Business Analytics and Intelligence gaining worldwide recognition

Alumnus is a testament to the program’s success

By Amy West

Bowling Green State University alumnus Trevor Bischoff continues to make his alma mater proud, strengthening the Falcon reputation of producing top students who are prepared for a successful career.

Bischoff graduated in 2014 as the first College of Business student to earn a business degree with four specializations: finance, accounting, business analytics, and intelligence and applied economics.  

Not only did Bischoff graduate with four specializations, he accomplished this while being a very involved student. He was named the 2014 Karl E. Vogt Outstanding Senior, served a peer facilitator mentoring first-year business students, an orientation leader, a student ambassador, a teaching assistant, a tutor and a resident advisor during his time at BGSU. 

In addition, he pledged two fraternities—Delta Sigma Pi, a professional business fraternity, and Kappa Sigma. During his time at BGSU, Bischoff was elected president of both organizations.

“Pledging two fraternities at the same time was a difficult challenge to overcome, but it opened up my network at the University. It taught me to be a team player and how to support those around me,” Bischoff admitted.

After graduation, Bischoff was hired at Deloitte as a consultant in the regulatory and compliance team. 

“The type of work I handle is fairly broad, but is focused around compliance with government and financial regulations throughout an enterprise. I meet with clients around the nation evaluating their businesses and advising them on the current and future risk environment,” Bischoff said.

For example, Bischoff works with banks on regulatory filing, insurance companies to remediate different rates and products, and helped develop a compliance risk survey for companies to use when benchmarking success against their peers within the market. He just returned from California where he spent three months helping an organization with a new capital standard.

“Traveling is my favorite part of the job,” Bischoff said. Since graduation, he has been to Newport Beach, Calif., Dallas, Chicago, New York and St. Louis. Most of the projects take six to eight weeks to complete, so he has time to get to know the cities where he is working.

Bischoff credits all of the programs he specialized in in helping him achieve success in his current position. He admits, however, that his passion is with analytics and data mining. 

“Dr. McKinney taught a class that showed students how to properly display data—graphs, colors and shapes that help with client deliverables. At Deloitte, I’ve learned the importance of presenting data properly to a client. There is definitely a train of thought behind presenting information in an easily interpreted format which exceeds the clients' expectations,” Bischoff said. 

“The College of Business at BGSU positioned me to graduate and be successful. Not only did I learn the necessary academic requirements, but I learned critical business skills as well.”

Despite working up to 60 hours a week, Bischoff still finds time for fun.  And, of course, this fun incorporates his analytical and data mining skills. He created a three variable model to predict NFL games during 2014. Microsoft’s Cortana and Nate Silver’s Elo are two other popular predictors and last year, Bischoff’s predictor model beat Microsoft’s Cortana.

“I went through and downloaded a bunch of data from online and sorted through the data to figure out key patterns and trends. Then, I put together metrics on what makes a good team,” Bischoff said. “Oftentimes, people let their subconscious biases sway their opinions, but by relying solely on the data, my predictions were very consistent.” 

Big data is a growing field, and contrary to popular belief, data mining and analytics are critical to the success of all business, not just big businesses. 

“Analytics is not just used in business and sports analytics. Successes in analytics applications are also seen in other fields such as manufacturing, telecommunications, insurance, healthcare and e-commerce,” Dr. Arthur Yeh, chair of applied statistics and operations research, said.

Bischoff is proof that the business analytics and intelligence program at BGSU is graduating top talent in the industry. Recruiters from well-known companies such as Google, Amazon, Nationwide Insurance, Quicken Loans and the FBI reach out to BGSU searching for graduates to hire. 

“With our increasing dependence and use of technology, this field is growing exponentially and is a great career choice for a student who has an interest in data mining and analytics,” said Tom Siebenaler, director of the Business Career Accelerator.

The cutting-edge curriculum, unique experiences through partnerships with other universities, as well as bringing world-renowned data experts to campus are a few of the reasons the program is gaining a prestigious reputation in the country and throughout the world.