Instructors of graduate-level courses in accounting, finance, management, marketing, economics, global strategies and other relevant topics in MBA programs in Florida are likely these days to bring as much, if not more, on the- job experience as academic credentials into their classrooms.

Does that matter? Yes, according to the following six professors and one dean, all of whom have plenty to say about the value of sharing "war stories" from the real world with students pursuing business degrees.

Seema Pissaris, Ph.D.
Clinical Professor of Entrepreneurship
College of Business
Florida International University, Miami

Seema Pissaris didn't plan to be a teacher. She entered her first classroom as an instructor after 15 years in business and, even then, only because she had to.

A seasoned entrepreneur who parlayed the reselling of used video games into a multimillion- dollar distribution network that included the likes of Kmart and Walmart, Pissaris returned to college purely as an investment in herself. On the brink of completing her Ph.D. at Florida Atlantic University, she learned of one final requirement: She would have to teach a class. Consumed with her many volunteering and consulting activities, she didn't welcome that news.

Delivering her first lesson directly from the textbook, Pissaris paused; she heard what her students were hearing — a litany of dull, dry facts — and she stopped. "It was a surface-level view, no nuances or complexities," she recalls. And no one seemed remotely interested.

So she put the book away and began to talk about her experiences as a first-time vendor for Kmart and about the difficulties she had getting credit at first. The students came alive. "I realized then that I could teach by telling them what it's really like out there. I became completely engaged with the students, and they saw my enthusiasm. It was the most fun I'd had in a long time."

Today, as a professor of entrepreneurship at FIU, Pissaris continues to share real- world stories and encourages students to make a difference in the world. In 2013, she helped coordinate a team of FIU engineering and business students to develop and market Eye talker, eyeglasses that read to the blind.

"I tell my students, ‘You don't have to make a choice between making money and making a difference; you can do both.' When I see them embracing that concept, I know I've made the world a better place. That's what I teach for."

Pissaris: My Experience with Kmart

"I had convinced Kmart to test the concept of selling refurbished, discounted video games at a few local stores, and the trial was a huge success. The games few off the shelves. Kmart immediately wanted to roll out across North America and gave me just three months to do it. I didn't have the millions in cash flow needed to buy, refurbish and ship such a large order, and no lender was willing to gamble that kind of money on a novice entrepreneur and her equally novice business concept. So I found a bootstrapping solution. I asked Kmart to pay me quicker — a lot quicker than their standard 60 days. I explained that if they paid me within three days of each delivery, I could fill a few stores at a time and roll out the expansion over 12 months. The buyer laughed and said that in Kmart's entire history no vendor had ever received payment that fast. Ever. But I persisted — and became Kmart's first vendor to be paid in three days. Within 12 months, every Kmart across North America was selling used video games."

Carl Pacini, Ph.D., J.D., CPA
Associate Professor, Program of Accountancy
College of Business
University of South Florida St. Petersburg

That Carl Pacini spent 12 years in the banking industry as a loan officer and auditor prior to earning his Ph.D. is a plus for students enrolled in auditing and forensic accounting classes at USF St. Petersburg. When Pacini shares tales of approving commercial loans, overseeing the sale of foreclosed properties and auditing everything from a wholesale bakery distributor to publicly traded companies, they listen.

"Students in my auditing classes have to learn a lot of terminology, especially as it pertains to things like loan covenants," says Pacini. "But what I find is that until I bring up an example from my real-world experience, they don't really know what these things are. I have a practical working knowledge of audits from my banking days, and so I can tell them what they need to know."

The desire to pass along that kind of knowledge is the primary reason Pacini left banking for academia. While still working full time in the Orlando area, he had served as an adjunct professor at several colleges, including Valencia, Florida Southern and UCF. "I loved teaching, but I knew if I wanted to do it full time, I'd have to earn a Ph.D." So he quit cold turkey and headed for Florida State University. After academic stints at Georgia Southern, Florida Gulf Coast and Penn State universities, he joined the USF faculty in 2012.

"I love being around people who are anywhere from their 20s to 50s, who are intellectually curious, driven by wanting to achieve career goals and who have widely different work experiences. I love to see all that interaction in a classroom."

Pacini: Persuasion by Financial Analysis

"The analytical procedure of financial ratios — current assets divided by current liabilities — is one of the tools auditors use to measure liquidity in a business. When I was a banker, I did an in-depth financial ratio analysis of a business that had applied for a commercial loan and was denied. I sat down with the business owners to show them weak areas in their business illustrated by certain financial ratios. The business owners used this information and my suggestions to improve their credit policies and the collection of accounts receivable."

Sandra Kauanui, Ph.D.
Professor of Management and Entrepreneurship
Chair, Management Department Director, Institute for Entrepreneurship
Lutgert College of Business
Florida Gulf Coast University, Fort Myers

Students in Sandra Kauanui's entrepreneurship class love to hear their professor tell about how the financial services firm she launched on a shoestring grew to 40 employees.

But what seems to fascinate them most is how, after 20 years of providing financial, tax and accounting services to other entrepreneurs, Kauanui walked away from that business to return to school and earn a Ph.D. "They always want to know why," she says, "and my answer is this: When it's no longer your passion to be doing something, it's time to let it go."

It's the most important lesson from her own experience that Kauanui believes she can pass along to her students. "Being successful in business is not about making money; it's about having passion for what you do. Life shouldn't be a chore."

Another lesson Kauanui shares is how the business grads she hired fresh from the classroom were a disappointment. "They had degrees all right," she says, "but they never seemed to know how to apply what they'd learned to the workplace." As a professor, Kauanui has made it her mission to ensure that her students practice the principles she teaches. She has them prepare actual business plans and present them, interview CEOs, engage in conflict negotiation and devise solutions for local businesses seeking help with real-world problems.

"Students still need to learn theory, of course, but being able to apply it is what makes the difference. It's how they become employable."

Jeffrey Weinstock
Lecturer / marketing
School of Business Administration
University of Miami

Languages, other countries and cultures and the idea of travel fascinated Jeffrey Weinstock as a child. He spent seven months in Brazil while getting his degree at Yale, then 13 years in Israel, where he earned his MBA from Hebrew University of Jerusalem and worked in marketing for before moving to Miami in the mid-1990s. All told, he speaks five languages in addition to English and has 20 years in international marketing, most at S&P 500 companies, the last of which was Carnival, where he was a vice president and headed international marketing for 85 countries.

The travel, as a veteran road warrior once had promised him, grew tiresome as the years went by. "The old cliché," says Weinstock, of planes, taxis, meeting rooms, taxis and planes again. Sightseeing rarely happened but, he says, "The best part of international business travel is being exposed to the way business is being done in different countries, different cultures."

It was while with Carnival in 2004 that he first taught a class at the University of Miami. "I realized what my true passion was," he says. He's been full time at Miami since 2009, bringing his corporate experiences to the classroom. "Many examples and illustrations from my very broad and sometimes embarrassing experiences," says Weinstock, 53. "The real-life lessons that can be brought into the classroom — they really show that what we're teaching them, the theories and models, are not ivory- tower concepts. ... I love teaching. I go to work happy every day."

Weinstock: Be Aware of Local Culture

"I had an experience in Russia that was very, very interesting. My negotiating partner was a very, very tough woman. The morning session was very difficult. At 3 in the afternoon is when they have lunch. We're driving in the car, the largest Mercedes I've ever seen. We're driving through the streets of Moscow and I'm like fainting from hunger. All of a sudden my negotiating partner said through a translator, ‘Tell me what university you are from?' She said, ‘who were your professors? Who is your favorite Russian writer? What is your favorite opera? What is your favorite ballet? What books have you read in the last six months?' The mood changed immediately. They look at your cultural level. They believe certain things are important and they want to see if you're like-minded. People want to do business with people they like."

Aysegul Timur, Ph.D.
Professor / Program Chair of Business and Public Administration
Johnson School of Business
Hodges University, Naples

For academics aspiring to join the faculty at Hodges' Johnson School of Business, evidence of a track record in the real world is no option; it's a requirement.

"Our Faculty Credentials Guide man- dates that we hire faculty with both academic credentials and real-world experience," says Aysegul Timur. "If I see the resume of a person with only academic experience, no outside work, I do not hire. We must have real-world experience."

It's one reason Timur herself came to be at Hodges. An MBA graduate of the University of Istanbul, she knew firsthand the value of practical experience. During her tenure there, many faculty members served as consultants to private business and they always hired grad students to help. Timur was one of them.

"That experience opened up a completely new perspective for me and, as a result, I never studied purely from textbooks or journal articles. I always looked at what was happening in the real world."

Timur expects the same for MBA students at Hodges, and so she encourages faculty to take on consulting work and get students involved. "If we don't find ways to establish the relevance of what our students are learning in the classroom to the real world, this education means nothing. You're not improving skills, critical thinking or understanding of the big picture."

You might even be hurting the students' chances for employment. "The more we're involved in the real world," says Timur, "the more valuable we are in preparing our students to enter the workforce. So we go out and talk to employers. We find out what they need, and we make changes to align our curriculum with business expectations."

It's an approach that seems to be paying off. Says Timur, "One of my MBA students graduated in December and got a job at Hertz right away. This is working."

Craig McAllaster, Ed.D.
Professor of Management / Dean
Roy E. Crummer Graduate School of Business
Rollins College, Winter Park

In 20 years at Rollins College, Craig McAllaster has seen MBA students of divergent backgrounds and varying interests come and go, but he says they share one thing in common: "They want to hear from someone who talks about how to use what they're learning at school in the real world."

At Rollins, he says, "the majority of our faculty actually worked in industry before they became academics." The MBA curriculum at Rollins is a combination of life experience and case method instruction. Students identify a real problem at an actual company, work on ways to solve it and then present their findings to the class — often to that company's CEO.

"It's an approach I describe as ‘putting our students in harm's way' while they're still in the MBA program, when their career's not on the line," says McAllaster. "The idea is that when they're called to go up against a CEO or CFO — which we know they will be one day — they've at least done it once in a learning environment where it's not a career-limiting move."

Actual consulting work for real companies is another way MBA students benefit from on-the-job experience, and, at Rollins, there's plenty of it. The school aver- ages three to four consulting requests per semester from domestic and international firms. Recently, for example, five students and a faculty member traveled abroad to advise an Italian firm considering entry into the U.S. market.

"This is how our students get involved in real-world issues," says McAllaster. "What they learn today in the classroom, they may use tomorrow in their own offices."

Steven Perfect, Ph.D., CFA
Associate Professor of Finance
College of Business
Florida State University, Tallahassee

Steven Perfect had his life pretty well mapped out when he enrolled in grad school at the University of Texas at Austin. He planned to earn advanced degrees (MBA and Ph.D.) in finance, which would propel him to a university teaching position.

After earning his doctorate from Tex- as, Perfect landed a faculty post at Florida State University, where he would remain for seven years before taking a two-year sabbatical to work in the energy industry. The two years became 15 at energy firms in Texas and south Florida. In August 2012, Perfect rejoined the business faculty at FSU, this time bringing a trove of "war stories" along with all the textbook knowledge he'd gleaned in Austin. It's a combination he feels enriches the classroom experience for both himself and his students.

"I'm more effective personally be- cause I've had that real-world experience," he says. "It gives me the ability to bring up actual examples which illustrate a point or demonstrate a text- book theory. I've found too that when you have interesting stories to tell, the students want to participate in class; they're eager to ask questions."

The biggest lesson learned from his 15 years in the workplace? "How to present difficult concepts to management. That's a skill I didn't learn in business school. Now it's something I teach my students."

Perfect believes that just hearing his real-world stories is a confidence booster for students. "It calms them to think, ‘Well, if he lived through that, maybe I can too.' "

Perfect: Paying Attention to Market Signals

"I caution my students that if something looks too good to be true, it probably is, and I illustrate that principle with a story from my days on the trading floor of an energy company in Houston back when Enron was dominating the markets. Our traders would get a series of calls over a few days or weeks from someone at Enron wanting to buy or sell natural gas. This made the traders happy because part of their job was trading natural gas, but it didn't make sense to me. I was just getting to know the industry then, and I figured if a company is buying natural gas, it's because they need it. But if they need it, why would they sell it? I finally figured out what was going on. There was a slight error in the way our company was pricing natural gas for the long-term. Enron had figured out the error and was using it to essentially borrow money for free by buying and selling natural gas in deals that seemed too good to be true. We fixed the error and, within days, Enron quit calling."