WINTER 2010

Sienabusiness
REPORT
A MAGAZINE FOR SIENA COLLEGE
SCHOOL OF BUSINESS ALUMNI AND FRIENDS

SIENAcollege
When the
White House calls:
Siena professor’s work in
national spotlight
 A MESSAGE FROM THE DEAN

Leaving the School in

Extraordinary Hands

A s I look around at the School of Business, I realize that my au revoir

in August 2010 will come at an ideal time.
In the last few years, our school has accomplished a great deal. The addition
of the William R. Raub ’85 Market Trading Room, and the launch of the student-
managed Bjorklund Fund, have immersed our students in the real-time world
of Wall Street. Our new marketing laboratory has brought state-of-the-art tools
to students in that discipline. We have added programs in actuarial science and
James Nolan ’75, Ph.D. risk management as well as master’s in accounting. Our communications, as
Dean of the
School of Business
exemplified by this publication, now match the quality of our curricula.
Dynamic new faculty members continue to come here.
At the same time, we uphold the elements that make Siena so distinctive in
business higher education—especially our emphasis on values, ethics and service.
Before long, an exceptional team of Siena leaders will begin a national search
for a new dean. Between the caliber of these people and the vibrancy of our
programs, I have absolutely no doubt that the transition to new leadership in
2010-11 will be positive for the School of Business.
Please note that in the introduction to this message, I used the phrase au revoir,
not good-bye, because this August will not be the last you see of me. After a
year’s sabbatical, I will return to the classroom, taking up my role—a different
role—in moving the school forward.
It is an exciting time for me, and even more so for the school. I am certain that
the best is yet to come.
 Siena Business Report
Winter 2010
Published by Siena College
515 Loudon Road
Loudonville, NY 12211-1462
Office of Strategic Communications
and Integrated Marketing

Sienabusiness
Delcy Fox, Director
Editor

REPORT
Jim Eaton
Associate Director of Communications
Contributing Writer
John Backman
Photographers
Donna Abbott Vlahos
Kris Qua
Sergio Sericolo
Design and Production
Panarama Design

SIENA COLLEGE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS MAGAZINE DEAN’S ADVISORY COUNCIL

Kenneth Blass ’83
WINTER 2010 President, Blass Communications
Erin M. Crotty
President, The Crotty Group, LLC
Terence Curran
Associate, The Hudson Group, LLC
Paul Goetz ’85
Managing Director, UHY, LLP
Matthew Gras ’95
4 When the White House Calls Assistant Vice President, Senior Financial Advisor,
Merrill Lynch
David Hancox ’75
4 Faculty Publications Director of State and NYC Audits,
NYS Comptroller’s Office
Michael Hickey ’76
President, Albany Financial Planners, Inc.
6 Alumni Profile: Guy Maddalone ’89 Charles J. Kavanaugh ’70
Consultant
Shaun P. Mahoney
President and Chief Executive Officer,
8 Excellence by the Numbers NextRidge, Inc.
William Martin ’78
President and Founder, The Initiatives Group, LLC
Joe Millington ’77
10 Student Profile: Angela Guzzi ’09 Managing Director, Gilbert Tweed Associates
Jay Moore ’87
Vice President Commercial Learning,
12 From Students to Actuaries NBC Universal
Thomas Selfridge
CEO, Albany Valve and Fitting Company
Kevin Thompson ’87
14 New Faculty, New Directions Vice President and Corporate Controller,
Marietta Corporation
Judy Tomlinson
Vice President, Rose and Kiernan
Lee M. Weiser, CPF
President, Frame of Mind
Ann Wendth
Director of External Relations,
The Albany Academies
Mark Woroby ’81
Executive Director, Wildwood Foundation

ON THE COVER

Andrea Smith-Hunter, Ph.D., associate professor of marketing and management was named to an
advisory group for the new White House Council on Women and Girls. Her story appears on page four.
 When the White House Calls
Presidential appointment sheds national light on Andrea Smith-Hunter’s seminal work

T
wice in her career, Andrea Smith-Hunter, Ph.D.,
associate professor of marketing and management,
has heard an urgent call to action and stepped
forward to fulfill it.
The first came from a pioneer in her
field. The second came from the
White House.
Earlier this year, the Center for
Women’s Business Research named
Smith-Hunter to an advisory group
for the new White House Council
on Women and Girls. The group
will formulate new policies and
procedures to ensure that all
Cabinet-level agencies consider
their impact on women and families.
The ultimate impact, Smith-
Hunter believes, could extend far
beyond the walls of federal agencies.
“Our goal is to build a model
that encourages and sustains
4 women entrepreneurs from varying
backgrounds in differing economies,”
Smith-Hunter said. The model
could, for instance, encourage
entrepreneurship training for girls
and women at many educational
levels, from middle school to college
and beyond.
This could transform the landscape
for women and girls. According to
Smith-Hunter, “This model for
women entrepreneurship has the
potential to be revolutionary.”
Smith-Hunter’s presence on the
advisory group will advance the
contributions that she has already
made during her career. As a
doctoral student, she began to
pursue the research topic for which
she is best known: minority women
entrepreneurship. Her dissertation,
focusing on the Capital Region,
eventually became her first book.
Shortly thereafter, she responded
to a call to action from her mentor.
“One of my earliest influences was
Dr. Dorothy Moore, who wrote
about women entrepreneurs,”
Smith-Hunter recalled. “Her book
(with Holly Buttner in 1997) is
considered a turning point in the
literature. At the end of that book,
they called for someone to write a
complementary book on women
entrepreneurs across racial lines,
using a national sample. I heeded
that call.” The result: the aptly
named Women Entrepreneurship
Across Racial Lines: Issues of
Human Capital, Financial Capital
and Network Structures, which she
published in 2006.
From her first work in the Capital
Region, Smith-Hunter has expanded
her focus to include the entire world.
Currently she is at work on her third
book, Women Entrepreneurs in the
Global Marketplace, which employs
a questionnaire to analyze women
entrepreneurs in eight regions, from
South America and the Caribbean to
Asia and Africa.
Her goal with this book could
suit her work on the White House
advisory group as well. “I want
to show governments the critical
importance of women entrepreneurs
as a legitimate source of income
and a significant contributor to
their national economy,” she said.
“Across the world, women
entrepreneurs share characteristics
that are universal; I hope that my
work can help government agencies
best facilitate support for women
entrepreneurs in their region of
the world.”

FACULTY PUBLICATIONS

CHERYL BUFF and M. Lodes published “Are Generation Y Consumers Brand Loyal and is their Buying Behavior Affected
in an Economic Recession? A Preliminary Study” in Journal of Academy of Business and Economics (forthcoming).
PAUL THURSTON, CHERYL BUFF and RAJ DEVASAGAYAM published “Participation Preferences and Brand Community
1Integration: An Empirical Investigation” in Review of Business Research (forthcoming). RAJ DEVASAGAYAM and ZINAIDA
 “ I have always enjoyed
the one-on-one student-
faculty interaction at
Siena. This type of
learning environment
5
has allowed me to
include students in
my research.”
Andrea Smith-Hunter
Associate Professor of
Marketing and Management

TARAN published “Student Driven Business Projects: Motivation, Implementation, and Consequences” in Academy of Educational
Leadership Journal (forthcoming). DEVASAGAYAM and M. Gonnering published “Using Digital Asset Management as a Strategic Tool for
Consistent Branding: Implications and Possibilities” in DIAS Technology Review–the International Journal for Business and IT (forthcoming).
DEVASAGAYAM and JASON SCHARF ’09 published “Honor Thy Elders: Does this Apply to Service Encounters? in Synergy.
 See a Need,
Fill a Need
Guy Maddalone ’89 started his entrepreneurial
career long before finishing his Siena degree

Talk about
a glimpse of
things to come.
When his grandfather fell ill back
in 1986, Siena sophomore Guy
Maddalone ’89 responded by
Guy Maddalone ’89 starting a business, a home health
is the founder and care and hospital staffing agency,
CEO of GTM Payroll with his mother, a registered nurse.
Services which was “The goal was simply to respond to
named one of the
our own needs, my grandfather’s
best places to work
in the Capital Region. needs and the needs of other area
families,” he recalled.
See a need, fill a need. That simple
approach to business has taken
Maddalone and his company, GTM
Payroll Services, to extraordinary
success. Since 2004, revenue has more
than doubled, employee numbers
nearly so, and GTM Payroll Services
has made the Inc. 5000 list of the
nation’s fastest-growing companies
6 three years running. In 2008, the
Capital District Business Review also
named the company one of the Best
Places to Work in the Capital Region.

Of Nannies, Giants
and Payroll
After the first venture was up and
running, it didn’t take long for

MARGARET GARNSEY, JOHN O’NEILL and LEN STOKES published “FARS Database Searching: Providing Potential Search
Terms to Students” in Accounting Educators’ Journal. ERIC GIRARD and H. Kilmaz published “Stock Market Volatility and
Trading Volume: An Emerging Market Experience” in Journal of Applied Finance. GIRARD also published “Empirical
Evidence Of The Existence Of Investable Premiums In Emerging Market Investable Stocks” in Financial Review (forthcoming).

Maddalone to see the next need on
the agenda—and expand to fill it.
“While running the agency, I met
many people who juggled caring
for their own families while
attending to the needs of their ailing
parents,” he remembered. “Truly,
these people were sandwiched
between generations, with each
demanding extensive care, time,
and energy. To help these caregivers,
I knew I needed to add child care—
along with a household payroll
tax preparation service—to the
agency mix. Thus began GTM
Payroll Services.”
Initially, the business served
as a nanny placement agency,
which in 1991 became an
independent company by the
name of A New England Nanny.
The next year, armed with a
burgeoning national network of
care providers, Maddalone turned
to employee work-life issues,
launching a backup dependent care
program—known as Pinch Hitter
Care—to fill the need. In 2002,
GTM Payroll Services expanded its
household payroll and tax services
to meet the needs of small business;
the new service, branded Tech Valley
Payroll, now goes head-to-head
with the likes of ADP and Paychex.
FACULTY PUBLICATIONS
GIRARD, JAMES NOLAN and ANTHONY PONDILLO published “Determinants of Emerging Markets’ Commercial Bank Stock Returns”
in Global Journal of Business Research (forthcoming). With M. Omran, GIRARD published “On the Relationship Between Trading
Volume and Stock Price Volatility in CASE” in International Journal of Managerial Finance.With T. Reid, GIRARD published “Cost of
Carry On Steroids: Application to the Pricing Oil Futures” in International Journal of Business and Finance Research (forthcoming).
That combination of ventures
brought GTM Payroll Services
to where it is today: a leader in
employment support.
Not that GTM Payroll Services is
the only arena where Maddalone’s
leadership skills have come to the
fore. His book, How to Hire a
Nanny (Sphinx Legal, 2006) has
become the definitive guide for
employing someone in the home.
Several years ago, he participated in
the prestigious Birthing of Giants
program. Sponsored by the MIT
Enterprise Forum, Inc., and the
Young Entrepreneurs’ Organization,
the program brings together
recognized entrepreneurial leaders
to form a unique CEO network and
learn from the titans of industry.
Turning People
into Entrepreneurs
As GTM Payroll Services has
changed, so has Maddalone’s role.
“I’ve gone from a one-person
operation, doing everything, to now,
where my role is more leadership-
focused,” he said. “In that time, I’ve
been able to leverage my accounting
education, leadership experience
and knowledge to groom and
educate my executive team in the
fundamentals of leadership. It has
ALUMNI
PROFILE
been so rewarding to see them use
the skills I share with them to grow
their own teams.”
While the accounting education
and business knowledge had their
roots in Siena, other aspects of the
college—particularly friendships—
have been even more important in
Maddalone’s career. “Especially in
the early days, I leaned on a lot
of my Siena friends for help and
guidance,” he remembered. “The
greater Siena community in the
Capital Region has been very
welcoming and supportive of my
entrepreneurial endeavors. And
the Franciscan philosophy has
helped shape my company’s
community service efforts over
the last 20 years.”
Not surprisingly, Maddalone is
delighted with a change in the
School of Business from his college
experience. “If anything has changed
since my time at Siena, I would have 7
to point to the new focus on
entrepreneurship,” he said. “During
my Siena days, the focus was much
more on business management.
I would encourage all educators to
continue to challenge their students
to think big and solve a problem
in a market—and to choose
entrepreneurship as a career.”
 Excellence by the Numbers
Siena connections pervade this year’s CFO of the Year Awards

F
ourteen Coincidence? Not according to the
Siena finalists.
since. During that time, the company
has grown from four stores and
CFOs “Siena gave me an opportunity to $7 million in sales to 22 stores and
attend college that I may not have $150 million.
made it to had otherwise,” said James Delaney, Like Delaney, Gregory Sorrentino
the final round CFO of Curtis Lumber, a finalist
in the Large Private Company
started at a CPA firm—in his case,
Urbach Kahn & Werlin—then
of the Capital category. “And I believe a Siena
degree is a tipping point in many
became division controller at
Mechanical Technology Inc. before
District Business hiring decisions. When you mention joining the Center for Disability

Review’s CFO of Siena College to an employer or a

client, you’ve got an opening.”
Services in 1993. As CFO, he
oversees the nonprofit’s $100 million
the Year Awards. Accounting Grads on
operating budget.
He too has noticed the difference
Five—including Parallel Tracks a Siena degree makes. “Employers

two winners— The career paths of the Siena CFOs

share some interesting parallels.
have Siena Delaney, the first in his family to
attend college, joined Curtis Lumber
connections. in 1973 and has worked there ever
want to interview and hire Siena
graduates,” said Sorrentino, who had
landed the Urbach job by November
of his senior year. “My educational
experience was outstanding, and

Left to Right: James Delaney ’66 of Curtis Lumber, Joseph Vitale P ’05 (parent of a Siena graduate) of Rose and Kiernan Insurance
8 and Small Private Company CFO of the Year Susan Premo ’87 of Specialty Silicone Products.
Donna Abbott Vlahos/ The Business Review

RALUCA IORGULESCU and J. M. Polimeni published “A Multi-Scale Integrated Analysis of the Energy use
in Romania, Bulgaria, Poland and Hungary” in Energy Journal. They also published “Whose Standards?
(B)reaching the Assessment Puzzle” in American Journal of Business Education (forthcoming).

so were my two internships. They
prepared me well for what I was to
encounter after I graduated.”
Susan Premo of Specialty Silicone
Products echoes that observation.
“Siena’s accounting program put a
lot of focus on real-life problems
and taught me how to think outside
the box about issues that arise in my
job,” she said. “I learned a great deal
about the team approach, which
we use continually at Specialty
Silicone Products.”
Premo, who won CFO of the Year
honors in the Small Private Company
category, also worked with several
accounting firms before joining
Specialty Silicone Products in 1994—
just a year after Sorrentino went to
work for his current employer.
From the Parent’s
Perspective
One finalist has a slightly different
connection with the college.
Joseph Vitale is a parent of a Siena
graduate—and a satisfied one at that.
“I would recommend Siena to
anyone in the field,” said the CFO
Inc., Gregory Sorrentino ’89 of the Center for the Disabled,
FACULTY PUBLICATIONS
THOMAS KOPP and JOSEPH ROSETTI published “The Impact of Market Driven Staffing on Faculty Governance in a General
Education Environment” in The Journal of World Universities Forum. ROSETTI and M. Maceiko published “An Investigation
Of Strategic Decision Making In Service Marketing Through Case Study Development And Analysis” in College Teaching
Methods & Styles Journal (forthcoming).
of Rose & Kiernan Inc. “Siena
helped turn my son into a
responsible adult who passed the
CPA on his first attempt and works
for Grant Thornton today.”
By doing so, the younger Vitale
has taken a somewhat different path
than his father, who started at a
Pennsylvania jobsite for a Boston
engineering firm, then moved to
Rose & Kiernan in 1986. Joseph
Vitale became treasurer in 1991,
vice president in 1992, senior
vice president/CFO in 1999, and
executive vice president/CFO
in 2000.
According to another Siena award
winner, accounting graduates like
Vitale’s son will benefit greatly from
the college’s well-rounded approach
to education. “The accounting
department is simply superb, to be
sure,” said Robert Cushing, CFO
at Trustco Bank (see sidebar). “But
a Siena education is also about moral
focusing, community involvement,
and other Franciscan values. That
makes a big difference in the life of
any graduate.”
From Humble Beginnings
to CFO of the Year
Robert Cushing had no chance of
attending Siena.
Donna Abbott Vlahos/The Business Review
In a single-parent
household with three
boys, he knew his
family could not afford
higher education. Even
so, he visited Siena and
told the then president
his story—concluding
with “Help me out and
I’ll remember you down the road.”
“The president put his arm around my
shoulders and said, ‘Don’t worry. We’ll
take care of you,’” recalled the CFO of
Trustco Bank. “I ended up with a four-year
scholarship.”
Good call on Siena’s part. With his
accounting degree in hand, Cushing went
on to become a partner with KPMG Peat
Marwick and CFO of Trustco Bank Corp NY.
For his work at Trustco, he won top honors
in the Public Company category of the
Capital District Business Review’s CFO of
the Year Awards.
“I was honored to be nominated, thrilled
to be a finalist, and shocked to be a winner,”
he said.
True to his promise, Cushing has remem-
bered Siena, currently serving as chair of the
college’s Board of Trustees. He sees his alma
mater as an ideal training ground for finance
professionals—“if you want to be a CFO,
you cannot get better training than at Siena
College”—but not just because of the
accounting department’s technical excellence.
“The CFO is the final arbiter of what’s
reported,” Cushing explained. “You have 9
to assess not only whether the information
before you is technically correct, but whether
it’s right—right for the shareholders and
right for the community. Such an assessment
requires good judgment and a strong sense
of ethics. Siena instills both in its students
through exposure to liberal arts and
Franciscan values. This is why, time and
time again, Siena grads come out on top—
because they’re thinkers. Siena has trained
them to think well.”
 STUDENT
PROFILE

S
ome young girls dream of becoming a veterinarian,
ballerina or the president. Angela Guzzi ’09
dreamed of owning her own ice cream place.
“As a child I remember going to
Happy Clown with my grandmother
and thinking of how I wanted to do
that one day,” said the marketing
and management major. “When the
business went up for sale last spring,
I knew I had to buy it.”
So she did, purchasing the
Livingston, N.Y. landmark this past
July during the peak of ice cream
season. With support and advice
from her parents, she took charge of
the business setup from filing LLC
papers and buying insurance to
getting approval from the Columbia
County Health Department.
How to Open a Business
in 13 Days
Then the real work began. “We
planned for a July 22 reopening,”
Guzzi recalled. “So after the
10 purchase, I had to do all the
ordering, hiring, painting, cleaning,
etc., in a week and a half!”
Starting with six employees,
Guzzi opened Happy Clown on
time—much to the delight of the
community. “Happy Clown was
always known for great ice cream
at great prices. I wanted to keep
this same mission,” Guzzi said.
“The regulars were very happy to
see us open again. You get to know
what they ordered all the time, so
we would have their ice cream ready
by the time they got to the window,
which they really appreciated!”
The most popular product was
the strawberry angel food cake ice
cream—her uncle’s special creation.
The workload of running Happy
Clown surprised even a savvy
management student like Guzzi.
“Coming from a background of
family businesses, I knew it was
going to be a lot of work, but I was
not used to working seven days a
week from 10:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.,”
she said. “I had never made an ice
cream cone before, so there was a
lot of learning on my part.”
Siena at Work …
and Vice Versa
Throughout the process, Guzzi’s
Siena education played a valuable
role. “At Siena, you are taught a lot
about problem solving, and I think
this helped me when opening my
own business,” she said. “The ability
to be highly organized, which you
quickly learn at Siena, also helped
me a great deal.”
Her Happy Clown experience, in
turn, has given her an entirely new
perspective on her Siena classes.
“This was something like an
internship, except my internship
doesn’t end,” she exclaimed. “I am
thinking about projects and classes
differently than I did before. I look
at every class as ‘How can it help my
business? How can I fit this into
what I’m doing at Happy Clown?’”
Guzzi plans to continue operating
Happy Clown well into the future.
“I absolutely love what I do,” she
said. “My shop is closed now for the
season, but I cannot wait to open
back up in April. The people who
come to my window brighten my
day, and there is no way you cannot
be happy when you see their faces
light up!”

FACULTY PUBLICATIONS

ELIZABETH MARCUCCIO and J. W. Arpey published “Possession, Perfection and Priority in a Fraudulent Environment”
in North East Journal of Legal Studies. JOSEPH MCCOLLUM published “Extension of a Random Walk on Finite Abelian
Groups” in International Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics.
A Business
of Her Own
Siena senior takes the helm
at landmark ice cream store

At left, Angela
Guzzi with the
previous owners
Robert & Jackie
Stickles in front
of Happy Clown
Ice Cream Stand
in Livingston, N.Y.

11

C. Gary, O’NEILL and A. Betancourt published “The Many Call Centers of Teen Mania” in Business Case Journal.
DONALD RAUX published “Teaching an Effective Accounting Class in the 21st Century: Using Active Learning Techniques”
in European Journal of Management.
 From
Students to
Key to the
Actuaries
program Two Actuarial Science
programs launch math
launch and business students into
were two promising careers
grants from
State Farm
Insurance,
facilitated
by Deb
DelBelso
and Suzanne
12 O’Connor
from Siena’s
Career
Center.

S. Kochanowski, CHUCK SEIFERT and G. Yukl published “Using Coaching to Enhance the Effects of Behavioral
Feedback to Managers” in Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies (forthcoming). R. R. Van Ness,
K. Melinski, CHERYL BUFF and SEIFERT published “Work Ethic: Do New Employees Mean New Work Values?”
in Journal of Managerial Issues (forthcoming).
 PROGRAM
HIGHLIGHT

A perfect storm of circumstances inspired Siena to launch

its actuarial science program.
“First, we saw a need to address the
shortage of actuarial scientists around
the world,” explained John O’Neill,
associate professor of quantitative
business analysis. “Second, our
School of Science had an untapped
pool of students with tremendous
mathematical ability. And finally,
students of similar ability in our
School of Business wanted to develop
their quantitative analysis to a very
high level. As a result, we thought it
was time to formalize and systematize
our program.”
Thus were born two programs at
Siena: a B.S. in Actuarial Science and
a Certificate in Risk Management.
The programs’ exceptional rigor and
advanced courses prepare students
to meet all entry-level requirements
of the profession’s two leading
societies—the Society of Actuaries
and the Casualty Actuary Society—
including full preparation for the
first two professional exams.
State Farm Steps In
Key to the program launch were two
grants from State Farm Insurance,
which maintains an operation center
in nearby Ballston Spa, N.Y. The
grants, facilitated on the Siena side
by Deb DelBelso and Suzanne
O’Connor in the campus Career
Center, helped the college purchase
materials, develop courses, fund
faculty development, bring speakers
to campus, and reimburse students
as they begin to pass the exams.
“Through our relationship with
Siena, we can support the pursuit
of a quality education in our
community while addressing our own
workforce development initiatives,”
explained Freda Laiacona, public
affairs specialist for State Farm’s
Northeast Zone. “As our chairman
and CEO says, it’s our responsibility
to support the communities where
we live and work.”
Cross-Disciplinary and
Hands-On
The programs feature extensive
cooperation across disciplines and
intensive faculty involvement. Most
professors from Siena’s mathematics,
quantitative business, finance, and
economics departments participate.
O’Neill himself takes a very active
role in advising undergraduates
which course options to pursue for
their desired careers. “The major is
roughly divided into half math and
half business,” he said, “but students
can weight their electives in one
direction or another depending on
their interests.”
This active faculty role has deep
roots in Siena’s mathematics
curriculum. Long before the launch
of the major and certificate programs,
mathematics professor (now
emeritus) Tom Rousseau advised
many mathematics majors about
careers in actuarial science.
Internships play a key role in the
actuarial science major. To date,
students have interned as such New
York State agencies as the Teacher’s
Retirement System, the Insurance
Department and the Comptroller’s
Office. Several private insurers have
approached the school about hiring
interns, and State Farm offers
internships at its corporate office
in Bloomington, Illinois.
According to O’Neill, the two
programs not only prepare students
for the professional exams and offer
VEE (Validation by Educational
Experiences) credit—as required by
the professional societies—but also
provide several other distinctive
advantages. “The small class sizes 13
and close working relationships
with professors are uncommon to
the university experience where
many actuarial centers are located,”
he said. “Moreover, the advisor will
remain proactive in helping students
plan their course curriculum, so
they can prepare themselves
comprehensively for outstanding
careers in the profession.”

FACULTY PUBLICATIONS

I. Ruiz, ELIAS K. SHUKRALLA

MARGARETand C. Vargas-Silva
GARNSEY, publishedprofessor
associate “Remittances, Institutions and
of accounting, hadGrowth: A Semiparametric
her article, Study” in
“Automatic Classification of
International Economic Journal. ANDREA SMITH-HUNTER, F. J. DeCasperis, and MANIMOY PAUL published “The Role of Perception
Financial Accounting Concepts,” published in the Journal of Emerging Technologies in Accounting. ANDREA
in Predicting Entrepreneurial Start-ups’ Behavior and Success” in Journal of International Business & Economics (forthcoming).Quar-
terly (forthcoming). SMITH-HUNTER, associate professor of marketing and management, had papers accepted for conferences.
 New Faculty, New Directions
Four new assistant professors are not afraid to use new ideas and critique the status quo

What can Civil War accounting tell us today? What

do consumers really think of private-label products?
What is labor search theory, and how is it transforming
labor economics? What have class and power got to do
with the economy? Siena’s newest faculty members
can explain it all for you.
From the problems with tighter economic science for the past three Pacitti’s two courses this year—
accounting regulation to the demise decades will need replacing with a American economic history and
of the unfettered free-market different model: one that includes political economy—allow him and
paradigm, the four assistant issues of income distribution, class, his students to explore alternatives
professors bring fresh insights and and power.” to conventional economic wisdom.
thoughtful analysis to trends at the Much of Pacitti’s research focuses “Political economy, in particular,
vanguard of business today. As such, on this new model. In his dissertation looks at how institutions and power
they fit seamlessly with several (written at American University), can affect economic outcomes,”
School of Business departments he analyzed the direct relationship he said. “I am very much looking
on the move. between employment insecurity and forward to teaching it.”
better macroeconomic outcomes—
Goodbye, Unfettered then showed how the same outcomes Toward a New Theory
Free Market might be achieved in more equitable of Labor
14 For Aaron Pacitti, it is hard to ways, such as Pacitti has several things in common
imagine a more momentous time offering pensions with one of his new colleagues,
to study economics. “The financial to more workers. Arindam Mandal, Ph.D: both teach
crisis and Great Recession have This line of economics, both focus on labor, and
credibly disproven the idea that the research, he said, both examine ideas on the cutting
combination of unregulated markets edge. For Mandal, those new ideas
“offers students
and self-interested behavior will come in the form of labor search
a chance to
always maximize the welfare of theory. “Unlike standard neoclassical
explore topics rarely covered in
society,” explained the new assistant economics, this approach to labor
standard textbooks or mainstream
professor of economics. “The markets recognizes labor market
economics departments.”
principles that have governed friction,” he said. “With labor market

FACULTY PUBLICATIONS

MANIMOY PAUL, ANDREA SMITH-HUNTER, and S. Cherukari publshed “Students’ Selection, Participation and Perform-
ance in Undergraduate Math Courses” in International Journal Educational Research (forthcoming). SMITH-HUNTER and
M. Infante published “Women Entrepreneurs and the Protected Market Hypothesis, Niches, Cultural and Disadvanatge
Theories” in Journal of Business and Economics Research (forthcoming).
friction, it is possible to build more
realistic economic models that better
explain labor-related economic
phenomena.”
Mandal brings an intriguing blend
of experience to his new post as
visiting assistant
professor of
economics.
During the last
academic year,
he served in a
similar capacity
at Hartwick College; he has also
worked at the New York State
Assembly and for Fidelity
Investments as an economist.
Mandal, who also conducts
research in macroeconomics and
econometrics, came to Siena
principally because of its reputation.
“Siena is known not only for its
quality teaching, but also for its
commitment towards service and
research,” he said. “Being at Siena
can help anyone build a successful
academic career.”
Of Railroads and Reporting
Chester Brearey, D.B.A. is passionate
about the study of history. That goes
for accounting history too.
“History helps us to explain the
present and become prophets for
the future,” mused the assistant
professor of accounting. “It not only
plays a critical role at the core of a
college, but should become a
required course in all disciplines.”
SMITH-HUNTER and J. Kapp published “A Case of Comparative Entrepreneurship: Minority Men and Women Entrepreneurs in Non
Traditional Fields” in Journal of Applied Business and Economics (forthcoming). SMITH-HUNTER and J. Leone published “Evidence on
the Characteristics of Women Entrepreneurs in Brazil: An Empirical Analysis” in International Journal of Management and Marketing
Research (forthcoming)
Brearey draws on the first true
model of financial reporting—the
railroads of the nineteenth century—
to find lessons for today’s accounting
profession. He is developing papers
on such diverse topics as Civil War
accounting and credit default swaps.
His dissertation cast a critical eye on
calls for more stringent reporting
regulation, particularly whether
those new regulations would help
users make better decisions.
Like Mandal, Brearey has plenty of
experience to draw from: as an audit
partner with an international public
accounting firm, the partner of an
investment firm that specialized in
organizational workouts and the
CEO of a national distributor of
health care equipment.
To his students, Brearey brings a
thoughtful approach to pedagogy.
“In business, and
critically so in
accounting,
education is
about rigor,
communication
skills, and critical
thought—the why, not the how,”
he said. “My objective is to provide
the student with the tools to be
successful in these areas.”
The Power of the
Private Label
Few organizations can provide
a marketing education like a
supermarket chain. That makes
Michael Pepe ’90, D.B.A. ideal for
his new job,
assistant
professor of
marketing and
management.
Pepe comes to
Siena with nearly
20 years in retailing, principally for
Price Chopper Supermarkets, where
he served in positions from dairy
buyer to senior business manager. It
was as a private label brand manager,
however, that he found his calling.
That calling became a basis for
research. His dissertation covered
the longitudinal impact of private
label brands on category profitability
and customer loyalty. He presented
a paper on a related topic at the
2008 Applied Business Research
Conference and co-authored a
second paper with Siena professor
Cheryl Buff.
After several years as an adjunct
professor, Pepe is delighted to
put his unique blend of experience
to work for his alma mater. 15
“I understand the importance of the
excellent education and Franciscan
values that Siena provides its
students,” said the 1990 graduate,
whose father, sister, and brother also
hold Siena degrees. “These strengths
make me feel honored to be part of
the Siena community.”
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Four new faculty begin
making an impact at Siena.
See page 14.
ECONOMICS DEPARTMENT
ROUNDTABLE EXPLORES
LEGALIZATION OF DRUGS
Should drugs be legalized? If so, which
ones? How would they be regulated?
What are the consequences? Is this
the first step toward moral decay?
Economics professors Aaron Pacitti
and Arindam Mandal facilitated
an informal discussion of these
controversial issues in their
October 13 Economics Department
Roundtable. The roundtable comes
in the wake of the recent experiment
in California, which legalized the
use of marijuana for medicinal
purposes and has seen an uptick
in the economy as a result of the
legislation.
GOVERNOR’S FORMER
BUDGET DIRECTOR HEADLINES
LECTURE SERIES
The seventh president of the
Commission on Independent Colleges
and Universities spoke on the
challenges to New York higher
education in the latest installment of
the School of Business Lecture Series.
Laura Anglin’s distinguished career in
public service—especially as budget
director for two governors and deputy
comptroller for New York State—
made her an ideal candidate for the
series, noted School of Business
Dean Jim Nolan.
Anglin’s presentation complemented
two other well-received lectures in
Deborah L. Kelly, J.D., assistant
the fall series. Gerald Pucci, Jr., ’86, professor of management, and Michael
managing director of fixed income Sham, Ph.D., professor of classics,
portfolio management at BlackRock— led 25 Siena students on a 16-night
one of the world’s largest publicly study tour of Turkey and Greece in
traded investment management May/June 2009. Prior to the trip,
firms—spoke in September, while the students took a global connection
international business course taught
October’s lecture featured HR leader
by Kelly and a classics topics course
Rosanne Greenwood, president of developed and taught by Sham.
RJG Consulting.

FACULTY PUBLICATIONS AND AWARDS

SMITH-HUNTER and S. Mboko published “Zimbabwe Women Entrepreneurs: Survival Strategies and Implications for Growth” in Journal
of Applied Business and Economics (forthcoming) and “Women Entrepreneurs in Zimbabwe: A Case Study” in Business Renaissance
Quarterly (forthcoming). PAUL THURSTON and L. A. McNall published “Justice Perceptions of Performance Appraisal Practices” in
Journal of Managerial Psychology (forthcoming).
ERIC GIRARD received two awards for Best Paper in Finance at the 2009 GBR conference for: “Determinants of Emerging Markets’
Commercial Bank Stock Returns, Global Business Research” and “Cost of Carry On Steroids: Application to the Pricing Oil Futures,
Global Business Research Institute.”
KATHERINE SILVESTER received the Best Paper Award at the 2009 IABR and TLC Conferences.