On a late summer afternoon, Rader School of Business instructor Gene Wright ’79, ’87 is in his office in Rosenberg Hall preparing for an evening class. “Did you know—before MSOE owned this building—it was a school of mortuary science?” he tells a colleague who stops to chat. An alumnus and faculty member of 26 years, Wright has been known to keep a story or two in his back pocket. The story getting the most buzz, however, is the promotion of Dr. Ruth Barratt as business school chair.

“I think she is going to do great,” said Wright, who served on the candidate interview panel. “She’s got a great
background and brings a global perspective. She can do a lot to elevate the school.”

The earliest manifestation of the business program was about 60 years ago as supervisory training classes. The first bachelor’s degree was granted in the 1960s. Today the school offers a Bachelor of Business Administration and 11 graduate degrees.

“What makes us different is the context in which we offer these programs,” Wright said. “Students who have a technical, entrepreneurial mindset thrive here–and the industrial world loves our graduates.”

MSOE received a $6 million donation from the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation in 1999 to provide scholarship support to business students. Shortly thereafter, the Rader School of Business was established in honor of Dr. I. Andrew “Tiny” Rader, former CEO of Allen-Bradley Co. and MSOE Regent Emeritus. A donation from Dr. Kenneth Rosenberg ’50 and his wife, Doris, enabled MSOE to purchase the three story
building on Milwaukee Street that is now home to the business school.

The school’s evolution will continue with MSOE’s Dwight and Dian Diercks Computational Science Hall and the advanced technology it brings.

“I’m excited to see where the artificial intelligence technology is going to take us and the ways we can tie the work we are doing into the competitive advantage we have in the engineering space,” Barratt said.

Helping to raise the business school’s profile is MSOE’s collegiate chapter of Phi Beta Lambda, a business organization that in recent years has sent several dozen students to the national competition.

“In 2016-17 we had a large enrollment push through our student leadership and jumped to 20+ students. We earned first place in Atlanta and a handful of other trophies,” said Dr. Katrina Moskalik, two-time Outstanding Chapter Advisor for Wisconsin. “In the 2017-18 year we had strong leadership again and got even more non-business majors involved.”

Engineers are the focus of many of the business school’s graduate level offerings.

“We want to help people into the second level of their careers,” Barratt said. “After you’ve been in engineering for five or 10 years you’re going to be ready to move into the C-Suite.”

Enhancing the undergraduate program is another goal of Barratt’s. According to Aleah Quast ’18 BBA, an operations specialist for iSEE Store Innovations, the program already has a strong foundation to build from thanks to its high-quality faculty.

“The professors of the Rader School of Business were instrumental in preparing me for a happy and successful career in business,” she said.