UM photo by Lindsey Phillips
OXFORD, Miss. – University of Mississippi business graduate student Jose Rivera has been named one of the nation’s top 50 Hispanic business scholars by the Association of Latino Professionals in Finance and Accounting.
The honor includes a scholarship award from ALPFA, as well as accommodations from Deloitte LLC for Rivera to attend ALPFA’s annual convention in August and deliver a speech.
“For Jose to achieve national recognition while competing against
students from all the finest business schools in the nation is a truly
impressive feat,” said Charles Noble, UM director of MBA programs and
associate professor of marketing. “This accomplishment reflects
foremost on Jose and the hard work he has done before coming to Ole
Miss and since entering our program. For our program, this shows the
high quality of our students and the success we are having in creating
more diversity in the student body, while maintaining high performance
standards.”
Rivera, 25, native of Arlington, Va., received his
undergraduate degree in electrical engineering with a minor in finance
from the University of Michigan. He applied for the ALPFA award in
December while completing his MBA program prerequisite coursework at
the University of Southern Mississippi’s Gulf Coast campus. Although
specific scholarship values have not been announced, amounts range from
$2,000 to $10,000.
As an undergraduate in Michigan, Rivera was
an Air Force ROTC cadet before serving three years as chief of
engineering in the U.S. Air Force at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi.
During his tour of duty, Rivera led Hurricane Katrina reconstruction
efforts on base and was deployed to Afghanistan, where he saw combat as
a joint task force platoon leader. Since his service separation in May,
he has worked as an accounting officer at Oxford University Bank.
Rivera
said he was surprised to have been chosen for the national honor, which
he attributes in part to the combination of his educational
achievements and leadership skills developed during his involvement
with the Air Force. As an undergraduate, he was a member of the Air
Force ROTC before serving three years at Keesler.
“There was a
large pool of applicants, so to be selected as one of the top 50 is
quite an accomplishment,” Rivera said. “It was very much an honor. It’s
also indicative of the people who have helped me, including my
professors at Ole Miss and the University of Michigan and many of my
military mentors.”
Rivera, who plans to pursue a career in
investment banking and financial advising, has been offered on-site
interviews from several sponsors of ALPFA’s annual convention. Aside
from attending multiple seminar sessions during the event, he plans to
take advantage of the opportunity to network with recruiters from
several large investment banking firms such as Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan
and Banc of America Securities.
“I am particularly impressed
with Jose’s strong focus on success, not just in the program but in the
well-defined career path he has laid out for post-graduation,” Noble
said. “Jose has been a very strong student in the program so far. We
are very pleased with the work he is doing.”
Rivera is in his first year of graduate business study with a concentration in managerial finance.
ALPFA,
a nonprofit foundation registered with the Internal Revenue Service,
works to improve and increase “opportunities for Latinos in the
accounting, finance and related professions,” according to the
organization’s Web site, http://www.alpfa.org.
For more information about the UM MBA program, visit http://www.olemissbusiness.com/mba/.