Thanks to a gift from alumnus Joe ’76 and Vickey Dancy, the Applied Portfolio Management Program (APMP) has new surroundings. The LSGI Trading Room was dedicated on October 7, 2011.
“A great program finally has an appropriate and wonderful home,” said Dean Darrell Radson.
The new, window-walled room is bigger and brighter, with more space and privacy for APMP students to conduct business. The LSGI Trading Room is prominently located within the Academic Office Building that is home to the School. Professional elements like a full-size conference table, Bloomberg terminal, new furniture, and plasma televisions give students a top-of-the-line work area.
For Joe Dancy, president of the venture fund organization LSGI Advisors Inc., the choice to donate was easy.
“APMP students have more decision-making responsibilities than in other similar programs,” he said. “They do well in national competitions, devise sensible financial strategies, and make regular presentations to the advisory board. The students are making all the decisions, and I love the diversity. We’ve had students from different countries, different majors, and there have been volleyball, hockey, basketball, and football players.”
One such football player is Pat Carroll, wide receiver for the Huskies. “The room is awesome,” he says. “We are lucky to have this place and get this great experience.”
APMP, mostly comprised of finance majors, is the School’s longtime success story: winning three national competitions in just over a decade while allowing students to invest more than $1.3 million of real money in the stock market.
“We are the only educational institution in the region with these improved trading capabilities.”
The LSGI Trading Room sets Michigan Tech and the APMP apart from other business programs. “We are the only educational institution in the region with these improved trading capabilities,” said Dean Johnson, founding director of APMP. (See more news on Johnson.) “In addition to investing, students can also use Bloomberg’s online job placement service.”
Student Anne Dancy (Joe and Vickey’s daughter and APMP member) especially appreciates the increase in space. “We’ll be able to do more work in teams and use all of the resources to become more successful,” she said.
Michigan Technological University is a public research university founded in 1885 in Houghton, Michigan, and is home to nearly 7,500 students from more than 60 countries around the world. Consistently ranked among the best universities in the country for return on investment, Michigan’s flagship technological university offers more than 120 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in science and technology, engineering, computing, forestry, business, health professions, humanities, mathematics, social sciences, and the arts. The rural campus is situated just miles from Lake Superior in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, offering year-round opportunities for outdoor adventure.
