Fall - Thunderbird Magazine
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<strong>Fall</strong> 2005<br />
Evolution at<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
President Cabrera<br />
launches historic<br />
transformation<br />
<strong>Magazine</strong><br />
Amazon<br />
Grace<br />
Alumnus races to<br />
reach river’s source<br />
Télésonique<br />
booms<br />
A David takes on<br />
a telecom Goliath
<strong>Thunderbird</strong> can still be your source for global<br />
business knowledge. Even after graduation.<br />
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thunderbird : fall : 2005<br />
4 Agenda<br />
Homecoming Alumni gather in Glendale for an artful weekend.<br />
European Reunion T-birds frolic on Lake Geneva and Mont Blanc.<br />
Because It’s There Two alumni on a quest for the Seven Summits.<br />
Global Citizenship <strong>Thunderbird</strong> establishes a philanthropic office.<br />
Prague Graduation Václav Havel addresses our newest graduates.<br />
On the Cover<br />
Six illustrations<br />
were created by the<br />
artist David Lesh to<br />
represent the basic<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong> definition,<br />
“Truly Global,”<br />
along with the five<br />
pillars that support it<br />
and that define the<br />
School’s core values.<br />
The cover illustration<br />
represents “Enterprising<br />
Spirit,” the<br />
pillar that recognizes<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong>’s aim of<br />
nurturing the entrepreneurial<br />
desires<br />
and adventurous<br />
spirit in its students.<br />
18 <strong>Thunderbird</strong>’s Evolution<br />
After a year of analysis and planning, Dr. Angel<br />
Cabrera is leading a major transformation of the<br />
School that includes new faculty, new curriculum<br />
and new plans for the future.<br />
26 Amazon Grace<br />
James Lynch ’77 and a group of intrepid adventurers traveled 10,000 kilometers through<br />
deadly terrain in a quest to be the first to reach the source of the Amazon by vehicle.<br />
34 Télésonique Booms<br />
Adel Labib ’83 aims to break not the sound barrier but the monopolistic grip that<br />
state-supported monoliths have on the telecommunication market. His upstart company<br />
is making waves in Switzerland, his adopted home.<br />
40 Faculty Focus<br />
Sales is dead Value-based selling is the key to sales within the IT industry.<br />
India telecoms What lessons can be learned from India’s deregulation efforts?<br />
45 Chapter News<br />
Texas Give ’em The Lone Star State’s chapters band together to raise at least<br />
$100,000 for an endowed scholarship.<br />
Blazing fun <strong>Thunderbird</strong>s gather for the celebration of Saint Jean at an ancient<br />
castle outside Paris.<br />
48 Classnotes<br />
Afghan lending Daniel Gies ’99 dodged rockets to bring loans to farmers throughout<br />
the war-torn country of Afghanistan.<br />
Artistic outreach A stint with the Peace Corps in Nicaragua gave Chantele White ’96<br />
an idea for helping local artisans.<br />
Rising star As an on-air reporter for CNBC in Tokyo, Yuka Tanimoto ’04 is up early and<br />
moving at full speed all day.<br />
Higher calling By recycling cell phones, Seth Heine ’99 has found a way to help people<br />
in developing nations while making money.<br />
Daredevil marketing When not racing motorcycles or paragliding, Babs Ryan ’91 is<br />
helping Fortune 500 companies revolutionize their marketing.<br />
56 Forum<br />
Use the mystique Alumni need to band together and use the power of the<br />
“<strong>Thunderbird</strong> mystique” to support the School during this time of change.
letters<br />
Back in<br />
the USSR<br />
DENNIS<br />
Hopple is<br />
right on!!<br />
His Forum article,<br />
“Let’s put Russia<br />
back on the map,”<br />
was a shocker to me.<br />
Had it ever been<br />
taken off the map at<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong>? There<br />
are three countries<br />
whose interlaced<br />
geopolitics, demographics,<br />
economics,<br />
and natural resources<br />
will shape<br />
the 21st century: the<br />
United States, Russia<br />
and China. I will<br />
never forget the<br />
statement made in<br />
1958 by the venerable<br />
Professor William<br />
Schurz at the height<br />
of the Cold War:<br />
“Not in my lifetime,<br />
but most likely in<br />
yours, we will be allied<br />
with Russia<br />
against China.”<br />
Lenin said Russia<br />
progresses “one step<br />
forward, and one<br />
step backward.” Today<br />
I’d say it is three<br />
steps forward and<br />
two backward. In<br />
Russia, that is<br />
progress. Our inability<br />
to recognize this<br />
hesitant dance into<br />
the future for a<br />
country that has<br />
been an autocracy<br />
(read dictatorship)<br />
for a thousand years<br />
is self-inflicted injury.<br />
I am on to my<br />
second business venture<br />
in 14 years<br />
there, and a resident<br />
for six. My Russian<br />
CEO is a Duke<br />
EMBA graduate. As<br />
Hopple said, it “isn’t<br />
for everybody,” but<br />
it surely should be a<br />
top agenda item for<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong>.<br />
Thanks for a great<br />
magazine.<br />
Frederick R.<br />
Andresen ’58<br />
Man at<br />
the helm<br />
IJUST finished<br />
reading the<br />
spring 2005 issue<br />
of the <strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
magazine. It was<br />
well done and I<br />
particularly enjoyed<br />
reading the articles<br />
concerning Dr.<br />
Cabrera and his<br />
plans for the future.<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong> is fortunate<br />
to have him<br />
at the helm. I would<br />
like to point out one<br />
minor error. It said<br />
that the first graduating<br />
class was 1948.<br />
The first class graduated<br />
in 1947. I<br />
should know, having<br />
participated.<br />
Joseph Klein ’47<br />
On Brand<br />
America<br />
THANK you<br />
for an interesting<br />
look at<br />
Brand America in<br />
the spring 2005 issue.<br />
I can’t help but<br />
think that there is a<br />
piece of the American<br />
brand that the<br />
best market research<br />
will never be able to<br />
decipher. That, simply,<br />
is a quiet relief<br />
deep in the hearts of<br />
people around the<br />
world in knowing<br />
that the single<br />
largest fighting machine<br />
in the world is<br />
also the single greatest<br />
instrument of<br />
freedom in the history<br />
of man. Free<br />
people move the<br />
market, push companies<br />
to produce<br />
quality, and create<br />
market forces that<br />
make prices competitive.<br />
Those people<br />
are the quiet global<br />
majority and America<br />
is the brand<br />
they trust.<br />
Eric Meyer ’97<br />
Scrums &<br />
mentors<br />
IWANT to make a<br />
point of clarification<br />
regarding the<br />
article about Rugby<br />
Alumni Weekend<br />
(RAW) in the spring<br />
2005 issue. My quote<br />
was in reference to<br />
the mentoring program<br />
that the <strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
Alumni<br />
Rugby Association<br />
(TARA) created to<br />
help students in<br />
their chosen careers.<br />
In March, we created<br />
nine mentoring<br />
pairs, during RAW,<br />
and several firm internships<br />
and job<br />
leads as well. Our<br />
goal to double the<br />
number of alumni<br />
returning to campus<br />
for RAW 2006 is an<br />
effort to build the<br />
mentoring program,<br />
as well as to see old<br />
friends and play a<br />
rugby match. First<br />
and foremost,<br />
TARA’s aim is the<br />
development of its<br />
current and future<br />
members’ career<br />
ambitions.<br />
Chuck<br />
Hamilton ’91<br />
President, TARA<br />
Passing<br />
notices<br />
INOTICED in the<br />
most recent edition<br />
of the <strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
magazine<br />
that you had death<br />
notices for each class<br />
year. That is a fine<br />
step forward. However,<br />
in past editions<br />
deaths were not<br />
included in Class<br />
Notes and therefore<br />
we have no idea who<br />
is now alive and<br />
who is dead, to put it<br />
bluntly. Could you<br />
let us know who has<br />
left us in recent<br />
years since you<br />
neglected to report<br />
that for a number of<br />
years.<br />
H. Fanning ’59<br />
A complete list can<br />
now be found on<br />
My <strong>Thunderbird</strong>.<br />
Senior<br />
pioneers<br />
NOT FOR<br />
nothing, but<br />
the Miami<br />
40+ Chapter (called<br />
TEAM) was formed<br />
well before the 40+<br />
Initiative effort began<br />
a year and a half<br />
ago. TEAM, the<br />
original 40+ Chapter,<br />
was founded in<br />
1997.<br />
C. Morrison ’73<br />
South Florida<br />
Chapter Leader<br />
TRULY GLOBAL<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
<strong>Magazine</strong><br />
Volume 58, No. 1, <strong>Fall</strong> 2005<br />
Editor<br />
D.J. Burrough<br />
Art Director<br />
Pat Kenny<br />
Photo Editor<br />
Kristen Jarchow<br />
Web Designer<br />
Adam Kline<br />
Web Production<br />
Belinda Gleason<br />
Publisher & Assistant V.P.<br />
Frank Neville<br />
Executive Director,<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong> Global Network<br />
Meredith Peabody<br />
Director, Alumni<br />
Communications<br />
Linda Jensen<br />
Editorial Director<br />
Roger Toll<br />
All editorial, sales and<br />
production correspondence<br />
should be addressed to:<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong>, 15249<br />
N. 59th Avenue, Glendale,<br />
AZ, 85306-6000. Editorial<br />
submissions and letters to the<br />
editor can also be emailed to:<br />
editor@thunderbird.edu.<br />
Advertising inquiries should<br />
be addressed to:<br />
editor@thunderbird.edu.<br />
Changes of address and<br />
other subscription inquiries<br />
can be emailed to:<br />
editor@thunderbird.edu.<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> is a<br />
publication of the Marketing<br />
and Communication<br />
Department of <strong>Thunderbird</strong>,<br />
The Garvin School of<br />
International Management.<br />
2 fall 2005
from the president<br />
A whirlwind<br />
year of activity<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong> needs its dedicated, energetic global<br />
network of supporters as it faces crucial transformations.<br />
SO MUCH HAS happened during<br />
my time as president, it’s hard for<br />
me to believe that only a year has<br />
passed since I first arrived. It has<br />
been a whirlwind of events and<br />
activities: a grand reception in Korea, the<br />
Global Reunion in Shanghai, Homecoming,<br />
the Ambassadors’ Ball, the Innovation<br />
Challenge, campus visits by former Ireland<br />
President Mary Robinson, Chairman of the<br />
U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Richard<br />
Myers and Dell CEO Kevin Rollins, the<br />
world tour of alumni chapters, the European<br />
Reunion, the EMBA graduation in Prague<br />
with Václav Havel, the 10th anniversary<br />
celebration in Moscow, Foundations Week,<br />
meeting the first cohort of On-Demand<br />
students, and each and every commencement<br />
where we celebrated the accomplishments<br />
of our outstanding graduates.<br />
These events have given me the chance to<br />
meet so many members of the <strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
community and if I’ve learned anything, it<br />
is this: we have some amazing people who<br />
are the heart and soul of the School and who<br />
embody our Truly Global mission.<br />
And this is certainly a time when<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong> needs that global network of<br />
supporters. The School faces a market that<br />
is more competitive than at any time in its<br />
history, a market that has created challenges<br />
that demand our attention and action.<br />
At the same time, the world needs <strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
now more than ever. Our mission<br />
has never been more relevant and necessary.<br />
However, for <strong>Thunderbird</strong> to remain viable<br />
and maintain its position as the leader in<br />
international management education, we<br />
need to change, not at the heart or content<br />
of our mission but in how we do it.<br />
Being part of so many events during the<br />
past year also has convinced me that <strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
has what it takes to transform itself:<br />
an unequaled international reputation, a<br />
talented staff, a well-respected faculty, and<br />
a dedicated, energetic group of alumni. As<br />
we have begun to move forward in reshaping<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong>, we have been fortunate<br />
to be able to draw on the expertise of distinguished<br />
alumni on the Global Council,<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong> Global Network Board and the<br />
Board of Trustees. By the time you read this,<br />
we will have made further progress and will<br />
have begun to articulate more details of our<br />
future vision.<br />
I look forward to working with you and<br />
with each member of the <strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
community to make our vision a reality, and<br />
to meeting with alumni chapters throughout<br />
the world to get feedback and support. We<br />
are a global community and by harnessing<br />
the talent and energies of the full <strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
network, we can and will ensure that<br />
our school remains the standard by which<br />
other schools of international management<br />
are judged.<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong> has what it<br />
takes to transform itself<br />
as it integrates changes<br />
already in place, says<br />
President Angel Cabrera,<br />
with still more to come.<br />
A highly competitive<br />
market ”has created<br />
challenges that demand<br />
our attention and<br />
action,” he writes.<br />
BRAD REED<br />
thunderbird magazine 3
age<br />
The Art<br />
of Being<br />
Global<br />
This wooden mask from<br />
Bali is worn in the classic<br />
ballet that describes the<br />
Hindu Ramayana legend.<br />
Like the other crafts on<br />
this page, it can be seen<br />
at the Global Market<br />
during Homecoming.<br />
NOT ONLY WILL alumni who<br />
return to the Glendale campus<br />
for the 2005 <strong>Thunderbird</strong> Homecoming<br />
November 4-6 have a<br />
chance to catch up with former<br />
classmates and see how the School is evolving,<br />
but they will be able to see and purchase<br />
artwork from around the world.<br />
For former MBA students who have<br />
presumably launched a career in business, a<br />
surprising number of T-bird alumni are<br />
artists. The work of<br />
several of them will<br />
be displayed during<br />
the 2005 <strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
Homecoming<br />
weekend in keeping<br />
with the theme,<br />
“The Art of Being<br />
Global.” This year,<br />
Homecoming celebrates<br />
the classes of<br />
1955 (50th anniversary),<br />
1980 (25th anniversary)<br />
and 1995<br />
(10th anniversary),<br />
but all alumni are<br />
welcome to attend.<br />
The weekend will also include several new<br />
events, including a case competition featuring<br />
teams of alumni and current students,<br />
a scavenger hunt for art and a wine tasting<br />
hosted by <strong>Thunderbird</strong> vintners and<br />
distributors. Saturday<br />
evening’s World<br />
Night will showcase<br />
cuisine, art<br />
and music from<br />
around the globe.<br />
For more details,<br />
see back cover or go<br />
to thunderbird.edu/<br />
homecoming<br />
A considerable number<br />
of Peruvian women<br />
contributed their artistic<br />
talents to the making of<br />
this “arpillera” (above).<br />
The woven basket by the<br />
Yoruba people of Nigeria<br />
(left) includes traditional<br />
beads sewn in by hand.<br />
BRAD REED<br />
4 fall 2005
Popular balloon fest<br />
returns to Glendale<br />
THE BALLOON<br />
festival <strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
started<br />
more than 30 years<br />
ago has drifted closer<br />
to home.<br />
The 2005 Salt<br />
River Project <strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
Balloon and<br />
Air Classic will be<br />
held Oct. 28 to 30<br />
at the Glendale<br />
Municipal Airport.<br />
The event<br />
returned to<br />
Glendale<br />
last year<br />
after being<br />
hosted in<br />
Scottsdale<br />
for a few<br />
years.<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
is the<br />
main beneficiary of<br />
the event, with proceeds<br />
going toward<br />
a student scholarship.<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
students and staff<br />
are volunteering to<br />
help with balloon<br />
rigging and other<br />
duties during the<br />
event.<br />
The <strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
Balloon Classic was<br />
launched in 1974<br />
by the Friends of<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong> as a<br />
way to raise scholarship<br />
funds. It has<br />
grown larger each<br />
year and is now one<br />
of the largest<br />
balloon<br />
festivals in<br />
the country.<br />
About 60,000<br />
people will<br />
attend this<br />
year.<br />
The air<br />
show, added<br />
to the festival<br />
last year, has become<br />
a popular part<br />
of the annual event.<br />
For more information<br />
about attending, go to:<br />
thunderbirdballoon<br />
andairclassic.com<br />
Calendar<br />
Glendale<br />
campus<br />
◗ Career Week,<br />
Oct. 24-28<br />
More than 30<br />
corporations visit<br />
campus seeking<br />
top MBAs.<br />
◗ <strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
Balloon Classic,<br />
Oct. 28-30<br />
Don’t miss “Desert<br />
Glows” choreographed<br />
to live<br />
music.<br />
◗ Homecoming,<br />
Nov. 5-6<br />
Three days of<br />
festivities, fun and<br />
networking.<br />
◗ Global Mindset<br />
Conference,<br />
Nov. 10-12<br />
Top scholars gather<br />
to discuss what is<br />
global mindset, and<br />
how it’s created.<br />
◗ Innovation Challenge,<br />
Nov. 17-19<br />
The final round pits<br />
the top 10 teams of<br />
MBAs from around<br />
the world.<br />
◗ Ambassadors’ Ball,<br />
Nov. 19<br />
This year, the Mexican<br />
consul is hosting<br />
the evening gala.<br />
nda<br />
Safari, so good<br />
WILD AND DOMESTICATED<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong>s alike have the<br />
chance to mingle with the<br />
indigenous fauna on the<br />
plains of the Serengeti, climb<br />
up to the snows of Kilimanjaro and visit the<br />
Spice Island of Zanzibar in a <strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
Alumni Travel program to Africa.<br />
The 10-day safari, which begins February<br />
3, offers an excellent chance to see elephants,<br />
buffalos, rhinos, leopards, lions, zebras, giraffes<br />
and cheetahs in the unrivaled wildlife<br />
viewing sanctuaries of Kenya and Tanzania.<br />
Alumni will also visit a traditional “Maasai<br />
boma,” or village.<br />
In Zanzibar, travelers will enjoy a few<br />
days at a beach resort, explore a spice plantation<br />
and tour historic Stone Town, a UN-<br />
ESCO World Heritage site. The adventurous<br />
can take on 19,340-foot Mt. Kilimanjaro<br />
during a pre-trip six-day climb in a fully<br />
supported trek to the top of Africa’s tallest<br />
peak for the highest-ever T-bird reunion.<br />
Learn more about the trip at:<br />
thunderbird.edu/alumnitravel<br />
thunderbird magazine 5
news & notes<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong> alumni enjoy pre-dinner drinks at the Domaine de Penthes, with its<br />
beautiful views over Lake Geneva. Besides social get-togethers each evening,<br />
alumni enjoyed daily excursions in the area, including one to the top of Mont Blanc.<br />
European<br />
reunion in<br />
Geneva<br />
pulls in at<br />
least 200<br />
T-birds<br />
EVERY CLASS<br />
year from 1972<br />
to 2006 (minus<br />
1976) was represented<br />
at the first <strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
Alumni<br />
Reunion to be held<br />
in Europe in three<br />
years. More than 200<br />
alumni were joined<br />
by President Angel<br />
Cabrera and other<br />
School officials.<br />
“I really had fun,”<br />
says M.J. Cabanel<br />
’93, who traveled<br />
from Florida to<br />
attend. “It was great<br />
to see so many old<br />
friends and make<br />
some new ones.”<br />
William Bossany<br />
’87 came all the way<br />
from Guam because<br />
he had so much<br />
fun at the Global<br />
Reunion in Shanghai.<br />
“When I heard<br />
about the reunion,<br />
I scheduled a business<br />
trip to Europe<br />
to coincide with the<br />
event,” he says.<br />
Coming to Geneva<br />
led to a surprise<br />
and happy reunion<br />
for Tarek Amyuni ’86<br />
and Ben Kroon ’87.<br />
They had shared a<br />
dorm room at <strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
but had not<br />
seen each other<br />
since graduating.<br />
Nighttime<br />
activities kicked off<br />
on Thursday with a<br />
cocktail reception at<br />
the Hotel Royal in<br />
the heart of Paquis,<br />
Geneva’s nightlife<br />
area, and continued<br />
the next evening<br />
with dinner and<br />
dancing at Domaine<br />
de Penthes, which<br />
overlooks Lake<br />
Geneva. Saturday<br />
night featured dinner<br />
and dancing<br />
aboard the S.S. Lausanne<br />
as it cruised<br />
on Lake Geneva.<br />
During the day,<br />
T-birds went on a<br />
number of sightseeing<br />
trips. The most<br />
popular, attended by<br />
40 alumni, was a cable<br />
car ride to the top<br />
of Mont Blanc and a<br />
hike across the Mer<br />
de Glace glacier.<br />
“It was a great<br />
party, but it was too<br />
short,” says Frederic<br />
Agneessens ’88.<br />
Attending alumni<br />
represented 20 countries.<br />
Approximately<br />
a third came from<br />
Switzerland, a quarter<br />
from the United<br />
States and another<br />
quarter from the<br />
United Kingdom,<br />
with the remainder<br />
coming from all<br />
over the globe. The<br />
most distant attendees<br />
jetted in from<br />
Guam, Hong Kong<br />
and San Francisco.<br />
Students<br />
chip in to<br />
help local<br />
charities<br />
AGOOD NUMber<br />
of Glendale<br />
residents<br />
are better off because<br />
of work offered by<br />
T-bird students in a<br />
new program organized<br />
by the <strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
Student<br />
Government (TSG).<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
Cares Day brings<br />
together student and<br />
staff volunteers to<br />
aid non-profit organizations<br />
in Glendale.<br />
In May, 71 volunteers<br />
braved record<br />
110-degree heat to<br />
work with Habitat<br />
for Humanity, Faith<br />
House, the City of<br />
Glendale, Home<br />
Base Youth Services<br />
and St. Vincent de<br />
Paul.<br />
“In one day,” says<br />
Thomas Alston,<br />
TSG Community<br />
Outreach Chair,<br />
“we managed to<br />
significantly improve<br />
conditions for<br />
a Glendale family,<br />
assist women at a<br />
domestic-violence<br />
shelter with their<br />
career search, manage<br />
donations at a<br />
youth outreach center,<br />
help with organization<br />
at a charitable<br />
second-hand store,<br />
and build houses for<br />
deserving families.”<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
Cares Days are held<br />
on the first Saturday<br />
of each trimester.<br />
The first was held<br />
in January this year.<br />
Fabio Pelliccione ’05 joined 70 other T-birds who<br />
helped make the <strong>Thunderbird</strong> Cares Day a success.<br />
6 fall 2005
news & notes<br />
Influential<br />
professor<br />
and friend<br />
Paul R.<br />
Johnson<br />
passes on<br />
In memoriam: Dr. Paul R. Johnson<br />
ON JULY 17,<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
lost one of its<br />
favorite professors<br />
and friends when<br />
Dr. Paul R. Johnson<br />
passed away.<br />
“Dr. Johnson’s<br />
many contributions<br />
to <strong>Thunderbird</strong> will<br />
long be remembered<br />
and he will be<br />
missed by the community<br />
to which he<br />
gave so much of his<br />
time, talent and energy,”<br />
President<br />
Angel Cabrera said.<br />
Johnson began<br />
teaching at <strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
in 1982, after<br />
more than 34 years<br />
in the corporate<br />
world. His career<br />
had taken him to<br />
president and CEO<br />
of five organizations,<br />
BRAD REED<br />
among them First<br />
Central Bank,<br />
Sincere Press Inc.<br />
and <strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
Enterprises. He also<br />
founded three other<br />
companies.<br />
In 1985, Johnson<br />
became a full-time<br />
faculty member and<br />
was the first to establish<br />
a concentration<br />
and coursework in<br />
Entrepreneurship.<br />
It was in one of Prof.<br />
Johnson’s classes<br />
that Sam Garvin ’88<br />
developed the business<br />
plan for Continental<br />
Promotion<br />
Group, Inc.<br />
“I credit Paul<br />
Johnson with<br />
teaching me how to<br />
analyze effectively,”<br />
Garvin said in a 1999<br />
interview in <strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
magazine.<br />
“He has both great<br />
practical experience<br />
and an infectious<br />
enthusiasm for his<br />
field that rubs off on<br />
his students.”<br />
In November<br />
1998, Johnson<br />
became the initial<br />
recipient of the<br />
Samuel L. Garvin<br />
Distinguished Professorship<br />
of Entrepreneurship<br />
and<br />
was named director<br />
of the Center for<br />
Global Entrepreneurial<br />
Studies at<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong>.<br />
In 2001, Johnson<br />
left <strong>Thunderbird</strong> to<br />
become professor<br />
of Entrepreneurship<br />
at Bond University<br />
in Queensland,<br />
Australia.<br />
He is survived<br />
by his wife Barbara,<br />
who also worked<br />
for <strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
from 1988 to 1993<br />
as director of Internship<br />
Education,<br />
four daughters<br />
and a son.<br />
T-bird<br />
continues<br />
playing at<br />
the top of<br />
its game<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
again ranks<br />
among the<br />
world’s best<br />
grad schools<br />
of business<br />
FOR THE 10th<br />
consecutive<br />
year, U.S. News<br />
& World Report has<br />
ranked <strong>Thunderbird</strong>’s<br />
full-time<br />
program first in the<br />
United States for international<br />
business<br />
graduate schools. At<br />
the same time, the<br />
Financial Times has<br />
placed the school’s<br />
Executive Education<br />
programs near the<br />
top worldwide in<br />
various categories.<br />
In its May 16<br />
issue, the Financial<br />
Times ranked <strong>Thunderbird</strong>’s<br />
open enrollment<br />
Executive<br />
Education at No. 12<br />
in the world and<br />
No. 10 in the United<br />
States for overall<br />
excellence, while<br />
its custom program<br />
came in fourth for<br />
overall excellence<br />
in the USA, up one<br />
spot from last year’s<br />
rankings, and seventh<br />
in the world,<br />
up two positions.<br />
The custom<br />
program also was<br />
ranked high among<br />
global competitors<br />
in a number of separate<br />
categories, including<br />
#2 for value<br />
for money, #5 for<br />
course design, #7<br />
for aims achieved<br />
and #8 for quality<br />
of the faculty.<br />
The number of<br />
international students<br />
in both the<br />
Executive Education<br />
open enrollment and<br />
custom programs also<br />
set them apart<br />
from the other<br />
schools in the Financial<br />
Times’ rankings.<br />
Seventy-three percent<br />
of the students<br />
in <strong>Thunderbird</strong>’s<br />
custom programs<br />
are from outside the<br />
United States, the<br />
highest percentage<br />
of foreign students<br />
of any program in<br />
the top 20. By comparison,<br />
only 28 percent<br />
of the students<br />
at the London Business<br />
School are from<br />
outside Britain, and<br />
only 21 percent at<br />
IMD in Switzerland<br />
are not Swiss.<br />
Among open<br />
enrollment programs,<br />
the difference<br />
is even greater.<br />
Eighty-three percent<br />
of students in the<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong> programs<br />
are foreignborn,<br />
more than 30<br />
percentage points<br />
higher than the next<br />
closest program in<br />
the top 45 in the<br />
world.<br />
Twice a year the<br />
Financial Times<br />
publishes a list of<br />
the top graduate<br />
business schools,<br />
ranking Executive<br />
Education programs<br />
in the spring and<br />
full-time programs<br />
in the fall.<br />
thunderbird magazine 7
news & notes<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong> students—and a staffer—from the Prague Executive Education<br />
program ran races in Germany. From left (front): Robert Fritz, Elizabeth Feary, Julie<br />
Cook and Ghaida al-Khaled. Behind are Robert Komanec and Lasidlav Simek.<br />
T-birds<br />
prove fast<br />
of foot in<br />
German<br />
races<br />
FIVE Executive<br />
MBA students<br />
in Prague didn’t<br />
exactly fly along the<br />
cobblestone streets<br />
of the Welzheim 10K<br />
and half-marathon<br />
races in Germany,<br />
but they did finish.<br />
“We had a great<br />
time,” says Julie<br />
Cook, senior director<br />
for Executive Education<br />
at <strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
Europe, who ran the<br />
10K. “Despite the<br />
bubbly water with<br />
gas that was served<br />
at the water stations<br />
along the route, the<br />
team somehow<br />
managed to stay<br />
hydrated enough<br />
to persevere to the<br />
end.” Competing in<br />
the half-marathon<br />
were Elizabeth<br />
Feary, Robert Fritz,<br />
Robert Komanec,<br />
and Ladislav Simek.<br />
Ghaida Al-Khaled<br />
and Julie Cook ran<br />
in the 10-kilometer<br />
race.<br />
Zoom, zoom, zoom<br />
Type in <strong>Thunderbird</strong>’s street address—15249 N.<br />
59th Avenue, Glendale, Arizona—and watch as<br />
the satellite imagery zooms in to provide a<br />
detailed image of the campus and surrounding<br />
neighborhood. The photos are available<br />
through keyhole.com, where you can watch for<br />
free for a week (or pay $20 for an upgrade<br />
view). So detailed is the photography that<br />
students can be spotted getting a tan at the<br />
Fish, playing rugby in the field or gathering on<br />
the patio of the <strong>Thunderbird</strong> Pub.<br />
Buy, buy, buy<br />
IT’S NOT THE FLOOR of the New York Stock<br />
Exchange, but it’s getting closer. With funds<br />
donated by the Class of 2002 and Michael<br />
Viteri ’95, a significant upgrade has been<br />
made to the trading room in the International<br />
Business Information Centre (IBIC), where<br />
students and alumni gather to research investments.<br />
The room now has flat-screen<br />
computer monitors, two heavily used<br />
Bloomberg terminals, state-of-the-art<br />
financial analysis software—like Ibbotson<br />
Encorr and Barra Aegis Portfolio Manage—<br />
and a 42-inch plasma screen television<br />
permanently tuned to CNBC.<br />
THERESA HEINDL<br />
8 fall 2005
news & notes<br />
In quest<br />
of the 7<br />
Summits<br />
Two T-bird<br />
alumni go<br />
after one of<br />
adventure’s<br />
most grueling<br />
challenges<br />
TWO THUNderbird<br />
alumni<br />
share the<br />
same dream, yet<br />
they are worlds<br />
apart. Kurt Gusinde<br />
’96, of Arizona, and<br />
Celso Sugiyama ’01, of<br />
Brazil, both dream<br />
of climbing the<br />
Seven Summits,<br />
the highest peak on<br />
each of the seven<br />
continents.<br />
Gusinde, 50, has<br />
already scaled four<br />
of the summits<br />
while Sugiyama, 32,<br />
has reached the top<br />
of two.<br />
In 2002, Gusinde<br />
reached the top of<br />
Mt. Kilimanjaro.<br />
In 2004, it was Mt.<br />
Elbrus in Russia,<br />
the highest peak in<br />
Europe at 18,510 feet,<br />
which he summited<br />
in his first attempt.<br />
After two failed efforts<br />
on Aconcagua<br />
on the Argentina-<br />
Chile border,<br />
Gusinde met with<br />
success in February.<br />
“Aconcagua was<br />
my most challenging<br />
climb so far,”<br />
Gusinde says. “During<br />
my first attempt,<br />
I got sick and had to<br />
turn back. The second<br />
time it was too<br />
cold. Although both<br />
were a huge disappointment,<br />
finally<br />
making it was a<br />
significant personal<br />
accomplishment.”<br />
In June, the<br />
mountaineer successfully<br />
climbed<br />
Denali (Mt. McKinley),<br />
the tallest peak<br />
in North America.<br />
Although Gusinde<br />
funds most of his<br />
expeditions, a handful<br />
of sponsors help<br />
pay for equipment<br />
and other expenses.<br />
“I would like to<br />
climb Mount Everest<br />
next,” says Gusinde,<br />
who wants to<br />
complete all Seven<br />
Summits in the next<br />
few years. “But it’s<br />
$65,000 plus transportation<br />
costs and<br />
the climb takes more<br />
than two months, so<br />
there’s a bit of a time<br />
element involved.”<br />
Sugiyama hopes<br />
to complete the<br />
summits over the<br />
next decade. In<br />
March 2002, he<br />
climbed Kilimanjaro<br />
in five days. The only<br />
people along on<br />
his self-funded trip<br />
were a guide, porter<br />
Celso Sujiyama ‘01 kneels on the summit of Aconcagua, South America’s highest<br />
peak, in January 2004. It was the second of the seven summits he wants to climb.<br />
Kurt Gusinde ‘96 crouches last June on the summit<br />
of Alaska’s Denali, aka Mt. McKinley, North America’s<br />
highest peak. Gusinde (upper left) climbs Denali’s<br />
final ridge on his way to bagging his fourth summit.<br />
and cook. “It usually<br />
takes six days or<br />
more to climb Kilimanjaro,<br />
but I was<br />
short of money, so I<br />
did it faster,” Sugiyama<br />
says. “Kilimanjaro<br />
is one of<br />
the most beautiful<br />
places I have been.”<br />
After a year of<br />
financial planning<br />
and intense physical<br />
and psychological<br />
training, Sugiyama<br />
climbed Aconcagua<br />
in December 2003.<br />
“It was extremely<br />
challenging and<br />
very cold, but I<br />
succeeded,” he says.<br />
“You get a special<br />
feeling when you<br />
reach the summit.”<br />
Next year, Sugiyama<br />
plans to climb<br />
Denali, for which<br />
he is seeking<br />
sponsors.<br />
— Kerry Duff<br />
thunderbird magazine 9
news & notes<br />
“<strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
should<br />
be directly<br />
engaged in<br />
some of the<br />
world’s<br />
most<br />
important<br />
issues<br />
through<br />
management<br />
education.”<br />
School<br />
takes role<br />
as global<br />
citizen<br />
seriously<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
for Good<br />
offers free<br />
business<br />
education to<br />
willing entrepreneurs<br />
in<br />
needy nations<br />
THUNDERbird<br />
now will<br />
do more than<br />
just produce graduates<br />
who are good<br />
global citizens. It<br />
will become even<br />
more of one itself.<br />
In launching<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong> for<br />
Good, the School<br />
will support business<br />
education in<br />
areas of the world<br />
where the economic<br />
or political conditions<br />
make it difficult<br />
to start or grow<br />
a business. The new<br />
initiative grew out<br />
of the success of Project<br />
Artemis, which<br />
brought 15 women<br />
from Afghanistan to<br />
the Glendale campus<br />
for two weeks<br />
in January 2005 to<br />
attend classes on<br />
entrepreneurship,<br />
communications,<br />
networking and<br />
presentation skills.<br />
(See <strong>Thunderbird</strong>,<br />
spring 2005.)<br />
“<strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
should be directly<br />
engaged in some of<br />
the world’s most important<br />
issues<br />
through management<br />
education,”<br />
says Dr. Angel<br />
Cabrera. “<strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
for Good programs,<br />
like Artemis,<br />
will provide deserving<br />
students with<br />
the business tools<br />
needed to create successful<br />
businesses<br />
that can lead to less<br />
poverty, more secure<br />
peace and improved<br />
living conditions in<br />
their respective<br />
communities.”<br />
To carry out new<br />
efforts, <strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
for Good plans to<br />
channel faculty,<br />
staff, student and<br />
alumni volunteers,<br />
as well as funds<br />
from external organizations<br />
and private<br />
donors, into the<br />
programs.<br />
“<strong>Thunderbird</strong>’s<br />
expertise is not in<br />
things like building<br />
hospitals or bridges,<br />
so we are not going<br />
to do those things,”<br />
says Kellie Kreiser<br />
’04, who was named<br />
director of <strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
for Good in<br />
May. “What we are<br />
good at is teaching<br />
global business.”<br />
One of the first<br />
initiatives for the<br />
new department is<br />
Kellie Kreiser ‘04 has been named director of a<br />
new international program, <strong>Thunderbird</strong> for Good.<br />
fostering the professional<br />
growth of the<br />
original 15 Project<br />
Artemis fellows.<br />
Since they returned<br />
to Afghanistan,<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong> faculty<br />
and staff have followed<br />
up with answers<br />
to business<br />
questions, financial<br />
charts and business<br />
contacts.<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
staffers have volunteered<br />
to produce a<br />
brochure and logo<br />
for the Artemis<br />
Business Association,<br />
an organization<br />
started by the<br />
Artemis fellows to<br />
support each other<br />
and other women<br />
entrepreneurs.<br />
“The program<br />
didn’t end after they<br />
left <strong>Thunderbird</strong>,”<br />
Kreiser says. “It’s<br />
an ongoing commitment<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
has made to them.”<br />
Kreiser says she’s<br />
also trying to get<br />
medical equipment<br />
donated to three<br />
fellows who are doctors<br />
trying to start<br />
their own clinics.<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong> for<br />
Good has also begun<br />
the search for the<br />
next cohort of<br />
Afghan women,<br />
as well as corresponding<br />
American<br />
women mentors, to<br />
take part in Project<br />
Artemis II, scheduled<br />
for spring 2006.<br />
In addition, Kreiser<br />
says she’s looking into<br />
how the program<br />
might be expanded<br />
to bring global<br />
business training to<br />
entrepreneurs in<br />
other parts of the<br />
world. “I don’t see<br />
an end point,” she<br />
says. “As it gets more<br />
and more bandwidth<br />
behind it, I see it<br />
growing so that we<br />
will be poised to help<br />
in any international<br />
hot spot that develops<br />
during the<br />
coming years.”<br />
10 fall 2005
Contest<br />
highlights<br />
original<br />
thinking<br />
Third Global<br />
Innovation<br />
Challenge<br />
finals to be on<br />
campus in<br />
November<br />
THE CONTEST<br />
to see who will<br />
be named the<br />
Most Innovative<br />
Graduate Team in<br />
the World begins<br />
October 8 when the<br />
first round of <strong>Thunderbird</strong>’s<br />
3rd Annual<br />
Global Innovation<br />
Challenge gets under<br />
way.<br />
The number of<br />
teams vying for the<br />
title, as well as the<br />
first-place award of<br />
$20,000, is expected<br />
to be more than 300,<br />
says Anil Rathi ’02,<br />
co-founder of the<br />
event. Last year, 251<br />
teams entered; five<br />
MBA candidates<br />
from Instituto de<br />
Empresa won.<br />
More teams are<br />
expected now that<br />
graduate students<br />
from other disciplines<br />
can enter.<br />
For the first time,<br />
the Global Innovation<br />
Challenge is<br />
open to part-time<br />
MBA students,<br />
MBA students in<br />
Executive Education<br />
programs and students<br />
in such graduate<br />
school programs<br />
as law, engineering<br />
and medicine. Each<br />
Lounge<br />
wizards<br />
renovate<br />
Tower<br />
team, consisting of<br />
either four or five<br />
members, must<br />
have at least two<br />
MBA candidates.<br />
The on-line portion<br />
of the event<br />
runs from Oct. 8-16.<br />
The five finalist<br />
teams will be announced<br />
on October<br />
28. The final round<br />
will take place on<br />
the Glendale campus<br />
from Nov. 17-19.<br />
Sponsors for the<br />
event include Hilton<br />
Hotels, the United<br />
States Postal Service,<br />
IBM and Bill-<br />
Matrix.<br />
Alumni interested<br />
in judging, sponsoring<br />
or attending the<br />
event should visit:<br />
innovationchallenge.com.<br />
THUNDERbird’s<br />
most<br />
historic building,<br />
where once Air<br />
Force pilots were<br />
taught to fly and<br />
future entrepreneurs<br />
relaxed, has received<br />
its first major renovation<br />
in years.<br />
In June, the first<br />
of a total $35,000 in<br />
investments dedicated<br />
to renovating the<br />
Tower building<br />
resulted in a new<br />
carpet, recovered<br />
leather couches, new<br />
A truly grand perspective<br />
interior and exterior<br />
paint, a new barbeque,<br />
new entryway,<br />
upgraded<br />
lighting, outside<br />
tables and benches,<br />
new window treatments<br />
and a $6,000<br />
audio-visual system.<br />
“We looked at<br />
what we could<br />
renovate to add value<br />
to the students and<br />
to build community,”<br />
says Michael<br />
Teague, president<br />
of the <strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
Student Governnews<br />
& notes<br />
Thirty <strong>Thunderbird</strong> students who joined the one-day trip in August to the South<br />
Rim of the Grand Canyon were treated to more than majestic beauty. “We saw a<br />
rare 7-point elk and an endangered California condor, which only has 49 of its<br />
fellow species left in the wild,” says Thomas Alston ’05, community outreach chair<br />
for the <strong>Thunderbird</strong> Student Government, which sponsored the excursion. T-birds<br />
also enjoyed a barbeque at Shoshone Point, a private overlook. During their four<br />
hours at the canyon, the group acted as secret shoppers for the National Park<br />
Service, which wanted to gauge how park operations are perceived by non-U.S.<br />
visitors. “As a group, we were perfectly undercover,” says Alston, whose father<br />
is a park supervisor at the canyon. “We had a couple of Japanese tourists join us.<br />
They didn’t realize we were a private group because we were so multinational.”<br />
The Tower has received a thorough renovation<br />
that student leaders believe will add value to the<br />
student experience and build community.<br />
ment, which funded<br />
the renovation. “I<br />
hope that the Tower<br />
Lounge becomes the<br />
place alumni think<br />
of when they remember<br />
their time<br />
at <strong>Thunderbird</strong>.”<br />
Each incoming<br />
cohort of students<br />
will be assigned one<br />
of the eight meeting<br />
rooms for their entire<br />
stay on campus.<br />
A wall of the lounge<br />
will be dedicated to<br />
photographs of student<br />
activities. Past<br />
student presidents,<br />
aware of budget<br />
limitations, had<br />
been accumulating<br />
renovation funds<br />
over the past several<br />
years, Teague says.<br />
thunderbird magazine 11
news & notes<br />
Fiesta<br />
Mexicana<br />
to honor<br />
southern<br />
neighbor<br />
Ambassadors’<br />
Ball will help<br />
build endowment<br />
fund<br />
CARLOS DE<br />
Icaza González,<br />
the newly<br />
appointed ambassador<br />
of Mexico to the<br />
United States, will<br />
be the featured<br />
speaker at the 2005<br />
Ambassadors’ Ball<br />
on November 19,<br />
which honors Mexico.<br />
The chairman<br />
of the ball, called<br />
“Fiesta Mexicana,”<br />
is Carlos Flores<br />
Vizcarra, consul<br />
general of Mexico.<br />
Dinner, dancing<br />
and music is expected<br />
to bring out hundreds<br />
of internationally-minded<br />
Valley<br />
residents and School<br />
supporters for the<br />
festive evening. It<br />
is the 22nd year the<br />
Consular Corps of<br />
Arizona has hosted<br />
the event.<br />
Now standing at<br />
more than $520,000,<br />
the Consular Corps<br />
Endowment Fund<br />
provides scholarships<br />
to <strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
students. As of<br />
press time, seats and<br />
sponsorships were<br />
still available for the<br />
event at the Hyatt<br />
Regency Resort at<br />
Gainey Ranch.<br />
Dr. Angel Cabrera (upper left) stands with Korean<br />
students in front of <strong>Thunderbird</strong>’s Welcome Wall.<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong> world tour<br />
THE ROLLING<br />
Stones aren’t the<br />
only baby boomers<br />
embarked on a world tour<br />
this year. In late August,<br />
59-year-old <strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
started on an MBA recruiting<br />
tour that will take<br />
representatives to nearly<br />
70 cities around the world.<br />
Some of the cities that<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong> will visit are<br />
Houston, Mumbai, Milan,<br />
Frankfurt, Munich, Mexico<br />
City, Madrid, Lima, Paris,<br />
Zurich, London, Tokyo,<br />
Seoul, Taipei, Bangkok,<br />
Budapest and Beijing.<br />
For specifics on tour<br />
dates, times and locations,<br />
go to: thunderbird.edu.<br />
Welcome<br />
Wall adds<br />
greeting<br />
in Korean<br />
Action follows<br />
long effort by<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong>’s<br />
Korean<br />
students<br />
FOR THE FIRST<br />
time since it<br />
was built more<br />
than 13 years ago,<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong>’s<br />
Welcome Wall has a<br />
greeting in Korean.<br />
It was unveiled at a<br />
ceremony in April<br />
attended by most of<br />
the School’s Korean<br />
student population,<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong> administrators<br />
and Korean<br />
dignitaries from the<br />
Phoenix area. The<br />
Korean “welcome”<br />
was etched into the<br />
upper right-hand<br />
corner of the 25 foothigh<br />
flagstone that<br />
serves as the School’s<br />
main entrance.<br />
“Many alumni<br />
have devoted themselves<br />
to this effort,”<br />
says Jack Seoung<br />
Hyo Yang ’05, <strong>Thunderbird</strong>’s<br />
Korean<br />
Club president. “I<br />
expect this wall will<br />
foster a deeper relationship<br />
between the<br />
Korean students and<br />
the School.”<br />
Korean students<br />
lobbied for years to<br />
have the Korean<br />
“welcome” included<br />
among the other 10<br />
languages represented<br />
on the wall, arguing<br />
that the recognition<br />
was deserving<br />
of the second largest<br />
population from any<br />
one country to attend<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong>,<br />
after the United<br />
States.<br />
The <strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
Welcome Wall was<br />
built in 1992 with<br />
the salutation<br />
“welcome” etched<br />
into the stone in 10<br />
languages: English,<br />
French, Spanish,<br />
German, Portuguese,<br />
Chinese,<br />
Japanese, Arabic,<br />
Italian and Russian.<br />
The languages<br />
weren’t intended to<br />
mirror the student<br />
population, but<br />
rather were chosen<br />
as they were the languages<br />
being taught,<br />
or that had been<br />
taught, at the School.<br />
12 fall 2005
Alumni<br />
weekend<br />
to salute<br />
business<br />
heroes<br />
Distinguished<br />
alumni to be<br />
honored with<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong>’s<br />
yearly awards<br />
FIVE ALUMNI<br />
will be recognized<br />
at<br />
Homecoming in<br />
November, two for<br />
their outstanding<br />
contributions to<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong> and<br />
three for the impact<br />
their careers have<br />
had on others.<br />
A stellar career<br />
and the support<br />
David Roberts ’73<br />
has shown toward<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong> made<br />
him a candidate for<br />
the 2005 Jonas Mayer<br />
Award. During<br />
his 27-year career<br />
with Citibank/<br />
Citigroup, Roberts<br />
fostered a relationship<br />
with <strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
that resulted in<br />
a $220,000 multi-year<br />
grant and a networking<br />
directory<br />
for the more than<br />
160 T-birds who<br />
are employees at<br />
Citigroup. Roberts,<br />
a former member<br />
and chairman of the<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong> Global<br />
Council, also led a<br />
$130,000 fundraising<br />
effort for student<br />
scholarships.<br />
Putting his considerable<br />
knowledge<br />
of art to work for<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong> has<br />
garnered Dean<br />
Career Fair Week<br />
HALLOWEEN IS COMING a week early for<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong> students this year. Starting<br />
October 24, they will get dressed<br />
up and talk with corporate recruiters at the<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong> <strong>Fall</strong> Career Fair and look for a<br />
treat: a job. The five-day event will include<br />
company presentations, workshops on networking<br />
and interviewing, and presentations<br />
by job search gurus Tim Koegel, author of<br />
“The Exceptional Presenter,” and Keith Ferrazzi,<br />
author of “Never Eat Alone.” Students<br />
will have the chance to test their interviewing<br />
skills in front of more than 45 recruiters<br />
and, the next day, in one-on-one interviews.<br />
Warner ’57 the 2005<br />
Volunteer of the<br />
Year Award. In 1994,<br />
Warner created and<br />
became director of<br />
the Global Market,<br />
an on-campus marketplace<br />
with<br />
unique handicrafts<br />
and artwork. He single-handedly<br />
coordinates<br />
the consignment<br />
of pieces from<br />
students and alumni<br />
and makes other<br />
astute purchases.<br />
A percentage of all<br />
sales go to <strong>Thunderbird</strong>’s<br />
scholarship<br />
program. Warner<br />
also has donated<br />
several pieces from<br />
his personal collection<br />
to <strong>Thunderbird</strong>.<br />
By all measures,<br />
Melville Brown ’69<br />
has had a very successful<br />
career in international<br />
banking,<br />
for which he has<br />
been recognized<br />
with the 2005 Career<br />
Achievement<br />
Award. During his<br />
30-year career, the<br />
past 19 as president<br />
of Executive Advisory<br />
Services, he has<br />
held senior executive<br />
positions with<br />
four major U.S.<br />
banks, led a comprehensive<br />
financial<br />
sector development<br />
program for Ukraine,<br />
established<br />
and managed the<br />
first international<br />
bank in the Kyrgyz<br />
Republic, participated<br />
in international<br />
efforts to restructure<br />
the Indonesian financial<br />
sector, and<br />
led the restructuring<br />
and privatization of<br />
Banco Mozambique.<br />
In 1987, he received<br />
the Governor’s Citation<br />
for Excellence<br />
for his efforts in resolving<br />
a major<br />
savings and loan<br />
crisis in Maryland.<br />
The work of Kimberly<br />
Wiehl ’80 in international<br />
finance<br />
and her role in international<br />
trade has<br />
earned her the 2005<br />
Career Achievement<br />
Award. As<br />
secretary general<br />
of the Berne Union,<br />
an international<br />
trade association of<br />
52 members, including<br />
government export<br />
credit agencies,<br />
private insurers and<br />
multilateral agencies<br />
from 43 countries,<br />
she represents the<br />
members’ interests<br />
to major international<br />
organizations<br />
news & notes<br />
such as the World<br />
Bank, IMF, OECD,<br />
EU and WTO. Prior<br />
to being named<br />
secretary general,<br />
Wiehl was a managing<br />
director with JP<br />
Morgan, where she<br />
created and managed<br />
a structured<br />
debt team that raised<br />
more than $4.5 billion<br />
in syndicated<br />
financing and was<br />
awarded “Central<br />
European Syndicated<br />
Loan House<br />
2000” by Central<br />
David Roberts ‘73 Dean Warner ’57 Melville Brown ’69 Kimberly Wiehl ’80 Leandro Finol ’00<br />
European magazine.<br />
A quick Google<br />
search will tell you<br />
why Leandro Finol<br />
’00 was named the<br />
Rising Star for 2005.<br />
He is founder and<br />
CEO of DIREC4U,<br />
one of the largest<br />
retailers of DIREC-<br />
TV satellite systems<br />
in the United States.<br />
In 2004, sales for the<br />
company topped $50<br />
million, and in 2005<br />
DIRECTV named<br />
him Dealer of the<br />
Year. Finol also is<br />
owner of Puerto Rico’s<br />
master franchise<br />
for Pressto, a dry<br />
cleaning operation,<br />
and expects to have<br />
eight stores open by<br />
the end of 2005.<br />
thunderbird magazine 13
news & notes<br />
In quest<br />
of a definition<br />
for<br />
global<br />
mindset<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
professors<br />
are at the<br />
center of<br />
the search<br />
ANOVEMBER<br />
conference<br />
on the Glendale<br />
campus, the<br />
brainchild of two<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong> professors,<br />
will explore<br />
how international<br />
businesspeople<br />
think about the<br />
world or, in other<br />
words, how their<br />
global mindset<br />
might be defined.<br />
The conference is<br />
expected to bring<br />
together the world’s<br />
foremost experts on<br />
the subject.<br />
Professors Mary<br />
Teagarden and<br />
Mansour Javidan,<br />
co-chairs of the<br />
Global Mindset<br />
Project and Conference,<br />
are heading up<br />
the research project.<br />
The research team<br />
has interviewed<br />
more than 500<br />
T-bird alumni in<br />
various parts of the<br />
world so far in an<br />
effort to gather information<br />
about the<br />
dimensions of global<br />
mindset, including<br />
what it is and how<br />
it is developed,<br />
Teagarden says.<br />
“We are looking<br />
at the way people<br />
think about other<br />
people, how well<br />
suited they are in<br />
working in a new<br />
environment and<br />
how willing they are<br />
to take risks and travel<br />
to new places,”<br />
says Teagarden, who<br />
has taught Global<br />
Strategy at <strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
for a dozen<br />
years. “We are trying<br />
to identify the<br />
parameters of a global<br />
mindset. From<br />
that we will certainly<br />
be able to help<br />
both companies and<br />
individuals understand<br />
what it takes<br />
to succeed in international<br />
settings.”<br />
Academics attending<br />
the November<br />
10-12 conference<br />
will help define a<br />
global mindset, its<br />
consequences and<br />
how best to measure<br />
and identify it.<br />
Professors in related<br />
studies from leading<br />
universities around<br />
the world are expected<br />
to attend.<br />
In October,<br />
researchers plan to<br />
start surveying more<br />
than 40,000 non-<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong>s working<br />
in international<br />
settings to gather a<br />
broader range of data.<br />
At the <strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
Homecoming<br />
(Nov. 4-6), Javidan<br />
will outline the research<br />
project and<br />
results to date. Preliminary<br />
research<br />
results, expected in<br />
early 2006, will be<br />
published in a book<br />
and in academic journals,<br />
and will be used<br />
to help <strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
craft its marketing<br />
message and identify<br />
people with a strong<br />
global mindset... in<br />
other words, ideal<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
students.<br />
Alumni ranks grow by 602<br />
Thirty-five countries were represented in the Parade of Flags during <strong>Thunderbird</strong>’s<br />
spring commencement, including the Bulgarian flag carried by native<br />
Vanya Dimitrova ‘05. All told, <strong>Thunderbird</strong> has had four graduations since the<br />
start of the year, adding 602 men and women to the alumni ranks. Spring<br />
commencement, held in April, had 353 graduates; the Global MBA for Latin<br />
American Managers commencement, held in July, had 147 graduates;<br />
summer commencement, held in August, had 80 graduates; and the<br />
Executive MBA in International Management commencement in Prague,<br />
also held in August, saw 22 graduates added to alumni rosters.<br />
The new barbecue at the Pub, provided by the 13th<br />
EMBA class, features tiles for each class member.<br />
EMBAs<br />
give Pub<br />
new BBQ<br />
THE BARBEcue<br />
at the<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
Pub got a welcome<br />
makeover in August<br />
thanks to the largess<br />
of the 13th EMBA<br />
class. The group,<br />
which graduated in<br />
April, donated more<br />
than $8,000 to fund a<br />
built-in gas barbecue<br />
that includes a<br />
shade umbrella and<br />
a wall covered<br />
with hand-made<br />
tiles from each class<br />
member who donated<br />
to the project.<br />
“The Pub is a<br />
center of activity for<br />
full-time, part-time<br />
and executive students,<br />
as well as for<br />
school staff,” says<br />
Scott Bundgaard ’05,<br />
a member of the 13th<br />
EMBA class and<br />
organizer of the<br />
project. “So it was<br />
our desire to create<br />
something everyone<br />
could enjoy.”<br />
14 fall 2005
global campus<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
MBA<br />
with a<br />
different<br />
latitude<br />
718 students<br />
have earned<br />
degrees thus<br />
far in the<br />
Latin America<br />
program<br />
ON A WARM<br />
morning on<br />
July 22, 147<br />
men and women<br />
from the sixth class<br />
of the Global Masters<br />
of Business<br />
Administration<br />
for Latin American<br />
Managers program<br />
transitioned from<br />
students to alumni.<br />
The group was the<br />
largest graduating<br />
class since the program<br />
began in 1998,<br />
a distinction it is<br />
unlikely to keep for<br />
long.<br />
The seventh class,<br />
which will graduate<br />
in the summer of<br />
2006, has 149 students.<br />
The eighth,<br />
which began classes<br />
in August, has more<br />
than 170 students.<br />
“The program has<br />
just taken off,” says<br />
Dr. Bert Valencia,<br />
director of the Latin<br />
American program.<br />
During a period of<br />
22 months, on every<br />
other Friday afternoon<br />
and Saturday,<br />
students in the program<br />
gather at 14<br />
sites in six countries<br />
—Mexico, Peru, El<br />
Rodrigo Laddaga ’05 of Mexico gets a congratulatory kiss from his wife, Tania<br />
Tiquet Martinez, after graduating from the Latin American Managers program.<br />
Salvador, Panama,<br />
Bolivia and Miami<br />
—to participate in<br />
classes delivered via<br />
satellite. Professors<br />
from both <strong>Thunderbird</strong>’s<br />
Glendale campus<br />
and the Instituto<br />
Tecnológico y de Estudios<br />
Superiores de<br />
Monterrey, lecture<br />
on a variety of subjects<br />
to their widely<br />
dispersed but attentive<br />
students. The<br />
Instituto Tecnológico<br />
y de Estudios Superiores<br />
de Monterrey,<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong>’s<br />
partner in the program,<br />
is one of the<br />
top MBA schools in<br />
Latin America.<br />
“<strong>Thunderbird</strong> is<br />
very well regarded<br />
among multinational<br />
companies,” says<br />
Alejandro Marti ’00<br />
of Mexico. “I feel<br />
very proud to have<br />
completed my degree<br />
from what I<br />
consider the best<br />
international business<br />
school in the<br />
world. I am still connected<br />
to my virtual<br />
classmates, for business<br />
contacts and<br />
great friends have<br />
come out of these<br />
virtual teams.” Students<br />
in the program<br />
come from throughout<br />
Latin America.<br />
In the class that<br />
graduated in July,<br />
17 nationalities were<br />
represented.<br />
A new class begins<br />
every August<br />
with a two-day orientation<br />
and a fiveday<br />
seminar. The<br />
program closes with<br />
a 40-hour seminar.<br />
Both are held on<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong>’s<br />
Glendale campus.<br />
Graduates receive a<br />
joint degree from<br />
both institutions.<br />
Since the program<br />
began, 718 students<br />
have earned a degree<br />
in the program.<br />
“This is not an<br />
easy program. So<br />
when I received my<br />
degree, it felt like I’d<br />
won a world medal,”<br />
says Oscar Guajardo<br />
’00. “I didn’t have<br />
any difficulty with<br />
distance learning. It<br />
was just like having<br />
the teacher in front<br />
of us all the time.”<br />
Into the fold<br />
“<strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
is very<br />
well regarded<br />
among<br />
multinational<br />
companies.<br />
I feel very<br />
proud to<br />
have completed<br />
my<br />
degree<br />
from what<br />
I consider<br />
the best international<br />
business<br />
school in<br />
the world.”<br />
COSTA RICA AND COLOMBIA have joined<br />
the ranks of countries in the Global<br />
MBA for Latin American Managers<br />
graduate degree program. Classes begin in<br />
August at Chiquita Latin American headquarters<br />
in San José, Costa Rica and at the Instituto<br />
Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores<br />
de Monterrey campus in Bogotá, Colombia.<br />
To date, nine students have signed up in<br />
Costa Rica and six in Colombia for the virtual<br />
learning program that will commence in<br />
2007. “We continue to analyze new sites for<br />
the program each year,” says Bert Valencia,<br />
program director. “Top on our list are<br />
Guatemala City and San Antonio or Dallas.”<br />
thunderbird magazine 15
global campus<br />
“What is<br />
important:<br />
how we<br />
approach<br />
our pIanet,<br />
how we<br />
approach<br />
our country,<br />
our settlements,<br />
our quality<br />
of life, its<br />
atmosphere,<br />
the<br />
aesthetic<br />
element of<br />
our living<br />
and our<br />
existence<br />
on this<br />
planet.”<br />
Prague<br />
EMBAs<br />
graduate<br />
in special<br />
ceremony<br />
Ex-president<br />
Václav Havel<br />
urges graduates<br />
to think<br />
about the big<br />
issues of life<br />
VACLAV<br />
Havel, a symbol<br />
of courage<br />
and defender of human<br />
rights and the<br />
first democratically<br />
elected president of<br />
the Czech Republic,<br />
was the keynote<br />
speaker at <strong>Thunderbird</strong>’s<br />
August 6 commencement<br />
ceremony<br />
for the 22 graduates<br />
of its Executive<br />
MBA in International<br />
Management<br />
program in Prague.<br />
Havel praised<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong> for<br />
promoting cross-cultural<br />
understanding<br />
and stressed to the<br />
graduates the power<br />
they hold in their<br />
hands as business<br />
leaders.<br />
“I believe that in<br />
the sphere of business,<br />
entrepreneurship,<br />
creation of<br />
tangible goods,<br />
satisfaction of<br />
human needs, there<br />
are things which,<br />
regrettably, cannot<br />
be counted, cannot<br />
be described and projected<br />
into charts by<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong> President Angel Cabrera presented<br />
President Václav Havel with an Honorary Doctor of<br />
International Law at graduation in Prague.<br />
Eight countries were represented among the 22 students graduating from the<br />
Czech EMBA program, at which Václav Havel (front) was the keynote speaker.<br />
accountants,” he<br />
said in his speech.<br />
“What is important:<br />
how we approach<br />
our planet, how we<br />
approach our country,<br />
our settlements,<br />
our quality of life, its<br />
atmosphere, the aesthetic<br />
element of our<br />
living and our existence<br />
on this planet;<br />
those are several<br />
things belonging to<br />
the category of the<br />
hard-to-count but<br />
hugely important.”<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
awarded Havel an<br />
Honorary Doctor of<br />
International Law<br />
Honoris Causa, one<br />
of 25 awarded by the<br />
School in its history.<br />
Robert Dudley ’79,<br />
president and CEO<br />
of TNK-BP, one of<br />
the largest oil companies<br />
in Russia,<br />
also spoke at the<br />
ceremony.<br />
Eight countries—<br />
Kuwait, Czech Republic,<br />
USA, Italy,<br />
Russia, Macedonia,<br />
Switzerland and<br />
Canada—were<br />
represented among<br />
the graduates.<br />
The group was the<br />
second cohort to<br />
go through the 14-<br />
month program,<br />
established in 2002.<br />
The program is run<br />
in partnership with<br />
the Czech Management<br />
Center.<br />
PAVEL HOREJSI<br />
16 fall 2005
global campus<br />
The start<br />
of a new<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
MBA,<br />
with<br />
Seoul<br />
For electronics<br />
giant LGE,<br />
the School<br />
develops its<br />
first in-house<br />
grad degree<br />
program in<br />
its history<br />
FOR THE next<br />
year, the workday<br />
for 25<br />
executives of LG<br />
Electronics (LGE)<br />
in Seoul will be<br />
even more demanding<br />
than usual. Key<br />
managers of one of<br />
the world’s largest<br />
electronics manufacturers<br />
will not only<br />
have to contend<br />
with their everyday<br />
responsibilities<br />
now, but find time<br />
to write business<br />
plans and study<br />
marketing and<br />
finance textbooks<br />
as well.<br />
The hand-picked<br />
executives, who<br />
started classes in<br />
June, comprise the<br />
first cohort of students<br />
in an in-house<br />
custom MBA program<br />
specifically<br />
designed for LGE.<br />
It’s the first in-house<br />
custom MBA program<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
has ever run for a<br />
corporation.<br />
“With <strong>Thunderbird</strong>’s<br />
skills in the<br />
international arena<br />
and cross-cultural<br />
side, and LGE’s<br />
mission to be in the<br />
global top three by<br />
2010, this is a logical<br />
fit,” a company<br />
official says. LGE<br />
selected <strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
over a number<br />
of other top MBA<br />
schools.<br />
Each month,<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong> professors<br />
from the Glendale<br />
campus travel<br />
to Korea and teach<br />
classes at the LGE<br />
Learning Center,<br />
which is just outside<br />
Seoul in Pyeongtaek-si.<br />
In between on-site<br />
instruction sessions,<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong> faculty<br />
mentor LGE executives<br />
via a <strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
intranet. Students<br />
will spend 31<br />
days at the Glendale<br />
campus for the last<br />
four modules and<br />
will present their final<br />
projects to LGE’s<br />
top management before<br />
graduating.<br />
Si-Dong Noh,<br />
group leader for<br />
Cohort 1, says that<br />
his final project is to<br />
develop an overseas<br />
marketing strategy.<br />
“Thanks to these<br />
classes, already I<br />
have more understanding<br />
about the<br />
international market<br />
and cross-cultural<br />
business,” he says.<br />
The custom program<br />
includes classes<br />
on team-building<br />
and cross-cultural<br />
communication, for<br />
example, while incorporating<br />
real<br />
company data and<br />
issues. For instance,<br />
one project is examining<br />
the feasibility<br />
of manufacturing<br />
and distribution in<br />
Argentina, says Dr.<br />
Graeme Rankine,<br />
who is teaching<br />
several modules.<br />
Beth Stoops,<br />
associate vice president<br />
of Language<br />
and Culture Programs,<br />
spearheaded<br />
the five-year effort<br />
Twenty-five handpicked executives of LG Electronics, a leading Korean firm,<br />
join <strong>Thunderbird</strong> professors and staff as they begin studying under the first<br />
ever in-house custom MBA program created by <strong>Thunderbird</strong> for a corporation.<br />
to land LGE as a<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong> client.<br />
She had been talking<br />
for years with company<br />
executives<br />
about cross-cultural<br />
training and custom<br />
language classes.<br />
“A critical piece<br />
in LGE selecting<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong> was<br />
the relationship we<br />
had built over the<br />
years. It really<br />
helped in the final<br />
decision-making<br />
stages,” Stoops says.<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong> also<br />
had proven that it<br />
could work closely<br />
with Korean companies,<br />
having graduated<br />
many SK<br />
Group executives<br />
as well as Korean<br />
students in the<br />
full-time program.<br />
Having a client<br />
as large and wellrespected<br />
as LGE<br />
could trigger similar<br />
relationships with<br />
other companies<br />
throughout Asia.<br />
“There is definitely<br />
more potential for<br />
these programs,<br />
especially abroad,”<br />
Stoops says.<br />
LGE posted<br />
record annual sales<br />
in fiscal year 2004 of<br />
24.659 trillion won,<br />
roughly $23.5 billion<br />
US. The company,<br />
which makes everything<br />
from vacuum<br />
cleaners to DVD-Ws<br />
to XNOTE laptop<br />
computers, has<br />
more than 100<br />
offices across all<br />
continents and<br />
more than 66,000<br />
employees. LGE<br />
management has<br />
professed a desire to<br />
become a top global<br />
player in electronics.<br />
The LGE contract<br />
will last through<br />
2010, with a new<br />
cohort of 30 executives<br />
beginning<br />
each year. The next<br />
cohort will start<br />
classes in July 2006.<br />
The curriculum<br />
also features managing<br />
global business<br />
and understanding<br />
global<br />
mindsets, key classes<br />
for the 25 hardworking<br />
executives<br />
in the first cohort.<br />
This is especially<br />
relevant given that<br />
LGE boasted sales<br />
of one million mobile<br />
phone units in<br />
Europe, giving it the<br />
top market share<br />
position with more<br />
than a quarter of the<br />
market. In 2005, the<br />
company sold the<br />
third most mobile<br />
phones in North<br />
America among all<br />
competitors.<br />
— Debbi Gardiner<br />
thunderbird magazine 17
ACTION<br />
PLAN<br />
After a year of study and reflection,<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong> is launching<br />
a major transformation to reshape<br />
the School for the future.<br />
By D.J. Burrough<br />
DAVID LESH<br />
PILLAR NO. 2<br />
”Global Thought<br />
Leadership” recognizes<br />
innovative teaching,<br />
groundbreaking<br />
research and clear-eyed<br />
perspectives on global<br />
business issues. The<br />
pillar of “Enterprising<br />
Spirit” is illustrated on<br />
the cover of this issue.<br />
PRESIDENT ANGEL CABRERA HAS HAD A LOT<br />
more of what he calls “Jacuzzi days” than he expected<br />
to have in his first year as head of <strong>Thunderbird</strong>. “When<br />
I have a really hard day, my wife knows it right away<br />
because I head straight for the Jacuzzi,” he says. “I’ve<br />
had quite a few ‘Jacuzzi days,’ but even with those I am<br />
still thrilled to be here. <strong>Thunderbird</strong> is a very special place.”<br />
The list of challenges that send Cabrera heading for his Jacuzzi are<br />
many. He arrived at <strong>Thunderbird</strong> in August 2004, at a time when the<br />
School was facing a serious market decline and a steady reduction in<br />
the number of applicants to the full-time program, a reflection of an<br />
overall decline in interest in full-time graduate business programs.<br />
In addition, a drop in the availability of student and work visas has<br />
led to a precipitous slide in the number of applications from outside<br />
the United States. At the same time, MBA programs around the<br />
world have begun to include international elements in their programs,<br />
an encroachment into a niche <strong>Thunderbird</strong> has dominated for<br />
more than half a century, which has siphoned off potential students.<br />
“We have some serious market challenges to which we cannot turn<br />
a blind eye,” Cabrera says. “We cannot sit around and wait for the<br />
market to return to what it was. Our endowment was not meant to be<br />
spent funding operational losses year after year, but to help us invest<br />
in our future. We need to come to terms with the new reality and<br />
transform our operations and programs to stay ahead of the game.”<br />
Returning <strong>Thunderbird</strong> to financial self-sufficiency must be the<br />
School’s top priority, he says.<br />
To reverse the situation, Cabrera initially turned to a strategic business<br />
plan prepared under his predecessor, Dr. Roy Herberger. In a<br />
matter of weeks after his arrival, Cabrera began to execute elements<br />
of the plan, which called for diversified sources of revenue, increased<br />
quality in the full-time program, a strong marketing effort and an expanded<br />
global presence. Since then, the School has attracted high-<br />
thunderbird magazine 19
NEW DIRECTORS<br />
From left, Dr. Mansour<br />
Javidan, director of the<br />
Garvin Center for the<br />
Cultures and Languages<br />
of International Management;<br />
Dr. Gregory<br />
Unruh, director of the<br />
Lincoln Center for Ethics<br />
in International<br />
Management; and Dr.<br />
Robert Hisrich, director<br />
of the Center for Global<br />
Entrepreneurship.<br />
profile professors, brought greater efficiencies<br />
to its operations in the restructuring of<br />
faculty compensation, reduced the number<br />
of under-performing courses, increased tuition<br />
and expanded its product portfolio. It<br />
has also articulated the School’s core value in<br />
the expression “Truly Global” as well as five<br />
key “pillars” that define, as well as guide, the<br />
School as it moves into the future: Global<br />
Thought Leadership, Borderless Community,<br />
Enterprising Spirit, Business & Cultural<br />
Fusion and Global Citizenship.<br />
Despite several concrete changes he had already<br />
introduced, Cabrera recognized early<br />
in 2005 that the School’s budget was still out<br />
of balance and that a reliance on endowment<br />
funds to make up the shortfall was not acceptable.<br />
The pace of transformation would<br />
have to be quicker if the School were to maintain<br />
its leadership in international business<br />
education. “We made a lot of progress in the<br />
past year and showed that we can execute on<br />
the plans we lay out,” Cabrera says. “Yet it became<br />
clear that we had to be even more innovative<br />
and aggressive to stay on top.”<br />
Earlier this summer, Cabrera engaged a<br />
special committee of members of the Board<br />
of Trustees, some of whom are alumni, to examine<br />
how <strong>Thunderbird</strong> needs to change to<br />
operate under a sustainable business model<br />
while continuing to provide a world-class educational<br />
experience and remaining true to<br />
the School’s founding principles. A number<br />
of professors, key alumni, staff and members<br />
of the <strong>Thunderbird</strong> Global Council were involved<br />
in some of the planning sessions. The<br />
results of these efforts will be condensed into<br />
a set of recommendations, which will go before<br />
the Board of Trustees in October.<br />
“By asking the tough questions and making<br />
the hard decisions, we can align our organization<br />
with the future demand of the<br />
market and create a <strong>Thunderbird</strong> that both<br />
celebrates the true essence of the School and<br />
puts us on sound financial footing,” Cabrera<br />
says. “We need to be a lot more aggressive in<br />
introducing change to <strong>Thunderbird</strong>. We<br />
don’t have the time for a slow evolution.<br />
Now is the time to act. The fact is that the industry<br />
has changed.”<br />
After a year of examination and reflection,<br />
the School is ready to address the challenges<br />
“Truly Global” & <strong>Thunderbird</strong>’s five pillars<br />
FOR 59 YEARS, those who attended <strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
described what lay behind that<br />
special experience as the “<strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
mystique.” But with the identification of the<br />
term “Truly Global” and its five supporting<br />
pillars, that shorthand has been more coherently<br />
articulated. Emerging from a branding<br />
exercise in the summer of 2004 that brought<br />
together students, faculty, staff and alumni,<br />
the concepts embodied by the five pillars<br />
succinctly capture the ethos of the institution<br />
and its core values. The pillars serve as a<br />
guide for how the School should be structured<br />
and the directions in which it should move<br />
forward. The five pillars are:<br />
Global Thought Leadership recognizes innovative<br />
teaching, groundbreaking research and<br />
clear-eyed perspective on global business.<br />
Borderless Community recognizes a core<br />
spirit of embracing cultures that is shared by<br />
students, faculty and alumni.<br />
Enterprising Spirit recognizes <strong>Thunderbird</strong>’s<br />
aim of nurturing the entrepreneurial desires<br />
and adventurous spirit in its students.<br />
Business & Cultural Fusion recognizes a learning<br />
experience that imparts an understanding<br />
of the important role culture plays in business.<br />
Global Citizenship recognizes the existence of<br />
a community beyond national borders and the<br />
importance of acting ethically in business.<br />
20 fall 2005
it faces, says Cabrera, who spent much of the<br />
summer mustering support for the coming<br />
changes with the <strong>Thunderbird</strong> community.<br />
“We need to articulate a new vision for the<br />
School, and we need to do so in a collaborative<br />
way that ensures we are drawing on the<br />
collective experience, expertise and resources<br />
of the entire community,” Cabrera says. “We<br />
have made substantial progress, but much<br />
work remains to be done.” Cabrera says he is<br />
eager to meet with alumni, who are “passionate<br />
supporters of the School,” to discuss some<br />
of the issues facing <strong>Thunderbird</strong>.<br />
AMONG THE significant changes<br />
Cabrera has made, one has been especially<br />
transformative. <strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
has enhanced its three “centers”—or disciplines—that<br />
serve as the foundation of the<br />
School’s new curriculum and academic direction.<br />
They include: 1. The Lincoln Center for<br />
Ethics in International Management, 2. The<br />
Garvin Center for the Cultures and Languages<br />
of International Management and 3.<br />
The Center for Global Entrepreneurship.<br />
Each center will generate new knowledge<br />
and thought leadership in its area, design new<br />
courses and infuse already established courses<br />
with their core topic, and coordinate the<br />
work of faculty members.<br />
“The centers provide an intellectual home<br />
for each of <strong>Thunderbird</strong>’s core values,” says<br />
Dr. Robert Widing II, senior vice president<br />
of academic programs, who joined the School<br />
from the University of Melbourne in March.<br />
“This helps ensure they are advanced and instilled<br />
in our students.”<br />
The Lincoln Center for Ethics in International<br />
Management focuses on the pillar,<br />
Global Citizenship. The Garvin Center for<br />
the Cultures and Languages of International<br />
Management focuses on the pillar, Business<br />
& Cultural Fusion. And the Center for Global<br />
Entrepreneurship focuses on the pillar,<br />
Enterprising Spirit.<br />
Directed by Dr. Mansour Javidan, who<br />
joined <strong>Thunderbird</strong> in August 2004, the<br />
Garvin Center for the Cultures and Languages<br />
of International Management has<br />
taken responsibility for courses on cross-cultural<br />
communication and language immersion.<br />
Javidan is internationally recognized as<br />
one of the leading voices in researching the<br />
role that culture plays in business relationships.<br />
A member of the board of directors of<br />
the GLOBE Project, a 10-year, cross-cultural<br />
research program that has examined the<br />
character traits that make up successful business<br />
leaders in different cultures around the<br />
world, he is the co-author of an award-winning<br />
book about the project.<br />
The Lincoln Center for Ethics in International<br />
Management will introduce discussion<br />
on corporate social responsibility and<br />
governance into Foundations Week and into<br />
particular coursework, says Dr. Gregory Unruh,<br />
who became director of the center in<br />
September. In addition to case studies that<br />
delve into ethical and environmental issues,<br />
Unruh hopes to develop an elective course on<br />
managing for environmental sustainability.<br />
“We are living in different times,” Unruh<br />
says. “The demand on corporations is much<br />
greater than it used to be. Before, it was clear:<br />
create wealth, create jobs and pay taxes. Now,<br />
corporations are expected to do that but also<br />
integrate social responsibility into their actions.<br />
They need leaders who understand the<br />
issues, including how to engage the public,<br />
the local governments and NGOs.” Unruh,<br />
who was the alumni professor of Corporate<br />
Sustainability and founding academic director<br />
for the Center for Eco-Intelligent Management<br />
at Instituto de Empresa Business<br />
School, has worked with dozens of Fortune<br />
500 companies to improve management systems<br />
to minimize environmental risks.<br />
The Center for Global Entrepreneurship is<br />
focused on creating courses that instill in-<br />
PILLAR NO. 3<br />
”Global Citizenship”<br />
recognizes the existence<br />
of a community beyond<br />
national borders and the<br />
importance of acting<br />
ethically in business.<br />
thunderbird magazine 21
THERESA HEINDL<br />
STUDENTS WILL BENEFIT from the enhancement of three core centers, or disciplines, that remake the School’s academic structure.<br />
trapreneurial (entrepreneurship in existing<br />
organizations) and entrepreneurial instincts<br />
in <strong>Thunderbird</strong> students. With the curriculum<br />
changes, <strong>Thunderbird</strong> is ahead of the<br />
curve in teaching students skills needed to<br />
start their own business, says the center’s director,<br />
Dr. Robert Hisrich, who is the Garvin<br />
Professor of Global Entrepreneurship.<br />
“Several quality MBA programs are now<br />
putting intra/entrepreneurship aspects into<br />
their curriculum as a requirement due to the<br />
economics around the globe as well as student<br />
interest, and I sense that many more<br />
will follow,” he says. “My goal is to create a<br />
world-class global entrepreneurship center<br />
with a focus on global family business, global<br />
women entrepreneurs, global innovation/<br />
creativity, and global intrapreneurship.”<br />
Hisrich joined <strong>Thunderbird</strong> in July after<br />
spending the past 12 years at the Weatherhead<br />
School of Management, Case Western Reserve<br />
University. Hisrich is the author of 23<br />
books, including the best selling “Woman<br />
Entrepreneur” and “How to Fix and Prevent<br />
the 13 Biggest Problems that Derail Small<br />
Business,” and at least 200 academic articles.<br />
BEGINNING NEXT summer, students<br />
will be presented with a new curriculum<br />
that offers either a one-year accelerated<br />
program or a two-year program, a<br />
second-language requirement for all students,<br />
“soft skills” training and—something<br />
no other MBA school requires—coursework<br />
in an international location.<br />
“We’ve gone back to the core values,” says<br />
Senior Vice President of Academic Programs<br />
Widing. “While we offer a number of other<br />
ways to get a <strong>Thunderbird</strong> education, the<br />
full-time program provides the reputation<br />
that all the other programs are built on. Any<br />
changes we have made to the curriculum<br />
have had to improve the quality and set it<br />
apart from others in the industry.”<br />
A second language had been a requirement<br />
for decades, but it was dropped a few years ago<br />
when a non-language degree program, Track<br />
2, was introduced. The new curriculum requires<br />
a minimum level of proficiency in a<br />
second language as a graduation requirement.<br />
Language and cross-cultural instruction will<br />
be offered through non-credit courses and a<br />
number of other activities, such as participation<br />
in overseas learning modules.<br />
“The goal for our graduates is not high<br />
levels of fluency, but the opportunity to appreciate<br />
other cultures through the window<br />
of language,” Javidan says.<br />
The new curriculum has a traditional program<br />
(60-credit hours, 20-months) and an accelerated<br />
program (45-credit hours, one year).<br />
Both require a second-language proficiency;<br />
both allow students to declare a focus area.<br />
The accelerated program requires an undergraduate<br />
degree in business or related discipline,<br />
and does not include an internship.<br />
New global business courses that have been<br />
added include:<br />
Global Enterprise focuses on intrapreneurship<br />
and entrepreneurship and is a preparatory<br />
course for the Global Business Plan.<br />
Global Business Plan students spend the<br />
trimester writing, either individually or as<br />
part of a group, a business plan that involves<br />
at least two countries.<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong> Global Experience (TGE) is a<br />
two- or three-week course requiring students<br />
from the United States to travel to an international<br />
location for immersion in the regional<br />
business environment. TGE courses<br />
will initially be offered in Europe, Asia and<br />
Latin America. Non-U.S. students will have<br />
22 fall 2005
the option of taking their TGE in the USA.<br />
“We want them to look at a culture through<br />
the window that <strong>Thunderbird</strong> provides,”<br />
Widing says. “The goal is to contribute to<br />
their global mindset so they can look at business<br />
through the lens of another culture.”<br />
The TGE will include corporate site tours,<br />
coursework with <strong>Thunderbird</strong> faculty, and<br />
lectures by local business experts and leaders.<br />
Hisrich says that the Global Business Plan<br />
course will probably end up being a highlight<br />
of the MBA program for many students.<br />
The new curriculum also includes noncredit<br />
courses that hone students’ “soft<br />
skills,” which are increasingly prized by corporations.<br />
These include business-report<br />
writing, business presentations and public<br />
speaking, career management, cross-cultural<br />
team building and networking, and etiquette<br />
in global business settings.<br />
Currently, only about four out of 10 <strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
students have a declared focus area,<br />
but under the new curriculum that number<br />
could rise significantly. Narrowly defined focus<br />
areas within a discipline, such as business-to-business<br />
marketing, will be eliminated,<br />
and only the broadly-defined focus areas<br />
such as finance, international development,<br />
management and marketing will be offered.<br />
Kip Harrell, director of the Career Management<br />
Center (CMC), says students who<br />
declared an overly narrow focus area were often<br />
overlooked by potential employers.<br />
“Employers are often unwilling or unable<br />
to sort through confusing and idiosyncratic<br />
labels,” he says. “The curriculum changes reduce<br />
the need for CMC to explain and validate<br />
‘customized focus area’ to employers.”<br />
The curriculum changes not only strengthen<br />
the School’s international positioning but<br />
simplify scheduling and, because of course<br />
streamlining, reduce the cost of delivery.<br />
“No other business school requires all<br />
graduates to possess language proficiency,<br />
undertake a global experience, write a global<br />
business plan, and take functional area courses<br />
that are globally focused,” Widing says.<br />
“This curriculum provides <strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
graduates with a consistent and unique ‘truly<br />
global’ signature.”<br />
ON SEPTEMBER 10, the first cohort of<br />
34 students in the Global MBA On-<br />
Demand degree program gathered in<br />
a classroom on the Glendale campus to begin<br />
their first face-to-face seminar in the 21-<br />
month program. The cohort has four intensive<br />
face-to-face seminars, two on the Glendale<br />
campus and one each in Archamps and<br />
in Beijing. In between seminars, students<br />
have real-time interaction with their peers<br />
and professors, almost on a daily basis, says<br />
Dr. Bert Valencia, director of the Global<br />
MBA On-Demand program. Although most<br />
live thousands of miles apart, students in the<br />
program will work in groups on projects and<br />
presentations, utilizing My <strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
(MTB) to maintain contact with one another.<br />
To recreate the cultural blending that occurs<br />
on campus, students from different cultures<br />
will be paired together on group projects.<br />
Students also will receive streaming<br />
video and e-learning modules via MTB.<br />
The majority of students are United States<br />
citizens, but a good number come from India,<br />
Mexico, South Africa and Venezuela, among<br />
others. Not only does this program offer a<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong> education in a way that students<br />
want, but it also overcomes the visa issues<br />
that have slowed overseas enrollment in<br />
the full-time program.<br />
“This is a program that allows us to offer an<br />
education to working professionals around<br />
the world, regardless of where they are,”<br />
Cabrera says. The second cohort of students,<br />
expected to number about 40, is scheduled to<br />
begin in January 2006.<br />
Starting in August 2006, a group of 40 to 50<br />
students will begin a dual-degree program<br />
PILLAR NO. 4<br />
“Business & Cultural<br />
Fusion” recognizes a<br />
learning experience that<br />
imparts an understanding<br />
of the important role<br />
culture plays in business.<br />
thunderbird magazine 23
THERESA HEINDL<br />
ALUMNI WILL BENEFIT through a number of significant changes at the office of Alumni Relations, including access to Factiva, a<br />
database offered by IBIC that provides access to more than 8,000 periodicals from 118 countries around the globe.<br />
Alumni Relations Reborn<br />
Big changes come to T-bird office<br />
BY THE END OF 2005, the more than<br />
35,000 <strong>Thunderbird</strong>s around the world<br />
should begin to notice the transformation<br />
coming to the alumni association.<br />
Notable changes to the network have<br />
already taken place. The Alumni Association<br />
has become the <strong>Thunderbird</strong> Global Network<br />
(TGN); the network’s governing structure now<br />
includes a Global Network Board, which sets<br />
policy, reviews programs, creates new services<br />
and programs; My <strong>Thunderbird</strong> (MTB)<br />
received a face-lift; and, most significantly,<br />
the role the network will play has shifted.<br />
“It’s for us now,” says Meredith Peabody ’96,<br />
executive director of the network. “It’s more<br />
about building and enhancing the network.<br />
It’s about our powerful connection to one<br />
another. <strong>Thunderbird</strong> is still at the center of<br />
the network, but more as a facilitator.”<br />
To enhance this role, the Alumni Relations<br />
office redesigned the alumni section of MTB,<br />
which is now more navigable and intuitive,<br />
making it easier for alumni to find information<br />
and search and access one another.<br />
Alumni Relations also has expanded<br />
Network Partners, a collection of T-bird alumni<br />
available to mentor other alumni in a number<br />
of industries and professions. For a list of<br />
mentors, contact Barbara Limmer, director of<br />
Alumni and Executive Career Management.<br />
Plans also call for <strong>Thunderbird</strong> Global<br />
Reunions to become biennial affairs. (Due to<br />
timing issues, however, the next event won’t<br />
be held until 2007 in Latin America.) “Global<br />
reunions bring alumni together to socialize,<br />
to network and to enjoy a unique learning<br />
experience,” says Peabody.<br />
Connections between alumni will be helped<br />
by the Alumni Travel Program, which will offer<br />
greater learning and “life changing” elements,<br />
Peabody says. Future trips will not only offer<br />
alumni the chance to visit interesting locales,<br />
but to use their talents and experience to help<br />
local non-profit organizations.<br />
While programs like the 40+ Initiative and<br />
First Tuesdays will continue to be run by individual<br />
chapters, the Alumni Relations office<br />
now has a dedicated staff member to help<br />
bolster efforts, in part by gathering best practices<br />
and sharing those with other chapters.<br />
Other changes expected to come before<br />
year-end include: the introduction of a <strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
credit card; alumni access to Factiva,<br />
a database with more than 8,000 periodicals<br />
from 118 countries; access to a portfolio of<br />
discounted insurance products; a program<br />
that offers assistance in résumé crafting and<br />
interviewing; and the ability to post résumés<br />
on MTB.<br />
“We are giving alumni what they said they<br />
wanted,” Peabody says. “They want a dynamic<br />
network that provides them a platform to<br />
advance their careers, to hone their business<br />
knowledge, and to connect to each other.”<br />
24 fall 2005
that is the result of a joint venture between<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong> and Indiana University’s Kelley<br />
School of Business (IU).<br />
“We complement each other very well,”<br />
says Valencia. “Indiana University has a top-<br />
20 ranked MBA program and the highest<br />
ranked distance-learning MBA program in<br />
the country, while we’re the top international<br />
business school and are now offering distance-learning<br />
MBA degrees through our<br />
On-Demand program.”<br />
Students will take courses concurrently<br />
from both schools, a feature unique for most<br />
dual-degree programs. The 26-month program<br />
begins with a 10-day face-to-face intensive<br />
seminar on IU’s Bloomington campus,<br />
followed by a 10-day seminar in Beijing at the<br />
halfway point, and then a final 10-day seminar<br />
on <strong>Thunderbird</strong>’s Glendale campus. The<br />
program represents the 16th such joint venture<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong> has with other institutions<br />
of higher education throughout the world.<br />
THE TRANSFORMATION <strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
has undertaken during the past<br />
year has been significant, Cabrera says,<br />
but even greater changes are on the way. “Now<br />
is the time to take our efforts to a new level and<br />
firmly seize control of our destiny,” he says.<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong> has to consider every option<br />
that will allow it to create a sustainable business<br />
model that keeps it at its very high level<br />
of prestige as the very best international<br />
management school in the world, he says.<br />
That could include not just selling off the 80<br />
vacant acres surrounding the school, but perhaps<br />
reconfiguring the campus itself.<br />
The campus was designed to accommodate<br />
a full-time student body of more than 1,500, a<br />
figure unlikely to ever again be reached given<br />
the School’s emphasis on taking only the<br />
highest quality candidates, and the prospect<br />
that most of the future growth will be among<br />
working professional and overseas programs.<br />
Also, the campus doesn’t fully accommodate<br />
the growing demands of Executive Education,<br />
an area of significant growth in which<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong> is seen as among the best in the<br />
world.<br />
“The campus is supposed to serve our core<br />
mission of creating international business<br />
leaders, not the other way around,” Cabrera<br />
says.<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong> should also closely examine<br />
the idea of establishing closer relationships<br />
with other institutions of higher education.<br />
Until now, most of the partnership has been<br />
“at arm’s length,” Cabrera says, but in order<br />
to remain competitive the School needs to revisit<br />
some of those partnerships and consider<br />
new ways to join forces with domestic or<br />
overseas partners.<br />
The School will continue to diversify its<br />
product portfolio, as it has with the GMBA<br />
On-Demand program, but only with programs<br />
that are consistent with <strong>Thunderbird</strong>’s<br />
mission and values, as well as ones that are<br />
self-sustaining and can grow “organically,”<br />
he says. <strong>Thunderbird</strong> is not in a position to<br />
build campuses or programs, and then “hope<br />
that students come.”<br />
Cabrera is certain that although he has<br />
more “Jacuzzi days” ahead, they won’t come<br />
from fretting about the direction in which to<br />
take the School. The drawing of that roadmap<br />
will soon be behind him. His “Jacuzzi<br />
days,” Cabrera says, will be those long days<br />
spent carrying out the details of navigating<br />
the roadmap and in overcoming the obstacles<br />
that stand in the way of <strong>Thunderbird</strong>’s transformation.<br />
“Change is never easy, especially when<br />
you’re talking about an institution with a<br />
legacy as rich and as long as <strong>Thunderbird</strong>’s,”<br />
he says. “But the time has come to move forward,<br />
and I feel that now we have the School<br />
headed in a positive direction, down a path<br />
that will lead us to a brighter and more prosperous<br />
place.”<br />
PILLAR NO. 5<br />
“Borderless Community”<br />
recognizes a core<br />
spirit of embracing<br />
cultures that is shared by<br />
students, faculty and<br />
alumni.<br />
thunderbird magazine 25
VIEW WITH ROOM<br />
From the source of the<br />
Amazon River, the view<br />
is lunar and the way<br />
back down is steep.
TO THE<br />
SOURCE<br />
OF THE<br />
AMAZON<br />
By James Lynch ’77<br />
James Lynch and a team of explorers ventured<br />
through some of South America’s most dangerous terrain<br />
to become the first party ever to reach the source<br />
of the Amazon River in motor vehicles.<br />
Their quest took them across the world’s<br />
largest wetlands, through land brutally ruled<br />
by narco-traffickers and to uncharted peaks<br />
along the Continental Divide.<br />
thunderbird magazine 27
SINCE 1989, JAMES LYNCH ’77 AND ADVENture<br />
partner Rene Delmotte have planned,<br />
organized and led more than a dozen expeditions<br />
into the jungles of South America. In<br />
1996, while exploring a region of the Amazon<br />
basin where English explorer Percy Harrison<br />
Fawcett mysteriously disappeared more than 70 years earlier,<br />
Lynch and the rest of his team<br />
were kidnapped and held hostage, perhaps<br />
by the same Indian tribe that had<br />
executed Fawcett. The ordeal ended<br />
after three harrowing days when<br />
Lynch and Delmotte negotiated their<br />
release in exchange for the team’s<br />
boats, motors, radios, generators and<br />
camping equipment.<br />
In the summer of 2004, Lynch and<br />
Delmotte began planning a new expedition<br />
that would take them to the<br />
source of the Amazon in motor vehicles. In the five years<br />
since the headwaters of the mighty river had been pinpointed,<br />
only a handful of people had reached the spot, and<br />
they went on foot. Though many had tried, no one had<br />
succeeded in covering the treacherous terrain by vehicle.<br />
For months, Lynch poured over topographic maps and<br />
satellite photos to find the best route.<br />
On February 3, 2005, Lynch, Delmotte and a handpicked<br />
team of other adventurers began their journey from São<br />
Paulo to latitude 15.50 south, longitude 71.69 west, a voyage<br />
of 23 days that would cover 10,000 kilometers.<br />
STANDING PROUD<br />
The team of adventurers<br />
poses together before<br />
Mount Mismi on one of<br />
the last days of the trip<br />
to the Source. Their<br />
vehicles (below), which<br />
had to blaze their own<br />
trail around rocks on the<br />
final day, were raised<br />
high and turbocharged,<br />
then equipped with<br />
double-sized fuel tanks<br />
and a GPS system to<br />
withstand the rugged<br />
10,000-kilometer trip.<br />
28 fall 2005
DAY 1 Our team came together just four<br />
weeks ago. It consists of Toninho Ausenka, a<br />
restaurateur and world-class chef; Domingos<br />
Guerreiro, a highly experienced off-road<br />
driver; Dr. Paulo Demenato, a doctor specializing<br />
in high altitude sickness; Joao Amaro,<br />
co-founder of TAM, Brazil’s largest airline;<br />
Rick La Rocca, a Los Angeles documentary<br />
film director; Roberto Liesegang, a partner in<br />
one of Brazil’s largest law firms; Claus Herzog,<br />
CEO of MTU, a German multinational<br />
company; Rene Delmotte, who owns and operates<br />
a chain of automotive service centers<br />
in São Paulo; and myself, a senior partner at<br />
Phoenix Strategic Financial Advisors.<br />
Our three vehicles—a Land Rover Defender<br />
90, a Toyota Land Cruiser and a Toyota<br />
Hilux pickup truck—went<br />
through serious modifications<br />
for the trip at Delmotte’s shop.<br />
They have been turbocharged<br />
for more power at altitude, and<br />
each has a private band radio<br />
and Global Positioning System<br />
navigation. To increase their<br />
range and clearance, we’ve<br />
added double-sized fuel tanks<br />
and lifted the bodies four inches,<br />
which allows room for our<br />
preferred tires, BF Goodrich<br />
M/T Tires.<br />
DAY 2 It took two long days to<br />
drive the 1,700 kilometers to<br />
Cuiaba, in the state of Mato<br />
Grosso. At first, the roads were<br />
well-paved, but after leaving the<br />
state of São Paulo, they got increasingly<br />
bad, with thousands<br />
of sharp-edged potholes and<br />
endless lines of 22-wheeled trucks crawling<br />
along no faster than a person could walk.<br />
DAY 3 By mid-afternoon, we crossed the Bolivian<br />
border and reached San Matías, a<br />
farming village between the Pantanal Wetlands<br />
and the Amazon forest. We were all<br />
anxious to move on, with 300 kilometers of<br />
dirt roads yet to travel before reaching San<br />
Ignacio, our night’s goal. Unsure of the availability<br />
of diesel fuel, we filled all the tanks<br />
and reserve containers to the brim.<br />
We parked in front of a wooden hut just<br />
down the road from the fuel depot that served<br />
as customs and immigration headquarters.<br />
An army officer in full camouflage fatigues,<br />
who enjoyed pointing the business end of his<br />
machine gun at whomever he was addressing,<br />
told us that the customs officials had left<br />
earlier that day to celebrate carnaval and<br />
wouldn’t return until four days later. Waiting<br />
was out of the question, as was backtracking<br />
to another entry point into the country. To<br />
complete the trip in our allotted three weeks,<br />
we had to drive 10 to 12 hours per day.<br />
We checked into the only pension in San<br />
Matias. The rooms, which cost 15 Bolivianos<br />
(US $2), were furnished with two single<br />
beds, a small table and a noisy wall fan that<br />
barely moved the air but helped keep the<br />
mosquitoes at bay. We ate in a thatched hut<br />
with dirt floors and watched the local carnaval<br />
revelers dance their way through the<br />
muddy streets, spraying canned foam at unsuspecting<br />
targets. After a dozen bottles of<br />
cool Paceña beer, we decided to take our<br />
chances and drive on to San Ignacio the next<br />
morning even though it meant entering the<br />
country illegally.<br />
DAY 4 We left at first light. The dirt road<br />
was in good condition as we traveled 100 kilometers<br />
into the Bolivian Amazon, but soon<br />
the scorching sun burned off the morning<br />
dew and the air filled with choking dust that<br />
reduced visibility to a few dozen feet and<br />
clogged the air filters. Even though we’d been<br />
told to stick together for security, the dust<br />
made it impossible to drive in convoy so we<br />
continued our trek a kilometer apart.<br />
In San Ignacio, we found the immigration<br />
officer at a bar and explained our predicament.<br />
After a few cold ones, he agreed to<br />
open his office on a Sunday and stamp our<br />
passports. With this, all we were missing<br />
PRETTY PALETTE<br />
Colorful landscapes—<br />
here of potato fields in<br />
the Colca River Valley—<br />
would give way to<br />
moon-like terrain as<br />
Lynch and his team<br />
climbed higher and<br />
higher into the Andes<br />
on their strenuous<br />
23-day journey.<br />
thunderbird magazine 29
LONG WAY DOWN<br />
On Day 8, the caravan<br />
snakes its way along<br />
“Death Road,” a serpentine<br />
sliver carved into<br />
the sides of the steep<br />
Cordillera Real that<br />
Lynch calls the most<br />
dangerous road in the<br />
world. The ravines are<br />
so deep that bodies of<br />
some who failed to<br />
navigate it safely have<br />
never been recovered.<br />
were the customs authorizations. But there<br />
was no customs officer in town.<br />
“Not to worry,” the commandante of the<br />
army garrison told us. “You are our hermanos<br />
brasileños,” our Brazilian brothers.<br />
The authorities in Trinidad, he assured us,<br />
would understand our predicament and issue<br />
the proper authorizations. We had already<br />
driven our cars 300 kilometers into a foreign<br />
country illegally and now we were proceeding<br />
hundreds of kilometers more. If anything<br />
were to happen, we would get little sympathy<br />
from the authorities.<br />
DAY 5 To raise the group’s morale, we spent<br />
the day visiting the 17th century Jesuit missions<br />
in the neighboring towns of San<br />
Miguel, San Rafael and Santa Ana. The<br />
timeless beauty of the colonial architecture<br />
and intricate artwork was overshadowed by<br />
our customs problem. That evening, in a bar<br />
on the plaza that faced the cathedral, we<br />
watched the carnaval revelers dance all<br />
around us. We decided to push forward to<br />
Trinidad.<br />
DAY 6 We left at dawn in a somber mood,<br />
then stopped for lunch at a roadside restaurant,<br />
with six hours of intense driving left to<br />
reach Trinidad. We were now entering the<br />
Cocaine Corridor, an empty stretch of jungle<br />
controlled by wary drug growers and pitiless<br />
narco-traffickers. Countless people have<br />
ventured into the Cocaine Corridor and never<br />
been seen again. Back in our vehicles, we<br />
maintained radio silence. The faster and qui-<br />
eter we got through the jungle the better.<br />
In Ascención, we stopped to fill our diesel<br />
tanks, but within 20 minutes word of our arrival<br />
attracted a group of suspicious looking<br />
onlookers. In this rundown village, where<br />
the only other vehicles were three shiny new<br />
pickup trucks with dark tinted windows<br />
guarded by tough looking characters in sunglasses,<br />
our vehicles had become objects of<br />
desire. The men were surely involved in drug<br />
trafficking. We departed without incident,<br />
but drove away with our eyes on our rearview<br />
mirrors.<br />
We reached the outskirts of Trinidad by<br />
sunset. On hearing our tale, the avuncular<br />
owner of our hotel took us to his friend, a sergeant,<br />
who gave us the authorizations for the<br />
cars. All our worry for nothing!<br />
DAY 7 We crossed the final<br />
stretch of Amazon jungle before<br />
reaching the Yungas, the<br />
mountainous highlands leading<br />
to the Andes. Our immediate<br />
challenge was a 65-kilometer<br />
dirt road, known as the most<br />
dangerous road in the world,<br />
that would take us from 800<br />
meters altitude to 4,000 meters<br />
in a few hours. Each year, more<br />
than 100 lives are lost from cars<br />
careening off the edge of the<br />
road into the valley below.<br />
The view over the canopy of<br />
the Amazonian rainforest is<br />
breathtaking. The rolling green<br />
carpet stretching to the horizon<br />
seems untouched except for the<br />
jagged scar where the road<br />
slices through the lush vegetation.<br />
We climbed the steep switchback<br />
curves for hours without seeing anything<br />
but thunderclouds gliding ominously between<br />
mountain peaks. Nightfall came<br />
quickly and brought with it a torrential<br />
downpour from the pregnant clouds that had<br />
been accumulating moisture all day. A thick<br />
gray mist descended on the road, which<br />
forced us to reduce our pace to walking speed<br />
and to use only parking lights to navigate the<br />
treacherous road. Late that night, we arrived<br />
at a town called Caranavi.<br />
DAY 8 The next morning, the sun quickly<br />
burned off the mist that had blanketed the<br />
mountain forest. We snaked our way over the<br />
mountains to Coroico, which sits precariously<br />
on a cliff only 65 kilometers from La Paz,<br />
the day’s goal. To reach the capital, we had to<br />
30 fall 2005
climb 3,800 meters to reach La Cumbre, the<br />
summit of the Cordillera Real. Over millions<br />
of years, the Coroico River has carved out a<br />
twisting valley with near vertical walls. It was<br />
hard to imagine how the engineers managed<br />
to build what they call the Death Road. All<br />
along it, dilapidated buses and trucks pass one<br />
another on the nerve-wracking blind switchbacks,<br />
often no more than four meters wide.<br />
Just a month earlier, 35 people had died and<br />
more than 100 were injured when two buses<br />
went over the edge into one of the shallower<br />
ravines. Colorful plastic bouquets attached to<br />
crosses marking some tragic accident are the<br />
only spots of color in the gray-brown landscape.<br />
In the canyon below the road lay the<br />
wreckage of busses, trucks and cars. Where<br />
access is especially difficult, we<br />
were told, bodies are not often<br />
recovered.<br />
The sweat that dripped down<br />
our faces was more than response<br />
to the humid conditions.<br />
We were scared. During<br />
the four hours on Death Road,<br />
we had our share of heart-stopping<br />
experiences. First, a truck<br />
and then a fully loaded bus<br />
came grille to grille with our<br />
pickup on one of the blind hairpin<br />
curves. After seeing the difficulty<br />
the truck had in backing<br />
up, we decided to drive in reverse<br />
ourselves when we met a<br />
bus full of Bolivians. The bus<br />
driver refused our offer, however,<br />
and proceeded to execute<br />
the reverse maneuver with perfection.<br />
During the whole<br />
process, no one in the bus got<br />
out. Were they resigned fatalists or just worried<br />
about losing their seats?<br />
DAY 10 Early Saturday morning, we left La<br />
Paz and entered Peru. Ironically, not once in<br />
Bolivia were we required to present the customs<br />
documents we had suffered so much to<br />
obtain. We spent the day on a dusty road to<br />
Puno, the largest city on Lake Titicaca.<br />
DAY 11 Late in the afternoon, we arrived in<br />
Chivay, less than 200 kilometers from the Pacific<br />
Ocean, as the crow flies. Chivay lies at<br />
the head of the Colca Valley Canyon, a ravine<br />
twice as deep as the Grand Canyon. The<br />
town would be our base camp for the attempt<br />
to reach the source of the Amazon. We were<br />
headed for Mount Mismi, on the continental<br />
divide. That night we spent talking with<br />
Carlos Zarate, our mountain guide, about the<br />
conditions we could expect on this final<br />
stage: cold, wind, snow, rocks, ice and a lack<br />
of oxygen. We figured the cold and lack of<br />
oxygen were going to be our two worst enemies.<br />
Some in the group were already feeling<br />
the effects of the altitude, and our objective<br />
lay at 17,000 feet, still 5,000 feet higher.<br />
We had to make it to the source before the<br />
sun softened the snow around midday. Our<br />
tires could navigate the harder snow better,<br />
and we would still have to get back down. If<br />
we didn’t reach the source by midday, we<br />
would have to turn back, Zarate said. We had<br />
not brought equipment to spend the night at<br />
altitude and were not willing to risk getting<br />
stuck there.<br />
DAY 12 By 4:30 a.m., every member of the<br />
group was awake and preparing for the summit<br />
attempt. We removed all non-essential<br />
equipment from the vehicles, but we carried<br />
tea brewed from coca leaves to counter altitude<br />
sickness.<br />
For the first hour, we drove under a starlit<br />
sky. As we climbed, vegetation diminished.<br />
Just after the sun crested the peaks, lighting<br />
up the Colca Valley, we reached the ghost<br />
town of Ran Ran. Four hundred years ago<br />
the Spanish conquistadores had herded the<br />
Aymara Indians into pueblos, or “reducciónes,”<br />
to control the “heathen” and facilitate<br />
the evangelization of these once proud<br />
people. Ran Ran was one of their most remote<br />
reducciónes. Today, most of the stone<br />
walled houses stand empty and roofless.<br />
We took some time to wander through the<br />
GHOST TOWN<br />
On the way to the<br />
source of the Amazon,<br />
Lynch and his team<br />
came across the ruins<br />
of Ran Ran, a 400-yearold<br />
“reducción” where<br />
Spanish rulers once<br />
forced the Aymara<br />
Indians to live in order to<br />
teach them about<br />
Christianity.<br />
thunderbird magazine 31
A DESOLATE LAND<br />
The team had to wind<br />
around house-size rocks<br />
and ravines on their final<br />
push to the crystal clear<br />
jets of water that are the<br />
source of the Amazon,<br />
located high on this rock<br />
wall (above). On the way<br />
to the source, the high<br />
plains of the Andes<br />
provided stunning views<br />
of distant horizons.<br />
The spellbinding<br />
beauty of the<br />
high Andes<br />
opened up<br />
before us.<br />
Only our<br />
colorful cars<br />
broke the<br />
reddish-brown<br />
palette of this<br />
desolate<br />
landscape.<br />
32 fall 2005
uins while eating our picnic breakfast.<br />
Soon after, the trail petered out, leaving us<br />
to blaze our own path. We picked our way<br />
around rocks, ravines and rivers, our pace reduced<br />
to a crawl. The GPS placed us 22 kilometers<br />
from the source, and at the speed we<br />
were traveling we weren’t going to make it by<br />
midday. Furthermore, dark clouds billowed<br />
from mountain passes and we were pelted<br />
with hail the size of ping-pong balls. We<br />
could only hope our vehicles would not be<br />
damaged. The pounding stopped as fast as it<br />
had begun, leaving behind a clear message:<br />
enter at your own risk.<br />
As we motored upward, the cold deepened,<br />
the wind picked up and the landscape<br />
changed. The towering rock escarpments<br />
slowly folded into barren, rolling valleys surrounded<br />
by snow-capped peaks. The spellbinding<br />
beauty of the high Andes opened up<br />
before us. Only our colorful cars broke the<br />
reddish-brown palette of this desolate landscape.<br />
The terrain was more forgiving, but our<br />
engines lost power in the airless, 16,000-foot<br />
elevation. We all felt a shortness of breath and<br />
pain in our foreheads, the infamous soroche,<br />
first indications of altitude sickness.<br />
Zarate, our guide, rode with Delmotte and<br />
me in the lead and helped us approach snowclad<br />
Mount Mismi. The GPS real-time navigation<br />
was no help in getting around boulders,<br />
and our erratic route drew interesting<br />
circles and half moons on the screen of my<br />
laptop, but it was critical to log the path to the<br />
source on the laptop in order to retrace our<br />
trail on the return leg of the expedition.<br />
When we found ourselves in a box canyon,<br />
we had to climb a steep slope of gravel and<br />
rocks. Delmotte took a running start. The<br />
turbocharger, trying to feed the engine<br />
starved of oxygen, kicked in and our 33-inch<br />
BF Goodrich tires spat gravel in all directions.<br />
The Hilux fishtailed wildly and twice<br />
lost momentum as the tires searched for traction,<br />
but Delmotte managed to maneuver it<br />
to the top of the ridge. The other vehicles<br />
were less successful. Both the Land Rover<br />
and Land Cruiser dug in deep, up to their<br />
chassis in gravel. Neither vehicle was going<br />
anywhere.<br />
If it weren’t for the altitude, extracting the<br />
two cars from the gravel would have been a<br />
walk in the park. However, at 16,500 feet it<br />
tested the limits of safety. At this altitude,<br />
just pulling the cable from the winch and<br />
dragging it up to the Hilux was heroic. It took<br />
us 20 minutes to haul each truck up the hill,<br />
time we couldn’t afford to lose.<br />
From the top of the box canyon, the base of<br />
Mismi was less than a kilometer away. It is<br />
where we would find a dark wall of near vertical<br />
rock marking the source of the mightiest<br />
and longest river in the world. All we had to<br />
do was traverse a largely level area between<br />
two valleys. When we reached a point where<br />
we had to drive down one steep grade and<br />
then up another, we agreed that only Delmotte<br />
would drive his vehicle. If he got stuck,<br />
we had enough straps and cables to winch<br />
him out. The rest of us would reach the<br />
source on foot. Delmotte slowly but surely<br />
made it to the base of the rockslide that was<br />
marked on his GPS system as the source of<br />
the Amazon River.<br />
Climbing on foot the last few hundred meters<br />
was not easy. We were all tired and felt<br />
the altitude. My heart was beating twice its<br />
normal rate in an effort to compensate for the<br />
low oxygen levels in my blood. Every six<br />
steps, I had to stop and take a breath. Slowly,<br />
we moved upward. Finally, we reached the<br />
cliff face and gathered together at the base of<br />
a 100-meter wall where a powerful jet of crystal<br />
clear water shot out through cracks in the<br />
granite. A wooden cross was haphazardly<br />
buried at the edge of the pool formed by the<br />
water streaming from the rock.<br />
I thought of the trips I had made to the<br />
mouth of the Amazon at the Atlantic Ocean,<br />
some 6,700 kilometers to the east. At that<br />
point, the river is so wide that you cannot see<br />
to the opposite shore; so immense that early<br />
explorers took it for a fresh water ocean. As<br />
we looked at the small stream of crystal-clear<br />
water, I was humbled and deeply moved by<br />
standing at the birthplace of this powerful<br />
river that gives so much life to South America<br />
and the world.<br />
AT THE SOURCE<br />
On Day 12, Lynch (left)<br />
and Rene Delmotte<br />
stand proudly at the<br />
source of the Amazon,<br />
their obsession. “We<br />
dreamt, we planned and<br />
we made it happen,”<br />
Lynch says about the<br />
feat. The team was the<br />
first group ever to arrive<br />
there by motor vehicle.<br />
thunderbird magazine 33
TÉLÉ-<br />
SONIQUE<br />
BOOMS<br />
PETER LAUTH<br />
34 fall 2005
Forget neutrality.<br />
There’s a war going on<br />
in Switzerland between<br />
the nation’s longstanding<br />
telecom monopoly<br />
and the upstarts<br />
gunning for their share<br />
of the business.<br />
Meet the man spearheading<br />
the call-to-arms.<br />
By Jason Ankeny<br />
ADEL LABIB ’83<br />
surveys the town of<br />
Zurich from the rooftop<br />
of his Swiss start-up<br />
business, Télésonique,<br />
EVERYONE KNOWS THAT TIME IS MONEY AND,<br />
like money, the value of time fluctuates from one corner<br />
of the globe to another. In the United States, where<br />
the 1984 breakup of AT&T and the Telecommunications<br />
Act of 1996 helped forge a fiercely competitive<br />
telecom market, network operators large and small vie<br />
for customers by promising cheaper voice services and long-distance<br />
minutes than their rivals. But that’s not the norm in much of the<br />
world, where state-run telcos maintain a monopolistic grip that forces<br />
consumers to pay inflated prices for basic communications services.<br />
“Most governments don’t look at telecom as a tool to fulfill a basic<br />
human need. To them, it’s a method to impose hidden taxes,”<br />
says <strong>Thunderbird</strong> alumnus Adel Labib ’83. “The industry needs a<br />
revolution.”<br />
So Labib put his money where his mouth is. In 1997, he resigned his<br />
post as managing director for AT&T’s International Emerging Services,<br />
liquidated all his personal assets and with fellow AT&T alum<br />
François Callegaro founded the Geneva-based telecom service<br />
provider Télésonique, a David against the Goliath Swisscom, the former<br />
government-owned service provider that was privatized following<br />
a 1997 act of Swiss parliament.<br />
Télésonique’s approach is simple: purchase wholesale network capacity<br />
and minutes from the major international service providers,<br />
sell those minutes to consumers for a fraction of the traditional cost,<br />
and improve the quality of customer care that is the Achilles’ heel of<br />
virtually all large companies from Argentina to Zimbabwe.<br />
“The telecom industry is the biggest cartel ever known to man, but<br />
no one dares to call it a cartel,” says Labib, Télésonique’s CEO. “The<br />
true cost of transmitting a phone call from anywhere in the world is<br />
less than one cent. Yet the cartel members have devised a scheme<br />
among them called ‘accounting rates’ and usually a so-called ‘confidential<br />
bilateral agreement’ to hide the true costs so that they can get<br />
away with charging customers any amount that pleases them and<br />
satisfies their greed.”<br />
thunderbird magazine 35
“When<br />
you work<br />
in a big<br />
company,<br />
you have to<br />
go against<br />
the culture<br />
and the<br />
old way<br />
of doing<br />
business.<br />
You fight<br />
for your<br />
principles<br />
and what<br />
you believe<br />
in, and<br />
you fight<br />
against<br />
corporate<br />
politics...<br />
I guess I’m<br />
a rebel for<br />
a cause.”<br />
Labib accuses them of making a mystery<br />
of traffic costs so that people outside of the<br />
industry have no idea what calls really cost.<br />
They fix prices and monopolize access,<br />
Labib says, so customers have no choice.<br />
“We re-engineered the process by buying<br />
minutes at wholesale market prices and<br />
lowering the costs of selling, delivering,<br />
servicing, billing and collecting so that we<br />
can deliver our services at an affordable<br />
price. We try to eliminate bureaucracy and<br />
wasted resources.”<br />
So far, the Télésonique uprising is paying<br />
dividends. The company has transported<br />
more than 1 billion traffic minutes since inception<br />
and it reached profitability in 2001.<br />
“Mr. Labib is a lionhearted entrepreneur,”<br />
says Dr. Dieter Beer, chairman and founder<br />
of the Swiss pharmaceutical research and development<br />
company CarboGen and one of<br />
the jurors who awarded Labib and Callegaro<br />
the 2003 Entrepreneur of the Year award in<br />
the start-ups category, sponsored by the<br />
Swiss arm of professional services firm Ernst<br />
& Young.<br />
“When he started his company, Swiss<br />
telecommunications was still characterized<br />
by tough monopoly,” says Beer. “It is to his<br />
merit that he has helped to break up this<br />
trust-like situation and to push free market<br />
conditions a little bit further in this country.”<br />
A global focus<br />
THE EGYPTIAN-BORN, U.S.-<br />
educated Labib knows better<br />
than most the value of international<br />
communications. The<br />
product of a middle-class Cairo<br />
family, as a child he dreamed of traveling the<br />
globe, believing a career in hotel management<br />
was his ticket forward. “I wanted to get<br />
myself out of a confined place,” he recalls.<br />
“But standing behind a reception desk where<br />
all the guests are venting their frustrations<br />
was not for me. Most international guests<br />
came to Cairo to do business. One of them<br />
was a <strong>Thunderbird</strong> graduate. I figured that<br />
could be my way out.”<br />
After the government-mandated breakup<br />
of the AT&T monopoly, the venerable carrier<br />
began looking outside of the United States<br />
for new opportunities while seeking out new<br />
blood with experience in international business,<br />
not just telecom veterans. Labib, who<br />
joined the company’s international division<br />
in 1987 and worked out of its New Jersey<br />
headquarters, was among this new generation<br />
of AT&T execs. In 1995, Labib was<br />
transferred to Geneva to head AT&T’s International<br />
Emerging Service Business Unit<br />
that was looking at markets in which liberalization<br />
was imminent.<br />
“AT&T was my first deep understanding<br />
of how the telecom services side works,” he<br />
says. “I was in charge of the traffic generated<br />
and terminated outside of the United States,<br />
so I learned how telecom traffic operates<br />
worldwide. All of the world’s telecom companies<br />
were our customers. It’s an incestuous<br />
industry. Our suppliers are our customers are<br />
our competitors, all at the same time.”<br />
But the new AT&T found itself mired in<br />
its traditional methods of doing business,<br />
frequently forcing Labib to butt heads with<br />
superiors. His colleagues even awarded him<br />
such tongue-in-cheek and unofficial honors<br />
as the AT&T Bulletproof Vest Award and<br />
the AT&T Sense of Urgency Award.<br />
“When you work in a big company, you<br />
have to go against the culture and the old way<br />
of doing business,” Labib says. “You fight for<br />
your principles and what you believe in, and<br />
you fight against corporate politics. My first<br />
manager at AT&T once told me, ‘You bring<br />
more value by fighting against monopoly<br />
culture than adhering to it.’ I guess I’m a rebel<br />
for a cause.”<br />
In 1997, AT&T dismantled its Geneva operations,<br />
announcing its decision to refocus<br />
on its U.S. business and the growing broadband<br />
services market. “I couldn’t believe it.<br />
We spent how many years planning, and<br />
now we’re going home?” Labib says. “I decided<br />
it was a good time to jump ship. Besides, I<br />
was sick of people saying, ‘You can’t do that.<br />
It’s not your company.’ When you have your<br />
own company, you can do what you want.”<br />
Founded with 1 million Swiss francs (approximately<br />
$600,000 US), all of it from<br />
Labib and Callegaro’s own pockets, Télésonique<br />
sought to capitalize on a newly liberated<br />
Swiss market still in the infancy of privatization.<br />
The company built its network virtually<br />
from scrap, acquiring only the most<br />
cost-efficient equipment necessary to do the<br />
job. “Telecom service is not about just having<br />
a switch,” Labib says. “You need billing<br />
systems, a network operations center, marketing<br />
and customer service, and you have to<br />
do it all with very little money.”<br />
After securing the necessary licenses in late<br />
1997, Télésonique transmitted its first live call<br />
in August 1998, initially offering only longdistance<br />
and international services. The<br />
company, which now also delivers Internet<br />
services, serves about 20,000 residential consumers.<br />
Its Carrier Services and Wholesale<br />
36 fall 2005
Card Sharp<br />
IN ADDITION TO DIFFERENTIATING Télésonique via pricing,<br />
Adel Labib hopes to position the company as, in his<br />
words, “a telco with a heart.” Toward that end, the company<br />
donates 5% of the revenue earned from its prepaid<br />
“Help Africa” calling cards to Médecins Sans Frontières,<br />
which provides volunteer medical care to developing<br />
countries torn apart by war or natural<br />
disaster.<br />
Available at some 4,000 Swiss newsstands,<br />
post office locations and other retail sites,<br />
Télésonique’s calling cards appeal largely to<br />
tourists, immigrants and students—“cost-conscious<br />
customers,” Labib says. The cards are<br />
available in denominations of 10, 20 and 30<br />
Swiss francs.<br />
“The cards are a tangible and visual representation of our<br />
business,” Labib says, speaking of their importance for the<br />
company. “It’s something the customer sees on the shelf or<br />
at the store and says, ‘I need that.’”<br />
Télésonique’s “Help Africa” cards also boast considerable<br />
cultural cachet. Each is adorned by the artwork of the<br />
Russian-born, Geneva-based painter Serge Diakonoff. So<br />
far, Diakonoff has submitted art for about a<br />
dozen of the limited-edition cards. According to<br />
Labib, discontinued cards have even become<br />
collectibles, and customers have reported the<br />
cards selling for premium prices at online sites<br />
and trading-card collectors’ events.<br />
“The product has been received very well by<br />
our customers and the media, and we’re delighted<br />
to see the results,” Labib says. “We have<br />
a limited marketing budget, but<br />
this program has helped us donate<br />
about half a million Swiss<br />
francs to a very good cause.<br />
That’s part of our philosophy: if<br />
you do something for the customer<br />
and the community, you<br />
get rewarded.”<br />
thunderbird magazine 37
“The idea<br />
now is to<br />
take our<br />
business<br />
model and<br />
experience<br />
and<br />
replicate<br />
it in every<br />
corner of<br />
the world<br />
where there<br />
are humans<br />
who need<br />
to communicate.<br />
There<br />
should be<br />
a microoperator<br />
for every<br />
village and<br />
town on<br />
Earth.”<br />
divisions additionally serve more than a<br />
dozen telecom operators across Europe.<br />
Though Télésonique has produced profits<br />
of more than 10 million francs since it was<br />
founded, Labib still employs a small staff of<br />
about 20. Most employees originate from outside<br />
of the telecom business, including former<br />
hotel and restaurant employees well<br />
skilled in the art of customer service. Others<br />
are recent college graduates entering the corporate<br />
arena for the first time. Almost all are<br />
under the age of 25.<br />
“Small business is more productive than<br />
big business,” Labib says. “Successful companies<br />
are either small or big. If you’re small,<br />
you can use speed, efficiency and productivity<br />
to your advantage. If you’re mediumsized,<br />
you lose that flexibility, but you don’t<br />
have the resources of the big guys, either.”<br />
Although Labib says the Swiss market is<br />
far less receptive to start-ups than the United<br />
States, Télésonique’s success has not gone<br />
unnoticed. “Adel has done a wonderful job as<br />
a genuine entrepreneur in a monopolistic and<br />
closed market,” says Susan Kish, CEO of the<br />
networking organization First Tuesday, Zurich<br />
and one of the jurors who awarded Labib<br />
the Ernst & Young honor. “He has shown<br />
high levels of both strategic vision and pragmatic<br />
survival skills. His energy, enthusiasm<br />
and creativity are outstanding.”<br />
Labib’s next step: telecom without borders.<br />
He wants to replicate the Télésonique business<br />
model across the planet, targeting devel-<br />
oping nations where communications services<br />
remain under government control. Labib<br />
estimates that this includes about two-thirds<br />
of the countries in the world.<br />
“We’ve worked hard to prove there is room<br />
for companies like ours. The idea now is to<br />
take our business model and experience and<br />
replicate it in every corner of the world where<br />
there are humans who need to communicate,”<br />
Labib says. He envisions a McDonald’s-like<br />
franchise model in which every micro-telco<br />
would be individually owned and operated by<br />
entrepreneurs, but with full access to Télésonique’s<br />
experience, resources, support and a<br />
global network infrastructure to transmit<br />
phone calls, faxes and emails to anywhere in<br />
the world.<br />
TÉLÉSONIQUE built its network virtually from scrap, but now it is a highly advanced telecommunications firm.<br />
“Most of them will go after neglected<br />
markets, then the neglected segments within<br />
those markets,” Labib says. “There should<br />
be a micro-operator for every village and<br />
town on Earth. We’ll tell the cartel, ‘We’re<br />
small potatoes, and we’re going after the<br />
peanuts you don’t want.’ We will franchise<br />
the business model, but offer infrastructure<br />
support. Sharing of resources will allow<br />
them to do it.”<br />
But if it sounds like David wants to become<br />
Goliath, think again. “My plan is not to become<br />
a big operator. I’d rather have hundreds<br />
and thousands of micro-operators,” Labib<br />
says. “We want to break the myth that there<br />
is no room for small players in the telecom industry.<br />
Who needs a $10 billion gorilla?”<br />
38 fall 2005
Ever think about starting<br />
your own business?<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong>’s Walker Center for Global<br />
Entrepreneurship can help you make that<br />
dream a reality. We can help you with:<br />
Robert Hisrich, Ph.D.<br />
•Business planning<br />
•Capital development and funding<br />
•Personalized consulting and coaching<br />
•Conferences, workshops<br />
•Family business development and management<br />
•<strong>Thunderbird</strong> campus “incubator” facilities for start-ups<br />
Ernesto Poza<br />
With a staff of experienced, passionate entrepreneurs and<br />
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www.thunderbird.edu/cge
faculty focus<br />
The overnight MBA<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong> professor Steven Stralser provides busy professionals<br />
with the business concepts they didn’t learn in school<br />
DESPITE ITS TITLE, Professor<br />
Steven Stralser’s book, “MBA<br />
in a Day,” doesn’t advocate a<br />
dramatic shortening of the<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong> trimester system.<br />
“I wrote the book after I noticed more and<br />
more professionals going back to school for<br />
an MBA,” says Stralser, who is also the<br />
managing director of <strong>Thunderbird</strong>’s Global<br />
Entrepreneurship Center. “It gives busy<br />
doctors, lawyers, CPAs, veterinarians and<br />
other well-educated professionals a comprehensive<br />
overview of business concepts they<br />
likely missed during their professional<br />
school training.”<br />
The 320-page book, published by Wiley<br />
and available at Amazon.com, is divided<br />
into four sections: management and policy;<br />
economics, finance, and accounting; marketing;<br />
and systems and processes. Readers get<br />
pointers on, among others, fair negotiation<br />
tactics, advertising and promotion, effective<br />
communication and presentations, project<br />
management, using the Internet for business<br />
purposes, and quality control measures.<br />
In one section, Stralser points out the importance<br />
of establishing good human relations<br />
policies, practices and strategies which,<br />
he says, is something a lot of highly trained<br />
professionals tend to overlook. Physicians,<br />
for example, don’t always realize that a<br />
patient’s overall satisfaction may be determined<br />
less by the physician, who may spend<br />
only moments with a patient, and more by<br />
the time he has to wait for the doctor.<br />
“Physicians come out of medical school<br />
usually well prepared to treat patients, but<br />
rarely prepared to run a medical practice,<br />
which is a business enterprise that should<br />
be run like any other business: efficiently,<br />
productively and in a customer-focused<br />
manner.”<br />
Bowen<br />
authors<br />
top HR<br />
paper<br />
THE National<br />
Academy of<br />
Management,<br />
the world’s leading<br />
academic organization<br />
in the management<br />
field, honored<br />
a paper by Thunder-<br />
bird Professor David<br />
Bowen and co-author<br />
Cheri Ostroff by<br />
naming it the best<br />
HR article published<br />
in any academic<br />
journal in 2004. The<br />
article appeared in<br />
the Academy of Management<br />
Review.<br />
While the impact<br />
of hiring and compensation<br />
practices<br />
on individual employees<br />
is well established,<br />
the way in<br />
which they affect<br />
a firm’s overall<br />
performance is less<br />
well understood.<br />
“It’s the features of<br />
a human resource<br />
management system,<br />
overall, that send<br />
signals to employees<br />
that allow them to<br />
form a shared sense<br />
of what is expected<br />
of them,” Bowen<br />
says. A “strong”<br />
human resource<br />
management system<br />
creates a “strong<br />
climate.” The best<br />
human resource systems<br />
have visibility,<br />
legitimacy, understandability,<br />
consistency,<br />
instrumentality<br />
and fairness.<br />
“To enhance human<br />
resource management<br />
effectiveness,<br />
the focus has to<br />
be much more systemic<br />
than just getting<br />
specific practices<br />
‘right’ to leverage individual<br />
performance,”<br />
Bowen says.<br />
Bowen also was<br />
honored earlier this<br />
year when he received<br />
the G. Robert<br />
and Katherine<br />
Herberger Chair in<br />
Global Management<br />
from <strong>Thunderbird</strong>.<br />
See the full paper at:<br />
thunderbird.edu<br />
40 fall 2005
faculty writings<br />
Sales is dead;<br />
long live sales!<br />
By Keith Niblett and Chris Edwards<br />
THE INTERNET<br />
technology industry<br />
is often regarded as<br />
the bellweather for<br />
modern business<br />
practice. Innovation<br />
is fast, dirty and<br />
competitive. Product life cycles<br />
are shortening. Competition<br />
from global players and niche<br />
specialist organizations is fierce.<br />
Only the fittest survive.<br />
The nature of a complex IT sale is that its<br />
implementation involves much organizational<br />
upheaval. The complex sale is not<br />
unique and can be found in other industries.<br />
In such instances, future survival depends<br />
on collaborations that transcend organizational<br />
boundaries, adversarial situations,<br />
traditional functional silos and conventional<br />
well-honed relationships.<br />
❖<br />
The persistence of the hangover affecting<br />
the IT industry from dot-com bubbles, scale<br />
efficiencies, outsourcing fashions and the<br />
like has many wondering whether the good<br />
days will ever return. While vendors persist<br />
in talking up the industry in the hope that<br />
sales will somehow follow PR, the truth<br />
remains that both consultancies and IT<br />
vendors have been propped up by a generous<br />
public sector (£35 billion in the UK health<br />
sector alone). In both the public and the<br />
private sectors, the IT industry faces<br />
commoditization, with too many vendors,<br />
too little that is really new and an evershortening<br />
technology innovation life cycle.<br />
Even more importantly, the great truth left<br />
unspoken is that, in technology terms, the<br />
buyer is having an increasingly difficult<br />
time choosing between vendors’ solutions.<br />
Procurement departments within<br />
customer organizations are unbundling<br />
IT solutions into components that are then<br />
aggressively sourced through discounting<br />
deals. Commodity components of the solution<br />
are sometimes being sourced through<br />
on-line auction mechanisms.<br />
❖<br />
Value-based selling is grounded upon the<br />
concept that a sale fulfills a set of explicit<br />
needs that are aligned to improvements in<br />
the effectiveness of a client organization.<br />
This implies that to understand the values<br />
that may be created within a specific organization,<br />
some form of relationship is created.<br />
Now, with technology innovation cycles<br />
significantly shortening, higher margins lie<br />
in being able to differentiate a product by<br />
focusing on solutions to specific and identified<br />
customer needs. This has to occur before<br />
competition swarms in to crowd the<br />
marketplace. However, sophisticated buyers<br />
are aware of this innovation cycle differentiation<br />
eroding over time and delay purchase.<br />
As competition increases, a value-based<br />
rivalry is created.<br />
❖<br />
We observe that the attractiveness of<br />
value-based approaches is beginning to wane<br />
in the eyes of the vendor. Vendors complain<br />
that they undertake the research on the<br />
prospect and identify needs, understand the<br />
key stakeholders, make the perfect presentation—only<br />
to be met with subsequent<br />
silence. Weeks go by, months sometimes,<br />
without hearing anything at all.<br />
The causes of this silence are clear:<br />
1. All IT vendors are now telling the same<br />
value-based story but with different names.<br />
2. Buyers are losing the ability to distinguish<br />
between the stories; they do not have<br />
the criteria to choose between solutions.<br />
3. Most importantly, the true nature of the<br />
decision is, nine times out of ten, not a product-<br />
or solution-based decision. It is actually<br />
a strategic business solution that inevitably<br />
leads to significant organizational change.<br />
Vendors have for a while been trying to<br />
influence the customer’s business strategy,<br />
Keith B. Niblett<br />
Keith Niblett is associate<br />
vice president of Global<br />
Partnerships and<br />
teaches Marketing<br />
Strategy, Sales Strategy<br />
and Customer Engagement<br />
at <strong>Thunderbird</strong>.<br />
He has a Masters in<br />
Marketing from the<br />
Institute of Marketing, a<br />
Masters in Management<br />
Studies from East Anglia<br />
University, a BA in<br />
English Literature from<br />
Bath University and a<br />
BA in Music from the<br />
Royal School of Music.<br />
Chris Edwards<br />
Chris Edwards is the<br />
chair of management<br />
information systems<br />
at Cranfield University<br />
School of Management<br />
in Bedfordshire,<br />
England.<br />
thunderbird magazine 41
faculty writings<br />
…the great<br />
truth left<br />
unspoken<br />
is that, in<br />
technology<br />
terms, the<br />
buyer is<br />
having an<br />
increasingly<br />
difficult<br />
time<br />
choosing<br />
between<br />
vendors’<br />
solutions.<br />
which involves moving from value-based<br />
selling to a consultative approach. These are<br />
situations in which, according to the theory<br />
at least, the buying and selling organizations<br />
become significantly closer. Frequently,<br />
vendors also include ‘high touch’ sales techniques<br />
to understand their customers’ needs.<br />
The difficulty vendors experience is that,<br />
despite their best efforts, they are not treated<br />
as consultative partners, but merely suppliers<br />
of technology. Understandably, buyers<br />
are reluctant to hold strategic conversations<br />
with anyone trying to sell. “It’s all a dance,”<br />
said a major buyer in the telecom industry<br />
in Europe. “We know what our suppliers are<br />
doing. Why would we open up to them and<br />
tell them our biggest fears and weaknesses?”<br />
❖<br />
The length of the sales cycle is influenced<br />
by the time it takes for the buyer to understand<br />
the organizational context, combined<br />
with how long it takes to become comfortable<br />
with the ability to successfully manage<br />
the organizational change.<br />
Rather than leaving the customer to<br />
struggle alone at this point, the vendor can<br />
help the buyer through this process because<br />
the vendor has a rich history of such experiences.<br />
In doing so, they should and they can<br />
greatly speed up the sales cycle.<br />
Vendors must develop a core value-strategy,<br />
with associated processes that achieve<br />
near-total integration across functions and<br />
organizations. This strategy must be highly<br />
focused, involving key relationships not only<br />
with customers but with other suppliers<br />
and even competitors. This is sometimes defined<br />
as an “eco-system.” Therefore vendor<br />
organizations must form tightly knit teams<br />
to manage the many dynamics of these<br />
complex relationships. None of the members<br />
of the team necessarily have to be<br />
salesmen in the conventional sense. The<br />
team vision is one of developing a deep<br />
knowledge of the customer’s organization<br />
while designing solutions specifically for<br />
the needs of their end customers.<br />
Applying these ideas demands that<br />
vendors must divide their customer engagement<br />
approach into two stages:<br />
In stage one, vendor teams need to truly<br />
stop selling and help customers understand<br />
their readiness for a solution, particularly<br />
the implications of change within their<br />
organizations. Further, vendor teams need<br />
to help customers understand how they<br />
will manage these changes.<br />
Stage two involves introducing the vendor’s<br />
products and services in the context<br />
of the customer’s business issues. The<br />
vendor, in collaboration with the customer,<br />
can develop a complete and comprehensive<br />
custom cost-and-benefit statement resulting<br />
in a personalized ROI.<br />
The knowledge and skills required of<br />
those individuals working in vendor teams<br />
is well beyond the traditional salesperson’s<br />
experience. Specifically, knowledge of marketing<br />
and business strategy is required as<br />
well as in-depth knowledge of fellow team<br />
members’ products and services. This approach<br />
suggests that IT vendors should reskill<br />
their sales force and integrate the marketing<br />
strategy and sales operations, with<br />
new forms of bonus and reward to match.<br />
❖<br />
The task of the salesperson, as a part of<br />
the “eco-system” team, will become:<br />
1. To introduce the existence of a range<br />
of potential technologies that may be<br />
applicable to the customer’s organization.<br />
2. To help the customer understand the<br />
potential technologies within the context of<br />
its own environment and the changes that<br />
will be required to introduce the technology,<br />
as well as how it will impact existing<br />
processes, systems and cultures.<br />
3. To resolve issues before the customer<br />
makes any decision regarding a specific<br />
solution. For example, identify changeagents,<br />
be instrumental in bringing various<br />
stakeholders on-board, and introduce the<br />
customer to other suppliers who can assist<br />
in resolving some of the identified issues.<br />
4. When—and only when—the customer<br />
has decided to go ahead with a solution, the<br />
salesperson’s role is to introduce the vendor<br />
team’s particular version of that solution,<br />
and to discuss its benefits in the light of the<br />
customer’s specific situation.<br />
❖<br />
A fundamental change in philosophy is<br />
needed, and this will require a completely<br />
new approach, and a different set of skills,<br />
than has traditionally been used. This skillsenhancement<br />
does not apply to the salesperson<br />
alone but to many others in the vendor<br />
organization who will be thrown into a<br />
customer-facing relationship team role.<br />
This paper had to be edited due to space limitations.<br />
See the complete study at <strong>Thunderbird</strong>.edu/magazine<br />
42 fall 2005
Learning from<br />
India’s telecoms<br />
By Kishore C. Dash<br />
faculty writings<br />
WITH THE<br />
wide recognition<br />
of the<br />
critical relevance<br />
of<br />
telecommunications<br />
infrastructure<br />
to a country’s economic<br />
and social development strategy,<br />
telecommunications deregulation<br />
has become a preferred policy<br />
option for many developing<br />
countries. With this renewed<br />
emphasis on telecommunications<br />
deregulation, two critical questions<br />
have moved to the forefront<br />
of academic and political debate:<br />
1) what forces drive the process<br />
of telecommunications deregulation?<br />
And 2) why do some countries<br />
succeed in deregulating the<br />
state-owned telecommunications<br />
sector rapidly while others fail?<br />
Veto-player models explain policy change<br />
by focusing on relationships among component<br />
actors within the government. A veto<br />
player is an individual or collective actor<br />
whose agreement is necessary for a policy<br />
change. In Parliamentary systems, veto<br />
players are the partners in a government<br />
coalition. When the government seeks to<br />
change a policy, it must propose a change to<br />
which all necessary members of the government<br />
coalition must agree. The more partners<br />
in a government, the more difficult it<br />
becomes to enact significant policy changes.<br />
In a government coalition composed of<br />
multiple parties, the ability of any one party<br />
to influence policy rests on its importance to<br />
the survival of the coalition. Several empirical<br />
findings in other policy areas—such as<br />
labor laws, financial reform, and capital<br />
control policy—have found that governments<br />
with more veto-player parties enact<br />
fewer policy changes, including liberalization<br />
policies, than governments with fewer<br />
veto-player parties. Four types of parliamentary<br />
governments can be identified.<br />
First, in single-party majority governments,<br />
only votes from the governing party are necessary<br />
to pass legislation. Hence, only the<br />
governing party acts as a veto-player party.<br />
Second, in surplus majority coalitions, the support<br />
of all governing parties is not necessary<br />
to pass legislation. At a minimum, a majority<br />
can be achieved without the support of<br />
the smallest party. Thus, only larger parties<br />
are important and can act as veto-player<br />
parties. Third, in minimal winning coalitions,<br />
all participant parties are important because<br />
this type of coalition loses its majority if any<br />
party drops out. In such a situation, each<br />
participating party in the government can<br />
effectively become a veto-player party.<br />
Fourth, in a minority government, government<br />
parties require support of outside parties to<br />
pass any legislation. In this type of government,<br />
the number of veto-player parties<br />
exceeds the number of government parties.<br />
The government remains an agent of the<br />
parliament and must produce policies that<br />
are palatable to a majority of legislators or<br />
else it risks losing a vote of confidence.<br />
Applying the veto-player model to telecom<br />
policy changes in India, we see that in a<br />
parliamentary democracy, governments<br />
with more veto-player parties enact fewer<br />
telecom deregulation policies than governments<br />
with fewer veto-player parties. Two<br />
other issues are important to consider here.<br />
First, veto-player parties can take different<br />
bargaining positions depending on the<br />
salience of policy issues. Those with high<br />
salience tend to involve a wide range of domestic<br />
players in the policy debate. Conversely,<br />
issues with lower salience involve<br />
fewer players and generate less attention to<br />
policy outcome than the high-salient ones.<br />
Kishore C. Dash<br />
Dr. Kishore Dash has<br />
been an assistant<br />
professor of International<br />
Studies at<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong> since 1998.<br />
In 2001, he received<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong>’s William<br />
Hacker Faculty Prize for<br />
excellence in teaching<br />
and research. He<br />
received his Ph.D. from<br />
the University of Hawaii<br />
at Manoa, his MBA from<br />
Georgetown University,<br />
his BA from Utkal<br />
University in India, and<br />
his MA from the<br />
University of Delhi.<br />
thunderbird magazine 43
faculty writings<br />
In a government<br />
coalition<br />
composed<br />
of<br />
multiple<br />
parties, the<br />
ability of<br />
any one<br />
party to<br />
influence<br />
policy rests<br />
on its importance<br />
to the<br />
survival<br />
of the<br />
coalition.<br />
Consequently, the higher the salience of<br />
issues under consideration, the greater the<br />
possibility that veto-players will take larger<br />
bargaining positions and demand more concessions.<br />
The lower the salience of issues<br />
under consideration, the better the prospect<br />
that veto-players can take smaller bargaining<br />
positions and demand fewer concessions.<br />
Since the policy of privatization of stateowned<br />
enterprises, including telecommunications<br />
deregulation, always carries high<br />
salience, the veto-players are more likely to<br />
ask for special favors for their constituency<br />
as a condition for supporting any policy<br />
change. This problem of narrow “winset”—the<br />
set of choices that will gain<br />
majority support among domestic constituencies—available<br />
to policy makers<br />
will considerably delay the process of policy<br />
change in the telecommunications sector.<br />
Second, veto-players can take different<br />
bargaining positions depending on their ideological<br />
orientation. For example, veto player<br />
parties with a left-wing orientation are<br />
more likely to resist the privatization policy<br />
initiatives than the veto-player parties with<br />
a centrist or right-wing orientation. The<br />
latter parties are generally more favorable<br />
toward market-based reforms and tend to<br />
support deregulation of the state-controlled<br />
telecommunications sector. Although business<br />
is often thought to benefit from deregulation<br />
policies, this group does not always<br />
welcome the dismantling of domestic<br />
protection, state subsidies, and the prospect<br />
of multinational corporations entering<br />
domestic markets. But generally speaking,<br />
the business groups are likely to support the<br />
telecommunications deregulation policies as<br />
the latter bring efficiency in the telecommunications<br />
infrastructure, a necessary condition<br />
for profitable and efficient business<br />
operations. On the other hand, the major<br />
domestic constituency for the left-wing<br />
parties is organized labor, which is most adversely<br />
affected by deregulation of the stateowned<br />
enterprises, at least in the short run.<br />
Thus, in a coalition government, the<br />
greater the significance of ideological distance<br />
among veto players, the more difficult<br />
it will be to produce agreement for policy<br />
change. This analysis suggests the central<br />
argument of this paper: given the high issue<br />
saliency of the policy of deregulation of the<br />
state-owned telecommunication sector, the<br />
larger the number of veto-players and wider<br />
the ideological distance among them, the<br />
more difficult and time consuming it<br />
becomes to enact telecom deregulation<br />
policies in a parliamentary democracy.<br />
Conclusion<br />
In a parliamentary democracy like India,<br />
the structure of ruling coalitions and the<br />
nature of government’s strategic interaction<br />
with dominant interest groups influence<br />
the choices that policymakers make with<br />
respect to deregulation of state-dominated<br />
telecom sectors. Severe macroeconomic crisis<br />
can create opportunity for policymakers<br />
to launch reform in the telecom sectors. But<br />
once telecom reform is adopted as an official<br />
policy, the pace and viability of its implementation<br />
is largely shaped by the structure<br />
of governmental decision-making. The<br />
delicate act of balancing the contradictory<br />
demands of various veto-player parties and<br />
interest groups in a coalition government<br />
has led to a stop-and-go pattern of reform in<br />
the telecommunications sector in India.<br />
In a parliamentary democracy, governments<br />
with many veto-player parties, separated<br />
by ideological distance, will have less<br />
control over parliamentary agendas because<br />
such governments will have difficulty in<br />
passing through parliament significant<br />
pieces of legislation required for agenda<br />
control. In such a situation, two developments<br />
are inevitable: first, significant pieces<br />
of parliamentary legislation, and deregulation<br />
policies in particular, can only be incremental;<br />
second, a series of nonpolitical actors<br />
such as bureaucrats and judges will have<br />
more influence on deregulation policies.<br />
The findings of this analysis are also<br />
consistent with models of two-level games,<br />
which posit that states’ policy preferences<br />
are shaped by the dynamic interaction<br />
between governmental actors and domestic<br />
players at the domestic level, but the effects<br />
of domestic level variables are themselves<br />
contingent on the constraints and opportunities<br />
imposed by the international system<br />
and foreign players. The present study<br />
extends this argument by showing the<br />
effects of the structure of governmental decision-making<br />
and domestic veto-players on<br />
policy outcomes as more consequential than<br />
suggested by the two-level game model.<br />
Professor Dash’s lengthy and detailed study can be<br />
found in its integral form at <strong>Thunderbird</strong>.edu/magazine.<br />
44 fall 2005
chapter news<br />
Texas give ’em<br />
NOT SINCE THE Alamo was<br />
surrounded have Texans been so<br />
unified. Five Texas chapters—<br />
Dallas/Ft. Worth, Houston, El<br />
Paso, Austin and San Antonio—<br />
have come together in a collaborative effort<br />
to raise at least $100,000 for an endowed<br />
scholarship for a <strong>Thunderbird</strong> student.<br />
“We wanted to help the School in a way<br />
that would build goodwill among chapters<br />
and enrich the alumni experience,” says<br />
Bart Kohnhorst ’83, former regional council<br />
member. “We want to set an example for<br />
other T-birds and put forth a friendly Texas<br />
challenge to alumni chapters around the<br />
world to find similar initiatives.”<br />
Scott Walker ’82, former president and<br />
CEO of BillMatrix Corp., has committed<br />
$50,000 to match all donations dollar-fordollar<br />
from Texas alumni. The chapters<br />
hope to have the funds collected, and a<br />
scholarship offered, by spring 2006.<br />
The effort of the Texas chapters is more<br />
evidence of their collaboration. In March,<br />
leaders from each chapter met to share ideas<br />
and best practices on improving and increasing<br />
alumni participation. The chapters plan<br />
to hold similar meetings bi-annually.<br />
Paris<br />
A blazing fire, believed<br />
historically to<br />
have purifying powers,<br />
has been a part<br />
of the annual celebration<br />
of Saint Jean<br />
on June 18 since the<br />
pagan ritual began<br />
more than 2,000<br />
years ago, but <strong>Thunderbird</strong>s<br />
from the<br />
Paris Chapter who<br />
showed up to celebrate<br />
this year’s<br />
event instead used it<br />
to “purify” a whole<br />
lot of sausages and<br />
shishkabobs. T-birds<br />
grilled on half-barrel<br />
barbeques, washed it<br />
down with an ample<br />
supply of red wine<br />
and took over a good<br />
portion of the outdoor<br />
dance floor.<br />
The evening began<br />
with an aperitif gettogether<br />
at dusk at<br />
the home of Edward<br />
Pierce ’91, in the village<br />
of Bourdonne,<br />
about 50 kilometers<br />
west of Paris. From<br />
there the 18 <strong>Thunderbird</strong>s,<br />
along with<br />
family and friends,<br />
made the short hike<br />
to Chateau de Bourdonne,<br />
joining about<br />
500 other revelers at<br />
the ancient castle.<br />
The sister of the famous<br />
songwriter, actor<br />
and entertainer,<br />
Charles Aznavour,<br />
lent the castle for the<br />
event.<br />
T-birds gathered near Paris for the celebration of Saint Jean. Front row (l.-r.):<br />
Marie-Claire Kramer, Liyana Berthon, Victoria Pierce, Julien Kramer, Milla<br />
Kessener (sitting), and Timothé Durand. Back row: Frederic Shih ’03, Catherine<br />
Pierce, Todd Kramer ’83, Edward Pierce ’91, Laura Kessener, Paul Kessener ’75<br />
with baby Alec, Simone-Eva Redrupp-Durand ’95, Eric Durand with Alexandre<br />
Durand, and Bernadette Martin ’84.<br />
thunderbird magazine 45
chapter news<br />
Panama<br />
On May 10, Dr.<br />
Angel Cabrera visited<br />
with the Panama<br />
chapter without ever<br />
leaving the Glendale<br />
campus. Using the<br />
video equipment by<br />
which <strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
broadcasts its distance<br />
learning programs,<br />
Cabrera<br />
talked for an hour<br />
with 14 alumni who<br />
had gathered at the<br />
City Club in Panama<br />
City. After a<br />
20-minute State-ofthe-School<br />
address,<br />
alumni asked Dr.<br />
Cabrera questions<br />
for 40 minutes. The<br />
event was sponsored<br />
by José Roncal ’90<br />
of Cable & Wireless<br />
Panama and Harry<br />
Ho Lam ’01 from<br />
Panasonic.<br />
Chapters interested<br />
in organizing a<br />
virtual visit by Dr.<br />
Cabrera should contact<br />
Alumni Relations<br />
at: chapters<br />
@thunderbird.edu.<br />
L.A.<br />
Giacomo may have<br />
been a 50-to-1 shot to<br />
win the Kentucky<br />
Derby, but it was a<br />
sure thing that the<br />
60 T-birds from<br />
throughout the<br />
Southern California<br />
area who gathered<br />
May 7 at Hollywood<br />
Park to watch the<br />
race via satellite<br />
were going to have a<br />
good time. They<br />
came together at the<br />
famed racetrack to<br />
watch some live<br />
horse racing, catch<br />
the 131st running of<br />
the Kentucky Derby<br />
and to network.<br />
They enjoyed a picturesque<br />
day at the<br />
track and a Southwest<br />
buffet from a<br />
40+ Initiative<br />
gains strength<br />
IN JUNE, THE Austin and Houston chapters held their first 40+ Initiative<br />
events. In Austin, the chapter hosted a cocktail reception<br />
featuring speaker John Egan, senior editor of the Austin Business<br />
Journal, who discussed the city’s changing business environment<br />
in terms of opportunity and demographics. The event was held at<br />
the Shoreline Grill at the Four Seasons. Austin T-birds Bjorn Kirchdorfer<br />
’87 and Scotty McNutt ’88 were the key organizers.<br />
Also in June, 17 T-birds met for dinner at Birra Poretti’s, an Italian<br />
restaurant with an Irish bar in Houston. During the dinner meeting,<br />
the group planned a series of 40+ Initiative events to be held over<br />
coming months, including a wine tasting and a seminar on international<br />
trade finance. Mike Kelly ’87 and Jim Marsico ’89 are<br />
co-coordinators of the Houston group.<br />
Sixty <strong>Thunderbird</strong> alumni gathered at Hollywood Park to watch the Kentucky<br />
Derby. Some partiers included, in the front row, Betty Schlothan ’95, Nancy<br />
Hiromoto, Jennifer Beener, Kollyn Kanz ’93, Alex Cabrera, Beth Cabrera, Emily<br />
Cabrera. In the back row, event coordinator Elizabeth Glynn ’84, Robert Olsen,<br />
Daniel Cody ’93, Rahul Handa ’02 and <strong>Thunderbird</strong> President Angel Cabrera.<br />
private patio that<br />
overlooked the<br />
track’s finish line.<br />
The event marked<br />
the start of World<br />
Trade Week, which<br />
recognizes the benefits<br />
of international<br />
trade in strengthening<br />
economies and<br />
improving lives. Dr.<br />
Angel Cabrera, who<br />
was in town to promote<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong>,<br />
attended the event,<br />
along with his wife<br />
Beth and children<br />
Alex and Emily.<br />
Denver<br />
“It is essential for<br />
Western firms to be<br />
familiar with the<br />
tenets of Islam if<br />
they are to have any<br />
hope of being successful<br />
in business<br />
within an Islamic<br />
setting,” said <strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
professor<br />
Kishore Dash to the<br />
85 attendees of a<br />
panel discussion<br />
hosted by the Denver<br />
chapter on May<br />
3 at the Denver Athletic<br />
Club.<br />
Western firms<br />
need to know the<br />
five pillars of Islam<br />
because, to those<br />
who practice it,<br />
Islam is more than a<br />
religion. It is a way<br />
of life, an integrated<br />
guide for daily living<br />
and business practices.<br />
The five pillars<br />
include: worship one<br />
God, Allah; pray<br />
five times a day; pay<br />
Zakat, or alms; fast<br />
during the holy<br />
month of Ramadan;<br />
and make a pilgrimage<br />
to the holy city<br />
of Mecca. Islam also<br />
forbids drinking alcohol,<br />
eating pork,<br />
hoarding, gambling<br />
and usury, Dash told<br />
the very attentive<br />
group of listeners.<br />
The chapter<br />
worked with the<br />
Denver Business Series,<br />
an MBA association<br />
which boasts<br />
more than 4,000<br />
members, to pull the<br />
event together. Organizers<br />
of the event<br />
included Denver<br />
residents Julianne<br />
O’Dwyer ’99, Joe<br />
Kurland ’98 and<br />
Michael Sevilla ’96.<br />
BENOIT PHOTO<br />
46 fall 2005
chapter news<br />
Kabul<br />
With the addition of<br />
15 Afghan women<br />
who participated in<br />
Project Artemis at<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong>’s<br />
Glendale campus in<br />
January, Kabul’s<br />
First Tuesday is a<br />
growing affair.<br />
However, the ongoing<br />
security challenge<br />
in the country,<br />
and other issues,<br />
resulted in only one<br />
of the fellows getting<br />
to the May<br />
event. “We tend to<br />
follow the UN’s<br />
very conservative<br />
security protocol<br />
and take no ‘extraordinary’<br />
risks,” says<br />
sues as terrorists<br />
attempt to disrupt<br />
the process.” With<br />
T-birds posted in<br />
cities all over the<br />
country, getting a<br />
sizeable portion of<br />
the disparate group<br />
together has proved<br />
to be difficult, but<br />
the group plans to<br />
continue the effort.<br />
U.K.<br />
A handful of T-birds<br />
heard all about the<br />
future of telecommunications<br />
from<br />
one of the preeminent<br />
people guiding<br />
where it’s headed:<br />
Niklas Zennström,<br />
CEO and founder of<br />
Skype, a software-<br />
Cameron Wall ’99, a<br />
business development<br />
consultant for<br />
small and mediumsized<br />
enterprises in<br />
the agricultural center<br />
of Qala-e-Fatullah,<br />
who hosted the<br />
event in August at<br />
his office.<br />
“We have guards<br />
in a shack directly<br />
outside of my guesthouse,<br />
which is also<br />
my office. We are<br />
upgrading these<br />
guards to be better<br />
trained, and better<br />
armed, over the next<br />
few days. There is<br />
much concern here<br />
that the elections in<br />
mid-September may<br />
heighten security isbased<br />
telephone<br />
service that provides<br />
free user-to-user<br />
calls. “Niklas was an<br />
engaging speaker,<br />
discussing not only<br />
his vision and strategy<br />
for Skype, but also<br />
his experiences as<br />
one of the founders<br />
of Tele2, a pan-European<br />
long distance<br />
provider,” says UK<br />
Chapter leader<br />
Kevin Cowan ’98.<br />
Added bonus of<br />
the event: Skype<br />
recruiters were there<br />
looking for top talent.<br />
The event was<br />
held in partnership<br />
with the XMBA<br />
networking group<br />
and took place April<br />
26 at Goldman Sachs<br />
International, River<br />
Court Auditorium.<br />
Phoenix<br />
About 20 members<br />
of the Phoenix chapter<br />
spared themselves<br />
the usual First<br />
Tuesday in August<br />
and struck out for a<br />
Phoenix bowling<br />
alley instead in a<br />
bout against four<br />
Alumni Relations<br />
staffers. While the<br />
beer, wine, nachos,<br />
pizza and popcorn<br />
didn’t help the<br />
scores, they did add<br />
up to a good time.<br />
The teams split the<br />
challenge, winning<br />
one game each.<br />
lumni<br />
WANT HELP FINDING A LOST T-BIRD FRIEND? NEED TRANSCRIPTS?<br />
HAVE A QUESTION ABOUT A CHAPTER EVENT?<br />
Contact ALUMNI CENTRAL, the one-stop customer service point for and about <strong>Thunderbird</strong> alumni.<br />
You’ll find friendly, helpful service in response to your questions.<br />
If we don’t have the answer, we’ll connect you to the people who do.<br />
thunderbird magazine 47
class<br />
Comings & goings<br />
All your personal news that’s fit to print...<br />
THERE IS MORE to life than just what happens<br />
between the office walls, and now Class Notes will<br />
reflect that in its pages. In expanding the scope of the<br />
section, we want to know more about our alumni than<br />
just your professional lives. Let us know, as well, about<br />
your personal triumphs and transformations. Tell us if you get<br />
married (or, sorry, divorced), have kids, complete the Boston<br />
Marathon, scale Mount Everest or get your pilot’s license. Have<br />
you been elected to the school board or named People magazine’s<br />
Sexiest Man or Woman? Or are you volunteering your time with<br />
a nonprofit? Of course, we also want to hear about those T-birds<br />
who have passed on so we can honor their memory.<br />
Send your information to alumni@thunderbird.edu<br />
1940s<br />
Joseph Klein ’47 will again be listed in the 2006<br />
edition of Who’s Who in America, The World and<br />
Science and Industry, in which he has been listed for<br />
more than 25 years. He lives in Pacific Palisades CA.<br />
1950s<br />
Daniel D. Witcher ’50 passed away March 12 in<br />
Portage MI. He is remembered as a man with a great<br />
appetite for life, a great mind and an admirable work<br />
ethic. He is survived by his wife Betty, five children,<br />
19 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren…<br />
John Eikenberry ’53 and wife Betty celebrated their<br />
60th anniversary November 6. The Eikenberrys<br />
retired to SaddleBrooke AZ in 1989, where they<br />
currently reside. They have two children, six grandchildren<br />
and two great-grandchildren. Both ride<br />
750cc motorcycles in the SaddleBrooke Motorcycle<br />
Club… Richard W. Stone ’54 passed away April 13.<br />
He served in the United States Marines Corps for<br />
43 years during which he was awarded the Bronze<br />
Star with a Combat V designation, which stands<br />
for valor under fire. He is survived by his wife<br />
Kathryn, six children and eight grandchildren…<br />
Don Bohning ’59 published a book last spring with<br />
Potomac Books entitled “The Castro Obsession:<br />
U.S. Covert Operations Against Cuba 1959-1965.”<br />
It was written after his retirement from the Miami<br />
Herald, where he served as a reporter until 2000…<br />
John R. Bogert ’59 was honored as the 2004<br />
volunteer of the year by the Phoenix City Police<br />
Department. Bogert has been a volunteer with the<br />
Phoenix Police for more than three years and<br />
specializes in citing vehicles illegally parked in<br />
disabled or handicapped parking spaces.<br />
1960s<br />
Richard E. Hayes ’62 and wife Jane completed 41<br />
years of residence in Brazil. He thanks <strong>Thunderbird</strong>,<br />
then the American Institute for Foreign Trade, for<br />
pointing him toward Latin America. Hayes keeps<br />
busy as the volunteer president of Instituto Souza<br />
Novaes, a nonprofit entity that helps chemicallydependent<br />
persons… Richard Weden ’68 retired<br />
from American Express after 36 years of service,<br />
during which he worked mainly in Latin America,<br />
Asia and Russia. He has moved to Miami FL and<br />
would enjoy hearing from classmates in or passing<br />
through the area… Sanford “Sandy” Stone ’69 is a<br />
self-employed consultant with the Latin American<br />
Division of the U.S. State Department. Over the past<br />
two years he has been traveling to the U.S. Embassy<br />
48 fall 2005
notes<br />
in Bogotá to advise on Plan Colombia, which<br />
provides training to the Colombian armed forces in<br />
their battle against FARC guerrillas. Stone resides in<br />
Alexandria VA.<br />
1970–74<br />
Peter Kingman ’70 is the founder and current<br />
president and interim CEO of Southwest USA Bank<br />
in Las Vegas. He also established and serves as<br />
president of Nevada Trust Co., which manages more<br />
than $75 million in assets… Manfred Braun ’72 and<br />
his wife have returned to the United States after 27<br />
years of living and working in the Middle East and<br />
Europe. They have retired to Cave Creek AZ… Gary<br />
Pacific ’72 recently presented, along with Cenk A.<br />
Tarhun ’00, at the prestigious European conference<br />
on international trade offsets and industrial cooperation<br />
in London. They shared their experiences<br />
in offsets and industrial participation in Latin<br />
America and Romania… James A. Henderson ’73<br />
and wife Charlotte are mostly retired and living in<br />
Gulf Shores AL after a successful international<br />
business career that included residences in Kuala<br />
Lumpur and London. He is an adjunct faculty<br />
member at Troy University, teaching international<br />
marketing and management. His current activities,<br />
he says, include “cheating death” while flying his<br />
Cessna Cardinal and “scaring motorists” while<br />
driving his Lotus Elise… Larry E. Bartleson ’73<br />
passed away November 21 of cancer in Atlanta GA.<br />
He is survived by his wife Linda and three children…<br />
T.J. Sinha ’74 was recently promoted to vice<br />
president of sales for American Block Mfg. in<br />
Houston TX, an ISO 9001 company that<br />
manufactures oil field equipment in Houston and<br />
Mumbai, India. American Block Mfg. recently<br />
opened an office in Esbjerg, Denmark for the<br />
European and CIS markets… Vincent S. Daniels ’74<br />
has left Florida International University after six<br />
years and joined Nova Southeastern University.<br />
1975–79<br />
Roger W. Titley ’75 retired from the InterContinental<br />
Hotels Group after 30 years of hotel and resort<br />
management assignments around the world, most<br />
recently as vice president and director for Latin<br />
America and the Caribbean. He now offers<br />
international hotel operations, development and<br />
asset management advisory services to hotel owners<br />
and operators from his offices in Coral Gables FL<br />
and Sun Valley ID… George Fronske ’75 and his<br />
wife Nonglak had originally planned to be visiting<br />
family in Phuket, Thailand at the time of the 2004<br />
tsunami, but because of changes in travel plans they<br />
were in Bangkok on December 26. The Fronskes<br />
were active in raising funds for the victims of the<br />
disaster by convincing Cytec, the specialty chemicals<br />
company for which Fronske works, to match funds<br />
donated by employees… Neil Browne ’75 and his<br />
wife Dalal’s business, Browne’s Fine Jewelry in<br />
Champaign IL, was named Small Business of the<br />
Year by the Champaign County Chamber of<br />
Commerce… Steven H. Ganster ’77 is publishing a<br />
book this summer called “The China-Ready<br />
Company.” He now splits his time between<br />
Shanghai and Chicago… Roger Wittlin ’78 is the<br />
senior managing director of Sutter Advisors within<br />
Wells Capital Management in San Francisco. The<br />
company manages approximately $3 billion in high<br />
yield bonds and leveraged loans for pension funds,<br />
private foundations, corporations and a mutual<br />
fund… Theodore Rectenwald ’78 and his wife<br />
Marie-Louise had their third child January 21.<br />
Rectenwald returned from Maputo, Mozambique,<br />
where he was working at the time, to welcome her<br />
into the world… Hiromi Yoshida ’78 has been named<br />
the president of Dentsu Holdings USA, Inc. and<br />
lives in New York City… Marino J. Cajina ’79<br />
works in Managua for the presidency of Nicaragua<br />
and is currently in The Hague, Netherlands for a<br />
ten-week course in governance and public policy at<br />
the Institute of Social Studies… Robert Roussel ’79<br />
is transferring from the New York City office of Aon<br />
Corp. in New York to AON Brussels in September to<br />
become the head of the insurance and risk<br />
management company’s international business<br />
division.<br />
1980–84<br />
Jonathan McVety ’81 is in his seventh year as<br />
president/CEO of Enkel Florida Ltd. which<br />
manufactures, imports, distributes and sells high<br />
quality aluminum and steel wheels. He successfully<br />
completed the Iron Man Half Triathlon in North<br />
Talk to us<br />
You can let us<br />
know about<br />
changes in your life<br />
by e-mailing us at<br />
alumni@t-bird.edu.<br />
We’ll publish your<br />
news in the next<br />
issue of the<br />
magazine. Don’t<br />
forget to update<br />
your personal<br />
profile on My<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
(MTB). Log on at<br />
my.t-bird.edu, click<br />
on the personalize<br />
button, then click<br />
on the edit buttons<br />
for each category<br />
you want to change.<br />
thunderbird magazine 49
class notes<br />
Carolina last year in celebration of turning 50…<br />
R. Craig Briggs ’81 has been living in Asia for the<br />
last 12 years. He has published essays to help orientate<br />
foreigners to life abroad… Jeff Kleinschmidt ’81 was<br />
recently named general manager of Grupo Carpenter<br />
Technologies, a leading manufacturer and distributor<br />
of specialty alloys and engineered products. Before,<br />
Kleinschmidt was a consultant with Knoll Mexico, a<br />
leading U.S. furniture company based in Mexico<br />
City, and was an executive with Goodyear Tire and<br />
Rubber Company… Ginny Blackwell ’81 and her<br />
family own French Property Shares, a company that<br />
specializes in researching and purchasing old stone<br />
properties in France for time-share ownership.<br />
Blackwell and her family divide their time between<br />
their home in Aurora OR and France… Merryl<br />
Burpoe (nee Rosenblatt) ’82 recently joined the<br />
Council on Competitiveness as vice presidentinternational.<br />
The organization promotes innovation<br />
and technology as a means to improving global<br />
competitivity. Members include university presidents<br />
and corporate executives… Maria Panagakos Nolan<br />
’83 was killed in April by a hit-and-run driver in<br />
New York City. The 45-year-old Nolan is survived<br />
by her husband Jack, who resides in Manhattan...<br />
Iderma Jimenez ’83 is an administration manager of<br />
Universidad Tecnológica del Centro in Venezuela.<br />
She lives in Naguanagua, Venezuela with her two<br />
children… Marcella Simon Peralta ’84 currently<br />
resides in Perth, Australia with her husband<br />
Govindan and her daughter. She is an educational<br />
consultant at Murdoch University’s Business School,<br />
where she will be pursuing her Ph.D. in education<br />
and management. She is also a published poet.<br />
1985–89<br />
Mendy Laval ’85 married Khaled Alkotob in 1999 and<br />
they have a 3-year-old daughter. Since 1997, Laval has<br />
been president of Claude Laval Corporation, based in<br />
Fresno CA… Don Capener ’85 was chosen “2005<br />
Professor of the Year” by the students and faculty of<br />
Monmouth College, a liberal arts college in Illinois,<br />
In making<br />
loans to<br />
Afghans,<br />
banker<br />
banks on<br />
culture of<br />
honor<br />
MAKING<br />
loans can<br />
be work full<br />
of pressure. Even in<br />
a perfect setting,<br />
you need to weigh<br />
an applicant’s plea<br />
and fill out streams<br />
of paperwork.<br />
But rural finance<br />
specialist Daniel<br />
Gies ’99 did not<br />
count on so much<br />
excitement when<br />
lending money over<br />
the past year in<br />
Afghanistan.<br />
“A few rockets<br />
have hit within just<br />
a hundred meters<br />
of me, one of which<br />
set a nearby house<br />
on fire,” Gies says.<br />
“I had to evacuate<br />
for a few hours.”<br />
Until 2004, no<br />
financial institutions<br />
in Afghanistan<br />
offered credit.<br />
Financial transactions<br />
passed<br />
primarily through<br />
money dealers.<br />
Enter Gies.<br />
Thanks to a contract<br />
with the United<br />
States Agency for<br />
International Development’s<br />
Rebuilding<br />
Agricultural<br />
Markets Program,<br />
Gies helped<br />
develop lending<br />
programs to small<br />
agribusinesses for<br />
Shorebank Advisory<br />
Services.<br />
Don’t get the<br />
idea he was able to<br />
scour documents<br />
when coming to a<br />
decision on loans.<br />
Gut instinct was<br />
more useful in<br />
Afghanistan, where<br />
there is no formal<br />
collateral law, no<br />
DANIEL GIES ’99 (center) does business in creative<br />
ways, including over tea and Afghani sweets.<br />
land title documentation,<br />
no mortgage<br />
lending and no<br />
bankruptcy law.<br />
“This is why it is<br />
so important to sit<br />
down with borrowers<br />
and understand<br />
their businesses,”<br />
Gies says.<br />
With a baby on<br />
the way in September,<br />
why did Gies—<br />
who was in Paris<br />
consulting for<br />
Shorebank—get<br />
involved in such a<br />
dangerous area of<br />
the world?<br />
“Seeing the<br />
immediate impact<br />
of my efforts on<br />
farmers and small<br />
businesses gives<br />
me a great feeling,”<br />
says Gies, who has<br />
been involved in<br />
development work<br />
on the lending side<br />
in war-torn areas<br />
such as Croatia<br />
since he graduated<br />
from <strong>Thunderbird</strong>.<br />
Despite decades<br />
of instability, including<br />
the 1979 Soviet<br />
invasion, civil<br />
conflict and ousting<br />
the Taliban, Gies<br />
found the Afghan<br />
people resilient<br />
and honorable in<br />
business dealings.<br />
“Most Afghans<br />
will sooner sell their<br />
house than default<br />
on a loan,” he says.<br />
“Personal honor<br />
and reputation are<br />
incredibly important,<br />
so it’s a great<br />
environment for<br />
lending.”<br />
—David Sweet<br />
50 fall 2005
class notes<br />
where he teaches international marketing, advertising<br />
and entrepreneurism. He has lived in Nauvoo IL with<br />
his wife Tami and five children since 1998… Daniela<br />
Bryan ’85 recently finished building her own<br />
“residential barn” while successfully running her own<br />
business as a personal coach. She resides in Soquel<br />
CA… Lloyd Tyler ’85, chief financial officer for<br />
North American Development Bank in San Antonio<br />
TX, has been hired as the city of Vancouver’s top<br />
financial executive. Since 1998, Tyler has worked for<br />
North American Development Bank, which was<br />
created to finance environmental infrastructure<br />
projects along the border between the United States<br />
and Mexico… Gabrielle Riera ’85 is an investment<br />
manager for Investment New Zealand in their New<br />
York City office. She is responsible for attracting<br />
investments from North America to New Zealand…<br />
Greg Jenik ’86 and his wife Jane recently welcomed<br />
twin sons into the world. They live in Golden CO…<br />
Gregory A. Peters ’86 was appointed by President<br />
George W. Bush to serve on the National Infrastructure<br />
Advisory Council (NIAC). Peters is<br />
president and CEO of Internap, an Atlanta-based<br />
corporation that provides routing services over the<br />
internet… Sanjyot P. Dunung ’87, founder and CEO<br />
of Atma Global, a global developer of educational<br />
products, has written a book called “Straight Talk<br />
about Starting Your Own Business.” The book<br />
includes real life tales highlighting innovative tactics<br />
used by successful entrepreneurs… Roger Dodge<br />
Potdevin ’87 passed away April 11 of cancer. Potdevin<br />
was 43 years old and was vice president of Iridian<br />
Asset Management in Westport CT. He leaves<br />
behind his wife Jacqueline and three children. The<br />
family has asked that any contributions be made to<br />
the <strong>Thunderbird</strong> Development Office “In Memory of<br />
Roger Potdevin ’87”… John Collins ’89 moved back<br />
to Taipei, Taiwan after nine years in Singapore. He is<br />
enjoying his new position as director of corporate<br />
communications for Wistron Corporation… Daniel<br />
Talmage ’89 works as a study director for the Air<br />
Force Science and Technology Board at the National<br />
Academies in Washington D.C. He received the<br />
Academies’ 2004 Community Service Award for his<br />
work in the greater Washington D.C. area, including<br />
his home community of Germantown MD.<br />
1990–91<br />
William J. (Jeff) Martin ’90 has joined the Strategy<br />
& Change practice of IBM Business Consulting<br />
Services. He and his wife Maureen live in Dallas TX<br />
along with their 3-year-old triplets, who are now in<br />
excellent health after being born severely premature.<br />
They send their gratitude to the <strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
community for its prayers, support and encouragement…<br />
Charlie Rooney ’90 is working as the<br />
European finance director for Energizer, Inc. in<br />
London. He moved there last year with his wife and<br />
two young sons… Rikia Saddy ’90 is still working<br />
out of Vancouver as a marketing strategy consultant<br />
for medium-sized companies trying to expand. He<br />
has spent the last few months working on the campaign<br />
team of the premier of the province of British<br />
Columbia... Steven Soehlig ’90 is moving to Doha,<br />
Qatar, to become director of commercial standards for<br />
Qatar Airways… Terry Koch ’90 is a founding board<br />
member of Make-A-Difference, a worldwide service<br />
organization that focuses on giving back to local<br />
communities. She is also serving as executive director<br />
for the Kearny Alliance Foundation, based in<br />
Scottsdale AZ… Terry Grant ’90 has been hired by<br />
the U.S. Bank in Salt Lake City as the vice president<br />
and senior relationship manager. Grant has 21 years of<br />
experience in the financial industry… David<br />
Dinwoodie ’91 has been appointed director general<br />
adjunto at EADA business school, Barcelona, Spain.<br />
He hopes to become director general in three years…<br />
Emil W. Milker ’91 has been named president of<br />
Copper Consultants LLC. He and his wife Pamela<br />
reside in Dunedin FL… Judith Ward ’91 and her<br />
husband Rod Hall welcomed a new daughter on<br />
October 28. She joins one brother and one sister.<br />
They live in London, where Ward is regional director,<br />
northern Europe for AT&T Wholesale... Donald J.<br />
Howell Jr. ’91 passed away April 29 at 42 in Maui HI.<br />
He was project director for the Marriott Corp.<br />
1992–93<br />
Marshall D. Welch III ’92 is senior vice president,<br />
transition management with Platinum Equity, a<br />
California-based private equity firm. It is the 32nd<br />
largest privately held company in the USA with<br />
more than $11 billion in portfolio company revenue.<br />
He and his wife Melissa have two children and reside<br />
in his home town of Williamsport PA… Michelle Y.<br />
Levesque ’92 recently moved to Maryland to work as<br />
vice president-financial planning for Discovery<br />
Networks International, a division of Discovery<br />
Communications, Inc… Elsie Chang ’92 is working<br />
on national security issues for the Intelligence<br />
Operations team at Booz, Allen, Hamilton in<br />
McLean VA. She resides on Lake Thoreau in Reston<br />
VA… Bowen Banbury ’92 and his wife Lana started<br />
Docuvault, a Denver CO-based company that<br />
specializes in storing indispensable paperwork for<br />
businesses… Guy C. Enderle ’92 recently wrote and<br />
published a novel based on his experiences playing<br />
rugby at <strong>Thunderbird</strong>. As his way of supporting the<br />
School, he will be donating a quarter of all sales to<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong> Rugby… Stephen Rizley ’93 is the vice<br />
president and regional manager for Cox Arizona, a<br />
division of Cox Communications Inc., which was<br />
recently listed as the 15th top cable system for 2005…<br />
Scott Raske ’93 has accepted a position as vice<br />
president with Organizational Development<br />
Associates, a management consulting firm in Atlanta<br />
GA. He and his wife Gitana had their first child in<br />
December… Ruth Morris ’93 and Peter Kelly ’93<br />
welcomed their second daughter to the family in<br />
October. They live in Newton MA… Rob Batchelder<br />
’93 is currently acting consul general at the U.S.<br />
Embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina and will be<br />
leaving at the end of this year to take up a new<br />
assignment as consular section chief in Berlin…<br />
Terry Wagemann ’93, his wife and two boys moved<br />
to Tokyo in July to live with his father-in-law. They<br />
are looking forward to returning to Japan and meeting<br />
up with T-bird friends there… Michele Pino ’93<br />
is the executive director of the Arizona State<br />
University’s Research Park, an organization that<br />
strives to attract companies engaged in research and<br />
development or education… Maryna Hrushetska ’93<br />
was appointed executive director of the Craft and<br />
Folk Art Museum in Los Angeles.<br />
Dpi demands<br />
Ever wonder why<br />
the photos from<br />
your last event<br />
didn’t make it into<br />
the magazine? It’s<br />
probably not<br />
because your First<br />
Tuesday images<br />
were unfit for<br />
civilized<br />
consumption<br />
(although that does<br />
happen) or that<br />
everybody had<br />
their eyes closed.<br />
They didn’t make<br />
the cut because<br />
they weren’t sharp<br />
enough. We need at<br />
least 300 dots per<br />
inch (dpi) for a shot<br />
to be considered,<br />
so ramp up the<br />
setting on your<br />
digital camera and<br />
remember to keep<br />
your eyes open.<br />
thunderbird magazine 51
class notes<br />
1994–95<br />
Dennis Korte ’94 married Maria Paz Allamand in<br />
2001 and they now have a three-year-old daughter.<br />
Last October, he left Vida Security, a Chilean life<br />
insurance company, to start a financial consulting<br />
company, DK Financial Planners. The company does<br />
financial planning for high net worth individuals.<br />
The family has resided in Santiago, Chile since<br />
January 1999… Kent Lewis ’94 was recently promoted<br />
to director of international operations for XanGo, a<br />
Lehi UT-based dietary supplement company... Maria<br />
Ballina ’94 has two young children who are “bound”<br />
to go to <strong>Thunderbird</strong>, she says: three nationalities,<br />
bilingual by preschool age and perfect travelers.<br />
Ballina’s graphic and printing services business in<br />
Houston TX designs, prints and ships everything<br />
from full color catalogues and brochures to posters<br />
and trade show graphics… Josh Teweles ’95 was<br />
promoted to national accounts manager for Atlanta<br />
GA-based Equifax. He currently lives in Forest Hills<br />
NY with his wife Liz and daughter… Will Lashley<br />
’95 has joined General Electric’s Advanced Materials<br />
Polymershapes as its business counsel. In his new<br />
role, Lashley will be located in Huntersville NC and<br />
will be responsible for all legal matters relating to the<br />
Polymershapes business… Lonnie Power ’95 was<br />
promoted to territory sales manager overseeing the<br />
sales network in Southern USA and Latin America<br />
for Nihon-Kaiheiki Kogyo (NKK Switches) of<br />
Scottsdale AZ. He and his wife Joann have two<br />
young daughters and reside in Glendale AZ… Murad<br />
Al-Katib ’95 is the president and CEO of Saskcan<br />
Pulse Trading Inc., the world’s largest processor and<br />
exporter of lentils and peas.<br />
1996<br />
Mauricio R. Alves ’96 left Merrill Lynch to pursue a<br />
new career opportunity as the vice president of<br />
consumer product for Latin America and the<br />
Caribbean for MasterCard International, based in<br />
Miami FL. His wife Amy Alves ’96 and their two<br />
young sons are doing well… David James Drake ’96<br />
lives on a farm in Indaiatuba, São Paulo, Brazil with<br />
his wife Dora, a veterinarian, and their two young<br />
children. He is general manager of Spartan Chemical<br />
with responsibilities for all operations in Brazil,<br />
Bolivia, Peru, Uruguay and Paraguay… Ramy Mora<br />
’96 recently joined Hotwire.com, owned by Expedia<br />
Inc., as the vice president of marketing… Elizabeth<br />
Painter Rosa ’96 married Matt Rosa April 9 in<br />
Louisville KY. Armando Huerta ’96 was in the bridal<br />
party, and other T-birds who came to celebrate<br />
included Emily Rosenthal Moses ’96, Barbara<br />
Goodman ’96, and Mark Eckstein ’96. The couple<br />
Driven by<br />
the need<br />
to help,<br />
alumna<br />
launches<br />
firm for<br />
artisans<br />
CHANTELE<br />
White ’96 is<br />
a great<br />
believer in destiny.<br />
If not for her desire<br />
to improve her<br />
Spanish language<br />
skills and her love of<br />
helping others, she<br />
might be spending<br />
her time in corporate<br />
offices instead<br />
of using her skills to<br />
promote the work of<br />
artisans striving to<br />
survive in a poor,<br />
struggling country.<br />
Soon after<br />
earning her undergraduate<br />
degree,<br />
White joined the<br />
Peace Corps to<br />
satisfy both her<br />
humanitarian<br />
interests and her<br />
love of travel. She<br />
was assigned to<br />
Nicaragua as a<br />
small business<br />
development<br />
consultant, working<br />
with the Canadian<br />
organization Mennonite<br />
Economic<br />
Development<br />
Associates (MEDA).<br />
“The person who<br />
suggested I volunteer<br />
with the Peace<br />
Corps was from<br />
Nicaragua. And<br />
the agency I was<br />
assigned to was<br />
MEDA, the same<br />
name as the street<br />
I grew up on,” said<br />
CHANTELE WHITE ’96 founded Artisans Relief to<br />
aid developing-world artists sell their works abroad.<br />
White. “It was fate.”<br />
Such signs eventually<br />
led White to<br />
create Artisans<br />
Relief, a non-profit<br />
that promotes the<br />
work of Nicaraguan<br />
artisans she<br />
had met as she<br />
catalogued handcrafted<br />
arts during<br />
her Peace Corps<br />
stint. This led her to<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong>.<br />
“I wanted to help<br />
people,” she says.<br />
“I went back to<br />
Nicaragua to visit<br />
my mentor, who<br />
challenged me to<br />
help Nicaraguans.”<br />
Most of White’s<br />
imports are handwoven<br />
hammocks<br />
from Masaya,<br />
pottery from San<br />
Juan de Oriente<br />
and soapstone<br />
figures from San<br />
Juan de Limay.<br />
Many pieces are in<br />
boutiques and<br />
galleries in her<br />
hometown of Joliet,<br />
Illinois. White is<br />
looking to expand<br />
to other countries.<br />
“These artists<br />
make beautiful<br />
pieces with skills<br />
passing through<br />
generations,”<br />
White says.<br />
“Finding funding<br />
has been difficult,<br />
but it’s fulfilling to<br />
help artists into a<br />
formal economy.<br />
I just want to help<br />
them change their<br />
lives for the<br />
better.”<br />
— Carrie Miner<br />
52 fall 2005
to the train station<br />
for a 20-minute<br />
ride to the Tokyo<br />
Stock Exchange,<br />
where she broadcasts<br />
from the<br />
trading floor until it<br />
closes. Then it’s<br />
back to CNBC to<br />
again talk with<br />
analysts for the<br />
next day’s show.<br />
“Actually, I have<br />
no time to even put<br />
on my makeup,”<br />
she says. “Sometimes<br />
I am on TV<br />
without lipstick.”<br />
Because of the<br />
weight of her words<br />
among market<br />
followers, Tanimoto<br />
can’t afford the<br />
smallest error, no<br />
matter how quickly<br />
she has to analyze<br />
swings in the<br />
market on the live<br />
program. “If I make<br />
a mistake, it can<br />
have a serious<br />
impact on investclass<br />
notes<br />
named and decorated the reception tables after<br />
countries they had visited together… Claudia<br />
Stratmann ’96 is regional advertising manager for<br />
General Motors Latin America, Africa and the<br />
Middle East. She and her husband Gonzalo Rangel<br />
have 2-year-old twin boys and live in Fort Lauderdale<br />
FL… Michelle Glogowski Mobley ’96 and her<br />
husband authored a fun novelty cookbook, “I’d<br />
Rather be Grilling!” written especially for men who<br />
golf. It features golf illustrations, grilling tips and<br />
tongue-in-cheek comments about each recipe. The<br />
couple resides in Downers Grove IL with their two<br />
children… Nicole Seward ’96 was married March 26<br />
to Angus Farquhar. The couple resides in Scotland…<br />
Justin Hibbard ’96 just finished recording the<br />
voiceover for the first in a series of radio/TV<br />
commercials for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim,<br />
a major league baseball team… Lisa Bolton ’96 works<br />
in Madison NJ at Wyeth Consumer Healthcare<br />
where she was recently promoted to director of global<br />
compensation. Her daughter is going into fifth grade<br />
and her son is starting kindergarten… Gordon Smith<br />
’96 was appointed a member of the board of Choice<br />
Hotels International. He is currently president of the<br />
U.S. Consumer Card Services Group of American<br />
Express Travel Related Services Inc. where he holds<br />
overall responsibility for the company’s consumer<br />
card businesses in the United States.<br />
1997<br />
Janet M.G. Akerman ’97 has been appointed to the<br />
executive management team as director of international<br />
development by Shop’n Chek Worldwide,<br />
the world’s largest provider of mystery shopping and<br />
other customer service measurement programs.<br />
Ackerman will be responsible for expanding the<br />
company’s extensive global presence and strengthening<br />
Shop’n Chek’s brand recognition worldwide…<br />
Russ Hubbard ’97 has relocated to Baltimore MD to<br />
work with SafeNet Inc., a leading information<br />
security provider, as the vice president of sales for the<br />
Americas. He welcomes anyone coming to the area to<br />
drop him a line… Anna Maria Cutrone ’97 married<br />
South African Nicholas Fosteras in Rome on May 5.<br />
The couple currently lives in London… Kristi Meyer<br />
Walsh ’97 was married two years ago and is currently<br />
director of marketing for the Arizona State Fair…<br />
Rene Gutierrez ’97 relocated to the Phoenix area<br />
with his wife and two children in May. He is helping<br />
launch a new plant in Phoenix that will serve as the<br />
world headquarters for Le*Nature’s, a water, tea and<br />
juice manufacturer and bottler. He is corporate safety<br />
manager and human resources coordinator… David<br />
Sugrue ’97 recently moved to Atlanta GA from<br />
Amsterdam, Netherlands after a four-year European<br />
assignment. He continues to work for GS Battery in<br />
business development. He lives with his wife and<br />
three dogs in the Atlanta suburb of Roswell GA…<br />
Michelle Denny ’97 has been promoted to national<br />
sales trainer for the Dental Division of 3M Company<br />
and has relocated from Dallas TX to Minneapolis<br />
MN… Minh-Huy Lai ’97 has been appointed<br />
managing director of Planet Rating, a Paris-based<br />
global microfinance rating agency for the microfinance<br />
industry… Sonja Arias-Nogueira ’97 and<br />
husband Marco Cereghino had a daughter in May.<br />
Arias-Nogueira is an administrative services manager<br />
Alumna<br />
feels the<br />
weight of<br />
getting it<br />
right in<br />
Japanese<br />
markets<br />
YUKA TANIMOto<br />
’04 likes to<br />
relieve stress<br />
by playing the cello,<br />
taking in a movie,<br />
or doing aromatherapy.<br />
But finding<br />
time for them is<br />
another matter.<br />
The alumna hosts<br />
three shows on<br />
CNBC in Japan, all<br />
of which focus on<br />
the ups and downs<br />
of the financial<br />
markets. Being an<br />
on-air newscaster<br />
isn’t as glamorous<br />
as people imagine<br />
it is, Tanimoto says.<br />
She rolls out of bed<br />
by 4:30 a.m., in<br />
time to look over<br />
Tokyo’s financial<br />
newspapers and<br />
check in on the<br />
London and New<br />
York stock markets.<br />
When she gets to<br />
CNBC’s broadcast<br />
center a few hours<br />
later, she doesn’t<br />
have an assistant<br />
waiting with a cup<br />
of coffee. Instead,<br />
she gets on the<br />
phone with market<br />
players to gather<br />
content for her<br />
analysis show.<br />
As soon as the<br />
morning show<br />
wraps, she rushes<br />
YUKI TANIMOTO ’04 is the influential—and very<br />
busy—on-air market analyst for CNBC in Tokyo.<br />
ors,” she says.<br />
Tanimoto, a<br />
Japanese citizen,<br />
came to <strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
for the foreign<br />
experience as well<br />
as the international<br />
education. Before,<br />
she was three years<br />
at Bloomberg TV in<br />
Japan. Her plans<br />
include teaching a<br />
course in television<br />
reporting, writing a<br />
book about the<br />
stock market and<br />
starting her own<br />
consulting company.<br />
She loves Tokyo<br />
for its fashion and<br />
style. “Tokyo is one<br />
of the busiest cities<br />
in the world,” she<br />
says. “It is so<br />
exciting to work<br />
here. On the other<br />
hand, I sometimes<br />
miss the comfortable<br />
environment<br />
of Arizona life.”<br />
— Laura Newpoff<br />
thunderbird magazine 53
class notes<br />
Do good,<br />
make<br />
money is<br />
a win-win<br />
formula<br />
SETH Heine<br />
’99 owes it all<br />
to a cab ride<br />
in São Paulo when<br />
he saw a gardener<br />
tending to the yard<br />
of a mansion with a<br />
new cell phone on<br />
his hip. The idea for<br />
a new business was<br />
soon ringing inside<br />
Heine’s head.<br />
“Here was this<br />
guy who knew this<br />
was the only way to<br />
run his business,<br />
with no land lines,”<br />
Heine says. “He<br />
was willing to pay<br />
whatever it took.<br />
I knew then that<br />
there must be a<br />
need out there.”<br />
A little research<br />
later, the 37-yearold<br />
consultant took<br />
his company,<br />
CollectiveGood,<br />
onto the Internet in<br />
May 2000. The idea<br />
was simple: take the<br />
millions of old, outdated<br />
cell phones<br />
lying around and<br />
put them in the<br />
hands of people in<br />
developing areas<br />
like Latin America,<br />
the Caribbean,<br />
Eastern Europe and<br />
India, all at cut rate.<br />
And reusing the cell<br />
phones would keep<br />
them, and their<br />
toxic chemicals,<br />
from ever reaching<br />
a landfill.<br />
“This was always<br />
intended to be an<br />
idea that would<br />
change the world<br />
for the better,” says<br />
Heine, from his<br />
Tucker, Ga., office.<br />
“I wanted to come<br />
up with a little<br />
mouse trap that<br />
would improve<br />
people’s lives and<br />
hopefully make<br />
some money.”<br />
To donate,<br />
individuals go to<br />
the website—<br />
collectivegood.com<br />
— download a<br />
form, designate a<br />
charity and print a<br />
mailing label. The<br />
phones received<br />
are put back into<br />
use and sold to<br />
regional carriers<br />
and distributors<br />
who, because they<br />
can get them for a<br />
fraction of the cost<br />
of new phones,<br />
make them available<br />
for a fraction<br />
of the cost.<br />
Heine says he is<br />
rewarded daily<br />
when the postal<br />
containers filled<br />
with phones arrive.<br />
“It’s like thousands<br />
of little selfless acts<br />
of kindness,” he<br />
says. “It’s a reminder<br />
that people<br />
care, that they will<br />
go out of their way<br />
to do something<br />
that matters.”<br />
—David Schwartz<br />
SETH HEINE ’99 is buoyed by the success of his start-up, CollectiveGood.<br />
CHRIS JORDAN<br />
at Centro Leon, a private museum/cultural center in<br />
the Dominican Republic… Erum Amin ’97 was<br />
married in the spring to Austrian Wolfgang Stefan.<br />
The couple met while working at Dresdner Bank in<br />
London… Martin Echavarria ’97 is the co-founder of<br />
Perczek Leadership Center, a company that is doing<br />
cutting edge work in the leadership and human<br />
development field. He is married to Lisa Fels<br />
Echavarria ’97... Carlos Laje ’98 married Ingrid<br />
Araneda in December in Santiago where he lives. He<br />
is the Latin American general manager for PUMA,<br />
the German sporting goods company.<br />
1998–99<br />
Ann Paglee Bozick ’98 was married April 16 to Brad<br />
Bozick. Several T-birds were in attendance: Nicole<br />
Larson ’98, Andrea Stumpf ’98, Elena Ouliankina<br />
’97, Chelle Murphy Johnson ’97, and Cheryl Lawler<br />
’98. The couple resides in Somerville MA… Helena<br />
Habte-Gabr ’98 and husband Jan Stolber are the<br />
proud parents of a child born in October. Habte-Gabr<br />
is still working for BayerHealthcare Consumer Care<br />
Division in Germany… Melissa Culver ’98 and<br />
George Chimenti are engaged and planning an<br />
October wedding… Jessica April Kitchens ’98 and<br />
Christopher Raymond Williams were married in<br />
May in Houston TX where the couple resides… Joe<br />
LaMuraglia ’98 launched a new company called<br />
Gaywheels.com. It is the first automotive website<br />
that provides a way to research and buy a car or truck<br />
from gay-friendly companies, as well as providing<br />
other related services… David A. Precopio ’98 has<br />
joined Compurex Systems Corp., a leading provider<br />
of new and pre-owned server, networking, storage,<br />
and telecommunication solutions, as the chief<br />
operating officer. He will be responsible for<br />
operations and marketing… Kelley Lynn McIntyre<br />
’99 and Phi Khanh A. Wolfe were married November<br />
6. The couple resides in Arlington VA.<br />
2000–01<br />
Fernando Sucre ’00 and Maria G. Ojeda ’00 had a<br />
daughter on March 30… Tim Tarrant ’00 and his wife<br />
Iskra had their first son, also on March 30… Julia<br />
Stowell ’00 is living near Phuket, Thailand and is<br />
working as a volunteer teaching English and<br />
computer skills through Open Mind Projects,<br />
www.openmindprojects.org... Josh Dorfman ’00,<br />
founder of Vivavi, which offers environmentally<br />
friendly products, is the host of a new radio show,<br />
The Lazy Environmentalist, which explores the<br />
possibilities for effortlessly greening our modern<br />
lifestyles… Chad Davis ’00 has been hired by<br />
Copeland, Cook, Taylor and Bush, P.A. as the<br />
marketing director for the firm… David Hinderliter<br />
’00 is the co-owner and general manager of Great<br />
Russian Gifts LLC, a Phoenix-based business that<br />
supplies unique and authentic Russian products to<br />
customers worldwide… Mary Carter ’01 and her<br />
sister Hopie Carter announce the opening of HobNob<br />
Press, a design company that plays with everyday<br />
images to create clever and quirky stationery…<br />
Roberts Kukainis ’01 has been promoted to project<br />
launch leader for several tire lines at Michelin North<br />
America in Greenville SC… Juan Garcia ’01<br />
completed the Boston Marathon April 18, 2004 with a<br />
time of 4:19.21… Steven Johnston ’01 was promoted<br />
54 fall 2005
class notes<br />
to senior investment insurance officer in March at the<br />
Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC)…<br />
Britta Plathner-Sneep ’01 was recently recognized<br />
for her work as a consultant on canine rights to the<br />
United Nations. She also acts as a global media<br />
liaison for Sirius, an international animal protection<br />
organization.<br />
2003–04<br />
Ken Alston ’03 and his private equity firm, Eventide<br />
Management, were featured in Dow Jones, Yahoo!<br />
Finance, the Press Enterprise, Venture Economics, Mergers<br />
& Acquisitions, Insurance News, and The Globe Investor<br />
for the recent acquisition of Southern California Risk<br />
Management, the leading workers’ compensation<br />
administrator and cost containment provider in<br />
California. Alston is a co-founder of Eventide…<br />
Sergio Mankita ’03 has been named national sales<br />
manager for Vivelo!, a joint venture of Clear Channel<br />
Entertainment and Grupo Televisa S.A., which is the<br />
world’s leading Hispanic entertainment company,<br />
based in Mexico. Vivelo! specializes in the promotion<br />
and production of major music tours, live entertainment,<br />
sports and music festivals in the United States.<br />
Mankita, who is based in Miami, will cover Texas<br />
and the West Coast… Sean Howse ’03 will attend<br />
medical school at the Wake Forest School of<br />
Medicine in the fall. In June, he visited friends from<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong>, Marcio Kaufman ’03 and Ivan Padilha<br />
’03, in Brazil… Julie Levin ’03 is with Prudential<br />
Arizona Properties working in residential and<br />
commercial sales as well as with international<br />
investors… Mauricio Carmagnani ’03 was selected to<br />
participate on the Brazilian version of the TV show<br />
“The Apprentice 2.” He was one of 16 selected out of<br />
46,000 people. The show aired June 26… Frederick<br />
Reese Tisdale ’03 and Jennifer Clare Millen were<br />
married May 21. The bride is completing a medical<br />
degree at the University of California, Davis, while<br />
Tisdale is a market analyst at Cole Parmer Instrument<br />
Company, a division of Fischer Scientific that<br />
distributes laboratory products in Vernon Hills IL…<br />
Matthew Goff ’04 is working at DHL as a project<br />
manager. He is the primary software project manager<br />
in charge of offshore development on a $600 million<br />
automation project… Patrick M. McRae ’04 recently<br />
was hired as the international sales manager of Duro-<br />
Last Roofing Inc. and is responsible for international<br />
planning and new market development as well as<br />
global market assessment… Paul Bellrichard ’04 has<br />
been working as a market research analyst at RSC<br />
Equipment Rental in Scottsdale AZ with fellow<br />
T-birds José Suarez ’03 and Andrew Pruitt ’03.<br />
In April 2004, Bellrichard attended the wedding of<br />
Thanh Nguyen ’04 and Doan Nguyen in Asia and is<br />
planning a second trip there in November.<br />
Daredevil<br />
marketing<br />
EVEN WHEN<br />
she’s idling,<br />
Babs Ryan ’81<br />
feels the need for<br />
speed. And whether<br />
it’s patenting innovative<br />
marketing<br />
programs or penning<br />
her microlight<br />
adventures over<br />
Victoria <strong>Fall</strong>s, Ryan<br />
challenges the<br />
world one idea at a<br />
time. “There are a<br />
hundred things I<br />
want to do,” Ryan<br />
says. “There just<br />
isn’t enough time.”<br />
After completing<br />
her studies at<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong>, Ryan<br />
sprinted in fasttrack<br />
senior management<br />
roles for<br />
Fortune 500<br />
companies, including<br />
GE Capital and<br />
Citibank. Later, she<br />
revved up her<br />
marketing savvy for<br />
Kawasaki, promoting<br />
the company’s<br />
GPZ600R super<br />
bike and using it to<br />
speed along at 150<br />
mph on Europe’s<br />
Grand Prix circuits.<br />
Eventually, Ryan<br />
opted to ditch the<br />
corporate groove<br />
for a dive into entrepreneurial<br />
whitewater<br />
as a business<br />
consultant.<br />
“I like working<br />
with big companies<br />
as long as I’m not<br />
working in big<br />
companies,” Ryan<br />
says. “Most people<br />
in the corporate<br />
environment don’t<br />
like change.”<br />
With the stamps<br />
BABS RYAN ’81 takes the fast lane in life and career.<br />
of 72 countries in<br />
her passport and<br />
more than two<br />
decades of national<br />
and international<br />
corporate work<br />
under her belt, this<br />
outspoken Massachusetts<br />
native<br />
founded Sparks<br />
Worldwide LLC.<br />
Since then, she has<br />
shaped strategic<br />
marketing campaigns<br />
in unique<br />
ways for dozens of<br />
companies, among<br />
them Sears, Block-<br />
buster, American<br />
Express, Disney,<br />
AT&T, Ford Motor<br />
Co., Eli Lilly and<br />
Procter & Gamble.<br />
In her spare time,<br />
Ryan crafted the<br />
controversial book,<br />
“America’s Corporate<br />
Brain Drain,” an<br />
in-depth, in-yourface<br />
look at why the<br />
best people leave<br />
corporations, where<br />
they go and how to<br />
reverse the flow. As<br />
one of the escapees<br />
from big business,<br />
Ryan uses her supercharged<br />
attitude<br />
to push the creative<br />
envelope for her<br />
corporate clients.<br />
“I wake up<br />
everyday and work<br />
on something different,”<br />
Ryan says<br />
with a chuckle.<br />
— Carrie Miner<br />
thunderbird magazine 55
forum<br />
Let’s use the<br />
mystique<br />
BY NONA NINER ’81<br />
Board Member, <strong>Thunderbird</strong> Global Network<br />
AS AN ALUMNI LEADER, I have<br />
attended a number of <strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
events over the past year<br />
and listened to a lot of conversations<br />
about the changes going<br />
on at our School. Some alumni have been<br />
positive about the changes, but more often<br />
than not one of my fellow alumni has<br />
complained.<br />
It is shortsighted to believe that the<br />
graduates of <strong>Thunderbird</strong> are not going to<br />
have critical words about where the School<br />
is headed. After all, it is what we have been<br />
trained to do as MBAs. Alumni increasingly<br />
expect the School to operate as a business<br />
and to make the right decisions to ensure the<br />
viability and future of <strong>Thunderbird</strong>, but all<br />
too often the changes have been perceived as<br />
just another short-term fix and, not unexpectedly,<br />
alumni have become passionately<br />
concerned.<br />
The School has exacerbated this perception<br />
by not always clearly and quickly<br />
communicating such changes to alumni,<br />
something that is critical at this point in<br />
the School’s history. The alumni need to<br />
be reassured that the School leadership is<br />
making rational business decisions that<br />
move the School forward, while at the same<br />
time avoid derailing <strong>Thunderbird</strong> from<br />
either its founding vision or from the five<br />
pillars—Thought Leadership, Borderless<br />
Community, Enterprising Spirit, Business<br />
& Cultural Fusion and Global Citizenship—<br />
that so clearly define the experience of<br />
attending school at <strong>Thunderbird</strong>.<br />
I believe the School is at one of the most<br />
critical junctures in its history. <strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
has started a new chapter under the leadership<br />
of President Angel Cabrera. Dr.<br />
Cabrera, the School administration and<br />
the Board of Trustees are reassessing the<br />
strategic plan of the School, just as one<br />
must do with any business from time to<br />
time. Alumni may or may not agree with<br />
some of the tough decisions that will come<br />
out of this process, but we must feel confident<br />
that the School continues to adapt to<br />
the realities of our changing world.<br />
Much has been said about the <strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
“mystique,” about the special place<br />
that <strong>Thunderbird</strong> is and the unique experience<br />
each of us had during our time as<br />
students. We <strong>Thunderbird</strong>s feel a tangible<br />
connection to all things international, and<br />
particularly to our fellow alumni and to the<br />
School itself. I feel that connection every<br />
time I attend a First Tuesday or Homecoming<br />
or run across another T-bird by chance.<br />
I know there’s almost nothing a fellow<br />
T-bird could ask of me that I wouldn’t try<br />
to oblige, and I know most of you feel the<br />
same way. Imagine the possibilities if the<br />
passion and energy each of the alumni<br />
has for each other and the School were<br />
harnessed and put to use helping<br />
<strong>Thunderbird</strong> during this time of transition.<br />
I challenge each and every one of you<br />
35,000 alumni to do just that, and let’s see<br />
where we can take our School. Let’s make<br />
our <strong>Thunderbird</strong> mystique more tangible<br />
to our mutual benefit!<br />
Editor’s Note<br />
This column, <strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
Forum, is open to<br />
members of the <strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
community who<br />
have a vision or an idea<br />
to share. Write to the<br />
editor with your ideas,<br />
and we will explore<br />
with you its potential<br />
as a column.<br />
56 fall 2005
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What is a Tower?<br />
• It’s a landmark. A reference. A signpost on the<br />
landscape. A symbol. An icon.<br />
• It’s a viewpoint. A new altitude. A greater height. An<br />
opportunity to rise above diversion. To see the horizon.<br />
To see the future. To see possibility. To know what’s coming.<br />
• A chance to seek clarity. To seek direction. To watch the<br />
world as it is… its geography, its people and its cultures.<br />
• It’s a house of vision. A stronghold. A foundation for<br />
guidance. A home for learning.<br />
• It’s a unifier. A community’s expression of itself. A leader<br />
of planes and schools and minds. A place for everyone.<br />
To find ideas. To follow dreams.<br />
• It’s a treasure. A legacy. A future.<br />
How can you help us save a<br />
Tower, restore a legacy and<br />
build a future?<br />
At <strong>Thunderbird</strong>, our Tower is in ruins. We have lost the<br />
landmark. Lost the viewpoint. Lost the clarity. And just<br />
as the Tower has always stood for our <strong>Thunderbird</strong><br />
community, the community will now stand for our Tower.<br />
We will unify. We will fight. We will save.<br />
But it will take us all. 38,000 strong. It will take our<br />
activism. From students taking the lead. To alumni<br />
taking ownership. To corporations taking sponsorship.<br />
It will take you. Your effort. Your ideas. Your support.<br />
Your answer to “What can I do?”<br />
To learn more and to support the Tower project,<br />
visit www.thunderbird.edu/tower.<br />
Very few buildings ever echo and hold such rich history, profound stories and personal memories as the <strong>Thunderbird</strong> Tower. It is an<br />
architectural legacy to be honored. As an architect, I am honored to assist in not only preserving that history but in architecturally<br />
celebrating it with today's <strong>Thunderbird</strong> generations and facilitating those future stories, memories and the history yet to be.<br />
—Steven Brenden, Drewett + Brenden Architecture