Laura Portolese Dias teaches at Shoreline Community College in Washington State. After earning her Bachelor degree from the University of Montana, Dr. Portolese Dias worked in corporate training and retail. She later accepted a position teaching at The Art Institute of Seattle. There, she taught business and marketing classes and then moved into program administration. Missing teaching, she joined Shoreline Community College’s faculty and was awarded tenure in March 2006. At Shoreline, Dr. Portolese Dias teaches Introduction to Business, Human Relations, International Business, and Supervision. She is a co-advisor for the business club on campus, Delta Epsilon Chi (DEC), a college division of DECA, Inc. Her involvement in DEC began in 1999 at the Art Institute of Seattle and continues at both the school level and the national level where she serves on the Post Secondary Council.

Through the Shoreline Community College faculty exchange, Dr. Portolese Dias recently visited Denmark to teach at Business Academy West. At Business Academy West, Dr. Portolese Dias taught finance, marketing, and banking to Danish as well as to international students.

At Shoreline, Dr. Portolese Dias is chairperson of the Student Success Committee. She is also involved in curriculum development, specifically for the AAAS business degrees. Dr. Portolese Dias lives in Seattle with her husband, Alain, and two humane society rescue dogs. When not in hiding from the rain, she enjoys mountain biking hiking, traveling and golfing.

Amit Shah is a full professor of Management and Director of the Center for Community Partnerships at Frostburg State University (FSU) in Maryland. He has over 20 years of experience in industry and academia. Dr. Shah has taught a variety of business courses including management, strategic management, and international business. He has published over 60 refereed articles in various journals and published proceedings and has conducted training for various organizations in the area of business and strategy. In his capacity as a Center director, he works with various small-to-medium-sized organizations—for profit, nonprofit, and government agencies—in organizing management development workshops and training. He has received several awards such as Frostburg State University’s Outstanding Faculty Service Award, the FSU College of Business’s Outstanding Faculty Research Award, and Outstanding SAM Student Chapter Advisor Award. He has also served as president of the Southeastern Chapters of the Decision Sciences Institute and president of the Institute for Operations Research and Management Sciences. When he is not in his classroom or engaged in community service, Amit enjoys being an entrepreneur serving coffee at Mountain City Coffeehouse and Creamery, which he owns with his wife.