BMBAA & HMBAA Host 12th Annual Minority Awards Banquet Excellence Award in Honor of William D. Bradford Launched

Diversity is when a graduate of Columbia University is the keynote speaker at Smith School event, joked Dean Howard Frank. He was addressing attendees at the William D. Bradford Minority Awards Banquet held on April 28, 2005, at the UMUC Inn & Conference Center.

The target of Dean Franks joke was James DeGraffenreidt, chairman and CEO of Washington Gas. In his keynote speech on Diversity and Management, DeGraffenreidt emphasized that while each business has its own definition of diversity, only those companies that view diversity as integral to their business success rather rule to comply to will profit from it.

For the 143 attendees, one of the highlights of the evening was the launch of the Smith MBA Excellence Award. The award, which was instituted in honor of William D. Bradford, will be awarded to students who demonstrate leadership and broad community involvement. Accepting the honor, Dr. Bradford reiterated his belief in the importance of education in closing the economic disadvantages that minorities continue to face.

Nicolas Gompf, incoming president of the Hispanic MBA Association, shared his thoughts regarding the importance of diversity and the purpose of the banquet. Diversity has become a major issue in today's world. Population demographics are changing very fast and markets are becoming more diverse; some companies have realized this and know that targeting these markets can only be successfully done through an integral plan. Diversity is now a competitive advantage and we, as part of the Smith School, should create the means for recruiters to build a diverse work force. The 12th Annual Bradford Minority Banquets main purpose is to reflect the great potential of diversity within the Smith School. It was a great success thanks to the support we received from the Smith community and from the sponsoring companies. Having experienced the amazing response from people of different organizations, I hope in the future we can organize more events towards the same goal.

Torrey Lee, outgoing VP of external relations for the Black MBA Association and one of the event organizers added, The banquet is an excellent networking opportunity for students and employers due to the nine corporate sponsors, and a wonderful opportunity for alumni to see what our organizations are doing since they left Smith.

This year, the Black and Hispanic MBA Associations raised $5,000 for the new Smith MBA Excellence Award, a scholarship for incoming MBA students. William D. Bradford, who set the vision for the banquet and was present, remarked that the scholarship was the best way to help those that come after the current students. He added that it was also the best way anyone could be honored, as the scholarship was named after him. Each year the award/scholarship will be given to an MBA student on the basis of demonstrated leadership and community involvement and will be named in honor of a business leader to recognize his/her accomplishments. The Deans Office, the Admissions Office, and both the BMBAA and HMBAA, will make nominations for the award each year, with a committee making the final award decision. The committee will consist of the director of admissions, BMBAA and HMBAA club presidents, and BMBAA and HMBAA faculty advisors.

Several students and corporate sponsors were also honored at the awards banquet for their commitment to diversity and to the Smith School. PepsiCo received the Corporate Achievement Award for encouraging and fostering a diverse corporate culture as part of their global operations. Patricia Keenan, Bart Flaherty, and Ricardo Cuellar were present at the banquet to receive the award on PepsiCo's behalf.

The banquet was made possible by several Smith and corporate sponsors. Corporate sponsors included PepsiCo, Wyeth Pharmaceuticals (pictured right), Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase, Washington Gas, Personal Assessment Systems, GE, and Air Products.

This years recipients include:

Alumni Achievement Award:
Federico Sercovich, MBA 03, Citigroup
Ricardo Benn, MBA 99, Booz Allen Hamilton

Outstanding Staff Award:
Steve Tiufekchiev, Director of Employment Development, Office of Career Management

Corporate Excellence Award:
PepsiCo