HEMBA Team Working to Bring Baseball Back to Huntsville

• January 25th, 2017
• in UA EMBA Latest News/Events

During last fall’s Project Management course, one of The University of Alabama Executive MBA teams struck on the idea to “Bring Baseball Back to Huntsville.” The “5 Guys” team, aka Colton Campbell, Daryl Evans, Eric Janssen, John Meshensky and Carl Vasilko, reached out to the Huntsville Mayor’s office for some insight and to gather additional information for their course project.

“We wanted to understand if the city was targeting any particular sites for a new ballpark as well as gauge their current level of interest,” said Daryl Evans, Vice President of Operations for TotalPrint and HEMBA 2018 Class President.

With the success of the Birmingham Barons and Regions Field, the team was excited about the possibility of having another franchise team back in Huntsville. The Mayor’s office was helpful and “they asked us to share with them what other information we were able to gather when we finished our project,” said Evans.

On December 21, the team met with Mayor Tommy Battle, District 2 Councilman Mark Russell and City Administrator John Hamilton.  During the meeting the HEMBA team walked them through their presentation and shared their assessment of the necessary details.  It was a great meeting.  “Currently there is not a real plan on the table to bring baseball back,” said Evans, “but I think we did our best to express the value we believe that a downtown entertainment/baseball complex could bring to the city of Huntsville.”

The MIS 511 Project Management course, taught by Jim Brown, requires each team in the class to present a work-related or community-based improvement project. They begin by presenting their project, the needs and the possible outcomes to the class. They work on their goals during the entire semester, finishing with a final presentation. Finally they request funding approval from the selection committee, who are their fellow classmates. In addition to bringing baseball back to Huntsville, other projects have included post-tornado rebuilding, community development, work process improvements, and new marketing initiatives.

For more information on The University of Alabama Executive MBA Program click on emba.ua.edu or contact Cheryl Altemara at (205) 348-4501 or caltemara@cba.ua.edu.

EMBA Elite Spotlight: Wyman Hamilton & Scott Goldberg

• May 16th, 2014
• in EMBA Elite Spotlight Series

This month, our EMBA Elite Spotlight is Scott Goldberg and Wyman Hamilton, both members of the Culverhouse College of Commerce Tuscaloosa Executive MBA class of 2013. After meeting in the program, the pair combined Wyman’s expertise in senior living with Scott’s in entrepreneurship to found Atlas Senior Living.

With over ten years of experience in the field, Wyman has been passionate about serving senior citizens since high school. He received his BS in Health Administration from Auburn University. During his tenure with Brookdale Senior Living, he was responsible for the management and operation of 35 communities in Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi. His experiences led him to write a book about leadership style and inspiration, which reveals the importance of cooperation, enthusiasm, and originality to Wyman. This enthusiasm and originality prospered after Wyman’s experience in the Manderson Executive MBA Program.

“The program gave me the tools and confidence to branch out from corporate America and become an entrepreneur,” said Wyman.

Scott received his BS from Mississippi State University. After graduating, he became Senior Director of Texas Sandwich Investors, LLC, which owned the rights to develop 100 Lenny’s Sub Shops in North Texas. Scott also served as the company’s CEO & Managing Partner for four years. Before Atlas Senior Living, Scott left Texas Sandwich Investors to found GoldOne Group. Given his entrepreneurial background, Scott has the expertise to help make Atlas a success. According to Scott, “We will always implement key business strategies from past experiences, but what excites me the most (is that) this business, compared to others, significantly allows me a role in positively impacting lives.”

Atlas Senior Living aims to provide outstanding service to its residents by utilizing Wyman and Scott’s unique problem solving and management strategies. A quote from the Atlas Senior Living blog perfectly describes their notion of collaborative management: “The best solution to most problems comes from those closest to them.” As the blog explains, their style of leadership requires attention and respect for their residents, employees, and clients. Instead of delegating or demanding, the Atlas managerial staff utilizes the familiarity of those with the most exposure to problem to help get to the source of their issues. This gives residents and employees influence while creating an inclusive environment and ridding the community of conflict.

Atlas Senior Living will be opening their first community, Madison Heights, this September in Evans, Georgia. Madison Heights will be the first all memory care community in the area, tailored to the needs of residents with memory diseases such as Alzheimer’s or dementia. Atlas is also planning to begin construction on another new community this fall in Lexington, Kentucky. In addition to residential housing management, Atlas Senior Living also provides consulting services and mock surveys, which will help spread their resident-centered, collaborative management model to the rest of the industry.

To find out more about Atlas Senior Living, check out their blog and website.
For more information about the Executive MBA Program at The University of Alabama, contact Cheryl Altemara at caltemara@cba.ua.edu or 205.348.4501.

Strategic Thinker + Technology Geek = Hottest Hiring Commodity

• January 21st, 2014
• in UA EMBA Latest News/Events

MBAs in the 90’s were groomed to be strategic thinkers. The following decade netted technology geeks. Today, the two have merged to integrate into the hottest hiring commodity. Extracting information from vast amounts of corporate data is crucial for companies to enhance the ability of an organization to make better decisions.

How is the Manderson Graduate School of Business at The University of Alabama addressing the analytical career explosion?

According to Denise McManus, associate professor of management information systems, “To stand apart, our MBA students have stepped up to meet the rising needs of the corporate world of big data.” Technology advances allow individuals to analyze larger and more diverse data sets very quickly to answer information intensive questions. “It is important that managers understand the ‘why’ behind the request,” said McManus.

“Employers ranging from insurance companies, financial institutions, big box retailers, consulting firms, basically any and all businesses that benefit from data driven answers are looking to recruit analytical talent,” said Connie Chambers, director of corporate and alumni relations.

The Manderson Executive MBA Program at The University of Alabama emphasizes critical problem solving skills, concise communication delivery and strong intellectual curiosity – skill sets that are crucial in the area of data mining and data analytics. EMBA students begin their first semester with a statistics data analysis project that produces return on investment back to employers and skill sets that our alumni tell us they use every day.

For more information on the EMBA Program at The University of Alabama, contact the EMBA office at 205.348.4501.