Second Year of Excellence in Smith Executive MBA Program

Eighteen months ago, although already armed with a masters degree in chemical engineering from John Hopkins University, Eric Gwin was set on pushing himself to hit the textbooks again. In February 2005, this technical assistant to the president of Constellation Energy Group, Inc., graduated with an Executive Masters of Business Administration (EMBA) from the Robert H. Smith of Business, together with 20 classmates.

The Smith School is celebrating another year of excellence as its second group of executives graduate from the EMBA program. The Smith EMBA program has been carefully designed to emphasize technology's value to business practices, giving a competitive edge to students in all fields.

For Aleksandra Skoric, managing director of Small Business Project, Inc., the Smith EMBA program has offered her a safe harbor to experiment with different facets of entrepreneurship through leadership development classes and business simulation exercises. Like Skoric, Sol J. Ross, an assistant to Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, felt that the Smith EMBA Program has given him the base tools to make solid decisions using imperfect information.

The Smith EMBA program has also been a good source of networking for Rosa Mariduena, budget officer with the International Monetary Fund. In the long run, I have gained confidence through my course work, as well as a network of resources, she said.

As part of the curriculum, each student is required to work with three or four other EMBA students on a Marketplace Stimulation Exercise, a capstone component of the program. This four-and-a-half-day business war game allows the students to apply their learning directly by competing against each other in running a company for two years in compressed time. Each team will take its company through the business life cycle from start-up, to development, to growth, to near maturity.

Skoric felt that the Marketplace Stimulation Exercise was a wonderful integrative approach to all the facets of the EMBA program: marketing, production, finance, leadership, human resources, negotiations, and R&D. The simulation is moving so fast, that as a member of the group, one needs to learn to command all individual departments. It accentuates importance of the team work, systems and collegiality, she said.

To commemorate their graduation, the Robert H. Smith of Business held a special reception for its 21 graduating students and families on Friday, February 11. The students will also join graduating Smith students from other programs at the schools spring graduation ceremony in May 2005.

▓ Kenneth Ng, MBA Candidate 2006, Smith Media Group