Dear Chancellor Karns, When you first brought the option of having Mr.

Pavlo as a speaker at our university I must admit I was at the very least apprehensive and not at all excited about the idea of him teaching our students his business practices. With all the wonderful business ethics speakers like Frank Bucaro or Bruce Weinstein who have never been imprisoned for bad or illegal business practices, why would we allow a man with a questionable ethical past speak to the next generation of business professionals. I decided to be open minded and did some research on Mr. Pavlo and my findings really intrigued and surprised me. Normally I would have been under the mindset that I would not trust someone who has been bankrupt to advise me financially, nor would I have previously unethical man teach me about ethics. When I thought about it I realized my financial mentor is Dave Ramsey a man who has successfully come back from bankruptcy twice, and I decided to write Mr. Pavlo and see what he had to say, he effectively changed my opinion of him and his speeches. I realized that sometimes the people who have been on both sides of the equation can offer the best insight. Mr. Pavlo has a very impressive back ground; he acquired an engineering degree from West Virginia University and went on to achieve his MBA from Mercer University in 1992. After that he began working at MCI as a manager in the collections division where he was responsible for billing and collections. I think our students will look up to his and admire his hard work to get to where he was. By 1995, he was promoted to senior manager, and was an extremely successful young professional who had made remarkable progress in his short time at MCI. He then tells his audiences about the pressures of upper management and how it became too much to bear, Mr. Pavlo was not able to keep up with the demanding goals they put on him. He will tell the students how in March of 1996, he and a member of his staff along with a business associate not associated with MCI began to execute a fraud involving a few of MCIs own customers. By the end of the scam there were seven customers of MCI who had been defrauded out of $6 million dollars over a period of six months. Here is a man who had it all and then lost it all due to the decision he made. Pavlo explains how his bosses told him it was his job to reduce the bad debt but offered little to no advise and told him he had to work through whatever issues he had to. Pavlo will tell the students how he was up to the challenge of reducing the bad debt from $180 million dollars to $15 million and how it would take creativity and in the end some questionable accounting. Pavlo and his associates came up with various ways to show a lower debt than there actually was. He will tell the students how he frantically worked 12 to 14 hour days to make the numbers work to no avail; the pressures began to weigh heavily on him. As the problem got worse and Pavlo began running out of ways to cover up the debt and that is when he and a friend came up with the scheme that ultimately put Pavlo in prison. He will break down how he committed fraud and what the plan was. Pavlo will admittedly tell the students it was surprisingly easy to steal the $6 million and stash it away in the Grand Cayman. Pavlo tells his audiences about being caught by one of his customers who became suspicious and notified the FIB about the same time the internal auditors at MCI began to catch on to Pavlos plan. Mr. Pavlo confessed to the FBI, because he could not lie anymore emotionally. In January 2001, Mr. Pavlo pled guilty to wire fraud and money laundering and began his sentence in federal prison. He was sentenced to serve 41 months in prison. When Pavlo speaks he wants to talk about ethics and how to make the right decisions. He talks about his role in the corporate manipulation of funds and how he personally misused the company money. He also explains how companies come to be in the situation that MCI was in with so many bad debts. There is so much we can stand to learn from Walter Pavlos situation. It is important that any speaker

engages the audience and is interactive. Mr. Pavlos seminars are not only thought provoking but he actively involves his audiences. During my research on Pavlo I found the Pavlo's presentations are based what he feels are the most important to the ethical standards of every company. Mr. Pavlo feels it is necessary to discuss white-collar crimes that are in the news he feels are prevalent in todays world. Pavlo also informs his audiences about the consequences of being unethical beyond prison. The pressures of performance are often talked about by Mr. Pavlo, he knows first-hand how sometimes senior management can set unrealistic and unreasonable goals. Senior management is often influenced by Wall Street expectations. Mr. Pavlo believes upper management should realize the consequence that they place on the middle management and how this impacts their lives. Pavlo also makes it a point to teach his audiences that good people make poor choices, he makes demonstrates that professionals who are highly educated, daily face prison sentences for illegal behavior. He informs people how difficult it is to continue and move forward with life after prison. According to Pavlo prison is no club fed. After prison, a convicted felon has to face various consequences which will affect not only their personal life but their professional life as well. Pavlo believes in the importance of an ethics and compliance program in the workforce and instills its importance in his audiences. Such programs encourage employees to participate in making their job a better place to work, and also encourages an open atmosphere. When we use professional skepticism we learn to ask the right question to keep people honest. Pavlo teaches his audiences that you need to question even management. Lastly Pavlo speaks to the necessity of mentoring in combination with an ethics and compliance program. Having experienced veterans paired with the new people can be a great benefit not only to the company but also to both professionals involved. The veterans can teach about the personal responsibility of the job, and the culture of the company, they can also help with the new employees professional development the goal is to establish better decision making skills in the new hires. Mr. Pavlo has now dedicated his life to teaching people how he made his mistakes and you can avoid making them. You do not need to go to prison to be able to teach good ethics but it does give Mr. Pavlo an insightful edge. Phillip A. Desing, Supervisory Special Agent, Federal Bureau of Investigation, FBI Academy said, One of the objectives of this training (CPAs Specialized Criminal Investigations In -Service) is to ensure the attendees gain new tools and knowledge which will assist them in conducting criminal investigations. Your participation in this in-service helped us reach our goal. Clearly I feel it would be an honor if we could have Mr. Pavlo to speak at our university his experience along with his upfront and blunt approach to ethics is sure to get to the hearts of the students. The students should be able to take a way clear understanding of ethical business practices along with answers to a lot of questions they might have when it comes to ethics. Pavlo can offer them insight from both sides of the fence. Mr. Pavlos interactive approach is exactly what students need to engage and be excited about what he is teaching. This will also give our students what to expect when they start their career, hard work is necessary and not to be enticed by trying to take the seemingly easy way out. The consequences of their action will stay with them forever both in their personal life and in their professional life. On a business note we must look at the financial cost to have any speaker come to East Carolina University to speak. I took the liberty to email Mr. Pavlo and ask him what he would charge the come speak for us he said that his normal cost is anywhere from free to $3000 to speak at a University. Frank Bucaro charges around $7000 to be a speaker and I have emailed Bruce Weinstein to see what normal prices are but after some research online I found he can charge upwards of $5000 to speak. Additionally Mr. Pavlo told me that in the fall he will be introducing case studies which are specifically targeted towards university level students, this seems like the perfect opportunity for us to take advantage of. Taking the financials in to consideration and given everything I have learned about Walter Pavlo, I am certain that he would be an

asset to speak at our university. I think it would be an honor and a privilege to welcome Mr. Pavlo to East Carolina University.

Sincerely, Whitney Whitson