Life Lessons

Bob Eliason's wealth of real-world experience helps him put students on the road to becoming great managers

by Sonal Rupani

Bob Eliason
Lecturer
James Madison University
Management Program

Story Tools

• post a comment
• e-mail this story
• print this story
• order a reprint
• digg this
• save to del.icio.us

BusinessWeek asked business undergrads to tell us about their favorite professors. Here is another installment in the series.

It's not always about making money. One would think this would be a hard message to sell to a classroom of ambitious business students, but coming from an authority with life experience such as Bob Eliason, lecturer in the management program at James Madison University, the lesson is harder to ignore.

Students who walk into Eliason's management classes with the clear focus of learning how to amass a fortune often leave with a different perspective. "I had a handful of students [who] went to work for nonprofits and found that as fulfilling as anything they could have imagined," Eliason says. "I define success not in monetary terms but in life satisfaction."

Learning from Dysfunction

His Zen attitude inspired the majority of James Madison students who responded to the 2007 BusinessWeek survey to name Eliason as their favorite professor. An adventurous spirit, Eliason hikes in his free time and has tried his hand at various careers. He has worked as a day trader, overseen nonprofit agencies, served as a career counselor, and run a home health agency and a summer camp for people with disabilities.

In fact, his extensive experience in small businesses and nonprofits made him realize how poorly some organizations are run and motivated him to become a teacher. "It put me on a mission to help people become great managers," he explains. "It is something that's learned and not something necessarily absorbed on the job."

Eliason considers it important to stay up to date in his field by reading current literature and by doing his own company research. He uses lectures and case study-style problem-solving and has students work in teams to apply effective management skills and smart decision-making.

Going the Extra Mile

His forays into the business world prove useful in the classroom, where Eliason draws on those experiences to make lectures lively and relevant. "He would always tie in a funny story," says former student Ashley Mangano. "He would engage the students and make us see that what we were learning related to the real world."

Despite the large class size of 125 students, Mangano says that Eliason would try to get to know each of them. His open and approachable nature makes him "the type of teacher you could see in the hallway and just stop to talk to," says Mangano.

Kathleen Brady, another former student, says Eliason's accessibility immediately made her realize that she could go to him for help with an out-of-class project. As the fund-raising chair for her rugby team, Brady needed some advice on how to reach the team's high financial goals. Eliason responded to her e-mail on the same day, extensively outlined seven effective techniques, and specified how to implement each at James Madison. "His thorough assistance was remarkable and enabled me to have a successful fund-raising year," she says.

While Eliason is nice, his students still have to earn their grades, which are based on a combination of tests and assignments. Students take on multiple-choice exams, case studies, team research projects (an example of which you can check out at the wiki at the student-run business cob300.com), and the creation of a business idea and plan.

Class Portrait

Eliason's bond with his students is clear from a little project that he completes to present to them on the last day of class. After filming them throughout the semester in the stressful and rigorous foundational course that integrates different business subjects, he sends them off with a video that looks back on it all. Witnessing the transformation in the class members is rewarding for the students—and Eliason. "The most exciting thing is seeing people who realize their potential and seeing them have a slightly different vision of the world from when they started," he says.

Brady says she will never forget that last lecture: "He encouraged us to live our dreams, never give up, never settle, take chances, and always push ourselves to be where we want to be." If they take that advice, Eliason's students may end up rich in more ways than one.

Sonal Rupani is an intern for BusinessWeek.