Honor My Father: Jay Sandhu and his Gift to Butler
PUBLISHED ON Aug 01 2018
Jay Sandhu '87 wanted to honor his father, Chain. So when the opportunity arose to name the garden terrace in Butler's new Lacy School of Business building for his father, he and his wife, Roop, said yes.
"The reason I am where I am is in no small part due to his hard work and guidance," said Sandhu, chair of Butler's Board of Trustees and CEO of NYX, an automotive supplier his father purchased in 1989, which has grown from 30 employees and $2 million in sales to 2,400 employees in four countries and nearly $600 million in sales. "He allowed me to come to Butler even after I said I wasn't going to be a doctor. He was my boss, mentor, father, and his hard work since the family emigrated from India is reason we live the life we do. He loves gardens, he loves business, so the garden terrace space seemed like a beautiful spot."
Sandhu, a Biology and Physics major at Butler, got his first look at the new building during a tour in June. He found himself "totally blown away" by what he saw—from the majestic atrium to the serenity of the view from the top-floor garden terrace. He expects the finished product, which is scheduled to open in fall 2019, to be transformative for business education at Butler, and he hopes to inspire others to contribute.
"It's not so much the number," he said. "As a trustee and chairman, obviously I'd like the number to be as big as possible, but I think it's more about having that connection with Butler, supporting Butler, to the extent that feels good. I know supporting Butler in this way has given me more happiness than I can describe. It feels good to support the school that I think so much of."
Honor My Father: Jay Sandhu and his Gift to Butler
Jay Sandhu, and his wife, Roop, wanted to honor Jay’s father through a gift to the Lacy School of Business.
Butler’s Risk Management and Insurance Program Authors Pandemic Act to Bolster Economy
PUBLISHED ON Apr 02 2020
A case study on PayPal, completed by Butler University undergraduates in 2017, could help save the U.S. economy in 2020.
Zach Finn, Clinical Professor and Director of the Davey Risk Management and Insurance program at Butler, and some of his former students have developed the Pandemic Risk Insurance Act (PRIA). If passed, the legislation would provide a reinsurance backstop to cover losses in the insurance sector due to future pandemic outbreaks, such as the ongoing COVID-19 coronavirus crisis. The act has already been adopted by the U.S. House Financial Services Committee, which is calling for its passing in Washington, DC.
The policy combines the students’ 2017 case study work on mitigation and monetization of global cyber risk—essentially, steps to reduce the negative effects of threats and disasters on business continuity—with a framework similar to the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act. The students studied the possibility of a black swan—a rare, unpredictable event with severe consequences that would lead to a cyber shutdown in America. Their solution was the development of a hypothetical Cyber Risk Insurance Act, which would protect the United States against the financial impacts of a widespread cyber-attack. The idea and research were meant to urge a federal backstop for uninsured losses resulting from the shutdown of large portions of the economy.
Now, the PRIA draws on that concept. It would create a federal backstop—or last-resort financial support—for future, and possibly even current, losses that companies would face from a pandemic event. Finn sent the act to Indiana and federal governments in mid-March, and it has already landed on desks in the White House and Congress.
“We will never have a March Madness again unless the government backstops it,” Finn says. “The PRIA would allow businesses to have a fair shot of getting coverage in the case of a pandemic. No insurance companies would take this on now, so that kind of protection would require an act like this. Without a backstop, what happens if we have to shut down every 10 years like this? What if we have to shut down every three years like this?”
Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), Chair of the U.S. House Financial Services Committee, explains her support of the PRIA, “By requiring higher capital and liquidity buffers, banks are well-positioned to continue lending and play an important countercyclical role. However, America’s consumers, small businesses, and vulnerable populations are suffering. It is time for a policy and fiscal response to address their needs.”
Finn says the act would protect venues from losing revenue due to the cancellation of large events like the NCAA basketball tournament. It would also lessen the ripple effect that major event losses can have on area businesses.
“If you’re running a major convention center or something like Lucas Oil Stadium,” Finn says, “it would be a completely common professional standard that they would offer pandemic insurance.”
The PRIA could also provide an alternative to federal government bailouts, Finn continues. Businesses do take advantage of business interruption insurance, but that only covers events like fire, lightning, or wind. Business loss due to pandemics are not in the mix, yet.
Real life application
Nick Fox ’17 was part of the four-student team representing Butler at the spring 2017 Spencer Education Foundation’s Risk Management Challenge case competition, which explored options for insuring PayPal. His teammates included Erin Bundy ’17, Jessica Parada ’17, and Matt Pauszek ’17.
While placing third in the competition, the students’ analysis of what PayPal could do in the event of a cyber blackout turned heads. The PayPal risk manager congratulated the Butler students and took their Cyber Risk Insurance Act into serious consideration.
“She said our solution could truly be implemented in real life,” Fox recalls. “Three years removed, it could still be a focal point in the industry. It adds even more validity to the work we did.”
The students’ proposition was meant to protect businesses from a dire circumstance like the internet crashing or a global pandemic. It’s debatable which event would be more catastrophic, but Finn says the students' ideas from three years ago could help the U.S. today.
Climbing the insurance ranks
Today, Fox and his former teammates are all advancing within their respective insurance companies. Fox finished his studies at Butler a semester early and was quickly hired as a cyber risk analyst for middle market corporations and businesses at Marsh & McLennan Companies, based out of Chicago, Illinois. He is currently transitioning to a consultant position, working with risk managers and chief financial officers of Fortune 500 companies.
“The past few months, I’ve been focusing on emerging risks, one of which is COVID-19,” Fox says. “I’ve been consulting with different clients on things like violent threat modeling and cyber stress tests.”
Pauszek is a Risk Management Analyst for the University of Notre Dame. He has leaned on his Butler experience, especially since COVID-19 grew to pandemic levels in March.
“Faced with situations of uncertainty and crisis, the lessons I learned have equipped me with both the technical industry knowledge and the overall confidence to identify and execute creative business solutions,” Pauszek says. “I believe the Davey Program has built a culture that emphasizes and encourages students to approach their careers with an innovative outlook and careful consideration for others that makes them extremely valuable in their surrounding communities.”
Fox considers his training at Butler key to his early career success, too. The enactment of PRIA would be another boost to his career.
“It’ll put Butler University itself in its rightful place on the map in terms of Risk Management and Insurance,” Fox says. “This is going to create an opportunity for us to put our ideas in the forefront of the country.”
The PRIA is also fast-ascending. The piece of potential policy could be a boost to the U.S. economy in years to come.
“It’s not really a question of if another pandemic is going to happen,” Fox says, “it’s more so when and how serious.”
Media Contact:
Katie Grieze
News Content Manager
kgrieze@butler.edu
260-307-3403
Butler’s Risk Management and Insurance Program Authors Pandemic Act to Bolster Economy
Clinical Professor Zach Finn and his former students’ work is being lobbied by the U.S. House Financial Services Committee
Clinical Professor Zach Finn and his former students’ work is being lobbied by the U.S. House Financial Services Committee
Visiting Writing Series Announces Spring Speakers
PUBLISHED ON Dec 04 2017
Series begins February 1 with Kazim Ali.
Novelist/biographer Edmund White and Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Louise Glück will be among the speakers this spring in Butler University’s Vivian S. Delbrook Visiting Writers Series.
The series begins February 1 with poet/novelist Kazim Ali and continues with novelist Ali Eteraz (February 15), poet Danez Smith (March 22), White (April 3), and Glück (April 18). Times and locations are below.
All events in the spring 2018 series are free and open to the public without tickets. For more information, call 317-940-9861.
More information about each speaker follows.
Kazim Ali
Thursday, February 1, 7:30 PM
Eidson-Duckwall Recital Hall
Kazim Ali’s books include several volumes of poetry, including Sky Ward, winner of the Ohioana Book Award in Poetry; The Far Mosque, winner of Alice James Books’ New England/New York Award; The Fortieth Day; All One’s Blue; and the cross-genre text Bright Felon. He has received an Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council, and his poetry has been featured in Best American Poetry. His novels include The Secret Room: A String Quartet, and among his books of essays is Fasting for Ramadan: Notes from a Spiritual Practice.
Ali is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing and Comparative Literature at Oberlin College. His new book of poems, Inquisition, and a new hybrid memoir, Silver Road: Essays, Maps & Calligraphies, are scheduled for release in 2018.
Ali Eteraz
Thursday, February 15, 7:30 PM
Atherton Union, Reilly Room
Ali Eteraz is the author of the debut novel Native Believer, a New York TimesBook Review Editors’ Choice selection. He is also the author of the critically acclaimed memoir Children of Dust, which was selected as a New Statesman Book of the Year, won the Nautilus Book Award Gold, and was featured on PBS with Tavis Smiley, NPR with Terry Gross, C-SPAN2, and numerous international outlets. O, The Oprah Magazine, called it “a picaresque journey” and the book was long-listed for the Asian American Writers Workshop Award.
Previously, he wrote the short story collection Falsipedies and Fibsiennes. Other short stories have appeared in The Adirondack Review, storySouth, Chicago Quarterly Review, and Forge Journal.
Eteraz is an accomplished essayist and has been spotlighted by Time Magazine and Pageturner, the literary blog of The New Yorker.
Danez Smith
Thursday, March 22, 7:30 PM
Eidson-Duckwall Recital Hall
Danez Smith is the author of Don’t Call Us Dead (2017), finalist for the National Book Award in poetry; [insert] Boy (2014), winner of the Lambda Literary Award and the Kate Tufts Discovery Award; and the chapbook hands on ya knees. Their writing has appeared in many magazines and journals, such as Poetry, Ploughshares, Beloit Poetry Journal, and Kinfolks. Smith is a 2011 Individual World Poetry Slam finalist and the reigning two-time Rustbelt Individual Champion and was on the 2014 championship team Sad Boy Supper Club.
In 2014, they were the festival director for the Brave New Voices International Youth Poetry Slam and were awarded a Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry fellowship from the Poetry Foundation.
Edmund White
Tuesday, April 3, 7:30 PM
Atherton Union, Reilly Room
Edmund White is America’s preeminent gay writer. In biography, social history, travel writing, journalism, the short story, and the novel, this prolific and versatile author has chronicled the gay experience in the United States from the closeted 1950s through the AIDS crisis and beyond.
His first novel, Forgetting Elena, published in 1973, is the story of an amnesia victim, set at a stylish resort reminiscent of Fire Island. With the classic coming-of-age tale A Boy’s Own Story, White cemented a place for himself—and for gay fiction—in the cultural consciousness. His celebrated fiction also includes Nocturnes for the King of Naples, Caracole, The Beautiful Room Is Empty (winner of the 1988 Lambda Literary Award), The Farewell Symphony, The Married Man, Fanny: A Fiction, Hotel de Dream, and Jack Holmes and His Friend. His latest is Our Young Man.
White has been involved in the gay rights movement since the Stonewall riots in New York City in 1969 and has acted as one of its canniest observers. His pioneering The Joy of Gay Sex: An Intimate Guide for Gay Men to the Pleasures of a Gay Lifestyle was published in 1977 and served as a national coming-out announcement for the entire gay community.
White has also made his mark as a highly accomplished biographer. Genet: A Biography is recognized as a definitive work on writer and playwright Jean Genet, and in 1993 it won both the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Lambda Literary Award. White also authored the well-received Marcel Proust and Rimbaud: The Double Life of a Rebel. His memoir Inside a Pearl: My Years in Paris recounts the fifteen years he spent living there—one of the most productive and creative phases in his career.
White is a regular contributor to The Times Literary Supplement, The New York Times Book Review, and Vanity Fair, and is a member of both the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Louise Glück
Wednesday, April 18, 7:30 PM
Atherton Union, Reilly Room
Louise Glück is the author of twelve books of poetry and served as the U.S. Poet Laureate from 2003-2004. In 1993 Glück won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for her collection The Wild Iris. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Rockefeller and Guggenheim Foundations and from the National Endowment for the Arts. Other honors include the Academy of American Poets Prize, the William Carlos Williams Award, the Bobbitt National Poetry Prize, the Ambassador Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and her most recent book of poems Faithful and Virtuous Nightxs received the 2014 National Book Award. Her book of essays Proofs and Theories: Essays on Poetry (1994) was awarded the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for Nonfiction, and her book Vita Nova (2001) won the first New YorkerReaders Award. In 2001 Yale University recognized her lifetime achievement by awarding her its Bollingen Prize for Poetry.
Glück is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and currently serves as the Rosenkranz Writer-in-Residence in the Department of English at Yale University.
Media contact:
Marc Allan
mallan@butler.edu
317-940-9822
Visiting Writing Series Announces Spring Speakers
The series begins February 1 with poet/novelist Kazim Ali and continues with novelist Ali Eteraz (February 15), Barry (March 1), poet Danez Smith (March 22), White (April 3), and Glück (April 18). Times and locations are below.
The series begins February 1 with poet/novelist Kazim Ali and continues with novelist Ali Eteraz (February 15), Barry (March 1), poet Danez Smith (March 22), White (April 3), and Glück (April 18). Times and locations are below.
Butler Alumni Have Their Companies Moving Fast
PUBLISHED ON Jul 20 2016
Two of the fastest-growing Indianapolis-area private companies are being run by Butler University Lacy School of Business graduates, the Indianapolis Business Journal reported in its July 18-24 edition.
GreenLight LLC, which ranked No. 6 in the IBJ’s “Fast 25,” is headed by CEO Russell Hughes ’04, who was a Butler Business Scholar winner. Greenlight sells collectible diecast model cars.
Williams Creek Management Corp., No. 13 on the list, is run by President Neil Myers ’99. Williams Creek specializes in natural-resource construction—projects where communities want to meet regulatory requirements associated with the Clean Water Act and create something practical and beautiful.
“Huge congratulations to both Russell Hughes and Neil Myers for successfully leading the tremendous growth of their companies,” said Steve Standifird, Dean of Butler’s Lacy School of Business. “I’m delighted to see Lacy School of Business alums having this type of positive impact in the local business community."
According to the IBJ, GreenLight has grown 199 percent from fiscal year 2013 to 2015. The newspaper reported that to build the business, GreenLight put together a strategy to add licensing agreements with the likes of the Elvis Presley estate, IndyCar and other high-profile entertainment entities, and purchased diecast manufacturer GMP out of suburban Atlanta.
GreenLight is now in the process of buying First Response Replicas in Frankfort, Kentucky. In the past two years, it has also grown its relationships with retailers and distributors, adding Walmart and Target to the list of places that sell GreenLight cars.
Hughes told the IBJ that GreenLight has several high-end license agreements in the works that should add to the company’s opportunities for retail and promotional exposure.
“We’re very careful how we manage inventory and license agreements and guarantees,” he was quoted as saying. “Despite the growth, we are conservative in how we go about things.”
Williams Creek has grown by 125 percent from fiscal year 2013 to 2015, the IBJ said, and Myers was quoted as saying that the company expects similar growth over the next three years.
Williams Creek’s projects include things like rain gardens, storm water management systems and pond edge planting systems that prevent soil erosion. In Lafayette, Williams Creek was part of the team that created the Durkees Run Stormwater Park outside Lafayette Jefferson High School. The park is part of the city’s long-term plan to reduce raw sewage overflows and improve the water quality of the Wabash River. Durkees Run prevents sewer overflows by diverting 100 million gallons of storm water from Lafayette’s Wastewater Treatment plant.
Myers told the IBJ that early on, it was a challenge to get potential customers to buy into his company’s idea.
“We were on the cusp of creating a market in central Indiana that did not exist, and we were one of the early pioneers and adopters of this kind of work,” he said. “It’s become more of a natural course of acceptance than anything else.”
Media contact:
Marc Allan
mallan@butler.edu
317-940-9822
Butler Alumni Have Their Companies Moving Fast
Two of the fastest-growing Indianapolis-area private companies are being run by Butler University Lacy School of Business graduates, the Indianapolis Business Journal reported.
Two of the fastest-growing Indianapolis-area private companies are being run by Butler University Lacy School of Business graduates, the Indianapolis Business Journal reported.