A jarring economic recession in the early 1990s rippled into a significant budget crisis for the University of California as the state's share of 新澳门六合彩内幕信息鈥檚 core funds fell below 60%. The financial blow trickled down to each campus, forcing some programs to make drastic cuts while sparking academic innovation by others.
Rising out of the ashes of the recession, the 新澳门六合彩内幕信息 Davis Graduate School of Management, or GSM, launched the Working Professional MBA program in Sacramento to expand access to top-quality management education in the capital region.
What's more, the self-supporting revenues from the program would insulate the GSM from campus budget cuts that imperiled the very existence of the relatively young business school, which faced dwindling state support for its sole full-time MBA.
This fall marks the 30th anniversary of the inaugural class of what is now known as the Sacramento Part-Time MBA program.
The backdrop
The claim that California's state government was too big and too expensive failed to explain the state's budget deficit and cuts to the 新澳门六合彩内幕信息 allocation, observed Robert Smiley, then-dean and professor at the 新澳门六合彩内幕信息 Davis Graduate School of Management, at the time in 1993.
"In comparing the number of state employees per thousand residents, the results show that state employment has actually been decreasing since 1976," Smiley said.
As an economist, Smiley kept close watch on the state鈥檚 fiscal health, including trends in state workers in Sacramento 鈥 the state capital 鈥 and the growing presence of Intel and HP in the region.
Meanwhile, he was simultaneously stewarding the approvals needed to launch what would become the game-changing new MBA program offered by the GSM.
The doors swing open
鈥淚 made a presentation about our market research and reasons that the program would succeed,鈥 recalled Smiley about lobbying 新澳门六合彩内幕信息 and 新澳门六合彩内幕信息 Davis leadership on the new degree format.
This whole exercise, facing the budget crisis and developing the Working Professional MBA program, was a defining moment for the school.鈥
鈥 then-Dean and Professor Robert Smiley
The 新澳门六合彩内幕信息 Office of the President approved the 新澳门六合彩内幕信息 Davis Working Professional MBA program in Sacramento in winter 1993. The school started accepting applications in the spring of 1994 and welcomed the first class in fall 1994.
鈥淲e were delighted when over 200 applications arrived for the new program, and we enrolled a class of 120 students,鈥 Smiley wrote in a history of the school. "Although the program has been enormously successful since then, the first year's large numbers were primarily [reflecting] pent-up demand.鈥
Three decades of student success in Sacramento
The vision that Sacramento could support a new MBA program has proven to be a remarkable success.
The Graduate School of Management 鈥 and 新澳门六合彩内幕信息 Davis as a whole 鈥 have been committed to the economic growth of Sacramento region. We are proud to see our alumni being an important part of this effort and will continue to provide accessible educational opportunities to the community into the future.鈥
鈥 Dean H. Rao Unnava, who joined the GSM eight years ago
In 2005 the GSM mirrored the same curriculum and format in Sacramento to launch the San Francisco Bay Area Part-Time MBA program in San Ramon. The programs paved the way for a growing portfolio of self-sustaining graduate business degrees and programs serving more students than ever before, including the online MBA, master of professional accountancy, master of science in business analytics, master of management (online and in person), executive education and a bachelor of science in business starting in fall 2025.
The Sacramento Part-Time MBA program eventually moved to its current location at the state-of-the-art 新澳门六合彩内幕信息 Davis Health Education Building. That move provided MBA students with the advantages of a campus learning environment and opportunities to meet and collaborate with professional school students in medicine and nursing.
鈥淭he school would never be the same, and one could argue that it is a substantially better place than if the budget crisis had never hit,鈥 Smiley wrote. 鈥淲e were able to grow, add distinguished new faculty, increase our outreach to the community, and generally serve the citizens of the State of California better.鈥
Addressing challenges of teaching working professionals
Smiley noted that the faculty showed remarkable spirit in addressing this new challenge.
鈥淭he school was asking them to teach to a more senior group, away from campus, in the evenings and on weekends,鈥 Smiley explained. 鈥淭hese were not the conditions that they signed up for when they joined the school, but they pitched in with remarkable vigor and dedication.鈥
Professor Donald Palmer recalled that both the students and faculty were facing a lot of uncertainty in that first year of the Sacramento MBA program.
鈥淭here was substantial pent-up demand for the MBA in the Sacramento area back then,鈥 Palmer said. 鈥淥ur first cohort consisted of a lot of older, well-educated, and very experienced working professionals, including a 50-something-year-old bank president, many 40-something-year-old professionals such as family medicine physicians, anesthesiologists, architects, engineers, senior managers and successful entrepreneurs.鈥
Palmer said despite their obvious self-confidence, the first cohort of students were unsure about the value of the education they were investing in, what was going to be asked of them and how well they were going to perform in a new learning environment.
The results, though, were outstanding. Teaching evaluations from the very beginning were excellent, recalled Smiley. Students could apply what they learned in class at work the next day, and graduates reported landing new leadership roles and promotions, making successful career switches, and building the networks to start new ventures.
Now 30 years in, the part-time program has 1,600 graduates, many of whom live and work in the capital region. They're company and community leaders, policy influencers and trailblazing entrepreneurs making a positive impact and driving growth.
First class: an alum's story
Back in 1993 on a tour of the One Capitol Mall teaching suite under construction, incoming student Vinny Catalano stepped through the dust and unfinished walls and imagined what it would be like when his cohort started classes. And now looking back, he remembers a positive experience.
鈥淲e learned from each other,鈥 Catalano said. 鈥淭here was a lot of group work. There were a lot of exciting relationships that I built and still have to this day 鈥 long-term friendships.
A fellow MBA alum convinced Catalano to make the jump from HP to the health insurance industry, where he spent more than 20 years at two of the world鈥檚 largest brokerages Now, he's ventured out on his own as founder and CEO of CLEAR Healthcare Solutions, assisting client companies with strategic benefits planning 鈥渢o put the employee back into employee benefits.鈥
Since earning his MBA in 1997, Catalano has stayed well connected to the school, volunteering as a director and president of the Graduate School of Management's Alumni Association, mentoring students, moderating alumni speaker events and emceeing GSM events 鈥 just to name a few. His peers honored him with the GSM Alumni Association鈥檚 2008-09 Outstanding Service Award.
Having an MBA is gold. You can鈥檛 put a dollar figure on it. It鈥檚 really for the richness of living better. You learn new things, you build a new network, you engage with people in this world in a different way by having an MBA. That is an important distinction from just any other degree鈥攁n MBA anchors you in the world in a way that I think no other degree does.鈥
鈥 Vinny Catalano, MBA 鈥97
Most importantly, Catalano said earning an MBA allowed him to rebrand himself from an undergraduate chemistry major into a business professional.
鈥淗aving the MBA was life-changing for me.鈥