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This article first appeared in the UConn Business magazine, Volume 4, Issue 3 (Summer 2014)
The sudden death of her father was a horrible personal tragedy for Dorothy Carlone’01 MBA and her family. But for the 14 dedicated employees at General Machine Co. in Berlin, pain mixed with panic, knowing that the company Walter Grzegorzek founded might not survive without him. Continue Reading
On August 7th, 2014, the Congressional Budget Office released a report entitled,Veterans’ Disability Compensation: Trends and Policy Options. The ranking member of the House Veterans Affairs Committee (HVAC), Rep Mike Michaud (D-ME) requested the report. The purpose of the report is to develop proposals to reduce payments for disability compensation for veterans, in response to “budgetary pressures.” The report itself is incomplete – amazingly, absent from the CBO report’s proposals is “Don’t enter into long-term wars of aggression under false pretenses” – that is the first way to reduce disability compensation payments. Curiously, the CBO does not offer as a way to pay for the disability compensation of disabled veterans repealing the Bush tax cuts of 2001, and 2003, which cost the country more than $2.2 trillion in tax revenues from the wealthiest people in the country. In truth, there are no budgetary pressures; there are only political pressures from constituents who don’t want to pay for the sacrifices of veterans who fought for their freedom and to defend the Constitution.
The report begins with a summary of how veterans disability benefits payments have changed since 2000. To wit, the report mentions that the number of veterans receiving disability benefits from the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) has increased from 2.3 million to 3.5 million, while disability compensation payments have increased from $20 billion per year in 2000 to $57 billion per year in 2013. Although the report recognizes that our nation has been at war in two countries for more than a decade, the report fails to correlate the increase in disability benefits to the actual increase in veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan accessing the Veterans Administration system for health care, and applying for disability benefits; or to the severity of disabling conditions those veterans with which those veterans are returning.
The non-partisan veterans advocacy group Veterans for Common Sense did a Freedom of Information Act for the quarter ended on March 31st, 2014. As of that date, more than 2.6 million Americans have served in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2001. More than 2 million are in the VA system, and more than 1 million have sought healthcare through the VA. Of the more than 1 million veterans seeking healthcare, more than 969,000 have filed claims, more than 890,000 claims have been adjudicated, more than 875,000 have a service-connected disability, and finally, more than 816,000 are receiving disability benefit compensation.
A casual back-of-the-envelope calculation will show that the VBA has increased its rolls by 1.2 million. A second casual back-of-the-envelope calculation will show that nearly 75% of the increase of veterans receiving disability benefits are veterans of the so-called Global War on Terror. The VA has a demographic projection that the veteran population in the US will decline by 33% by 2040 to 15 million from a current 22 million total. This is an important consideration when the CBO proposes implementing a “statute of limitations” on submitting a disability claim, or implementing a lifetime cap on disability compensation.
This report comes at a most inauspicious time. In the very recent past, Secretary of the VA General Eric Shinseki was forced to resign over the ongoing scandal that has engulfed the agency. Indeed, this recent article at the National Journal “The VA Scandal Just Keeps Spreading,” shows that the scandal is systemic, that more than 100,000 veterans have been systemically denied access to healthcare without due process in violation of their constitutional rights per the 9th Circuit Court decision, and veterans are dying while waiting for healthcare.
The optics of this report are terrible. In February 2014, Republicans in the Senate filibustered the Veterans Omnibus Bill, effectively killing it, despite the bill being endorsed by 20 major veterans organizations. The bill would have cost $21 billion over 10 years, and provided for infrastructure improvements, opening new Vets centers, and hiring healthcare professionals and staff. In attempting to justify their “no” votes, Senator Richard Burr (R-NC) of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee said “That is more money we were going to spend that we haven’t spent, that we never had because we were borrowing it.”
Then the scandal broke in the spring, and the politicians scrambled to do something. They resurrected the Veterans Omnibus Bill, re-named it the Sanders-McCain Veterans Bill, and passed it in June. Three republican senators voted against, it, Bob Corkey (R-TN), Ron Johnson (R-WI), and Jeff Sessions (R-AL). Senator Sessions (R-AL) put the cost-benefit analysis explicitly, “I feel strongly we’ve got to do the right thing for our veterans. But I don’t think we should create a blank check, an unlimited entitlement program.” The bill was passed by the HVAC and the House – their last vote prior to the August recess – and signed into law by President Obama on Aug 7th – interestingly, the same day the CBO report was released.
Virtually at the same time, the Iraqi Army has collapsed, in the face of the onslaught by the terrorist organization ISIS; and an Afghan soldier murdered the US Army major general who responsible for the training of Afghan security forces. Former President Bush stated his gambit for winning the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan “And that is why we are on the offense. And as we pursue the terrorists, our military is helping to train Iraqi security forces so that they can defend their people and fight the enemy on their own. Our strategy can be summed up this way: As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down.”
These events may appear to be unconnected, but to the contrary, they are profoundly connected. This series of events is a twin scandal and crisis. First, our country’s leadership manifests a failure of political will to win wars. Our elected politicians have essentially come up with a way to “outsource” winning wars to third country labor, similar to corporations that outsource manufacturing to lowest-cost labor countries; this is politically palatable to the electorate and creates political capital for the politician to be re-elected as a “war-time” politician. At the same time, no one has questioned the risk involved in trusting our nation’s geopolitical strategic interests with non-American troops whose motivations and interests are very very different from our own. In short, trusting third-country national troops to fight and win our wars is a recipe not just for losing, but for disaster. It was a failure in Viet Nam, it is a failure in Iraq, and it is failing in Afghanistan.
Secondly, and at the same time, those same politicians now express a failure to live up to President Lincoln’s words in his 2nd Inaugural address, which have since become the VA’s motto “to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow, and his orphan.” Without the Bush doctrine, there would be no Iraq war, and there would be no strategy ‘as they stand up, we will stand down.” Had the American electorate been told the truth about the wars, hundreds of thousands of Americans and American families would not now be living with the long-term health effects of disabilities incurred as a result of service in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Iraq war has been estimated to cost $3 trillion dollars (this just happens to be the same amount the Bush tax cuts cost us) by the Nobel-prize winning economist, Joseph Stiglitz and economist Linda Bilmes. If the VA is fully funded every year, for the next fifty years, the cost for caring for the veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan will be $1 trillion a decade for the next five decades. To add insult to injury, recent reports from the University of Minnesota and from Feeding America, show that 28% of veterans and military families now rely on food assistance programs; while at the same time, the HVAC is asking for, and the CBO is offering policy proposals to reduce disability compensation payments.
Put it all together, and our nation is in real trouble. Our politicians no longer have the political courage to win wars, no longer have the will to pay for the care of veterans of our wars, and have inoculated the rest of the country from the true cost of war. Outsourcing wars, training foreign armies to fight our wars, refusing to pay the healthcare and disability costs of the veterans of those wars, shielding the 99% of civilian population from the costs of war for political efficacy is a recipe for disaster. It is a recipe for empire. It is a recipe for perpetual war.
The CBO report is the canary in the coal mine. They are looking for ways to reduce the costs of caring for veterans with disabilities who served in the longest wars our nation has fought, in Iraq and Afghanistan. As the military downsizes through 2020, and more than 1 million veterans leave active service by the end of the decade, the politicians will continue to try to find ways to “respond to budgetary pressures” by taking out those pressures on the less than 1% of Americans, fewer than 3 million total, who served and sacrificed for more than 310 million American citizens. Politicians have come up with a way to outsource wars and build political capital with the American electorate, and effectively inoculate the American taxpayer from the true costs of the war. As well, this toxic combination combines to create a disincentive for Americans to take the oath of service. There is no upside if our nation’s politicians consider veterans usable assets, and once the veteran is no longer military useful, veterans are on their own for any disabilities that they may suffer in combat.
All Americans should agree that it is morally wrong and a betrayal of the social and legal obligation that the nation has to its veterans, to respond to “budgetary pressures” on the backs of the less than 1% of Americans who have served and sacrificed in defense of the Constitution. George Washington wrote in 1781 to the first governor of CT Jonathan Trumbull, “Permit me Sir to add, that Policy alone in our Present Circumstances, seem to demand that every Satisfaction which can reasonably be requested, should be given to those Veteran Troops who, ‘thro almost every Distress, have been so long and so faithfully serving the States . . .” That intent remains as fresh and immediate today, in light of the present VA scandal and the explicitly stated unwillingness to pay for veterans disability benefits, as when it was written. Service in defense of the Constitution is special. Veterans are truly the best and brightest our nation has to offer in its defense. There is no such thing as budgetary pressure, only what our nation is willing to pay for, and what it’s not willing to pay for. If our nation is not willing to pay for veterans, this two-centuries-old experiment in democracy will not last.
The UConn School of Business is proud to introduce its inaugural class for the Graduate Programs in HR Management. 24 students have been admitted into the MS HRM program, and five students in the ABC HRM certificate program. The MS HRM students will be joining our HRM team in Hartford on Friday and Saturday, August 22-23, for our in-residence program kickoff. The weekend will consist of special guest speakers, including Dean John Elliott, industry speakers, and program faculty that also serves as the launch for the cornerstone course, Business Acumen and Strategic Human Resource Management. Greg Reilly, Academic Director of the Graduate Programs in HRM, will be leading the event. Other special guests include Susan Spiggle, Chair of the Management Department; Peter Diplock, Assistant Vice Provost for eCampus; and Suresh Nair, Associate Dean of Graduate Studies for the School of Business.
(5/8/2014) – The 12th Annual Real Estate Awards Banquet was held at the South Campus Ballroom on Thursday, May 1. The special occasion recognized outstanding students, alumni, and scholarship recipients.
The following alumni and students were recognized for their achievements:
Lifetime Achievement Award: Daniel Ferraina, Ferraina Companies
Distinguished Alumni: Michael Riccio, CB-Richard Ellis Capital Markets
Alumni of the Year: Bradford Wainman, Simon Konover Development Corp.
Early Career Alumni: Kelsey Rath, Talcott Realty Investors, LLC
Organizational Partner: Greater New Haven Association of Realtors
Excellence in Research: Professor Carmelo Giaccotto and Professor Thomas Miceli
Students of the Year: Frances (Frankie) Gibbons and Andrew Kelly
Other student award recipients included: Nicolas Chapman, Tyler Cormier, Julia Dumaine, Andrew Harney, Scott Howard, M. Connor Lyman, Matthew McCandless, Cole McQuilken, Johncarlo Morales, Benjamin Napoli, Bridget O’Malley, Laura O’Malley, Ryan Powers, Peter Rodriguez, Colby Schaefer, Austin Smyth, Melissa Touger, Kristine Victor, and Hui Zhang.
The School of Business has relocated its Full-time MBA program to Hartford, a move that will give students more professional opportunities as well as the chance to learn alongside other UConn graduate students.
“We are thrilled that the UConn Full-time MBA will be part of the Hartford business community, allowing for the program to continue its tradition of providing excellence in graduate education,” said Rajendra Shirolé, director of UConn’s Full-time MBA program.
In the past, the students took their first-year courses in Storrs and completed the program in Hartford and sometimes Stamford. The dual campus set-up wasn’t popular with MBA students.
“The biggest reason for the move is to put first- and second-year students together,” said Professor Mary Caravella, who chaired a task force that recommended the consolidation.
“We chose Hartford because we wanted to put them together with students from the part-time and specialized masters’ degree programs. By working together, on the same campus, it gives them all the means to be successful.
“Both Storrs and Hartford are great locations, each with many strengths,” Caravella said. “But Hartford offers both close and broader connections with the business industry, and will certainly help our students with job placement.”
The program will be housed in the Graduate Business Learning Center in downtown Hartford, and its new offices can be reached at (860) 728-2440.
“This is a positive move on multiple fronts, including networking among all graduate business students and also engaging with alumni and employers in the Hartford area,” said Meg Warren, assistant director of the Graduate Career Development Office (CDO). “Our students are excited about it. There’s now an opportunity for the Full-time MBAs to network with professional students in the Executive and Part-time MBA programs as well as the MS in Business Analytics and Project Management and MS in Financial Risk Management programs.
Warren has met with representatives from Cigna, Aetna, Prudential and more, and all are pleased that the Full-time MBA program will be housed so close to their workplaces. In addition to hosting corporate information sessions and interviews in Hartford, the CDO and MBA Program Office work closely with the School of Business Alumni Relations Office which offers a number of alumni networking events running from August through March. Warren said, “Having the Full-time MBA Program in Hartford makes it much easier for students to attend these important programs where they can connect with alumni from target companies they want to learn more about. Building relationships with our School’s alumni is a vital part of our program.”
Alumni and other executives can visit for coffee, lunch, or for more structured programs in the evenings that will interest all graduate business students. Meanwhile the Full-time MBA students can easily go on corporate site visits from the downtown campus. “Overall, the employer’s ability to engage with our students has just become a lot easier. Storrs may only be a forty-minute drive, but it’s much easier for a hiring manager or an alum to have morning coffee before the workday begins or come by the GBLC for their lunch hour than it is to ask them to take a half-day from work to venture out to Storrs,” Warren said.
“From the moment they arrive, we tell our students that networking is critical for an effective job search. Students must start having conversations with people from industry or job functions that interest them,” Warren said. “This is necessary as 75-80% of jobs are filled as a result of networking. Being in Hartford allows us to offer more built-in opportunities for student and employer engagement.”
With the arrival of the new academic year, the School of Business is hosting an Alumni and Student Networking Reception at 6 p.m. Aug. 21 at the Society Room of Hartford, 31 Pratt Street. Melinda Brown, ’77, ’85 MBA, senior vice president and corporate controller for Coach Inc. will be the guest speaker. Brown joined Coach Inc. in 2012, after a 29-year career with PepsiCo.
https://mba.business.uconn.edu
(6/12/2014) – 4.4 million jobs will be created worldwide to support big data by 2015, according to a Gartner press release on key issues facing the IT industry.
To prepare students for big data careers, the UConn School of Business offers graduate and undergraduate degree programs in business analytics that focus on data management, analytics, and using emerging technologies to better manage financial risk and other business needs.Continue Reading
(6/30/2014) – The UConn School of Business is proud to announce a premier group of financial institutions supporting the School’s new undergraduate Financial Management major in Stamford.
The Financial Management major was designed and developed, in part, by CFA charterholders from prominent local hedge funds and investment firms. The major has been accepted into the CFA Institute’s University Recognition Program and stands to serve as inspiration to a program intent on helping cultivate a young generation of future CFA charterholders. The CFA credential has become one of the most globally respected designations and the Financial Management major, along with those selected within this program to join the Investment Management Program (IMP), will be exposed to academic and practical applications in finance coupled with reinforcement of strong ethical behavior.
“Through a progressive relationship with the CFA Society of Stamford, students who excel in the Financial Management major will be invited to join an exclusive Investment Management Program (IMP), which, among other benefits, provides access to a wide array of tools and research from financial institutions like Barclays, CreditSights, and Atlantic Asset Management,” said Jud Saviskas, executive director for the UConn School of Business in Stamford. “This innovative relationship encourages and facilitates an exchange of ideas, networking opportunities and career development for aspiring investment professionals – and it’s already received outside interest from many other colleges and universities.”
Last year, a group of IMP students travelled to Wall Street for a visit to several institutions such as Barclays, Bloomberg, and CreditSights. As program supporters, these companies allow students and faculty complimentary access to their client web portals such as, Barclays Live, which provides a range of research and financial analytics tools, and CreditSights’ online global research platform and an analytical staff of almost 80 investment professionals.
“Barclay’s and CreditSights’ web portals are an excellent tool for IMP students as they undertake the challenges of the program and the pursuit of the CFA Level I exam,” said Michael Dineen, senior vice president of Atlantic Asset Management and UConn adjunct professor.
Thomas Walsh, managing director at Barclays added that the collaboration with IMP is just one example of the importance the bank places on developing an early foundation of ethical investment knowledge. “The most successful students will be those who develop the skill sets they need to be productive and innovative members of the next generation’s workforce,” Walsh said. “We are delighted to be able to make Barclays Live available to IMP students and hope that they will derive significant benefit from these new resources.”
“We have had the pleasure to meet a number of IMP students, and they are coming into the space during interesting times in the evolution of the credit markets,” said Glenn Reynolds, CEO of CreditSights. “We hope the background information from prior credit cycles and our analysis of the structural shifts taking place today – most notably in banking and finance – can be of value as they prepare themselves for the role they can play in the markets. Credit has grown dramatically in all areas of the global economy from sovereign to corporate to household, and there are a lot of moving parts to the puzzle.”
Brookfield, Wis. and Hartford, Conn. (5/27/2014) – Fiserv, Inc. (NASDAQ: FISV), a leading global provider of financial services technology solutions, and the University of Connecticut School of Business, one of the top public business schools in the nation, today announced that Fiserv is participating in the university’s Financial Accelerator Program to help educate students and foster innovation.
The Financial Accelerator Program was established in 2002 to create opportunities for UConn students and faculty to apply classroom concepts to real business challenges. With the Fiserv initiative, UConn MBA students are collaborating with area business leaders from Fiserv and two of its clients, the Savings Bank of Danbury and Greylock Federal Credit Union, to explore how financial institutions can attract and serve Gen Y consumers using state-of-the-art banking technology.
“The Financial Accelerator Program at the University of Connecticut School of Business shines a spotlight on the exciting and innovative career opportunities available to students in the state,” said Connecticut Governor, Dannel P. Malloy. “Collaborations like this, which bring the leaders of tomorrow together with the leaders of today, foster the innovation and opportunity that help make Connecticut such an attractive place to live and work.”
The initiative, currently underway for the Spring 2014 semester, introduces UConn MBA students to the DNATM account account processing platform from Fiserv. DNA is a modern, enterprise-wide software platform relied upon by Savings Bank of Danbury and Greylock FCU as well as hundreds of other banks and credit unions for transaction processing, data management and customer relationship management. DNA offers a unique development toolkit – DNAcreatorTM – that allows users to create seamlessly integrated applications called DNAappsTM that extend the platform in new and powerful ways. At the conclusion of the Financial Accelerator Program, UConn students will present a business case for a new DNAapp that DNA users like Savings Bank of Danbury and Greylock FCU can use to enhance the millennial banking experience.
“DNA from Fiserv incorporates the latest industry standard tools and languages currently being taught at UConn and other leading universities where banks and credit unions can find a deep and talented pool of software engineers,” said Steve Cameron, president, Open Solutions Division, Fiserv. “By partnering with some of our region’s brightest minds at UConn, the Savings Bank of Danbury and Greylock Federal Credit Union, Fiserv is investing in the local community and continuing to build on our vision to drive the global digital transformation of financial services.”
The students will work with Savings Bank of Danbury, Greylock FCU and Fiserv associates throughout the program to ensure their proposal is both viable and compelling. After completing their research, idea development and return on investment (ROI) analysis, the students will present their findings to Fiserv associates at the end of the semester. The program may be extended into the Fall semester with a new group of students to execute the business plan using DNAcreator to build the proposed DNAapp.
“The DNA platform from Fiserv fits nicely with UConn’s goal of fostering an entrepreneurial ecosystem within our state,” said Jeffrey Scarella, Industry Liaison, Physical Sciences & Engineering at the UConn Office of Economic Development. “By leveraging the intellectual power of our students and faculty, we hope to help community institutions like the Savings Bank of Danbury and Greylock Federal Credit Union, as well as leading financial innovators like Fiserv, provide the best possible banking experience to the next generation of Connecticut consumers.”
“This collaboration allows our students to use the knowledge, research skills, innovative thinking, and work ethic they’re acquiring at UConn in a very welcoming business environment provided by Fiserv,” said UConn Professor Michel Rakotomavo, faculty advisor for the project. “They have invaluable access to and interactions with executives from the partnering organizations and benefit from those organizations’ resources and information, making the experience truly distinctive in higher education.”
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Storrs, Conn. (5/20/2014) – Paul Borochin, assistant professor of finance at UConn School of Business, together with finance professor Joseph Golec, propose an event study method using stock and option prices to account for the degree of investor anticipation to more accurately measure the full value effect of an event.
Finance researchers and practitioners both use the event study method to measure whether the announcement of new information has a statistically significant effect on a firm’s stock market value. Paul Borochin and Joseph Golec, professors of finance at the University of Connecticut, recently proposed a method that uses stock and option prices to account for the degree of investor anticipation of an event to therefore more accurately measure the full value effect of that event.
“The purpose of our study is to introduce a general method of estimating the degree of investor anticipation applicable to all significant events that affect firms with traded options,” says Borochin. “We apply this more general method to estimate probabilities to a complex event: U.S. House of Representatives passage of the healthcare reform law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (PPACA). We also examine a related event with different potential for investor anticipation: the subsequent 2012 Supreme Court ruling on PPACA constitutionality, which was potentially a greater surprise due to the Court’s higher opacity.”
Borochin and Golec essentially interpret the financial market as a betting market. “…we get the same information from options prices that we could obtain from looking at the Intrade [or other betting market] website,” says Borochin.
“Indeed, one reason that we select PPACA passage to illustrate our method is that it also had event securities traded on Intrade, the leading prediction market at the time,” he says. “We compare the Intrade-generated probabilities for the 2010 and 2012 events to those we generate from options and stock prices as a robustness check. Our financial market-generated probabilities have two advantages over prediction market-generated probabilities: (1) they are derived from assets with much larger dollar volumes of trades,1 and (2), they can be estimated for any event that impacts companies with traded stock options.”
Borochin and Golec believe that their method could be useful for ex ante as well as ex post public policy analysis, citing legislation that often contains offsetting provisions negotiated among different political factions—in this case, the PPACA fee (tax) on brand name pharmaceutical sales.
They measure the effects ex post, but the method could be used for ex ante analysis by government or industry officials. “For example, Congress could publicly release a bill and a vote date. Based on the option market reaction to the vote announcement, both government and industry officials could determine investors’ estimates of the net effect of the bill’s provisions,” says Borochin.
“Our method could also be used to better estimate public or private damages associated with an event,” he adds. “The Securities and Exchange Commission often estimates damages from corporate fraud and the Federal Trade Commission estimates damages from illegal business practices. As long as some of the firms involved have traded stock and options, our method can give a more accurate estimate of total damages.”
Many event studies do not adjust for the fact that their events are partly anticipated, and in many cases, the degree of anticipation is difficult to measure. For the PPACA House vote event Borochin and Golec consider, the adjustment triples the measured effect of the event on the market value of the affected firms.
“We believe that [our method] is likely to be more precise than alternative methods such as using public data on firm-specific attributes to estimate event probabilities, or using event securities from relatively small prediction markets, because our method employs high-volume assets whose prices may partly reflect nonpublic information. For an event with substantial public information available (House passage), we find our probability estimate and that of a prediction market are quite close. But for an event with little public information (Supreme Court constitutionality), the estimates differ considerably,” said Borochin.
The working paper, “Using Options to Measure the Full Value-Effect of an Event: Application to the Healthcare Reform Act,” can be downloaded here.
1The daily value of PPACA contracts on Intrade averaged about $90,000 around the 2010 House vote event, while the average daily dollar value of stock ($277 million) and notional value of options ($397 million) traded for each company in our model totaled $674 million. The daily Intrade value was $35,000 during the 2012 Supreme Court event, while the average dollar stock and notional options trade value was $640 million.
Figure 1 –
The model-generated probability of PPACA passage compared to the Intrade-generated probability.
This figure plots the model-generated probability of PPACA passage by the U.S. House of Representatives, which is the probability implied by the stock and options prices of six hospital firms and six insurance firms. The Intrade-generated probability of PPACA passage is the price of an event security traded on the Intrade prediction market. Probabilities are shown for three weeks of trading before the event, the event day (March 22, 2010), and the day following the event.
The 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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