Richard Stephens, graduate of EMBA Class XI, was quite motivating at the Executive MBA reception Aug. 25.

Stephens is CEO of Club Care Inc. The first dozen or so years of his business sales increased. Then the middle of this decade they started to slide. He did his homework and discovered UALR’s EMBA program could help him improve his business approach. Sure enough he indeed learned to write a more effective, solid business plan – and not a cookie cutter one. Stephens even discovered he could learn from a 24-year-old and share his accounting knowledge with classmates.

After the 18-months of  intense experiential learning, Stephens incorporated practices of teaching his own employees what he was able to share with Class XI members and implemented new leadership practices acquired through case studies and team projects.

In 2008 when the financial market tanked, Club Care’s sales increased more than 12 percent. In 2009, Stephens saw a nearly 5 percent increase. This year the company signed on a new client that he encountered while on the EMBA international trip. He said the investment in the graduate program has more than paid for itself — especially considering he had looked into other executive programs at universities that were three times the cost of UALR.