Poston, Taylor and Allen Lead FCBE Executive
Development Program for Pinnacle Corporation

On July 1, 2010 Phil Trenary, President & CEO of Pinnacle Corp. announced that Pinnacle had acquired Mesaba Airlines. Pinnacle is now moving through the integration process of combining its own operations with that of Mesaba and another recent addition, Colgan Air. Pinnacle asked the Fogelman College of Business and Economics (FCBE) at the University of Memphis to create and deliver customized training sessions for Pinnacle employee teams to support the Transition Task Forces (a.k.a. Takeoff Teams).  Pinnacle leadership teams asked for help from FCBE because of the successful FCBE faculty training delivered to Pinnacle action committee team leaders in January 2010. 

As part of the need to develop FAA-required Transition Plans, Pinnacle has asked FCBE to develop a set of training materials that work with the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK), best practices in Managing Teams, and leading edge ideas about meeting the challenges of Turnover and Retention.  FCBE faculty have developed an intensive 3-day training program which will be delivered to over 90 Pinnacle Executives with 30 people attending each week for three weeks starting in the last week of August 2010. 

The topics covered in the training include:  Kick-off by Mike Garvin/ Phil Trenary, Pinnacle Corp. and Dean Grover from the FCBE, Introduction to Project Management, The Project Management Life Cycle, Managing Project Scope and Scheduling, Managing Project Resources and Quality, Managing and Mitigating Project Risks, Building Successful Project Teams, Goal Setting, Understanding and Managing Groups, Leadership at Work, Nature of Work Groups and Teams, Self-Managed Work Teams, Training, Development and Performance Management, Managing Turnover and Retention, Labor-Management Relations, and Applying Skills to Pinnacle Transition Plans—Getting Started.

Dr. Robin Poston, who teaches Project Management to FCBE students and works closely with the local Project Management Institute (PMI) in Memphis, will conduct the project management sessions.  Dr. Bob Taylor, Chair of the Management Department and director of the Memphis Institute for Leadership Education (MILE) program will lead the team building sessions.  Dr. David Allen, who does research in human resource recruitment, retention, and organizational effectiveness, will lead the turnover and retention topics. All three faculty members have extensive experience leading executive education at FCBE in the MBA program and with local and international industry partners. For more information please contact Dr. Robin Poston, rposton@memphis.edu.