The University of Arizona Eller College of Management attracts students to Tucson from far and wide.
Beginning in August, the accelerated Eller Executive MBA program will set up shop in greater Phoenix.
This might be called the "Willie Sutton strategy" for bringing Eller's 14-month executive course to a much larger population of business leaders. Just as Sutton robbed banks because that's where the money was, Eller will go where a huge population of leaders lives.
The inaugural class of executive students started work on master of business administration degrees in Tucson last summer. Henceforth, Eller plans to offer the executive program every year in the Phoenix area and every other year in Tucson.
The Eller program targets professionals with at least seven years of significant work experience and other "exceptional, high-potential professionals" with less experience who are tapped by their employers for leadership roles.
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In short, Eller is looking for people such as Cristie Street, managing partner of Nextrio LLC, a 3 1/2-year-old Tucson firm with 18 employees selling information technology services.
The 33-year-old Street, a new mom, is now roughly halfway through the current Eller executive MBA program.
People around the company are used to hearing her say, "I don't know if you can tell, but I love school," she says.
Previously, she had to figure things out on her own and learn by trial and error, she adds. Now, she tackles problems analytically.
"I just came out of a meeting where we were outlining strategy for the next five years. The meeting went much more smoothly, and our strategy is more solid."
Street says she appreciates the accelerated pace of the 14-month program, which allows her to "get in and get what I need and get out."
Eller says it is the shortest route to an MBA from a major program in the region.
Another participant in the current program says she finds something in nearly every class session that she can directly apply to her business.
Katharine Kent, the 47-year- old president of The Solar Store, which has 27 employees, says the accelerated program covers people issues and personality types, accounting and economics, and is now focusing on innovation.
She says she recently held a brainstorming session at her 8-year-old business and put some of her new skills to work by delegating responsibility to her staff. She considers the $40,000 cost of the program a "real value" and says she will "get much more than that" out of the course.
The 2006-07 program in Scottsdale will cost $47,000, which covers all courses and program materials, hotel accommodations and meals, Eller says.
"It's an investment in one's career," says Eller Dean Paul Portney.
The standard approach to an MBA involves 20 to 24 months of study, he adds, and some programs nationally cost in excess of $100,000.
Feedback from the initial class in the accelerated program is good from both students and employers, he notes.
Going into the Phoenix market — with its huge population and large concentration of businesses — was under discussion long before Portney was named Eller dean last summer, he says. He gives the credit for the executive program to Brent Chrite, associate dean and director of all Eller MBA programs.
Portney hopes the Scottsdale class will attract at least 36 students, like the initial Tucson class, and perhaps as many as 50. One executive in Japan already has expressed interest in the new Phoenix-area program, he says.
"We are competing with good schools already in the market," Portney says in reference to Arizona State University and the Thunderbird School of International Management. "We're offering one more product" in a market big enough for competition, he says.
When you look at Eller's move that way, it makes sense. Competition, after all, should be the essence of business education.
Opinion by
Richard Ducote