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As the academic year draws to a close, we have much to celebrate. I am proud of our excellent students and their big win at this year’s AIS Student Chapter Leadership Conference. A record five teams won for their entries in analytics, blockchain, and artificial intelligence. Also, congratulations to Professor Jeremy Shafer, who won AIS Chapter Adviser of the Year.

Our signature event with the Institute for Business and Information Technology (IBIT), the Eighteenth Annual Fox IT Awards, was a great success. The honorees were technology innovators and leaders John Turner of 3M, James Rhee of Ashley Stewart, and Dave Kotch of FMC Corporation.

IBIT also hosted the third annual National Cyber Analyst Challenge, with 10 teams competing for $25,000 in prizes.

I am also proud of our graduates. Read about recent grads Emily Schucker and Frank Tkachenko, who are using what they’ve learned while in the MIS program to start their careers. We also catch up with two experienced alumni – Michael Luckenbill and Joshua Sandoe – as they find themselves well prepared to take on new career challenges.

With regard to research, read about the launch of our MIS Visiting Scholars Series, which brings leading academics to Temple for a week-long residency. Also learn how Professor Jing Gong studies the impact of information technology on consumer behavior and finds the unexpected.

While Michael Luckenbill ‘08 and Joshua Sandoe ’16 are no longer students, they’ve never stopped learning. Luckenbill has handled business intelligence for a food service conglomerate, merged technologies for two music giants and created custom financial asset software. Sandoe has only worked for one company since graduation, but his job changes every six months, meaning he’s already worked in the company’s business technology solutions center, served as a global information security data analyst and tried his hand at project management.

It’s a lot of change, but both alumni say Temple University’s Fox School of Business prepared them for the professional challenges.

It’s been a really good experience and it speaks to the education I received at Temple because we covered so many different areas,” Sandoe said. “I’ve had business roles, more technical roles, a role as a data analyst; and I was prepared for all of it.

Luckenbill, whose graduation in the midst of the global financial crisis prompted some to advise against technology-related jobs, said taking core Management Information System classes and the accompanying lab work meant he was ready to jump into (almost) any role on day one.

I was prepared to be hands-on with the technology instead of being hands-off,” Luckenbill said. “I used everything, my project management and database course, my software architecture course…

For the last seven years, Luckenbill has worked for LiquidHub, a Wayne-based digital customer engagement firm. As a technology manager in the custom application development division, Luckenbill works with multiple clients, most recently a financial asset firm.

“Even though things are different, custom application development doesn’t change much,” he said. “It’s understanding the business model for that particular client and what they’re trying to achieve.”

After graduating in December 2016, Sandoe joined biopharmaceutical giant Pfizer as a business technology rotational associate, meaning he’ll hold four different positions in his first two years on the job.

“It’s a very unique opportunity to see a lot of different worlds and meet a lot of smart people you may not have met if you were in one role from the beginning,” Sandoe said. “A lot of people say you start to get really comfortable with a job at the six month point and that’s when you pack up and enter next role. If someone’s looking for a routine, every-day-doing-the-same-thing routine, this is not a route I’d suggest taking.”

But it’s worked for Sandoe.

“I always get very excited before I transfer to the next role,” he said. “l’ve learned so much in a year and a half. The difference between then and now, my level of competency, it’s night and day.”

Emily Schucker ’17 thought she’d major in biology when she began studying at Temple University.  Frank Tkachenko ’18 planned to reinvent himself. Both found their paths thanks to the Fox School of Business.

Schucker enjoyed technology, but she couldn’t see juggling her people-focused personality with solitary technical work. Then she learned about the Management Information Systems program.

“I went out on a limb with MIS and I’m very happy I did. I figured out what I wanted to do,” said Schucker, a technical analyst for DecisivEdge, LLC, a Delaware-based business consulting and technology services company. “MIS gave me the perfect balance. I learned to coordinate different technologies and talk to clients. I could manage people and manage code.”

At Temple, Tkachenko launched a fashion-focused Instagram and blog to hone his own style and to help others. That initiative, and his academics, helped land as a social media and content analyst at Adworthy, a Langhorne-based SaaS/Digital agency.

“The side hustle got me into non-traditional marketing, carving out a niche online and putting all you can into it in terms of social media and web design and email marketing,” Tkachenko said. “My favorite MIS class looked at user interface and experiences. It taught me how to be critical of things and how to fix them. It applies to much more than just information systems. I never knew I’d be so interested in UI/UX and design thinking or that I’d use that at my new job.”

Tkachenko expects to front-end manage client accounts and assist with back-end application development.

“For some people, advertising and marketing have a little bit of a negative connotation but the right ad at the right time to the right person gives someone something they’re looking for and helps a company sell a product and it’s a win-win,” he said. “I think I’m most excited about starting and creating something of my own. I know I’ll be working for myself one day.”

Schucker’s internship at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia showed her she could mix medicine with technology. With her double major in MIS and Biology, she moved to DecisivEdge. Her first big client was a Maine-based health care company.

 “When they talk about what they do, I can understand both sides of the equation because I have familiarity with both areas,” she said.

As project manager, Schucker designed the company’s web app and portal, something she did as an undergraduate.

“I used a lot of tools I learned in class: how to interact with a client, how to get what I needed out of them, how to ask different questions and then how to manage the information I was given in a professional manner,” she said. “I was also able to manage the business developers who worked on my team.”

Schucker loves combining her passions.

“I love the technology and learning new things and that it’s growing and there’s more to know at all times,” she said. “I love being able to interact with people and the challenge of sitting down with a client who has nothing to start with, just an idea, and bringing it to life, making their dream a reality.”