NEWS RELEASE

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

10/19/2004

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NATCHITOCHES- The College of Business at Northwestern State University will sponsor the 38th-Annual J. Walter Porter Forum Wednesday, Oct. 27 beginning at 10 a.m. The theme of this year's Forum is "Manufacturing and the Economy."

Speakers for the Forum will be Ralph G. Kauffman, Ph.D., of the University of Houston-Downtown; C.J. Smith, director of Business Development for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership of Louisiana, and Joe Cunningham Jr., president of Cunningham Financial Services, Inc. of Natchitoches. Kauffman will speak at 10 a.m. in Magale Recital Hall. Cunningham and Smith will speak in Room 107 of Russell Hall beginning at 11 a.m.

Kauffman is an associate professor of management and coordinator of the Purchasing and Supply Management Program at the University of Houston-Downtown. Before entering academia, he had 27 years experience in purchasing and supply management with Oryx Energy Company, Sonoco and Monsanto.

Kauffman is chair of the Non-Manufacturing Business Survey Committee of the Institute for Supply Management (ISM). He prepares the monthly Non-Manufacturing ISM Report on Business. In 2002, he was the recipient of ISM's top award, the J. Shipman Gold Medal.

Smith works to develop and enhance the Manufacturing Extension Partnership of Louisiana's relationships with government, academics and manufacturers, seeking to create and retain jobs in the manufacturing sector. She has worked with automotive, medical and electronics manufacturers. Smith served as a materials manager for Datum, Inc. and as production and inventory control manager at Western Financial Printing and Vinyl Company.

Cunningham also serves as president of Cunningham Insurance Agency, Inc. and Cunningham Family Properties, a real estate investment company. He is a financial advisor affiliated with AIG Advisors Group/SunAmerica Securities and SunAmerica Investment Advisory Services, a Registered Investment Advisor firm. Cunningham is licensed as a Series 7 and 65 Investment Representative with national broker/dealer AIG/SunAmerica Securities, Inc., one of the largest networks of independent financial planners in the United States. He is a graduate of NSU.

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. He felt many people in the academic, professional, governmental and even in the business world, fail to understand the workings of the competitive system and the motivating force behind it.

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

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