Advisory Board & Select Faculty

Faculty and advisory board members give the MSA program its depth. These experts allow us to combine the academic quality for which Northwestern is world renowned with the industry savvy of sports leaders. Many MSA courses are team-taught in order to maximize students' exposure to this powerful blend of conceptual and practical knowledge. The members of the program advisory board review the curriculum to ensure that it meets the highest standards in a rapidly changing professional environment.

Stephen Adams, is a professor of medicine in Northwestern's Feinberg School of Medicine and chief of the division of sports medicine and chief emeritus of the division of emergency medicine in the department of medicine. He is board certified in internal, emergency, and sports medicine. He is the team physician for the Chicago Cubs and chairs the Medical Advisory Committee of Major League Baseball. He also sits on the executive board of the Major League Baseball Team Physicians Association. He was awarded his medical degree from the Ohio State University and completed his postgraduate medical education in the internal medicine/emergency medicine residency at the Feinberg School of Medicine, where he served as chief resident.

Jeff Bail is chief marketing officer of North American Events Group, a Chicago-based firm focused on the acquisition, consultative planning, and growth of endurance and lifestyle events and properties in the United States and Canada. Previously, he was senior vice president of marketing and sponsorship at Devine Racing, where he oversaw marketing and sales organization and was responsible for event marketing, strategic planning, and sponsorship sales for events across the United States. He has held senior management positions within prestigious sports marketing agencies including IMG and Kaleidoscope/Lifestyle Marketing Group, Inc. He was president and managing partner of his own sports marketing agency, S3, Inc. Bail has developed sports marketing programs for such companies as Coca-Cola, Gatorade, Nextel, NordicTrack, Anheuser-Busch, Pennzoil, BMW, Best Buy, Foot Locker, Whirlpool, and Nike. In addition, he has consulted for the PGA, NFL, U.S. Olympic Committee, NCAA, various Major League Baseball teams, NASCAR, and ESPN. He received his MBA from Northeastern University and has been an adjunct professor at Northwestern since 2001.

Betsi Burns is currently the director of student development with the Office of Academic and Student Services in the Department of Athletics and Recreation at Northwestern University. Her core responsibilities include advising and counseling the student-athlete population, while coordinating the CHAMPS/Lifeskills Program serving all 19 varsity sports. She is also responsible for coordinating the community outreach programs for the the athletics department. Burns received her MSEd in higher education administration from Northwestern.

Jeff Eberwein is the chief information officer for the United Center in Chicago. There he is responsible for all technical operations within the building and for supporting the information technology needs of multiple business entities, including the United Center JV, the Chicago Blackhawks, the Chicago Bulls, Bismarck Enterprises, and At Your Service. A former national director for the Technology Risk Consulting practice at Arthur Andersen LLP, Eberwein has 15 years of experience with fixed wireless data systems and applications, information technology processes and advanced computer systems and applications. He holds a BS in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and an MS in electrical engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology. He also earned an MBA at Northern Illinois University.

Timothy Frost, president of Frost Motorsports, is an economic and financial consultant with over 15 years of experience in a broad range of industries. He has performed feasibility studies, market demand studies, economic impact analyses, and valuation and financial consulting regarding motorsports facilities for industry participants. Frost consults with track owners, sanctioning bodies, team owners, drivers, and other motorsports participants on various topics. Before starting his own firm, Frost was a manager with the valuation services group of BDO Seidman in Chicago. Before that he worked in the valuation groups of international accounting firms. Frost received his MBA with a concentration in finance from Plymouth State University in New Hampshire.

Kathleen Galvin received her PhD from Northwestern University, where she is professor of communication studies and counseling psychology. She is the author or co-author of eight books and numerous articles and book chapters in family communication and relational communication. She is the senior author of Family Communication: Cohesion and Change, now in its sixth edition. Her 26-video teleclass in family communication currently appears on PBS. She serves on the University's Committee on Athletics and Recreation and its Athletic Scheduling Committee and was a member of the NCAA Review Self-Study Team.

Brenda Goleash is director of human resources for the United Center, where she was a member of the opening team in 1994. She oversees all aspects and areas of human resources, including training, policy development, compliance, benefits administration, and employee relations. Prior to working for the United Center, Goleash worked in the banking industry. She received her MA from the Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is a member of the Society of Human Resource Management as well as the local Human Resource Association chapter.

Josh Grau manages integrated marketing for ESPN/ABC Sports in Chicago. He was the associate head coach for the Northwestern University women's volleyball team from 2000 to 2004, taking the team from a 6-24 record in 2000 to back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances and top-30 rankings in his final two seasons with the Wildcats. He has worked as a marketing analyst for Motive Quest in Evanston, as a marketing research director for CBS/Infinity Broadcasting in Austin, Texas, and an operations/ marketing intern at the Outback Bowl in Tampa, Florida. Grau received a master's degree in integrated marketing communications from Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism and a master's in sport administration from the University of Texas.

Curt Gruber received his MBA from the Garvin School of International Management. He is vice president of marketing and business development for the Chicago Rush Arena Football team. He previously was the senior marketing manager for the Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company, where he was in charge of U.S. brand management for Juicy Fruit, Doublemint, Wrigley's Spearmint, and Extra chewing gums. Prior to that, Gruber was the director of global brand development for the Jim Beam Brands Co.

Greg Hanrahan is director of premium seating for the Chicago Bulls. He has 20 years of sales, marketing, customer service, operations, and administration experience in the professional sports field. Hanrahan serves on the Bulls and United Center executive technology and marketing committees. Previously, he was the Bulls' manager of suite sales for three years, Prior to that, he spent four years as manager of special events for the Bulls, where he created the first ever 3-on-3 basketball tournament in Chicago. In January 2000 the mayor of Lake Forest, Illinois appointed Hanrahan the city ambassador for his work on city boards and commissions.

Maureen A. Harty is assistant athletic director for compliance at Northwestern, ensuring the athletic program is being conducted in accordance with all NCAA, Big Ten, and Northwestern rules and regulations. She serves as a peer reviewer for the NCAA certification program. Previously she served as director of athletics and recreation at Dominican University, administering a NCAA Division III/NAIA program that grew from 7 to 14 varsity sports in five years. She oversaw compliance of Title IX and Gender Equity policies as part of her duties, as well as the construction and renovation of indoor and outdoor athletic facilities. She has held assistant athletic director's positions at Northeastern Illinois University and Saint Mary's College and coached softball and tennis at the high school and college levels. She received her MBA from Dominican University.

Cindy Kamradt is the vice president of operations for International Facilities Group in Chicago, one of the top companies in the development and operations management of sports facilities around the country. Kamradt has more than 16 years' senior management experience in the sports and entertainment industry, with an expertise in opening and operating sports facilities. Prior to IFG, Kamradt was the executive director of event services for the Glendale Arena, home to the Phoenix Coyotes. She worked as the administration manager for the Salt Lake Olympic committee and was responsible for the event operations and human resources for the Olympic Village operation. She was the general manager of At Your Service, the in-house event staffing company for the United Center and U.S. Cellular Field, where she was responsible for the creation of the in-house operation, along with the opening of the United Center in 1994. Kamradt has a bachelor's degree in management from Northern Illinois University and is a graduate of the IAAM Ogelbay Management Program.

Roy Kessel is president of SportsLoop Management, LLC. He is a certified contract adviser with the NFL Players Association and the CFL Players Association and is the chair of the Chicago Bar Association's sports law committee. He has represented sports related companies, organizations, and charities in developing strategic plans, raising capital, and implementing marketing and branding programs. Kessel is on the director boards of many civic and philanthropic organizations, including UJC National Young Leadership Cabinet, JUF's Leadership Development Committee, and Future Leaders Foundation. He has a BBA in finance and marketing from the University of Wisconsin and a JD from Northwestern's School of Law. He is the director of the MSA program.

David King is a senior vice president with Mesirow Financial Consulting in its Chicago office. He serves as technical director for Mesirow's valuation services group, a consulting practice with extensive experience in the financial appraisal of professional sports team franchises and their assets, in addition to working with businesses in diverse other industries. King has published numerous articles and spoken extensively on business valuation topics. He has a master's degree in economics from Northwestern and has taught courses in finance and economics at Northwestern and Loyola University Chicago.

Amy Kress is in her ninth season as the director of mass communications for the Chicago White Sox. In this role, she oversees the club's advertising, graphic design, publication production, and web site. Previously, Kress served as an account executive at the Chicago ad agency Coudal Partners for one year. She spent the previous seven years working for the Houston Astros in a variety of positions within the marketing department, including director of community relations, communications, and game operations. She graduated from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a bachelor of science degree in leisure studies project management.

Martin Marta is a partner in the Chicago office of Seyfarth Shaw LLP, with more than 30 years' experience representing public and private employers in all aspects of labor law and employment relations, including union avoidance, unfair labor practice matters, equal employment opportunity issues, wage-hour disputes, injunctions, wrongful discharge claims, and other employment-related matters. Marta has successfully represented clients before federal and state courts, the National Labor Relations Board, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Department of Labor, and various state and local administrative agencies. He offers extensive experience in union election campaigns, collective bargaining negotiations, and interest and rights arbitrations.

Michael Mazzeo is an assistant professor in the J. L. Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern. He is a member of Kellogg's Department of Management and Strategy and teaches a core class in business strategy. Mazzeo's research explores product differentiation, its effects on firm behavior, market structure, and competition among businesses. This research is empirical, and Mazzeo has developed new econometric modeling techniques to examine the interaction among firm entry, product quality choice, and price competition. He has applied these new techniques in studies of airlines, banking, franchising, health care, retail, and telecommunications. He received an AB in economics and urban studies and a PhD in economics from Stanford University.

John McDonough is president of the Chicago Cubs baseball team. Before that he was senior vice president of marketing and broadcasting. He has worked for the Cubs for more than 24 years. He joined the club in 1983 as director of sales and promotion, and named marketing director in 1987 and vice president of marketing and broadcasting in 1991. He created the Cubs Convention, which is now a prototype for professional team fan festivals, and was the architect of the celebrity "guest conductor" concept for the seventh-inning stretch at Wrigley Field. McDonough's many awards include the Major League Baseball Marketing Excellence Award. He currently is a member of the board of trustees at Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and board of governance at Notre Dame High School in Niles, Illinois. He frequently lectures at schools including Northwestern, the University of Chicago, the University of Notre Dame, and Marquette University.

Barry Meister is a certified public accountant and attorney who has been in private practice for the last 14 years, representing professional athletes and radio and television personalities. He was previously a partner at the law firm D'ancona and Pflaum and was in the labor law department. He received his JD from Northwestern.

Dan Migala is the publisher of The Migala Report, the monthly sports sponsorship and ticketing publication for sports marketers looking to enhance their organization's revenue and marketing potential. Migala is also a marketing columnist for Street & Smith's Sports Business Journal and has taught in the MBA program at the W. P. Carey Business School at Arizona State University and at the University of Missouri-Columbia. Migala has written three books on sports marketing, including his most recent title, Interactive Sports Strategies. In 1999 he was awarded a Webby for Best Sports and Entertainment Web Site for his work on the Chicago Bears site when he was manager of Internet services for the Bears.

Frank Murtha served as U.S. House of Representatives counsel for a major labor union pension fund prior to serving as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, where he handled financial crimes and several major organized crime prosecutions. Upon entering private practice, he handled civil and criminal litigation matters, as well as the representation of baseball and football athletes. He has extensive experience in arbitration, litigation, labor-management issues, and contract negotiations. He formed and headed the first union representing players in the Arena Football League and is president of Professional Sports Consultants Inc. The firm's clients include football players and coaches, baseball players, and owners of sports franchises. Murtha received his BA from the University of Notre Dame in government and international relations, and his law degree from Northwestern.

Carolyn Nordstrom is a management consultant specializing in leadership development, executive coaching, board development, strategic planning, and education policy. She was most recently the managing director of the Center for Executive Options with DBM, provider of executive consulting services to individuals and organizations around the world. Prior to DBM, Nordstrom was president of Chicago United, a CEO civic membership organization with a mission of business race relations. She has also served as academic operations manager for DeVry, academic dean for the Keller Graduate School of Management and has held faculty and administrative positions at Northwestern University. She has taught research and statistics courses since 1980. Nordstrom holds a bachelor's, master's, and doctorate degree from Northwestern University.

Mike Polisky is the senior vice president and general manager of the Chicago Rush arena football team. He supervises all facets of the franchise's business, from football operations and the coaching staff to marketing, public relations, corporate sales, and operations. He serves on the AFL's board of directors and was the recipient of the 2004 Commissioner's Award, bestowed upon the league's top organization. Before joining the Rush, Polisky was a reporter for the Des Moines Register and a public relations specialist with Public Communications Inc., where he supervised business with the Chicago White Sox. Polisky has lectured at Marquette and DePaul Universities.

Darren Rovell has been reporting on sports business since 1998; since June 2000 he has served as ESPN.com's sports business reporter, analyzing the sports business world for ESPNEWS and contributing to ESPN's flagship SportsCenter, its investigative show Outside the Lines and Outside the Lines Nightly. Rovell's work has also been featured on ABC News and Good Morning America, and he has appeared as a sports business analyst on CNBC and ABC's Nightline. He is coauthor of On the Ball: What You Can Learn About Business From America's Sports Leaders; his second book, The First in Thirst: How Gatorade Turned the Science of Sweat Into a Cultural Phenomenon, is forthcoming in 2007. In 2004 Rovell was named to Newsbios' "30 Under 30," a list of the top 30 national business reporters under the age of 30.

Laren Ukman earned her MBA from Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management and her JD from ITT-Chicago Kent College of Law. She joined International Events Group in 1995 and is the managing director of IEG Sponsorship Services, encompassing both IEG's consulting and valuation practice. She has extensive experience evaluating sponsorships, having worked with both sponsors and rightsholders to evaluate a wide range of properties, locally and internationally, and including sports teams, venue-naming rights, museums, zoos, sanctioning bodies, nonprofits, professional associations, municipal bodies, educational programs, festivals, web sites, and retail developments as well as valuing consumer promotions. Ukman has testified as an expert witness in several court cases involving issues related to spon-sorship contracts and the valuation of sponsorship and other nontraditional media. She also teaches a graduate course on sponsorship at the University of Lugano in Switzerland. Prior to joining IEG, Ukman was the executive vice president of Continental Distributing Company Inc., the largest wine and spirits wholesaler in Illinois. She is also a past president of Meals On Wheels Chicago.

Lesa Ukman, along with her brother Jon Ukman, founded International Events Group in 1981. At the time, a handful of companies were using sponsorship, but it had never been defined as an industry or viewed as a marketing tool. The Ukmans created IEG Sponsorship Report to fill the information void and establish sponsorship as a viable communications medium. Since the publication of the first issue in May 1982, IEG helped create an industry that today is worth more than $25 billion worldwide. The company is now the world's leading provider of independent sponsorship research and analysis. Ukman has taught more than 15,000 senior marketing executives via IEG Executive Education. Prior to founding IEG, she worked in the Chicago Mayor's Office of Special Events, creating the blueprint for sponsorship of festivals and municipal marketing. Ukman was inducted into the International Festivals & Events Association Miller Brewing Company Hall of Fame in 2000.

Joseph Vrankin is the chief financial officer for the Arena Football League and also serves as president of AFL events. He oversees areas that include finance and administration, risk management, game-day operations, security, and AFL's special events subsidiary. He serves as a league representative on the AFL board of directors, in addition to being on the finance, expansion and relocation, and executive committees. Vrankin is also a member of the AFL's management council, which oversees the league's labor agreements and enforcement of the salary cap. Since joining the AFL, Vrankin has been involved in a broad range of strategic initiatives, which has resulted in unprecedented growth for the AFL. He earned his MBA from Northwestern's Kellogg Graduate School of Management.