Penn State Smeal College Professor Lifts His Way To World Powerlifting Championships
Penn State Smeal College Professor Lifts His Way To World Powerlifting Championships
UNIVERSITY PARK, PA -- Wayne Desarbo, Smeal Distinguished Professor of Marketing in Penn State’s Smeal College of Business, recently won the Natural Athlete Strength Association (NASA) USA National Championship in the 280-pound weight class, and set three USA and world records in his age/weight category for the bench press, deadlift, and total amount lifted. The performance earns him a trip to Oklahoma City in August for the World Championships.
DeSarbo competed in the powerlifting and power sports categories at the national event, which was held on June 14 in Springfield, Ohio. Powerlifting calls on competitors to participate in the three events of squat, bench press, and deadlift, while power sports substitutes curls for squats. DeSarbo took first place in five of the six categories he entered.
After beginning competitive weight lifting while he was a student and member of the football team at the University of Pennsylvania, DeSarbo began competing at the Pennsylvania state level in the 1970s. He won the first of three state titles in 1971. Eight months ago, he and his son decided to begin training for the Pennsylvania State Championships on May 31.
“He backed out and I kept going,” DeSarbo said. “It will be a tough challenge at the World Championships, but my personal goal is to lift 1,400 pounds. If I can do that I’ll be happy.”
To reach his milestone, DeSarbo will have to exceed his USA National Championships total by nearly 100 pounds. To prepare, he’ll be in the gym three or four times each week for about two hours each session.
When DeSarbo is not hoisting massive amounts of weight, he is focusing on marketing research in the areas of multidimensional scaling and classification, andmultivariate statistics in relation to positioning, market structure, consumer choice, and market segmentation. He has published more than 100 articles in publications such as the Journal of Marketing Research, Psychometrika, the Journal of Consumer Research, and the Journal of Mathematical Psychology. He also has 10 years of work experience in Marketing Research at AT&T and Bell Laboratories, and is CEO of ANALYTIKA Marketing Sciences, Inc.
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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.
