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| Wacky Floaters: Patrick Holcomb, Steve Weinstein, and Wes Benedict (l-to-r) took a break from their IMAP project last semester, floating in the Dead Sea with The MSJ. This photo takes first prize in this week's MSJ in Wacky Places photo contest. Winners receive $25. Submissions are accepted each week, due Thursdays @ 5 p.m. in the MSJ office, with a caption. |
As I sit in the lobby of the Citadel Hotel in the center of Amsterdam, I think about my last 19 days. What a wild ride! Our project is to develop a business plan for a start-up venture operating in an Israeli "incubator." The Israeli incubator system was developed approximately five years ago to help foster new businesses from primarily technology-based ideas. Unlike the United State's Small Business Administration, the incubator system not only provides capital, but also houses the project, offers support staff, and helps arrange third party financial participation.
Israel has absorbed over 500,000 immigrants from the former Soviet Union in the last four years. Many of these immigrants held doctoral or master's degrees and came with a wealth of potential business ideas. It was the hope that the incubator system would enable these immigrants to capitalize on their ideas. The incubator system is also available to native Israeli inventors.
Mr. Menachem Granite is the founder of BioTech Protein Recycling, our sponsoring company. Menachem has developed a technique that can recycle slaughter house waste, manure, and waste fiber into a healthy, safe feed additive for cattle. (I know, what a scary idea.)
The waste associated with cattle, swine, and poultry farming is tremendous. Thirty-four percent of every chicken slaughtered is unusable (i.e., head, feet, etc). The same types of statistics exist for cattle and pigs. What do you do with the waste? To you give you an idea of magnitude the Netherlands, where our team is located, is a country of 15 million people. In addition to people, there are three million cows, 14 million pigs, and 100 million poultry. The U.S. numbers are as staggering, if not more so. The task of feeding the world is daunting. Most Americans have no idea what is involved in bringing their grilled chicken sandwich to the table. This is big business, with a lot of players, regulations, and complexities. Being very much a "city slicker," this experience has been enlightening.
Menachem is an Israeli born, self-taught, agricultural/feed enthusiast. He is a burly, 240+ pound, 55-year-old, veteran of four Israeli wars, and a "friend" of former Prime Minister Shimon Peres. He is a character to say the least. We got to know him well. We spent the next 12 days with him as he tutored us on his process and introduced us to his network of experts in Israel. Over the next week and a half, we met with an Israeli Minister of Agriculture feed expert, rendering operators, professors of feed science, and feed distributors to name a few. The first few days were kind of a data dump. We were just overloaded with information to sort out. As the week went by, we slowly sorted out the pieces.
In between all of this we found some time to have some fun. We found the best watering holes in Jerusalem, traveled to Tel-Aviv, swam in the Dead Sea, and visited Masada, a 2000-year-old fort with Jewish significance in the Judean desert. Our incubator was in the Galilee, a primarily farming region north of great natural beauty.
As we left Israel, we felt pretty confident that we better understood the process and potential. Now we had to take this knowledge to the Netherlands--a huge exporter of poultry, swine, and cattle--and the U.S., to see if and how BPR's process can be marketed.
In the Netherlands, we are meeting with the largest producer of rendering equipment, feed mixers, a professor of poultry nutrition, and poultry farmers. On Friday, we met a poultry farmer who has a technique of naturally drying his poultry manure, pelletizing it, and selling it as a natural fertilizer. This was of interest because the BPR process, in addition to feed, can make a very high grade organo-mineral fertilizer. I was amazed to learn that this poultry farmer was selling 140 metric tons monthly of his pure 100% chicken manure fertilizer to the United Arab Emirates. That's a lot of, well, you know what! As you can imagine, there have been some very good jokes and laughs about this project. Most can't be repeated in The MSJ.
As we prepare to go home, I still am amazed that I'm doing this. For three weeks, I have been learning about a new industry, interviewing industry experts from different countries, and putting together the strategy for a start-up venture. In the end, I'm confident that we will not only have had a great learning experience, but also will be able to provide valuable insight to Menachem as he builds his company.
And, I can honestly say that I know my, well, you know what.
With the annual new student influx, it is easy to overlook all the new faces on the faculty. UMBS has added nine regular faculty and 15 supplemental (visiting) faculty for the 1997-98 year. All departments have added new instructors this year with the Accounting Department, leading the way with three new regular faculty and two new visiting professors. The following regular faculty have joined UMBS as Associate Professors, Assistant Professors, or Lecturers:
Joshua Coval
Asst. Prof. of Finance and Intl. Business
Visiting Prof. in 1996-97
IB/FIN620 in W98
Patricia Dechow
Assoc. Professor of Accounting
From Kalgoorlie, Australia; formerly on the faculty at Wharton
A501 in F97
Mrinal Ghosh
Lecturer of Marketing
From Bombay, India; earning PhD at Univ. of Minnesota; interested
in industrial marketing, distribution channels, sales force management
M300 in W98
Faison Gibson
Asst. Prof. of CIS
Graduate of Carnegie Mellon; interested in decision making, applied
computational modeling, and interpersonal influence strategies
CIS 315, 355, & 625 in F97
James Hines
Assoc. Prof. of Business Economics
Previously at Princeton (6 yrs) and Harvard (5 yrs); interested
in economics and taxation issues
BE501 in F97
Ana Muriel
Lecturer of Operations Management
Interested in logistics, supply-chain management, inventory control
OM311 in W98
D.J. Nanda
Asst. Prof. of Accounting
Visiting Prof. in 1996-97
A552 and MAP in W98
Tirthankar Roy
Lecturer of Marketing
From Calcutta, India; PhD expected from UCLA
M300 in W98
Richard Sloan
Assoc. Prof. of Accounting
From Perth, Australia; formerly on faculty at Wharton
A318 & 712, F97
Some visiting professors last year have now joined the ranks of regular faculty. D.J. Nanda (Assistant Professor of Accounting), and Joshua Coval (Assistant Professor of Finance and International Business) are now regular faculty members after holding visiting positions last year. And, after a one year hiatus, Pierre Dussuage (Corporate Strategy) is welcomed back from INSEAD in France to teach CS502 and to introduce the concept of cold calling to MBA1s.
The Monroe Street Journal would like to welcome all new faculty to UMBS and plans on profiling some of these new professors in future issues.
Welcome back from the summer break! And welcome to the new students starting off their degree this term. You will find the speed of life here breath-taking once the school year kicks off. Activities as well as corporate presentations, together with classwork, will easily overwhelm us. And it is easy for us, the returning Evening students, to lose momentum since it has been a while since we started off our first class. But, hey, let me remind you that this is a new start. It is a start to finish the uphill battle (for those of us who are still to get passed the 10 courses mid-point) and to rush towards the finish line (for those getting there). In any occasion, remind yourself of your excitement when you first enrolled, and look ahead to your goal after finishing the degree.
This year, there will be some change for this column. One thing you will notice is that Steve Ellis is no more writing the news. He is right now full steam ahead in his new job in California. Taking over the Student Government Rep for him is Tad Godsil. He will be working diligently with the Student Government and the administration to work on issues of interest to us. I'll let him introduce himself shortly.
To cover this column, Obinna (Obi) Anusiem will be working together with me. Obinna started the evening program in the Winter 1996 semester. He has taken most of his classes in Commerce Park (CP) and will be supporting this column with issues and news from/for CP. Please feel free to contact him with any ideas or issues you might have, especially regarding CP. He can be contacted via e-mail at oba@umich.edu. And for those of you who do not know me, I started my degree in the Fall of 96 (yep, I'm still climbing up the hill) and you will most likely see me in the Ann Arbor campus. I'm a graduate of U-M College of Engineering as well, so the area is no stranger to me.
With more resources now, we would like to to cover not only the informative side, but also some more issues that are of interest to us. We are still in the explorative stage as far as the topics go. Please do drop us a line to let us know what topics will you like to see being addressed. At the moment, we have ideas like course availability, statistics showing relations between course grades and starting salaries. Meanwhile, I would like to continue my interviews with entrepreneurs among our classmates--so entrepreneurs, please drop me a line to say hi, and let me know the business you're running.
For know, enjoy the sunshine out there, and all the best for this brand new start for everyone! Following I'll let Tad say a few words about himself and his role as a student representative.
Greetings, Evening MBA students! I want to welcome all of you back from your summer vacations of fruity umbrella type drinks and mild island breezes. For those of you, like myself, who have been sacrificing your free vacation time to learn a little more about our good buddy, NPV, I hope you enjoyed your luxurious ten day break.
Let me introduce myself. My name is Tad Godsil and I will be the Evening MBA Student Government Association (SGA) representative for the next academic year. For those of you who remember Steve Ellis, just consider me the stocky version of him. To fill you in quickly on my background, I am currently teaching at the Naval ROTC unit here at Michigan and flew carrier-based bombers for the Navy before this assignment. I have completed eight classes and plan on graduating in April 1999.
A lot of people have asked if I am the new social director for the Evening program. Although I have been dragged to Dominick's on occasion, that is not my primary job as SGA rep (more on the social scene later). Seriously, my primary job for this upcoming semester is to act as a liaison between the Evening students and the different program directors for the students. I will be meeting regularly with the MBA SGA Executive Board as well as with Dean White, Dean Snyder, and the Evening MBA Director, Professor Valerie Suslow. Feel free to e-mail at rgodsil@umich.edu with any concerns regarding the Evening program. I will try to respond within the week.
There have already been many academic concerns brought to my attention: the selection of Spr/Sum classes, CK's class, etc. Unfortunately, there is no easy fix to these problems right now, but the top people have taken notice and realize that our program needs improvement in certain areas. It is up to each and every one of you to voice your concerns and ensure that WE make this the best program available. We will have a "Meet the Deans" night at a date TBD later in the semester. Numerous questions by students at past meetings have helped shape what the program is today.
The next area I'd like to touch on deals with communication. Currently, the best source I have is M-Track. The Evening Program has over 1100 students, yet only 560 have officially logged in through M-Track. For those of you who have not logged in because you don't want the mass flood of e-mail, I feel your pain. HOWEVER, if some urgent message needs to be passed, this is the only method I have to get the information out quickly. If I am putting out a message you need to read, the subject line will read: EVENING MBA STUDENT NEWS. The information I pass will be repeated in this column, but it will be about ten days old. So if you get nothing else out of this column, PLEASE SIGN ON M-TRACK (click for a direct link)!
I would also like to extend a warm welcome to the new Evening MBA students: 127 of our new esteemed colleagues turned out for the Evening MBA Orientation on August 23. It was a tough day to be here, a rare 70 degrees and sunny, but I hope the information was worth the sacrifice. And in possibly the most incredible news, all 127 are signed on to M-Track (there's a message here!).
On a less serious note, I'd like to get back to the social director side of the house. I have been approached by several people who wanted me to attempt to have an Evening MBA tailgate this fall at one of the football games. My answer to that proposal is WHY? The UMBSA has a sponsored tailgate for every home football game, which takes away the headaches of deposits, grillin', no-shows, etc. Our UMBSA Evening rep is Tommy Dodge and he can set you up with all the information you need to know on how to join the association as well as all of the information regarding the tailgaters. I already have my Buffalo steak to grill for the Colorado game and it would be great if we had a big turnout for the first one. I'm hearing a big rumor that Jeff Bacigalupi (new callsign: Joe Bag of Chalupas) and Eric Halverson are going to have a frat-boy style keg party after the game whether Michigan is victorious or robbed by some bad call. Directions will be coming over M-Track, so mark your calendars!
Hopefully this article has demonstrated that I am very approachable and open to any suggestion you may have. I'm looking forward to representing the Evening program this year as well as looking forward to seeing more Evening students getting involved with the program. I look forward to meeting as many of you as possible. GO BLUE!
Hello, all new MBA1s coming from Latin America! Welcome to Ann Arbor, the place that you'll learn to call "home"! (After a full winter here, you will be able to realize how ironic this last sentence is.) And, basically, welcome to the mixture of joy and hard work, of diversity and adaptation, of nostalgia and integration, that is part of the experience of being a Latin American student at UMBS! You will find these times hard and demanding, but at the same time, you will soon discover (and this is not an irony at all) that these are the best days of your life.
Well, I assume that many of you must be thinking "If the beginning of our experience here was having to listen to Noel Tichy for a full week, how can he say that we will have a good time here?" Don't worry my friends, I'm not nuts at all (my psychiatrist says I'm well, now), and I am very serious when I say that you'll have a terrific time here. Let me, however, provide you with some tips that might be helpful to you about what to expect as a Latin American student. (By the way, bow in front of the Michigan faculty--we don't have anybody or anything even slightly similar to Noel Tichy down there in Latin America, huh?)
OK, here you have some tips about what to expect and what to do while here:
* Adapt to the environment. It is nonsense to feel depressed because you can't find the same cheap, good beef here that you eat in Buenos Aires, or to complain because the weather in December is slightly colder here than in Sao Paulo, or even to attempt suicide as a Mexican friend of mine did after eating at Taco Bell and discovering that he had been eating "Mexican" food. The environment that surrounds you is different from the one you are used to, and will always be. The sooner you adapt to such things as having dinner at 6 p.m., the better your mood will be.
* Keep your diversity! Despite what I've just said about adaptation, you will find that your American classmates and professors are more than eager to learn about you, your culture and your country. (As a matter of fact, I was amazed to discover how many people here had studied Spanish in their previous years, and how many of them were more or less fluent in Spanish). So, keeping proudly your diversity will not only help you to feel better here, but will also help you to become more involved with your American friends.
* Work hard, and play hard. You will probably feel overloaded with classroom assignments in the first weeks, and with the midterm exams later, and with sending cover letters and résumés later still. My advice is: no matter how busy you are, manage to free some of your time and play hard! What do I mean by "play hard?" Simply get involved with the sports/social part of the MBA life. As a Latino, you will find that your social network is a little bit larger than the average--use it, have fun, dance merengue frantically and teach others. You will make a lot of friends in the process. Get involved in your section teams. You will find that here you'll be considered a soccer jock, even if in your native country you were the guy that everybody wanted for the opponents' team. You'll have a great time learning American sports, such as flag football, or sharing other sports, such as basketball or volleyball. And most importantly of all, while having all that fun, you will go on making friends. So, if you want to build a good network around you, don't hesitate--play hard!
* Integrate among yourselves. It is an interesting experience to realize that, for many of us (and that includes my own experience) it takes such a thing as coming to study and live here to realize that more than being Argentineans, Brazilians, Chileans, Mexicans, Colombians or Venezuelans, we are above all, Latin Americans. We have much more in common than what we suspected, and less differences among us than what we were told. You will make good friendships with your Latino friends, and some of these friendships will be strong enough to be a good substitute for your family while here, and to last the rest of your life. So, start teaching each other how to dance tango or salsa or merengue, and how to mix pisco and ron!
I expect these tips to be useful to you. But the most important thing that you have to bear in mind is that we, both MBA1s and MBA2s, be Latinos or Americans, or Asians or whatever, are all in the same boat here. So, if you need help for any reason, in any aspect of your life, be sure that you will always find a friend. This is perhaps the aspect of our UMBS community of which we are all most proud. So welcome! Relax! Everything will be OK! And let me finish by wishing you mucha suerte! Boa sorte!