Business is about people and about helping improve people’s lives. While all disciplines at the university can legitimately make the same claims, this edition of the Business Bulletin substantiates our claim by celebrating the people we have the honor of learning, teaching, collaborating, and working with to advance our local and global community.
We start with a set of stories featuring two College of Business students who came to UAH after starting ventures of their own. While in high school, Joe Tipton started a business to help high school athletes showcase their talent for collegiate recruiters through eye-catching graphic designs and customized photos. His entrepreneurial experience will be a great asset to him as he completes his marketing degree and pursues his career. Hailey Jackson transferred to UAH from a community college in Virginia, where she started a non-profit organization aimed at promoting self-worth and self-respect among teens and young adults. You can read about how she intends to use her business education to build on her social entrepreneurship to globally expand her “I Love Me More Foundation.”
We were thrilled to welcome four new faculty to the College of Business this fall. Dr. Dilcu Barnes recently completed her PhD at Auburn University and will teach statistics and management science; Dr. Erin McLaughlin joins us from Florida International University and will teach management; and, after teaching for a number of years at Kennesaw State University, Mr. Toby Mendelson will join our accounting faculty. You can read more about Dr. Frank Mullins, Associate Professor of Management, who came to UAH from North Carolina A&T University. Dr. Mullins’ engaging presence in the classroom and impactful research will further enhance our master’s degree program and undergraduate courses in Human Resource Management.
A key strength of the College of Business is the set of people who represent the outstanding business partners we have in the Huntsville area. This Bulletin features Huntsville-based Quadrus Corporation, which provided internships for three business students last summer and then hired them as permanent employees as they finish their education. We are honored to continue our partnership with the Chamber of Commerce in naming their 2017 Russell G. Brown Executive Leadership Award winner, Alicia Ryan, CEO of LSINC Corporation, as our 2017 College of Business Fellow. Ms. Ryan has already made an impact on our students by meeting with our DECA Club and helping them prepare for their career searches. Continuing our long-term partnership with Boeing, we kicked off this year’s Boeing New Business Challenge with a first round in which student entrepreneurs pitched their business ideas to teams of judges made up of faculty and Boeing professionals. Watch for the final round results in a future Bulletin!
In keeping with this Bulletin’s “people” theme, we are sharing a link to a segment of the interesting film project, “Whitman, Alabama.” The linked segment features Han Vu , an alumna of the UAH College of Business, and her husband, Dang Nguyen, an alumnus of the UAH College of Engineering. This compelling video reveals how personal their business is for these owners of the Viet Cuisine restaurant in Huntsville.
Finally, we are happy to share a story centered around one of the most revered people in the College of Business, Dr. Gene Bryson. We recently held a small dinner to reveal to Dr. Bryson an endowed scholarship fund in his honor that was initiated by a group of UAH accounting alumni.
As we celebrate the holidays and ring in a new year, we look forward to sharing more about the College of Business. And, we will have much to tell you in 2018 as we launch new initiatives and reveal a new strategic plan. In the meantime, we express our gratitude to you for your continued support and interest in the college. While we are very proud of our rigorous academic programs and the quality of the education we provide, we are most proud and honored to share our mission of excellence in business education with the people – the alumni, the students, the faculty, and the staff – of the College of Business.
Warm regards,
Jason T. Greene
Dean, College of Business
