Business education goes ‘real world’ at UW-Parkside

At UW-Parkside, the Ralph Jaeschke Solutions for Economic Growth Center gives students the opportunity to work with local companies and organizations to solve business problems.

By Dave Buchanan

Skip to Menu

The questions being posed were the kind that businesspeople accustomed to working in an extremely competitive international environment usually ask — tough, sometimes pointed, with a tinge of "this is my livelihood we're talking about here" edge.

Those fielding the questions were students from the University of Wisconsin-Parkside's Ralph Jaeschke Solutions for Economic Growth (SEG) Center. They had just completed market research on the military vehicle market for Modine Manufacturing, a Racine-based global leader in the design and production of thermal management products. The hard questions came early during the presentation of their final report, but the students had already expected to be grilled.

"I anticipated them," says student researcher Sabha Museteif, adding that she and her fellow students knew their findings about whether specific market segments were worth Modine’s time and effort would be news — in some cases, surprising news — to those in attendance.

"What [the students] presented was information that many people in the room hadn't seen before," says Dave Lidester, Modine’s commercial vehicles sales manager, who assisted the SEG Center group. "So, when you bring [product managers] new information, they start asking questions to feed that hunger for new information."

Lidester pronounced the UW-Parkside student researchers informed, prepared and confident.

"We ranked the attractiveness and growth projections for each product line," Lidester says. "As a result of the process, we identified specific opportunities for expansion."

What makes this type of commitment worth the students’ effort is summed up in two words: “practical experience,” says Fred Ebeid, dean of the School of Business and Technology.

"They're taking classes, and by taking classes, of course, they're learning the theory. The SEG Center gives them the opportunity to apply what they're learning in the classroom, not just in a hypothetical situation, but in a real-life project — one that, most likely, will affect the organization's bottom line."

Sabha Museteif echoes Ebeid’s opinion on the value of the SEG Center’s practical experience. She sharpened her project-management skills and learned something new from each project. And while group leadership and project management were built into many of her classes, there was something extra special about the pressure, and prestige, of working with real data and real products, in real markets.

"In classes, you get put into groups and work on assignments like that, but it isn't the same," Museteif says. And the experience paid dividends for her as well. Her projects for Modine impressed the company so much, they hired her as a purchasing systems analyst following her graduation in May 2007.

Project management success

The SEG Center and UW-Parkside students have enjoyed some notable successes since the center opened its doors for business in May 2005. The rapport between the university and Modine, which continued this past academic year on the military vehicle research project, had begun during the spring 2006 semester with an HVAC (heating, ventilation, air conditioning) study requested by the company’s Tom Savas, regional sales manager for the commercial products group.

“We had them look at the domestic refrigeration market," Savas says. “The students completed a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) on the commercial ice-machine market and four other segments.”

Modine also wanted to find out more about specific market segments and whether it was worth the company’s time and effort to try to gain market share. “I was pleased with the in-depth work they did on the ice-machine market; that was the one we especially looked to them for a little more detail,” Savas says. “Their research provided strong insights as we developed our marketing and sales approach to target new customers and expand the business."

Along with Modine, Ebeid says JohnsonDiversey, a global manufacturer of cleaning and hygiene products based in Racine, is looking at the SEG Center as a potential resource.

Benefits for nonprofits

The SEG Center doesn’t limit itself to multinational clients. Numerous small businesses and nonprofit organizations have benefited from SEG students’ help as well.

For example, First Call, a heating-and-cooling company in Racine, praises students Ken Merritt, Lisa DeHahn and Jodi Lemanczyk for the “tremendous job” they did on the company’s marketing plan.

“This marketing plan … will be an integral part of our ongoing effort to gain market share and build brand awareness,” First Call’s Julie Venn wrote in a letter to Mike Manion, a UW-Parkside marketing professor. “This is an extremely valuable service to local business. I hope this continues to be part of the students’ curriculum.”

Web site construction is another SEG Center service available to both private companies and nonprofit organizations. Along with the center’s Sabha Museteif, UW-Parkside students Jana Aten, Randi Thomas and Brendon Thomas collaborated to create the Crafts on Wheels Web site for Steve and Elizabeth Kuhnley. The couple wanted a site to spread the word about their home business, which makes ceramic and decorative wood products for sale at craft fairs.

"The people that were on the project [were] very knowledgeable," Kuhnley says. "I think the end product was very professional looking and very well laid out."

Mary Jane Canman and Alice Peterson of the Danish American Home, a nonprofit assisted-living facility in Racine, also had a positive experience. “He had a team of five students who were willing to work with us,” Canman says. “They asked us many questions and requested an overview of what we would like included in our Web site. Then they tailored the Web site to meet our needs. Along the way, they communicated with questions via e-mail. Then they met with us periodically and shared their thoughts and showed us how the project was progressing. The students were very professional and always had our needs in mind.”

With the success of the SEG Center, Ebeid says, the university must avoid overextending students and faculty with too many projects. Careful management will keep the SEG Center serving businesses and nonprofit organizations — and UW-Parkside students — well into the future.

Visit our archives to read articles from previous issues of the UW Business Wire.