Last modified: Thursday, January 22, 2009
2009 IU Business Conference to focus on converging issues: health care, energy and the environment
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Jan. 22, 2009
Editors: Reporters interested in attending or doing pre-event interviews with speakers should contact George Vlahakis at 812-855-0846 or gvlahaki@indiana.edu.
BLOOMINGTON. Ind. -- New York Times columnist David Brooks will lead a March 11 discussion of three topics that have converged to create significant challenges for companies -- health care, energy and the environment -- at a time of major economic crisis.
Brooks will join experts on health care, climate change and sustainability, and the chief executive officers of three progressive corporations at the 63rd annual Indiana University Business Conference in Indianapolis.
Also participating will be Susan Dentzer, editor-in-chief of Health Affairs; Amory Lovins, founder, chairman and chief scientist at the Rocky Mountain Institute; Bill McKibben, environmentalist and author; Michael A. Evans, president and CEO of AIT Laboratories; Douglas Lattner, chairman and CEO of Deloitte Consulting LLP; and Michael G. Rippey, president and CEO of ArcelorMittal USA.
The conference is presented by IU's Kelley School of Business. It will begin at 9 a.m. at the Indiana Convention Center, 100 S. Capitol Ave., and conclude at 2 p.m. Its theme is "The 21st Century Perfect Storm: Health Care, Energy and the Environment."
Dan Smith, dean of the Kelley School, said the conference's theme couldn't be more timely.
"The Kelley School has a long history of helping companies, government agencies and non-profit organizations in the state of Indiana address their most pressing economic problems. The annual Business Conference is one of the ways we achieve this aim," Smith said. "Our conferences have always featured highly respected leaders and provided those attending with a clear understanding of the realities confronting companies in Indiana and many of our alumni.
"How the state weathers the perfect storm we now face will depend largely on the decisions made by the leaders in our business sector. The overarching goal of this year's conference is to help provide practical insight on how to navigate in these difficult waters," Smith added.
Susan Dentzer
The program is designed to offer analysis and tactical ideas useful for small and large companies alike. The morning session consists of discussions with the experts moderated by Brooks.
The registration fee is $150 by Tuesday, Feb. 24, and $160 afterward. Table registrations are $1,400 for 10 people or $725 for five people and include all conference sessions with reserved seating at lunch. Information and registration are available at https://kelley.iu.edu/busconf or 812-855-6340.
Registrations can be mailed to Annual Business Conference, Kelley School of Business, 1275 E. 10th St., Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405-1703. Credit card registrations can be sent by fax to Conference Registrar, Kelley School of Business, 812-856-7018. Make checks payable to the IU Kelley School of Business Alumni Association.
About the speakers:
David Brooks
David Brooks has written an op-ed column for The New York Times since September 2003. He has been a senior editor at The Weekly Standard and a contributing editor at Newsweek and Atlantic Monthly. He also has written for The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Forbes, The Washington Post and various periodicals.
He currently is a frequent commentator on "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" on the Public Broadcasting Service and "All Things Considered" on National Public Radio.
He is the author of Bobos In Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There and On Paradise Drive: How We Live Now (And Always Have) in the Future Tense, both published by Simon & Schuster. The University of Chicago graduate also is editor of the anthology Backward and Upward: The New Conservative Writing (Vintage Books).
Susan Dentzer
Susan Dentzer is the editor-in-chief of Health Affairs, the nation's leading journal of health policy, and an on-air analyst on health with "The NewsHour" with Jim Lehrer on PBS.
Health Affairs, which has been called the nation's health policy "Bible," is a peer-reviewed journal that appears bimonthly in print with additional online entries published weekly at www.healthaffairs.org. The journal and Web site, based in Bethesda, Md., are published by Project Hope, the health education and humanitarian assistance organization that operates programs in 36 countries around the world.
For a decade at "The NewsHour," Dentzer was the on-air health correspondent and led an award-winning unit dedicated to providing in-depth coverage of health care and health policy and Social Security. Prior to joining "The NewsHour" in 1998, Dentzer was chief economics correspondent and economics columnist for U.S. News & World Report, where she served from 1987 to 1997. Before joining U.S. News, Dentzer was at Newsweek, where she was a senior writer covering business news until 1987.
Amory Lovins
Amory Lovins
Amory Lovins, a MacArthur Fellow and consultant physicist, is among the world's leading innovators in energy and its links with resources, security, development and environment. He has advised energy and other industries for more than three decades as well as the U.S. Departments of Energy and Defense.
His work has been recognized in more than 50 countries. He has received many honorary doctorates and was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1984. He has received the World Technology Award, the Right Livelihood Award ("Alternative Nobel"), the fourth Heinz Award in the Environment in 1998, and the Nissan, Mitchell, and Lindbergh awards. He is also the recipient of the World Technology and Time Hero for the Planet awards, the Benjamin Franklin and Happold Medals, and the Shingo, Mitchell, and Onassis Prizes. He has also received a MacArthur Fellowship and is an honorary member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA).
Lovins cofounded and is chairman and chief scientist of Rocky Mountain Institute, an independent, market-oriented, entrepreneurial, nonprofit, nonpartisan "think-and-do tank" that creates abundance by design. Much of its work on advanced resource productivity and innovative business strategies is synthesized in the 1999 book, Natural Capitalism.
The institute's private-sector consultancy has served or been invited by more than 80 Fortune 500 firms, lately redesigning more than $30 billion worth of facilities in 29 sectors. In 1992, RMI spun off E SOURCE, and in 1999, Fiberforge Corp., a composites engineering firm that Lovins chaired until 2007; its technology, when matured and scaled, will permit cost-effective manufacturing of the ultralight-hybrid Hypercar® vehicles he invented in 1991.
The latest of his 29 books are Small Is Profitable: The Hidden Economic Benefits of Making Electrical Resources the Right Size (2002), an Economist book of the year blending financial economics with electrical engineering, and the Pentagon-cosponsored Winning the Oil Endgame (2004), a roadmap for eliminating U.S. oil use by the 2040s, led by business for profit.
Bill McKibben
Bill McKibben is one of America's most important writers on business, culture and the environment. He is the author of 10 books, including, most recently, Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future (Times Books, 2007).
Deep Economy challenges the prevailing view of our economy that "more" is "better" and offers a realistic, if challenging, scenario for the future that pursues prosperity beyond "growth" as our economic ideal.
His 1989 book The End of Nature (Random House) is a classic work on the environmental crisis and was the first account of global warming for a general audience. First published in The New Yorker, it has been in thousands of classrooms and book discussion groups and it's been excerpted for major nature writing anthologies. It has been published in 20 languages.
McKibben's work combines personal engagement with the issues and careful thought about the past, present and future; unflinching realism with dedicated practicality; and an optimism grounded in what people are already doing and what is still possible to achieve to build a prosperous and fulfilling future.
He is a scholar in residence in environmental studies at Middlebury College. He led the largest demonstration to date in America about climate change and founded stepitup07.org, which is building local movements to support curbs on carbon emissions.
Michael A. Evans
Michael A. Evans brought 20 years of experience in toxicology and medical training to the forefront when he founded AIT Laboratories in 1990. Since then, the Indianapolis-based reference laboratory, which specializes in forensics, pain management, clinical and pharmaceutical testing, has blossomed into a premiere testing and research institution recognized nationwide for superior customer service and quality.
Prior to his career as an entrepreneur, Evans served as tenured professor, director, faculty member and researcher for institutions such as the IU School of Medicine, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Illinois Institute of Technology and the University of Illinois College of Medicine. He also was a visiting professor of toxicology for Kunming Medical College and the Sichuan Institute of Materia Medica, both located in China. Today, he serves on the board of directors for Indiana Tech, a private institution conferring degrees in business, computer science, human services, and other professional concentrations.
Evans's educational background comprises a doctorate in toxicology from the IU School of Medicine, a postdoctoral fellowship with the National Toxicology Center at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, and numerous fellowships and grants from the National Institute of Health and the World Health Organization.
Douglas J. Lattner
Douglas Lattner is chairman and CEO of Deloitte Consulting LLP. In his 32 years at Deloitte, he has taken key leadership roles and has served a variety of clients, primarily investor-owned utilities in the electric, gas, and telecommunications industries. His leadership responsibilities have included as managing director for the Dallas office and regional managing director for the firm's southern region. He also served two terms as leader of the organization's energy practice, consolidating it as a worldwide practice in 1996.
In 1975, Lattner joined the consulting practice in the firm's Dallas office. He was promoted to principal in 1985. During his career with Deloitte, he has directed a number of engagements in the United States and around the world. As a leader in the consulting and energy industries, he has extensive experience in strategic and financial consulting. His specific areas of expertise include mergers and acquisitions, corporate restructuring, privatization, the formation of strategic business units, financial planning and controls, and organizational analysis.
In 2005, Lattner was named one of the "Top 25 Most Influential Consultants" in the country by Consulting Magazine. He is a speaker, author, contributor and consultant -- sought after for his extensive business, leadership, technical and industry expertise.
Michael G. Rippey
Michael G. Rippey was elected in August 2006 as president and CEO of Mittal Steel USA, now ArcelorMittal USA. Previously, he had been the company's executive vice president-sales & marketing, since April 2005, with direct responsibility for all sales and marketing of light flat-rolled and plate products.
Rippey had been executive vice president-commercial, and chief financial officer at Ispat Inland Inc., a predecessor company, since January 2004 and has been an officer of the company since June 1998. Previously, he was executive vice president and chief financial officer, with responsibilities for sales, finance, human resources, law and purchasing.
Rippey joined Inland Steel Co. in 1984 and had a career of increasingly responsible assignments within the finance organizations at Inland Steel Co. and its former parent company, Inland Steel Industries. The company became Ispat Inland Inc. after its purchase by Ispat International N.V. in 1998, became Mittal Steel USA in April 2005, and ArcelorMittal USA with the parent company's purchase of Arcelor in July 2006. He has a bachelor's degree in marketing from the Kelley School of Business, a master's degree in banking and finance from Loyola University (Chicago) and a master of business administration degree from the University of Chicago.
Conference Gold level sponsors include: ArcelorMittal USA, Bingham McHale LLP, BKD LLP, Deloitte, Eli Lilly and Co. and Fed Ex Corp. At the Silver level, sponsors include: Citizens Energy Group, Clarian Health, Duke Energy, Johnson Ventures Inc., and The Pampered Chef, Ltd. AIT Laboratories, CenterPoint Energy and Dollar General Corp. are Bronze level sponsors.
