Thunderbird School of Global Management

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Thunderbird School of Global Management
Established:	1946
President:	Dr. Ángel Cabrera
Location:	Glendale, AZ, USA
Website:	www.thunderbird.edu

Thunderbird School of Global Management is a private business school in the United States, and the first and oldest graduate school specializing in international management and global business. Its main campus is situated in Glendale, Arizona, but it also has campuses in the Czech Republic in cooperation with the Czech Management Center; in Geneva, Switzerland; in Russia; in Beijing, China; and in Monterrey, Mexico with the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM).

Thunderbird has had different official names throughout its history, including the original American Institute of Foreign Trade, American Graduate School of International Management during the nineties, and the more recent Garvin School of International Management, established in 2004 in recognition of alumnus Sam Garvin and his wife Rita who had pledged $60 million to the School. Since its founding, however, the School has consistently been known as Thunderbird, the name of the Glendale air base where its campus was established. In 2007 the school finally adopted Thunderbird as its official name: Thunderbird School of Global Management.

An alumnus or current student of Thunderbird is sometimes referred to as a "T-bird".

Contents 1 History 2 Programs 3 Notable Thunderbird Alumni[1][2] 4 Rankings 5 References and Notes 6 External links

[edit] History

The school was founded in 1946 as the first known school in the world dedicated to training international managers. Thunderbird graduate programs combine business, international studies, cross-cultural communication, and language. The School was built on Thunderbird Field, a historic air base established to train U.S., Canadian, British, and Chinese pilots during World War II. Remnants of that period are still visible, with landmark buildings, including the airfield control tower, barracks and airplane hangars, as part of the campus landscape.

Following World War II, Lt. General Barton Kyle Yount (1884-1949), the commanding general of the United States Army Air Training Command, initiated the purchase of the property on which the School is located; the property was valued at US$407,000. However, a law enacted after the war enabled someone to purchase government property at a discount if the property was going to be used for educational purposes. The founders successfully applied for a 100% discount, so the property was essentially free. The only condition was that it had to remain as an educational institution for ten years, and obviously it has done so for nearly 60 years.

General Yount saw a growing demand for international executive talent, and created the first school of business to focus exclusively on international management. He became Thunderbird's first president when the school was chartered on April 8, 1946; it was founded as a nonprofit corporation known as the American Institute for Foreign Trade. Classes began on October 1, 1946, and the school saw its first graduating class on June 14, 1947.

Growth and expansion have also included the addition of various new buildings on campus in Glendale, and additional facilities overseas, including a campus in France, and facilities in Japan, China and Russia. The school also teaches students through partnership programs in Brazil, Mexico, Peru and Taiwan.

In August 2004, Dr. Angel Cabrera, formerly dean of Instituto de Empresa in Madrid, Spain, became the first foreign-born president of the School, succeeding Dr. Roy A. Herberger Jr.

Then, in April 2006, as the school celebrated its 60th Anniversary, a new mission, vision and beliefs were announced to the public:

• Mission: We educate global leaders who create sustainable prosperity worldwide
• Vision: To be the world's foremost learning community for global managers and global enterprises
• Beliefs: Global Mindset, Global Citizenship, Global Entrepreneurship, Global Thought Leadership, Global Connections

[edit] Programs

Thunderbird offers a number of graduate programs in international management for individuals from around the world at different stages in their careers. The MS in Global Management is offered to college graduates without meaningful prior work experience. The MA in Global Affairs and Management is oriented towards management of public, international and social organizations. The MBA in Global Management is the full-time MBA offered to experienced professionals. The GMBA is a distance MBA program for working professionals that combines residential modules and technology-mediated courses. The Executive MBA in Global Management is a modular MBA for experienced managers offered currently in Glendale, Prague and South Korea. Thunderbird offers a Post-MBA Masters in Global Management for recent MBA graduates to gain a more global perspective and the knowledge and soft skills to succeed as a global business leader. Thunderbird also offers a Masters of Global Management as a dual degree with a number of partner schools around the world.

Thunderbird Corporate Learning is dedicated to management development programs, both custom-made for a specific organization or open to practicing managers from any organization.

[edit] Notable Thunderbird Alumni^[1][2]

• Jim Alling, '85, President of Starbucks Coffee USA
• Luis Alberto Moreno, '77, President, Inter-American Development Bank and former Colombian Ambassador to the United States
• William D. Perez, ’70, CEO of The Wrigley Co.
• Frances Aldrich Sevilla-Sacasa, ’78, President, U.S. Trust
• Gordon Smith, ’96, President, Consumer Card Services Group at American Express
• Raymundo A. Yu Jr., '81, senior vice president, chairman, Asia Pacific Region of Merrill Lynch
• Lewis W. Lucke, '77 former United States Ambassador to the Kingdom of Swaziland
• W.L. Brown, '60, former United States Ambassador to Austria
• Tony Holmes, '79, former United States Ambassador to Burkina Faso

[edit] Rankings

Since 1995 Thunderbird has been ranked consistently by US News & World Report as the #1 school in International Management. The 2005 Business Week rankings place Thunderbird in the Top 50 Full-time MBA program (fifth consecutive time) and in the Top 10 for "Best & Brightest", Global Scope. Current Wall Street Journal rankings place Thunderbird as the #1 for Academic Excellence in International Business in the United States (as judged by U.S. recruiters), #1 Regionally, and #5 for top International Schools overall in Europe and North America (as judged by global recruiters). In 2007, it was ranked as #1 International Business School in The Financial Times ranking.^[3]

[edit] References and Notes

[edit] External links

• Thunderbird School of Global Management
• Thunderbird School of Global Management Online
• Thunderbird Rankings Overview
• WSJ Article on Thunderbird (September 20, 2006)

Coordinates: 33°37′20″N, 112°10′56″W