Feature Story
Bauer College partners with the largest industry in the world
Interview with Lane Sloan, Dr. Praveen Kumar and Dr. Zlatica Kraljevic
In August 2001, Dean Arthur Warga asked Lane Sloan, alumnus and former President of Shell Chemical USA, “What can the business school do to get involved in the energy industry?”
“Plenty!” Sloan answered. “You’re sitting in Houston – the Energy Capital of the World – in the unique position of having the largest industry in the world concentrated locally. The Bauer College of Business should differentiate itself in a powerful way by becoming the world class energy business school.”
Sloan advised, “You need to do two things: set up a Board of Directors that is representative of the industry and write a business plan that energy leaders resonate to because they see it meets their needs.”
They approached Praveen Kumar, Chairman of the Finance Department, to write a business plan for an institute uniting the business college and the energy industry in Houston. Kumar had seen Stanford University work with Silicon Valley to create new initiatives that benefited both the academic and business communities. At Columbia University the Dean had seen NYU and Columbia interact with the financial institutions in Boston and New York to create new educational programs.
By November, Kumar had the business plan for the University of Houston Global Energy Management Institute (UH-GEMI). “UH-GEMI changed the culture of Bauer College!” says Kumar. “These huge companies were waiting for us! It linked us to the Houston and the national energy community in a way that we hadn’t pursued before.”
“What can the business school do to get involved in the energy industry?”Sloan became Executive Director of the institute and invited corporations to support the new center of excellence. They responded well because UH-GEMI represented an opportunity to have a Houston-based educational forum totally dedicated as a neutral platform for the energy industry. After only three years in operation, UH-GEMI was honored with the $100,000 Independent Petroleum Association of America’s George and Barbara Bush Excellence in Education Award for its outstanding contribution to the energy industry.
The quality of people involved from the beginning testified to the urgent need for and relevance of the institute. The keynote speaker at the opening ceremony was Pat Wood III, chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The institute’s members bring in full-time professionals who make up about half the speaking roster. Those have included Phillipe Jorion, author of Value at Risk, the world’s leading text on risk management; Rita Nagle, vice president at Goldman Sachs, and Horace Brock, director of the Institute of Petroleum Accounting.
