Haas NewsWire


Haas NewsWire, January 16, 2001


CONTENTS
Special Borenstein Talk on Friday To Shed Light on Electricity Crisis
Haas Investment of $800,000 in New Computer Infrastructure Means Ultrafast Network

Gearing Up for an Eventful Spring
Haas and St. Petersburg School of Management: Sharing Our Knowledge
Executive Summaries for Both Business Plan Competitions Due Monday
Executive Development Staff Ready for Continuing Growth
Norman Mineta, BS 53, to Join Bush Cabinet
Stay Alert: Thefts on the Rise at Haas
Haas in the News
Happening at Haas

Haas NewsWire Archive
Contact Haas NewsWire


HAAS HEADLINES


SPECIAL BORENSTEIN TALK ON FRIDAY TO SHED LIGHT ON ELECTRICITY CRISIS

What went wrong with California's electricity restructuring? How can the state recover from the precarious supply situation it is now in? Does the California crisis have lessons for other states that are restructuring?

To address these questions, Severin Borenstein, E.T. Grether Professor of Public Policy and Business Administration and director of the UC Energy Institute, will talk about "The Trouble with the California Electricity Market (and Some Solutions)." The talk will take place on Friday, January 19, at 12:30 to 2:00 p.m. in the Haas School's Wells Fargo Room.

The talk is open to Haas School students, faculty, staff, and alumni as well as to representatives from the media. Borenstein will discuss issues surrounding the California electricity restructuring and possible solutions to the current crisis, followed by a 40-minute question-and-answer session.

Borenstein conducts research in competitive strategy and government regulation. He has published papers on the airline, oil and gasoline, and electricity industries. He is a member of the Governing Board of the California Power Exchange and served on the California Attorney General's Gasoline Task Force in 2000. He has advised legislators and regulators on restructuring of the electricity industry, and has appeared in numerous print and broadcast media forums.

RSVPs to the event are not required. Seats will be available on a first-come, first-served basis.

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HAAS INVESTMENT OF $800,000 IN NEW COMPUTER INFRASTRUCTURE MEANS ULTRAFAST NETWORK

The Haas School of Business is marking another milestone in Dean Tyson's long-term plan to make the school a showcase on campus for instructional computing and distance-learning. The school has significantly upgraded its computer network thanks to an $800,000 investment in infrastructure technology. As a result, the Haas School's network is now ten times faster, and the tiered classrooms now have active network connections available at every desk.

"The installation of a cutting-edge Cisco Systems network has been a key component in the Haas School's ambitious technology strategy," says Dean Tyson. "The school is committed to pioneering new technologies and exploring innovative approaches to instruction and course delivery. This highly robust and reliable network will result in an even more vibrant environment for conducting teaching and research, and it will greatly enhance the administrative operations of the school. Most importantly, it will enable us to continue to expand our curriculum and program offerings by facilitating more partnerships with other top business schools and corporations, allowing us to deliver programs not only on-site, but also online or through videoconferencing to remote sites all over the world."

Over the past few months the Haas Computer Center staff has been implementing the upgrade to the network. New switches and routers have enabled the school to upgrade from 10-megabit-per-second shared Ethernet service to 100-megabit-per-second switched service. This means that each connection gets the full bandwidth, instead of sharing bandwidth, which was necessary with the previous system.

"Here is an analogy," says Zane Cooper, the Haas School's chief technology officer. "We've not only added several lanes to our information highway but, by providing redundancy, we've actually added a second highway as well." The central campus network group plans to upgrade the connection between Haas and campus to a redundant, gigabit connection by the end of February. That means there will now be a back-up connection that can provide service to/from campus if one connection to campus fails. It also means that the network can now be upgraded without any disruption of service to the Haas community. The Haas network backbone, which connects all the network closets together within the three Haas buildings, is gigabit Ethernet.

Next steps in implementing the school's technology strategy include a project to bring a substantial increase in power for research computers via the purchase and installation of a powerful new Sun Microsystems server and the launch of an experiment to assess the best ways to deploy wireless technology within the Haas complex for use by students, faculty, and staff.

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NEW PROGRAM ON THE TEACHING OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP HOSTED AT HAAS

The teaching of entrepreneurship was the theme of a special education training program last week at the Haas School of Business that attracted about 40 university faculty members and entrepreneurs who teach the subject at schools in the US and Europe. The first annual PriceBabson@Berkeley entrepreneurship educators program -- a new West Coast version of a program taught for years at Babson College -- was hosted by the school's Center for Executive Development and the Lester Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation.

"Our selection as the West Coast host for this prestigious program is a real coup," said Jerry Engel, the Lester Center's executive director. "It is also a recognition of the leadership position our entrepreneurship program has accomplished."

The three and one-half day program pairs a faculty member who is teaching -- or hopes to teach -- entrepreneurship, along with a successful entrepreneur who also teaches or will teach the subject as an adjunct professor. Pairs of faculty and entrepreneurs came from schools across the US -- including schools at two Native American reservations -- as well as universities in England, Germany, and Switzerland.

Two recent Haas School graduates were among the entrepreneurs enrolled in the program: Keval Desai, MBA 99, and David Hehman, MBA 98.

The program was taught by faculty drawn from Babson College as well as by Haas faculty, including Professor of Entrepreneurship John Freeman, Engel, and Andrew Issacs, executive director of the Management of Technology Program at Haas.

This "buddy system" model for teaching teachers of entrepreneurship originated at Babson College in 1984, with support of the Price Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies. The new West Coast Program is supported by Price as well as the Kauffman Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership.

The Price Institute is also a longtime supporter of the Lester Center, having recently made a long-term commitment to the Center in the form of a $750,000 gift to be received over the next five years. It will support the Harold Price Entrepreneurial Leadership Program, which supports the Entrepreneurs Association and its affiliated programs: the Partners for Entrepreneurial Leadership (PEL), the Berkeley Solutions Group, the venture capital internships, and other student programs. Through the years, the Institute has given programmatic funding, which to date totals close to $800,000.

Holton and Helzel Honored for Work in Entrepreneurship

At the closing lunch of the program, former Haas School Dean Richard Holton and Adjunct Professor Leo Helzel were presented with a special award by Dean Laura Tyson to acknowledge their work in building the entrepreneurship program at the Haas School, and in successfully teaching the subject through a partnership of a faculty member (Holton) and a real world entrepreneur (Helzel). The Haas effort to teach the subject began more than 30 years ago when Holton and Helzel were among the first educators in the US to teach a course in entrepreneurship at a university.

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GEARING UP FOR AN EVENTFUL SPRING

PBS and Haas to Host HP's Fiorina and Cisco's Chambers Debate

The Haas School will host the CEO Exchange, an evening with Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina and Cisco Systems Chairman John Chambers, on Wednesday, April 11. The event will be taped and televised by PBS (Public Broadcast System) at a later date.

CEO Exchange will take place at Zellerbach Auditorium in the early evening. It will be open to Haas School students, faculty, and staff as well as alumni. Details on how to RSVP will follow closer to the event date.

Similar shows have been taped at several business schools, including London Business School, Wharton, Michigan, and Chicago. California b-schools will include Haas, UCLA's Anderson, and Stanford GSB. The show will be edited to include an introduction of the Haas School and the Berkeley campus, and questions from a faculty member before being aired on PBS.

Haas MBAs Organize Asia Business Conference - March 3, 2001

Big names in Asia business will discuss new high-tech opportunities in the Pac Rim at the second annual international conference at Haas on Saturday, March 3. The conference is being organized by Haas MBA students.

This year's event, "Rising Asia: A New Chapter of Opportunity," will feature keynote speakers Dr. Ta-Lin Hsu, chairman and CEO of Hambrecht & Quist - Asia Pacific, and John Wadsworth, chairman of Morgan Stanley Dean Witter Asia. Speeches and panel discussions will focus on how Asia businesses have evolved during the high-tech and Internet revolution. The conference will also examine what new opportunities have been created as the region recovers from the currency crisis. Tickets will go on sale in mid-February.

Business Faculty Research Dialogues: What's Next for the Dot-Coms?

This spring the Business Faculty Research Dialogue continues its series on the "Shake-Out in Cyberspace: What's Next for the Dot-Coms?" John Gage, chief scientist at Sun Microsystems, will speak on Friday, February 23 and Christos Cotsakos, chairman and CEO of E*TRADE, on Friday, March 9. More details to come.

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SHARING OUR KNOWLEDGE: HAAS AND ST. PETERSBURG SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT

A group of faculty and graduate students from the School of Management at St. Petersburg University (Russia) attended a custom program hosted by the Institute for Management, Innovation, and Organization (IMIO) at the Haas School last week.

The IMIO program, "Understanding and Teaching Entrepreneurship," brought four faculty members and six graduate students from St. Petersburg University to Haas for a solid week of learning how Haas teaches entrepreneurship.

Former Dean Richard Holton ran the program and coordinated the work of a group of Haas faculty and staff who provided the curriculum. "We paid attention to the question of what aspects of what we've learned here about teaching and doing entrepreneurship are transferable to the Russian business climate, and to what extent that climate inhibits entrepreneurial growth," said Holton. The program was funded through grants from the US Information Agency and the Soros Foundation.

Pat Murphy, assistant director of IMIO, described this program as a continuation of all the work Haas has done with St. Petersburg University. When the School of Management at St. Petersburg was founded in 1993, the faculty in St. Petersburg turned to colleagues at the Haas School, with whom they had worked on projects in the past, for advice on building the program. Faculty visits in Berkeley and St. Petersburg, and a year-long discussion of appropriate curriculum soon led to a working partnership. Now the School of Management has grown from just 33 students to 950 students in its undergraduate, master's, MBA, evening MBA and Ph.D. programs.

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NORMAN MINETA, BS 53, TO JOIN BUSH CABINET

President-elect Bush has named San Jose Democrat Norman Mineta to head the Department of Transportation. Mineta is serving as Secretary of Commerce under President Clinton, after having represented Silicon Valley in Congress for nearly 20 years. Mineta received his undergraduate degree at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business in 1953.

Mineta was the first Asian Pacific American to be mayor of a major city -- San Jose, the first to lead a House committee -- the Committee for Public Works and Transportation, and the first to be named to a Presidential Cabinet.

After serving as mayor of San Jose, Mineta was elected to congress in 1974, where he served for nearly 20 years. In 1993, he was named chairman of the House of Representatives Committee for Public Works and Transportation. He left Washington in 1995 to become senior vice president at defense contractor Lockheed Martin. He returned in 2000, when President Clinton named him Secretary of Commerce.

Having spent part of his youth during World War II in a Japanese American internment camp near Cody, Wyoming, Mineta became a staunch advocate for Japanese Americans. He was one of the driving forces behind the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, in which the US Government officially apologized for the injustices committed to Japanese Americans forced into internment and paid reparations of $20,000 to each living survivor.

A native of San Jose, Mineta was one of the early supporters of the high-tech boom in Silicon Valley. He is known for his role in settling the semiconductor chip dispute with Japan and for his focus on protecting intellectual property rights.

Mineta will be the only Democrat serving in Bush's cabinet. In accepting his nomination, Mineta made it clear that while he is a proud Democrat and would choose his own staff, he views transportation as a bi-partisan issue. In an interview with AP, he said: "There are no Democratic or Republican highways, no such thing as Republican or Democratic traffic congestion, no such thing as Republican or Democratic aviation and highway safety."

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EXECUTIVE DEVELOPMENT STAFF READY FOR CONTINUING GROWTH

Providing learning services for top-level executives in Silicon Valley and around the world is increasingly important for Haas. Last year, the Haas Center for Executive Development (CED) program revenues expanded by nearly 40%, providing a record level of revenue to support other school activities.

CED plans to continue its rapid growth this year by expanding the custom learning services it is providing to clients and developing into a learning services portal to bring Haas School resources to the business community.

This development depends on the efforts of an expanded and well-qualified team at CED. Some of the new people who have recently joined CED to implement these plans include:

 

Please contact the appropriate staff member about opportunities to expand executive development at Haas.

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARIES FOR BOTH BUSINESS PLAN COMPETITIONS DUE MONDAY

The first deadlines are fast approaching for the UC Berkeley Business Plan Competition and the Haas Social Venture Competition. Executive summaries for both competitions are due January 22, 2001.

The UC Berkeley Competition attracted 182 registrations last year and had the support of 60 leading venture capitalists and entrepreneurs serving as mentors and judges. The 2001 competition will award $90,000 in prize money: $50,000 first prize, $25,000 second prize, $10,000 third prize, and $5,000 for the People's Choice award. The competition is open to students and alumni of UC Berkeley as well as to members of the public, as long as one member of the team is a university student or graduate. Finalist teams will give presentations on their business plans and winners will be announced on April 25, 2001. Additional information is available at http://bplan.berkeley.edu.

Last year, the Haas Social Venture Competition had participants from schools across the country and gave out $10,000 in prize money. To compete in the Haas Social Venture competition, each team must have at least one current MBA student from any accredited graduate school of business in the US (not just Haas) and each team must submit a plan describing an original, innovative idea for a startup business that is profitable and has a quantifiable social or environmental bottom line. The final competition round will take place April 13 to 14, 2001. For more information, please visit http://groups.haas.berkeley.edu/socialventure/.

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STAY ALERT: THEFTS ON THE RISE AT HAAS

Several thefts from offices and classrooms have been reported at the Haas School since November. On November 24, two laptops and a bicycle were stolen from a research center visitor office. On December 24, there was a break-in to two rooms in the faculty building, and a laptop was stolen. Over the weekend of January 6, a projector was stolen. Please remember not to leave laptops or valuables visible in unoccupied offices, and report any suspicious activity or individuals to the campus police.

The UCPD has tips on crime prevention on campus at http://public-safety.berkeley.edu/csp/csptheftprev.html. For more information on the UCPD's crime prevention program contact Sergeant John Powell at 643-8988. For general information on UCPD services, please go to http://public-safety.berkeley.edu/police/.

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HAAS IN THE NEWS

Dean Laura Tyson is quoted in the February issue of SmartMoney magazine on the economic prospects for next year. In "The Next Bumpy Road: How Will the Economy Fare in Bush's First Year?" Tyson commented that a expansionist fiscal policy and a tax cut could change the economy's stability.

Research by Andrew Rose, the Bernard T. Rocca Jr. Professor of International Trade and director of the Clausen Center for International Business and Policy, was cited in the Wall Street Journal on January 15 in "Dollar Makes Its Case in Latin America." Rose's study found that trade between countries with a common currency is triple that of countries which maintain their own currencies.

Tyson was quoted in USA Today on January 15 in "Experts Question Bush Tax Cut's Effectiveness." Tyson explained that the effect of a tax cut is all a question of timing. Read the article at http://www.usatoday.com/facelift/news/vote2000/bush203.htm.

Severin Borenstein, the E.T. Grether Professor in Public Policy and Business Administration and the director of the University of California Energy Institute, has been quoted, interviewed, and cited widely during the past few months. His comments on California's energy crisis, deregulation, and possible solutions have appeared in more that 30 media outlets in December and January. Borenstein has been interviewed on ABC World News, CNN, Newshour with Jim Lehrer, NPR's Talk of the Nation, Morning Edition, and All Things Considered, KRON News, KCBS radio, KNX (CBS affiliate in LA), and KCRW (npr in LA) "Which Way LA." He has been quoted in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Jose Mercury News, the Contra Costa Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Reuters News Service, The Press-Enterprise (Riverside), the Capital Times, Dow Jones Newswire, and the Associated Press Newswires.

Tyson's regular column in BusinessWeek was also on the Bush Tax cut. Read the full text of "Bush's Tax-Cut Logic is no Better that the Old" at http://www.businessweek.com/2001/01_03/b3715033.htm.

Janet Yellen, the Eugene E. and Catherine M. Trefethen Professor of Business Administration, was quoted in USA Today on January 12. In the article, "Good Luck was Put to Good Use: the Debate Rages over Clinton's Role in Boosting the Economy," Yellen concedes that Clinton did get lucky in the economy he presided over.

Hal Varian, professor in the Haas Manufacturing and Information Technology Group and dean of the School of Information Management and Systems, appeared in the New York Times (as part of his regular column) on January 11. He wrote about was about the need to control the demand for power in California until the energy crisis is resolved. Read the article at http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/11/business/11SCEN.html.

Tyson was quoted in the Wall Street Journal on January 11 in "A Kinder, Gentler Way to Pry Open Japan."

An interview with Dean Tyson was published in Business 2.0's "Five Questions" series on January 9. The full article can be read at http://www.business2.com/content/channels/ebusiness/2001/01/09/24207

Dean Tyson was suggested as a potential "white knight" to help solve California's energy crisis in an opinion piece in the San Francisco Chronicle on January 9.

Assistant Professor Florian Zettelmeyer's research into savings from online car buying was mentioned in the New York Times on January 5. "Women Turn to the Web to Avoid Sales Pressure," sited the research as another reason women would benefit from shopping online.

Yellen was quoted in USA Today on January 5, in the article "Has the Maestro Missed his Beat?" Yellen commented that it was too early to say that Fed Chairman Alan Greespan had lost his touch with the economy.

Dean Tyson appeared on CNN on January 4 on "The Point with Greta Van Susteren."

Varian was quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle on January 1, 2001, in "New, Hip and . Geeky," an article on new business jargon.

Varian was quoted in the Detroit Free Press on December 30, 2000, in Mike Wendland's column. Varian commented that people are "drowning in information."

Michael Katz, the Edward J. and Mollie Arnold Professor of Business Administration and the director of the Center for Telecommunications and Digital Convergence, wrote a letter to the editor on the current electricity crisis, which was published in the San Francisco Chronicle on December 29.

Varian was quoted in the Reuters English News Service on December 27, 2000, in "USA: Year Ahead." Varian stated that nothing forces organizations to focus their attention quite like a recession or a slow down in the economy.

Yellen was quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle on December 27, 2000 on Governor Davis' meeting with Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan. In "Davis Seeks Greenspan's Energy Advice," Yellen stated that she thought it was difficult to predict a role the Fed could play in California's energy crisis.

Tyson was mentioned in a review of Greenspan's Fed and the American Boom in the Palm Beach Post on December 24, 2000.

Jay Stowsky, associate dean for school affairs and initiatives, was quoted in the New York Times on December 21, 2000, in the article "More Experienced Applicants at Business Schools." Stowsky commented that applicants to the school now have more work experience and there are more that have engineering backgrounds.

Kenneth Rosen, California State Professor of Real Estate and Urban Economics and chairman of the Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics, was quoted in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram on December 18, 2000 on the possibility of a real estate downturn in "Land ho, Investors Glimpse Opportunity in Buying, Selling Undeveloped Acreage."

Tyson was quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle on December 18, 2000, on President-elect Bush's proposed tax cut. In "Weak Economy Stalks Next Administration," Tyson states that the effects of a tax cut would come to late in a slowing economy.

Tyson was mentioned in the San Francisco Chronicle on December 18, 2000, in the article "Clinton's Californians Look Back with Pride." The article chronicled some of the prominent Californians who had served in the Clinton administration over the years.

Adjunct Professor Pete Sealey was quoted in RedHerring.com on December 15, 2000, on the AOL/Time Warner merger.

Yellen was quoted in the Wall Street Journal Europe on December 14, 2000, on the Federal Reserves monetary policy and the political tensions that can arise around Fed actions.

Journalism professor Paul Grabowicz's course on working in New Media, which he teaches with lecturer Amy Shuen, was written up in the American Journalism Review in December 2000. Read the full article at http://ajr.newslink.org/ajrchrisdec00.html.

Yellen was cited in the San Jose Mercury News on December 12, 2000, on her statement that the economy will experience a soft landing in 2001.

Punita Pandey, MBA 91, was interviewed by the Times of India on December 11, 2000, on her inspiration for founding netCustomer.com.

Scott Galloway, MBA 92, and his new incubator, Brand Farm, were the topic of the Catch of the Day from Redherring.com on December 11, 2000.

Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers' visit to Haas was covered by the Associated Press, Dow Jones Newswire, the Industry Standard, the Capital Markets Report, and Agence France-Presse.

Varian was quoted in the Wall Street Journal on December 4, 2000, on his research into the amount of information that is being produced every year.

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HAPPENING AT HAAS

 

ALUMNI EVENTS

 

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