Amber Campbell ’96, the founder of G&A Garden Center in Houghton, is collaborating with area farmers to open a weekend Farmers’ Market at her garden center, 400 W. Sharon Ave. It will open this Friday, Aug. 8, and be open Fridays and Saturdays until harvest season is over.
Locally grown, natural and organic fruits and vegetables and eggs will be offered, as well as jams and baked goods. Campbell calls the Farmers’ Market “an effort to bridge farmers and consumers in a natural, sustainable way.” The goal of her garden center, which opened in 2012, is to provide the community with local, natural and organic foods and plants.
Participating in the Farmers’ Market will be Niemela’s Market Garden of Pelkie; Wintergreen Farm of Ontonagon; Pike River Produce of Chassell; and Teresa’s Jam and Home Bakery of Chassell.
Hours will be 1-6 p.m. Friday and 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday.
- Academic performance
- Communication skills
- Demonstrated commitment to the MIS major
- Financial need
Students majoring in Management Information Systems were invited to submit their resumes and personal essays explaining why they deserve this financial award and recognition. We sincerely appreciate the support and commitment of the MIS alumni who made this endowed scholarship possible: Jamie Linna, Steve Linna, Carrie Schaller and Greg Horvath.
In late April 2014, Associate Dean and Professor of Economics, Tom Merz, met up with School of Business and Economics alum, Maggie Chen, while he was visiting Hong Kong. Chen was very involved as a Tech student, participating in the Applied Portfolio Management Program before earning her BS in Finance in 2004. She also completed a fellowship at Columbia University and continued on to receive her MBA from Yale University in 2010. Chen currently resides in Hong Kong with her husband Max and their two-year-old son Mickey, where she is a foreign equities portfolio manager in the State Administration of Foreign Exchange Investment Company. She aspires to be a visiting lecturer in finance at Tech’s School of Business and Economics.
Are you an alum of Michigan Tech’s School of Business and Economics? We’d love to hear your story! Send it to business@mtu.edu today!
New U.P. business putting bed bug fears to rest
A new Upper Peninsula business is helping find and rid the region of a returning pest, the bed bug.
Lady Killers Bed Bug Management was formed by the duo of Munising-area mo
tel owners Victoria Gariepy (2004 School of Business and Economics Alumn) and Angela Tiernan over the summer, when they realized a need to have bed bug abatement services more readily available in the U.P.
“Wherever there’s travel and tourism, there are bed bugs” Tiernan said. Munising just happens to be one town that sees travelers from all over the world, and as a result, bed bugs have indeed shown up. With the nearest abatement specialists several hundred miles away in Minnesota, however, Gariepy and Tiernan realized that they – and all U.P. motel and hotel owners – would be left with possibility of having to keep rooms closed for weeks while awaiting treatment.
“It’s such a growing problem. It’s a fear that we all have,” Gariepy said about potential bed bug infestations in their motel rooms. “It was about June, and a friend was concerned that she had one,” she added. At that time, Gariepy and Tiernan realized that something more could be done locally in the cases where bed bugs are found, to help alleviate the fear and to decrease the response time when extermination services are needed.
By August, after much research, the pair had purchased equipment that could take care of bed bugs for good, or at least until the next customer unknowingly carries more in. Now operating under the “Lady Killers” name, the women began to utilize special extreme heating units in affected rooms to safely and cleanly kill the bugs, which tend to hide in dark, tight corners, including in bed creases, behind headboards, and more. The heating unit is placed in the room, until it reaches and maintains a temperature of 150 degrees Fahrenheit. To reach all of the bugs, the room is taken apart to expose as many hiding places as possible, and room components rearranged a couple times during the heating period in order to negate any cold spots.
In addition to leaving no residues, the heating process differs from chemical treatments in that it more effectively kills bed bugs in all life stages, including the eggs, thus preventing natural reinfestation.
Now, after just a couple months of success using the heating units and gaining feedback from customers, Gariepy and Tiernan have decided to expand Lady Killers to include another step, a bed bug diagnostic service.
Beginning in December, the duo will begin using special bed bug-sniffing dogs to help facility owners assess whether or not they do have bed bugs present. “The first defense against bed bugs is their customers in the room,” Tiernan said, adding that this is just about the last thing motel owners want to have to discuss with their guests on any given morning. She and Gariepy were not alone in this thinking; owners of larger U.P. motels asked if Lady Killers would offer the dog service locally, since, like the Minnesota heating unit service, the nearest trained dog comes from quite a distance, out of downstate Kalamazoo.
Like those trained to sniff out drugs or bombs, dogs can be taught to smell and indicate the presence of live bed bugs. Humans can inspect a room, too, the women said, but the process takes a substantial amount of time, and each room must be torn apart in order to look in all types of hiding places. The dogs can perform the same task much more quickly, and without the need to take apart anything. “With the dogs, you’re in and out of a room in minutes,” Gariepy said. Tiernan also noted that the dogs can execute the task at a much higher accuracy rate than humans.
The duo opted to go straight to the person considered to be the country’s authority on the issue, Bill Whitstine, who has been featured with his trained bed bug-sniffing dogs on the Travel Channel’s “Hotel Impossible.” Gariepy and Tiernan will soon spend a week at Whitstine’s training facility in Florida, learning how to work with their two new dogs and to read their cues, before returning with them ready to get to work in the U.P. and the Upper Great Lakes region.
Lady Killers Bed Bug Management’s heating and bed bug diagnostic services will be available to more than just motels and hotels; Gariepy and Tiernan will happily work with any facility that may harbor the pests, including nursing homes, apartments, and even houses. “You can get a bed bug anywhere,” Tiernan said. More information about Lady Killers’ services may be visited online at www.ladykillers.me. They may be contacted directly by emailing BedBugHitman@gmail.com, or by calling Gariepy at 906-202-0812 or Tiernan at 920-737-8349.
HOUGHTON, MI (08/07/2013)(readMedia)– James Trethewey, an Ironwood native, was recently honored at the Michigan Technological University Alumni Reunion. Trethewey, a 1967 alumnus in business administration, received the Distinguished Alumni Award, presented to alumni “who have made outstanding contributions both in their careers and to Michigan Tech over a number of years.”
Trethewey began his career with Copper Range and soon joined Cleveland-Cliffs (now Cliffs Resources), advancing through management positions over the years. From Ishpeming to Ontario to Cleveland, he worked in positions of increasing responsibility and became vice president-controller and chief accounting officer. Along the way, he also earned his MBA from Baldwin-Wallace College.
In his final years with Cliffs, Trethewey was senior vice president of business development and worked with the senior corporate team in reshaping the company, adding international experience to his career. He was a member of the American Mining Association, the Society of Mining Engineers, and other organizations, retiring in 2007.
For Michigan Tech, he’s been on the Advisory Board for the School of Business and Economics since 1994 and has served as a trustee for the Michigan Tech Fund. He and his wife have funded the James and Dolores Trethewey Applied Portfolio Management Program (APMP) Professorship, given to APMP creator Dean Johnson, and have supported students through scholarships.
Since his retirement from Cliffs, Trethewey has remained active in social, business, and industry activities. He serves on the board of two charities, participates as a member and CEO of the limited partnership DJD Investments, and is a board member of Steel Dynamics Inc., a major US steel producer, where he also serves as chairman of the Audit Committee.
Michigan Technological University (www.mtu.edu) is a leading public research university developing new technologies and preparing students to create the future for a prosperous and sustainable world. Michigan Tech offers more than 130 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in engineering; forest resources; computing; technology; business; economics; natural, physical and environmental sciences; arts; humanities; and social sciences.