2015 Summer Collegian

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8 Year in Review 12 Bobcat Voices FEAT UR E STOR IE S

14 The university’s record 18 “A fast ride to the top” 20 Lifelong friendships 22 Neville’s travels 26 Machi Block 28 Lunch with Lindy 30 “Johnny Bearpaws” 32 Pattons support scholarships 34 Striking up the band 36 A sweet legacy 36 Motivated to mentor 40 “Parkitecture” 42 Adapting to change

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7 Letter from the CEO

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COLLEGI A N 2015

ALU M NI

44 Calendar of events 56 Then and Now 58 Cat Treks 60 Financials 62 Alumni Legacy Scholarships 66 Class Notes 71 Membership map

This spring the new Jabs Hall, home of the MSU Jake Jabs College of Business & Entrepreneurship, had its grand opening. This state-of-the-art building, the result of a $25 million gift from MSU alumnus Jake Jabs in 2011, will impact MSU students and Montana’s economy for generations to come.

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4 JABS HALL KELLY GORHAM

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1935 graduate Edith (Johnson) Carlson greets MSU president Waded Cruzado on stage at the 2015 Spring Commencement ceremony.

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Commencement Reunion

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Vol. 92, No. 2 Summer 2015

E D I T O R I A L B O A R D Tracy Ellig ’92, Kerry Hanson ’93, ’08 M, Amy Falcione, Kathleen (Kitty) Saylor ’82, Caroline Zimmerman ’83 E D I T O R Caroline Zimmerman ’83 C R E AT I V E D I R E C T O R Ron Lambert D E S I G N A N D P R O D U C T I O N

MSU Office of Creative Services P H O T O G R A P H Y by Kelly Gorham ’95, MSU Photography (unless

otherwise noted) The Montana State Collegian (ISSN 1044-7717) is published four times a year by the Montana State University Alumni Foundation, Foundation & Alumni Center, P.O. Box 172750, Bozeman, MT 59717-2750.

Web address: msuaf.org MSU Alumni Foundation President & CEO Christopher D. Murray MSU Alumni Association Vice President of Alumni Relations Kerry Hanson ’93, ’08 M BOARD OF GOVERNORS Chair Cory Pulfrey ’82, Bozeman, Mont.

Vice Chair Jean (Bennington) Sweeney ’76, St. Paul, Minn.

Mark Bacigalupo ’80, St. Paul, Minn.

Alexander (Zander) Blewett ’67, Great Falls, Mont.

Susan Carstensen ’85, Bozeman, Mont.

Kay Chafey, Bozeman, Mont.

Mike Ferris ’68, Columbus, Ga. Richard (Dick) Harte ’70, Bozeman, Mont.

David L. Jackson, ’62, Helena, Mont.

David Kem ’67, ’00 HDR, Houston, Texas Helene (Almgren) Michael, ’85, ’13 HDR, Condon, Mont.

Robert Morrison ’77, ’78 M, Clancy, Mont.

Tristan P. Renz ’79, The Woodlands, Texas Mark Sherman ’97, Great Falls, Mont.

Jeff Sipes, ’86, Lake Tapps, Wash.

Mary Beth (Holzer) Walsh ’86, Twin Bridges, Mont.

Jim Williamson, ’71, Fort Peck, Mont.

ALUMNI RELATIONS ADVISORY BOARD Chair Jeff Sipes ’86, Lake Tapps, Wash.

Vice Chair Rainey Peuse ’97, Bozeman, Mont.

Jaden Erwin ’01, Helena, Mont.

Joe Ginalias, Miles City, Mont.

Marshall Kath, ’81, Dallas, Texas Doug Mohl ’86, Mount Pleasant, S.C. Carol (Jenni) Nelson, ’71, Bozeman, Mont.

Blake Rasmussen, ’06, Antelope, Mont.

Alyssa Reynolds, ’99, ’01 M, Las Vegas, Nev. Denise (Kelley) Seilstad, ’77 Denton, Mont.

Nancy (Smith) Seleski, ’86, St. Paul, Minn.

Eric Simonsen ’91, ’87, Billings, Mont Daniel Smith, ’83, Polson, Mont.

Ginny (Swan) Sullivan ’87, Missoula, Mont.

Mary Beth (Holzer) Walsh ’86, Twin Bridges, Mont.

Student Alumni Association Representative Samantha Brandon, Portland, Ore. Bobcat Club Representative John Smith ’79, Butte, Mont.

Legislative Committee Chantel McCormick Schieffer ’99, Bozeman, Mont.

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Montana State University Alumni Association Chapters For more information about chapters in your area, contact Allison Hupp at 800-457-1696 or chapters@msuaf.org.

Billings Area Jomarie Bliss ’95 Drew LeVeaux ’09 Laura Bishop ’72 Keith Rupert ’66 Joan Kalberg ’69 Kelly Sharp Jared Harris ’01 Kristin Piccioni ’02 Boise Valley MSUAA Boise Valley Shaun Kochivar ’95 Brad Schmidt ’91 Scott Jeide ’97 Luanne Tangedal ’81 Mac McOmber ’70 Kevin Majerus ’07 Bonnie McOmber Laura Knothe ’92 Matt Park ’06 Columbia River MSUAA Columbia River Ted Reichelt ’74 Alanna Woods ’96 Haley Reutimann ’12 Colin Ingram ’03 Bob Bradford ’86 Amanda Ferrat ’01 Flathead Valley MSUAA Flathead Valley Stephanie Parson ’98 Ryan Lalum ’12 Jeannie Luckey ’82 Tucker Hankinson ’12 Bailey Lalum ’12 Carol Nelson ’71 Gallatin Valley MSUAA Gallatin Valley Devney Perry ’04 Jeff Lusin ’07 Morgan Rangel ’10 Bill Gum ’67 Rainey Peuse ’97 Barry Jeide ’99 Dani Clark ‘14 Chantelle Mahan ’93

Greater Twin Cities Area John Swaney ’76 Jody Collis King ’89 Tom Zimmerman ’10 Candance Roberts ’75 Jerod Fehrenbach ’02 Kimberley Klepzig ’00 Alyson Phillips ‘00 Deb Creenen ’83 Steve Erban ’66 Houston Area MSUAA Houston Area Mary Ann Pearce ’76 David Ayers ’81 Jodi (Thelen) Wolf ’07 Alicia Pollock ’08 Heidi Sherick ’91, ’01 Mile High MSUAA MHC Al Nelson ’78 Brad Davis ’00 Cody Christman ’91 Marjorie Barnes ’63 Traci Shanahan Williams ’92 Marcus Boyd ’71 Cameron Danforth ’14 Puget Sound MSUAA Puget Sound Jeff Sipes ’86 Holly Kessler ’02 Stephanie Bunkley ’89 Rob Ward ’86 Gus Mehlhaff ’11 Nolan Morgan ’08 Phil Clum ’85 Marla Patterson ’73 Melissa Donaldson ’09 Kevin Bangen ’13 Sleeping Giant (Greater Helena Area) Jaden Erwin ’01 Kris Inabnit ’76 Ken Inabnit ’76 Carrie Krepps ’03 Maureen Maddio ’88 VJ Maddio ’88 Ingrid McLellan ’03 David Peretto ’94 Brandi Pierson ’96 Dawn Wrigg ’87

#msucollegian M O N TA N A S TAT E U N I V E R S I T Y A L U M N I A S S O C I AT I O N

Dear Alumni & Friends Welcome to your new and improved Collegian magazine. For 90 years no publication has played a more important role than the Collegian in engaging and connecting you and generations of alumni to Montana State University. Simply put, this publication is a handson, tangible reminder of the power, emotion and sense of place that is MSU. We hope the improvements we’ve made will meet with your approval, and that the Collegian will continue to be a way for you to “come back” to your university.

As a newcomer to the MSU family, it didn’t take long for me to see what makes your university so special—it is the people. Our faculty, students and staff are exceptional. They could be anywhere and on any campus but they choose to be here. They are passionate, talented and engaged. But it is our alumni who truly embody the university and its power to transform lives.

In this issue you’ll read about graduates who have been transformed by MSU and who are, in turn, transforming our world. A musician in the Army, an architect, a freelance journalist, an agricultural diplomat, a mountain biker, cherry growers and a clothing line entrepreneur. Such is the breadth and depth of the Bobcat Family.

Our alumni share one common bond: MSU made a difference in their lives. That reality inspires many of them to stay connected, and I hope you are among them. Be it through your academic achievements, your extra curricular activities on campus, a faculty member who was instrumental in your life and your success, lifelong friendships or just the beauty and inspiration of Bozeman, staying connected is about honoring the place that made you, you.

The Collegian is a great way to stay connected, and I hope you enjoy this issue and the stories that reflect the impact MSU has made and continues to make on our students, our graduates and our world.

As always, we’d love to hear from you. Please share your feedback on the improvements we have made or the stories we have highlighted. And, as you know, our class notes section is a place for updates like job changes, promotions or other exciting news about your life. Send us your comments and give us your ideas. The Collegian is your magazine, and we want your input.

Thank you for all you do for MSU. Happy reading and Go Bobcats!

Warmly,

Chris Murray Montana State University Alumni Foundation President & CEO

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Year in Review MSU professor receives prestigious award

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MSU astrophysicist Nico Yunes, who investigates some of the biggest mysteries in the universe, won the world’s most prestigious award for young scientists conducting gravitational research.

Center for Biofilm Engineering marks 25th Anniversary In July, Montana State University’s Center for Biofilm Engineering marked its 25th anniversary at its semiannual conference with representatives from 35 companies and eight universities.

During the past 25 years, the center has led the way in bringing this littleunderstood microbial phenomenon into focus. Biofilms are known to cost a wide range of industries and health care billions annually.

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Three Montana State University students received the prestigious Goldwater Scholarship, the nation’s premier scholarship for undergraduates studying math, natural sciences and engineering. MSU has now produced 64 Goldwater scholars, keeping the university one of the nation’s top institutions for number of recipients.

MSU inducted to Rodeo Hall of Fame The Montana Pro Rodeo Hall and Wall of Fame announced in January that MSU was inducted as a Great Montana College Rodeo Program. Honorary doctorate degree recipient and friend of the MSU College of Agriculture, Buck Brannaman, was also inducted as a Legend.

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Diversity Award MSU is one of only 83 institutions from across the nation — and the only university in Montana — to receive the 2014 Higher Education Excellence in Diversity, or HEED, award from INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine, the oldest and largest diversity-focused publication in higher education.

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Montana State University recently received recognition for its scientific impact and collaboration. The university earned the 302nd spot on the CWTS Leiden Ranking for 2014, which ranks the 750 universities in the world with the largest contributions in international scientific journals. Unlike other university ranking systems, the Leiden Ranking focuses exclusively on measuring citation impact and scientific collaboration.

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MSU’s scientific impact

“I wrote a whole book called ‘Death by Black Hole.’ People just love that, and kids love it. I thought, well that’s really creepy if kids like stuff like that, but kids also like T. rex better than vegetarian dinosaurs. I conclude that kids like things that can eat them.”

—N E I L DEG R A S S E T YS ON

Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and one of the most recognized science communicators in America presented a lecture on March 4 at Brick Breeden Fieldhouse. Host of the Fox and National Geographic popular TV program “Cosmos: A SpaceTime Odyssey,” Tyson is currently the Frederick P. Rose director of the Hayden Planetarium at the Rose Center for Earth and Space in New York City. The lecture was hosted by the MSU Leadership Institute.

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2015

Year in Review Hilleman honored

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MSU graduate Maurice Hilleman ’41, who saved the lives of millions by developing a wide array of vaccines, was inducted into the Gallery of Outstanding Montanans in Helena at the State Capitol Rotunda on March 5.

Tree Campus USA The Arbor Day Foundation has named Montana State University a 2014 Tree Campus USA in honor of its commitment to effective campus forest management and for engaging staff and students in conservation goals. It is the third year in a row that MSU has earned the designation.

MSU has received a $10.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health targeting health disparities in rural Montana. The grant will allow MSU to establish a Center for Health Equity Research and research a variety of health issues faced by rural Montanans.

Historic Antarctica research Using a specially designed hot-water drill to cleanly bore through a half mile of ice, a team of researchers, which included faculty and students from MSU, was the first ever to reach and sample the “grounding zone,” where Antarctic ice, land and sea all converge. The data they gathered in January will provide clues about the mechanics of ice sheets and their potential effects on sea-level rise, according to researchers on the project.

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A top art and design school Montana State University art and design programs have received full accreditation from the National Association of Schools of Art and Design, acknowledging MSU as one of the top schools of art and design in the country.

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Montana State University recently earned the 144th spot on The Business Journals’ 2015 list ranking U.S. public colleges. It is the highest rank earned by an institution in Montana.

The Business Journals’ rankings are based on several factors, including retention and graduation rates, admissions processes, tuition and housing costs, diversity of faculty and student bodies, and economic strength of communities.

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MSU earns top Montana spot on list ranking U.S. public colleges

“Montana State University — MSU and its president Waded Cruzado — cast a vision several years ago to be an institutional leader in veteran support and career development.”

—RYA N LUC H AU, Impact Montana Founder and Director

Montana State University is the first recipient of a new award that honors organizations for their impact on Montana’s veterans. For its service to the military, MSU received the “Impact Montana Organizational Award” during the Montana Military Community Appreciation Gala held Feb. 20, 2015, in Helena.

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They did exactly what I imagined.

I couldn’t imagine a more perfect building.

It will raise the bar on how education is done.

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Bobcat Voices —Jake Jabs ’52 at the ribbon cutting for the new home of the Jake Jabs College of Business and Entrepreneurship

At some point I want everyone to take the time to thank the people who have been there on their journey. Oh yeah, and don’t forget to have fun.

—Outgoing ASMSU president Destini French ’15, from her commencement speech

It is easy to be proud of MSU, particularly with the excitement Dr. Cruzado generates. She is a dynamo and truly reflects the excellence of MSU. As they say ’Dynamite comes in small packages.’ We ’Cats don’t have to play second fiddle to anyone.

– Commencement Reunion attendee Bill Erickson ’65

We were so excited to get our new ’Cats piggy banks!

Thank you so much! Go ’Cats!

— Future ’Cat members Remington & Charlee Cline

Life is a game: Play it.

Life is a challenge: Meet it.

Life is an opportunity: Take it.

—Honorary Doctorate and morning 2015 Spring Commencement speaker Robert Lee ’15

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“Staff and faculty come and go, and administrations change over the years. What remains the same is our alumni, and what builds community among them, through stories, is the Collegian.”

—Jaynee Groseth, president emerita of the MSU Alumni Association

The university’s record A short history of the Montana State Collegian

BY JE N N Y L AV E Y

Volume One, Issue One, of the Montana State Collegian was published 91 years ago on December 4, 1924. That first issue was a four-page standard newspaper layout published by then Montana State College (MSC) when Alfred Atkinson was the university’s third President.

President Atkinson served as the Collegian’s first editorin-chief and in his very first editor’s note, he wrote that MSC was “busy selling itself to its citizens” touting “no product more distinctly Montana in character than the state’s own higher educational institutions” exclaiming “a new and wonderful loyalty to and pride in Montana State sweeping ahead of us.”

In this same issue, a vocational conference was advertised; for men, agricultural and mechanical arts were listed, and for women, art and home economics. The MSU Bobcat football team played seven games that fall, with a 5-2 record (seven games qualified the

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team for the Rocky Mountain Conference), and the Bobcats had “walloped Missoula in a recent rivalry.”

Butte sent the highest number of students to the university that year: 45, followed by Great Falls, which sent 27. Many recent graduates were taking jobs with the Anaconda Mining Company as agronomists, chemists and engineers. The “personals in ag” listed Gery Von Vost, who had made extensive improvements on his farm in Geraldine, Mont. Albert Lux ’24, of Platwillow, Mont., reported a fair crop and offered a turkey dinner to alumni visitors. Births (all of them at home), deaths and marriages were listed.

Georgia Callum Roosevelt wrote

to say she had left for California for a visit of several months.

Much has changed since that inaugural issue of the Collegian.

There are more buildings on campus, more graduates, and parking lots and residence halls have spilled into wheat fields. Through the decades of change, one thing has remained constant — the Collegian magazine has been written, shared and celebrated with its larger MSU family, always harkening to its original mission of “connecting alumni with their alma mater.”

Some identify the Collegian’s avid readership as “full of vim,” others as “bleeding blue and gold” or having “Bobcat fever.”

Whatever the term for readers

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far and wide who treasure the magazine, the Collegian has printed stories showcasing and celebrating the talent, grit and accomplishments of the many faces and personalities that have attended MSU and left their mark, in some way or another, on the university.

In 1937, volume 13, issue four, MSC reported a record enrollment of 1,245 students and noted a change in the Collegian “making its debut in a new, popular dress” charging $2 an issue for subscribing alumni. Jean Young of Helena, MSC alumna, was noted as the first licensed woman aviatrix in Montana.

In 1955, volume 21, fully trained chemists and engineers were featured as the most “in-demand workforce” and the MSC’s teacher education program highlighted the state’s steep shortage of public school

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teachers. The Collegian was published quarterly.

In 1975, MSC had been renamed to Montana State University and had tenured eight presidents, each profiled in volume 51. This same issue reported the rise of computer science degrees in an article titled “Talking with Computers: You Have to Learn the Language or You Won’t Understand What the Machines are Telling You.” In 1985, volume 62, issue four, “America Belongs to the Bobcats” was featured, highlighting the big win over the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs at 19-6, to claim the NCAA I-AA national football championship and the Big Sky Conference the previous year.

In 1990, volume 67, issue four , MSU unveiled its first themed license plates that would benefit a university scholarship endowment. This program still exists

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and in 1994, MSU was the national leader in collegiate license plates sales, numbering more than 3,285 sold. Today, there are two MSU-themed plates and one Bobcat Club license plate.

In 1992, volume 69, issue two, Wheat Montana CEO and MSU alumni Dean and Hope Folkvord both ’82, set a Guinness Record for the amount of time it takes to turn wheat to bread at eight minutes and 13 seconds. The first Boeing 777 wide-body airliner was designed and constructed with more than two dozen MSU alumni working in civil engineering at Boeing.

What weaves these distinct and invariably unique legacies together is that they all are rooted in Montana State University. These are the stories that illustrate the power of the university and impact on its most committed group of stakeholders: its alumni.

“Staff and faculty come and go, and administrations change over the years,” said Jaynee Groseth ’73, ’91 M, president emerita of the MSU Alumni Association and previous Collegian editorial board member of 20 years. “What remains the same is our alumni and what builds community among them, through stories is the Collegian.”

Groseth served as editor of the Collegian in her role as Alumni Association president and reviewed story ideas with a campus-wide editorial committee for each issue. She recalled a handful of particular stories that will stay with her forever, Blake Rasmussen ’06, ASMSU student body president ’04–05, who boasts both parents and both sets of grandparents as Bobcat graduates, a true legacy family; and the group of alumni in Culbertson, Mont., who gave an MSU scholarship to one girl and one boy with a poker game as the application — the winner

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received the scholarship. In 1993, the year of the university’s centennial, Groseth sought out MSU’s oldest living alumna, Florence Gray 1916, at 101 years old. After the story was written touting Gray as MSU’s oldest and dearest, Emma Taylor 1916, wrote in, claiming she was indeed the school’s oldest alumna, with a birthday preceding Taylor by a few days.

The list goes on and on and Groseth tears up a bit when she recalls the impact and influence of the Collegian.

“I always felt it was an honor and a tremendous responsibility to imagine what our alumni would like to hear from their university,” she said. “What came from that effort is a lifetime of stories that have intertwined the successes, advancements and highlights of the university and its alumni. In all of its various forms, the Collegian has been

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“The Collegian is one of those really special publications that celebrates all walks of life; not just people who were academic stars as students, but a wide spectrum of people who have had success and impact in their careers and their community.”

—Kerry Hanson, vice president of alumni relations

an important way for alumni to come back to MSU through words and pictures, so it’s a very special publication.”

Kerry Hanson ’93, ’08 M, vice president of alumni relations, said the magazine is the place where all of MSU is celebrated.

“The Collegian is one of those really special publications that celebrates all walks of life; not just people who were academic stars as students, but a wide spectrum of people who have had success and impact in their careers and their community,” said Hanson.

“MSU alumni do an incredibly diverse amount of things and they do them very well, and the Collegian is a record of these inspiring lives and accomplishments that demonstrate what MSU is capable of producing.”

Print transitions The publication has taken many forms over its history, responding to the format popular for readers of the time. From the 1920s–1940s, it was published as a quarterly newspaper. In the 1950s–1970s, it was a single-fold newsletter featuring

200-word highlights. In 1993, it morphed into a glossy magazine—popular for the readership that remains today. Some years it was printed up to five times, some editions going only to Alumni Association members.

Now, in 2015, the Collegian has yet again been revised by collating four issues each year into a single annual publication.

Chris Murray, president and CEO of the MSU Alumni Foundation, said the latest iteration of the publication will be a more substantial issue, with longer stories and seasoned photog-

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raphy, in an extended, more in-depth format that readership will be proud to have grace their living room coffee tables.

“The Collegian is the Alumni Foundation’s most important publication and readership piece,” Murray said. “It engages, educates and celebrates the good work of MSU’s people, programs and places. There are so many great stories to tell about the university and our alumni and we want to share those so our alumni know what’s happening at their university.”

Murray added that he hopes readers respond to the new look and feel, as alumni and friends have done in decades past.

“I want them to be proud of their university, I want them to be amazed at the quality and the breadth and the impact of Montana State University,” Murray said. “Universities change lives. That’s what I think people understand about MSU and its power, they understand what the university does every day — it changes lives, and it’s the role of the Collegian to tell those stories.”

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Excerpt from President Alfred Atkinson’s letter from the Collegian Issue One, Volume One “Get on the band-wagon with those ‘I told you so’s’, who have helped to boost Montana State College until today she stands with the best in the country in scholastic standards, quality of graduates, power of athletes and leadership in activities.”

“The few remaining doubting Thomases are waking from their sleep to discover that their Alma Mater has gone far ahead of them. Don’t stop to wonder if you

What do you think about the new Collegian?

Send us your feedback at collegian@msuaf.org or share your thoughts on social media with #msucollegian. We look forward to hearing from you.

are proud of M.S.C., but take time occasionally to wonder if M.S.C is proud of you. Are your alumni dues paid up; are you boosting for the school that made possible your better success in life? Answer those questions with action.”

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Stephen Ettinger

—Stephen Ettinger

’A fast ride to the top’

BY C A ROL SCHMID T

For Stephen Ettinger ’12 it has been all about the bike since he showed up at Montana State University as a freshman in 2007 expecting to become a Bobcat Nordic skier.

During his first week in the Roskie residence hall, the native of Cashmere, Wash., who has mountain biked since he was age 10, traveled to Scotland to compete in the Mountain Bike World Championships with the U.S. National Team.

“It was a terrible race,” recalled Ettinger. “Our team was miserable. But I did well enough that I thought that realistically I might have a shot in competitive mountain biking.”

Ettinger said that it also helped that the week he arrived at MSU, the Bobcat Nordic team was unexpectedly full of Norwegian skiers and there wasn’t really a spot for him. So, he turned his focus to endurance mountain biking.

“It has all worked out,” he said with a shrug.

It certainly has.

Since his freshman year, Ettinger has become the topranked North American mountain biking cross-country rider. Some of his most recent accomplishments include winning the 2014 Pan American Continental Cross Country championship, the 2014 Short Track National Championship, the 2014 Fontana U.S. Cup Short Track, and taking second in the 2014 U.S. National Marathon

Championship. In 2013 he was the U.S. National Cross-Country Champion and was second in the U.S. National Marathon Championships. In 2013, he also won the Elite men ProXCT Vermont Short Track, the Elite Canada Cup UCI C1 at Mont Tremlant and the Canada Cup UCI C1 Bae-St-Paul.

Ettinger recalls traveling throughout the U.S. and Europe to compete and podium in races, and then returning to MSU, his studies and to take finals. He said while “everyone at MSU was incredibly supportive,” not many of his classmates knew what he was doing, even when he earned professional status his freshman year.

He was asked to race for the BMC Mountainbike Development Team in 2011, and before he graduated from MSU with highest honors in exercise science, he had become the U23 National Champion, was third at the Pan American Championships, and eighth in the U23 World Cup Overall with multiple top-five finishes. He had also been a member of the Pan American Games Team, signed his first professional contract with the BMC Mountainbike Racing Team and was named to the Olympic Long Team.

It’s been a fast ride to the top for the 26-year-old, who competes in a sport recognized for endurance rather than the crushing strength and bravado of downhill mountain biking.

Ettinger explains that Olympicspecific cross-country mountain bike races are run on courses that are four to six kilometers long. Each race is six or eight laps, and the race usually totals about 1.5 hours long. In Europe, the cross-country races and its racers are tremendously popular, particularly in Switzerland, Germany and Italy, said Ettinger, who lived in Switzerland for a time following his MSU graduation.

Ettinger has had a steady climb up the rankings, with a breakout year in 2013 when he won his first professional title and earned the distinction of becoming one of the top-ranked riders in North America.

Yet, in Bozeman, where he lives with his girlfriend, Corrine Malcolm ’15, a former Bobcat skier who has who trained with the U.S. Olympic biathlon team in Lake Placid, N.Y., he has welcome anonymity when he trains in the gym (“lots of strength work”) and on area trails and roads. He is also an avid backcountry skier when he isn’t traveling, which isn’t often. He estimates he travels 180 days a year.

Ettinger said his top rankings have been surreal, especially since “I never had a long-term plan for a professional career.”

He credits his ability to be analytical following a race as well as his deep love for his sport with his success.

“In any sport, you are going to have a lot more bad days than good days,” Ettinger said. “When that happens, I’m able to look at it objectively and see what went wrong. I also check in with my values and re-center myself.

Knowing and remembering what those good days feel like can be incredibly motivating.”

Ettinger said his persistence, competitiveness and his love of challenge also have contributed to his success.

His next challenge is making the U.S. Olympic team for the 2016 Olympics in Rio. “Right now, the biggest question is whether (the U.S.) will have one or two positions for the Olympics.

We should know more about that next May,” Ettinger said.

Ettinger is the premier rider in his age group and feels if he stays healthy he will have a good shot at the Olympics.

“I am focused on doing as well as I can and making each race better than the last. If I continue to do that, I think I can be on the Olympic team in 2016.”

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“I am focused on doing as well as I can and making each race better than the last. If I continue to do that, I think I can be on the Olympic team in 2016.”

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—Julie Long

Lifelong friendships

BY M A R JORIE SMI T H

The mission statement of Alpha Omicron Pi sorority is “Women enriched by lifelong friendships.” It’s clearly a mission accomplished for two dozen women who graduated from Montana State College in 1965, a month before the school was renamed Montana State University.

In 1961 about 30 young women met as freshman pledges of AOII. After more than half a century, most of them are still in regular contact. “After graduation,” says Phyllis (Hess) Breeden, “many got married, some started their careers, and some did both. We all went in different directions.”

Although she was sure that on her first day at Montana State, she’d met the man she would eventually marry, Phyllis joined Robin (Groshelle) Ornelas after they received their degrees and, “We drove to Redondo Beach, Calif., and began our teaching careers.”

“When Jackie (Cooper) Rice came to visit us, we started thinking about the AOIIs and how we needed to stay in touch,” she remembers. “We pooled the addresses we had, wrote to some girls’ parents, and by 1967 we

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had enough addresses to start our letter.”

Phyllis and Robin asked their sorority sisters to send a letter describing what they’d done since graduation. “In those days, as teachers with access to ditto machines,” says Julie Long, “they retyped the letters onto ditto stencil paper and then made multiple copies to mail to everyone.”

Once Phyllis married Bill Breeden ’65 and moved to Alaska, says Julie, “the typing of all the letters fell upon Robin’s shoulders. Usually about 20 sisters sent letters, so it was no small task typing them, collating them and mailing them. In a sense, Robin has been the glue for this group by maintaining the letter exchange.”

“Every two years we shared news about our careers, families and children,” says Robin. She

believes that living together for four years in the sorority house gave their friendships a solid foundation. “We also were an unusual pledge class in that before us most of the women married early, and there was only a handful of each pledge class left at graduation. We broke that mold and graduated together. It was possibly the beginning of women’s independence!”

The proliferation of copy machines made the letter process simpler, but reunions enhanced the sisterhood.

“In 1995 Sharon (Van Noy) Berger and I proposed our first reunion after 30 years,” says Julie. “Seven of us stayed at the AOII house in Bozeman that July.

We talked until 2:00 a.m. the first night. We slept on the third floor in the same bunk beds we had used as undergrads. It

PHOTO COURTESY OF MSU ALUMNI FOUNDATION

2015

“We still share the same silly jokes, laugh at one another, and yet love each other for each person’s individuality and what she brings to the group. We have all gone different directions in life and have had varying challenges, but down deep, we are who we are and each deserves and receives respect.”

AOII alumnae present in May: (Back row, from left) Dean (Burgess) Brooks, Marilyn (Mosher) Bowman, Phyllis (Hess) Breeden, Sharon (Van Noy) Berger, Peggy (Flynn) Larsen, Julie Long, (Front row, from left) Barbara (Hoffman) Erickson, Shirley (Vice) Collins, Shirley Nash, Jackie (Cooper) Rice, Nada (Kathan) Christiansen and Robin (Groshelle) Ornelas.

was as though 30 years hadn’t elapsed at all.”

“That reunion was so much fun, we decided to do it again,” Phyllis says. In 2000 they got together in Port Townsend, Wash., where Robin lived. Julie remembers, “I rented a big van and 13 of us drove around the Olympic Peninsula for three days taking in the sights.”

In 2005, 19 AOIIs met in Big Fork, Mont. “We wore red T-shirts and rode a red bus into Glacier Park the first day,” says Julie. In 2008 they were at Big Sky where Phyllis and Bill Breeden live when they’re not in Alaska.

In Red Lodge in 2011, Julie says, “We decided we should meet every two years so we went to Bozeman in 2013 for Homecoming.”

Their recent reunion, in Bozeman in May, was timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of their graduation. “We did the whole thing,” Phyllis says.

“We wore the golden caps and gowns, toured the campus and wore special T-shirts designed by Barbara (Hoffman) Erickson.”

Phyllis says that five members of the original pledge class have passed away, and two or three have never responded to their invitations. But for Robin, “the continued relationship with my sorority sisters means the world to me. They are a part of my history and the continued friendship is part of my being. There is something special about old friends because we know each other’s history.”

“it takes someone to organize it Phyllis acknowledges that the and keep it going. I’m not sure future of Greek societies has that the young people today are become less certain in the past as close as our pledge class was half century (MSU has lost two now that men are allowed in the of the six sororities that were on house to study and there are no campus when she was an undergrad). “I think in our era, sorority curfews. Maybe today closeness and bonding is different.” membership was a huge factor “We still share the same silly in keeping us in school and on track to graduate. As freshmen, jokes, laugh at one another, and yet love each other for each we each had an AOII big sister who helped us negotiate the chal- person’s individuality and what she brings to the group. We have lenges of being away from home.

And then in our upper-class years, all gone different directions in life and have had varying challenges, we were big sisters to younger but down deep, we are who students, and that helped keep us focused.” we are and each deserves and Robin says that for today’s receives respect,” Julie says students keeping in touch is probably easier because of email, texting and Facebook, but for the deep relationship she’s maintained with her AOII sisters,

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SARDINIA DAN PATITUCCI

2015

Neville’s travels

By Sepp Jannotta

Ask travel writer Tim Neville ’97 to describe the mental snapshots that illustrate his career, and you’ll get a slideshow that includes scuba diving Fiji’s famed Great White Wall, backpacking ancestral mountain routes in Albania, sharing a fleeting smile with a traffic cop in the carless streets of the North Korean capital, night climbing the Great Pyramids and meditating on the untrammeled beauty of Mongolia’s grasslands. These stories and many others have run in the pages of Outside, The New York Times and Men’s Journal.

Ask him for the images that capture where this career was born, and he’ll paint a picture of finding his calling, his creativity and his community in the classic college newsroom that is home to MSU’s Exponent. In that cluttered room full of antiquated computers and paste-up layout stations, he discovered the joy of pursuing stories and avidly collecting the facts that would help him tell them, of learning journalism from the ground up.

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#msucollegian M O N TA N A S TAT E U N I V E R S I T Y A L U M N I A S S O C I AT I O N 

Tim Neville, who cut his journalistic chops at the Montana State University Exponent, jots some notes on the return from a hike called the Selvaggio Blu while on assignment in Sardinia, Italy, for the New York Times in 2008.

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GALAPAGOS CHAD CASE

CHEESE DAN PATITUCCI

BALKANS CHAD CASE

2015

“I learned more up there in that room, no offense to my professors, than I did in any of my classes,” Neville said. “I was getting to learn about a lot of different things. I was learning to follow my curiosity. I loved it — we’d be up there until 2 o’clock in the morning, and I think I was getting paid $350 a month once I’d moved up to be features editor. It wasn’t about the money. It was about the community and the opportunity the Exponent gave me to learn the business.”

It was a start that led to a reporting job at the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, assignments from Outside magazine and, finally, a sustainable freelance career that has him traveling the globe. The tally on his passport now stands at 70 different countries. His work has been featured in the “Best American Travel Writing”

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and “Best American Sports Writing” anthologies.

While he started his writing career in Bozeman, Neville credits high school heartbreak for instilling his lust for adventure.

“I was in a bad place, and I moved into a tent in our backyard and stayed out there for five months or more,” Neville said. “I was out there so long that my parents basically rented out my room. And it turned out that it was the best thing ever, because it totally opened my eyes to the idea that you think you know what life’s about but then you change one little thing and it opens up a whole new perspective on the world.”

As it turned out, the travel bug bit him while he lived in that tent in his parents’ yard on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

“I remember thinking, ’If the world can be this interesting just living in a tent a few feet from

home, what would the world be like if, when the zipper came up in the morning, I was in a whole different country,’” Neville said.

Neville said that idea has stayed at the core of everything he’s done since, starting with his adventure-filled first year after high school in the Swiss Alps and his transferring from the University of South Carolina to MSU for college. Though he’d never been to the American West, Neville said he was sold when the brochure he received from MSU came emblazoned with the “Mountains and Minds” slogan and an inspiring image of a young person relaxing atop a jaw-dropping peak.

When he walked into the Exponent office during his sophomore year in search of a writing job, Neville was instead offered the role of page designer.

Because he liked the feel of the place, he took it. Neville

eventually received a writing assignment that he remembers as a one-source story about some film students who went to the Sundance Film Festival. “I slaved over it,” Neville said.

His editors quickly began to give him complex assignments.

“I remember thinking, ’This guy can process and synthesize a lot of information and get to the meat of the real story,’” said Tawna Fenske ’97, formerly editor-in-chief of the Exponent and now writer of romantic comedy fiction.

Neville started in general studies before settling into an English literature major with a concentration in French, Spanish and German. “I really liked languages,” he said.

Neville said Bozeman was inspiring because it showcased a group of writers and adventurers who had decided that their careers would revolve around the

#msucollegian M O N TA N A S TAT E U N I V E R S I T Y A L U M N I A S S O C I AT I O N

ALBANIA CHAD CASE

outside world and environmental issues. It reinforced the idea that travel writing and freelancing was a viable way to make a living. Neville said he just needed to find a way to turn his newly acquired chops as a reporter into a reputation that would land him assignments.

While writing for the Exponent, Neville landed his first freelance assignment — about Montana kids who earned money for college by competing on the rodeo circuit.

The story was published in the college industry publication U. Magazine.

After his stint at the Chronicle, Neville made his way to Bolivia and Peru, where he teamed up with his then girlfriend on a story about bicycle travelers. Back in the states, he drove from his parents’ home in Maryland over to Santa Fe, N.M., for an internship at Outside.

His pay was $5.15 per hour, but that didn’t matter. The gig was his first real foot in the door, Neville said. His internship tenure of four months quickly became eight months, before morphing into a staff job.

“All of a sudden I was at a magazine, learning how pitch meetings worked and what would fly and what never would,” Neville said.

Even when his pay grade improved, Neville continued saving enough money to fund his next trip. Neville said he once got a $500 assignment from Outside in the Philippines and took 59 days off to pursue it, employing journalistic skills first honed at MSU to “tease out the fabric of a place.”

Neville said the networking he did at Outside was game changing. When he relocated to Bend, Ore., where he still lives with his

wife and daughter, editors he’d become acquainted with while at Outside sought him out to write stories on one of the West’s upand-coming small cities.

Through the years the reputation he hoped for has solidified.

Neville said he can pitch stories that might require an extended trip to Uzbekistan or the Balkans and know that he’ll get a legitimate hearing from the person on the other end of the phone.

“It’s super humbling to have an editor say ’This is going to be great,’ and send me off to do a story like that,” Neville said. “Back when I walked into that room upstairs in the SUB, I couldn’t have imagined having such a fun and rewarding career.

It’s amazing to think that it all started there at the Exponent.”

Opposite: During a multi-day mountain trek in the Balkans region, Tim Neville (at right) chats with one of his hosts at a lodge in Valbona, Albania, while on assignment for the New York Times in 2012.

Neville poses among the halls of L’Étivaz, a speciality cheesemaker, in Switzerland on assignment for Ski magazine about hunting down some fondue masters in February 2015.

Neville mugs for the camera during a dive with the sea lions off San Cristobal Island in the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador, for a New York Times story.

Above: Neville looks out from an abandoned machine gun bunker in Albania, near the border with Montenegro in the Accursed Mountains, during an exploratory hike through Montenegro, Albania, and Kosovo in 2012.

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2015

Machi Block is living his passion

BY JORDA N SIMK INS

Machi Block ’10 spends a great deal of his time traveling the world promoting his Elevated Clothing line. Ten years ago, he was selling T-shirts he designed and printed from his home in Bozeman.

In search of a creative outlet a decade ago, the then 16-yearold stumbled upon the idea to design and print screened T-shirts. After one head turned in the Bozeman mall looking at his T-shirt, several more people began asking where they could purchase his one-of-a-kind designs. Block began producing shirts out of his house, which evolved into a line of products very popular within the action sports world and beyond.

Since day one, he knew he wanted to expand the company, but when Machi started attending MSU in 2006, he initially pursued a mechanical engineering degree. After two years, Machi

realized his passion was in art and returned to what he loved doing: graphic design.

“I was going to get a job in mechanical engineering and never do what I love and always regret it,” Machi said. “I had several amazing people in my life ask why I wasn’t going into design, which led me down the road to pursue graphic design.

Right when I switched my major it was apparent that this was what I wanted to do full time, and work hard at it. I don’t want to just be an artist; I want to be a professional at what I do.”

Machi was an Award for Excellence recipient, being named one of MSU’s top 40 seniors.

He graduated from MSU’s graphic design department and relocated to Los Angeles to find new connections and expansion opportunities.

The company consists of Elevated Clothing, the main

Machi Block (left) and his brother Zach pose with professional surfer Sunny Garcia on the set of “The Breaks,” a surf show the Blocks produced and scripted.

product line, and Kavadba Clothing, the underground brand that surfaces for limited edition items.

Elevated, a ski, wakeboard and surf clothing company, has gone from a single-person production to a business with five employ-

ees and four interns, producing more than 1,500 items monthly.

“I was wrestling back and forth, what is the direction of my life. I had this spiritual side, but I also had this crazy party side, and I was trying to reconcile the

Machi has devoted the last five years to growing Elevated Clothing. In addition to the small shop in California, the company also has a presence in Scandinavia, most notably in Sweden and Norway.

Machi and actor John Ierardi discuss Elevated Clothing and “The Breaks” during an appearance on Girl Spot TV.

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PHOTOS COURTESY OF MACHI BLOCK

two,” Block said. “Elevated was more of the spiritual side of it; bettering yourself and getting closer to God, just really being all that you can be in life. Kavadba, which means Best of Times, represented my crazy side.”

To fulfill his senior thesis project, Machi, his brother, cousin and two best friends ventured on a 15,000-mile, cross-country road trip after graduation.

Companies such as Contour HD, New Belgium Brewery, SCS Wraps and Red Bull sponsored the trip.

“We called it the Kavadba Summer Road Trip ’10. One van, five guys, 15,000 miles, the adventure of a lifetime. We spent six weeks on the road circling the United States and promoting our clothing line at various shops along the way,” Block said.

Upon the conclusion of the 2010 summer trip, Machi and his brother Zachary settled in Los Angeles, where they collectively

design and print their products in a small shop in North Hollywood.

Machi has devoted the last five years to growing Elevated Clothing. In addition to the small shop in California, the company also has a presence in Scandinavia, most notably in Sweden and Norway.

“The quality of our product is top of the line, competing with brands like Quicksilver, O’Neill and Hurley. We just secured a new store in the Czech Republic, and are working on a new deal with an Australian distributor. Our goal for the summer is to secure distribution in various board shops across the U.S., Australia and Europe.”

“I love what I’m doing and living my passion,” Machi said.

Machi Block models some of the Elevated Clothing line.

To learn more go to: thebreaksshow.com elevatedclothingco.com facebook.com/elevatedclothing

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2015

Lunch with Lindy

BY M A R JORIE SMI T H

Growing up on wheat and cattle ranches near Bainville in extreme northeastern Montana, young Fred Traeger ’53 surely never imagined lunch with Charles Lindbergh or settling international trade issues as part of his future.

As the first in his family to graduate from high school, simply going to college and getting a good job seemed ambitious enough.

His B.S. from Montana State College led to a job in Helena, Mont., with the Montana Crop and Livestock Reporting Service.

College life also introduced him to Virginia St. Clair ’55 who became his wife and partner in decades of globe-hopping adventures.

After a year in Helena, Traeger learned that the U.S. Department of Agriculture needed an agricultural economist and soon found himself a commissioned Foreign Service Officer in the agricultural service within the nation’s diplomatic corps.

Traeger’s first overseas posting was three years as assistant

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agricultural attaché at the American Embassy in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, followed by two years as chief agricultural officer at the consulate general in Sao Paulo.

One memorable adventure during his Brazil years involved his acting as courier bringing $70 million in cash into Brazil as part of a U.S. aid project during the development of the new capital city, Brasilia.

“My assignments all focused on expanding American agricultural exports,” Traeger says. His own farm upbringing kept him constantly aware of the importance of developing new markets for agricultural products.

Virginia, meanwhile, set up households in various corners of the world and raised their three children in exotic locales.

Although not a native Montanan, Virginia proudly counts herself as part of a four-generation string of MSU alums. She came to college in Bozeman because her father had graduated from Montana State. Her children and grandchildren have followed in her footsteps at MSU. Diplomatic assignments took the Traegers to Lima, Peru, for four years, after which they spent three years in Manila, four years in Madrid, and six years in Copenhagen where Fred was

#msucollegian M O N TA N A S TAT E U N I V E R S I T Y A L U M N I A S S O C I AT I O N

“Having lunch with Charles Lindbergh and Filipino President Ferdinand Marcos may have been my biggest thrill, simply because ‘Lindy’ had been such a hero of mine since my boyhood.”

—Fred Traeger

Fred and Virginia Traeger at their home in Bozeman

also responsible for negotiating agricultural issues between the U.S. and Norway. As with all American diplomats, overseas postings alternated with assignments in Washington, D.C. During his career, Fred learned Spanish, Portuguese and Danish.

Fred keeps a list of the remarkable people with whom he had personal contact through the years including Robert F. Kennedy, President Eisenhower, Allan Greenspan, Aaron Copeland, Yasser Arafat, Cesar Chavez and Henry Kissinger. As agricultural attaché accredited to Norway, Traeger attended the ceremony when Norman Borlaug, popu-

larly known as “The Father of the Green Revolution,” was awarded the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize.

Asked to choose the most memorable celebrity he interacted with, Traeger pauses, then decides. “Having lunch with Charles Lindbergh and Filipino President Ferdinand Marcos may have been my biggest thrill, simply because ’Lindy’ had been such a hero of mine since my boyhood.” Lindbergh had gone to the Philippines on an environmental mission. “He was working to save the Philippine eagle, which the Filipinos call ’the monkey-eating eagle,’” Traeger remembers.

During one Washington assignment in 1980, as director for international marketing of oilseeds and products, Traeger traveled to China to negotiate opening the Chinese market to U.S.-grown soybeans, a major coup for American agriculture. Asked to name his most challenging negotiation, Traeger remembers an odd one during his years in Scandinavia when he had to argue against an embargo the Norwegian government had placed on American wine in support of Cesar Chavez’ United Farm Workers.

Since their retirement to Bozeman, the Traegers have kept busy. Fred spent 20 years

advising Montana businesses as a member of the Service Corps of Retired Executives and continued to participate in international trade conferences as well as serving on boards of local nonprofits. Virginia has been an active volunteer for the Museum of the Rockies and the Intermountain Opera, while honing her golf skills to the point that her husband, himself an avid golfer, says ruefully, “She’s the one who made a hole-in-one. Twice!”

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2015

Richard Wyman Smith, MSU’s first Native American architecture graduate

’Johnny Bearpaws’ Daughter’s film honors father and family

BY C A ROL SCHMID T

Generations of family creativity, love and devotion are the essence of a short documentary film made by an MSU film graduate about her father, MSU’s first Native American architecture graduate, and his brother.

“Johnny Bearpaws” is the title of a poignant short documentary made by Sarah Smith, who graduated from MSU’s Science and Natural History Filmmaking graduate program in 2014. The film is about her father, Richard Wyman Smith ’70, an accomplished architect who in his

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spare time has drawn the comic strip also called “Johnny Bearpaws.” The comic strip honors his older brother, John Smith, who died in 1983, and tells the story of an American Indian who returns to the reservation following a 24-year career in the U.S. Navy.

“The strip is in part a fictionalized account of my family’s history, as well as a mixed slice of historical and modern reservation life,” Sarah Smith said of her father’s comic strip. “Johnny re-enters civilian life hanging out with friends, bowling, shooting

pool, drinking beer, following domestic and world events, and flirting with Rosie, the owner of the only bar in town.”

Beyond its description, the comic strip, and the film about the strip and its creator, both tenderly reveal the loving relationship of a family and modern reservation life. And that is because its creator lived and observed the subject.

Richard Smith said that the reservation portrayed in the strip is the Flathead Indian Reservation and the town is based on Dixon, Mont., which used to be

the tribal headquarters and is where he and John grew up. He said that his family, of Comanche/Chippewa heritage, ended up on the Flathead Reservation when his aunt married a Flathead man that she met at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kan. Smith’s mother followed her sister to Montana when her husband was serving in the U.S. Marine Corps in the South Pacific. When he returned, the elder Smith worked for the Flathead Tribe.

Richard Smith said his brother, nine years older, was his hero.

SARAH SMITH SEPP JANNOTTA

Richard Wyman Smith created the “Johnny Bearpaws” comic strip honoring his brother John Smith.

“John was such a terrific person,” Marriage took Smith to Glen Richard Smith said. “He was very Falls, N.Y., until “I moved back to talented. An athlete, musician.

Montana because I wanted my Just a really loveable person. kids to listen to meadowlarks in When he joined the Navy he was the morning.” stationed in San Diego. His first He worked for a firm in duty was in Guantanamo Bay in Kalispell, then built and ran the Cuba. There is so much material.

Orient Express restaurant in “He affected me as an athlete.

Whitefish and did architecture on I played basketball and I played the side. clarinet because he played them.

“My mom was the one who You are affected by your relatives.” got on my case,” Smith recalled.

Like his brother, Richard Smith “She said that I should be doing has also had an interesting life. architecture. So, I did and I’m still He had planned on joining the practicing.”

Marines, like his father, when he Richard said he has been graduated from high school. drawing the cartoon series in his “But my dad told me he didn’t spare time for 15 years, since want me to do that,” he recalled. shortly after his brother died in “It was his idea that I go to (MSU).

Fort Hall, Idaho. He used to send He said he didn’t want me to join it around to major newspapers to the Marines because that would get them to buy it. mean everything he had done “I started at the top … the would be for nothing. Which is Washington Post. I got very nice saying something because he letters back saying they aren’t had been a Marine his whole life.” interested. But I still enjoy workSmith said until he graduated, ing on it.” he had no idea that he would Sarah Smith said she thought be the first Native American to of her father’s love for his brother graduate from the MSU School of and the comic strip when she Architecture. “Dennis Sun Rhodes learned of a Montana Arts (who founded the Great Horse Council contest about films about Group design firm in Minnesota) Native artists and thought it was just one year behind. This might be a vehicle for others to year, Dennis and I were on a learn about Johnny Bearpaws. panel during the President’s Fine “John was a central character Arts Series, so we got to visit, in our family,” said Sarah Smith. which was real nice.

“He holds a historical weight in

our family. I thought a short film would be a way to tell his story.”

Smith received her undergraduate degree from Evergreen State College in Washington State, then was a teacher and tutor at Blackfeet Community College. She was looking for a graduate school program when she came across the logo for the MSU Science and Natural History Filmmaking Program—a mountain lion with a roll of film coming out of his mouth.

“The film program transformed my life and gave me hardcore skills,” she said. “It marries that love of relationship of people and stories.”

Since graduating she has made a film for Glacier Park

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RICHARD WYMAN SMITH SEPP JANNOTTA

“It was nice to honor my dad and the family,” she said, calling her father “an architect, cartoonist, and freewheeling, idea-connecting, music-loving, life-affirming, people-inspiring ninja. “Their story is a great story. And my dad is this real world citizen. He is a gem.” —Sarah Smith

about huckleberries, helped edit Charles Dye’s film “Indian Relay” and is planning a trip to Siberia to make a film about an indigenous group there.

Smith said while the “Johnny Bearpaws” film didn’t win the film contest, it was accepted on the online site Audience Awards, and was screened recently at the Roxy Theater in Missoula, where Sarah Smith now lives.

“It was nice to honor my dad and the family,” she said, calling her father “an architect, cartoonist, and freewheeling, idea-connecting, music-loving, life-affirming, people-inspiring ninja.

“Their story is a great story. And my dad is this real world citizen.

He is a gem.”

Sarah Smith ’14 M

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2015

“We wanted to endow scholarships that would be enduring memorials to our family members. Since they were all Montanans, it made sense that we’d do this in Montana.”

—Jim Patton

Pattons support student scholarships

BY A N NE C A N T RE L L

A couple who graduated from a different university but who have ties to Montana and Montana State University feel so strongly about the value of education that they’ve endowed four separate scholarships for students attending MSU. Over the course of several years, Jim and Carol Patton of Shawnee, Kan., have endowed four scholarships at MSU — t wo in honor of Jim’s parents and grandparents, and two in their own names.

“Carol and I value education highly, and our families do, too,” Jim said. “Everyone who is educated benefits greatly, and education also benefits society greatly.”

The Pattons grew up in the East—Jim in western New York state, and Carol in the New York City area. The couple met at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., where they both received bachelor’s degrees. After graduation, Carol—who earned a degree in

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morials to (our family members),” music—became a music teacher, Jim said. “Since they were all while Jim, who studied engineerMontanans, it made sense that ing, entered the Army. After we’d do this in Montana.” completing his tour of duty, Jim In addition, Jim believes a went back to Cornell and earned scholarship can mean more to a a master’s degree in business. student at Montana State than He had a long career in the iron one at an Ivy League institution. and steel industry before being “A $1,000 scholarship at undersecretary of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Montana State is a meaningful amount to a student,” he said.

Fisheries.

The Pattons have supported “At Cornell, $1,000 doesn’t really solve any problems. But $1,000 Cornell in the past, Jim said, but at Montana State, especially noted that they’ve chosen to provide more significant gifts to to an in-state student, is a significant amount of money to go MSU—in part because of family ties to Montana State, and in toward their education.”

One of the scholarships part because of the potential impact of the scholarships at MSU. funded by the Pattons is in memory of Jim’s parents, who “We wanted to endow scholarships that would be enduring me- were both from Montana and

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PHOTO COURTESY OF JIM AND CAROL PATTON

who met at Montana State. Jim’s father, Robert Lee ’35, grew up in Livingston before enrolling at the university and played in the MSC marching band. He graduated with a major in entomology and a minor in biochemistry and then went on to earn a Ph.D. in entomology from the University of California, Berkeley. He eventually became a full professor at Cornell University. Jim’s mother, Mary Louise ’35, came from a pioneer family in the Deer Lodge Valley, and she earned a degree in secretarial studies, which she put to use in her family’s hardware and metal shop business before marrying Jim’s father. Because playing in the marching band was an important part of Jim’s father’s life at Montana State, the Dr. Robert L. and Mary Louise (Trask) Patton Memorial Scholarship goes to a student who is a member of the band.

Two years after establishing the scholarship in Jim’s parents’ memory, the Pattons decided to endow another scholarship to honor Jim’s grandfather, Warren Trask 1904, who received a degree in electrical engineering from MSU, and his grandmother, Mary Elizabeth Trask.

A few more years later, the Pattons again decided to endow scholarships at MSU. The Jim Patton Scholarship in Wildlife Management will be a memorial to

Jim and Carol Patton at the

North Cape (Nordkapp), on the northern coast of the island of Magerøya in Northern Norway.

Jim, and the Carol Patton Music Scholarship for music education will be a memorial to Carol.

While at some institutions it is more typical for alumni to give, MSU is fortunate to have the generous support of both its alumni and friends, according to Chris Murray, CEO of the MSU Alumni Foundation. And, whether the gift is from a friend or an alumnus, the investment in MSU students is much appreciated, he added.

“Montana State University is a place that changes lives on a daily basis,” Murray said. “Many of our friends have received degrees from other institutions, but they give to MSU because they

care about our university, the role we play in Montana and the very real impact these gifts have on people, places and programs. A philanthropic dollar goes a long way at MSU.” Jim said it is gratifying to know that he and his wife are contributing to students’ educations while simultaneously honoring their family members.

“We feel like we’ve created something that will last for a really long time,” he said. “In fact, these scholarships are intended to last in perpetuity. We think this is a fitting memorial to the persons whose names are on the scholarships.”

Learn more about scholarships and MSU’s other areas of need at msuaf.org/areasofneed

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34 PHOTO CREDIT

Timothy Holtan

2015

#msucollegian M O N TA N A S TAT E U N I V E R S I T Y A L U M N I A S S O C I AT I O N

TIMOTHY HOLTAN COURTESY OF THE U.S. ARMY BAND

Striking up the band

BY M A R JORIE SMI T H

When he was a college freshman, the newest commander of the United States Army Band was thinking pre-med. Beginning college in his North Dakota hometown of Bismarck, Timothy Holtan ’77 says he found himself a bit intimidated by the idea of eight years of hard science before he could even start looking for a job. One day he confided to his mother that he was considering changing his major to music. “Well!” she said.

“I’ve been wondering how long it would take you to come around to that.”

“The funny thing,” Holtan says, “is she was the only member of the family who wasn’t at all musical. And yet she seemed to know what the right career was for me.”

A musical mentor in North Dakota advised him to check out the music education program at Montana State University, and he decided to transfer. “It was great!”

Holtan says. “I felt like I was in exactly the right place.” His first teaching job after graduation was in Superior in extreme western Montana where “I did it all — band, chorus, all levels.”

He then spent a year as a performing musician (he sings as well as playing piano and trombone) while he picked up a

master’s degree in music at the University of Montana. During his studies, he adjudicated high school music competitions and was particularly impressed by the students coming from Great Falls High School. “And then what do you know — I got hired as the band teacher at GFHS. I thought I might just stay there forever.”

His wife, Laurie Matheson Holtan ’80, was also on the music faculty at GFHS, and she was more ambitious for him.

“Laurie kind of pushed me to find out about the opportunities with military bands,” he says. The idea was not without precedent: his father had played cornet in one of the U.S. Army bands.

Holtan met the chief of Army bands at a National Music Educators conference and was invited to do some auditions. At age 33, Holtan enlisted in the Army.

He rose to the rank of colonel and to his current post as leader of “Pershing’s Own,” the premier U.S. Army band which actually consists of eight performing ensembles: the concert band, the ceremonial band, the Army Chorus, the Army Blues, the Army Band Downrange, the Army Herald Trumpets, the Army Strings and the Army Brass Quintet.

The musicians in the various U.S. Army band organizations are truly soldier musicians, Holtan says. They go through basic training and must keep up their military skills as well as their music.

Holtan has participated in many nationally televised broadcasts and conducted his musicians at some of the nation’s most prestigious music venues.

While at West Point, he reestab-

“And then what do you know—I got hired as the band teacher at Great Falls High School. I thought I might just stay there forever.”

—Timothy Holtan

For those who make it a career, Holtan says, playing in an army band or singing in the chorus can be a “permanently stabilized existence,” something unusual in career military circles. But for officers like Holtan, transfers from one job to the next occur frequently. He’s been commander of the U.S. Army Field Band at Fort Meade, Md., leader of the U.S. Military Academy Band at West Point, N.Y., and commandant of the U.S. Army School of Music in Virginia. He also was selected for the army’s “training with industry” program and served a term as operations manager and associate conductor of the Dallas Winds.

lished a partnership with the New York Philharmonic that led to five Lincoln Center performances. An estimated 160 million viewers watched Holtan conduct the West Point Band in an Emmy-nominated PBS production, “Marina at West Point,” featuring Serbianborn pianist/composer Marina Arsenijevic.

Holtan’s MSU degree in music education has put him in the best of company he says, pointing out that most members of the U.S. military musical organizations are drawn from “the best music conservatories, places like Oberlin, Indiana University and the Eastman School of Music.”

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BOWMAN ORCHARD SEPP JANNOTTA

2015

A sweet legacy Bowman cherries connect five generations The Bowman family of Bigfork, Mont., has been growing Flathead cherries for five generations, creating a sweet legacy that’s intertwined with Montana State University memories.

Jerry ’67 and Marilyn (Mosher) Bowman ’65 are the current owners of Bowman Cherry Orchards. Their son, Doug ’90, also graduated from MSU. Their youngest daughter, Denise Bowman Wermer, attended MSU for two years, and the family has worked closely with MSU Extension on cherry research.

“The education we received here was very helpful in our business,” Marilyn said while in Bozeman for the 2015 Commencement Reunion and Alpha Omicron Pi reunion.

The evening before donning the golden gown of an alumna who graduated 50 years ago, Marilyn reminisced about MSC, her early life on a Montana cattle ranch, her years as a 4-H Club member, her time as a teacher and almost five decades with the family cherry business.

in industrial and management gates under the direction of Don engineering at MSU, grows cher- Lee who taught welding at MSC. ries in Washington.

In those days there were no But before that all happened, college loans. You either worked Jerry and Marilyn attended MSC. your way through college, or you Jerry came to study agriculture didn’t go to college. education and industrial arts “When Jerry and I lived in with a scholarship to play Wilsall while I was teaching, football for the freshman team, Jerry continued working on his the “Bobkittens.” Marilyn — a degree,” Marilyn said. “He drove long-time 4-H’er who knew his ’35 Ford truck that he rebuilt MSC’s reputation for agriculture through the Bridger mounand home economics — came to tains every day from Wilsall to study home economics educaBozeman. Sometimes during the tion. She grew up on an Augusta, winter, he pushed snow off the Mont., ranch that’s been in the road. Many times he encounfamily since the 1870s. tered deer, elk and moose on Jerry and Marilyn met on the roadway. A couple of times, campus at a rodeo dance and he helped people who had flat married 50 years ago in the tires or other problems on that middle of cherry season. After one-way gravel road. The road her graduation, Marilyn taught was good up to the ski hill, but for two years at Wilsall, Mont. from there on, it was rather After Jerry’s graduation, the rustic. couple moved to Bigfork, Mont., “I guess those days were where he taught. difficult and we tend to forget “While Jerry was attending our early struggle,” Marilyn said.

MSC, he worked with Don Ven“We lived in a little cold, drafty nekolt rewinding electric motors. rental house with little income This business was located in the and an uncertain future. Doug rear of Valley Motors,” Marilyn was born that second year, but said. “He also welded stock I had a great baby sitter, so I could continue to teach. The people in the town were very The evening before donning the golden gown of an supportive and friendly. alumna who graduated 50 years ago, Marilyn reminisced “We almost bought property in Bozeman, but then Jerry’s dad about MSC, her early life on a Montana cattle ranch, her decided to retire and turn over the cherry orchard and custom years as a 4-H Club member, her time as a teacher and orchard business to us,” Marilyn said. “And so here we are. Our almost five decades with the family cherry business.

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Bowman Cherry Orchards began in the 1920s when brothers Adam and Eby Bowman along with their father, Simon, planted the original family orchards along Flathead Lake in northwest Montana.

“They cleared the timbered land with the teams of horses, dynamited large rocks and cultivated the ground with horses in preparation for growing fruit trees,” according to the family website. “The two young men and their father, Simon, raised their own food, fished and hunted in this primitive area that had more animals than people and a wagon trail instead of a road.”

Jerry and Marilyn eventually took over the business and expanded it by clearing land for more trees, as well as adding orchards in Washington, growing new varieties of cherries and making homemade pies, fudge, jams and wines. They also sell cherry wood and apricot wood.

Daughters Diane and Denise are involved in the Montana operation. Son Doug, who majored in computer science and minored

BOWMANS SEPP JANNOTTA

BY E V E LY N BO S W E L L

#msucollegian M O N TA N A S TAT E U N I V E R S I T Y A L U M N I A S S O C I AT I O N

grandkids are the fifth generation of cherry growers.”

Cherry season is a “threering circus” and her hands are stained purple all summer, but they still enjoy the business, Marilyn said.

Remaining competitive in the industry is one reason they became involved with MSU research, Jerry added. In fact, MSU Agriculture Extension Agent Pat McGlynn said Jerry was one of the first growers to approach her when she moved to the Flathead area seven years ago.

“He really helped me get my boots on the ground,” McGlynn said.

Besides discussing industry challenges, “Jerry felt there was a void in horticulture research and asked if I might be able to help with that,” McGlynn said.

As a result, the Bowmans joined a three-year research project to find new varieties of cherries that would thrive in the Flathead Valley and help decrease the competition from Washington.

The Bowmans, like other participating growers, served on an advisory committee and offered their land for research. The Bowman research plot was the coldest in the study and offered a range of elevations, McGlynn said. The Bowmans also helped select varieties for the trials.

They stored, sorted and labeled trees and trucked new trees to other sites.

“I’m always looking for a better cherry variety,” Jerry said, explaining his participation. “I enjoy being out in the orchard, looking at the trees and pondering what can be

done better to increase production or cherry quality.”

Even after all these years, he still likes rebuilding engines and motors, Jerry said. He also likes driving equipment — whether it be an excavator, or tractors with a mower, sprayer or cultivator, or a semitrailer on the highway.

As a 12-year-old boy, in fact, Jerry’s birthday wish was to drive a tractor and cultivator in the orchard.

His wish now, Jerry said, is for the ability to harvest sweet cherries mechanically for the fresh market.

And yes, after a lifetime in the cherry business, he still eats cherries.

“I love them,” Jerry said. “I eat them every day, either canned or fresh when in season.”

Jerry and Marilyn Bowman Photo above: Marilyn Bowman, her daughter and granddaughter in the orchard.

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2015

“These students can do anything they want. It’s just a matter of setting their intention and believing in that goal. All I do is connect a few dots and help them get to the right people.” —Ted Reichelt

Motivated to mentor

BY A N NE C A N T RE L L

Two Montana State University engineering alumni have chosen to invest in students at their alma mater by serving as mentors. Both say they are motivated simply because they value the education they received at Montana State and would like to give back.

“Education has served me very well over the years,” said Ted Reichelt, a 1974 alumnus in industrial engineering whose career has taken him all over the globe.

Reichelt, who lives in Portland, Ore., and Jim Nordahl, a 1963 alumnus in chemical engineering who lives in Woodinville, Wash., with his wife, Glenda, have both enjoyed successful careers in engineering.

The two have worked to share the knowledge they’ve gained throughout their careers with MSU students. MSU’s Bobcat Mentoring Program started in 2013 as a partnership between MSU’s Office of Student Success and the MSU Alumni Foundation.

The program finished its second year this spring, with about 50 mentors and 50 mentees participating, Reichelt said. A third group of mentors and mentees will participate in the program beginning this fall.

Reichelt’s mentee, Agata Gruza, graduated from MSU this spring with a master’s degree in computer science and took a job

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with Intel Corporation in Portland.

She said the mentoring program and her work with Reichelt changed her life.

As part of her participation in the program, Gruza worked to fine-tune her resume, update her LinkedIn profile and prepare for job interviews. But she also received numerous intangible benefits through her bi-weekly meetings with Reichelt. The program helped her gain confidence, Gruza said, and it also taught her how to effectively promote herself when needed. “(Reichelt) was my motivation and inspiration,” Gruza said. “We shared problems and strategies.

We had mock interviews over the phone. (He) kept my spirits up and always was there for me.

I do not know what I would do without him.”

For his part, Reichelt said Gruza and other MSU engineering graduates have the world at their fingertips.

“These students can do anything they want,” Reichelt said.

“It’s just a matter of setting their intention and believing in that

goal. All I do is connect a few dots and help them get to the right people.”

Nordahl’s mentee, Lily Westerhoff, is studying chemical and bioengineering. He said it is satisfying to mentor such a motivated student.

“She is not only brilliant, but is eager to seek input and take advantage of any ideas or advice I might suggest in the spirit of helping her get the most out of her college experience and be better prepared for a successful career,” Nordahl said.

Through the mentoring program and other efforts, Reichelt is also hoping to help match more alumni with companies in the Pacific Northwest like Intel, where he worked for many years.

“When I (retired), I reflected and said, ’there’s got to be a way I could help companies here in the Pacific Northwest really take notice of Montana State,”’ Reichelt said. He pointed to a recruiting visit from Intel this past spring, where several MSU students landed jobs or

#msucollegian

Right: Jim Nordahl and mentee Lily Westerhoff

internships at Intel, as one sign of success in this area.

“If we can build a track record of well-prepared students and alumni coming from MSU, the reputation will continue to grow,” Reichelt said.

Reichelt and Nordahl both came to Montana State from rural Montana communities.

Reichelt, now 63, grew up as a “typical rural farm kid” in Big Sandy, where he went to a high school with a graduating class of 51. MSU was Reichelt’s first choice for college, he said, both because cousins and other relatives had attended Montana State, and also because he was interested in engineering and knew that MSU had a strong reputation in the field.

As a student at MSU in the early 1970s, Reichelt enjoyed his classes and recreational opportunities like skiing, joined a fraternity and made lifelong friends. With a professor, he also became involved with an environmental impact assessment on U.S. Highway 191 that connects Bozeman to Big Sky. “A lot of the work (on U.S. Highway 191) was transportation

planning: What did we think the traffic counts would be? What would the increase be? What would be the impact on wildlife crossing? We were trying to figure out not only the impact, but how to soften the impact,” Reichelt said. “It turns out that development has far exceeded anything that was envisioned, but this was a seminal project and helped shape my career.”

Reichelt went on to enjoy a long and successful career in a variety of facilities planning, energy management and environmental engineering positions.

Over the course of more than 30 years, he worked with Deere & Company, Puget Energy and Intel Corporation at locations across the globe, including Phoenix, Boston, Santa Clara, Calif., Livermore, Calif., and in the Philippines, Malaysia, China, Costa Rica and Ireland. While at Intel, Reichelt helped develop and implement many of the company’s global environmental programs and policies. Beginning in 1992, he was also involved with some of the first product stewardship efforts in energy efficiency and recycling, and he was a cofounder of EPEAT, or Electronic Product Environ-

mental Assessment Tool, an environmental rating system.

Nordahl graduated from high school in Columbus, Mont. where he obtained a journeyman plumber’s license at age 16 and worked in his father’s mechanical contracting business during high school and summers while in college.

While at MSU, Nordahl was a member and president of Sigma Nu Fraternity, as well as a member of the Interfraternity Council. He was also Commissioner of Finance as a member of Student Senate and president of Septemviri, a senior honorary society of seven students selected by faculty.

Nordahl’s career in the commercial nuclear power industry included engineering and management positions with a number of companies, including General Electric, Atlantic Richfield Hanford Co., Exxon Nuclear and Siemens/AREVA, U.S. Nuclear Divisions, where he served as president and CEO. Nordahl is now retired.

In addition to serving as a mentor through MSU’s Bobcat Mentoring Program, Nordahl also regularly delivers presentations on engineering and business eth-

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PHOTOS COURTESY OF MSU BOBCAT MENTORING

Left: Ted Reichelt and student mentee Agata Gruza

ics to MSU engineering students.

The lectures relate to what he calls his passion: team effectiveness based on leadership integrity.

Both Nordahl and Reichelt emphasize to students that their engineering education gives them the ability to do meaningful work.

“I strive to help (young people) realize that good engineers with high ethical standards have many key roles to play in leading technology companies/organizations to success in providing products and services that are needed to support humanity and save the planet,” Nordahl said.

Reichelt noted that MSU “stands up to any university in the country.

“The thing that I really appreciated about Montana State is that it’s a great experience, it’s a great place to go to college, (and) it’s a high-quality education. The value of that education is immeasurable. Graduates of Montana State should be very proud.”

For more information on MSU’s Bobcat Mentoring Program, go to montana.edu/ bobcatmentoring

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PHOTOS COURTESY OF DAVID BOYLES

2015

“Parkitecture” suits David Boyles

BY SE P P JA N NO T TA

David Boyles ’04, ’06 M moved from Bozeman to Indianapolis with his wife in 2011 when the pursuit of career opportunities took them east. After just a couple of years, their need for tall mountains and open spaces took them back across the 100th meridian once again, landing them in the Denver area.

“Growing up in Cut Bank, Mont., and spending my college years and some of my early career in Bozeman, it just felt so good to get back to the mountains,” Boyles said. “The country (in Colorado) looks very similar to Montana. The difference is you have to get used to sharing it with more people.”

As it turned out, the move back west to join BRS Architecture of Denver came with an immediate opportunity to reconnect with the “western rustic” style of design and building that is so prevalent in the Rocky Mountain West. Boyles’ first assignment was a project building lodge-style structures for a series of hotel buildings in the Canyon Village area of Yellowstone National Park.

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“BRS’s work in the national parks is one of the things that really attracted me about working here.

I found it fascinating, and somewhat sentimental, to be going to the lodge at Old Faithful to look at all that amazing woodwork and think about how I was working on designs that incorporated that historic precedence.”

Although Boyles said the rustic style wasn’t really on his Boyles said his experience radar at MSU, his time as an undergraduate and graduate building and designing homes with Intrisik Architecture and JLF student in Bozeman involved something even more in tune & Associates, Inc., in Bozeman with the Montana mythos — hard involved using a lot of native work. In addition to his focus on stone and exposed timbers, making him a good fit for working a demanding academic program, in the vernacular of so-called Boyles worked, first with Pyramid “parkitecture.”

Concrete Co. and then with “I thought: ’That’s my first various Bozeman and Wyoming project? Incredible,’” Boyles said. construction firms.

Architectural rendering of a Canyon Village hotel in Yellowstone National Park

“All the side jobs I had while I was at MSU were construction related,” Boyles said. “I did everything from laying asphalt to putting in sewer and water lines to framing. It was good experience because I got a taste of all the construction trades, and they were good-paying jobs. It was hard work, a lot of manual labor, but I learned a lot. And that was the goal because when I came to MSU I barely knew what a wall was made of, much less how to draw it or build it.”

Boyles said he took a job with Intrisik as a builder when he finished his master’s degree, before signing on with JLF to do more design-oriented work. It

was there he began to learn to work with the Rocky Mountain rustic style.

It is a style that owes some of its look to the great historic lodges of the national parks, Boyles said.

“The buildings in the parks are big, permanent structures, and they take on a lot of public sentiment,” Boyles said. “These are structures that are built to last for multiple generations. They have a certain legacy and that’s fun to be a part of.”

Boyles said the first of the new hotel buildings, which were built in sections and trucked to Yellowstone, will open this summer.

“The buildings in the parks are big, permanent structures, and they take on a lot of public sentiment,” Boyles said. “These are structures that are built to last for multiple generations. They have a certain legacy and that’s fun to be a part of.” —David Boyles

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2015

“Life is all about change. It’s never what you expect.

The old cliché, ‘Life happens while you are busy making plans’ is really true. The opportunities you have in this country are really unmatched anywhere else on the planet.” —Behrooz Abdi

Adapting to change leads to success

BY E V E LY N BO S W E L L

Enrolling at Montana State University may have looked like a poor decision after arriving in Bozeman on a snowy January day and sleeping in the lobby of a post office, but Behrooz Abdi ’84 says it was one of the best of his life.

Earning his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering led him to the top of his graduate classes at Georgia Institute of Technology and then to a successful career. Now the president and CEO of InvenSense, Inc., a leading manufacturer and innovator of the sensing technology found in everything from cell phones to microchips, Abdi said his time at MSU prepared him well.

It also reinforced the importance of adapting to change and new opportunities.

“Life is all about change. It’s never what you expect,” Abdi said. “The old cliché, ‘Life happens while you are busy making plans’ is really true. The opportunities you have in this country are really unmatched anywhere else on the planet,” Abdi said.

If he had lived the life he expected, he would have spent four or five years in the United States, then returned to Iran with his

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American education, said Abdi, a native of Tehran. He would have built a career in Iran and married an Iranian woman.

As it was, he met and married an MSU graduate student from Georgia, Sharon Fuller ’84. After graduation, Fuller accepted a job in Atlanta, and Abdi enrolled in graduate school at Georgia Tech, where he earned his master’s degree. Since Iran was going through a revolution, any plans to return there were interrupted, Abdi said. So he continued to pursue options in the United States.

Discovering those opportunities was a journey that began in Tehran, the capital of Iran, where Abdi lived with his parents and two older brothers. His father was a high school math teacher, and his mother worked in the Central Bank of Iran. In the city that had about 4 million people

at the time, he attended Dr. Hashtroodi High School.

Abdi moved to Seattle in 1978, joining one of his brothers and finishing his final year of high school. He also completed two years of community college in Seattle before moving to San Jose, Calif., to explore other colleges. Unfortunately, college was so expensive that he could only afford one semester. He started investigating other options, and that’s how he came to MSU. “At that time, I had a couple friends who had gone to Montana, to Bozeman,” Abdi said. “I did a little bit of research on how much more affordable MSU was.

Quite frankly, I was getting very, very low in my bank account.”

So — in the middle of winter and during the Iranian crisis where 52 Americans were held hostage for 444 days — Abdi hitched a ride to Bozeman.

Realizing that his preparations

#msucollegian

The math and science he had studied in Iran prepared him for MSU, and the passionate, tough instructors he had at MSU prepared him well for Georgia Tech and beyond, Abdi said. By emphasizing the theoretical, they gave him the strong problemsolving skills that he still uses today.

“When it came to tests and understanding concepts, I was always at the top of the class,” Abdi said, referring to Georgia Tech. “I beat them hands down. I attribute that a lot to my background at Montana State.”

Because of his strong Iranian background in math and science, he knew early on in life that he would pursue engineering, Abdi said. But his interest in electrical engineering, specifically semiconductors and microchips, grew at MSU. “The more I got into it, the more passionate about semiconductors and electrical engineering I became,” Abdi said. “I saw the possibilities for the future.”

He spent more than 18 years at Motorola, then went on to leadership positions in other hightech companies. Now the holder of approximately 20 patents, he has headed InvenSense, Inc. since 2012.

“It’s such a dynamic industry that things happen very quickly,” he said.

For that reason, it is important to be ready when opportunities arise, he added.

In other countries, wealth and family connections play a more important role than they do in the United States, Abdi said.

“But here, you can create your own opportunities more than anywhere else.”

The couple and their three daughters live in northern California.

M O N TA N A S TAT E U N I V E R S I T Y A L U M N I A S S O C I AT I O N

PHOTOS COURTESY OF BEHROOZ ABDI

should have included a look at a weather map and knowing that he couldn’t afford a motel, he slept a few nights in the lobby of the Bozeman post office.

“It was open 24/7. It was nice and warm compared to the outside, and nobody bothered me,” Abdi said, adding that he felt better off than his friends who were living in their cars.

“Back then, it wasn’t like you are feeling, ’What a harsh life,’” Abdi said. “You are a student, just happy to get into school. It wasn’t a big deal at the time.”

Abdi went on to live in the MSU residence halls and work multiple jobs. Despite the Iranian crisis and the misconceptions Americans might have about Iranians as individuals, he felt safe at MSU, Abdi said. The biggest challenge occurred when the foreign student adviser called all the international students together and told them they couldn’t work on campus anymore because they were taking jobs away from Americans.

“It was a huge, huge blow,” Abdi said, especially for Iranians whose funds were frozen during the revolution.

Fortunately, the decision was soon reversed, and he returned to shelving books at the library, cleaning kitchens and working in cafeterias, Abdi said. He also concentrated on his studies, determined to master electrical engineering.

“It was a very, very hard major,” he said. “That’s one of the things that attracted me to it. It was so abstract at the time and so difficult for me to grasp that I thought, ’I have got to do this.’”

It was also different from his brothers’ specialties, he said.

One had become a chemical engineer and the other a mechanical engineer.

Behrooz Abdi at work

Abdi and his daughters

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Calendar

AUG UST

20–21 Catapalooza, MSU Centennial Mall 21 Downtown Bozeman Cat Walk 22 Bobcat Athletics Family Fun Day 24 Fall Semester starts 26 Freshmen Convocation @ 7 p.m.

SE P T E M BE R

2 MSU Retired Faculty/Staff estate planning seminar;

8:30 a.m.–1 p.m. at the MSU Alumni Foundation 3 Bobcat Football vs. Fort Lewis (Gold Rush Game)

18 Greater Twin Cities Area, Twins Baseball game & social 19 Museum of the Rockies: Art of Warren Brothers Cartoons 21–26 Homecoming Week 23 Third Annual DyeHard Bobcat Run hosted by the Student Alumni Association

O C T OBE R

2 Def Leppard with Styx and Tesla, Brick Breeden

Fieldhouse 7 p.m.

8–10 Alumni Leadership Forum and Alumni Relations Advisory Board meeting 9–11 MSU Parent Family Weekend 10 Future Cat Event 16 MSU Friday 18 Broadway in Bozeman: Riverdance 23 Bobcat Athletics’ Blue & Gold Fall Party 24 Bobcat Football vs. East Tennessee State, Military Appreciation Weekend

NOV E M BE R

6–7 Celebrate Agriculture!! Weekend 6 Can the Griz food drive begins

10 Montana Farm Bureau Alumni Social in Missoula 12–14 John Deere Ag Expo in Bozeman 18 Broadway in Bozeman: Rudolph 20 Undie Run, Student Alumni Association 20 Cat/Griz pep rally in Downtown Bozeman 21 Bobcat Football v. UM (Cat/Griz), Watch parties nationwide 22 Billings Area chapter Border War Basketball event

DE C E M BE R

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1 Greater Twin Cities Area chapter “Can the Griz”

volunteer event

3 Montana Grain Growers Alumni Social in Great Falls 3 Montana Stock Growers Alumni Social in Billings 4 Classes end 12 Fall Commencement

JA N UA RY

12 Spring Faculty Convocation, Reynolds Recital Hall 13 Spring Semester starts 20 Broadway in Bozeman: Million Dollar Quartet 22 Bobcat Ski Day 2016 29 MSU Friday

F E BRUA RY

2 Broadway in Bozeman: Flashdance 16 MSU Founders’ Day 16 34th Annual Awards for Excellence 27 Museum of the Rockies: National Geographic

50 greatest photographs

M A RC H

11 MSU Friday 14–18 Spring Break

29 Women’s History Reception

APRIL

1–2 MSU American Indian Council PowWow weekend

2 Native American alumni breakfast 7–10 MSU Spring Rodeo Weekend

8 MSU Friday 17 Broadway in Bozeman: Blue Man Group 29 Bobcat Fest 2016, Downtown Bozeman

M AY

5–7 Commencement Reunions, Classes of 1946, 1956

and 1966

7 Spring Commencement 16 Summer Semester starts

JUNE

18 Museum of the Rockies: Leisure and Luxury in the

27 Second summer session begins

Age of Nero

AUG UST

29 Fall 2016 Semester starts

Cat Chat

Tune into Cat Chat on Wednesday nights this fall and on Tuesdays at noon next spring for Bobcat sports updates—hear from players and coaches and stay connected! Brought to you by the MSU Alumni Association through the Bobcat Radio Sports Network: msubobcats.com

Online calendar

Current events are always available at msuaf.org/calendar.

Dates are subject to change and all events are in Bozeman unless otherwise noted.

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M O N TA N A S TAT E U N I V E R S I T Y A L U M N I A S S O C I AT I O N

#msucollegian

PHOTO CREDIT

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Tailgates $10 per person or $25 per family MSU Alumni Association tailgates, both home and away, have been huge successes over the years.

Due to exciting growth in attendance, all 2015 tailgate admittance will be $10 per person and $25 per family (two adults and any number of children), which includes a meal. Alumni Association members will receive a complimentary beverage.

Tailgate costs are consistently increasing and we strive to create engagement opportunities for all of our alumni and friends; be sure to RSVP and pay in advance for any home and away tailgates you plan to attend.

RSVP online at msuaf.org/calendar. Thank you in advance for your participation and GO ’CATS!

UPCOMING EVENTS SE P T E M BE R

18 Bobcat Friday Night in Spokane, Wash., 4:30 p.m. PT,

19 MSU Alumni Association tailgate • 10:30 a.m. PT 19 MSU at Eastern Washington • 1:05 p.m. PT 26 MSU Alumni Assoc. Homecoming tailgate • 11 a.m.

26 MSU v. Cal Poly • 1:35 p.m.

location TBA

O C T OBE R

2 Bobcat Friday Night in Flagstaff, Ariz.,

4:30 p.m. MST, location TBA

3 MSU Alumni Association tailgate • 1:30 p.m. MST 3 MSU at Northern Arizona University • 4:05 p.m. MST 10 MSU Alumni Association/Parent Family Association

10 MSU v. Sacramento State University • 5:05 p.m.

16 Bobcat Friday Night in Portland, Ore., 4:30 p.m. PT,

17 MSU Alumni Association tailgate outside Providence

17 MSU at Portland State University • Providence Park

30 Bobcat Friday Night in Grand Forks, N.D.,

tailgate • 2:30 p.m. location TBA

Park • 10 a.m. PT 12:35 p.m. PT

4:30 p.m. CT, location TBA 31 MSU Alumni Association tailgate • 10:30 a.m. CT 31 MSU at University of North Dakota • 1 p.m. CT

NOV E M BE R

13 Bobcat Friday Night in Pocatello, Idaho,

14 MSU Alumni Association tailgate • 11 a.m. PT

4:30 p.m. PT, location TBA

14 MSU at Idaho State University • 1:35 p.m. PT 21 MSU Alumni Association tailgate • 9:30 a.m. MT 21 MSU v. University of Montana • 12:05 p.m. MT

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UPCOMING EVENTS Homecoming Weekend 2015 September 24–26, 2015 Weekend event listing at msuaf.org/homecoming.

Thursday, Sept. 24 3 p.m. | President Emeritus Geoff Gamble Tribute.

4 p.m. | College of Engineering Homecoming Awards

#msucollegian

Each fall, alumni from across the country come home to Bozeman and MSU to see friends, celebrate Blue & Gold traditions, tour campus and watch the ’Cats at Bobcat Stadium. We hope to see you this year!

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Homecoming

ceremony and reception at the Museum of the Rockies.

Friday, Sept. 25

10:30 a.m. | Jake Jabs College of Business and

Entrepreneurship Classic Golf Tournament.

12–3 p.m. | M-Day Hike. Sponsor: Student Alumni Assoc.

5:30 p.m. | Pep Rally Downtown.

6:30 p.m. | Young Alumni Homecoming HQ: Rocking R Bar. 9 p.m. | Lighting of the “M” by the Student Alumni Assoc.

Saturday, Sept. 26 10 a.m. | ASMSU Homecoming Parade downtown.

11 a.m. | Homecoming tailgate: Bobcat spirit—show us What It Takes!

1:35 p.m. | MSU football v. Cal Poly.

7 p.m. | Cat/Griz Homecoming Volleyball at Shroyer Gym.

Reunion Groups Sept. 25–26 | Sigma Chi events. Email Laramie McCullough at mcculloughl2014@gmail.com.

Sept. 26 11 a.m.–2 p.m. | Delta Gamma at 418 W. Garfield St. DGs and families are invited to drop in for this informal gathering. Email Marianne Liebmann at mcliebmann@earthlink.net.

Sept. 27 10 a.m.–12 p.m. | Alpha Omicron Pi open house. Email bozemanaoii@gmail.com.

2016 save the date! Housing and Residence Life will be hosting a reunion for all former housing staff and student leaders during Homecoming 2016. Take tours of the new residence hall and facility upgrades! Details will be provided in the coming months and volunteers are needed! Email James Tobin at jtobin@montana.edu.

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2014 Cat-Griz Festivities The 114th Brawl of the Wild was a fun-filled weekend in Montana and across the country, with many Bobcat fans traveling to Missoula and others watching the game with friends at Cat/Griz Watch Parties. Thank you to all of the party coordinators and hosts who made these gatherings possible!

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2015 WATCH PARTIES Cat/Griz: Nov. 21, 2015 Get off the couch and make plans to join a Watch Party for Bobcat camaraderie. This year’s game is in Bozeman, kickoff is 12 p.m. Mountain Time. Cities with an asterisk need a Bobcat volunteer. Interested? Email allison.hupp@ msuaf.org. Go to msuaf.org/catgriz for full details.

2015 Cat/Griz Watch Parties AK: Anchorage • Fairbanks • Juneau AZ: Scottsdale • Mesa • Peoria • Tucson • Yuma • Flagstaff AR: Little Rock* CA: Fresno • LA–Culver City • Orange County–Rancho Santa Margarita • Palm Desert–La Quinta • Sacramento– Fair Oaks • San Diego • SF–East Bay–San Leandro SF North Bay–San Rafael area • San Francisco* CO: Colorado Springs • Denver • Fort Collins • Grand Junction CT: New York City FL: Wildwood GA: Atlanta–Alpharetta HI: Honolulu-Kailua • Kamuela ID: Boise • Clarkston/Lewiston, ID • Idaho Falls • Lewiston • Pocatello • Teton Valley • Twin Falls IL: Chicago–Schaumburg • Chicago IN: Indianapolis IA: West Des Moines KS/MO: Kansas City–Overland Park LA: Monroe ME: Northampton, Mass. • New York City MA: Boston area–Northampton MI: Detroit area–Utica MN: Minneapolis–Mendota MO: St. Louis–St. Charles MT: Billings • Big Sky • Butte • Ennis • Glendive • Sidney NE: Omaha NV: Carson City–Dayton • Las Vegas • Mesquite* • Reno NM: Albuquerque NY: New York City NC: Cary • Charlotte ND: Bismarck • Fargo OH: Cincinnati–West Chester OK: Oklahoma City* OR: Bend • Portland • Medford • Salem-Silverton PA: Pittsburgh • Philadelphia SC: Greenville SD: Rapid City TN: Nashville TX: Austin • Dallas–Richardson • Houston UT: Salt Lake City VA/DC: Arlington WA: Bellingham • Bremerton • Clarkston/Lewiston, ID Olympia–Lacey • Seattle–Renton • Spokane Tri-Cities–Richland • Yakima WV: Morgantown* WI: Madison WY: Cody • Gillette • Sheridan

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MSU faculty and staff nominate students who are of senior standing and have a cumulative grade point average of 3.5 or better for the award. Nominees must also have an exemplary record of campus and community activities, involvement and service. College deans and campus committees select award recipients, then each student honoree selects the faculty or staff member who has been most inspirational and influential in his or her development at Montana State University to also receive an Award for Excellence. This recognition has come to mean a great deal to MSU staff, as being honored by a student is a true highlight.

The top eight students with outstanding academic achievements and a record of campus and community involvement are also recognized with a Torley Award, named in honor of the late Torlief “Torley” Aasheim, Montana State College class of 1937, and a committed community volunteer.

Congratulations to the 2015 winners!

The awards will be held on MSU’s Founders’ Day— Tuesday, February 16, 2016—in the SUB Ballrooms on campus.

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Every February for more than three decades, members from the Bozeman community gather together with MSU students, faculty and staff to celebrate and recognize our best and brightest students, their mentors and excellence in our community.

TS EN EV ER PT A CH

MSU Alumni Association chapters, led by volunteers in several communities around the state and across the country, host events to connect local alumni to each other and back to their alma mater. We welcomed several new chapters this year (see page 6 for the complete chapter list) and we look forward to seeing what the next year brings for our chapter network!

UPCOMING EVENTS See below for a few of the upcoming chapter events and “like” the Facebook pages on page 6 of this issue. For the complete event list, go to msuaf.org/calendar.

Bobcat watch parties Several chapters will host parties throughout the football season to root on the ’Cats with alumni and friends. Check your email this fall for invitations to watch parties near you!

9/3 Chapter football watch parties (locations vary) 9/19 Billings Area chapter at Red Door in Billings and

other locations 10/3 Billings Area chapter at Red Door in Billings and other locations 10/10 Chapter football watch parties (locations vary) 10/17 Chapter football watch parties (locations vary) 10/24 Billings Area chapter: Bobcat watch party at Red Door in Billings and other locations 10/31 Chapter football watch parties (locations vary) 11/14 Billings Area chapter: Bobcat watch party at Red Door in Billings and other locations 11/21 Cat-Griz watch parties (msuaf.org/catgriz) Chapter events 8/19 Boise Valley chapter: Hawks baseball game,

7:15 p.m.

9/18 Greater Twin Cities chapter Twins baseball game and pre-game social (msuaf.org/GTCtwins) 9/19 Mile High chapter Colorado Rockies baseball game, 6:10 p.m. (msuaf.org/MHgame) 9/23 Gallatin Valley chapter support of SAA DyeHard Bobcat Run, 6:00 p.m. (msuaf.org/dyehard2015) 10/16 Columbia River chapter: Bobcat Friday Night, details TBD 10/17 Columbia River chapter: Tailgate, details TBD 10/18 Houston Area chapter: annual picnic, Bear Creek Park, 1:00–3:00 p.m.

10/TBD Flathead Valley chapter happy hour 11/7 Chapter football watch parties (locations vary) 11/22 Billings Area chapter: Border Wars Basketball 12/1 Greater Twin Cities chapter food bank volunteer event, 6:00-8:00 p.m. (msuaf.org/GTCfoodbank)

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#msucollegian

This past May, we celebrated the MSC classes of 1945, 1955 and 1965 during Commencement weekend. Highlights included college tours, a veterans’ tribute and tree planting at Jabs Hall and recognition at commencement. The star of the weekend was Mrs. Edith (Johnson) Carlson, class of 1935, who attended many events and was presented with her 80th anniversary degree by President Cruzado, in front of a cheering crowd during the graduation ceremony. Edith turned 101 this spring.

All our reunion alumni are terrific examples of our most loyal and engaged Bobcats.

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Commencement Reunion

UPCOMING EVENTS 2016 Commencement Reunion The MSU Alumni Association is excited to welcome back the Montana State College classes of 1946 and 1956, and the first class to graduate from Montana State University— the class of 1966.

1966 — Golden (50 years) 1956 — Diamond (60 years) 1946 — Sapphire (70 years) Commencement Reunion Weekend will be held May 5–7, 2016. Registration packets will be mailed in January of 2016.

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The MSU ski team has grown substantially from its humble beginnings in 1940. Today’s Bobcat skiers compete in Alpine and Nordic events, the team roster has several female athletes and the heavy, wooden skis from decades past have been replaced with high performance gear. There are two skiers in the MSU Hall of Fame and Montana State has hosted the NCAA Championships seven times (1960, 1983, 1985, 1996, 1998, 2008, 2012). The last individual gold medal in an NCAA Skiing Championship was in 1978 by Dan Brelsford in the slalom in Franconia, NH. 1954 MSU Ski Team Left to right: James Andrews, Norel Johnson, Dave Street, Coach Bob Beck, Jack Kimpton, Dick Stevens, Oystein Boveng

MSU SKI TEAM

2014 MSU Ski Team and staff

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2015

Then & Now

Your Bobcat Gear Headquarters Shop in store, online or at Bobcat Stadium.

Alumni Association Members can save

15% off your entire ONLINE purchase of MSU Bobcat merchandise at www.msubookstore.org enter promo code AlumniSavings at checkout

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April 4–12, 2016 · From $5,295 per person

For a cultural and wildlife adventure a little closer to home, journey to the enchanted isles of the Galapagos. Begin with two nights on the mainland discovering UNESCO World Heritage marvels in Quito, snow-capped mountains and fantastic shopping in Otavalo. Begin your Galapagos cruise aboard the M/V Legend to experience close encounters with animals found nowhere else on earth. Motor in an open panga between the boat and the next island, where your hikes will be accompanied by knowledgeable guides eager to share their knowledge and enthusiasm for this world treasure.

Tasman Treasures: Sydney to Auckland February 21–March 9, 2016 From $6,999 per person, double occupancy (including airfare) Discover rugged, glorious scenery; magnetic, cosmopolitan cities, and captivating aboriginal heritage in the land down under while cruising aboard Oceania Cruises’ elegant Marina from Sydney to Auckland. Relax on Eden’s golden beaches, explore Geelong’s charming waterfront, and admire Melbourne’s graceful Victorian architecture. Take in the timeless natural treasures of Tasmania, then cruise the glassy waters of Milford Sound fjord. Delve into the Scottish heritage of Dunedin, New Zealand’s southern gem, and glimpse the fascinating Maori culture of Akaroa.

Stroll the sparkling waterfront in Picton, discover sweeping bay views at Tauranga or head to nearby Rotorua, renowned for its steaming geysers and thermal pools. Savor tranquility in the idyllic Bay of Islands.

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Vietnam May 14–25, 2016 · From $3,495 per person

Experience a country still unspoiled and quite unique in the world. Meet the cultured, attractive, and hospitable people of Vietnam in a variety of settings. View the diverse architectural styles, a legacy of a long history of foreign invasions in these two cities, as well as in Hue and Hoi An. Travel through highland plateaus and narrow coastal plains with stunning limestone scenery, and marvel at the beauty of Halong Bay on a luxury junk boat. Though often associated with hardship and war, today you will find Vietnam a serene and peaceful place to visit.

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Ecuador & Galapagos

Embark on an odyssey to Northern Europe. From London, travel to Southampton and begin your voyage aboard Oceania Cruises’ majestic Marina, stopping first in Le Havre, a jumping-off point for adventures in magical Paris. Take in the stylish art galleries of Antwerp.

Explore the fine museums and canals of Amsterdam. Behold the sprawling parks and gardens of Hamburg, Germany’s “Green City.”

Continue to Kristiansund, a gateway to Norway’s welcoming villages and gorgeous fjords, followed by Scandinavia’s oldest capital, Oslo, home to the imposing Akershus Fortress. Discover the charming boutiques, cozy cafes and elegant structures that grace Gothenburg, Sweden’s cultural heart.

Country & Blues: Nashville to Memphis October 23–31, 2016 · From $2,799 per person, double occupancy

Celebrate homegrown country and blues music on a luxury river cruise aboard the American Queen. Begin with a stay in Nashville, an iconic city that beckons with elegant architecture, an inventive culinary scene and ever-vibrant music culture. Then cruise the Cumberland River to Clarksville. Delve into fascinating Civil War history at Dover’s Fort Donelson National Battlefield and Cemetery, and encounter a striking blend of lush forests and rugged bluffs at Cave-In-Rock State Park in southern Illinois. Stroll past well-preserved historic landmarks in Mount Vernon, and take in the delightful 19th-century architecture of Paducah. Before concluding your voyage in Memphis, the “Home of the Blues,” witness colorful local artifacts on display at the New Madrid Historical Museum and the magnificent Hunter-Dawson home.

Captivating Mediterranean: Athens to Barcelona October 8–16, 2016 · From $2,699 per person, double occupancy (airfare included from select cities) Uncover a captivating mosaic of cultural and historical treasures as you sail from Greece to Italy, Monaco, France and Spain aboard Oceania Cruises’ exquisite Riviera. Depart Athens for Sorrento, a delightful seaside resort, or travel to nearby Capri. See monuments of antiquity in Rome. Explore the magnificent architecture of Florence, stand before Pisa’s famous Leaning Tower, or admire the rolling hills of Tuscany. Then stop in Monte Carlo. Before concluding your odyssey in Barcelona, browse Marseille’s lively markets and charming old quarter, or experience the rich Provençal countryside.

#msucollegian

June 13–24, 2016 · From $3,799 per person, double occupancy (airfare included from select cities)

M O N TA N A S TAT E U N I V E R S I T Y A L U M N I A S S O C I AT I O N

Regal Routes of Northern Europe: London to Copenhagen

Belize December 2–11, 2016 · From $3,995 per person Explore a world of tropical abundance and ancient mystery in Belize. Witness the majestic ruins of great Mayan cities and temples, explore lush jungles and limestone caves used as ceremonial and burial grounds by the Mayans and swim in the crystal waters of the Caribbean. Visit the ancient Mayan site of Tikal in Guatemala, one of the world’s most significant archaeological sites. See first-hand some of the efforts being made by local people to preserve that biodiversity through education and sustainable economic development. It’s a breathtaking experience you’ll never forget.

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Financials 2014 –2015 ACADEMIC YEAR

8,468 DONORS

12,082

Breakdown by area of support

PEOPLE $15.8 million PLACES $854,000 PROGRAMS $15.2 million

GIFTS TO MSU

$31.9 MM TOTAL

SCHOLARSHIP DISTRIBUTIONS

This academic year, MSU distributed 4,263 scholarships for a total of $3.5 million in student support.

ENDOWMENT

PEOPLE

$98,827,550

Donor dollars have grown the MSU Foundation’s endowment to $141.3 million.* *as of March 31, 2015

PROGRAMS $34,207,797

PLACES

$8,270,065

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GIVE Help advance MSU by

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connecting what is most important to you with MSU’s strategic ambitions. msuaf.org/give

JOIN Become part of the MSU Alumni Association and stay connected as your university builds on its history and traditions. msuaf.org/join

#msucollegian

UPDATE Receive important news about MSU, event invitations and more by updating your contact information. msuaf.org/update

Scholarships and Fellowships Ensuring access to a wider range of prospective students helps MSU build larger, more talented, and more diverse classes of graduate and undergraduate students who will be prepared for their futures.

Professorships and Chairs Securing support to recruit and build an outstanding faculty furthers groundbreaking research and offers our students access to leading experts and opportunities in their fields of interest.

M O N TA N A S TAT E U N I V E R S I T Y A L U M N I A S S O C I AT I O N

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How to get involved

Student Success Funds Mentoring, tutoring and other innovative programs provide our students with vital learning that occurs beyond the classroom, creating opportunities for them to excel academically, become more involved with efforts in their communities and pursue meaningful employment in their chosen fields.

Faculty Research and Leadership Grants and Awards Increasing the number of groundbreaking research and teaching projects initiated by faculty enables them to offer more unique learning opportunities to our students that more closely connect MSU to our communities.

PR In O ves GR t A in M S

PL Inve A st i CE n S

Learning and Leadership Centers High-tech and fully adapted learning and leadership centers ensure that we embrace growing student enrollment and offer our increasingly diverse student body access to the classrooms, labs and technology they need to succeed.

Community and Global Engagement Funds

Service-learning experiences gained through programs help students develop critical traits they can carry with them into their lives after college. Expanding the opportunities for all students and faculty to take part in MSU’s outreach programs will foster powerful engagement experiences that create advantages for these communities and themselves.

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Alumni Legacy Scholarship

Alumni Scholarships

The MSU Alumni Association awards this scholarship to continuing students who show excellence in academics and in campus involvement and leadership. Through this award, the MSU Alumni Association seeks to acknowledge and reward these qualities and foster deeper loyalty to Montana State.

Recipients must: • be a continuing student (i.e., sophomore, junior, or senior) for the upcoming academic year; • have at least one parent/guardian who is an MSU alumnus (i.e., attended and/or graduated from MSU in Bozeman, Montana); • have at least one parent/guardian who is an active member of the MSU Alumni Association; and • have a strong record of academic achievement and excellence, as well as campus involvement and leadership while at MSU.

2015-2016 Alumni Legacy Scholarship recipients

Madison Owens Major: Chemical & Biological Engineering Hometown: Ennis, Mont.

“This scholarship enables me to focus on my studies and take part in some of the amazing opportunities at MSU without having to sacrifice my studies because of work. Academically, I have been stretched and challenged to learn new concepts, think creatively and work diligently. Not only that, but socially, athletically, spiritually and morally MSU has given me the chance to construct who I want to be.”

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Dominique Cox Major: Mechanical Engineering Hometown: Walla Walla, Wash.

“This scholarship is not only a valuable financial contribution to my education, but a sense of faith and encouragement from my fellow Bobcats as I work to achieve my aspirations.

My experiences in and out of the classroom help me further develop who I am and who I want to be.”

Leslie Gappa Major: Health & Human Performance-Exercise Science Hometown: Park City, Mont.

“I work hard to provide for the majority of my educational costs, from working at an oil refinery during breaks, mowing lawns, cleaning and babysitting. Scholarships like this help reduce the stress of financial assistance, allowing me to concentrate on learning and help get me closer to my goals.”

Rachel Casey Major: Business Finance Hometown: Liberty Lake, Wash.

“This scholarship allows me to continue in my pursuit of a degree in business finance at a university that is significant to my family, as I’m a third generation Bobcat. It helps bridge some of the financial gap between in-state and out-ofstate tuition, aiding me in being able to attend my university of choice. MSU has allowed me to make many new connections, experience an amazing education, spend time with family and enjoy the beautiful Montana outdoors.”

#msucollegian

This scholarship is made possible by MSU alumni employed by Boeing and is awarded by the MSU Alumni Association to incoming freshmen who show academic promise and true interest in furthering their education and learning the “Montana Work Ethic.”

Alicia Stoner Major: Secondary Education Hometown: Billings, Mont.

“I chose MSU because of the people, history and landscapes that are all close to my heart, and I could not picture going to college anywhere else. Receiving this scholarship has allowed me to concentrate on furthering my education at my dream school, in addition to helping me reach my goal of becoming a high school history teacher. I truly appreciate this scholarship.”

Haley Walter Major: Business Hometown: Helena, Mont.

“This scholarship is important to me because it not only recognizes my hard work in school, it also shines a light upon my parents who are both MSU alumni.

This scholarship means that I am not only able to continue my education, but it allows me to follow in my parents’ footsteps and get a degree at MSU”.

For application information for any of these scholarships, please visit msuaf.org/scholarships

MSU Alumni Association Houston Area Chapter Scholarship This scholarship is made possible by the MSU Alumni Association Houston Area chapter and is awarded by the MSU Alumni Association to continuing students from the Houston area who show excellence in academics and in campus involvement and leadership.

2015–16 Boeing Employee Alumni Scholarship Winner

2015–16 MSU Alumni Association Houston Area Chapter Scholarship Winner

Connor Erickson Major: Chemical Engineering Hometown: Orting, Wash.

Sarah Juedeman Major: Electrical Engineering Hometown: New Orleans, La.

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MSU Boeing Employee Alumni Scholarship

“This scholarship is important “This scholarship is important to me because it helps me to to me because it allows me to attend Montana State. Without represent Houston at Montana scholarships it becomes very State and it helps me meet my difficult to afford the cost of a goals by providing financial higher education despite the assistance towards my tuition. fact I work year round. This It also establishes support and scholarship helps me to meet my encouragement from a whole financial goals while receiving chapter of MSU alumni who have the opportunities that come with successfully graduated from attending school and working MSU. My four years at Montana towards a higher education.”

State are not over yet, and as I stay in Bozeman this summer, my appreciation for the place only grows. One more year to go, and I sincerely appreciate the help in the final push towards graduation.”

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Blue & Gold Paths What’s life like at Montana State today? You might be surprised at how many things are unchanged! Here’s a snapshot from the perspective of a student and professor on campus today—how did your days at Montana State compare?

Major: Agriculture Education Minor: Music

MSU Chorale rehearsal at Reynolds Recital Hall.

Working with students across campus to create beauty with the choral art.

Afternoon rehearsal prep.

12:15 PM

11:30 AM

9:00 AM 10:55 AM

Kirk Aamot, Ph.D. Cali Christiansen 10:00 AM

9:00 AM Agricultural Business class in Linfield Hall.

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Director of Choral Activities and Associate Professor of Music

10:55 AM

10:00 AM

Choral Methods class. Students explore how to teach meaningful experiences with vocal music.

Cali Christiansen MSU Student: Junior

12:15 PM

Assist our American Choral Conductors Assoc. chapter on projects including the MSU Men’s Vocal Festival and the Madrigal Dinner.

Kirk Aamot, Ph.D. MSU Faculty

Lunch off campus with a friend.

Coffee at SROBrewed Awakening in the Library.

Horticulture class in the Plant Growth Center. Hands-on work with several species, with focus on improving growth.

Choir class in Howard Hall.

I frequently see Dr. Aamot before class and I assist with class preparation or upcoming concerts.

#msucollegian M O N TA N A S TAT E U N I V E R S I T Y A L U M N I A S S O C I AT I O N 

A little exercise at Hosaeus Recreation Center.

Committee work: School of Music scholarship; promotion; and tenure committees.

Run quickly to my biology class.

3:00 PM

2:10 PM

1:00 PM

Animal Anatomy Lab in Linfield Hall.

6:15 PM

Back to Howard Hall to rehearse with the Montanans.

4:30 PM

3:00 PM

2:10 PM

1:00 PM Office hour.

4:30 PM

Montanans rehearsal, Reynolds Recital Hall.

Top group of 16 singers, rehearsing a varied repertoire of vocal ensemble music.

Student ambassador work at the Alumni Foundation.

Head home to study with roommates.

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Dear alumni, friends and fans I had the recent good fortune to reconnect via Facebook with my freshman year roommate from South Hedges, fourth floor. She and I had so much fun during our first year and built a great friendship.

Throughout college, although we had pledged different sororities, we spent a lot of time together and vowed to take ski class each winter so that we would see each other more often. She is now a wife and a mother and lives in California. I can’t tell you how HAPPY it made me, to find her and learn about her life today. It brought back so many memories of our time living on campus and our terrific experiences at MSU. Another friend and I were laughing about her 21st birthday over 20 years ago and how “Happy Birthday” calls used to be made on land lines using a calling card. She was in Alaska at the time and wished she could be in Bozeman, with friends to celebrate. This year, I offered greetings on Facebook and in a text message from my smart phone!

Social media has allowed many of us the opportunity to stay connected with our friends throughout the years, and to learn about their professional successes and personal achievements. People are doing amazing things out there, and our Bobcats are part of this world, no doubt.

What have you been up to? Send an email and photo to collegian@msuaf.org, tell us online at msuaf.org/update or mail us a note to PO Box 172750, Bozeman, MT 59717. We’d love to hear from you! Please let us know where you are and a bit about your story—we want YOU in Class Notes for 2016! You never know who might see your name and want to reconnect—the memories stirred will keep you smiling for months!

Here’s to a terrific new school year at your Montana State—stay in touch, Bobcats!

In Blue & Gold, Kerry Hanson Vice President of Alumni Relations

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’60s Rodney (Rod) Allen* ’65, ’73 M, and Mary Lee James* ’65,

Whitehall, Mont., have retired.

Rod was a professor in environmental and general engineering at Montana Tech and Mary Lee worked at a preschool for 25 years.

’70s Kathy Ogle ’73, Cheyenne, Wyo., has recently retired from a position as regional coal coordinator for the Bureau of Land Management. Kathy and her husband, Phil, are enjoying traveling and riding their horses.

The National Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association of America, Inc. (NCBFAA) has named Area 1 director and certified customs specialist Mary Ann (Scheid) Comstock* ’74,

Sweet Grass, Mont., as the 2015 recipient of its coveted Centurion Award. In addition to her nearly 40-year career, Comstock has served on the NCBFAA Board since 2011 and is a member of the NCBFAA Bylaws Committee. The first woman so honored, Comstock is the latest in a distinguished line of honorees.

John Fulton ’77, Richland,

Wash., and a co-worker were recognized as a 2014 Battelle Distinguished Inventor at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). They have multiple U.S. Patents to their credit as a result of their work for Battelle, which operates PNNL for the U.S. Department of Energy. Fulton’s research focuses on measuring the molecular structure of water using intense x-ray sources, and his findings have resulted in new ways to exploit liquids’ special properties. Fulton has earned 15 patents and numerous national awards related to fluid processing. Some of his inventions were translated into commercial products that are in use today, like a cardiovascular stent for heart patients and the use of liquid carbon dioxide for precision cleaning of surfaces.

’80s Robert A. (Rob) Wheeler* ’81, North Bend, Wash., has been elected president & CEO of Clark Nuber, a Bellevue, Wash., CPA firm and one of the largest independent accounting firms in the country. Wheeler has been with Clark Nuber for 29 years and headed the firm’s tax practice for 12 years prior to his election as CEO. Samuel Gingerich ’83 PhD, Anchorage, Alaska, was hired as

the provost at the University of Alaska Anchorage.

John Burgess ’82, Seattle,

Wash., toured Montana in June to read from his new book, by Land…, his fourth collection of poetry from Ravenna Press.

Burgess first intersected with the Lewis & Clark Trail in 1978 while on a crew in the Gallatin Valley. He has explored major sites along the trail from St. Louis to Fort Mandan, from Fort Clatsop to Lolo Pass. The work is a collage of poems, handwritten lists, typewriter poems, cartoons, a memoir in 10 fragments, maps and reassembled texts that riff on the Journals.

David Crawford ’85, ’87 M,

Bozeman, Mont., became president/CEO of TD&H Engineering on February 12.

Prior to this position, Crawford managed the TD&H Bozeman office since 1992.

Crawford has been active as a charter member of the Bozeman Sunrise Rotary Club since 1993.

He met his wife, Kristi (Dolezilek) Crawford ’87, while at MSU, and they celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary last year. Kristi teaches second grade at Longfellow School in Bozeman.

Their son James Crawford is a junior at MSU in chemical engineering and their son Jackson is a freshman at UM.

Don McKinney ’87, Spokane, Wash., was promoted to senior associate at NAC|Architecture.

McKinney is a construction contract administrator and cost estimator in the Spokane office who is currently working on multiple projects for the Moses Lake School District, Barker High School and Early Learning Center for Central Valley School District, Salk Middle School for Spokane Public Schools and the Pullman High School Renovation and Reconstruction.

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Class Notes

William Windhamm III ’87,

has been hired as vice president of Morphy Auctions–Automobile Division. He was previously general operations manager for Billion Auto Group in Bozeman.

Ronald Lewis* ’88, Marietta, Ga., has been promoted to senior vice president of Supply Chain for Coca-Cola Enterprises.

’90s Karen McNenny ’94, Missoula, Mont., spoke at the 7th Annual Richland County Conference in March in Sydney, Mont. McNenny also acted as facilitator as community members gathered to discuss current changes and ideas for improvement. McNenny

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Kevin Nelson ’96 and Michelle Nelson ’93, are currently living in Billings. In Dec 2014, Michelle became the blood management coordinator at St. Vincent Healthcare in Billings.

In April 2015, Kevin joined CTA Architects in Billings, Mont., as an associate.

Julie Clay* 97, Bozeman, Mont.,

became IT project manager at Montana State University in

March 2013. In July 2014, Clay moved to project manager for Infrastructure & Services Operations ITC. Clay became advisor for Phi Sigma Alpha chapter of MSU’s Mortar Board Senior National Honor Society in Oct. 2014.

Kristin Larson ’97, Sidney, Mont., a Sidney cattle producer and businesswoman who has a lifetime of experience in the cattle industry, has been elected to the national Beef Promotion Operating Committee, representing the Federation of State Beef Councils. Larson also serves at the state level as the vice president for the Montana

In his first home start since September 2013, Montana State University alum and BC Lions quarterback Travis Lulay ’06 completed 34-of-44 passes (77%) and passed for 404 yards and three touchdowns in a thrilling BC Lions overtime victory 35-32 over the Saskatchewan Roughriders on July 17th. He has been named one of the Canadian Football League’s Shaw Top Performers for Week 3 of the 2015 season. This marked the second time in Lulay’s career he has thrown for over 400 yards and the first time he has done so since 2010. The former Montana State Bobcat and native of Salem, Oregon has passed for 658 yards while completing 68.4% of attempts so far this season. He has thrown four touchdown passes with only one interception so far.

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Beef Council as well as chair of the budget committee.

Rob Kuffel ’97, Spokane,

Wash., was promoted to senior associate architect in NAC|Architecture’s Spokane office. Kuffel is currently working on the new Residence Hall at Montana State University and worked on the recently completed Columbia Basin Technical Skills Center.

Hunter Lloyd ’99 M, Bozeman, Mont., along with being a professor of robotics at MSU, performs a comedy act for all ages with partner Looney, a NAO humanoid robot. Lloyd combines his skills as a robotics engineer and comedian to perform to audiences of students, inspiring them to follow their dreams in the fields of math and science. Lloyd and his students have excelled in a number of competitions including the NASA Robotics Championship, the Robot Olympic Games and Robogames. Lloyd is also a robotics entrepreneur: founding a robotics company in 2005 that helped develop the RangeWatcher and WatchKeeper technologies for the Predator Unmanned Aircraft Group.

Airlines for America (A4A), the industry trade organization for the leading U.S. airlines, named Jarrod Thompson ’99, Alexandria, Va., as vice president for legislative and regulatory policy. Thompson joins A4A from United Airlines where he is currently director of congressional affairs. He also has extensive experience working on airlinerelated issues on Capitol Hill where he served as republican senior professional staff member for aviation for the Senate Commerce Committee.

’00s John Crowe ’00, Tallahassee,

Fla., has received his master’s degree in environmental engineering from the University of Florida in Dec. 2014.

Cheryl Moore-Gough ’00, ’03

M, Bozeman, Mont., has released The Montana Gardener’s Companion, second edition, a guide devoted to the challenges of cultivating a successful garden in Big Sky Country.

Moore-Gough is currently adjunct assistant professor in horticulture. She is also technical editor-horticulture for Rocky Mountain Gardening magazine.

She has published numerous works alone and with her late husband, the well-known Robert “Dr. Bob” Gough. Together, they wrote the first edition of The Montana Gardener’s Companion, and many other publications.

Daniel Stevens* ’00, Cody, Wyo., has been named to Barron’s magazine’s 2015 Top Financial Advisor State-to-State rankings. This is Dan’s second appearance on this prestigious list where he ranked third in the state of Wyoming in 2015. Barron’s Top 1200 criteria based on assets under management, revenue produced for the firm, regulatory record, quality of practice, philanthropic work and more.

Tim Moody ’01, Stevensville,

Mont., has been promoted to NorthWestern Energy’s district manager in Hamilton.

Joe Wright ’01, Sheridan, Wyo.,

has been promoted to CEO of Kennon Products, Inc. of Sheridan, WY. Sean Heavey ’02 and Toni LaGree ’99, Glasgow, Mont.,

are the owners of a downtown Glasgow commercial building that they spent the last

LULAY COURTESY OF THE CANADIAN FOOTBALL LEAGUE

is a Montana native and the founder of Made You Think Consulting. She works throughout the country as a professional speaker, group facilitator and business coach.

John Lackey ’03, ’06 M, Anchor-

age, Alaska, a former road racer on the cycling team at Montana State University, set a new record for the Iditarod Trail Invitational, biking the 350 mile race in 1 day, 18 hours and 32 minutes. Lackey took 10 hours and 11 minutes off a cycling record set last year, which was itself a record by more than 14 hours. The Iditarod Trail Invitational is the world’s longest winter ultra marathon by mountain bike, foot and ski and follows the historic Iditarod Trail from Knik, Alaska, over the Alaska Range to McGrath and to Nome in late February every year, one week before the Iditarod Sled Dog Race.

Lukasz Mazur ’03, ’05 M, ’08 PhD, Cary, N.C.. The Institute of Industrial Engineers has announced the election of the association’s new officers. Mazur will join the technical operations board as a vice president.

Amy Lindgren

’07, ’08 M, Billings, Mont., has passed her architect registration examination and attained her architecture licensure; she’ll now be able to drop the “intraning” suffix on her job title.

Lindgren is employed with CTA Architects Engineers.

David Schipf ’09, Highwood, Mont. Schipf, has been awarded a Boren Fellowship to study in Taiwan during the 2015-16 academic year. Schipf is currently a PhD student in mechanical engineering/applied physics at the University of Washington. He will study Mandarin Chinese at National Cheng Kung University in Tainan, Taiwan.

’10s

Brent Nielsen ’03, ’04 M, Beaverton, Ore., has been promoted to assistant department head of civil engineering at Mackenzie of Portland, Ore.

Zach George ’12, ’14 M, Ka-

lispell, Mont., has been hired at Scott | Edwards Architecture LLP based in Portland, Ore. Crystal Reichhoff ’14, Great

Falls, Mont., has been hired at the Montana-based accounting firm of Junkermier, Clark, Campanella, Stevens as a CPA in the areas of tax and audit.

*Life member of the Alumni Association Class Notes are compiled from information received from our alumni and friends. MSU Alumni Association members will receive priority listing in Class Notes. To submit information, please send an email to collegian@ msuaf.org or drop a line to the MSU Alumni Association, P.O. Box 172750 Bozeman, MT 59717-2750.

#msucollegian M O N TA N A S TAT E U N I V E R S I T Y A L U M N I A S S O C I AT I O N

two years renovating. Recently, Heavey held a grand opening for his fine art photography studio, which was attended by more than 400 people. LaGree has a yoga studio in the building.

It has been two years since I retired as president of Montana State University’s Alumni Association. I have thoroughly enjoyed my retirement status, even though I do miss my work with alumni and my colleagues.

In September 2013, following my tremendous retirement party, I moved to Billings to spend a year at MSU Billings with Rolf who was serving as chancellor. We really enjoyed being together again entertaining in the chancellor’s home, being involved in the community and deepening our appreciation for the great work done at Montana State University’s campuses.

Rolf retired in June 2014 and we returned to Bozeman and our home. We have appreciated having time to reflect, laugh, dream and make plans together, for this new chapter in our lives.

Since then, we’ve been attending Bobcat football games, traveling around Montana and beyond visiting friends and appreciating beautiful sights. These trips have been just what I had hoped; special time with friends and family.

Today, Rolf and I are working with Global Travel Alliance, an educational travel company, and we recently went with a group of 18 old and new friends, on the first Big Sky Food and Wine Tour to Rome and the Tuscany region.

The next chapter for us is Semester at Sea, a program of the University of Virginia, where I will serve as the alumni and advancement coordinator. I will work with students, faculty and life long learners, instilling loyalty in this program where global awareness and leadership will be taught and experienced. Our first voyage departs in September from London and travels to multiple destinations in the Mediterranean, then Senegal, Brazil, Central America and ends in San Diego in December. Believe it or not, Rolf and I put this on our “retirement to-do” list when we got married in 1979. And I am now making travel arrangements, applying for visas and anticipating the wonders of the world. I already have Bobcat connections and we plan to get the Cat/Griz game streamed on board!

My heart continues to be full of love for and loyalty to “the Blue and Gold.” I feel blessed by the friends I made in my journeys through the years and the opportunities to represent our incredible university. I will always seek out alumni wherever I go and when I call, you can expect me to say, “Hey, I’m in town. Can I buy you a cup of coffee?” I look forward to seeing you in beautiful Bozeman or at a campus event or in your town, where I might be traveling.

Thank you for your loyalty to your alma mater, our Alumni Association and to me, over the many years of my time at Montana State. Retirement comes but friendships remain. Go Cats!

I would love to stay in touch. Drop me a line at jaynee.groseth@gmail.com Jaynee Drange Groseth President Emerita, MSU Alumni Association

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2015

Flat Champ attire: Ride some waves

Have you ever seen a surfing Bobcat? Members, deck out your Flat Champ in this beach-ready outfit and celebrate summer in Blue & Gold style!

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110 members 1,308 alumni

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228 members 1,826 alumni

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245 members 2,449 alumni

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32 members 244 alumni

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463 members 3,859 alumni

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181 members 1,887 alumni

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6,101 members 47,714 alumni

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283 members 1,753 alumni

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43 members 290 alumni

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45 members 576 alumni

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15 members 129 alumni

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73 members 708 alumni

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70 members 670 alumni

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33 members 340 alumni

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98 members 876 alumni

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53 members 358 alumni

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2 members 47 alumni

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6 members 39 alumni 18 members 212 alumni 39 members 321 alumni

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17 members 183 alumni

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4 members 202 alumni

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