Faculty and Staff

 John R. Nevin
Grainger Wisconsin Distinguished Professor
Executive Director, Grainger Center for Supply Chain Management
608-262-8912
jnevin@bus.wisc.edu

John R. (Jack) Nevin is Grainger Wisconsin Distinguished Professor and Executive Director of the Grainger Center for Supply Chain Management. He served as Chair of the Marketing Department from 1988-1992. Professor Nevin received his Ph.D. degree in marketing from the University of Illinois.

His research has primarily concentrated in three conceptual areas of marketing: channels of distribution, legal aspects of marketing, and international marketing. His research has appeared in the Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Macromarketing, Journal of Retailing, Journal of Marketing and Public Policy, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Marketing Channels, Law and Society Review, Business Horizons, and MSU Business Topics.

His teaching responsibilities include Ph.D. seminars, Executive MBA classes, and traditional full-time MBA classes on marketing channels, marketing strategy, and supply chain management. He also actively participates in executive development programs and serves as a research consultant or expert witness.

 

Verda A. Blythe
Director, Grainger Center for Supply Chain Management
608-262-1941
vblythe@bus.wisc.edu

Verda is the director of the Grainger Center for Supply Chain Management at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business. She is responsible for marketing the Center to prospective students and employers, developing the Center’s applied learning program, and providing academic and career guidance to the Center’s undergraduate and MBA students. She works closely with the Center’s faculty and Executive Advisory Board on program strategy and leads outreach activities with alumni, employers, and professional associations. Verda has presented at various conferences about industry-educational partnerships in supply chain management, and she teaches a course, Fundamentals of Supply Chain Management, in the undergraduate curriculum.

Verda brings thirteen years of supply chain industry experience to her position at the Grainger Center, having worked in various functions, including procurement/sourcing, production, and logistics. After earning a BBA degree in logistics from Iowa State University, she worked for Ruan Transportation Management Systems in various roles, including quality, planning, and customer development. In 2002, she graduated with an MS degree in supply chain management from the Grainger Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her summer internship during graduate school was in logistics and materials management at Harley-Davidson Motor Company. Upon graduation, she joined IBM’s integrated supply chain where she worked in global procurement and the systems and software group, both domestically and abroad.

 

Caryl Knutsen
Assistant Director, Grainger Center for Supply Chain Management

608-262-0710
cknutsen@bus.wisc.edu

Caryl is the assistant director of the Grainger Center for Supply Chain Management at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business. Managing the daily operations of the Grainger Center, she works with current and prospective students, alumni, employers, faculty, the Center’s executive advisory board, industry professionals, and deans and administrators within the School of Business. Caryl leads the Center’s marketing and communications activities and manages the production of all Center publications. She also coordinates the Center’s applied learning curriculum, which includes executive speakers, industry-led seminars, networking events, and corporate site visits. Caryl develops and recommends improvements for processes related to admissions and recruiting, student services, and programming for undergraduate and MBA students; coordinates alumni development activities; manages the work of three project assistants; and synthesizes information from various sources and surveys to create reports as needed. Caryl has been with the Grainger Center for eight years. She holds a bachelor of arts degree in English. Before joining the UW-Madison School of Business, she worked in scholarly publishing for many years at the University of Pennsylvania.

 

Kersi Antia
Assistant Professor
Marketing
kantia@bus.wisc.edu

Prior to joining the School of Business, Kersi was an assistant professor at the Richard Ivey School of Business in Canada. He has also taught at Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Southern California, and at the Oral School for the Deaf in Calcutta. He holds a BCom degree in general management from Calcutta University, an MS degree in management and information systems from Clarkson University, and a PhD in marketing from the University of Southern California. Kersi’s research focuses on the governance and impact of Web-based technologies on interfirm relationships (alliances, franchise agreements, and distribution channels).

 

Gregory DeCroix
Associate Professor
Operations and Information Management
gdecroix@bus.wisc.edu

Greg comes to the UW from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University, where he was an associate professor since 2000. Prior to Fuqua, he was an assistant professor at the University of Washington. Greg received a BA/BS degree from Miami University in mathematics and statistics, graduating summa cum laude. He has a PhD in operations research from Stanford University. His research focuses on supply chain management, with a particular emphasis on decentralized decision making in supply chains and the impact of environmental issues on supply chain management. His work has appeared in Management Science, Operations Research, Naval Research Logistics, European Journal of Operational Research, and IIE Transactions.

 

Jan B. Heide
Churchill Professor of Marketing
608-262-5224
jheide@bus.wisc.edu

Jan is the Churchill Professor of Marketing at the UW-Madison. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He also holds an MBA from the UW-Madison and a B.S. from the Norwegian School of Management. Prior to joining the UW Marketing Department, he was a faculty member at Case Western Reserve University. His primary research interests are distribution systems, distribution channel relationships, and strategic partnerships. His research has been published in the Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Marketing, and the Academy of Management Journal. He serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Retailing, and Journal of Business-to-Business Marketing. He has taught in a number of executive development programs on the topics of distribution channel strategy and partnerships. He recently won the Larson Excellence in Teaching Award and was named a Vilas Associate of the UW Graduate School.

 

Peter B. Lukszys
Senior Lecturer and Director of Applied Projects
plukszys@wisc.edu

Pete Lukszys is senior lecturer in the Marketing Department and director of applied projects in the Grainger Center for Supply Chain Management. Prior to joining the School of Business in 2007, Pete held the position of senior director of supply chain management at EMD Chemicals, the North American affiliate of MERCK, KGaA. Pete was project manager of a successful SAP R/3 implementation at EMD Chemicals, where ten modules were implemented at six U.S. sites by a team of over 100 employees. Pete’s industry experience also includes manufacturing management and planning positions with Abbott Laboratories and consulting experience at Ford Motor Company.

Pete teaches undergraduate and MBA courses in Logistics Management and in Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems.  Pete developed these practical courses that are part of the Grainger Center curriculum.

Pete is APICS certified in production and inventory control. He received an MBA from the Grainger Center and a BS in industrial engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

 

John M. McKeller
Lecturer -- Procurement and Supply Management, Strategic Global Sourcing
jmmckeller@wisc.edu

John McKeller is president of McKeller Company, LLC. John’s many years of experience in the supply management field included positions with Ralston Purina Company, General Dynamics-Convair, and Eli Lilly and Company.  In addition to his industry employment, John’s academic background includes teaching at the University of San Diego, the University of San Diego Business Extension, and Arizona State University. While an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business, John held a dual position as Director of Education for the Institute for Supply Management in Tempe, Arizona. His association with the UW-Madison continues as an instructor for the Grainger Center for Supply Chain Management and in many UW-Madison Executive Education programs. A graduate of San Diego State University, John also holds an MBA from Pepperdine University and a PhD in business management from the United States International University.

 

James G. Morris
Chair, Operations and Information Management
jmorris@bus.wisc.edu

Since 1995, Jim has been Professor and Chair of the Department of Operations and Information Management. Prior to assuming his current position, he served for six years as chair of the Department of Quantitative Analysis (OIM's predecessor). He has published articles in the Annals of Operations Research, Management Science, Mathematical Programming, Naval Research Logistics, and Operations Research and Transportation Science on facilities location and distribution system design, spatial price equilibrium problems, decision problems under risk, and workforce scheduling models. He is co-author of Facilities Location: Models and Methods and serves as associate editor for the journals Location Science and Naval Research Logistics. Morris earned his Ph.D. from UW-Madison.

 

James A. Rappold
Assistant Professor
Operations and Information Management

jrappold@bus.wisc.edu

Jim comes to the School of Business from Cornell University, where he earned his Ph.D. in operations research and industrial engineering. He also has an M.S. in operations research and industrial engineering from Cornell and a B.S. in industrial management and mathematics from Carnegie-Mellon University. He has worked as a consultant in manufacturing systems, strategic supply chain management, and in information systems for AMP, Corning, and Sango Ceramics (Semarang, Indonesia). He also worked as a researcher for General Motors. His main research interests are in the design, planning, and control of lean manufacturing and distribution systems.