Global Innovation - The Paul Merage School of Business - University ...

Merage 

2008/2009 

Published by UC Irvine 

S T R A T E G I C I N N O V A T I O N A T W O R K 

The Paul Merage School of Business 

ISSUE N O 2 

Global Innovation 

India: Opportunities 

& Challenges 

Make The Most of 

Your Virtual Teams 

Eastern Europe: 

Expansion Opportunities

Executive Education is the continuing education 

component of UC Irvine’s Paul Merage School of 

Business. The intent is to provide on-going management 

education to leaders in organizations – those who are 

faced with complex problems in rapidly changing, 

multi-cultural, and competitive environments. 

Executive Education at Merage 

At the Merage School, we design specialized programs 

of study that are either industry-specific or that meet 

the needs of a particular organization. Programs range 

from those offered to the general public to those 

specifically designed to meet the unique needs of your 

organization. Executive Education successfully brings 

together industry experts, practitioners, and distinguished 

Merage faculty members to collaboratively 

launch participants into the forefront of their 

industries. 

Our programs feature: 

Management Training and Education – Our faculty 

members are experts in a variety of business fields. 

That means our courses are taught by leading 

experts in each industry. 

Experiential Projects – Because we take a custom 

approach to program design, we are able to be 

flexible and incorporate a variety of projects into 

our programs. 

Flexible Training – Group programs can be 

designed for as few as eight to ten individuals at 

a time. 

Site Visits and Internships – Southern California 

and Orange County offer a wealth of opportunities 

for program participants to visit and learn from 

local companies. 

Translation – Though programs are generally 

conducted in English, we have access to interpreters 

from many world languages. 

Visit us at merage.uci.edu/ExecutiveEd 

For more information: 

ExecEd@merage.uci.edu 

949.824.4943


Cover design by: 

Raymond Pirouz 

2008-09 

3 Dean’s Letter 

INNOVATION 

4 Unprecedented Times: 

Or Are They? 

6 Virtual Teams Get Real; 

Multinational student 

teams gain experience in 

international collaboration. 

No culture clashes here. 

8 APracticumWithATwist; 

Merage business students 

offer innovative ideas, 

perspectives and solutions. 

Management is listening. 

10 Applying Sustained 

Innovation to Global Issues 

BEYOND THE CLASSROOM 

12 Capitalizing on Investment 

and Wealth Management 

in the OC 

14 Meeting of Minds – Executive 

Education’s Custom 

Programs spark dialogues. 

15 MBA Update: Looking to 

Stay Ahead 

16 Alumni Businesses – Putting 

Innovation into Action 

18 Socially-Responsible 

Students & Alumni Go the 

Extra Mile 

20 Strategies for Doing 

Business in India 

23 Leadership Styles Mix It Up in 

Distinguished Speaker Series 

23 Policano, Vandell Discuss 

Global Economy at Annual 

Business Outlook Conference 

24 ACGCup–Longhours, 

exhausting work. The 

rewards add up to a 

winning experience. 

25 Entrepreneurs Choose 


STUDENTS 

26 Challenge For Charity – 

Using Business Skills for 

a Different Kind of Profit 

27 Student Involvement – 

Recent Merage graduates 

explain why it’s so important. 

MBA PROGRAMS 

28 Seeing the Global Picture 

Through an Eastern 

European Lens 

30 MBA Program News 

FACULTY INSIGHTS 

32 Faculty Research 

37 Faculty Books 

38 Four Merage Professors 

WinAcademicAwards 

39 Making an Impact 

COLLABORATION 

40 Centering on the World: 

Business Leaders and Their 

Take on the Merage School’s 

Centers of Excellence 

42 Beall Center’s Innovation 

Knowledgebase Gives 

Answers to Grow On 

43 Center News 

6 28 

42 

46 Dean’s Advisory Board and 

Donor Lists 

48 Dean’s Leadership Circle – 

Your Network for Success 

52 Family Day: A Whale of a 

Good Time 

ALUMNI NEWS 

54 Merage Annual Fund 

55 Class Notes 

60 New Living Building Brings 

Stories of Success 

1 

Merage | 2008 – 2009

Orange County’s World-Class MBA 

Nationally ranked programs: 

Top-5 in the United States for Marketing, BusinessWeek 

(2005) 

7th in the United States for Information Technology, Wall 

Street Journal (2007) 

11th in the United States, 1st in southern California for 

Executive MBA Programs, Financial Times (2006 & 2007) 

Highly recognized faculty: 

5th in the United States for Faculty Strength, BusinessWeek 

(2003) 

3rd in the United States for faculty research contribution 

(when adjusted for faculty size), University of Texas Study 

(2004) 

18th in the world for Faculty Research, Financial Times 

(2007) 

Dynamic MBA programs based on: 

Sustained growth through strategic innovation 

In-class and on-site experiences with real-world business 

problems 

Six “Centers of Excellence” with first-class connections to the 

business community: 

The Center for Investment and Wealth Management 

The Don Beall Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship 

The Center for Real Estate 

The Center for Leadership and Team Development 

The Center for Health Care Management and Policy 

The Center for Research on Information Technology and 

Organizations (CRITO) 

World-Class Advisory Board of Leading Executives 

CEOs from more than 50 of southern California’s foremost 

companies, including: 

Toyota Materials Handling 

Experian 

Ingram Micro 

Mazda 

Marriott International Lodging 

AMO 

Allergan 

Increasing support from our community: 

Over $50 million pledged since August 2004 

merage.uci.edu 


EDITORIAL DIRECTOR 

Donna Mumford 

EDITOR 

Anne Warde 

ART DIRECTOR 

Maureen Bresse 

CONTRIBUTING DESIGNERS 

Raymond Pirouz and Michael Ward 

WRITERS 

Connie Clark, John Gregory, Shaheen Husain 

Donna Mumford, Andrew J. Policano, and Anne Warde 

PHOTOGRAPHERS 

Laurel Hungerford, Gary Lindblad, Leb Orloff, Carlos 

Puma, Jorge Salas and Steve Shea 

PRINTING 

The Dot Printer 

PROJECT MANAGEMENT CLASS 

It’s easy to put together a project timeline following 

a chart in a text, but quite another to manage that 

project when writers become ill, executives need to 

reschedule, and interviewees are a world away. 

Professor George Meier guided a team of 12 undergraduate 

students working with Merage staff to learn 

the trials of Project Management firsthand by overseeing 

the production of this publication. 

Pictured above (back row) – Professor Meier, Nick 

Ingersoll, (middle row) – Vinh Sam, Sen Hirano, Jacob 

Knobel, Peter Lee, (front row) - Steve Wai, Alton 

Chisolm, Ran Jaden Cao, Pedro Morais, Keemya Najmi, 

Jung-Ho Kim 

PUBLISH YOUR NEWS: If you are a graduate and 

would like to publish your news or information go to 

merage.uci.edu/go/alumni. After logging in, click “Post 

A News Item” under Calendar & News. To request your 

Username and Password, contact Alumni Relations at 

949.824.7167. 

TELL US WHAT YOU THINK: Letusknowwhatyou 

think of Merage Magazine or if you have any interesting 

story ideas or photos to publish. Contact Anne 

Warde at awarde@uci.edu or 949.824.7922 with any 

thoughts, comments or ideas you may have. 

TO SUBSCRIBE to this free publication visit 

merage.uci.edu/go/subscribe 

Merage Magazine is published by: 

The Paul Merage School of Business, UC Irvine 

Marketing & Communications, MPAA Suite 210 

Irvine, CA 92697-3130

As the Merage School becomes a globally-recognized 

source for information on strategic innovation to power 

sustained business growth, we remain focused on providing 

an education that prepares MBA graduates for all 

economic realities. 

Our acclaimed faculty researches and publishes 

timely information for both academic and business 

use on various aspects of the business cycle, and 

techniques for producing innovations that result in 

successful business growth. 

Our evolving curriculum teaches “just in time” 

strategic innovation by incorporating the newest 

and most compelling business 

strategies into coursework. 

Our competitive 

intelligence class 

forces students to 

grapple with real 

world business 

dilemmas and 

challenges. 

DEAN’S MESSAGE 

What is the role of a business school 

during economic uncertainty? 

As the U.S. and global economies sail through rough waters, it is especially 

important for us to deliver effective management education, teaching our students 

and our corporate partners how to sustain profitable growth in a down cycle. 

Our MBA student consulting projects provide 

solutions to complex business challenges at some 

of the largest and most influential corporations. 

Equally as important — whether in good economic 

times or bad — is the Merage School’s focus on bringing 

effective, innovative business strategies to bear on 

today’s most pressing and compelling social issues. No 

matter the strength of the global economy, the community 

surrounding our campus and the citizens we touch 

through our presence remain important priorities. 

Through our Social Responsibility Initiative, our MBA 

students are reaching out to the non-profit community, 

addressing issues such as health care availability, 

domestic violence, disease prevention and cure, environmental 

sustainability, low-income housing and 

homelessness. We are providing management skills and 

analysis to important community resources such as the 

Pacific Symphony Orchestra, the Long Beach Museum 

of Art, the Saddleback Valley School District and other 

key organizations in our community. These rewarding 

and vital projects bring our students and faculty in 

touch with imperatives crucial to a broad-based, socially 

responsible business education. 

Our focus on strategic innovation combined with our 

collaborative, hands-on student experience produces 

graduates with core business skills intertwined with a 

formidable social conscience. A powerful combination, 

indeed. 

Andy Policano 

3 


INNOVATION 

4 

experience INNOVATION 

These are unprecedented times. Or 

are they? Consider the following 

description of the overall environment 

we are experiencing in late 

2008: 

A Republican is in the White 

House. War is fresh on everyone’s 

mind. Immigration is fueling dramatic 

changes in society. New 

technologies are changing people’s 

everyday lives. Business 

consolidators and their Wall 

Street advisors are creating large 

new combinations through mergers 

and acquisitions, while the 

government is investigating and 

prosecuting prominent executives. 

The public’s attitude toward 

business leaders is largely negative. 

The government itself is 

becoming more intrusive. Much 

of this is stimulated by an expansion 

that involved borrowers and 

creditors overreaching in their 

use of debt lowering the margin 

of safety in the financial system. 

Does this portray an accurate 

description of what we Americans 

are observing right now? You would 

probably agree that is does. 

However this paragraph is actually 

adapted from a description of the 

Banking Panic of 1907 (see Robert 

F. Bruner and Sean D. Carr entitled 

ThePanicof 1907:Lessons 

Learned from the Market’s Perfect 

Storm). In fact, not only did a similar 

set of circumstances occur in 

1907, but between 1814 to today, 

the U.S. economy has experienced 

no less than 14 different episodes 

of banking panics. 

Our current financial crisis is real- 

Unprecedented Times: 

Or Are They? 

lynothingnewbutitisdifferent 

from previous episodes in several 

important ways. For a number of 

reasons, primarily due to a decreasing 

regulatory environment and the 

rise of new derivatives that were 

inaccurately priced, the impact of 

this crisis on the global financial 

system is significantly greater than 

in previous panics. But the effect on 

the macroeconomy, while painful, 

will be much less than experienced 

in the past and certainly much less 

than what occurred during The 

Great Depression. Thanks to massive 

global macroeconomic policy 

reaction as well as a number of 

normal safeguards in the U.S. economic 

system, the unemployment 

rate, rather than peaking at 25% of 

the labor force, as it did during the 

Depression, is likely to hit no higher 

than 8.0 – 8.5% in the U.S. 

Right now, under current policies 

the global economy faces two criti- 

Economic Commentary by Andrew J. Policano 

Dean, The Paul Merage School of Business 

November 2008 

cal challenges: first, there is a 

widespread lack of confidence and 

second, a lack of liquidity. Much 

analysis has been done of these 

periods; in fact Ben Bernanke himself 

has studied financial crises and 

The Great Depression in great 

detail. The basic lesson learned is 

that when people need more liquidity, 

the Fed should give it to them. 

Simple enough, but the Fed doesn’t 

drop cash from the sky, although it 

is likely that right now Bernanke 

wishes he could. Rather, the Fed 

traditionally adds liquidity to the 

economy through open market 

operations whereby it buys bonds 

from banks and provides cash in 

exchange. Banks then lend this 

cash to both businesses and consumers 

who increase spending and 

boost the economy. The problem 

currently is that banks are reluctant 

to lend due to very shaky balance 

sheets and a bleak economic out-

look. Rather, they are building their 

cash position to restore capital 

adequacy ratios that deteriorated 

due to poorly performing assets on 

their balance sheets. Thus, while 

the Fed has been willingly providing 

cash to the banking system, the 

corresponding boost to lending has 

not yet occurred. 

The inappropriately named “Bail 

Out Program” evolved as an attempt 

to remove poorly performing assets 

from bank balance sheets and allow 

loans to once again flow freely. 

While $700 billion is certainly a 

large number, life (and economics) 

is always a relative game. Estimates 

of one of the most significant classes 

of assets in trouble (credit default 

swaps) are in the range of dozens 

of trillions of dollars. The intent, 

rather than to solve the entire liquidity 

shortfall, is first to restore 

confidence. Still, many lenders will 

continue to increase reserves rather 

than lend. Rather than removing 

bad assets, the Treasury has recognized 

it can have a much more 

significant impact by adding equity, 

taking an ownership position in 

banks and increasing capital adequacy 

ratios directly. In addition to 

freeing funds for loans, as an owner, 

the government can encourage 

additional lending. Over time U.S. 

Treasury and Fed actions combined 

with global central bank infusions 

should increase liquidity and restore 

well-functioning credit markets. 

When will the market bottom and 

what strategy should individual 

investors follow? Bear markets historically 

tend to settle at roughly 

30% below the market’s previous 

high. We have already hit the 30% 

market in both the Dow and the S&P 

indexes. Now, some math. If you 

have lost 30% (so every $1 is now 

worth 70 cents) you will need about 

a 43% return on that 70 cents to get 

back to your original $1. How should 

you allocate your portfolio to do so? 

In money market funds you might 

take as long as 12 – 15 years to 

earn 43%; in bonds maybe 7 – 10 

years. With equities that have historically 

averaged 8% returns, the 

time to recover your losses would 

be substantially less. Diversification 

is a must; how aggressive you are 

depends on your attitude toward 

risk. 

While the U.S. economy will certainly 

survive the current financial 

morass, the long-term outlook is not 

nearly as bright as the prosperity of 

the 1990s. Rather, long-term growth 

in the U.S. is likely to be slower and 

inflation and interest rates are likely 

to be higher during the next decade 

than in the past ten to twenty years. 

One of the major issues challenging 

President-elect Obama is that 

the U.S. debt currently exceeds $9 

trillion without including the impact 

of a significant future shortfall in 

both the Social Security System 

and Medicare. The consequence is 

thatoverthenextdecade,wemust 

all face the following realities: 

The growth in government spending 

must slow (by much more 

than “earmarks”); 

Income taxes must rise; 

Social Security benefits must fall 

and/or Social Security taxes must 

rise, and; 

Medicare benefits must fall 

and/or taxes rise. 

So how can President-elect 

Obama soften the effects of 

these realities? 

Tax cuts alone are not the answer. 

Households are unlikely to spend 

right now and spending is what the 

economy needs to rebound from the 

current recession. In a capitalistic 

economy, two critical roles that the 

government must take on are to act 

as first, the lender of last resort (as 

INNOVATION 

the Fed and the Treasury are now 

doing) and second, the spender of 

last resort. When consumers are 

reluctant to spend, the government 

must spend — but it must spend 

wisely. Now is the time to enact a 

“new” New Deal. President-elect 

Obama’s plan, in fact, includes several 

facets of such a plan. What is 

necessary is a significant government 

investment in infrastructure 

and research; roads, high speed rail, 

energy, education, communication, 

research in new and emerging areas 

of science and technology and other 

areasthatovertimeprovideopportunities 

for businesses to flourish, 

for the creation of higher paying 

jobs and for the development of 

innovations that continually support 

sustainable growth. 

These investments and the easing 

of liquidity along with the resulting 

effects on growth will take time. So, 

how should individuals best prepare? 

First, diversify your portfolio 

based on your attitude toward risk 

and the time until retirement. Too 

safe a position will imply that you 

will miss excellent opportunities 

thatareavailablerightnowin 

stocks that are considerably undervalued. 

At the same time, be careful 

not to absorb more risk than you 

can tolerate. 

Second, increase your savings as 

appropriate based on a smaller than 

expected Social Security benefit, a 

higher cost of long-term health care 

and slower income growth. 

Third, expect a broad market 

recovery but think carefully about 

which sectors may be long-term 

growth candidates. 

Finally, always be a student of history. 

The fact that the world economy 

repeats cycles over and over again 

provides ample credence to this well 

known observation by Edmund Burke: 

“Those who don’t know history are 

destined to repeat it.” 

5 


INNOVATION 

6 


VIRTUAL TEAMS 

Multinational student teams gain experience 

YOU’RE ON A MULTINATIONAL TEAM tasked with creating 

a training module for a client in Brussels — and she 

needs it tomorrow morning. One of your team members, 

who has vital project information, has been out of 

communication for three days. What do you do? 

You could e-mail a colleague in Helsinki for suggestions, 

or text a team member in Haifa for back-up ideas. 

You could even ask your professor for help. Despite your 

client existing only in cyberspace, your entire team — 

with members from Madrid to Hong Kong — is still very 

real. And, the project must be completed if your team 

wants a passing grade. 

Global Team Collaboration is an experiential learning 

course offered at both graduate and undergraduate levels 

at The Paul Merage School of Business. 

The brainchild of Merage School Professor Cristina 

Gibson, an expert in multicultural team collaboration, 

and Professor Miriam Erez at the Israel Institute of 

Technology, the course gives students the invaluable 

experience they will need to succeed in a global team 

environment. 

“Increasingly, work occurs across organizational, 

regional or national boundaries in teams…enabled by 

communication technology,” Gibson says in her course 

materials. “Working in these collaborations requires 

skills in cross-cultural communication, technology use, 

and dynamic planning and design.” 

Although students are also required to read selected 

texts and perform team case analysis, the most talkedabout 

aspect of the course is clearly the chance to be 

part of a global team. 

Global Connections 

Merage ’08 student Alex Rapoport explains, “This 

project definitely made me work out of my comfort 

zone, and forced me to put a good deal of trust in team 

members from other countries. I didn't know much 

about their work styles and work ethics initially, but over 

the course of the project we all came together and 

made sure we turned in a project we were proud of.” 

Gibson says the students gained a profound sense of 

global identity, which she describes as “the sense of 

belonging to groups nested within the global work environment 

of multinational organizations.” 

A more immediate benefit is showing up on resumes 

and in job interviews. Several students say recruiters

GET REAL 

in international collaboration. No culture clashes here. 

were impressed by the exposure to the material and the 

experiences addressed in the course. They also note 

that the challenges of working on a global team ran the 

gamut from the complicated to the mundane. 

Collaborating From the Beginning 

Another reason for the course’s success may be that it 

was developed in true collaborative fashion. Gibson had 

been tossing around the idea with colleagues for a 

while, but it wasn’t until Erez in Israel came on board 

that things really took off. Gibson notes, “The framework 

for developing the multinational teams was done 

in conjunction with Professor Erez, who brought in a 

dedicated PhD student to handle logistics.” 

In a true collaborative sense, Gibson is proud of the 

development team, including TAs Andreas Voigt and 

Rebekah Dibble. Even the students themselves helped 

by providing continuous feedback as the quarter unfolded, 

which Gibson says she used to make adjustments 

along the way. 

Business Themes At Work 

The course also incorporates the Merage School’s hallmark 

business principles from the perspective of the 

global team: 

Strategic Innovation: Course builds individual skills 

and examines team level characteristics that serve as 

“points of leverage for increasing innovation.” 

Information Technology: Students gain hands-on skills 

in collaborative technology planning and use. 

Analytic Decision Making: Sequential activities and 

exercises build into increasingly complex, strategic 

decisions that require analysis of political, economic, 

and cultural factors. 

A Cultural Experience Like No Other 

No matter what kind of experience students have, 

Rapoport advises them to bring an open mind. “I think 

so many of us have our own stereotypes and preconceived 

ideas about what people from other cultures are 

By Connie Clark 

INNOVATION 

like. In a time-sensitive, team-based project like this, 

every team member needs to come in without an ego 

and be willing to listen to everyone's ideas. This was an 

incredibly valuable exercise and I'm certainly better off 

for having done it.” 

Global Business Leaders 

Leading business schools from around the world 

participate in the Global Team Course: 

The Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, 

Haifa, Israel 

Indian Institutes of Technology, India 

City University of Hong Kong 

Peking University, Beijing 

ESADE Business School, Barcelona and 

Madrid, Spain 

Swedish School of Economics and Business 

Administration, Helsinki, Finland 

The Paul Merage School of Business, UC Irvine 

Stanford University 

Michigan State University 

University of Washington 

INNOVATION AWARD WINNER 

Professor Cristina Gibson 

received the 2008 Pedagogical 

Innovation Award at the annual 

Celebration of Teaching in 

May.TheUCIrvineAcademic 

Senate Council sponsors the 

award, which was given to 

Gibson in recognition of the 

success of the Global Team 

Collaboration course. 

7 


INNOVATION 

8 


A Practicum With A Twist 

Merage business students offer innovative ideas, perspectives 

and solutions. Management is listening. by Connie Clark 

IT’S ONE THING for a business 

student to take away powerful 

lessons from a management 

practicum. It’s quite another when 

host company executives learn 

something, too. But increasingly, 

that’s the result of many Merage 

student experiences at companies 

throughout Orange County. 

During the past six years, 

Merage full-time MBA student 

teams have completed 60 projects 

in a variety of industries and functional 

areas. Logging a total of 

nearly 30,000 project hours, teams 

tackle projects involving business 

growth, market entry, new product 

launches, process improvement, 

and strategy development. 

“Client satisfaction has been outstanding,” 

says Shaheen Husain, 

Merage School’s Executive Director 

“ This was a unique opportunity for us to work 

collaboratively with Merage MBAs to examine the 

challenges of our complex industry and explore how 

recent innovations in technology may be applied to 

further improve our manufacturing and operational 

excellence programs. The Merage School team’s 

intensive research, thoughtful analysis and sense of 

purpose provided Watson with valuable insight into 

critical applications of both process management 

and process analytical technology. 

” 

Tom Giordano 

Senior Vice President and CIO, Watson Pharmaceuticals 

of Corporate Relations. “The feedback 

from executives is that the 

students brought in perspectives 

and ideas that they hadn’t thought 

of. They’re getting real results for 

real issues.” 

The list of companies who have 

had success with the program 

reads like a Who’s Who of successful 

businesses, including Mazda 

North America, Allergan, Advanced 

Medical Optics, ConAgra, Kingston 

Technology, and many more. 

Husain believes part of the differenceliesinthenatureof 

the 

team, which has a full complement 

of resources to back it up, including 

faculty technical advisors and 

consultant coaches from leading 

management consulting firm 

McKinsey & Co. 

Clearly, however, the students 

are in charge. Sample projects and 

results include: 

Developing a strategy to leverage 

engineering resources overseas 

and coordinate work with the 

U.S.-based engineering teams. 

Creating an innovative market 

forecasting tool to provide 

product planning direction.

“ 

Iwanttoexpressmy 

thanks to the UC Irvine 

MBA team for the 

thoroughness, diligence 

and insight they brought 

to AMO’s Market Research 

project. The MBA program 

leaders assembled an 

outstanding team for us, 

with relevant experience 

in the healthcare industry 

and solid leadership skills. 

This program represents a 

true win-win for the local 

business community. 

” 

Jim Mazzo 

Chairman & CEO, Advanced Medical Optics 

Developing an inventory model 

and recommending supply 

strategies to increase inventory 

turns and maintain high levels of 

customer service. 

Emile Pilafidis, PhD, lecturer and 

part of the team that spearheads 

the program, calls the practicum 

experience a win-win for everyone 

involved. “This is true experiential 

learning,” he says. “We like to call 

it ‘sticky’ learning because it stays 

with the students. They come away 

with significant lessons beyond 

what they get in the classroom.” 

Pilafidis says the projects achieve 

ahighlevelofcooperationfrom companies, since the sponsors are 

at the senior management level. 

The success is apparent in the 

program’s reputation for excellence. 

“We’re getting more 

inquiries from companies, and 

we’re excited to enter new and 

emerging business sectors, such 

as surfwear and new forms of 

entertainment,” says Husain. 

INNOVATION 

INTERNET USE TODAY 

Teaching a Top Dog 

New Tricks by John Gregory 

Five Full-Time MBA students of the Merage School’s course on Internet 

Marketing presented their findings on social networking to Microsoft’s 

Corporate Research department in April at Mountain View, California. The 

presentation was the third annual Microsoft project conducted by student 

teams of the marketing course taught by Professor Alladi Venkatesh. 

The students conducted an online 

“ 

survey of more than 1,000 undergrad- ...high quality and 

uates from universities across the 

country. Results and analysis were very professional. It 

presented to Microsoft officials on communicated the 

such social networking issues as: 

key findings and 

What social networking sites do 

young consumers use and how insights succinctly 

often? 

and lucidly... [We] 

What devices do they use to access 

these sites? 

are so fortunate to 

What activities do they engage in, have such a fruitful 

how frequently, and what activities 

collaboration. 

” 

do they avoid? 

What are young consumers’ attitudes and concerns about privacy? 

How is online social networking evolving? 

What are the contexts of social networking and other online 

communications use? 

Microsoft officials told Venkatesh that the presentation was “high quality 

and very professional. It communicated the key findings and insights succinctly 

and lucidly… [We] are so fortunate to have such a fruitful 

collaboration.” 

The student team consisted of Kendra Hammer (group leader), Martina 

Albers, Laurie Lipsky, Karyn Chen and Sarah Marren. 

9 


INNOVATION 

fAPPLYING 

10 


MOST PEOPLE figure strategic 

innovation is launching next year’s 

model with a few more bells and 

whistles. But at the Merage School 

students are tackling problems 

with global implications — like 

poverty, global warming, school 

failure, childhood obesity and 

prison overcrowding. 

In the Topics in Strategic 

Innovation class taught by 

Professors Leonard Lane and 

“ Bysolvingaproblem 

of this magnitude, I 

realized that we can 

solve anything at my 

company using the 

same principles. And 

it will be a lot easier 

than overcoming 

poverty. 

” 

Lynda Lawrence, students start 

with the basics: disruptive and 

incremental innovation, Blue Ocean 

Strategy which promotes a system- 

atic approach for “making competition 

irrelevant,” and a framework 

for Business Model innovation that 

involves a culture of ideas, plus 

the people, practices and partners 

thatcanmoveanideatoaprofitable 

reality. 

They study cases, including 

Cirque de Solei, Yellowtail Wine, 

3M, Li & Fung, and P&G. 

They hear from experts in lively 

in-person interviews: Fritz Reichert, 

By John Gregory 

who invented the electronic cash 

register; Brad Maihack, VP of 

Finance, Innovation Processes at 

H-P; and Joel Moskowitz, founder 

and CEO of Ceradyne. 

They learn new techniques in 

hands-on workshops on brainstorming, 

sacred cow tipping, 

loosely coupled networks, sixdegree 

information sourcing, and 

the power of a story to create 

change.

Then each team selects a problem: 

one that has been resistant to 

old solutions and will take new 

ideas, approaches and networks to 

solve. 

Just to increase the degree of 

difficulty, each team must start 

with an existing organization, then 

apply new strategic approaches 

and innovative ideas to improve the 

outcome. Even though the teams 

choose tough problems, no shortcuts 

are allowed. Dealing with 

third-world poverty? Do it without 

using charity. Reducing greenhouse 

emissions? Don’t count on volunteers 

cutting back on their driving 

or flat screen TVs. 

The student solutions have to 

include designing a business enterprise 

that can make money, be 

scalable, and sustain them while 

making a difference in the problem 

area they select. And, they must 

demonstrate breakthrough, gamechanging 

thinking. 

Recently, two groups used technology 

to improve underperforming 

schools and address childhood 

obesity. They linked existing networks 

to make them more 

efficient. By building on hundreds 

of local nonprofits, these teams 

leveraged relationships already in 

place for manpower, improved 

grant writing, spread best practices, 

and eliminated 

redundancies. 

Another group focused on an 

aspect of third-world poverty and 

added micro-sourcing to existing 

micro-financing programs, so that 

a woman making 12 garments a 

month would have a market for her 

embroidered saris, and 

Bloomingdales, for example, would 

have a consistent supply from 100 

small entrepreneurs. 

The prison overcrowding team 

added specialized facilities, job 

training, drug rehab and incentives 

to reduce recidivism, overall crime 

rates and inmate populations. 

The auto emissions group built 

stronger marketing muscle and 

new networks to sell more Tesla 

electric sports cars. 

One team expanded the use of 

solar power in California using new 

technology to release energy at 

INNOVATION 

TO 

GLOBAL SOCIAL ISSUES 

“ want to see in the 

” 

Be the change you 

world. 

— Mahatma Gandhi 

night, a bond issue to pay for infrastructure 

and recommended 

incentives to encourage utilities to 

become eager players. 

So how does this translate to a 

more traditional business? 

According to one student, “By solving 

a problem of this magnitude, I 

realized that we can solve anything 

at my company using the same 

principles. And it will be a lot easier 

than overcoming poverty.” 

Another student commented, “I 

always loved the quotation from 

Mahatma Gandhi, ‘Be the change 

you want to see in the world’. Now 

I know that every single one of us 

has the power to change the 

world.” 

11 



12 


Capitalizing on 

Investment and 

Wealth Management 

in the OC 

IN 2005, Dean Andy Policano announced the formation 

of the Center for Investment and Wealth Management 

as a vehicle to connect with the thriving investment and 

wealth management community in southern California 

and to provide information and activities of interest to 

this important group of business people. 

Since then, the Center has become a leading resource 

for innovative programs that enhance and spotlight the 

fields of investment and wealth management. Members 

and guests attend quarterly meetings featuring presentations 

on such recent topics as the latest research on 

behavioral finance, mutual fund advisors’ impact upon 

fund performance, and the impact of the ongoing intergenerational 

transfer of trillions of dollars of wealth. In 

addition, specific courses on investment and wealth 

management are available as part of the Merage MBA 

program, producing graduates with specific skills and a 

commitment to investment and wealth management as 

a career. 

Why a focus on Wealth Management? 

The shifting demographics in the United States toward 

a more heavily-weighted retirement sector have already 

had a profound effect on numerous industries including 

housing, health care, consumer goods and travel and 

leisure. Another important aspect of this demographic 

shift is that with longer life expectancies, families face 

difficult challenges to adequately provide for current 

liquidity needs of retired members while effectively 

planning for the transfer of wealth to the next genera- 

tion. The complex set of issues surrounding the creation, 

management and intergenerational transfer of 

wealth are not adequately studied or taught in most 

major business schools, leading to a shortage of talented, 

skilled investment and wealth managers. 

How does the Center benefit MBA students? 

An important goal of the Center is to produce highly 

talented and knowledgeable MBA graduates with specific 

skills and expertise in the wealth management industry. 

Center donors Mark Moehlman and Lane Ainsworth at a recent 

Merage School event.

Classes include specialized finance, psychology, marketing, 

personal financial planning, insurance, taxation, 

estate planning and other critical courses to the Career 

Track in Investment and Wealth Management. The curriculum 

combines case studies with financial and 

behavioral theory, preparing students for careers related 

to investment banking, private client services, hedge 

funds and other financial services careers. The Advisory 

Board and the Merage School boast alumni in the financial 

services and wealth management industries who 

counsel and advise students in the MBA program. 

Polaris Investment Competition regularly beats 

the market. 

In addition, all MBA students in their final year of the 

program can apply to become a participant in the Polaris 

Investment Competition program, an optional, extracurricular 

activity founded and sponsored by philanthropist/ 

hedge fund manager Chuck Martin. 

Students form teams of 4-6 members, each of which 

develop proposals for the purchase of up to $300,000 

of stock (maximum: $50,000 per student team member) 

in one or more companies. The program gives 

students the opportunity to earn an economic reward 

determined by the performance of their investment 

portfolio and their rank in the competition with other 

participating teams. Students search through, screen 

and evaluate companies listed on the NYSE or NASDAQ 

exchange to find companies that exemplify the best 

qualities in business and are worthy of investment. 

Students then assess the companies’ strategic position, 

financial performance, market outlook, management, 

and the valuation of their publicly traded stock. 

How can wealth managers in Orange County 

get involved? 

The Center for Investment and Wealth Management continues 

to develop a series of short executive programs, 

workshops and an annual national conference that efficiently 

addresses topics critical to current practitioners, 

and which may ultimately be coordinated in the offering 

of a certificate for those who complete a specified program 

of study. 

Potential areas of interest for conferences and presentations 

could include discussions of investment 

strategies and objectives as well as clarification of 

appropriate investment strategies and parameters 

based on family dynamics and market factors. Additional 

focus may be on risk management, valuation methods 

to estimate the worth of a business and psychological 

aspects of family dynamics. 

The Center has also developed a program (Life Skills 

Retreat) for young adults to provide basic wealth management 

skills. The Retreat provides a hands-on, 

interactive experience designed to empower very highnet 

worth individuals with financial and life skills 

knowledge on a wide range of topics. 

For members of the Center, other ways to participate 

include joining one of the committees of the board: 

Membership Committee 

Community Programs for Individuals and Families 

Programs for Practicing Professionals 

Networking and Programming for High Net Worth 

Individuals 

MBA Program Development 


Web-site Development 

Contact Mitch Spann at mwspann@uci.edu or 

949.824.1655 for more information. 

Calendar of Events 

October 9, 2008 

Fall CIWM Board Meeting & Speaker Event 

The Merage School Executive Commons 

3:30 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. 

(by invitation only) 

January 21, 2009 

Winter CIWM Board Meeting & Speaker Event 

The Merage School Executive Commons 

3:30 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. 

(by invitation only) 

March 11, 2009 

Spring CIWM Student Career Event 

The Merage School Executive 

Commons 

3:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. 

March 19 & 21, 2009 

CIWM CONFERENCE 

Exiting Your Business – Options 

in Today’s Economy 

13 



14 


MEETING OF MINDS 

Executive Education’s Custom Programs spark dialogues 

between senior managers and experts in their fields. 

But, it all begins with listening. 


NEWTON MARGULIES LISTENS. 

While many professors of his experience 

spend their days lecturing, 

writing, or otherwise imparting 

their extensive knowledge, the 

Professor Emeritus and Associate 

Dean of Executive Education keeps 

his silence. And for organizations 

like Ingram Micro and UCI Medical 

Center, that silence is far more 

than golden. By listening, Margulies 

pinpoints company needs and 

creates highly customized management 

training modules to improve 

business practices. 

At Ingram Micro, Margulies and 

his team listened to senior executives 

who wanted deep training for 

high potential managers around 

the globe. Margulies organized a 

team of Merage faculty experts 

who worked with Ingram Micro 

executives to design the sequence 

and content for the training modules. 

The result is the Ingram 

Micro Leadership Academy. Now 

held every January, the Academy 

brings together 25 senior level 

managers for intensive dialogues 

with professors and experts in 

their respective fields. 

Custom Programs offer far more 

than training, Margulies insists. 

“You can send a couple of your 

senior managers to a seminar for a 

week and they’ll listen to lectures, 

maybe get into a small group or 

two. We want executives to return 

with innovative solutions for the 

real issues they’re facing. When 

you get an entire management 

“ We want executives 

to return with 

innovative solutions 

for the real issues 

” 

they’re facing. 

team involved, they come back 

with real solutions. They also get a 

chance to meet each other and 

network. That’s invaluable.” 

At the Leadership Academy, 

managers are teamed with faculty 

who are grounded in research and 

theory in each particular content 

area. 

“Theory — people are afraid of 

that word,” Margulies says. “But 

truthfully, when business practice 

merges with theory, things start to 

happen. Real issues get solved.” 

Customization is another key to 

the success of the program. When 

the executive management team at 

UCI Medical Center wanted management 

training for their top 

physicians and department leaders, 

Margulies and his team developed 

training modules that directly 

addressed day-to-day issues. 

Success 

Is the program successful? 

Executives reply with a resounding 

“yes.” But the best measure of the 

success, according to Margulies, is 

that companies return year after 

year. “Business challenges;” he 

says, “we never run out of those.” 

Margulies won’t stop listening — 

and responding — to those challenges, 

either.

MBA Update: Looking to Stay Ahead? 

For the general public, the Merage School has 

put together a unique, forward-thinking 

Executive Education program called MBA 

Update. Geared toward managers and administrators 

seeking to sharpen management skills and 

enhance their careers, MBA Update is designed for 

individuals – with or without an MBA degree who are 

looking to: 

Gain tools and techniques today and apply them 

tomorrow 

Network with peers in a dynamic classroom setting 

Learn new approaches and perspectives from our 

world-class faculty. 

FALL 2008 SESSIONS: 

October 9 – Competitive Intelligence with Professor 

Leonard Lane – Learn the tools and techniques to get 

inside the heads of your competitors and develop 

intelligence-driven strategies, execute on proven 

strategies and avoid pitfalls of others. 

October 23 – Project Management that Works with 

Professor Vish Krishnan – Explore the essential elements 

of creative and effective project management, 

including vertical and horizontal project management 

and the technical and social aspects of project execution. 

November 6 – Negotiating Your Way Past No with 

Professor Lisa Barron – Gain an understanding of the 

difference between interests and positions, the techniques 

for generating agreements, and the ways to 

address particularly difficult negotiation situations. 

November 20 – Corporate Governance: New Issues 

and Wrinkles to Operating a Public Company with 


Professor Margarethe Wiersema – Update your knowledge 

about changes in corporate governance and the 

pressing challenges facing public companies today. 

SPRING 2009 SESSIONS: 

February 26 – Effective Decision Making with 

Professor Robin Keller – Gain the decision analysis 

tools you’ll need to approach important, impactful situations 

with clarity and confidence, and improve your 

decision making skills. 

March 12 – Branding with Professor Imran Currim – 

Learn to create, maintain, enhance, and protect 

brands. Explore the strategic brand management 

process from differentiation to managing a brand over 

its life cycle. 

March 26 – Managing Influence with Professor Jone 

Pearce – Examine what recent research can tell us 

about exercising influence down, laterally and up in 

organizations, with time spent analyzing the participants’ 

own organizational influence challenges. 

April 9 – The Coming China Wars – Meeting the 

China Challenge with Professor Peter Navarro – 

Explore the many risks and challenges of competing 

in and against China. Understand the major sources 

of China’s competitive advantage and outline several 

economic and political strategies to meet the China 

Challenge. 

Sessions are held on Thursdays at the Merage 

School on the UC Irvine Campus. Log on to register 

at merage. uci.edu/go/MBAUpdate, or contact 

Beverly Bond at 949.824.4943, bjbond@uci.edu OR 

Lynette Albovias at 949.824.0523, lalbovias@ 

merage.uci.edu. 

15 



16 


Putting Innovation 

into Action 

by John Gregory 

THOMAS ANTUNEZ, ‘05, IS PRESIDENT of Percentix, 

an Irvine-based company that helps large corporations 

innovate their finance and accounting functions. 

Antunez says his MBA at the Merage School has 

helped him in three ways. "First, it gave me the technical 

skills, including finance and accounting, to really 

understand what it takes to run a business. This is critical 

as an entrepreneur. 

"Second, the MBA honed my ability to articulate a 

business idea to any level, whether it be to a CEO or a 

financial analyst. This gave me the self confidence to 

drive business ideas and concepts. 

“Third, my MBA experience really developed my under- 

ALUMNI BUSINESSES 

Thomas Antunez, ‘05 

“ Much of our time is spent with the 

CFO and his or her team discussing 

how the finance function can 

become a value-adding entity that 

proactively works with the business 

to achieve results, not simply report 

” 

on them.

standing of what it takes to work within a team — how to 

know when to demonstrate strong leadership and when 

to let others pull more of the weight. This is key for any 

business professional. Merage is in the business of producing 

leaders, but graduates should understand that 

leadership is as much about giving others the opportunity 

to lead as it is about leading on your own.” 

Antunez says Percentix's business "is all about helping 

large corporations remove unnecessary steps," particularly 

on massive spreadsheets, "that result in an 

inordinate amount of time massaging data to get the 

desired results. Our enterprise performance management 

solutions maximize a company's shareholder value by 


enabling the firm to set strategic goals, plan around 

those goals, monitor actual performance and repeat the 

cycle. Much of our time is spent with the CFO and his 

or her team discussing how the finance function can 

become a value-adding entity that proactively works 

with the business to achieve results, not simply report 

on them." 

Antunez is one of the lead donors to the Dean’s 

Leadership Circle (DLC) Endowed Professorship 

Campaign and joined the DLC executive committee last 

July. He is also a member of the advisory board at 

Merage’s Don Beall Center for Innovation and 

Entrepreneurship. 

Please join us for our 


Greg Creed 

President & 

Chief Concept Officer 

Taco Bell 

Alexis Livanos 

Corporate Vice President & 

President of Space Technology 

Northrop Grumman 

Jim Caudill 

President, Hardware & 

Home Improvement 

Black & Decker 

Bob McKnight 

Chief Executive Officer 

Quiksilver 

NOVEMBER18 FEBRUARY10 APRIL 7 MAY 19 

Event Details: 

All events, 6:00 - 7:00pm 

Reception to follow 

RSVP required 

For more information visit our website at 

merage.uci.edu/go/dss 

Register for all events and receive a significant discount. 

SERIES OF INDIVIDUAL 

FOUR EVENTS EVENTS 

General Public $150 $50 

Merage Alumni $75 $25 

Free for Dean’s Leadership Circle, Corporate Partners, and students 

with event registration. 

We want to thank the sponsors of the 2008-2009 Distinguished Speaker Series: Verizon Wireless, Capital Group, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and 

Wells Fargo. Their generosity has made this series a signature event at the Merage School. 

17 



18 


Socially-Responsible Students 

At the Merage School, social responsibility has 

always been a cornerstone to the teaching philosophy. 

More than ever, it is woven into the 

fabric of the school’s curriculum. With social, 

political and environmental problems making 

headlines daily, a strong “change-the-world” culture is 

emerging as students seek to experience volunteerism 

first hand. 

On these pages are stories of the paths taken by two 

Merage School students, one a graduate and one current, 

and both from the Health Care Executive MBA 

program. 

Elena Medo (‘06) 

Elena is founder and chief 

strategic officer of Prolacta 

Bioscience, which makes products 

from donated human 

breast milk to help premature 

or malnourished babies around 

the world resist infections and 

decrease the incidence of serious 

diseases. Prolacta, based 

in Monrovia, California, offers the first and only milk fortifier 

made from 100% human milk for the nutritional 

needs of these babies. Prolacta was a co-winner of 

PricewaterhouseCooper’s 2007 Entrepreneurship Award, 

presented to technology-based companies in the Los 

Angeles region. 

Last fall, Elena arranged for Prolacta to donate the 

processing of over 55,000 ounces of milk for the 

International Breast Milk Project (IBMP) that was delivered 

to an orphanage in Durban, South Africa. 

Prolacta’s donation received considerable attention on 

television and print media. “It is great to witness such a 

heightened awareness related to the importance of 

breast milk for infants, which is leading to increased 

breast milk donors nationwide,” Elena says. 

All in a “day’s work” for the Merage graduate who 

holds foreign and domestic patents to improve breast 

milk production and since 1985 has worked with neonatal 

intensive care units to help new mothers overcome 

lactation failure. Her volunteer projects include helping 

the Professional Women’s Roundtable prepare women to 

become business leaders and entrepreneurs. 

“As an entrepreneur, I found that the Merage School 

MBA was very helpful,” says Elena. “The emphasis on 

health care in the HCEMBA program made all of the 

course material amazingly relevant. The excellent faculty’s 

expertise in health care economics, health care 

marketing and strategy were the diamonds in the program 

for me. As time goes on, I revisit some of the 

business cases and see them from a new perspective. 

My classmates were very high caliber professionally, so

& Alumni Go the Extra Mile 

by John Gregory 

I also continue to benefit by their career evolution and 

the network that provides.” 

Paul Leon (‘09) 

Paul, a health care nurse with 

the Orange County Public 

Health Department, drove to 

an emergency center in March 

2007 to help a 64-year-old 

diabetic man with his catheter. 

What Paul saw at the center, 

housing 150 homeless people, 

was far more than one man in 

need of medical attention. He summoned three ambulances 

and, as he told the Orange County Register, “I 

could have stayed there all night and day” helping 

others. 

Learning that a second county-run emergency center 

had the same lack of medical assistance, Paul created 

the Comprehensive Health Assessment Team – 

Homeless (CHAT-H), a new county department to 

improve medical services for the county’s 35,000 homeless 

people. Since the two shelters only serve 1 percent 

of this population, the scope of CHAT-H is county-wide. 

During the program’s formation stages, Paul’s work 

was largely voluntary. Eventually, the county created a 

position for him as the first full-time nurse to serve the 


homeless population exclusively. CHAT-H now has a paid 

psychiatrist and part-time physicians, dentists and 

nurses. Volunteers help with immunizations and other 

preventative care. 

CHAT-H was just the beginning for Paul. When he 

enrolled in the Merage School’s HCEMBA program in 

2007, he worked with fellow students to create the nonprofit 

Illumination Foundation to raise funds, recruit 

volunteers and arrange weekly medical clinics to help 

Orange County’s homeless. Illumination’s eight-member 

board includes Paul, as president, and Merage students 

Paul Cho, Aiko Tan and Larry Haynes. Merage professors 

Imran Currim and Paul Feldstein serve on the 

advisory committee. 

“We are also working with several local universities to 

build a foundation that will be passed down to incoming 

students to reinforce their community networking,” Paul 

says. 

He cites two Merage courses that “really assisted me 

in honing my business management skills. Marketing 

helped me see the homeless clients as my customers 

and helped me understand their needs vs. their wants. 

This makes me a better advocate for the homeless.” His 

course in behavior of organizations “enhanced my ability 

to understand the dynamics of the county. This 

allowed me to favorably position my newly-created 

department in an underserved area.” 

19 



Strategies for Doing 

Business in India 

MERAGE GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES 

by Anne Warde 

Companies that will be successful in the 

future are those well-positioned to not only 

anticipate change, but to capitalize on it. 

It’s this idea that was the driver behind the 

Merage School’s recent conference, 

Strategic Initiatives in India: Partnering for Innovation. 

The conference opened with welcoming remarks from 

Andrew J. Policano, dean of The Paul Merage School of 

Business; Paul Merage, chairman of Falcon Investment 

Management and chair of the Merage School Dean’s 

Advisory Board; and Suren Dutia, chief executive 

officer of TiE, a global, not-for-profit organization 

promoting entrepreneurship. 

Keynote speaker Mohandas Pai, board 

member and director of Infosys, began 

the day providing valuable insight to 

Indian culture. “India is a shining 

example of how an old country can rise and create a 

society based upon non-violence, individual freedom 

and individual choice,” said Pai. 

Kris Wadia, executive partner of global sourcing for 

Accenture, addressed what the US might learn from 

India, the world’s largest democracy and second fastest 

growing economy in the world. He gave advice for building 

and managing global teams, and also shared the 

cultural challenges facing US firms sourcing from India. 

“The quality skills and talent pool are there…companies 

originally started doing business (in India) for the 

cost savings, but stayed for the quality,” Wadia 

commented. He concluded his presentation 

with a prediction that companies should 

expect to hire a COOO — chief outsourcing 

and offshoring officer — in the 

near future.

T.V. Mohandas Pai, Chairman, Infosys BPO and 

Member of the Board/Director, Infosys 

Vijay Gurbaxani, director of the Merage School’s Center 

for Research on IT and Organizations, and professor of 

Information Systems and Computer Science served as 

moderator for a panel discussion on Sourcing People, 

Knowledge and Components from India. The second panel, 

Operating and Selling in India, was led by Shiv Grewal, 

senior corporate partner, Stradling Yocca Carlson & Rauth. 

Highlights from the Panel Discussions 

Venkat Tadanki, founder and chief executive officer of 

Secova and founding member of Daksh –Whenconsidering 

whether to engage in business in India, companies 

should not be looking at just cost alone. They should be 

looking to create centers of excellence. “It’s no longer a 

case of onshore vs. offshore, but rather best shore!” 


Kris Wadia, Executive Partner of Global Sourcing at Accenture Ed Fuller, President and CEO of Marriott 

International Lodging with Dean Andy Policano 

Dwight Decker, chairman of Conexant Systems, Inc. – 

Increasing intellectual intensity is the trend. India was 

initially seen as a source of cheap labor. Today, Indian 

companies have climbed up the value chain to provide 

world-class services at highly competitive prices. 

Tom Kenyon, vice president of Technology 

Management Group, CSC – Providing opportunity and 

growth are keys to stability and retention. Competitive 

wages go without saying, but they are not the top 

issues. Rather, creating a sense of involvement is more 

important for retaining quality employees. 

David Pyott, chairman and chief executive officer, 

Allergan – Discussing the success factors and hurdles 

Allergan has faced in India, Pyott pointed out that the 

“untapped market opportunity is huge.” He also stressed 

Global Business Strategies Conference 

Navigating Today’s Economic Challenges 

Monday, November 17, 2008 Irvine Marriott Hotel | 18000 Von Karman Avenue, Irvine | 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.


the importance of establishing harmonious relationships 

with Indian partners and aligning objectives to better 

ensure success. 

Alain Monie, president and chief operating officer, 

Ingram Micro – “There are definitely very high-growth 

opportunities, but with specific challenges,” warned 

Monie. India is a complex environment and while good 

management is available and a key factor to success, 

the challenge is keeping it. 

Ed Fuller, president and managing director, Marriott 

International Lodging – Community relations is critically 

important in India. To succeed, companies must give 

back to Indian communities in very meaningful ways. 

Fuller concluded that, “In spite of challenges, India’s 

diverse economy and talent make it an ideal place for 

going, working and interacting.” 

A special appearance was made by actress Malaika 

MASTER 

ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR 

FROM 50 FEET IN THE AIR 

Experience personalized full-time and 

part-time MBA programs. 

Arora Khan, who gave a highly entertaining luncheon 

address on The Business of Bollywood. 

Closing Comments 

Andy Policano summarized the day’s discussion reiterating 

the points: 

It’s not about offshoring, but rather “best shoring.” 

Companies should consider planning products here 

and implementing in India. 

Many go to India first for cost savings, but they stay 

for the quality. 

The Strategic Initiatives in India conference was cosponsored 

by TiE. Corporate sponsors included: Marriott, 

Conexant, Ingram Micro, The Allergan Foundation, 

Stradling Yocca Carlson & Rauth, Irvine Chamber of 

Commerce, Ducommun Technologies and HireRight. 

FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT 

merage.uci.edu/go/compare

Leadership Styles Mix It Up in 


IN ITS THIRD YEAR, the Distinguished Speakers Series 

(DSS) is increasingly visible and influential, according to 

Shaheen Husain, executive director of corporate relations 

for the Merage School. “Instead of the Merage 

School seeking out sponsors and speakers, they’re asking 

to be a part of the event! Top leaders want to 

participate, which is a clear indication that this program is 

having the desired impact,” Husain says. 

Featured speakers from 2007-2008 included: Ed 

Coleman, former chief executive officer, Gateway, Inc.; 

Rick W. Rayson, managing partner of Deloitte & Touche 

USA LLP; Eric Brandt, chief financial officer of 

Broadcom; and James Mazzo, chairman and CEO of 

Save the Dates for the 2008-2009 series: 

NOVEMBER 18, 2008 

Greg Creed, President & Chief Concept Officer, Taco Bell 

FEBRUARY 10, 2009 

Alexis Livanos, President, Northrop Grumman 

Space Technology 

APRIL 7, 2009 

Jim Caudill, President, Black & Decker Home Division 

MAY 19, 2009 

Bob McKnight, CEO,Quiksilver 

ADDRESSING NEARLY 500 business leaders from Irvine 

and the surrounding Orange County area, Andy Policano, 

economist and Dean of The Paul Merage School of 

Business stated, “There is no such thing as a local economy. 

We’re in a global economy…companies that are 

thriving here are global companies.” 

Dean Policano opened the annual Irvine Chamber of 

Commerce Business Outlook meeting with a forecast that 

the next decade would likely bring higher inflation, slower 

growth and a shift in wealth from the United States to 

other countries in the world. He also concluded that large 

numbers of foreign investments would make it harder for 

the federal government to curb inflation simply by putting 

more money into the banks. Policano pointed out that a 

Merage education prepares tomorrow’s business leaders for 

Greg Creed 

President & Chief Concept Officer 

Taco Bell 


Please join us for our 


NOVEMBER18 FEBRUARY 10 APRIL7 MAY19 

Advanced 

Medical Optics. Each of these top 

corporate leaders shared his organization’s approach to 

creating sustained growth through strategic innovation 

and provided insight into his company’s particular successes 

in the global economy. 

“The Distinguished Speakers Series provides students 

and business people alike with a snapshot of how companies 

have succeeded in the past and insight into 

different leadership styles and how they contribute to 

success,” said Angela Kim, a student at The Paul 

Merage School of Business. “I have learned many lessons 

from this program that I plan to apply in my own 

future endeavors.” 

Each year the DSS brings to campus key business 

leaders who address current business issues, leadership, 

ethics, and other relevant topics. The series is 

sponsored by the Merage School’s Center for 

Leadership and Team Development and supported by 

corporate sponsors. Sponsors for 2007-2008 included, 

at the platinum level, Verizon Wireless and Volvo Cars of 

North America. Deloitte, Jones Day, HireRight, 

PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Wells Fargo were silver 

sponsors for the year. This year’s sponsors are Verizon 

Wireless, Capital Group, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and 

Wells Fargo. 

success in this new environment. 

Kerry Vandell, professor of finance and director of the 

Merage School’s Center for Real Estate, reported that 

Orange County was “faring 

better than many 

other parts of California.” 

Len Hunt, former president 

and chief executive 

officer of Kia Motors 

America summarized the 

impact the global economy 

has had on the 

automotive industry and 

what to expect moving 

forward. 

Alexis Livanos 

Corporate Vice President & 

President of Space Technology 


Each of the speakers will address the importance of strategic innovation. 

Jim Caudill 

President, Hardware & 

Home Improvement 

Black & Decker 

Policano, Vandell Discuss Global Economy at Annual Business Outlook Conference 

Bob McKnight 

Chief Executive Officer 

Quiksilver 

“ 

What happens in the 

” 

OC does not stay in 

the OC. This is a 

global economy. 

— Merage School Dean 

Andy Policano 

23 



24 


ACG Cup 

Long hours, exhausting work. 

The rewards add up to a winning experience. 

YOU HAVE FIVE DAYS to prepare a 

course of action for a company 

facing a difficult business decision. 

You’ll present your ideas to a 

board of complete strangers — 

experts in investment banking and 

corporate finance who are ready to 

pounce on any cracks or inconsistencies 

in your plan. In your spare 

time, you can study for midterms, 

pay attention to your full time job, 

and maybe check in with your 

family once in a while. 

That was the challenge faced by 

the Merage Fully Employed MBA 

Bill Ryan, ‘08 


(FEMBA) student team as they 

competed in the second annual 

Association for Corporate Growth 

(ACG) Cup competition earlier this 

spring. 

DevelopedtogiveMBAstudents 

real exposure to finance, mergers 

and acquisitions, the competition 

pitted Merage students against 

teams from Cal State Fullerton, 

Chapman University, USC, and 

Pepperdine University. Merage 

again walked away with exceptional 

honors taking second place and a 

$5,000 cash prize. 

But students say the rewards go 

far beyond the honors and money. 

First-hand experience in preparing 

and delivering a complete report to 

investment bankers is invaluable, 

says team member Bill Ryan. 

“After all we went through — the 

analysis, the sleepless nights, the 

detailed criticisms of every angle, 

and the hours of rehearsal for the 

presentation, we knew we had a 

final product we believed in, and 

we were ready to present it, right 

or wrong.” 

Secrets of their Success 

Merage teams have walked away 

with top honors in each of the two 

years of the competition. They say 

communication is the key to winning. 

“You need to be convincing, 

clear, decisive and polished,” says 

Ryan. “You can be the world’s best 

financial modeler, but if you cannot 

communicate your seven days of 

analysis to the judges in under 15 

minutes, you will find it challenging.” 

For students who want to give it 

a try next year, Ryan offers some 

advice. “First, clear your calendar.” 

Teamsaregivenfivedaystopre- 

“You can be the world’s 

best financial modeler, 

but if you cannot 

communicate your seven 

days of analysis to the 

judges in under 15 

minutes, you will find 

it challenging. 

” 

pare their presentation, and Ryan 

says it’s absolutely essential to be 

focused on the project during the 

short timeframe. 

The competition is sponsored by 

the Los Angeles chapter of ACG, 

an international association for 

professionals involved in corporate 

growth and development, as well 

as mergers and acquisitions. With 

11,000 members in 53 chapters 

throughout North America and 

Europe, the organization fosters 

networking among its executive 

community.

ENTREPRENEURS 

CHOOSE MERAGE 

by Shaheen Husain 

Merage MBA students bested Brigham Young 

University, University of Santa Clara and 

the University of Southern California to 

capture the Entrepreneur’s Choice Award 

at the 2008 Venture Capital Investment 

Competition (VCIC) Silicon Valley Regional. 

Congratulations to Merage team members Vern Briggs, 

Max Brunner, Mike Meoli, Amarinder Sidhu, and Brad 

Stoker. Special thanks go to Miramar Ventures and CB 

Capital for coaching the team and to Charlie Baecker, 

Administrative Director of the Merage School’s Don Beall 

Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship, for guiding the 

team through the competition. 

The Entrepreneurs’ Choice Award is given to the team 

that best demonstrates the most insight and business 

savvy in its questions. Founded by the University of North 

Carolina in 1998, the VCIC is the nation’s premier MBA 

competition that is complementary to the traditional business 

plan competition pitting top schools against one 

another in an all day VC investment environment. Unlike 

business plan competitions in which students pitch their 

own ideas to investors, at VCIC the students are the 

investors, and real entrepreneurs pitch to them. 



Rankings 

Continue 

to Soar 

Continuing its steady ascent 

among top business schools, 

Merage School again climbed in 

the US News & World Report 

rankings this year, jumping to 

44 in 2008, from 53 in the 2007 

ranking. 

Dean Andy Policano credits 

the rise to an excellent faculty 

and an increasingly higher caliber 

of students, also noting, 

“Without the excellence of our 

faculty and the dedication of our 

staff members, none of our 

achievements would be possible.” 

Looking forward, Policano 

noted: “We continue to focus our 

efforts toward a solid upward trajectory 

over time, based on 

continuous improvement in our 

recruiting and placement efforts. 

The Merage School is truly on 

the move, with true distinction 

and quality reflected in our curriculum 

and research.” 

25 


STUDENTS 

26 


Working – and playing – for a cause, Challenge for Charity members spend time at local and regional events. Left to right: At Stanford 

University’s C4C Weekend, the Merage Dodgeball team earns second prize honors, while the Men’s Football Team takes home first 

prize…Volunteers Kendra Hammer (FTMBA 08) and Ashish Gupta (FTMBA 09) pack groceries at Share Our Selves in Costa Mesa…Special 

Olympics Bowling Tournament volunteers and athletes rack up laughs and lasting memories. 

Challenge For Charity 

USING BUSINESS SKILLS FOR A DIFFERENT KIND OF PROFIT 

JOIN A STUDENT CLUB and you gain networking opportunities, 

leadership experience, and a chance to swap 

ideas with peers. Join Challenge for Charity (C4C) and 

you’ll likely gain something much more. 

On any given afternoon, C4C members can be found 

cheering at the Special Olympics games or putting 

together food packages for homeless families at Share 

Our Selves in Costa Mesa. 

The chance to put their business acumen to use for 

the greater good, say organizers, is one of the reasons 

they join. The rewards are why they stay. 

“It has been a full-time job,” says past chapter copresident 

Briana Ackerman ‘08. “I’ve invested more 

time and energy than I could have ever imagined but 

when I think about how much of a difference these 

charities make in people’s lives, it makes it very rewarding 

at the end of the day.” 

C4C has chapters at several business schools, including 

Stanford, UCLA, USC and the Merage School. 

Founded in 1984 by Stanford MBA student Duncan 

O'Brien to raise money for Special Olympics, the group 

has since contributed a total of $3.28 million for Special 

Olympics and other charities, and has donated tens of 

thousands of hours of community service. According to 

its website, C4C is the world’s largest MBA non-profit 

organization. 

Mixing Football with Fundraising 

Like many chapters, the Merage group tirelessly hosts a 

variety of fundraisers, inviting students, alumni, and the 

business community. The annual Merage Bowl has 

become a flag football tradition as alumni compete for 

the championship. (Former champs FTMBA ‘05 took 

home the win again this year.) 

Members put aside their football cleats at the C4C Gala 

and Auction in spring 2008 at Landmark Steakhouse in 

Corona Del Mar to sample appetizers and sip wine courtesy 

of Lionheart Wines and alumnus Leon Glover III ’04. 

Auctioned items included a private flight for two to 

Santa Barbara and lunch, courtesy of Dr. Ripu Arora 

’09; Lakers tickets in the 15th row, donated by Toshiba; 

and a one-week timeshare in Mexico donated by 

Amanda Gast ‘09. 

“We’ve been working with alumni and members of 

the business community to join our efforts,” Ackerman 

says. “We’ve recently been added to Boeing’s list of 

charities. Not only is it special to have alumni show 

their support but it is also neat to have them share their 

new business ventures with the Merage School community 

and learn about the successful accomplishments of 

our Merage Alumni.” 

Newly elected co-presidents for 2008-09 are Rakhee 

Bhakta ’09 and Marc Cooperstein ’09.

Student Involvement 

Recent Merage graduates explain why it’s so important to get 

involved with campus clubs and activities. 

Bill Ryan ’08 

’07-08 President 

Merage Student Assoc. 

Briana Ackerman ’08 

’07-08 Co-President 

Challenge for Charity 

HOW DID YOUR PARTICIPATION IN STUDENT CLUBS 

AND ACTIVITIES BENEFIT YOU? 

Ryan: Every MBA goes back to school to do bigger and 

better things. For many the question is which career 

path to take. Clubs and competitions can help you find 

a career that strikes a chord for you. 

STUDENTS ARE BUSY. WHY IS IT SO IMPORTANT FOR 

THEM TO GET INVOLVED? 

Ackerman: It gives you an opportunity to become a true 

leader and take initiative. For those interested in entrepreneurship, 

taking a leadership role in one of the 

Merage Clubs exposes you to the challenges you’ll face 

in the business world. You’ll appreciate the hands-on 

experience when you’re ready to start your own venture. 

HOW DO YOU DECIDE WHAT TO DO WITHOUT 

STRETCHING YOURSELF TOO THIN? 

Ryan: The sooner you immerse yourself into clubs and 

activities, the more meaningful your time at Merage will 

be. If you are undecided, try it all once. It could make 

the difference between what you thought you would do 

and what you actually do once you graduate. 

HOW DID YOU GET INVOLVED? 

Ackerman: During my first week at the Merage School, I attended the Club 

Fair and signed up as a volunteer for Challenge for Charity at the 2006 

Special Olympics Bowling Games. Not really knowing what to expect, I 

showed up only to be surrounded by hundreds of students all dressed up in 

their school jerseys, faces full of excitement and ready to play. It made me 

feel good to be part of such a positive experience in their lives. After that I 

was sold, and decided to become an active member of Challenge for Charity. 

I ran for co-president the following year. 

IS IT TOUGH TO DIVIDE YOUR TIME BETWEEN SCHOOL AND THE CLUB? 

Ackerman: You definitely become a master of time-management and your 

ability to delegate improves very quickly. I think you also learn to work well 

as a team. There is absolutely no way Challenge for Charity could be run by 

one individual, let alone ten officers. The club has been successful throughout 

the years thanks to the support of a large following of business 

members, alumni, students, faculty, and staff. 

WHAT ABOUT OTHER ADVANTAGES? 

Ryan: The competitions, clubs and associations have reinforced my career 

focus, but there’s another benefit. The memories and experiences I’ve taken 

from them add immeasurable value to my Merage School experience and 

degree. You can’t replace that. 

STUDENTS 

MREA closes 

on new logo, 

website 

Withanewlogoanda 

redesigned website, 

the Merage Real 

Estate Association (MREA) has 

updated its image to reflect its 

thriving membership and educational 

resources. 

The logo, designed by MREA 

member Mark von Leffern, 

appears on the new site which 

offers access to several 

resources for students. 

Officers say membership in 

MREA brings tremendous value 

for students pursuing a career 

in real estate. Complementing 

the Merage School’s extensive 

real estate curriculum as well 

as the resources offered by the 

Merage School’s Center for 

Real Estate, the MREA hosts 

guest speaker and networking 

events throughout the year. In 

addition, career building 

resources include the quarterly 

updated Resume Book, which 

is linked to the Career Center. 

The website can be accessed at 

merage.uci.edu/clubpages/ 

mrea. 

27 


MBA PROGRAMS 

SEEING THE 

GLOBAL A week in Moscow and Prague 

PICTURE 

THROUGH AN 

EASTERN 

EUROPEAN 

LENS 

By Connie Clark

FULLY EMPLOYED MBA (FEMBA) ’09 STUDENTS 

prepared for their week-long residential in Russia 

and the Czech Republic not by cramming on 

Chekhov or learning the intricacies of Russian 

politics, but by studying China and India. 

The point, say their professors, is to gain a truly global 

viewpoint. “This isn’t a case study on how to do business 

in Russia,” says FEMBA Director and Assistant Dean 

Tony Hansford. “It’s about getting a broad perspective on 

the world we do business in, and the world we live in.” 

Hansford, along with Strategic Management Professor 

David Blake and International Business Professor John 

Graham traveled with two teams of Global Business II 

students. Although all say they gained fascinating economic 

and political insights into Russia and her former 

satellite state, they agree that the big picture lessons 

were the most rewarding. 

“I would be disturbed if students came back saying they 

knew how to do business in Russia,” says Blake. Instead, 

he wants them to be open to more questions. “The students 

learned that the implications for doing business 

globally are constantly changing. They need to comprehend 

those uncertainties — that’s what they learn.” 

A Relevant View of the World 

Perhaps nowhere is global change and uncertainty more 

jarring — and more ironic — than in Moscow, where oil 

exports and the resulting affluence have transformed 

Red Square into a thriving center of capitalism, and 

where students were surrounded by advertising for 

American and European products as they looked on at 

Lenin’s tomb. In Prague, where they toured factories 

importing contract workers from Bulgaria, Mongolia, 

and Vietnam, students and faculty were struck by the 

diversity of laborers from formerly communist countries. 

That global relevance is a strong element. Trip planners 

painstakingly and thoroughly plan residentials with an eye 

toward areas keenly affected by global 

issues, or those newly emerging on the 

world stage. A decade ago, for example, 

when NAFTA was just arising as a hot button 

issue, Professor Graham and his 

student team journeyed to Tijuana, Mexico, 

observing a vital example of the developing 

world and its role in international trade. Upcoming residentials 

are planned for Guangzhou (formerly Canton), 

MBA PROGRAMS 

China, fast becoming a stronghold for manufacturing in 

Asia, as well as Hong Kong, Brazil and Argentina. 

Eye Opening Course 

FEMBA student and Johnson & Johnson staff engineer 

Vishnu Raja refers to the trip as an “eye opener.” It 

“provided an opportunity to learn business and investment 

opportunities outside the United States. The 

Russia trip was ideal because it is one of the BRIC 

[Brazil, Russia, India, China] nations where the economy 

gives FEMBA students sharp exposure to world issues. 

is developing rapidly. We learned about the complex 

Russian market, the political influence on business, the 

legal system, economic indicators, obstacles and investment 

opportunities.” 

International Experience: Vital For Everyone 

Many say the real learning started as soon as students 

began the interminable VISA wait. Coping with jet lag, 

and paying a hundred dollars to get from the airport to 

the Moscow hotel are all part of 

the experience, say the professors. 

“No Nothing can replace the resi- matter what 

dential experience. In fact, Global 

Business I and II, which include you do in 

the residential, are required 

business, you 

courses for all FEMBA students. 

“No matter what you do in busi- will be exposed 

ness, you will be exposed to 

international issues,” Graham to international 

says. “Maybe you won’t be working 

internationally, but you’ll be issues. 

” 

managing people with international 

responsibilities. Or you may be buying equipment from 

someone with jet lag from an eleven-hour flight, and 

they’re sitting across the table from you, trying to pay 

attention to your presentation.” Students need to understand 

that, he says. And empathize. 

Hansford agrees. “An understanding of cultural 

nuances is vital to any business person. If you don’t 

understand that, your success is going to be very limited.” 

Raja says that company visits to Intel in Russia and 

Daikin in Prague provided insight on conducting global 

business from a local perspective, but it also gave him 

deeper knowledge. “It was a pragmatic illustration of 

concepts we learned in courses such as Organizational 

Behavior and Operational Management.” 

29 


MBA PROGRAMS 

30 


• • • 


Accreditation 

Renewed as 

School Continues 

to Innovate 

THE TOP international accreditation 

organization of business schools 

has once again renewed accreditation 

for The Paul Merage School of 

Business. 

AACSB (Association to Advance 

Collegiate Schools of 

Business) International 

accreditation represents 

the highest 

standard of achievement 

among 

business schools. 

According to the 

website, “Institutions that earn 

accreditation confirm their commitment 

to quality and continuous 

improvement through a rigorous and 

comprehensive peer review. AACSB 

“As we focus on the 

challenge of achieving 

sustained growth 

through strategic 

innovation, we must 

practice what 

we preach. 

” 

International accreditation is the 

hallmark of excellence in management 

education.” 

Dean Andy Policano affirms that 

the continuing recognition for the 

Merage School mirrors the school’s 

key differentiator. “As we focus on 

the challenge now faced by every 

business, that of achieving sustained 

growth through strategic innovation, 

we understand that we must, in a 

sense, practice what we preach. The 

AACSB accreditation recognizes that 

we are in fact adhering to that strategy 

for our own business, with 

innovative programs, exceptional 

faculty, and an ever-higher caliber of 

students.” 

FEMBA 

Merage Rated #1 

in Responding 

to Students 

FEMBA GRADUATES KNOW IT 

well: an independent survey taken in 

the final year of their studies, in 

which they’re asked to rate their 

MBA experience. 

The latest survey, sent to graduating 

Fully Employed MBA students, 

garnered top rankings for the 

Merage School, especially in the area 

of responsiveness to students’ needs. 

Graduates not only gave Merage 

high scores, but the School 

bested all 100 MBA programs in the 

category, seen as one of the most 

important differentiators among 

MBA programs. 

“The cornerstone of our success is 

the personal attention we give to 

students,” says Tony Hansford, 

FEMBA Director and Assistant 

Dean. “The survey reflects that.” 

Hansford adds that faculty and 

staff pride themselves on listening to 

students and responding to them. 

“We know that our 

students are extremely 

busy working 

professionals with 

demanding jobs — 

often with families 

to care for. This is 

another indicator of 

how we continually and creatively 

respond to their needs.” 

The confidential survey measured 

the graduating class of 2007 and is 

part of an annual study of part-time 

MBA programs. 

Going Live with 

a New Look: 

FEMBA Website 

Shows Personal 

Side of School 

FACES, STORIES, AND information. 

That’s the focus of the new 

FEMBA website. “It’s our first point 

of contact for potential students,” 

says Jon Masciana, FEMBA’s 

Director of Admissions. 

“So it was important that 

our website highlight our 

key strengths, one of 

which is the personalized 

learning style of the 

Merage program.” 

With its focus on students, 

professors, staff and 

their experiences, the 

revamped site gives visitors 

a chance to 

experience Merage in

• • • 

ways never before possible. A popular 

feature — unique among MBA 

websites — is the new student blog 

and a Facebook group for prospects, 

where students can post thoughts, 

experiences and ideas. The blog, 

which is unedited, gives students 

and potential students a chance to 

see what the program is really like, 

says Masciana. But it also serves 

their needs. “The Millennial 

Generation has grown up with this 

technology, and they want real perspectives 

and the real story,” he says. 

“The blog gives them the avenue to 

do that.” 

The FEMBA website redesign 

follows the successful relaunch of the 

Merage Full-Time MBA website. 

Other Merage sites are scheduled to 

be unveiled throughout 2009. Visit 

the new FEMBA site at 

merage.uci.edu/FullyEmployedMBA. 

Hansford 

Promoted to 

Assistant Dean 

TONY HANSFORD has been promoted 

to Assistant Dean of the Fully 

Employed MBA Program (FEMBA) 

in recognition of the ongoing success 

of his efforts. The FEMBA 

Program contributes significantly to 

the School's mission and is a market 

leader in the competitive southern 

California Fully Employed MBA 

marketplace. In addition to FEMBA’s 

strong enrollments, in 2007 the 

FEMBA Program Staff was ranked 

#1 in responsiveness to Student 

Concerns in the Educational 

Benchmarking Survey among other 

part-time MBA programs. 

Prior to joining Merage in 2000, 

Tony worked for several years in real 

estate consulting. He was hired into 

Merage as the Associate Director of 

Admissions, moved up to Director 

in 2003, and was promoted to 

Executive Director in 2006. 

Hansford attributes his success to 

his outstanding FEMBA team members 

who collectively have done an 

exemplary job in overseeing the 

FEMBA program. 

MBA PROGRAMS 

EMBA/HCEMBA 

Moysychyn 

Named Executive 

Director of EMBA 

and HCEMBA 

DEBRA E. MOYSYCHYN has been 

promoted to Executive Director of 

the Executive MBA (EMBA) and 

Health Care Executive MBA 

(HCEMBA) programs at Merage 

School. 

Moysychyn joined the school in 

2005 as Associate Director for the 

HCEMBA program and obtained 

her MBA from Merage a year later. 

“The Merage School is delighted 

to have Debbie’s experience and 

skills,” notes Dean Andy Policano. 

“Her three years of management 

responsibilities with us and the 

MBA she obtained here have given 

her tremendous knowledge of our 

programs.” 

Prior to joining the Merage 

School, Moysychyn was marketing 

director for Project Tomorrow, a 

non-profit organization in Anaheim 

that enhances science education in 

Orange County Schools. 

31 



32 


Faculty 

Research 

Faculty research is an important 

part of the Merage School’s focus 

on strategic innovation. Following 

are summaries of 13 recent 

papers by our faculty members 

(names in bold) or co-written with 

colleagues from other UC Irvine 

departments or other universities. 

Impact of SOX’s section 

404 on corporate valuation 

Working paper by Joanna Ho, Feng Tian (Merage student) 

and Agnes Cheng (Louisiana State University) 

SECTION 404 OF THE SARBANES-OXLEY ACT of 2002, 

which requires registrants to file a “clean” internal control 

report or an adverse report that cites “material 

weaknesses” (MW), has been criticized by the business 

community due to its alleged high compliance costs. 

Some companies said they would go private, due to the 

compliance costs. Congress and the SEC are reexamining 

SOX to see if a refinement or an overhaul is warranted. 

We studied the reports and stock market returns of 

2,835 firms from 1998 to 2005 and found that those 

reporting “clean” internal 

controls realized an average“Companies 

filing 

of 10% market share gain 

compared to those companies 

reporting material 

weaknesses. 

Our report also found that: 

Companies filing MW 

reportsstillhadahigher 

market gain than their 

cost of compliance. 

material weaknesses 

reports still had a 

higher market gain 

than their cost of 

compliance. 

”

The stock market has an increasing confidence in 

accounting numbers as a result of Section 404. 

Based on regression analysis results, we estimate 

that the changes in market value due to Section 404 

may be as high as $1 trillion. 

The findings of our study will provide policy makers 

more information about the benefits of Section 404 and 

also help market participants make investment decisions. 

iPod and notebook PCs: 

Capturing value in a global 

innovation network 

By Kenneth Kraemer (Professor Emeritus), Jason 

Dedrick and Greg Linden (All with UC Irvine’s Personal 

Computing Industry Center) 

INNOVATION IS NO LONGER carried out within individual 

countries, but often crosses national borders in the 

form of global innovation networks. It is not clear how 

the economic gains from global innovation are distributed 

among the firms and countries involved. These 

gains can be measured various ways, including financial, 

value-added, jobs and wages, and trade flows. 

Our product-level studies of the iPod and notebook 

PC models from Lenovo and HP enable us to break out 

the financial value embedded in innovative products and 

clarify how they are distributed globally. The iPod represents 

radical innovation; the notebooks more 

incremental innovation. 

Since the electronics industry carefully guards its 

product-level data, we examined industry analysts’ 

“teardown reports” to obtain the “value capture” or 

gross profit of the lead firm and its major suppliers, 

which measures the value that each company (excluding 

direct workers) captures from its role in the value chain. 

Apple’s gross profit on its video iPod introduced in 

2005 was $80, or 36% of its $224 wholesale price. The 

third generation iPod in 2003 had a gross profit of 40% 

of its wholesale price. For notebooks, Lenovo’s Think 

Pad T43 in 2005 had a 30% gross profit on its wholesale 

price of $1,257. HP’s nc6230 notebook realized a 

28% profit on the $1,189 wholesale price. 

Manufacturing firms in Japan, the United States, 

Korea and Taiwan are the major supply partners for all 

of these products. For the video iPod, Japanese, 

Taiwanese and Korean suppliers captured 14.4% of the 

gross margins, while U.S. suppliers captured only 3%. 

Leadership of young 

entrepreneurial firms 

By Christine M. Beckman and Diane Burton 

(Massachusetts Institute of Technology) 


On the HP notebook, U.S. suppliers grabbed 19% of the 

margins, of which 18% went to Microsoft and Intel, 

while Japanese, Korean and Taiwanese suppliers earned 

10%. Although the iPods and notebook PCs are all 

made in China, final assembly accounts for less than 

2% of the value of 

these products. 

The difference “Although the iPods 

between radical innovation 

(iPod) and and notebook PCs 

incremental innovation 

(notebooks) is are all made in 

seen most clearly at 

the company level. 

The greatest value accounts for less 

for the iPod innovation 

is captured by 

the brand-name system 

integrator, of these products. 

” 

Apple, which controls 

the product architecture 

and found the right combination of hardware, 

software and content distribution. For the mature-product 

notebook PCs, a much larger share is captured by 

Microsoft and Intel, which control the architecture and 

trajectory of software and hardware evolution. 

– Prepared under a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan 

Foundation 

China, final assembly 

than 2% of the value 

HOW DO THE EXPERIENCES of a new senior leader in a 

company influence the turnover rates of successors? We 

find that the first manager to hold a new job in a company 

establishes a “position imprint” which can make it 

difficult for managers to follow. “Position imprints” are 

expectations around a job that will be passed on to successors. 

Sometimes, those position imprints do not 

match the written job requirements or the experiences 

of successors, and herein lies the challenge. 

According to our analysis of 1,400 executives in 169 

high technology Silicon Valley firms, the initial managers 

have a longevity advantage. We found that “position creators” 

(first to hold the job title) have a significantly 

lower rate of turnover than their successors. This lower 

turnover is not just the result of position creators being 

33 



34 


highly invested in the blossoming entrepreneurial venture. 

Instead, it may also be that position creators mold their 

jobs into a hybrid reflection of their talents, their preferred 

tasks and organizational needs. 

Once the original leaders depart, the successors cycle 

into jobs — titles notwithstanding — that may come 

with atypical duties and expectations because of the 

position imprints laid down 

during the early days of the 

firm. Turnover rates increase 

when successors have different 

mold their jobs 

functional experiences and 

into a hybrid expertise than position creators. 

Rarely are historical 

reflection of trends, such as position 

imprints, discussed when 

their talents, explaining executive turnover, 

but we demonstrate this is a 

their preferred 

significant factor predicting 

tasks and 

turnover. 

Our research demonstrates 

organizational the long-term consequences of 

the early decisions new com- 

needs. 

” 

panies make when assigning 

roles and allocating tasks. 

While it may be convenient at first to have someone fill 

a functional void in a new organization, even if that person 

has atypical experience, in the long run it may 

prove challenging to find successors who can thrive in 

the face of the unique position imprint that has become 

so embedded in the minds of those in and around the 

organization. 

– American Sociological Review 

“Position creators 

Psychology of working teams 

Kristin Behfar and Randall Peterson 

(London Business School) 

GROUPS OFTEN FAIL TO SUCCESSFULLY regulate all of 

the competing tensions 

they experience, such as 

efficiency vs. effectiveness, 

or tasks vs. 

relationships. Relatively 

little research has been 

“Relatively little 

research has been 

conducted on how 

conducted on how groups 

manage their natural ten- groups manage 

sions, and no attention 

hasbeenpaidtothe 

potential role for leaders 

their natural 

tensions. 

” 

in helping groups manage these tensions. We outline 

key team leadership functions in helping groups manage 

these tensions to correct performance problems 

including (1) promoting awareness about how to 

process internal and external sources of feedback relative 

to team goals, (2) setting and maintaining clear 

standards when goals are dynamic, and (3) motivating 

group members to reduce the discrepancy between 

goals and the current performance of the group. The 

paper proposes several novel hypotheses. 

– New Thinking About the Psychology of Leadership, 

book co-edited by Behfar 

Characteristics and effectiveness of teams 

Cristina Gibson and Kristi Tyran (Western Washington 

University) 

WE EXAMINE 57 BANK BRANCHteams to better understand 

the consequences of two levels of teams that are 

not homogeneous: surface level (gender, ethnicity) and 

deep level (collectivism, cultural values and tenure). 

Prior to the study, it was commonly believed that teams 

with less tenured members were effective, and those 

with higher gender and collective values had higher 

rankings. Our study produced two different results. The 

relationship between collectivism and group efficiency 

was positive. The relationship between ethnicity and 

team reputation was negative. 

– Group & Organization Management 

Code switching (shifting between language 

codes during an interaction) at retail firms 

Mary Gilly, Hope Jensen Shau (Univ. of Arizona) and 

Stephanie Dellande (Chapman Univ.) 

BUSINESS PRODUCTIVITY AND PROFIT can suffer when 

employees and customers deviate from the service 

“script.” Code switching can involve changing languages, 

dialects and brand names of products. Such 

deviations result in encounters that take longer than 

those “on script.” Employees at Starbucks, for example, 

encounter brand code switching when customers ask 

employees for a “large” instead of the “grande” employees 

are trained to use. As well, small service providers 

must deal with the script of the industry giant, for 

example, when a customer comes into In ‘N Out and 

orders a Big Mac. Our study of a market leader and a 

smaller firm found code switching 30% of the time at 

fast-food outlets and 36% at coffee venues. Dialect 

code-switching (using hip-hop or skater slang instead of

standard English) was found to result in the longest 

service encounters and the most fulfillment errors. 

Managers, especially those at smaller service firms, 

should provide employees more training in language 

and brand codes and take care to use the script in ads 

that show service encounters. 

–JournalofRetailing 

Connecting customers and employees 

Mary Gilly and Mary Wolfinbarger (Long Beach State) 

TROUBLES ARISE FOR COMPANIES when the communications 

tools for management research and marketing 

research are not integrated. 

Problems can be 

defined too narrowly, terminology 

can be confusing, 

used to reach and wheels reinvented. This 

paper examines two com- 

employees, can be 

munication tools: (1) 

an effective way to Advertising, rarely used to 

reach employees, can be 

reach this target an effective way to reach 

this target market. (2) 

market. 

” 

“Scripts” (training manuals) 

rarely consider what 

employees learn from competing firms, such as when 

they shop at a competitor’s store. Scripts must take 

these experiences into account. 

“Advertising, rarely 

Globalization of innovation: 

the PC industry 

Kraemer and Dedrick 

IN THE PERSONAL COMPUTING industry, Asian firms are 

leaders in components such as displays, memory, batteries, 

motherboards and optical drives. Innovation in 

software and systems integration has largely occurred in 

the United States. However, slow adoption of broadband 

and advanced mobile technologies has left the U.S. falling 

behind in some new areas of innovation. The U.S. cannot 

afford to remain behind in providing high quality, low cost 

infrastructure to support user-led innovation and drive 

demand for new technologies. Also, more people must be 

trained for specialized engineering, software development 

and management skills needed for innovation. To do so, 

some of the most innovative U.S. firms are hiring more 

rookies and developing their skills, instead of relying solely 

on experienced engineers, a strategy that has potential 

for other U.S. firms. 

– For the National Academy of Sciences, 

STEP Project 

Increasing public use of 

government websites 


Alladi Venkatesh and Michael Jensen (UC Irvine’s Center 

for Research on Information Technology and 

Organizations) 

WE EXAMINED LOCAL government websites from 12 

metropolitan areas across the country and found that 

82% of site visitors look for information on government 

services, 54% download government forms, 35% obtain 

information on city council meetings, 34% process 

transactions online and 33.3% email public officials. 

However, only 10% engage in an online discussion, due 

in large part to a lack of provision by government of 

this service. 

The Internet could foster greater political participation 

by (1) soliciting opinions on future issues, (2) 

emphasizing human elements on the front page instead 

of bricks and landmarks, and (3) adding discussion 

boards for public input. 

How changes in compensation plans affect 

employee performance and recruiting 

Joanna Ho, Anne Wu (National Chengchi University) and 

Ling-Chu Lee (National Pingtung Institute of Commerce) 

A CHANGE FROM COMMISSION-BASED programs to 

base salary-plus commission hurts employee performance. 

A study of 4,392 employees of a Taiwanese car 

company shows that high-performance employees are 

more affected by the 

new compensation plan 

“The than are lower-perform- base-salary plus 

ing workers. Even 

commission program 

threats of dismissal did 

not improve productivi- retained fewer higher 

ty of the poorest 

performers. The base- performing sales 

salary plus commission 

program retained fewer persons and led to 

higher performing 

the hiring of more 

salespersons and led to 

the hiring of more lower-performing 

lower-performing sales 

employees. However, sales employees. 

” 

35 



36 


the decrease in individual productivity did not translate 

into lower overall company performance, perhaps 

because the company took other steps to mitigate the 

losses caused by lower individual productivity. 

– Contemporary Accounting Review 

Cross-sales policies in 

telephone service centers 

Rick So and Reynold Byers (Arizona State University) 

CROSS-SELLING IN TELEPHONE service centers is seen 

by industry as a good way to generate profits. But if it 

is poorly managed, customer service quality can suffer. 

This paper demonstrates the optimal use of real-time 

information including current system status (queuing 

congestion) and customer profile (likelihood of purchase) 

for maximizing the profitability of cross-sales opportunities 

in these centers without degrading the service quality. 

Our results also provide useful insights on the underlying 

system and customer characteristics under which 

the use of such real-time information is most beneficial. 

– Manufacturing and Service Operations Management 

Unpacking the concept of virtuality: the 

effects of geographic dispersion, electronic 

dependence, dynamic structure and 

national diversity on team innovation 

Gibson and Gibbs (2006) 

WE EXAMINED A CURIOUS PARADOX — although teams 

are often implemented by organizations to increase 

innovation, they often hinder it. Part of the problem 

may be that there is confusion as to just how to design 

such teams. This paper unpacks four characteristics 

often associated with new “virtual” team designs (geographic 

dispersion, electronic dependence, structural 

dynamism and national diversity) and argues that they 

hinder innovation through unique mechanisms, many of 

which can be overcome by creating a psychologically 

safe communication climate. Through this work we are 

able to offer substantial implications for theory, and for 

the practice of working and managing virtually to 

increase innovation. 

What results when firms implement practices: 

the differential relationship between 

specific practices, firm financial performance, 

customer service, and quality 

Gibson et al. (2008) 

IN THE ARTICLE we examine an age-old debate through 

fresh eyes and using a comprehensive data set of over 

200 Fortune 1000 firms. Previous research on organizational 

practices is replete with contradictory evidence 

regarding their effects. Here, we argue that these contradictory 

findings may have occurred because 

researchers have often examined complex practice combinations, 

and have failed to investigate a broad variety 

of firm-level outcomes. Results indicate that certain 

practices are positively related to financial performance, 

firm-level customer service, and firm-level quality. Our 

findings offer guidance as to how to best target practices 

to increase specific work-related outcomes. 

Research Fest 

Launched 

The first ever PhD Research 

Fest, held in April 2008, 

featured 21 Merage School 

PhD students who enjoyed 

the occasion to celebrate 

and share their ideas with 

the Merage School 

community.

Faculty Books 

Merage faculty members share their knowledge and insights 

through six recently published books. 

PAUL J. FELDSTEIN 

Professor of Health Care Economics and Public Policy 

Health Policy Issues: 

An Economic Perspective, 

4th edition 

Professor Feldstein presents more 

than 100 pages of new and updated 

information on his comprehensive 

view of the economic forces that are 

changing the nation’s healthcare 

delivery system. The fourth edition has new chapters on: 

The Internet’s effect on healthcare; 

Behavioral differences between non-profit and 

investor-owned hospitals; 

How to design a Medicare prescription benefit; 

Availability of cheaper drugs overseas. 

JOHN GRAHAM 

Professor of Marketing and International Business 

Doing Business in the New 

Japan: Succeeding in 

America’s Richest 

International Market, 

2nd edition 

Professor Graham, James Hodgson 

and Yoshihiro Sano have updated 

their guide to thriving in Japan’s 

business market by describing, among other things, 

Japan’s new corporate strategy, a westernizing of its 

legal system. The authors provide new case studies, 

including negotiations among U.S. and Japanese auto 

manufacturers and the recent lifting of Japan’s ban on 

American beef. 

This is the second installment of Graham’s trilogy on 

succeeding in business abroad. The first installment 

was China Now, described in the last issue of Merage 

magazine. The third installment is described next. 


Global Negotiation: 

The New Rules 

Graham and William Hernandez 

Requejo propose that creative 

approaches to business negotiations 

and the diversity of international 

teams and partnerships are the primary 

drivers of human progress in the 21st Century. 

The authors describe 10 rules for the new century: 

1. Accept only creative outcomes 

2. Understand cultures, especially your own 

3. Exploit as well as adjust to cultural differences 

4. Gather intelligence and reconnoiter the terrain 

5. Design the information flow and process of meetings 

6. Invest in personal relationships 

7. Persuade with questions 

8. Make no concessions until the end 

9. Use techniques of creativity 

10. Continue creativity after negotiations 

Graham and Hernandez believe that American firms 

must overcome long-practiced obstacles to the new rules 

— a disdain of interdependence and a lack of cross-cultural 

skills and experience with foreign counterparts. 

PHILIPPE JORION 

Professor of Finance 

Financial Risk Manager 

Handbook, 4th edition 

Professor Jorion has updated his 

handbook that has become the official 

book for the financial risk 

manager’s (FRM) examination by the 

global Association of Risk 

Professionals. Revisions include the latest FRM exam 

topics and selected recent FRM questions, with detailed 

explanations of answers. 

The handbook provides in-depth coverage of market, 

credit and operational risk management as well as 

reporting and regulation. 

37 



38 


RICHARD MCKENZIE 

Professor of Economics 

In Defense of Monopoly: 

How Market Power Fosters 

Creative Production 

Professor McKenzie and Dwight R. 

Lee of the University of Georgia 

claim that conventional, static models 

exaggerate the harm done by 

real-world monopolies, and show why 

some degree of monopoly presence 

is needed to improve human welfare over time. An economic 

system’s failure to efficiently allocate its resources, 

the authors write, is actually a necessary precondition for 

maximizing the economy’s long-term performance. 

McKenzie and Lee demonstrate that creating goods 

and services requires competition as well as the prospect 

of gains beyond a normal competitive rate of return. 

Why Popcorn Costs So 

Much at the Movies and 

Other Pricing Puzzles 

(As featured on ABC-TVs Nightline) 

Professor McKenzie finds that the 

U.S. Supreme Court’s 1948 

antitrust ruling laid the foundation 

for costly movie popcorn and other 

snack bar edibles. The ruling prohibited 

movie studios from owning theaters, which 

forced theater owners to bid for films. 

That allowed studios to take a bigger cut of the films’ 

revenues, leaving theater owners to make most of their 

profits from concession sales. 

Beyond popcorn, McKenzie takes a fun, but illuminating 

look at the hidden truths of marketing and some of 

the pricing puzzles consumers face — Are we really 

fooled by prices that end in 9? Why do new cars instantly 

lose so much value? If holiday clearance sales are 

about excess inventory, shouldn't retailers hire better 

buyers? And why do coffee shops offer free WiFi? 

Four Merage 

Professors Win 

Academic Awards 

PROFESSOR CRISTINA GIBSON 

received the 2008 Pedagogical 

Innovation Award from the UC Irvine 

Academic Senate Council. Professors 

Thomas Eppel, Sherri Treasurywala and 

Shuya Yin were also nominated for 

excellence in teaching. 

Gibson’s award was for her course on Global 

Collaboration that is interactive and involves exercises, 

case studies, projects and discussions. Students were 

divided into teams representing universities based both 

within and outside the United States. 

SHUYA YIN, assistant professor of 

operations and decision technologies, 

was named Merage School honoree for 

teaching Management Science and 

Operations Management. 

THOMAS EPPEL 

AND SHERRI 

TREASURYWALA 

were named UC Irvine 

Lecturers of the Year. 

Eppel’s class, Business 

and Management in the 

World Today, focused on globalization and current 

trends. Treasurywala developed two innovative elective 

courses on the business of science and the business of 

medicine for Merage’s undergraduate program.

MAKING AN IMPACT 

DAVID BLAKE, professor of strategic management 

chairs the Ethical Business Leadership 

Task Force of Beta Gamma Sigma, the 

honor society for AACSB-accredited business 

programs. Blake and other task 

force members are conducting interviewswithexecutivesof 

multinational, 

mid-sized and small businesses. The 

task force will develop print and electronic 

media tools to promote ethical business practices. 

PHILIP BROMILEY, 

professor of strategic management 

co-authored a study and was quoted 

in a New Yorker magazine article, 

“Performance-Pay Perplexes.” The study 

of hundreds of firms found companies 

that paid most of their compensation in 

stock options were far more subjected to 

regulations forcing them to restate their 

earnings. 

CRISTINA GIBSON, 

professor of management and organization 

chaired an April 2008 forum, “The Dark 

Matter of Dialogue Breakdowns,” featuring 

a sneak preview of the film, “Dark 

Matter,” starring Meryl Streep and Aiden 

Quinn. Experts on trauma, anthropology, 

minority relations and other subjects 

discussed communications breakdowns 

between minority students and college 

administrators that were partly responsible for the mass 

murder of four persons at Iowa University in 1991, the 

topic of the film. 

VIJAY GURBAXANI, 

professor of information technology 

was named to the Blue Ribbon Task Force 

on Sustainable Digital Preservation, an 

international panel that will make recommendations 

on preservation and public 

access to digital information for future 

generations. The 17-member group 

includes representatives from universities 

in England and Scotland and from the 


Library of Congress, Smithsonian Institution and 

Microsoft. The task force held its first meeting January 

2008 in Washington, D.C., and will publish two reports 

by late 2009. 

DAVID HIRSHLEIFER, professor of finance 

presented a keynote address on 

“Psychological Bias as a Driver of 

Financial Regulation” to the European 

Financial Management Association’s 

annual meeting in Vienna, Austria. 

CONNIE PECHMANN, professor of marketing 

joined a panel of experts in Bethesda, 

Maryland, that addressed adolescents’ 

use and misuse of over-the-counter (OTC) 

drugs. The panel, focusing on regulations 

regarding the marketing of OTC drugs to 

youths, was part of a workshop at the 

National Institute of Health, sponsored by 

the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. 

JUDY ROSENER, 

professor emerita of economic and public policy 

co-authored a cover story, “Wired to Win,” 

in Pink, a national magazine for professional 

women. The article described the 

link between brain and hormone research 

and male-female differences at work and 

how they affect organizational policies 

and practices. Rosener is working with 

Newton Margulies, associate dean of 

executive education at the Merage School, to develop an 

advanced management program for women. 

MARGARETHE WIERSEMA, professor of strategy 

chaired an Academy of Management 

symposium in Philadelphia on private 

equity. Panelists discussed problems 

created by the huge growth of nonequity-based 

fees by such companies 

as Blackstone. 

39 


COLLABORATION 

40 


Centering on the World: 

Business Leaders and their Take on the Merage 

School’s Centers of Excellence 

Editor’s note: In each issue, we profile business leaders who recognize the Merage School itself as a key 

business driver for innovation and growth. This edition focuses on members of the Dean’s Advisory 

Board and champions of the Centers of Excellence, all innovative leaders in their fields. 

Business leaders who volunteer their time and 

expertise to educational organizations see 

their participation as a way to give back. But 

to those who helped charter the Merage 

School’s Centers of Excellence, there’s something more. 

With upheaval occurring across the economy, the political 

landscape and indeed the world, many see the 

Merage School Centers as catalysts for real change and 

improvement. They see their roles as advisors, but also 

as key players who can help solve problems and surmount 

challenges in industries from health care to real 

estate, on local levels and across the global stage. And 

they have pinpointed the Centers of Excellence as the 

places where it will all get done. 

Toward More Effective Health Care Delivery 

“We see the Merage Center for Health Care Management 

and Policy as a key change agent in policy and delivery,” 

says Dr. Richard Afable, President and CEO of Hoag 

Memorial Hospital Presbyterian in Newport Beach. “Its 

record of innovation and discovery, its esteemed faculty, 

and its ability to draw top policy experts poise the 

Center to make a real impact on issues we’re interested 

in, such as affordable health care delivery.” 

Election year change notwithstanding, Afable is excited 

about the Center’s role in the year ahead. “We can 

and will make a difference to improve quality of care for 

patients throughout the country.” 

Under the leadership of noted health care economics 

scholar Professor Paul J. Feldstein (the Robert 

Gumbiner Chair in Health Care Management) the Center 

brings together the Merage School's key health care policy 

and education areas. 

But Feldstein, Afable and the others agree that the 

Center is not just for the pundits. “One of the challenges 

in health care is that everyone — from consumers to 

providers—needstobemuchbetterinformedabout 

health care issues,” says Jeff Margolis, Chairman and 

CEO of the TriZetto Group. “We see one of the Center’s 

roles as a provider of accessible information.” 

The Center is currently focused on issues such as 

insurance coverage and third party payers and is examining 

innovative new approaches to heath care. Its 

annual Health Care Forecast Conference draws national 

policymakers and thought leaders to discuss trends and 

look toward the future of health care. 

Wealth Management: Building a Strong 

Portfolio of Resources 

While health care reform continues to be a hot button 

issue, another area identified by the Merage School as a 

vital concern in the current 

economy is the wealth man- 

“It’s exciting to be 

agement industry. And 

business leaders once again at the ground floor 

are looking to the Merage 

School to provide leadership. of an opportunity 

Jane Buchan, Founder and 

CEO of Pacific Alternative to do something 

Asset Management Company 

positive for the 

(PAAMCO), recently partnered 

with the Merage community. 

” 

School to solidify its position 

as a research center for the 

industry. Buchan is the Founding Sponsor of the School’s 

Center for Investment and Wealth Management. She

describes the Center as a “timely resource for today 

and for future generations.” 

The Center is expected to engage the industry with 

innovative research and student resources. “We’re in the 

heart of the market in Orange County,” she says. “No 

Richard Afable 

AS PRESIDENT AND CEO of Orange County’s largest independent hospital, Dr. Afable 

leads a team of more than 4000 employees and 1000 medical staff. Under his leadership, 

the National Research Corporation has endorsed the 511-bed facility as Orange 

County's most preferred hospital based on overall quality of health care services and 

places Hoag in the top five percent of hospitals nationwide. 

Dr. Afable has also served as Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer at 

Catholic Health East, an east coast health system comprising 31 acute care hospitals 

and 47 long-term care facilities. Early in his career, Dr. Afable spent ten years in private 

practice in Chicago, specializing in internal medicine and geriatrics. 

He received his Bachelor of Science degree from Loyola University in Chicago and an 

MD from the Loyola Stritch School of Medicine. He obtained his MPH degree from the 

University of Illinois School of Public Health and a certificate in business administration 

from Villanova University. 

Jane Buchan 

JANE BUCHAN IS THE CEO and one of the four original founders of Pacific Alternative 

Asset Management Company (PAAMCO), a leading independent hedge funds investment 

firm dedicated to offering strategic alternative investment solutions for 

sophisticated investors. Clients include large public and private pension plans, foundations, 

endowments and financial institutions. Headquartered in Irvine, California, with 

an office in London, the firm currently manages in excess of $7 billion. 

Ms. Buchan’s 18 years of experience in investment management and portfolio construction 

includes positions ranging from Director of Quantitative Analysis to CIO of 

non-directional strategies at Collin Associates. She received her undergraduate degree 

in Economics from Yale University and her Masters and PhD in Business Economics 

(Finance) from Harvard University. Ms. Buchan is the author of numerous professional 

publications. 

Jeff Margolis 

WITH NEARLY TWO DECADES of experience in health care technology, Jeff Margolis is 

the founder and CEO of The TriZetto Group, Inc. Recently named an “up and comer” 

by Modern Healthcare magazine, he is the former chairman of the Managed Care 

Executive Group. In 2002, he was named Ernst & Young's Technology Entrepreneur of 

the Year for Orange County, California. 

The TriZetto Group, Inc. focuses on the business of healthcare and offers a broad 

portfolio of technology products and services, including Facets ® ,QicLink , ClaimFacts ® 

and GroupFacts ® systems. TriZetto's customers serve more than 100 million health 

plan members, or approximately 40 percent of the insured population of the United 

States. 

A certified public accountant, Margolis holds certificates in Colorado and Illinois. He 

received his Bachelor’s Degree with high honors in business administration/management 

information systems from the University of Illinois. 

COLLABORATION 

matter how many years of experience you have, no matter 

how many accolades you’ve received, it’s still exciting 

to be at the ground floor of an opportunity to do something 

positive for the community. We’re looking forward 

to the future of the Center and all that it can offer.” 

41 


COLLABORATION 

42 


Beall Center’s 

Innovation 

Knowledgebase 

Gives Answers 

to Grow On 

To get the right answer, it is first necessary to ask the 

right question. But what if you don’t know what question 

to ask? 

The Merage School’s Don Beall Center for Innovation 

and Entrepreneurship has created a new web-based 

resource called the Innovation Knowledgebase for executives 

seeking to formulate the right questions, and 

ultimately find the right answers, as to how their organizations 

can sustain competitive advantage through 

continuous business innovation. 

“The Innovation Knowledgebase is 

designed as a convenient tool to 

assist business leaders gain 

knowledge, share opinions and 

develop insight into the challenges 

of creating an innovation culture 

and effectively harvesting the 

results. 

” 

Focused on serving the needs of C-level executives, 

the Innovation Knowledgebase is a collection of the 

most influential, “best of breed” articles, opinions and 

academic research available on the subject of corporate 

innovation, pre-selected and reviewed by a team of 

Merage School PhD candidates under the leadership of 

By Anne Warde 

Dr. Christine Beckman. The objective of the Innovation 

Knowledgebase is to create a single location on the web 

where the best thinking from around the world in the area 

of corporate innovation can be easily searched and read. 

“The Innovation Knowledgebase is designed as a convenient 

tool to assist business leaders gain knowledge, 

share opinions and develop insight into the challenges 

of creating an innovation culture and effectively harvesting 

the results,” noted Andy Policano, Dean of the 

Merage School. “Through the generosity of the Beall 

Family, we were given the means to build a resource 

that will significantly support the School’s thematic 

approach of sustained growth through strategic innovation. 

Our vision is to become the world’s first and best 

source on innovation-related articles and research.” 

The Innovation Knowledgebase also features a blog 

component managed by Beall Center Advisory Board 

member Mike Mata where individuals interested in the 

subject of corporate innovation are invited to share their 

perspectives on innovation and related issues. To help 

build the content of the Innovation Knowledgebase, the 

Don Beall Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship is 

recruiting interested volunteers with domain expertise in 

specific industry or business area disciplines to recommend 

content on a regular basis to Dr. Beckman’s 

Innovation Knowledgebase team. Interested parties should 

contact Lynda Lawrence by clicking on the “Contribute 

Ideas” link on the Innovation Knowledgebase site. 

Located on the Don Beall Center for Innovation and 

Entrepreneurship website at merage.uci.edu/go/innovation, 

the Innovation Knowledgebase is organized both by 

topic and by industry and also can be searched by keyword 

or subject.

Center News 

UC Irvine’s 

Business Plan 

Competition Sets 

Record 

THE PAUL MERAGE SCHOOL OF 

BUSINESS at UC Irvine set a record 

with more than 50 entries to its 

2008 Stradling Yocca Carlson & 

Rauth Business Plan Competition. 

The annual competition is conducted 

by the Don Beall Center for 

Innovation and Entrepreneurship 

with support from one of Orange 

County’s premier law firms, 

Stradling Yocca Carlson & Rauth, 

and Masimo, the global medical 

technology company. 

Videotaped presentations aired on 

YouTube as well as the Merage 

School website and allowed community 

members and students alike to 

judge the plans in partnership with 

The Orange County Register’s 

People’s Choice Poll. 

The Merage School is particularly 

proud of the quality of the business 

ideas with which students compete. 

Eighteen semi-finalists covered a 

broad range of the business spectrum 

from high tech to consumer 

goods to health care, including these 

exciting ventures: 

Team “Artibody” – Nanoparticles 

used for protein purification 

Team “I’m Too Young For This” – 

Cancer support for young adults 

Team “Presto Wireless” – Ultra 

high speed wireless connectivity 

“Team Element” – Mass customization 

of pharmaceutical 

skin creams 

Team “Greenbuilt Homes” – 

Construction of environmentally 

conscious communities 

The competition is one of the 

nation's premier business plan competitions, 

offering all UC Irvine 

students, staff and researchers the 

opportunity to form a team, create a 

business plan and potentially fund 

their business idea, all within five 

months. 

The final presentations and 

awards ceremony with $30,000 in 

cash prizes was conducted on May 

16th, 2008. The next competition 

kick-off is scheduled on November 

19, 2008. The final presentations 

and prices will be awarded on April 

30, 2009. 

Workshops are offered covering a 

broad area of business plan development 

skills led by practitioners from 

Orange County. Individual team 

coaches — leading entrepreneurs in 

COLLABORATION 

the county and the nation — assist 

all teams that qualify for the semifinals. 

Beyond the cash prizes, teams 

compete for visibility to nationwide 

venture capital groups, and all are 

featured in the People’s Choice Poll 

that resulted in 50,000 page views 

per day last year. 

Merage Taps 

Real Estate 

Professional as 

Associate Director 

of Center 

SHARON NAKAMURA-BROWN 

understands entrepreneurs. As the 

co-founder of RENTV.COM, an 

online commercial real estate firm, 

she also knows the real estate market 

— a distinct advantage as she leads 

day-to-day operations at the Merage 

School’s Center for Real Estate. 

Nakamura-Brown most recently 

served as Director of Development 

and Outreach at UCLA’s Richard S. 

Ziman Center for Real Estate. She 

has also served as Vice President of 

Business Development for Kennedy- 

Wilson International, a commercial 

investments firm. 

“Merage’s Center for Real Estate is 

delighted to have someone with 

Sharon’s experience in the university 

43 


COLLABORATION 

44 


Center News 

and corporate world join us at UC 

Irvine,” says Kerry Vandell, 

Academic Director of the Center for 

Real Estate and a professor of 

finance at the Merage School. “Her 

role will be vital as the Center for 

Real Estate moves forward to build a 

world-class facility for the study of 

real estate-related issues and trends, 

and to reach out to the real estate 

professional community and the 

public at large.” 

2008 Real 

Estate Gala & 

Presentation of 

the Lifetime 

Achievement 

Award 

THE 2008 Real Estate Gala and 

the presentation of the Lifetime 

Achievement Award took place on 

November 10, 2008, at the Hyatt 

Regency Irvine. 

KEYNOTE SPEAKER: 

Nelson Rising 

President & CEO 

Maguire Properties 

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT 

AWARD HONOREES: 

Phil Belling & Steve Layton 

Principals & Co-Founders 

LBA Realty 

RISING STAR AWARD 

HONOREES: 

Derek Chen, Jerome Fink & 

David Kim 

Co-Founders 

The Bascom Group 

Visit our website for updates: 

merage.uci.edu/go/CRE 

Key Analyst 

Reviews 

Healthcare 

Conference 

AS LEADING NATIONAL health 

care policy makers descend on the 

Merage School each year for the 

annual Health Care Forecast 

Conference, at least one key analyst 

praises the conference as “informative 

and extremely well-organized.” 

“The views of these health care 

insiders are typically quite accurate, 

especially with respect to 

Congressional action (or lack thereof) 

and Medicare regulatory issues as 

they should be. They are the people 

who actively participate in making 

health care reimbursement policy,” 

notes Sheryl R. Skolnick, PhD, 

Senior Vice President and 

Healthcare Services Analyst for CRT 

Capital Group, LLC. 

Drawing speakers and panelists 

from Capitol Hill, federal agencies, 

lobbying organizations and think 

tanks, the conference also brings 

together representatives from several 

of California’s health care regulatory 

agencies. 

Skolnick says the conference 

focused on health care policy issues 

with respect to the current presidential 

and congressional election year, 

but also offered the Wall Street perspective 

on the strategic outlook for 

health care. 

The 19th annual conference is 

slated for February 19-20, 2009, and 

will feature a similarly renowned 

group of experts. 

Center Attracts 

36 Industry 

Leaders as 

Charter Members 

REGIONAL AND NATIONAL 

leaders in the field of wealth management 

have signed on as Charter 

Members of the Merage School’s 

“Each of these Charter 

Members is critical to 

the success of this 

unique Center. 

”

Center for Investment and Wealth 

Management, pledging nearly $2 

million to help launch the Center’s 

activities. 

To date, 36 Charter Members 

have signed on. “The Center is fortunate 

to have received an excellent 

response from the professional community,” 

says Mitchell Spann, Senior 

Director of Development for the 

Merage School. “Each of these 

Charter Members is critical to the 

success of this unique Center.” 

Spann reports that the Center also 

has the advantage of an innovative, 

highly skilled faculty comprising a 

blend of Merage faculty members, 

affiliated faculty from elsewhere on 

the UC Irvine and other campuses, 

and adjunct faculty members from 

the wealth management professional 

community. 

The Center for Investment and 

Wealth Management is fast becoming 

known as the hub for research, 

study, and discussion of current critical 

issues facing the investment and 

wealth management industries. 

The Center for Investment and Wealth Management 

Charter Members: 

Pamela M. Adams, CFP 

Beacon Pointe Advisors 

Brown and Streza 

Professor Nai-Fu Chen 

Canterbury Consulting 

Capital Research Company 

CBIZ 

City National Bank 

Comerica Bank 

Cymric Family Offices 

D&M Capital Management 

Falcon Investment Management 

Ferruzzo & Ferruzzo 

Fidelity Investments 

GR Capital Management 

Hollencrest Capital Management 

FOUNDING SPONSOR 

PAAMCO 

FOUNDING DIRECTORS 

Frank Kavanaugh 

Schwab Institutional 

Mont Pelerin Capital 

FOUNDING FRIENDS 

BNY Mellon Wealth Management 

Metropolitan West Capital 

FOUNDING MEMBERS 

Keller Investments 

Knightsbridge Asset Management 

Matters at Hand 

Merrill Lynch 

The Waltos Group of 

Northwestern Mutual 

Payden & Rygel 

Select Portfolio Management 

Sweek Connolly & Company 

TRC/The Roberson Company 

Irving R Katz & Assoc 

Union Bank of CA 

Wachovia Securities 

Wealth Management Network 

Wood Gutmann & Bogart 

COLLABORATION 

Exiting Your Business 

Options in Today’s Economy 

Discuss Real World Experiences with Current 

and Former Business Owners 

Changes in Business Valuation in Today's 

Marketplace 

Taxation, Tactics & Teams 

Succession Strategies & How to Avoid 

the Pitfalls 

Steps You Must Know to Lead Your 

Business to a Successful Exit 

DATE & TIME 

Thursday, March 19, 2009 

4:00 pm – 7:45 pm 

Includes reception 

Saturday, March 21, 2009 

8:30 am – 2:15 pm 

Includes light breakfast and luncheon 

merage.uci.edu/go/EducationalSeries 

45 


COLLABORATION 

4 6 

e x p e r i e n c e I N N O V AT I O N 

Thank you! 

A hearty “thank you” from the faculty, staff and students of The Paul Merage School of Business to our many supporters 

and donors! The community and business leaders listed below have helped to launch the School’s Centers 

of Excellence and other important initiatives, and have devoted energy, talent and wisdom to the Merage School. 

As always, a special thanks to Paul and Lilly Merage for their tremendous and tireless efforts on our behalf. 

Dean’s Advisory Board 

Ed Fuller, Chair – Marriott 

International Lodging 

David Murphy, Vice Chair – Barrie 

D’Rozario Murphy 

Pam Adams – Wachovia 

Securities, LLC 

Richard Afable – Hoag Memorial 

Hospital Presbyterian 

Mike Aghajanian – PRTM 

Bob Anderson – Health Savings 

Technology 

Craig Barbarosh – Pillsbury 

Winthrop Shaw Pittman 

Shankar Basu – Toyota Materials 

Handling 

Don Beall – Dartbrook Partners 

Anne Belec – Ford Motor 

Company 

John Belli – Ernst & Young 

Eric Boden – HireRight 

Jane Buchan – Pacific Alternative 

Asset Management Co. 

Chris Callero – Experian Americas 

Joel Calvo – Calvo Capital, Inc 

John Carrington – WEBSENSE, Inc. 

James Caudill – Black & Decker 

Bruce Chapman – Experian 

Americas 

Victoria Collins – The Keller Group 

Michael Davis – Deutsche Bank 

National Trust Company 

Corporate Partners 

Accenture 

Advanced Medical Optics, Inc. 

Beckman Coulter, Inc. 

Boeing Company 

Dartbrook Partners 

Emulex Corporation 

Dwight Decker – Conexant 

Tommy Dodson – Rockwell Collins 

Rick Dutta – Nexvisionix 

Larry Emond – The Gallup 

Organization 

John Evans – Wells Fargo – Private 

Client Services 

Thomas Gephart – Ventana 

Rick Gilchrist – The Irvine 

Company 

Michael Gottlieb – Ernst & Young 

Bill Halford – Bixby Land 

Company 

Cynthia Harriss 

Julie Hill (Chair Emeritus) – 

WellPoint, The Lord Abbett 

Mutual Funds, Lend Lease 

Jeanne Jackson – MSP Capital 

Camille Jayne – Matters at Hand 

Alan Kaye – Mattel, Inc. 

Rick Keller – The Keller Group 

Parker Kennedy – The First 

American Corporation 

Darcy Kopcho – Capital Research 

and Management 

Knute Kurtz – 

PricewaterhouseCoopers 

Greg Lai – Morgan Stanley 

Marc Levin – Levin Capital 

Management 

Gallup Consulting, Inc. 

IBM Corporation 

HireRight 

Jones Day 

Kingston Technology Company, Inc. 

Mazda North America Operations 

Robert Lewis – McKinsey & 

Company 

Robert Lucenti – Deloitte 

Stephen Marlow – Toshiba 

America Electronic Components 

Chuck Martin (Chair Emeritus) – 

Mont Pelerin Capital 

James Mazzo – Advanced Medical 

Optics 

James Mellor – USEC, Inc. 

Paul Merage (Chair Emeritus) – 

Falcon Investment Management 

Mark Moehlman – Wealth 

Management Network 

Ned Olivier – Oxford Bioscience 

Partners 

Jim O'Sullivan – Mazda North 

American Operations 

John Palmer – Verizon Wireless 

John Parker – Parker Properties 

Sue Parks – WalkStyles, Inc. 

Bill Pesch – McBride Electric, Inc. 

Andy Policano – The Paul Merage 

School of Business 

David Pyott – Allergan, Inc. 

John Rehfeld – Local.com 

Richard Reisman – Orange County 

Business Journal 

David Schramm – Maxwell 

Technologies 

Neudesic 

PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP 

Rauxa Direct 

Rohl, LLC 

Steelhead Brewery Co. 

Taco Bell Corporation 

Alan Sellers – SAIL Venture 

Partners 

Ariela Shani – Neiman Marcus 

Peter Shea – J.F. Shea Co., Inc. 

Richard Shields – Oakley, Inc. 

Ron Simon – RSI Holding 

Corporation 

Patricia Soldano – Cymric Family 

Office Services 

Greg Spierkel – Ingram Micro, 

Inc. 

Ariela Tannenbaum – Allianz 

Global Investors 

Ed Thomas – Wet Seal, Inc. 

Gary Toyama – The Boeing 

Company 

Peter Ueberroth – The Contrarian 

Group, Inc. 

Tom Wagner – Taco Bell - YUM! 

Brands, Inc. 

Bob Waltos – The Waltos Group 

Dean Yoost – 


Bill Ellermeyer, Emeritus – The 

Ellermeyer Company 

Bill Ficker, Emeritus – The Ficker 

Group 

Dennis Sweeney, Emeritus – 

Newport Consulting Partners 

The Precept Group 

The Wet Seal, Inc. 

Toshiba America Electronic 

Components, Inc. 

Toyota Materials Handling U.S.A. 

Union Bank of California 

Wells Fargo Bank

Center for Real Estate 

Larry Armstrong – Ware Malcomb 

Ken Beall – The Beall Family 

Foundation 

Eric Bergstrom – Bergstrom 

Capital Advisors 

Brandon Birtcher – Birtcher 

Development & Investments 

Robert Brunswick – Buchanan 

Street Partners 

The Robert M. Campbell Family – 

CT Realty 

Larry Casey – Donahue Schriber 

Realty Group 

Paul Cate –MarkIVCapital 

CB Richard Ellis 

Celina Doka – KPMG 

Downey Savings 

Ranney Draper – The Draper 

Family Foundation 

Steve Elieff – SunCal Companies 

Rodney F. Emery – Steadfast 

Properties & Development Co. 

Dick Allen –DIMAVentures 

Allen Anderson – Experian 

Mark Averitt – Okapi Venture 

Capital 

Chris Baclawski – CB Capital 

Don Beall – Beall Family Trust 

Bob Bova – Vangard Voice 

Systems 

John Brandt – ThyssenKrupp 

Elevator 

Joel Calvo – Calvo Capital 

Ernst & Young 

First American Title Company 

Walter Frome 

John Garrett – Garrett DeFrenza 

Stiepel 

Larry Gates & Warren Williams – 

Silver Oak Development 

James Gianulias 

Stephen Gordon & David DePillo – 

Commercial Capital Bancorp 

Green Street Advisors 

Emile & Dina Haddad 

John Hagestad – The Hagestad 

Family Foundation 

William Halford –BixbyLand 

Company 

Robert M. Hamilton & Gary S. 

McKitterick – Allen Matkins 

Bobby Hatfield – Fidelity National 

Title Company 

Julie Hill – The Hill Company 

Don Beall Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship 

Ray Cohen – Cardiac Science, Inc. 

John Creelman – ID Analytics, Inc. 

Joe Davis – Triton Pacific Capital 

Partners 

Bruce Feuchter – Stradling Yocca 

Carlson & Rauth 

Neel Grover – buy.com 

Bruce Hallett – Miramar Venture 

Partners 

James Houlihan –InnoCal 

Robert Hovee – RAH Consulting 

Group 

Center for Health Care Management and Policy 

Richard F. Afable, MD, MPH – 

Hoag Hospital 

Jay J. Cohen, MD, MBA –Monarch 

HealthCare 

Markie Cowley – Mission Hospital 

Regional Medical Center 

Chris De Rosa – CIGNA Health 

Care of California 

Barry Hoeven – Westport 

Properties 

Doug Holte – Hines 

Mark C. Kehke –SierraPacific 

Enterprises 

David Kim – The Bascom Group 

PeterK.&ValerieJ.Kompaniez 

LBA Realty 

Lennar Homes 

LNR Property Corporation 

John Lutzius & Alison Cohen 

Bill & Romy McFarland 

McLarand Vasquez Emsiek & 

Partners 

Douglas G. Meece – Merrill Lynch 

Greg Merage – Stoneridge Capital 

Partners 

Meritage Homes 

Michael L. Meyer – AMG Realty 

Investors 

Larry Jordan –TechCoastAngels 

Michael Kaye – Clearlight Partners 

Marc Levin – Levin Capital 

Management 

Mike Mata – SCORE, Orange 

County 

Vince McGuinness – Financial 

Services 

Sid Mohasseb –TechCoast 

Angels 

Sue Parks – WalkStyles, Inc. 

Jeffrey H. Margolis – The TriZetto 

Group 

Murray N. Ross, PhD – Kaiser 

Permanente Inst for Health 

Policy 

COLLABORATION 

Tony & Anne Marie Moiso – 

Rancho Mission Viejo 

Jay Moss –KBHome 

John Murphy – Luce Forward 

Hamilton & Scripps 

NAIOP SoCal 

Douglas Dwyer O’Donnell –The 

O’Donnell Group 

John Parker & Kevin McKenzie – 

Parker Properties 

Gerald Pharris –Pharris 

Properties 

Tony Premer – Pacific Life 

Christine Scheuneman – Pillsbury 

Winthrop Shaw Pittman 

Royce Sharf –Studley 

Peter O. Shea –J.F.Shea 

John Simonis – Paul, Hastings, 

Janofsky & Walker 

Tim Strader – Starpointe Ventures 

Ray Watson 

David Pyott – Allergan, Inc. 

Safi Qureshey – Skyline Capital 

Partners 

Ken Rohl – Rohl LLC 

Stanton Rowe – Advanced 

Technologies, Edwards 

Lifesciences 

Alan Sellers –SAILVenture 

Partners 

Luis Villalobos –TechCoast 

Angels 

Maribeth Shannon – California 

HealthCare Foundation 

David L. Steffy 

Paul S. Viviano – Alliance Imaging 

Maureen L. Zehntner –UCI 

Medical Center 

47 


COLLABORATION 

48 


Dean’s Leadership Circle 

THE PREMIER MERAGE NETWORK 

Your Network for Success 

By John Gregory 

The 350 members of the Dean’s Leadership 

Circle (DLC) reached a milestone in May 2008 

with $1 million raised since the DLC was 

formed three years ago. Of that amount, 

$450,000 was raised in just the past year. 

During the first two years, the DLC raised money to 

renovate a classroom which was dedicated in September 

2008 as The Dean’s Leadership Circle Classroom. A 

plaque mounted inside the classroom honors the 220 

DLC members who contributed to the campaign. 

The DLC is now in the midst of a $1.2 million campaign 

to endow a professorship at the School. Funds 

will be instrumental in recruiting and retaining a highlyregarded 

faculty member. The $450,000 raised last 

academic year for the professorship campaign “represent 

a fantastic start,” says Dean Andy Policano. 

Lead donor gifts for the campaign have been made so 

far by Greg Lai (‘88), Thomas Antunez (‘05), Jacquie 

Warren, Lisa and Mark Locklear (both ‘84), Paula 

Milano (‘80 and past chair of the DLC), Pam Adams 

(‘98), and David Young (‘91). 

TheDLCenjoyedmanysuccessfuleventslastacademic 

year, and many more events are planned for this year: 

Sneak Peek of Renaissance Sport Club – July 2008 

DLC Classroom Dedication – September 2008 

Annual “Fall Insider’s View” – October 2008 

VIP Receptions in conjunction with the annual 

Distinguished Speaker Series – November 2008 

through May 2009 

Annual Holiday Celebration hosted by Neiman Marcus 

– December 2008 

Annual reception with the Dean’s Advisory Board – 

May 2009 

Membership can make the difference. 

The Dean’s Leadership Circle is the premier support 

group of The Paul Merage School of Business. This 

high-powered network is made up of successful alumni, 

business leaders, faculty, staff, and friends of UC Irvine 

and the Merage School. Members receive many benefits 

and are kept up-to-date through exclusive events and 

communications and are also given the opportunity to 

share their thoughts and recommendations with the 

Dean, faculty, and administration. 

Membership Levels 

Innovator $5,000 

Investor $2,500 

Member $1,500 

Shareholder (for current 

graduating class only) 

For further information, contact Director Sandra Findly 

at 949.824.8865 or visit merage.uci.edu/go/DLC. 

In Appreciation: 2007-2008 Members Gifts & pledges received 7/1/07 – 6/30/08 

LEAD DONORS 

Greg Lai ‘88, Morgan Stanley 

– Campaign Leader 

Pamela Adams ‘98, 

Wachovia Securities 

Thomas Antunez ‘05, 

Percentix 

Mark Locklear ‘84 & Lisa 

Locklear ‘84, Ingram Micro 

Paula Milano ‘80 & Eric 

Nielsen, Idhasoft Company 

Jacquie Warren,Irvine 

Chamber of Commerce 

David Young ‘91, PIMCO 

INNOVATOR MEMBERS 

Geoffrey Bremmer ‘05, 

Hanson’s Beverage 

Tracy Bremmer ‘05, Experian 

Professor Nai-Fu Chen, 

The Paul Merage School of 

Business 

Johnson Chuang ‘05, 

AIPTEK, Inc. 

Greg Herder ‘05, 

Herder Advertising 

Jesus Mantas,IBM 

Kristen Monson ‘96, PIMCO 

Dr. Ram Mudiyam, MD, ‘05 

Dean Andy & Pamela Z. 

Policano, The Paul Merage 


Rick W. Rayson, 

Deloitte & Touche 

Bill Rowland ‘06, 

Walt Disney Co. 

Gary Toyama ‘78, Boeing 

John Waldeck ‘01, Pacific Life 

Insurance Company 

INVESTOR MEMBERS 

Michael Aghajanian, ‘88, 

Pittiglio Rabin Todd & McGrath 

Len Ambrosini, ‘02, 

Rosemount Analytical 

Dawn Beattie, ‘92, 

Qualcomm 

Katie Bianchi, ‘96, 

Marriott International 

Edwin D. Fuller, Marriott 

Lodging International 

Tiffiny Vandom Karem ‘03, 

Discus Dental 

John Karem, ‘02, Phillips 

Distilling Company 

Michelle (Milne) Koontz, ‘03, 

Fluor Corporation

Kristen M. Maher, ‘98, 

Maher & Associates 

Johnny Mosham, 

Lett-uce Cater To You 

Carl Neisser, 

The Neisser Company 

Jeff Pratt, ‘99, 

SpeedTrack, Inc. 

Stephen Rodriguez, ‘98, 

Kingston Technology Co. 

Scott M. Ryder, Jr., ‘00, 

RSM EquiCo Capital Markets 

Kathleen Suler, ‘98, 

Allergan Pharmaceuticals 

Ariela Tannenbaum, ‘95, 

Allianz Global Investors of 

America 

Jay Witzling, ‘79, Boeing 

Kevin C. Yang, ‘06, 

EADS North America 

Timothy C. Zevnik, ‘93, 

Molina Health Care, Inc. 

MEMBERS 

Laine Ainsworth, Wealth 

Management Network, LLC 

Marco Baltero, ‘07, 

Medtronic, Inc. 

Wolfgang Beez, ‘01, 

George Fischer Signet, Inc. 

Martin Brown, ‘98, 

Power Brands 

Michael A. Cancelleri, ‘05, 

Mont Pelerin Capital, LLC 

Christen Chambers, ‘05, 


Erik Charles, ‘03, 

MindFire, Inc. 

Eugene Choi, ‘01, 

United Exchange Corp. 

Tosha Clements-Woolforde, 

‘04, Toyota Motor Sales, Inc. 

Leslie Daff, ‘89, 

Estate Plan, Inc. 

Sanjay Dalal, 

Innovation Index Group 

Pravin Datar, ‘02, 

SAP America, Inc. 

Al DeGrassi, ‘79, 

Alliance Bank 

Brendan Donohue, ‘03, 

HealthSource 

James Elliot, ‘00, 

City of Carlsbad 

Steven Fichtelberg, ‘93, 

DLC, Inc. 

Judith Gass, ‘00, 

GE Money-Care Credit 

Sophie Ghafari, ‘03, 

UCI Medical Center 

John Gibson, ‘01, 

Gibson Law Group 

Michael Gillman, MD, ‘08 

Cynthia Green, ‘05, Smith 

Hanley Consulting Group 

Professor Vijay Gurbaxani, 



Sylvia K. Haas, The Paul 

Merage School of Business 

David J. Hackett, ‘97, 

Stillwater Associates 

Tony Hansford, ‘98, The Paul 


Robert Herin, ‘89, 

Drake Management LLC 

David Jones ‘93, 

Select Portfolio Management 

Timothy J. Kay, 

Snell & Wilmer, LLP 

Professor Robin Keller, 



Christopher Kelly, ‘98, 

RSI Home Products, Inc. 

James Largent, ‘77, 

World AM Inc. 

Debbie Lewis, The Paul 


Timothy Leyden, ‘92, 

Western Digital 

Mark Lush ‘92, 


Elizabeth Mahoney, ‘98, 

Metrolink 

Michael Massari , ‘07, 

Harrah’s Entertainment 

Kristen McAlister, ‘03, 

Don McKinley, ‘01, 

Maersk Logistics 

Benjamin Medvitz, ‘06, 

IntheAir Net, LLC 

Richard Milo, ‘96, 


Mark L. Moehlman, Wealth 

Management Network, LLC 

Debra Moysychyn, ‘06, 



Gus Ordonez, ‘05, Plastek, LLC 

Anthony Padilla, ‘87, 

IMPAC Financial Services 

Jim Pavelko, 

The Paul Merage 


Professor Jone Pearce, 

The Paul Merage School 

of Business 

Archana Penukonda, ‘04, BDNA 

Mark Pero, ‘98, Logicalis 

David Perrott, ‘03, Salinas 

Valley Memorial Healthcare 

Systems 

Professor Morton and Mary 

Pincus, ThePaulMerage 


Lyman and Meredith Porter, 

The Paul Merage School 

of Business 

Greg Queen, ‘03, 

Brasstech, Inc. 

Steve Richards, ‘93, 

Pinnacle Consulting Services 

Jessica Riester, ‘01, 

FlexWork Connection 

Professor Judy B. Rosener, 



Roston Family 

Nira Kozak Roston 

Daniel Roston, ‘89 

Stacey Halpern 

Diane Sagey, ‘99, The Paul 


Arnold Savage, MD, ‘03, 

Western Healthcare Medical 

Group 

Eileen Seibert, MD, 

Kaiser Permanente 

Kane Shieh, ‘05, 

Countrywide Securities 

Craig Shugert, ‘93, 

GoodSource Solutions 

Vitas Sipelis, ‘05, 

Cardiogenesis Corporation 

Mitchell & Maureen Spann, 



Philip Topham, LNX Research 

Kyle van Hoften, ‘97, 

Global CTI 

Professor Kerry Vandell, 



Thomas Wagner, ‘89, 

Taco Bell/YUM Corporation 

Renee West, ‘90, 

Prudential California 

COLLABORATION 

Darren Whissen, 

‘02, Select Portfolio 

Management 

Chris Zumberge, ‘82, 

US Bank 

SHAREHOLDER MEMBERS 

Edward Abad, ‘07, 


Azhar Alavi, ‘07, IMS Health 

Yuliya Barbasheva, ‘06, Toshiba 

Eve Barker, ‘06, 

Barker Consulting 

Yvonne Bean, ‘08, 

Helms Briscoe 

Gretchen Bender, ‘08, 

Comerica Bank 

Scott Bennett, ‘06, 

Rosemount Analytical 

Adam Bondy, ‘08 

Iveta Brigis, ‘07, Google 

Tim Cannon, ‘07, Avanade 

Amanthi Chandraratna, ‘08, 

Verizon Wireless 

Erik Chantarapan, ‘08, 

Quantum 

Darwin Chen, ‘07, 

Kingston Technology 

Dennis Chen, ‘06, 

Kingston Technology 

Violet (Yan) Chen, ‘07, 

Falken Tire Corporation 

Doris Chu, ‘08, 


David Chung, ‘07, 

New York Life 

Richard Cimino, ‘08, Boeing 

Casey Cochran, ‘06 

Liana Constantinescu, ‘06, 

Silverado Senior Living 

Paulo Correa, ‘08, Thales 

Marc Crudgington, ‘08, 

Advantage Sales & Marketing 

Deborah Cooper, ‘07, 

Beckman Coulter, Inc. 

Canaan Crouch, ‘08, AIG 

Environmental 

Cuong Dang, ‘08, Boeing 

Frank de la Bretoniere, ‘07, 

Long Beach Memorial Medical 

Center 

49 


COLLABORATION 

50 


Jonathan Danao, ‘08, 

Web Visible 

Francois Delestre, ‘08, Thales 

Adam Diep, ‘07, 

Media One Direct 

Jivko Donev, ‘06, Hilti 

Jacqueline Dresow, ‘08, 

Experian 

Stephanie Dudley, ‘08, 

Manatt, Phelps and Philips 

Brent Eickhoff, ‘06, 

NeuroComp Systems, Inc. 

Chris Elgaaen, ‘06, IBM 

Bernardo Garcia, ‘07, 

Technical USA, Inc. 

Sepideh Gazeri, ‘06, 


Brian A. Gibbs, ‘06, 

Edwards Lifesciences LLC 

Jason Green, ‘08, 

Schools First FCU 

Rajesh Gupta, ‘09, 

American Suzuki 

Huzefa Hakim, ‘08, IBM 

Alex Hammerschmidt, ‘08, 

House Ear Institute 

Rob Henderson, ‘07, 

Advanced Pacific Tank 

Eric Henrickson, ‘07, 

WAMU Investments, Inc. 

Ken Hsu, ‘07, Kotek America 

Valentina Huang, ‘08, 

TeeTop of California 

Ryan Huff, ‘08, 

Junction Solutions 

Helena Hwang, ‘07, 

EM Syndication 

Ken Hwang, ‘07, 

Mobophiles, Inc. 

Suhail Imtiaz, ‘08, 

American Home Mortgage 

Servicing Inc. 

Antoine Janicot, ‘06, Vinci 

Linda Jenkins, ‘08 

Brad Johnson, ‘06, 


Ryan Kaneshiro, ‘07, Oakley 

Victor Kao, ‘07, 

Citi Mortgage 

Lena Kattar, ‘07, 

Garfield Health Center 

Medical Group, Inc. 

Lowell Kessel, ‘08, G.E.O. Inc. 

Rafay Khalid, ‘07, 

First Albany Capital 

Hideyuki (Tasman) Kikuchi, 

‘06, Tokyo Metropolitan 

Government 

Angela Kim, ‘08 

Zsolt Kiraly, ‘08, Boeing 

Stefan Kokolios, ‘07, 

GKN Aerospace 

Ian Koskela, ‘06, IBM 

Financial Services 

Dimitri Krikelas, ‘08, 

Canterbury Consulting 

Shankar Krishnan, ‘07, Boeing 

Monica Kristoffersen, ‘08, 

Boeing 

Selva Kulasingam, ‘07, 

ZTNet Solutions 

Eric Lang, ‘08 

Samara Larson, ‘08, UCIrvine 

Cord Laule, ‘08, 

Metal Process Engineering 

David H. Lee, ‘08, 

Posh Retail Group 

Eli Lee, ‘08, Entrospect 

Solutions Corporation 

Patrick Lee, ‘06, 


Mark Lenert, ‘07, 

Longust Distributing 

Haifeng Li, ‘08, Conexant 

Jeff Light, ‘08, OC Register 

George Lin, ‘06 

Peter Liu, ‘08, 

PacRim Engineering, Inc. 

Aileen Ma, ‘06, 

City of Riverside 

Michael Ma, ‘07, 


Christopher Mackenzie, ‘07, 


Todd Margrave, ‘08, 

Department of Defense 

Jon Masciana, ‘06, The Paul 


Paul Mendonca, ‘08, AECTek 

Greg Metzger, ‘07 

Chris Meyer, ‘08, OC Register 

David Mildren, ‘08, Toshiba 

Heather Miller, ‘06, 

Mattel, Inc. 

Hitomi Momose, ‘07, 

Mission Pathology Medical 

Association 

Andrew Monteabaro, ‘08, 

Mazda North American 

Operations 

Neill Mosqueda, ‘07, 

DaVita, Inc. 

Vasu Narasimhan, ‘07, 

Teledyne Analytical 

Instruments 

Ken Neeld, ‘07, 

Delphi Display Systems, Inc. 

Kurt Nelson, ‘07, 

GE Real Estate 

Susie Nishiya, ‘08, American 

Honda Motor Company 

Rowell Nueva, ‘07, OrthoNet 

Francis Obedoza, ‘07, James 

Hardie Building Products 

Brendon O’Neill, ‘07, 

Niagara Water 

Julia Patino, ‘08, 


Robert Pereira, ‘08, 

Trimar Properties 

John Presser, ‘07, Boehringer- 

Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals 

Michael Pressman, ‘08, 

Rockwell Collins 

Manette Quinn ‘06, 

MediQuin Credentialing 

Valente Ramos, ‘07, Omnicare 

Medical Group 

Alexander Jay Rapoport, ‘08, 

Pacific Life 

Joseph Raquel, ‘08, 

Foothill Transit 

Bill Rasmussen, ‘08, 

Urban Science 

Canaan Reich, ‘07, 

Niagara Water 

Steve Rhee, ‘07, 

N Computing, Inc. 

Paul Robidoux, ‘07, Boeing 

Lucy Rosales-Watson, ‘07, 

Disneyland Resort 

Gary Rosenfield, ‘06, 


Bill Ryan, ‘08, UCIrvine 

Bijan Sadri, MD, ‘08 

Laurie Sanderson, ‘07, 

Classics for Kids 

Koushik Sasmal, ‘08, 

Bentley Systems, Inc. 

Priyanka Saxena, ‘08, 


Joyce Seak, ‘07, Janssen-Cilag 

Shibu Sen, ‘08, 

Green Wave LLC 

Bill Shadrick, ‘06, 

Affinity Lending Group

Ali Shah, ‘06, 

KBS Realty Advisors 

Bharat Shah, MD, ‘08, 

Foothill Cardiology 

Timothy Sheehan, ‘06, 

Maxim Integrated Products 

June Shin, ‘06, Netlist Inc. 

Amarinder Sidhu, ‘08, 


Simon Singh, ‘08, 


Joseph Smith, ‘08, 


Trevor Speirs, ‘08, Experian 

Amy Stevens, ‘08, 

OC Register 

Gopal Subramani, ‘08, 

Invensys Corp 

Amy Tan, ‘06, 

Tannart Consulting 

Timothy Tang, ‘07, Microsoft 

Kathryn Taylor, ‘08, Athena 

Plumbing and Medical 

James Tea, ‘08, 

Southern California Edison 

Jane Terry, ‘09, Ajax Boiler 

Dinesh Thigale, ‘08, 

Semiconductors Junction, Inc. 

Kevin Thiha, ‘08, 

Huntington Brass 

Graham Threadgill, ‘08, 

ºBeckman Coulter, Inc. 

Margaret Townsend, ‘07, 

Animal & Insect Pest 

Management, Inc. 

Danny Tran, ‘08, Mitsubishi 

Electronics America 

Sandra Findly Named Director of the 

Dean’s Leadership Circle By Anne Warde 

SINCE ITS INCEPTION 

three years ago, the 

Dean’s Leadership 

Circle has exceeded all 

expectations, growing 

to more than 330 

members. That said, 

the DLC is the fastest 

growing support group 

on campus and is still 

seeking to expand. 

Merage School Dean 

Andy Policano is committed to the continued success of 

the group and has designated a full-time director to 

manage the program. 

To tackle the task, Sandra Findly, an eight-year veteran 

of the Merage School, was appointed as the new 

Director of the Dean’s Leadership Circle. Findly, who 

had been managing the group along with her role as 

Director of Alumni Relations and Annual Giving, will now 

be solely dedicated to the DLC program. 

“Everything is in alignment for this program to succeed,” 

Findly commented. “Andy has a vision for our 

school and this program that has gained significant 

Dao Tran, ‘08, 

Tannart Consulting 

Jon Tran, ‘08, TRC Financial 

Cheryl Travaglianti, ‘08, 

Culligan 

George Varghese, ‘08, 

Halliburton 

Gretchen Verdugo, ‘07, Impac 

Mortgage Holdings, Inc. 

Andre Vovan, MD, ‘07, 

Newport Critical Care 

Wakeem Wakeem, ‘08, IBM 

Amy Wakeham, ‘06, Leap 

Wireless International, Inc. 

Bradley Walker, ‘06, 

Hobbs Herder Advertising 

Rebecca Warner, ‘08, Amgen 

Fred Webb, ’08,Boeing 

COLLABORATION 

Terence Weiner, ‘07, 

USGI Medical 

Jeff Williamson, ‘07, Parson 

North America 

Tiffany Wilson, ‘07, 

Motorola Corporation 

Jennifer C. Wong, ‘08, Boeing 

Vivian Wong, ‘07, California 

State Automobile Assoc. 

Perry Yeh, ‘08, Alcoa 

Fastening Systems 

Genevieve Yulo, ‘08, UCIrvine 

Kaisu Zhuang, ‘08, 

SmartSoft Software, Inc. 

Coni Zingarelli, ‘08, 

Grill Concepts, Inc. 

Todd Zive, ‘07, 

ev3 Neurovascular 

momentum and is attracting some very outstanding 

business leaders and alumni. His commitment and 

focus on Merage alumni has helped set the stage for 

thisprogramtoreallytakeoff.” 

The Dean’s Leadership Circle is a premier support 

group aimed at graduates of The Paul Merage School of 

Business and other business professionals. Currently 

embarked upon a $1 million campaign to raise funds to 

create an Endowed Professorship, the DLC’s goal is to 

enhance the School’s ability to attract and retain the highest 

caliber of scholars in an effort to maintain the highest 

quality learning experience for all students and alumni. 

The DLC is composed of successful alumni, corporate 

business leaders, faculty, staff and friends of UC Irvine. 

Membership includes exclusive benefits such as knowledge-sharing, 

opportunities to exchange thoughts with 

the Dean and members of the faculty, introductions to 

high-level business executives, and complimentary and 

discounted invitations to exclusive events like the Annual 

Insider’s View held every year at a private member’s 

home. 

For more information and to inquire about membership, 

please contact Director Sandra Findly at 

949.824.8865 or visit merage.uci.edu/go/DLC. 

51 


COLLABORATION 

52 


Dean’s Leadership Circle Hosts 

Annual Merage Family Day 

A WHALE OF A 

GOOD TIME!

COLLABORATION 

The Festival of the Whales in Dana Point Harbor in March 2008 set the stage for another fun-filled networking event for 

members of the Dean’s Leadership Circle, their guests and Merage School alumni. The Ocean Institute led exclusive 

presentations and tours in the morning while families enjoyed carnival activities throughout the afternoon. 

Active supporters of the Dean’s Leadership Circle, like Kyle (‘07) & Kathe 

Van Hoften, Sam (‘00) & Stacy King, Tracy & Geoff Bremmer (’05), and 

Todd (‘07) & Mindy Zive, enjoyed bringing their little ones out for mini 

workshops and arts and crafts projects. Likewise, alums like Shannon 

(’99) & Kain Cross and their family, and Steve Acterman (‘99) and his 

son, Tristan, enjoyed the day’s festivities along with a whale watching 

trip! 

53 


ALUMNI NEWS 

54 


The Merage 

Annual Fund 

MORE THAN EVER, the value of a 

Merage School business degree 

from UC Irvine continues to climb 

with our world-class faculty, innovative 

new programs, and of 

“Today we’re educating 

nearly 1,000 highly- 

qualified MBA students 

at a time. 

” 

course, our ever-growing Merage 

Alumni Network. Today we’re educating 

nearly 1,000 highly-qualified 

MBA students at a time and our 

latest rankings once again place us 

among the best in the world. 

Six specialized Centers of 

Excellence plus executive education 

programs offer a unique blend of 

learning opportunities to students, 

alumni, and the business community. 

Employers recognize a Merage 

School MBA with confidence and 

trust. 

To help move our School from 

excellent to extraordinary, we 

depend on the generous support of 

our alumni. Each gift plays an integral 

part in our Merage Family’s 

success. Here’s a sample of what 

Merage School Annual funding can 

do: 

Provide the Dean with needed 

private support for areas not 

funded by state dollars 

Fund fellowships to help recruit 

the best and brightest students 

Provide enhancements and 

upgrades for our classrooms, 

transforming them into state-ofthe-art 

learning centers 

Enable the School to focus on 

local, regional and national 

alumni programing 

Fund marketing efforts such as 

the monthly alumni newsletter 

Thanks to the generosity of our 

alumni, we surpassed our 2007- 

2008 Merage Annual Fund goal, 

andwelookforwardtoeven 

greater participation this year. For 

more information about the Annual 

Fund, please contact Elizabeth 

Dahl at 949.824.3066.

Merage Alumni 

Network 

Event Calendar 

ORANGE COUNTY EVENTS: 

Central County Luncheon: 

1st Fridays 

Karl Strauss, Costa Mesa 

South County Luncheon: 

4th Fridays 

El Cholo, Irvine 

North County Luncheon: 

November 14, 2008 

El Torito Grill, Anaheim 

Once per quarter in Anaheim 

area – future dates to be 

announced 

QUARTERLY REGIONAL 

PROGRAMS: 

Winter 2008 and Spring 2009 

events are being planned for the 

Los Angeles, San Diego and San 

Francisco areas. Check the website 

at alumni.merage.uci.edu/ 

ChaptersAndEvents/EventSched 

uler.aspx for updates. 

CHAPTER EVENTS: 

Real Estate Alumni Chapter: 

Kick-Off Event 

October 22, 2008 

6pm 

UC Irvine Campus 

REUNION: 

Classes of 1974, 1979, 1984, 

1989, 1994, 1999, 2004, 2009 

Summer 2009 

If you are a member of one of 

the classes referenced above and 

are interested in representing 

your class by participating on 

the reunion planning committee, 

please contact the Alumni 

Relations Office at 949.824.7167 

or MerageAlum@merage.uci.edu. 

Class Notes 

’69 

BOB BUNYAN, ’69, would like to 

announce the formation of the 

Arlington Group LLC- Bob Bunyan, Bill 

Woollett and Bill Vardoulis. Since graduation, 

Bunyan served as sales and 

marketing executive with Mission Viejo 

Company and its successor, J.F. Shea 

Company, and contributed to the completion 

of development of the planned 

community of Mission Viejo, as well as 

the planning, development and land 

sales in Aliso Viejo. In ‘02, Bunyan 

established Robert Bunyan & Associates, 

providing development, entitlement and 

regulatory agency processing services. 

’77 

SANDRA (ROSENTHAL) SWANSON, 

’77, retired from University of Hawaii 

as Asst. Professor of Computer Science 

andislivingonMauiwithhusband 

Robert (UCR ‘67). 

’81 

CHRIS LAWSON, ’81, recently released 

his new book, “Snappy Interviews: 100 

Questions to Ask Oracle DBAs.” Chris is 

currently a performance consultant at 

Wells Fargo Bank, San Francisco. 

’82 

PETER P. CULLEN, ’82, would like to 

announce that Core Performance has 

been selected as an Intuit Solution 

Provider for the southern California 

region. Core Performance offers a full 

range of value-added consulting services 

for QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions ® 

(www.quickbooksenterprise.com) developed 

by Intuit Inc., a leading provider of 

business and financial management solutions 

for small and mid-sized businesses, 

consumers and accounting professionals. 

’84 

RICHARD CORDOVA, ’84, has recently 

been acquired by Starbucks as Director 

on Internal Audit after spending the last 

24 years with PricewaterhouseCoopers. 

ALUMNI NEWS 

’87 

DWIGHT HENNINGER, ’87, is the 

President of the Colorado Association 

of Chiefs of Police and is on the 

International Association of Chiefs of 

Police Executive Committee. 

DIANA LEACH, ’87, started an independent 

management services and 

consulting practice in January ‘07, with 

a primary focus on the water, wastewater 

and utility management 

industries. She has enjoyed a long-term 

successful public and private sector 

career, and has spent this first year 

consulting on projects in Orange, 

Ventura and Los Angeles counties. In 

addition, she provided pro bono consulting 

services to a nonprofit entity 

and a private school. 

’88 

SCOTT A. ROBINSON, ’88, Captain, 

United States Navy, Scott has been 

Captain of the USS ANZIO (CG 68) 

since July 2007. ANZIO is one of 22 

Ticonderoga Class cruisers and is 

homeported in Norfolk, Virginia. The 

ship has a Wardroom of 35 officers and 

acrewof312Sailors. ’93 

MIKE HOLT, ’93, is teaching an MBA 

Class at INSEAD on Private Equity and 

Venture Capital and is based in 

Singapore, through the CEO Advisory 

firm that he started (www.get2-volume.com). 

The focus is on helping 

companies do business in and out of 

Asia with particular focus on building 

business via fund raising, growth strategy 

acceleration and angel investing. 

MARK UTENDORF, ’93, has said 

farewell to corporate America and purchased 

a lawn care company in 

suburban Chicago. He and his wife, 

Janice, have a 5 year old son and 2 year 

old daughter. A hearty hello to the EMBA 

class of '93. Long live the Nomads!! 

’94 

MASAHIRO KUDO, ’94, is the Sr. 

Finance Manager at Novell Japan Ltd. 

He dropped in at the Merage School 

and met with Professor Joanna Ho on a 

recent visit to California. 

55 


ALUMNI NEWS 

56 


DON ARCHER, ’94, started a PQM, 

Inc., a Quality Management Consulting 

firm that focuses on reducing project 

and construction cost overruns for 

infrastructure projects. They provide 

consulting services, professional services 

and training. PQM is based in 

Huntington Beach, CA. 

’96 

WAYNE FOSS, ’96, completed his doctorate 

and was awarded the Doctor of 

Business Administration (DBA) degree. 

HeisreturningtoTaiwantoteachat 

the International Center for Land Policy 

Study and Training in Taoyuan. Dr. Foss 

has been invited to lecture for the past 

seven years at the center. His teaching 

has also taken him to China and South 

Korea, and he continues to run his real 

estate consulting business, the Foss 

Consulting Group, and teach at 

California State University, Fullerton. 

SU KIM, ’96, recently moved from LA to 

London to work at PricewaterhouseCoopers 

Consulting UK as a Senior Manager in 

their Performance Improvement 

Consulting Practice. She will be working 

with Fortune 500 and FTSE 100 companies 

improving their business 

operations within the UK and Europe. 

’97 

EDWARD H. HERNANDEZ, ’97, 

coached a team of undergraduate 

Human Resource students from California 

State University, Stanislaus to a 

victory at the 2008 California Human 

Resource Management Games academic 

tournament. This tournament took 

place on March 1, 2008 and was held 

at San Jose State University. 

KYLE VAN HOFTEN, ’97, was recently 

appointed to the United Way Orange 

County's Marketing Committee and has 

received the Irvine Chamber of 

Commerce's Member of the Month 

award for March ‘08. 

KARYN WOMACH, ’97, has accepted 

the position of Training Manager of 

Financial Systems for Qualcomm Inc. 

’98 

KURT DE PFYFFER, ’98, After HP 

acquired two companies Kurt worked 

for (Peregrin Systems in 2006 and 

Bitfone Corp. in 2007) He decided to 

stay on with HP and help them acquire 

more software companies. “It’s been a 

funridesofarandutilizesalotof skills 

I learned at business school.” 

SHANA (LEVY) MARTIN, ’98, teaches 

at Orange Coast College, Adjunct 

Faculty, in the Business and Computing 

Department. 

SEN-JAN SAM TSAI, ’98, works for 

Deloitte Consulting in Shanghai. 

’99 

VERONICA CHESTNOY TAYLOR, ’99, 

just celebrated her 5th year anniversary 

since founding OLAPIS, Inc. which specializes 

in Cognos Enterprise Planning 

& Business Intelligence consulting services. 

’00 

PHILIP ALLEGA, ’00, is the VP at 

Gartner Research. He is a current candidate 

for the Freedom of the City of 

London as Freeman with The Worshipful 

Company of Information Technologists, 

amodernliverycompany.Heisalsothe 

co-chair for Gartner's European 

Conference on Enterprise Architecture 

this September in London. 

TONY ARMAND, ’00, has been asked to 

lead as CEO, a medical device startup 

company. “It is an exciting opportunity 

to practice what we learned in the MBA 

program while helping those challenged 

with Peripheral Vascular Disease.” 

’01 

ANGIE A. SWARTZ (ADDIS), ’01, 

president and executive business/life 

coach has created a support network 

for professional, like-minded mothers 

called Six Figure Moms Club. Recently 

celebrating its 2nd anniversary, Six 

Figure Moms Club provides a supportive 

environment that encourages women 

to live a life of leadership in all facets 

of their lives. Based in San Diego but 

recently expanding to Orange County, 

the Club offers workshops and mentoring 

to encourage women to evolve their 

lives to a higher level in all aspects of 

self, career, relationships, family, and 

spirituality. 

ART ELEFANTE, ’01, moved to 

Okinawa, Japan in April, ’08. This project 

took him to the island of Okinawa to help 

the III US Marine Expeditionary Force to 

implement a new readiness reporting 

system for the Department of Defense. 

JOHN GIBSON, ’01, President/Owner, 

Premier Financing and Principal, 

Gibson Law Group, John started two 

new companies in the past six months. 

The first is a residential and commercial 

mortgage brokerage company 

(Premier Financing – www.premierfinancing.biz). 

The second is a law firm 

focusing on business law; contract 

negotiation, review, and dispute; estate 

planning; and immigration law (Gibson 

Law Group – www.gibsonlawgroup.biz). 

ERICA LEGG, ’01, is the Purchasing 

Financial Planner at Nissan North 

America, Inc. 

ANGELO LOMBARDO, ’01, was promoted 

to Vice President of Business 

Development for the Coca-Cola 

Company in early January. Focus will be 

leading the acquisition of new accounts 

as well as identifying new business 

opportunities. 

CATHERINE C. TURKEL, ’01, is the Sr. 

Director, Clinical Development, 

Neurology and Pain and Team Leader 

BOTOX Headache of Allergan, Inc. 

Catherine has just recently completed 

her PhD in Business and Organizational 

Management. She also writes, 

“Alternative advanced education served 

me well as I complete this degree via 

on-line coursework through Capella 

University.” She was thrilled that Dr. 

Marta Elvira, previously associate professor 

with UCI agreed to serve on her 

dissertation committee. 

JOHN WALDECK, ’01, joined Pacific 

Life in ‘97 as a Network Support Analyst 

in the Real Estate division. He was promoted 

to Director in ‘05, and in ‘06, was 

promoted to Assistant Vice President, 

Real Estate Underwriting. As head of 

Underwriting & Construction Services, 

he provides direction and support to the 

underwriting, analysis, and structuring 

processes for real estate debt investments. 

He has oversight for the training 

and development program for investment 

analysts and coordinators, and is 

responsible for the Real Estate 

Division’s documentation, implementation 

and maintenance of commercial 

mortgage underwriting guidelines.

EDWARD YANG, ’01, haslefthisposition 

as Senior Manager Strategic 

Alliances at D-Link to start his own 

company. Firecracker will offer public 

relations, traditional marketing and 

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) services 

specifically for high tech companies. 

Edward brings his 13 years of marketing 

experience at Gateway and D-Link 

to his new company. He can be contacted 

at edward@firecrackerpr.com or visit 

www.firecrackerpr.com. 

’02 

JOEL ELAD, ’02, Owner of Real 

Method Consulting, has published his 

newest book in March 2008. It’s called 

Web Stores Do-It-Yourself for Dummies, 

and it can help anyone build their own 

e-commerce operation. His next book is 

Linked In for Dummies, which should 

be out this fall. 

PAUL JACKSON, ’02, has launched a 

media and publishing company and 

wasabletosecureventurecapitalbacking. 

HW Publishing publishes Housing 

Wire, one of the most-read online financial 

news destinations in the mortgage 

banking industry. Housing Wire currently 

serves more than 4 million page 

views monthly, and reached more than 

2.5 million unique visitors during 2007. 

JOHN SPARKS, ’02, recently transitioned 

from global Business Intelligence 

manager to Lean Six Sigma Leader for 

corporate shared services. In this new 

role he is responsible for business 

process reengineering for the global 

finance, IT, HR, legal, business development, 

investor relations, and strategy 

organizations, as well as oversight for 

the Quote-to-Cash and Procure-to-Pay 

processes across all functions. 

XAVIER MINAKAWA, ’02, and wife 

Julie and had their first child, Alexander 

Mark Minakawa, on Jan. 28, 2008. He 

will also be taking a new job as Merger 

& Acquisitions Program Manager for 

VMware in April. 

’03 

TIFFINY VANDOM KAREM, ’03, has 

been promoted to Director, Global 

Marketing, of Discus Dental, LLC. 

JOHN R. KAREM, JR., ’03, has been 

promoted to Director, Global Business 

Development, of Phillips Distilling 

Company. 

SHINJI HIGUCHI, ’03, after graduating, 

returned to Japan in 2004. He has 

stayed with the same parent company 

Mitsui & Co., Ltd. Utilizing what he 

learned at UCI, Shinji founded a new 

company with a U.S. listed company 

Clear Channel Outdoor with capital from 

MitsuiandCCO.Thenewventurecompany 

is called Clear Channel Japan, Inc. 

and he became Chief Operating Officer. 

CCJ is an out-of-home (OOH) media 

company and engaged in developing 

outdoor media throughout Japan. CCO 

is listed in NYSE and the world's largest 

OOH company. 

’04 

RUSS BARLOW, ’04, currently works 

for the Executive branch of the Federal 

Government at the National Credit 

Union Administration as a Principal 

Examiner.HebeganwiththeNCUA 

(which is the insurer for the majority; 

and the regulator for many credit 

unions) in August 2005 after working 

for a sub-prime auto finance company, 

and was promoted several times to 

Principal Examiner. He plans to continue 

to serve the public interest by 

working for NCUA. He and his wife, 

Rebecca, and their six children enjoy 

North Carolina. 

KELLY HAGGARD, ’04, has been promoted 

to Product Development 

Marketing Manager for the Orange 

County Register. Kelly is managing all 

B-to-B advertising initiatives and product 

development for the companies 

email marketing strategies. She is also 

President of Team Freedom board of 

directors that manages all the non-profit 

and volunteer work of The Orange 

County Register. 

CHRIS YOUNT, ’04, was recently promoted 

to the position of Executive Vice 

President/COO of Fortifiber 

Corporation. This change brings the 

sales, marketing and manufacturing 

functions under his control. Chris lives 

in Reno, NV with his wife Mary and 2 

year old daughter Amanda. They are 

expecting the birth of their son in May. 

JOE LONGTIN, ’04, writes, “After trying 

out a start-up in Pasadena – X1 

Technologies – and a legacy ERP company 

in Santa Barbara, QAD – I have 

ALUMNI NEWS 

very happily landed a Product MarketingroleatDATAllegro,anAlisoViejobased 

data warehouse appliance vendor. 

It is one of the best places to work 

in OC and poised for explosive growth.” 

’05 

DAVID CHEN, ’05, Promoted from 

Consultant to Senior Consultant. 

Currently working on Finance transformation 

project for Las Vegas Sands 

(holding company of Venetian and 

Palazzo). 

AVI GUR, ’05, is working in Sales and 

Account Management in Carlsbad, CA 

at Atlium, an EDA Software company 

that specializes in FPGA design integration, 

headquarted in Sydney Australia. 

SARAH HINE, ’05, spent the past year 

as an American India Foundation Fellow, 

working closely with Muse, an Indian 

Non-Governmental Organization. In this 

capacity, she marketed their ecotourism 

services and expanded their conservationeffortswhileenjoyinglifeinboth 

Delhi and the Indian Himalayas. 

BRIAN KREITZER, ’05, received promotion 

to ERP/IT Financial Manager at 

Southern California Edison. 

ANU MATHUR, ’05, received a promotion 

within TV Marketing. 

’06 

ASHER ADELMAN, ’06, recently joined 

The Challenge Fund as an Associate. 

Based in Tel Aviv, The Challenge Fund is 

a leading venture capital and private 

equity firm managing over $200 million. 

The Fund invests in privately-held 

Israeli technology companies, and over 

30 of its portfolio companies have 

achieved an exit transaction. The Fund's 

exits include 10 NASDAQ IPO's and 

more than 20 acquisitions by companies 

such as Intel, AT&T, Oracle, and 

Nokia Siemens. 

PETER CLAYTON, ’06, Edwards 

Lifesciences Marketing Manager, and is 

relocating to the European HQ in 

Switzerland with his wife and three children, 

Alex (6), Ruby (4) and Henry (1). 

BENJAMIN MEDVITZ, ’06, has moved 

to a new job and is now at InTheAirNet 

LLC as Vice President of Engineering. 

57 


ALUMNI NEWS 

58 


MIKE SCOTT, ’06, is currently living in 

San Jose, CA, working in the Medical 

Device industry. 

JANET TAIT, ’06, wanted to say thank 

you to the FEMBA 06 Section A for all 

their help and support after she lost 

her house in the San Diego wildfires in 

October. She especially wants to thank 

Felice Szeto-Wong for her efforts on her 

family’s behalf. Her classmates’ support 

is greatly appreciated. 

DEBBIE MOYSYCHYN, ‘06, was promoted 

to Executive Director, EMBA/ 

HCEMBA programs. She also states, 

“additionally we relocated from Irvine 

to Tustin (behind the District) – not a 

big deal but becomes a big deal as we 

watched the housing market tumble and 

took advantage of low rates, dropped 

pricing and non contingent sale.” 

’07 

TREVOR COLLINS, ’07, has left 

LandAmerica and began work as a business 

strategy consultant for cpSphere 

in February 2008. 

BERNARDO GARCIA, ’07, was 

assigned as Construction Mgr. for a Co- 

Generation plant project in Jurong 

Island (Singapore) in November 2007. 

The Generation of steam and electricity 

is based on bio-diesel produced from 

coconut oil. The Singaporean government 

is also launching a 3-year pilot 

program sponsored by automotive and 

petrochemical companies to supply and 

test bio-diesel in normal vehicles. 

LESLIE HAYS, ’07, is the Director at 

Apria Healthcare which provides home 

respiratory therapy, infusion therapy and 

medical equipment through approximately 

500 locations in the United 

States. Most recently, Apria Healthcare 

completed the acquisition of Coram and 

Leslie was offered the position of 

Director of Supply Chain Engineering 

where she will be responsible for defining 

supply chain strategies, rolling out 

operational optimization projects, defining 

distribution work and process 

standardization, as well as a supporting 

the company-wide SAP implementation. 

COSMIN IBANESCU, ’07, moved to the 

east coast at the beginning of the year 

to start his new position in marketing 

research. His is working as a consultant 

for Kraft Foods in East Hanover, NJ. 

SHAHIN JAHROMI, ’07, is the 

Program Mgr/Business Analyst at 

Gemstar/TVGuide. He started his current 

job during his last quarter as a 

senior software developer. Nine months 

later, he has fully transferred the new 

team and will hopefully never write 

code again. He is defining roadmaps 

and building new products now. His level 

of satisfaction is not even comparable 

with to life before the Merage School. 

RAFAY KHALID, ’07, accepted an offer 

as a lead analyst in the Equity Research 

department at Standard & Poor's (S&P) 

in New York City. This new position builds 

upon his prior experience as an associate 

in equity research. Prior to joining 

S&P, he was an associate in the Equity 

Research department at First Albany 

Capital (now called Broadpoint Capital). 

CHAD THACKER, ’07, is now the Key 

Account Manager at Rexam Pharma – 

specializing in the diagnostic and medical 

device market space. Clientele 

includes all "Big Pharma" and large 

diagnostic firms. Chad and his wife, 

Lori, welcomed their 3rd daughter, Eliza 

on April 4. 

CAROLYN TSAO, ’07, moved to the bay 

area as Director of HR for Genemed 

Biotechnologies, Inc. 

DALE BOYLES, ’07, recently sold 

Monarch Senior Living to Senior Care 

Management, LLC in Irvine, CA and has 

assumed the role of President. Senior 

Care Management has 18 assisted living 

communities throughout the West. 

Dale has relocated to San Diego, CA. 

Marriages/ 

Family News 

’96 

KRISTIN CLARKE BATOY, ’96, and 

Arsenio Batoy welcomed their third child, 

Camille Grace, on October 26, 2007. 

TOMMY NGUYEN, ’96, was married in 

2006 and moved to London in 2007. 

LAURA RHYNE WILLIAMS, ’96, and 

her husband, Dorian, welcomed their 

baby girl, Kayla Elise, on October 17, 

2007. She weighed in at 9 lbs, 2 oz. 

’98 

LIZ BROWNING, ’98, and Joe Niccum 

had a baby boy, Nathan Browning 

Niccum, on October 21, 2007. 

KURT DE PFYFFER, ’98, After HP 

acquired two companies Kurt worked 

for (Peregrin Systems in 2006 and 

Bitfone Corp. in 2007), he decided to 

stay on with HP and help them acquire 

more software companies. “It’s been a 

fun ride so far and utilizes a lot of skills 

I learned at business school.” His wife 

Sarah and he have also welcomed their 

third boy, Daniel, to the family on Feb 6 

so they now have a 4, 2 and newborn to 

keep up with. 

’01 

ERICA LEGG, ’01, is the Purchasing 

Financial Planner at Nissan North 

America, Inc., Erica and husband, Tom, 

welcomed the arrival of their second 

child and first son, Evan Thomas, on 

February 21st. 

CARMEN BAMERT MASON, ’01, and 

her husband recently welcomed the 

newest addition to their family, Timothy, 

born in September ’07– and enjoying 

every second of motherhood! 

’02 

AUDRENA CHEUNG, ’02, Jeff and 

Audrena Liu FEMBA ’02 welcomed their 

second child, Ayn, on Feb. 2, 2008. 

Mother and daughter are both doing well. 

CHRIS CLAISSE, ’02, & Karin welcomed 

their Leap Year daughter Zoe 

Marie Claisse into the world on 

February 29, ‘08. 

ANDREW KIM, ’02, got married in 

October ‘07. 

XAVIER MINAKAWA, ’02, and wife 

Julie had their first child, Alexander 

Mark Minakawa, on Jan 28, 2008. He 

will also be taking a new job as Merger 

& Acquisitions Program Manager for 

VMware in April. 

LUKE FITZSIMONS, ’02, first child, 

son Owen Henry FitzSimons, was born 

10-22-07. 

DAVID SULLIVAN, ’02, had his first 

child born, Ginger Eva Sullivan, 17

October 2007, in Paris France. Mother 

Thea is well. Ginger is healthy and 

happy. Tout va bien. 

’04 

LISA MUNRO, ’04, Jeremy Collins proposed 

in December on a trip back to 

Orange County. The wedding will take 

place in August to capitalize on the 

sunshine and we will have many fellow 

FEMBAs in attendance! 

TODD SIGLER, ’04, and Heidi Sigler 

welcomed their first child, Chloe 

Suzanne on November 20, 2007. 9lbs, 

7 ozs. Todd writes, “Everyone is doing 

great, if a little sleep deprived.” 

’05 

GREG FERRELL, ’05, and Tanya are 

thrilled to announce the birth of their 

first child, Jack Travis Ferrell, born at 

Hoag Hospital on February 18, 2008. 

JTwas6lbs,4oz,and20incheslong 

at birth. He and his mother are both 

doing great. Dad is elated, and still 

workingtogetatransfertoSeattle,WA, 

where both sets of grandparents and 

aunts are currently living. 

AVI GUR, ’05, and Kate Reeves got 

married in Bali in April, 2008. A wedding 

reception is planned at Doheny 

Beach in June. The couple plan to continue 

living in south Orange County. 

’06 

GREGG BOEHM, ’06, and Sequoia 

Boehm are excited to announce the 

arrival of their first child, a baby girl, 

Taylor Marie Boehm, born on January 

12, 2008. 

ABDUL RASTAGAR, ’06, & Bjorg are 

celebrating the birth of their second 

child, Aaron, in May. “3 out of 4 

Rastagars are born in May.” 

THE MERAGE ANNUAL FUND 

ALUMNI NEWS 

’07 

CHAD THACKER, ’07, has new job as 

Key Account Manager at Rexam Pharma 

– specializing in the diagnostic and 

medical device market space. Clientele 

includes all "Big Pharma" and large 

diagnostic firms. Chad also celebrates 

a new arrival: his wife, Lori gave birth to 

their 3rd daughter, Eliza on April 4. 

MELISSA VARCAK, ’07, Dole Food 

Company, Associate Business Manager, 

was engaged to Mario Carboni on 

March 6th, 2008. 

LUCY ROSALES WATSON, ’07, and 

Russell Watson are proud to announce 

the birth of a baby boy, Grant Russell 

Watson. He was born on March 9, 2008 

at Hoag Hospital, Newport Beach, CA, 

and weighed 6 lbs, 8 oz. This is their 

first child. 

A New Tradition of Giving 

In the simplest terms, your contributions to the Merage Annual Fund help to increase the 

value of your degree and ensure a bright future for incoming students. 

Your unrestricted gift will help the School to provide distinct scholarship programs, faculty 

research, and develop new initiatives and educational opportunities. 

Join your fellow alumni TODAY and ensure the growth in reputation of The Paul Merage 

School of Business at the University of California, Irvine. 

www.egiving.uci.edu 

You can make your contribution through our website or by contacting Elizabeth Dahl at edahl@uci.edu 

or 949.824.3066. A return envelope is also included in this magazine for your convenience.

60 


New Living Building Brings Stories of Success 

Strategic innovation is at the core of everything we do at The Paul Merage School of 

Business. When it comes to our campus, this same principle holds true. As the Merage 

School continues to expand and as we broaden our reach and influence, our campus 

must reflect and accommodate this growth. 

To enhance the delivery of our high quality programs, compete with the world’s best institutions, 

and continue to attract and retain the highest quality faculty and students, Dean Andy 

Policano set his sites on the development of a new building — the first since 1989. 

“Due to our innovative curriculum, executive programs, and research conducted and presented 

by the School and its highly regarded faculty, we are expanding at an accelerated rate. We have 

outgrown our existing facility and significant added space is vital,” he said. 

This new living building reflects the Merage School’s emphasis on innovation and outreach to 

the business community. Museum-like displays and video screens will tell the success stories of 

our benefactors and contributors. The building will house a 300-seat auditorium, high tech 

classrooms, a laptop computer lab, career resource library, conference and group study facilities, 

colloquia and interview rooms, food service, and a multi-use reception area. 

With AC Martin as the program architect, the 85,000 square-foot structure’s development is 

lead by Assistant Dean John Clarke and is now transitioning into the design/build phase. 

Funded with both state money and a projected $20 million in new gifts, the $55 million building 

is expected to be complete by 2012. 

For more information regarding the building campaign and naming opportunities, please 

contact Donna Mumford at dmumford@uci.edu or 949.824.6418.

Looking for top MBA talent? 

Let the Merage MBA Career Center be your first source in Orange County for qualified MBA 

Business Professionals. Tapping into the professional talent network of our four MBA programs 

and alumni has never been easier. 

■ POST full-time and internship opportunities 

■ REVIEW resumes for your open positions 

■ REQUEST a resume referral tailored to your specific needs 

■ CONTACT us today at: 

UC Irvine Paul Merage School of Business 

MBA Career Center 

MPAA 201 

Irvine, CA 92697-3130 

949.824.8464 

recruiting@merage.uci.edu 

recruit.merage.uci.edu

Attendees Learn To: 

> Anticipate changes in the global 

market and stay ahead of your 

competition 

> Sustain business growth in an 

economic downturn 

> Access capital through government 

programs to expand your 

business 

> Understand the influence of 

Orange County in the global 

economy 

Complimentary private consultations 

available with representatives from the 

Export Import Bank of the United States 

and PRTM Global Consultants. 

MPAA Suite 210 

Irvine, California 92697-3130 

merage.uci.edu 

Global Business Strategies Conference 

Navigating Today’s Economic Challenges 

Monday, November 17, 2008 Irvine Marriott Hotel | 18000 Von Karman Avenue, Irvine | 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. 

Gold Sponsors 

Conference Highlights: 

> The Seismic Shift in Global Consumerism 

> Global Footprints Panel 

Operational challenges, supply chain, risk management and security 

> Global Public/Private Partnerships Panel 

Accessing capital and resources through government programs and agencies 

> Orange County’s Global Influence 

Leading CEOs discuss Orange County’s key industry clusters making a global impact: surf & skate, 

medical device, real estate, and arts & entertainment 

Luncheon Keynote Speaker: 

Paul McCulley 

Managing Director of PIMCO, 

the world’s largest bond manager, 

discusses 

“The Paradox of De-leveraging” 

Presented By: 

A Diagnosis of the Current Crisis and a Prescription for Recovery. 

Silver Sponsors 

Bronze Sponsors: Advanced Medical Optics Experian

Global Innovation - The Paul Merage School of Business - University ...

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