Professor Carey Dukes: Changing business practices one student at a time
Photo Courtesy of Carey Dukes
Colby Craig, Staff Writer
Media often portray businessmen as greedy, selfish, shameless and inconsiderate of those who work for them. Carey Dukes, a business professor at North Greenville University believes that he is equipped to change that view and lead more people to the practice of Godly entrepreneurship.
Carey Dukes is a professor in the school of business and entrepreneurship at NGU. His professional passion and current ministry is to help people adjust to change whether it be in life or business. Dukes teaches many freshman classes and recently wrote a book aimed toward helping students transition from high school to college and from college to the workforce.
Working in the supply chain for 30 years, Dukes has a knack for fixing broken businesses and helping these businesses become ready for change. He spends weekends looking at businesses and figuring out how to make them more efficient or profitable because that is where he finds enjoyment.
“I’ve found that the more ready a person or organization was, the more successful they were with the change they were implementing,” Dukes said.
Dukes has been working for just over a year to start a new curriculum in his department. Recently, he has started a new package of courses which all deal with supply chain management. These classes are meant to equip students with the skills to be top candidates for the development and management of all things related to supply chains.
“The learning curve for people hiring North Greenville graduates will be much shorter than even Clemson graduates. They are getting trained as if they were on the job as part of the classes that they are doing. They’re doing real world exercises, real world analysis, real world continuous improvement processes,” Dukes said.
Supply chains are classified as routes that materials take through various suppliers and manufacturers which ends in a final product. It is the process people use to produce and distribute various goods to the community.
The supply chain courses were created with the idea of crafting ready employees who are clear choices for their vocation. The courses for the concentration are as follows: transportation modes, procurement, quantitative analytics and international transportation. All of these courses are being improved upon overtime by adding from programs from other universities as well as from the minds here at NGU.
Dukes believes that people look at business in a negative light because of the many businesses that do it wrong.
He said, “Too many people who are operating businesses don’t operate with Christian principles. I believe that there is a way to operate your business with Christian principles in mind specifically designed around helping the people who are stakeholders in your business, especially employees and investors.”
He believes one way to spread the Gospel in this vocation is to provide for the community so that they may have access to comfort and security without exploitation of those people.
Dukes thinks that students should keep in mind that it is important to never become so emotionally enveloped in your venture that you forget what the mission truly is, and that is serving Christ and loving others. He believes that living comfortably is good, but to never let go of the true end goal of the Christian business vocation.
