Dr. Germain Böer
Dr. Richard W. Oliver
Dr. Lawrence Droutman
David R. Sigler
Stephen R. Tilson
Dr. Germain B. Böer
Dr. Germain Böer is Professor of Management at the Owen Graduate School of Management of Vanderbilt University where he teaches and does research in management accounting and entrepreneurship. He has worked as a Project Manager for the Institute of Management Accountants (formerly National Association of Accountants), as a Professor at Oklahoma State University and Texas Tech University, and as a Faculty Resident with Arthur Andersen and Co. in Chicago. Dr. Böer has published numerous articles and books on accounting, and he now does research on new business startups. He was a cofounder and manager of a retail photo store that catered to sophisticated amateur photographers.
In addition to his research, Dr. Böer is a business advisor to several startup ventures. Dr. Böer does consulting on strategy development for startup companies and on methods for using financial systems to enhance profits.
He is currently heading up the entrepreneurship effort at the Owen Graduate School of Management of Vanderbilt University. In this role he has started an annual conference on entrepreneurship, a system for linking entrepreneurs with MBA graduates, a roundtable of individuals in various schools at Vanderbilt for sharing ideas about creating new ventures, and several new courses that equip MBAs to become entrepreneurs.
Dr. Richard W. Oliver
Dr. Oliver is the CEO of the American Sentinel University. He has taught strategic and global management courses at Vanderbilt University since 1986. He received the 1997 Outstanding Professor Award and the Dean's Teaching Award. He is the author of several books and has written monthly columns on management and biotechnology. Earlier, he was Vice President of Marketing at Northern Telecom (Nortel Networks). Professor Oliver serves on the Boards of Directors of four companies and was Chairman of the Board of Directors of Symmetricom, Inc. He received his BS from Cornell University and PhD from the State University of New York.
Dr. Lawrence Droutman
Dr. Droutman is Provost of American Sentinel University. Previously, he was an Adjunct Professor at the Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt University. He has been a management consultant, Vice President of Corporate Development at the Michael Baker Corporation, Assistant Vice President of Development at Hospital Corporation of America, Director of Corporate Development at Magnetek, Inc., and held various managerial positions at Westinghouse Electric over a 21-year period. He served as a Program Officer stationed in the Congo for the United Nations Development Program. He received his BA from Princeton University, MA from The Johns Hopkins University, and PhD from Columbia University.
David R. Sigler
Mr. Sigler has over 20 years of experience in software development, project management, information technology, education, telecommunications, marketing, and sales. Mr. Sigler spent nine years at Newbridge Networks in various capacities, including software design, software management, and project management. Additionally, he was Newbridge's in-house project management trainer for two years. Mr. Sigler has been a key management team member in business process reengineering projects. He has also shared his expertise in new product development as a conference speaker.
More recently, Mr. Sigler has been an executive in a publicly traded e-learning firm, helping create Canada's first fully online private accredited university. Mr. Sigler is currently the President of Level 4 Learning Corporation (www.level4learning.com), an organization focused on delivering measurable return on learning (ROL). Level 4 Learning provides coaching and mentoring services for medium to large organizations in their quest to build an internal core competency in effective learning program design which typically involves a strong emphasis in blended learning.
He holds an executive MBA from Lansbridge University and BSc from Carlton University.
Stephen R. Tilson
Steve Tilson is a consultant in technology-based instruction and training. In this capacity, he draws on over fifteen years' experience as a teacher and administrator in distance and distributed instruction in higher education. He also serves as a part-time adjunct instructor in History for CCC Online, a consortial online degree program offered by the Colorado community college system.
Previously, Mr. Tilson was the Director of Learning for the United States Open University. USOU was an initiative of the Open University of the UK whose mission was to bring the instructional culture and philosophical underpinning of the OU-UK to the US. Prior to joining USOU, Steve was for ten years the Director of Distance Learning at Front Range Community College in Colorado. During Mr. Tilson's tenure, the Front Range Distance Learning program grew to offer 50-60 courses per semester, with 1800-2000 enrollments each term, the largest such program in Colorado at that time.
He holds a BA from Berea College and an MA in History from Virginia Tech.
