"Andy Taylor is an exceptional leader, a person of character and a role model," Christine Riordan, dean of the Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver, told IBD. "Through his strategic skills, hard work and concern for others, he's built Enterprise Holdings into one of the world's largest private companies, and both Enterprise and Andy have had a very positive effect on their communities at a time when the world needs more people who care."

U.S. manufacturing activity in the month of December rose to its highest level since June and employment in that sector rose with it. The ISM Manufacturing index rose to 53.9 from 52.7 in November and 50.8 in October. An index reading of 50 is an indicator of economic expansion.

Mac Clouse, a professor of finance at the University of Denver's Daniels College of Business, says this growth is significant and telling of an economic recovery.

"This is the kind of growth that we need, growth that isn't artificially stimulated, growth that is coming from the solid basic core of the economy," Clouse said. "The manufacturer is purchasing new equipment, which is a sale for somebody else. He's hiring people, so he's gotten someone off of the unemployment line that can now spend a bit more dollars once he or she gets income again, so there are a lot of good domino effects."

Maybe there is such a thing as luck.

On any given day, a line of people hoping to buy a winning lottery ticket stretches through Chuck's Grocery, a small convenience store in central Arlington.

After all, this is the store that sold a $15.4 million lotto ticket in 1994 -- and many smaller winning tickets since.

Online entrepreneurs typically learn their trade by trial and error. They also acquire skills through online courses — such as those at Practical eCommerce.

But there are also bachelor and master degree programs that concentrate on ecommerce. Here is a list of degree programs that focus on ecommerce. All of the schools have physical campuses, though some also run online degree programs.

Gordon Von Stroh, Jamie Van Leeuwen (Senior Policy Advisor for Gov. John Hickenlooper), and mortgage broker Mike Rosser at the Rocky Mountain Communities's award breakfast at the Cable Center.

As Jamie Van Leeuwen was reading the proclamation from his boss, Gov. John Hickenlooper, declaring Nov. 9 as “Gordon Von Stroh Day,” he stopped, caught his breath, turned to the 250 business leaders and associates gathered to honor – and gently lampoon – Von Stroh, and said: “This is the longest proclamation I’ve ever seen. This is a two-hour proclamation.”

Loveland developer Mc-Whinney has submitted plans to the city of Fort Collins to build up to 315 apartments at the intersection of Drake and Timberline roads.

The proposal is winding its way through the Fort Collins development review process, said Mike Hill, senior vice president for multifamily development.

The 15.85 acres sit just south of Fort Collins Police Services and catty-corner from King Soopers.

TAYLOR MADE: Our town's Andy and Barbara Taylor have given the University of Denver's Daniels College of Business a gift of $5 million to foster diversity among undergraduate students.

The money will be added to the already-established Taylor Scholarship endowment of $1 million. The university has matched the Taylors' new gift, bringing the total in the scholarship fund to $11 million.

The University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business announces $ 5 million gift to enhance undergraduate diversity

The University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business today announced that Andy and Barbara Taylor made a gift of $5 million—which will be added to the already-established Taylor Scholarship endowment of $1 million—supporting scholarships to foster diversity among undergraduate students attending the Daniels College of Business. The University of Denver has matched the new gift bringing the total Taylor Scholarship fund to $11 million. 

If you're an engineering student, chances are you study about five hours a week more than business and social science majors — and you still may not be fully prepared for class, according to a new survey examining how college students spend their time.

A recent survey finds that engineering students study roughly 19 hours per week.

Business majors also may be underestimating their study time, suggests Dan Connolly, an associate dean at the University of Denver's Daniels College of Business. "Much of the work is collaborative, and many students are working in their field … so it doesn't seem like studying (to them). But in the process of doing all they're doing, they're learning."

Mobile technology is on the minds of higher education professionals more than ever before. At the recent HighEdWeb conference in Austin, the itinerary included several ways schools can use social media, blogs and mobile technologies to better captivate its student body. And last week, hundreds of orientation professionals gathered in New Orleans for the National Orientation Directors Association annual conference, where they discussed how to engage with prospective students in modern and relevant ways — including mobile — to welcome the next freshman class.

The vacancy rate in Colorado apartments fell during the third quarter of 2011, dropping to the lowest rate recorded since 2001.

According to a report released Thursday by the Colorado Division of Housing, the combined vacancy rate for apartments in 22 markets across Colorado during the third quarter was 5.0 percent. The vacancy rate was 5.5 percent during the third quarter of last year, and the rate was 5.2 percent during the second quarter of this year.

Rents are rising and competition for apartments is getting stiffer, a new state report shows.

“Rental property is like any other commodity, from bread to crude oil,” said Clark Haggard, a housing counselor for Housing Solutions of the Southwest. “Supply and demand drive the price.”

According to a report released Thursday by the Colorado Department of Local Affairs housing division, apartment vacancies in the state now are at the lowest level since 2001, 5 percent. That’s compared with a 5.5 percent vacancy rate at the same time last year and a 5.2 percent vacancy rate in the second quarter of this year.

Andy and Barbara Taylor have given $5 million to the University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business to add to the $1 million Taylor Scholarship endowment.

The university matched the new gift bringing the total Taylor Scholarship fund to $11 million. The scholarships are aimed at fostering diversity among undergraduate students attending the Daniels College of Business. For the upcoming 2011-2012 academic year, Daniels has awarded 35 Taylor scholarships with plans for additional scholarships later this year.

Russ Dalbey created the company which is best known for its commercials “Winning in the Cash Flow Business.” His company has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, which virtually eliminates a company.

“It not only calls all the dogs off, it then sells all the assets. So after a Chapter 7 bankruptcy, a company disappears,” said University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business professor Mac Clouse.

Cloud storage is getting a lot of publicity these days. It’s designed to simplify and consolidate information in one location. But how secure is the technology?Music may be safe on the cloud, but what about personal data? University of Denver business professor Stephen Haag says it’s quite safe.

“The cloud technology on a personal consumer level is safer than storing information in your own home,” Haag said.

Retailers are fighting for every dollar this holiday season, so being a savvy consumer is more important than ever.

Sale signs are everywhere. Retailers are hoping to draw in shoppers and beat the competition all at the same time. “I think having too many sales definitely muddies the waters for us and it means you have to do your homework more,” said Carol Johnson, chair of the Marketing Department in the Daniels College of Business at University of Denver.

Bloomberg Businessweek ranked the Daniels College of Business Professional MBA program No. 25 in the U.S. and No. 5 in the Southwest Region. The only Colorado business school to be ranked, the Daniels Professional MBA (PMBA) program for working professionals moved up from being ranked No. 53 nationally and No. 8 regionally in 2009.  

Republic Airways Holdings announced Tuesday that it is working with advisers to help find a buyer for Frontier Airlines.

Company spokesman Peter Kowalchuck told 7NEWS that Frontier’s restructuring is nearly complete and that the airline is positioned for profitability in 2012 and for long-term sustainability.

An apartment in metro Denver keeps getting harder to find, as vacancy rates remained below 5 percent in the third quarter of this year, according to a new report from the Apartment Association of Metro Denver and the Colorado Division of Housing.

At a 4.9 percent, the most recent quarterly vacancy rate is the lowest third-quarter mark since 2000, the report found. Last year's third-quarter rate was 5.3 percent.

"Vacancy rates remain near 10-year lows and the vacancy rate has dropped year-over-year for the past eight quarters in a row," report author Ron Throupe, an assistant business professor at the University of Denver, said in a media release.

The University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business was named as the “Best Business School in the Western U.S.” by European CEO Magazine. The Daniels College of Business won the award based upon the success of Daniels in creating a learning environment founded on ethics while maintaining real world relevance.  Its innovative curriculum, the Daniels Compass, is the foundation of all 14 Daniels degree programs. The Compass is more than a set of courses—it is representative of the college-wide commitment to ethical leadership. The curriculum prepares both graduate and undergraduate students to navigate complex business situations and consider the economic, ethical, legal, political and environmental implications of business decisions.  The judging panel took into account that the Daniels experiential learning projects are focused on solving real-world issues including projects in Peru, Ghana, Tanzania, Rwanda, South Africa and Albania to work on various aspects of sustainability challenges faced by corporate and civil society organizations.  The global reach of Daniels as well as its engagement with regional organizations made Daniels an outstanding example of how a business school can add real value to both international and local communities.

Business students presented launch plans for real-world interactive TV applications during the first Daniels Interactive Case Study Competition on October 27 at The Cable Center in Denver. The winning team from the University of Denver's Daniels College of Business presented a business plan for a 2-screen synchronized programming app developed by Ball State University students.

There’s a certain mystery about applying for a credit card: Is your credit score good enough for the best card and rate? Just how much credit might you get  if you are approved? What does everyone else get?

Now there are answers to these questions. With a new tool from CreditKarma.com, you can use information from a long list of credit card companies to find the best card for you, and figure out the one that you’re most likely to get approved for.

The University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business has demonstrated significant leadership in integrating social, environmental and ethical issues into its MBA program, according to the Aspen Institute’s 2011-2012 edition of Beyond Grey Pinstripes, a biennial survey and alternative ranking of business schools. The College ranked No. 15 on a list of the Top 100 business schools, moving up from No. 20 in the 2009-2010 ranking. 

In his book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni compares high performing teams to expert oarsmen: “If you could get all the people in the organization rowing in the same direction, you could dominate any industry, in any market, against any competition, at any time.”

I recently observed a team that not only had members rowing in different directions, but they were in three different boats. When the boats got close to one another, the members beat one another with paddles. That team was toxic.

Unfortunately, scores of teams are like that, particularly in stressful economic

Colorado is showing slow but positive job growth but has a long way to go to reach pre-recession employment levels, economists said Friday after the state said July unemployment was 8.5 percent.

The Colorado Department of Labor said the rate was the same as June. Employers added 3,200 nonfarm payroll jobs between June and July for a workforce total of 2.24 million jobs. Government jobs declined by 900, and the private sector added 4,100.

Two alumni were honored with Lifetime Academic Achievement Awards by The School of Hospitality Business Alumni Association at Michigan State University during the annual conference of the International Council on Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Education (ICHRIE) in Denver, Colo., on July 28.

The University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business today announced the appointment of

Charles (Chuck) Patti, Ph.D. as Senior Associate Dean for Faculty and Academic Research. He takes the place of Glyn Hanbery, Ph.D. who retired on June 30, 2011. 

He is currently the James M. Cox Professor of Customer Experience Management (CEM) at Daniels, with significant experience in the academic and business worlds, both within the United States and internationally. He has served as department head at Daniels, school head in Australia, director of executive MBA programs, associate dean, acting dean, and chair of committees at university, college, school, and department levels as well as international collaborations.  Dr. Patti has an extensive teaching background in a wide range of settings, including doctoral seminars, MBA and other specialized undergraduate and   graduate courses as well as executive training.

Stay calm, say investors. That's easier said than done as most people watch their retirements disappear.

Monday's drop in the markets has people panicking.

Gas prices are down in the Denver metro area between three and four cents from a week ago. That’s the good news. The bad news is it’s a double-edged sword. Gas prices are down, but so is the economy.

Deutsche Bank has collaborated with the University of Denver to help teach a business school course on microfinance.

In a unique partnership, Deutsche Bank has collaborated with the Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver to create a MBA-level course on microfinance and entrepreneurship. Members of the Bank’s microfinance team help teach the course, particularly aspects of the curriculum covering due diligence and other important analysis of microfinance institutions (MFIs). This culminates in an onsite visit to assist in conducting due diligence on either a current or potential Deutsche Bank client. On March 14th, ten students currently enrolled in this class traveled to Georgia, where they visited two MFIs, one a former client of Deutsche Bank and the other a potential candidate to receive a loan from the DBMDF fund. In addition to visiting the embassy and touring the capital, Tbilisi, the students spent several days visiting the MFIs, meeting with senior and branch management teams, and conducting analysis of their financials and operations.

The course first came together about three years ago. Managing Director Asad Mahmood gave a guest lecture to a group from the Daniels College of Business. Impressed by the quality of the questions posed by the students, Mr. Mahmood welcomed the opportunity to make the school a long-term academic partner. Last year, Forbes Magazine recognized this course as one of the “top 10 most innovative business school classes.” “By taking a group of students with an interest in international business and putting them in a program with a strong focus on social responsibility, there is an opportunity to do some real good,” said Maclyn Clouse, the professor of the course and one of two faculty members who accompanied the students on the due diligence trip.

One look at Jon Schlegel’s (founder and co-owner of Snooze) expansion plans and you’ll agree: Breakfast is big business. After stunning success at the restaurant's first four locations (three in Denver and one in Fort Collins), Schlegel is bringing the spunky eatery to both Boulder and San Diego.

Conventional wisdom suggests that hiring an active equity manager is a fool's errand. I once believed this too, as did many of my academic contemporaries enamored with an elegant yet flawed notion of efficient markets.

Q: I'm in a bit of an awkward situation with my boss who is a high-powered attorney and I'm not sure what to do. For the past few weeks, he has been asking me to do things that are in no way part of my job description, like picking up his kids at camp and then babysitting them at the office until the end of the day or fetching his dry cleaning. I'm pretty sure that things will go back to normal once his wife returns (she's out of town), but in the meantime I feel very uncomfortable playing the part of personal assistant when I was hired as a receptionist.

New York, N.Y.

A: Your boss doesn't quite qualify for a lead role in this summer's Horrible Bosses, but he's clearly taking advantage of you. What's worse: you're letting him.

Stop it!

It is with great sadness that we report that Professor John Bazley has passed away after a long illness.
 
Professor Bazley taught financial accounting and and reporting to undergraduates and graduates in the School of Accountancy as well as in the EMBA program. He  was the John J. Gilbert Professor in the School of Accountancy, received the University of Denver's 1990 Distinguished Teaching Award , the Vernon Loomis Award for Excellence in Advising , the Alumni Award for Faculty Excellence , the Jerome Kesselman Endowment Award for Excellence in Research , and the 1995 Cecil Puckett Award of the Daniels College of Business.  Professor Bazley was the co-author of Intermediate Accounting , Tenth Edition, lead author of Financial Accounting: Concepts and Uses and co-author of Principles of Accounting and Financial Accounting.

He obtained a Ph.D., in Accounting, Management Information Systems, with a minor in Sociology and Economics at the University of Minnesota; a MS in Accounting also from the University of Minnesota; and a BA in Economics and Accounting at the University of Bristol, Bristol England.  He loved skiing, playing golf, car racing, listening to jazz and following the fortunes of the Manchester United Soccer team.  

John served in the School of Accountancy since 1976 and will be greatly missed by all who knew him.

After a billion hands of poker, University of Denver professor Robert Hannum knows when to hold 'em

There was this casino, a major online operation based in Europe, and this casino had a problem. A little problem, sure, one lousy player on a hot streak. But he was getting to be a bigger problem every day. The player -- call him Ludwig -- was a regular customer at roulette. That is to say, he was a regular loser, since few casino games are quite so elegantly designed to separate chumps from their chips as roulette. But Ludwig wasn't losing so regularly anymore.

After dropping 3,000 euros with his usual low-wager strategy, Ludwig had come back a week later a changed man. Multiple bets per spin, some quite sizable. He was up, he was down, but he kept putting more money in play. He spewed ten, twenty, even fifty bets all over the layout, like a house painter with a spray gun, trying to cover up all those unsightly black and red numbers. At one point, he had 10,000 euros riding on one spin of the wheel. Then 40,000. Then 100,000.

Common sense, or what passes for it in the gamblers' world, dictated that Ludwig should bust -- and bust hard and fast, since many of his bets essentially canceled each other out. But he didn't. He kept coming out ahead. When his winnings crossed the one-million-euro mark (about $1.42 million at current rates), the casino's manager decided to bring in two experts. One was a private investigator, hired to look into Ludwig's background, in search of unsavory associates -- mobsters, say, or computer hackers, or even a confederate inside the virtual casino.

The other was a different kind of gumshoe: Robert Hannum, a professor at the University of Denver. Although his doctoral work leaned heavily toward the theoretical side of statistics, Hannum now carries the title "professor of risk analysis and gaming" -- a tribute to his many years studying the odd collision of mathematics, marketing and fantasy that fuels the commercial gambling industry. Hannum has been the official mathematician in residence for the MGM Grand and the Aria Resort & Casino; other casino operators call on him to run the numbers on tricky new games or review the math behind special betting promotions that, despite the best of intentions, might actually end up costing their casino some money. He is their go-to guy, the probability king, the wizard of odds. more>>

DENVER - Helping build a house was part of their graduation requirements. A group of University of Denver students, along with Oakwood Homes, will complete Denver's first net-zero home, meaning no energy bills. "You can't learn this in the classroom," Stephanie Sinenstad, a student at the University of Denver, said.

Sinenstad never thought she'd build a house before she graduated.  "We are on a fast track to get this done," she said. It's a graduation requirement at the University of Denver for construction management majors. Students become the superintendents of a home from start to finish. This year they added an extra challenge.

A criminal trial in the deaths of five workers at a Colorado hydroelectric plant began Tuesday in the rare prosecution of a company. Xcel Energy and a subsidiary, Public Service Company of Colorado, are each charged in federal court with five counts of violating Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulations for the October 2007 fire inside a water tunnel at the Cabin Creek hydroelectric plant near Georgetown, Colo., about 40 miles west of Denver.

The workers were using flammable solvents inside the tunnel when it caught fire, trapping them inside. "The problem and why a grand jury decided that criminal charges were warranted is that the money (OSHA fines) is so low," said Kevin O'Brien, a business law professor at the University of Denver Daniels College of Business. "There's no way that Xcel intended for these people to die, but we do make provisions for violating standards normally expected of a usually prudent company to protect their workers." Criminal prosecutions of companies are extremely rare, O'Brien said.

Because past performance is no guarantee - or even an indication - of future results, it would make sense to pick a fund on criteria other than past performance.

That is what C. Thomas Howard believes. And while he has been shouting from the rooftops for more than five years that fund performance is best predicted by analyzing the specific actions of portfolio managers, only recently have people started to pay attention.

"Part of what makes a manager good is his idiosyncratic view of the market," said Mr. Howard, a professor of finance at the University of Denver, who confessed that he didn't think that active management actually worked until his research confirmed otherwise. "There are lots of ways to make money, but we want you, as a manager, to do it your way."

For the second consecutive month, Colorado's unemployment rate declined in April, but experts caution not to break out the champagne yet.April's unemployment rate stood at 8.8 percent, down from 9.2 percent in March and 9.3 percent - a Colorado record - in February, according to a report released Friday by the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment.

Consumer confidence, which plays a big role in the economy, "is starting to tick back up," said Robert McGowan, a management professor at the University of Denver's Daniels College of Business. "There still is an issue with the price of fuel, but aside from that people are starting to feel a little bit better," McGowan said.

One of the greenest homes in Denver will be completed in about a week. But it?s not some super-expensive home that is the work of a tree-hugging zealot.

The "Net-Zero Energy Home" is being constructed by Oakwood Homes in Green Valley Ranch, the northeast Denver community where new homes start in the low $100,000s and where you would be hard-pressed to find one priced at more than $400,000. The home is being billed as the first "net-zero" home constructed in the Denver area by a production builder. A net-zero home is one that creates at least as much energy as it consumes, in some cases even returning energy to the grid.

DU students find it?s not easy being green. It?s being built with the help of a dozen DU students, whose research helped Oakwood construct a home whose energy saving features could serve as a template for production building across the country. The students received hands-on supervisory experience building the $315,000 homes while earning class credit for a "Residential Practicum" capstone course at the Franklin L. Burns School of Real Estate & Construction Management at the University of Denver.

DENVER - The U. S. Census Bureau has only been tracking household income since 1967. But in the 2010 Census, the income gap between rich and poor is wider than ever, leaving kids and adults trying to cope with the recession.

Numbers indicate 20 percent of Americans are in the top-earning category; folks making more than $100,000 a year, and they take home 49.4 percent of all income generated in the country. That compares to 3.4% earned by those below the poverty line.

"The people who were wealthy...even if they lost a job or changed a job...if they had some crystal wealth, that kept their income high so that caused the gap to be even wider between the rich and poor," said Dr. Mac Clouse, professor at the University of Denver, Daniels School of Business. "A lot of the lost jobs were lower paying, and so that brings the income levels down."

Props from Bloomberg BusinessWeek for the Daniels College of Business at D-U. The magazine has ranked the school as one of the best undergraduate business programs in the country in a number of different categories. What the Dean like about these rankings is that they?re based on a survey of the students. Some of the categories that Daniels at D-U scored well in are ethics, accounting, international business, sustainability and financial management.

DENVER, May 16, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- SquareTwo Financial, a leader in the $100 billion asset recovery and management industry, today announced the appointment of Scott Lowery, the company's founder and chairman, to the Executive Advisory Board for the University of Denver's Daniels College of Business. Lowery holds a juris doctorate from the University of Denver College of Law, now the Sturm College of Law, and a bachelor of science in business administration from the University of Denver's Daniels College of Business.

"At Daniels, we believe the best education is one that incorporates high level exchanges among business executives, students, faculty and staff," said Daniels Dean Christine Riordan. "Scott will play an integral role in helping us educate the next generation of business leaders and we welcome him to our Executive Advisory Board."

CB Richard Ellis today confirmed it has been retained to sell the Carmel Cos. apartment portfolio in Colorado, which it describes as the "largest multifamily offering in the nation." The sale was first reported by InsideRealEstateNews on Wednesday.

CBRE is the exclusive adviser regarding the sale of the portfolio, which it said consists of more than 8,000 units in 24 properties developed between 1980 and 2000. Gordon Von Stroh, a University of Denver business professor and an expert on apartments, said that this truly is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

"It's a well-managed, well-built portfolio by a respected developer," Von Stroh said. "Opportunities like this seldom come along. I would expect there will be a lot of interest from investors in this portfolio."

The University of Denver's Daniels College of Business has once again ranked among the nation's top business programs for undergraduates by specialty, according to Bloomberg BusinessWeek's annual ranking.

Daniels ranked the second- best in the U.S. in ethics, No. 15 in accounting, No. 23 in international business, No. 43 in sustainability and No. 47 in financial management.

Bloomberg surveyed more than 85,000 students at more than 100 top business schools, and asked them to rate their program's performance in 14 academic disciplines ranging from ethics to sustainability.

Hit by declining salaries, nest eggs that went bust and layoffs, Coloradans have increasingly had to move in with their extended families - much like other periods of economic turmoil. "I think these are very telling statistics about what is happening socially and economically. They have profound implications," said Gordon Von Stroh, professor of management at the University of Denver's Daniels College of Business. "The economy is playing havoc with things."

Von Stroh said that for decades, the American family pulled apart. Grandparents went to retirement communities, parents maintained their homes and children moved out. But the sour economy has reversed that trend, he said. Now, three generations often find themselves living together out of necessity.

"What has happened is that the extended family has come back together," said Von Stroh. Among the factors Von Stroh cited are nest eggs that went bust just as people retired, putting them in a financial pinch.

BOULDER - High rents, a dearth of vacancies and increasing investor interest are leading to an increase in the number of proposals to build large apartment complexes that would add hundreds of new units in Boulder and Broomfield. The driving force is the classic issue of high demand versus low supply, said University of Denver professor Gordon von Stroh, the researcher who compiled the survey.

The problem has been developing for years because Colorado had about a decade of low economic growth since the 2001 recession. Even before the 2008 recession, developers weren't building enough projects. "The last several years we haven't been putting up nearly the amount of product that we need," von Stroh said.

See those dudes smacking each other with sticks? They're building the American dream. If you believe the USA is the land of opportunity, then the University of Denver made the dream come true by choosing the path less taken by picking up a lacrosse stick rather than strapping on a football helmet. DU will make lacrosse history today, when it becomes the first school on the more beautiful side of the Mississippi River to host an NCAA Tournament game.

Go West, young Pioneers.

"Lacrosse is on this horizon where it's about to mushroom in ways nobody even realizes," said 59-year-old Bill Tierney, a legendary coach who shocked the lacrosse world by taking the DU job in 2009. "The University of Denver is the focus of people around the country looking at lacrosse and saying, 'How much does it really take to succeed on a national level?' And you know what? It can be done."Lacrosse, however, is a game that doesn't threaten chemistry professors or creative-writing students in a debate about what the priorities of college life should be. Never- theless, Barton Stadium will be filled this afternoon to beyond the brim of its 2,000 seats. Want to buy a ticket to soak up a little lax fun in the sun? Sorry. Sold out.

What Tierney has done is a start- up that should be taught as a case study in the DU's acclaimed Daniels College of Business.

Everybody wants to succeed in the biz of college football or basketball, for obvious reasons. That's where television prints money.But check the national rankings of the Directors' Cup, which measures the overall strength of athletic departments across the country, and DU stands No. 1 in the state of Colorado.

Daniels Week is our week-long celebration honoring the founding of the original College of Business in 1908. The week featured a variety of activities and events that promote the best of Daniels, including: sustainability, entrepreneurship, innovation and inclusive excellence.

In the Bloomberg BusinessWeek's annual ranking of the Best Undergraduate Business Programs by Specialty, the University of Denver's Daniels College of Business placed among the nation's top business programs. 

Daniels was ranked the second-best in the U.S. in ethics; No. 15 in accounting; No. 23 in international business; No. 43 in sustainability; and No. 47 in financial management.  Bloomberg Businessweek surveyed more than 85,000 students at more than 100 top B-schools and asked them to rate their program's performance in 14 academic disciplines ranging from ethics to sustainability. Scores were then calculated for each of the ranked schools in each specialty. 

"What is most significant about this ranking is that it reflects student satisfaction regarding their Daniels experience," said Daniels Dean Christine Riordan. "Our students' high regard for the Daniels ethics, accounting, international business, sustainability and financial management programs demonstrate their critical importance to future business leaders. These rankings also reflect our strategic work and focus on ethics, sustainability, and globalization."

This adds to the suite of rankings recognition received by Daniels.  In March 2011, BusinessWeek placed the University of Denver's Daniels College of Business at No. 64 in their undergraduate programs ranking, advancing 10 points from its 2010 ranking of No. 74. In October 2010, the Daniels College of Business Executive MBA program was ranked No. 95 in the world by the Financial Times -- the sole Colorado school to be ranked. In April 2010, U.S. News' part time M.B.A. ranking placed the University of Denver's Daniels College of Business program in the top 70 in the U.S.  In November 2009, BusinessWeek ranked the Daniels Professional MBA program for working professionals 53rd in the country, the only Colorado business school in the rankings. In October 2009, Daniels was named No. 20 in the world for teaching of business ethics by the Aspen Institute. More information about the rankings can be found at www.businessweek.com .

Paving the future of energy efficient home building, Oakwood Homes and University of Denver students build one of the first affordable Net Zero homes built by a production homebuilder. Students will gain hands on experience in construction, financing, marketing and selling of a home in the annual Residential Practicum course offered through the Franklin L. Burns School of Real Estate and Construction Management (RECM) at the Daniels College of Business. 

A Net Zero home nets zero dollars annually on its average energy bill. The design for the home located in Denver's Green Valley Ranch centers on the concepts of air tightness and extreme insulation. This home provides all the energy necessary to heat, cool, provide hot water and lighting while using half the energy load as an Energy Star rated home. What makes this home completely net zero is the addition of a leased photovoltaic solar array system that reduces the energy demand to zero dollars annually for the heating, cooling, hot water and lighting of the home. This Net Zero home built with conventional building practices will include 12' thick double wall assemblies, R-60 attic insulation, R-45 wall insulation, Zip-System exterior wall sheathing, triple pane casement windows, an air source heat pump hybrid water heater, water saving plumbing fixtures, heat recovery ventilator for fresh air inside the home, and a ground source geothermal heating system. This home meets standards from Passive House, Energy Star and LEED Platinum.

This marks the first year the students will experience the challenge under Oakwood Homes. The goal of the project is largely dependent upon the students' ability to raise materials, products and services through donations. Net profits from the sale of the home will be divided between student scholarships at the Franklin L. Burns School of Real Estate and Construction Management and the Boys and Girls Club of Metro Denver.

The Residential Practicum course at Daniels is in its 16th year and directed by Professor Stu Stein of RECM.

Colorado Mountain College in Breckenridge and Dillon will celebrate student graduation this spring Friday at the Keystone Conference Center, located just north of the ski resort on Highway 6.The public is invited to the commencement ceremonies starting at 5 p.m. Friday to honor students earning 87associate degrees, eight occupational certificates or GEDs (general equivalency diplomas).

Commencement speaker Corey Ciocchetti is an author and assistant professor of business ethics and legal studies at the University of Denver. Graduating student Ian Scott, who is earning a degree in outdoor education, has been selected by the campus as the student speaker.

A team of graduate students from the University of Denver beat the University of Colorado team Tuesday in the Ninth Annual Rocky Mountain Real Estate Challenge.

The teams worked on a redevelopment option for the 22-acre site 9 Mile Station at South Parker Road and I-225, with Aurora real estate developer John Buckley and NAIOP Colorado, the local chapter of the Commercial Real Estate Development Association ( www.naiop-colorado.org ).

The MBA students have been working since January to analyze development opportunities for the project.

"The Nine Mile Station redevelopment provides the students with a real-world challenge that is not lacking in complexity," Leanne Toler, chair of the NAIOP organizing committee, said in a news release. "John Buckley and NAIOP are extremely pleased to give the students a great opportunity, and to provide the city with fantastic proposals from some of Colorado's brightest young minds."

University of Denver graduate students in its MBA program topped their rival students at the University of Colorado in the 9th annual Rocky Mountain Real Estate Challenge.

This year's challenge focused on plans from the respective schools for the 9 Mile Station. More than 650 commercial real estate professionals attended the challenge event on Wednesday. DU now has won six challenges and CU three.

"The ability to take everything that we have learned throughout our academic career and apply it on a real world project is such an amazing experience," said Ed Johnson, a former competitor and graduate of the University of Denver's Burns School of Real Estate and Construction Management. "The competition exposes students to the top professionals in the commercial real estate industry; and in today's economy, winning the competition could potentially lead to landing a great job in a tough economy."

The Hickenlooper administration's "bottom-up" economic-development initiative is nearing completion as the 14 regional plans are being filed this week with the state Office of Economic Development and International Trade. An executive order by Gov. John Hickenlooper in January set in motion the process under which Colorado's 64 counties had to identify business-development priorities that were grouped into 14 plans.

"The risk you run in doing planning this way is you are going to end up with a grab bag of ideas rather than a plan," said Bob McGowan, a professor of management at the University of Denver's Daniels School of Business.

"The problem is you also start pitting one area against another," said McGowan, who has worked on economic-development plans in Colorado and Pennsylvania.

In addition to discussing IT priorities, HT also asked attendees to identify the IT trends that are affecting hoteliers. One topic that came up often was the impact of mobile devices, be it smartphones or the iPad. 
 
"More and more people have mobile devices and they are bringing those devices wherever they go," said Dan Connolly, associate dean for the University of Denver's Daniels College of Business. "Their whole lives are wrapped up in those devices, so the portability brings a ubiquity and constant access to things like the Internet -- to information. That is greatly changing how the hospitality industry delivers services and interacts with guests -- and with employees for that matter."

The University of Denver is honoring Joy S. Burns by naming the building that houses the Fritz Knoebel School of Hospitality Management as the Joy Burns Center.

DU Chancellor Robert Coombe and Christine Riordan, dean of DU's Daniels College of Business, made the announcement Tuesday. The school is honoring Burns for 30 years of service to DU and Daniels College.

Burns and her late husband, Franklin L. Burns, were the primary benefactors of several campus facilities and programs. These include the Joy Burns Ice Arena in the Daniel L. Ritchie Center for Sports and Wellness, the Franklin L. Burns School of Real Estate and Construction Management, and the Joy Burns Plaza at the Robert and Judi Newman Center for the Performing Arts.

Renters in Boulder and Broomfield counties saw the highest increase in rents during the past year, according to the quarterly apartment vacancy and rent survey released Thursday by the Apartment Association of Metro Denver and the Colorado Division of Housing.

"The metro Denver vacancy rate is near the lowest it's been in the last decade, but it's essentially been flat for the last three quarters," said Gordon Von Stroh, a professor of business at the University of Denver, and the report's author. "It's likely that weakness in the job market is keeping the vacancy rate from moving lower, but there is nevertheless enough demand to allow for some increases in rents."

On the surface, a dollar still looks like a dollar, but its actual value goes up and down on a daily basis. Dr. David Cox, assistant dean at the University of Denver's Daniels College of Business, says when people turn to gold, it's often a sign of economic panic.

"Gold has always served as a safe haven for people who are nervous about things that are going on in the world," Cox said. "The reason the dollar is losing value is because the Fed has been using monetary policy to try to get the economy going, so they've been increasing the amount of dollars in the system to make it cheaper for companies to borrow."

Gold, just like cash, is a commodity and Cox says it's not too late to invest in gold as a reliable substitute.

"You do want to avoid buying at the peak of the market, and having it go down on you, but there are some pretty good indicators that it may still be going up," Cox said. It's not just the cost of jewelry you might see going up, gold is also used in high-end technology like cell phones, even your car's air bag. Cox says you'll likely see an increase in price reflected soon in those items.

The apartment vacancy rate in the Denver metropolitan area for the first quarter of 2011 was 5.5 percent -- the lowest first quarter vacancy rate in a decade, according to the Apartment Association of Metro Denver and the Colorado Division of Housing.

Gordon Von Stroh, a professor of business at the the University of Denver, and the author of the report, said that although the vacancy rate is near the lowest it's been in the last decade, it has essentially been "flat" the last three quarters.

Von Stroh's report noted that the vacancy rate in the first quarter of 2011 was unchanged from 2010's fourth-quarter rate of 5.5 percent, although the vacancy rate generally falls from the the fourth quarter to the first quarter as a result of seasonal factors.

"It's likely that weakness in the job market is keeping the vacancy rate from moving lower, but there is nevertheless enough demand to allow for some increases in rent," said Von Stroh.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the demand for people with analytics skills and expertise is growing much faster than other occupations.The University of Denver also offers an MSBI degree program through the Daniels College of Business. The program focuses on how to gather and leverage information to lead organizations and guide decisions. The cross-functional coursework covers data warehousing, marketing, finance and operations and incorporates real project work.

Apartment vacancy rates for the Denver metro region -- including municipalities within the region such as Boulder -- fell to their lowest first quarter levels in 10 years, according to a report released Thursday.

"The metro Denver vacancy rate is near the lowest it's been in the last decade, but it's essentially been flat for the last three quarters," Gordon Von Stroh, a professor of business at the University of Denver and the report's author, said in a statement. "It's likely that weakness in the job market is keeping the vacancy rate from moving lower, but there is nevertheless enough demand to allow for some increases in rents."

Colorado's public companies socked away nearly $28.9 billion in cash last year, a 63 percent increase from 2008. The accelerated amount of cash and short-term investments outpaces the 19 percent gain that S&P 500 companies accumulated during those two years.

"Cash positions are very high for public companies," said Maclyn "Mac" Clouse, a finance professor at the University of Denver Daniels College of Business. "It's not necessarily that they're saving it for something; it's that they're not sure what they want to spend it on."

CoStar Group, Inc. (Nasdaq:CSGP) today announced that the American Real Estate Society (ARES), an association of real estate thought leaders whose members include leading global academic and professional researchers, has selected a recent study co-authored by CoStar Group executives and published in the Journal of Real Estate Portfolio Management (JREPM) to receive the "Best Paper Award" for 2010.

"Before this study, we had limited means of assessing the size of the commercial real estate market as a whole, and could only estimate the full size and value of this increasingly important asset class," noted Dr. Glenn R. Mueller, professor at the Burns School of Real Estate and Construction Management at the University of Denver, and one of the Journal's editors. "For the first time, we now have the means to use direct measurement to produce a much more accurate and precise valuation, which is critical for investors as well as researchers. At 11 trillion dollars, U.S. commercial real estate approaches the size of the U.S. stock market at 16 trillion dollars. I am excited at the prospect for further analysis on commercial property afforded by CoStar's research database."

We all are feeling it. With the national average for a gallon of gas sitting at $3.88, watching the dollars tick away as we're pumping gas hurts the wallet. It is also hurting people well away from the gas station."It means those costs are going to be passed on to us in terms of high prices because the business still has to try to make a profit, so they've got to pass this right through to us," Mac Clouse, a professor of finance at the Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver, said.

Social media sparked international attention in recent months as an ember in the firestorm of overseas political unrest, but U.S. marketers are beginning to see sites such as Facebook and Twitter as a hot new way to connect with consumers. Several Boulder Valley based advertising agencies have felt the shift.

Steven Hartley, professor of marketing at the University of Denver's Daniels College of Business said social media's rapid growth in the advertising industry doesn't mean the end of traditional media marketing. The industry's nearly $300 billion in advertising expenditures mostly land at traditional outlets, such as television, newspapers and direct-mail, Hartley said. Still, social media's rapid growth is eye popping, rocketing from nothing to $3 billion last year and expected to more than triple in the next few years, Hartley said.

Donald R. Bacon, a business professor at the University of Denver, studied group projects at his institution and found a perverse dynamic: the groups that functioned most smoothly were often the ones where the least learning occurred. That's because students divided up the tasks in ways they felt comfortable with. The math whiz would do the statistical work, the English minor drafted the analysis. And then there's the most common complaint about groups: some shoulder all the work, the rest do nothing.

Readers will especially appreciate Lindstrom's provision of a set of "Action Points" at the conclusion of most chapters. These will suggest how to apply the material to which they refer, and, will facilitate and expedite a periodic review later to ensure that effective follow-through has been accomplished. Obviously, it would be foolish to attempt to implement all of Lindstrom's suggestions. It remains for each reader to determine what is most appropriate to her or his organization's immediate and imminent needs. However, whether committing to Lindstrom's methodology or to any other, it is important to understand and -- yes -- appreciate the barriers to change initiatives when introducing any methodology which challenges, as James O'Toole so aptly characterizes them, "the ideology of comfort and the tyranny of custom."

Eat your heart out, Donald Trump. Three University of Denver graduate school students from the Daniels College of Business won the fifth-annual CTAM of the Rocky Mountains "Cable Apprentice" competition last week for their examination into how cable can handle satellite, telco and new over-the-top video threats using fresh forms of pricing, packaging and alternative video offerings. The winning trio -- dubbed "Team OnDemandos" -- split a $1,500 grand prize and can each select a paid internship among four positions being offered by Sand Cherry Associates, Starz Entertainment LLC (two slots), and Time Warner Cable Inc. (NYSE: TWC)'s National Division

Colorado consumers are managing to find a way around skyrocketing gas prices.

While Colorado's average $3.55 a gallon is below the national average of $3.77, and well below San Francisco's $4.21, it's still making people change their habits.

I think that what we are seeing is that consumers are remembering the last time that gas was up over four dollars a gallon," said Dr. Mac Clouse, finance professor at University of Denver's Daniels College of Business, "And they saw what they had to do to respond then and they're starting to respond quicker this time around."

The national debt is an astronomical number that is heading towards $14.3 trillion.

"At some point in time, just like individual consumers we may be faced with a cutoff in credit," University of Denver finance Professor Mac Clouse said.

Clouse says if Congress doesn't increase our limit, the fear is that the U.S. would default on its treasury obligations. While he doesn't think the government will let that happen, he says the option of keeping the limit and paying down the debt isn't as easy as it sounds.

"We have to pay interest on that each year and the amounts of dollars that are spent paying interest on our national debt are dollars that could be going toward job creation, they could be doing things to reduce taxes. In many ways it's just an artificial ceiling, it makes people feel good to say there is a debt limit we can only borrow so much, and by the way we change that every time we need to, so it's not real," Clouse said.

Dairy Specialists, LLC of Evans was one of three companies that won the Colorado Ethics in Business Alliance Bill Daniels Business Ethics Award, which honors for-profit enterprises. The other two were Kazoo & Company Toys of Denver and Otter Box Products, LLC of Fort Collins.

The CEBA honored four companies and one individual at its annual ceremony in Denver. The honorees were selected from a group of 27 finalists, which included 13 companies, seven nonprofits and seven individuals, representing a wide range of industries and community organizations from hospitals and youth agencies to law firms and financial institutions.

Teams of students from the University of Denver, Daniels School of Business and the University of Colorado Denver conducted research and interviewed the finalists and then presented their findings to an independent selection committee that determined the award winners.

Corporations will need to rethink their role in society as tough economic times persist, Starbucks chief executive Howard Schultz told a gathering at the University of Denver on Wednesday evening.

"Half the states are insolvent, and two-thirds have deficits," Schultz said. "There is a lot of bad stuff coming."

As governments cut back, corporations will be under pressure to fill the gap and show more concern regarding their workers and customers alike.

"Corporations will have to do more for the communities they serve," he told an overflow crowd gathered for the Voices of Experience speaker series hosted by the university's Daniels College of Business.

A finance student at the Daniels College of Business has started an unofficial newspaper targeting business students.

The publication, called the Pioneer Business Review, will be available on campus this Thursday, April 7. It is the brainchild of Spencer Arnold, who has spent much of his time since halfway through last quarter to develop the newspaper, he said.

"The original purpose [of the Pioneer Business Review] was to build community in Daniels, pull professionalism and showcase students doing cool things," Arnold said.

They're going to find out sooner or later, so they might as well learn it from you instead of on the street?

Things cost money. And money has to be earned. Enough said? Well, not really. But the good news is, they?ll probably listen: According to a poll by Northwestern Mutual Foundation?s www.themint.org, seven out of ten teens say parents influence the way they save and spend money more than celebrities, TV shows, teachers and friends. Dr. Vaneesha Boney, assistant professor of finance at Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver, finds that when discussing career and financial aspirations with her students, they frequently cite one or both parents as their main motivation and source of guidance.

John Hopkins of Rocky Mountain Health Plans of Grand Junction claimed the individual award and four enterprises won honors sponsored by the Colorado Ethics in Business Alliance, which celebrates ethical role models in for-profit and non-profit categories.

Hopkins won the Daniel L. Ritchie Award, while Kazoo & Company Toys of Denver, Otter Box Products of Fort Collins and Dairy Specialists of Evans took for-profit honors. The Family Tree of Wheat Ridge won the non-profit award.

The winners were chosen from among 13 companies, seven non-profits and seven individuals from a wide range of industries. Students from the University of Denver's Daniels School of Business and the University of Colorado Denver researched the candidates, conducted interviews among the finalists and then passed its findings to a selection committee.

An apartment building boom is on the horizon as increasing demand for a limited supply of apartments pushes rents higher and gives developers and investors an incentive to start building multifamily project.

They were the days Beau Smith will never forget. Two years ago, as the recession pushed the auto industry to its darkest days; the time for change had arrived.

"We went through a transformation that needed to take place a decade ago, but it just took place in the last two years," Smith said.

"They were dead. They were dead and they had a business model that was no longer relevant," Mac Clouse, a professor of finance at the Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver, said.

A team of MBA students from the University of Denver ?s Daniels College of Business won the Association for Corporate Growth (ACG) Cup for the second consecutive year. The DU team (Dan Tetsell, Chris Lathrop and Jud Whiteneck) won $2,500.

DENVER -- Crocs Inc. stepped out of its element when it launched a brand of high heels and other women's shoes that looked nothing like its iconic bright, lightweight clogs. Now it's doing it again, with a line of seven-ounce sneakers for men.

The Niwot, Colo.-based company has no intention of abandoning its signature clogs, beloved by some and loathed by others. But it's pushing to become a shoe brand for all seasons and buyers, chief marketing officer Andrew Davison said.

When Crocs launched its more style-oriented women's shoes a few years ago, it gave the line a new name: You by Crocs. With the Crocs sneakers, the key for the shoemaker will be maintaining its trademark attributes in new offerings, said Steven Hartley, a marketing professor at the Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver.

"In the past Crocs has meant something to consumers: colorful, comfortable, waterproof, maybe stylish. If the new line is those things also, my guess is that the extension will make sense to them as consumers," Hartley said.

Lorem Driving around the Denver metro area, you'll find gas prices average around $3.29 a gallon for regular unleaded. In South Denver, gas prices range from $3.19 to $3.25. In Lakewood, a gallon of regular unleaded will cost you $3.39.

"Just small increase in the price can have negative impacts on the economy," said Mac Clouse, Professor of Finance at Daniels Collage at DU. Clouse said the unrest in Libya and the Middle East are partly to blame for the increase in gas prices.  "It's going to drive up any costs associated with transportation and oil products," said Clouse.

The soaring bill you pay at the pump could also affect consumer spending at a time when consumer confidence hit its highest point in three years.

Governor John Hickenlooper has long been an advocate for Colorado`s homeless. As mayor of Denver Hickenlooper`s 2010 budget increased the amount that the city spent to support programs for the homeless. Last January the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development chipped in, awarding $18.6 million to Colorado homeless-assistance programs in order to keep them functioning in 2011. HUD`s regional administrator Rick Garcia has pledged that two-thirds of the money will be used for transitional and permanent housing, with the balance being applied to the purchase of a new homeless management software system and homeless services.

A new survey shows the national average price for a gallon of regular unleaded gas has jumped 33 cents in two weeks. The Lundberg Survey completed Friday has the average national price of a gallon of regular at $3.51. The price of crude oil has topped $100 dollars a barrel and that has Washington eyeing the nation's oil reserves to protect the economy.

"The issue of the reserves is one we're considering," President Obama's Chief of Staff William Daley told NBC's Meet the Press Sunday. "It is something that has only been done in very rare occasions."  The last time the U.S. raided those reserves was three years ago when Hurricane Ike hit the Gulf Coast.

But University of Denver Business Professor Ron Rizzuto said it may be too early to tap the reserves. "If you leave it to the market to work, there willl be other supply and maybe it will moderate prices," Rizzuto said.

The University of Denver's Daniels College of Business is the highest-rated undergraduate business school in Colorado, and No. 64 nationwide, in the latest ranking by Bloomberg Businessweek. DU/Daniels rose 10 notches from its 74th-place national ranking on the 2010 Businessweek list, posted Thursday.

The latest ranking places Colorado State University's College of Business at No. 89 nationally, and the University of Colorado at Boulder's Leeds School of Business at No. 97. DU, CSU and CU-Boulder are the state's only business schools included in the ranking of 113 schools.

DU/Daniels also places highest among the three Colorado schools in a corporate-recruiter survey used in the overall ranking, at No. 56 nationwide. CU/Leeds is No. 70 among recruiters and CSU is No. 95.

Undergraduate program jumps 10 points from 2010; ranked No. 64 in the U.S., top business program in Colorado

BusinessWeek today announced that the University of Denver's Daniels College of Business is ranked No. 64 in the 2010 BusinessWeek undergraduate programs ranking, advancing 10 points from its 2010 ranking of No. 74.  Daniels also is the top undergraduate business school in the state, according to BusinessWeek, which ranked Colorado State University No. 89 and Leeds School of Business at CU-Boulder No. 97.

 "At Daniels, our most important priority is our students, and we are dedicated to the education of the next generation of ethical business leaders," said Daniels Dean Christine Riordan. "We welcome this newest ranking from BusinessWeek because it demonstrates that we give our graduates the critical thinking skills needed to make a difference in the future of the global marketplace."

If it's true that markets constantly cycle between the emotional poles of greed and fear, then the energy sector right now is in fear mode -- spooked by what's happening to oil prices. Political unrest and uncertainty in the Middle East have sent crude soaring -- and that spike in prices is once again drawing the public's attention back toward alternative energy sources, in particular solar and wind power.

Both the Bush and Obama administrations have pushed to have wind power and other alternative energies generate a greater percentage of America's electrical output. A Department of Energy report details a scenario whereby wind power could be responsible for 20% of U.S. electricity production by the year 2030 .

But for the moment, that remains speculative. The government realizes that, "long-term, you have to find some alternative to a resource that is still embedded in a volatile part of the world," says Ron Rizzuto, professor of finance at the University of Denver's Daniels College of Business. Wind power, he says, is a "good, long-term thing, but we're still feeling our way. . .and it's not economic on its own without subsidies."

When 2,000 business leaders descend on Denver this week for a conference, some differences from the norm may be apparent. Notable among them: less gray hair. The Young Presidents' Organization holds its annual global leadership conference in Denver from Thursday through Saturday. Membership in the education and idea-sharing group is restricted to chief executives, presidents and other company leaders under age 45. The age orientation adds some special cachet to the event, business analysts say.

"These are young leaders who will become the senior leaders of tomorrow," said University of Denver finance professor Mac Clouse. "When they are in leadership positions under the age of 45, it suggests they have shown some evidence of success and are on the fast track."

Speakers at the conference will encompass a diverse field: former President George W. Bush, pop musician John Legend, genomic scientist J. Craig Venter, anthropologist Elizabeth Lindsey and Rwandan President Paul Kagame.

If you've had to fill up your tank in the past few day , then you've probably suffered a little sticker shock. Gas prices have hit the highest level in more than two years, and most analysts say those prices will continue to increase. The average price in Denver is just more than $3 per gallon, and the national average is around $3.15.

But commodities traders are watching the developments in the Middle East.  They're the people that set the price of oil based on what they see happening in the market, and right now it looks like that market is just going to go up.

"Everybody right now is predicting the price of oil is going to go up primarily because of the uncertainty with Egypt and the other countries that are oil producing countries," said University of Denver Finance Professor Mac Clouse. With only 5 percent of the world's population, the U.S. consumes more than 25 percent of the world's oil.  As increasing prices put more pressure on consumers, something has to give.

"Our business is dictated by being able to drive, go out to pick up and deliver, and it's definitely putting a hurt on us."

Strong drink is as American as the Fourth of July, and dates back a few years earlier. In fact, U.S. distilleries and their potent products have been part of the national culture since long before the War of Independence and have played a major role in the country's history.

But America's troubled relationship with liquor had a huge impact on what consumers expect from their alcoholic beverages, and the devastating aftermath of the 18th Amendment left a barren landscape for liquor lovers. On the bright side, in more recent times, that loss has created a hunger for something better, contributing to a national revival of microdistilleries. Across the country, small companies are opening their doors and producing unique, handcrafted products with local or niche audiences in mind.

But two factors -- the economic downturn and changing tastes -- are drawing many Americans away from their usual drinks. "What we've learned is that while alcohol may be recession-resistant, the top brands aren't recession-resistant," says Mac Clouse, professor of finance at the University of Denver's Daniels College of Business.

One of Clouse's classes manages part of the university's endowment, which had a pretty big investment in Diageo. "Their idea with that investment was if the economy goes bad, people will still drink," he says. "The problem is people are still drinking, but they've gone down to the generic brands, the less expensive brands."

Former President George W. Bush plans to visit Denver on Saturday to host a roundtable discussion with Denver education leaders. The discussion will focus on the George W. Bush Institute's Alliance to Reform Education Leadership initiative. The effort, announced last year, aims to improve student achievement by improving the performance of school principals.

Bush will be visiting the Denver-based organization Get Smart Schools, which is a new partner in the initiative. The University of Denver's Daniels College of Business and Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning, or McREL, are other Denver partners.

At least 6 Borders stores in Colorado are slated for closure as the national bookseller works to emerge from bankruptcy. According to a document published by the Hilco Group, a company that specializes in liquidating retailers, Borders plans to close its stores in Littleton, Aurora, Boulder, Greeley, Dillon and Grand Junction.The long-expected Chapter 11 filing will give the second-largest U.S. bookstore chain a chance to fix its finances and shrink its business at a time when buyers are increasingly going online rather than visiting megastores.

Some industry experts aren?t surprised.  ?There?s so many other options for buying books, that traditional bricks and mortar book stores are in trouble,? said Don McCubbrey, a professor at the University of Denver.

Apartment vacancies in Colorado urban areas other than Denver fell in the fourth quarter of 2010 from the same period of 2009, according to a report Tuesday from the Colorado Division of Housing that echoed an earlier report on metro Denver.

Tuesday?s report, by University of Denver professor Gordon Von Stroh, said apartment vacancies fell year over year in all six urban areas covered by the apartment survey: Fort Collins, Loveland, Greeley, Grand Junction, Colorado Springs and Pueblo.

"High-trust organizations outperform low-trust organizations by 286 percent on total return to shareholders," said Covey at the final Voices of Experience event of the year. During his tenure, the Covey Leadership Center doubled its revenues, growing its shareholder value from $2.4 million to $160 million in just three years.

The Daniels College of Business, part of the University of Denver, is ranked by Education Portal as the top hospitality management college in the United States. The school was established in 1946, but recently erected a state-of-the-art hospitality building that provides students with hands-on experience in the industry. The building has a 2,800-square-foot kitchen, a beverage management center that's decorated like a Tuscan wine cellar, a front desk operations lab and a dining hall that seats 170 people comfortably. The School of Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism Management is one of the few collegiate hospitality programs that's part of a college of business, and the school's job placement resources help students find jobs upon graduation.

According to Bill Thoennes with the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment, "When people who have been unemployed for a long time, they often stop looking for work. The U.S. Department of Labor calls these people 'discouraged workers.' They have opted out of the labor market altogether and are no longer counted among the unemployed because they are not seeking work... As the economy begins to improve and more jobs are created, many of those discouraged workers renew their job search. When surveyed, they report that they are still unemployed but have returned to looking for work. Since they are now counted, the unemployment rate goes up." Dr. Michael Williams, clinical professor in the Reiman School of Finance at the Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver, says there has been an increase in the number of available jobs, but it is difficult to tell what that means to an economic recovery. "A lot of the job growth that we've seen has been in the government sector and not the private sector. So it depends on where that job growth takes place and whether we feel this is going to be sustainable," he said.

The high-end rental market can be ideal for people coming to Denver for a short stay, he said, like people transferred to the area by their businesses who don't want to get locked into a purchase. That wasn't necessarily the case before the housing market flattened. "In the market three to five years ago, they said, 'Let's buy, because (prices are) going to go up,' " he said. Home rentals across the board in Denver are flourishing, from modest accommodations to the high-end housing like The Seasons offers, said Gordon Von Stroh, a professor in the University of Denver's Daniels College of Business who studies apartment vacancy rates. But the high-end rental market has a built-in cap that ensures it won't keep climbing, Von Stroh said. "There's limited demand for that at the high end. Only a given number of people (are) at that income level that can afford high-end units," he said.

We're not even halfway through 2010, and already it has been a rough year in terms of U.S. natural disasters. The recent, devastating floods in Tennessee caused an estimated $1.5 billion of damage in the Nashville region alone. The Atlantic hurricane season doesn't officially begin until June, but experts are predicting an above-average number of storms this year. And the still-young tornado season has already been filled with lethal and highly destructive events across the southern Plains states. Historically, tornadoes have been particularly costly in the U.S. According to the credit rating organization A.M. Best, tornadoes and tornado-related events have been responsible for an average of nearly 57% of all catastrophic losses per year in the nation since 1953. The company says insured losses due to tornadoes and severe thunderstorms hit a record high in 2008 for the U.S. property and casualty industries. Of the 29 severe thunderstorm events that year, according to its report, two events alone "each resulted in insured losses of $1 billion or more; another four severe weather events generated losses of $725 million or more."

There's talking, and then there's rolling up your sleeves and really working. Students can sit in classrooms all day long, their attention perhaps drifting while a professor drones on. But getting hands-on experience out in the field leads to "ah ha!" moments and hastens up the learning curve. And if that field work produces some long-lasting good in the community, so much the better. That philosophy drives the "social capital projects" (SCP) program at the University of Denver's Daniels College of Business. Each MBA student must work on an SCP -- a sustainable project that benefits the community in the long term.

"We are very proud of our recent rankings, especially around ethics. The teaching of ethics is top of mind for our faculty at Daniels, more than ever given the recent economic turmoil. However, it's important to note that we were one of the first business colleges to include ethics in a core curriculum grounded in rigorous technical business knowledge," said Daniels Dean Christine Riordan. "Our accounting, marketing and finance programs are also important components of the Daniels educational experience, giving our graduates  the critical thinking skills needed to make a difference in the future of business."

Colorado poker fans have been dealt a losing hand. The Colorado Supreme Court will not review a lower court's ruling that poker is considered gambling under state law. The high court issued its rejection March 22 without comment. The case stems from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation's 2008 probe of a $20 buy- in Texas Hold'em tournament at a Greeley bar. Five organizers of the tournament were arrested and charged with illegal gambling, which occurs when a game includes a wager -- such as a buy-in -- and a payout, and its outcome is determined predominantly by chance or luck. There are exceptions, such as if everyone involved has a "bona fide" social relationship. Poker advocates contend that the popular card game shouldn't be considered gambling because it requires more skill than luck. In January 2009, a county- court jury acquitted the first defendant to go to trial, Kevin Raley, and charges against the others were subsequently dropped. During the trial, Raley called an expert -- University of Denver professor Bob Hannum -- to testify that poker is a game of skill.

"We are very proud of our recent rankings, especially around ethics. The teaching of ethics is top of mind for our faculty at Daniels, more than ever given the recent economic turmoil. However, it's important to note that we were one of the first business colleges to include ethics in a core curriculum grounded in rigorous technical business knowledge," said Daniels Dean Christine Riordan. "Our accounting, marketing and finance programs are also important components of the Daniels educational experience, giving our graduates  the critical thinking skills needed to make a difference in the future of business."

Professor Daniel Connolly, associate dean for undergraduate programs at the Daniels College of Business, University of Denver, works extensively with Gen Y-ers who rely on mobile technology to communicate with their "inner circle" and get things done efficiently while on the go. "Recently I flew to Chicago and back using my cell as a mobile boarding pass," Connolly said. "It was fast, easy, and convenient. With the airlines starting to enable mobile devices for streamlined check-in, it seems to reason that hotel check-in will be the next obvious frontier. Consumers are quickly becoming conditioned to using their smartphones as a major tool in the travel landscape--and why not?  Most people are quite adept at using them and have them always accessible."

"We gathered around the computer and we all knew were watching history happen," he told 9NEWS. Jansson is a senior VP at RBC Wealth Management. He says in his 40-year career he has only seen this happen one other time. It was 1987 when gasoline was 89 cents a gallon. The U.S. stock market dropped 508 points. It was a 22.6 percent fall. The problem was computer driven. "I will be surprised if we don't find out that it is exactly similar," Jansson said. A finance professor at the Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver calls what happened Thursday an "anomaly." Dr. Mac Clouse says only an error can cause that type of chain reaction. "The program sells which causes more downward pressure on stock prices, which brings in more computerized trading to sell some more, and you get a domino effect that is much, much quicker than anything that could have happened if we were still dealing with humans," he said. Thursday's free fall may have started with a typo. Then a flood of other trades programmed into computers were triggered based on that one mistake. "It is a virtually cascading event that brought the market down very quickly," Jansson said. "Computers take instructions. When they have a market order they don't reason that the last trade was 10 points above or 20 points above it just knows it must sell." The Dow has lost 631 points, or 5.7 percent, since Tuesday amid worries about Greece. That is the largest three-day percentage drop since March 2009, when the stock market was nearing its bottom following the financial meltdown.

The impact on airfares "won't happen tomorrow," said Mac Clouse, a DU finance professor. "And we may even see some reductions in airfares here. Places like Boise and Des Moines and Wichita had better watch out, though." The proposed merger may open the door to low-cost carriers or new discount airlines to serve areas the new United may not want, Clouse said. Denver will get better access to the nation's Southeast with the deal, said Tom Clark, executive vice president of the Metro Denver Economic Development Corp. "And Continental gives us tremendous access into South America, which is a growing market, albeit a little unpredictable," Clark said.

Mac Clouse, a University of Denver finance professor who follows the airline industry, said the merger brings long- term stability to Denver's air- travel market. "This is good for Denver because it's good for United and Continental," he said. "United has a large presence here, and it would be troubling to see them go." Domestically, United is a giant west of the Mississippi, including its secondary hub in Denver, and Continental dominates east of the Mississippi. The combined airline would own 53 percent of West Coast air traffic and 40 percent of passenger travel on the East Coast. A United-Continental merger was expected in April 2008 but fell through at the last minute when Continental backed out, saying the deal wasn't in the company's best interest. The Houston Chronicle reported Sunday that under the latest proposal, United shareholders would own 55 percent of the merged company.

Today, CCIM asset managers are no longer just asset managers; they're asset-value physicians. For some, this means providing emergency, life-saving care: "As a court-appointed receiver, my role is often like a battlefield surgeon's," says Aaron Weiner, CCIM, CPM, LEED-AP, senior vice president of Weiner Property & Management Co. in Irvine, Calif. "The first order of business is to staunch the bleeding and address the infection." Luckily, Weiner always wears a dark suit. Outside of the distressed-assets war zone, however, property owners and managers play the role of general practitioner. They check a property's vital signs, recommend preventative measures, and call in a specialist when necessary. If an asset looks weathered and needs a boost, they might even recommend cosmetic surgery. In all cases, whether the property is stable, on life support, or somewhere in between, the goal is to avert emergencies and increase immunity against plummeting values. "All savings translate into added value," Weiner says, but in this epidemic of declining fundamentals, reduced expenses may not be enough to ward off value-eating afflictions such as unexpected vacancies, deferred maintenance, and unrealistic pro formas. Owners and managers must monitor even the healthiest properties. But like every patient, every property requires a slightly different approach. CCIMs were asked to share procedures they've successfully used to preserve asset value. The following strategies constitute a checklist for all property doctors faced with lagging fundamentals, looming loans, and an asset with the will to live.

"You can judge a city climate by the number of corporate headquarters there," says University of Denver Professor Mac Clouse. Now it appears Denver is on the verge of losing another one.

CenturyTel Inc. and Qwest Communications have announced a definitive agreement under which CenturyTel will acquire Qwest in a tax-free, stock-for-stock transaction. It could mean hundreds of Denver-based jobs could be lost or moved.

Outback Steakhouse is just one of the latest corporations to be slapped with a sex-discrimination lawsuit. While not admitting guilt, the dining chain in February agreed to pay $19 million to settle a class-action lawsuit alleging discrimination against thousands of women at its restaurants. According to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), women did not receive favorable job assignments, such as kitchen management experience, which is required for employees to be considered for higher-level, profit-sharing management positions.

In a similar story, a recent suit against Denver-area car dealer Ralph Schomp Automotive stated that five women were subjected to sex discrimination and a sexually hostile work environment while employed by the car dealership. The unlawful conduct allegedly included offensive verbal comments and physical touching, demotion, refusal to transfer, salary reduction and failure to promote. Ralph Schomp settled for $1.5 million.
Many organizations have strong policies and practices against overt forms of discrimination, harassment and hostile work environments. We all know that change takes time and these efforts will make a difference.

 U.S. News' latest part time M.B.A. ranking placed the University of Denver's Daniels College of Business program in the top 70 in the U.S.  Released today, U.S. News ranked Daniels tied for the 70th place along with George Mason University, American University, Loyola University and Texas Christian University among others. 

The criteria for the 2010 U.S. News part-time M.B.A. ranking changed from previous years.  Now based solely on a fall 2009 peer assessment survey, it asked business school deans and M.B.A. program directors at each of the nation's 314 part-time M.B.A. programs to rate all the other part-time programs on a 5-point scale, with 1 marginal and 5 outstanding. Programs were ranked based on their average score among those who rated them. U.S. News defines a part-time M.B.A. program as being at an AACSB-accredited school with at least 20 students enrolled part-time in fall 2008. The part-time program was also ranked 53rd in the country by Business Week earlier this year.

If there is one word to describe Stan Kroenke's tenure in Denver it would be success. Ten years ago, he purchased the Colorado Avalanche, the Denver Nuggets and the Pepsi Center. Within four years, he expanded his influence in Colorado's sports market by adding the Colorado Crush of the Arena Football League, the Colorado Rapids of Major League Soccer, the National Lacrosse League's Colorado Mammoth and created the Altitude Sports and Entertainment cable channel. Kroenke has a track record of investing in his franchises to ensure they are competitive. He is now poised to take control of the St. Louis Rams NFL team. Kroenke owned 40 percent of the Rams and has announced plans to exercise his option to purchase the remaining shares. The St. Louis Rams are valued by Forbes magazine at $913 million.

The University of Denver's hotel, restaurant and tourism school is launching NFC mobile payment at the campus' student run coffee shop, according to americanbanker.com. Students and faculty will be able to use their mobile phones to make point-of-sale purchases, as well as add money to their accounts and check balances and transaction histories. Mocapay is providing its mobile software-as-a-service technology for the project, which will also involve distributing mobile marketing campaigns to students via mass text messaging. According to American Banker, the school is running the pilot to give hotel, restaurant and tourism students firsthand experience with NFC technology, which the school expects will become an essential part of the hospitality business in the future. Students and faculty will be able to conduct mobile transactions at the point of sale, access account balances and transaction histories, and reload their account from their mobile phone. Customers will also be able to conduct gifting by transferring funds directly to another mobile phone.

The Midwest Airlines name is disappearing, but the rebranded and expanded Frontier Airlines intends to hand out chocolate chip cookies to all of its passengers. Downtown Milwaukee's Midwest Airlines Center? Its name is morphing into the Frontier Airlines Center. And the new Frontier will integrate Midwest's frequent flier program and eventually have just one reservations system -- a blessing for passengers frustrated by problems created by different technologies now used by the two airlines. Those were among the points made Tuesday with the announcement that the Midwest Airlines name will be dropped by the fall of 2011. Indianapolis-based Republic Airways Holdings Inc., which bought both Midwest and Denver-based Frontier last year, says the combined name will help it cut costs and better serve its customers. Midwest and Frontier will first focus on "behind-the-scenes" operations, said Republic Chairman Bryan Bedford, who made the announcement to around 300 employees, guests and reporters gathered in the Midwest maintenance hangar at Mitchell International Airport. "The biggest challenge we have is ourselves, and our technology," said Bedford, who sported a button reading, "We are 1."

Frontier Airlines' beloved tail animals escaped extinction and will, instead, gain a bigger national stage. And everybody gets chocolate- chip cookies. About 400 assembled Frontier employees erupted in a long, raucous cheer Tuesday when corporate officials said their company will be the surviving brand in a newly merged airline. Midwest Airlines goes the way of grounded carrier names such as Pan Am, Braniff and TWA in the wake of the announcement that Republic Airways will put its chips on the Frontier brand. Indianapolis-based Republic had acquired Frontier and Milwaukee-based Midwest in separate transactions last year. Months of speculation ensued over how Republic would name and market the combined airlines.

"It's a sign of confidence; the market has confidence," DU Finance Professor Dr. Mac Clouse said. With six straight weekly advances, the DOW's 11,000 mark was reached by a recent slow incline, a sign of recovery. "It's not the dramatic increases we've seen in the market in the last 6 months or so. We're now seeing a slow steady increase, and that's what we want to see," Dr. Clouse said. However, economists say the market is still a bit vulnerable. "What we hope is that we don't see any huge surprised, international news; it could be a terrorism attack," Dr. Clouse said.

In this CBS4 interview, Daniels professor Greg Wagner weighs in on Republic Airline's decision to keep or drop the Frontier brand name.

From investment pros to finance professors, the possible signs of America's economic recovery are leading some to optimistic views for the future. From recession to recovery, America's economic engine appears strong after a second straight day of encouraging signs on Wall Street. "I think it's real," said Dr. Mac Clouse, finance professor at the University of Denver. The Dow Jones Industrials average finished above the 11,000 mark again Tuesday, while the Standard & Poor's was up less than a point to 1,197 and the Nasdaq gained eight points, finishing at 2,466. "We're in the recovery. It's not going to be a quick recovery. We went down a lot faster than we're going to go up," Clouse said.

The University of Denver Daniels College of Business' School of Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism Management is letting students use their mobile phones to buy food and beverages at Beans, the school's coffee shop. Mocapay's Software-as-a-Service technology is powering the mobile payments at the coffee shop. Beans will also leverage the platform's embedded messaging engine, letting it customize mobile marketing campaigns to target students. "The relationship with Mocapay not only provides a new solution for students to conduct secure, mobile transactions on campus but it allows them to experience first-hand how emerging technologies influence the hospitality industry," said David L. Corsun, Ph.D, director and associate professor of Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism Management in the Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver. "This experience will be expanded into the classroom," he said. "With mobile technology quickly becoming an essential part of the hospitality industry's business processes, we are integrating the Mocapay platform into our curriculum." Through the relationship, students and faculty will be able to conduct mobile transactions at the point-of-sale, access their account balance, transaction history and reload their account, all from their mobile phone. Users will also be able to conduct mobile gifting, which allows real-time gift-giving directly to another mobile phone.

Officials have been reluctant to say just how expensive the Newark incident was, but analysts believe hundreds of thousands of dollars, at a minimum, were lost. "Once you shut down the airport, you've got all sorts of costs," says Maclyn Clouse, professor of finance at the University of Denver's Daniels College of Business. "You have canceled flights, more missed connections, dollars incurred by the consumers. I would say [the cost of] shutting the airport down for a day, or hours like that, could be up in the six figures." And then there was the situation just recently, when a Qatari diplomat was confronted by air marshals after he was discovered smoking in the lavatory of a United Airlines (UAUA) plane flying out of Washington D.C. As a precaution, officials from the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, scrambled two F-16 fighter jets to escort the United flight into the Denver International Airport. The airport remained opened during the incident and had no impact on its operations, airport officials said. But it costs about $7,500 per hour, including fuel and maintenance expenses, to put each of those F-16s into the air, according to NORAD spokesperson Lt. Commander Gary Ross. The aircraft were airborne for about 40 minutes, which would put the total cost of intercepting the United jet around $12,000. That may not sound like much, but Ross says NORAD scrambles jets about 200 times each year in response to possible aviation security threats, such as potentially dangerous or unruly passengers (like in that last example), airplanes that lose radio contact with the Federal Aviation Administration or aircraft that stray into restricted airspace. "It's better to side on precaution, to send fighters up to have eyes on the aircraft," he says.

Gordon Von Stroh, professor of business at the University of Denver who helped with the report, said it breaks down to pure economics. A builder needs to recoup his investment and as a result must charge a higher rent and add more amenities to the facility. Only older buildings constructed in the 1950s and '60s and a few in the early '70s can cater to the lower-income brackets, Von Stroh said. To solve the problem, Von Stroh said there are two issues that need to be addressed. One is to help lower-income individuals gain the skills and knowledge necessary to make more money. The second is addressing how to build housing that is affordable for the lower-income segment of the population. "It's a two-sided coin," he said. "You've got to increase the income and work on affordable housing." The availability of affordable rental units varied across the state. Statewide there are 1.9 homes for every unit affordable to households earning less than $10,000 per year, according to the report. There are 2.3 households for every unit affordable to households earning between $10,000 and $15,000 a year.

There's enough rental housing to meet demand for Coloradans at higher income levels, but not at lower ones, a new Colorado Division of Housing study shows. The division's Housing Mismatch and Rent Burden study, released Thursday, found that households earning 60 percent of area median income (AMI) or more can generally find a rental home they can afford. But households earning 45 percent of AMI or less have a harder time finding rental homes they can afford, and for households earning less than 30 percent of AMI, "there are generally two households for every affordable unit," the study said. "At 30 percent of AMI, you've got a 2.4 percent vacancy rate in rental housing," said Gordon Von Stroh, University of Denver business professor and local housing-industry analyst. "That's basically no vacancy." "The biggest need, the biggest shortfall, is at the very low end (of AMI)," said Ryan McMaken, housing division spokesman. "We've always suspected that, but now we have the data to show it."

Investors appear to be losing their appetite for "blind-pool" REITs that lack existing property portfolios, according to Glenn Mueller, professor with the Franklin L. Burns School of Real Estate and Construction Management at the University of Denver. In an interview with REIT.com, Mueller said that when evaluating a blind pool before it comes to market, "it's next to impossible to distinguish a good company from a bad company," he said. Furthermore, Mueller emphasized that the small number of deals in the marketplace is hurting blind pools' prospects. REITs "wouldn't even consider" the vast majority of properties in foreclosure, and sellers aren't offering higher-quality assets at a discount, he said. Therefore, investors have little incentive to put their capital into property-less companies that are hoping to take advantage of a soft market. "The problem is in the execution of an IPO in a market that's not moving. Investing capital right now in a market that's not transacting seems to be a real problem," he said. He noted that when attractive properties have come to market, bidders are finding stiff competition from a variety of capital sources, including other REITs and institutional investors. "It's not like a blind-pool REIT would be the only company out there with cash to spend," he said. Mueller maintained that "semi-blind pools," which already have acquisitions identified or under contract, stood a better chance of success going forward than the full-on blind pools.

Lisa Osgood was concerned when she went to Spokeo's Web site and found personal information about her and her husband. Some of the information was correct and some was not. She became increasingly concerned when she saw personal information about another member of her family. "As we looked further, we found our 15-year-old daughter was listed on there and that gave us great concern," Osgood said. The site listed contact information for Osgood's daughter including her MySpace page. Three days later, Osgood's daughter received a disturbing instant message from a stranger. "It started out very friendly and then it got very threatening," Osgood said. In the message, the stranger claimed to know where she lived. The Osgoods were able to close their daughter's MySpace account but have not had as much luck removing the information from Spokeo's Web site. "We tried to go and have our name removed. It was really difficult. We had no luck with that," Osgood said.

The University of Denver's Daniels College of Business has announced that its School of Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism Management (HRTM) has entered into a strategic partnership with Mocapay to enable students to use their mobile phones to make purchases at Beans, the school's student run coffee shop. HRTM will also leverage the platform's embedded messaging engine enabling it to distribute customized mobile marketing campaigns to students. Since mobile technology is quickly becoming an essential part of the hospitality industry's business processes, the School also plans to integrate the Mocapay platform into its curriculum.

Association for Corporate Growth Denver announced that a team of MBA students at the University of Denver's Daniels College of Business won ACG Denver's regional case competition for solving a case study about business growth.

"For the last year or so we've been talking about the green shoots that are beginning to appear," Dr. Doug Allen at the Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver said. He has followed the auto industry for years and says auto sales are an important economic indicator. He says the recent resurgence could be the spring thaw of the financial freeze. "The decision to purchase a $500 iPad is different from the decision to buy a $20,000 to $30,000 car. The purchase of a car really begins to show confidence in the long-term structure of the economy and also the long term employability of the person looking to buy the car," Allen said. Many consumers were lured back to the car lots by bargains. In March, Toyota offered historic incentives after its massive safety recalls. Other automakers followed suit. "There is a caveat there. And so you have to look and see to what extent is this buoyed by genuine consumer confidence and to what extent is it buoyed by short-term incentives that may not be offered in the long term," Allen said. But there is a feeling among many, that with the arrival of warmer weather, sales will also continue to heat up. "I'm looking forward to summer. I'm looking forward to the rest of the spring," MacDonald said.

A CBS4 investigation has learned that Elmer "Butch" Hicks, treasurer for the Colorado Democratic Party has resigned in the midst of a criminal investigation into his activities as treasurer for the Democratic Party in Adams County.

"I resigned last week over some political stuff," Hicks told CBS4 investigator Brian Maass Tuesday afternoon.

Hicks said he is under investigation by the Adams County Sheriff's Department but had not talked to them directly.  Daniels Business Ethics and Legal Studies Chair Kevin O'Brien weighs in.

Gordon Von Stroh believes that to be a successful professor, service must go hand-in-hand with teaching and research. It's a philosophy that has guided Von Stroh, professor of management and director of the customized MBA program at the Daniels College of Business, during his more than 40 years of service to DU and has led him to dedicate countless hours to causes within University and in the community. In recognition of his outstanding service to the University of Denver, the community, and the professorial profession, Von Stroh received the first Faculty Service Award at DU's Convocation in October 2009. It was DU's triple emphasis on the importance of service, relevant teaching and research that originally attracted Von Stroh to the University in 1967.

The Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver will launch its fast-track MBA in August. The program is designed for students who recently graduated with a bachelor's degree in business and want to move directly into a one-year master's degree program. "Many talented prospective students/employees are seeking an MBA earlier in their career," says Daniels Dean Christine Riordan. "The trend in the 1990s and early 2000s was for MBAs to have five to seven years work experience. The market is showing that this model is not the only model that works for successful graduate business programs."
DU expects 25 new students to begin the one-year program in the fall. The school also offers a two-year MBA, Professional MBA, International MBA, Executive MBA and upcoming DU World Executive Program. There also are graduate business certificates in areas such as accounting, finance, management and leadership. The certificates take six months to a year to complete.

If you found a bargain airfare, you'd book it, right? But what if you knew the price was a mistake? Would you still do it? In an era of too-good-to-be-true prices, gimmicky discounts and even an occasional zero fare, travelers have to make that call every day. Sometimes they get it right. Sometimes not. Last fall, for example, British Airways accidentally offered a $40 base fare from North America to India. After taxes and fees were added, the total came to around $500 -- still a deal, but not an obvious error to the untrained eye. Thousands of people booked tickets in a two-hour period. When British Airways refused to honor the price, many inexperienced air travelers were outraged. They pointed out that if the tables were turned -- if they had made a mistake on their ticket -- that the airline would keep their money. But a smaller subset of travelers spotted the $40 base fares and knew they were a mistake, but booked anyway, believing they could force British Airways to accept the purchase. Was that wrong? William Sannwald, a lecturer at San Diego State University, says both a company and its customers have an obligation to determine if an offer is accurate. "With all the unethical things taking place in business today," he says, "I think that customers need to be vigilant in any transaction." And flexible, too. "We all make mistakes, and a reasonable person should understand this," he added. I've been thinking about what separates a frugal traveler from a thief, and although the experts I spoke to seem to agree on the big issues (you know, stealing is wrong) there's no unanimity when it comes to finer points of pricing snafus. By way of full disclosure, I thought the travelers who bought tickets knowing the fare was foul were morally challenged. In a blog comment, I referred to them as "bottom feeders," which may have been a little harsh. I probably just should have called them criminals.

Employees and supporters of Frontier Airlines are worried Republic Airways may ditch the name and "spokesanimals" when the company decides on a new brand for its subsidiaries next month. A group, calling itself "Keep the Frontier Brand and Animals!!!" on Facebook, brought forward close to 150 Frontier employees Thursday afternoon. It marched from the State Capitol to the 16th Street Mall and back to rally support for Frontier's name and more than 60 animals including "Larry the Lynx" and "Grizwald the Bear," who are featured on the planes' tails. Protestors say they are worried that if the name and animals are permanently grounded, the employees will have to start from the ground up to build trust, loyalty and reputation. "We can't start over with a generic brand," Frontier pilot and rally organizer Janet Elliott said. "This truly is a family, and you really don't see that with any other airline."

John Holcomb, a professor at the University of Denver Daniels College of Business, says that celebrities may be attracted to already successful companies, citing the case of Al Gore and Apple. "Often it is boards of only major and usually successfully companies, which are able to attract big names or celebrities," said Holcolmb. "It may not be celebrities on boards that lead to success, but vice versa - only successful companies attract celebrities," said Holcomb. And if celebrities have some special magic, he adds, it doesn't always work, citing the huge scandal at Hollinger International, whose board was led by Conrad Black and included Henry Kissinger, former Defense Secretary William Cohen and former Democratic Party chair Robert Strauss. "That board was a debacle, and did not contain any of Lord Black's misbehavior and outright theft from the company," said Holcomb. "The suspicion is that most board meetings were lofty discussions of macro issues, virtually salons, which never got down to business."

Amanda Scheerer's honeymoon plans included renting an apartment in Barcelona's historic La Barceloneta district, visiting the Salvador Dali museum and touring several famous Spanish wineries. They did not include a strike by British Airways. But last week, the trade union representing the airline's cabin crew announced that it would stage a work stoppage this weekend and on selected days later this month to protest working conditions. "My husband and I were supposed to fly from Chicago to London and then on to Barcelona this Saturday," said Scheerer, a copy editor who lives in Fort Wayne, Ind. But British Airways canceled her flight from London to Barcelona, putting her vacation in jeopardy.

DU graduate students are providing essential research to help provide potable water to one of the largest slums in the world -- Kibera, located on the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya. With nearly 1 million people living in one square mile, Kibera is the picture of extreme poverty. Finding water in the cramped, overpopulated slum is a daily challenge. And, finding clean water in an area where trash and raw sewage fills every dirt path is nearly impossible. The Rotary-initiated Kibera Project has installed more than a dozen 20-by-30-foot water stations in one of Kibera's 13 "neighborhoods." Each station is equipped with water basins, toilets and showers. Peter Van Arsdale, a member of the Rotary Club of Denver Southeast and a senior lecturer in DU's Korbel School of International Studies, was asked to help engage the DU community in the project. Last summer, four graduate students spent nine weeks in Kenya, gathering data about the needs of Kibera residents and also information about the water stations, moving forward the goal of creating a program that will be successful and self-sustaining. Van Arsdale says the Kibera Project has given graduate students an opportunity to impact lives around the globe and gain essential, real-world experiences in field research. The four research positions were funded jointly by the Rotary Club and Patterson Funding.

Since completing the Daniels Tomorrow strategic planning process in 2009, the Daniels College of Business focused on raising the required financial support for a number of important initiatives and programs for students, faculty, staff and alumni.

The recent economic downturn, Wall Street debacle and string of ethical and moral scandals surrounding a number of prominent business leaders has led some observers to question the value and focus of business education programs. The importance of a Liberal Education is once again gaining some attention.

In my article for the Vancouver Board of Trade, publication, Sounding Board, I said that few MBA programs or executive training programs adequately address the crux of developing leaders. For the most part these programs are theory-oriented in nature, and use the traditional tools of conceptual learning--case studies, lectures, films and discussions--relying on the contrast between what managers do and what leaders do.  The problem with many business school leadership programs is that they teach ideas, not real life behaviors, and business school professors are chosen by virtue of their ability to publish detailed research, not having had leadership experience themselves. Understanding something intellectually often has little to do with being able to do it. Adult learners need experiences and coaching to turn concepts into leadership capabilities.

Born in Austria on November 19, 1909, the late Peter Drucker devoted a good many of his 96 years trying to understand the management of organisations. As such, "the man who invented management" deserves a full-scale, well-researched and critical account of his life and work. But until that story is written, we must make do with two new books that might be considered preludes to a biography. The first is Bruce Rosenstein's Living in More Than One World: How Peter Drucker's Wisdom Can Inspire and Transform Your Life, a loving account of how Drucker's life and writings helped the author get through trying personal times. The other book, Jeffrey A Krames' Inside Drucker's Brain, is a useful distillation of Drucker's philosophy.

A formal, analytical and unsentimental biography would be a complicated undertaking because the catholicity of Drucker's interests makes it impossible to pigeonhole his work and devilishly difficult to evaluate his overall contribution.

One of the world's largest home furnishing sellers says it is one step closer to opening a retail store on Colorado's Front Range. The Swedish-based IKEA announced Tuesday it has hired contractors and has a work permit pending for its 415,000-square-foot Denver-area location. The progress paves the way for a grand opening in the fall of 2011, according to IKEA. They say the store will provide jobs to 400 workers once it opens.

Andy Sherbo, a finance lecturer at the University of Denver's Daniels College of Business, says to expect huge crowds for opening day. "It's going to be a zoo. There's going to be traffic jams," Sherbo said. "They'll be lined up, believe me."

Building on an already solid foundation of programs and curriculum focused on sustainability and global business, Daniels strengthens its commitment to globalization with an international outreach effort, a new director of globalization, a new global master's program and more.

On March 4, 2010, Laura Sonderup, managing director of Hispanidad, a Denver Hispanic marketing and ad agency, delivered an insightful presentation to members of Marketing Roundtable on developing effective multicultural marketing campaigns.

With Americans of African, Asian and Hispanic descent comprising 25 percent of the population, Laura Sonderup, managing director of Denver-based Hispanic advertising agency Hispanidad, knows all too well that such populations are not effectively reached by advertising designed for the masses.

When it comes to learning about advertising, Greg Wagner says there's no better way than engaging students in real-world, hands-on work. "I love doing this kind of thing because students realize what it's really like to work on ad campaigns," says Wagner, internship director and lecturer in the Department of Marketing and a 30-year veteran of advertising agencies D'Arcy and Leo Burnett. In quarters' past, Wagner has invited Nestle-Purina, Altitude Network, Eldora Ski Resort and others to work with students in his undergraduate courses, Advertising Creative Strategy and Introduction to Advertising. In the Winter 2010 quarter, thanks to a connection of Dr. Dan Connolly, associate dean of undergraduate programs, he brought in McDonald's.

Tiger Woods is more than a golf phenomenon, he's also one of the most successful sports brands in history. And while what is delicately called "The Thanksgiving Incident" certainly hurt Woods' reputation and marketability, his announced return to the sport next month at the Masters Tournament in Augusta, Ga., is seen by some analysts as a very smart way of rehabilitating both the man and the brand.

Gregory Wagner is among the faithful. A self-professed Tiger fan, Wagner is a veteran of the American advertising industry. Now a lecturer at the University of Denver's Daniels College of Business, he served as creative director at D'Arcy and Leo Burnett, has led campaigns for a variety of sports institutions and, in years past, worked on beer commercials that were featured during the Super Bowl.

In the slow, miserable, heartbreaking decline of the American democracy, there came a moment of irreversibility. For me, and I dare to think history will confirm, it was the Supreme Court's decision last month in Citizens United vs. The Federal Election Commission -- the ruling that basically overturned all limits on financial expenditures by corporations and other interests in federal election campaigns.

Three Colorado universities have been ranked among the nation's 111 best undergraduate business schools by Bloomberg BusinessWeek.

The state's highest-ranking school on the list, at No. 74, is the University of Denver's Daniels College of Business. The college was not ranked in last year's list.

BusinessWeek announced that the University of Denver's Daniels College of Business is ranked No. 74 in the 2010 BusinessWeek undergraduate programs ranking.  Daniels also is the top undergraduate business school in the state, according to BusinessWeek, which ranked Colorado State University No. 84 and Leeds School of Business at CU-Boulder No. 93.

More than 500 business people showed up at the Colorado Convention Center on Wednesday to talk about sustainability. Many of them heard the University of Denver held up as both a shining example and a guide to attitudes on Wall Street. The example part at the Sustainable Opportunities Summit came when Bruce Hutton, dean emeritus and marketing professor at DU's Daniels College of Business, described how the University innovated its curriculum to embrace ethics in the early 1990s and sustainability more recently, earning high rankings in the process.

The guidance part came when David Cox (JD '96), a Daniels assistant dean and professor of finance, explored whether Wall Street "gets" sustainability or remains on its own track. In both cases, pointed questions indicated audiences seemed impressed. "What we did parallels what industry is doing now in the best sense of innovation driving sustainability and vice versa," Hutton said about DU's efforts to change.

As foreclosed properties get converted into rentals, the rental property inventory increases, pushing up the rental vacancy rate. On the other hand, as families who lost their homes to foreclosure find rental properties, the rental inventory decreases, pushing down the vacancy rate. According to Gordon von Stroh, professor at the business department of the University of Denver who wrote the Housing Division report, the chief reason for the rental vacancy rate increase in the October-December quarter was the increase in properties that were converted into rentals. A record number of condos, duplexes and townhomes that were originally listed for sale were converted into rentals when they did not get sold after staying on the market for a long time. Among these conversions were foreclosures in Denver, which also ironically increased the demand for rental properties last year.

Different packaging can mean a big increase in price. Consumer reports said women often pay more than men for the same products. DU Professor Peter Whalen said while the price difference may be annoying, it's neither unethical nor illegal. He also said that there may be more costs involved in marketing women's products. "You would have to look at packaging as a cost. So if you're looking at it from the company stand point, they might have greater cost built into the packaging," Whalen said.

Join us as we travel and visit corporations in - Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Estonia. The company visits include presentations by top management and directors in international marketing, finance, human resources and operations.

The home, to be used like a classroom, is going up in the Green Valley Ranch neighborhood on East 47th near Tower Road. It's being built in part by college students from the University of Denver. On Monday, the students held a topping-off ceremony for the house. It's not completed yet, but they finished the framing and the roof.

In an original approach to summer internships, six Daniels College MBA students and a Sturm College JD student recently took what the university hopes will be a first step toward establishing Colorado as a national innovation hub.  

As interns for Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company in summer 2009, Daniels MBA students Nate Allen, Wilbur Deck, Eli Grinfeld, Shane McLean, Jared Doi, Alex West, and Rhys Williams, along with Sturm College of Law student Kellan McKeon, researched and analyzed the complex alternative energy market, and then presented their findings to Lockheed Martin executives.  As the company evaluates market opportunities, it hoped for a fresh perspective, which the students more than delivered.

In the Oscar-nominated film 'Up in the Air,' George Clooney plays a man who flies around the country, firing people for a living.  He works for an outplacement firm, and part of the plot rotates around his hatred of a strange idea: instead of firing people in-person, his firm plans to do the job remotely, using video conferencing.

For now, "layoff via webcam" exists only in the world of the movies, but there are signs that more companies are using video technology for another purpose -- hiring.

The University of Denver is teaming with Colorado-based nonprofit KidsTek program, leaders in the high-tech industry and Denver-area schools to develop and deliver a multi-faceted program and school courses that will help high school students earn industry-level certifications or prepare them to tackle college-level courses.

The University of Denver is teaming with Colorado-based nonprofit KidsTek program, leaders in the high-tech industry and Denver-area schools to develop and deliver a multi-faceted program and school courses that will help high school students earn industry-level certifications or prepare them to tackle college-level courses.

As a result of his admitted infidelity, Tiger Woods faces two crises. One deals with re-building his family, the other with re-storing his marketability as a public figure. Woods is the first athlete to earn $1 billion over his career and in 2008 is reported to have earned $110 million, much of which comes from endorsements.

When Republic Airways acquired Frontier and Midwest airlines last year, three companies needed to become one -- but integration has been bumpy.Customers complain they book flights on Midwest Airlines' website, but Frontier Airlines' white-fuselaged Airbus jets are at the gate and Republic Airways flight crews greet them when they board. Adding to the muddle is when a smaller Republic Embraer jet is used on a flight and has none of the signature attributes of Frontier or Midwest. Call it brand confusion.

Program helps bridge the "digital divide" for Colorado children

The Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver today announced a partnership with KidsTek, a non-profit organization providing technology education in after-school programs in 15 schools in the Denver and Aurora Public School Districts and workforce readiness and technology based college prep courses during the school day for high school students.

The involvement of Daniels originated from two groups of Daniels Executive MBA (EMBA) students who chose KidsTek for their "Social Capital" graduate project.  The course requires EMBA students to work in small groups to create and launch a project of social significance, synthesizing key EMBA concepts of leadership, social responsibility, innovation and execution.

Companies To Limit Credit For College Age Adults

New credit card regulations designed to protect consumers from rate hikes on existing balances will take effect Monday, Feb. 22. Under the new rules, rate hikes would only be allowed when promotional rates end, there's a variable rate, or if the cardholder is late making a payment. Additionally, there can be no major changes in the terms of the account without 45 days advance notice.

Under-the-radar rentals

In Crested Butte, about 200 homeowners peddle rentals online. An industry analyst questions whether it's wise to target owners bringing more visitors to a town. When Elizabeth Smith first listed her three-bedroom Crested Butte home on VRBO.com in 2000, she was one of five Crested Butte homeowners on the website offering private nightly rentals directly to vacationers.

Today, she is among 200 Crested Butte homeowners peddling pillows on VRBO.com. There are 100 more up the road in Mt. Crested Butte and dozens more down-valley. "I do pay taxes, but so many do not," says Smith, who pays 12.5 percent of her revenue in taxes that go to the state, county, town and local transit authority. "I would say a majority on VRBO don't pay their taxes. I'm definitely a rarity, which is a shame. The town needs those taxes."

The statewide apartment-vacancy rate held steady during the fourth quarter, but Grand Junction's vacancy rate more than quadrupled from a year earlier.

Apartment vacancies in several Colorado cities outside Denver were basically flat in the fourth quarter of 2009, compared to the same period of ?08, while average rent dropped about $12 a month, according to a report released Thursday by the Colorado Division of Housing.

Both statistics were strongly influenced by employment, with areas hardest hit by unemployment seeing significant increases in vacancy and drops in average rent. The ?Colorado Multifamily Housing Vacancy & Rental Report? covers the cities of Colorado Springs, Fort Collins, Loveland, Grand Junction, Greeley and Pueblo. Metro Denver has its own apartment-market report for the period, released in January. That report said metro Denver?s apartment vacancy rate for 2009?s fourth quarter was basically flat from the same period of 2008, while average rents decreased.

Metro Denver's apartment vacancy rate for 2009's fourth quarter was basically flat from the same period of 2008, while average rents decreased, according to a report released Wednesday by the Colorado Division of Housing.

Apartment vacancies were 7.7 percent for last year's final period, compared to 7.9 percent for the fourth quarter of '08, with most metro-area counties showing an increase in vacancy rate.

Local apartments filled up late last year at the best pace for any fourth quarter in nearly a decade.

If you watched the Super Bowl on Sunday night - you - made history.

The big game was the most-watched TV program ever, beating out the season finale of MASH in the early '80s. More than 106 million viewers, or about a third of the country, tuned in to watch the Saints win their first Super Bowl ever. The Super Bowl ads were running about $3 million for a 30-second spot.

There were senior citizens eating snickers, dogs shocking humans, and kids slapping adults. Some Super Bowl ads were silly, some were sexy, and some were serious. USA Today's "Ad Meter" tracked second-by-second responses from a panel of viewers during the big game.

This year's winner featured a football player playing like Betty White. Well done says, DU marketing expert Daniel Baack. "From a professional perspective it was talking about the benefit you get from the product, that you'll get revitalized by having a Snickers, it was just a funny ad," Baack said.

Dr. David Corsun, director of the School of Hotel, Tourism and Restaurant Management in the Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver, says the images of the Saints winning the Super Bowl could wipe out the devastating images of New Orleans residents stranded and suffering in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. He says the positive images of this week may make more people plan trips to New Orleans.

Apparently there's a sporting event connected to the Super Bowl. For some, the more compelling game is the advertising and marketing blitz on the TV screen between plays. This year, CBS sold out early, charging between $2.5 million and $3 million per 30-second spot. Some advertisers paid more than for last year's telecast, despite the sour economy. The usual assortment of sexy models, furry animals and home-made ads were present, along with a highly anticipated advocacy spot from Colorado's Focus on the Family. The Denver Post invited a panel of advertising experts to pick the winners.

Courteous. Trusting. Good-natured. Cooperative. Tolerant.

These are the traits your mother told you -- repeatedly -- to embrace. "They'll make people like you."  "You'll always have friends."  "You'll go far."

Mom was wrong ... at least as far as business success is concerned.

MiraCosta College business professor Christina Hata, at her office at the college Friday, views a textbook for one of her classes that can be accessed online. If there is one enduring truth about college students it is that they are usually broke ---- and the way business professor Christina Hata sees it, she ought to do something to help them save money when possible. "We know what their lives are like, and I think that we empathize with them," Hata said.

The Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver will launch a newly designed one-year MBA program specifically for students who have recently graduated with an undergraduate business degree from an AACSB accredited business school.

The program, which will launch in August 2010, is designed to encourage the best and brightest undergraduate students to move directly into the graduate school track. It will provide the same academic rigor and innovative learning as the school?s traditional two-year MBA, but in a fast-paced format that leverages the momentum students have gained during their undergraduate business studies.  Students can reduce the amount of time spent out of the workforce and reduce tuition dollars spent.

Twenty-eight finalists have been selected by the Colorado Ethics in Business Alliance for its annual awards. CEBA honors ethical role models in business and nonprofit organizations.

The finalists, which include 13 companies, eight nonprofits and seven individuals, represent a wide range of industries and community organizations, including hospitals, youth agencies, law firms and financial institutions. Several finalists hail from the Denver metro area but the list also includes Grand Junction, Pagosa Springs, Boulder and Parker.

Toyota said it began shipping gas pedal parts to its dealers Friday for use in fixing the millions of cars and trucks recalled because of accelerators that could become stuck.

Company spokesman Brian Lyons said he did not know when the parts would arrive or how long it would take the automaker to complete repairs on the 4.2 million vehicles worldwide - 2.3 million of them in the U.S. - covered by the recall. He said Toyota has not yet decided whether to repair the accelerators or replace them altogether.  Toyota will release details sometime next week about how it intends to solve the problem, Lyons said. he parts "are on their way to the dealers in preparation for the recall launch," he said.

Karen Dowd with the University of Denver's Daniels College of Business Graduate Career Services says flexibility is key when surviving in the current job market that she says has changed forever.

Within an hour of Apple chief executive Steve Jobs' unveiling of the company's does-almost-everything device, jokes about the one thing the iPad most certainly does not do were trending high on Twitter and websites devoted to women's issues.

Residents who own late model Toyotas say they were surprised to hear about the automaker's decision to suspend production of eight models because of a potential problem with the accelerator. "I'd never heard of someone just stopping production on a vehicle," one Toyota driver told 7NEWS. "That indicates to me that this is a pretty big deal."

As more medical marijuana dispensaries continue to open around the state, you may have noticed more advertisements on the air, and in newspapers and magazines.

Despite the boom, a business ethics expert says media companies need to use caution when airing or publicizing medical marijuana ads.

Alumnus Jeff Hopmayer brings his entrepreneurial spirit and love for the Daniels College of Business to the Alumni Advisory Board. The CEO of Eos Winery in Paso Robles, California, and Sapphire Brands, a premium wine and spirits company, Hopmayer hopes to engage alumni and help strengthen the college he's supported for more than two decades.

Daniels' career preparation program, 5 for Fridays, is an opportunity for Denver-area organizations to connect with the College-and for students to attend five short presentations by companies in their area or industry of interest. Upcoming sessions include February 26 (consulting) and March 26 (health care).

Supreme Court Ruling For Corporate Spending Will Have 'Huge Impact'

Public advocates anticipate that a U.S. Supreme ruling that allows big business to directly spend millions to support -- or oppose -- candidates will soon trigger a lawsuit challenging Colorado's campaign finance laws.

Colleen Abdoulah is a cancer survivor, a mother, the CEO of the 11th largest cable operator in the industry-and an entertaining and compelling speaker. On January 15, at the first Voices of Experience event of 2010, Abdoulah spoke to a packed house in Marcus Commons. The topic: "The 'Soft Stuff' that gets Hard-Core, Bottom-Line Results."

Today's Supreme Court ruling opens door for corporate money in elections
 
DENVER -- In light of today's U.S. Supreme Court ruling that corporations can contribute to political candidates, University of Denver (DU) Daniels College of Business Professor John Holcomb, PhD. is available for comment and analysis.

RealDealPoker.com offers a genuine deal with a real deck of cards using a new piece of technology. The machine, known as Cut and Shuffle, is ingenious. The deck is automatically drawn and placed into a barrel which shuffles the cards by rotating them, before drawing them back through. The cards can be cut at any point by the players to combat against bots in the system.

The Daniels College of Business will become part of a new initiative involving eight universities across four states that will collaborate on developing programs designed to instill a high standard of ethics in business school students. The initial grant and ongoing support for the initiative is provided by the Daniels Fund, a private foundation established by cable television pioneer Bill Daniels, who was widely recognized for his ethics and integrity in business.

The University of Wyoming has joined with other regional business schools to tap a $7.5 million grant from the Daniels Fund for teaching business ethics.

The grant expands an ethics program that the late cable magnate Bill Daniels helped found at UW and the School of Business at the University of Denver.

The Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver today announced the appointment of Dr. Bruce Hutton as Director of Ethics Integration for the College. He will lead a College-wide initiative to integrate ethics, corporate social responsibility and sustainable development throughout the curriculum, both graduate, undergraduate, and non-degree programs. These include signature Daniels events such as Voices of Experience, centers that include the Institute for Enterprise Ethics, academic research and student initiatives. 

Bill Daniels--the late cable giant who funded the formation of the Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver--was known for his strong belief in practicing business ethics.

One of the more famous stories about his business practices: He owned the Utah Stars of the American Basketball Association when the team declared bankruptcy in 1975. Though his financial obligations were taken care of, he still spent $750,000 of his own money to repay every season ticket holder and vendor, with interest.

Looking to ensure tomorrow's business leaders have the ethical framework to avoid the types of scandals rocking Wall Street, six universities in four mountain states will share in a novel $7.5 million grant from the Daniels Fund.

The grant will expand the ethics programs that the fund's founder, the late cable magnate Bill Daniels, helped to establish at the Daniels School of Business at the University of Denver and the University of Wyoming.

Stan Kroenke has built a portfolio that makes him one of the most powerful people in sports. He owns the Denver Nuggets of the National Basketball Association, the Colorado Avalanche of the National Hockey League and the Colorado Rapids of Major League Soccer, as well as a 40 percent stake in the St. Louis Rams of the National Football League.

He is circumspect and seldom speaks with reporters, who have nicknamed him Silent Stanley. He is regularly called the anti-Donald Trump, the anti-Jerry Jones, the anti-Mark Cuban.

Highland Ranch residents say they were surprised and angered by their homeowners' association attempt to sell 100 acres of prime open space to a small, faith-based university to build a new campus.

Their anger ended up stopping the deal.

It began as a simple idea batted around by University of Denver MBA students--a Web site that links young professionals with local nonprofits.

It began as a simple idea batted around by University of Denver MBA students--a Web site that links young professionals with local nonprofits.

In October, the idea became a reality with the official launch of DenverKarma.com, an online network for Denver residents to learn about service opportunities at select nonprofits. The site even allows volunteers to sign up for opportunities that match their interests.

University of Denver alumni Terrance Carroll (JD '05) and Pete Coors (MBA '70) recently were named among 5280 magazine's "50 Most Influential People in Denver."

A group of men in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina were playing their low stakes home game in 2006 when a group of local police officers burst in the home to arrest them. They were being charged with illegal gambling under the states' old gaming laws. The archaic law stated that 'any games with cards or dice' were outlawed. Most of the group paid their fine and went about their lives but a few of the men protested the law. In October of 2009 those men were cleared of any wrongdoing.

2010 Job Forecast Has Some Bright Spots

The Denver Workforce Centers are recruiting job seekers to fill up to 300 job openings with Metro Denver businesses in early 2010.
To develop a pool of eligible and qualified candidates for these upcoming openings, the Denver Office of Economic Development hosted Monday's event, at the King M. Trimble Resource Center, 2980 Curtis St.

Are you a graduate student graduating during the 2009-2010 school year? If so, please complete the Employment Survey on Daniels Careers.

Nearly half of business founders had a parent who started a small business first, according to a Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation report released last summer. Slightly more than 15 percent had siblings who launched a business before they did.

While limited research has been done on the topic, a 2008 Journal of Business Venturing article says genes might influence the likelihood that some folks will follow the entrepreneurial paths other family members have taken. For instance, genes could predispose people to develop certain entrepreneur-friendly traits such as extroversion, say authors Nicos Nicolaou and Scott Shane.

Others, such as David Sutton, embraced the urge to make their way with limited outside experience. Sutton, 29, created a website for job seekers after he graduated with a master's degree in finance from the University of Denver Daniels College of Business in June.

Immigration reform in policy and real life

As the crowd began dispersing after the press conference, Lalo Pacheco stood in front of a television camera, offering his take in fluent Spanish on the one-year immigration study by a nonpartisan University of Denver panel.

Of the hundred or so people gathered that December morning, it's a safe bet Pacheco was among only a handful of people who could have provided such commentary for the Univision network. The DU sophomore grew up in the San Luis Valley of southern Colorado among the children of Mexican families.

Employees and customers are part of the sustainability equation

The term "sustainability" conjures images of wind farms and energy-saving light bulbs and paperless offices. But sustainable business isn't merely about "going green."  Employees and the values held by customers are as much a part of the sustainability equation. As Bruce Hutton put it, it's also about "creating shareholder value, an environment that enriches employees, and social responsibility."

While he was a student at DU, Sheldon Arakaki (BSBA '84) spent time volunteering in the admission office, where he developed friendships with many staff members. Twenty-five years later, he is still building on the relationships he made at DU by participating in the Ammi Hyde admission interviews for prospective students.

The vacancy rate for multi-family, affordable housing units in the Grand Junction market was the lowest in the state during the summer months as demand drove availability down to razor-thin levels.A state housing report released Tuesday found that vacancy rates for such units in Grand Junction decreased to 1 percent in the third quarter of the year from 2 percent in the same period of 2008.

Charter schools are growing in numbers, and their future leaders require specialized training that differs from that needed for public schools.

That's why the University of Denver's Daniels College of Business created an MBA in School Leadership program, designed to teach the necessary business and management skills to open and lead charter schools.

"Turnaround guy" fits pieces together"

As chief executive of Frontier Airlines, Sean Menke guided the Denver-based carrier through more than two years of bumpy weather, including an 18-month bankruptcy that ended Oct. 1 when Frontier was purchased by Republic Airways.

It's almost show time and Denver Zookeeper Ashley Snow is rehearsing with a young sea lion named Nick. The crowd for today's performance is expected to be solid.

The beginning of a new year marks a time when people reflect on changes they want or need to make.

Recently, I met with several senior executives at a major corporation when they were pondering making significant company changes. The discussion turned to how to help employees prioritize their work. Acknowledging that their employees had limited time in a workday, the executives debated how to help them focus on what was needed to accomplish company goals.

On the eve of the busiest shopping day of the season, a new survey from the National Retail Federation shows half of all Americans have yet to complete their holiday shopping.

Experts say the economy is forcing many people to cut back this year, even as we pull out of a recession.

According to the survey about 20 percent of Americans have not started their shopping as of late last week -- only about 10 percent have completely finished buying everything they need.

The two months between Halloween and New Year's Eve are probably the busiest time of the year for the grocery industry. Shoppers stock up for the winter and head for the stores repeatedly for Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas and other big family meals.

A strike or lockout during the holidays can be devastating for grocery employees, who would lose the majority of their paychecks during the course of the labor action. And if shoppers honor picket lines, as they did in California during a particularly difficult strike in 2003 and 2004, the grocery chains can also suffer.

The University of Denver has announced the recipients of the 2010 Founders Day Awards, which recognize accomplishments of alumni, faculty and staff. The 2010 awards will be handed out at a gala reception March 4 at the Seawell Grand Ballroom in the Denver Center for the Performing Arts.

Beth Riley joins the Daniels College of Business as the Manager of Recruiting, Admissions and Student Support in the office of Working Professionals MBA Programs (Institute for Leadership & Organizational Performance).

Realtors caution they are not investments, although deals abound.

Love them or hate them, the much-maligned timeshares are still a big slice of the real-estate pie in ski towns. But the dynamics of the market have changed significantly.

On this week's edition of "Colorado State of Mind," the Emmy Award-winning program on Rocky Mountain PBS, our panelists discuss the foreclosure crisis in Colorado: The state now ranks 19th in the nation for foreclosure filings. And state officials say unemployment will probably push the numbers even higher before it turns the corner. Meanwhile there are signs home prices are stabilizing--what opportunity does that present for potential new buyers? And will the recession change the home real estate market permanently?

Immigration reform will not be easy. It will not come without struggle. And as an issue, it will not be ignored, a University of Denver panel finds.

DU's Strategic Issues Program (SIP), a nonpartisan panel of leaders in business, government and education, worked throughout 2009 studying one of the country's most prickly issues. The result of their work is a 50-page report titled Architecture for Immigration Reform: Fitting the Pieces of Public Policy. In it, the panel makes 25 recommendations for immigration reform.

A University of Denver panel of experts will call for United States immigration reform and will make 25 specific recommendations that put national interests first when dealing with immigration.

The report, "Architecture for Immigration Reform: Fitting the Pieces of Public Policy," is the work of the nonpartisan DU Strategic Issues Program. Led by Chairman Jim Griesemer, the program's panel consists of 20 leaders in politics, academics and business who sought input from all perspectives as they dug for the root issues plaguing immigration policies. Throughout 2009, the panel heard from more than 30 experts in all aspects of society, from immigrant rights advocates to high ranking law enforcement officials.

Fairmount Fire Protection District 'Reviewing' Policies

The Fairmount Fire Protection District is "re-evaluating" its use of department cell phones after a CBS4 investigation revealed district taxpayers have paid thousands of dollars over the course of seven years for cell phones and monthly cell service for the fire chief's wife and the wives of two other top department commanders.

 University of Denver panel of experts will cap a year of listening, study, discussion and debate Dec. 9 when it unveils 25 recommendations for overhauling the nation?s fractured and flawed immigration policy.

Led by Chair Jim Griesemer, the nonpartisan Strategic Issues Panel consists of 20 leaders in politics, academics and business who sought input from all perspectives as they dug for the root issues plaguing immigration policies. Throughout 2009, the panel heard from more than 30 experts in all aspects of society, from immigrant rights advocates to high ranking law enforcement officials.

 Vacancies for Denver-area rental homes were up this year's third quarter year over year, but were still relatively low, and average rent rose because of a greater quantity of pricier housing product. 

Cutting-edge technology developed in Denver

Imagine a replacement debit card arriving just minutes after having reported it stolen. Imagine a single card serving as both your office-access badge and a credit card. Imagine, too, a credit card in the form of a small sticker that can be affixed to a cellphone.

This is the new age of credit cards, and some of the technologies are being developed and tested in metro Denver. Englewood-based Dynamic Card Solutions makes hardware and software that allow financial institutions to issue credit and debit cards instantly. They are provided at a nearby branch rather than via the mail seven to 10 days after a customer either opens an account or reports a stolen card.

When The Atlantic magazine correspondent James Fallows spoke at DU in September, he called American universities the "secret engine" for improving relations with China.

But faculty and administrators at DU say their engine has been purring along for some time now--and it?s no secret.

The sound of 100 million Americans shopping with the click of a mouse button on Cyber Monday is not always a welcome sound to small, local stores.

On Broadway in Denver, The Fancy Tiger is about as different from big box and online discount stores as you can get. "We just have this one location, so this is a totally local to Denver store," Amber Corcoran said. The store specializes in crafts, fabrics, yarn and buttons.

"We have a lot of patterns by independent designers for sewing things such as the shirt I'm wearing," Jaime Jennings said. Owners Corcoran and Jennings admit it's impossible for them to compete head-to-head with those billion-dollar retail corporations, especially in a shopping event like Cyber Monday. But they say they don't have to.

Long before holiday shoppers lined up outside stores to take advantage of door buster sales, merchants were preparing for them. This holiday season they are banking on knowing what you want to spend your money on.

The country's top chief executives use tough times to inspire their work force. The firm's outlook is their primary tool, says entrepreneur Gary Hoover, author of "Hoover's Vision: Original Thinking for Business Success."

Jason Bernal never thought of coffee as a sexy product--until he saw a television show that mentioned Seattle-area bikini baristas.

So he took a leap, ran with the concept and opened Perky Cups in Aurora. In doing so, he became part of a trend in which Denver-area purveyors spice up normally mundane products such as java, haircuts or sports-bar burgers by having women wearing bathing suits, lingerie or halter tops and kilts doing the serving.

This fall, Backpacks to Briefcases, the program designed to help students at the Daniels College of Business make the most of their college experience, launched its inaugural Fantastic Fridays event. The new quarterly speaker series features University of Denver alumni, but attendees can expect something a little more fantastic than a dry lecture. "Fantastic Fridays has a couple of fun twists to it," says Dr. Dan Connolly, Daniels associate dean for undergraduate programs. "We combine fun and education, so events will always involve a social component. It's a great opportunity for students and staff to engage with professionals and one another outside of their normal roles."

Ask Whole Foods CEO John Mackey what the world needs now, and his answer is a lot more capitalism, a lot less socialism. After all, corporations are the most influential institutions in the world. The challenge is that "people don't like capitalism and they don't trust it." Corporations, said Mackey, are perceived as greedy, selfish and untrustworthy.

11/25/09 10:03 AM http://daniels.du.edu/newsevents/news/newsarchives/2009/11/Teaching_Innovation.html

To teach a class about innovation requires, well, innovation, says Dr. Shadi Farhangrazi, Daniels adjunct professor. That's why when inviting speakers to her Innovation Design and Execution course this fall, Dr. Farhangrazi didn't limit her choices to executives in the Denver area, or even in the United States. Why not the Geneva, Switzerland-based founder of WISeKey, the leading global provider of security and identity solutions?

Stemming from the College's strategic initiative to engage more deeply in research-driven knowledge creation, Dr. Paul Olk, professor in the Department of Management, was appointed the new director of research and accreditation at the Daniels College of Business.

This fall, 12 students at the School of Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism Management served up a Daniels specialty: innovative programming, hands-on learning, community and corporate engagement, cross-collaboration and, of course, wine.

After 12 years with Arthur Andersen and another seven as an executive in the cable industry, Daniels alumnus Joe Bagan (BSBA/MAcc, 1988) decided to try his hand at entrepreneurship. In 2007, a mutual friend introduced him to Dr. Anthony Brennan at the University of Florida, a renowned research scientist who developed a technology for the U.S. Navy that prevents microorganisms from attaching to the bottom of naval vessels. The secret: shark skin. Or, the pattern of it, anyway.

At Daniels, we often tell our stakeholders that "giving takes many forms," but what does that mean? For two Daniels alumni, giving is more than just writing a check. Young alumni Cameron (BSBA 1993, MBA 1997) and Alexie Tune (BSAcc/MAcc 1995) met while undergraduates in the business program at DU and years later, they stay in touch with the friends and professors that helped shape them into the successful people they are today.

Employees and customers are part of the sustainability equation

 The term "sustainability" conjures images of wind farms and energy-saving light bulbs and paperless offices. But sustainable business isn't merely about "going green." Employees and the values held by customers are as much a part of the sustainability equation.

As Bruce Hutton put it, it's also about "creating shareholder value, an environment that enriches employees, and social responsibility."

The debate over immigration has resurrected a long-running American dilemma. On one hand, the history, accomplishments and prosperity of the United States are the result of a great national experiment in meritocracy. Imperfect, to be sure, but extraordinary in terms of aggregate achievement, it has been an experiment built largely on immigration.

The achievements of the United States are a result of the innovation, inventiveness and hard work of a populace, the vast majority of whom had their ancestry in other lands. The irony of immigration lies in our present inability to engage for the future an issue that has so profoundly shaped our past.

Apartment vacancies across Colorado increased in the third quarter and average rents fell or were flat, largely because statewide unemployment is up year over year, according to a report by the state Division of Housing.

Vacancies across Colorado rose to 7.4 percent in the last quarter from 6.6 percent in the same period last year.

Professor Don Bergh in the Department of Management has been conducting research on corporate restructuring, and his findings are as complex as his research material.  Corporate restructuring usually falls into two areas:  taking steps for a more strategic deployment of resources to achieve growth across the enterprise, or reducing costs and scaling back the enterprise. 

Undergraduate seniors: The 2010 BusinessWeek Best Undergraduate Business Program survey ends January 19. Your opinion counts.

Nine years ago, Bryan Bedford decided to bring God to work with him. "We've been building a business together ever since," said Bedford, chief executive of Republic Airways, which recently acquired Frontier Airlines. Bedford has infused his Christian faith into Republic's vision statement and believes it has made the company stronger.

The University of Denver's Daniels College of Business has been ranked 53rd in the nation by BusinessWeek magazine for its part-time MBA program, DU said.  "The "Daniels Professional MBA" program also was ranked No. 8 in the southwest region.

Third ranking in 30 days

For the third time in 30 days, the Daniels College of Business graduate programs were ranked nationally for their focus on excellence. The only Colorado business school to be ranked, the Daniels Professional MBA (PMBA) program for working professionals was ranked 53rd in the country and 8th in the southwest region. Students in the PMBA program cited Daniels for excellence for addressing current business issues in the classroom; hands-on learning; connection with corporate executives; faculty experience; and the quality of their classmates. Most recently the College's commitment and excellence in ethics, social responsibility, and sustainability were recognized by being ranked 20th in the world by the Aspen Institute in the Beyond Grey Pinstripes ranking.  In October, 2009, the Daniels Executive MBA program was ranked 85th in the world by the Financial Times.

He was named one of the "15 People the Next President Should Listen to" in Wired Magazine and one of the "100 People Who Are Changing America" in Rolling Stone. He is the winner of the History Channel and Infiniti Design Excellence Award for the City of the Future, as well as Time Magazine's Best Invention of the Year award.

If you're a Daniels student, or aware of the elite circle of Colorado's more prolific CPAs, then you saw a very familiar face on October's cover of Quick-Search magazine. Ms. Dorothy Joseph, Associate Dean of College Operations at Daniels was featured in the October 2009 issue of the monthly magazine published by the Colorado State Certified Public Accountants (CSCPA).

The impact of the beetle devastation on the national forest system within Colorado has reached a tipping point, threatening the economic vitality of the state as well as Colorado and the entire Western Region.

More and more shoppers will be going online to do their holiday shopping, according to an Internet research company.

Retailers already nervous about sales in a down economy are hoping shoppers return this weekend after Colorado's first major snowstorm of the season sapped sales.

Nowhere are those hopes higher than at the temporary Halloween stores that have popped up in vacant buildings since September. Halloween, after all, has a short shelf life, as do stores such as Halloween USA, Spirit Halloween, Halloween Express and COW Halloween.

Tonight is prime haunting time, and it just wouldn't do to go without a costume.

THE PROBLEM:

Last week Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of The Black Swan, said: "I don't believe that ethics can be taught in class." He was speaking after the arrest of Raj Rajaratnam, the head of hedge fund Galleon Group, and two other alumni of his MBA class at Wharton. Have business schools paid enough attention to ethical questions? Or are ethics a personal matter?

THE ADVICE:

While green may be good, it may not be the answer to Colorado's economic depression.

The University of Denver's Daniels College of Business demonstrated "significant leadership in integrating social, environmental and ethical issues in its MBA program," according to the Aspen Institute's 2009-10 edition of Beyond Grey Pinstripes, a biennial survey and alternative ranking of business schools.

For Joe Rogers Jr., it's all about people.

Rogers, CEO of Waffle House Inc., told students at the the University of Denver's Daniels College of Business his secret to success is focusing on customers and employees.

New York, NY, October 21, 2009--The Daniels College of Business demonstrated significant leadership in integrating social, environmental and ethical issues into its MBA program, according to the Aspen Institute's 2009-2010 edition of Beyond Grey Pinstripes, a biennial survey and alternative ranking of business schools.  The school ranked 20 on a list of the Top 100 business schools globally.

"At Daniels, we believe that business should have a higher purpose, and profitable business practices can also have a positive impact on the world," said Christine Riordan, Dean of the Daniels College of Business.  "While we have a century-old tradition of rigorous academics, courses on business ethics are required and are at the very heart of the College.  And the cornerstones of the Daniels experience are the critical thinking skills needed to make a difference in the future of business."

While many MBA rankings exist, only the Beyond Grey Pinstripes ranking looks beyond reputation and test scores to measure how well schools are preparing their students for the environmental, social and ethical complexities of modern-day business. This year, 149 business schools from 24 countries participated in an 18-month effort to map the landscape of teaching and research on issues pertaining to business and society.  Relevant data collected in the survey, as well as the entire "Global 100" list of business schools, is available at: www.BeyondGreyPinstripes.org.

Event will raise funds for student scholarships

Twelve students from the School of Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism Management (HRTM) at the University of Denver's Daniels College of Business will plan and implement the first annual DU Vin Wine Festival on Nov. 8, 2009. The event will feature nationally-known experts from the wine, hospitality and culinary industry including David Long from David Arthur Wines, Craig Reed from the Broadmoor Resort, and representatives from Riedel Glassware.  Du vin is French for "the wine," and DU Vin will be one of the premier Denver wine events for wine enthusiasts, culinary experts and winemakers to meet and enjoy some of the finest varietals. 

Prior to the DU Vin Festival, a multi-course gourmet dinner planned and executed by HRTM culinary experts will be held on Nov. 4, 2009.  During each course carefully matched with elegant wines from David Arthur Vineyards, guests will be educated about pairings intended to bring out extraordinary flavors.  Menu items include herbed Indian fry bread, watercress and Colorado candied smoked trout; mushroom stuffed pasta with herbed buerre blanc; grilled rack of lamb over braised rainbow swiss chard with a red wine gastrique and gingerbread trifle with candied kumquats, wine poached cranberries and mascarpone cream. Tickets for the wine pairing dinner are $125 per person.

Last year, the Daniels College of Business undergraduate program barely missed the BusinessWeek rankings because of recruiter response, but the student response was off the charts. We want to continue the momentum begun by last year's graduating class and be recognized as one of the top business programs in the United States by BusinessWeek. This year, we have been invited to participate again.

The Financial Times has rated the executive MBA program at the University of Denver's Daniels College of Business No. 85 in the world, up from No. 90 last year.

Graduates of the DU program earn an average $138,144 a year three years after completing it, up 51 percent from before taking the program, the Financial Times said on its website, FT.com.

The Financial Times, one of the world's leading business newspapers, based in London, ranked the University of Denver's Daniels College of Business Executive MBA Program as one of the top EMBA programs in the world. According to the Financial Times 2009 EMBA rankings released today, Daniels is ranked No. 85 in the world. Daniels, the sole Colorado school named to the list, joins the London Business School, Wharton, NYU, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Helsinki School of Economics, University of Chicago, Georgetown and Northwestern, among others. The Daniels EMBA program has a rigorous, accelerated 18-month curriculum designed for students with at least 10 years of significant professional experience from small, medium and large organizations, entrepreneurial start-ups and non-profit organizations.

A study conducted by two state business schools concluded that a stimulus program incentivizing successful companies would generate 978,000 new jobs.

The Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado and the University of Denver's Daniels College of Business conducted the three-month research project on a new program design for U.S. economic stimulus.

The Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver today announced the appointment of Thomas Dowd as Director of Globalization for the College. He will lead a College-wide initiative to embed a global perspective through curricula, global experiences, international students at Daniels and alumni around the world. "Globalization is a vital part of our five-year strategic plan, Daniels Tomorrow," said Christine Riordan, Dean of the Daniels College of Business.  "In order to meet the evolving demands of the global marketplace, our students will need to understand the political, ethical, economic and social ramifications of business decisions, on a local, national and international level."

John Sie has proposed an economic-stimulus plan that he says will generate nearly 1 million new jobs and increase the nation's GDP by almost $600 billion in five years -- and return money to U.S. taxpayers by year two.

University researchers may have the answer for U.S. businesses that were growing but have been thwarted by lack of access to capital.

This past March, 9NEWS polled local university professors, financial advisors, economists and business owners and asked them to offer up their predictions for the economy. They answered the questions just before the Dow Jones bottomed out below 6,500 points.

On average, those polled predicted the national unemployment rate would peak at around 10 percent, while the rate here in Colorado would hit around 8 percent. If job losses slow to a halt soon, their forecasts would come in almost dead on.

Corporate America Recovering While Main Street Americans Struggle

When the Dow Jones industrial average first passed 10,000, traders tossed commemorative caps and uncorked champagne. This time around, the feeling was more like relief. The best-known barometer of the stock market entered five-figure territory again Wednesday, the most visible sign yet that investors believe the economy is clawing its way back from the worst downturn since the Depression.

Julie Markham stumbled upon an article in Forbes magazine ranking the top-50 microfinance institutions in the world. Little did she know it would have a profound impact on her education, and possibly her career.

After reading the article, Markham--who's on track to graduate in June 2010 with a with a BSBA degree in real estate/finance, a minor in leadership studies, an MBA, and a MS in real estate and construction management--decided to learn more about microfinance and has since spent part of the past year studying microfinance in locales around the globe.

Validated by researchers from Daniels College of Business and Leeds School of Business

The University of Denver's Daniels College of Business and the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado--Boulder today announced the findings of a three-month research project on a new program design for U.S. economic stimulus. 

The recession derailed many people's plans for retirement. While they're still struggling to make up for big losses, a younger generation may benefit.

At an investment fund class at the University of Denver, students learn the ins and outs of financial planning. It takes a while to learn, but their professor, Maclyn Clouse PhD, tells them if they start investing at an early age, the end result will likely be rewarding.

"When it comes to investing, the earlier the better," Clouse said.

Beginning October 12, Scot James will advise and assist Daniels students along their career paths as assistant director, relationship management in Suitts.

Starting spring 2010 University of Denver will offer a master of business administration degree in school leadership.

DU issued the following statement: "The MBA will give participants the business and management skills to open and lead autonomous charter schools."

The University of Denver will offer a master of business administration degree in school leadership, with classes beginning in March.

"The MBA will give participants the business and management skills to open and lead autonomous charter schools," the University said in a statement Wednesday.

Program is interdisciplinary collaboration between Daniels School of Business, Morgridge College of Education and Get Smart Schools

DENVER -- The University of Denver today announced the establishment of an MBA in school leadership program.  The MBA will give participants the business and management skills to open and lead autonomous charter schools.

The University's Daniels College of Business will incorporate its cutting-edge MBA core curriculum with a specially-designed concentration in education, developed in cooperation with the Morgridge College of Education and Get Smart Schools, a non-profit organization designed to dramatically increase the number of high quality schools serving low-income students in Colorado's Front Range.

The Poker Players Alliance (PPA), the largest poker grassroots advocacy group in the U.S with more than one million members nationwide, today applauded the ruling of a South Carolina court that confirmed that poker is a game of skill, and it should not be considered gambling under the state's law.

Over a year's worth of rigorous planning, clever teamwork, and markedly-Daniels ingenuity came to a head August 19 at the 2009 Daniels Management Retreat awards ceremony. In what has been dubbed the Mile High Awards, twenty-five Daniels staff members from two departments were recognized on the steps of Margery Reed Hall for their tremendous work in promoting and developing the Daniels College of Business this past year.

During times of life transition, baby boomers should focus on enhancing their skills and celebrating existing strengths, says Karen Newman, a Daniels College of Business management professor.

The Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver today announced new faculty appointments.  As part of a recently released master strategic plan called "Daniels Tomorrow," the college is actively recruiting high caliber faculty for both new positions and as replacements for expected faculty retirements.

The swine flu is expected to take a big bite out of business in the coming months. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce predicts H1N1 will cost businesses $20 billion in lost productivity. That's double the typical cost of the seasonal flu. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is encouraging businesses to come up with swine flu plans. Recommendations include telling employees to stay home if they are sick.

Thinking ahead makes business sense, according to according to Dr. Mac Clouse, of the University of Denver Daniels College of Business. Clouse said employers should want their sick employees to stay home.  "If you come to work even though you are deathly sick because you don't want to get your pay from that day and you come in and get three or four other people exposed, now the boss has a problem of not just you with the swine flu, but all of the co-workers you are close with," said Clouse.

DU's Daniels College of Business recently launched its "Daniels Tomorrow" strategic plan, which will guide the college through 2014. "All top corporations today have detailed strategic and operational long-term business plans to ensure future success and make certain that they are working toward it," says Daniels Dean Christine Riordan.  "It is natural that the Daniels College of Business would do the same. Taking a longer-term perspective will help us determine how to focus our activities and resources to become an even better business school."

What's at stake if Denver-area unionized grocery workers go on strike?

Possibly the permanent migration of some customers from traditional grocery stores to the growing number of non-union grocery supercenters in the area, labor watchers and supermarket officials intimate.

This year's Faculty and Staff Awards Convocation will take place on Friday, Oct. 2, in Magness Arena. DU Chancellor Robert Coombe will deliver a speech at the annual luncheon addressing the state of the University.

Additionally, notable faculty and staff members will receive recognition for their contributions to the University. Gordon Von Stroh, a professor in the Daniels College of Business and the event's longtime emcee, will receive the Faculty Service Award.

The images seem contradictory, somehow: A town with a vibrant, textured story to tell welcomes the world--and the once-in-a-generation opportunity to raise its profile--by turning itself into a phantom-zone fortress of boarded-up storefronts, roadblocks and big men with big guns.Pittsburgh strode into the global spotlight this week like many of its brethren in the age of the multinational event--economic summits, political conventions, Olympics--with confidence that, after the leaders quit town and the barricades come down, the good effects will stick around and keep making a difference.

Ponzi schemes not only didn't originate with Bernie Madoff, they didn't even originate with Charles Ponzi. Scofflaws have been separating investors from their money since the beginning of enterprise.

"Since wealth was converted to a tangible form, and when trust became the quintessential foundation of wealth itself," said Buie Seawell, the former Colorado Democratic state chairman now in his 14th year teaching ethics and business law at the University of Denver's Daniels College of Business.

Their looks are about the only thing they don't have in common. Rob is white and 6-foot, 7-inches tall. Kyle is black and 5-foot, 11-inches tall.

They even have the same last name: Lewis. They both love basketball and play for the University of Denver Pioneers. They're both Coloradans. They both recently took up golf. They're both junior finance majors. Both had internships this summer in finance. And they're roommates.

As international business major Cassidy Woodard navigated through her first-year of college, "The Big Texas Shindig 2" undoubtedly cropped up in her mind from time to time. Out of context, "The Big Texas Shindig 2" sounds a bit like a horror movie that may or may not involve chainsaws, but it was actually the name of this year's National Junior Limousin Show and Congress, which took place in July in Amarillo, Texas.

Halting the financial sector's death plunge is arguably the government's most measurable achievement this year. Yet as President Barack Obama observes the one-year anniversary of Lehman Brothers' collapse, his administration's increasingly sunny assessment of Wall Street's rebound faces a hard sell. "The longer-term issue is we need reform to the financial system," said Dr. Mac Clouse, a professor of finance at the University of Denver. "If we don't do something to make sure this doesn't happen again, history tells us that it will happen again."

As grocery store chains in Colorado negotiate with United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 before grocery workers' contracts expire, University of Denver professors are available to discuss issues involving labor disputes and negations, as well as issues raised by the potential for a grocery workers' strike. 

Vacancies of affordable apartments statewide rose 6.1 percent in the second quarter compared to the same period of 2008, and rents dropped, according to a report Friday by the Colorado Division of Housing. But second-quarter vacancies were down from 7.4 percent in this years first quarter. The housing division defines affordable apartments as those that are subsidized and deed-restricted. By comparison, the second-quarter vacancy rate for market-rate apartments was 9.1 percent.

The Daniels College of Business will hire 12 new faculty members for new positions, is revamping its MBA program, strengthening its alumni and corporate relations both in the community and worldwide, and taking other steps as part of an overall master plan called "Daniels Tomorrow," the college reported Thursday. Daniels will scale back the number of undergraduate students, which has grown from 1,400 in 2004-05 to the current 2,200, to about 1,800. "We're putting in a secondary admission process that will start in the fall of 2010, where students will come in as pre-business, then apply at the beginning of their sophomore years to the Daniels College of Business," said Dean Christine Riordan, who took office about one year ago.

Let's say you're playing poker and you need one more diamond for a flush. The dealer turns a card, reveals a diamond and you win the hand. Was it skill or luck? The answer is affecting the fates of people across the country accused of breaking anti-gambling laws -- people like Kevin Raley of Colorado.

A central figure in several recent legal battles, including Raley's, is University of Denver statistics professor Bob Hannum, who studies gaming mathematics. In games of chance, "it doesn't matter what you try to do," he said. "You can be playing against a monkey, and the monkey will do just as well as you."  Not so with poker, Hannum said. Numerous studies conducted in recent years all indicate that in poker the predominant factor is skill, he said.

DU's Daniels College of Business ranked 83rd in the 2010 U.S.News & World Report annual college rankings for undergraduate business programs, which were released last week.

Robbie Wilson can tell you the exact month he first noticed a recession was underway. The sales manager at Nolans RV on North Federal Boulevard said, "In August of 2008. It was just like we forgot to open the gate on Federal. No one was coming in, nobody was buying anything."  He can also tell you the exact month things started to turn around. "It started in May," he said. Of course, the RV business tends to be seasonal in nature. But already this August his business is up 22 percent from last August. "I think that's definitely a good sign," he said.

It's a new day, a new field and lots of new words for Natalie Libansky. "I had to go buy a tool belt, get all these tools and learn the names of the tools," she laughed.  After a couple of months on unemployment, Libansky recently got a new job with Namaste Solar. Monday, she was installing solar panels on the roof of Eldorado Natural Spring Water. "When I got the call that I got the job, I ran around my house like a mad woman, in circles, kind of like my dog does. Just ran around totally pumped,"  she said.

The federal so-called Cash For Clunkers program may be over, but that's not stopping Denver area businesses from ramping up their own deals. Mike Naughton Ford in Aurora is one dealership where employees confirmed a continuation of trade-in incentives, even without the government CARS program. It's not just cars and trucks being offered either. At Sportique Scooters in Denver there's a special deal with a familiar name.

Thomas Graham, father of Broncos tight end Daniel, is trying to launch a series of fragrances for each NFL team, car air fresheners, candles and stick fresheners. In an arduous, decade-long process that he calls"more exciting than football," Graham's G-7 Enterprises has secured a product endorsement license from the NFL. Soon, the company will become a nationwide distributor of sweet-smelling products, ranging from air fresheners that you hang in your car to candles to the plug-in odor eaters that can gobble up the stench from Fido or a smelly cigar ? all bearing the logo of your favorite team.

Even though the general economy may still be limping through a recession, business intelligence isn't generally feeling the pinch -- in fact, it's actually growing. Companies are in need of ways in which they can make sense of the data they're dealing with, and now may be the best time to invest.ne business sector weathering the current economic downturn is that of business intelligence (BI).  In fact, Hans Hultgren, director of the Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence program at Daniels College of Business, told CRM Buyer that business intelligence is growing and will continue to do so.

There are many examples of truly egregious behaviors in the business world. The public has every right to be skeptical of corporate claims related to green, sustainability, social responsibility and other virtuous forms of activity.

Is the momentum among larger corporations toward greening their operations a passing fad? Or is this new respect for the well-being of people, employees, customers and the community the genuine beginning of a long-term trend in which business and society demonstrate the mutual respect and interconnectedness that has been so elusive in the past? The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) is the best-known protocol for companies to report on their sustainability activities. Based in Amsterdam, GRI received just over 1,000 sustainability reports from major corporations around the world in 2008. In 2007, there was only one A+ level corporation based in the U.S.: Newmont Mining.  Newmont is also on the Dow Jones World Sustainability Index designed to track the financial performance of those companies worldwide judged to have the best corporate sustainability track records.

It's interesting to note that Newmont turned to Denver's local academic institutions to help it figure out how to build momentum in its sustainability efforts. Both the Daniels School of Business at the University of Denver (which was running courses in corporate social responsibility before most of us understood what the term meant) and the University of Colorado at Denver's Business School have consulted with the company. 

Executives of today?s organizations are deeply worried about business: What do we need to change to recover from this recession and ultimately succeed? Can we make the changes we need to make to operate effectively in this new business environment?  Can we change fast enough?Consequently, many employees are wondering when the pressure will let up.  Will I be able to keep my job?  Is someone solving the problems of the organization?  Why can?t we just keep doing what we have always been doing?  How much more work are they expecting me to do?  How can I possibly do more with fewer resources?

The Obama administration says that it no longer needs the 'public option' to be part of the health care reform package.  Daniels Management Professor Bob McGowan talks to reporter Raj Chohan.

A battle over the legalities of poker is headed to the Colorado Supreme Court.

The Poker Players Alliance, an advocacy group, said Wednesday that one of its members will petition the state's high court for a review of a district court's ruling this month that poker is considered gambling under Colorado law.he case stems from a 2008 probe by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation into a $20 buy-in Texas Hold'em tournament at a Greeley bar.

Five people were arrested and charged with illegal gambling. In January, county court jury acquitted Kevin Raley, one of the organizers of the game and the first defendant to stand trial. Charges against the others were then dropped. During trial, Raley argued that poker is a game in which skill predominates over chance. Illegal gambling occurs when a game involves risk and reward and its outcome is determined predominantly by chance. There are exceptions, such as if the game is not operated for profit.

The trial judge allowed Raley to call an expert--University of Denver professor Bob Hannum--to testify that poker is a game of skill.

The health care reform battle is being waged on Colorado airwaves, especially since President Barack Obama is scheduled to debate the topic in Grand Junction this weekend. But what is fact and what is fiction? Finance professor Mac Clouse weighs in.

Apartment vacancies in communities outside metro Denver climbed to 9.1 percent in the second quarter, the highest level in four years, according to a report released Tuesday by the Colorado Division of Housing.Meanwhile, average monthly rents dropped from $848 a year ago to $837 during the second quarter, said Gordon Von Stroh, management professor at the University of Denver's Daniels College of Business, who compiles the apartment report.The decline is putting a squeeze on property owners, who are finding it increasingly expensive to maintain their properties, he said.

Forging common ground from workers' diverse interests should be your top priority, says workplace coach James O'Toole, author of "Leadership A to Z."

DU's Daniels College of Business has expanded its popular Professional MBA (PMBA) program.The program, which allows participants to work full time while finishing their degree in two years, launched in 2008 as a Saturday-only option. Now, students can choose between two different formats, a weeknight program from 6-10 p.m. on Mondays and Wednesdays and the weekend format with class on Saturdays from 8-5 p.m.

The recession continued to dampen the Colorado apartment market outside Denver during the second quarter, causing the statewide vacancy rate to increase to 9.1 percent from 6.7 percent for the same period of 2008, according to a Colorado Division of Housing report released Tuesday. "I think we've bottomed out with the recession, but there are still some bumps coming," said Gordon Von Stroh, University of Denver business professor and the apartment market report's researcher/writer. "I don't see a significant turnaround until next May or early summer. The biggest thing in Colorado is that the stimulus hadn't affected our economy that much. Most of the jobs created are small in number."

A new study says Colorado is getting a lot less federal stimulus money than it should for how many people live here. The analysis from ProPublica, a nonprofit journalism group, ranks Colorado 46th out of 50 states in receiving stimulus dollars. Critics of the program say it will only lead to a larger national debt and little relief during the current economic recession. "The stimulus package is really just an excuse to spend money. It really was not a job creation package from those of us that study economic issues," University of Denver Finance Professor Michael Williams said.

It was the third largest FHA mortgage company in the country. But now it is no more. Out of business. Gone.

Federal agencies told Taylor, Bean and Whitaker Mortgage Corp. that it could no longer close or fund home loans. And that means the loss of jobs for about 75 people from TBW's Colorado office, located in Centennial."It's a good thing for the system. It is a corrective measure," says DU Finance Professor, Mac Clouse.

He says government regulators are cracking down and weeding out institutions doing things they shouldn't be doing.

"This is exactly what should have happened during the subprime period, where if we had taken a closer look at loans being made, we may not have had the mess we ended up with," he says.

About 80 Frontier Airlines employees and passengers made one final, very public push to save the Denver-based carrier.Republic Airways Holdings has offered to acquire Frontier for $108.7 million, saying it plans to operate Frontier as usual. Frontier would be intact as a wholly owned subsidiary. However, Dallas-based Southwest Airlines has submitted a nonbinding proposal of $113.6 million, proposing integrating Frontier into Southwest. University of Denver business professor Mac Clouse told 7NEWS that money is not the only factor to be considered. "If it's close, you can make the argument that it's based on intangibles," he said.

The government's Car Allowance Rebate System program, better known as CARS or Cash for Clunkers, was a victim of its own success.

Yes, there was uncertainty about availability of $3,500 to $4,500 vouchers for potential buyers to turn in their gas guzzlers and buy brand new gas sippers.Yes, there was political controversy over yet another so called taxpayer financed bailout of a struggling industry. But even with that confusion and controversy, Dr. Bob McGowan says the program was effective."This program was successful, it was more successful than we thought, but the bottom line ultimately it's taxpayers who are paying for it in terms of these subsidies," said McGowan, professor of management at the Daniels College of Business. McGowan says one of the reasons why the CARS program found success is because it's targeted. Unlike the stimulus checks many of us received in the mail last year, McGowan says cash for clunkers gave consumers a direct path to buy. 

Women in Cable Telecommunications (WICT), in partnership with The Cable Center, today announced that they will present "Cable Boot Camp and Beyond" next month at The Cable Center in Denver.Cable Boot Camp and Beyond will be taught by industry veterans Dick Clark and Carol Vernon, Bill Dorman of The Cable Center and Dr. Ron Rizzuto, senior fellow at The Cable Center and professor at the University of Denver.

Apartment vacancies in metro Denver hit their highest level in four years in the second quarter of 2009, a trend driven largely by recent job losses, according to a Colorado Division of Housing report Thursday.

Raymond Wentz was only 17 when he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma.

Without family support, Raymond and his sister Michelle lived on their own in a small apartment, worked at the grocery store and rode their bikes everywhere. Raymond even rode his bike to chemotherapy treatments--more than 20 miles from his home.

While Raymond was ill, his oncologist, Dr. David Schrier, asked Michelle if they could manage on their own during Raymond's last days. She answered, "Yes. The only thing we have to worry about is food."

"She said it with such sincerity, it was so heartfelt," Schrier says. "They never played the role of victim."

Schrier was so moved by Raymond and Michelle's brave response to their situation, he founded the Raymond Wentz Foundation in 2002 to ensure that no cancer patient in Denver would go without food, heat or shelter.

Six years later, Schrier shared Raymond's story with Cory Foreman, a student in the Daniels College of Business' executive MBA program. At the time, Foreman and some of  his fellow MBA students--Chris Deel, Kim Hoeksema, Daniel Maes, Harish Rajagopal and Kristine Strain--were working as a group on their Social Capital Project, a five-quarter team project designed to benefit an organization or the community as a whole.

After talking with Schrier, the executive MBA group decided to work with the Foundation to provide marketing and operational assistance.

Students at the University of Denver will soon have the opportunity to earn a minor in business in a new program designed specifically for non-business majors.The program is designed for high-achieving undergraduate students who want the fundamentals of a business education without majoring in business. Students who complete the program will be well-positioned for the workforce or graduate school.

Teal is not just the color greenish blue. It is also alumna Stephanie Sadler?s (BSBA ?07) middle name and the inspiration for the name of her new art gallery in Breckenridge, Colo. "I have always loved the color and thought it would be appropriate to name an art gallery after a color," Sadler says.

Any effort to sell an overhaul of health care to a wary public must first clear some major hurdles with people who like the insurance they have and don't see the need for change. "From a political standpoint, health care seems to be something that brings out more emotions in people," said Mac Clouse, a finance professor at the University of Denver Daniels College of Business. "It's not clear that anybody has really seen the plan in an easy-to-read and understandable format." Despite Obama's sense of urgency, many say it's unlikely any plan will emerge during the next several months. "It's so complex right now that people can't get their arms around it," said Bob McGowan, a DU professor of management. "It's like trying to wrestle an 800-pound gorilla. Once you get a hold of it, it's awful tough to manage."

Professors offer insight, explanations on the national and state debate: Daniels College of Business professors are following the debate over health care reform at national and state levels and offer a variety of opinions and analysis.

Even as a student at the University of Denver, Rory Vaden talked to people incessantly about how to be successful. The key, he said, was self discipline. To be successful, you had to do the things other people weren't willing to do. His college roommate--and a fellow member of the Pioneer Leadership Program--heard the argument often, and used it to make fun of Vaden once on an airport escalator: "Mr. Discipline doesn't even take the stairs," he said. 

From her vantage point behind the deli counter at Marczyk Fine Foods, Ashley Fillmer noticed that staffers recently had to toss out a few ham-and-cheese sandwiches because too many had been made. Small potatoes for the Denver gourmet grocer? Not when you have a stake in the outcome.

"If employees have a stake in how the business is run, they exhibit more of a sense of ownership," said Bob McGowan, a professor of management at the University of Denver Daniels College of Business.

You spent hours on the resume, even longer on the cover letter. You fold the sheets of paper neatly, and slip them into an envelope. You painstakingly address it, thinking "Flawless penmanship is essential!"

And then you pray.

Good luck with that.

"Most of us already know our next employer, or we know the person who will lead us to the next employer," said Karen Dowd, director of the Suitts Center for Career Services at the University of Denver's Daniels College of Business. "What we have lost, certainly as of last fall, was the opportunity to just work on our present job. I think we're always going to be on two tracks, working on our present job and building a foundation."

University of Denver (DU) Professor and Dean Emeritus Jim Griesemer is being honored by his alma mater, Northern Illinois University, as one of just 50 Golden Anniversary Alumni award recipients from NIU's College of Liberal Arts & Sciences.

Selected from more than 70,000 graduates, Griesemer is recognized for his service to community and for professional achievement as the DeKalb, Ill. based College of Liberal Arts & Sciences celebrates 50 years. A gala honoring the chosen alumni is set for Sept. 25.

A statistics professor and professional poker player took the stand this afternoon to testify that Texas Hold 'Em is a game of skill.

Sedgwick County District Judge Tim Lahey is trying to decide whether to prevent the state's attorney general from shutting down a game similar to poker called Kandu Challenge that has been played for the past year at a Wichita pub.

Robert Hannum of the University of Denver testified that he's conducted studies that suggest poker is predominantly a game of skill.

"What makes a game of skill... is if a player with his decisions can affect the outcome," Hannum said.

Some economists believe it's a signal we've already hit bottom. If indeed the annual gross domestic product is no longer shrinking, it doesn't mean consumers will be instantly optimistic or that job seekers will get quick relief.

Boarding passes with the linear bar codes found on grocery items are just so yesterday. Printed-out passes in general also appear headed toward extinction in favor of accessing flight information by scanning it off of a smart-phone screen. Until the electronic future arrives, however, airlines around the world are flocking to two-dimensional bar codes. Denver-based Frontier Airlines earlier this year became the first U.S. carrier to have its ticket counters and gates 100 percent enabled to read 2-D bar-coded passes. "All the linear code can do is tell you who the manufacturer is and what the product number is," said Paul Nuzum, an adjunct business faculty member at the University of Denver. The 2-D bar code "can store information on the tag itself, and you don't need a link to a database to get the information you need," Nuzum said. A simple swipe, Nuzum said, can tell an airline who the passenger is, flight information and even which in-flight movie is requested.

Think back to just a year ago.

Could you have imagined companies that we perceived as stable, like Lehman Brothers, would simply vanish, or that 2008 would mark the largest bank and loan failure in history? Could you have imagined the sheer scale of the automakers crisis resulting in a massive restructuring of the industry or the stock market dropping to less than half of its 2007 value? More precisely, could you have ever imagined the extent of government regulation and bailout that has occurred within the last few months? Now, we're facing a myriad of challenges: global instability, a need for world-wide economic recovery, the necessity of changing business models, numerous industries rapidly being altered, significant losses in business, consumer price sensitivity, companies trying to survive, intense scrutiny from investors, more regulations, nervous boards, smaller staffs, lower employee morale, a sense of fear by consumers and a feeling of urgency to fix the problems.

DENVER--As grocery store chains in Colorado negotiate with United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 before grocery worker' contracts expire Saturday, May 9, Daniels College of Business professors are available to discuss issues involving labor disputes and negations, as well as issues raised by the potential for a grocery worker' strike.

The Daniels College of Business 2009 Bike MS 150 cycling team chose as its motto"Live to Lead," which captured the 28-member tea's dedication to using leadership skills as a positive social force for change. As team co-captain and 2008 Daniels EMBA Gerard Laurain explained,"What makes the Bike MS 150 ride special is that it?s not focused on how fast you ride, but on bringing riders of all levels and abilities together for a great time and a great cause."

Parked on the side of a road in an Aurora subdivision, you'll find Gladis Duarte blow drying a dog as hair scatters throughout a trailer hooked to the back of her SUV. Nearly two years ago, Duarte bought a franchise with the Pooch Mobile, a mobile dog wash. "I did not think that at 60 years of age I would be doing this, or I would be working this hard," Duarte said. After 34 years of teaching and directing an animal rescue group, Duarte decided to try something new." So I have a nice hefty mortgage, second mortgage," Duarte said. Duarte has plenty of company. A recent study from the Kauffman Foundation found that people between 55 and 64 made up the highest percentage of entrepreneurs for any age group. "I see a lot of people that don't want to retire," said University of Denver Business Professor Bob McGowan. McGowan says baby boomers have found the economy especially difficult because their age group is finding it hardest to get a new job. After decades of working for corporations, older Americans have the experience and knowledge of trying a new venture, says McGowan. However, McGowan says only 20 to 30 percent of entrepreneurs end up succeeding, with money and timing becoming the biggest factors. While starting a new business during this economy may seem like a huge gamble, McGowan says it could also be the right time, depending on the idea." For those businesses that have a niche, something that's unique, it's actually a pretty decent opportunity," McGowan said.

Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper wants to compile an enormous database to give teachers, social workers and mentors a fuller picture of what the city's children are going through--be it a divorce, a falling algebra grade or an arrest. Hickenlooper is in discussions with a Palo Alto, Calif.-based company to get a computer system donated that could, for example, link data files from Denver Public Schools, the city Department of Human Services and even nonprofits like Big Brothers Big Sisters of America. It would be the first system of its kind in the nation. The system would be easy enough to use that a relatively untrained person could make sense of millions of pieces of information, said Shyam Sankar, director of business development for Palantir Technologies, which would develop the system for Denver. "Let's say you want to look for patterns that people didn't even realize were patterns before--how can we tell which kids need help, how can we determine new warning signs," he said. Privacy is, however, a concern. DPS officials say they look forward to working with the city on the project, but "need to make sure that any information about our kids is shared responsibly," said spokesman Michael Vaughn. People with case files may believe their particular information--like whether a child is on food stamps--is cataloged for a distinct purpose and won't be broadly seen or analyzed, said Kevin O'Brien, a professor of ethics and legal studies at the University of Denver's Daniels College of Business.

Craig Harrison (BSBA '03) sits in his Cherry Creek North corporate office, the window behind him offering a stunning view of the snow-frosted Rockies, discussing one of several companies he's launched in the last five years. For the latest, US Capital, Harrison managed more than $10 million in investments before he sold the company to Chicago-based Northport Private Equity in June 2008.

He's launched two other companies that have done well in completely different industries: Scout Cleaning and Maintenance, an environmentally friendly cleaning service that he owns with fellow DU alumnus Ryan Boykin (BA '02), and Housefront, a real estate technology service company, which he and Boykin recently sold to Motellus Inc. for $3 million.

Last week's online protest against Microsoft Outlook is turning out to be a tempest-in-a-Tweet. As of today, almost 24,000 Twitter users had tweeted their support for the protest, which aims to get Microsoft Corp. to improve Outlook's engine for displaying rich Web content, Microsoft Word.  One of the software maker's defenses for why it is satisfied with Word's HTML rendering is that it is safer for users than a full-fledged browser such as Internet Explorer, which it used for many years until Outlook 2007. That raises several questions. Is HTML e-mail still dangerous today, or is Microsoft using security as an excuse not to comply with Web standards? But spammers and other over-aggressive marketers also saw HTML e-mail as their chance to deploy technologies such as "Web bugs"--tiny GIF images that, when invisibly downloaded by viewing users, allow marketers to track their activity or simply confirm the validity of the e-mail address (for spam purposes). "Most people still don't have a clue that Web bugs exist," said Corey Ciocchetti, an assistant professor of business at the University of Denver.

Anthony Graves (IMBA '04) is a person who does whatever it takes.

When he was 26 and raising his 16-year-old nephew, Graves' management job in the technology industry disappeared, so he took a job filing for the Colorado Department of Human Services to make ends meet.

He realized he needed another degree to get his career back on track, so he went back to school, balancing his role as mentor to his nephew and working two jobs to pay the bills.

Chicago taxpayers will be locked into the city's first financial commitment related to its 2016 Olympic bid on Tuesday if the scheduled closing on the $86 million purchase of the Michael Reese Hospital site goes as planned.This foray into large-scale real estate development comes three months before the host-city selection. The International Olympic Committee will choose between Chicago, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo on Oct. 2. The acquisition of the Olympic Village site carries substantial risks, given the moribund state of the credit markets, which has created wrenching problems for Vancouver and London. Both cities have had to bail out their respective Olympic Village projects, which, like Chicago's, were supposed to have been privately financed. But one observer said it's likely to be a tough sell, at least if the real estate market remains soft."The buyers are not moving in until such and such a date, and someone is using it before them," said Mark Levine, a real estate professor at the University of Denver's School of Construction Management. "So, I don't think it's such an easy deal."

"Obama's proposals are a first step to reform our regulatory system, but a much bigger and broader reform package is necessary. The nation's financial crisis was due to problems with commercial banks, investment banks, investment firms, brokerage firms, ratings agencies, and insurance firms. We cannot continue with regulation that assumes that these institutions are independent and unrelated. Our financial system is much more complex and intertwined than when our regulatory system was created."  Dr. Maclyn Clouse, professor of finance at the University of Denver's Daniels College of Business. 

 Verified Identity Pass, a company that promised to speed passengers through airport security checkpoints for an annual fee, has shut down, leaving some frequent fliers looking for options to avoid long screening lines and wondering what will happen to the personal information and money they gave the company. CBS4 Investigator Rick Sallinger went to Denver International Airport on Tuesday and found a copy of the Clear security policy in a waste basket with an unknown number written on it. He also found an open scanning machine with computer disk just sitting inside. "I believe members should be concerned about the private information," said Kevin O'Brien with the University of Denver College Of Business. "There's just a blank statement that they'll be protected by TSA guidelines."

 Fifty-eight years is a long time to wait for a diploma. But that is how long it took Lloyd Hightower to get his bachelor's degree from the University of Denver. His daughter, Patty Matson, decided to make it right. She called the university, and officials there were happy to help out. Several of his family members and friends traveled cross-country to Mr. Hightower's Colorado home last month, ostensibly for his 87th birthday. They surprised him with a cap and gown, and a Denver faculty member presented him with his long-awaited degree in business management. Mr. Hightower was thrilled, and he celebrated as any grad would, tossing his hat high in the air.

 "The current economic downturn was caused by government intervention in the financial markets.  It does not seem that increased government regulation of the financial markets will improve the economic wellbeing of taxpayers and homeowners.  President Obama's program will limit the types of opportunities available to the financial consumer, decrease competition in the financial markets and limit the enterprises that can offer financial products to the consumer."  Michael E. Williams, Ph.D.,Clinical Professor,Reiman School of Finance,Daniels College of Business.

MBA CHANGES: Figuring that it made more sense to keep peers together, the Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver has created a Professional MBA program, rolling in what had been the part-time MBA program. It starts this fall, and is designed to enable students to continue to work full time during the two-year stretch. One change: All the students will have work experience, which wasn't always the case before. The idea is to increase the comfort level by working with peers throughout the program.  

 Republic Airways Holdings said Monday it is offering to buy Frontier Airlines for $108.8 million and take it out of bankruptcy.The plan would give unsecured creditors $28.8 million in cash. An additional $40 million of the sale proceeds would repay Republic's loan. Frontier said its current shareholders would get nothing. "There was always the talk that they may merge with somebody but you would have thought that they would have merged with one of the other major airlines," said Dr. Mac Clouse, University of Denver Finance Expert.

Shortly after the controversial presidential elections in Iran, the country started cracking down on mainstream media coverage of the opposition protests. But as the protests have grown the Iranian government finds itself struggling to stop the flood of images and information that is passed out of the country through the internet."People in Iran are putting out these tweets, as they are called and a lot of the world has found them and is following them," says Dr. Paul Bauer, chair of the University of Denver's Department of Information Technology. "That is really where we're getting a lot of the new that's coming out of Iran." Dr. Bauer says he is not surprised that Iranians are using technology to let the world know what is happening in their country. "The figure that we hear is that something like 70% of the population is under the age of 30 and if you look at it that way, it is not really a surprise. The kids are on top of this stuff."

As the federal government tries to create a new economy out of the ashes of an 8.6 percent unemployment rate, Colorado's colleges and universities are carving out a plan for what thousands of incoming 18-year-olds will need to know.  At DU, business professors are talking to students about taking jobs in, say, the finance department of Coors Brewery, rather than being an analyst at Lehman Brothers. "We are trying to focus them," said Mac Clouse, a DU finance professor. "We're saying, 'What can we do to make sure we're training students not to come up with the next Wall Street wizard type product, but to understand good opportunities, understand where new products and services may have a chance?' "

Congratulations to the Daniels Net Impact chapter for being recognized by the national Net Impact organization as one of the top chapters in the nation as a 2009 Net Impact silver chapter.

Like many Colorado towns, Eagle and Gypsum rely heavily on sales taxes to keep their local governments afloat. Sales taxes account for at least half of the revenue both towns bring in each year. In Eagle, officials had projected that sales taxes would account for 61 percent of town revenues for 2009. And in Gypsum, sales tax accounted for 48 percent of the $8.96 million in revenues it received in 2008. "Just the way Colorado's set up, it's the life blood of our community," Gypsum Town Manager Jeff Shroll said. But what happens when the flow of that life blood slows? Ron Throupe, a professor of real estate with the University of Denver, said one way towns could protect themselves against dips in sales taxes is to track the average amount of revenue sales taxes have historically produced each year. During upturns in the economy, towns should place any extra sales taxes they generate above that average into a reserve account, he said.

Elizabeth Leenhouts (left) has been appointed as director of alumni relations for the University of Denver's Daniels College of Business. Most recently, Leenhouts was the executive director of KidsTek, a Front Range non-profit organization serving 900 K-12 students with tuition-free technology instructional programs, free hardware and software and scholarships. She has also served as director of Marketing and Communication and Colorado Senior Solutions Manager for Seniors, Inc; director of student life for the Education Management Corporation, and director of student life for the Rocky Mountain College of Art & Design As director of alumni relations, she will oversee all outreach efforts to the school's 30,000 alumni worldwide.

You've probably heard that the federal government is putting the country's largest banks through what's called a financial "stress test." When it comes to our own money, how many of us are doing the same? A survey from the National Foundation for Credit Counseling found that less than half of those who responded keep close track of their spending. "Not very many people do this. You just don't sit down and ask yourself the question, 'How much am I spending?'" University of Denver Finance Professor Mac Clouse said.  Financial experts recommend you asking yourself how much you spend each month. What's your monthly house payment? What goes toward debt each month, like your credit card bill? Also, how much do you save every month?  "You know each month you've got to pay the utilities. You know each month you're going to pay some food, but how much are you paying for food? How much are you paying for the cable bill?" Clouse asked.

Elizabeth Leenhouts has been appointed as director of alumni relations for the University of Denver's Daniels College of Business. 

Commercial real estate foreclosures in metro Denver doubled in the first quarter compared to the prior-year period, but still were much lower than residential filings. The reasons: disciplined local commercial development and lending, and metro Denver's diverse economy and relatively stable job market, according to local real estate experts."It's a national phenomenon that commercial foreclosure rates are very low in comparison to residential foreclosures. ... The Denver economy, its diversity and just having some of the right industries in town, including the energy industry, made a big difference for us," said Glenn Mueller, professor at the University of Denver's real estate school.

Like many college graduates, Brian Gaudette will look back on his Commencement day with fond memories. But for him, Saturday is doubly meaningful--it signifies both the end of his college career and the beginning of his career as an Army officer.

Gaudette will receive a bachelor's degree in real estate with a concentration in finance. Shortly after DU's Commencement ceremony on June 6, he will be commissioned as a second lieutenant in a small ceremony at the Daniels College of Business.

Some 1,000 graduate students officially became University of Denver alumni during the graduate Commencement ceremony at Magness Arena June 5.

Joseph Saunders (BS '67, MBA '68), chairman and CEO of Visa Inc., delivered the Commencement address, telling the audience he would offer the graduates simple advice to return to the basics.

"What's most important is how you feel about yourself," Saunders said. "Respect others' points of view and make time to give back to the community and to those in need."

Doug Moreland has been selling cars since 1969. For more than a decade he's been selling GM products at Grand Automotive in Thornton. Lately, he's noticed some concern coming from customers: "They're coming in worried about their own positions and concerned about us, that we're going to be here. We're running ads right now saying we can't forecast the future but we're here and we're going to be here," Moreland said. Professor Van Johnston specializes in management and public policy at the Daniel's College of Business at the University of Denver. He says American automakers have produced cars and trucks consumers aren't looking for, saturated dealerships with them and show little sign of turning around poor management decisions. "American Automobiles have suffered in reputation and coming out of a bankruptcy chapter 11, the reputation is not going to be enhanced," Johnston said. Johnston says dealerships that can avoid will likely bring in more business after fellow dealers shut down.

Brianna Borin loves food. Not just eating it, but serving it. In a way that makes dining as important as cuisine.

Her first job was in a restaurant--a hostess at age 15--and her first major job after spring graduation also is in a restaurant, assistant manager of a chic LoDo breakfast place called Snooze, run by three 1990s DU grads.

"I love to cook," says the 21-year-old BSBA candidate at DU's School of Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism Management. "But I love the way food and the dining experience can make people feel."

It's clear we need a better way to evaluate business leaders. Moving forward, it appears that the new metric of corporate leadership will be closer to this: the extent to which executives create organizations that are economically, ethically, and socially sustainable.

The entire grocery business has changed since the last time there was a strike in 1996, and consumers seem to have the upper hand during these latest negotiations. There is no vote on a strike scheduled. The last one that happened was in 1996, but the grocery landscape has changed a great deal since then. University of Denver business professor Dr. Cindy Fukami says this time around consumers have more choices than ever before. "A free-market economy invites competition and so the non-union chains saw an opportunity," she said.

Expensive textbooks put the brakes on higher education for many students in developing nations. But a project aiming to make such books available for free via the internet could change all that.  Now a project being spearheaded by two US professors is making electronic versions of expensive textbooks available for free to students in developing nations, with content donated by academics from 50 universities around the world.

In the past few months, the U.S. government has committed billions and billions of dollars to U.S. auto makers and banks. But business and governmental leaders should also be thinking hard about how to bail out another valuable asset: trust. A modern economy can't function if people don't have faith that the institutions around them actually work. Professors Warren Bennis and James O'Toole have shown that when you create a culture of candor, information flows freely and people are able to better innovate and work more efficiently. Of course, it isn't easy creating such a system. Though they've been banging the drum for transparency for years, the professors still find that managers routinely despair that their own corporate cultures are like that proverbial mushroom farm: people here are kept in the dark and fed manure.

When Anthony Hayter teaches his statistics students about the hypothesis theory, he asks them to think of it as a murder trial. The students might think it is out-of-character for Hayter, professor and chair of the Department of Statistics and Operations Technology at DU's Daniels College of Business, but he is used to murder mystery.

He has published five detective novels all set in the Japanese city of Okayama. Hayter speaks Japanese and writes the stories as if his main character, Inspector Morimoto, is traveling the city in real time.

The statewide apartment-vacancy rate for the first quarter this year increased to its highest level since 2005, according to a report released Thursday. The vacancy rate rose to 8.5 percent, up from 6.1 percent a year ago, according to the report released by the Colorado Division of Housing. "I think you can correlate it strongly with the unemployment rate," said Gordon Von Stroh, management professor at the University of Denver's Daniels College of Business. People who are out of work are moving back home with their parents or finding roommates, Von Stroh said.

NEWPORT BEACH, CA--University of Denver Professor-in-Residence Charles Patti was appointed to the title of Director at Large for the Marketing Educators' Association on April 24, 2009, at the annual business luncheon during the 33rd annual Marketing Educators' Association Conference in Newport Beach, California. New appointments to the Board of Directors are for three-year terms from 2009-12.  

There may be a light at the end of the tunnel when it comes to the housing crisis. Denver was recently named America's first city on the verge of rebounding from the slump. In real estate it's location, location and location. And a series of factors point to Denver as the top location, set to lead the nation in a rebound of the housing market. Add to that factors like Denver's vital downtown that's not overdeveloped, expanding public transit, well-educated population, expansive parks system and great weather. "Based on the economics and Denver as a quality city to live in and ability for jobs, population growth etc, yes it's at the top of the list," said Dr. Ron Throupe of the University of Denver's Daniels College of Business. Very low interest rates and lots of first time home buyers, who qualify for an eight thousand dollar tax credit this year also add to Denver's housing turnaround potential. "Create demand for housing, create demand for desire to live there and have a job there...so this will certainly help Denver," said Dr. Throupe.