2C

SUNDAY, APRIL 13, 2014

BUSINESS

THE OKLAHOMAN | NEWSOK.COM

UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMAS PRICE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

New energy-focused MBA has global outlook

awilmoth@ opubco.com

BUSINESS PEOPLE
Rhonda Hlavaty, M.Ed., joins Alpha Plus Educational Systems Inc. after nearly two decades of working in Oklahomas education systems. As a facilitator, Hlavaty will work with teachers across the state to help improve proprietary professional development tools and teaching Hlavaty materials in order to raise student achievement as measured by Oklahomas new A-F Report Card grading system. Hlavaty previously worked for the State Education Department as a school improvement specialist. She also spent more than a decade teaching English and literature at the high school and collegiate levels in both public and private schools in Oklahoma and Louisiana. Trifecta Communications, parent company of Moore Monthly magazine, adds staff members Cole Poland, Alex Greenlee, and Jonathan LeClair. Poland serves as sports director for Moore Monthly and TheMooreDaily.com. LeClair joins Trifecta from Ackerman McQueen where he served as production assistant. He will be responsible for helping Trifecta clients with video and audio projects for the Internet and broadcast. Greenlee is a recent University of Oklahoma graduate with a degree in film and media studies. Rees Associates Inc. promotes Dwayne Robinett and Jason Wint, both registered architects, to senior Robinett Wint associate. Robinett serves health care clients as project manager and project architect. Wint serves corporate, health care and higher education clients as project designer and project manager. Oklahoma Allergy and Asthma Clinic adds Dr. Florina Neagu to its staff. She is board certified in internal medicine and board eligible in allergy and immunology. Neagu is a member with the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, American College of Asthma, Allergy and Immunology and American College of Physicians.

Adam Wilmoth

ENERGY EDITOR

After beginning his career as a petroleum engineer, John Argo quickly has climbed to general manager of resource engineering at Oklahoma City-based HighMount Exploration and Production LLC. While the engineering background prepared him for finding the best way to recover oil and natural gas from rock deep underground, Argos current position requires a broader business understanding. Economics is part of every decision we make, he said. Argo has thought about going back to school before, but a traditional business program doesnt fit with his family. The father of three young children already spends well more than 40 hours a week in the office and isnt excited about spending several additional hours each week in the classroom. Then he learned about the new Executive Master of Business Administration in Energy program at the University of Oklahomas Price College of Business. A member of the programs inaugural cohort, Argo is completing most of the 15-month program online, plus three intense weeks of class. This program has allowed me to maintain my current position and workload, he said. Its been tough, but I wanted it to be hard work. Two of the week-long programs are in Norman, and the other is at BP plcs headquarters in London. Argo said he appreciates the program provides both the flexibility of online classes with getting to know instructors and classmates through the three in-person weeks and ongoing networking opportunities.

This is a global industry. I think that them having at least one week where we are in an international environment is going to be very advantageous.
JOHN ARGO
GENERAL MANAGER OF RESOURCE ENGINEERING AT HIGHMOUNT EXPLORATION AND PRODUCTION LLC.

They did an amazing job getting the cohort together, Argo said. Argo said he is especially excited about the opportunity to travel to London this summer. This is a global industry, he said. I think that them having at least one week where we are in an international environment is going to be very advantageous. Program Director Dipankar Ghosh said the international study portion is a critical component of the program. Energy is truly a global commodity, said Ghosh, executive director of the Price Colleges Energy Institute. It is important for our students to be exposed to that concept in a place outside the U.S. and hear from people who are globally more aware or more knowledgeable, having a focus that is global rather than just U.S. centric. Ghosh and others at the Price College developed the executive MBA in energy program after talking with executives at companies throughout the state and country about their concerns of how to prepare young leaders like Argo to take executivelevel positions. For a long time, this industry did not hire, Ghosh said of the oil bust from the late 1980s until the late 1990s and early 2000s. Many people in their late 30s and early 40s are going up the organizational ladder, but often they dont

have the business background or management background to run the organization. There is a gap of 10 to 12 years because of people who are retiring. The energy industry also has changed dramatically over the past decade, requiring a broader understanding of business and technology. We are essentially preparing qualified people to take on the reins of leadership at a company, Ghosh said. We want to create future leaders in the industry. They not only must have the necessary background in energy, but they also need to understand the business side of it and engage with industry leaders to assess and determine the issues facing the industry, not only locally but globally. Participants in the program must have at least eight years of management experience in the energy industry, but the school has worked to put together classes of students from different backgrounds. In the class, everyone has an energy background, but not necessary from the same perspective. You may have landmen and geologists and people who do private equity. When you pose a question to them, you hear multiple perspectives and learn from all of them. The program costs a flat rate of $77,400, including tuition, materials and food and housing during the three weeks of in-person housing.

Neagu

FUND MANAGER Q&A

Expect less from bonds even as rates are expected to go up

BY STAN CHOE
Associated Press

TAP Architecture adds Elizabeth Graham as intern architect, and Dru Monk to its design team. Graham Monk Graham became a LEED Accredited Professional in 2009 as well as IDP registered. She has six years of professional experience in the architecture field. Monk has been working in the architecture field for seven years. GT Clean, an Edmondbased commercial cleaning service, hires Mark A. Turney and Barbara Turney DeBolt Anne DeBolt. Turney has been named superintendent and will oversee the daily cleaning duties of GT Cleans staff. A longtime sales and marketing strategist, DeBolt has been named director of business development and community relations. She is responsible for client development and business growth. Manhattan Construction Co. hires Clay Cockrill as project director in its Oklahoma City area office. Cockrill has 20 years of construction industry experience including MAPS and MAPS for Kids, commercial building, higher education and aviation project types. Volunteers for Animal Welfare Inc. hires Summer R. Heatly, DVM, for the SPOT Clinic as veterinarian. Heatly is a 2009 graduate of the Oklahoma State University College of Veterinary Medicine. Heatly Mercy adds Dr. Kertrisa McWhite, Oklahoma Citys only fellowship-trained surgical breast oncologist. McWhite has a decade of experience providing a full range of surgical options to patients battling breast cancer, along with genetic counseling services for women with histories of breast cancer in their families.

NEW YORK Bonds arent doomed. They lost money last year and still face challenges, but you can still profit from bonds just not as much as in the past. So says Ford ONeil, the lead manager of Fidelitys $13 billion Total Bond fund (FTBFX), whose returns have topped 80 percent of its peers over the last 10 years. Bonds are supposed to be the safe part of a portfolio, but the Barclays US Aggregate Bond index lost 2 percent last year. Many funds use the index as their benchmark, and it was the indexs largest loss since 1994. Rising interest rates knocked down the price of existing bonds last year, and strategists expect rates to move higher as the economy recovers. ONeil talked about what bond-fund investors can expect.

the way everyones grown accustomed to it bouncing back following recessions. We think the economy continues to muddle along for the next two to four years not great growth, not bad growth, just kind of 1.5 to 3 percent. Q: What about inflation, which hurts bond investors? A: Its going to remain relatively benign for the near future, 1.5 to 2 percent. A lot of that is driven by wages, and wages remain quite stagnant. Of all the companies coming through Fidelity, we dont see any of them pounding the tables saying, We cant find workers and need to pay everyone a lot more. Q: Low inflation, a muddling-along economy and a slow rise in interest rates makes it sound like you can still make money with bonds. A: You can. If you look at the history of bond returns, over the last 60 years, you had negative returns in less than half a dozen years. Its just the nature of the way bonds work. You have that nice income cushion that helps you when you have a rising-rate environment. Q: But have we ever started from a place where rates were as low as now? A: We did. If you go back to the 1940s, coming out of World War II, the Fed was suppressing interest rates. The government had massive amounts of debt, and we had just come out of a terrible economic period kind of like today. It wasnt until the early 50s when the Fed finally decided the economy could stand on its own. At that point the 10-year Treasury went from 2 and an eighth to 15 percent in

the early 80s. Your worst return was when you lost 3 percent. Thats because as rates rose, you were getting more and more income each year, so you can withstand jumps in rates. Q: So whats fair to expect from bonds now? A: This is one of the things were spending a lot of time on with clients, getting them to have more modest expectations. From 82 to 13, for 30 years, they were getting 5 to 8 percent a year. It was a fabulous bond market rally. Were telling them 2 to 4 percent is a much more reasonable expectation. Q: You can invest as much as 20 percent of the Total Bond fund in high-yield junk bonds. Are you close to that now? A: The last published numbers show 10 percent in high yield, 2 percent in emerging markets that are not investment grade and 2 percent in highyield commercial mortgagebacked securities. Q: What if someone just wants a vanilla bond fund, something to provide ballast for their portfolio? A: There are a lot of clients that want to own bond funds that own nothing but U.S. government-guaranteed securities, and we provide that for them. But they have a lot less flexibility. A good example is last May and June, when all of our funds did poorly. As a manager of Total Bond fund, I could go and add to the sectors that were doing by far the worst to try to make up for some of the underperformance due to the increase in rates. A lot of these other managers are constrained to their own universe.

Cockrill

Q: How fast will rates rise? A: Our feeling is that normalization will take much longer than people expect. That was our view in 2009, when everyone was saying rates would go up a lot, and weve said it for five years in a row because the economy is far more fragile than in prior recoveries. Q: And normalization means? A: Normalization means bonds have historically had real rates of 1 to 2 percent and inflation has run between 1.5 and 3 percent so the 10-year Treasury at, say, 3 to 4 percent. We think its a long run to get to the upper end of that range. Were not expecting economic growth to be 3.5 to 4 percent,

McWhite

Robyn Coventon has been hired as chief administrative officer for Variety Care. Coventon has responsibility for several Variety Care departments and programs, including human resources and compliance. Kimberly F. Gaylor and Catherine Wooddell also have joined the nonprofit community health center as behavior health therapists. Mickey H. Phan will serve as director of pharmacy for Variety Care, and Erin Scott will serve as pharmacist.