Angel in Our Midst: Welcoming William Payne
 As an angel investor, William Payne has helped fund 25 early stage companies, serving on the board for nearly half. For Payne, this involvement is about more than financial returns: "I enjoy helping entrepreneurs work through the decision-making process necessary to get started and grow their business," he explains.
This combination of passion and experience makes Payne a perfect choice for the 2004 Anheuser-Busch Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the Eller College, a position established and endowed by the Anheuser-Busch Foundation to support entrepreneurship education at UA and recognize exceptional entrepreneurial achievement.
Throughout the year, Payne will meet one-on-one with students in the McGuire Entrepreneurship Program to discuss new business concepts, guide concept developments, and energize the entrepreneurial process.
In addition to serving as Entrepreneur-in-Residence, Payne serves on the board of various investment groups throughout the Southwest, including the San Diego Social Venture Partners, an organization focused on venture philanthropy. For the past 10 years, Payne has also served as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence with the prestigious Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, where he leads the Power of Angel Investing seminar series.
The Princeton Review Ranks Eller Entrepreneurship among the Nation’s 10 Best
 For the first time ever, The Princeton Review—a longtime leader in helping students research, prepare for, and get the most out of their college educations—has taken a close look at entrepreneurship in America’s top colleges, placing the Eller College of Management’s McGuire Entrepreneurship Program 8th nationwide.
Forbes.com published the new survey, the 25 Most Entrepreneurial Campuses, in October. The rankings recognize what Forbes calls “the cream of the crop: schools that are teaching their undergraduates how to start their own business, and are supporting them with everything from mentoring to venture funds.”
Interim Dean Ken Smith noted that this latest ranking is especially noteworthy because it makes the McGuire Entrepreneurship Program the only one in the country to earn top ranking in all 5 of the leading surveys of entrepreneurship education: this new survey plus 4 produced by U.S. News & World Report (graduate school and college rankings) and Entrepreneur magazine (scientific and peer evaluations).
“What is truly exciting about this ranking announcement is that again, regardless of ranking criteria and methodology, the Eller College entrepreneurship program is in the top tier,” Smith noted. “It is incredibly rewarding for all of us to see Karl Eller’s vision for entrepreneurship education become a nationally recognized reality.”
Eller MBA Named Among Best for Hispanics
 Eller College has a bright new feather in its cap: In September, the Eller MBA debuted on the HISPANIC Trends Magazine list of Top 25 MBA Programs for Hispanics.
The Eller MBA shares the spotlight with programs at some of the nation’s most distinguished schools, such as Harvard Business School, Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, and The Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania.
HISPANIC Trends cited Eller College’s leadership in faculty diversity as a top reason for the program’s inclusion in the 2004 list, lauding also the College’s representation at minority recruiting events, its commitment to minority-targeted advertising, and its numerous scholarships for Hispanic students.
“A diverse environment is central to our mission,” said MBA Director and Associate Dean Brent Chrite. “We are pleased to see our dedication to diversity recognized in this listing.”
HISPANIC Trends Magazine is a product of Hispanic Publishing Group, the same folks behind VISTA Magazine, the largest ABC-audited U.S. magazine for the Hispanic American audience.
Swanson Goes for Broke to Avert U.S. Disaster
 In 1992, Harry Figgie and Eller College economics guru Gerald Swanson, Thomas R. Brown Chair in Economic Education, co-authored Bankruptcy 1995 to stave off the economic disaster brewing in the feckless federal finances of the early 90s.
The book spent nine months on the New York Times best-seller list, and eventually America was back on course. But with the U.S. budget having plummeted from a $200 billion annual surplus three years ago to a projected deficit of $521 billion for 2004—the largest deficit in U.S. history—Swanson is pulling out all stops to sound the emergency alarm.
His new book published by Currency Doubleday, AMERICA THE BROKE: How the Reckless Spending of the White House and Congress are Bankrupting our Country and Destroying our Children’s Future, outlines the coming catastrophic consequences of reckless government spending.
In just one sobering scenario, Swanson illustrates how, if our historically low interest rates of 4.6 percent rose to just 9 percent, the resulting $636 billion interest payment would leave little to cover Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and nothing to pay for non-defense discretionary programs such as education, justice, and transportation.
The plot thickens if you consider that 40 percent of our publicly held debt is to foreign investors, who are more likely than domestic creditors to insist on higher rates as the dollar declines.
Ready to abandon all hope? Don’t. Swanson also outlines a blueprint for disaster aversion, including balancing the budget, cutting spending, and putting a stop to long-term ruinous behavior like "borrowing" from Social Security.
“I believe we can prevent the catastrophe,” Swanson writes, “but time is short.” In his book, he calls on every American to send a strong and urgent message to the government that it’s time to turn the country’s finances around. “In the final reckoning, it’s up to us to do what’s needed to save America’s future."
Gupta Energizing Technology Management
 This fall, the Eller College was proud to welcome Dr. Amar Gupta as the Thomas R. Brown Chair in Management and Technology, Senior Director for Research and Business Development, and Professor of Entrepreneurship and MIS.
With less than two months under his belt, Dr. Gupta has already made important strides in realizing the objectives of the Management and Technology Initiative.
One thrust of the program is the development of joint educational programs for students outside the Eller College. To this end, Dr. Gupta is currently developing joint educational opportunities in engineering, science, optics, agriculture, life sciences, pharmacy, and medicine.
Already well underway is the development of a program to allow professionals with 3 years’ work experience to return to school to get 2 master's degrees (e.g., an MBA and master of science in systems engineering) in as little as 2 years. Essentially, the program will allow a student to add one year to another graduate program and earn an MBA in addition to the other degree.
Broader, better dissemination of information summarizes another key component of the Management and Technology initiative. As one step toward this goal, the College recently contracted with the global Social Science Research Network to make faculty and graduate student papers available online. Papers are submitted as PDFs for security purposes, and the system features author profiles which corral all links to that author’s works currently in the network.
These projects are just a sample of the flurry of activity in the realm of Management and Technology at the Eller College. Watch for more information in future publications.
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