At an invitation-only ceremony Oct. 2, University President Jesse Rogers announced the creation of the Dillard Center for Energy Management, an energy-centric business program that will officially launch in August 2015 according to benefactor Kay Dillard.

“I don’t know how many students we will begin with, but what I’m hoping is that more and more students will hear of our program and come in to learn how to manage energy,” Dillard said. “Energy is a big word and it comes from so many sources, and so I think that it has become so tremendously huge that we now need someone who can help us to manage the whole aspect of what energy means to us.”

Jeff Stambaugh, associate professor of management, marketing and legal studies, has accepted the position of director of the center, meaning he will step down as director of the Lalani Center for Entrepreneurship and Free Enterprise.

“We’re going to hire a new director for the Lalani Center,” Stambaugh said. “What I did for the Lalani Center I’m supposed to now be doing for the energy center.”

Stambaugh said he was able to build the Lalani Center from the ground up and said he will help do the same with the energy management center.

“I describe it this way, there was a white board on the wall that was blank with markers in the tray and they said, ‘draw,’ so I got to create from the ground up,” Stambaugh said.

The center will initially offer a Master of Business Administration, but Stambaugh said he hopes it will eventually extend down into the undergraduate program.

“Then we will be able to have concentrations. It fits with a lot of different courses so I can see, for example, a lot of students in the college of business whether they’re marketing, accounting, finance, whatever, that they’re going to want that energy concentration,” Stambaugh said. “A lot of students in the other colleges that are on more of the scientific track, will be able to have some crossover and maybe get a little bit of an introduction into the business course.”