Bio & Professional Affiliations

Resolve:  To appoint Dr. Elaine Potoker as Professor Emeritus.  Dr. Potoker has been an active and distinguished faculty member for 17 years.  Establishing the business minor, serving two terms as a Fulbright Scholar and assisting other faculty in obtaining Fulbrights. She has played a significant role in development of both the undergraduate and graduate business curriculum.  Her teaching excellence, service and scholarship have been a credit to herself and MMA.   
Dr. John Barlow, Academic Dean and Provost
April 30, 2014


Elaine S. Potoker (BA, SUNY, Potsdam, N.Y.; MAT, the University of Chicago; Ph.D. The Ohio State University) is Professor of Business Emeritus, retired from full-time teaching in Graduate and Undergraduate studies, of the Loeb-Sullivan School of International Business and Logistics at Maine Maritime Academy (MMA), Castine, Maine, in Fall, 2014. She was involved in academic life as Chair of the Curriculum Committee (Graduate Studies), Chair of Academic Policy and Standards, Coordinator and founder of the Business Minor, and Director of Caribbean and Central American Outreach during her 17 years at MMA.

Dr. Potoker is a twice recipient of the prestigious Fulbright Award (2007, 2012).  In 2007 Dr. Potoker was an invited researcher by the Research Institute Economic Science and Visiting Professor in Strategic Management at the School of Business Administration at the University of Costa Rica (San José).  In 2012 she was invited back through a Senior Specialist Fulbright Award to progress the study she completed in 2007 on the topic effective inventory management and its relationship Costa Rican competitive advantage in the realm of logistics.  Visit her blog, “Fulbright in Costa Rica,” for complete details.

Dr. Potoker's business experience includes travel in a management, training, sales and marketing capacity for over 20 years. She is formerly Coordinator of Central American Sales for Reed Mfg. Co., Erie, Pennsylvania.
Her academic and work experience includes international workforce training, development and performance metrics, management across cultures, business assessment and strategic planning, integrated marketing communications, and international management and marketing (Focus: Central American and the Caribbean).

Her professional affiliations include: Rotary International (former Board member), Maine International Trade Center, The Cleveland World Trade Association (former Board member), Council of Supply Chain Management. She occasionally is a reviewer for the American Marketing Association and the Academy of Management (International Division, Entrepreneurship, and Women in Management Division), and is listed in Who's Who in International Business, Who's Who, Women in Education, and Women in Business.

Additionally, Dr. Potoker is owner of Interloqui®, a firm that provides business consulting services in areas including, but not limited to organizational design, learning and human performance, human resource management, international marketing, and communication. See www.interloqui.com for more information.