Community / December 19, 2016

Smith Winter Commencement is Dec 21

Join the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business on Wednesday, Dec. 21, 2016, at 9 a.m. as we celebrate the accomplishments of business graduates at the Xfinity Center in College Park, Md. Tickets are not required for the Smith ceremony or the main campus ceremony, which is on Tuesday, Dec. 20 at 6 p.m.

Smith’s keynote speaker is Richard L. Novak ’62, operating partner at Linden Capital Partners. YongHyeok Joo, class of 2017, will sing the National Anthem. The graduate speaker is Rahul Sood and the undergraduate student speaker is Adam Greene.

Novak is a retired senior executive with 50 years of experience at four companies. His career has spanned health care services and consumer-packaged goods at LabCorp, GlaxoSmithKline, Bayer and Altria, where he managed both domestic and international businesses.

As chief operating officer at LabCorp, Novak played a key role in the company’s ascent to a preeminent position in a $40 billion industry. He supported LabCorp’s rise through superb performance in varying financial metrics, including market capitalization, EPS, EBITDA, profit margin, cash flow, revenue, bad debt and DSO.

He was also an operating partner at Linden Capital Partners, a life sciences private equity firm. He was chairman of Hycor and Strate, both Linden portfolio companies, and was a board member of Sera and Handy Lab.

Novak earned a bachelor’s degree in marketing from the University of Maryland and now lives in Greenwich, Conn., with his wife Laura, and enjoys visits from his two grown daughters and his two grandchildren. He led the Terrapin Football team as quarterback and was selected to the All-ACC Athletic/Academic team. He was named to the Maryland Football Legends group in 2011.

For more information about the campus-wide ceremony, visit: www.commencement.umd.edu.

The Smith School commencement ceremonies will be streamed live at www.rhsmith.umd.edu/WatchMeGraduate.

Join the conversation online at #SmithGrad – Twitter: @SmithSchool – Instagram: @UMDSmithSchool.

For more details and highlights from previous Smith School commencement ceremonies, visit www.rhsmith.umd.edu/commencement.

Media Contact

Greg Muraski
Media Relations Manager
301-405-5283  
301-892-0973 Mobile
gmuraski@umd.edu 

About the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business

The Robert H. Smith School of Business is an internationally recognized leader in management education and research. One of 12 colleges and schools at the University of Maryland, College Park, the Smith School offers undergraduate, full-time and flex MBA, executive MBA, online MBA, business master’s, PhD and executive education programs, as well as outreach services to the corporate community. The school offers its degree, custom and certification programs in learning locations in North America and Asia.

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