Chris Barker works for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. Her job, as director of rail reliability and technical services, is to improve rail transit services for area commuters who make about a million bus and subway trips daily. Barker has a masters in environmental science and engineering from Virginia Tech and 20–plus years of work experience in the public and private sectors. She was ready to complete the MBA that she had started years ago at Virginia Tech′s Blacksburg campus but did not want to interrupt her thriving career at the transit authority. So she began researching schools in the metro D.C. area.

Bob Enright, also a seasoned professional, has more than two decades in sales and marketing experience managing large, complex technology–based projects. A sales director at Mercury Computer Systems, he previously worked at Motorola and Sun Microsystems. Enright, who has an undergraduate business degree, felt he needed more formal education to advance professionally.

David Filiatrault, a director of finance and portfolio technologies at Fannie Mae, had worked at AMS and a tech startup before founding a business and technology consulting firm. A computer science graduate of the Rochester Institute of Technology, Filiatrault felt he had strong technical and leadership skills, but wanted to "fill out my business and management skills to continue my career growth."

All three Washington–area professionals chose to enroll in Pamplin's executive MBA program, offered at Virginia Tech's center in Falls Church. Barker, who, with Enright, was in the inaugural class that graduated in June, admits feeling "cautiously optimistic" at first about the brand new program (launched in February 2004). But, "after attending the information session and meeting my prospective classmates and faculty, I knew I had a match. My instincts were accurate: the curriculum was timely, innovative and directly applicable to my work."

Barker is particularly articulate about the program's learning opportunities and its impact on her career. The courses have not only enhanced the way she approaches job situations and makes decisions, she declares, they have also broadened her perspective and boosted her self–confidence. "I really can't say enough about the exchange of ideas among the students – we really learned from each other. The program exceeded my expectations." Filiatrault feels that some of the course material has already paid off in the weeks after he began classes with the second cohort this February.

"In March, an opportunity came up to interview for a director position in my company's finance group, which was in a different division. During my interviews, I used my new knowledge of finance and accounting to show what I had already learned, as well as my ability to learn quickly–which was important as the position was responsible for accounting applications, and I had never worked on these before."

The program moved at such a brisk pace, he says, that he started and finished the accounting course before starting his new job. "I was able to ask the professor lots of questions about internal controls knowledge of which I′ve already used on the job."

Enright has similar happy news: since completing the program, he has been promoted and assigned specific projects that leverage the knowledge attained in the program.

All this is music to Charles Jacobina′s ears. As the program′s executive director, Jacobina is keenly aware of the importance of making the venture a success.

"The Washington metro area is full of good executive MBA schools with a variety of academic ′flavors,′" he says. "We came in years after other schools had established a solid presence in this area." The Pamplin College, he says, did the right thing by choosing to focus its executive MBA curriculum on high–growth industries, leadership, and globalization, and leveraging Virginia Tech's reputation as a leader in technology. "We are already becoming known as an innovative and creative program."

A demanding bunch
Executive MBA students, he says, are a demanding bunch. "They′re successful, experienced professionals who are ready to move up in their careers and are seeking qualifications that will differentiate them."

Many "techies," he says, aspire to senior management positions but feel constrained by their narrowly technical backgrounds. "Those in the military who are transitioning to the private sector may need to translate their current skills set for a different organizational culture. If they stay in the military, an executive MBA allows them to feel better equipped to work with private contractors. A director of a non–profit benefits tremendously from a for–profit corporate perspective." Jacobina carefully reviews applications to ensure that students in a cohort find themselves in "a well–connected, accomplished group of peers."

The executive MBA, however, is not everyone. It is a rigorous program that demands not only a single–minded commitment from those who sign up, Jacobina says, but also the strong support of their employers and families. "Managing fulltime work and study along with family and social responsibilities can be daunting." Students are expected to attend classes regularly, complete all required coursework and assignments, exchange ideas with faculty and classmates, and keep constantly in touch with each other for group projects and other team activities. It was tough, Barker recalls, "particularly when most of us routinely worked more than 10 hours daily at our jobs.

Completing the coursework and assignments was a major stretch!" Filiatrault, dad to nearly two–year old twins, confesses, "I don′t sleep much anymore." He watches "no more than a hour of TV a week" and has "a very supportive wife."

Faculty fans
The program′s fans are not only its students and alumni. Those who teach the courses–whom students like Barker praise for being "outstanding teachers" who made a "conscious effort to ensure that assignments were pertinent and value–adding"–are also bowled over by their experience.

Veteran faculty members like finance professor Raman Kumar–an award–winning teacher–and accounting and information systems associate professor Jim Yardley–who has worked at length in Ethiopia, helping to develop a decentralized tax accounting system–discovered a few surprises in teaching this new group of students.

Kumar found that students in his "Financial Modeling and Corporate Finance" class were aware of the importance and nature of corporate financial decisions. But the non–financial background of most of them required him to cover the fundamentals in sufficient detail before assigning decision–making exercises–all in a period of 5–6 weeks compared to the more typical 15 weeks for an undergraduate or regular MBA course.

He likes to pace the introduction of increasingly complex topics, Kumar adds, but "the executive MBA students wanted to discuss each issue in its full complexity right from the beginning!"

Teaching them was enormously satisfying and enjoyable, he says. "Given their experience and maturity, discussions on such current issues as China's exchange rate policy and its implications were on a significantly higher plane than in classes with younger students."

Yardley regretted his decision as soon as he agreed to teach in the executive MBA program. "What was I thinking? Teach accounting for seven hours over two days to ambitious executives for three weekends? What shape would the group be in after spending all week working in high–pressure jobs?"

Would they insist on information that they could use Monday morning, he further wondered. "Would their minds be on their families and the time they were giving up? What could I do to make that sacrifice worthwhile?"

When he stepped into the classroom for the first time, he couldnt help noticing how tired everyone looked. The students displayed a desire to learn, a humor, a willingness to share, and an enthusiasm that created the right atmosphere for a great teaching experience."

He and Kumar agree: the learning was two–way. While several students told Kumar at course end that they could use their new skills and knowledge in their jobs immediately, he himself, as a result of the classroom discussions, had "gained insights into the financial practices of some of these firms." Yardley says: "I only hope the class members learned as much as I did."

– from the Pamplin Magazine Fall 2005