Field first learned to operate a printing press while in high school in San Mateo, CA. He worked in the printing industry intermittently over the next 20 years, including stints working for printers in California and Minnesota.
 
He moved to Montana in 1989 and founded two automotive-related businesses before launching PrintingForLess.com (PFL). Field started PFL with a simple idea, making it easy and affordable to buy four-color printing from anywhere, anytime. In 1996, he tapped the power of the Internet to build the first online commercial printing company. Today PFL serves over 80,000 small business customers nationwide. 

In its 21^st year, the David Orser Executive Speakers Forum brings accomplished and inspiring professionals to MSU’s College of Business to deliver large, open-forum lectures and to share their expertise and experience with students in the classroom. David B. Orser, a 1966 MSU graduate, began funding the program in 1988 to inspire MSU business students to pursue careers as innovative, responsible and ethical business leaders.

For further information about the David Orser Executive Speakers Forum, please contact Audrey Lee at 406-994-7026 or e-mail: audrey.lee@montana.edu.

Montana

Participating students will be enrolled in “Management 475—Management Practicum” or “Management 463—The Entrepreneurial Experience.” Gary Bishop, an adjunct instructor of management teaches both senior-level courses. These courses have been a successful part of the CoB curriculum for more than 15 year.

During the four-month course, students will help manage special consulting projects requested by area for-profit and non-profit businesses and organizations. Past projects have included developing business, marketing and financial plans; business plans; identifying ways to improve businesses; suggesting solutions to problems; re-branding businesses; market and competition analysis; sales analysis; feasibility studies; and assisting with human resources and customer service issues.

The CoB is accepting applications from companies that may want to participate in either of these courses during the spring 2010 semester, at no cost to the company or organization; which begins January 13 and ends May 7. All types of businesses are encouraged to apply. For more information, contact Bishop at 994-7017 or at gbishop@montana.edu.

Bozeman is rapidly solidifying its place as the entrepreneurial hotbed of the Northern Rockies. The partnership between college and community has been longstanding, especially between the College of Business’ Center for Entrepreneurship for the New West and TechRanch. The October issue of Entrepreneur Magazine features this “union of town and gown” and highlights nine universities, including Montana State University, as examples of how these institutions are collaborating with their communities to encourage the development of small-businesses.

Click here to see what Entrepreneur Magazine had to say about Montana State University and the Center for Entrepreneurship for the New West.

Entrepreneur Magazine, October 2009. © 2009 by Entrepreneur Media, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduced with permission of Entrepreneur Media, Inc.

Golfers participating in the College of Business (CoB) Classic Open Benefit Golf Tournament were treated to a sunny and warm day for the event, held on September 18 at Bozeman’s Riverside Country Club.

The co-sponsors for this year’s event were Morgan Stanley Smith Barney and Cory Pulfrey, a friend of the CoB and Senior Advisor for Morgan Stanley Smith Barney.

The tournament began with a shotgun start at 12:30 p.m. One by one the golf carts filed out of the starting area towards their assigned starting holes. A few holes had special opportunities to win prizes or money. Student clubs staffed the betting hole, with proceeds going directly to the clubs, helping fund competitions and special projects. There was also a Hole in One for a cash prize. Teams started filing in to the banquet room around 4:30 p.m. and waited anxiously for the awards ceremony to see who would claim the title of tournament champions.

The team sponsored by RightNow Technologies, Devin Gray, Ben Fisher, Willie Eide and Aaron Schubert, were the winners with the lowest gross score, eking out a win over MSU Athletics. Continuing the tournament tradition, the winning players’ names were etched on the base of the prestigious traveling crystal trophy. The winners have the distinct honor of taking turns displaying the trophy at their places of business.

A number of individual and team prizes for 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd place, both net and gross, were also awarded following the tournament. Please see below for the list of winners.

Each year, the golf tournament provides a fun venue for CoB alumni and friends to gather for camaraderie and competition. The profits from the tournament fund student programs and scholarships. CoB student Jason Heffner was awarded the 2008 “Friends of the Classic Open Benefit Golf Tournament” scholarship, which was presented at the April 2009 awards banquet. This year, with the Scholarship Auction, $3000 was raised for scholarships alone, allowing us to give out more scholarships.

Next year’s event is tentatively slated for Friday, September 17. Contact Audrey Lee at audrey.lee@montana.edu for more information or see the CoB website.

Gross 1^st Place: Devin Gray, Ben Fisher, Willie Eide and Aaron Schubert (RightNow Technologies)

Gross 2^nd Place: Peter Fields, Lindsay Payne, Sonny Holland and Rocco Perciaviavalle (MSU Athletics)

Gross 3^rd Place: Adam Wrightson, Paula Anderson, Dustin Fasbender and Scott Eide (Nevada Restaurant)

Net 1^st Place: Todd Williamson, Scott Holton, Kasey Harte and Ryan Bramlette (Morgan Stanley Smith Barney)

Net 2^nd Place: Derek Didriksen, Kirk Scheel, Jim Demars and Tyler Nettleton (Dick Anderson Construction)

Net 3^rd Place: Paul Pahut, William Schlaebitz, Neil Thomas and Keith Hamburg (Mountain West Bank)

Longest Drive (Men 0-20): Willie Eide

Longest Drive (Women 0-24): Joy Staker

Longest Drive (Men 21+): Derek Didriksen

Longest Drive (Women 25+): Monika Johnson

Closest to the Pin (Men): Scott Eide

Closest to the Pin (Women): Hope Folkvord

Thank you to our sponsors- Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, Cory Pulfrey, Mountain West Bank, First Interstate Bank, Pine Cove Consulting, American Federal Savings Bank, East Main Liquor, First West Insurance, KPMG, Montana Rib and chop House, MSU Alumni Association, RightNow Technologies and Sun Mountains

Thank you to our Auction contributors - Bequet Confections, Big Sky Western Bank, Bridger Creek Golf Course, Downtown Bozeman Partnership, Ferraro’s Fine Italian Restaurant, First Security Bank, Hands On, Mountain West Bank, MSU Athletics, MSU President’s Office, Riverside Country Club, Sather Eye Clinic & Optical, Spire Climbing Center and Valley View Golf Club

The Montana State University College of Business annual golf tournament is scheduled for Friday, September 18, 2009 at the Riverside Country Club in Bozeman. The four-member, scramble format tournament is open to all players and will begin with a 12:30 p.m. shotgun start.

Profits from this event will be used to fund College of Business student enhancement programs and scholarships. At the last scholarship banquet in April 2009, a “Friends of the Classic Open Benefit Golf Tournament” scholarship was awarded to business student Jason Heffner.

“The tournament was very successful last year, and we are excited about the positive feedback we have received,” said CoB Director of Development, Jackie Sather. “The success was due largely to the generosity of our sponsors, prize donations and the enthusiasm and spirit of the golfers. We do have a lot of fun at this event!”

Participants may sign up as single players or a team of four. The tournament entry fee is $125 per golfer, which includes lunch and entry prize, two mulligans, a Hole-in-One competition, awards ceremony with tasty hors d’oeuvres, auction, and great team and individual prizes. This tournament does sell out, so early reservations are encouraged.

Continuing the tournament tradition, players on the team with the best gross score will have their names etched in the prestigious traveling crystal trophy and receive the honor of displaying the trophy at their place of business throughout the year. Last year’s winning team, sponsored by Mountain West Bank, was comprised of Paul Pahut (’00), Brent Zanto (’93), Neil Thomas and William Schlaebitz.

The Sioux Falls Business Journal recognized the top 10 up-and-coming young professional leaders in the Sioux Falls area in March 2009, which included College of Business (CoB) alumnus, Ryan Rickert. The largest city in South Dakota, Sioux Falls, with a population of more than 150,000, boasts many young up-and-comers, with only ten making the list.

Rickert (’06, marketing), says that his career path started before graduation, the summer after his third year at MSU, when he was hired on with the Sioux Falls Storm, a professional football team affiliated with United Indoor Football. Starting out as the “special events coordinator” after graduation, Rickert eventually worked his way up to his current position of Vice President/General Manager (VP/GM) after just six seasons.

Rickert enjoys many things about working for a sports team. Being the VP/GM allows for different work situations, and he likes that his day is never the same. Another favorite part of his job is that the team includes charity events with everything they do.

Rickert says, “We have a great fan base and they support anything that we support…so we get to use that to our advantage and spread goodwill to many different organizations and individuals. Annually we donate more than 10,000 volunteer hours and $150,000 to these groups.”

In addition to all the charitable work Rickert does directly through his job, he also serves as a mentor for Junior Achievement and as a chair on the Sioux Falls Fit Club. This group will be going to a Haitian orphanage in November to GPS (Global Position System) the surrounding mountain homes in an effort to put into place a preventative measure for the protection of the families in the area. Rickert will also spend time teaching young men in the village how to swim and he will be bringing with him gear that will allow the young men to safely fish/dive for their shrimp traps. The seafood in turn feeds the children in the orphanage as well as struggling villagers from nearby farms.

On the other hand, the most challenging aspect of Rickert’s job is plain and simple–managing money. Rickert says that profit margins are thin and players’ injuries have the biggest impact on the team’s bottom line. In order to mitigate this largest factor, the Storm’s facilities have one of the strongest medical facilities in the league along with intense health training and nutrition for the players.

Rickert credits the CoB with preparing him to succeed in the business world. He learned, and fine-tuned, many of the business skills he uses in his day-to-day business interactions in the classroom. Rickert remembers positive interactions with professors throughout his time with the CoB and says that they guided him and molded his business mind. In particular, Mike Gold’s advertising course, with its hands-on, real life experience and involvement, had a huge impact on Rickert. Many of the CoB classes Rickert had taken (sales, marketing, and business communications) converged with this course, where he put all those skills to good use.

Rickert adds, “[The] CoB helped relate things to real life and made them easy to apply in a real life situation. I seriously owe much of my current success and future success to MSU’s CoB!”

For students interested in pursuing a career in sports and in general, Rickert stresses the importance of being involved in a diverse amount of activities to gain a broad perspective of things and accumulate a variety of skill sets. He also mentions the importance of stepping outside your comfort zone but to always perform as though your boss and grandparents are always watching. Rickert also emphasizes the importance of internships, saying they are a great way to get on with a team and are not extremely difficult to find. He adds, “Many teams want a couple years experience and the internship is the best way to get it. I have hired several volunteers/interns over the years because I was able to put them to the test and see how they perform. It takes the guessing out of a resume and interview.”

Rickert encourages all recent graduates and current students to find jobs in their areas of interest and to be tenacious. He says, “Be fearless…Always go above and beyond. People are always watching and you never know who is looking up to you. You never know who will respect your hard work and remember it down the road. Life is all about maintaining relationships and networking. Be true to yourself and be honest with others.” If Rickert’s advice is taken seriously by CoB students and alumni, they may find that they are able to become as successful in the business world as he is.

Every semester, the MSU College of Business (CoB) administers a standardized test that compares its senior business students’ scores to those of others across the nation, and our students are measuring up extremely well.

The CoB first started administering this test in 2005 and so far the average scores achieved by our seniors have consistently been at or above the 90^th percentile as compared to the averages at over 500 Colleges of Business who have their students take the MFT. In fact, the spring 2009 cohort (141 students) scored in the 96^th percentile overall.

The Major Field Test (MFT) – Business, administered by Educational Testing Services (ETS), the same testing facility that administers the SAT and GRE, is taken by CoB seniors enrolled in the Senior Seminar (a required course usually taken during the final semester before graduation). This test is designed to measure a student’s knowledge of business and their ability to apply significant concepts, theories and analytical methods to practical business problems.

Students can compare their individual performance on the MFT to that of approximately 250,000 other business students from more than 500 other institutions across the nation.

The MSU CoB, which is accredited by The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), was granted full unconditional reaffirmation of its accreditation in the spring of 2008. Dr. Bill Brown, professor of business management, mentions the importance of our students’ performance on the MFT-Business. “One of the central tenets of our mission is that we seek to provide our students with knowledge of current business practices and theory and to be conversant in the language of business. Instead of asking [the AACSB] to take our word for the fact that we are doing a good job of that, this test is a way to compare the business knowledge and skills of our students to students around the country.”

Students, who typically take the electronic test during their final semester of school, are able to get immediate results, which indicate their placement among all other students participating. They can also see how well they individually scored in sub-categories, such as the business option they are enrolled in or economics.

Alan Poole (’06, business marketing) recalls his experience with the MFT. “The CoB professors do a very good job of providing a well rounded education. Even though you may be in a finance class, a marketing class, a management class, or an accounting class, the professors go beyond the scope of that subject to apply the terminology to real world business scenarios. I think that is what helps us to do so well on the field test. It is basically a culmination of four years of study.”

“We have really excellent students. They are hard working, they are conscientious, and they respond well to the course of instruction,” says Brown. He continued, saying that in seeing such scores, “We are reassured that we are getting something right about our curriculum and approach to teaching.”

The Montana Society of Certified Public Accountants (MSCPA) held their annual meeting on June 17-19 in Helena. Montana State University (MSU) College of Business (CoB) alumna Kyla Stafford was appointed President of the Board of Directors for 2009-2010. CoB alumnus David Sutherland was appointed to the Board of Directors for a three-year term.

Stafford graduated from MSU with bachelor degrees in accounting and Spanish, as well as her masters in professional accountancy. In addition to her work as a CPA, Stafford is a Certified Fraud Examiner. She is currently a shareholder in the Bozeman office of Anderson ZurMuehlen & Co.

Stafford is very active in the Bozeman community, volunteering in fundraising events for the Children’s Museum of Bozeman, the Museum of the Rockies and the Bozeman Deaconess Foundation. She also serves on the Finance Committee for the Greater Gallatin United Way.

Sutherland has been a member of the MSCPA since 1985 after graduating from MSU with a degree in accounting and is currently a shareholder in Stahlberg and Sutherland, PC, in Kalispell. He has served as a member of the Continuing Professional Education Committee for 23 years. In his spare time, Sutherland is active in the Kalispell community, coaching various youth athletic teams.

The MSCPA is a professional association comprised of more than 1,800 members worldwide. MSCPA’s mission is to promote and safeguard the interests of its members and to assist all members and the profession

in providing the highest quality accounting services.

Montana

The students will be enrolled in “Management 463 - The Entrepreneurial Experience” or “Management 475 - Management Practicum”. Both courses are senior-level courses taught by Gary Bishop, an adjunct instructor of management.

During the four-month course, students will help manage special consulting projects requested by area for-profit and non-profit businesses and organizations at no cost to the business/organization. Past projects have included developing business plans, marketing and financial plans, identifying ways to improve businesses, suggesting solutions to problems, re-branding businesses, market and competition analysis, sales analysis, feasibility studies, rebranding a business/organization and helping with human resources and customer service issues.

The MSU College of Business is taking applications from companies that may want to participate in either of these courses during the fall 2009 or spring 2010 semesters. The fall semester begins August 31^st and ends December 18^th. The spring 2010 semester begins January 13^th and ends May 7^th. All types of businesses and organizations are encouraged to apply. Participating businesses and organizations will need to send a representative to one of two, hour-long information sessions prior to the start of the semester. Sessions are set for 8:30-9:30 a.m. on Tuesday, July 28th and 1:30-2:30 p.m. on Thursday, July 30^th both in Reid Hall, Room 452 on the MSU Bozeman Campus. For more information, and to schedule attendance at one of the information sessions contact Bishop at 994-7017 or at gbishop@montana.edu.