Former Faculty

Vidya Awasthi taught primarily in the areas of management and cost accounting. His research was in the areas of business ethics and management control, including international aspects. His articles appeared in several journals, including the Accounting Review, Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Business Ethics, and several professional journals. He presented or published his work in the US, Australia, Canada, China, Switzerland, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom.

After working for several years as an economic consultant providing demand forecasts for utilities, Fred DeKay was appointed to a full time faculty position in the Albers School in 1980. Prior to that appointment he had a half-time position at Seattle University in 1978-79. He served as associate dean and acting dean from 1987 to 2000. In 2000, he spent a year as vice president of Operations for an internet company. He taught macroeconomics for the undergraduate, MBA, and Executive MBA programs and taught statistics and risk assessment for the grad program. Dr. DeKay's cross disciplinary research has been in the areas of hospitality management and economic development and appears in the Cornell HRA Quarterly, Tourism Analysis and Economic Development Journal. He was the faculty advisor for the Albers Beta Gamma Sigma Chapter and consulted with local attorneys as an expert witness in economic and statistics issues and provides economic and statistical consulting services to local businesses.

Seattle native, Suzanne Erickson has been in the Atlanta area since 2002. In 2021 she retired as Dean of the College of Business and Mass Communication at Brenau University in Gainesville Georgia, where she had been since Fall 2007. Brenau is a small (2,700 students) private university about fifty miles north of Atlanta. Prior to going to Brenau she was the Executive Director of Spring Hill College in Atlanta.

• Seattle University Faculty Member 1986 - 2003

John Eshelman served as Dean in the Albers School from 1976 to 1986, then as Provost or as Executive Vice President at Seattle University from 1987-2008. He returned to teaching at Albers in fall 2009. He was the commissioner of the Senior Commission of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, the regional accrediting body for California and the islands, 2006 - current. He was also a trustee of the Fulcrum Foundation, the archdiocesan foundation supporting Catholic schools in the Seattle archdiocese.

Dr. Marilyn Gist has more than 20 years' experience in the field of executive development. She held the rank of Professor of Management and Associate Dean of Executive Programs in the Albers School of Business and Economics, Seattle University. In addition, she served as Executive Director of the Center for Leadership Formation providing academic direction for our executive degree and certificate programs.

Prior to this, Marilyn held the Boeing Endowed Professorship of Business Management at the University of Washington, where she was also the Faculty Director for Executive MBA programs for many years. In addition to her academic roles, she has served in management positions in the public and private sectors, and had extensive consulting experience.

Marilyn is an internationally recognized scholar. Her research emphasized confidence-based factors in motivation and training and leadership assessment and development. She has over 25 publications in leading scholarly outlets.  Her current publications include “Developing Dual-Agenda Leaders” (co-authored with Professor Sharon Lobel) in the 2012 Journal of Corporate Citizenship, and ”Self-Efficacy” (co-authored with Angela Gist) in the 2013 Oxford Bibliographies in Management.

Quan Vu Le held the Eva Albers Professorship for 2016-2019. He also served as Director of the International Business Program. Dr. Le taught primarily in the areas of international economics, macroeconomics, and economic development. His research is in the areas of institutions, governance, global health, and entrepreneurship. He has been published in Journal of International Money and Finance, International Review of Financial Analysis, Public Health, and International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour & Research. Dr. Le has twice been a recipient of the Fulbright Scholar – in 2005-2006 at the Vietnam National University in Hanoi and in 2015-2016 at the Fulbright Economics Teaching Program in Ho Chi Minh City. He is a regular visiting faculty at several universities in Vietnam. He also provides consulting services to businesses, government agencies, NGOs, and multilateral institutions in Vietnam.

Teresa Ling was appointed Assistant Dean of the Albers School in 2003. She taught primarily in the areas of statistics, operations research, and leadership. Her research was in the areas of outcomes assessment and writing across the curriculum. Dr. Ling's publications appeared in such journals as Business Communication Quarterly, China & World Economy, and International Journal of Hospitality Management. Dr. Ling received several teaching awards. In her free time she enjoys reading Chinese novels and taking care of her grandchildren.

John McLean began teaching full-time in 2007. Prior to that, he managed the acquisition of real property for Sound Transit’s Commuter Rail program for about five years. During that time (and before that time), he taught Business Ethics and Business Law in the Albers MBA program. Before his employment at Sound Transit, he practiced law as a commercial litigator, after having been a court clerk for Justice Robert F. Utter on the Washington Supreme Court. While on the Washington Law review, he wrote about the plight of minority shareholders in takeout mergers. In his “early” years, he was a history teacher, both at Seattle University and in Form One of Matteo Ricci College, and he served in the Jesuits.

David Reid came to Seattle University in 2006 as Thomas F. Gleed Chair of Business Administration. He taught courses on Competing With and Within China, International Management, and Competitive Strategy. He has published in Strategic Management Journal, Long Range Planning, Business Insight, MIT Sloan-WSJ, Thunderbird International Business Review, Wall Street Journal, and Journal of Asian-Pacific Business. Dr. Reid was a board member of the International Management Development Association.

Leo Simpson was a professor of entrepreneurship, teaching creative course designs in over 20 different courses for 40 years. One of the early pioneers of entrepreneurial higher education, he served five universities with the rank of full professor for 30 years. He was a department chair, distinguished professor, and endowed professor with Western Kentucky University (Mattie Newman Ford Professor of Entrepreneurship), and served as the Lawrence K. Johnson Endowed Professor of Entrepreneurship at Seattle University. Dr. Simpson worked for the DuPont Company prior to entering the education field, contributing to two patents at the Nomex facility in Richmond, Virginia. He won numerous research and teaching awards and was recognized by professional organizations as a mentor, fellow, and certified business trainer. He was active with the Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE), the Entrepreneurship Club, and the Small Business Institute which are student-based organizations working directly with the service learning objectives of Seattle University. 

• Former Advisor, Enactus

Harriet Stephenson's interests focused around student consulting in the Small Business Institute methodology in the senior capstone course - in-depth team analysis and business plan development with a client or executive director of a non profit. She published articles in a variety of publications including the Journal of International Academy of Case Studies, Academy of Strategic and Organizational Leadership Journal, Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Small Business Strategy, Journal of Business and Entrepreneurship, American Journal of Small Business, Personnel Journal, and Training and Development Journal. Dr. Stephenson was Founder of the Entrepreneurship Center and the inaugural holder of the Lawrence K. Johnson Endowed Chair of Entrepreneurship. The annual business plan competition was named the Harriet Buckman Stephenson Business Plan Competition in her honor. She championed Women in Management, Women in Business, Social Enterprise and The Triple Bottom Line for profits and non-profits. She received the Anne Arundel Community College's National Sarbanes Spirit Award in October 2007 for her work in the social enterprise area. She served on several Boards of Directors including Washington CASH, Community Capital Development, Prisoner Education Network (PEN), and The Village Net of which she is founder. She and a colleague led a study tour to a Ghana village where the students developed social enterprise plans for the village. The PEN activities are geared to bringing college education to the prison system in Washington State to fight recidivism. A Kilamanjaro climb a few years ago was one of the highlights of her hiking and walking interests.

David Tinius worked seven years in the fields of engineering, accounting, and management consulting before earning a PhD in business. He joined the Albers School in 1971 and served as chair of the Department of Accounting for 18 years between 1977 and 2003. Over those years, Dr. Tinius oversaw the development of a Masters degree in accounting and the raising of three-quarters of a million dollars in support of the accounting students and program. Dr. Tinius taught in the areas of management accounting and controllership. His research was in the areas of management controls and accounting history and has appeared in such journals as Journal of Accountancy, Management Accounting, Oil, Gas, and Energy Quarterly, and Managerial Finance. Dr. Tinius is a former national president of Beta Alpha Psi (1984-85) and served on its national board for six years. Dr. Tinius has been selected as a national Outstanding Beta Alpha Faculty Advisor and was also elected MBA Professor of the Year at Albers. His consulting work has been in litigation, performance measurement, and manager development. Dr. Tinius was honored by the funding of $500,000 professorship formed in his name. He is a co-founder of the Pacioli Society, a society formed to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the publication of a treatise on double-entry bookkeeping first published by Luca Pacioli, the leading mathematician of the Renaissance, in 1494. The Society produced a video, held international symposia in Italy, and published a new translation of the treatise, among other things, but perhaps the Society's proudest moment was the appearance of its story on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, later to be included in the anthology, "Dressing for Dinner in the Naked City and Other Tales" from The Wall Street Journal's "Middle Column."

• Former Advisor, Beta Alpha Psi

Rex Toh taught marketing, marketing research, transportation/logistics, and statistics. He was a passionate instructor of statistics and a statistical consultant to various parties and is the co-author of a statistics textbook. Dr. Toh has published over 80 journal articles in the areas of marketing methodology, transportation/logistics, and tourism/hospitality, in such publications as the Journal of Marketing Research, Marketing Letters, Transportation Journal, and the Cornell HRA Quarterly. He serves on three journal editorial boards. Dr. Toh's particular expertise is in hotel group reservation practices.

Prior to joining Seattle University, Ruben Trevino worked as a research associate and portfolio manager for Colonial Management Associates, a mutual fund company in Boston. He taught primarily in the area of investments and personal financial planning. His research was in the area of long term performance of stocks and bonds. Dr. Trevino was published in such journals as the Journal of Financial Planning, the Review of Futures Markets, and the Journal of Futures Markets. He was a member of the American Finance Association, the Financial Management Association, and the CFA Institute. In his free time he enjoys reading and golf.

Susan Weihrich was appointed Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in 2008. Prior to that she served as chair of the Department of Accounting. She taught primarily in the area of taxation. She was a frequently invited speaker in the areas of Federal tax policy and annual tax updates. Dr. Weihrich's research has been published in Tax Adviser, Journal of Accounting Education, Journal of Accounting, Auditing, and Finance, Taxation for Accountants, Issues in Accounting Taxation, and Advances in Taxation. She has many years of experience in tax compliance and assisted in the Seattle University’s Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program for nearly 20 years. She received numerous teaching awards and also was the first recipient of the Seattle University “Spirit of Community Award.” In her free time, Dr. Weihrich enjoys travelling with her husband and experimenting in art classes.

Lisa Zhao joined Albers as the Lawrence K. Johnson Endowed Chair of Entrepreneurship from University of Missouri - Kansas City, where she directed the Entrepreneurship and Innovation PhD program and taught undergraduate, MBA, PhD, and executive education courses. Before she joined UMKC, she worked at Cornell University and Michigan State University. She was also an entrepreneur and a consultant with startups and Fortune 500 companies.

Zhao conducted research and teaching on new venture product launch strategies, new venture funding and exit strategies, innovation management, market-entry strategies, and statistical methods. She is the author of more than 20 articles in top academic journals such as Strategic Management Journal, Journal of Operations Management, Journal of Management, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, Decision Sciences Journal, Journal of Product Innovation Management, and IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management.