Thomas W. Speh, Rees Distinguished Professor of Marketing, is one of two recipients of this year’s Miami University's prestigious Benjamin Harrison Medallion. The announcement was made during faculty assembly April 16; the medallion will be awarded during May commencement exercises.
In making the announcement, Miami President David Hodge cited the global recognition that Speh has achieved for his “exceptional scholarship and international contributions” in his field of logistics and supply chain management. Hodge also mentioned Speh’s “impressive impact” on Miami students, and his teaching awards.
The Harrison Medallion is presented to members of Miami's faculty or staff who have made outstanding national contributions to education. It is named for the 1852 Miami graduate who was president of the United States from 1889-1893.
Speh is internationally recognized as a leading scholar in the fields of logistics and supply chain management. He has been asked to speak in at least 17 countries and led delegations of academics and practitioners to both China (2005) and Russia (1987) to assess and make recommendations for improvements to the logistics and supply chain systems of those countries.
He has more than 50 article publications and is a co-author of two well known textbooks. One of the textbooks, Business Marketing Management: A Strategic View of Industrial and Organizational Markets, is the leading business-to-business management text in the U.S. and is in its ninth edition. Further, Speh's model for determining total warehousing/logistics costs has been adopted by more than 12,000 organizations.
In 2006 Speh was approved by the European Commission to become a member of the BestLog project's Advisory & Communications Board (ACB). The BestLog project is the European Union's largest coordination activity in logistics. In 2007 the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals awarded him the Distinguished Service Award, the association's highest honor. In the mid-80s he served as president of the Warehousing Education and Research Council (WERC), where he helped to introduce academic rigor into the warehousing discipline.
In the mid-1990s, Speh joined the Executive Committee of the Council of Logistics Management (CLM), an international organization of 14,000 members. Working with a committee, he helped create an extensive set of logistics teaching materials known as the "Logistics Tool Box" which have been distributed to hundreds of marketing departments in the U.S. He is the only individual to have been president of both CLM and WERC.
Speh has been nominated for the Alumni Association's Effective Teacher Award 13 times and won it in 1987. In 2006 he received the Outstanding MBA Professor award. He has served as assistant dean and associate dean of the Farmer School of Business, served two separate terms as chair of the Department of Marketing and was the creator and director of the Warehousing Research Center.
In the Oxford Community he has served as a volunteer in the emergency room of McCullough-Hyde Hospital for the last eight years and has been a member of the board of trustees from 2003 to the present. He has also worked with Habitat for Humanity and as president and member of the board of directors of the Oxford United Way campaign. He is the sponsor of the Thomas Speh Fund with the Oxford Community Foundation, helping to support the speech and hearing needs of the uninsured.
