Year: 2014

Alumni News & Notes – August 2014

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UConn AlumniThe latest alumni news from UConn School of Business.

Scott D. Beggs ’94 MBA has joined Basin Street Properties as chief financial officer. Basin Street Properties, a real estate investing firm, has acquired 19 locations involving nearly a million square feet over the past two years.

Howard J. Bryerman ’75 has opened a franchise of PROSHRED®, a shredding business. Bryerman is an investment professional with 20 years of experience as a high yield bond portfolio manager and analyst. Bryerman has partnered with his wife, Simone, in their new business.

Carol Cox ’00 has been named vice president of strategy and corporate communication at NuVasive, Inc. Cox is an executive with extensive global healthcare experience in corporate strategy, investor relations, corporate communications, media relations, brand strategy and government relations.

Melissa B. Cummings ’98 MBA has joined Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island as senior vice president and chief customer officer. Cummings currently serves on the Board of Directors for the University of Connecticut Center for Healthcare and Insurance Studies.

Gregory J. Fedele ’00 MBA has been named president of Innovative Capital Holdings’ subsidiary Sabreliner Aviation. Fedele was most recently the senior vice president of customer business, helicopters and light turboprops at Rolls Royce.

Thomas M. Foran ’81 has joined Standard Insurance Company as vice president of underwriting and product development for the Employee Benefits Group. Foran joined Standard Insurance Company from Symetra where he was vice president of Group Life and Disability.

Betsey B. Gainey ’97 is the 2014 winner of Hartford Business Journal’s 40 under 40. Gainey is currently the vice president and director of client services at Cronin and Company, the largest full-service independent marketing communications agency in Connecticut.

Haiyan Grzelak ’06 EMBA has been awarded the Teacher of the Year award at the Chinese Cultural Center at Central Connecticut State University where she taught Chinese to a class of students ranging in age from 11-50.

William S. Hall ’08 MBA has been designated as a premier advisor at Wells Fargo Advisors. The Premier Advisors Program is a distinction that reflects Mr. Hall’s achievement of professional success by meeting or exceeding Wells Fargo Advisors’ high standards as measured by one or more of the firm’s criteria for revenue generation, educational attainment and client-service best practices.

Douglas J. Hammel ’89 will be joining Guilford Public Schools as principal of grades 5 and 6 at Abraham Baldwin Middle School. Hammel was previously the principal at Deans Mill Elementary School in Stonington, Connecticut.

Sarah B. Jeffrey ’14 MBA has received the prestigious Early Career Healthcare Executive Regent’s Award by the Connecticut Association of Healthcare Executives. The award recognizes Jeffrey’s contributions toward the achievement of the goals of the American College of Healthcare Executives and the advancement of healthcare management excellence. Jeffrey is currently an administrative fellow at Bristol Hospital.

Eric J. Kaplan ’90 MBA has joined Reval, the leading global provider of a comprehensive and integrated software and service solution for treasury and risk management as a solution consultant on the North America team. Kaplan has nearly 15 years of finance experience with a focus on cash management that spans senior positions at GE Capital and PepsiCo.

Sean F. Mulready ’93, ’02 MBA has been promoted to senior vice president, commercial real estate at Webster Financial. Mulready serves on the board of the Northside Institutions Neighborhood Alliance and on the local advisory committee of Local Initiatives Support Collaborative.

Donna A. Rosequist ’76, ’82 MBA was promoted to vice president at Segal Rogerscasey. Rosequist was most recently Director, Alpha Investment Research in Darien. Rosequist has 20 years of experience as a fiduciary and advisor on private equity research. She assists clients with the design of private equity programs including plan structure, strategy and performance monitoring.

Gary Z. Siegel ’79 has been appointed by Vision-Sciences, Inc. to vice president of finance and the company’s principal financial officer and principal accounting officer. Prior to joining Vision-Sciences, Inc. Siegel was the vice president of finance at Genta Incorporated.

Thomas Sullivan ’00 MBA was appointed as senior advisor insurance at the Federal Reserve, Board of Governors, in June. Sullivan was most recently a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers in Hartford after serving for four years as Insurance Commissioner in Connecticut. He is a former executive at The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc., where he worked for more than 20 years.

Clyde W. Tinnen ’01 MBA has been elected to special counsel at Kelley Drye & Warren LLP, an international law firm. Tinnen is a partner in the Chicago and Stamford offices and focuses his practice on corporate law matters, including finance and securities law, banking and mergers and acquisitions.

Shuai Yang ’14 Ph.D. has successfully defended her dissertation titled, “Two Essays on Matching Strategy in Paid Search Advertising.” Yang has accepted an offer at Donghua University (Shanghai) and will be joining in Fall 2014.

Leslie A. Zoll ’93 has been appointed to serve on the Connecticut Society of Certified Public Accountants Advisory Council for the 2014-2015 activity year. Zoll is a manager for BlumShapiro in West Hartford, Connecticut and will represent the CTCPA Governmental Accounting and Auditing Committee on the Advisory Council.

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MS HRM and Advanced Business Certificate in HRM Approved by UConn’s Board of Trustees

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The University of Connecticut School of Business is pleased to announce that updates to its MS HRM degree program, as well as a new graduate certificate in HRM, have been approved unanimously by UConn’s Board of Trustees. Following a rigorous academic review by the Management Department in January 2014 and subsequent approval by the Faculty of the School of Business, the former MPS HRM program was redesigned to accommodate today’s working professional and align the curriculum with the needs of tomorrow’s HR leaders. Every course in the program was updated and several new courses were added to the Graduate Catalog, including Managing Risk in the Workplace, Talent Management Through the Employee Lifecycle, and Consultative Management for Business Function Professionals. The new program is a 33-credit cohort program with concentrated seven-week sessions in a defined sequence. The benefits of this design include greater integration across the curriculum, collaborative learning across the cohort, and the ability to focus on one course per session while completing the degree in 22 months.

For more information, please contact us at 860-486-4176 or HRM@business.uconn.edu.

Entrepreneurial Alum Brews Back East

Posted on by Brian Kelleher

Back East Brewing Company is a small Craft brewery located in Bloomfield, Connecticut, founded by alums Tony Karlowicz ’01 MS and Edward Fabrycki, Jr. ’92 (ENG), two cousins with a passion for great-tasting, high-quality beer.

Tony developed his appreciation for Craft beer during his undergraduate years in Vermont and always imagined launching a brewery. Tony is an entrepreneur at heart and a CPA with extensive experience in accounting, auditing, and insurance. He gained a love of building a successful business from the ground up from his parents who owned a candy store in Bloomfield, and he also started a landscaping business while in high school. Edward, originally from Connecticut, began to home-brew while living in San Diego in the early 1990s. He eventually moved “Back East” to Connecticut in 2000, with the dream of someday operating a Craft brewery. As a Professional Engineer, Edward enjoys the technical aspects of brewing. Tony and Edward began homebrewing in early 2006 with a small pilot brewing system in a Southington garage.

With investments from family and friends and an $80,000 small business grant from the state, the company hired an experienced head brewer who had worked at the Harpoon Brewery in Boston and moved into its current location on Blue Hills Avenue in Bloomfield in January 2012. In July 2012 their dream became a reality, in the form of a 4,500-square-foot state-of-the-art brewery capable of producing tens of thousands of gallons of beer a year.

Over time, they have developed several exciting recipes, including the company’s signature beer, Back East Ale, which won 2nd place in the American Amber Ale category at the 2013 Great International Beer Festival. Their Back East Porter also took home awards in both the 2012 and 2013 Great International Beer Festival.

Back East brews several different styles of beer, distributed in draft, six-packs of 12 ounce cans, and 750ml bottles at fine establishments. Their tasting room is open to the public Wednesday through Friday, 4-7:00 p.m., and Saturday noon-4:00 p.m. Tours are offered on Saturdays, beginning at noon, 1:00, 2:00 and 3:00.

Alum Lee Schlesinger ’82 Awarded the Mary H. Connolly Community Caring Award

Posted on by Brian Kelleher

The United Way of Naugatuck and Beacon Falls had more to celebrate at its 50th annual meeting than the organization’s golden anniversary.

The United Way exceeded its 2012 campaign goal by $15,000 and raised a total of $440,000, said Laurie Yelding, campaign chairwoman.

The evening’s highest honor — the Mary H. Connolly Community Caring Award — was given to Lee Schlesinger ’82. The Mary H. Connolly Community Caring Award is presented annually to recognize an individual or individuals who have demonstrated outstanding support to the United Way and the entire community and who have set the standard for service to the community.

Schlesinger, a Naugatuck native who now lives in Waterbury, is the associate director for Safe Haven of Greater Waterbury. Twenty years ago, he worked for Naugatuck Valley Savings and Loan. At the time, he was approached by Mary Connolly, who was the executive director of the United Way, about volunteering.

“Mary has that kind of personality where you just do not say no to her,” Schlesinger said. Schlesinger didn’t say no. He served on the United Way’s Board of Directors for two terms. He was treasurer for nine years and a member of the Allocations Committee, which controls the distribution of funds to local service agencies.

Schlesinger’s volunteerism extends beyond the United Way. He served as president of the board of directors of the Morris Foundation, which provided mental health and addiction services and is now part of Wellmore. For the past 12 years, he has been co-chairman of the Finance Committee for the American Cancer Society – Greater Waterbury Relay for Life. Lee has also been an event volunteer for Special Olympics’ Penguin Plunge. He was the recipient of the United Way of Naugatuck & Beacon Falls Van Allen Medal in 2012 and Connecticut Coalition Against Domestic Violence – First 100 Plus – honoring male leaders from across the state who have worked to raise awareness of the availability and access to domestic violence services in Connecticut. He also received the Volunteer Award from Morris Foundation.

“My first and sustained impression of Lee over the years is what an incredibly kind, compassionate and decent soul this is,” said Kevin DelGobbo, who introduced Schlesinger.

Schlesinger thanked Connolly for asking him to volunteer all those years ago and said he was honored to be recognized. “It is such an honor to even be considered for this award among the distinguished previous recipients,” he said.

Richard E. Hurley Receives National Educator Award

Posted on by Brian Kelleher

Richard E. Hurley, Ph.D., JD, CPA, CFE, CFF, received the prestigious National Educator Award from the Association of Government Accountants (AGA) on July 17th, 2013. Dr. Hurley’s award was presented at the Association’s Annual Professional Development Conference (PDC) training event in Dallas.

The AGA Educator Award was formally established to recognize an individual who has made significant contributions to educating and training government financial managers for more than two decades.

Dr. Hurley received this award in recognition of his vast contributions to the education and training of accountability professionals and students in advancing financial management. His presentations, courses and writings cover a wide range of accountability topics and his expertise as a practitioner and university professor is quite evident. He consistently receives excellent evaluations of his work and is well-respected in the field of government financial management. Dr. Hurley is a member of the AGA New York Capital Chapter.

Dr. Hurley has been a licensed Certified Public Accountant in the State of New York for 30 years and has also been a licensed Attorney in the State of New York for over 35 years and is licensed to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Tax Court.

He has written the Fraud Edge column for Fraud Magazine, which is a column devoted to fraud education for the benefit of academics and practitioners, and he currently co-authors a column entitled Global Fraud Focus.

He is also a member of the New York Society of CPAs and is a member of the Forensic Litigation Services Committee of the State Society and a member of the Anti-Money Laundering & Counter Terrorist Financing Committee.

Dr. Hurley has written and presented in the field of accounting and security fraud and auditing issues related to fraud detection and prevention. Dr. Hurley teaches MBA courses in Financial Accounting and Reporting, Financial Statement Analysis, Forensic Accounting & Fraud Examination for the University of Connecticut in Stamford, Connecticut where he has been a professor for 14 years.

Accounting Department Welcomes New Faculty Members

Posted on by Brian Kelleher

The University of Connecticut has embarked on an ambitious hiring initiative to expand its faculty and senior academic leadership across disciplines, investing in 500 tenure-track faculty positions over the next four years.

As a result of this initiative, the Accounting Department is delighted to welcome two new faculty members in the 2013-2014 academic year. These new faculty bring a diverse array of expertise and research interests to the school and our students.

Paul Glotzer joins the faculty after serving as an adjunct lecturer in the Accounting Department of the UConn School of Business since 2012. Prior to UConn, Paul served as project manager at the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). Prior to FASB, he served as director of accounting and auditing at Shein, Cohen, Palmer & Company, LLC, for twenty years. Paul also worked as a manager at Kostin Ruffkess & Company for ten years subsequent to working as a staff accountant for three years at Troub, Glotzer, & Company.

Paul’s areas of expertise include: U.S. GAAP and its application to financial statement preparation, audits, reviews, and compilations; income tax planning and compliance for corporations, partnerships, and individuals; and payroll and sales taxes. He has also published in the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants’ Journal of Accountancy. In addition to his affiliation with the AICPA, Paul is a very active member in the Connecticut Society of Certified Public Accountants where he currently serves or has served on several committees, including Technical Reviewer and Chair of the Accounting and Reporting Standards Committee; the Board of Governors; Compilation and Review Committee; Professional Ethics Committee; Peer Reviewer; Management of an Accounting Practice Committee and Relations with Secondary School Committee. He was also voted Committee Member of the Year for 2000-2001. Paul is a CPA and graduated with High Honors from the University of Connecticut in 1972 with a Bachelor of Science degree Accounting. He is also the new faculty advisor to the Accounting Society at UConn.

Arthur Schmeiser joins the UConn faculty after serving 38 years at Deloitte & Touche LLP where he retired as a senior partner. Art served clients in a variety of industries but had a focus on clients in consumer businesses such as Macy’s, Neiman Marcus, Procter & Gamble, Saks 5th Avenue, Sears, Talbots, The May Department Stores Company and Timberland. In addition to his client work, he has held various leadership positions within D&T, both domestically and internationally. He has broad experience in Securities and Exchange Commission [including serving as an SEC fellow from 1979 to 1981] and other accounting and reporting requirements having been involved with numerous initial public offerings, secondary offerings, public merger filings and public and private company audits. He has extensive experience dealing with Boards of Directors, Audit Committees and Senior Executives of U.S public companies in accounting and reporting areas, along with strategic acquisition and other business matters.

Art is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, as well as the Society of Certified Public Accountants in the states of Connecticut and New York. Art earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting from St. John’s University in 1971.

Accounting Department and Students Honored by CTCPA Educational Trust Fund Program

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In early November the CTCPA Educational Trust Fund (ETF) honored our Accounting Department, the Epsilon Lambda Chapter of Beta Alpha Psi, the UConn Accounting Society, and the UConn Student Chapter of the National Association of Black Accountants at the ETF’s annual awards banquet. The grants provided by the ETF help the Department and these three outstanding student organizations continue the many activities that make our program so successful and give those organizations the ability to expand those activities.

In addition to the above, Hasudin Pehratovic, a Junior accounting major won the Frank Frago Community Service award, given in remembrance of the late Frank Frago, a past President of the CTCPA Society. This is a competitive, state-wide award which requires applicants to submit an essay describing their community services activities.

Lastly, this summer Chris Brown ‘13 (MSA expected in May 2014) was selected to receive the ETF’s Merit Award for Academic Excellence. Chris is one of the many outstanding graduates of our 2013 accounting class and will be starting with Deloitte & Touche in the fall of 2014 after he completes our MSA program.

Congratulations to all of these students and their organizations-you make us very proud.

Accounting Department Develops an Online Advanced Certificate Bridge Program

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The Department is frequently asked by graduate students and individuals in the work force with business degrees (as well as some who have non-business undergraduate degrees), if they can apply to our online masters of accounting (MSA) program. Unfortunately we usually have to decline because they have not taken the prerequisite undergraduate accounting courses. The next question they ask is whether they can take these required courses online at UConn. Soon we will be able to say yes!

The Accounting Department’s online Advanced Certificate and Bridge (ACB) program will offer four comprehensive accounting courses covering financial reporting, assurance services, and taxation over a one year period that, when completed, will result in a Certificate in Accounting. Applicants must have an undergraduate degree (any major) and have completed introductory financial and managerial accounting courses. After completing the ACB program, they can apply to our MSA program and receive credit for two of the ACB courses.

We think the online format of our ACB program will have broad appeal. As program director Amy Dunbar points out, “We are the leaders in online accounting education with our successful online MSA program. We will use our expertise to develop a quality online ACB program that addresses the needs of two constituencies; individuals who just want more accounting education than they currently have and those who would like to use the accounting courses as a bridge to an MSA program. We think the market place will welcome this program not only for the quality of its content, but because the courses can be completed by students anywhere.”

The program has been approved at the School of Business level. There are still other approvals required at the University level, but we hope to have the program up and running by the fall of 2014. Stay tuned for more information on this exciting opportunity for the Department.