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.
Team 5 Guys (L-R): Campbell, Evans, Janssen and Visilko
“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.
As always, the sunny season has been filled with memories, smiles, and interstate miles. Our inner wanderers led us to several destinations throughout the South on our summer recruitment tour. We put together this “travel-blog” in honor of our journey.
Huntsville
We launched our adventure in Rocket City with a presentation by DRS Test & Energy Management President Tim Smith, HEMBA 2000, and a tour of the DRS-TEM facility.
Atlanta
Next, we met potential students and caught up with alumni at a recruitment luncheon overlooking gorgeous views of the Atlanta skyline at the City Club of Buckhead.
Chattanooga
We stopped at The Chattanoogan Hotel for a luncheon with alumni, potential students, and corporate partners. Before leaving, we also paused to enjoy the scenery by the Tennessee River.
Nashville
After leaving Chattanooga, we made our way to Music City where we enjoyed the company of alumni and potential students during a luncheon at Puckett’s Grocery & Restaurant. This time, we had a celebrity guest – Elvis!
Mobile
Our last stop was the Port City for a presentation by Southern Medical Health System’s VP of Finance Beckie Crawford, TEMBA 2013, and a tour of Springhill Memorial Hospital’s da Vinci Robotic Surgical System. We also ran into Erica Kemmer, TEMBA 2012, at Pie Lab in Greensboro on the way back to Tuscaloosa. You never know where you’ll see a UA EMBA!
Huntsville, Alabama, the newest location of the UA Culverhouse College of Commerce EMBA Program, is packed with unique history, culture, and industry. The oldest English-speaking settlement in the state, Huntsville is constantly featured on lists such as NerdWallet’s “Top 10 Cities on the Rise,” Forbes Magazine’s “Top 20 Leading Metros for Business,” or the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s “America’s Dozen Distinctive Destinations.” Expansive greenery, a diverse population, and modern technology make Huntsville the perfect location for EMBAs to study as well as relax and unwind.
Huntsville’s location near the geographic center of the Southeast makes the Rocket City an easy destination. Sitting within half an hour from the Alabama-Tennessee state line, the drive to Huntsville is less than two hours from Chattanooga and Nashville and around four hours from Knoxville, Memphis, and Atlanta. With the Huntsville program’s new one weekend a month format, an MBA is just a few short commutes away for Executive MBA students from Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee alike. For those outside of the tri-state area, the Huntsville International Airport has nonstop service to nine nationwide destinations such as Denver, Charlotte, Dallas or Washington, D.C.
Huntsville’s history is sprinkled with stories of warfare, innovation, and pride. When Huntsville was founded in 1805, the city was named after the London suburb of Twickenham. After the growth of anti-British sentiment and the War of 1812, the city took its current name after its founder John Hunt. By 1819, Huntsville had transformed into the largest Alabama Territory. The city quickly became a hub for cotton trading in the Tennessee Valley. In the middle of the twentieth century, Huntsville was still a small cotton town with a population under 20,000. Since the addition of the aerospace and defense industries after WWII, the city’s vast metropolitan area has grown to include nearly 420,000 residents.
The U.S. Space & Rocket Center (Photo courtesy of Bryce Edwards)
While the defense industry is still the city’s overwhelming leader in employment, the technology, engineering, and education industries also have a strong presence in Huntsville. Schools and universities such as the University of Alabama at Huntsville, where UA EMBAs attend class, help make the Rocket City Alabama’s best-educated metropolitan area. Huntsville’s metro also houses the highest per capita concentration of engineers and the third-highest per capita concentration of computer, science, and technology workers in the country. Forty-seven Fortune 500 companies call Huntsville home, while sixty foreign companies from seventeen countries also populate the city. Huntsville’s entertainment industry is also thriving; the city embraces live music and performing arts at venues such as Theatre Huntsville and the Von Braun Center.
Huntsville and the surrounding areas have plenty of destinations and activities perfect for an excursion from EMBA coursework. With an average temperature of 71.5 and over a hundred sunny days each year, Huntsville’s climate makes enjoying the outdoors easy. If you love golf as much as our Associate Dean Dr. Gray, Huntsville’s many golf courses are waiting – including the expansive Hampton Cove Golf Course, the first of the 21-course statewide Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail. Another kind of green, Huntsville is surrounded by mountains, rivers, and lakes on the Cumberland Plateau of the Appalachian Mountains. The Rocket City also has over 3,200 acres of public parks brimming with natural beauty.
If you prefer culture to recreation, pay a visit to one of Huntsville’s several museums such as the Alabama Constitution Village or the US Space & Rocket Center. The historic districts of Twickenham, Old Town, and Five Points each flaunt their own unique sophistication and antiquity, splendidly preserved alongside the city’s more modern structures. Featuring Alabama’s largest collection of pre-Civil War homes, walking tours of Huntsville’s historic districts are popular year-round.
The next Huntsville Executive MBA class begins on August 7. For more information or to start your application, please contact Cheryl Altemara at 205.348.4501 or submit an interest form here.
The new schedule features a blended program in which classes are held one weekend per month over the course of 21 months. A blended program combines the benefits of face-to-face classroom interactions with flexible, online learning.
According to Donna Blackburn, director of EMBA Programs at The University of Alabama, “We are finding that managers who want to pursue an MBA are today juggling family and longer work hours. A blended program will give our students more flexibility in learning material on their own schedule while enriching the in-class time for greater discourse and learning from their peers and faculty.”
Classes in the Huntsville EMBA Program offered by the University of Alabama are held on the UAHuntsville campus. The five semester program will begin with an orientation/immersion week in August. In addition to taking three classes per semester a leadership component will begin at orientation and continue throughout the program. The program also includes an international trip as part of the Global Business Strategy course in the students’ last semester. Emphasis is placed on enhancing leadership and business skills in preparing students for navigating corporate challenges.
The University of Alabama has offered the EMBA program in Tuscaloosa since 1984. In 2008, UA established the Huntsville EMBA in cooperation with the UAHuntsville. For more information or to apply to the program, go to www.emba.ua.edu, or call 205.348.4501.
Are you ready to return to graduate school? Is the EMBA Program at The University of Alabama right for you? UA’s EMBA program is designed for working professionals and allows students to continue working while completing their degree in four or five semesters. Students may earn an MBA degree in one of two locations, Tuscaloosa or Huntsville.
Students enter the EMBA program with specific needs and set expectations. Interviews conducted prior to starting the program show that the number one reason for enrollment is “increasing business knowledge.”
There are many takeaways from the program. A recent survey of UA EMBA graduates (2002-2012) reported that the program helped students grow their businesses, change careers, secure promotions, and think more strategically.
What are the top 10 benefits for UA EMBA students?
1. Increased business financial skills
Students are given tools to assess new financial strategies and develop a deeper understanding of annual reports and related financial data. Students report a better understanding of how their own businesses run.
2. Building a business network
Without a doubt one of the greatest benefits is the strong network forged in the UA EMBA. Students form lifelong friendships and make valuable business contacts. Diversity in student backgrounds, academics, industry and culture provides a rich environment in which to learn.
2013 EMBA Graduation
3.Achieving Personal and Professional Goals
Students set goals at the beginning of the program and encourage each other to reach their personal and professional goals by the end of the program. Achieved goals run the gamut from company promotions to running a marathon; from improving business skills or starting a company, to becoming a more effective leader or even learning how to sky dive.
4. Improved Negotiating Skills
The negotiation class, in combination with other courses, helps students to understand their businesses better and teaches them to make more informed decisions. Graduates attribute the skills they learned to negotiating savings for their companies, as well as obtaining better raises and signing bonuses.
5. Thinking Strategically
A boardroom approach to learning encourages the exchange of ideas, discourse and executive level strategic thinking. The program builds to a final semester focusing on strategic communications, management, implementation, global strategy, and includes a final project that provides valuable ROI to companies.
6. Enhancing Careers
Are you looking for a degree to get you to that next management level? Eighty percent of UA EMBA graduates have received promotions, and 32.4 percent have received three to five promotions. The remaining 20 percent reported job changes, becoming owners of their own companies, or becoming consultants after graduation. Corporations also work with us in sponsoring their employees as part of retention, promotion and succession planning.
7. Challenging Curriculum
The program is NOT MBA-lite. UA EMBA is an academically rigorous program that challenges its students. The faculty bring vast experience, many of which have worked outside academia, or have consulted extensively with various industries, defense and government.
International Trip to Istanbul
8. Thinking Differently – Broadening Perspective
When you bring together a diverse group of people and expose them to cases, open debates, discussions, and in-depth presentations, they obtain a broader perspective and a new way of thinking.
The international trip in the final semester exposes the class to different cultures, global markets, worldwide corporate strategies, and shows them how to do business in another country.
The added bonus is that students forge stronger bonds. The trip offers exposure to industries and culture, but also provides time for students to further their friendships with each other.
9. Continuing a Career while Completing an MBA
We understand that it’s hard to juggle work and family, and to add graduate school to the mix is extremely tough. We often tell prospects that it’s like adding a second job. It is tough, but it is also very rewarding. The Alabama EMBA format is lock step (all classes are taken together, from start to finish). We offer both a four-semester and a five-semester program, taught on alternating weekends. You will never have to wait for a class to be offered; They are all set for you.
10. Becoming a More Effective Leader
Our goal at UA EMBA is to help managers advance their knowledge and their companies’ bottom lines. Some students are moving up the corporate ladder, while others are moving from technical fields into more strategic areas, or growing their businesses.
Dr. Khursheed Nadeem Anwer, President and CSO of EGEN and 2012 EMBA graduate, noted that “Although I am a scientist by training, the UA EMBA Program helped me think more strategically, giving me tools as a business professional to impact my organization and industry more effectively.”
Are you ready to take the first step? Contact Donna Blackburn at 205.348.8748 or fill out an interest form here.
This website uses cookies to collect information to improve your browsing experience. Please review our Privacy Statement for more information.
Chattanooga
Nashville
