Canisius College

Guy Gessner, PhD
Associate Professor of Management and Marketing
BS, Business; MBA; PhD, Marketing — State University of New York at Buffalo

U.S. and Canadian enterprises alike rely on Dr. Gessner for advice on CRM, new customer acquisition, cross-selling, customer retention, data mining, and customer management strategies matters.  His clients have included Canada Trust, Fisher-Price, HSBC, The Mentholatum Company, Pratt & Lambert, Rich Products and Harris Interactive.

Author or co-author of articles published in the Journal of Data Warehousing, the Journal of Business Research, and the Journal of Economic Psychology, Dr. Gessner has presented papers at meetings of the Eastern Economic Association and the Academy of Marketing Science.

Dr. Gessner is a specialist in the area of database marketing, one of the fastest growing , and most profitable marketing areas.  He developed the Canisius College courses in database marketing and data mining. A faculty advisor, he also has served on the One-Year MBA, Part-Time MBA, and AACSB Curriculum committees of the college’s Wehle School of Business.

Paul L. Sauer, PhD
Professor of Marketing
BS, Mechanical Engineering — University of Notre Dame
MBA; PhD, Marketing — The Ohio State University

A specialist in marketing communications, Dr. Sauer helps businesses and nonprofit organizations improve their ability to understand and fulfill customer expectations. He has served as a consultant to Sisters Hospital of Buffalo, the Buffalo Museum of Science, WIVB-TV/Channel 4, West-Herr Ford, and the Buffalo Bills.

He is the author or co-author of nearly 50 articles and papers that have been presented at conferences around the world and published in textbooks and journals. His research spans the spectrum of marketing issues, from advertising in a developing country to the impact of electronic shopping. He is currently examining the role of ethics in high-tech organizations.

Dr. Sauer designed several courses offered at Canisius: "Product and Promotion Strategy," "Advanced Marketing Strategy," "New Product Development," "Promotion Strategy," and "Integrated Marketing Communications." Among other college appointments, he has served as advisor to the college’s Marketing Society and as a member of the Athletic Board, Educational Policy Committee, Graduate Curriculum Committee, Academic Program Board, and International Student Programs Advisory Council.  Additionally, Dr. Sauer has taught marketing courses at universities in China and the former Soviet Union.

He is affiliated with the American Marketing Association, PDMA, and INFORMS.
In 2008, he was the recipient of the Service-Learning award from the Canisius Business Advisory Council. The award recognizes a professor from the Richard J. Wehle School of Business who promotes service-learning in his or her coursework.

 
David J. Snyder, PhD
Associate Professor of Management
BA, Economics — Davidson College
MBA — St. Bonaventure University
PhD, Marketing — University of South Carolina

A specialist in marketing and consumer behavior, Dr. Snyder often pursues research that is international in scope. Recently he gave two presentations related to marketing efforts to curtail the spread of AIDS in Zimbabwe, and participted in a meeting of the International Academy of African Business & Development. Combining research with public service, he presented a paper entitled "Fundraising for VIVE: A Shelter for Homeless Political Refugees" at a conference of the Southwestern Marketing Association; he has also served as a member of VIVE’s board of directors.

Dr. Snyder designed four Canisius College courses: "Professional Sales," "Sales Management," "International Marketing," and "Doing Business in Mexico." Among other college appointments, he has served as a freshman advisor, as co-advisor to the Marketing Society, as a Presidential Scholarship interviewer, and as a member of the Undergraduate and Graduate Business Curriculum Committees.

He is a member of the American Marketing Association, the Association for Consumer Research, and the Southern Marketing Association.

Gregory R. Wood, PhD
Associate Professor of Management and Marketing
BA, Psychology — Oakland University, Rochester, MI
PhD, Social Psychology — State University of New York at Albany

For over two decades, Dr. Wood has taught marketing courses at Canisius College with an emphasis on the role that psychology and human behavior play in the development of marketing strategies.  His specific areas of expertise include consumer behavior, human judgment, and attitude formation and change.  In recent years, Dr. Wood has increasingly challenged his students to seek a deeper understanding of the role that materialism and consumer culture play in their lives and our society.  In his innovative course entitled, “Money, Heaven and Right Living” (MKT310), Wood taught students time tested methods of wealth creation alongside teachings from the Judeo/Christian and Buddhist traditions that offer advice about the dangers of emphasizing money and material things as sources of happiness.  At the graduate level, Dr. Wood offers courses in Consumer Behavior (MBA634) and Marketing Strategy (MBA630).  This latter course is taught as a business simulation where students compete with one another, running simulated companies over the course of a semester.  The business simulation comes very close to approximating the marketing challenges and decision situations that modern managers confront on a daily basis and help students understand the close link between “concept” and “practice.” 

In addition to the academic areas previously cited, Dr. Wood continues to build expertise in the growing phenomenon of social media with a specific focus on ways that businesses and not-for-profit organizations can use Web 2.0 capabilities to improve and solidify stakeholder relationships.  Dr. Wood is also working with other campus faculty to promote the use of Ignatian pedagogical methods on campus.  He believes that identifying ways of merging the traditions of faith and reason will be one of the great challenges for Jesuit and other Christian institutions of higher learning in the coming decade.

He is the author of a number of articles on human judgment and decision making and is frequently invited to facilitate workshops on marketing for local entrepreneurs as part of the Canisius College Women’s Business Center. Dr. Wood is also the principle owner of HausMark Research Services, a company that provides research and consulting services to not-for-profit and faith based organizations with the goal of “Helping those who help others.”  Through his community based activities, Dr. Wood hopes to demonstrate to his students how traditional business skills can be used to make the world a better place.