Vision Statement
The Center seeks to be the leading source for organizational excellence and business innovation training in the Florida Panhandle.
Mission
The Center is dedicated to helping and empowering community and business members in Northwest Florida through educational opportunities focused on organizational leadership and professional development. We have our distinct advantage in valuable teaching tools and skills from expert faculty in the field and collaborative partnerships. We will leverage resources from the Global Business Learning Community and our academic programs in business administration, accounting, financial planning, entrepreneurship, hospitality & tourism management and organizational management & communication to facilitate creative workshop and program opportunities. We aim to exceed expectations through increasing number of registrations and positive learner reaction to our programs and make a positive impact in communities in organization, business and leadership knowledge and action.
Check out our upcoming and past events below.
Meet the OEIC Leadership Team
Dr. Eren Ozgen, Business, Coordinator of the Center for Organizational Excellence and Innovation
Before joining FSU PC in August 2017, Professor Ozgen served as an Assistant Professor, Associate Professor (with tenure) and Professor of Sorrell College of Business at Troy University (AL). She has twenty years of teaching experience in graduate and undergraduate management courses. Dr. Ozgen is an active scholar and a researcher with scholarly peer-reviewed publications and academic seminar/conference presentations. Her primary expertise lies in the areas of leadership, strategy, management, international management and organizational behavior. Read More
Brian Baber, Commercial Entrepreneurship
Baber’s natural entrepreneurial spirit is passionately reflected in his wealth of knowledge and invaluable experience as a highly respected franchisee of Arthur Rutenberg Homes, a custom and luxury home builder. His devotion to building a top notch team yields unsurpassed service and quality with dedication to excellence in customer satisfaction which is evident in customer surveys, a 1st Place ranking in Best of Bay 2015, Avid Diamond Award in 2016 and Arthur Rutenberg Homes Gold Cup Award in 2019 for continuing to achieve high customer satisfaction ratings.
Dr. Emily (Nikki) Dickens, Psychology and ECAP Director
Emily N. Dickens, Ed.D, BCBA serves as faculty in the Organizational Management and Communication (OMC) master's program as well as teaching graduate and undergraduate courses in Psychology and Applied Behavior Analysis. She has over 20 years' experience in the field of applied behavior analysis and is a Board Certified Behavior Analyst. She also serves as the Director of the Early Childhood Autism Program at FSUPC. She is active in her field and previously served as the President of the Florida Association for Behavior Analysis (FABA) in 2018 and continues to coordinate the association's annual conference for approximately 2000 attendees.
Dr. Joseph Krupka
Dr. Amy Polick, Associate Dean of Academic Affairs
Amy S. Polick, Ph.D, BCBA-D is the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, an Associate Teaching Professor in the Psychology Department at FSU Panama City and is the Director of the FSU Early Childhood Autism Program. She teaches undergraduate courses in behavior analysis and learning, women’s studies, performance management, and research methods. She also teaches graduate courses in the FSU Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) Master’s Program. Dr. Polick’s research has been published in the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, Behavior Analysis in Practice, and the Experimental Analysis of Human Behavior Bulletin. Additionally, she was recognized for teaching excellence at FSU by receiving the university’s Undergraduate Teaching Award in 2013.
Dr. Wendy Ritz, Business
Wendy Ritz draws on more than 20 years of international sales and marketing experience to introduce college students to a more applied learning environment. She strives to use projects which promote community engagement to expose students to real world business dilemmas both domestically and abroad. In the summer, 2019, she served as a faculty member with Florida State University’s International Programs in Valencia Spain. Wendy continues to remain current in industry and is a Direct Selling Education Foundation (DSEF) Fellow. She is working with the Jim Moran College of Entrepreneurship [Wendy Plant], to host a DSEF event on both Tallahassee and Panama City campuses.
Dr. Diana Simpson, Financial Planning
Dr. Simpson's teaching interests are behavioral finance, practice management, personal financial planning, investments, tax and estate planning, risk management and insurance, and retirement and college planning.