A panel of three speakers aimed to attract students to the new Operations and Information Management (OPIM) major in the McDonough School of Business on Wednesday night.

Included in the panel were Geraldine MacDonald, senior vice president of America Online, Eric L. Schwartz (MSB ’01), manager of information technology at Promontory Interfinancial Network, LLC and Marilyn Stewart of Northrop Grumman.

Approved in 2002, the OPIM major requires five courses. This year’s senior class is the first to be able to graduate with it as their major. The major focuses on supply chain management and information systems, allowing students to analyze business systems and approach technological issues both strategically and analytically.

The three panelists all spoke about their current jobs and how they believe OPIM will fit into the current business world. acDonald has spent eight years at AOL and is responsible for building the networks that connect users to AOL. The company prides itself on making the process look easy to consumers, MacDonald said.

“Everything has to work right for the customer everyday,” MacDonald said.

The operations team at AOL has to make sure the server runs correctly everyday and that there are never any glitches in the system. A key aspect of operations is being able to collect numbers and turn those numbers into data that is understandable.

“It’s the fact that you have in your head the way to take data and make people understand it,” she said.

Schwartz has a team of approximately 20 people who work strictly on product development at Promontory Interfinancial. The basic premise of the company is to help community banks scale themselves to function like larger, national banks.

Schwartz said that OPIM can help prepare students for both the business and technological aspects of many jobs dealing with information technology.

He said that “chances are something’s going to break somewhere along the line” and that students must use their reasoning and analytical skills to resolve the situation.

Stewart’s company, Northrop Grumman, serves the government as their client base. They work with e-government initiatives and homeland defense. She explained that the skills that are needed to sustain government operations are similar to those needed for commercial or industrial client bases.

Although the audience was mostly underclassmen looking for information on the OPIM major, there were also seniors looking for internship possibilities or future career information.

Colin Flynn (MSB ’05), head of the OPIM majors group, said, “I think the speakers gave a more general sense of what industries and jobs look for and what opportunities this major has to offer.”

The session was organized by OPIM academic advisor Dr. Betsy Page Sigman.