Dr. Ben Martz to serve as business administration chair
Dr. William Benjamin “Ben” Martz, Jr., of Cold Spring, Kentucky, has been named chair of the Department of Business Administration at Shepherd University, Provost Christopher Ames has announced. During the 2016-2017 academic year, Martz will supervise the creation of a School of Business at Shepherd that will include the Departments of Business Administration, Economics and Finance, and Accounting. He will become dean of the newly created School of Business in July 2017.
Martz, who will assume his appointment as department chair and dean for business school development August 15, will hold faculty rank as a professor of business administration.
“Ben Martz has the perfect combination of business experience and academic leadership in an AACSB (Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business) business program to work with our faculty, alumni, and local business community to advance innovation and excellence in contemporary business education,” said Provost Ames. “He is a creative thinker who knows how to bring people together over new ideas and turn vision into reality.”
Martz is a professor and director of the Master of Science in Business Informatics Program at Northern Kentucky University. During his nine years at Northern Kentucky University, he also served as chair of the Department of Business Informatics.
Previously, he was a professor in the Department of Information Systems at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, and prior to that served as an associate professor in the Department of Accounting and Information Systems at California State University, Chico.
In the private sector, Martz served as co-founder, vice president of research and development, and president of Ventana Corporation, a technology spin-off company at the University of Arizona created to commercialize the electronic meeting software GroupSystems. GroupSystems was awarded PC Magazine’s Editor’s Choice Award for best electronic meeting software in 1994, and Martz was nominated for Ernst and Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year in Arizona for managing the company’s financial turnaround.
Martz has published in refereed publications and journals, including Journal of Management Information Systems, Decision Sciences Journal of Innovative Education, Journal of Entrepreneurship Education, and Journal of Computer Information Systems.
He earned a B.B.A. in marketing from the College of William & Mary, and an M.S. in management information systems and a Ph.D. in business (management information systems) from the University of Arizona.
Tony Major named vice president for finance
Tony Major, of Thoreau, New Mexico, has been named vice president for finance at Shepherd University, President Mary J.C. Hendrix has announced. Major will assume the post August 15.
As the vice president for finance, Major will be responsible for planning, implementing, managing, and controlling all of Shepherd’s financial activities. In addition, he will be responsible for accounting, finance, payroll, budget planning and management, procurement, contract analysis and negotiations, and long-range forecasting.
“We are delighted to have Tony Major join us at Shepherd,” said President Hendrix. “His extensive experience in finance, accreditation in higher education, and the private sector will serve Shepherd well.”
Major currently serves as the chief financial officer of Navajo Technical University in Crownpoint, New Mexico, a post he has held for five years. He is responsible for fiscal and cash management, grants and contracts, and student financial aid functions for a tribal college with an operating budget of $32 million and enrollment of approximately 2,000 students in three locations.
His experience in higher education includes stints as director of business operations at the University of New Mexico, Gallup; associate director of finance for the University of Arizona’s Flandrau Science Center; and accounting manager for the University of Arizona Bookstores. He also served as controller of the Loma Catalina Company in Tucson and assistant police planner for the City of New Haven, Connecticut, Department of Police Service.
Major earned a B.S. in accounting and business from DeSales University and an M.B.A. from Moravian College, both located in Pennsylvania. He earned certificates in leadership from the University of Arizona and the University of New Mexico, as well as certificates in supervision and financial administration from the University of Arizona.