DAYTON, Ohio, May 15 OH-UD-Chicago-trader
DAYTON, Ohio, May 15 /PRNewswire/ -- George Hanley, owner of two Chicago-
based derivative trading firms, has given $520,000 to the University of Dayton
to create a new, state-of-the-art center to give students real-world
experience and a competitive career edge in the rapidly growing field.
One of only a few such centers in universities, the 20-station
cherry-paneled room is equipped with the same hardware, software and real-time
data used by practicing traders. It's also a classroom, offering a powerful
learning experience for the next generation of aspiring traders.
"Building a center at the University of Dayton gives students a chance to
have some real-world trading experience in one of the fastest growing
businesses in the country," said Hanley, a 1977 management graduate. "When
students come out of UD with this experience, they're two steps ahead because
they've had that real-world, experiential learning.
"It's very important that they know and are familiar with the software and
hardware that they'll be using as professional traders," Hanley said, noting
that students can make simulated trades using live market data as well as
historic, archived data. The center also offers the ability to make real
trades as well.
Hanley and University officials cut the ribbon on the new center May 15.
It's already in use for summer classes.
Establishing the center - one of just a few in the nation to focus on
derivatives - puts the University of Dayton in the forefront of a new trend in
business education, according to Elizabeth Gustafson, interim dean of the
School of Business Administration.
UD's center will be distinctive by emphasizing quantitative skills and by
affording students hands-on opportunities to work directly with TradeStation,
one of the most popular trading platforms, Gustafson said. Another advantage
of the program will be the interaction students will have with experienced
traders who will be brought in to teach and lecture, she said.
"The center will also operate as an interdisciplinary program,
coordinating with the mathematics, computer science and engineering
departments to provide learning opportunities for a wide variety of students,"
Gustafson said.
Hanley, president of Hanley Group and chairman of Infinium Capital
Management, has been involved in the design and construction of several
trading rooms including a recent multi-million dollar facility for Infinium,
said he brought what he learned from those experiences to the design of the
new UD facility.
University of Dayton President Daniel J. Curran said Hanley's gift will
build an important new capacity for the business school.
"Mr. Hanley is well-known for his ability to build successful businesses.
We are pleased and honored he's helping us increase our capacity for applied
learning in such a distinctive and innovative way," Curran said. "He is
helping us build our unique brand of business education."
The UD School of Business Administration already emphasizes learning by
doing: finance students manage a portfolio of more than $8 million of the
University's endowment, entrepreneurship students are involved in running real
businesses, and MBA students act as consultants to local firms on management
studies.
Hanley explained that derivatives encompass a wide variety of trading
instruments, including options, futures, commodities and even stock indexes.
The field is rapidly growing.
Hanley began his trading career in 1977 as a runner at the Chicago Board
of Trade, following in the footsteps of his father who began his brokerage
career in 1923 as a runner. Hanley traded derivative products at numerous
exchanges worldwide and found his niche at the CBOT Soybean Options pit. He
founded Hanley Group in 1986 and developed a training program with an emphasis
on sound, disciplined trading and emerging technology.
BACKGROUND: The University of Dayton is Ohio's largest private university
and a top-tier national university with sponsored research totaling $75
million annually. As one of the top-10 Catholic universities in the nation, UD
emphasizes transformative education and prepares students for leadership and
community service in the Marianist tradition. The University of Dayton is
nationally recognized for its approach to finance and business education,
which integrates hands-on learning with theory and allows students to apply
learning through running real businesses and investing more than $8 million of
the school's endowment. Its entrepreneurship program has been rated the fifth-
best in the U.S. for the past two years by Entrepreneur magazine and The
Princeton Review. For more about this story and the University of Dayton visit
www.news.udayton.edu.
SOURCE University of Dayton
