Dear alumni and friends of Marquette Business,
I hope you had a fulfilling holiday season with friends and family. This year promises to be an exciting one for the College of Business Administration and Graduate School of Management.
We started 2023 with the grand opening of our new building, Dr. E. J. and Margaret O’Brien Hall, and spent the rest of the year using it to draw alumni and business leaders to campus in ways that benefited our students. While those efforts will scale up in 2024, it’s important that this exchange goes both ways. The impact our students, staff and faculty make outside our walls is as vital as anything that happens inside O’Brien Hall.
The three featured stories in this newsletter show how Marquette Business adds value to our external stakeholders. Our Real Estate Asset Program, the only undergraduate program of its kind in the country, allows students to invest in commercial real estate. The Operations and Supply Chain Management program, under the leadership of Dr. Marko Bastl, collaborates with local high schools to recruit industry talent even before college. Finally, the Executive MBA cohorts’ visits to Milwaukee’s Sherman Park neighborhood are building bridges between Marquette and small business owners.
Our vision is to be Milwaukee’s business school; not just a business school located in Milwaukee. Our college community is made immeasurably better by the resources this city has to offer, from experiential learning opportunities to internships to direct investment. When I travel the country to meet with our alumni, so many of them tell me that their professional experiences in the city played an essential role in shaping who they are today. That makes me proud. It also reinforces what we always tell our students: You can get anywhere from Marquette.
I’ve experienced this firsthand. My career took me all over the world and, eventually, back to the College of Business Administration, where I’ve been privileged to serve as acting dean for the past four years. This July will mark the end of my tenure, as we’ve recently hired Andrew DeGuire, a Marquette alumnus who currently works as the vice president of corporate strategy at Northwestern Mutual, to take over as the new James H. Keyes Dean of the College of Business Administration. I’m looking forward to working with Andrew to ensure a smooth transition and look forward to introducing him to the people who make this place special, inside O’Brien Hall and beyond. I have no doubt our strong tradition of conducting business with purpose will grow even more under my successor, as will our connection with the city of Milwaukee.
Thank you all for your support of our college. I wish you a happy, healthy 2024.
Sincerely,
Tim Hanley
Acting Keyes Dean of the College of Business Administration
