Tim Lindquist began painting when he was just a teenager. A friend invited him over to learn how to create a dog on canvas, and Lindquist was hooked. He asked for paints that Christmas and considered majoring in art at college. But he chose accounting instead, becoming an educator and professor at the College of Business.
Since March 2020, many organizations have moved to a work-from-home model to limit as much person-to-person contact as possible. And it’s stuck longer than many expected at first. In fact, in June 2020, S&P Global found 67% of companies expected the shift to stick, at least in some capacity.
Elon Musk, the popular founder of Tesla and SpaceX, sent shockwaves through the business world when he criticized the “MBA-ization of America.” His point: Too many business executives focus on financials and meetings—taught to them by various masters of business administration (MBA) programs—rather than the products and services themselves.
Most of my readers are familiar with small towns in Iowa that have longstanding family-owned businesses, such as family eateries. Grandparents, parents, and children may own and work in these restaurants. They often have loyal employees that are “part of the family.” These owners may be unable to afford to pay their workers much more than $10 per hour, to say nothing of the proposed $15 per hour minimum wage.
After months of dreary experimentation in her basement, Dr. von Frankenstein, PhD, has concocted an effective antidote and vaccine for a deadly virus sweeping the United States. She files and receives a patent for her discovery.
There’s a new way marketers are getting young people to fork over their money. The new tactic revolves around consumers making four payments of one-quarter the retail price of an item (Amanda Mull, “Jeans Now, Pay Later,” Atlantic, January/February 2021, 18-20). This is just the old come-on--“Buy now, pay later”—in a new guise.
By anyone’s estimation, the recently deceased Vernon Jordan was a “mover and shaker.” A commentary on his life referred to him as, “a civil-rights leader, Washington insider, Wise Man, power broker, deal maker, rainmaker, Wall Street banker and, as an interviewer put it a few years ago in the Financial Times, ‘the most connected man in America (Peggy Noonan, “America Loses a Wise Man,” Wall Street Journal, March 6-7, 2021, A13).’” Whew!
Ronnie Chen, assistant professor of finance, loves to bring practical experience into the classroom. When he saw an opportunity to the help the Iowa Arboretum, the Boone County nonprofit arboretum where he has volunteered for a couple of years, with its three-year budget, he seized it.
The Iowa Waste Reduction Center (IWRC) at the University of Northern Iowa is helping Iowa small businesses save money while becoming more energy efficient.
The IWRC provides free comprehensive, on-site energy assessments that analyze all aspects of a business’ energy use, including compressed air leak detection along with facility lighting analysis and a building envelope inspection.
Understanding personal finance is a luxury where Sharnae Lamar (Finance and Economics, ’16) grew up. On the east side of Des Moines, Lamar says there aren’t many people who know how to manage money, invest, grow income — so when she had the opportunity to go to college, business was of interest.
