Corporate Integrity Focus Of Program In Business Ethics

An international leader in ethics will be the guest speaker during the Smeal College of Business Administration's upcoming G. Albert Shoemaker Program in Business Ethics.

Frank Vogl, president of Vogl Communications, Inc., a Washington D.C.-based strategic-management consulting firm, is the guest speaker for lecture. The program is scheduled to take place 4:30 p.m., Friday, March 23, 2001 in Room 112 of the Kern Graduate Building. The event is free and open to the public.

Vogl is co-founder and Vice Chairman of Transparency International, a global anti-corruption organization, and he is a member of the Board of Directors and Senior Ethics Advisor to the Ethics Resource Center of Washington D.C. The title of his presentation is, "Corporate Integrity And Globalization: What Are The Standards And Who Sets The Standards, For Global Corporate Citizenship?"

The G. Albert Shoemaker Program In Business Ethics was established in 1985 through a $100,000 gift from the late G. Albert Shoemaker and his wife Mercedes.

"The Shoemakers made the donation to Penn State's Smeal College of Business Administration because of the importance with which they regard ethics in corporate conduct and management decision-making. We're extremely grateful for Merdie's continued leadership in encouraging academic and corporate interest in business ethics," says Phillip Bolda, director of development in Penn State's Smeal College.

The gift created an endowment to encourage academic and corporate interest in business ethics. The centerpiece of the program is the Shoemaker Lecture that brings together faculty members, students and members of the business community to consider current perspectives in business ethics. The Shoemaker program also supports scholarly research in business ethics and a series of publications based on the Shoemaker Lecture.

As a Senior Fellow of the Ethics Resource Center's Fellows Program, Vogl wrote the recently ERC-published article: "Ethics & Compliance in a Global Economy: Making the Case." Vogl is the author of numerous articles on global corruption, including one on anti-corruption agencies in a recent edition of "Finance & Development," the Journal of the International Monetary Fund.

Vogl served as the head of External Relations at the World Bank Group from 1981 to 1990 prior to establishing Vogl Communications. He covered economics as a correspondent in Washington DC for The Times (London) from 1974-1981 and was the European business correspondent for same newspaper, based in Frankfurt, Germany from 1970-74. From 1967-70, he was an economics journalist and reporter for Reuters in London and in Brussels, Belgium.

G. Albert Shoemaker was the retired president of the Consolidation Coal Company in Pittsburgh and president emeritus of the Board of Trustees of the Pennsylvania State University. A resident of Pittsburgh, Mr. Shoemaker also was a director of Dravo Corp., Norfolk and Western Railway Co., Pittsburgh National Bank, American Standard, Inc., and Consolidation Coal.

A native of Parkesburg, Pennsylvania, Shoemaker graduated from Penn State in 1923 with a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering from the College of Engineering. Most of his career was spent in the coal industry. After earning his degree, he served as an engineer with Babcock and Wilcox in New York, then took a position with Union Collieries in Pittsburgh. In 1943, Union Collieries merged with Consolidation Coal and the Pittsburgh Coal Company under the Consolidation name to form the nation's largest coal operation. In 1946, Shoemaker was named vice president of the firm's Pittsburgh Coal Division and president of the division two years later. He became vice president of Consolidated Coal in 1951 and executive vice president in 1953. Named a director of the company in 1956, he became Consolidation's president in 1960.

In 1957, Shoemaker was elected to Penn State's Board of Trustees by delegates of industrial societies and was reelected to successive terms until 1978. From 1970 to 1973, he was board president. During his association with the Trustees, Shoemaker served on a number of standing committees and was chair of endowments and gifts, and research. In addition, he was a member of The Milton S. Hershey Medical Center Advisory Committee, the Executive Committee, and the University's Special Advisory Committee on Affirmative Action.

In 1965, Shoemaker was honored as a Penn State Distinguished Alumnus. In July 1978, he was named a trustee emeritus and was elected president emeritus of the board in 1985.

His business activities also included serving as chair of the National Coal Policy Conference, Inc., and as a member of the executive committee of the National Coal Association, the Bituminous Coal Operator's Association, and the General Technical Advisory Committee for the Department of the Interior's Office of Coal Research. After his retirement, he served as a consultant to several coal firms.

His civic and public service associations included work with the board of the Regional Industrial Development Corporation (Pittsburgh area) and the Pittsburgh Regional Planning Association. He also was chair of the boards of the St. Clair Memorial Hospital and Mercy Hospital of Pittsburgh. In addition, he was a member of the Allegheny Conference of Community Development. Shoemaker died in 1990 at the age of 89.

Penn State's Smeal College of Business is a pre-eminent learning community, shaping business practice for tomorrow's converging economies. With 6,400 undergraduates, Smeal College has the third largest undergraduate business program in the country. In addition to the nationally ranked undergraduate program, Smeal College is home to internationally ranked MBA and Executive Education Programs. Smeal College's seven academic departments, as well as its ten research centers and institutes, present programs and studies in leading-edge areas such as converging economies, supply chain management, e-business, and entrepreneurship along with the traditional areas of marketing, management, finance, real estate, accounting and information systems.