Robert M. Peterson, Ph.D. is Chair of the Professional Sales Department and Associate Professor of Sales at William Paterson University.
He earned his BS in business administration from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University. Upon his graduation, Dr. Peterson assumed his first sales position as a sales representative with Duplex Products, a national printer of forms and four-color products. While working in the company’s Washington D.C. office, he attended George Washington University and was awarded an MBA in international business. Dr. Peterson earned his PhD in marketing at the University of Memphis. His areas of interest included sales, negotiation, and entrepreneurship.
Dr. Peterson has previous experience as an Associate Professor of Marketing at the University of Portland, teaching on both the undergraduate and graduate levels. He has also taught and developed various professional and outreach programs, such as a negotiating skills and marketing strategy program for disadvantaged youths, and an effective marketing management course for the Executive Program for Entrepreneurs in Changchun, China.
Dr. Peterson has earned the American Marketing Association Innovative Teacher Award. His students have three times voted him Outstanding Undergraduate Professor and the Outstanding Graduate Professor of the Year. Additionally, he was awarded the Academy of Educational Leadership's Distinguished Teaching Award in 2001 for entrepreneurial education.
Dr. Peterson’s research has been published in Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of World Business, National Accounts Management, Business Horizons, Journal of Entrepreneurship Education, Entrepreneurial Executive, Journal Marketing Theory & Practice, and Journal of Marketing Education, among others.
Outside of his academic career, Dr. Peterson has numerous years of sales industry experience to his credit. He joined Data Broadcasting Corporation as an Account Executive, and sold real-time financial data for the stock and commodity markets before being promoted to Marketing Manager for the company’s San Mateo, CA office, where he was responsible for the introduction of new releases and interfaces to hardware and software platforms. Additionally, Dr. Peterson has worked as the International Exchange Coordinator for the City of Tonami in Japan.