ANN ARBOR, Mich., — The Tauber Institute for Global Operations will launch thirty-five team projects sponsored by top global firms for the summer of 2014 at a special dinner on March 11 at the Ross School of Business featuring an inspiring and motivational speech by Dave Brandon - Athletic Director at the University of Michigan.

Brandon’s operational and teamwork experience makes him a natural fit to kick off the projects for the Tauber Institute. Brandon has served as chairman and chief executive officer of Ann Arbor-based Domino's Pizza, Inc. for 11 years, leading the company to the largest IPO of a restaurant company in history.  He continues to serve as non-executive chairman at Domino's, and as a member of the Board of Directors of Herman Miller and DTE Energy.

Prior to his role with Domino's, Brandon served as chairman, president and CEO of Valassis Communications, Inc., a leading sales promotion company, where he worked in increasing levels of responsibility for over 20 years.  Brandon began his career at Procter & Gamble following his graduation from the University of Michigan, where he was the member of three Big Ten Championship Football Teams coached by the legendary Bo Schembechler.  Brandon served an eight-year term on the Board of Regents for the University of Michigan and is now Regent Emeritus.

A signature initiative of the Tauber Institute, team projects unite top students and companies from a variety of industries in a 14-week multidisciplinary, collaborative project.  Each two-to-three person project team is made up of Masters of Engineering, MBA, and/or MSCM students. Along with receiving executive support from the company, each team is advised by a College of Engineering and a Ross School of Business faculty member, and overseen by a Tauber Institute Co-Director. The projects provides significant return on a sponsoring company’s investment (for many projects, it is millions of dollars) as well as improvements in areas such as CO2 emissions, energy consumption, throughput time, and supply chain risk.

Students are notified of their team at the kick-off dinner. Executive summaries of team projects will be available in September upon project completion.

This is a closed event.

About Tauber Institute for Global Operations
The Tauber Institute for Global Operations is a joint venture between the University of Michigan’s Stephen M. Ross School of Business and the College of Engineering, and many industry partners to facilitate cross-disciplinary education in global operations management. In addition to broad array of core and elective courses, the innovative LeadershipAdvantage^SM Program provides students with the tools to ascend to major operations leadership roles. Well-designed and managed team projects form the cornerstone of the Tauber Institute experience and allow students to apply their knowledge to real world settings. The Tauber Institute is an inaugural recipient of the UPS George D. Smith Prize for effective and innovative preparation of students to be good practitioners of operations research, management science, or analytics. http://www.tauber.umich.edu

Contact:
Theresa Ceccarelli 734-647-0308 [email protected]