31_UAFS_FW10:alum news
10/27/10
12:33 PM
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WWW.UAFORTSMITHALUMNI.COM
Alumni Weekend 2010 UA Fort Smith’s first-ever Alumni Weekend, Oct. 15-17, gave the institution a chance to do a little showing off for folks who might not have been back to campus for years or even decades. Fortunately, Mother Nature seemed in the mood to show off too, serving up one of those perfect River Valley autumn evenings as guests visited over hors d’oeuvres Saturday on the patio in front of ZACK THOMAS
Fullerton. MORE ONLINE: See the Alumni Weekend slideshow at www.uafortsmithalumni.com/ belltower.
LION FILE
‘The Best Thing that Could Have Happened’
UA Fort Smith BELL TOWER
ZACK THOMAS
where he earned a job and climbed the ladder quickly. He In 2006, Mike DeSanto ’08 lost his job at Whirlpool after a works as a lead systems analyst, managing programming year and a half of work on the production line. What didn’t look projects and supervising the GIS team. like a happy ending became “the best thing that could have “I’ve done my best with whatever they’ve given me to do, happened” when his layoff—the result of labor outsourcing— and the job and every promotion found me,” DeSanto says of made him eligible for Trade Adjustment Assistance, a federal his work at AOG. It’s amazing to compare that to what he was program that helps trade-affected workers who have lost their doing before opportunity knocked at UA Fort Smith, he says. jobs as a result of increased imports or shifts in production “Doors have just opened.” —Leslie Yingling out of the U.S. The program helped him and his family get by while he earned his B.S. in information technology at UA Fort Smith. It was his third stab at college—he had attended two other schools before “life happened” and he went to work—and because of the progress he’d already made, he was able to complete his degree in the two years of support that the TAA program provides. He finished with a 4.0 and a position on the dean’s list. DeSanto gained skills and experience quickly. After only one programming class, he was an easy pick for the programming team. “It gave me my first real exposure to programming under pressure,” he says, “and it got my name out there.” In early 2008, just as he was thinking about internship opportunities, a position opened at Arkansas Oklahoma Gas Corp., Mike DeSanto ’08 at the AOG business office in Fort Smith, September 2010
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