 UM FoundationFoundation Notes Foundation Selects Laura Brehm as President
Selected through a national search, she joined the Foundation August 1, succeeding Sharen Peters, who retired after twenty years on the UM Foundation staff. Brehm has spent her entire thirty-year career in advancement, almost exclusively in higher education, except for her recent position at TPL. At TPL last year, she and her team raised $29.3 million. Before that she was assistant dean for development and alumni relations at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. Brehm was involved in several large capital campaigns at UC, the last one a $75 million effort for the business school’s endowment, faculty support, and programs. Brehm enjoys her new position and called coming to UM “an exceptional opportunity to build on the accomplishments of the Foundation staff led by Sharen Peters and to work with the Foundation’s board of trustees, President George Dennison, and UM’s faculty, alumni, and campus community to further the mission of this great University,” she says. An anthropology graduate of UC, Berkeley, Brehm received the Chancellor’s Excellence in Management Award in 1999 and the Berkeley Citation in 2000. It is the university’s highest award for achievement and service. Grad Heads Excellence Fund Business Drive Timothy J. Hubbard, a 1968 business graduate, will head this year’s Missoula Business Drive for the Excellence Fund. The drive is an annual peer-to-peer volunteer solicitation of the local business and professional community and the UM campus. Last fall, nearly $307,000 was raised through the drive for academic programs. As a component of the Excellence Fund, it is a major source of money for current spending. Excellence Fund gifts are not saved for future projects, but are spent in the year they’re received on programs that directly benefit students, such as scholarships, faculty and staff development, travel to professional meetings, and for campus outreach. Since its founding in 1978 by five local businessmen, the Missoula Business Drive has had a dual purpose: garnering financial support for the University, and cementing relationships between “town and gown.” An added benefit of the fund-raising effort has been the volunteers’ sharing of a common Missoula cause and creating networking opportunities for the business and campus community. The Missoula Drive model is somewhat unique among fund-raising efforts around the country because of its concentration on the local community and its spirit of cooperation. “Other annual fund programs are intrigued—and envious of—our success,” says Kathy Schaub, director of annual giving and UM Foundation staff member in charge of the drive, “but this is something that is very special to Missoula and not a program that can be duplicated in a town where the university is not such a highly valued part of the community.” UM is a major economic player in Missoula. Statistics from UM’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research show that University-related expenditures add nearly $234 million to local business and professional coffers. Hubbard, who succeeds 2002 chair Paul Sepp, is joined on the Business Drive Steering Committee by Phil Barney ’60, George Boifeuillet ’55, Bob Burke ’54, Bob Burns ’96, Gary Chumrau ’77, Patricia Collins ’77, Clancy Cone ’65, Ernie Corrick ’48, Pat Dodson ’68, Jerry Esmay ’84, Karen Jones, Barry Kenfield ’70, Susan Liane, Tim Mellgren ’77, Max Murphy ’74, Laurie Palmer, Jan Parks ’82, Brian Salonen ’85, Bob Seim ’59, Monte Turner, Carol S. Williams ’66, and Kevin Winter ’65. Business School Gets First Endowed Professorship The first professorship in the School of Business Administration memorializes a distinguished business graduate, Donald Byrnes ’49.
Competition for business professors is fierce, according to Gianchetta, and having such a position allows the UM school to recruit a top practitioner such as Joseph D. Vinso, who will become the first Byrnes Professor of Finance this fall. In addition to his career as an academician at UM, the University of Southern California, Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Michigan, Vinso has headed Financial Resources Management Inc., a business valuation and financial consulting firm. Business valuations procedures and appraising are his academic specialties. Vinso has published extensively, including the book Business Valuations: Theory and Practice in 1996, and is highly sought as a conference presenter. As the Byrnes Professor, Vinso will teach, assist with development of the finance curriculum, and arrange for guest lecturers in the business school.
At the time of his sudden death in 1995, Byrnes was CEO of Spalding and Evenflo Cos., manufacturer of sporting goods and infant products, and Pueblo Xtra International Inc., a chain of supermarkets and video stores in Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and South Florida. Shortly after Byrnes’ death, Carol Jean established a memorial scholarship for upper-division undergraduates or graduate business students. This year’s Byrnes Scholarship recipients are Henry LaFever and Nathan Lopuch. In addition to the Byrnes Professorship and Scholarship in the business school, the Byrnes name is part of the Gallagher Building landscape. Classroom 123 was named for Don and Carol Jean in honor of their contribution to The University of Montana Capital Campaign—Ensuring a Tradition of Excellence. Don Byrnes had served on the campaign Executive Board. He was also a member of the UM Foundation Board of Trustees and was the board’s vice chairman in 1995. UM Exempt from “Do Not Call” Laws The new state and federal “Do Not Call” laws do not affect the fund-raising activities of The University of Montana Foundation. Our student callers will be telephoning alumni, parents, and friends during the fall phonathon, September 15 through December 4. We ask you to continue to be generous in your support of academic programs at UM.
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His widow, Carol Jean, of Tampa, Florida, has created a professorship in the Department of Accounting and Finance that will help take the department to a new level of national prestige, according to Dean Larry Gianchetta. The professorship had long been a goal of her husband, Carol Jean said. “He and Dean Gianchetta had talked about a faculty position, something lasting, and I know this is something he would have wanted me to do.”
Guest lecturers that Vinso may engage will include people of the stature of Don Byrnes. On several occasions Byrnes had lectured in the UM business school, citing personal experiences with leveraged buyouts. Gianchetta reports that students were fascinated and inspired by the acumen and success of a former UM business student. They enjoyed the opportunity to interact with him during his visits to the campus.
