Ryan Swartzentruber ‘16, who recently finished his master’s degree in agricultural and resource economics at Colorado State University, says he frequently reflects on what makes an excellent educator. “I’ve concluded that Chris has pretty well hit the nail on the head.”

With a legacy of several 91����Ƶ grads now teaching at large universities, “Chris has multiplied himself,” said his colleague, business professor Spencer Cowles. “Isn’t that the sign of a great teacher, to inspire a lifelong love of the subject amongst their students?”

Despite initial aspirations to work at a large, R-1 university, Gingrich chose to spend 24 years at 91����Ƶ, where he has enjoyed a sustainable balance of teaching and research, prioritized mentoring relationships, and anchored the economics program. He retired at the end of the spring 2019 semester, earlier than he would have liked due to health reasons.

91����Ƶ has been “a great place to come to every morning,” Gingrich said in an interview during the last week of classes. “I have always appreciated working in an academic environment with colleagues who support you and want you to do your own thing. … My students have kept me on the young side over these years and it’s been very rewarding to see them go off after graduation and be successful in their chosen field.”

The teacher

Gingrich was known among his colleagues as an astute and innovative teacher. In a tribute announcing his retirement, Undergraduate Dean Deirdre L. Smeltzer noted: “Rather than rely on past success in the classroom, Chris has demonstrated a commitment to pedagogical growth, including a willingness to try out and master entirely new teaching methods in his classes.”

Matt Gnagey ‘05, now an assistant professor of economics at Weber State University, recalls an innovative classroom game in which students acted as a cartel, accumulating extra credit points instead of money.

“The class tried over and over to collude,” Gnagey recalled, “but the incentives to forgo collusion for personal gain were strong, and just like OPEC we ended up overproducing, hurting ourselves collectively in the process. This same lesson explains many other international issues, for example why we have such a hard time mitigating climate change.”

Gingrich came to teaching as “a leap of faith,” he said. Applied research was his initial interest. From a farming family, Gingrich earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in agricultural economics at University of Illinois and then, with his wife, spent three years in Haiti with Mennonite Central Committee. Returning to the states, he was accepted to the doctoral program at Iowa State University. His advisor helped him find a dissertation topic: household consumption patterns in Lima, Peru.

Hired in 1995, Gingrich was 91����Ƶ’s first “true blue economist,” said former 91����Ƶ colleague, Professor Emeritus��Rick Yoder, a specialist in international development who had worked overseas with the UN and USAID.

Cowles, then department chair, hired Gingrich for the position with a prescient sense of what he would bring to 91����Ƶ. “He was the right person for the job, a true economist who enabled us to build a rigorous economics major around him and his passion and knowledge for the subject. But he was also someone who supports and cares about students.”

Gingrich, who had never taught before, says Yoder “taught me how to be a respectable teacher.” The duo shared the university’s growing economics teaching load, as several majors required at least introductory econ coursework. Gingrich would eventually teach economics in the MBA program when it began, as well as undergraduate courses in quantitative research and finance.

One of their challenges was to make class time interesting and engaging. Hence the jelly beans and tennis balls: Gingrich was adept at developing lessons “beyond lectures and other didactic methods” that encouraged unique interaction and active learning with concepts, Yoder said.

He also appreciated their many conversations about concerns and challenges, trips to economics conferences with students, and a shared perspective. “W�� both believe that economics is a tool to solve some of humanity’s intractable problems, such as racism and inequality.”

Solutions: The researcher

Gingrich was a prolific and exemplary scholar while balancing a heavy teaching load, Cowles said, and his research was practical and applied, “not about some arcane financial matter, but instead using his economics knowledge to reach out and make a difference in the lives of people.”

His contributions in the field of economic development and public health were part of a larger effort by 91����Ƶ professors to be active contributors to their scholarly fields.

Together with biology colleague Roman Miller (now professor emeritus), the business and economics department rallied to call for the 91����Ƶ administration to support release time for research projects and importantly, to become “knowledge producers instead of knowledge consumers,” Yoder said. “W�� use textbooks someone else wrote, articles someone else wrote and we go to conferences where other people present. … Our point was ‘Where’s the Anabaptist voice of peace and justice and equity and the common good? How do we become part of this conversation?’”

Gingrich took a two-year leave in 2001-03, working with Mennonite Central Committee in Nepal as a consultant on microcredit and microfinance. Articles about his findings, published in the Journal of South Asian Development and the Journal of Microfinance, illustrate Gingrich’s focus on applied research: the success of microfinance programs in serving the poor and the sustainability of microfinance delivery through community-based savings and credit cooperatives.

What Answer to Malaria?

During the 2015-16 academic year, he continued research into distribution of anti-malarial bednets in Africa, as a visiting scholar at the Center for Communication Programs, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health.

“A lot of research in grad school is pure theory and not much application and there’s a role for that, but the stuff I’ve been able to work on the past few years was very much policy oriented, and that feels good because I’ve been able to take economic skills and apply them to something more practical,” Gingrich said. “Hopefully we’ve shifted the debate a little bit in a different direction and influenced policy makers. Our footprint is there and I think it’s a fairly significant contribution to how to best distribute nets in a public policy debate.”

The mentor

Gingrich has enjoyed seeing the success of program alumni in academia, including Swartzentruber, Gnagey, Doug Wrenn ‘02, assistant professor of environmental and resource economics at Penn State; and Taylor Weidman ‘13, who is finishing a doctorate at Pitt. He also follows the careers of grads in business, for example, Isaac Wyse, director of revenue operations at YipIt Data in New York City, and Joe Mumaw, technical coordinator at Secure Futures, a solar business in Staunton, Virginia.

“It’s fun to meet with them, keep up with what they’re doing, see them get out of the classroom and develop their own careers,” Gingrich said. “I’ve been here long enough to see former students evolve into mature professionals in a number of different fields, which is rewarding.”

Wrenn, now at Penn State, researches urban and land use economics, unconventional energy development and impacts of hydraulic fracking. He traces his professional path directly back to Gingrich and Yoder. He added a second major in economics after after taking one of Gingrich’s classes, joined Yoder in a research project, and went to work for Mennonite Central Committee after graduation. Gingrich provided invaluable advice as he prepared his grad school application.

Gnagey, now at Weber State, says that Gingrich’s support and guidance, four years after he had graduated, helped him. Gnagey also worked for MCC after graduation; his current research builds on those ties, as he and a former MCC colleague conduct analysis of property markets in Indonesia.

And finally, to return to Ryan Swartzentruber, for a last word on Gingrich’s influence: “Chris has influenced my path in life, and I am forever grateful. He encouraged me, challenged me and been a role model to me. I’ve greatly appreciated – and benefited from – his relational attitude toward life, emphasizing people over other priorities.

Any comments posted below will be shared with Chris.

For professionals already in business or leadership roles, the graduate certificate is an intermediate step between a bachelor’s and master’s degree in the field. The coursework can be applied towards an or an .

91����Ƶ’s graduate business coursework emphasizes “applied leadership for the common good,” says community justice advocate and educator Andrew Nussbaum, MA `15 (), who took several of the core courses while earning a graduate certificate in nonprofit leadership. “I have been able to apply my learning in both a local and global context with new skills, new colleagues and new understanding.”

91����Ƶ’s faculty members, all holding doctorates in their field, bring a variety of expertise and foundational knowledge gained through domestic and international business and non-profit experiences.

Graduate Certificate in Business Administration

The 15-unit , which can be completed in less than a year, provides foundational skills and tools necessary to lead effectively in business, public agencies or nonprofit entities.

“Organizational leaders have both an opportunity and a responsibility to facilitate a turn toward solving many of the complex problems we encounter in the world today,” says . “This certificate offers leaders the foundational knowledge and contemporary data to recognize the need for change, and the philosophy and tools to lead a stakeholder-inspired process toward more sustainable and just outcomes.”

Required courses address such topics as business ethics and policy, organizational behavior, and finance and accounting. Students are allowed a maximum of two elective courses, one of which can substitute for a course on comparative perspectives on business and society. Electives from the MBA program of study are offered in technology, information and data analysis; marketing management; human resources; entrepreneurship; and project management and grant writing.

Graduate Certificate in Organizational Leadership

The can be completed in 18 months. The 17-unit program focuses on developing and broadening leadership skills through the study of organizational behavior and change, teambuilding, mentoring, and conflict transformation techniques. Students are encouraged to reflect on current and past practices, through readings, writings, and the completion of individual and team projects.

Students interested in this program may already have an MBA or other business skills, but desire to improve their management and leadership abilities.

“Most managers in organizations have learned how to manage people, money, and programs. What they usually lack, however, are the skills to lead sustainable change in their departments or organizations,” said professor , a specialist in organizational leadership who has trained or consulted with over 100 organizations, including in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe. “This certificate equips participants to both understand the systems they lead and the tools to effectively lead and change them.”

Coursework includes “Leadership and Management for the Common Good,” which highlights ecological, social, and economic stressors of organizations at local and global levels, and approaches to leading people, systems, and organizations in positive ways. Other classes focus on organizational behavior; leadership theory and style; effecting and leading change within organizations; and developing healthy organizations through team building and collaboration. A 2-unit mentorship program is also required.

Faculty with a wealth of expertise and experience

91����Ƶ’s faculty members include current and former business owners, as well as non-profit and NGO professionals.

’s professional experience in business, including 12 years with an NGO in Kenya, lend perspective to his analysis of the role and impact of business and organizations within ecological limits and dynamic social systems, resulting in an integrated lens of sustainability, stewardship and justice. Leaman has a master’s in public administration and a PhD in public and international affairs.

served with several community development and conflict transformation organizations, including five years as executive director of a community development organization in southern Arizona. He has an MBA and a PhD in sociology, with a specialization in religious and organizational conflicts.

holds a doctorate in sociology. She lived and worked in South Africa for 16 years and the Middle East for 17 years. She was an organizational development consultant (with NGOs and blue chip companies undergoing post-Apartheid workplace diversity shifts), and has also worked in the domestic and gender-based violence field, and as a community development specialist.

brings significant international experience and a background in commercial banking and microfinance to courses in business ethics and policy, at the level of the employee, the firm, and the macro economy. Cowles has a master’s of theological studies, an MBA and a PhD in the social foundations of education.

specializes in development and international economics. He has a master’s in agricultural economics and a PhD in economics. His research topics have included the fair trade coffee market, mosquito net delivery systems, sustainability and effectiveness of microfinance programs, and issues surrounding financial crises.

has founded, co-founded and/or directed numerous small businesses and nonprofit organizations in community economic development, sustainable agriculture, energy management, and commodity futures trading in energy. Smith has a master’s of architecture and a PhD in social systems sciences. He is founder-CEO of , a solar development company that developed the .

, a certified public accountant, specializes in financial accounting reporting issues. He has three graduate degrees: an MBA, a master’s in accounting, and a PhD in accounting. His work experience includes the controllership of a large farm equipment company in southeastern Pennsylvania and summer projects with a local construction contractor, tire retreader, and an aviation company.

Making this all happen for this Washington D.C.-based nonprofit, and any other organization, institution or company that plans to thrive or at least remain extant, calls for some decidedly less glamorous number-crunching. Effective support of democratic processes in Yemen requires monitoring and reporting on the funds marked for that end. Clean audit reports are important for continued grant funding from USAID and the State Department, which together account for about 90% of the NDI’s budget.

“The people in the field wouldn’t be able to have as much impact with the critical democracy programming without the support from the home office,” says Sherri Kurtz Peters ’93, CPA, manager for budget and special projects at the NDI.

Peters joined NDI as a sub-grants manager a decade ago. In that role, she managed a staff that reviewed the finances of partner organizations and evaluated grant applications, a job that took her to Africa, South and Central America, Asia and the Middle East. After the birth of her second child, she switched positions to reduce job pressures. She now concentrates on NDI’s internal finances, reviewing and monitoring, among other things, an institutional budget that includes funding for the organization’s 65 field offices around the world.

In her final year at 91����Ƶ, Peters had an opportunity to pursue a long-standing interest in working for the nonprofit sector through the Washington Study-Service Year (now known as the Washington Community Scholars’ Center). Under the Washington program for 1992-93, she interned at the Churches’ Conference on Shelter and Housing. After graduating with a degree in and a minor in socio-economic development, Peters returned to D.C. to work for Manna, an affordable housing organization.

Peters then obtained her CPA license and spent six years as an auditor for Deloitte, one of the world’s������firms, mainly working with nonprofit and real estate clients. She loved the job, but not the 70-hour workweeks it sometimes required, and was starting to feel a yearning to return to the nonprofit sector, perhaps focusing on economic development. (In one of her business classes at 91����Ƶ, professor Spencer Cowles first inspired her to think about this sort of thing by highlighting the work of Mennonite Economic Development Associates, or MEDA.)

A call one day from a job recruiter led to an interview at NDI, where Peters was impressed by what she learned about the organization’s mission and work, understanding democracy as a necessary first step to further economic development. She accepted its job offer.

“W�� need people in every kind of job and position for the world to function,” said Peters, on the behind-the-scenes nature of her work. “[Number-crunching] is a very important part of making things happen.” — Andrew Jenner��’04

You know how Americans��picture the CIA combing the world to collect data, keeping careful tabs on which political faction is rising or falling in what country, and which dealer is funneling arms to what rebel movement?

Now shift to the private sector and picture a corporation that combs the world as intensively, or more, than the CIA. Its mission: to collect and sell financial and market-related data to players in the global economy, including financial institutions, energy companies, real estate investors, natural resource extractors, and media companies.

That company is SNL Financial, which bills itself as “the premier provider of breaking news, financial data and expert analysis on business sectors critical to the global economy.”

The headquarters of SNL is in a somber-looking building on prime real estate at the east end of the downtown pedestrian mall in Charlottesville, Va. It’s an hour’s drive from 91����Ƶ and the home base of four of the six 91����Ƶ graduates who work at SNL –��Isaac Wyse ’10,��Braden Long ’08,��Amina Auezova Shenk ’07,��Enea Rrapokushi ’07,��Travis Geiser ’04, and��Eric Reinford ’02.

(Geiser now works from Chicago and Reinford from London, England, but both started with SNL in Charlottesville. Two grads who started at SNL headquarters –��Bradley Hoffman ’02��and��Nathaniel “Nate” Overly ’02– eventually parted amicably with SNL to accept opportunities offered in other geographic locations.)

Reinford, a major (like five of his fellow alumni at SNL), was the first 91����Ƶ graduate to be hired by SNL, upon the recommendation of his 91����Ƶ business professor Spencer Cowles. SNL chose Reinford to be among its core group of 300 employees on the eve of starting its global expansion. ¹

“W��’ve grown to 2,300 FTEs in the past 10 years and hope to grow by 20% or more again this year,” says Reinford, who has officially resided in the United Kingdom for the last six years, but who actually spends much of his time traveling around the world as associate director in the new product research and development team. He focuses mainly on the banking sector, “expanding existing sector coverage to new markets or expanding into new sectors entirely.”

In 2011, Reinford circulated among 15 countries in Europe. In 2012, he shifted his attention to Asia, traveling to 15 or so countries.

Geiser, now a CFA charter-holder, is second to Reinford in terms of 91����Ƶ-alumni longevity at SNL. Early in his career, he was building a lot of the financial models that leveraged the Excel application. Two years ago, he shifted into being the product manager for SNL’s MS Excel-based financial database and modeling application. “The application allows investment bankers, equity analysts, lenders, etc., to pump SNL’s data directly into Excel and populate their models,” says Geiser.

Enea Rrapokushi credits Reinford and Geiser for “establishing the reputation of 91����Ƶ graduates at SNL.” Rrapokushi recalls a staff meeting in which SNL president and CEO Mike Chinn commented that if the entire workforce were as productive as the 91����Ƶ graduates, the company would be 10 times more productive. Even if the compliment was overly generous, it reflects SNL’s receptiveness to hiring 91����Ƶ alumni.

After being hired, 91����Ƶ alumni have discovered they are able to rise quickly in the ranks of this fast-growing company, receiving as much responsibility as they can handle.

Isaac Wyse, for instance, joined SNL as an analyst in sales operations the summer after he graduated in 2010. A year and a half later, he was promoted to senior analyst. Today, at age 24, he is manager of sales operations, overseeing a group of a dozen (or so) analysts of all levels, both local and global. Among other responsibilities, his team develops the system used by sales and client services and builds reports and crunches numbers on both internal and client performance.��“All of this is used to improve the quality of our outreach to our clients and to manage our internal teams,” he says.

Amina Auezova Shenk ’07, who majored in rather than business administration at 91����Ƶ, is a senior manager. “I am��responsible for leading operations and process improvements to ensure profitable revenue growth,” she says. “I work with various sales and client-services department heads across the organization to improve inefficiencies and to help��make sound and timely business decisions to drive short-term and long-term performance.”

Braden Long ’08 started his post-collegiate career as an underwriter and risk manager with an insurance office in Charlottesville. In 2012, he moved to SNL to be an analyst. “It’s challenging work, and there is good variety on a day-to-day basis. In the morning when you come in, you can’t necessarily be sure what will be going on during the day.”

So, he is asked, one needs to be flexible to work at SNL?��To this, Long laughs agreeably.

SNL’s international scope and flavor make it a good fit for Rrapokushi, born and raised in��Albania. He came to the United States at age 18 as an exchange student at Central Christian, a Mennonite school in Kidron, Ohio. He was proficient in reading and writing English from his Albanian schooling, but struggled to comprehend American English, with its colloquialisms.

By the end of a year at Central Christian, though, he was a strong candidate for any U.S. college. 91����Ƶ accepted him – he graduated in 2007 as a business administration major – and James Madison University granted him an MBA in 2012.

Employed by SNL since graduating from 91����Ƶ, Rropokushi is now a senior content manager focused on the collection of metrics for the worldwide media and communications industry. He works with team members around the world, using video conferencing, emails, and lots of traveling, usually to India and Pakistan.

The pay at SNL? The alumni at SNL interviewed by Crossroads seemed more than satisfied, though none offered specifics. “SNL follows a very thorough pay-for-performance process where if you perform well you will be compensated more than if you don’t,” says Wyse.��“It works out pretty well for those with a good work ethic and a desire to succeed.”�� — Bonnie Price Lofton, MA ’04��

1. Initially, in 2003, SNL established an operation in Ahmedabad, India. Next, in 2005, in Islamabad, Pakistan – both locations likely chosen for the preponderance of highly educated English-speaking personnel who are adept with computers.

For information on employment at SNL, visit��. Posted jobs in late March 2013 included copyediting, web design, marketing, sales, and software development, with 40 openings in Ahmedabad (India), 18 in Charlottesville, 15 in Islamabad (Pakistan), and 9 in Denver.

If you want to understand��the passion of Ronald L. Stoltzfus for accounting – notably getting the numbers right, providing complete and transparent information, and putting the public good first – you need only look as far as the accountant he respects the most in the national arena: Lynn E. Turner.

As chief accountant for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) from 1998 to 2001, Turner was a leading advocate of auditor independence rules and international accounting and auditing standards.

“He’s one of my heroes,” says Stoltzfus, who heads 91����Ƶ’s program in the department. “He understands that accounting information helps investors, creditors and other users make good decisions. This is why accurate, transparent financial information is a ‘public good.’”

Stoltzfus admires the way Turner speaks to accounting conventions, “asking the hard questions that need to be asked,“ says Stoltzfus. Turner, for example, has publicly questioned why the investigative budget of the SEC was drastically cut in 2007, hamstringing an agency responsible for enforcing the laws regulating the nation’s banks. (This was at a period when JPMorgan Chase, Citicorp, and Bank of America were implicated in the global financial meltdown.)

Unlike Turner, Stoltzfus is not famous – at least not beyond certain university circles – but he shares Turner’s moral outrage at financial reporting practices that harm the public good.

This is why Stoltzfus is spending his 2012-13 sabbatical examining the way state governments report on the pension benefits they have promised to their employees. “Most state pension plans were fully funded seven years ago,” he says. “Now they aren’t.”

“Instead of following the recommendations of actuaries, many state legislatures have reduced the percentage of funds set aside for the pensions.”

In Pennsylvania, for example, Stoltzfus found that the state workers’ pension fund was underfunded by $14.7 billion as of 2011, partly the result of 10 years of sub-par investment returns and partly as a result of the state legislature cutting the set-aside money from 26% to 11% of payroll. (Stoltzfus cites “State Employees Retirement System, Comprehensive Annual Financial Report,” 06/30/11, p.72.)

Unfortunately, many states report similar patterns, he says: “Why are they [the legislatures] messing with the pension funds? Is this a short-sighted effort to balance the state budget at the expense of state workers?”

Stoltzfus hopes to publish his findings as soon as he wraps up his research. This is not a dry academic exercise; underfunded pensions funds will impact tens of thousands of public employees in the state of Pennsylvania alone.

For Stoltzfus, accounting is a high calling – right up there with being a skilled physician or a wise pastor. “To run a business, non-profit or a government agency, you must have properly trained people who know how to collect the right data and present it understandably, giving accurate answers to a host of questions.”

“Good CPAs [Certified Public Accountants] are problem-solvers for their clients,” he enthuses. “And auditors are like forensic investigators – they have to be very bright and very astute. Behind every major business reporting failure, there was an audit failure.”

Stoltzfus says a flaw in the U.S. audit system is the fact that the auditor is paid by the company being audited. He points to the way Arthur Andersen – one of the “Big Five” accounting firms until 2002 – was getting a million dollars a week from Enron at time when it was fraudulently reporting its financial position, deluding its investors. (Enron filed for bankruptcy in 2001.)

In addition to being a CPA and an 91����Ƶ alum, Stoltzfus holds a PhD in accounting from Virginia Commonwealth University, a master’s in accounting from James Madison University, and a master of business administration from Shippensburg University.

“Its very unusual for a university this size to have somebody with a PhD teaching accounting, “ says Spencer Cowles, PhD, chair of 91����Ƶ’s business and economics department. “It’s also unusual to find someone with a CPA and a PhD in accounting who also has an MBA. Ron doesn’t just have a narrow technical perspective – he understands how accounting fits into business.”

PhD-holding scholars of accounting like Stoltzfus are in short supply nationally, according to the American Accounting Association. This may explain the salaries they can command on the academic market. New hires as full professors of accounting received a mean salary of $169,200 in 2009, according to a 2009-2010 salary survey conducted by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business.

“The highest salary you can get as an accounting professor at 91����Ƶ is probably half what you could get at a major university with a full-fledged graduate program in accounting,” says Cowles. Yet Stoltzfus, long-time treasurer of his Park View Mennonite Church, has stayed put at 91����Ƶ since arriving here in 1984, after a decade of being a controller in the private sector. His motivations clearly are beyond money.

“I believe in the mission of 91����Ƶ. I think we make a difference in young people’s lives,” he says. No accounting student “gets lost here…. I know if you aren’t prepared and if you’re not in class.”

The exams that Stoltzfus puts his students through are intended to prepare them for the multi-day exam marathons that they will need to endure to pass their CPA exams. In short, 91����Ƶ’s accounting exams are really tough. But, as dozens of accounting graduates have told Crossroads, the pay-off is success in graduate school and in getting the coveted CPA license with relative ease.

Stoltzfus also stays put because “I have great colleagues. Our department really values teaching in a liberal arts context where clear thinking and clear writing are very important,” he says. “And so are relationships and understanding the broader context of business and society. It’s not just about accounting.” — Bonnie Price Lofton, MA ’04

The challenge of money

In God, Money, and Me – Exploring the spiritual significance of money in our lives (2004), Edwin Friesen wrote: For various reasons, talking about how we personally manage money is frequently a social taboo. Some people struggle with overwhelming debt. Others feel unworthy of or burdened by their wealth. Still others feel entitled to what they have and don’t want to be challenged. We fear each other’s judgment as we voice our opinions. But talking about money with fellow believers will reduce its power over us. Together we can seek to put money in its place, a place where it serves as a tool for God’s purpose, not as a god that rules us. Friesen mainly focuses on individual financial choices in his 83-page booklet (published by the Mennonite Foundation of Canada, available from Everence). He acknowledges Christians’ traditional discomfort with amassing great wealth, summed up by 1 Timothy 6:9-10: “For the love of money is at the root of all kinds of evil. And some people, craving money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows.” And what about the three biblical passages that say, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God”? Yet we all need money, even if we’ve been warned not to love it, not to crave it, and to beware of being rich. So how to strike the right balance between meeting our needs – and those of others – without becoming obsessive about money and making it a false god? Here at 91����Ƶ, it took money to build this institution, with much of it coming from successful business people like Jacob A. Shenk, who attended Eastern Mennonite School in the 1920s, or from generous professionals, like eye surgeon Paul R. Yoder Jr. ’63. And it will take continued infusions of money – some of it arriving in large chunks and some of it tallied from many smaller donations –��to enable 91����Ƶ to have the necessary facilities and financial aid to keep producing alumni who are doing good in all walks of life and professions. Friesen suggests that most of us need prophetic-spiritual voices, such as Mother Teresa with her vow of poverty, to encourage us “to ignore the all-pervasive cultural influences to buy and consume” and to instead “focus on sharing” and on one’s “relationships with God and others.” And yet Mother Teresa welcomed donations from supporters who had not taken her vow of poverty. For instance, she received $1.25 million from Charles Keating, a key player in the meltdown of the savings and loan associations of the 1980s, where about 23,000 customers (many of them retirees living on pensions) were left with worthless bonds. Asked to return the money to those from whom it had been stolen by Keating’s company, Mother Teresa declined to respond to the official request from a U.S. government lawyer. Yet she did send a letter advocating leniency for Keating when he was facing a prison sentence. In short, even Mother Teresa faced messy challenges in terms of money – where it came from and how it was ultimately used.

MEDA: Asking, and often answering, the hard questions

Pondering the sometimes-distant relationship between clergy and folks who generate profits, Canadian journalist John Longhurst wrote in The Marketplace, a bi-monthly published by Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA): “Businesspeople may be reluctant to talk on Monday to someone who was preaching on Sunday about the evils of money, materialism and consumerism,” especially if “the only time some businesspeople expect to hear from their pastors is at budget time.” Longhurst wryly adds, “Money is the root of all evil until the annual fundraising campaign kicks in. An old adage about Christians and business goes: ‘If possible avoid getting into business; but if you do get into business, avoid making lots of money; but if you end up making lots of money, the church sure needs it.’” (The Marketplace, March/April 2011, p. 4) With views like Longhurst’s in the pages of MEDA’s Marketplace journal, clearly this organization is one place where Christians who know how to make money can find people like themselves – that is, businesspeople who are interested in linking their gifts for business and finance with their religious beliefs. Some advice in The Marketplace is not too different from that in motivational business books, such as an article in the March/April 2012 issue, published under the headline “Failure need not be fatal – When everything looks bleak, remember apostle Peter.” The piece described the writer’s experience with a business that went under despite its leaders’ best efforts. But other articles in The Marketplace pose questions that might be minimized or sidestepped in mainstream business periodicals, such as: (1) Is there a business model that addresses the needs of the bottom socio-economic third of our society? and (2) What are the downsides of businesses that go public? Stephen Kreider Yoder, a Mennonite who is the San Francisco bureau chief of the Wall Street Journal, gave his answer to the first question at a 2009 MEDA convention in San Jose, California: “The capitalism that flourishes so remarkably here in Silicon Valley isn’t always good at closing those [have vs. have-not] gaps.” The second question was addressed by David Steward, in excerpts from his book, Doing Business by the Good Book, in the May/June 2004 Marketplace: “The investment community can apply tremendous pressure to produce quarterly profits. This outside persuasion sometimes tempts management to think short-term, reduce expenditures, and forgo quality…. [T]he demand put on management for three-month gains isn’t necessarily good for a company’s long-term interests.” MEDA seems to enjoy cross-fertilizing thinkers who are sometimes at odds with each other, such as social-justice advocates and business leaders. In a provocative piece published in the May/June 2004 issue, two economists based at Bluffton University, James M. Harder and Karen Klassen Harder, deconstructed our common way of measuring economic performance, the Gross Domestic Product. “It is often mistakenly assumed that growth and development mean the same thing,” they wrote. “But growth does not guarantee development, nor does development necessarily require growth.” The Harders (a married couple) went on to explain: GDP calculations not only mask the breakdown of the environment, they actually portray that breakdown as gain. Much of what is routinely called growth is, in fact, merely the repair of past blunders. GDP “grows” when hazardous waste is produced and then “grows” some more��when money is spent to clean up chemical contamination, purify water to make it drinkable, or treat cancers resulting from pollution. These economists argued that there are indeed limits to growth due to the finite supplies of most natural resources. “No business that wants to last can afford to ignore in its financial statements the depletion of its productive assets, yet that is precisely what the global economy is doing…. Disaster looms precisely because the current economic model has no built-in limits – no stopping point short of a crisis generated by environmental or social collapse.” The Harders asked us all –��consumers as well as producers – to correct our myopic eyesight on this matter by embracing “smallness and local control.” “This will create manageable zones of mutual accountability and responsibility for self, others, and natural surroundings,” they wrote, adding that “the pendulum must swing back from the anonymous, individualistic global economy to renewed cooperation within strengthened local communities.”

Value-based alumni

Karen Gross ’75, a nursing grad, certainly embodies the small-scale approach to responsibility for self and others. She works as a nurse-practitioner one day a week, but the rest of the week she juggles three jobs in the business sector of Atlanta, Georgia. She was one of the founders of the first Ten Thousand Villages store in the Atlanta area 20 years ago. Like all stores bearing this name, this outlet is a non-profit enterprise to provide a living wage for artisans around the world who would otherwise be unemployed or under-employed. Gross handles the outlet’s finances – purchasing inventory, paying bills, and doing the payroll and taxes. She also runs “My Mama Had That,” an antique business in the suburb of Decatur, whereby she finds well-made vintage items at yard and estate sales and makes sure they get a second chance at life in somebody’s home. Finally, she helps with Sticky Business, a 12-employee enterprise that produces and installs graphics for vehicles, walls, and buildings. Karen’s husband, Joel Gross ’76, is CEO, but Karen took over reviewing the balance sheets and income statements, plus managing receivables and payables, after the business had a bout with embezzlement. “My home, church, and education at 91����Ƶ, all stressed values of commitment, integrity, and stewardship of not just one’s money, but also life work and time,” Karen told Crossroads, by way of explaining the common threads in all four of her jobs. Karen is also active in Berea Mennonite Church. In the Shenandoah Valley,��Billy Leap ’86,��CPA, is chief financial officer for Bowman Fruit Sales, a 450-employee apple-focused company owned by a local businessman. Leap had the opportunity – in fact, he experienced the opportunity for 18 months – of being part of a much larger enterprise, Bowman Andros Products, a subsidiary of Andros et Cie headquartered in France, whose U.S. operations are outside Harrisonburg. But Leap decided to return to doing the finances for a businessman whom he knew well, Gordon D. “Sonny” Bowman II. Under the name of Turkey Knob Apples, Bowman is responsible for the largest number of apples grown and marketed in Virginia and is No. 1 or 2 in the east for apple production. For Leap – a self-described “Valley boy”– he derives great satisfaction out of knowing each permanent employee, dealing with local banks, analyzing reports to make recommendations to “Sonny,” and driving past trees that grow the Bowman apples on his way to work in Timberville, Virginia, right beside the 35,000-square foot packing house. This is not just a place Leap works; it’s his second home. ¹ Kevin Longenecker ’91,��a CPA who is the chief financial officer at InterChange Group (“warehousing logistics and development”) in Harrisonburg, appreciates the collegiality of working in a locally owned business with 135 employees, where all six of the management team members are alumni of 91����Ƶ. “Devon Anders [company president, ’88 accounting grad] has never – and would never – ask me to do something unethical. Our corporate culture is influenced by Anabaptist values. In a small, privately held company like this, it’s possible to take the longer view in building shareholder value, since we’re not pressured to deliver quarterly performance on the stock market.”

Longenecker’s father ran a small retail store near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, when he was growing up – which is where he got his foundational lessons in how to approach work, treat employees, and make decisions with integrity. Thequestion, “Why do we do what we do?” was always in the air. And the answer was not simply: “W�� do it for the bottom line.” In Leola, Pennsylvania, Thomas Verghese ’71��runs his own insurance and financial services firm (with the help of assistant Rebecca Bucher ’86). Verghese took the unusual step of topping off an MBA earned at James Madison University in 1974 with a year back at his undergraduate alma mater, studying at Eastern Mennonite Seminary (EMS). “Faith and values are paramount in my dealings with my clients. My training at EMC, the year at EMS, my church (Forest Hills Mennonite), and the faith community that I am a part of have provided me with a sound foundation upon which to live and work.” Specifically, as an “independent agent” who can pick and choose among products offered by various companies, Verghese says he takes care to “make sure that the recommendations I make to my prospects and clients are in their best interests in terms of suitability, cost, quality of the product, as well as timing.” Andrew “Andy” Dula ’91��is the CFO/COO of EG Stoltzfus, a construction company based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, with 25 subsidiary companies. He is also chair of 91����Ƶ’s board of trustees, a volunteer position.

In a 2010 speech to the MEDA chapter in Lancaster, Dula spoke of his life journey, starting with his birth in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. His parents are of mixed race and nationality of birth, father being brown Ethiopian and mother being white American. Their marriage in the Mennonite Church of Ethiopia was “no small feat in the ’60s,” Dula said wryly in his talk, which is posted on the 91����Ƶ website. Dula traced his post-collegiate journey through a short-lived family restaurant venture to the drafting and design department of Elam G Stoltzfus Jr Inc. where he carried 4×8 sheets of plywood on a framing crew the first day and huddled over a drafting table the next. Though Dula is now one of five officers in the company’s leadership team, he stressed: “Titles mean nothing to us. Our founder never liked them, nor do I, nor the rest of the senior management staff. Titles merely identify our structure to those outside of the organization. “W�� believe in a flat non-hierarchical structure, which empowers persons to unleash their own entrepreneurial spirit at all levels of the operation.” Dula focused his MEDA talk on the question of who we are as human beings, rather than what we do, though naturally we manifest our true selves through our work. “Like many people in business, I live in a world of doing, producing, constructing, expanding and sometimes just surviving,” he said. “W�� are often judged by financial metrics and measurable results, as in, ‘What have you done for me lately?’ “In the larger scheme of things, however, a more important question is, ‘Who am I becoming?’”

For Dula, what truly counts are the “stories of making just choices, going the extra mile, treating employees as partners, emphasizing our interconnectedness instead of untamed individualism, and practicing moderation instead of excess,” adding that these “are part of who I am becoming, rather than anything I am doing.” C. Conrad Martin ’80��returned to his home state of Pennsylvania in 2001 after spending 12 years working in Africa (Tanzania) and Asia (Bangladesh) on accounting, microfinance, and job-creation projects for several church-affiliated organizations. Along the way, in 1991, he earned a master’s degree in economic development. After his return to the United States, Martin discovered a fellow graduate from his era, Josephine Histand ’81, who had gone on to get an MBA and to work for the Ford Motor Company. “It was an online match. We overlapped a couple of years at 91����Ƶ – I avoided the library and she lived in the library, so we didn’t meet then,” he says with amusement in his voice. The two married in 2001, and she now works as an environmental engineer consultant. “My philosophy has always been that I feel best when I am where God wants me to be,” he says. “The common thread [for all of his jobs] is that I was working for the church. I have liked whatever setting I was in. I am not looking to be a CEO of a non-profit. My first priority is to be of service to the church.” Today he is director of finance for Franconia Mennonite Conference, handling a budget of approaching $1 million annually. He and Josephine attend Blooming Glen Mennonite Church. Like Conrad Martin,��John Hess-Yoder ’74��spent a chunk of his young adult years living and working in foreign locales –��two years in Laos and three years in Brazil under Mennonite Central Committee. He then pastored a Mennonite church in Oregon for three years before deciding to enter the financial planning arena. Hess-Yoder is a Certified Financial Planner, plus he holds a law degree earned through night school. The CFP is not a one-shot deal, Hess-Yoder explains. “You have to do special ethical training per year and you have to sign ethical guidelines. You can be censured by them [the Organization of Financial Planners, which confers the CFP] for quite a few things that regulators cannot get you for.” If Hess-Yoder were a customer seeking a financial planner, he says one of his first questions would be, “How independent are you?” He would not be comfortable with planners who receive commissions or extra compensation based on promoting certain funds, including in-house ones. “My best relationships are fee-based,” he says, in the manner that a lawyer is paid a fee for a specific service rendered. He adds, however, that some clients opt to have him compensated on a commission basis, which may save them money under certain circumstances. An up-and-coming associate of Hess-Yoder,��Kyle Mast ’07,��hopes to pass his CFP exam in the summer of 2013. Like Hess-Yoder, he prizes being an independent financial advisor: “I am not tied to anyone’s investment products. I can offer what I believe is best to my client, no matter what.” Mast says that half of his clients ask him to help them choose “socially responsible investments” (SRI) – though these entail higher management fees because of the labor that goes into carefully screening companies – and half simply want him to focus on investments that are likely to have the best returns.

Mast credits Everence, the financial-services arm of Mennonite Church USA, with doing one of the best jobs of screening companies: “There aren’t many who do the due diligence that Everence does,” he says. The current “hot button” among his SRI-focused clients who are Mennonites? Avoiding companies associated with arms manufacturing and marketing. Larry Nolt ’65,��an investment manager with National Penn Bank Shares headquartered in Allentown, Pennsylvania, says “fiduciary advisor” is a term coming into vogue. The word “fiduciary” highlights the difference between those professionals who are legally obligated to put the needs and interests of their clients first – such as chartered financial planners, chartered financial consultants, and chartered financial analysts – and others. Stockbrokers, for example, usually work on high commissions, benefit from frequent transactions (whether necessary or not), and receive outside incentives, such as trips paid by the companies whose funds they sell. Nolt suggests that prospective clients of financial services ask for “full disclosure” regarding how their advisors or planners will be compensated for their work. It may be difficult to tease out hidden charges, such as those that may be contained in insurance policies or annuities. Remember, he says, “if a product or investment sounds too good to be true, it probably is. I wouldn’t go there.” Just as most of us need to partner with healthcare professionals to stay healthy, Nolt believes that the average person needs the expertise of a well-trained, highly ethical financial advisor to manage their money. And even these advisors can get it wrong. “Almost all of us [in the field] were buffaloed by Enron,” he says. You have to have strong regulatory bodies keeping watch, he adds, “because the crooks always move to the latest area of de-regulation.” Part of the beauty of living a “discipled life” as a Christian, and as a member of a church community, says Nolt, is receiving help to curb the human tendency to take advantage of situations and to reach for the utmost profit, regardless of the cost to our fellow humans. “I view business as an agent for extending God’s providential care to humankind,” says��Spencer Cowles, PhD,��chair of 91����Ƶ’s business and economics department. “Business is simply a way of producing and distributing the things we need. Making a profit is a means to that end. “As a stockholder, I want my companies to do well financially, but I also want them to contribute to the social good.” If there was a common thread among the dozens of interviews conducted for this issue of Crossroads, it was this: We are called to be stewards of our resources, financial and otherwise, rather than being heedless gamblers with them; we must always consider the wider impact of the financial decisions we make. — Bonnie Price Lofton, MA ’04 1. Leap has a “Valley family.” His wife, Renée ’85, is associate director of 91����Ƶ’s financial assistance office; his elder son, Mitchell, is a 2012 graduate of 91����Ƶ, and his second son, Parker, is a sophomore at 91����Ƶ. The family worships at Harrisonburg Mennonite Church.

Spencer L. Cowles, chair of the department of business and economics at 91����Ƶ, feels like he had the best of all possible worlds during his recent sabbatical.

Prior to teaching at 91����Ƶ, Cowles worked in commercial banking at a major New England bank, where he developed skills in financial analysis, credit and business development. This involvement, combined with his broad range of international experiences since coming to 91����Ƶ, prepared him well for his sabbatical work in microfinance at MicroVest Capital Management in Bethesda, Md.

Microfinance is an approach to economic development that involves making loans to small "micro" entrepreneurs in developing countries. Loans average around $300. Traditionally, the funds to make these loans have come from donations and government grants which are not always sustainable sources of funding.

Cowles described MicroVest as "a world leader in raising funds from private and institutional investors who are expecting a commercial rate of return." These funds are then invested in microfinance institutions as either debt or equity. In turn, microfinance institutions lend these funds to micro entrepreneurs.

Cowles spent January through August this year working as an investment officer in the firm’s investment group and then serving as the interim director of investment. His responsibilities included identification of new clients, analysis of the financial stability of microfinance institutions, and assessment of country risk

"A $300 loan doesn’t sound like very much," Cowles noted, "but to a small business owner such as a tailor, furniture-maker or shop-keeper just a small amount of capital can enable them to expand their businesses so that they can provide for their families." He added that microfinance is "a real grass-roots approach to helping persons achieve economic independence and dignity."

MicroVest company is owned primarily by CARE (Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere), a private international relief and development organization, and by MEDA (Mennonite Economic Development Associates), an organization of business people who integrate their life values with business in practical ways to help individuals and families living in poverty around the world.

"MicroVest is a unique company," Cowles said. "I don’t know of another organization anywhere in the world that is helping to improve economic conditions in quite the way that MicroVest is doing." He noted that an average MicroVest investment is around $1.5 million. "Divide that by $300 and that’s a lot of people who are getting a chance to improve their lives," he said.

The 91����Ƶ professor spent time in Ghana, meeting with the senior management of a rapidly growing microfinance institution, analyzing their financial position, visiting clients, and assessing their lending procedures. Through his firsthand involvement, Cowles said that he saw an economy that was making good progress, in part due to access to credit that most small business persons haven’t had in the past.

A village banking group of microentrepreneurs calling themselves "The Work and Happiness Group" from the village of Acherensua, Ghana, meets to collect loan repayments and to receive business training. (Photo by Spencer Cowles)

"It was a rewarding, energizing experience," Cowles said of his eight-month sabbatical. "I was able to apply my experiences in banking and education to the global microfinance effort to lift people out of poverty."

Now back teaching at 91����Ƶ, he finds himself able to draw from his experience with a highly entrepreneurial, innovative company in bringing new energy and insight to bear in his primary areas of teaching expertise – business strategy and international business.