MBA Scholarships Awarded in UB Case Competition

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- A $500 scholarship was awarded to each member of the winning team in the University at Buffalo School of Management's inaugural Steven C. Verney MBA Case Competition.

The winners were Anthony Lister of Amherst; Shao-fu Lo of Taipei, Taiwan; Megan McSkimming of Cheektowaga; Jeffrey Peters of Ionia; John Taylor of Rome; and Min Zheng of Orchard Park.

All first-year MBAs at UB took part in the competition, which required them to read and analyze a Harvard business case and write a report recommending solutions for the company in the study.

The top six teams then presented their findings to a panel of judges in the event's final round on March 30 in the Alfiero Center on UB's North (Amherst) Campus.

The competition was created exclusively for first-year MBA students at the UB School of Management through a donation from Steven C. Verney, a vice president of Allstate Insurance Company in Chicago, who received his bachelor's degree in 1980 and his MBA in 1981 from UB.

Members of the second-place team and third-place teams each received $250 and $125 scholarships, respectively.

"Case competitions such as this are an excellent opportunity for our students to hone the analytical, problem-solving and team skills that recruiters rave about in our graduates," said John M. Thomas, dean of the School of Management.

"We truly appreciate Steve Verney's sponsorship of this event, as well as the hard work of our faculty and corporate judges," he added.

First round judges of the written cases were School of Management professors Lewis Mandell, Derek Mohr and Lawrence Sanders.

Judges for the final round presentations were John Dunbar, partner, Strategic Investments; Ken Fick, director, FTI Consulting; Steven Kneeland, vice president, Xerox; and Ronald Huefner, professor of accounting at UB.

The Wall Street Journal ranks the UB School of Management 10th in the nation among schools with strong regional recruiting bases. In addition, BusinessWeek ranks the school as one of the country's top 5 business schools for the fastest return on MBA investment, and Forbes cites it as one of the best business schools in the U.S. for the return on investment it provides MBA graduates. For more information about the UB School of Management, visit http://mgt.buffalo.edu.