Ph.D.
Director, The Professional MBA Program
Professor of Health Care Administration

Dr. McDonald is an internationally recognized educator, consultant and practitioner. He is currently the Director of The Professional MBA program and Professor of Health Administration, Reeves School of Business, Methodist University, located in Fayetteville, NC, and the Chief Executive Officer of McDonald and Associates, LLC, a consulting firm dedicated to the optical industry and related professions. He is a Registered Optician in the State of North Carolina, and serves as a consultant to a number of ophthalmic and general health care organizations in the areas of staff development and training, practice management and specialty contact lenses. His academic background includes undergraduate degrees in Opticianry and Management. He holds graduate degrees in Health Care Management, Education and the Doctor of Philosophy in Health Sciences, as well as a number of professional certifications, including the prestigious Master of Ophthalmic Optics, and Advanced Certification in Contact Lenses from the National Contact Lens Examiners. He is a member of the Class of 2005 at the Institute for Management and Leadership in Higher Education at Harvard University.

M.B.A.
Associate Director of Professional Golf Management, PGM Education
Assistant Professor of Professional Golf Management

M.S.
Instructor of Marketing

Mark Kendrick is a graduate of Methodist University (then College), with a B.A. in Social Work and Economics. He completed his graduate work at Thomas Edison State College with a Master of Science in Management Degree in 2004. In his graduate program, he completed an extensive thesis project on improving the air transportation system at the major airports in the U.S. Professor Kendrick is currently in the dissertation stage of his Ph.D. in Business Administration. His area of concentration is in Public Policy at Northcentral University in Prescott, AZ and his dissertation research centers on the area of customer service in the public sector.

Growing up in Pinehurst, Professor Kendrick comes to The Professional MBA at Pinehurst program with a keen perspective on how positive change can take place within a community. For 20 plus years, he has had the opportunity to serve as a Councilmember and Mayor Pro-Tem on the Fayetteville City Council, and he comes to the MBA program with a wealth of firsthand knowledge in real estate development, governmental regulations, planning, and zoning regulations. Professor Kendrick has served on numerous local, state, and national committees that focused on long-range planning, community development, and transportation infrastructure. Mr. Kendrick has been active in our community for many years by serving on numerous business and civic organizations. He and his wife, Sharon, are members of Hay Street United Methodist Church.

Ph.D.
Director, Resort and Club Management
Assistant Professor of Business Administration

Dr. Kendrick comes to Methodist University with over 15 years of experience in the hospitality industry. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in Hotel/Restaurant Management from the University of Georgia, her master’s degree in Organizational Management from the University of Phoenix, and her Ph.D. in Business Administration from Touro University International. Dr. Kendrick has enjoyed being involved in the academic environment since 2001, and looks forward to an exciting career in the Resort Management field at Methodist University. Her research interests include following the aging worker as contemplating pending retirement, work-related retirement issues facing pre-retirees, and the placement of older workers in ‘Bridge Employment’ jobs before they enter the ‘full retirement’ phase of life. She received a “Best Paper” award at the Institute for Behavioral and Applied Management conference for her presentation on older workers and why they continue to work after retirement, and she looks forward to being published in an upcoming edition of the Journal of Behavioral and Applied Management. Dr. Kendrick is a member of the Academy of International Business, the Association for Operations Management, and serves on the Cultural Heritage Tourism Advisory Council with the Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Ph.D., CPA
Co-Chair, All Business Programs
Professor of Accounting

Ph.D.
Vice President for Planning and Evaluation
Dean, School of Graduate Studies
Professor of Psychology

In addition to his duties as Graduate Dean in which he is responsible for administrative oversight of Methodist University’s Master’s programs, Dr. Don Lassiter is a tenured professor in the Psychology Department. Until taking on the position of Graduate Dean, he was responsible for the Human Performance Concentration within the psychology major, teaching courses in Human Factors and Industrial/Organizational Psychology (which he still teaches), among others.

At the master’s level, he has taught courses for Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Human Factors in Aviation and Aviation Psychology. He obtained funded research from the National Institute on Aging to conduct studies on the effects of aging and expertise on the mental workload of pilots. He has published research papers in journals and conference proceedings such as Human Factors, Designing for an Aging Population, Society for Information Display Digest, and Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting; a book chapter in Teams: Their Training and Performance; and has presented papers and posters at numerous national and regional conferences.

Most recently, he has served as an ad hoc reviewer for Human Factors, and published a book review in the journal Ergonomics in Design. He has served in several offices of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES), as well as two terms as President of the Carolina Chapter of HFES.

Ph.D.
Director, Institute for Business and Marketing Research

Dr. Lin is a Professor of Business Administration in the Reeves School of Business and Economics. Dr. Lin joined the Methodist University faculty in 1988 and is tenured. In addition to his teaching duties, he serves as the Director of the Institute for Marketing and Business Research. Dr. Lin holds a Ph.D. from North Carolina State University in Economics and Statistics. His undergraduate course load includes Managerial Economics, Business Statistics, Management Science, and Microcomputer Business Applications. He has taught similar courses at the graduate level as an adjunct professor for both regional universities and accredited online programs. Among Dr. Lin's recent research presentations is a paper entitled "Global Economy: The Trends and Issues" at the Chinese-American Academic and Professional Association Annual Conference in 2002.

J.D.
Director, Professional Tennis Management

Professor Petersen designed a sports law course for the Professional Golf Association (PGA) and United States Professional Tennis Association (USPTA) accredited Professional Golf Management (PGM) and Professional Tennis Management (PTM) programs at Ferris State University in Big Rapids, MI. As a USPTA certified tennis teaching professional, he collaborated with Professor Matt Pinter, Director of the PGM program and certified PGA teaching professional, for the golf component of the course. Professor Petersen also taught the sports law course to the undergraduate PGM and PTM students as well as to students in the university's Master's in Technical Education program. Professor Petersen is licensed to practice law in Iowa and Florida. He continues his legal education by attending seminars in Florida and North Carolina, including seminars by the Sports and Entertainment section of the North Carolina Bar Association.

Ph.D.
Marketing

Dr. Mark Smith has a wide variety of management and marketing experience in the business world, from which he retired to enter a second career in higher education. Much of his first career was in executive positions to either reorganize troubled business operations or to open new regional operations for trust divisions of commercial banks. In addition, he oversaw or managed a number of small to medium-sized businesses held by the bank in a fiduciary capacity. He has also served as a consultant for a number of years. After retirement, he completed his Ph.D. in Marketing and International Business which, added to his M.B.A. with a Management focus, allows him to teach in several disciplines within the Reeves School of Business. His dissertation is in an area that had previously had little study: a multicultural study of print advertising directed towards senior citizens. He is currently working on additional scholarly articles using data gathered for this study. Dr. Smith has taught a variety of courses in his fields on both graduate and undergraduate levels at several institutions. He is a member of several professional marketing, international business, and management organizations.

J.D.
Director of Legal Studies
Associate Professor of Legal Studies

Ph.D.
Dean, Reeves School of Business

Dr. Jeff Zimmerman is a tenured Professor of Economics and Finance in the Reeves School of Business and Economics at Methodist University. In addition to serving as a student advisor, he serves in several committees of Methodist University. He teaches Principles of Microeconomics and Macroeconomics, Money, Banking and Financial Markets, Financial Markets and Institutions, Investments and Portfolio Management, Managerial Finance, Managerial Economics, Business and Economic Statistics, International Trade and Finance, and Economic Development. Dr. Zimmerman earned his Ph.D. in Economics from Purdue University. His paper presentations include: "Trade Patterns in Colonial America," at the Living History Society Symposium. Dr. Zimmerman has also represented the Reeves School of Business and Economics as a panel moderator during ACBSP national conferences.