Philadelphia Stock Exchange Hosts Smeal College For Ceremonial Pennsylvania Bell Ringing
Trading on the floor of the Philadelphia Stock Exchange came to a close when Dean Judy Olian rang a commemorative locomotive bell from the Pennsylvania Railroad.
Philadelphia Stock Exchange Hosts Smeal College For Ceremonial Pennsylvania Bell Ringing
UNIVERSITY PARK, PA (May 14, 2004) – Trading on the floor of the Philadelphia Stock Exchange was brought to a close on Thursday, May 13, when Judy Olian, dean of Penn State’s Smeal College of Business, rang a commemorative locomotive bell from the Pennsylvania Railroad. The bell was donated to the college by Smeal alumnus Howard A. Trauger, president of Schuylkill Capital Management.
Smeal’s connection to the Philadelphia area has grown in recent years with the introduction of the college’s executive MBA program in Bryn Mawr, which will graduate its first class of students in June. The Philadelphia region is also home to more than 12,000 Smeal alumni and 70,000 active Penn State alumni.
The locomotive bell will be permanently displayed in the Smeal College Trading Room, a high-tech, real-life facility on the University Park campus that prepares students for the intricacies and turbulence of life at real-world financial trading desks. A new Trading Room is set to open during summer 2005 when construction of the college’s new 210,000-square-foot building is complete.
“The generosity of alumni like Howard Trauger has been tremendously important in the college’s drive to provide our students with hands-on learning in addition to a strong foundation in finance,” Olian said. “Because of alumni-supported initiatives like the Trading Room and the future launch of a student-managed investment fund, Smeal has had its best year ever for placing students in the financial services sector.”
Trauger, who formed Schuylkill Capital Management, LLC in 1990 to provide conservative investment management to a select group of pension funds, endowments, foundations, and private capital clients, has more than 30 years of investment management experience in a variety of roles with banking and money management firms. In 2002, he received the Smeal MBA Distinguished Achievement Award. Trauger served on the Smeal MBA Advisory Board from 1997 through 2003.
“It’s my hope that the bell—emblematic of the excellent standards of a bygone era in the state's history—links the past and the future of the Smeal College, which recently celebrated its 50th anniversary,” said Trauger, who earned a B.S. in finance in 1969 and a M.B.A. in 1978. “My Penn State and Smeal education has been an invaluable resource during my career. Many Penn Staters have helped me along the way and I’m proud to be able to give something back to the college.”
About the Philadelphia Stock Exchange
The Philadelphia Stock Exchange was founded in 1790 as the first stock exchange in America. The exchange trades more than 2,100 stocks, nearly 1,100 equity options, 15 sectors index options, and currency and futures options. For more information about the exchange and its products, visit www.phlx.com.
REPORTERS & EDITORS: For more information, please contact Wyatt DuBois in the Smeal College of Business Media Relations Office at 814-863-3798 or wed112@psu.edu.
Penn State's Smeal College of Business offers highly ranked undergraduate, MBA, executive MBA, Ph.D., and executive education opportunities to more than 5,500 students at all levels. Featuring academic departments of accounting, finance, marketing, insurance and real estate, management, and supply chain and information systems, the college is also home to major research centers such as the Center for Supply Chain Research, the Institute for the Study of Business Markets, the Center for Digital Transformation, the Farrell Center for Corporate Innovation and Entrepreneurship, the Center for Global Business Studies, and the Center for the Management of Technological and Organizational Change.
