NAACP Urban Business Expo

Posted on by Claire Hall

The first Urban Business Expo was held on August 28th, 2012 at the Artist’s Collective in Hartford. This event, sponsored by the NAACP, was designed to bring together Connecticut-based minority and women small business owners with different organizations that educate and assist with funding, development, certification and marketing issues. In addition to business assistance organizations, also present were different companies and agencies in the healthcare, education, government, professional union, and infrastructure development and maintenance fields. Vendor booths were also set up to showcase some local small business owners. The University of Connecticut’s School of Business was represented by Seanice Austin from the Office of Diversity Initiatives and Kathryn Huntington from the Connecticut Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation (CCEI).

The event was well attended, and small business owners in industries ranging from yoga studios to independent cable providers mingled and networked with representatives in the over 70+ booths. Vendors were able to network with each other at the event, and many promising connections and plans for collaboration between different organizations were made. In addition to the expo booths, there were panel discussions and themed sessions running throughout the day. The theater-style seats were filled, and some sessions were filled to the point of standing-room only. Speakers included Lt. Governor Nancy Wyman, Hartford Mayor Pedro Segara, and representatives from various organizations who provide business assistance to new ventures in the state. Also present on the panels were successful individuals who gave their stories and perspectives, and urged the audience members to take advantage of the different programs and organizations that are able to provide assistance for their business challenges.

It is often the case that small business owners are unaware of programs, funding, or initiatives that are available to them. The Urban Business Expo was designed to create awareness of all these different opportunities, and inspire an increase in the number of minority and women business owners in Connecticut. Austin remarked, “Participating in this event with the NAACP allowed the School of Business to reach out to minority small business owners in Hartford. We connected with some promising individuals and are excited to build relationships with business owners throughout the state.”

Management Information Systems Student Receives Prestigious Information Security Scholarship

Posted on by Claire Hall

Ryan Fried, a senior in MIS, received an Information Security Scholarship from (ISC)2 Foundation. Scholarship recipients were announced on September 11, 2012. This year, Ryan is one of only seven recipients of the Undergraduate Scholarship, which was open for applications worldwide.

When asked why he is interested in Information Security, Ryan said: “I enjoy the challenge of staying one step ahead of hackers and discovering vulnerabilities before they do. For the future, I plan on working as a consultant or in a technology leadership rotational program to further my knowledge of information technology.”

(ISC)2 (‘ISC-squared’) is the largest not-for-profit membership body of certified information security professionals worldwide, with over 86,000 members in more than 135 countries. Globally recognized as the Gold Standard, (ISC)2 issues the Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP®) and related credentials. The (ISC)2 Foundation is a non-profit charitable trust that aims to make the cyber world safer for everyone by supporting cyber security education and awareness in the community through its programs and the efforts of its members.

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NPR Discusses MIS Recruiting with UConn OPIM Department

Posted on by Claire Hall

Dr. Ram Gopal, department head of Operations & Information Management (OPIM) at the University of Connecticut School of Business, accompanied by OPIM faculty members Ramesh Sankaranarayanan, Sudip Bhattacharjee, Dmitry Zhdanov, and students Walid Namane, Imrus Sadiq, Carlo Guerriero, and Lily Elawar chatted with Neena Satija of NPR News about the overwhelming need for MIS (IT) skills in the state job market.Continue Reading

UConn Business Career Center Presents at Annual NCDA Conference

Posted on by Claire Hall

In June, the National Association of Career Development (NCDA) hosted their annual Global Career Development Conference in Atlanta, with the theme of “Building on the Dream.” The annual event is designed for Career Services Professionals to share experiences with their peers from Higher Education, and includes training programs in areas such as technology, career assessments, ethics, and career information.

Kelly W. Kennedy, Program Manager at the University of Connecticut School of Business Career Center (SBCC) led the training session: “Making Connections with Purpose, Passion, and Possibility.” Kelly shared the SBCC’s successful best practices using a marketing plan to accelerate the careers of young professionals. She discussed the innovative and interactive career development program at the business school, which teaches students to remain competitive in the workplace through networking skill building programs and events, and guides them to take a strategic and long-term approach when thinking about their careers.

The session was well received by Kennedy’s peers in career development, with comments such as “Thanks so much for your presentation at NCDA! I really enjoyed learning about your marketing plan for students and took a lot away from the experience.” “Your presentation at NCDA drew an enthusiastic crowd and I appreciate the time you spent with me afterward.”

The UConn School of Business Career Center provides a wide range of career development and recruiting services to both employers and students, and encourages students to start their job search as early as freshman year for undergrads, or first semester for graduate students. Career development professionals at the SBCC can be reached at (860) 486-5136.

Dean Elliott Welcomes Incoming Class of MBAs

Posted on by Claire Hall

On Wednesday evening, University of Connecticut School of Business alumni, faculty, and MBA students joined together at the UConn Graduate Business Learning Center for a networking & cocktail reception hosted by the School of Business. Event guests included representatives from Cigna, GE, and UTC, as well as faculty and administration from across the University.

The annual event welcoming new MBA students and alums for a networking reception featured new School of Business Dean John A. Elliott as keynote speaker. Dean Elliott was welcomed by University Provost Mun Choi. Choi briefly discussed future plans for the University, addressing the upcoming development of innovative, up-to-date infrastructure projects over the next three years. These projects include the UConn Health Center’s Bioscience Connecticut and a new Technology Park at the Storrs Campus, which will be designed to create an environment where industry partners, entrepreneurs, students and faculty can collaborate on exciting new projects that are expected to add billions of dollars to the Connecticut economy over the next few years.

In just the eighth day of his position as Dean, Elliott noted his observations of the impressive level of commitment to education and the university from President Herbst, alumni, corporate partners, and the State of Connecticut. He commended the numerous collaboration efforts taking place between University departments, and stressed the value of Learning Accelerators in supplementing business education with practical experience.

In closing, Dean Elliott provided the incoming MBA class with some advice, encouraging students to maximize their time in the MBA program by being “active learners,” seizing opportunities as they arise, and using the many resources available to them as students.

Professor of Accounting Awarded $10,000 Grant

Posted on by Claire Hall

Gim Seow, an associate professor of accounting at the University of Connecticut School of Business, was awarded a $10,000 grant by the PwC Foundation this summer.

Dr. Seow will be using this grant to develop an International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) component to his financial accounting theory course, offered to students in the online Master degree in Accounting (MSA) program at the University of Connecticut. He will also be working on a research project that examines the adoption of IFRS in different stock exchanges across the world.

The award is part of the PwC INQuiries program, whose goal is “to help domestic colleges and universities incorporate important updates and issues facing the accounting profession into their curricula.” Grants from the PwC INQuiries program also support faculty research in the accounting field.

PwC donated $520,000 to 52 universities in the U.S. this year and has contributed more than $59 million to educational institutes since 2007.

Decorated Marine Appointed to Lead Veterans Programs at UConn School of Business

Posted on by Claire Hall

A decorated Marine who runs the University of Connecticut’s program to help other military members become entrepreneurs has been appointed to lead veterans’ outreach and support initiatives at the School of Business.

Michael Zacchea, a Purple Heart and Bronze Star recipient who holds an MBA from UConn, will coordinate programs to recruit and support veterans and help them with job placement, continuing education, career planning, and other services.

Zacchea also continues in his role as director of the Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities, which welcomes a new group of participants to UConn this fall. UConn is among eight prominent business schools offering the bootcamp in collaboration with the Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University.

“We are thrilled to have Mike Zacchea on board for this very important post. His outreach to the veteran community is vital to our continued support of veterans in regard to continuing education and job placement,” says James R. Lowe, assistant dean of the UConn School of Business.

“This, coupled with Mike’s leadership of the Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities (EBV), completes a robust offering of services to this valued community,” Lowe says.

Zacchea, a native of Long Island, N.Y., who now lives in Brookfield, will work with programs and veterans at all of UConn’s campuses.

Zacchea also received the U.S. Small Business Administration’s award as 2012 Veteran Small Business Champion of the Year for his work with the Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities.

“I’m very happy to tell the story about UConn and its service to veterans because UConn has been so good to me in terms of returning and re-integrating and planning my future,” Zacchea says.

“We’re doing so much at UConn to re-engineer the student veterans’ experience and recognize them as a specific constituency with unique needs,” he says. “Both UConn and Connecticut as a whole have a story to tell returning veterans about their opportunities here and the support we can provide.”

Zacchea was commissioned a 2nd lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps in 1990 and served in Somalia and Haiti before being deployed in 2004 as a major to Iraq for Operation Iraqi Freedom II.

His team and the Iraqi army battalion it trained were involved in heavy combat many times. They included an incident in which he was wounded by a rocket-propelled grenade and received shrapnel in his shoulder and a traumatic brain injury, which required him to undergo several years of rehabilitation.

His military awards include the Bronze Star Medal for Valor, the Purple Heart Medal, a Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal, a Combat Action Ribbon, and many unit and campaign awards.

Zacchea, who held a master’s degree from Hawaii Pacific University and a bachelor’s from Notre Dame, earned his MBA in May from UConn and has been active in veterans’ groups on campus, statewide, and nationally.

He was an analyst for Morgan Stanley before enrolling in UConn’s MBA program, where he specialized in entrepreneurial marketing.

He says some specific goals in his new position with the School of Business include creating coherent policies to help veterans locate educational opportunities, job training, and other services they need.

He also wants to advocate for creating certain non-degree certificate programs to help veterans bolster their knowledge and give them an edge in the job market, and to work with others at UConn in its efforts to offer strong support to veterans throughout their college careers and once they are alumni.

CREW 2012 Scholarship Recipient: Brittani Clayton

Posted on by Claire Hall

Brittani Clayton, daughter of Jim and Sue Clayton of Simsbury, Connecticut, is a recipient of the Commercial Real Estate Women (CREW) Network National Scholarship. CREW is a national organization that promotes and encourages young women to enter the commercial real estate field and to connect with real estate professionals. Applicants were selected nationwide for the scholarship.

As a scholarship recipient, Brittani will be a CREW guest at their annual convention in Chicago, Illinois October 24 – 27th. The convention is an excellent opportunity to network with men and women nationwide and will afford the opportunity to learn about the current topics of discussion within the field.

In addition to receiving the scholarship, Brittani will also have the opportunity to participate in internship opportunities. CREW also offers a 12 month e-mentoring program that will allow recipients to work with professionals in the field on their goals. Brittani also received a free membership to CREW network which will allow her to connect with the 6,000 members nationwide. Congratulations to Brittani on this national recognition.

Brittani is entering her senior year at the University of Connecticut School of Business and is an intern this summer with GE Real Estate in Albany, NY.

National PTSD Awareness Day & Moral Injury – Make the Connection

Posted on by Brian Kelleher

Wednesday, June 27th was officially recognized as the 3rd annual National PTSD Awareness Day.  PTSD Awareness Day was first established by Congress in 2010 after Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota proposed honoring North Dakota Army National Guard Staff Sgt. Joe Biel, who was a suicide casualty following two tours in Iraq. Biel’s birthday was June 27. Tragically and stunningly, in the first 155 days in calendar year 2012, the active duty armed forces endured 154 suicide casualties – as sure a cry for help as there is.

It took a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and millions of words, and thousands of shattered lives, for our nation to finally recognize the legitimate and true nature of post-traumatic stress and the effect it has on survivors of trauma. Trauma comes in many many shapes and sizes – I call them species of trauma. Combat, certainly. Accidents, whether vehicular or otherwise. Domestic abuse. Sexual abuse. Bullying. Racism. Crime victimization.

The link above includes 12 ways to increase awareness of PTSD in the community. PTSD does not affect just returning veterans. It affects every community, and all ages. It is, in effect, a 12-Step program for community members to learn about living with trauma.

But soldiers and veterans experience something else – a different species of trauma. Because they are volunteers. Every single one of us volunteered to don the uniform, to strap on the boots, and to take up arms to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic. That is a good thing. Its a morally right and defensible action. Love of country is part of the natural order. So what happens?

My friend Nan Levinson of Tufts University is a writer and PTSD researcher. She has written an incredibly insightful essay about “moral injury” crossed posted at Tom Dispatch and the Huffington Post. Entitled Mad, Bad, Sad: What’s Really Happened to America’s Soldiers, she calls these moral injuries “sacred wounds.” Here she tells the story of a soldier:

“Andy had assumed that his role would be to protect his country when it was threatened. Instead, he now considers  himself part of “something evil.” So at a point when his therapy stalled and his therapist suggested that his spiritual pain was exacerbating his psychological pain, it suddenly clicked. The spiritual part he now calls his sacred wound. Others call it “moral injury.”

Nan goes on to explain:

“While the symptoms and causes may overlap with PTSD, moral injury arises from what you did or failed to do, rather than from what was done to you.  It’s a sickness of the heart more than the head. Or, possibly, moral injury is what comes first and, if left unattended, can congeal into PTSD.”

She gives credit for the term “moral injury” to Dr Jonathan Shays, the MacArthur Genius Grant recipient and Boston VA Psychiatrist who wrote Achilles in Viet Nam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Moral Character and Odysseus in America: Combat Trauma and the Trials of Coming Home.  There is an important academic paper on the phenomenon of moral injury entitled Moral Injury and Moral Repair in War Veterans published by in 2009.

It is no accident that the first National PTSD Awareness Day happened in 2010.

Awareness is not enough. Reaching out. As in combat, creating bonds under extreme conditions of stress and trauma. The VA has a new campaign called Make the Connection. Veterans share a common bond of duty, honor, and service. Some military Veterans served in combat overseas. We experienced things – life – that most people can’t fathom. We know. We get it. That’s why we have to reach out.

 

CCEI Holds Annual University-Wide Business Plan Competition

Posted on by Claire Hall

For the third year in a row, the Connecticut Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (CCEI) at the University of Connecticut School of Business held its annual business plan competition.  The CCEI, led by Executive Director Christopher Levesque ’87, is an academic center within the School of Business that aims to broaden the entrepreneurial opportunities both within UConn, and the greater Connecticut entrepreneurial community at large.

“Over the last couple of years, the CCEI Business Plan Competition has blossomed into a wonderful program on many levels.  Beyond the prize money — which is substantial — it is energizing hundreds of UConn student entrepreneurs to invent and create new products and services.  The program gives students a platform to launch substantial businesses,  creating career paths for themselves and jobs for the State of Connecticut,” notes Eric Knight ’82, President  of Remarkable Technologies and Manager of the UConn Springboard program, who served as a competition judge.

The competition is university-wide – open to students of all levels, majors, and campuses, and there are no restrictions when it comes to the subject of the plan idea – any and all unique business ideas or innovations were considered.   This competition is part of a broader effort by the University to grow the entrepreneurial community and spirit, and this competition attracted talented student teams from diverse backgrounds and experience, but all with a common motivation and drive.

Many of the teams were comprised of interdisciplinary students, which helps to bring a wide array of perspectives and ideas to any project.  Part of the promise of this competition was that all submitted plans would be reviewed by experienced entrepreneurs, investors and UConn faculty.  Additionally, the CCEI hosted multiple workshops dedicated to helping teams improve and polish their plans to help maximize their prospects for success.  At the workshops, the competitor teams were given general guidance on what makes a successful business plan and were then given one-on-one time to work with experienced professional mentors.

Over 130 teams submitted their intent-to-compete, 49 teams submitted official competition entries, and 13 finalists presented their plans to a panel of judges.  The finalist presentations were held April 25th, 2012 at the School of Business.  The judges for this competition were: Christopher Levesque ’87, Director of CCEI; Eric Knight ‘82, President  of Remarkable Technologies and Manager of the UConn Springboard program; Bruce Carlson, President of the IP Factory; Danny Briere, CEO of TeleChoice; Mary Anne Rooke, President of the Angel Investor Forum; Joe Wehr, President of DBMI; and Nat Brinn, Principal at Vital Financial, LLC.

Among the finalists, PartsTech, a team comprised JD/MBA student Gregory Kirber ’13 and MBA student Alexander VanderEls ’12, presented the most well-developed business plan, receiving the competition grand prize of $25,000.  Second prize of $15,000 went to Buses2 (team members Adam Boyajian ’12 and Michael Parelli ‘12), and the third place prize of $10,000 went to Sharelogical (Max Lekhtman ‘11 , Daniel Hanley ‘12, Jay Bahgat ‘14 and Mike Lovino ‘12).

Competition plan winner Greg Kirber noted how the resources surrounding this competition contributed to his team’s success: “The development processes and mentor advising helped strengthen our plan and provided new avenues for exploration.”  He also commented on the sense of fellowship between competition participants, “While a competition by nature, this event has certainly led to lasting collaboration between teams as well as with mentors.”

“The popularity of this year’s competition is a perfect representation of the energy up in Storrs. There’s an incredible amount of students starting businesses and chasing their dreams, and now there are resources like the CCEI competition so students have a channel through which they can pursue their opportunities,” notes Adam Boyajian. “We just graduated, and we can look back to four years ago when there was no place for kids like us to go with ideas, and certainly no mentors or money to help us make it happen.  The pace at which things are happening is incredible, and there is without a doubt some big things coming out of UConn around the corner.”

Chris Levesque is thrilled with the rapidly expanding level of entrepreneurial energy by the students at UConn.  “The creativity, novelty and sophistication of the ideas presented has increased each year and the CCEI Business Plan Competition, taken in conjunction with entrepreneurship courses, Startup Weekend Storrs, Innovation Quest, and other programs is helping to put UConn squarely on the map in terms of student entrepreneurship.”

This competition was an extremely effective and successful way to tap into the burgeoning entrepreneurial spirit here at the University and throughout the State.  With the success of the 2012 CCEI Business Plan Competition, the organizers are brainstorming ways to grow the competition even larger next year, perhaps adding a competition track for faculty/staff.  In the meantime, the CCEI is extending an invitation to all teams who submitted a letter of intent to compete in the competition to continue discussions and guide them to take advantage of resources The CCEI can bring to bear.

“Our ultimate intent at the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation is to identify, mentor and help develop new businesses here in Connecticut; PartsTech, along with Buses2, Sharelogical and the other finalists, represent terrific examples of such promising firms,” stated Christopher Levesque.

“The consistent and sheer volume of ideas that emanate from the student population year over year at UConn is amazing and inspiring,” says Danny Briere. “This is exactly the type of innovation that’s necessary to power our way towards more jobs and companies in the state.”

For more information about CCEI, please visit http://ccei.business.uconn.edu.

CONTACT

Christopher Levesque, Executive Director, Connecticut Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation (CCEI)

clevesque@business.uconn.edu, 860-486-4594

Marie LeBlanc, Manager of Marketing and Publicity, UConn School of Business

mleblanc@business.uconn.edu, 860-486-6182