April 2006

Articles for the April 2006 edition of InFormation are now available.
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After 29 years, Dr. Mark Bebensee remains integral in CSBA's successes

Dr. Mark Bebensee’s young hopes were quite simple: he wanted to teach economics at a small, good school in the southeast. The Citadel may not have been what he had in mind, but he has played a pivotal role in the School of Business Administration’s many successes, including its AACSB accreditation, its reorganization as a school, and its continued success into the 21st century.

Dr. Mark Bebensee

Dr. Bebensee hadn’t thought of The Citadel until he met Col. Lawrence McKay, a career Army man and 1958 graduate of The Citadel, who had returned from two tours in Vietnam to work toward his graduate degree in economics at Duke. Dr. Bebensee was just entering the prestigious North Carolina school and was a member of the ROTC. His plan was to spend his active duty teaching at the Air Force Academy. McKay suggested that The Citadel would be a great place for him to teach, and during his second year of graduate school, he brought Dr. Bebensee to Charleston to visit.

Prior to being commissioned in 1974, the Air Force revised its policy for teachers at the Air Force Academy. With Vietnam winding down, the school wanted only veterans or pilots. Dr. Bebensee struck a deal with the school: he would have 90 days of training, and the rest of his four years would be spent in the inactive reserves. Instead of obtaining only his graduate degree, he remained at Duke where he received his doctorate in economics, all the while remaining in contact with Col. McKay.

Bebensee eventually received a phone call from the business department head at The Citadel, and although he had reservations about the military aspect of the school, his relationship with Col. McKay motivated him to consider the possibility. He visited the campus where he was shown around, met the faculty, then walked the campus alone, talking to cadets. “Everyone was uniformly positive,” Dr. Bebensee said recently, so he decided he would come to The Citadel and “try it for a year.” That was 29 years ago.

In his tenure at the school, Dr. Bebensee has seen a lot of changes. When he arrived, he, along with Prof. Bruce Strauch and Dr. Richard Pokryfka, represented the younger guard on the faculty. It was a different school than it is now, marked by an emphasis on teaching rather than scholarly endeavors. The MBA program was also very new.

After five years at the school, Bebensee began working as the assistant undergraduate dean and spent a great deal of time in student advising. He said that this is the period during which The Citadel began a transformation, moving more toward a professional faculty and improving the academic qualifications of the professors. “Expectations began to shift,” he said.

“The faculty today, in many respects, is a more qualified group,” Dr. Bebensee said, noting that many professors have a Ph.D, professional experience or a combination of both. As the school began to change, Dr. Bebensee did as well. He became more enamored with Charleston, and decided that this was the place he would remain. Ironically, Col. McKay, the initial reason that Dr. Bebensee was introduced to the college, relocated to Charleston and now teaches in the School of Business.

Dr. Bebensee began laying the groundwork required for the business department to be accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, or AACSB, the premier accrediting agency for bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degree programs in business administration and accounting. With the hard work of Dr. Bebensee and Dr. Cliff Poole, among others, the business department was accredited in 1996. Because of issues on the state level, the school was forced to go through the process again in 2000, but they again received the nod from the AACSB.

What Dr. Bebensee calls the “next really important step” occurred with the reorganization of the department as The Citadel School of Business Administration. The school hired its first dean, Dr. Earl Walker, who was “perfect for what we are here to do,” Dr. Bebensee said. After Dean Walker’s arrival, Dr. Bebensee was eligible for a sabbatical. At the request of the dean, he stayed on to operate as the associate dean and chief operating officer, while Walker worked as the chief executive officer, spending a great deal of time off campus.

“I think it has been a good teaming relationship,” Dr. Bebensee said.

Walker agreed, noting that associate dean is “central to our operations and development.”

“Without Dr. Bebensee, this school would not have achieved the success it has today,” he added.

Dr. Bebensee has recently had two honors bestowed upon him. He was named The Citadel Alumni Association’s Honorary Life Member for 2005, an honor given to non-alumni not otherwise eligible for membership who have rendered unusual and conspicuous service to The Citadel. His name now stands along with honorary alumni such as Mark Clark and John S. Grinalds.

A scholarship was also endowed in his honor by Dan and Nancy Kohl. Dr. Bebensee taught Dan, who was a senior when he first arrived at the college, and later taught his son, who graduated in 2004. The scholarship will go to a member of the Corps of Cadets who is a business major.

Above all, Dr. Bebensee is still enjoying Charleston, still enjoying The Citadel, and excited about the continuing developments in The Citadel School of Business Administration.

“It is the most exciting time in my years here,” he said. “I feel incredibly fortunate. I found a home here.”

Charlie Cole named first Alumnus of Year

Charlie Cole graduated from The Citadel in 1968 with a degree in business administration, and last fall, he returned to his alma mater to receive The Citadel School of Business Administration's first Alumnus of the Year award.

Charlie Cole

Cole said he was encouraged to attend The Citadel by his father, who while working for Sears in Gastonia, N.C., served as a mentor to Leonard H. "Budgie" Broom, a 1956 Citadel graduate and football star. Broom served as a role model to Cole throughout those years.  

Since graduating from The Citadel, Cole earned certifications at Louisiana State University Banking School of the South and at the University of North Carolina Executive Program. He spent two years of active duty in the U.S. Army and remained in the reserves for 23 years. Thiry-six years were spent in banking with South Carolina National Bank and Wachovia, before he returned to Charleston to serve as Chief Executive Officer for Corporate DevelopMint, a fundraising consulting firm.

Cole has also served on a variety of boards and commissions holding a plethora of positions. He received the Midlands Ambassador of the Year Award from the Columbia Chamber of Commerce in 2003, and a year later, was named S.C. Ambassador for Economic Development 2004 by Gov. Mark Sanford.

Although he didn't have much involvement with The Citadel for some time, Cole said five years ago he was invited to join The Citadel Foundation board. Three years ago he was asked to head up the investment committee, and since then, he has continued to volunteer his time to raise money for the college.

“I really have enjoyed being back at the school doing some stuff that is beneficial," he said.

Aside from receiving the Alumnus of the Year award, Cole received another surprise at the award ceremony in November: Budgie Broom was in attendance. "I was most humbled by the whole thing and the fact that he would come," Cole said.

Receiving the award has been one of the larger honors he has received since being back and involved with The Citadel, Cole said. "I was very, very honored. I don't mind telling people I got that."

CSBA receives nod from Princeton Review

The Citadel School of Business Administration has continued to grow over the last year, and with growth has come accolades from various outlets, including the national press. The most recent honor came in November when the school was named one of the nation's top business schools by the Princeton Review, the New York-based education services company.

"The Citadel School of Business Administration is so delighted to be recognized for the wonderful work it has been doing,” Dean Earl Walker said. “Clearly, this recognition is a symbol of our remarkable Advisory Board, the executives in our Mentor’s Association, the business school leadership forum, and our new initiatives to provide dual degrees and new concentrations in our MBA program.”

The honor is determined by survey results collected over three years from students at AACSB-accredited MBA programs around the world, among other sources. The Citadel School of Business Administration is featured in a two-page spread in The Princeton Review's 2006 edition of its business school guide. Along with student comments, the spread also includes information on academics, student life, admissions and career placement services.

Currently, over 250 students are enrolled in the MBA program at the School of Business and are taught by 24 faculty members.

CSBA Vision Describes the Big Dreams of School

In each classroom in The Citadel School of Business Administration, the mission statement of the school is posted on the wall: "The mission of the School of Business Administration is to educate and develop leaders of principle to serve a global community." Following that credo is the vision, which tells the plans for the school, and offers a multi-year forecast for success that includes aspirations once these goals are attained.

After his arrival at The Citadel in 2001, Dean Earl Walker said, “It was clear to me that we needed a vision."

 “I think a vision is a leader’s responsibility,” he said, so using the book Built to Last by Jim Collins and Jerry I. Porras as a guide, Walker invited the faculty and staff to dream big during two mission retreats in Spring 2002. He wanted them to offer big ideas on what their dreams would be for the School of Business, “and, to my absolute delight, they did just that.”

Walker said he took all of the input and formulated the vision, followed by the business school aspirations. The vision was broken into two parts: the 2007 vision, and the 2017 vision. “I thought we needed a more intermediate goal, like ’07, and a longer term goal like ’17,” Walker said. “I knew that we were going to be in the process of retiring our legacy faculty and bringing in new ones, so it seemed to me that we needed a bit of a break, and then we needed a star to shoot at.”

The aspirations reflect faculty input while the vision, as a whole, was chosen by Walker. He said he tried to write out what the business school would look like, “when we achieve heaven.” The 2007 plan will deliver a school that has “diversified and upgraded its undergraduate and graduate curriculums, embedded student career visioning and planning into its curriculum, provided opportunities and incentives for faculty and student involvement in regional and global activities, integrated practitioners into all programs, added at least three new leaders-in-residence, updated its classrooms to include state-of-the-art multimedia equipment, and deployed a Center for Leadership Development that includes a student mentoring program.”

In many cases, the 2007 goals are being achieved or are coming within reach. The long-term goals will take more time, but include plans to be “recognized internationally as a business school dedicated to developing leaders and distinguished by its high quality, diverse educational and developmental programs. It will have five new chairs or professorships, extensive faculty enrichment programs, four centers to serve the Lowcountry and the nation, a Citadel Business Hall of Fame, and new, state-of-the-art facilities.”

While few of these goals will be achieved quickly and easily, all are built upon a standard of excellence promulgated by the School’s faculty and staff and propelled by student achievement.

It’s All About People: SCANA CEO Kicks Off Spring Leadership Forum

Bob Timmerman is quick to acknowledge that Sarbaines-Oxley has been a tough adjustment for his company, SCANA. But he is even quicker to attribute the problem to one thing more important than the increased costs caused by the new accounting regulations: people. Standing before an auditorium of MBA candidates at The Citadel, Timmerman, chairman and CEO of SCANA, the holding company of S.C. Electric and Gas and the only Fortune 500 company in the state, was here to talk about people.

“Who’s going to work for you? How are you going to get things done,” he asked at the beginning of his talk, the first installment in The Citadel School of Business Administration’s spring Leaders on Leadership series.

Timmerman is aware of the importance of people, both customers and those serving them. SCANA, through its various subsidiaries, provides electric services to approximately 600,000 customers and natural gas services to approximately 1,100,000 customers.  Over 5,500 employees work for SCANA and own 12.5 percent of SCANA’s outstanding common stock, a feature that he claims as integral to its success.

However, employees offer challenges that confront SCANA each day. The company has a diverse work force, Timmerman said, making it important to adhere to the idea that “leadership is followship.”

“You can’t move an organization any faster than the slowest person,” he said, so it is integral to be able to inspire employees while meeting their human needs. This doesn’t mean being a leader that is first in line, makes all the final decisions, has all the answers, or gives orders. It is about “pushing accountability and decision-making deep in the organization.

“Leadership is about the process of inspiring people, inspiring an organization, to reach an outcome,” he said.

Timmerman was the first speaker this spring of the four-part series that takes place each semester at The Citadel. The Leaders on Leadership forum was started to provide MBA candidates interaction with business leaders, and to enforce leadership and ethics, the two core values of the business school’s mission.

Leader in Residence places emphasis on free enterprise

Robert E. Freer Jr. has witnessed a breakdown in free enterprise over the course of his career in law, which has included experience in government, private practice and as a senior officer and general counsel for Kimberly-Clark and other corporations. With the Free Enterprise Foundation, he is aiming to make a global change in business, emphasizing ethics and civic responsibility.

"I think the commercial aspects of business have overwhelmed the ethical nature, in many respects," he said. "I'm not pointing fingers at anyone, but I certainly see it in my own industry."

Freer was named the first John S. Grinalds Leader in Residence at The Citadel School of Business Administration in the fall, an honor he said is humbling. "What does John Grinalds stand for more than leadership," he said. "I feel humbled to do anything in John’s name. He has been such an era-changing force here."

Freer graduated from Princeton and earned his juris doctorate from the University of Virginia. He was an early leader in the field of corporate governance and was chairman of the ABA Corporate Governance Subcommittee of the Section of Business, Banking and Corporation Law from 1980 through 1982. He has served on many boards and is currently on the managing board of Rezfuzion LLC, an application software provider for the recruiting industry, among other for-profit, not-for-profit and public corporations.

The founder and chief executive officer of the Free Enterprise Foundation, Freer said he hopes to initiate a shift back to ethics in all aspects of business. "It felt to me that we were losing touch with the important well spring of the success of our society, which really is in the adherence to strong moral values and free enterprise," he said.

"We need to be successful as a nation; we really need to understand that there is a symbiotic relationship between free enterprise and our liberties."

Founded in December 2002, the Free Enterprise Foundation aims to preserve one of the cornerstones of American business, the free enterprise system, which now has global implications. While the Foundation is not distinctly Lowcountry in nature, Freer said it is fitting since "I view Charleston as essentially being one of the earliest and most prominent centers of commerce and of what we'll call enlightened thought."

Freer said he feels the city has hid its light "under a bushel basket for far too long."

"I wanted to start something here that the town itself could take as being proud of, and that was not just something Lowcountry," he said, "but really I was trying for a national and international mission."

In his work with the Free Enterprise Foundation, Dean Earl Walker said Freer has created Charleston’s first and only think tank, “a think tank dedicated to the pursuit of ethics, high standards and best practices in the corporate sector."

“We are delighted to have Robert here teaching in the school,” he added.

At The Citadel, Freer teaches undergraduate students and MBA candidates in business law and ethics. He said he does not preach about free enterprise in class, although "I try to encourage thought. Think about it. What is it that you really want out of life? What is really best? Particularly young minds, they don't know, they are looking to us."

He said it is not always possible to succeed as a model for students in this aspect, although "we do try to model appropriate behavior that, if you can get a hold of your appetites, you are going to lead a much happier, more fulfilled life than if you don't."

The Foundation prides itself on disseminating information about free enterprise, and is also looking to reward those that represent the essence of ethics and help promote this mission. Freer said the Foundation recently initiated an annual award recognizing ethics and civic responsibility in the business world. The first recipient is Mack Whittle of First Carolina, who was honored with a luncheon sponsored by the Free Enterprise Foundation and supported by the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce and the South Carolina World Trade Center.

Freer said the Foundation has been funded by its board and through some foundation support. It is currently looking to solicit professional assistance and fundraising. A lot of the contributions have been in-kind from organizations, mostly in the use of facilities and the help of their professionals. Freer said the Foundation has a variety of naming opportunities available.

"I think that what I am trying to do is read in the mainstream what is The Citadel mission," Freer said, "and I hope that both the Foundation and my time here continue to flourish."

For more information on the Free Enterprise Foundation, visit http://www.freeenterprisefoundation.org/.

Richard Wackenhut brings unique experience to Advisory Board

Richard Wackenhut may not have been the obvious candidate for The Citadel. He attended a public high school and had no military background at all. But he recognized that he needed discipline, and with his father’s encouragement, he agreed to attend the military college where he received a bachelor’s in political science. He also left the college armed with many skills that have been vital in his business career. He now offers a wealth of knowledge to the business school through his seat on The Citadel School of Business Administration’s Advisory Board.

“I grew through The Citadel as a person,” Wackenhut said. “What I think The Citadel taught me the most was to operate well under pressure.”

After graduating, Wackenhut spent three-and-a-half years in the Air Force where he worked in the Office of Special Investigations and then in the Defense Investigative Service. While in the service, he gained investigative training that he could use while working for his father’s company, Wackenhut Corporation, a worldwide security and investigative company. He then began working for the corporation, starting his career in mid-level positions and working his way up through the ranks in order to gain the experience needed to one day become chief executive officer. During the process of being elected president of the company, Wackenhut Corporation’s Board of Directors suggested that, to round out his education, he attend the advanced management program at Harvard. He graduated from the accelerated graduate program with a wealth of knowledge and a network of international friends and connections.

In 2000, Wackenhut was named vice chairman of the board and CEO of Wackenhut Corporation. The company had grown to become the largest U.S.-based security company and was recognized that year by inclusion in Fortune Magazine's list of “America’s Most Admired Companies.” In May 2002, he stepped down from his position as CEO when the company was sold to Group 4 Falck, a security company based in Denmark with operations in Europe, Asia and Africa, which closely paralleled the Wackenhut operations in the Americas.

Wackenhut didn’t maintain an active role in The Citadel after graduation, but returned considerably later as a member of the Advisory Council. He was then asked to join the The Citadel School of Business Administration’s Advisory Board by Dean Earl Walker. He agreed, bringing with him over 30 years of senior management experience. More uniquely, Wackenhut brings much of this experience from the service industry, he said, which is, “from a profit making standpoint, much more difficult than other types of industries because service industries generally have very low profit margins."

“If you have a low profit margin business, managing those dollars on a daily basis, and a weekly and monthly basis, and with having to manage your overhead and manage your cash flow, is very, very difficult to do in an international environment,” he said. “That type of expertise, I felt, I could lend to the school, and I think I have contributed in that regard.”

Wackenhut noted the immense amount of talent on the business school’s Advisory Board, the group that works with Dean Walker to steer the school to success. “You’ve got people from service industries, you’ve got people from manufacturing, you’ve got people from many different areas and disciplines,” he said. “I just think that I fill one particular niche that could help the school.”