CJ Bachman earned an education degree from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln in 1967, a master of education degree from South Dakota State University in 1973 and an MBA from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln in 1987.
He was commissioned in 1967 and spent the next 20 years in various training and management positions in the U. S. Air Force. From 1988 to 2002, he worked for UNL’s Division of Continuing Studies as advisor and coordinator of the UNL off-campus MBA program at Offutt Air Force Base and then he worked for the College of Business Administration developing and coordinating the distance MBA program for eight years.
Currently retired and living in Papillion, Neb., he serves on various non-profit boards and manages the family farm in Adams County in Nebraska.
Sheila Brugger joined Nebraska Public Power District in 2010 as the accounting manager. Her primary responsibilities include managing the monthly and year-end financial statement reporting process of the district.
She began her career in public accounting, then transitioned to private industry and has specialized in managerial accounting for mid-sized manufacturing companies in Nebraska. She has worked for companies such as Baldwin Filters in Kearney, Neb., Diamond Plastics in Grand Island, Neb., and Columbus Metal Industries in Columbus, Neb.
She is a native of McCool Junction, Neb., and graduated from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln with a degree in business administration and an emphasis accounting and economics in 1996. She became licensed as a certified public accountant in 1998, earned her certification of management accounting in 2002 and graduated with a master of business administration in 2008 from University of Nebraska–Lincoln.
Brugger and her husband, Mark, live in York, Neb., with their five children: Peyton, Stacia, Jacob, Luke
and Claire.
Stacy Cox started in banking in 1984 and serves as the chief operations officer and chief risk officer for Croghan Colonial Bank in Northwest Ohio. In this role, she is responsible for the bank’s operations, information technology and risk management functions.
Before joining Croghan Colonial Bank, Cox worked at First National Bank in Omaha as vice president of core banking operations and IT. In this function, she led the operations and related IT functions for core products offered in FNBO’s six state market area. During her time at FNBO, she led several strategic initiatives for the corporation, providing organizational realignment and significant operational and structural efficiencies.
Prior to FNBO, Cox served as senior vice president of operations at Huntington National Bank in Columbus, Ohio, for 16 years. She also worked for eight years at National City Bank.
She earned her business administration degree from Heidelberg University in Ohio and a BAI graduate degree in bank operations and technology through Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn. In 2009, she earned an MBA from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln with accounting and international business concentrations.
She currently serves on the Foundation Board of the Sandusky County Chamber of Commerce and the Heidelberg University School of Business Board. She has also served on several non-profit boards and fund raising events for area organizations.
Dick Frizzell received both of his degrees from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. He received a business administration degree in 1971 and an MBA in 1972. He earned a certificate in management accounting (CMA) in 1979.
Frizzell is currently CFO of United Services in St. Peters, Mo. He has held executive financial positions in the distribution industry for the past 25 years. Prior to United Services, he was CFO of Thompson Distributing in Fenton, Mo., regional director of finance for Unisource Worldwide Great Lakes Region (Wisconsin, Chicago and St. Louis), and controller of Berlin/Alco Packaging in Omaha, Neb.
An Omaha native, he has teaching experience at the university level as he taught managerial finance at the Keller MBA Program, as well as several financial and accounting courses at University College, the evening program at Washington University in St. Louis.
Scott Fullerton is a consulting actuary and principal in the Aon Hewitt (formerly Hewitt) Retirement practice at the Aon Hewitt worldwide headquarters in Lincolnshire, Ill., a northern suburb of Chicago. Aon Hewitt is a global leader in human capital solutions with over $4B in revenue annually. Hewitt was purchased by Aon, the world’s largest insurance broker, in September 2010.
Fullerton is a fellow of the Society of Actuaries, a member of the American Academy of Actuaries and an enrolled actuary. He is responsible for managing the Aon Hewitt retirement relationship for several large Fortune 500 and FTSE 100 clients. He is also significantly involved in internal management and leads an actuarial workgroup of around twenty associates. His work primarily focuses on annual work for defined benefit and retiree medical plans but also significantly focuses on risk mitigation efforts for these plans.
An Omaha, Neb., native, Fullerton joined Hewitt 16 years ago after graduating from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln with a bachelor of science degree in actuarial science and mathematics in 1995. He attended one semester of MBA classes at UNL before accepting a position with Hewitt. Most recently, Fullterton graduated in December 2010 with an MBA with honors from the University of Chicago.
After graduating from the University of Iowa with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, Zach Griffen started his career in Chicago as an IT management consultant with Ernst & Young working in the investment, treasury, and healthcare industries. After four years in a business analyst role interfacing with clients and managing custom software development, he enrolled in Indiana University’s full-time MBA program at the Kelley School of Business. At Kelley, he focused in marketing, was an intern at 3M Headquarters in St. Paul, Minn., participated in two international learning trips in India and South Africa, was a selected as a member of the Bloomington Brands student brand management team and studied abroad for 10-weeks in Hong Kong.
Post-MBA, Griffen joined 3M’s internal consulting group and participated in strategy development, product development and product launches across multiple business units. He was also selected to be a member of the corporate strategic planning team that worked with senior leadership to articulate 3M’s near-term and long-term strategies. He left 3M to join FindLaw.com, a division of Thomson Reuters, where he managed marketing and strategy for new products focused on online marketing and client acquisition for law firms.
Griffen currently works at National Research Corporation in Lincoln, Neb., where he is the director of product development for the Picker Division. Picker provides solutions to the healthcare industry for measuring and improving patient satisfaction.
Larissa Johnson started her career at Deloitte & Touche LLP in 1999. Over the course of more than 11-year career in public accounting, she has spent the majority of time serving the financial services industry with specializations in insurance and real estate, but has also served investment companies, manufacturing, higher-education, employee benefit plans and non-profit organizations for both public and private entities. She has experience in public equity offerings, private debt offerings, mergers and acquisitions, securitizations, variable interest entities, SEC reporting, Sarbanes Oxley and internal controls, and has served as an internal inspector as part of Deloitte’s quality control process. A certified Deloitte facilitator for national level specific and industry trainings, she has developed a number of training programs for Deloitte and for clients.
Johnson is a former board of director and treasurer of the Women’s Fund of Greater Omaha and continues to serve on the finance committee. She completed Leadership Omaha and is a community volunteer for two non-profit organizations helping to develop financial literacy training programs.
Originally from Imperial, Neb., she earned a business administration degree with an emphasis in accounting from the University of Nebraska at Kearney in 1999 and a masters of professional accountancy from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln in 2000. She is a certified public accountant, and a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Nebraska Society of CPAs.
In 2005, with the planning and guidance of Knecht, i2rd launched Vipa Solutions, a technology services company that partners with advertising, marketing and public relations agencies providing proven processes and web-based tools for agencies to manage their client’s websites, event registration and online marketing services. The Vipa Solutions team specializes in aiding agencies in the shift from traditional media and static websites to dynamic web services.
Later, the company expanded its reach, creating national sales and customer service teams. As partner and managing director of Vipa Solutions, Knecht is responsible for the oversight of a team that performs the day-to-day business operations of this aggressively growing company. He plays a key role in the development of new products and services and is responsible for identifying and maintaining industry relationships to help the company succeed.
He attended West Virginia University-Morgantown and received a bachelor of science in business administration in 1999. He then went on to earn his MBA from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln in 2001. He currently resides in Lincoln, Neb.
Brian Magnusson currently lives in Chicago, Ill., and works at CNH as the global product portfolio manager for their line of agricultural tractors sold under the Case IH, New Holland and Styer brands. In this role, he is responsible for the product line growth strategy and management of the multiple brands’ product offering in approximately 170 countries worldwide.
Prior to joining CNH, he spent four years with the management consulting firm Bain & Company in their Chicago office, where he worked for several leading global companies in the industrial manufacturing, aerospace and defense, financial services, retail and health care industries. He previously worked in project management in the energy industry while at Burns & McDonnell, an engineering and construction services firm based in Kansas City, Mo.
He was raised on a family farm near Oakland, Neb., and received his undergraduate degree in agricultural engineering from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln in 2001. He also participated in the study abroad program at Oxford University offered through the College of Business Administration during the summer of 2000. In 2008, he received his MBA degree from the Harvard Business School in Boston.
Magnusson currently serves as a board member for the Creating Captions Foundation, a non-profit youth leadership program founded by Matt Davison in Nebraska, designed to inspire young student athletes to live a life of character both on and off the playing field.
Amy Nachman began her career in the field of non-profit development both in the U.S. and in Israel, focusing on women, youth and families in crisis. She expanded her career linking her work with the non-profit community to the field of human resources.
As the human resources learning and development consultant for Dell Inc., her work focused on the development and implementation of a global technical and professional training strategy. In addition, she has served as a human resources manager for both Dell in Austin, Texas and First National Bank in Omaha, Neb.
Nachman continued her global international human resources career with Valmont Industries as an international HR generalist for the International Structures Division providing functional support for Valmont’s international (EMEA, Asia Pacific, and Latin America) business unit. In her current role as a lean change management coach, she provides organizational development leadership of The Valmont Way, a Valmont initiative aimed at refining the focus on the customer through lean methodology.
Nachman is certified as a global professional of human resources and professional of human resources. She holds a master’s of science in human resource management, labor and industrial relations institute from the University of Illinois, a master’s of science in social work from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and bachelors of art in Hebrew and Semitic studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison/Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel.
Blaine Spady joined the Smith Hayes Public Finance team in 2006 as an investment banker in the public finance department following his position as a financial advisor representative for Linsco Private Ledger. Spady brings extensive business and management experience to Smith Hayes from his experience as director of engineering for Nanometrics Incorporated, where he obtained eight patents with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. As vice president, he oversees all aspects of public finance business at Smith Hayes.
His highest priority is providing Nebraska issuers with the lowest cost of capital for their projects by using a wide range of analytical and modeling strategies to develop creative and cost effective financing solutions. The majority of his work is with Nebraska Cities and Counties general obligation debt, and sanitary and improvement district warrants and bonds. He is involved with all types of financing structures, from rated and enhanced to non-rated and un-enhanced, retail and institutional structures, fixed and variable rate bonds.
Spady is a native of Imperial, Neb. He has earned three degrees from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, including a bachelor of science in electrical engineering degree in 1992, a master of science in electrical engineering in 1995 and MBA in 2007. He has taken the Series 7 General Securities Representative Exam, Series 66 Uniform Combined State Law Exam and Series 53 Municipal Securities Principal Exam.
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