On Thursday, February 2, 2019, a few finance students had the extreme honor of presenting a few of their recent accomplishments in front of the Research, Economic Development, and Innovation (REDI) Committee of the UW System Board of Regents. Among those presenting were Kyle Kolb, Dier Pulatov, Ashley Tettamanzi, and Wyatt Haas. All four students discussed the importance that area partnerships have played in their successes.
Kyle Kolb, recent graduate of UWEC, started the presentation with an introduction of the student speakers and some background on his accomplishments in the short 3.5 years it took him to graduate from UWEC with a finance degree. Aside from his achievements of accepting an offer for a full-time position in wealth management with Associated Bank and having completed over half of the classes necessary for his Certified Financial Planner Certificate, he also spoke on his experiences with a few recent competitions. Kyle was part of two teams from the UWEC finance department that won significant awards in the past year. One was the regional division of the CFA research challenge, where his team took 1st place and competed against 5000 other students from 1000 schools, and the other was UWEC's first entry ever in the Student Managed Investment Fund Consortium Conference in Chicago, Illinois, where Kyle and his team of five other students took first place in each of two competitions at the conference among 68 other colleges across the United States. He attributes most of his success to his experience as president of UWEC's Financial Management Association (FMA) and the partnerships this his org has had with area businesses.
Ashley Tettamanzi, was the second student to speak in front of the committee. As a senior Finance and Marketing student, she spoke further on how FMA has impacted her and so many more students on campus. As the events coordinator for FMA, she has had the opportunity to partner with many area businesses on multiple events, two of those being 2017's "Women in Finance" forum, and 2018's "Leaders in Business" forum. Ashley invited professionals from real estate, wealth management, banking, and many other finance-related industries to speak in front of large audiences of students across many disciplines at the university. She attributes much of her success, and the organization's success, to the partnerships she was able to make with many of these industry leading professionals.
Wyatt Haas followed, speaking on some of the recent accomplishments his organization (Blu'$Gold Financial Management) has made in the last few years. After only two years of being a recognized student organization, Blu'$Gold has partnered with many area businesses including US Bank, Wipfli CPA and Consultants, and United Way, as well as campus groups such as the finance department and McIntyre library to create and distribute financial literacy curriculum on and off campus. Blu'$Gold's efforts in their short existence have landed them a partnership with the university, thanks to interest by Provost Patricia Kleine, and they will be participating in 2019's freshman orientation educating all new students on the importance of financial literacy. They are hoping this partnership will continue into future years, and that it will allow them to move closer to their goal of making UWEC the most financially literate campus in the nation!
Finally, Dier Pulatov spoke on a few of his experiences with some of the partnerships he had helped foster during his time so far at UWEC. Pulatov is also a proud member of FMA, and spoke on how a few key partnerships between his organization and area businesses and executives had led him to secure a finance internship with an industry-leading investment firm, Driehaus Capital Management. Pulatov was selected among many students from elite universities, including many ivy league schools. Pulatov has always been an incredible example of what a finance student should aspire to be, but he wanted to thank multiple individuals and partnerships that he had gotten to work with for giving him the extra leg up among his competing applicants. He thanked Kim Way (UWEC Foundation Director) and Dick Johnson (CEO of Footlocker, and UWEC Alumni) for their help in making the UWEC Student Investment Managed Fund class so impactful, National Presto Industries for sponsoring the departments' Bloomberg Terminals and Factset, the CFA Society, Mark Alfuth (UWEC Finance Professor) and Dr. Rajarshi Aroskar (Finance Department Chair) for helping make connections with so many of the great mentors and businesses UWEC students have gotten to work with, and of course FMA for bringing in many more countless partnerships.
