Feb. 12, 2014

By Rumasa Noor

UW-Whitewater’s College of Business and Economics is complimented quite frequently for its achievements.  This time the college was recognized by the Business Journal’s Book of Lists for being the Largest Milwaukee-Area Graduate Business Program.

Business Journal compiles lists throughout the year. These lists feature Top 25 hotels, banking organizations, accounting firms, businesses and many more institutions and individuals. At the end of the year, they combine these lists into a book.

The Book of Lists event was held on Feb. 6, and all the individuals and institutions that were listed on that book were invited to the event. UW-Whitewater also was one of the sponsors of the event, and has been sponsoring the event for the past five years.

“What the sponsorship means is that we get ads in the digest, and we are recognized in all the promotions for the book of lists,” said Lois Smith, associate dean of College of Business and Economics. “We also then have a booth at this event. We are allowed 40 people to invite.”

The event had a theme of “under the sea,” and there were games with respect to these themes that were organized. UW-W’s booth also organized a fishing game.

“We want UW-Whitewater College of Business and Economics to have a prominent place in that event, and it raises our profile,” Smith said.

Jolene Check, marketing specialist for the College of Business and Economics,  also was one of the attendees of the event. She said they needed volunteers to set up the booth. Three students, Jodi Straka, Chelsea Baganz and Chris Luebke, offered their help to volunteer for the event.

“We asked for volunteers, and they [students] volunteered to come and help people learn how to play the game and move along in the process,” Check said.

Smith said many UW-W alumni were listed on the book of  lists. Some of them included Scott Wrobbel, who is the managing partner at Deloitte. Deloitte was listed as the No. 1 accounting firm in the Milwaukee area, and Wrobbel’s name was listed along with it.

Another UW-W alumnus is Aaron Jagdfeld, the president and CEO of Generac, a Wisconsin -based company. He scored spots in multiple lists including No. 2 on Wisconsin’s fastest-growing public companies, No. 6 in top 25 Wisconsin stock performance and No. 7 on Largest Milwaukee area manufacturing firms.

“The last time we did a serious count there were over 50 of all alumni who were recognized within the milwaukee book of lists,” Smith said.

UW-Whitewater has been recognized in the book of lists for at least five years.

The Book of Lists event not only recognizes the achievements of the great business firms institutions and individuals, but it also provides an opportunity for networking.

“We sort of had a Whitewater area booth, so people sort of clustered around, they knew each other, or had met each other and then, you know spending time networking together,” Smith said.

Smith also said it provides them an opportunity to connect with the alumni.

“I heard several times last night how proud our alumni are of our sponsor for that event and how good it makes them feel to say that they are from UW-Whitewater,” Smith said.