M. Carolina Hammontree Biography

Biography

Mrs. Hammontree was a much beloved Lecturer in Management and joined the Dalton State College (DSC) faculty in Spring 2017 as an Adjunct Professor. In August 2017, she was hired as a full-time faculty and immediately began a Ph.D. in Leadership at the University of Tennessee in Chattanooga (UTC).

At DSC, Carolina taught Principles of Management and International Business Classes.  In her International Business classes, she brought in international students and faculty from Peru, Venezuela, Mexico, and Latin America to join in her classes remotely.  As a bi-lingual faculty member, she was a consummate mentor to Latinx students, particularly Latina women who she mentored to continue their education and reach their career potential.  In the C. Lamar and Ann Wright School of Business at Dalton State, she served on the Student Affairs Committee, the Assurance of Learning and Assessment Committee, and the Strategic Planning Committee.  For Dalton State College, she was also the faculty co-sponsor for the Association of Latino Professionals for America (ALPFA) club for Latinx students and was a member of the campus-wide International Education Committee and the Hispanic Advisory Board and the DSC Diversity and Inclusion subcommittee and the DSC Latino Achievement Scholarship Committee.

Carolina was a skilled classroom professor and her achievements earned her the “Wright School of Business Barbara Shiffler (alumni) ’76 Award for Business Teaching” in Spring 2021. At the award presentation, Dean Marilyn Helms noted that Carolina was an excellent lecturer, skilled in bringing the global business world and international guest speakers along with actual company projects into the classroom. With an engaging manner she received comments such as these from students: “I loved that she offered online guest speakers”, or “the daily tasks that we completed at the end of class helped me remember key terms,” or “she made the class inviting and was excited to teach the material.  The interactive classes made it easier to comprehend the material,” and two of my favorites “I work the night shift and have taken other classes at this time and sleep always defeats me, but in this class, I never fell asleep because of her wonderful energy and the excitement she brought to the class.  She really knows how to keep the class awake and attentive.  She is a knowledgeable individual and she loves Dalton State and her students.” And finally, “I liked how we evaluated other countries and were encouraged to think about cultural differences that may affect worldwide business.  She is one of the best professors I’ve ever had, and I would retake the course if I could.”

For the community, she was involved with DSC’s Latin American Association grant, gathering information on Hispanic populations in Georgia.  This data was also the subject of her in-progress dissertation from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Her two other projects for the Latin American Association, were the Youth Leadership project where she and WSOB students presented in both English and Spanish to Morris Innovative High School Students, and an Entrepreneurship initiative for Latino business startups entitled Avanzando Juntas.  She, along with her business interns, were frequent speakers to area high school business classes and business clubs.

Recently she had worked with students to share their stories and translated recent DSC and WSOB articles into Spanish for publication in Dalton’s La Voz Spanish-language newspaper as well as the social media site, Diagme.

 With her ever-present focus on internationalization, she brought global speakers into her international business classes, this semester from Venezuela, Ecuador, and from Peru.  She was instrumental in linking WSOB faculty with doctoral students at Centrum University in Lima, Peru, for mentoring and joint research projects.   

Several of her intellectual contributions highlighting teaching with a global mindset had been published in our DSC Journal for Academic Excellence and the Dalton State Digest.  She presented topics on critical thinking and examining teaching effectiveness at two Bold Talks events.  She had research under review at the International Journal of Business and Emerging Markets. Her most recent article was published in the Journal of International Business Studies.

Carolina was in the prospectus stage of her dissertation and was ABD (all-but-dissertation) status at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga for her PhD in Learning and Leadership.  Her dissertation was in-progress and was entitled “Antecedents to Psychological Well-Being/Thriving:  Hispanics versus Other Ethnic Groups in North Georgia.”  Her UTC dissertation chair, Dr. Elizabeth (Beth) K. Crawford, was her mentor and sponsor and role model. She was particularly close to Ms. Becca McCashin, the Coordinator of the UTC Learning and Leadership Doctoral Program.  At DSC, she worked closely with Dr. Victor Marshall, Professor of Strategic Management and he mentored her on her dissertation and other research projects.

She held a Master of Business Administration degree (M.B.A.) from UTC and Bachelor of Accounting (B.A.) from the University of Carabobo in Venezuela. Mrs. Hammontree taught a variety of management courses including International Business, The Environment of Business, and Principles of Management. She was a Scholarly Practitioner in the Wright School of Business for her many intellectual contributions.

Mrs. Hammontree also taught undergraduate management courses at the University of Carabobo in Venezuela until 2014, place where she earned her B.A. Mrs. Hammontree was honored as the first student of a 260-student’s class and graduated with Cum Laude honors. The University of Carabobo is one of the most important and larger universities in Venezuela. It was founded in 1892, holds seven faculties, 25 Schools, including several Master and Doctoral programs, and around 65,000 students.

Business Professional Experience

Mrs. Hammontree possessed significant professional work experience in the field. In 1994, she was hired by an Oil and Petrochemical transnational organization in Venezuela Venoco where she worked for almost two decades. Some of the Venoco business partners were Mobil, BP, Shell, Texaco, Infineum, among others. As a part of Mrs. Hammontree professional development, in 2001, Venoco sent her to the US for a three-years educational plan. The first year at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville was to learn the English language. The second and third year at The University of Tennessee in Chattanooga was to earn a Master of Business Administration (MBA), in which she was honored as an outstanding student with a 4.0 GPA. After she finished her MBA, she returned to Venezuela and was promoted to Corporate Planning Manager.

Mrs. Hammontree had multiple tasks in the organization, including assisting the CEO and board of directors in several reengineering processes, one of them led by the consultant firm Arthur D Little, participating in the due diligence and valuation process for the acquisition of some domestic and international organizations, some of them are the Mobil and BP Lubricants and gas stations business in Venezuela, and working with the CFO and general managers to manage the working capital of the company to improve cash flow and survive the changing business environment in Venezuela.

Mrs. Hammontree led six business professionals and the main functions of her department were: (a) supporting the organization to be a global competitor, (b) preparing and analyzed annual budgets, including sales and cost detail at a material level, and department spending reports, (c) planning quarterly shareholder meeting, including review of all presentation materials, (d) preparing and analyzed five years plans to help determine strategic plans, (e) worked with program management to provide financial analysis to potential new business (project valuation), (f) tracking and reported departmental spending, reporting variances to budgets and forecast, (g) interacting with all divisions to help achieve continuous improvement and identify cost reduction opportunities, (h) Maintaining Key performance indicators (KPI), and (i) managing department of six analysts responsible for driving all business intelligence at the parent company level. In 2013, the company was expropriated by the government of Venezuela, and Mrs. Hammontree returned to the US.

Mrs. Hammontree led her own business with her husband, Charles. They owned Hammontree Construction, a real estate, remodeling, and construction business. Mr. Hammontree holds a construction license and more than 20 years of experience in construction and Mrs. Hammontree managed the financial administration of the business including financing, accounting, and taxes. They had built several houses and owned rental proprieties in Signal Mountain, TN, and East Ridge Chattanooga, TN.

In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to the “Maria Carolina Duarte Hammontree Scholarship to Latina Business Students” to the Dalton State Foundation, 650 College Drive, Dalton 30720 or online at: https://daltonstate.givingfuel.com/givenow

Celebration of Life Service