Zack Morris and Pekin Ogan

If you're in the Internet, Executive or Traditional UF MBA program, it's probably very unlikely that you'll run into the cutest, most lovable old man you'll ever meet - Dr. Pekin Ogan. He only teaches the working professionals (yup - we're the best), and he only teaches one class a year (yup - he's over it) - Managerial Accounting: Critical Perspectives on Decision Making.

Pekin's smile and Matt's sideburns

Pekin, as he prefers to be called, teaches Managerial Accounting with flawless engagement, focusing on class discussion and endless whiteboard brainstorms as the primary source of learning. He sings, dances, loves his wife, hates the "word" incentivize (it should be motivate), and lives for teaching. Pekin indirectly teaches from a triple-bottom-line management perspective, where people, profits and planet have to play nice together. He despises dumb business, where managers thoughtlessly choose "short term gains" and end up with "long term pains." This concept was drilled through our heads.

Our cohort just ended our second term, and we celebrated with a pool party on the roof at the Holiday Inn with Sonny's Barbeque, Firehouse Subs, Five Star Pizza and kegs of Miller Light - ahh college. Pekin, in his khakis and smile, showed up to join the fun. By the end of the night, he was doing keg stands and playing Flip Cup like it was nobody's business. As Zack Morris used to say, "Hey Slater - I bet your mom can't do keg stands like that!" Actually - I'm pretty sure Zack never said that (wasn't he like, 14?), and I'm pretty sure Pekin never did keg stands, but he was still at the party, shirt off and sipping some cold ones. He was chatting with us about his love for students and his love for companies that choose people over profits.

I learned a ton in Critical Perspectives on Decision Making, and worked hard for an A, thanks to some help from powerful study sessions with a Pepsi financial analyst and New England sports fanatic, Brad, and a tall, finance guru named Jared, who I shared a room with at the Paramount for the first few weekends we were in Gainesville. Jared was the best roommate ever - we stayed up late those first weekends in Gainesville, chatting about our families, our faith, and the anxieties of being in the UF MBA program and having to find time to work on the side.

I was a little bummed out about how, in the first term of the UF MBA program, all of our major tests were on Sunday instead of Saturday. Instead of our cohort flooding downtown Gainesville on Saturday night, celebrating the conclusion of the month's tests by cheerfully volunteering to self-inflicted dehydration, low blood sugar and inflammatory responses from our immune systems, most of us were staking out break-rooms at Hough Hall until 1:00am, doing that last-minute cramming that inevitably becomes from working while going to school and possibly raising a family.

Towards the end of the first term, Pekin told me secretly, as I was showing him his quotes (my tweets) tickering on the giant screen in the middle of Hough Hall, that he just loved our class - it was one of his favorites. I'm sure he says this "secretly" to everyone who tweets him as if he's some renowned business thought leader (which he is in my book), but he had a sincerity and humility about him that sold me. In fact, Pekin has a humility that transfers to your soul every time you shake his hand, or study his smile, or watch his quirky dances. And UF MBA lesson #2 hit me, "Be sincere, be humble, and care more."

My tweets from a weekend with Pekin (and Dudley).

Extroverts and Corporate Finance

I'm an extrovert. I don't think before I talk, I prefer going out every night of the week instead of staying home, curled up on the couch with A River Runs Through It, and I drink tons of water (hoping that I'll have to pee more often throughout the day, inevitably resulting in shorter stints of solitude in my office).

Luckily, us loud-mouth, dominant types are rewarded in the workplace for our ostensibly faulty behaviors. Architects design office space now, completely built around the idea that everyone should have to collaborate all day long with every breathing thing in the company - also known as the open office concept.  Meetings are often biased towards the extravert's ability to think on his/her feet, instead of the introvert's aptitude to actually think about problems and reason through solutions - and then talk. Premiums are paid more for presentations than for substance and critical thinking.

In the UF MBA program, I'm always happy to see that class participation counts towards/against your final grade, and I can imagine that 1/3 of the class is not so happy to see this addition in most syllabuses. Whelp, in Corporate Finance with Professor Dudley, I became an introvert for the first time in my life. Discussions about CAPM and WACC and Cost of Capital and Risk-Free-Rates and Debt and Equity and Risk Aversion and Puts and Calls and Bonds and Stocks and the Black-Scholes Model shut me right up. I was at a loss for words, and every time I opened my mouth to achieve that 10% participation allotment, a sudden sweat would hit my palms, my voice cracked, and my pretend confidence was shattered.

Corporate Finance was difficult for me. My brain just doesn't operate like TJ, a sell-side hardline retail broker in Tampa, who probably could have taught Corporate Finance with his eyes closed. I guess I could be complimentary compared to Modigliani and Miller, who said with Nobel Prize Winning authority that finance is a crock of #$^@. Maybe I'm exaggerating their study, or maybe I just like to make myself feel better about not being overly financially inclined - either way, my ignorance in Corporate Finance made me feel naked and vulnerable (don't picture that - otherwise, a hairy back and belly and everything might haunt you forever).

It's funny, I took a few classes in Corporate Finance in my undergraduate business program, but after six years or so, when you have no need to calculate the present value of future cash flows of anything -because you don't have anything - you forget which buttons to press on the financial calculator.

After all is said and done, Corporate Finance was a great class, and the "hotness" rated Dudley was a good professor. He knew his stuff, presented it in a way that kind of made sense (it's me you're talking about), and encouraged thought that went beyond the numbers.  It was like learning a new language to me, where before, all I really knew how to do was conjugate verbs. And I suck at conjugating verbs.

I now know that managers are more scared of debt than equity, I know that Beta is an important yard stick, and I know that the cost of capital is the same exact thing as the required rate of return. I know that MS Excel is responsible for smart-looking people's smartness. I know that forecasting is somewhat of a guessing game with more assumptions than facts, and therefore, reason must accompany numbers. I now know that Dudley's quizzes are easy, and his finals are difficult.

I ended up really appreciating Corporate Finance and getting a B+ for the class. And now, with confidence, I can step away from my computer every hour and tell every living soul on my way to the bathroom how much I know about complex financial forecasting. My poor office-mates.