Rocki-Lee DeWitt is a Professor of Management in the School of Business at the University of Vermont. She earned her Ph.D. at Columbia University in strategic management, her M.S. at The Ohio State University in agricultural economics and her B.S. in marketing and management at New York University. From 2002 until 2009, Dr. DeWitt served as the Dean of the School of Business Administration at the University of Vermont. As Dean, she lead the reaffirmation of the school's accreditation by AACSB, hired 15 of the school's 27 tenure track faculty, increased the number of endowed faculty fellowships and professorships, and helped build a management development and executive education presence. Prior to her arrival, Dr. DeWitt was the Associate Dean for Professional Masters Programs at the Pennsylvania State University. Dr. DeWitt has received numerous teaching awards and has discussed teaching innovations at multiple national conferences. Her research on downsizing and restructuring has been published in top tier journals. Dr. DeWitt's current research focuses on the evolution of land-based, value-added industries with a special consideration of the role of family businesses in that evolution. Dr. DeWitt has been a member of the Board of Governors of Beta Gamma Sigma. Currently, she is a member of the Board of Directors of Yankee Farm Credit (an ACA), and sits on various community boards including the Lake Champlain Chamber of Commerce and the Greater Burlington Industrial Council.

Michael A. Gurdon, Ph.D. - Details
Professor & Associate Dean of Graduate Programs
Office: 309 Kalkin
Office Hours: TH 4:30 - 6:30p.m. or by appointment
Phone: 656-0513
E-mail: Gurdon@bsad.uvm.edu

Dr. Gurdon joined the UVM faculty in 1980 after two years with the University of New Brunswick. His teaching specialties lie in the areas of collective bargaining, international management and organizational behavior. He has been a consultant on strategic and human resource planning for a variety of private and public organizations. Dr. Gurdon's research interests encompass employee ownership, industrial democracy, and a range of international labor-management issues. His recent sabbatical was affiliated with Leeds University Business School in England and the University of Tasmania in Australia. His articles have appeared in such publications as the Journal of Industrial Relations, International Labour Review, Industrial Relations, and Management Review.

Suggested topics for comment:
Labor relations issues and international union-management developments.

Affiliations:
Referee for "Industrial & Labor Relations Review"; Secretary, Board of Directors of Vermont Employee Ownership Center (http://www.veoc.org/docs/VEOC%20PR%2011-24-08.pdf); arbitrator of hearings brought before the National Association of Securities Dealers; consultant to several corporations in the development of strategic planning processes and long-term corporate objectives.

Barbara R. McIntosh, Ph.D. - Details
Professor
Office: 318 Kalkin
Office Hours: After Class or by appointment
Phone: 656-0507
E-mail: McIntosh@bsad.uvm.edu

Professor Barbara McIntosh been actively involved in examining aging labor force issues for 25 years. She is a professor in the School of Business Administration at the University of Vermont where she teaches human resources management, organization behavior, and a course on aging and employment. She was honored to be named a Fellow in the Association for Gerontology in Higher Education in 2001.

She has presented over 50 papers (refereed and invited), and made two videos on aging workforce topics. In addition to her scholarly research, she is currently preparing eight Learning Modules on the Aging Workforce and Older Workers for the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). These will be released nationally in Spring 2008. She also wrote two practitioner monographs published by the US Department of Labor An Employers Guide to Older Workers: How to Win Them Back and Convince Them to Stay, and A Supervisors Guide: Managing Older Workers.

The last five years she has been actively engaged in research on the aging healthcare workforce through the Office of Nursing Workforce: Research, Planning, and Development in the College of Nursing and Health Sciences at the University of Vermont, and she was honored in 2007 as a co-author of an article that received the "Best of Journal of Nursing Scholarship for Profession and Society" award.

Nationally, Dr. McIntosh is chair of MaturityWorks Alliance, an interest organization within the National Council on the Aging (NCOA), and she serves on NCOAs Leadership Council. She also serves on an AARP aging workforce advisory board.

In Vermont, Dr. McIntosh was a member of the Governors Advisory Board to the Department of Aging and Disabilities from 1995 to 2005 and has served on the boards of other organizations involved in aging issues including Vermont Associates for Training and Development, Foster Grandparents, and Project Home.

Dr. McIntosh received her Ph.D. in Administrative Sciences from Purdue University; her M.L.I.R. in Collective Bargaining from Michigan State University; and her B.S. in Communications from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana.

Suggested topics for comment:
Changes in the labor force, aging and employment, nursing and healthcare workforce issues, managing diversity; collaborative negotiations; managing difficult employees, and managing changing work environments.

Affiliations:
Gerontological Society of America, National Council on the Aging, MaturityWorks Alliance, Association for Gerontology in Higher Education, Academy of Management, and Society for Human Resource Management.

Larry E. Shirland, Ph.D. - Details
Interim Dean and Professor
Office: 210 Kalkin
Office Hours: By appointment or by appointment
Phone: 656-3177
E-mail: shirland@bsad.uvm.edu

Dr. Shirland came to UVM in 1976 after four years at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside. His main teaching areas are Production and Operations Management, Operations Research, and Quality Assurance. Dr. Shirland earned his Ph.D. from Oregon State University in 1972. Before joining UVM he taught for four years at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside in Kenosha, Wisconsin. He also spent four years with the Eastman Kodak company as a development engineer and contract analyst.

Dr. Shirland's textbook, Statistical Quality Control: With Microcomputer Applications, was published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. in 1993. His publications have appeared in numerous academic journals including Decision Sciences, Industrial Engineering, MIS Quarterly, Engineering Management Journal, Interfaces, OMEGA, Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Applied Business Research, and Journal of Systems Management.

Suggested topics for comment:
Production systems/quality control.

Affiliations:
American Society for Engineering Management; The Institute for Management Science; Decision Sciences Institute; American Society for Quality.

James M. Sinkula, Ph.D. - Details
Professor and John L. Beckley Chair
Office: 206 Kalkin
Office Hours: MW 10:00 - 11:00 a.m. or by appointment
Phone: 656-0497
E-mail: Sinkula@bsad.uvm.edu

James M. Sinkula received his undergraduate and masters degrees in Business Administration from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and his Ph.D. in Marketing from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. He has been on the faculty at UVM's School of Business Administration since the fall semester of 1983. He teaches in the areas of Market Research and Marketing Management.

His research interests lie primarily in the areas of organizational learning, strategic orientation, product innovation and organizational performance. He is best known for integrating the concept of organizational learning into a conceptualization of market information use in the firm. His most current work, published in the October 2009 issue of the Journal of Small Business Management, explores the complementary effects of market orientation and entrepreneurial orientation on profitability in small business.

Dr. Sinkula has published in the leading scholarly journals, including the Journal of Marketing, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Product and Innovation Management, Journal of Small Business Management, Journal of Advertising Research, Journal of Market Focused Management, Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing, Journal of International Marketing and others. Additionally, he has publications in Developments in Marketing Science and the American Marketing Association Proceedings. Dr. Sinkula has also done work in export management and has published two book chapters in Advances in International Marketing. He has served on numerous editorial review boards to include the Journal of Marketing, Journal of Retailing, Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and the Journal of Business Research. He is a frequent participant in scholarly meetings and has presented research papers throughout the United States and Europe. In 1998, Sinkula was one of a small group of academic researchers invited to present their research to the AMA Doctoral Constortium in Athens, Georgia. In 2000, he was awarded the Sheth Foundation Award for the best article of 1999 in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. In a recent citation analysis (Zinkhan 2005) this article ranked second of 188 articles published in JAMS between 1988 and 2004. In another citation analysis (Helm et. al., 2003) of articles published in the top three marketing journals between 1990 and 1996, Sinkula ranked in the top 6 percent of cited scholars. He has consulted with and served on the boards of numerous manufacturing and service organizations. He has done volunteer work for a number of not-for-profit organizations in the Burlington area.

Affiliations:
American Marketing Association; Academy of Marketing Science; Consortium for International Marketing Research; Beta Gamma Sigma.