FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 16, 2011
Contact: Anika Mitchell Perkins
(662) 329-7124
aperkins@pa.muw.edu

Unified Brands culinary director to speak at Dean’s Lunch Lecture Series at MUW

COLUMBUS, Miss. – Michael Williams, culinary director for Unified Brands, will kick off the spring semester of the Dean’s Lunch Lecture Series hosted by the School of Professional Studies at Mississippi University for Women.

Williams will speak Thursday, April 7 at 11 a.m. in the Claudia A. Limbert Assembly Room.

As culinary director, Chef Williams works with product development teams focusing on equipment technologies aimed at enhancing equipment performance and food quality while reducing energy and water consumption. Unified Brands is a manufacturer of Groen, Randell, Avtec and A la cart commercial foodservice equipment.

The Dean’s Lunch Lecture Series has experienced great success thus far, according to Thomas Haffey, MUW instructor of business.
Two presentations occurred during the fall semester with a total student attendance over 110.

The first lecture in the series took place in September with Roger Burlingame, CEO of CECO Building Systems of Columbus. He discussed challenges that his company has faced in the down economy, how he has strived to provide the best service possible both to his customers and to his employees and what future leaders and managers in the audience may need to expect in executive positions in the corporate environment.

The second lecture took place in October. This event included a panel discussion with CEO Liza Looser and representatives of The Cirlot Agency, the strategic marketing and public relations firm that developed the recently launched V3 College brand, website and marketing campaign. The MUW alumna and her team discussed the research and development needed to create, launch and promote an entirely new brand using a variety of examples from Cirlot’s extensive portfolio.

Elizabeth Carter, senior management information systems major, said, “Overall, I found that the speaker was very informative in light of the processes and procedures that have to be taken when formulating a new product, or in this case a new organization of online learning.”