Sponsor Profile
Dan Tangherlini, WG'01, Asst. Secretary of the Treasury
“During my time at Wharton, I would return to the office and torture my poor staff with the latest thing I learned. It was great! I could take what I learned in Operations Management and apply it directly to processes in our accounts payable system.”
Sponsor Profiles: District of Columbia
Scott Kubly already had a master’s degree in urban planning, but the government employee had been pondering whether or not to pursue an executive MBA degree. Kubly asked his then boss and Wharton EMBA graduate Dan Tangherlini if he thought an MBA would be worthwhile. Tangherlini, who was COO for Washington, DC and is now Assistant Secretary of Treasury, answered with a definitive, "Yes."
Tangherlini adds, "People in the government are making a choice to seek their compensation through different means other than their paycheck so every dollar they spend on education is that much more valuable and precious. However, this is a large-scale operation with $9 billion in resources and 30,000 employees. The responsibilities are serious enough, the numbers are big enough and the challenges are tough enough that we need the best trained people possible, and it is worthwhile for the city to help people get those degrees because the city will get a high return on that investment."
Kubly acknowledged that government employees likely have a longer horizon in terms of their ROI on an MBA degree. "I know that the skills and knowledge from the degree distinguish me from my peers so that I will be able to advance further and faster," he says, noting that he recently changed jobs to become the associate director for Unemployment Insurance Compensation for Washington, DC.
He says that his new supervisor was happy to bring him into her department despite the fact he'll be at Wharton every other Friday. "She is excited to have someone coming in that is a breath of fresh air, and she is willing to make the sacrifice in terms of accommodating the program schedule."
Tangherlini adds that there have been several Wharton graduates in the City Administrator’s Office alone. "A lot of people who have top business degrees are really interested in putting them to use to improve the city and work on amazing projects in the nation’s capital," he says.
And the knowledge gained from Wharton’s EMBA program could be put to immediate use, says Tangherlini. "During my time at Wharton, I would return to the office and torture my poor staff with the latest thing I learned," he says "It was great! I could take what I learned in Operations Management apply it directly to processes in our accounts payable system. Or after an Organizational Theory class, I could come back and pull down walls and rearrange people to cut out hierarchy."
Kubly agrees that the knowledge he has learned at Wharton has had immediate applications. "I’ve gone from managing four people when I started the program to 75 people midway through the first semester, many of whom have been working in my new office for 25 or 30 years. My Management class will have a lot of immediate applications," he says. "My team’s Field Application Project looked at a part of the District government. Even though it was in a completely different area, many of our recommendations are immediately applicable to my new organization."
"Wharton has exposed me to a whole different set of skills, viewpoints, and ideas that I might otherwise not experience as a government employee," says Kubly. "This is what it's all about when there is a real urge for change, accountability, and better management of the government."
Dan Tangherlini, WG’01
Assistant Secretary of the Treasury
Washington, DC
Scott Kubly, WG’10
Associate Director for Unemployment Insurance Compensation
Washington, DC
