Vanessa Ball-llovera, Manuel Munguia, and Zameer Upadhya have a lot in common. They've all been students in the School of Accounting in the College of Business Administration. They've all been involved in ALPFA—the Association of Latino Professionals in Finance and Accounting. And they've all captured major awards from the organization for their talents and dedication, awards they received at the ALPFA National Convention, held in Miami from August 6th to 10th and hosted by Florida International University.

Senior accounting major Vanessa Ball-llovera was named South Region Student of the Year, following an award in the spring as ALPFA Miami Student of the Year. Munguia (BACC '05) was named ALPFA South Region Member of the Year. And Upadhya (BACC '02) was named Most Promising Business Person of the Year.

And these prestigious individual awards aren't all. The Miami Chapter of ALPFA, with Upadhya at its helm, was recognized as the ALPFA South Miami Region Chapter of the Year.

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For Linet Crichlow-Blondet (BBA'05) and Timothy Laczynski (BBA '05), time is of the essence. That's part of what made the BBA+ program in the College of Business Administration attractive to both of them.

With its lock-step, technology-enabled, customized curriculum, the BBA+ gives students who have associate of arts degrees and are majoring in either management or international business the chance to earn a business degree conveniently and quickly. BBA+ Sunrise can be finished in as little as eighteen months. BBA + Weekend takes just seven twelve-week sessions to complete.

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"Can we explode the shoe business by improving the shopping experience?"

That was the question that members of the ladies' shoe department at Macy's asked Melissa Sanchez (BA '05), Frina Chiodi (BA '05), and Scott Sklar (BA '05)—all marketing majors—along with ten others in last spring's undergraduate marketing internship in the College of Business Administration.

Participants in the internship spent hundreds of hours on 250 surveys, 35 in-depth interviews, observation at Macy's, and employee interviews—then focused their recommendations on displays and customer service.

The student team members presented their findings to buyers and planners and were then invited back to present to the senior management team. And that wasn't the only exciting invitation: the three leaders were invited to accept jobs. Chiodi, who just had a baby, isn't in the job market; Sklar opted for another opportunity, but this summer, Sanchez launched her retail career in the Women's Moderate Ready to Wear department, where she is working with the Style & Co., Emma James and JH Collectibles brands.

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"I had never traveled as an undergraduate, and I couldn't believe it when I found myself standing in front of the Taj Mahal in India," said Cathy M. Pareto (BA '95), senior financial advisor, Investor Solutions, Inc., who is now a member of the Executive MBA cohort in the College of Business Administration.

Pareto was one of twenty-six students, 24 in the current cohort and two alumni, who recently went to India as part of the Executive MBA's new mandatory international trip—called the international residency—a requirement that's drawing a very enthusiastic response from students considering their executive MBA alternatives.

"I thought an international trip was an interesting twist to the learning process," Pareto said. "We were told that the trip would give us real world experience. I hadn't seen this type of learning strategy, and since I had put myself through undergraduate school and hadn't had the opportunity to travel abroad, the idea really drew me in."

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Throughout her years in the College of Business Administration, Luisa Mendoza (BS '05) has wanted to give back to the people who have helped her. Receiving her degree from the School of Hospitality Travel & Tourism Management from Florida International University is her latest achievement in a long list. To her, that also means lots of reciprocating.

Before becoming an active member of an organization for high school students called the Academy of Hospitality and Tourism, Mendoza planned to be a child psychologist.

"When I joined the Academy, its scholarship, networking, and marketing programs got me interested in the field," said Mendoza, who recently landed a job as catering sales manager at the Crowne Plaza Hotel at Sawgrass Mills, following six months as an assistant in the sales and catering department of the Renaissance Plantation Hotel.

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Take an undergraduate degree in psychology, add to that high school teaching experience, finish it off with an MBA, and you have the profile of Michelle Bustamante Hoyos (BA '99; MBA '05), founder of Top Tutors, a personalized tutoring service designed to help students at every step on their learning path.

"I love education and enjoyed my three years of teaching psychology and algebra at Monsignor Edward Pace High School," said Hoyos, who graduated this past summer from the Evening MBA program with a 3.9 GPA. "But I wanted to do more. I knew that I didn't want to open my own education center, so I explored other opportunities in the field. Then, I thought of the idea of a tutoring company."

Though other companies offer home-based tutoring, Top Tutors, in business since January, 2005, prides itself on its personalized service and individualized programs.

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With a long list of impressive jobs to record on his resume—spanning engineering, management, project management, and asset management, among others—José Rodriguez (MS-MIS '05) decided the time was right for him to reinforce his already considerable knowledge and position himself for success in a changing environment.

"I want to contribute to solving difficult oil and gas production challenges, drawing on the best from my production, operations, and automation domain expertise to help create major improvements in the efficiency of production operation processes," he said.

To achieve this ambitious goal, he knew he needed more education beyond his bachelor's degree in electronics engineering (cum laude) from Universidad Simón Bolívar in Caracas, Venezuela, and his special certification in oil production asset management from Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, UK. He found the answer in the Master of Science-Management Information Systems (MS-MIS) program in the College.

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José Carlos Ortiz recently spent a lot of time in supermarkets. But he wasn't buying. Instead, he was studying. What can you study in a supermarket? Chili sauce, of course. For whom? Chacón Agro Industry in Honduras.

Founded in 1986, this family business initially relied on nearby producers, depended on a manual process using windmills, had only one employee, and served a local market. Now, it is one of the country's most important chili sauce companies. Run by the founder's grandson, Carlos Chacón, the enterprise currently purchases raw materials (cayenne, Tabasco, habanero, and jalapeño) from 160 small independent producers and is looking for ways to extend its customer base.

That's where Ortiz, a student in the College's Master of International Business (MIB) program, came into the picture, taking on a three-week market analysis assignment through the John Ogonowski Farmer-to-Farmer program, funded by USAID.

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