ROCKY MOUNTAIN COLLEGE
RMCALUMNIINTHENEWS Four RMC alumni featured in Billings Gazette’s 40 Under Forty Four Rocky Mountain College alumni received accolades as members of the 2013 class of “40 Under Forty,” which honored local business and community leaders in a recent issue of the Billings Gazette. The four related for Green & Gold how the leadership skills developed at RMC have served them since, in specific and holistic ways. Cory Albin’s (’04) successful
career as a Farm Bureau Insurance agent and financial services advisor is built on trust. “In insurance, you take care of your clients and maintain that relationship,” he said. He developed his mature outlook in part at RMC. Albin is a Sidney, Mont., native who transferred from University of Montana after a year focused on football. “I wanted to play now, not in a couple of years, and being at Rocky let me do that. At the time, I was more focused on football than on my career path so I took business classes because that is what came easiest to me. RMC was a great experience and I gained a lot out of the relationships I established there.” Albin does not trumpet his own role in maturing in his goals. He sold cars through college to earn a little money. “I have loved to buy and sell ever since I was little; anything from cars to cattle to houses. When I was 12, my dad took me to the bank to get my first loan to buy six cows. I had the characteristics of a kid who would
26
quit school to start a business or Science and Technology Consorsomething of that sort,” he said. tium. “It was one of the first and best online educational experiBut he didn’t quit. “I would’ve, ences in the college classroom,” but the teachers put up with my Hanel said. stuff and wouldn’t allow me to fail. They were really eager to help Hanel originally tried to avoid me. They made it so that if I com- his two RMC semesters of Cisco mitted, they would support me as networking courses, “yet they are far as I could go.” absolutely necessary in today’s world. Networking turned out to He continues to try to pay back be my greatest love.” the support he received. All-encompassing social effects Albin said, “I try to give back to of current technology were not the school that helped me achieve as apparent when Hanel commy goals by supporting RMC stu- pleted his work. “I studied Pascal dents as much as I can.” programming language at MSUB and Perl at RMC. Now continuAdam Hanel (’04) completed ing education is mainly in Cisco his information technology major networking. Most of what I deat RMC and now works as a se- sign will be obsolete in five years. nior network engineer and client When I finished, 10-megabyte service manager for Eide Bailly connections were the basic stanTechnology Consulting. He helps dard. Now standard network concompanies from Billings to Lon- nections are 100 times faster. If don with network and other tech- there were an RMC master’s program, I would go back to RMC in nological consulting. a heartbeat.” In his first college experience at Montana State University Billings, Yet Hanel noted how much he ap“I went to college because that’s preciates his work as a client serwhat you did,” he said. “I wasn’t vice manager. He said, “I find that sure what I wanted to study. After really rewarding, working to serve two years, my new wife and my people’s needs.” job created an opportune time to pay off loans.” He held a tech- A transfer student to Rocky nology job for four years before Mountain College, Drew Hedcoming to RMC to complete his rick (’08) took a business mandegree, which he finished while agement degree from RMC while working in network administration he gained regional press as quarfor Billings Public Schools. terback and captain of the football team. Though he did not choose Hanel’s IT major was offered in a career while in college, Hedrick the 2000s as a combination of has found success as a realtor with classroom and distance educa- Century 21 Hometown Brokers in tion coordinated by the Montana
Green & Gold
Volume 2, number 1