• “Corporate Social Responsibility: Maximizing the Benefits for Your Company and Community” is the title of the annual Burtenshaw Lecture, to be presented by Niki Leondakis, chief operating officer of Kimpton Hotel & Restaurant Group, Inc., at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 5, in the CUB auditorium.
Leondakis oversees operations, marketing and human resources for San Francisco-based Kimpton’s 39 boutique hotels and restaurants in the U.S. and Canada. She is credited with forming the company’s mentor program for women and men in the restaurant division and launching a diversity initiative. She is an active leader in corporate social responsibility efforts.
The lecture is hosted by the College of Business and Economics School of Hospitality Business Management and is sponsored by alumnus DeVere Jerry and Angelina Burtenshaw in memory of their son, Brett.
• Edmund O. Schweitzer III, president of Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories in Pullman, will present the College of Business and Economics Maughmer Freedom Philosophy Lecture at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 6, in Smith CUE 203.
A WSU alumnus, Schweitzer founded SEL in Pullman in 1982 to make electric power safer, more reliable and more economical via the world’s first microprocessor-based, fully digital protective relays to replace their electromagnetic predecessors. He has earned more than two dozen patents, is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and received the WSU Alumni Achievement Award in 1999.
The lecture is funded by an estate gift from the late alumnus Geoff and Florence Maughmer, who believed in the freedom philosophy that supports maximum individual liberty and responsibility, limited governments and the free enterprise system.
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A morning keynote address at 9:30 a.m. and several afternoon sessions are offered in‑person at WSU Pullman as well as virtually for participants system-wide as part of the second annual TeachxWSU.
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