College of Business News

Jake Jabs, a 1952 graduate of Montana State College and president and CEO of one of the top retail furniture companies in the United States, will receive an honorary doctorate degree from Montana State University during the university’s 116th spring commencement.

MSU’s spring commencement ceremonies are scheduled for 9 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. Saturday, May 5, at the Brick Breeden Fieldhouse. Jabs will receive the honorary doctorate during the 1:30 p.m. ceremony.

“Mr. Jabs is a remarkable individual,” said MSU President Waded Cruzado. “This is the highest commendation MSU confers, and Mr. Jabs is very deserving of this recognition. His life, career and accomplishments are an inspiration to our faculty, students, staff and alumni. We are delighted to honor him in this way.”

In a letter nominating him for the honorary doctorate, College of Business interim dean Susan Dana wrote that MSU students look up to Jabs.

“Students tell me that they want to be like Mr. Jabs not only because they want to be successful in business but perhaps more importantly because they respect his values, his integrity and his genuineness,” Dana wrote. “He truly is a role model who reflects well upon Montana.”

MSU annually confers doctorates on friends of the university to honor achievements and service to the state of Montana.

For the entire press release, please click here.

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The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) awards 30 U.S. and international student scholarships each year. College of Business student Molly Zander will receive a $2,500 Ritchie-Jennings Memorial Scholarship, based on her overall academic achievements and her essay explaining her awareness of how fraud may affect her career. She will appear in an issue of Fraud, the magazine of the ACFE and be given a one-year ACFE Student Membership.

Zander, a senior from Great Falls, was one of four students to receive a $2,500 scholarship. One $10,000 scholarship, two $5,000 scholarships, and 23 $1,000 scholarships were also given. Approximately 300 national and international students competed for the awards. The list of scholarship winners are listed on the ACFE website here with more information about the scholarship here.

Bonita Kramer, CoB professor of accounting, encouraged Zander to apply for the scholarship after instructing her in ACTG 328 (Intermediate Accounting II) and Zander is currently a student in her ACTG 521 (Advanced Auditing) class. Kramer also wrote one of Zander’s recommendation letters.

Kramer was thrilled that Molly received one of the higher amount scholarships. “She is absolutely outstanding in so many aspects that I knew she would be a competitive candidate for one of these scholarships, so I visited with her last fall and told her about this opportunity and encouraged her to apply. She needed a few letters of recommendation and asked me to write one, which I was happy to do.”

Students from the MSU College of Business who received $1,000 Ritchie-Jennings Memorial Scholarships in previous years include Jennifer Hill (2002-2003), Erin Mohr (2003-2004) and Joey Ottoy (2008-2009), Sophie Mumford (2010-2011).

The ACFE is an anti-fraud organization that works to reduce business fraud worldwide and inspire public confidence in the integrity and objectivity within the profession. For more information, go to www.acfe.com.

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The 2012 Student Summit on Sustainability and the Environment took place on Friday, April 20 from 8:30 am - 3:00 pm at the Procrastinator Theater in the Strand Union Building on the MSU campus.

This Summit is spearheaded by Gateway Youth Group under the leadership of MSU adjunct professor, Martha Joh Reeder-Kearns, and is part of the Gallatin Earth Celebration. It brings together high school and college students, and informs, inspires and empowers students by providing a forum for dialogue between students, educators, businesses, political leaders, and community organizations.

The Summit creates a forum where students can discuss their concerns about climate change and other environmental matters in a powerful, active and productive way with their peers. A number of College of Business students presented at the Summit, specifically their marketing efforts and results to increase awareness in 1) recycling at MSU and 2) building awareness of what MSU is doing as a part of the President’s Climate Action Plan - both projects from the Marketing 341 class. Elliot Canfield, who is studying business management and entrepreneurship, was the emcee.

More information about this event can be found on the MSU calendar: http://calendar.msu.montana.edu/events/6728.

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Montana State University will construct an $18-million College of Business building in the northeast section of its campus, university officials announced on Friday, April 13.

The building site is north of Wilson Hall, home of the university’s College of Letters and Science, east of one of the campus’ newest facilities, the Chemistry and Biochemistry Building built in 2006, and about 500 feet north of Montana Hall, the campus’ iconic administrative center.

Called “the north Wilson site” during public and campus meetings, the location was among three recommended to MSU President Waded Cruzado by a university board that spent weeks reviewing data on the sites and taking comment from students, faculty, staff and members of the public.

The other sites under consideration were immediately east of Hamilton Hall and in the southwest corner of the intersection of Seventh Avenue and Grant Street across south of the Strand Union Building. All three sites fit into the university’s 75-year master building plan.

Though three sites were recommended to Cruzado by the University Facilities Planning Board, the north Wilson site received the strongest approval from the 19-member board, with 16 voting to recommend it, two abstaining and one not present.

“The north Wilson site is a great extension of our core of academic buildings and it will fit well into our plans to have a pedestrian-friendly campus,” Cruzado said. “Additionally, nearly 1,400 students will live within one block of this building in neighboring residence halls.”

The north Wilson site had several advantages over the other two sites, offering more room than the Hamilton site and being more closely connected to the core of academic buildings on campus than the Seventh and Grant site, Cruzado said.

With the site selected, the university can proceed with architectural design and preconstruction planning for the building, however the 2013 Montana Legislature still needs to approve final construction. With legislative approval, ground could be broken in the spring of 2013 with completion in 2015. The new College of Business building will be roughly 45,000 square feet, three stories tall and a minimum of LEED silver certified.

The College of Business building is being funded by a generous $25 million gift from MSU alumnus Jake Jabs. A native of Lodge Grass and a 1952 graduate of Montana State College, Jabs is president and CEO of American Furniture Warehouse in Denver, one of the top retail furniture companies in the U.S. and one of the largest privately held businesses in Colorado, with sales topping $330 million in 2008 and 1,400 employees throughout Colorado.

Dick Anderson Construction, headquartered in Helena, Comma-Q Architecture of Bozeman and Hennebery Eddy Architects of Portland, Ore., have been selected at the project’s design and construction team.

With roughly 1,200 students, the MSU College of Business offers undergraduate programs in accounting, finance, management, and marketing, as well as minors in accounting, business administration, entrepreneurship and small business management, international business, and the management of information technology. The college also offers a master’s of professional accountancy degree designed to prepare student for professional careers in the field of accounting.

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Each year, the top College of Business (CoB) students are initiated as members of the prestigious Beta Gamma Sigma (BGS) honor society. Seventeen students and one CoB faculty member were honored at the induction luncheon on Thursday, April 5 in the Strand Union Building on the Montana State University (MSU) campus. Only the top 10% of juniors and seniors and the top 20% of the graduate accounting students in the Masters in Professional Accountancy (MPAc) program are chosen as initiates. BGS, started in 1913, provides the highest recognition a business student anywhere in the world can receive in an accredited, Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), undergraduate or master’s program.

The induction ceremony began with a welcome from Dr. Susan Dana, BGS advisor and then the 2011 BGS officers stepped up to the podium to tell the inductees about BGS and what it means to be a member. Ben Scott, VP of Programs, gave the statement of “Beta” which means honor; Jodie Kunesh, President, gave the statement of “Gamma,” meaning Wisdom and Loretta Hemingway, VP of Membership, talked about “Sigma,” meaning earnestness. The inductees then recited the BGS pledge, received their certificates and were inducted as the newest group of BGS members.

The ceremony continued with the presentation of the Beta Gamma Sigma Professor of the Year Award to Dr. Marc Giullian, CoB associate professor of accounting. Prior to coming to MSU in 2001, he served on the faculty of the University of Louisiana-Lafayette for six years and as acting Department head for one. Giullian currently teaches courses in financial accounting at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. He is a mentor to many of the accounting students and has been award numerous teaching awards while at MSU. Giullian also serves as the coordinator for the accounting option.

BGS also recognizes a chapter honoree each year. This year’s honoree was Scott Holton, CoB alumnus and partner in Rudd & Company, PPLC. Prior to joining Rudd & Company in 2004, Holton gained his auditing experience from PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP in Portland, Oregon. He is a licensed CPA, a certified fraud examiner and a member of the Montana Society of CPAs. Holton also serves on the CoB Accounting Advisory Council and is an active member in the Bozeman Sunrise Rotary Club.

Holton talked to the inductees about the BGS traits and what they mean to him as a professional, a CPA and an employer. He followed up with five important pieces of advice:

1. Get involved and stay involved.
2. Be true to yourself.
3. Don’t forget to work hard.
4. Continue to recognize that not everything is “business” and that fun and friendships are equally important.
5. Be someone you want to work with.

He left the attendees with a final quote from Thomas Jefferson, “I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.”

2012 BGS INDUCTEES
Masters: Tera Goolsby, Mitchell Wallace, Samuel Widener*, Kari Worum
Seniors: Kristin Abhold, Christopher Armagost, Ryan Bovy, Mingwei Chen, Ashley Kent, Hunter Metcalf, Lynnea Nelson
Juniors: Grant Ganoom, Nethia Lavering, Amanda Powell, Kaci Shea*, Alyssa Sipes, Dmitry Trubachenkov

* in absentia

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