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Campaign Economists

Business School students acknowledged the teaching efforts of, from left, Garth Saloner, Bill Barnett, and Robert Flanagan. Photo by Saul Bromberger/Sandra Hoover Photography.“Those of you coming to see red meat will be disappointed,” Stanford Business School Professor Peter Henry, (pictured on the left), told an audience filling the Bechtel Conference Center in late September to hear economic advisors to presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama. Henry, the Konosuke Matsushita Professor of International Economics and associate director of the Center for Global Business and the Economy, represented Obama, and McCain was represented by Kevin Hassett, right, of American Enterprise Institute. Both advocated a bipartisan approach to the economic crisis and congressional oversight of bailout plans for Wall Street. Stanford economist John Shoven, (pictured at center), moderated.

Wein Raises Bar for Security Analysis

Research by a Stanford Business School professor analyzing U.S. security problems has set a high standard for analyzing public issues generally and communicating results to the public, according to the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS), which presented its 2008 Frederick W. Lanchester Prize to Lawrence M. Wein, the Paul E. Holden Professor of Management Science.

Wein was cited for a series of papers, including “The Last Line of Defense: Designing Radiation Detection-Interdiction Systems to Protect Cities from a Nuclear Attack,” which the organization considered the best English-language research published in three years in the fields of operations research and management science. Wein's work “opened up an important new area—homeland security,” for the application of operations research, the organization said, by analyzing risks associated with four main national threats—border security, nuclear weapons at ports and large cities, anthrax- and smallpox-based attacks, and food supply attacks—and providing policy recommendations for dealing with these risks.

“This research developed extremely creative, original, and detailed models for evaluating alternative methods of protection,” the INFORMS citation said. “The analysis used an impressive range of methods including optimization, game theory, stochastic models, statistics, and differential equations.”

In November 2007, Wein received the organization's President's Award for lifetime achievement.

Lee's Logistic Leadership Recognized

The Rotterdam School of Management at Erasmus University in the Netherlands awarded an honorary doctorate to Hau Lee, the Thoma Professor of Operations, Information, and Technology and director of the Stanford Global Supply Chain Management Forum and the Strategies and Leadership in Supply Chains Executive Program.

Calling Lee “a world leader in supply chain management,” the school said he is also one of the 50 most-cited authors in the areas of business and economic sciences. The Rotterdam School hosted a symposium in November for members of the logistics industry in conjunction with granting Lee the degree and said his research will be used by it and others participating in the European Commission’s Integrity Project, which aims to investigate and improve transparency in global supply chains between the Far East and Europe.

In 2004, Lee’s 1997 paper, coauthored with Seungjin Whang and Venkata Padmanabhan, “Information Distortion in a Supply Chain: The Bullwhip Effect,” was voted one of the 10 most influential articles published in the history of the journal Management Science.

Aspen Institute Honors Baron

The Aspen Institute Center for Business Education presented its 2008 Lifetime Achievement Award to Business School Professor Emeritus David Baron at a November reception at Ernst & Young’s corporate headquarters in New York City.

The honor is one of the institute’s Faculty Pioneer Awards, intended to celebrate MBA faculty who have demonstrated leadership and risk-taking in integrating social and environmental issues into academic research, educational programs, and business practice.

In a press release, the institute said Baron was honored as “an innovator in the area of business and its social, political, and legal environment. He created the field of non-market strategy, an approach that integrates traditional strategy with political economy, reputation management, ethics, and corporate social responsibility. His most recent research includes path-breaking work on social entrepreneurship and moral motivations for firms and managers.”

Baron is the David S. and Ann M. Barlow Professor of Political Economy and Strategy, Emeritus. He has taught in the MBA, PhD, and Executive Education programs, and received the MBA teaching award at Kellogg and the PhD teaching award at the gsb. He has authored more than 100 articles and 3 books, one of which is in its 5th edition.

The Aspen Institute Center for Business Education offers business educators targeted resources to incorporate issues of social and environmental stewardship.

Faculty, Alumni Receive Praise for Volunteerism

THE STANFORD BUSINESS SCHOOL Alumni Association chose to honor George Foster, the Paul L. and Phyllis Wattis Professor of Management, with the 2008 Robert K. Jaedicke Silver Apple Award for service to alumni. Foster is also director of the School’s Executive Program for Growing Companies.

During October’s Alumni Weekend, the association also honored four alumni for School service: Duane Wadsworth, MBA ’63; Jim Crownover, MBA ’68; Tom Friel, MBA ’73; and Debbie Zoullas, MBA ’78.

Foster has demonstrated a longstanding interest in alumni and alumni programs. He has been a keynote speaker during Alumni Weekend and during spring reunions, and his research on the business of sports has been extremely popular with alumni all over the world, said Lynne Reynolds, director of Alumni Relations. Foster has spoken to GSB alumni chapters in Sydney and Melbourne in Australia; the San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, New York, and Boston in the United States; and in London, Paris, and Switzerland in Europe, she said. He also maintains close connections with his students after they graduate.

At the awards ceremony, Dean Robert Joss also introduced the alumni recipients of the John Gardner Volunteer Leadership Awards, named after the late faculty member who was a strong advocate for volunteer service. Begun in 2002, the Gardner Awards are intended to honor alumni 20-plus-years out who have a history of strong volunteer commitment that has had significant impact on the School.

Wadsworth has been the MBA ’63 class secretary for nine years and a consistent reunion volunteer or chairman. He has been involved in the School’s personal solicitation program and volunteered as a judge in the Executive Challenge program of the Center for Leadership Development and Research. He served a five-year term on the Stanford Business School Alumni Association Board of Directors and is currently its president, which means he also serves on the GSB Advisory Council.

Crownover volunteered for his first phone appeal in Houston shortly after his graduation and chaired the 40th reunion campaign for his class, which set both dollar and participation records for its third reunion in a row. In between, he served in numerous fundraising roles, as an MBA Admissions volunteer, as an Executive Challenge judge, and as a two-term member of the GSB Advisory Council.

Friel chaired his 35th reunion fundraising committee and has provided insight and leadership as a member of the Advisory Council, where he advanced the School’s commitment to improving faculty recruitment and retention by helping to form an ad hoc committee and sharing his insights on the parallels between faculty recruiting and corporate recruiting. He also has volunteered on behalf of the Center for Leadership Development and Research, Student Affairs, and the Global Management Program.

Zoullas has been chair of the Stanford Business School Trust after serving on the board for six years. She played a leadership role in her 15th, 20th, and 25th reunions and was on the volunteer team for her 30th. She also has been active in the GSB Women’s Initiative and recently completed her second term on the Advisory Council.