Three Award-Winning Entrepreneurs Comment on the Value of Their Degree

Troy, N.Y. — Each year Rensselaer’s Lally School of Management and Technology graduates push the envelope of entrepreneurship and innovation. This year’s graduating MBA students are no different.

“The focus on leadership and entrepreneurship here at the Lally School helps our students not only learn the lessons of best business practices, but also to create new opportunities for existing or start-up companies,” said Lally School acting Dean Iftekhar Hasan. “Rensselaer students bring their curiosity, a knack for problem-solving, and a creative way of thinking to their business practices. With persistence and a well-designed business plan, they can create new enterprises or redesign established businesses that have the potential to change the world.”

Adam Tkaczuk, Laura Mann, and Azmat Ahmad are perfect examples of the can do attitude that is at the heart of Rensselaer’s philosophy. That ability to think and do has characterized the Lally School, its students, and faculty since its founding. They are three of the students participating in the 199th Commencement at Rensselaer on Saturday, May 21, 2005.

Adam Tkaczuk - MBA student Adam Tkaczuk has already made his mark as an entrepreneur. Not many graduating MBA students can say they helped make a new product viable by significantly reducing company costs while still an intern, but that is exactly what Tkaczuk was able to do.

While spending the fall semester in Singapore as part of the Lally School’s exchange program with the National University of Singapore, Adam offered to travel to China before starting his studies to meet with suppliers and make a recommendation to his internship employer, Float-Tech. The company, based in Troy, New York, is a high-growth startup from the Lally School. During a visit in Hong Kong, Tkacuzk took a day to travel into mainland China where he toured each supplier's facility. He met with company representatives, determined what they could offer Float-Tech, and in general evaluated their operations. He sent his recommendation for one of the suppliers back to company headquarters in Troy. The result the new suppliers, located in Shenzhen near Hong Kong, reduced variable costs by about 28 percent.

Azmat Ahmad - When it comes to entrepreneurship, Azmat Ahmad takes the prize – literally. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Lally School of Management and Technology awarded her its prestigious Herman Family Fellowship for Women in Entrepreneurship in 2003. The prize supports up to two females enrolled in the Lally School’s MBA program each year, and helps them pursue their entrepreneurial interests.

Ahmad’s extensive and varied experiences, combined with her background in technology and interest in business, helped her decision to attend the Lally School. While growing up, she witnessed firsthand the economic revitalization in her home country of India and later in her teenage years lived in Saudi Arabia and England. Family employment opportunities brought her to the United States in 1997. This global background, she says, “gave me a unique voice to offer to the business world.”

During her time at the Lally School, Ahmad successfully competed for a position in the Rensselaer Entrepreneurship Intern Program and was able to work with the Business Development Group of Cerner Corporation, a healthcare information solutions company. Her responsibilities included participating in the set up and start of Cerner Healthcare, the wholly owned subsidiary of Cerner in Bangalore, India.

Ahmad has recently accepted a position as executive development associate in the business development group of Cerner Corporation at the company headquarters in Kansas City, Missouri. She will move to Kansas City with her husband and three sons.

Laura Mann – If Laura Mann gets her way, restaurant customers and wait-staff will benefit from time savings and enhanced service. The reason why is an award-winning business plan that Mann masterminded tentatively called E-Meal. The concept is simple: you sit down at a table in a restaurant and you order your meal and drinks electronically via a personal touch screen networked with the restaurant kitchen and bar. The order is processed and the food is delivered to your table. According to Mann, E-Meal will speed and streamline ordering, which will delight customers and ease the burden on waiters and waitresses.

While at the Lally School, Mann also led an effort through the Graduate Student Management Association (GMSA) to create an annual networking program to strengthen the relationship between local business leaders and the school. She reached out to the Rensselaer County Industrial Development Agency and the Troy Chamber of Commerce to build support and participation for the initial event, which drew more than 200 participants. This initiative brings Rensselaer grad students together with Lally alumni and local business leaders to exchange ideas and to network.

Mann has local roots in New York state’s Capital Region and hopes to stay and be part of the revitalization under way in the area. “Creating a brain trust in this area is important to me,” she says of the Albany, Troy, Schenectady region. “I have had offers from very, very prestigious companies but I want to stay in this area to help develop an environment for world-class commercialization in technology.”

Following are more detailed profiles of the students:

Adam Tkaczuk: Class of 2005 - Rensselaer’s Lally School of Management and Technology

Second-year MBA student Adam Tkaczuk has already made his mark as an entrepreneur. Not many graduating MBA students can say they helped make a new product viable by significantly reducing company costs while still an intern, but that is exactly what Tkaczuk was able to do.

While spending the fall semester in Singapore as part of the Lally School’s exchange program with the National University of Singapore, Tkaczuk offered to travel to China before starting his studies to meet with suppliers and make a recommendation to his internship employer, Float-Tech. The company, based in Troy, New York, is a high-growth startup from the Lally School. During a visit in Hong Kong, Tkaczuk took a day to travel into mainland China where he toured each supplier's facility. He met with company representatives, determined what they could offer Float-Tech, and in general evaluated their operations. He sent his recommendation for one of the suppliers back to company headquarters in Troy. The result the new suppliers, located in Shenzhen near Hong Kong, reduced variable costs by about 28 percent.

Tkaczuk did a number of things for Float-Tech during his internship, including raising angel investment money and meeting with members of the board to discuss branding strategies. However, he says, “The trip to China on behalf of Float-Tech was the most valuable contribution I made to the company. Since I was traveling to Asia at the end of the summer, it fit in well as something I could do for the company. It also added to my experience, so it was a ‘win-win’ for all.”

With his finance background, Tkaczuk is currently seeking full-time opportunities in China and the United States through the network of Asian students he met while studying at the Lally School in Troy and through the exchange program in Singapore. At the same time, he is also working in the United States with Lally Professor Michael Ensley developing a venture capital fund of funds that would bring Southeast Asia money into the United States, investing in venture capital funds that invest in technology companies. He hopes this may yield a position for him in the venture capital industry.

Tkaczuk is originally from Western Massachusetts (Granville) and volunteers at his church’s youth ministry program the Albany area.

Azmat Ahmad : Class of 2005: Rensselaer’s Lally School of Management and Technology

When it comes to entrepreneurship, Azmat Ahmad takes the prize – literally. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Lally School of Management and Technology awarded her its prestigious Herman Family Fellowship for Women in Entrepreneurship in 2003. The prize supports up to two females enrolled in the Lally School’s MBA program each year, and helps them pursue their entrepreneurial interests.

Ahmad’s extensive and varied experiences, combined with her background in technology and interest in business, helped her decision to attend the Lally School. While growing up, she witnessed firsthand the economic revitalization in her home country of India and later in her teenage years lived in Saudi Arabia and England. Family employment opportunities brought her to the United States in 1997. This global background, she says, “gave me a unique voice to offer to the business world.”

During her time at the Lally School, Ahmad successfully competed for a position in the Rensselaer Entrepreneurship Intern Program and worked with the Business Development Group of Cerner Corporation, a healthcare information solutions company. Her responsibilities included participating in the set up and start of Cerner Healthcare, the wholly owned subsidiary of Cerner in Bangalore, India.

“I contributed to and received excellent hands-on lessons in the areas of finance, human resource management, and administration in an intrapreneurial venture,” Ahmad said of her experiences with Cerner. “India, and Bangalore in particular, are experiencing extraordinary growth in certain high-tech business areas, yet the infrastructure – transportation, power, and housing and hospitality services, for example – have not yet caught up. It is an interesting challenge to learn to operate in such an environment.”

Prior to coming to Rensselaer, Ahmad served as a programmer for the Prince Sultan Cardiac Center in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Ahmad’s other work experience includes stints as an assistant systems analyst for Tata Consultancy Services in Bombay, India, and as an acquisitions/systems administrator for New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology (New Mexico Tech) in Socorro, New Mexico. Ahmad also worked briefly for a Web-consulting venture in India, and volunteered to re-engineer a database for a nonprofit group called Hands On Memphis, in Tennessee.

As a new mother, Ahmad’s decision to return to school to pursue her MBA also included consideration of balancing work and family. She notes that some questioned her choice, given the time commitments a business career requires. But Ahmad says she understands she will have to be part of redefining a career path because of her commitment to both work and family: “Women in business, like in many fields, must think about how to achieve on their own terms. We must have realistic expectations of ourselves, our employers, and our families if we are to come up with a solution that fulfills what we want to do, what the company wants to achieve, and what our family needs, balancing each in a way that does justice to all. In doing so, we will carve out new career paths, which will make it easier for those who follow us.”

Ahmad has accepted a position as executive development associate in the business development group of Cerner Corporation at the company headquarters in Kansas City, Missouri. She will move to Kansas City with her husband and three sons.

Laura Mann: Class of 2005: Rensselaer’s Lally School of Management and Technology

If Laura Mann gets her way, restaurant customers and wait-staff will benefit from time savings and enhanced service. The reason why is an award-winning business plan that Mann masterminded tentatively called E-Meal. The concept is simple: you sit down at a table in a restaurant and you order your meal and drinks electronically via a personal touch screen networked with the restaurant kitchen and bar. The order is processed and the food is delivered to your table. According to Mann, E-Meal will speed and streamline ordering, which will delight customers and ease the burden on waiters and waitresses. Showcasing the E-Meal concept recently won Mann’s team third prize in the Lally school $50,000 regional college business plan competition.

While at the Lally School, Mann also led an effort through the Graduate Student Management Association (GMSA) to create an annual networking program to strengthen the relationship between local business leaders and the school. She reached out to the Rensselaer County Industrial Development Agency and the Troy Chamber of Commerce to build support and participation for the initial event which drew more than 200 participants. This initiative brings Rensselaer grad students together with Lally alumni and local business leaders to exchange ideas and to network.

Mann has local roots in New York state’s Capital Region and hopes to stay and be part of the revitalization under way in the area. “Creating a brain trust in this area is important to me,” she says of the Albany, Troy, Schenectady region. “I have had offers from very, very prestigious companies but I want to stay in this area to help develop an environment for world-class commercialization in technology.”

While at the Lally School, Mann both assisted in developing a path to market for an emerging technology and provided market and business development support for a start-up company, thereby giving both emerging companies valuable support while gaining hands-on business experience in commercialization of advanced technology.

“The Lally School has focused on the ability to commercialize advanced technologies and other innovations that are coming out of universities, which is essential if we are to compete in a global marketplace,” Mann says. “I’ve learned how to identify, create, and capture those viable emerging markets; to provide a path for commercialization for those viable ideas and develop them into thriving successful ventures for either small startup companies or for existing corporations. This is what I am ready to do and want to do in the Capital Region.”

Contact: Theresa Bourgeois
Phone: (518) 276-2840
E-mail: bourgt@rpi.edu