Leap of faith

31 May

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At age 35, after applying to 11 veterinary schools, Sandy Anderson took a leap of faith.

When Iowa State’s College of Veterinary Medicine notified her that she was on a waiting list for the incoming class in 1999, she and her husband, Clint, moved to Ames. One month later, she learned she had been accepted.

She had never been to Iowa before.

Both natives of Pittsburgh, Pa., the Andersons believed Iowa State was the right fit for Sandy to study veterinary medicine. And it turns out they were right. Sandy graduated with her DVM in 2003.

A lifetime ago, Sandy was a dental hygienist on the east coast. Today, she is the sole veterinary provider in Lakeside, Mont.

“We knew we wanted to come here,” Sandy says. “We like the wide open space, the beauty. We wanted air to breathe.”

There are 1 million people in the state of Montana – fewer people than the county in which Sandy grew up. She and Clint bought land in Montana in 1994 and planned to retire there. But then they thought, “Why wait?”

When Sandy graduated from Iowa State, they moved to Eureka, a tiny town in northwestern Montana. She joined a mixed-animal practice.

“I was open minded,” Sandy said of her experiences with cows, horses, ostriches, goats, pigs, mules, and ponies in Eureka.

Clint saw it differently. “Sandy was thrown to the fire,” he said.

After several incidents with large animals, including a concussion from being head-butted by a cow, Sandy decided the mixed practice was not for her.

“I like small animals,” she says. “They’re much more suited to me.”

She learned that a part-time veterinarian in Lakeside was retiring, so she bought his phone number and client list. She found a small space in town and called her new clinic the Great Northern Veterinary Center. Clint works with her in the front office.

“There’s a good quality of life here,” Sandy says. “Lakeside is a good place for us, a good fit. We’re surrounded my like-minded people.”

The couple enjoys living near Flathead Lake and their proximity to Glacier National Park.

“We try to get to Glacier as often as we can,” Sandy says. “We try to drive the Going-to-the-Sun Road in every season. September is the best time. But it’s a wonderful place to go in every season, even in winter. It’s in our neck of the woods.”

Sandy and Clint have two dogs, Teddy and Raisinet, who go to work with them every day, and they have three cats at home.

Clint says he likes to watch new clients as they look at the diploma on Sandy’s wall.

“You can just see it in their eyes,” he says. “They’re thinking….IOWA? Where’s Iowa?”

Wolf tales

31 May

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We’re traveling with Carter Niemeyer into prime wolf country. Wolf country as far as you can see.

We’re about 60 miles northeast of Boise, Idaho, in the Edna Creek drainage area of the Boise National Forest.

We stop the truck and get out. Carter looks for wolf tracks on the gravel road. He finds fresh elk prints, coyote scat. But no evidence of wolf activity.

Sometimes it’s a wolf rendezvous here, he says. There will be thousands of wolf tracks on the road.

Carter lets loose a friendly howl. The sound carries for miles. But no response. The large wolf pack is just out of range.

We’ve started our day at 6:30 a.m., but it’s already too late for wolf activity here. Howl at daybreak, Carter says, and the wolves will answer. Canines enjoy howling, he says. They like to whoop it up.

Carter Niemeyer (’70 fisheries & wildlife biology, MS ’73), a 6’6” native of Garner, Iowa, knows wolves. A former government trapper in Montana and wolf recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service in Idaho, Carter helped capture the wolves that were famously introduced in Yellowstone National Park and Idaho in the 1990s.

He’s controversial. He’s outspoken. He’s personally trapped more than 300 wolves: captured them, fitted them with radio collars, checked them for injury, and released them.

He worked in every corner of Montana for 27 years, and he’s been in Idaho for 13. He’s collected so many stories – of people and animals – over the years that friends kept telling him he should write a book.

So in 2010, with the help of his wife and editor, Jenny, Carter published a memoir: Wolfer. The book is filled with tales of growing up in Iowa, learning to trap and skin animals, and working his way through skunks and eagles and foxes and grizzlies before finding his niche with wolves in the Northern Rockies.

The book has sold more than 7,000 copies, Carter says, slightly amazed by this fact. “People love the book,” he says, shaking his head. “They say it’s a page turner.”

“But you can’t make this stuff up.”

Just do it

31 May

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Gina Ambrose had a goal: Run a 26-mile marathon the year she turned 26.

“I’d been tossing around the idea of running a marathon, and I needed a deadline,” Gina said. “When I turned 26, I thought, ‘This is it.’ I moved to Oregon and started training for the Portland Marathon.”

The achievement of her goal gave Gina much more than a pumped-up fitness routine. It allowed her to explore her new city and find hidden gems along the way.

“I like running, and I like exploring my neighborhood,” she said. “It’s really social.”

Gina (’08 marketing, international business, and French) moved to Portland to work at Nike, headquartered in nearby Beaverton, Ore., as part of the marketing team for the website Nike.com.

“It’s fabulous to work at Nike,” she says. “I volunteer to give tours to guests because I love to tell the Nike story.”

Her work focuses on digital marketing and target-market advertising. She says the job is the perfect balance of art and science.

Though she grew up in the small Iowa town of Webster City, Gina says she always liked big cities, and she landed her first job at Gap in San Francisco. But Portland and Nike are the perfect fit for her.

“My dream of dreams was to work for Nike,” she says.

Jet set

31 May

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When Matt England graduated with an aerospace engineering degree in December 2011, he was all set to start his life in the Midwest. After all, he had good job offers from both Caterpillar and John Deere.

But then the Boeing Company “came in at the last second” and gave Matt an opportunity he couldn’t refuse: a chance to move to Seattle, Wash., to work as a flight test engineer.

“As a flight test engineer, I get to travel the world testing these magnificent machines,” Matt says. “I’m currently working on ZA005 – a 787 Dreamliner. Some of the flight maneuvers we do include stalls, high-banked turns, and nose-over maneuvers.”

It’s no surprise that Matt ended up here. As a youngster his family took a vacation to Seattle, which included a Boeing factory tour that he declared the “coolest thing in the world.”

Matt does have a desk in a Boeing facility, but when he’s flying, his “office” is a workstation in the 787. Test flights might be as short as half an hour or they could take all day, and Matt is typically part of a 10- to 15-person crew. He’s flown all over the western United States and to Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and beyond.

“The coolest thing about being involved in flight test is flying on a brand-new aircraft and getting to experience the future of aviation first-hand,” Matt says.

Matt’s girlfriend, Amy Schwager (’12 graphic design), is a graphic designer in Seattle. Both grew up in small-town eastern Iowa and are embracing the Seattle culture. Matt is president of the ISUAA Club of Seattle, and both are active with ISU alumni events.

A little wine

31 May

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Rosie (Iverson) Wilson’s first response to her son when he suggested she and her husband, Gerry, buy “a little winery” in Temecula, Calif., was, “You’re crazy.”

Rosie and Gerry were living in the Los Angeles area at the time, and Gerry had recently retired.

“The kids thought it would be fun, and we went from there,” Rosie says. That was in 1996. They built the winery while living in a trailer on the property “and eating a lot of peanut butter sandwiches,” opened in 2000, and have been growing ever since. The original staff of eight (“all Wilsons”) became a staff of 172. Twenty acres grew to 93 acres. A restaurant was added in 2008.

Today, on a good weekend, it’s not uncommon for Wilson Creek Winery to welcome 1,000 visitors per day to its tasting room. The restaurant serves an average of 500 people at its Sunday brunch. More than 100 weddings are held each year, plus other events nearly every evening.

When the Wilsons opened in 2000, they were the 12th winery in the Temecula Valley, an up-and-coming wine region located about an hour northeast of San Diego. Now there are 42. It might be easy for Wilson Creek to get lost in the shuffle if it were not for two key things: family and almond champagne.

“Our motto is ‘family first,’” Rosie says. Wilson Creek is first and foremost a family business. On any given day, members of the Wilson family can be found throughout the winery.

As for the almond champagne, that was a little more serendipitous.

“We thought our cabernet would be our signature wine,” Gerry explains. “We developed an almond champagne for weddings, and then we took it out for tastings, fundraisers, and charitable events.”

The almond champagne made Wilson Creek stand out from the other wineries.

“We had no idea what we were doing at first,” Rosie said. “It was, ‘Have almond champagne, will travel.’”

Wilson Creek has a popular wine club and a loyal customer base. Diners rave about the winery’s old-fashioned service and personal attention.

Rosie and Gerry are clearly having a blast with their “little winery” business.

“We’ve been married 59 years,” she says, “and he’s still my best friend.”

Rosie  (’52 child development) grew up in Ames, Iowa. Her father, Prof. C.A. Iverson, was the head of Dairy Industry at Iowa State and was the VEISHEA faculty adviser for 25 years.

Best week ever

6 Apr

What a week!

Last Monday I woke up to the sounds of thunder and rain hitting my roof. Not good — Monday was move-in day for our VISIONS Across America portraits to the Brunnier Art Museum. But by 9 a.m., when half the Alumni Association staff was ready to help load the truck, the rain stopped. That was the first sign that it was going to be a special week.

One by one, the portraits were loaded into the ISU Printing and Copy Services truck (thanks again, Rob Louden) and into the waiting arms of the University Museums staff at the loading dock of the Scheman Building. The load-in went like clockwork, and by Tuesday every print was hanging on a gallery wall. The Museums staff (Lynette Pohlman, Nancy Girard, David Faux, Adrienne Gennett, and Allison Sheridan) was so great — accommodating in every way, efficient, and professional. They really know their stuff.

This is Jim and me on Tuesday afternoon…so happy with our progress!

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By Wednesday, people were already sneaking into the exhibition to look at the portraits, even though it was technically not open yet. Thursday was our “soft” opening, and by Friday, every light was in place, every word attached to the wall. We were ready for our grand opening reception.

I arrived at the Brunnier Friday afternoon about 3:30. The caterers were already there, setting up the food stations and cocktail tables. By 4:30, Association staffers Katie Lickteig and Beth Lott had brought in beautiful bouquets of flowers to decorate the tables, and the food began to arrive.

Jim and I were interviewed by the Iowa State Daily newspaper staff, and then it was 5 o’clock. Time for the show.

People began to arrive, and suddenly I didn’t know where I should be. There were too many people to greet, too many people to talk to, too many people to thank, too many people to hug.

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Jim and I especially wanted to spend time with the alumni featured in the show. And they did come! Bob Gannon from Nevada (above), Catherine Swoboda from Iowa, John Arends from Illinois,  Shirley Koenen from Arkansas (below), Allison Foss from Kansas, Dawn Refsell from Missouri, Kathie Taylor from Utah, and Faye Perkins from Wisconsin. And some were represented by their families: Leslie Baker’s (Oklahoma) parents, John Kaiser’s (Pennsylvania) son, Rachel Beardsley’s (New York) parents…and I’m sure I’m missing some people.

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We were surrounded by friends, family, and many friendly strangers. We had Board of Directors members and former alumni staffers. There were ISU administrators (including President Steven Leath and his wife, Janet), faculty, staff, and students. I recognized people from the Ames community and Des Moines. Most of the Alumni Association staff was there — working the event, or just enjoying it. I wish I could have met everyone. In all, 335 people turned out for the opening. It was beyond my wildest dreams.

And the reaction! I think people really love this show — because it’s about THEM. It’s about the potential of every person who sets foot on the Iowa State campus. Because once you have this Iowa State experience, you can do something extraordinary. Jim’s photos tell that story so well.

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This project has been a huge source of pride for me, for Jim, for the Alumni Association, for University Museums, and for the whole Iowa State community. I think the people in the room Friday night felt that pride. If you were there, thank you so much for coming. If you were not, I encourage you to take time to view this wonderful show. It’s on exhibition through Aug. 9 (Tuesday – Friday 11 a.m. – 4 p.m., Saturday – Sunday 1-4 p.m.), so there’s plenty of time to see it. Admission is free, although donations to the Museum are appreciated.

Thanks to everyone for making this one of the best weeks ever!

 

The show must go up

1 Apr

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Through the long, long, long Iowa winter, April seemed very far away. But now it’s here, and that means our VISIONS Across America: Portraits of Iowa State Alumni by Jim Heemstra exhibition is opening THIS WEEK! Yesterday, we very carefully moved all 116 of Jim’s portraits out of the ISU Alumni Center, where they have been stored for more than a month, and into the Brunnier Art Museum. It’s just across a big parking lot, but it took a couple dozen of us from the Alumni Association, University Museums, and ISU Printing and Copy Services to do the move. (That’s Rob Louden from Printing and Jim above.)

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Once all the portraits were in the museum and unwrapped, Jim and I worked with Lynette Pohlman, director of University Museums to place each photograph within the gallery spaces — and that’s not as easy as it sounds. But by mid-afternoon we felt we had a pretty good handle on it, so Museums staffers Nancy Girard and Adrienne Gennett started climbing the big ladder and pounding nails in the walls and adjusting lights, and pretty soon the first room looked like a real art show.

Today we’re working on the other rooms, and by Friday night we’ll be ready for our big opening reception. Hope to see you there!

 

 

 

They’re here!

11 Mar

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAToday feels like Christmas at the Alumni Center. Our magazine printer, Brian Downing of Rock Communications, just delivered a preview box of the special VISIONS Across America issue. I can’t tell you how exciting it is to finally be able to hold this magazine in my hands after working on this project for more than three years. It’s unbelievable.

Here’s a picture of VISIONS designer Scott Thornton and me with the Rock gang last week. We were in Newton watching the press run for two full days. Since they ran the magazine from front to back, and it’s organized from the West Coast states to the Northeast states, when it was on press it just felt like a freight train barreling across the country.

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The magazine will be mailed to ISU Alumni Association members by the beginning of next week. If you want to order extra copies, or if you’re not a member and you want a copy, go to www.isualum.org/ordervaa (copies are $10 for members, $12 for non-members).

Where healing takes place

27 Feb

Here’s our last feature post prior to the release of the special VISIONS Across America issue, which should hit the mail in late March. Once that issue is in the hands of our Alumni Association members, I’ll post the stories featured in that issue so the blog will contain features on EVERY alum we met during this two-year project.

But I digress. We met Krista Eilers in Kansas City last September. Here’s her story:

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Krista Eilers, MSW, NHP, QRP practices what she preaches.

A holistic practitioner and founder of Holistic Healing in Kansas City, Krista starts each day with 30 minutes of yoga. When she’s not working as a yoga instructor or holistic health coach, Krista power-walks, bikes, and sails.

“I love the outdoors,” she says. “I think it’s where healing takes place.”

In her professional life, Krista works with individuals in the areas of emotional health, cancer prevention, pain management, occupational health, stress and anger management, and nutrition. She also works with cancer survivors.

“The number one most important thing in working with cancer survivors is emotional health,” she says.

If she had to simplify her advice and “stick it on the fridge,” it would be this: Dietary changes (“eat fresh, wholesome food”), exercise (“especially outdoors!”), and meditation (deep breathing, yoga, tai chi, or whatever you enjoy).

“It’s the whole mind/body/spirit approach to life,” she says. “It’s important to be in the ‘now.’”

A native of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and a 1993 ISU grad with a degree in social work, Krista has lived in the Kansas City area since 1994.

“You won’t get any better climate than Kansas City,” she says. “You can be outside 10 months out of the year.”

A passion for Portland

18 Feb

Here’s our next-to-last feature post as we come down the home stretch on this project. We met Bill Findlay in Portland, Ore., last August. He and more than 100 other ISU alumni will be featured in the upcoming VISIONS Across America art exhibition in the Brunnier Art Museum April 3 – Aug. 9.

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Portland, Ore., has been very good to Bill.

Those are Bill Findlay’s words, not mine. But after spending half a day in Portland with Bill (’66 architecture) as our tour guide, it’s obvious that the city has, indeed been good to him. And he’s been good for the city.

Bill retired in April 2011 after first working as an architect for a dozen years and then working in the financial services industry for more than three decades. He’s spent 44 years as a board member or chairperson for Portland civic organizations including the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Oregon Japanese Garden Foundation, Oregon Symphony, Portland Center for the Performing Arts, Oregon Art Museum, Portland Opera, and many others.

His civic involvement began shortly after he moved to Portland when he became a member of the YMCA board.

“Overnight, I became involved on boards,” he said. “Once you get on a board, they tap you for everything.”

Bill isn’t complaining, though. He’s clearly proud of the volunteer work he’s done for the Portland Japanese Garden (“the No. 1 Japanese garden outside of Japan,” he says), the Portland Center for the Performing Arts, and the unique wheelchair-accessible Portland Rotary Rose Garden Children’s Park – all of which he showed Jim and me during our time together.

He’s also a proud father to two grown children, John and Kathryn.

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