Dennis W. Dunivan

Dennis serves as Director of the Energy Management Program for Western. He also teaches and conducts research in the areas of leadership development, business ethics and organizational psychology. Over the past twenty years, he led high-performing teams among various industries including agriculture, pharmaceuticals, aerospace and action sports, in the functional areas of business development, sales and marketing, product development, investor relations and stakeholder management. He served as Vice President and General Manager of RESOURCE21, a Boeing Aerospace joint venture to commercialize satellite imagery, GPS and GIS technologies for precision agriculture and natural resource management applications in the U.S. and Australia. He also served as Executive Director of the Partnership for Agricultural Security, a bio-security organization including Battelle, British Aerospace, ConAgra Foods, Farmland Industries, Virginia Tech and Boeing Aerospace in cooperation with the USDA and NASA. He has led teams with individuals from various countries and diverse cultures, including China, Africa, France, Switzerland and the U.K., including change management through mergers and acquisitions.

In 2023, Dennis completed an Executive Ph.D. program at the University of Denver with the goal of transitioning from business to full-time academia. His passion is to serve young adults in their quest for knowledge to build successful, responsible and sustainable businesses. He began teaching at Western in 2023 as an Adjunct Professor of Business Ethics, Leadership and Organizational Behavior for the Outdoor Industry MBA program, and he developed the Lead with a Purpose Project, an experiential learning opportunity for students to make positive contributions in their local communities.

Q&A

What excites you most about the Energy Management Program?
Serving as Director of the Energy Management Program allows me to engage with internal and external stakeholders with the primary goal of helping students to achieve success. I believe energy management is one of the most important, exciting and difficult challenges we face as a nation and throughout the world. Leading and being part of a team investigating and influencing the direction of the industry is in direct alignment with my teaching and research interests. It is an honor to help prepare our business leaders of tomorrow to create profitable, sustainable and balanced solutions to meet our energy needs and challenges.

How did you discover Western?
I raised my boys in Confer, CO and they attended high school football camp at Western every summer. We’ve also had several family members and friends attend Western over the years. During my graduate studies at DU, I was fortunate to conduct research with Paula Mann who was then serving as an accounting lecturer at Western. Our research focused on moral leadership development through experiential learning, which led to her inviting me and another colleague to volunteer as judges for Western’s business ethics competition. As I was completing my dissertation, an adjunct professor position became available in the Outdoor MBA program, and I jumped at the chance to teach. This led to the position of leading the Energy Management Program, teaching full-time and conducting research.

What are your favorite things about the Gunnison Valley?
The energy of the mountains, the courage of the people, and the opportunity to explore.

Publications

• Dunivan, D. W., Mann, P., Collins, D., & Wittmer, D. P. (2024). Expanding the Empirical Study of Virtual Reality Beyond Empathy to Compassion, Moral Reasoning, and Moral Foundations. Frontiers in Psychology, 15, 1402754
• Mann, P., & Dunivan, D. (2024). Investigating the Intersection of Wealth Disparity & Economic Justice in American Society: Balancing the Scales. Proceedings of the International Association of Business and Society Conference.
• Author: Escape from Communist Heaven, Sentient Publications, ISBN 978-1-59181-229-6, September 2013.

External Professional Affiliations

• Honorarium – Georgetown University – Teaching Professional Business Ethics
• Emerging Scholar Award – Society for Business Ethics
• Reviewer – Business and Professional Ethics Journal
• RAND Advisory Board Member – Food and Agriculture Biosecurity
• USAID Consultant – Agricultural Cooperative Development in Ukraine