In this Issue:
- Haiti Trip Leaves Lasting Impact on Brent Pendergast (ProMBA 2005)
- Bill Scheib (ProMBA 2006) Has No Reservations
- Alumni News
- Alumni Spotlight
- Faculty Spotlight
Director's Message
Happy New Year from the Professional MBA faculty and staff! When the Professional MBA program was started in 1998, there were some people concerned that the program could not survive long-term because we would exhaust our market. I am proud to say that they were WAY WRONG! ProMBA continues to grow and thrive!
A Brief Trip to Haiti Leaves Lasting Impact
on Brent Pendergast (ProMBA 2005)
As soon as I heard about the earthquake in Haiti, I knew I wanted to help. After one trip fell through, a friend connected me to Whitestone Church, which had a presence in Haiti prior to the earthquake. I received an invitation to join a Whitestone team that was leaving on Saturday morning, January 23, 2010, to lend a hand in Haiti.
Professional MBA Grad Has No Reservations About Technology Transfer Project
Bill Scheib (ProMBA 2006) is doing something he never dreamed he’d be doing. Or, perhaps more accurately stated, Scheib is doing something where he never dreamed he’d be doing it—and he is loving every minute of it. Scheib left the familiar territory of Oak Ridge government plants after 31 years and now finds himself applying his project management expertise alongside a team of Native Americans who are working to aid Native American communities. (Scheib is the only non-Native American on the team.)
Alumni News
We want to know about your successes and other good events happening in your life! Please send us job updates, family announcements, and other news that you would like to share with Professional MBA alumni.
Alumni Spotlight: Margie Kidd
Margie Kidd (ProMBA 2009) doesn’t fit a “typical” student profile in UT’s College of Business Administration. However, she is the perfect fit for UT’s Professional MBA program, the college’s 16-month, weekend executive-level MBA for working professionals.
As the wellness director for Clayton Homes, a Berkshire Hathaway Corporation, Kidd directs wellness initiatives for the corporation’s 14,000 employees, or, as Clayton calls them, team members. The Professional MBA program attracts students from all disciplines and backgrounds. However, some may question what a corporate wellness director (whose undergraduate degree is in exercise science---not business) was seeking when choosing to pursue an MBA.
Faculty Spotlight: John Gallaher
When you meet Dr. John Gallagher, chances are he’ll have a backpack in tow, and he will look as if he could dash off on an adventure trek at any moment—and he just might! Besides spending time with his family, there is little Gallagher loves to do more than travel, especially internationally, which makes him right at home leading students on international business trips. In fact, he zealously serves as international business coordinator on two “home fronts”—as professor of management and coordinator of international business studies at Maryville College and as core faculty and international trip coordinator of the Professional MBA program for the University of Tennessee’s College of Business Administration.
