True to Sullivan’s goal of integrating Rady with the rest of campus, the school also developed management courses for upper division undergraduate students who have a desire to turn innovation into marketable products. Plans are also underway to try to develop joint programs with other on-campus centers. Sullivan has created joint appointments for UCSD faculty, such as Craig McKenzie, a professor of psychology who now is also a professor of management & strategy at Rady, and Alan Timmerman, who is Rady’s Atkinson/ Epstein Chair in Management Leadership, as well as being a professor of financial economics and applied econometrics in the department of economics.

Sullivan has recruited an impressive group of both seasoned and young faculty. It can boast of a Nobel Laureate, Harry M. Markowitz, a professor of finance, as well as Terrence W. August, a chemical engineer by training, with a Stanford Ph.D. in operations, information and technology, who says the dean’s entrepreneurial zest won him over. “As new faculty, he said we’d be able to shape the school to fit a vision of innovation and entrepreneurship.” On July 1, the school’s faculty ranks grew 50 percent to 18. Sullivan says it will eventually grow to 65, once the second-half of the business school’s facility is finished in 2012. The physical surroundings are a key recruiting tool for Sullivan, he admits, pointing to the sloping campus grounds that lead to the ocean. “I want (potential faculty) to know that this is Southern California and I want them not to ever want to go back home. Look out there,” Sullivan urges, “every one of our faculty has that view.”

For the first class of 55 full-time graduates leaving Rady on June 18, Sullivan offered special thanks: “I want to thank you for being pioneers at a time when you didn’t have to. You can be as big a fish as you choose to be in any pond or any ocean. You’ve proven you can do this.” Class commencement speaker Nick Boyle’s spirited and ebullient remarks would suggest the students think the pioneer risk they took is already paying off. “Don’t wait for the “top ten” statistic to believe it. The Rady School of Management is a world-class center for excellence,” Boyle said. And the sharing of ideas that is central to how the school is managed, Boyle told his audience, grinning, “is like playing Who Wants to Be a Millionaire with unlimited ‘phone a friend’ opportunities.”

Joan O’C. Hamilton is a former bureau chief for Business Week magazine, who writes about science, technology and business.

Putting Theory into Practice

Rady students have completed dozens of independent study projects with companies since the school was opened. They gain real-life marketplace experience while providing invaluable consulting services to the companies. Here are a few of the projects they have been involved with.

In his Lab2Market project, a signature of the Rady
curriculum, Robert Welborn, M.B.A. ’06, worked with
a faculty member at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography to improve revenue management for fishermen through a fisheries exchange. Since developing a business plan, the team is now in talks with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the government of New Zealand.

Niall O’Donnell, M.B.A. ’06, was part of a team that wrote a study for the World Bank, and was invited to present the findings at their Singapore conference. He
is currently a Kauffman Fellow through the Center for Venture Education, working as an associate at RiverVest Venture Partners.

Craig Braun

Craig Braun, M.B.A. ’07, worked with Omega Sensors to develop a commercialization strategy with academia, industry and the U.S. Department of Defense for a state-of-the-art sensor technology.

Anjali Kansagara

Anjali Kansagara, M.B.A. ’07, interned with the Beyster Institute, bringing university faculty members from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh for a clinic on innovative ways to teach entrepreneurship.

Aron Tremble, M.B.A.’07, worked on a project for CE2 Capital, a San Diego-based hedge fund specializing in renewable energy and environmental investments. The research is now being used to invest in renewable energy credits.

Michael Myles, M.B.A. ’07, returned to Japan to do a project for the Foundation for BioMedical Research and Innovation at the Kobe Biomedical Cluster, and has turned the opportunity into a summer internship.

Itziar Escudero

Itziar Escudero, M.B.A. ’07, used her internship experience from UCSD’s Tech Transfer & Intellectual Property Services office to lay the foundation for licensing technology at Novocell, a stem cell engineering company.

Joel Zhou, M.B.A. ’06, created MediReady, a viable business venture through a Lab2Market project where his team of professionals designed a wireless, personal medication assistant.

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