MSUM HONORS THREE BUSINESS ALUMS
The university’s College of Business and Industry honored three of its graduates for outstanding success in their careers during the Homecoming Week this fall.
Receiving the College of Business Outstanding Alumni Awards are Greg Staszko, a partner with Deloitte & Touche Consulting Group, a Big 5 international accounting firm in San Jose, Calif.; Curt Gudmundson, founder and CEO of Milestone Hotel Investments in Minneapolis; and David Sweet, president of Ramkota Companies, a hospitality and management consulting firm headquartered in Sioux Falls, S.D.
Staszko, a Fargo Shanley High School graduate who earned an accounting degree at MSUM in 1972, was an award-winning athlete for the Dragons, participating for four years in football and track, named captain and MVP of the track team in 1971- 2. He began his career working for Unisys in Fargo and later Minneapolis from 1972 through 1978, when he received the company’s Outstanding Sales Award. At age 33, he was named a partner at KPMG, where he remained until 1986. He joined Deloitte & Touche as a partner in 1986 in Cincinnati, moving to San Jose, Calif., in 1994. He has built and manages a business/technology transformation consulting unit that accounts for nearly $1 billion in annual revenue and over 5,000 professional staff. Shortly after graduating, he founded MSUM’s Winged Foot Track Club, which today continues to support the track & field and cross-country programs. He also was the campaign chair for the Ron Masanz endowment, which raised over $250,000. He was named MSUM Distinguished Alumnus in 1999.
Gudmundson, a Moorhead Senior High graduate who earned an economics degree at MSUM in 1969, started his career in college, first as a rock band promoter and later as owner of Mama Mia’s Pizza shops in both Fargo and Moorhead. After graduating, he worked as a loan officer at the Moorhead State Bank. Then from 1970 to 1978 he flew F-101 fighter interceptor aircraft for the North Dakota National Guard. Later he joined Piper Jaffray as a stock broker before starting Milestone in 1987, a company that serves as a general partner for various investment entities including hotels, real estate development and publicly traded investment partnerships with an excess of $300 million under management. Gudmundson, who lives in the Minneapolis area, is a board member for the MSUM Alumni Association and his wife Pam is also an MSUM graduate.
Sweet, who grew up in Minneapolis, earned a degree in hotel/motel/restaurant management and business administration from MSUM in 1970. After graduating, he started climbing the corporate ladder with the Sheraton Corporation and Holiday Inn. After five years managing hotels across the country, he became a partner in Ramkota Companies, a small Sioux Falls, S.D., hotel management firm that owned two hotels at the time. Today Ramkota owns or operates, with its subsidiary Regency Inns Management, dozens of hotel projects across the country, along with a variety of other real estates and restaurants. His wife, Martha, also graduated from the university.