Members of the first cohort of UC Merced’s Ernest & Julio Gallo Management Program pose for a portrait. Photo via UC Merced.

A program in the San Joaquin Valley is achieving success as its students find work and it ranks begin to grow.

This August, UC Merced graduated its inaugural Master’s in Management cohort with ten students, most of them being the first generation in their families to go to college. Offered by the Ernest & Julio Gallo Management Program, the MM degree took students on a yearlong learning experience that saw them going from the Tesla headquarters and the Patagonia, Inc. factory in Ventura, to comparing wine production methods in Chile and California’s Central Valley.

According to Paul Maglio, chair of the Department of Management of Complex Systems for UC Merced, the main purpose of the MM is to provide an immediate source of education for newly graduated university students, one that won’t require the often several-years-long waiting period attached to an MBA program. It also aims to help the graduates find work in a short period of time after achieving their degrees.

Education, Maglio explained, is primarily aimed at helping students understand the “three bottom lines” in order to run a business that is not only profitability — but also economic and environmental sustainability. This feeds into the third bottom line — what’s good for the employees of that business. In other words, it’s a “people, profit, planet” approach to business.

“So it’s not just about how much money you make, but it’s about how well are you taking care of the people both inside and outside of the organization,” Maglio said. “And then how can you do all of that in a context where in fact you are being possibly profitable or at least reasonable on the money side?”

Among the students in this first class of graduates is Marisela Angel. A native from Planada in Merced County, Angel was like many of peers as the first in her family to go to college, holding a bachelor’s degree from Fresno State’s Craig School of Business. The MM program, she stated, was an eye-opening way experience in how to run a company.

“We have to take all those things in mind. ”

Currently, Angel is working for UC Merced as information officer with the Office of Information Technology. As for the MM program, Maglio said they’re already in their second class, and are taking applications for the third.