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| October 20, 2004 UN Agency Chief Headlines Tourism Policy Forum Copy General Founder and GW Alum Tells Expansion Story to Students in Hoffman Lecture Finance and Investment Club Offered Resume Critiques
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Intellectual
Contributions | Getting Ink UN
Agency Chief Headlines
GWSB Tourism Policy Forum Inter-American Development Bank President Enrique Iglesias, USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios, and Francesco Frangialli, secretary general of the UN World Tourism Organization (WTO), were among the keynote speakers at the Tourism Policy Forum titled “Tourism’s Potential as a Sustainable Development Strategy.”
The three-day forum, organized by GWSB’s Department of Tourism and Hospitality Management and the WTO, attracted more than 400 participants and observers, including representatives from government, developing assistance agencies, international organizations, universities, and NGOs from 52 countries. The forum marked the first time that tourism has been embraced by such a powerful group of the world’s most important development agencies as a serious tool for alleviating poverty and for achieving other United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals. Iglesias, President of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), opened his presentation by acknowledging that GW has one of the oldest tourism-oriented academic research centers in the world. He spoke about the need for a sustainable approach to tourism, warning that tourism can lead to both economic development and environmental degradation. He cited several examples where regional tourism is sensitive to a country’s economic stability and called on governments to reduce barriers that restrict private-sector tourism industry development. James Adams, vice president of the World Bank Group, discussed the World Bank’s tourism development strategy. He emphasized that the World Bank is most concerned with poverty alleviation, and that tourism is a valuable contributor to economic development as well as cultural preservation. While tourism can be a great resource, Adams acknowledged that it also leads to challenges because it is a multi-sector industry and is often managed by the private sector. Frangialli focused on tourism policies and strategies and their potential to achieve UN Millennium Development Goals. He reported that the world’s tourism sector has been growing at a seven percent clip over the past few years, but that such rapid growth, if poorly managed, could stress the environment as well as the host communities. The WTO’s focus is to protect tourism’s resources while harnessing this growth for international development. After his presentation, Frangialli moderated a discussion where tourism ministers from several countries shared best practices, lessons learned, and reported on future directions. Natsios closed the morning session
with a discussion about USAID’s tourism project portfolio and strategic goals.
He reported that USAID’s budget has doubled in the
past two years and that the Bush administration has launched
20 initiatives for foreign assistance. Natsios reiterated
that tourism is a powerful tool for achieving economic growth
and reducing poverty. He reminded the audience that many
of the world’s citizens rely on the environment for
the livelihoods – and that USAID views sustainable
tourism as projects that won’t adversely impact agriculture,
forestry, biodiversity, and water. Kenneth B. Chaletzky credits the GW Hatchet with getting him where he is today. The president of Copy General Corp. and GW alumnus spoke with students about his entreprenurial experiences Tuesday in the F. David Fowler Graduate Career Center as the 2004 Hoffman Lecturer.
Chaletzky worked at the Hatchet all through college, and it was there that he developed an interest in printing and met Paul Panitz, who would eventually become his business partner. After graduation, Chaletzky spent some unhappy years working for his family’s business before being accepted to the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. At Wharton, he developed an entrepreneurship concentration in the M.B.A. program that was the foundation for the school’s now-top-rated curriculum. Chaletzky received credit toward his M.B.A. for founding typesetting firm Circle Graphics, his first entrepreneurial venture. Chaletzky’s next enterprise, the store that would become Copy General, had humble beginnings in 1979 in a Georgetown basement with plumbing problems. The company soon branched out to other locations in the Washington, D.C., area. In 1991, Copy General went international. With business partner Panitz, Chaletzky's onetime Hatchet colleague, Copy General opened its first Eastern European store in Budapest, Hungary. Self-service copies were unheard of behind the Iron Curtain, where all documents to be copied had to first be approved by the copy-store employees. Customer service was also a foreign concept under the Communist system. The day Copy General opened in Budapest, a line formed that trailed all the way down the block. “People were waiting in line for the novelty of making a self-service copy,” Chaletzky said. Today, Copy General has eight locations in Hungary, seven in the Czech Republic, four in Poland, one in Moscow and two in Shanghai. The company has 28 locations around the world, with its headquarters in Sterling, Va. The international expansion was not without its challenges. Even finding store locations was difficult, as the concept of commercial real-estate agents had yet to arrive in Central Europe. Chaletsky and Panitz found their sites by knocking on doors. The sites they did end up with had numerous problems, with few phone lines and often substandard infrastructure, but through creative solutions, they made the stores work. The company also faced some unusual situations, including a tense dispute with an organized-crime figure that involved a death threat to a Copy General store manager. The issue was ultimately worked out, and Chaletsky noted that the crime boss was blown up three years later. “These are things I’ve never had to deal with in Washington,” he said. That’s a major reason that no large competitors have moved in on their international markets, Chaletsky said. One competitor failed after attempting to use a U.S. model in Central Europe, rather than tailoring its business to the local clientele. U.S. copy giant Kinko’s has yet to tackle these markets. “No one knows who Kinko’s is in Budapest, but everyone knows Copy General,” Chaletsky said. Meanwhile, Chaletsky is looking to the future for Copy General, investing heavily in advances such as online proofs and its Brightdoc display and marketing system that he calls a “mini-Amazon.com.” Brightdoc allows companies to offer books by the chapter and reprints on demand, among other features. “Craft is being overtaken by technology,” he said, “and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.” The Hoffman Lecture Series is funded by a grant
to the School of Business from Howard Hoffman, GW
alumnus and former board of trustees member. Hoffman's
grant was awarded to provide for lectures by entrepreneurs
to SBPM students. Past Hoffman lecturers have included
Cheryl A. Mills, associate deputy administrator for
entrepreneurial development, U.S. Small Business
Administration; and Robin Chase, CEO of Zipcar. The Finance and Investment Club recently held a two-day resume critique workshop, in which six GWSB alumni from such companies as Prudential Financial and Deloitte returned to campus to provide students with advice. Student Batbaatar Badangiin told Finance and Investment Club representatives that one alum’s advice “helped me in defining my goals.” Another student, Pradip Poudel, called the critique “very good.” For more information about the Finance and Investment Club and its events, visit http://www.gwu.edu/~fic. Presentations Richard K. Green, the Oliver T. Carr, Jr., Chair of Real Estate Finance, made two speeches at the United Nations’ World Urban Forum II in September. He also made a speech at the California Association of Realtors Expo in October. Ernie Englander, associate professor of strategic management and public policy, presented “An Overview of the National Economy” as the opening keynote speaker at “Covering Business and Economics,” a conference for journalists at the National Press Foundation. Jennifer J. Griffin, associate professor of strategic management and public policy, presented a paper, “Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR): Examining Foundations for CSR in Europe and the United States,” at the University of Nottingham International Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility conference. Lihong Liang, assistant professor of accountancy, presented “Management Entrenchment, Board Independence and Accounting Restatements,” a paper she authored with William Baber and Sok-Hyon Kang, GWSB Department of Accountancy colleagues, at the University of Minnesota. She also was a discussant on “Interrelationships Between Components of Managerial Compensation and Firm Characteristics” and served as a moderator at the American Accounting Association conference in August. The GW-World Tourism Organization Tourism Policy Forum was covered by Voice of America, EFE News, and other international media organizations.
Many more upcoming events are available online in the Calendar of Events. Class Notes70s Thomas P. Russo, M.B.A. ’75, joined MetaMorphix, Inc., a life sciences company, as its executive vice president and chief financial officer. Jeffrey A. Rivest, M.S.A. ’79, was named CEO and president of the University of Maryland Medical Center. Find comprehensive alumni news on GWSB's Class Notes page, updated Summer '04.
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