Columbus, Ohio - Franklin University, a leading educator of working adults in central Ohio, is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Steven Vickner as Program Chair for the Vantage MBA program.  In his role as Program Chair, Dr. Vickner will be responsible for the management and oversight of all aspects of the Vantage MBA, with additional responsibilities for pioneering curriculum initiatives and Program growth.

Prior to his appointment at Franklin University, Dr. Vickner served as Vice President of Marketing Analytics and Decision Sciences at JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPMC) in Columbus, Ohio. During his time at JPMC, he and his team analyzed the borrowing and spending behavior of millions of consumers. To better target marketing campaigns to lucrative segments of each loan portfolio, Dr. Vickner developed consumer profiling models using state-of-the-art econometric methodologies with transactions and demographic data. Additionally, he developed large-scale optimization models to allocate consumer leads to the entire suite of financial products in such a way that maximized expected profit subject to operational, distribution channel and consumer contact constraints.

Dr. Vickner's academic experience includes serving as a tenured professor from 2004 to 2007 in the Department of Economics at Utah State University and additionally as Director of Graduate Programs at USU, managing the Ph.D. in Economics, M.S. in Economics, M.A. in Economics, M.S. in Applied Economics and International M.B.A.   He has also served as a tenured professor at the University of Kentucky where he worked from 1997 to 2004. During his time at both USU and UK, Dr. Vickner taught numerous courses in applied economics, business administration, marketing and econometrics at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. His teaching and advising has been nationally recognized by his peers in several academic associations.

For over a decade, prior to terms like "green marketing" and "sustainability" becoming popularized in the mainstream business press, Dr. Vickner's research in applied economics has focused on the optimal allocation of scarce natural resources in the production of food, as well as consumer behavior associated with changes to both marketing strategies and public policy. Since his first publication on the economics of sustainability in 1998, Dr. Vickner's research has emphasized the temporal and spatial complexity inherent in managing natural resources and the environment, particularly with respect to water quality and water quantity issues. He has also devoted considerable time in his research program to policy-relevant consumer issues. He has extensively studied the economics of biotechnology and its impact on the food industry with his most recent publication investigating consumer response to mandated and voluntary labeling of genetically modified or GM food products distributed in the retail markets of Western Europe and China (in Labeling Genetically Modified Food: The Philosophical and Legal Debate, Oxford University Press, 2007).

Dr. Vickner has also investigated the retail and equity market impacts of food recalls. Two notable examples include the FDA recall of Taco Bell and Kraft tortillas, chips and taco shells that were tainted with GM Starlink corn and, more recently, several highly publicized cases in which the USDA suspected ground beef to be contaminated with BSE or "mad cow" disease. Additional research interests have included measurement issues that arise in defining markets for antitrust or competition policy purposes and econometric modeling of strategic responses among rival firms within an industry.

Dr. Vickner has been the esteemed recipient of a number of awards including the 2006 Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Award for the Western Agricultural Economics Association as well as being named to the 2005 Who's Who in Business Higher Education registry. From 1998 to 2002, he was appointed to be one of only four Academic Advisors to the Student Section of the American Agricultural Economics Association and in 1999 he was the recipient of the Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics Outstanding Article Award. Dr. Vickner has served on the Editorial Boards of two academic journals in applied economics and is routinely solicited as a reviewer of manuscripts for many other academic journals. In his academic career, he has helped obtain in excess of $1.3 million in extramural funding for his research in applied economics.

Dr. Vickner earned his Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in Resource Economics from Colorado State University, a M.B.A. from the Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver and a B.S. in Economics with a concentration in Mathematics from Bowling Green State University. 

About Franklin University

Founded in 1902, Franklin University is central Ohio's leading and most experienced educator of adult students. Annually, more than 10,000 students attend Franklin, both on campus and online. Franklin offers 19 undergraduate majors and three graduate programs, and graduates more than 1,500 students annually. Further information regarding Franklin University can be found at www.franklin.edu.