Professor S. Tom Foster (Department Chair)
S. Tom Foster is an internationally recognized expert in quality and global supply chain management and has experience in manufacturing, financial services, and international oil exploration. He has consulted for over 30 organizations such as Hewlett-Packard, Heinz, Hyundai, and the United States Department of Energy.
Foster is on the editorial boards of the Journal of Operations Management, Decision Sciences, and the Quality Management Journal (associate editor). He has published more than 70 quality related articles in journals such as Decision Sciences, Journal of Operations Management, International Journal of Production Research, and Quality Management Journal. His book, “Quality Management: Integrating the Supply Chain,” is an international bestseller.
Professor John Gardner (Quality Management)
John Gardner is an assistant professor of operations and global supply chain management. Gardner’s research passions include organizational learning and improvement, innovation in emerging economies, and the management of networks. His current research focus is on the application of operations management principles and information systems to improve reliability in healthcare quality and patient satisfaction in hospitals. The results, which examine how practices and information are utilized in various contexts, have been presented at numerous conferences and are published in the Journal of Operations Management.
Professor Gardner completed doctoral studies in management science at the Fisher College of Business at The Ohio State University where he also taught courses on operations and supply chain management. John holds an MBA from the BYU Marriott School of Business and a master of arts in international and area studies from BYU, for which he completed research on business development services for small business entrepreneurs. He also holds a bachelor of music for violin performance and pedagogy from the BYU School of Music.
Gardner’s previous professional industry experience includes five years of work at Honeywell International where he served in both the process solutions and aerospace industries. Positions included lead information technology business systems analyst, pricing and business analyst for marketing and product management, and senior financial analyst for global financial planning and analysis. John also worked as a manager of branch operations and customer service at Zion’s Bancorp.
Professor Simon P. Greathead (Global Negotiations)
Simon P. Greathead is an assistant professor of international business and global supply chain management. Greathead earned an MBA from Henley Business School at the University of Reading in England and a bachelor’s degree in business management from BYU Marriott. Greathead’s current research focuses on global issues in supply chain development and the global supply chain as a strategic concern.
Before entering academia, Greathead spent 15 years in international business, primarily in supply chain and operations roles in Europe working for major retailers such as Millets Ltd. and Next Plc. As a native of Great Britain he has extensive international experience in Ireland, Great Britain, Holland, France, and Germany. More recently Greathead managed European operations for a major Inc. 500 company and then most recently as the COO of VisVeritas Advisors, a local management consultancy focused on advising global growth companies. Greathead began teaching at BYU Marriott in 2008 as an international business instructor and currently teaches global supply chain, operations, and international business courses.
Professor Scott Sampson (Customer Relationship Management)
Scott Sampson is the Thorsell Professor of Business Management. His award-winning research focuses on design and innovation in service businesses. He teaches service management and customer relationship management in the undergraduate and MBA programs.
In addition to his work at BYU, Sampson has taught at Cambridge University, Exeter University, the Chinese European International Business School (CEIBS), and Fortzheim University. He has also been a visiting international fellow with Cambridge University’s Advanced Institute for Management and a visiting scholar at the University of Melbourne School of Business & Economics. He has also been an invited lecturer at the IE Business School, Cardiff University, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Catholic University, and other venues.
Sampson has published pioneering work on service system design in leading academic journals including Management Science, Operations Research, Journal of Operations Management, and others. His article on bidirectional supply chains was named “Most Influential Service Operations Paper Award’ by the Production and Operations Management Society’s College of Service Operations. He has been recognized as the third most prolific publisher of top-tier articles on service operations management worldwide. Scott received his MBA and PhD degrees from the University of Virginia Darden School and an undergraduate degree in human resource development from BYU.
Professor Daniel Snow (Operations Management and Strategy)
Daniel Snow is an associate professor at BYU Marriott and is known internationally for his research in technology management. Snow’s research seeks to improve our understanding of technological innovation, and specifically of the complex relationship between new and old technologies that exists during technology transitions. While most work on technology and innovation has taken a “neo-philic” approach, focusing largely on issues surrounding adoption of new and emerging technology, his work highlights the economic and performance growth potential of old technologies. Snow has published widely in journals such as the Harvard Business Review and Industrial Corporate Change.
Before coming to BYU, he taught at Harvard and has also taught executive education programs at UCLA, Tsinghua University, Chalmers University, University of Xiamen, Universidad de la Sabana (Bogotá), and many others. He holds a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, and an MBA from BYU Marriott.
Professor Cindy Blair (Purchasing)
Cindy Blair is an associate professor of global supply chain management. She earned her PhD in supply chain management from the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University. She also holds an MBA with an emphasis in finance and operations and a BS in accountancy from BYU Marriott.
Blair’s research focuses on buyer-supplier interfaces in the form of trust-based relationships, information sharing, collaboration, and collaborative inventory management approaches. Her research has been published in various journals, including Decision Sciences, Journal of Supply Chain Management, Quality Management Journal, and Journal of Business Logistics.
Before pursuing her doctoral studies, Blair was a commodity team manager for Intel. During her eight years at Intel she also held the positions of senior buyer, purchasing manager, stores manager, and commodity manager. Before her graduate studies, Blair also worked as an auditor for the Defense Contract Audit Agency.
Professor Scott Webb (Logistics and Strategy)
Scott Webb is an assistant teaching professor of global supply chain management and specializes in logistics management. He received his PhD in logistics and operations management from the Eli Broad College of Business at Michigan State University. In addition to his PhD, Scott earned a master’s degree in logistics management from the Air Force Institute of Technology and a bachelor’s degree in experimental psychology from the College of Idaho.
Webb was previously an instructor at BYU for two years and then was an assistant professor of logistics at Georgia Southern University for two years. Webb has also served as a logistics readiness officer for the United States Air Force for twelve years. During his Air Force career, Webb worked at base-level and Pentagon-level assignments. Webb separated from active duty military service in 2008 at the rank of major and after earning both AF Commendation medals and the AF Meritorious Service Medal.
Webb’s interests include his wife and six children, BYU football, Michigan State basketball, and the outdoors; he especially enjoys climbing, backpacking, fishing, and hunting.