|
Elsewhere on CCSU
campus the night of the NEC win Dr. David Fearon, Professor of Management & Organization, Central Connecticut State University |
||
 |
Last Wednesday was also a great night for my
Business Organizational Behavior students. Yes, the NEC championship
basketball game, starting at the same time as this evening class, was on
their minds. Yet, they used this time to prepare for competing for jobs
in the arena of the global game of business. Out there, there will be no
shot clock measuring out neat eight-hour shifts, few referees to catch
fouls, and the rules of the game will be changed by the players
themselves. Most pertinent to my soon-to-graduate business hopefuls is
that companies, even the local ones, are filling their “benches” from a
world-wide talent pool. Immigration is no longer necessary. Businesses
put “benches” anywhere in the world, where they calculate the most value
per hire. This sounds as challenging as our stalwart CCSU basketball
team winning the final game of the NCAA Tournament. But the 30 men and
women in Room 306 also had a great night. Here is why. Lori Rece, my former student, and her boss, Tony Cacace, were this week’s business leader guests. Lori is Business and Program Manager. She spent |
|
|
many nights taking one or two courses a semester
while working full time and raising her family. She is one of them. Tony
is Chairman & CEO. He came back to Connecticut where he had been an
engineer and manager in UTC companies, passionate in his quest to
restore our state’s world class leadership in aerospace. The game was forgotten as Lori and Tony held the rapt attention of my students with how they are growing Structures, a small US manufacturing firm of the giant UK-based GKN Aerospace Corporation, from the seed of Connecticut talent. A close-knit team of gifted resin composites engineers, business, and shop floor people are using 2007 vintage Yankee ingenuity to create parts for jet engines that leave their competitors feeling like the team stunned by their loss to Central. It was cheering to know Lori and Tony and that band of 40 colleagues are winning the game right down the road in Cromwell, Connecticut. Breakthrough innovations in critical jet engine parts are coming from Connecticut talent. They are out there in the world tournament of aerospace suppliers contending for advancing wins that have something my business students surely covet – great jobs. Lori and Tony spoke from the heart in response to a stream of questions. What special human qualities must shine through when they put together a business team? Elsewhere on campus, my fellow teacher Howie Dickerman witnessed his students answering this question in superb action. Lori and Tony answered it momentous words – entrepreneurial spirits illuminating the keen, disciplined minds of people believing they can and will make our home region the center of the globe for their industry. I was looking at 30 of just such people at the moment we put an Internet scoreboard on screen to see how the game was coming out. Yes, Howie and I went home from our respective side of the campus that Wednesday night, two proud and encouraged educators. |
||
|