The Executive - Spring 2015

undergraduate research,” Warner says. “Most of my aspirations are entrepreneurial, in developing innovative solutions.”

THE VISION

Innovative solutions are exactly what Dr. Rob Morgan, a Phifer Fellow and the Culverhouse executive director for innovation initiatives, imagined when, as a marketing professor, he conceived an effort tying science-technology careers with higher-level business skills. That is partially because Morgan identifies with students with dual interests.

“My undergrad was in biology and
chemistry,” Morgan says. “I went to
pharmacy school and worked at a big
clinical hospital in Dallas. I started my
MBA because I was fascinated by how
business affected health care, and I
liked marketing. I was on the infectious
disease team, and for someone who
loved biology and science, that was
great. But I was also fascinated by
marketing and economics. So I can
relate to these students who love science
and love technology, but also know that
they’ll be able to do more with their
studies if they also understand the way
business works.”
Morgan’s doctoral program led to his
teaching focus and subsequent job offer
at the University. He and his wife intended
to develop his academic credentials in
Tuscaloosa before returning to Texas.
But as the family and career grew, one
year slipped into the next.

“That was 23 years ago,” Morgan says of making Alabama his home state.

During those years, Morgan discussed the intersections of science-technology-business education with then-associate dean of the Culverhouse College of Commerce, Dr. Mike Hardin.

As the two considered how to better
prepare the MBA students in the
Manderson Graduate School of Business
for current corporate challenges, they
remembered the degree’s origins.
“The MBA was originally designed
for engineers back in in the 1940s and
1950s, who had been out working for a
few years and were being promoted into
managerial positions, or for those who
wanted to get into a management track,”
Morgan says. “The American MBA was
designed for the person who didn’t have
a business undergraduate degree.”
and math-related innovators must
understand how their solutions might
be managed, financed and marketed,
whether their expertise is software
engineering, infrastructure or
health care.

UA’s STEM program has, therefore,
drawn national attention. When Morgan
visited the office of Procter and Gamble’s
William Gipson, senior vice president
of global diversity and research and
development, greeted Morgan by saying,
“You know what you guys are doing is
revolutionary, right?”
“The feedback we get from
employers, paraphrased, is, ‘This is
exactly the kind of people we want to
hire,’” Morgan says. “They want their
engineers to understand the business
impact of what they do.”

THE EMPLOYERS

Kent Darzi is one of those employers. As director of engineering at ADTRAN, Darzi is another executive who makes time to sit on Culverhouse’s STEM-MBA advisory board.

“We at ADTRAN are looking for
students who can combine business and
engineering skills. That combination
is such a need not just within
our firm but within our industry,”
Darzi says. “We work in a global
development environment.”
Darzi calls the skills STEM-MBA
students acquire “exceptional and
extremely powerful,” citing the highly
motivated individuals he meets as a
mentor and adviser. These students’
"phenomenal" intellect is bolstered,
he says, by business-centric training
that prepares future professionals with
critical skills.

“This is an industry-changing
program from a well-respected
university.”
Another advisory board member,
Harry Gabriel, is distribution manager
for Alabama Power Co. in Tuscaloosa.
He has watched STEM-MBA candidates
tour facilities, complete corporate
partnership projects and serve as
interns and co-op workers.

“These hardworking students are just top-notch. They have the complete package — academics and social skills — to work for us. We’ve put them in situations where they’re interacting internally and externally, and they have done a really good job.”