has happened to the market since then. Here is a link so you can listen to the discussions.
http://bschool.washington.edu/alumni/events_archived.shtml
Note: while our application deadlines have passed, there is space available for our entering North America 10 class. Please have interested colleagues contact Louise Kapustka (louiseka@u.washington.edu)
Recruiting for our Program is a year-round effort. Our recruiting events for 2006/7 included:
- Combined Alumni/Prospect BBQ – (130 participants; 75 alumni/55 prospective students)
- Information Sessions in: Anchorage, Alaska (2); Boise, Idaho; Las Vegas, Nevada; Portland, Oregon (2); Spokane, Washington; Vancouver, British Columbia (2), as well as on-campus at the Bank of America Executive Education Center and at our Eastside Education Center in Kirkland. Sincerest thanks to Alumni who joined us at an Information Reception to describe their EMBA experience: Tracy Fletcher, Michael Jardine, Casey Reeter, Sloan Ponomarchuk, Viral Saraiya, Pam Hirsch, Chris Cook, Mark Slaughter, Amy Lodge, Brian Felder, Cody George, Dave Asher, Bill Downing and Michele Cloutier.
- Our annual VIP Reception was held on Wednesday, December 6, 2006 at the Sorrento Hotel (“Top of the Town”). Our keynote speaker was Mike Fancher, Senior Vice President and Editor at Large, The Seattle Times (EMBA 1986). Mike shared his experience and takeaways from attending the Executive MBA Program. Forty prospective students and alumni as well as our distinguished faculty Rocky Higgins, Bob Bowen and Andy Siegel were in attendance.
- The Executive MBA Program held two Campus Visit Days on Saturday, April 14 and Saturday, May 5. Twenty prospective students and their significant others from Alaska, California, North Carolina, Portland and Vancouver B.C. attended an afternoon class followed by a wine and cheese reception. Replicating our North America student experience, Campus Visit Day guests stayed at the Silver Cloud Inn and were able to use the discounted travel airfare we have arranged with Alaska Airlines. Please let us know if anyone you know would be interested in attending a Campus Visit Day in the fall.
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