HICHEP Advisory Group

Professor Forster-Holt holds a Ph.D. and an M.B.A. from the University of Maine, and a Bachelor of Science degree from Cornell University. At the University of Maine, she developed and taught courses on small business management and accounting for the School of Business and the Foster innovation center, and she was a research associate with the Center on Aging. She joined the Husson faculty in the summer of 2011.

A Certified Management Accountant, she serves on the Small Business Committee of the Institute of Management Accountants where her area of interest is the impact of banking reform on community banks and their small business constituents. She completed coursework and exams at UNC Greensboro leading to the Registered Financial Gerontologist certification. At the Babson College Entrepreneuship conference, she presented research to international audiences on entrepreneurial exit, or “endrepreneurship” a termed she has coined. She serves on the Key Contact network of the National Federation of Independent Businesses, most recently on the issue of healthcare reform. Locally, she is the treasurer of the Orono high school hockey boosters, and served as team manager for the PVHC squirts. At UMaine, she served on the Business and sustainability committee of the School of Business, as a judge for capstone case presentations, and as a thesis committee member for several Honors College candidates.

Prior to earning her doctorate, she gathered substantial work experience in both large and small business including executive management at a large credit union, public accounting audit, and tax at the Big Four firm of Ernst & Young, sales and marketing for national accounts, SBA counseling, and consulting. Her work in asset liability management (A.L.M.) garnered national C.F.O. best practices awards and inclusion of the credit union in a national A.L.M. pilot program by the N.C.U.A.

She is also the co-owner of Shaw & Tenney, a manufacturing company that recently won MTI grants for innovations in manufacturing and commercialization of wood products. For over 150 years, Shaw & Tenney has produced the world’s finest oars, paddles, masts, spars and flagpoles.

Originally from Albany, N.Y. She has lived and worked in NYC, Sacramento, California and Bangor. She is married to Steve, and they have three children. They live in Orono.

Most successful people know failure, but they also know resilience. Resilience does not measure how many times you fell but whether you got up. The headlines are grabbed by some exciting extremes of entrepreneurship, but the rules of business have not changed – it takes an idea, a ton of hard work, a ruthlessly honest assessment of the market for your product or service.
As a student of business, recognize that it is a profession, that it is history in the making. It is our job to inspire in you a passion for learning about your profession and seek lifelong learning in your field. Challenge yourself to read professional journals and seek information that is relevant and reflects the latest data. Make "Inc.com" your homepage and be regularly delighted and inspired by small business owners who are innovators. What will your contribution be?