Category: Michigan

Gentek
By: Seong Yoon, MBA1

Issue date: 1/23/06
Section: Day in the Life
I visited Defiance Test Engineering Services, a subsidiary of GenTek, on December 9, 2005. I spent the whole day with Ms. Diana Roggenbauer, MBA ’93, who was CFO of Defiance Testing & Engineering Services. She also worked on corporate finance for the parent company, GenTek.
I had a chance to join the meeting on the sales forecasting. I also learned about Ms. Roggenbauer’s main tasks related to corporate finance, including SOX compliance of subordinating companies, and selling process of some other subsidiary company of GenTek.
The company was in a process of “turnaround” and restructuring. During that period, she had various kinds of tasks to cover, including managing the performance of the subsidiary. The company had a difficult time turning around its business, and the turned toward finding new sources of growth.
I was curious to learn the actual work of corporate finance and Ms. Roggenbauer kindly explained her role and her routine controlling tasks. She also shared recent information on Ann Arbor life and we had a great chat as she recalled her memories on her life in Ann Arbor and comparing it with mine.
GenTek is not a big company nor does it operate in charming industries. It is a general manufacturing company with many subsidiaries. From what Ms. Roggenbauer described, the company was suffering from a result of failure on past investments. Within this company, Ms. Roggenbauer’s role was more flexible and she had more authority in designing her work. She was happy with her work, even though it was not a lesser-known smaller to medium company where she could apply her experience while she was in business school.
Finally, she told me she was a participant of DITL when she was at Ross and her participation as an alumnus came from a desire to give back to school. It was great to see the strong connection of Michigan network could foster.