A Carlson School of Management search committee recently hired Mark Kizilos , an amateur orchestral and choral composer and the patent holder on a beverage lid dispenser, as the school’s new assistant dean for executive education.

Other than being a composer and inventor, Kizilos, a Mendota Heights native, has been an entrepreneur, tenure-track professor and vice president of talent management at Thompson Corporation – all since he left the University with his bachelor’s degree of psychology in 1987.

This varied background, with experience in both the business and academic worlds, is what made Kizilos a good fit for the position, Steve Parente , Carlson professor and a member of the search committee, said.

“To get executive education to work well in a business school we need a translator,” Parente said. “We need someone who – not to be too aloof about it – can interact with the faculty and understand their research at a very direct level,” he said.

As the new associate dean, Kizilos will be communicating between business executives and professors, running the various executive education programs offered at the business school.

Several of these programs are created specially through partnerships with some of the Fortune 500 companies head-quartered in the Twin Cities, like CHS and US Bancorp , Kizilos said.

In these company-customized programs, businesses send executives to Carlson for a series of two- to four-day workshops that focus on specific skill development, Kizilos said.

Other than these specialized programs, Kizilos will oversee the open enrollment executive programs, which focus on skill sets needed to manage businesses small and large, according to the Carlson Web site.

Kizilos said his new position will allow his work to impact multitudes of people.

“Let’s say you help one person who is a leader of a group,” he said. “Now you affect everyone underneath (them).”