AT&T Connecticut President John Emra has assumed leadership of the company’s external and legislative affairs for New England, effective April 16. The Fairfield resident succeeds Patricia Jacobs, who has been promoted to president of AT&T’s Northern Region and to whom he will report.
Emra will be responsible for legislative and regulatory proceedings; advancing AT&T policy priorities; and governmental and intergovernmental policy decisions throughout the six-state region.
Headquartered in New Haven, AT&T Connecticut provides wired telecommunications services to businesses and government customers in the state, as well as entertainment offerings including DirecTV, AT&T TV and the soon-to-launch HBO Max. The company operated Connecticut’s consumer landline phone service and provided cable-television services until Frontier Communications acquired those businesses in 2014.
AT&T entered the Connecticut market in 1998 when SBC Communications acquired the New Haven-based Southern New England Telecommunications Corp. SBC Communications subsequently purchased AT&T, taking that company’s name in the process.
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Fairfield University announced that Andres L. Carrano, a professor and associate dean for research in the Allen E. Paulson College of Engineering and Computing at Georgia Southern University, has been appointed dean of FU’s School of Engineering, effective August 1. Carrano previously held administrative and endowed positions at Auburn University and Rochester Institute of Technology. He earned MS and Ph.D. degrees in industrial and systems engineering from North Carolina State University, and a BS in industrial engineering from Universidad Católica Andres Bello in Venezuela.
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Big Y Foods Inc. has named Sarah Steven senior director of marketing. Steven will supervise all aspects of marketing across the company’s brands including Big Y World Class Markets, Big Y Express Gas & Convenience, Fresh Acres specialty market and Table & Vine wines and spirits. Steven most recently was vice president of marketing for Iredale Mineral Cosmetics. Steven holds a BA from the University of Wisconsin/Madison and an MBA from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.
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Four Post University Online MBA students have won a remote case study competition at the recent International Accreditation Council for Business Education (IACBE) Annual Conference. Students Stephanie Caban, Mary Yatcko, Virendra Singh and Barbara Whitaker competed as the only online team, representing the Waterbury university’s Malcolm Baldrige School of Business. The students, who live in Connecticut and Germany, were given one month to complete a business project for Coinsource, an international bitcoin company. They competed against a graduate team from Mount St. Mary’s University to present a sales and marketing plan to a panel of judges. Originally scheduled as a live competition in Dallas, IACBE moved the event to an online platform in light of the COVID-19 ban on large gatherings.