OIA names Harvard student to Guam for Island Fellows

The team is composed of eight MBA candidates from the Columbia School of Business, the Wharton School in the University of Pennsylvania, the Kellogg School of Management in Northwestern University, the McDonough School of Business in Georgetown University, the Harvard Business School, and the University of Hawaii. They will begin the 10-week program in Washington, DC on June 11, 2008.

Matthew Garcia, an MBA student at the Harvard Business School, has been assigned to Guam. He will arrive on Guam on June 18 and stay for a little more than two weeks. While in Guam, Garcia will meet with local businesses and government leaders to identify local priorities for the types of businesses that Guam’s business and government leaders believe should be invited to the fifth Secretary of the Interior’s “Conference on Business Opportunities in the Islands,” to be held in Honolulu in April 2009. When Mr. Garcia returns to Washington, DC on July 7 he will begin to market the next Conference actively, and OIA staff will welcome recommendations for making the next Conference the best one yet.

Garcia will also help OIA introduce a new and exciting business development tool known as “Island Business Link.” It is a web-based system designed to facilitate the matching of island businesses with businesses anywhere in the world and is based on the model OIA used for the “business-to-business (B2B) meetings” that were held at the last two Conferences.

While in Guam, Garcia will be conducting several workshops for government and business people on how the system works. These workshops will be followed by one-on-one meetings between the Island Fellow and individuals to answer questions and actually to post some Guam business opportunities to the system.

Over the past few years, the Island Fellows program has made significant contributions to the Department of the Interior’s ongoing efforts to promote private sector-led economic development in the U.S.-affiliated insular areas, conducting field research and outreach in support of large-scale events hosted by the Department of the Interior.

The Washington contact person for the Island Fellowship program as well as IslandBusinessLink.com is Ms. Angie Williams who may be contacted at 202 208-3003 or angela_williams@ios.doi.gov. The contact on Guam is Mr. Casey Jeszenka, Director of Pacific Island Small Business Development Center. Mr. Jeszenka, or one of his staff members, may be reached by phone at 671 735 2590, ext.111, or by email at casey@pacificsbdc.com. [B][I](DOI)[/I][/B]