Archive for June, 2010

A Thunderbird distance learning degree led to a different type of Thunderbird experience for marketing manager Arturo Amado ’05.

The Panama native graduated from Thunderbird’s Global MBA for Latin American Managers and took a job immediately with Thunderbird Resorts, a casino entertainment and hospitality company with operations in Central and South America, the Philippines, India and Poland.

Although the two organizations share the Thunderbird name, they are unrelated.

“I have to explain to people that the name is just a coincidence,” Amado said June 18, 2010, in the lobby of the Thunderbird Fiesta Hotel and Casino in Lima, Peru.

Amado started as a financial analyst for Thunderbird Resorts in Central America and then moved to the Philippines, where the company has two hotels and two casinos. He now oversees marketing operations at six hotels and five casinos in Peru.

“We are the first company to bring Vegas-style gaming into emerging economies,” Amado said. “Our mission is to create extraordinary experiences for our guests.”

This means live entertainment, televised sports and karaoke in the casinos, which cater to local residents. The hotels, meanwhile, offer upscale amenities designed to attract tourists from outside Peru.
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Thunderbird School of Global Management celebrated an important milestone over the weekend: the graduation of our 40,000th alumnus. The occasion happened June 5th at the commencement ceremony for our Global MBA for Latin American Managers program, a dual degree offered from Thunderbird and Tecnológico de Monterrey in Monterrey, Mexico. The 40,000th alumnus to receive a Thunderbird degree was Emanuel Lima Abud, of Mexico City.

Saturday’s commencement ceremony at the Scottsdale Plaza Resort brought 162 new T-birds into our alumni family. The graduates hailed from more than 18 countries, including Argentina, Austria, Egypt, Mexico and Venezuela. This was the 11th graduating class for this unique program.

The joint Global MBA degree combines Thunderbird’s global curriculum with Latin America’s top-ranked MBA school (Tecnológico de Monterrey). Coursework has a distinct Latin American focus, and is delivered via live satellite sessions, face-to-face seminars, online interactions and a one-week interim seminar to Geneva, Tokyo, Dubai or Shanghai. Students spent the last week of the course at Thunderbird’s campus in Glendale for final classroom instruction and project presentations.

The ceremony’s commencement speaker was Gustavo Guzmán Sepúlveda, CEO of Grupo Iusacell, one of Mexico’s leading mobile operators  that serves about 3.5 million subscribers. The company provides cellular services that reach about 90% of Mexico’s population. Graduation ended with all graduates taking the Thunderbird Oath of Honor and the Tecnológico de Monterrey Vow.

In a special closing to the ceremony, Thunderbird President Ángel Cabrera awarded Thunderbird’s Global Leadership Award to Carlos Cruz Limón, Rector of Innovation and Institutional Development at the Tecnológico de Monterrey. This award is given to an outstanding leader who has professionally exemplified Thunderbird’s five pillars: global mindset, global citizenship, global entrepreneurship, global thought leadership and global learning network. Limón is credited to to first forging the partnership between the two schools 11 years ago.

More pictures from the ceremony at Thunderbird’s Flickr page.

Class of 1975 T-Bird Mary Besser May is a finalist on Oprah’s “Your Own Show” competition.  In true T-bird style, May, a food coach, lived abroad for 13 years and raised three kids in four countries. She learned how to make do with the food ingredients that were on hand in places such as the Dominican Republic and Australia.

Vote for her so that she can get to the next round!

James R. “Jim” Easter, ’79, has been named Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Seahawk Drilling, Inc., an offshore drilling company headquartered in Houston, Texas. Easter has more than 25 years of corporate level management experience. He began his career in energy banking at Bank of America, then Barclays Bank, and finally the Bank of Montreal. He also worked at Enron and Reliant Energy.

Knut Eriksen, ’81, has been named Senior Vice President, Subsea Products for Oceaneering International, Inc. Eriksen’s career spans more than thirty years in the oil and gas industry, most recently with Natco Group, Inc., where he served as Senior Vice President, for Global Execution. The majority of his business experience is in deepwater engineering and offshore projects.

Kelly Doss, ’91, has been appointed Vice President of Global Marketing for Maker’s Mark Bourbon whisky. Doss has global marketing experience from her tenure at Wm Wrigley Jr. Co., where she served from 2006 – 2007 as global director, responsible for delivering key brand strategies and creative for multiple brands across 14 key markets. She joined Maker’s Mark in 2002.

Joan Kennedy, ‘92, has been appointed president of Liberty Medical Supply, a billion-dollar provider of diabetes testing supplies. Before joining Liberty, Kennedy was senior vice president of Wellpoint, 360 Degrees Health, a health and disease management program that serves more than 35 million members. She took over the role in March.

Ben Cooper, ’97, beat out 30 other candidates to win a seat on the Gilbert, Ariz. Town Council. He is a development manager for Catalyst Commercial Group in Phoenix and mostly works in commercial real estate.

Swen Neufeldt, ’02, has been promoted to vice president of Hormel Foods International Corporation (HFIC) and director of business development for Asia. Neufeldt started his career with Hormel Foods in 1996 as a Grocery Products sales representative. He will relocate to Shanghai this summer.

Do you have any updates to report? Let us know: alumni@thunderbird.edu

By Alicia Fitts, Thunderbird Class of ’94

A little more than five years ago, my brother  Robert Fitts suffered a massive stroke resulting from the dissection of his carotid artery. This seemingly random, once-in-several-million event changed his world irrevocably and in ways that no one could predict. Yet in the midst of the colossal changes, there have been constants — faith, family and friends. And the Thunderbird community has been a part of his experience.

For six years, Robert worked diligently through physical and occupational therapies, with doctors, family and friends, to continue to recognize his challenges, meet them and try to overcome them. One step at a time, one day at a time, one treatment at a time, he is willing to try. His paralysis on the left side of his body from head to toe makes it challenging to walk and maintain balance.

Robert insists on doing so even as he uses a four pronged cane to go one step at a time and occasionally just cannot get his paralyzed limb to react. The impact of the stroke on areas of his brain make focusing and impulse control daily challenges of which he is cognizant and on which he and those around him work. He has been blessed with the support of those around him in everything that he does. Perhaps more incredibly, his faith is unwavering.
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Vietnam War veteran Don McLane ’74 made a promise to himself at the end of the conflict to return one day and give back to the battle-scarred country. McLane made good on that promise on April 7, 2010, when he delivered a new playground to the children of the Bong Son Youth Recreation Center in Vietnam.

“It took 38 years,” McLane said, “but it was worth the wait.”

McLane said the center is run by a man who once viewed him as an enemy during the war. “He remembers shooting at me from a nearby mountain, and I recall shooting at him in return,” said McLane, a retired Nordson Corporation executive and former Thunderbird Global Council member.

He returned to Bong Son for the ribbon-cutting ceremony with his wife, Lydia, and daughter, Alexandra.

McLane joined the U.S. Army in 1961 with the hope of saving money for college while completing his military obligation.

He served in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as an enlisted construction surveyor in Alaska and then received an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He graduated and was commissioned as an officer in 1968.

McLane completed tours of duty in Europe and Vietnam before pursuing a civilian career in international business.

After graduating from Thunderbird, he worked for 31 years at Nordson, a world leader in the design, manufacture, and distribution of machinery for precise deposition and inspection of a wide range of materials. McLane retired in late 2006 as corporate senior vice president.