The University of Southern Indiana’s Lambda chapter of Omicron Delta Epsilon welcomed five new members on November 5, 2014, in an initiation ceremony in the Romain Board Room of the Business and Engineering Center.
Omicron Delta Epsilon (ODE) is an academic honor society that recognizes scholastic achievement in economics. Undergraduate initiates have completed 12 or more semester hours of economics courses and maintained at least a B average. They all rank in the top third of their class.
The fall 2014 ODE inductees are:
Thomas L. Austerman, this year’s ODE Distinguished Speaker, gave a presentation at the initiation ceremony. The title of his presentation was “The ‘P’s’ of Performance that Lead to Pay Raises and Promotions.” Tom Austerman has 43 years of experience as a bank officer and community leader. Mr. Austerman began his commercial banking career with the Second National Bank of Richmond, Indiana in April, 1971. During his 13 years with Second National Bank he, at different times, managed the mortgage banking, marketing and commercial lending departments and was a voting member of the Bank’s senior management committee. He subsequently joined The First National Bank of Danville, Indiana where he held the position of senior vice president and senior loan officer from January 1983 until December 1985. Mr. Austerman accepted a position with National City Bank of Evansville, Indiana in January of 1986. His responsibilities included marketing, strategic planning, business development, commercial lending and branch administration. From January 1995 to December 1999 Mr. Austerman served as president and chief administrative officer of National City Bank of Evansville with day to day responsibilities for the Bank’s operations. Mr. Austerman was the executive organizer and the founding president and chief executive officer of Bank of Evansville, N.A., from May 2000 to February 2005. He most recently is the founder and CEO of Commerce Bank and President and CEO of First Light Bancorp.
Also in attendance was George Stanley, senior vice president of Morgan Stanley, who was the 2012 Distinguished Speaker and Andy Perry, co-founder of Curvo Labs, the 2013 Distinguished Speaker.
Omicron Delta Epsilon is an international honor society for economics. Currently, ODE has 678 chapters located in the United States and across the globe. The Lambda chapter at USI was created in 1987. Dr. Marie A. Bussing is ODE’s USI chapter adviser.