Return to Virginia Business - June 2004

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by Jim Strader
Virginia Business
June 2004

When Peter Denbigh was a senior at James Madison University working toward a degree in the school’s College of Integrated Science and Technology he started a part-time business wiring the houses and apartments of fellow students for computers. Two years after graduation, Denbigh has taken that side job — and what he learned about technology and business — and turned it into a company.

WildWires, based in Harrisonburg, employs 16 people and has branched out to offer computer, telecommunications and video services to a growing number of commercial customers. Denbigh credits JMU’s program with helping him turn his technical know-how into a company. “I’ve always loved business, but I’ve also been sort of a techie guy,” he says. “The ISAT program teaches you to know a little bit about a lot of things.”

The melding of business with technology is an approach being taken at universities across Virginia as academics — often in consultation with executives — craft courses designed to prepare graduates for a business world that’s increasingly driven by technology. “In today’s economy, what you learn in a four-year program, even a very good one, only carries you to the next level,” says Doug Koelemay, a managing director with McLean-based Qorvis Communications and a member of the executive advisory council at JMU’s College of Integrated Science and Technology. “There are very few jobs that are going to stay substantially the same over the course in a career. Successful people are learning how to carry their careers around with them.”

Virginia Commonwealth University is planning a joint program in new facilities that will allow students in the business and engineering schools to take the same courses, choosing from subjects such as technology and product development. “Engineering students already take courses that we developed for them at the business school,” says Michael Sesnowitz, dean of the VCU School of Business. “We’d like to expand that so business students can take engineering classes… We want to turn out engineering students who understand business and, at the same time, turn out business grads who understand engineering.” Construction of VCU’s new Monroe campus is expected to take about two years and will include a complex of buildings for the residential colleges of both the business and engineering schools and a conference center.

Companies — especially those with a heavy emphasis on science — need graduates with a background in both fields, says Jim Weigand, director of global business for DuPont at the company’s advanced fiber manufacturing site south of Richmond. “I think what you’re doing is preparing them better for what they’re going to find in business,” says Weigand. “It’s almost fast-tracking them for what they’re going to face.”

More and more executives at technology-driven companies are being given the responsibility of managing other professionals. That skill may not come naturally to those with a background in technical subjects, observes Richard Klimoski, dean of The School of Management at George Mason University in Fairfax. “Technological people need business exposure and acumen for them to be effective,” he says.

George Mason offers a range of programs designed to help people in the fields of information technology, engineering and bioscience advance both their own careers and the fortunes of their companies. The longest running of the programs — technology management — has been in operation for a dozen years and targets professionals who have been working for five to seven years. These are often people whose jobs require them to develop ideas for products and take those products to market, says Klimoski.

A similar program began this year in biosciences, which GMU developed for the health and medical research business communities in Northern Virginia. Like the technology program, the bioscience program involves part-time graduate studies for people who are working. On the undergraduate level, the GMU business school is developing a new joint program with the university’s engineering school. After three years of engineering concentration, students could add business courses in the fourth year and switch to a full load of business studies in a fifth year, earning both a bachelor’s degree and an MBA.

“One of the challenges is to find just the right group of men and women who can do this,” says Klimoski. Unlike the working professionals who return to school for graduate degrees, undergraduates often do not have much in the way of business experience to give them the grounding they need in MBA studies, he says.
In addition to the structured programs, George Mason’s business school offers a number of informal opportunities for students in technology to gain broader knowledge of business practices to assist them in their careers. Those include allowing engineering students to take business courses as electives or work toward a minor in business, as well as continuing education programs in areas such as project management, government procurement, intellectual property and brand management. “We are very advantaged, I suppose, in Northern Virginia by having thousands of companies in our space who need technically trained people with a business edge,” Klimoski says. “We’re trying to be responsive or a little ahead of the business community with what we have to offer here.”

Feedback from the business world helps keep the curriculum relevant in these programs. The Integrated Science and Technology department at JMU’s school has improved the “social context” of its courses — covering legal, political and society issues — with input from corporate advisors, says department head Ron Kander. Not only does such advice help the school develop its curriculum, but it also is a way to make graduates more attractive to potential employers. For the last decade, the program has sought to blend the study of business with science and technology. “From the very beginning, this program was designed to integrate the two —and truly integrate, not just add on,” says Jerry Benson, the dean of the JMU college.

As a way to refine its mission, the ISAT school began last year to offer a small group of students the opportunity to combine their studies in technology with courses from JMU’s College of Business, and receive both an undergraduate degree and an MBA after five years. Classroom work, which includes instruction on working in teams and the commercialization of technology and internships, provides real-world experience that helps students once they go out into the world of work. “They understand what business is all about — there’s a bottom line,” Benson says. Students in the ISAT program this year explored the feasibility of bringing a technology-based business zone to Harrisonburg. And AgWater Technologies, a Harrisonburg company that helps the poultry industry improve water quality, hired 15 JMU undergraduates as interns in research and development.

At Virginia Tech’s Pamplin College of Business, information technology has been a focus for nearly two decades, says Dean Richard E. Sorensen. The school offers degrees in accounting information systems and business information technology and many Pamplin graduates find work in computer consulting fields, he says. Virginia Tech’s approach allows students “to have the technical skills with a business perspective to be able to solve business problems” once they are employed, says Sorensen.

Companies that advise Pamplin leaders on its programs suggested that the school offer relevant technical courses at the undergraduate level and not just for those in graduate studies or students seeking MBA degrees. For those companies, it was a matter of having skilled workers who could be counted on to stay in their jobs. “They wanted somebody who would last longer,” says Sorensen. “MBAs weren’t lasting that long” before wanting to move on to new opportunities.

For companies, the ability of a work force to adapt can save time and money. If the focus of a business changes substantially, or a new product is needed, companies will do better if they can count on their employees to change with conditions, says Koelemay. “You don’t necessarily want to put all your smartest people out of your company” and look for new workers to meet the new needs, he says. By teaching students how to develop skills across disciplines and to apply what they’ve learned to new situations, universities are equipping them with perhaps the most important skill of all: flexibility. “No doubt about it,” says Koelemay. “It’s not just a thing that you know, but a confidence that you’re able to move across disciplines and functions.”

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