TECHNOLOGY GROWING TOO FAST TO KEEP UP WITH

When it come to e-commerce and connecting in cyberspace, technology is running faster than education, rules and regulations.

"Technology is moving beyond," said Gordon Fee, keynote speaker of the Professional Challenges Seminar, held Thursday at Glenn Auditorium in Robert A. Dempster Hall.

E-Commerce, cyberspace and cyberlaw were discussed during a special one-day conference, sponsored by the Department of Accounting Finance and Business Law, and the Accounting and Finance Club/IMA Student Chapter at Southeast Missouri State University.

The seminar was designed to connect students, faculty and accounting, finance and law professionals .

Sessions were presented throughout the day on expanding opportunities through e-commerce, and concerns for e-commerce, and connecting in cyberspace.

The Missouri Bar Association co-sponsored a session on legislative and tax issues concerning e-commerce, cyberspace and cyberlaw.

"Technology is changing," said Fee, retired president and CEO of Lockheed Martin Energy Systems, Inc. Fee who currently serves as chairman of the Tennessee Business Roundtable's Education Task Force. Fee previously served on the Tennessee School-to-Career initiatve, and was a member of the Governor's Council for Excellence in Higher Education three years. "Things are changing and education has to change."

Fee told the group that education was often under-funded, and that businesses must open their doors to educators to allow them to come into the workforce and observe what has to be done to help solve some of the complex problems.

Fee began his career with Union Carbide Corporation in Oak Ridge in 1956. Following positions with Union Carbide operations in Ohio and New York, he returned to Tennessee to work with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and was later named general manager of the Operating Contractor's Project Office for the Gas Centrifuge Enrichment Plant.

Speakers during the day included Buz Sutherland of Small Business Development Center; Brad Morehouse of Glaus & Associates, Glen Brady and Rik Bore, both of Pricewaterhouse Coopers, based in St. Louis; Greg Deimund of Merrill Lynch; Weldon Macke, Cape Girardeau County Auditor, and others.

Attorneys Ken McManaman, Michael Price, Paul Berens and Stephen Wilson joined Dr. Ginny Moore to discuss cyberlaw.

Cyberspace speakers included Dr. David Kunz; David Walton, Softworks, USA: Paul Dobbins, ASAFO Productions, and Robert Elfanbaum, president and chief operating officer of Asynchrony.com, Inc.