NEWS RELEASE

Contact: David West (west@nsula.edu )
News Bureau
Northwestern State University
Natchitoches, LA 71497
(318) 357-6466

10/19/2006

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NATCHITOCHES -The College of Business at Northwestern State University will host the 40th annual J. Walter Porter Forum Friday, Oct. 27 in Russell Hall.

Guest speakers for the Forum will be Grover Davis, vice chairman and CEO of Project Time & Cost, Inc., Kenneth Crocker, project leader for United Space Alliance, Jo Pease, former chief ethics and compliance officer for Shell Oil Company (U.S.) and consultant Jay Todtenbier.

The J. Walter Porter Forum is sponsored by the College of Business and made
possible by the endowment established by the family and friends of the late J. Walter Porter in recognition of his interest in improving the image of business as a career field for college students and of his concern for moral and ethical standards as expressed in his philosophy of business. The Forum is an effort to translate the textbook into practice by bringing capable, successful business executives to the campus to speak on selected topics in their area of expertise.

Porter was a native of Kaufman County, Texas. He graduated from Texas A&M and earned a Master's in Civil Engineering from Harvard. In 1931, he helped organize the Gifford-Hill Pipe Company at Grand Prairie, Texas. Porter saw the need to sell business to the college and to bridge the gap between the college campus and industry.

Porter was determined to contribute to a better understanding of that system among his own employees, associates, and, where he could, on college campuses.

Davis, a 1976 graduate in business administration, worked for Crawford and Company the world's largest independent provider of diversified services to insurance companies, self-insured corporations and governmental entities, for 28 years. In 1999, he became the company's president and chief operating officer and was later promoted to president and chief executive officer and later chairman and chief executive officer.

In 2004, and after his retirement from Crawford & Company, Davis joined Project Time & Cost, Inc. as an Executive Vice President. In 2005, he was appointed vice chairman and CEO and also became part owner of the company.

Crocker is a 1986 graduate in computer information systems. While at Northwestern, Crocker participated in the President's Leadership Program and the "Spirit of Northwestern" Marching Band, serving as drum major in his senior year. After earning his degree, he began a 20-year career supporting NASA's Space Shuttle operations contract. Crocker began as a FORTRAN programmer in Shuttle Systems Training. Currently employed as a Project Leader by United Space Alliance, NASA's prime contractor for space operations, he serves as the Infrastructure Lead for the company's ERP systems.

Pease graduated from Northwestern with a degree in accounting and business administration and worked as a legislative aide to U.S. Rep. Joe Waggoner before becoming a lobbyist for Shell.

In the early 1980's, she took a leave of absence from Shell to earn an MBA from the Yale School of Management. Pease rejoined Shell, holding several management positions including treasurer of Shell Offshore Inc. She also obtained a CPA license in 1985.

Pease worked in the area of Business Process Redesign/Reengineering for several years until working in the area of ethics and compliance. She became Shell Oil Company's (U.S.) chief ethics and compliance officer in 2001 and become a leader in the field, serving on the Board of Directors of the Ethics and Compliance Officers Association. Last year, she was honored by Texas Executive Women as one of 10 "Women on the Move" in Houston. She will be inducted into the NSU Hall of Distinction, the Long Purple Line, on Oct. 28.

Todtenbier was raised in Natchitoches and lives in Baton Rouge. He received a bachelor's in computer information systems from Northwestern, an M.B.A. from the University of Texas and a PMP certification from the Project Management Institute. He has owned and operated several small businesses and has provided business development and management consulting services over the last 20 years to clients including Boeing, Cisco Systems, General Dynamics, Pixar, Roche, Telecom Australia and Xerox Engineering Systems.

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