Cathleen Folker, Ph.D. Associate Professor Ph.D., Management, Texas Tech University E-mail

Area of Expertise: Professor Folker specializes in Management & Entrepreneurship. Her current research focuses on family business including such issues as gender differences in management orientation, conflict management and leadership. She teaches Business Policy and Advanced Strategic Management.

Professional Activities: Professor Folker’s latest publications include articles on Women Family Business Leaders and their Motivations, Family Dynamics in Women-Owned Firms, and Management Team Gender Balance, in International Journal of Family Business, and the Journal of Developmental Entrepreneurship. She is a member of the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (USASBE) and is currently serving as VP for the Minority & Women’s Division; as well as a member of the Academy of Management (AOM). She is currently on the Editorial Review Board for the Journal of Small Business & Strategy. Professor Folker has been involved in consulting for small and start-up businesses.

Michele Gee, Ph.D. Associate Professor Ph.D., Management Science, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee E-mail

Area of Expertise: Professor Gee specializes in strategic management and international business. She currently teaches Business Policy and Global Issues in Management. Prior to her academic experiences, Professor Gee was a marketing manager at IBM and AT&T.

Professional Activities: Professor Gee has presented her research in numerous international, national, and regional academic and professional conferences on topics such as cross-cultural management, strategic analyses of organizations and industries, and economic development issues. She has reviewed existing and proposed textbooks in strategic management, and has provided extensive strategic planning consulting to organizations and businesses.

Professor Gee has received awards for voluntary strategic planning consultation provided to non-profit organizations. In addition, she has received many other awards and recognition for outstanding achievements in mentoring, teaching, and advising students, and service provided to the campus, surrounding communities, and in the University of Wisconsin System. Dr. Gee has also written several grant proposals, received funding, and directed special programs in workforce and community economic development, entrepreneurship, and efforts to increase the number of underrepresented minorities in science, technology, engineering, and math. She also had a two-year appointment as Assistant to the Provost, and served as Co-Director of the Center for International Studies for three years.

Professor Gee was distinguished as an American Council on Education (ACE) Fellow in academic year 2006-07. ACE annually selects a small group of high achieving scholars and provides advanced leadership development and experiences in the administration of American colleges and universities. Many university presidents, provosts, and other academic officers are former ACE Fellows.

During her ACE Fellowship, Dr. Gee was mentored by the President and Provost at DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois. DePaul is the largest Catholic university, and the sixth largest private university in the United States. She shadowed the President and Provost daily, and was a member of the President’s Cabinet. As an ACE Fellow at DePaul, she was involved in strategic plan implementation; fiscal policy and budgeting; large-scale real estate development and negotiations; curriculum review, faculty development and governance issues in DePaul’s nine major colleges and schools; capital campaign planning and fundraising; enrollment management and growth; and marketing and promotion. She also became quite familiar with NCAA Division I, Big East operations and planning; NCA re-accreditation; and Board of Trustees deliberations and decision-making.

Kristin Holmberg-Wright, Ed.D. Lecturer Ed.D., Administration, Higher, Continuing Education, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign E-mail

Area of Expertise: Dr. Holmberg-Wright teaches management and organization behavior courses. Previously, she was a health care executive serving in the capacity of Director of Executive and Management Education and Total Quality Management. Under her leadership, the healthcare system was runner up for the Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award. Upon receiving her doctoral degree, she was Assistant to the President of Indiana University and served as an assistant professor (part-time) in both the Schools of Public and Environmental Affairs and the School of Education.

Professional Activities: Dr. Holmberg-Wright currently serves on the review boards for the Journal of the Academy of Business Education, Leadership and Organizational Management Journal, the Franklin Publishing Company, as well as serving as a reviewer of management texts for John Wiley and Prentice Hall Publishers. She has numerous publications in the areas of soft management skills and programmatic development, mentoring, curriculum improvement in undergraduate and graduate business education, leadership, and budgeting. She is an elected public official and serves on the Governor's Task Force for Emergency Management.

Abey Kuruvilla, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Ph.D., Industrial Engineering, University of Louisville E-mail

Teaching: Dr. Kuruvilla is Visiting Assistant Professor in Operations Management. Prior to this appointment, he was a Special faculty member at the School of Business Administration at Oakland University, MI where he taught Quantitative Methods and Operations Management and an Adjunct Professor at Lawrence Tech University and Davenport University, where he taught Operations Management, Management Science and Statistics. He also taught Engineering at Wayne State University as an adjunct professor and Operations Research at University of Louisville as a graduate student.

Research: Dr. Kuruvilla’s research interests are Ambulance Diversion in Emergency Medical Systems, Healthcare Management and Operations Management in the Service Industry. He has presented several papers at the Society for Health Systems conferences and has published conference proceedings in the US and India. He was a consultant to e-commerce small scale businesses in Michigan and has developed a new interest in the language learning industry.

Personal: Dr. Kuruvilla can speak five languages and his passions are travel, photography, horseback riding and taking risks - he met and married his lovely wife, Asha, in 6 days!

Roby Rajan, Ph.D. Professor Ph.D., Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University E-mail

Area of Expertise: Roby Rajan's broad area of interest is globalization. The supply chains of companies are increasingly global i n character, and this has given rise to many new problems that are inter-disciplinary in nature. Rajan's interest spans the economic as well as the cultural and political aspects of global supply chains. He teaches courses in Operations Management and Statistics.

Professional Activities: Roby Rajan has published in a wide variety of journals including Operations Research, The International Economic Review, Empirical Economics, The Cato Journal, Alternatives, Rethinking Marxism, and Emergences. He is a regular participant in national and international conferences dealing with inter-disciplinary aspects of globalization.