As the country marks the first anniversary of Enron’s bankruptcy this week, 91Ě˝»¨Business School research is questioning the recent claim that stock option compensations benefit executives to the detriment of shareholders.

According to accounting professor Terry Shevlin, there is little evidence of widespread mistreatment of stock options by the country’s top corporate managers despite the widely publicized scandals earlier this year involving former officials at Enron, Global Crossing and Worldcom.

Rather, he says, a study of more than 1,000 corporations shows that for every dollar in stock options given to a company’s top managers, that firm’s earnings go up an average of $2.85 during the next five years.

“The ongoing sentiment is that stock options are at the root of all evil, that they induce management to focus on short-term earnings in order to inflate the stock price today so they can cash out their options and make lots of money tomorrow,” Shevlin said.

“But our research indicates that options still have much-needed incentive features,” he said. “Their intent to align managers’ incentives with shareholders’ in order to maximize the value of a firm is effective over the long term.”

The mostly unregulated practice of giving managers stock options to boost compensation remained popular with boards of directors until earlier this year when several executives were caught cashing out millions of dollars in salaries and bonuses from their overvalued firms. Since then, many in Congress have been lobbying to limit stock options given to corporate managers.

Even so, Shevlin contends that companies should be free to offer stock options as incentives. His working paper, presented this fall at the Journal of Accounting and Economics Conference in Boston, provides hard evidence that current executive stock option grants to the top five executives at the country’s top companies coincide with higher future earnings for the companies, he said.

While they didn’t specifically study Enron’s earnings, Shevlin and his co-authors, Michelle Hanlon, of the University of Michigan Business School and Shivaram Rajgopal of Fuqua School of Business at Duke University, did study the earnings of more than 1,000 firms drawn from the Standard & Poors 500 index, the Standard & Poors mid cap index and the S&P 600 small cap index from 1992 to 2000.

“We found that on average there was not widespread options abuse,” Shevlin said. “Instead, we found that they are mostly used the way they are intended to be used.”

Further, Shevlin said their findings demonstrate that there isn’t widespread “rent extraction: If there was, then the executives would be getting $1 worth of options and giving nothing back.”

While Shevlin agrees that some new accounting regulations may be in order since the Enron and Worldcom scandals, he warns against blindly limiting stock-option compensations. Instead he contends that the actions of some, no matter how severe, do not justify taking steps against all companies that use executive stock options as incentives.

“What’s important to distinguish here is that on average these bad things are not happening at all firms,” Shevlin said. “If you regulate to stop three firms, for example, then you put the other 997 at a disadvantage. So, we have to be careful that regulating doesn’t end up hurting the firms that use them wisely.”

Shevlin’s working paper was funded in part by the Accounting Development Fund, as well as the Deloitte and Touche Fellowship.

As the country marks the first anniversary of Enron’s bankruptcy this week, 91Ě˝»¨ Business School research is questioning the ongoing claim that stock option compensations benefit executives to the detriment of shareholders.

According to accounting professor Terry Shevlin, there is little evidence of widespread mistreatment of stock options by the country’s top corporate managers — despite the highly publicized scandals earlier this year involving former officials at Enron, Global Crossing and Worldcom.

Rather, he says, a study of more than 1,000 corporations shows that for every dollar in stock options given to a company’s top managers, that firm’s earnings go up an average of $2.85 during the next five years.

“The ongoing sentiment is that stock options are at the root of all evil, that they induce management to focus on short term earnings in order to inflate the stock price today so they can cash out their options and make lots of money tomorrow,” Shevlin said.
“But our research indicates that options still have much-needed incentive features,” he said. “Their intent to align managers’ incentives with shareholders’ in order to maximize the value of a firm is effective over the long term.”

The mostly unregulated practice of giving managers stock options to boost compensation remained popular with boards of directors until earlier this year when several executives were caught cashing out millions of dollars in salaries and bonuses from their overvalued firms. Since then, many in Congress have been lobbying to limit stock options given to corporate managers.

Even so, Shevlin contends that companies should be free to offer stock options as incentives. His working paper, presented this fall at the Journal of Accounting and Economics Conference in Boston, provides hard evidence that current executive stock option grants to the top five executives at the country’s top companies coincide with higher future earnings for the companies, he said.

While they didn’t specifically study Enron’s earnings, Shevlin and his co-authors, Michelle Hanlon, of the University of Michigan Business School and Shivaram Rajgopal of Fuqua School of Business at Duke University, did study the earnings of more than 1,000 firms drawn from the Standard & Poors 500 index, the Standard & Poors mid cap index and the S & P 600 small cap index from 1992 to 2000.

“We found that on average there was not widespread options abuse,” Shevlin said. “Instead, we found that they are mostly used the way they are intended to be used.”

Further, Shevlin said their findings demonstrate that there isn’t widespread “rent extraction: If there was, then the executives would be getting $1 worth of options and giving nothing back.”
While Shevlin agrees that some new accounting regulations may be in order since the Enron and Worldcom scandals, he warns against blindly limiting stock option compensations. Instead he contends that the actions of some, no matter how severe, do not justify taking steps against all companies that use executive stock options as incentives.

“What’s important to distinguish here is that on average these bad things are not happening at all firms,” Shevlin said. “If you regulate to stop three firms, for example, then you put the other 997 at a disadvantage. So, we have to be careful that regulating doesn’t end up hurting the firms that use them wisely.”

Shevlin’s working paper was funded in part by the Accounting Development Fund, as well as the Deloitte and Touche Fellowship.

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For more information contact Shevlin at (206) 543-7223, or shevlin@u.washington.edu

Demonstrating the amount of wealth minority-owned firms contribute to the state even in a sluggish economy, winners of the 91Ě˝»¨Minority Business Awards saw their revenues grow in 2001. The eight companies that received awards yesterday —based in all areas of the state — earned nearly a half billion dollars in revenue.

“Despite the economic climate, each of these firms saw their revenues grow,” said Michael Verchot, director of the 91Ě˝»¨Business and Economic Development Program, presenter of the awards. “This speaks to the importance of supporting and recognizing minority-owned companies.”

The Minority Business Awards ceremony marked one of the largest annual gatherings of minority entrepreneurs and business leaders. Proceeds from the event will be devoted to scholarships for underrepresented minority students at the 91Ě˝»¨Business School.

Verchot attributed each company’s success to its ability to provide excellent goods and services to all consumers — not just fulfilling a stereotypical need in their own communities.

“These firms compete nationally and globally and focus on quality products and services,” he said. “None of them is located in only highly populated ethnic areas.”

In addition to presenting the awards, the Business Economic Development Program has compiled a list of the state’s top 40 minority-owned firms.

Washington state’s 43,000 minority-owned companies make a substantial contribution to the economy, Verchot said, generating $11 billion in annual sales and employing 90,000 people.

“The minority population in the state and the rest of the country is growing faster than the Caucasian population,” Verchot said. “We hope our event and added list provide information about these companies to the broader business community. Doing so will strengthen our state’s economy.”

The Puget Sound Business Journal co-presented the event. Sponsors were Washington Mutual Inc., The Boeing Company and Puget Sound Energy.

This year’s awards and winners were:

• William T. Bradford Minority Business of the Year Award, Colville Tribal Enterprise Corporation, Coulee Dam;


• Business of Tomorrow (presented to company with total revenues of up to $2 million): Tyrisco Inc., Seattle;


• Rising Star Award (recognizes company that has the highest growth in revenue between two fiscal years): Argus Services Inc., Spokane;


• Largest African-American Business (grossed more than $53 million in revenues): Smokey Point Sales & Services, Arlington;


• Largest Asian Pacific Islander Business (generated revenues of $128 million): RCI Construction Group, Sumner;


• Largest Hispanic Business (grossed more than $53 million): Gene Jarez Salons & Spas, Bellevue;


• Largest Native American Business (produced $78 million in total revenue): Powell-Christensen Inc., Grandview;


• Special Recognition (recognizes demonstration of significant achievement over multi-year time period): Informatics Corporation, Richland.

Demonstrating the amount of wealth minority-owned firms contribute to the state even in a sluggish economy, winners of the 91Ě˝»¨ Minority Business Awards saw their revenues grow in 2001. The eight companies to receive awards tomorrow — based in all regions of the state — generated nearly a half billion dollars in revenue.

“Despite the economic climate, each of these firms saw their revenues grow,” said Michael Verchot, director of the 91Ě˝»¨Business and Economic Development Program, presenters of the awards. “This speaks to the importance of supporting and recognizing minority-owned companies.”

Tomorrow’s ceremony is the largest annual gatherings of highly successful minority entrepreneurs and business leaders. The event will be held from 6:30 to 9 p.m. at the Four Seasons Olympic Hotel located at 411 University Avenue in Seattle. Proceeds will be devoted to scholarships for underrepresented minority students 91Ě˝»¨Business School.

Steven C. Pumphrey, executive vice president of Washington Mutual Business Banking Group, will give the keynote address. 91Ě˝»¨Interim President Lee Huntsman and Business School Dean Yash Gupta will present the special awards (see as follows).

Verchot attributes each company’s success to its ability to provide excellent products and services to all consumers.

“These firms compete nationally and globally and focus on quality products and services,” he said. “None of them are located in only highly concentrated ethnic areas.”

In addition to presenting the awards, the Business and Economic Development Program has compiled a list of the state’s top 40 minority-owned firms. Washington state’s 43,000 minority-owned companies make a substantial contribution to the economy, Verchot said, generating $11 billion in annual sales and employing 100,000 people.

“The minority population in the state and the rest of the country is growing faster than the Caucasian population,” Verchot said. “We hope this event and added list provides information about these companies to the broader business community. Doing so will strengthen our state’s economy.”

The Puget Sound Business Journal is co-presenting the event. Sponsors are Washington Mutual Inc., The Boeing Company and Puget Sound Energy.

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For more information contact Verchot at (206) 543-9327 or mverchot@u.washington.edu. For more information on the Business and Economic Development Program and a list of the state’s top 40 minority-owned companies visit: http://depts.washington.edu/busdev/

This year’s awards and winners are:

? William T. Bradford Minority Business of the Year Award – Colville Tribal Enterprise Corporation, Coulee Dam

? Business of Tomorrow: Tyrisco Inc., Seattle
(Presented to company with total revenues of up to $2 million)

? Rising Star Award: Argus Services Inc., Spokane
(Recognizes company that has the highest growth in revenue between two fiscal years)

? Largest African-American Business: Smokey Point Sales & Services, Arlington.
(Grossed more than $53 million in revenues for 2001)

? Largest Asian Pacific Islander Business: RCI Construction Group, Sumner
(Generated revenues of $128 million in 2001)

? Largest Hispanic Business: Gene Juarez Salons & Spas, Bellevue
(Grossed more than $53 million in 2001)

? Largest Native American Business: Powell-Christensen Inc., Grandview
(Produced $78 million in total revenue in 2001)

? Special Recognition: Informatics Corporation, Richland
(Recognizes demonstration of significant achievement over multi-year time period)

A more personalized job placement program has led to nearly nine out of 10 91Ě˝»¨ Business School master’s in business administration graduates obtaining jobs within three months — surpassing the average at the nation’s so-called Top 30 business schools.

The new placement efforts, which include student-employer “fireside chats,” appear to have have helped graduates facing what many are describing as the worst MBA hiring climate in more than 10 years. According to Business Week — which recently released its biennual ranking of the top 30 graduate business schools — on average only 70 percent of those schools’ MBA graduates had job offers by graduation and 80 percent had found employment 90 days after that.

In comparison, nearly 90 percent of UW’s MBA graduates found career-track positions by September, according to Dan Poston, executive director of master’s programs.

“Through a vigorous effort by people throughout the university and the community,” Poston said, “we placed 56 percent of our graduates by June commencement and 88 percent by September — a better showing than last year.”

The 91Ě˝»¨Business School fell just three percentage points in job placement numbers behind the list’s top school, Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. Kellogg placed 91 percent of its MBA graduates by summer’s end, according to Business Week.

In April 2001, the UW’s placement had been down more than 60 percent from the norm because of a regional economic slump that persisted in 2002.

During the summer 2002, 91Ě˝»¨Business School faculty, staff and alumni embarked on a program to increase personal connections with potential employers. The effort, led by the 91Ě˝»¨Business School’s master’s programs office and the Business Connections Center, included offering a toll free hotline linking employers and alumni to students; holding “huddles” to help students develop individualized career plans; accompanying students when they met with potential employers; and matching graduate’s skills with available positions.

Dean Yash Gupta also personally reached out to business leaders on graduates’ behalf.

“We always help our graduates find employment in their chosen field,” Gupta said. “However, with this current economic climate we recognized that we needed to take extra steps to ensure that the opportunities to find employment were available to our graduates.”

The efforts may also have improved the school’s national standings. The 91Ě˝»¨Business School moved up in Business Week’s list of its top graduate schools that appears in the Oct. 21 edition. The 91Ě˝»¨jumped from the magazine’s third tier to its second, a group of 20 schools that narrowly missed being listed in the top 30. The rankings are based on student and recruiter satisfaction.

“The good news is that our numbers show that we are up to par with the rest of the nation’s top graduate schools,” Poston said. “And the fact that we moved up shows that our MBA students are pleased with the program and the job opportunities after graduation.”

The 91Ě˝»¨Business School’s master’s in business administration program is the largest in the Pacific Northwest. The program educates nearly 300 MBA (including executive education) graduates each year.

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For more information contact Gupta at (206) 221-5749 or ygupta@u.washington.edu Poston at (206) 685-8395, or dposton@u.washington.edu Naomi Sanchez, Business Connections Center director, at (206) 543-3689 or naomiks@u.washington.edu Ann Mamallo, director of employee relations at (206) 685-4720 or mamallo@u.washington.edu
For more information about the 91Ě˝»¨Business School MBA program visit
For more information about business student career services see

Companies that have recently hired 91Ě˝»¨MBA graduates:

Air Handling Systems International
Alaska Airlines
Alliance of Angels
Amazon.com
AT&T Wireless
Bank of America
Berk and Associates
The Boeing Company
Boeing Realty
Bombardier Transportation
Capitol One Bank
Delafield and Hambrecht, Inc.
Deloitte & Touche ERS
Deloitte Consulting, Japan
Eli Lilly & Company
Fluke Corporation
Ford Motor Company
Front Porch Classics
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
GE Capital
Intel Corporation
Johnson & Johnson
Lehman Brothers
MBA Enterprise Core
Medtronic, Inc.
Microsoft Corporation
Museum Quality Framing, Inc.
One Reel
PCC Structural
Philips Medical Systems
Planar Systems
REI
Saltchuk Resources Inc.
Samsung
Schnitzer Northwest Meadows
Scotia Capital
ShipLogix
Starbucks Coffee Co.
Strider Capital Management
Super Feet
TMP Worldwide
Union Bank of California
United Way of Greater Los Angeles
Virginia Mason Medical Center
Vote Here
Washington Mutual, Inc.
Wells Fargo & Company

Gary Bloom, chairman, president and chief executive officer of . — a leading provider of data protection software — will speak Wednesday at the 91Ě˝»¨.

Bloom talks at 8 a.m. in the Walker-Ames Room in Kane Hall on the Seattle campus. Breakfast will begin at 7:30 a.m. Bloom will discuss the importance of focusing on a company’s core strengths and investing for the future in the current economy.

With 5,700 employees in 36 countries and a revenue of $1.5 billion revenue in 2001, Veritas Software ranks among the top 10 software companies in the world, providing storage management and high availability software to 86 percent of the Fortune 500. A leading provider of disaster recovery solutions, the Mountain View, Calif.-based company assisted more than 100 companies affected by the Sept. 11 tragedies.

In 2000, Bloom was named CEO, president and member of the company’s board of directors. He became board chairman in January. Bloom joined Veritas from Oracle, where he was executive vice president.

Bloom’s talk is one in a series of breakfast lectures hosted by 91Ě˝»¨Business School Dean Yash Gupta. For a schedule visit

Each talk is open at no charge to the news media. Public admission is $12 per person. Please RSVP at (206) 221-5749 or goell@u.washington.edu

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For more information contact Gupta at (206) 221-5749 or ygupta@u.washington.edu; Jean Kondo, Veritas Software, at (650) 527-4842 or jean.kondo@veritas.com; or Stacey Collins, Applied Communications, at (415) 365-0222, ext. 261 or scollins@appliedcom.com

Jeff Bezos, president and chief executive officer of Amazon.com, is an anomaly among modern-day entrepreneurs. He still has his job.

Unlike Bezos, many founders are replaced after launching a successful company, say Warren Boeker, a professor of management and organization at the 91Ě˝»¨ Business School, and graduate student Rushi Karichalil. Ironically, the founders who do remain in control usually launch only moderate performing ventures.

Boeker and Karichalil tracked 434 entrepreneurs from 1983 to 1999 and found that 35 percent were replaced in the first five years, after employee and sales growth skyrocketed.

“The irony is that it is the successful founders who are the ones at great risk of being replaced,” Boeker said. “Executives are replaced when a company doesn’t do well. This happens obviously at any company. What is counterintuitive here is that founders are actually replaced more often when their company does extraordinarily well.

“Because they are doing so well these founders attracted the attention and focus of the most venture capitalists,” Boeker said. “But it’s a double-edged sword. If you are an entrepreneur and you have a great idea, you are going to be able to attract more money easily, but you are probably going to have to give up your control and position.”

Boeker theorizes that venture capitalists seek out new managers to ensure a return on investments. “When the outside investor, and especially board members, see a company with real success they realize they need to push for professional managers right away,” he said.

Controlling for the age of each firm, the composition of its board of directors, and the individual characteristics of founders and the number of managers reporting to chief executive of the founding group, the researchers made adjustments to account for industry inflation to reach their findings.

Boeker suspects the fallout in 2000 from the dot-com bust has likely increased founder turnover even more.

“Four years ago venture capitalists were practically throwing money at whatever came before them,” Boeker said. “But then the dot-com collapse forced them to recoup their investments on ventures that had declined in value. Because of even greater pressures now, angel investors and venture capitalists are less permissive in terms of letting founders do what they want, and more apt to hire new management.”

Founders like Bezos, who successfully endured sweeping changes were more likely to have ties to the company’s board of directors or have research-and-development backgrounds.

New ventures with a higher proportion of inside ownership also demonstrated lower founder turnover, Boeker said.

The researcher’s study, funded by the 91Ě˝»¨Business School’s Center for Technology Entrepreneurship, was published this month in the Academy of Management Journal.

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For more information contact Boeker at (206) 543-8731, (206) 780-9965 or wboeker@u.washington.edu. For more information about the 91Ě˝»¨Business School’s Center for Technology Entrepreneurship, see

In an attempt to stay ahead of the game during the nation’s slumping economy, board members are reportedly trading in their chief executive officers for new ones. But the key to competitive advantage on the basketball court is consistency, says Management and Organization Professor Charles Hill.

Hill, who studied shared team experience among players in the National Basketball Association, found NBA teams that refrained from juggling their rosters improved their win-loss record by nearly six games per season.

A similar strategy emphasizing continuity should also be applied in the corporate boardroom, argues Hill. But some recent reports indicate that an average of two CEOs are losing their jobs each day.

“As in professional basketball, what you often see occur in companies is boards bringing in new CEOs from the outside to increase performance,” Hill said. “But by making an analogy from what we found in the NBA, that doesn’t necessarily cut it. Hiring a star outsider or a high-profile manager may not necessarily improve performance. It actually may be better business to keep the same management team. We found that it’s better to even keep a losing team together because they will do better next year.”

Hill and colleagues Shawn Berman of Santa Clara University and Jonathan Down of Oregon State University studied 23 NBA teams during the span of the 1980-81 season to 1993-94. Accounting for age, draft position and the experience of each team’s coach, the researchers measured the amount of shared team experience by assessing how many years a player had on a specific team at the end of each season. They found that losing teams that increased their shared team experience during a season won an average of 5.7 more games the following year. Losing teams that mixed up their rosters only won on average about 1.2 more games than the previous year.

Hill says the bigger increase in wins is a result of increased shared experience, or an unconscious or tacit knowledge of each other’s playing styles and individual idiosyncrasies, as well as team dynamics. At many companies, tacit knowledge is a key component used to measure a company’s competitive advantage.

“We found that the more of this knowledge they have the better they’ll perform. This result, arguably, could influence a company’s hiring practices,” Hill said.

Hill said professional basketball was the ideal testing ground to track the amount of shared experience and influence of tacit knowledge. “Each team has 48 minutes of playing time and five players are always on the court,” Hill said. “And the length of a regular season is always the same — 82 games.”

While Hill acknowledges that it sometimes may be necessary to hire new people, he says the theory should still apply.

“The bottom line here is that tacit knowledge is a source of competitive advantage, whether in basketball or at the office,” Hill said. “The best situation would seem to be acquiring high-quality players, or employees, and then keeping them together long enough for significant synergies to be created.”

Hill’s findings were published in the March issue of the Academy of Management Journal.

The 91Ě˝»¨ Business School’s executive education program appears to be dodging the revenue decline that has hurt similar programs at many of the country’s business schools.

While other top institutions are reportedly seeing 15 percent to 25 percent drops in executive education revenues, the 91Ě˝»¨program continues to see an increase with a 12 percent boost during the 2001-2002 school year, said Jean Choy, director of the Business School’s executive programs.

The June 3 issue of Business Week reported that institutions are suffering from declining corporate training budgets. The Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania is reportedly experiencing a 15 percent drop in revenue, and the University of Michigan Business School is projecting a 22.5 percent decrease. The revenue reductions are causing many program officials either to cancel executive education classes, or to jump tuition up by as much as 12 percent, Business Week reported.

“Our ability to stave off this epidemic of decreasing revenues now plaguing other institutions speaks to the strength of our executive education programs,” said Yash Gupta, 91Ě˝»¨Business School dean. “Our executive classes are designed to accommodate the customer not vice versa.”

While the 91Ě˝»¨program offers open classes on training and development, Choy said the program’s high number of custom-designed courses for private companies is helping it prosper during the Northwest’s economic downturn.

“While many companies are tightening their education budgets, they are, however, making sure they provide more targeted opportunities to develop their current employees through custom tailored programs,” Choy said.

Another factor, said Choy, is her staff’s strong relationship with international customers, many of which are from the Far East.

“During the latest Asian economic crisis we continued to nurture our partnerships with our customers,” Choy said. “Despite the state of our economy they are committed to developing stronger relationships with us.”

The 91Ě˝»¨Business School’s executive education program, now in its 50th year, offers courses to as many as 1,000 students per year and has clients from China, France, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Singapore.

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For more information, contact Choy at (206) 616-6425 or jchoy@u.washington.edu; Gupta at (206) 221-5749 or ygupta@u.washington.edu. See, www.uwexp.org

A team of 91Ě˝»¨ graduate students have won $30,000 to finance a company that would provide a less-invasive radiation therapy to cancer patients.

Team members David Craig, Mark Laliberte, Dennis Luo and Paul Mathew laid out their award-winning plan to judges during the 91Ě˝»¨Business School’s annual Center for Technology Entrepreneurship Business Plan Competition, which was completed on Tuesday, May 21. If successfully taken to the market, their company, Cogelix, would distribute a low-cost and highly localized radiation treatment, called Radiogel. The technology, patented by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Battelle Memorial Institute, treats cancer with high doses of radiation without damaging healthy surrounding tissue.

The Cogelix team won the $25,000 grand prize and a $5,000 prize for having the best technology idea.

“They did a good job of quickly bringing us up to speed on a highly technical company that would have to overcome a lot of hurdles including a required FDA approval process,” said judge Wayne Perry, chief executive officer of Edge Wireless Partners based in Bend, Ore.

The competition included students from UW, Gonzaga University, Pacific Lutheran University, Seattle University and 91Ě˝»¨Bothell.

Three finalists each won $10,000. Also representing 91Ě˝»¨were the Q Beverage Co., makers of an herb-enhanced malt drink alternative, MicroGREEN Polymers, distributors of an environmentally-friendly foam; and Mount Si Designs, makers of a light-weight, crush-resistant, waterproof and collapsible food container.

Prizes of $5,000 each were awarded in other categories. The UW’s Gostnet Internet Services, providers of Internet access to rural communities won for best e-business idea; UW’s Icosa Village, builders of inexpensive, portable “pod” shelters, or temporary housing, won best idea for an international business; and MicroGREEN Polymers also won best sustainable business idea.

Major sponsors were WRF Capital, Bay Partners, the Herbert B. Jones Foundation, Microsoft Corp. SMB Group, and the 91Ě˝»¨E-Business Program. Additional sponsors were CarToys, Hyogo Business and Cultural Center, Mohr Davidow Ventures, the Seed Intellectual Property Law Group and Orrick, Herrington and Sutcliffe Partners.

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For more information, contact Luo at (206) 529-0665 or luo@u.washington.edu; or Teri Snyder, the center’s assistant director, at (206) 685-3813 or teris@u.washington.edu.