Michael Giberson
Houston is home to the U.S. headquarters of oil giants BP, ConocoPhillips, and Royal Dutch Shell, as well as hundreds of other smaller energy companies. But until 2001, when the University of Houston’s Bauer College of Business launched the Global Energy Management Institute, there were no business school programs nearby that focused on the industry. “The energy industry is desperate for trained people,” says Christine Resler, director of mergers, acquisitions, and new ventures at Smith International, and executive professor in the GEMI program. “They’re fighting over each other for employees, so they are excited to have a program like this.”
It’s not only the oil companies competing for GEMI grads. Many students get jobs as commodities traders at investment banks such as Goldman Sachs (GS) and Morgan Stanley (MS) and garner salaries in the $50,000 to $60,000 range, considerably more than regular business students at Bauer, whose average starting salaries are about $43,000.
Texas Tech University’s , located in the midst of West Texas oil fields and wind farms, offers an undergraduate business degree in energy commerce. Like Houston’s GEMI, Tech’s program has expanded beyond oil and gas to include classes in alternative energy.
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