BB&T Leadership Development Program Director Will Sutton (right) presents a check to Walker College Dean Dr. Randy Edwards

The first installment of a $1 million grant from BB&T was presented Jan. 31 to Walker College of Business Dean Randy Edwards on the campus of Appalachian State University.

The $200,000 check was presented during a job interviewing workshop, coordinated by Center Director Meg Spivey and led by BB&T Leadership Development Program Director Will Sutton.

The pledge was made in 2011 and is payable over a five-year period.

The funds have made possible the BB&T Student Leadership Center, housed in Thelma C. Raley Hall.

There was standing room only for the job interviewing workshop at which Will Sutton demonstrated the DOs and DON’Ts of professional interviewing.

“The workshop was very productive for our students,” said Spivey. “We are hopeful Mr. Sutton will present this material each semester for our business students.”

The Center fosters leadership development in business students through assessment tools, co-curricular leadership training, one-on-one executive mentoring, and an annual leadership conference at Appalachian featuring nationally recognized leaders.

The BB&T Student Leadership Center at Appalachian is modeled after the BB&T Leadership Development Program in Winston-Salem, NC, which has operated successfully since 1964.

BB&T Corporation (NYSE: BBT) is one of the largest financial services holding companies in the U.S. with $159 billion in assets and market capitalization of $18.7 billion, as of June 30, 2011. Based in Winston-Salem, the company operates approximately 1,800 financial centers in 12 states and Washington, D.C., and offers a full range of consumer and commercial banking, securities brokerage, asset management, mortgage and insurance products and services. A Fortune 500 company, BB&T is consistently recognized for outstanding client satisfaction by J.D. Power and Associates, the U.S. Small Business Administration, Greenwich Associates and others.

Karen Thomas, regional sales manager for the North, South and Central America for Bloomberg L.P, will be the speaker for commencement ceremonies Dec. 18 at Appalachian State. Thomas is a 1990 graduate of Appalachian.

Walker College will join the College of Health Sciences, the College of Fine and Applied Arts and the Hayes School of Music in awarding degrees during the 2 p.m. ceremony at the Holmes Center. The other colleges of the University will hold a combined graduation ceremony at 10 a.m., according to ASU News.

A Watauga County native, Thomas earned a Bachelor of Science in communication from Appalachian’s College of Fine and Applied Arts. She was an active member of the Chi Omega sorority and Pi Sigma Epsilon business fraternity while a student.

She began her career on the trading floor of the American Stock Exchange in New York City after graduating from Appalachian.

Thomas joined the Bloomberg L.P. sales force in 1994, and in 1997, she was asked to develop and launch the Bloomberg Roadshow group, a global product offering which she managed until 2001.

From 2001-06, Thomas managed the Bloomberg Fixed Income Electronic Trading group, where she was successful in growing Bloomberg’s electronic trading relationships with both the Buy-Side and Sell-Side. In 2006, she re-joined terminal sales as a team leader and sales manager, where she managed several teams before accepting her current position as regional sales manager.

In her current role, Thomas is responsible for developing and executing the sales strategy for the Americas, as well as managing and mentoring a 530 person sales force.

Walton Conway, owner of the Golden Cockerel, was a recent guest in Dr. Betty Coffey's MBA International Management Seminar.  During his October 26 visit Conway discussed the founding and growth of Golden Cockerel, a small business that is based jointly in Boone, North Carolina and St. Petersburg, Russia. The entrepreneurial company produces nesting dolls of unique design for a range of customers from individual collectors to corporations.  Conway answered questions from students about cross-cultural management of the international joint venture.

Based on several recent economic indicators, the U.S. should not expect to dip back into recession anytime within the next year. That's according to Larry V. Adam, managing director and chief investment strategist with Deutsche Bank Private Wealth Management. He was the guest luncheon speaking during this semester's Harlen Boyles CEO Lecture Series, held November 8.

Adam shared several economic statistics, both modern and historical, in outlining how he forsaw the national economy unfolding. He also discussed electoral benchmarks for President Barak Obama, and briefly touched on the Occupy Wall Street movement, during his 30-minute presentation. It's available as a mp3. [46.3 MB; 33:43] His slideshow is also available. [PDF]

He started his presentation by asking simply, is the economy in recession or are we in the midst of a rebound?

Very quickly, I don’t think that we are going to go into a recession over the next 12 months. I think we will continue along this path of what we call trend growth, and that means that the US economy will grow around 2 to 2-and-a-half percent. The reason we don’t think that we are going to go into a recession … if you look at the numbers that are coming out, the employment numbers, if you look at the retail sales numbers, you look at the manufacturing numbers, that are all consistent with this new growth structure, of around 2 to 2-and-a-half percent for the US economy.

In addition, you do not see the excess inventories out there that usually accompany a recession. Usually a recession is, you build up inventories; you go into a recession you have to work off the inventories.

Adams then related details of a recent trip to McDonalds, which he called "shocking." Upon placing his order he was told the restaurant was out of french fries. At 3 p.m. on a weekend. No fries. None were expected until Sunday. This was an example of everybody in business wanting to limit their inventories, said Adam. This is "across the board in almost every indutsry."

During the question and answer session, Adam was asked about proposals being outlined in Washington to help the middle class. He briefly mentioned the Occupy Wall Street movement, and went from there to the current difficulties in passing policies you want with no money to pay for them.

It’s a very difficult environment that we are in. The dichotomy between the haves and have-nots continues to get much more wider, if you will. It is a very difficult situation out there. Getting back to the housing market, obviously one of the things that continues to try and help out the middle class, as an example, is to do refinancing of their houses.

Am I in favor of that? I think that any type of meaningful turnaround in this economy has to involve the housing market, because that is the largest asset class for most consumers. So I think you do need to see types of policy that can help that, but you got to remember that right now this economy – it’s kind of like when you look over at Greece. It’s very difficult, given the fiscal dynamics in our economy, to really support a lot of those different policies people would want to get passed without making the budget deficit widen even further. So I think it’s very difficult to really take a lot of those plans into consideration.