FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
FROM: Nancy Gardner (206) 543-2580
nancylou@u.washington.edu

DATE: January 22, 2007

Four University of Washington master’s of business administration students captured second place in the fourth annual Pac-10/Big Ten MBA Case Competition held last weekend at Arizona State University. The team earned high marks for its analysis of the selected case, which examined international growth strategy and financial risk management for Rayovac Corporation.

Before selecting the competition winners, a panel of senior executives from corporations and national consulting firms questioned all participants, including UW team members Elisabeth Bykoff, Theo Iaponas, Ben Lower and Kelly Schermer and judged the students on their analytical, communications and presentation skills.

The judges said the UW team had the best dynamics and provided the most in-depth analysis of the case, but ultimately wanted a more simplistic explanation. Additionally, Schermer was judged "Best Presenter" among the 22 participants.

This academic case competition is named after the Pacific-10 and Big Ten athletic conferences and has been referred to by organizers and participants as the "Rose Bowl" of college case competitions.

Preliminary rounds began last fall, in which teams of MBA students from business schools within the Pac-10 and Big Ten conferences faced off in their respective competitions. Only the top three teams in each conference advanced to the finals. Finalists representing the Pac-10 were Arizona State University, University of Southern California, and the UW. University of Minnesota, Ohio State University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign were the Big Ten representatives. University of Southern California claimed this year's victory.

Teams received the details of an undisclosed business problem and had 24 hours to develop a solution to and prepare a presentation on the given case. After presenting to a panel of judges Saturday morning, finalists presented for a second time that afternoon.

Business School faculty members Dan Turner, Jennifer Koski, and Judi Kalitzki helped prepare the team and MBA staff members Gordon Neumiller and Dan Poston provided additional coaching.

Assistant Dean Dan Poston, who accompanied the team to Arizona said, "It was a joy to watch our students demonstrate exceptional analytical capabilities, tremendous team skills and professional communication abilities, all while having a great time. Our consistently strong performance in this competition is evidence that we are strong competitors in the classroom and beyond it."

Case competitions are designed to provide teams of business students with a forum to exercise the knowledge and skills acquired in class by developing solutions to hypothetical business problems within a set timeframe.