Journalism hosts investor relations manager

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Jeffrey Laudin, manager of investor relations for the Omaha-based Valmont Industries Inc., will deliver a lecture at 2 p.m., Nov. 23 in Andersen Hall. Laudin will discuss the relationship between the press and corporations.

The lecture is part of the business and economic journalism course led by Joe Weber. The lecture is free and open to faculty, staff and students. Individuals must RSVP to attend; contact Weber at (402) 472-3216.

Laudin, who earned his MBA from UNL in 1982, is responsible for telling shareholders, investors, analysts and portfolio managers about Valmont. One of Nebraska's leading companies, Valmont is a $1.8 billion-a-year maker of fabricated metal products, pole and tower structures and mechanized irrigation systems used around the world.

Built by Robert Daugherty after he left the U.S. Marine Corps at the end of World War II, Valmont has been called the world's most successful irrigation company. Daugherty started the company by putting virtually his entire life savings, $5,000, behind a small manufacturing operation that quickly moved from building farm elevators to a broad range of farm equipment and eventually into tapered tubes for outdoor lighting, traffic signals and other applications.

The company now operates from 53 facilities located in seventeen countries around the world. It employs more than 6,000 people worldwide, with about 1,500 in Nebraska.

Last spring, the Robert B. Daugherty Charitable Foundation committed $50 million to the University of Nebraska's Water for Food Institute.

Laudin also serves as an adjunct professor in the finance and banking department at the University of Nebraska-Omaha and in the finance and economics departments at the University of Phoenix. He earned his Certified Public Accounting certificate in 2003, has worked as a stock and commodity broker and certified financial planner, and earned his bachelor's degree in economics from the State University of New York in Oneonta in 1975.

Weber, who teaches classes in business and economic journalism at UNL, also hosted Bloomberg News executive Tom Contiliano earlier this fall.

More details at: http://go.unl.edu/nyr