Author: lundebes

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Boeing Day busy for reps, students

Sierra Makepeace of Boeing, left, talks with pre-graphic design student Hannah King at Boeing's booth in the MU quad.
Sierra Makepeace of Boeing, left, talks with pre-graphic design student Hannah King at Boeing’s booth in the MU quad.

Representatives from Boeing, corporate partner of the College of Business, were on campus May 14 for Boeing Day, a series of workshops and informational events aimed at helping Oregon State students learn more about the aerospace giant and job opportunities at the company.

On hand were Brad Stevenson, a college recruiter; Sierra Makepeace, who works in business operations; Matt McMahen, finance; and Kalan Guiley, continued airworthiness manager for twin-aisle airplane programs and commercial airplanes.

Comprising Boeing Day were two separate resume workshops (in the Kelley Engineering Center and Austin Hall), a mid-day information table in the Memorial Union quad, and an evening information session in Austin Hall.

Sophomore Hannah King, a pre-graphic design student, and graduating senior Matthew L. Bautista, a management major, were among the throng of students to drop by Boeing’s booth in the quad.

“I wanted to see what the opportunities were, and I definitely got information that I want to check out,” King said.

Bautista is a former Air Force mechanic who now works in human resources in Portland for the Oregon Air National Guard in addition to attending OSU. He’s interested in HR or career development work with Boeing and is grateful for how his studies and professional life are propelling each other forward.

“I take what I learn in Austin and apply it to my professional life and personal life, and I take what I learn there and apply it here,” he said. “There’s a good synergy going on.”

Boeing, founded in Seattle in 1916 and now based in Chicago, is the world’s largest aerospace company and serves customers in 150 countries.

 

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Logistics is big business

Randy Eck explained that "moving stuff" makes up 11 percent of the global gross domestic product.
Randy Eck explained that “moving stuff” makes up 11 percent of the global gross domestic product.

Think logistics is no big deal in terms of the global economy?

Think again.

Randy Eck, director of supply chain technology solutions for Intel, told MBA students May 12 that roughly 11 percent of the world’s gross domestic product is logistics: “just moving stuff.”

That percentage translates to $9 trillion – 25 times as much as the $350 billion accounted for by the semiconductor industry, Eck said.

Eck and another member of Intel’s Customer, Planning and Logistics Group, Cliff Parrish, gave an evening presentation in Austin Hall’s Robert Family Events Room regarding Intel’s approach to supply chain management. Parrish is the company’s product and customer data manager.

Eck and Parrish’s group handles the transportation and warehousing of the materials Intel needs. For a company of Intel’s size and scope, the responsibility is big business to say the least. If supply chain efficiencies result in even a 1 percent increase in gross margin, that means an additional $500 million in revenue, Parrish noted.

Those efficiencies can be gained, Eck pointed out, through moves as simple as giving truck drivers instruction on how to shift gears in ways that require engines to use less fuel.

A fundamental issue logisticians must deal with, the pair told the students, is balancing service with effective cost management.

Parrish provided an outline for successful strategizing, which begins with the vision to see what success is. From there comes the development of goals and objectives and an “environmental scan” to determine what obstacles are in place. Next comes making a strategy, and following that is “strategic exploration” to see if there’s an even better strategy out there than the one you’re using. Then you need a roadmap for executing the strategy and ways to measure performance. And communication is the oil in the engine – without it, nothing happens.

Other topics the pair touched on included the “Internet of Things” – the ever-growing collection of smart devices that share data with one another to create systems of systems – and Moore’s Law.

Moore’s Law is a 1965 prediction by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore that transistor size would be cut in half every two years, doubling the computing power of an integrated circuit while vastly improving its performance and efficiency. Fifty years later, the prediction has so far proven true.

Cliff Parrish noted that without communication, any strategy will fail.
Cliff Parrish noted that without communication, any strategy will fail.

Putting it in perspective, if a Volkswagen Beetle had improved at the same exponential rate as microchips, the car would now be capable of 2 million miles per gallon and 300,000 miles per hour.

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Eight OK’d for tenure, promotion

All eight College of Business faculty members nominated this year for indefinite tenure and/or promotion have been approved, Dean Ilene Kleinsorge announced May 19.

Advancing to associate professor and receiving indefinite tenure are Keith Leavitt (management), Michelle Barnhart (marketing) and Jeff Barden (entrepreneurship), and also earning indefinite tenure is Associate Professor Seunghae Lee (interior design).

Don Neubaum (entrepreneurship), Zhaohui Wu (international business) and Jimmy Yang (finance)
have been promoted to professor, and Aaron Lewis (international business) has been elevated to senior instructor I.

Tenure and promotion require a lengthy college and university review process culminating with final approval granted by the university provost/executive vice president.

 

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Lessons from ‘Japan Matters’

Sakura Hamada addresses the audience during "Japan Matters."
Sakura Hamada addresses the audience during “Japan Matters.”

Planning to do business with a Japanese person?

Then among other skills, you better learn the proper way to hang up a land-line telephone.

That was one of the lessons May 8 during “Japan Matters,” a presentation at Austin Hall co-sponsored by the College of Business, Oregon State’s Japanese Student Association and INTO OSU, which helps international students make smooth transitions into the local culture after they arrive in Corvallis.

Among the speakers was Yosuke Masuda, a graduate student and kengido instructor at Oregon State; kengido is a Samurai-based combination of martial arts and performing arts.

Masuda, who holds bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees from Yokohama National University, explained to the audience of two dozen the wrong way and the right ways to hang up a phone if you’re interested in showing respect to the person on the other end of the line.

Wrong way: Set the receiver down noisily.

Right ways: Replace it quietly, depress the hang-up button with a finger, or wait for the other person to get off the line before putting the receiver back in place.

Masuda also described proper etiquette for the exchange of business cards: Bow, hold the car with two hands and so the writing is right-side-up to the recipient, and, if the recipient is also trying to give you his business card, try to get your card below his. This double exchange, Masuda admitted, can be awkward as each attempts to get his card under the other, but somehow it works out.

“In general people in Japan pay more attention to the respect of others compared to the U.S. or other countries,” Masuda said.

Masuda also noted that in Japan, people making each other’s acquaintance don’t shake hands but rather just bow and exchange business cards.

He added that the U.S. features more workplace gender equality than Japan, and a somewhat less driven workforce; in his country, he said, it’s not uncommon for workers to sleep in their offices.

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Collaborative Studio builds bridges

Danielle Lucia and Gabe Fleck talk about their Northwest Trek product line of hiking accessories.
Danielle Lucia and Gabe Fleck talk about their Northwest Trek product line of hiking accessories.

Cooperation, creativity and the art of building a bridge from the historical to the modern all come together for students in Christine Gallagher’s DHE 360 class, Collaborative Studio.

The course is designed to examine a variety of collaborative methodologies and situations; students work across design disciplines to complete various and complicated projects.

Exemplifying that mission is a roughly two-week undertaking that saw three- and four-person teams draw inspiration from historical textiles to create product lines based on those fabrics and what they learned about and from them; the lines had to include at least one prototype.

The vintage pieces at the core of the project are part of the School of Design and Human Environment’s Historic & Cultural Textile and Apparel Collection.

As the project description explains, the collection “was started in the 1940s through the efforts of several professors in the Department of Clothing, Textiles, and Related Arts in the School of Home Economics. The collection … consists of Euro-American apparel, non-Euro-American cultural textiles and cultural apparel but also includes fabric samples, tapestry fragments, and accessories from many cultures. While the bulk of the entire collection is from the 19th and 20th century, there is cultural wear, textiles and textile fragments from the 15th, 17th, and 18th centuries.”

Among the items the student teams used as their creative muses were a civil rank badge from China’s Ch’ing Dynasty, a navy wool bathing suit, embroidered silk, a Guatemalan huipil, a tent coat and a skirt suit. The product lines those artifacts spawned were “conceptually rich and very interesting,” Gallagher told her students following their class presentations.

Examples:

Pacific Picnic, a “modern beach experience” inspired by the wool swimsuit; products included the Nautical Napkin and the Beach Basket.

The Bodhi Meditation Line, a set of home goods designed to foster meditation, such as a specialized lamp and floor mat; the civil rank badge led to this line’s creation.

Northwest Trek, a collection of hiking accessories (boots, field journal, picnic blanket) inspired by the huipil.

Chambri, a coffee shop and related products aimed at women seeking a break from day-to-day life; the Chambri are a woman-dominated tribe in Papua New Guinea, and the company and products were inspired by the tent coat of the 1960s, a time when women were beginning to enjoy new freedoms in American society.

Gallagher teaches two sections of Collaborative Studio, and the product lines developed by both will be reviewed by jurors for an exhibit that will be presented alongside the SDHE’s annual Spring Fashion Show on May 30.

Jessica Hammock and Cameron Lambert describe Chambri, a coffee shop by and for the modern woman.
Jessica Hammock and Cameron Lambert describe Chambri, a coffee shop by and for the modern woman.

 

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Event honors design high-achievers

Austin Hall hosted a display of design students' work May 1.
Austin Hall hosted a display of design students’ work May 1.

Jordan Clausen and her parents, Troy and Malissa Clausen of Salem, were among the happy throng of design students and their mothers and fathers on hand May 1 at Austin Hall.

“This is a great school for her,” Troy said of his daughter, who was among the honorees being recognized at the afternoon reception.

Jordan, a junior, is one of 19 recipients of a Cecelia T. Shuttle Worth Scholarship.

In all, some five dozen students in merchandising management and apparel, interior and graphic design were honored with various scholarships and awards during the event – recognition for their teaching, research, scholarship, creativity and overall excellence.

Among the honorees are five students selected as School of Design and Human Environment All-Stars: Ashtin Crawford, Lauren Davis, Eliot Frack, Haley Lillybridge and Sara Winick-Brown.

The event, which helped kick off Mom’s Weekend on the OSU campus, included a gallery of work by design students in multiple disciplines.

“This is so much fun,” textiles instructor Brigitte Cluver said as she toured the exhibits. “I never get to see what the other classes are doing.”

Design students Sarah Wilson, left, Sydney Juell and Brendan Spencer.
Design students Sarah Wilson, left, Sydney Juell and Brendan Spencer.
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How online apparel shoppers think

Minjeong Kim
Minjeong Kim

Minjeong Kim, associate dean of the College of Business, explained April 30 why she enjoys studying how people go about shopping for apparel.

“If you go to the grocery store for Coke or Pepsi, you know what you’re going to buy,” she told members of Triad, OSU’s faculty and staff club, at its weekly meeting at the Memorial Union building. “But if you go to a clothing store, you know you need a new jacket, or a new outfit for some event, but you don’t know what you’re going to buy. Every time you go in, it’s a whole new experience.”

The title of Kim’s lunch-hour presentation was “Online Apparel Shopping: A Peek into the Consumer’s Mind.”

“It’s about an emotional connection with the product,” she said. “So how can people buy apparel online when they can’t see it or feel it or try it on? My research came out of skepticism — how could they do that?”

Kim has studied a variety of e-commerce website design techniques and their effect, if any, on facilitating someone to make a purchase decision.

For example, she theorized that seeing a larger picture of an item would generate a stronger purchase intention than a smaller photo, but that did not prove to be the case. Seeing more product information in the form of text, however, did create a stronger purchase intention.

Kim explained to Triad the concept of concreteness, defined as the degree of ease or difficulty involved in eliciting a mental image. Concrete words such as “apple” tend to invoke a sensory experience, whereas non-concrete words such as “religion” do not.

She also spoke about mental imagery – the process by which sensory or perceptual experience is represented in an individual’s working memory – and speculated that mental imagery could be a key to facilitating a satisfactory virtual shopping experience without having physical experience with a product.

Putting those concepts together, she talked about how whether a product such as a swimsuit sells better online if the photo of the model has a blank background or a concrete one, such as a beach scene. Results depended, she said, on whether the shopper was a visual learner (generally more likely to buy with a concrete background) or verbal learner (more likely with a blank background).

And responding to a post-presentation question from the audience, she provided information that likely most suspected was true: For men, clothes shopping tends toward hasty and utilitarian, whereas for women it’s often a pleasure-seeking experience.

 

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Why nation branding? Ask a Kazakh

Israeli diplomat Ido Aharoni told an Austin Hall audience that if a nation doesn't brand itself, someone else will.
Israeli diplomat Ido Aharoni told an Austin Hall audience that if a nation doesn't brand itself, someone else will.
Israeli diplomat Ido Aharoni told an Austin Hall audience that if a nation doesn’t brand itself, someone else will.

If anyone wonders what can happen when a nation doesn’t consciously, strategically and actively brand itself, just take a look at Kazakhstan, Israeli diplomat Ido Aharoni said.

Aharoni, speaking April 28 in Austin Hall’s Robert Family Events Room, noted how Kazakhstan’s brand is linked not to any actual aspects of the country but to British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen and his 2006 movie, “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.”

“Borat is a Turkish name,” said Aharoni, Israel’s consul general for the New York City area. “The language he spoke was not Kazakh – it was half Hebrew, half gibberish. The movie was shot in Romania. Sacha Baron Cohen has never set foot in Kazakhstan, yet he’s the most famous person from the country.”

His visit sponsored by the Jewish National Fund and Oregon Hillel, a campus organization for Jewish people, Aharoni told the audience that branding is the ability to create and then manage a personality.

“A brand is a promise. A strong brand is a promise delivered,” said Aharoni, who contrasted his country with Brazil, which has gotten the world to associate it with fun.

“Brand Brazil is very strong, very powerful, very attractive,” he said. “Brazil the place is a little inferior to the brand, and the gap between the two is worth billions and billions to Brazil’s economy.

“Israel is exactly the opposite. The product is very attractive, very much fun, but the brand is so inferior to the product that it creates a huge deficit. The brand is about conflict; that is what defines brand Israel.”

Aharoni noted that each year 300,000 American students study abroad but only 1,500 of those land in Israel.

“The number should be in the tens of thousands,” he said. “We offer courses in English and have some of the best universities in the world, but there are more American students in Cairo than in Israel.”

Israel is working hard at rebranding itself with a focus on its creative energy – “vibrant diversity, building the future, entrepreneurial zeal,” said Aharoni.

“Creative energy is not a campaign, not a slogan – it’s the essence of who we are,” he said. “It’s a basic right of every place in the world to promote itself. And it’s not just about tourism – not every person can afford to travel, and if you can’t, then my goal is to develop a healthy curiosity about Israel.”

 

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Adidas: A culture of empowerment

adidas logoA culture built around honesty, commitment, passion, innovation, inspiration, teamwork, empowerment and student engagement has earned adidas this year’s Distinguished Business Partner award.

That culture is in sync with that of the College of Business, adidas executive Nic Vu said.

“The professors and other educators focus on placement,” said Vu, a senior vice president and a 1995 College of Business graduate who spearheaded his company’s partnership with the college. “College of Business students are very well versed in team dynamics, group projects and results orientation, and they’re open to learning.

“I work with lot of Ph.D.’s and consultants who have master’s, MBAs, whatever, and they don’t have all of that packaged together as well as some of the undergrads I see coming out of Oregon State,” he said. “That’s a compliment to the dean and all the educators at Oregon State.”

Beavers who have joined Vu at adidas have taken note of a supportive environment that mirrors that of the college that prepared them to launch their careers.

“The College of Business stresses networking and adidas allows recent grads to take networking to an entirely new level,” said OSU senior Jacob Knightley, who’s majoring in finance and business information systems and works 30 hours a week for adidas’ finance reporting team.

“All managers — junior, senior and above — are extremely approachable and will take time out of their day to talk with you. My CFO walks around and talks with everybody on a first-name basis and will make the effort to learn your name as soon as possible.”

Knightley said he and others consider the adidas culture to be an extension of their university life.

“We make sure our work is getting completed to the best degree, but we have fun while we do it,” he said. “Adidas benefits (from the College of Business partnership) by getting great local talent who bring new and fresh ideas about how to win in America, and the college benefits by having a local company that loves to recruit local talent.”

Adidas will be honored May 11 in Portland at the college’s annual Celebration of Excellence, along with the rest of the 2015 award winners as well as retiring Dean Ilene Kleinsorge.

The evening begins with a reception at 5:30 p.m., followed by dinner and the awards presentation. For more information or to register, contact Elsa Frey at elsa.frey@oregonstate.edu or call 541-737-6648, or register online at http://business.oregonstate.edu/awards.

 

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Willener: COB students poised to soar

Curt Willener.
Curt Willener.

The College of Business prepares people to measure up against the best, says Curt Willener, this year’s Distinguished Early Career Business Professional.

The Hillsboro resident should know. Three years after his OSU graduation, he was accepted into the MBA program at Harvard Business School.

“OSU was on my list, but since I’d gone there as an undergraduate, I wanted a new experience,” who at the time was working at a mill in Albany. “I had just gotten done with a super dusty, 14-hour shift when I talked to (Dean) Ilene (Kleinsorge) about going to graduate school. I think I got her office dirty. But she was so open to talking with me and supporting me, and Ilene wrote a recommendation letter that helped me get into Harvard.

“You’re always a little nervous with something like that, but Ilene said don’t worry, we prepared you, and she was absolutely right,” Willener said. “The top students at Oregon State can compete anywhere in the world against anyone.”

For Willener, now operations manager and Danaher Business System leader at Tektronix/Danaher, the route to OSU began on Sauvie Island, where from age 12 to 18 he worked at a local farm and kennel. After graduating from Scappoose High School, he followed in the footsteps of his OSU alum father, Henry, and headed to Corvallis.

Willener graduated in management and finance from OSU in 2004 and earned a place in a Weyerhaeuser program designed to develop new leaders. Within a few months he was the night-shift supervisor, winning over the older, more experienced workers by “treating them with respect and giving them a fair shake” and “approaching situations with humility and common sense.”

“Listening is a really big part of it,” he said. “People respect you for it.”

Willener will be honored May 11 in Portland at the college’s annual Celebration of Excellence, along with the rest of the 2015 award winners as well as the retiring Kleinsorge. For more on the event and the honorees, follow the College of Business blog as the countdown to the celebration continues over the next couple of weeks.

The evening begins with a reception at 5:30 p.m., followed by dinner and the awards presentation. For more information or to register, contact Elsa Frey at elsa.frey@oregonstate.edu or call 541-737-6648, or register online at http://business.oregonstate.edu/awards.