Departments Honor Their Top Graduating Seniors

This spring, three departments in the College of Business honored their top graduating seniors. The Department of Management recognized the year’s outstanding graduating senior for each specialization. Recipients of the award are based on overall GPA, leadership in student professional organizations, campus or community organizations, co-op/internship experience  and positive contributions to the respective programs. The 2015 winners include the following:

• Supply Chain Management:  Kyle Jacob
• International Business:  Erica Nieminen
• Management:   Paige Gmyrek

Jacob is a member of the Sidney Ribeau President’s Leadership Academy where he received the 2015 Outstanding Student Leader Award and he has had leadership roles in Delta Sigma Pi professional business fraternity.  He has interned for the American Red Cross, John Deere, and Swagelok and was a BGeX Peer Facilitator for the BGSU course Overview of Business (BA 1500). Jacob is also earning a specialization in business analytics & intelligence. Besides being a top senior in the management department, Jacob was also selected as the 2015 Most Outstanding Senior at BGSU presented by the University’s Student Alumni Connection.

Nieminen is an international student from Finland who is also a student-athlete on the BGSU swim team. She is also the president of the BGSU Global Management and Leadership Society.  Nieminen spent a summer studying international marketing, intercultural management, and the European business environment at Audencia School of Management in Nantes, France, and speaks five languages.  After graduation, she is seeking a master’s in international management.

Gmyrek is an executive member of the department’s Global Management and Leadership Society. She has participated in internships at Masco Corporation and EMAG LLC. This summer, Gmyrek will be studying abroad at Audencia Nantes Ecole de Management in France, to complete her college education.

The Department of Marketing also honored its top graduating senior in two specializations – marketing and sales and services marketing.  The criteria to be selected by the faculty included overall GPA, involvement in student organizations as well as internship experience. The two winners are Kelsey Music (left) in marketing and Jane Swartz (right) in sales and services marketing. Dr. Bob Wu, chair, presented their awards at a reception.

Music is a College of Business Student Ambassador and has leadership roles in the professional business fraternity Delta Sigma Pi, along with membership in the National Society of Leadership and Success.  She has participated in internships at Imagination Station in Toledo, the Findlay-Hancock County Community Foundation, and The Horsburgh & Scott Co. Music also spent two years on the Executive Board for Colleges Against Cancer serving as the marketing/PR chair.

Besides a sales and services marketing specialization, Swartz is specializing in supply chain management. She has interned with Dana, Enterprise, and Lakeside Product Distribution and has had leadership roles in BGSU student organizations, including Women in Business Leadership, Delta Sigma Pi, and American Marketing Association. Swartz was a finalist in the BGSU Sales Competition and participated in the Great Northwoods Sales Competition at the University of Wisconsin Eau-Claire where she finished #10 out of 60 students from 20 universities who competed and was named the BGSU School Champion.

The Department of Finance faculty selected James Knippen to receive its Graduating Senior of the Year Award.  The award is given to a top finance graduating senior based on both academic performance and involvement in extra-curricular activities and it includes a monetary prize.  Knippen was presented the award by finance department chair, Dr. Sung Bae.

Knippen was on the finance team that placed third in the country for the Society of Financial Service Professionals Case Competition.  He was also a Deloitte Case Competition finalist, a national semi-finalist for the Engage Stock Pick Competition, and a finalist for the BGSU Sales Competition.  The finance senior has been an executive intern with Target and a financial representative at Northwestern Mutual as well as an active member of BGSU’s Delta Sigma Pi and the Financial Management Society.