August 2008

In March, Greg Harnish and Salvador Gala of Mars Snackfood came to campus and hosted a supply chain case study.  The event was attended by about 25 members of the MBA-SCMA and MMM program.  First we had lunch, and then we dug into the case.  They divided us into teams and gave us background information on the situation.  Based on the real-world experiences of a sugar buyer, we were tasked to make five buying decisions, spread out over a six month time frame.  Greg and Salvador had a spreadsheet into which they entered our decisions.  Each team gave their answer, and then explained how they came up with it.  Some of the issues that influenced our decisions were price and availability, and the conversation during the actual decision making periods varied greatly with topics ranging from crop and harvest issues to new supply options.  It was a really good experience to hear what thought process was used to get to each team’s decision.  I was interested to hear the ideas of the others because we all come from different work backgrounds and our experience levels vary.  In the end, my team didn’t win with the lowest budget, but we all won by taking away some new insights.

-Marcia Murphy
MBA Class of 2009

Marcia is a member of the class of 2009 and throws a mean game of darts.

Things do not exactly slow down over the summer. Like most MBA’s, I am working at my internship, trying to exercise a little more and spend some time with family and friends. A few weeks ago I received an email regarding an opportunity to participate in the Philadelphia LIVESTRONG Event as a member of TeamMBA. LIVESTRONG is the foundation started by Lance Armstrong devoted to fighting cancer, and TeamMBA is an organization designed to encourage and feature the community service of MBA students, faculty and staff. Since I had been riding regularly again, I figured I’d go big and sign up for the century. This meant I had to raise $250 dollars in short order and get ready to ride 100 miles up and down the hills of Montgomery County, PA. What I didn’t anticipate was the outpouring of support that I have received or the chain of events that would follow. Not only have I surpassed my fundraising goal, TeamMBA is far and away the leader in the team fundraising contest to date. As a result, there is talk that we will be invited to have dinner with Lance and get our pictures taken with him. As an avid and long time fan, I am in shock. Now, I just need to get ready to ride those hundred miles. Yeah, things do not exactly slow down over the summer.

If you would like to donate, please visit my homepage before August 21,  https://www.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=262613&supId=226134007

 - Ken Holmes
MBA Class of 2009

This summer I interned at PNC bank’s Corporate and Investment Banking(C&IB) Division, in the Corporate Finance department as a Junior Relationships Manager (RM). My department lends credit to and deploys PNC’s tools and services in large corporations with annual revenues of $500MM and higher. PNC was named the Middle Market Investment Bank of the year by Investment Digest in 2008, was ranked amongst the “Most Admired Companies” in Fortune 2006 and PNC now is the number one lead arranger of market syndicated loans in the North East..

As an intern and Jr. RM, I spent a lot of time prospecting new clients. What that meant is I would review the 10-Ks, 10-Qs and credit ratings of customers that PNC would like to do business with and rate them based on their credit worthiness, liquidity, outstanding debt and overall risk profile. PNC has very stringent lending standards and its this risk averseness that has led PNC to book a 20% Net Income growth in 2Q08 compared with Net Income a year ago, while other banks and financial institutions are booking subprime related losses. My team and manager encouraged me to meet with other departments and locational teams of PNC. I went to Pittsburgh and Philadelphia locations of PNC C&IB and met with other businesses like Treasury Management, Capital Markets, Business Credit, Credit Policy, Asset Backed Securitization, Loan Syndications etc. My other job functions included, sitting on prescreen meetings (to screen new or existing clients), learning about PNC’s portfolio of clients, tools and services, developing a Formalized and Business Independant Client Acquisition strategy and developing a mechanism to get any RM’s portfolio breakdown by location, clients and facilities.

Thankfully within 6 weeks of my being with PNC I was offered a full time position within the C&IB. I am looking forward to the remaining weeks in PNC and am equally eager to go back to State College and to the blessed life of a second year MBA. A word of advice to the incoming class, if you are interested in Corporate Finance or in PNC, please give your 100% to Dr. Muscarella’s and Dr. Fisher’s classes. All the concepts taught in those classes come back to you while interning.

-Amishi Patel
MBA Class of 2009

I spent my summer working for Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research & Development, L.L.C. in the Global Pharma R&D Sourcing division, specifically supporting Clinical Services. I was tasked with developing two high-level budgeting tools, which allowed me to interface with both internal and external stakeholders. The tools will result in a significant time savings for the company and will provide consistent, accurate results on an ongoing basis. They also provide the ability to do more analytics on the tracked data and will aid in controlling scope and price creep on projects.

Aside from my actual projects, I had ample opportunity to learn about other areas of J&J through various Procurement Leadership Development Program events. One of the major highlights of my summer was the open access and exposure to top executives, ranging from Directors to Vice Presidents, and even included both the CEO and CPO. J&J is all about passion and purpose, both driven by our Credo, and it is certainly a culture that I would be thrilled to build my career in. Overall I had a wonderful summer and am grateful for the opportunity that I had to join the 250+ Johnson & Johnson family of companies!

Emily MacPhail