Presidio Students Learn, Create Value for Companies Such as Williams-Sonoma

Last semester four students — Tauni Swenson, Nicki Martinez, Janet Smartt and Kristina Pappas — teamed up to produce an Operations plan for Williams Sonoma Inc. as part of Presidio's project-oriented learning curriculum. Their project, which was integrated into their participation in the Operations & Production course, consisted of creating a waste and recycling plan for the company. Williams Sonoma project partner Christina Nicholson said, "Through the (store waste and recycling) project, operations staff at corporate gained a better understanding of our overall sustainable development initiative and how it really engages and inspires all levels of the organization." As a result of the students' successful plan, Tauni Swenson made an offer to Williams Sonoma and was hired as a summer intern to develop the implementation strategy of the pilot waste and recycling program in all Bay area stores.

When asked how well the student team managed the project, Nicholson said, "Working with the team from Presidio School of Management was as seamless as working with a co-worker employed at Williams Sonoma. We'd like to build a long-standing relationship with Presidio."

Presidio Student Uses Skills to Support CURE

Frackson Sakala was hard at work this summer as a resource development intern at ProjectCURE International. Frackson assisted the organization's Executive Director in developing relationships with potential donors. ProjectCURE provides medical equipment and supplies to underserved areas in developing countries. As part of his internship, Frackson researched and developed a database of 138 Arizona-based surgical centers and connected leaders and administrators to ProjectCURE. His efforts will help surgical centers reduce their landfill footprint, as well as support ProjectCURE's mission of delivering hope and health to the needy in developing countries.

Working with Mother Nature

When a massive tornado destroyed 95 percent of Greensburg, Kansas last May, Presidio student Sheila Samuelson wanted to lend her knowledge and insight to the recovery process. Over the summer, she spent nine weeks in the eastern plains of Kansas helping the tornado recovery effort gain green momentum by founding a new nonprofit called Greensburg GreenTown.org.

Covive Joins Global Reporting Initiative

Covive, founded by Presidio MBA 2007 graduate Chad Upham, recently became an Organizational Stakeholder of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), supporting the mission of the GRI to develop globally accepted sustainability reporting guidelines through a global, multi-stakeholder process. Currently, only 42 U.S. firms have taken this step, including Calvert, CERES, Ford Motor Company, Microsoft Corporation, Nike, Office Depot and Symantec.

Recently, Covive prepared an 11 x 17 Guidelines reference sheet, condensing key reporting requirements and performance indicators from the 60+ page guidelines document into a single front and back page. This handout allows users to see at a glance the detailed topics covered in a sustainability report. Upham submitted the "cheat sheet" to the GRI offices in Amsterdam, who adopted and have promoted the tool to their international network of 16,000 reporting organizations and consultants. It's proven to be a useful tool for consultants and executives, eliminating the unnecessary printing of dozens of pages per team member. Download the reference sheet at www.covive.com/reference

LiveNeutral Grows, Increases Outreach to Business Community

Presidio's enterprise, LiveNeutral, is expanding its services to work more closely with businesses and organizations to effectively engage their stakeholders in addressing climate change. The organization is also committing more resources to educating the general public on the science of climate change and how our everyday activities can help. In keeping with their expanded mission, LiveNeutral recently moved to a new office location in the Mission District of San Francisco. The new space provides more room for newly hired staff members and interns. As of July 1, Joe Madden, Todd English, and Jessica Williams, all soon to be Presidio graduates, began working part-time with LiveNeutral.

Presidio Expands on Faculty Teaching Team

This semester we welcome several new business professionals to the Presidio faculty team. Jay Haynes, an entrepreneur and investor, has joined the Capstone teaching team that includes Ron Nahser, Nicola Acutt and Nathan Shedroff. Jay is the founder/CEO of earthscreen and has taught Entrepreneurship at USC's Marshall School of Business. In addition, Jay Ogilvy and Ty Cashman are working with the Human Dimension strand faculty. Jay is co-founder of the Global Business Network and consults with Fortune 500 companies on strategic planning based on alternative scenarios and intelligence about the global social, economic and political environment. He also leads our scenario planning at Presidio as part of our “Looking Forward Together” stakeholder meetings. Ty is the founder/president of The Solar Economy Institute, in which he advises government agencies, businesses and NGOs on implementing renewable energy technologies. He lectures frequently at the California Academy of Sciences on the philosophy of science and technology.

Faculty Member Dwight Collins Published

Congratulations to Presidio faculty member, Dwight Collins, who published this past June in OR/MS Today - a publication of the Institute for Operations Research and Management Science (INFORMS). Dwight authored an article based on a meeting he organized and chaired last year. The INFORMS Roundtable brought together 50 corporate operations and research directors to learn about sustainable businesses. Attendees included Boeing, Intel, Procter & Gamble, Schneider National, General Electric and McDonald's. The two day session included a tutorial by Dr. Collins on the basics of sustainable business and presentations by four of the Roundtable's members — Cisco, Proctor & Gamble, Ford and HP — on sustainability initiatives within those companies. For more information on this event view Dwight's article.

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