Business skills honed in Russia

Business skills honed in Russia

MBA students at Graduate College of Union University devise a plan for housing firm

Albany Times Union
First published: Friday, February 10, 2006

SCHENECTADY -- A group of business students at the Graduate College of Union University is helping a Russian company sell affordable prefabricated housing to the public.

It's an ambitious project for the four students, all of whom have full-time jobs at local businesses and are in the final stages of the master's in business administration program at the school, an independent affiliate of Union College.

But instead of preparing a business plan from a classroom or library, two of the students traveled to the Russian city of Tula last month to see firsthand what the housing market is like in that country and how people live.

"It's very different than here, and it really helped to understand how to put together a plan for a company that's not here," said Richard Sussman, one of the students who traveled to Tula.

Sussman is an engineering manager at Bechtel Plant Machinery Inc. in Schenectady. He took the trip with Greg Johnson, an engineer at Bechtel who is also in the MBA program.

Using their own vacation time, they went to Tula in mid-January when the average temperature in the region was 30 below zero. They visited with the mayor of Tula, as well as with other government officials and business owners. They also traveled to historic sites such as Red Square in Moscow.

The trip was funded by the Albany-Tula Alliance Inc., a local nonprofit group that forges economic, cultural and educational ties between the Capital Region and Tula, an industrial city about 125 miles southwest of Moscow with a population of 550,000, and the capital of its region.

The chairman of the alliance, Gerald Shaye, is an adjunct professor at Union in addition to being director of international trade development with Empire State Development Corp., the state's economic development arm. He suggested the trip to students taking the so-called "capstone" course that is typically one of the final classes in the MBA program. Students are required to work in teams of four, preparing a business plan for a real company, to complete the course and graduate.

Sussman and Johnson are working with Michelle Akin, a financial analyst at Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory in Niskayuna, and Erika Gee, a procurement specialist at Bechtel. Only two students could make the trip to Tula, so Akin and Gee stayed behind and provided the two men with research and support by e-mail while they were away.

The students are making a business plan for Demidov's Style Co., a company in Tula that has ties to the Albany-Tula Alliance and has worked with Capital Region companies in the past. Demidov's Style also owns a hotel where the two students stayed while in Russia.

The basis for the business plan is to make wooden modular homes that are cheaper and quicker to build than traditional brick Russian homes. The students believe there is a $2 billion market for this type of housing in the Tula region because home ownership is becoming much more widely accepted and financing is becoming easier to obtain.

"It's very clear that the market is there," Gee said.

The housing units cost from $35,000 to $160,000.

Tatiana Sudarikova, an engineer from Tula who has an internship in North Greenbush as part of the alliance, agrees that there is a market for the students' plan, especially as mortgages become more popular in Russia.

"This is a brilliant idea," Sudarikova said. "We have to introduce this system more widely in Russia."

Mel Chudzik, dean of the school of management at the Graduate College of Union University, is proud of the students and believes they have raised the bar for the MBA program.

"They certainly got a real challenge," Chudzik said. "We hope to do more like this, and we're certainly going to go after similar opportunities."

Larry Rulison can be reached at 454-5504 or by e-mail at lrulison@timesunion.com

Michelle Akin ad Richard Sussman, far right, are among four Graduate College of Union University students working on Russian housing. School of Management Dean Melvin Chudzik, left, and associate professor John Huppertz are also shown.

Business students Richard Sussman, left, and Greg Johnson visit a bar in Tula, Russia, last month, while on a trip to work with a Russian firm.

Used by permission.