BUIES CREEK, North Carolina – Dr. Kevin J. O’Mara will be the next dean of Campbell University’s Lundy-Fetterman School of Business, effective July 1. Currently, O’Mara is the professor of management and executive director of the Doherty Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership at Elon University’s Martha and Spencer Love School of Business (LSB).
“A widely-published author, Dr. O’Mara brings the ideal combination of scholarship, experience and expertise to the Campbell Business School,” Campbell President J. Bradley Creed said. “Dr. O’Mara has a proven track record of establishing and sustaining new and innovative programs, which will be critical to our success in Campbell Business’ continuing development. He brings to the deanship an understanding of education within a private university, a profound commitment to teaching, an appreciation for a liberal-arts foundation for a business curriculum, and a warm and engaging personality.”
“It is an honor to join the faculty and staff of the Lundy-Fetterman School of Business at Campbell University,” O’Mara said. “Due to the substantial efforts of those individuals, the Campbell Business School is in a position to make great strides for its students and the surrounding community.”
Another thing that drew him to the deanship, he added, is the size and scale of the Campbell Business School.
“It is large enough to have a full-fledged undergraduate program with a number of majors, yet small enough to offer individual attention for the personal development of their students. In addition, the business school offers multiple offerings at the graduate level with innovative opportunities for dual degrees with other professional graduate programs such as law, pharmacy, divinity, the sciences, and public health, as well as online options,” O’Mara said. “It is quite unusual to find a business school possessing all these qualities and reach while retaining the sense of a small, individualized community. It will be a privilege to be part of the momentum and growth being experienced at the Campbell Business School.”
O’Mara has been on the Elon business school’s faculty since 1990 and a full professor of management since 2007. He was the first LSB faculty member at Elon to receive all three Dean’s Awards: Dean’s Teaching Award (2011), Dean’s Research Award (2007), and Dean’s Service Award (2005).
His primary teaching responsibilities are in strategy and innovation. He has taught students at all levels and across all majors, and has developed new courses for business students, non-business students, the Executive Education program, and the Summer Business Institute. His research focuses on innovation, strategic management, and business education. In addition, he has led study abroad courses to London, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Australia, Singapore, Beijing, Scotland, Cayman Islands, and Cuba.
As executive director of the Doherty Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership since 2013, O’Mara has overseen the center’s operations and created a strategic framework that expanded the center’s outreach to all of campus and to all students, as well as developed alliances with regional entrepreneurial ecosystems in the Research Triangle Region and Triad. He also established the Entrepreneurship Learning Community and the Innovation House residency program for upper-division students; initiated student programs involving entrepreneurship internships and post-graduate opportunities; and led Elon’s partnership with the University Innovation Fellows (UIF) program that is organized by Stanford University, Google and Venture Well.
As director of the Elon MBA program, O’Mara successfully guided the program to its initial AACSB accreditation. The program also grew in numbers and prominence as evidenced by their consistent Top 10 ranking for part-time MBA programs by Bloomberg Business Week. During his tenure, the Princeton Review designated the program as the “Best Administered” in the country.
In addition, O’Mara is past president of the Academy of Business Education and currently serves on its Board of Directors. He also serves on the N.C. Small Business Technology & Development Center’s statewide Board of Advisors and is chair of the SBTDC Central Carolina Regional Board. He currently serves on the Alamance County Chamber of Commerce Economic Development Committee and served on the Board of Directors for two charter schools.
“We are ecstatic that Kevin O’Mara has accepted the invitation to lead our business school. His scholarly accomplishments and entrepreneurial mindset are complemented by a warm demeanor that will facilitate his success as a dean at Campbell,” said Mark L. Hammond, Campbell’s provost and vice president for academic affairs. “His wide range of academic accomplishments and program development at the undergraduate and graduate levels qualify him uniquely for this role. He will be a welcome member of the Deans’ Council and our campus community.”
O’Mara earned a Ph.D. in technology management from North Carolina State University, an MBA with a concentration in accounting from the University of Houston, and bachelor’s degrees in engineering and business from the University of Texas at Austin. He completed additional graduate work in strategic management from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is also a Certified Management Accountant (CMA).
Before entering academia, O’Mara worked for a major petroleum explorer in Houston, Texas, as a strategic planning analyst, operations analyst and engineering economic analyst.
“At the university level, Campbell has invested well in its future,” O’Mara said. “It has outstanding facilities in place with additional assets on the way. Another attractive feature of Campbell University is its proximity to Raleigh and the Research Triangle. Not only is it a dynamic region but it affords outstanding opportunities for our students to engage with leading companies and individuals while they are at Campbell.
“We hope that Campbell Business will become a fixture in the Raleigh business community.”
O’Mara will begin his duties as the Campbell Business dean July 1. Edward Fubara, associate professor of business and director of the Campbell MBA program, has served as interim dean since October 2015.
“Ed has done a magnificent job as interim dean, and I have enjoyed the opportunity to work with him in this role,” Hammond said. “He is a strong student and faculty advocate that stepped up and capably led the business school while we conducted a national search with the executive search firm Storbeck/Pimentel. A crucial member of the search committee, Ed shares in my excitement as we anticipate Kevin’s arrival to Buies Creek this summer.”