Criminal Teachers

Corporate Ex-Cons tell their story in hopes to educate

Most would agree that employing ex-convicts is not a new business trend to follow. But, can it be used to enlighten MBAs? Jane Porter with Business Weekly released a story about a former manager of MCI who created a $6 million dollar money laundering scheme. Walter A. Pavlo Jr. was caught and sentenced to two years in a federal prison, divorced by his wife, became unemployed and moved in with his parents. Although Walter is in fact an ex convict he is now being paid $2,500 per visit to speak to students and at corporate speaking engagements about his crime. Business school professors created ethics centers and courses in response to the Enron-era scandals. Some schools participating in these types of guest speaker seminars include the New York University, University of California, and Purdue. These colleges and companies have employed people like Walter Pavlo Jr., Chuck Gallagher, and Barry J. Webne to make lectures less academic and give students ability to witness first hand people with practical experience. The concern is in doing these types of scare tactics are we scaring them straight or giving them pointers? The universities and some corporate companies paying people like Pavlo, who made $100,000 in one year from doing seminars, think so. Not only is this trend becoming popular there has been a 30 percent increase in demand for these types of seminars over the past year. Pavlo joined a company called Pros & Cons who book former executives with criminal records like himself for seminars. Since joining Pros & Cons in 1994 he has consistently brought in $60,000 to $80,000 a year and is now up to $100,000 plus. In reviews of his seminar some would go to the extent to say they admire Pavlo for his courage and felt that the public could learn from his advice that fraud does not pay. Others feel that what he is doing is a “slap in the face to humanity” and that it only would encourage others with intents to follow where he went wrong. In either case whither you agree or disagree it sets a point that companies must implement fraud awareness from within itself. Establishing better control programs as well as better educational programs for employees as to how people steal, and how to report them to the proper company authorities will help protect your establishment from being taken by crooks.