Mark Hanny, IBM VP, a SOM Alumnus,
and Dean Tom O'Brien

This story began when Mark Hanny, IBM senior officer, came back to visit his professor, Marc Weinberger, in the early 90s. Mark was a star student when he took Prof. Weinberger's class in 1978, which he remembered as clear as yesterday. (His project in that class was to market the buffalo burger as an healthy alternative for beef burger.) Today, he is the IBM Vice President ISV Alliances and Academic Initiative, yet there seems an invisible link back to the buffalo burger. During Mark's visit, Dean O'Brien immediately recognized him as a valuable resource to whom we might recommend our most talented graduates.

Jonathan Hurley was one of these, and he was hired by IBM in 1998. When Jon took a close look at their newly created e-Commerce software, "Net.Commerce," he immediately envisioned all our MBA students participating in this new business opportunity called "e-Business." Mark Hanny supported the idea with an IBM donation valued at $100,000, including not only the software and an entire computer lab, but also providing unlimited training for faculty members
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 In December 1998, excited by such a generous donation, Associate Dean Les Ball asked Kaimei Zheng, the Director of Information Management, "Can we do it?" Having done the research and with 10 years IT management experience, and also having taught the course, "Internet Business," that summer, Kaimei said "Yes." She then participated in IBM training, and created a syllabus. Jon Hurley suggested that we name the class, "Internet Business Design and Development," and Kaimei named the first server donated by IBM, "Hurley."

 Mark Hanny wanted us to use the IBM software to build Web sites for local businesses, and our first clients materialized: Friendly's, Birdsfly, Massachusetts Roses, and Food Play, and we have helped more than ninety local businesses since.

 In the past seven years, Mark Hanny has continuously supported this class with both updated software and hardware, teaching assistantships, internships, and faculty training.  Mark also introduced the IBM Scholarships Program to ISOM, providing even more resources for academic teaching.

In the midst of a busy schedule including global responsibilities, Mark often made time to drive to UMass and attend the class to talk to students -- sometimes driving back to his office at midnight. Several students landed Internships with IBM, and some got jobs in e-Business companies as a result of their knowledge of IBM e-Commerce technologies.

Kaimei Zheng, Dec, 2006