PrintWelcome to EBF 301: Global Finance for the Earth, Energy, and Materials Industries
My name is Jim Jenkins, and I will be your Instructor for this course. I am currently an Adjunct Professor of Finance at Fairfield University’s Dolan School of Business in Connecticut. You can check my profile at LinkedIn for further professional details.
I spent 30 years in the cash commodities business, primarily trading tropical commodities. At one point or another in my career, I traded cash physicals, futures, options and OTC derivatives, as well as running a futures brokerage, so I have a deep background in all aspects of regulated and unregulated trading.
I was CEO of a bulk liquid storage company, as well as of the country’s largest producer of liquid animal feed supplements, so I’ve seen the commodity markets from logistics and end-user perspectives as well as trading.
In addition, I served on the Board of Directors of my employer, as well as their Risk and Compliance Committees. I held various supervisory and committee positions at futures exchanges as well as commodity industry groups.
I have a BA degree in English from Amherst College, in Massachusetts. This is my first experience teaching on-line, but Penn State offers thorough training to instructors as well as excellent technical support, so I’m confident we’ll all get through the course successfully.
Although I am not an energy industry veteran, one thing we’ll see as we progress is that the risk management techniques, financial concerns, and business principles that apply to one commodity market tend to apply similarly to others. So the skills you pick up in this class will help prepare you for a career in any of a variety of commodity or financially-oriented businesses.
The energy industry is undergoing a period of rapid change and evolution. Unconventional means of production, alternative energy supplies, and shifting demand patterns, all complicated by the influence of financial speculators, combine to make the markets more interesting, and perhaps more difficult, than at any time in the recent past. Understanding these issues will be both interesting and challenging, and I’m convinced will make this course tremendously rewarding for you.
I’m a native New Yorker, and live in the New York City suburbs with my wife, two college age children and three dogs.
Good luck in this course. Don’t hesitate to e-mail me if you have a problem. But, please post all questions in the Course Blog for all to see.
Thanks,
Jim