Education  May 25, 2007

CSU business students do well by doing good

FORT COLLINS – In August the first students – up to 25 of them – will begin an 18-month pursuit of Master of Science in Business Administration degrees in Global Social and Sustainable Enterprise at Colorado State University.

The first-of-its-kind program is intended to “build a better world” based on two core beliefs: that business can and should be a powerful force for positive change and that entrepreneurship and innovation must be focused on solving global challenges.

Carl Hammerdorfer began work as the program’s first director at the end of April, returning to U.S. soil for the first time in many years. “For the foreseeable future, he will be the one and only full-time faculty member,´ said Paul Hudnut, director of venture development for the College of Business who designed the fundamentals of the program.

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Hudnut and Hammerdorfer are expecting students to be “a mixed bag” and unique in that “this program is not for the student still trying to ‘find’ themselves,” Hudnut said. “The ideal candidate is possibly former Peace Corps or military, worldly, and is probably older,” Hammerdorfer added.

They agree, as they sort applications for this first class, they are looking for maturity, entrepreneurship and international experience. And they hope at least 50 percent are international students.

Hudnut said lots of unknowns remain as the first class begins this experiential degree program. Many current faculty members will be teaching some of the traditional master’s level courses in marketing, finance, leadership and entrepreneurship, but all courses will be designed with deeper coverage of cross-cultural issues, nonprofit perspectives and environmental and social policy implications. He said he expects course work to be unique to students in this MBA/GSSE program.

A three-month field experience is required “where expertise from multiple disciplines will be using entrepreneurship and innovation to solve global challenges,” Hudnut said. These may well be business experiences that students will continue to pursue after attaining their degrees.

“Ideally we’ll be taking new technology to new markets,” he added. “Part of my passion is to find the intersection of disciplines using a business model to make engineering economically feasible” with an eye to environmental and social impacts.

Envirofit model

Since the “where” and “what” of these experiences won’t be known for at least another year and can be unique to each class, Hudnut uses the evolution of Envirofit as a parallel example of the possibilities.

At Envirofit, a spinoff of the CSU Engines Lab research, scientists and researchers developed and are disseminating pollution-reducing technologies for up to 2 million two-stroke powered vehicles in Southeast Asia. In doing so, this technology is enhancing the environment and public health by eliminating 90 percent of hydrocarbon and 70 percent of carbon monoxide emissions.

Hammerdorfer said the new program realizes the purpose of land grant institutions in the 21st century by utilizing CSU’s extensive research capabilities and well-educated graduates to build productive two-way relationships with industry.

Another research project GSSE students may choose to pursue through the CSU Engines Lab is taking existing technology of the cookstove and transferring it to third-world countries where cooking indoors is done over an open fire with little control of toxic smoke and fumes. Hudnut estimates there is an existing market for 500 million stoves, opening a door for the new program to fulfill its ideal of developing new technologies for new markets.

Hammerdorfer also talks in terms of cooperative ventures with existing non-governmental organizations or business. He describes one such project between CSU and the Nature Conservancy hoping to find economically feasible ways of controlling growth of small diameter timber that fuel explosive forest fires worldwide.

Hammerdorfer is a self-described “military brat” who has lived all over the world. His undergraduate degree is in English from Arizona State University, and he went on to service in the Peace Corps, marrying another corps member who he met in Heidelberg, Germany.

The last couple of decades have taken Hammerdorfer to Mali, West Africa, Poland, Turkey, Kazakstan, Ukraine, Lithuania and other countries of Central Europe and the former Soviet Union, including the last five years in Bulgaria as country director of the Peace Corps efforts there.

He completed an MBA at CSU in 2000 and hopes his Peace Corps experiences, in tandem with his education, have prepared him for creating a program focused on “solving global challenges” through economics.

FORT COLLINS – In August the first students – up to 25 of them – will begin an 18-month pursuit of Master of Science in Business Administration degrees in Global Social and Sustainable Enterprise at Colorado State University.

The first-of-its-kind program is intended to “build a better world” based on two core beliefs: that business can and should be a powerful force for positive change and that entrepreneurship and innovation must be focused on solving global challenges.

Carl Hammerdorfer began work as the program’s first director at the end of April, returning to U.S. soil for the first time in…

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