Contemporary Business, 17th Edition

DAVE KURTZ

DAVE KURTZ had a slow start during his high school days in Salisbury, Maryland. He was a mediocre student, but a hard worker who took on a succession of backbreaking summer jobs from picking peaches and loading watermelons on trucks headed for market to working as a pipefitter’s helper. Unfortunately, these jobs had zero impact on his academic standing. Worse yet for Dave’s self-esteem, he was a less than average high school athlete in football and track.

But four years at Davis & Elkins College in Elkins, West Virginia, turned his life around. Excellent instructors helped get Dave on sound academic footing. His grade point average soared—enough to get him accepted by the graduate business school at the University of Arkansas, where he met Louis (Gene) Boone. Gene and Dave became longtime co-authors; together they produced more than 50 books. In addition to writing, Dave and Gene were involved in various entrepreneurial ventures.

This decades-long partnership ended with Gene’s death in 2005, but Contemporary Business will always be the result of the diligent efforts of Boone and Kurtz.

SUSAN BERSTON

During her college years as a campus tour guide at the University of California, Berkeley, SUSAN BERSTON’s enjoyment of being immersed in an academic environment never waned, despite having endured hundreds of crammed elevator rides with visitors eager to reach the Campanile’s observation deck 200 feet above.

After completing an MBA at the University of San Francisco, Susan worked in the corporate banking division of a Japanese bank. She then joined the sales force of printer R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company, where she realized her passion for satisfying customers, outsmarting competitors, providing creative solutions, and building relationships.

She returned to academia and campus life to eventually become a full-time professor at City College of San Francisco in 2005, where she teaches courses in introduction to business, management, and entrepreneurship and where her father, also a textbook author, taught business for 45 years. Here, Susan feels incredibly lucky to mentor her students, whether as a faculty advisor to Alpha Beta Gamma Business Honors Society, Net Impact, Kiva Microfinance Club, or as a member of the Academic Senate Executive Council and Board of Directors of the bookstore. For Susan, bringing ideas to life inside and outside of the classroom and creating a personalized and collaborative student experience with WileyPLUS is simply the icing on the cake.

Proud to continue the legacy of two of the industry’s most prolific textbook authors—David L. Kurtz and the late Louis (Gene) Boone—Susan welcomes the opportunity to hear from you with questions, comments, or feedback about the Seventeenth Edition of Contemporary Business at [email protected].