Two Students Named 'Smeal Survivors'

UNIVERSITY PARK, PA (April 13, 2006)—For the second time in its six-year history, Smeal Survivor ended in a tie Tuesday night, with two students each winning first place prizes.

Robert Dinkelspiel, senior in management, and Kevin Shah, senior in bioengineering, remained deadlocked in first place after a tiebreaker round between them and Frank Howard, senior in accounting. After a brief conference among the judges and representatives from lead sponsor PNC, the decision was made to award first place to both Dinkelspiel and Shah.

The annual competition between undergraduates in the Smeal College of Business and Schreyer Honors College requires contestants to think on their feet, posing as CEOs of multibillion-dollar global corporations to answer questions about how their companies should respond to complex business crises and major world events.

After months of intense study and preparation by the contestants, the competition began with each of the 10 participants offering a two-minute overview of their corporation.

In the second round, the panel of judges asked the student CEOs questions about their corporations, which included references to corporate history, current events and international economics. After the second round, the judges chose five candidates to move on.

Erik Peterson, senior vice president of CSIS, then gave the remaining students two minutes each to explain how their company would react to a pandemic outbreak of the avian flu virus.

When the three contestants remained tied after the final round, Peterson asked Dinkelspiel, Howard and Shah to explain how their corporations, UPS, AXA, and Dow Chemical Company, respectively, are responding to global climate change.

PNC provided the first place prize of a homecoming weekend package, including dinner, hotel, airfare, Penn State football tickets, and other prizes with a total value of more than $2,000. When the judges couldn't name a consensus winner, the company offered to double the first place prize. Howard then received the prizes for second and third place.

Preparation for the competition kicked off in February, when the students traveled to Washington for a rigorous day of study at CSIS, one of the world's most-respected think tanks. The students spent the day learning from Peterson about the coming "Seven Revolutions," which are major global trends identified by Peterson and his colleagues that will drastically alter the world throughout the next 20 years.

Smeal's relationship with CSIS began when William Schreyer, chairman emeritus of Merrill Lynch, served on both Penn State's Board of Trustees and CSIS's board of directors. The first Smeal Survivor was organized in 2001 by students Atif Ghauri and Ryan Newman after Ghauri interned at CSIS. Through the ongoing commitment of Peterson, CSIS and Smeal, the event has become an annual, public competition judged by corporate partners.

The panel of judges for this year's competition was made up of representatives from the event's sponsors and Interim Dean Kenneth Lusht. Joining Lusht as judges were Bill Demchak, vice chairman of PNC; Rick Bierly, vice president of finance, Centocor-Johnson & Johnson; and Tara Weiner, managing partner, Deloitte & Touche LLP USA.