Posted 8:45 a.m. Wednesday, Nov. 28, 2018
Alumni use CBA education to collaborate, mentor and lead at a fast-growing small business.
Alumni use CBA education to collaborate, mentor and lead at a fast-growing small business
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Alumnus Curt Greeno, ’06, president of Dynamic Lifecycle Innovations, along with his business partner, Miles Harter, earned Wisconsin’s Small Business Person of the Year Award. Greeno says while he and Harter accepted the award, it really reflects the work of many great people they’ve hired since starting the business in 2007.[/caption]
In Curt Greeno’s business management classes at UWL, professors discussed the importance of developing an organization's core values and mission. At the time, it was difficult for Greeno, ’06, to understand why those things were so critical. Now, as president of an award-winning Wisconsin small business, Dynamic Lifecycle Innovations, he understands.
Developing shared values and direction for his team was especially important as the company grew from two employees to 230 across three locations — Nashville, Tenn.; La Crosse/Onalaska and Minneapolis.
Greeno recognized he could not possibly connect and communicate these ideas with a large group of people on a daily basis. They needed to be ingrained in the company culture and part of operations from hiring to employee reviews.
Dynamic’s attention to values and mission has paid off. Greeno along with his business partner, Miles Harter, earned the Wisconsin’s top Small Business People of the Year Award from the U.S. Small Business Administration in Spring 2018.
Alumna Stephanie Peterson, ’99, director of marketing for Dynamic, and Alumnus Tyler Zibrowski, ’11 & ’18, an accounting supervisor for the company, agree that interviewing at Dynamic was like walking into a family. The company cared about employees’ long-term personal and professional goals and embodied their values from innovation to service.
“They give back so generously to the community. It is just incredible,” says Zibrowski. “When you see a company that does those things, you want to dig in and give them your all.”
Zibrowki is digging in. He stepped into his leadership role at Dynamic more than a year ago while returning to UWL to learn more about leadership in the MBA program (now offered exclusively online through the UW MBA Consortium). A May graduate, Zibrowski is now responsible for managing the company’s finances worldwide and he has mapped out the future of a new operating division. In college he learned technical finance and accountancy skills, as well as how to draw from the diverse abilities of professionals around him. [caption id="attachment_53287" align="alignright" width="300"]“They give back so generously to the community. It is just incredible,” says Zibrowski. “When you see a company that does those things, you want to dig in and give them your all.”
Stephanie Peterson, ’99, is Dynamic’s marketing director.[/caption]
Peterson, a marketing major with minors in International Business and Spanish,
recalls how her UWL advisor, Marketing Professor Stephen Brokaw, challenged her to think of what she wanted in her future and experience as much as she could while at UWL. She uses that experience in her career today — always looking for opportunities to learn and grow, as well as mentor others to do the same.
“I want them to make sure they learn and experience as much as they can to round out their experience and grow their careers,” she says.
When Zibrowski spoke to his fellow graduates at a hooding ceremony in May, he said a college degree is not just something to hang on the wall or tag to the end of a name. It is a calling to serve and to lead.
“If we don’t continue to learn and take information into our own hands, then who will be the one responsible for passing it on to the future?” Zibrowski asks.