Meet Dr. Ben Martz
Dr. William Benjamin “Ben” Martz, Jr. is chair of the Department of Business Administration and dean of the College of Business at Shepherd University. A native of Round Hill, Virginia, Martz came to Shepherd from Northern Kentucky University, where he served as professor and director of the Master of Science in Business Informatics Program. During his nine years at Northern Kentucky University, he also served as chair of the Department of Business Informatics for eight years.
Ben Martz has the perfect combination of business experience and academic leadership in an AACSB (Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business) business program to work with our faculty, alumni, and local business community to advance innovation and excellence in contemporary business education. He is a creative thinker who knows how to bring people together over new ideas and turn vision into reality.
Previously, Martz was a professor in the Department of Information Systems at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, and prior to that served as an associate professor in the Department of Accounting and Information Systems at California State University, Chico.
In the private sector, Martz served as co-founder, vice president of research and development, and president of Ventana Corporation, a technology spin-off company at the University of Arizona created to commercialize the electronic meeting software GroupSystems. GroupSystems was awarded PC Magazine’s Editor’s Choice Award for best electronic meeting software in 1994, and Martz was nominated for Ernst and Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year in Arizona for managing the company’s financial turnaround.
Martz has published in refereed publications and journals, including Journal of Management Information Systems, Decision Sciences Journal of Innovative Education, Journal of Entrepreneurship Education, and Journal of Computer Information Systems. He earned a B.B.A. in marketing from the College of William & Mary, and an M.S. in management information systems and a Ph.D. in business (management information systems) from the University of Arizona.