IBM awards students with ThinkPad

The UA's master's of business administration program was rewarded with a $6,000 IBM ThinkPad for their consulting endeavors.

The MBA consulting group is a student-staffed organization that provides local and national businesses free-of-charge advice.

IBM invested in the 2-year-old consulting firm last spring by giving them two projects, which provided students with an opportunity to interact with a major corporation.

The MBA consulting group launches five projects each semester for businesses that cannot afford to hire consulting groups. IBM Global Services approached MBA students to gauge primary market interest for consulting groups in Tucson.

"The client wanted to put their finger on the market to see the pulse. As a group, we developed questionnaires, telephone surveys and administered those to information services at various client companies to see if they used consulting groups," said Kimbe rlyn Drew, team leader of competitive analysis.

Paula Ohlendorf, the managing director for the MBA consulting group, said she is enthusiastic about career prospects for MBA students as a result of their success.

The MBA consulting group is comprised of about 65 MBA students including a board of directors. Projects last 10 weeks on average and demand 5-10 hours of planning per week. The pressures of performing for eager IBM stockbrokers were tempered with heighten ed cooperation and unselfishness, which are landmarks for establishing group skills.

"We had done work for the College of Nursing and local Tucson businesses, but the IBM project was challenging. We had to find how readily the Arizona economic landscape market was in accepting IBM consulting groups," said Thomas Holland, director of the M BA consulting group.

IBM brought in two top recruiters, Ray Flores and Bob Gonzalez, to honor the students for their professional efforts. Flores manages IBM consulting firms in the Southwest; Gonzalez is the director of human resources for IBM and is a UA alumnus.

"The consulting skills that the students are developing are very timely. There is more work requiring project management in a cross-organizational nature. We approached UA, because we have hired a lot of UA students, between 40 to 50, over the past year," Gonzalez said.

Earning such recognition from major corporations will empower the MBA program at UA with the visibility it needs to rise in the national rankings of business schools, said Chris Puto, associate dean and director of the MBA program.

The UA's MBA program ranks 35 out of 600 schools in the United States.

"This is confirmation of our students abilities to already interact with the 'real' world. The students that worked on this project have great stuff to put on their resumes - It is a great feather in their caps," Puto said.