“The whole city” is no exaggeration: The tweet quickly went viral, striking a nerve with riders who debated the pros and cons (more legroom in seats 1 and 3, closer to the door in 4 and 5; no one seemed to prefer 2) of each location.

To date, the meme has been viewed by seven million people; both the New York Times and New York magazine published articles about it, and WABC-TV in New York ran a news segment featuring an on-camera interview with Bautiste. Among the local luminaries who weighed in on the commuting controversy: Current New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (“1-2-3. 4 and 5 don’t exist when you’re 6’ 6”), along with former mayor – and former presidential candidate – Michael Bloomberg (“I always stand”). Transit riders in Toronto and Philadelphia began hashing out the question in their cities, and online jokes sprang up that asked viewers to pick the best seat on the Starship Enterprise and in the Seattle apartment of TV’s “Frasier.”

“The reaction is amazing,” says Bautiste, who currently is studying abroad at the University of Carlos III in Madrid. “I loved seeing the opinions of everyone, and I appreciated all the celebrity replies. Overall, it was cool to see that there isn’t a definitive answer.”

So Gabriel, which is the best seat? “Number 5 is my personal favorite. You can sit sideways, which allows for minimal interaction with the commotion that’s going on in the train.”

Faculty Focus

In February, a trio of SoM faculty members made presentations as part of the Emerging Leaders Program (ELP). On Feb. 10, Professor of Management and Associate Dean for Undergraduate Programs Joanne Gavin gave a talk entitled “Be Your Best from the Inside Out:  Ethics and Leadership.” On the 14th, Assistant Professor of Management Melinda Weisberg discussed “Surviving Life in the Fast Lane: Leading and Managing Change.” Professor of Strategy Helen Rothberg encouraged students to “Play Nice and Share Your Toys” during her presentation on Feb. 24. ELP is a non-credit certificate program that affords students various ways to discover and hone their own leadership style. It was developed under the auspices of the National Society of Leadership and Success.

SoM professors John Finnigan, Xiaoli Wang and Feiqi Huang attended an IBM Blockchain Workshop in January. Hosted at the firm’s Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, NY, the five-day event was part of IBM’s “Train the Trainer” program. Consisting of lectures, lab exercises, and multiple group activities, the workshop focused on helping trainees understand how the use of blockchain technology is transforming industry. Technical topics – including cryptography and open-source technology such as Hyperledger Fabric – were discussed, and blockchain case studies and real-world solutions were presented.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) establishes auditing and related professional practice standards for registered public accounting firms to follow when preparing and issuing audit reports. Among their duties, PCAOB inspectors assess compliance with Securities and Exchange Commission rules and evaluate a firm’s audit performance.

Assistant Professor of Accounting Zhaokai Yan is a member of the Rutgers Business School’s Continuous Auditing and Reporting Laboratory team, which is offering an Annual Inspections Training Course for approximately 150 PCAOB staffers. The course consists of three webinars (statistics, regression, and visualization) and two case studies; Yan is responsible for the regression webinar, which focuses on the applications predictive audit in practice; the statistical measures for associations between variables; application of multiple regression models in real-life datasets; and the use of regression models as part of audit procedures.

Alumni Profile:  Johnnieanne Hansen

Johnnieanne Hansen MA ’15 is only half joking when she says that she spends her leisure time working. “In my spare time, I’m thinking about what we should be doing three months or a year from now -- which is lame, but I’ve just embraced it.”

Hansen is vice president of operations and workforce development at the Council of Industry, a trade association for Hudson Valley manufacturing firms located in Newburgh, NY. She earned her associate’s and bachelor’s degrees in business from SUNY Orange and Dominican College, respectively, and completed her master’s in integrated marketing communications at Marist in 2015. Hansen also is the executive director of the Hudson Valley Manufacturing Workforce Center (a sister organization of the Council of Industry that helps with workforce needs), an adjunct professor at SUNY New Paltz, and an active volunteer with organizations like Habitat for Humanity. She lives in Newburgh with her husband Stephen, daughter McKenna (a high school sophomore) and son Tanner, an eighth-grader.

Q: Would you give us a brief overview of your career?

A: Before coming to the Council of Industry, I worked in human resources, particularly in training and recruitment, at Walden Savings Bank. That set me up well for this opportunity, which I never expected would come to me. I focus on workforce development. It’s like human resources – I’m attracting, recruiting, retaining and preparing a team for the future -- but instead of doing it for 150 people at Walden Savings Bank, I do it hand-in-hand with 150 companies. I’m focused on bringing new people into this industry and creating awareness that jobs in manufacturing are diverse, well paid, and are right here in the Hudson Valley.

I also oversee a recruiting board. We have many small businesses with less than 50 employees, and it’s hard for them to compete in recruitment against larger companies. So they partner with us, and we provide them with the resources needed to fill their job openings at minimal cost.

The skills gap is a real concern for manufacturers: some companies have a pool of steady, reliable workers who don’t yet have the skills needed to move up into the next position. So we have an apprenticeship program through the Department of Labor that we’re really proud of. The goal is to get workers more suited for these positions within two to five years.

Q: In your opinion, what’s the biggest challenge facing Hudson Valley manufacturers today, and what can be done about it?

A: There are two things. One, technology is changing so fast. We’re fortunate that most of our manufacturers are high tech and working to keep up with the curve, but it requires a lot to do so. Second is the lack of people, which is a huge obstacle that’s keeping business owners up at night. We recognize that skilled workers are missing from the employment demographic right now, and we have to build that. Along with our apprenticeship program, we offer a certificate program in leadership for manufacturing and other training programs to help proven employees get the skills they need.

Q: Recently, you had a meeting with Dean Lawrence Singleton and other School of Management staff members. What did you discuss?

A: Marist College has such a successful NYC Career Trek; we talked about creating something similar in the Hudson Valley, and taking students to companies in the manufacturing sphere. These companies have accounting positions; they are looking for strategic thinkers and problem-solvers. Our idea was, wouldn’t it be nice to put 50 students on a bus and take them to see aerospace components that are being built at a company that’s 10 minutes from campus? Wouldn’t it be nice if they knew that these local jobs existed? (Editor’s note: The first Hudson Valley Career Day is scheduled for Wednesday, April 22. Organized in partnership with the Council of Industry, the event will take undergraduate business students for site visits at several local companies to talk with executives and learn about internships and entry-level positions.)  

Q: What “soft” skills are most important for students to develop?

A: I think students are used to being so competitive in the classroom that they are afraid to be vulnerable. It’s a hard transition into an environment where you’re not supposed to know everything. In the workforce, being willing to say “I don’t know” and ask for help makes a difference.

Q: What aspect of your work life do you enjoy the most?

A: I believe we are genuinely helping people and making a difference in their lives. The flip side of that is we don’t have the capacity to help the number of people we would like to, and that feels heavy. But I just love the little win, when I can help just one person go into an internship program that I know will change their life.

Getting to know…Prof. Tony Carrizales

Tony J. Carrizales, an associate professor of public administration, came to the School of Management in 2006. “My academic life was pretty straightforward,” says the Brownsville, Texas native. “I had never heard of schools on the East Coast. But when I was a high school senior, some students came and made a presentation. My counselor suggested they speak to me, and they convinced me to write an application to Cornell. I got in, and have been on the East Coast ever since.”

After earning his BA and MPA at Cornell, Carrizales headed to New Jersey to complete his doctorate. While working on his dissertation at Rutgers University, “I became familiar with Marist through [Professor of Public Administration] Jim Melitski, who had graduated from the Rutgers program a couple of years earlier,” Carrizales says. “He told me about the job opening here. There aren’t many opportunities on the East Coast, so I took the first one – and it’s worked out well for me.”

The professor admits that becoming an academic was not his original career goal. “As a kid, I had dreams of being a professional athlete,” he laughs, “but the reality kicked in real quick, and I had to find something else. My mom was an academic, so I had an appreciation for higher education. I have really come to enjoy teaching, and I still get to do research and travel. One of the things I like about Marist is the opportunity to teach in Florence, which I’ve done three times.”

Currently, Carrizales’ main research interest is cultural competence. “Organizations in the public sector especially can be more effective in diverse communities when they are competent about their residents’ languages and customs. When they engage with the residents, they understand that there are differences.”

He also played a large part in the development of the SoM faculty’s RATE (Research and Teaching Excellence) mentorship program. “When I got here,” he remembers, “we weren’t assigned mentors. I realized it was good to have a point of contact, someone who can answer questions about living in the area, the promotion/tenure process, etc. So part of the RATE program is having an assigned mentor, which is what I do – match people up.”

Carrizales and his wife, Michelle, live in Yonkers, NY with their three children: Oliver, eight, and five-year-old twins Claudia and Warren. Leisure time, he says, is “defined by the kids,” with video games being a popular pastime: “We play as a team against other players,” he says, “and it gets pretty intense.” Giving back to the community is also paramount: He is the board president of Cluster Community Services, which provides mental health, housing, and after-school programs in Westchester and Rockland counties. “And I do a lot work with the Freemasons,” he adds.

Carrizales credits his mother with instilling in him the importance of community service. “Growing up in South Texas in the 1980s, we saw lots of immigrants from Central America, who would walk for miles and miles to get to Brownsville. My mom was in the medical area; she would take me to a temporary shelter for immigrants where she would treat their feet, and I would play with the kids.

“The experience ingrained in my mind that you have to provide service and be engaged in your community. It helps define what kind of person you’ll be.”