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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DATE: Dec. 22, 2001
Contact: Anthony Flott
aflott@mail.unomaha.edu
(402)
554-2989
Glissman, Marr receive UNO Alumni Citation
(OMAHA, NE) — The University of Nebraska at
Omaha (UNO) Alumni Association bestowed its Citation for Alumnus Achievement on
Paula K. Glissman and Charles J. Marr
at the university’s winter commencement Friday, Dec. 21, at the Omaha Civic
Auditorium.
The citation, instituted in 1949, is presented each year at UNO’s
spring, summer and winter commencements. The highest honor presented by the
association, the citation encompasses professional or career achievement,
community service, involvement in business and professional associations, and
fidelity to UNO.
Bruce Bisson, chairman on the UNO Alumni Association Board
of Directors, presented the awards.
PAULA K. GLISSMAN
Glissman graduated from UNO in 1981 with a bachelor’s
degree in business administration.
Today she is president and chief operating officer of
Simmonds Restaurant Management Inc., an Omaha-based, privately-held corporation
that owns and operates 72 Burger King and five Taco John’s restaurants in
Nebraska and Iowa.
Her start in the corporate world actually began in banks
prior to graduation. In 1980 Glissman began working for FirstTier Bank, serving
as a commercial banking officer through 1987. She managed a portfolio of 125
loan accounts totaling $15 million. She also was the bank’s designated liaison
officer for the Small Business Administration (SBA).
Glissman later left FirstTier to work from her home,
providing financial consulting and assisting SBA applicants.
Her consulting included work for Simmonds Restaurant
Management, where she performed debt restructuring and refinancing. She
eventually joined the company full time, first as manager of special projects.
She became chief financial officer in 1990 and vice president of development
and finance in 1994 before assuming her current position as president and COO
in 1998.
The 25-year-old company has grown to more than $100
million in gross revenues and more than 4,000 employees. Glissman is
responsible for acquisition negotiations, obtaining financing, real estate
acquisition, lease negotiations, financial management, tax planning, accounting
and marketing.
All along, she says, she has relied on what she learned
while at UNO.
"When I started at UNO, I signed up for whatever I
wanted to," Glissman says. "I started as a business major, then
flipped to fine arts, then liberal arts, back to business as an accounting
major, then I switched to real estate, then as a finance major. What is amazing
is that almost everything I took at UNO I’ve been able to use and apply to my
work here."
Glissman is married to fellow UNO alum Gary Glissman. The
couple has one son.
CHARLES J. MARR
A Fremont, Neb., native, Charles J. Marr graduated from
UNO in 1977 as part of the university’s first Executive MBA class. He also
attended the Wharton School of Finance and Commerce at the University of
Pennsylvania for three years and earned a bachelor’s degree in business
administration from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln in 1964.
Today he is chief executive officer of Alegent Health, one
of the largest integrated health care systems in the Midwest. Its four
metropolitan medical centers, three rural hospitals and 38 primary care clinics
in Nebraska and Iowa employ 7,500 people and serve more than 36,000 inpatients
and 316,000 outpatients annually.
His professional life, though, began in another arena.
Marr’s first job after college was a two-month stint as field man for the
Republican National Committee in North Dakota, working on behalf of Barry
Goldwater. He later directed John E. Everroad’s Nebraska campaign for
lieutenant governor under Norbert Tiemann.
After working for two different advertising agencies, Marr
entered the health care field in 1969 as the first public relations director
for Nebraska Methodist Hospital, working a variety of duties at Methodist and
eventually becoming assistant administrator.
In 1980 he became president and chief executive officer of
West Nebraska General Hospital in Scottsbluff. He stayed there until 1987, when
he moved back to Omaha to serve as president and CEO of Immanuel Medical
Center.
In 1996, Immanuel Health Systems merged with Bergan Mercy
Health System to form Alegent Health, an entity with annual gross revenues
exceeding $1 billion. Alegent Health sees as part of its mission the care of
poor and disadvantaged people, and provides more than $40 million each year in
community benefit programs.
"We are truly a faith-based system, sponsored by
Lutherans and Catholics, with a common mission of caring for people," Marr
says.
In 1994 Marr received the Distinguished Achievement Award
from UNO’s College of Business Administration. Married with two daughters, he
is active in the Omaha community, serving on nine area boards. As president of
the Omaha Sister Cities Association he has assisted the developers of a
city-run hospital in Jurmala, Latvia.
