Frontier gift creates Bittner professorship

A major contribution from Frontier Corp. will endow the new Ronald L. Bittner Professorship in Business Administration at the Simon School.

The gift was made in honor of Bittner, the former Frontier chairman and CEO and University trustee who died last August.

Bittner joined Rochester Telephone Corp., later renamed Frontier, in 1963 and remained with the company for his entire career. When appointed CEO in 1992, Bittner sought to strengthen Frontier's position in the long-distance telecommunications market. He was the force behind Frontier's open market plan, which introduced the nation's first competitive market for local telecommunications.

Bittner enjoyed a close relationship with the University and the Simon School. A graduate of the school's Executive Development Program, Bittner was a member of several Simon committees and of the University's board of trustees.

The Bittner professorship will be held by Jerold Zimmerman, Faculty Chair, professor of accounting and Alumni Distinguished Professor at the Simon School. Zimmerman's research and teaching interests involve accounting and the economic theory of organizations.