Friend of retailing wins national award

by Larry Meyer
MRA Chairman and CEO

My first contact with Brenda Sternquist goes back to the late 1980s. As a professor of retailing at Michigan State, she was the lead researcher on an important 12-state study of rural retailers.

The resulting publication was unique—the first to chart the path for successful alternatives for small retailers to compete with big-box retailers. MRA distributed it widely to Michigan financial institutions and entrepreneurs.

A later, companion piece developed by Brenda and her colleagues, “Marketing Strategies for High Profit Small Businesses,” was equally insightful and useful to many members.

Last year, MRA partnered with Brenda for her survey of retailers’ use of the Internet. Many of you contributed to that survey, which explored issues that were only vaguely understood before her work.

When we began our Retailer of the Year program six years ago, we knew Brenda would be an excellent choice to serve on our selection panel. Brenda joined others in the tough job of sifting through and evaluating the many impressive and diverse applications we receive.

Each year, despite her obviously busy schedule, she has returned to our selection panel. Her commitment to retail extends beyond the classroom, beyond her excellent research, into the Michigan community.

Now the national spotlight has found Brenda. In December, the National Retail Federation, in partnership with J.C. Penney and the Center for Retailing Studies at Texas A&M University, honored Brenda with the first-ever Retail Educator of the Year award.

This time it was Brenda’s turn to be an applicant—she submitted her materials to a selection panel like the one she sits on each fall for our awards. Obviously, the national selection panel was impressed with her talents.

Judges commented on her innovative development of courses such as “Retailing in China” and “International Buying and Product Development.” Her courses have been replicated in colleges across the country.

Undoubtedly they were also impressed by students’ comments about Brenda’s performance in the classroom, such as this one from an undergraduate:

“I felt different in her classes. I had a greater feeling of purpose and an insatiable appetite for learning. This had to do in part with the passion and pride Dr. Sternquist expressed in her work.”

The panel didn’t meet Brenda in person until the awards ceremony in New York. As she accepted the award, they might finally have glimpsed what I, her MSU colleagues and students, and some of you have seen: her genuine warmth and her passion for retail and retailers—present and future.

We in Michigan are lucky to have Brenda as a colleague, teaching the students who will bring their insights and skills to our businesses.

I want to thank Brenda for everything she brings to the Michigan retail community. From China to New York to here in Michigan, her impact is being felt, and her work helps keep us all energized and enthusiastic.