Robert A. Strong, a University of Maine professor of finance, has been selected as the 2007 Maine Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education. Established in 1981, the award is the only national program that recognizes undergraduate professors for outstanding commitment to their students, educational institutions, profession and communities. Strong, winner of the 2005 Distinguished Maine Professor Award, earned an engineering degree at the United States Military Academy at West Point, a master’s in business administration from Boston University and a doctorate in finance from Penn State. He is now in his 24th year at UMaine. Strong has written more than 75 articles for business journals, many of them about his teaching methods, and books on a variety of financial topics. His three textbooks are used in more than 100 universities around the world. In 1993, Strong, working with the University of Maine Foundation, started a club that has allowed 30 to 40 students a year to act as real-money portfolio managers for UMaine Foundation funds. The Student Portfolio Investment Fund, or SPIFFY, has increased its original $200,000 allotment to more than $1.2 million today.

The Holiday Inn on Odlin Road in Bangor has hired Erica Whitten as its director of sales. Whitten was sales director and function coordinator at the Main Street Holiday Inn from 2003 to 2006. After that property closed last year, she accepted a transfer to Waterville’s Holiday Inn property, where she served as director of sales. “I am excited to be back in the Bangor region,” Whitten said. “I have developed many great relationships and connections within the hospitality industry. I am excited to enhance those relationships, obtain new contacts, and continue our presence within the community.”