Dr. Thomas J. Zwirlein is Emeritus Professor of Finance at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs. He worked in the College of Business from 1984 until his retirement in June 2017. He was Director of the Southern Colorado Economic Forum (Forum) from 1997 until July 2014. In his role as Forum director, Tom had responsibility to monitor the regional economy in El Paso County and the greater Pikes Peak region. The Southern Colorado Economic Forum (now the UCCS Economic Forum) develops and monitors economic and quality of life indicators to assess the regional health of the economy and wellbeing of its citizens. The Forum reports the results of its analysis to the community at its annual fall forum.

Tom’s teaching interests include corporate and international finance, portfolio management and investments and strategic finance decision making. His current interest includes teaching retirement planning sessions to pre-retired and recently retired individuals. His teaching experience includes stints in England at Aston University, in Finland at the Helsinki School of Economics and Business Administration (now Aalto University School of Business) and Germany at the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management. His research interests are around financial strategy, dividends and dividend payments, valuation and strategic value creation. He has done consulting work with several firms and governmental organizations and has served as an expert witness on valuation cases.

There are some common themes running through Tom’s teaching and training. One is finding the financial value in an organization. Every business and organization should strive to create value for owners, clients and customers. Value is created when resources are efficiently allocated throughout the organization. This requires understanding the source of value and the process of allocating scarce resources to the best set of alternatives. Value creating organizations have more to offer to investors, workers and customers. Financial management requires using appropriate methods to measure and assess the value creation process. Related to this is how to fund the value creation process and how to distribute profits from these activities.

He holds a B.S. in Business with a major in Economics from the University of Wisconsin La Crosse, and MBA from the University of Wisconsin La Crosse and a PhD in Finance from the University of Oregon.