Enron Mail

From:j.kaminski@enron.com
To:vkaminski@aol.com
Subject:FW: Energy Committee Minutes from January 23rd
Cc:
Bcc:
Date:Tue, 29 Jan 2002 10:38:35 -0800 (PST)



-----Original Message-----
From: SloanConsulting@aol.com@ENRON
Sent: Friday, January 25, 2002 1:22 PM
To: everett.s.gibbs@us.andersen.com; vkamins@enron.com; mfkeeth@shellus.com; gerald.w.mcelvy@exxonmobil.com; dph@swbell.net; donna.p.mcginnis@dynegy.com; Bob.Peebler@halliburton.com; tina.sivinski@eds.com; bruce.sukaly@cinergy.com; TNTipton@marathonoil.com; bwillia6@us.ibm.com; bawilliamson@duke-energy.com
Cc: warga@uh.edu; pkumar@uh.edu; bobcasey@uh.edu
Subject: Energy Committee Minutes from January 23rd

Energy Committee Members

The following members were in attendance at the January 23rd meeting: Bruce
Williamson, Tina Sivinski, Tim Tipton, Bruce Sukaly, Bob Peebler, Vince
Kaminski, Dean Arthur Warga, Praveen Kumar, and Lane Sloan. The handout
material is attached for members that could not attend.

The committee viewed a TV ad for the Bauer College and a TV news story on
the new AIM center and Cougar Fund. The first item of business was the
Partnership program. The committee agreed on the following levels:

Trustee $100,000
Partner 50,000
Investor 25,000
Sponsor 10, 000

For this year, these levels would receive placements in the new Energy
Certificate Programs which will start in September of this year as follows:
Trustee up to 10, Partner up to 4, Investor up to 2, and Sponsor 0. All
members of the partnership program would be able to participate in the
Learning Community programs of seminars, forums, and symposiums free of
charge with the number of attendees and special arrangements varying
depending upon the partnership level. The Chairman noted that with the
certificate classes beginning in September, then the annual fee structure
would need to align accordingly which left a funding gap for the first part
of the year for the marketing costs to launch GEMI. The original idea had
been for the one time entrance fee in the Partnership Program to cover these
costs but as you recall the committee did not favor that approach. The
Chairman asked the committee to provide ideas on how to fund these marketing
efforts originally targeted at $200,000 for this year.

Dr. Kumar discussed three energy certificate programs to be available as 1)
Risk Management 2) International Project Finance, and 3) Energy Accounting.
The courses can be fully developed for the Risk Management and Energy
Accounting to start programs in September (many already available). The
International Project Finance may require additional time because of
development efforts on certain courses. Dr. Kumar requested that the members
identify people in their organizations that could give detailed feedback on
the course proposals so we are assured they fit the needs of the Energy
community. We will also begin discussions with Energy committee members on
what level of participation your forsee for your company. Dr. Kumar noted
that the BS and MS programs would be underway but less of an issue for course
development as students would not be taking these more energy focused courses
until junior and senior years. He said that specialized training programs
seemed to be of high interest and more activity than originally anticipated.

The chairman covered the feedback on the seminars, forums and conferences.
There was real interest in seminars and forums but committee members did not
recommend pursuing conferences at this time. The plan would be to have in
steady state 3 seminars per year which would be for large audiences with a
featured speaker. It was noted that the venue would be an important
consideration to attract appropriate audiences. Various suggestions were
given on topics of interest with an overall view that the presentations
should be practical and of high quality. The committee agreed that a
reasonable fee should be charged to non members of the partnership program.
The feedback on the forums was that they should be smaller more focused
groups with different formats depending upon the subject matter. The thought
was that they could address overarching issues integrating energy and service
sector considerations. Non members would not participate but selected student
participation was seen as valuable.

A new concept of symposiums was introduced based on discussion with various
committee members. The idea of a symposium was to bring together important
spokespeople and other key participants on a topic of high interest to the
Energy community. The Bauer College would provide a coordinating role to
address the issue with the objective of gaining input on all fronts. Dr.
Kumar noted that there had been various discussion with members around
current topics emanating from the Enron collapse such as clearing house and
credit risk considerations. The committee was quite enthused that an
imporant event could be created but it needed to be very carefully thought
out as to topic and the management of the process including the media. It
was discussed that if the Bauer College wanted to sponsor such an event then
it would need to provide a project manager. Committee member companies would
need to provide assistance/advice particularly on coordinating the media.
Dr. Kumar will be sending out an e-mail to get your input. Then Dean Warga
would make a decision on whether to pursue such a significant event which
could be a great launch vehicle for GEMI but also carried a series of risks.

Next, Dr. Kumar discussed briefly the trading center noting that the key
issue was endowment funding before any significant activity could take place.
The college was continuing to think through the content and integration with
other aspects of GEMI, the AIMs investment center, etc.

The Chairman then discussed GEMI's overall marketing image. There was some
fine tuning of the proposal providing further clarity and emphasis of key
aspects of GEMI but in general a high consensus on the desired image
contained in the attachment. After the dialogue on the symposium, which
would be a major marketing effort in an of itself, the discussion on external
and internal promotion was tabled til next meeting. The chairman noted that
there would probably be a need for a two tier approach if the symposium
effort was pursued. The major focus initially being on the symposium then
coupled with a growing effort on the overall GEMI marketing
over the next several months.

The last item was the competitive assessment/relationship with other
universites and organizations where the chairman discussed the current
approach and principles in the attachment. This received good support from
the committee.

The committee members recommended the next meeting to occur in six weeks. I
will send out a separate e-mail on possible dates for you to consider.

Best Regards,
Lane


- GEMIJanR.ppt