April 5, 2014

Florida Repeats as SEC MBA Case Competition Champion

By: Bryant Welbourne
SECU (Twitter: @TheSECU)

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – The University of Florida repeated as the winner of the 2014 SEC MBA Case Competition on Saturday afternoon. The competition, in its second year, was hosted by the Culverhouse College of Commerce at the University of Alabama.

A team of four MBA students from every SEC university was presented a business case from Regions Bank, the event sponsor, on Friday morning. The teams, who were separated into four divisions, proposed their solutions to a panel of business executives on Saturday morning in divisional rounds. The top four proposals moved on to the final round that determined the winner of the competition.

Carly Escue, Steve Faivre, Eric Frohman and Karl Kremser comprised the winning team from the University of Florida.

“We are very honored to win amongst a field of very accomplished MBA programs,” said Jason Rife, Associate Director of MBA Career Services at the Hough Graduate School of Business at the University of Florida. “Our students put in a lot of hard work and we’re very proud.”

Auburn University finished second in the final round, followed by the University of Georgia and the University of South Carolina.

Other awards given during the divisional rounds included Best Presenter and Best Q&A.

Ryan Dubiel of the University of South Carolina, Carly Escue of the University of Florida, Kathy Kellert of the University of Georgia and Lauren Little of Auburn University were awarded the Best Presenter Award for their respective divisions.

“Our team knew this was the last time we would compete together and I’m very proud of how we prepared and executed,” said Escue.

The Best Q&A Award, based on their division, was given to Karl Kremser of the University of Florida, Miaomiao Pang of the University of Alabama, Bhanu Shanmugam of Mississippi State University and Eric Wilson of Vanderbilt University.

“We were honored to be this year’s host of the SEC MBA Case Competition,” said J. Michael Hardin, Dean of the Culverhouse College of Commerce. “The SEC is not only the best conference for competitive sports, but I believe we have some of the best and brightest students, and they are here representing all 14 SEC universities.”

The 2015 SEC MBA Case Competition will be held at the University of South Carolina in Columbia.

A full list of winners from the 2014 SEC MBA Case Competition is below.

Final Team MBA Case Competition Results
First Place: University of Florida (Carly Escue, Steve Faivre, Eric Frohman and Karl Kremser)
Second Place: Auburn University (Kevin Durham, Lauren Little, Ty McCormack and Torrey Trawick)
Third Place: University of Georgia (Betsy Curry, Chris Henderson, Kathy Kellert and Kevin Trexler)
Fourth Place: University of South Carolina (Alice Ballenger, Ryan Dubiel, Sylvia Lee and Hannibal Scipio)

Best Presenter Award
Ryan Dubiel (University of South Carolina)
Carly Escue (University of Florida)
Kathy Kellert (University of Georgia)
Lauren Little (Auburn University)

Best Q&A Award
Karl Kremser (University of Florida)
Miaomiao Pang (University of Alabama)
Bhanu Shanmugam (Mississippi State University)
Eric Wilson (Vanderbilt University)