This morning I was honored with an invitation to "Business Outlook 2010" at the Columbia Club hosted by the Kelley School of Business Alumni Association. This was my first visit to the Columbia Club. I used to always wonder what it was like inside and if there really is a secret room in the basement where members get to control the weather in order to speculate on commodities prices.
Sadly, if there is a secret room - I wasn't privy to it as I headed to the 10th floor for a buffet breakfast and sat at the Kelley Indianapolis table in the front of the room. At my table were several staff members of Kelley Indianapolis, including Evening MBA Chair Catherine Bonser-Neal, Director of the Office of Development Glenn Bosch, Director of External Affairs Mary Chappell, Coordinator of Communications Dave Hosick and Development Associate Leslie Kidwell. Adding to our group were two great examples of the ability of Kelley to get you connected to some top-notch people already out in the world. Judy Raker is a recruiter for BKD and Dan Courtney is SVP of Operations for Finishmaster.
On the panel were:
Professor Kyle Anderson - Indianapolis Evening MBA Program, Economics
Professor Bill Witte - Retired IU Professor of Economics
Jerry Conover - Director of Indiana Business Research Center
Professor Rob Neal - IU Professor of Finance
Professor Roger Schmenner, Moderator - Indianapolis Evening MBA Program, Operations
This event is going to be written up in most of the papers and what was discussed is going to be taken very seriously by a lot of people. I've had two of these gentlemen as my professors, Anderson even tossed me an A- in Managerial Economics and hopefully seeing me at the event is worth a little consideration with Professor Schmenner on my Operations Management grade (I have a feeling I'm going to need it).
One of the really great parts of sitting at my table was when I was asked about how my classes were going and I admitted that I wasn't all that confident about Operations Management (I'm definitely more of a Marketing guy), three of the people at the table had Professor Schmenner in class and could still talk about drying and packaging cranberries! Kelley really is like a family, and even though I'm not going to be an Operations guy anytime soon - I can still talk about drying cranberries with the best of them.
Dave, I am glad you were able to join us at our table Thursday morning and were able to talk about drying cranberries, given your admission of not being an Operations guy. It was a pleasure meeting a fellow blogger. - Leslie