College of Business News

The College of Business (CoB) had record turnouts for the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program this year. Sessions filled up rapidly, and we realize that we were not able to serve everyone who had an interest. The following are additional community resources available for tax assistance:

Bozeman Public Library — Tax assistance will be provided by VITA volunteers every Tuesday from 10:00 a.m. -6:30 p.m. in the Library’s Small Conference Room through April 16. Appointments are required and can be made by calling 406-586-6641 or 406-522-0226.

Bozeman Senior Center — AARP volunteers offer assistance at the Bozeman Senior Center on Monday afternoons (1-4:00 p.m.) and Saturday mornings (9 a.m. -12:00 p.m.). Please call 406-586-2421 to make your appointment.

HRDC Community Café – The HRDC offers free tax preparation and filing services on site, with no appointments necessary, at their Community Café on:

• January 30-April 15
• 2nd and 4th Saturdays 9-11 a.m.
• Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays from 1– 4p.m.
• Site location: Community Cafe
302 North 7th Avenue
Bozeman, MT 59718

Tax Forms & Instructions – Go to Montana Tax Forms and Federal Tax Forms.

Foreign Student Assistance –
• H&R Block will assist foreign students with completing their taxes for $133. To make an appointment, call 406-587-0900.

• The University of Texas has established this website to assist foreign students in completing their taxes — http://world.utexas.edu/isss/tax.

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Robert “Bob” Chickering will present “From Academics to a Real Business,” on Tuesday, April 16, from 4:10-5:00 p.m., in the Procrastinator Theater. He will give insight on how to be entrepreneurial and what it takes beyond what you learn in school to launch a business in the real world.

Chickering earned a Master of Arts and Master of Business Administration from Michigan State University. He has successfully lead several corporations, including Santa Barbara Aerospace, Inc., American Enviro Products, Inc., The Cotton Buds Company, Chickering/Howell Advertising, a consulting firm and Cunningham & Walsh Advertising, Inc. He has conducted international business in China, Japan, Mexico, Columbia, Australia and the Federated States of Micronesia.

Chickering spent several years in New York and Los Angeles with Cunningham and Walsh Advertising as vice president and director of account management for American Home Products. Brands under his management included Woolite, Black Flag, Easy Off, Wizard, Anacin and Dristan. He was responsible for business development and account management of Armor All, Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Pictures, Porsche Design, Adidas, and A&W Restaurants.

Chickering then switched his focus towards entrepreneurial endeavors and founded the Cotton Buds Company and American Enviro Products, which manufactured and sold the first biodegradable, disposable diapers. He later sold both firms.

Currently, Chickering is one of the key management team members of Advanced BioCatalytics Corporation, an industrial biotechnology company focusing on the discovery of its Protein-Surfactant Synergists™ (P-SS™) based chemistry for use in cleaners, wastewater treatment, environmental remediation and other applications.

The MSU College of Business’s David Orser Executive Speakers Forum is named for David B. Orser, a 1966 MSU graduate who started funding the program in 1988 in order to inspire MSU business students to pursue careers as innovative, responsible and ethical business leaders. For more information about the forum, contact Audrey Lee at 406-994-7026 or audrey.lee@montana.edu.

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The Beta Alpha Psi (BAP) team, comprised of four Montana State University (MSU) College of Business (CoB) students (Left-Right): Alyssa Sipes, Caitlin Kilroy, Renee Waterland, Anna Adolphson, and Amanda Powell, traveled to Denver, Colorado on March 22-23 for the annual BAP Rocky Mountain Regional Conference.

They competed and placed third in the Best Practices Competition in the “Inspiration” category. The team developed an inspirational, creative, and fun “Careers in Accounting” presentation geared for high school seniors in under-served communities. The CoB students competed against accounting students from University of New Mexico, Utah Valley University, BYU, University of Utah, and Fort Lewis College.

With the contributions of the Alderson family going towards students participating in these competitions, CoB students have been able to compete against other universities, which provides them with experience and helps them develop a confidence about their business education and knowledge gained through the CoB.

For more information about Beta Alpha Psi, please visit their webpage http://www.montana.edu/cob/Accounting/club.html.

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The Starzen Internship is a month-long summer internship in Tokyo for two CoB students with the Starzen Company, Ltd., an international trading company and meat manufacturer. Through this program the CoB students will become familiar with the Japanese culture, Japanese business practices, and the operations of an international agricultural company. The students selected for this internship will be eligible to receive MSU internship credit.*

Please submit an electronic copy of your application and all supporting materials to starzen@montana.edu by March 28. Final decisions and notifications regarding selections will be completed by April 19.

For application forms and additional information about the Starzen Internship, please click here. Questions? Please contact Myleen Leary, starzen@montana.edu or (406) 994-6203.

“You haven’t really experienced what international business is like until you have been in Tokyo’s busy business district on a Monday morning, gotten lost in the subway network, eaten food you didn’t think was edible, and experienced how small business gestures can make the difference between failure and success in business interactions - and the Starzen internship let me experience all of these things, and more.”
—Karoline B. Teien, Business Management/International Business, Intern 2007

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Rob Irizarry, entrepreneur, angel investor and founder of StartupBozeman, will serve as the Montana State University College of Business (CoB)’s Spring Entrepreneur-in-Residence and give a free public lecture at 6:15 p.m. Wednesday, March 27, in the Procrastinator Theater. The series is a feature of the Jake Jabs Center for Entrepreneurship.

“Lean Startup: A Scientific Approach to Building Startups” will include answers to questions about starting and building new businesses using processes that minimize the risk of failure. Those questions include “Why do so many startups fail? What can be done to reduce the failure rate? How do I apply these principles to my business today?”

As Entrepreneur-In-Residence for the week of March 25-29, Irizarry will also visit business classes throughout the week and meet with students in the entrepreneurship program.

Irizarry, who lives in Bozeman, moved to Montana in 1999 to join RightNow Technologies. According to event organizers, Irizarry has nearly three decades of experience working with hardware and software technology in the finance, garment and automotive industries, and spent 12 years at RightNow Technologies in Bozeman, which pioneered multi-tenant software as a service for the customer experience market. He was the 20th employee at RightNow, which grew to over 1,100 employees before being acquired by Oracle for more than $1.5 billion.

Irizarry holds a bachelor’s degree in electronic engineering technology. He gained career experience working in and with public and private sector organizations that employ 10 people to the Fortune 10 building systems, processes and teams working in the United States, Europe, Asia, the Middle East and South Africa. Irizarry spent a decade living in Asia.

For more information on the lecture or the Entrepreneur-In-Residence program, contact Scott Bryant at bryant@montana.edu or 406-994-6191. More information about the CoB is available at http://www.montana.edu/cob/index.php.

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