2008 Winter Saint John's Magazine (Alumni Magazine)

              MAGAZINE WINTER 2008
Johnnies
In the Green
Wind Entrepreneur Mason Sorenson ’96
F E A T U R E S
18 Going Beyond
So that’s what they mean when they
say liberal arts ... Th ese enterprising
undergraduates are full of creativity
and energy, they have each accom-plished
something unusual and each
is completely diff erent from the other.
8 Getting Greener
“Businesses are waking up to the envi-ronmental
and social implications of
their decisions,” says Ernie Diedrich,
professor of economics at Saint John’s
University and the College of Saint
Benedict. Six Johnnies share their
experiences in businesses that are
greening the economy.
28 “Mr. Saint John’s” Gather
Nineteen Walter Reger Distinguished
Alumni Award winners gathered at the
2007 Homecoming Banquet. It was
the fi rst reunion of these recipients of
the Alumni Association’s highest honor.
D E P A R T M E N T S
2 From the President
3 Behind the Pines
16 Arts & Culture
22 Advancing the Mission
25 Alumni News
32 Johnnie Sports
34 Milestones
40 Inspiring Lives
1
(Inside cover photo: Fran Hoefgen, OSB)
On the cover:
Mason Sorenson ’96 is one of six alumni pro-fi
led for “In the Green” (page 8). He is manager
of legal affairs and project development for
Midwest Wind Finance, a company that helps
landowners fi nance wind turbines.
Dear Friends,
Last July, I became a charter signa-tory
to the American College and
University Presidents Climate Com-mitment,
which formally commits
Saint John’s to becoming a carbon
neutral campus over time.
Saint John’s has been described as an
oasis for arts, culture and spirituality.
Every time I look out my window or
traverse campus, in any season (even
winter), I am reminded that it is also
an environmental oasis. Although it
will not be simple to achieve carbon
neutrality, it was easy to decide to com-mit
to it – it is deeply congruent with
the Benedictine values of our commu-nity
and reinforces programs that have
already long been under way here.
You will be hearing more about this
in the months and years to come. And
in this issue’s main feature, “In the Green,” six of our graduates share their eff orts to infl uence
lower carbon emissions and create a more sustainable economy. Th ey are at the forefront of what
is rapidly becoming a national imperative. Combining business smarts with a desire to steward
resources for future generations, they are fi nding ways to green our economy through for-profi t
organizations that run the gamut from biofuels and wind energy to composting and hydrogen
fuel cells.
As a complement to this feature, we also profi le graduates who are living out their interests
in environmental issues personally rather than professionally. Required gear for these Johnnies:
pedals, paddles, binoculars and drafting boards.
Our second feature, “Going Beyond,” could also be titled “Johnnies to Watch.” You will
thoroughly enjoy these four young men – they have each accomplished something outstanding
at the undergraduate level – and I think we may be hearing more about them in the future.
Finally, I urge you to take a look at a special photograph in the Alumni News section. We
gathered together the largest number of Fr. Walter Reger Distinguished Alumnus Award recipi-ents
in one place ever (19) at the Alumni Association Sesquicentennial Homecoming Banquet
last October and took a picture before they could escape. Th is is one you will want to see.
God bless!
Dietrich Reinhart, OSB
President
The Magazine of
Saint John’s University
WINTER 2008
EDITOR
Margaret Arnold
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Jean Scoon
EDITORIAL TEAM
Troy Fritz ’88
Glenda Isaacs Burgeson
Rob Culligan ’82
Greg Hoye
Jon McGee ’84
Michael Thorp
John Young ’83
CONTRIBUTORS
Margaret Arnold
John Biasi
Rob Culligan ’82
Michael Halverson ’01
Michael Hemmesch ’97
Eric Hollas, OSB
Ryan Klinkner ’04
Derek Larson
Peter B. Myers
Eric Schubert ‘92
Jean Scoon
John Taylor ’58
Thom Woodward ’70
John Young ’83
EDITORIAL ASSISTANT
Julie Scegura
PRODUCTION
Greg Becker, Karen Hoffbeck
EDITOR EMERITUS
Lee A. Hanley ’58
UNIVERSITY ARCHIVIST
Peggy Roske
is published in the fall
and winter and
CSB/SJU Magazine
is published with the
College of Saint Benedict
in the spring.
ADDRESS CHANGES
Saint John’s University
P.O. Box 7222
Collegeville, MN 56321
rathmann@csbsju.edu
CONTACT
320-363-2591
800-635-7303
www.csbsju.edu
LETTERS
Saint John’s Magazine
Offi ce of Institutional Advancement
P.O. Box 7222
Collegeville, MN 56321
E-MAIL
marnold@csbsju.edu
2
FROM THE PRESIDENT
3
BEHIND THE PINES
csbsju.edu/news
515 young men became fi rst-time Johnnies last August.
Together with 537 new Bennies, this brings the Class of
2011 to 1,052, the third largest in CSB/SJU history. Th is
class comes from 25 states and 10 foreign countries.
Nearly 10 percent of them are American students of color
and international students. Th eir academic profi le is higher
than last year’s class.
Put the Class of 2011 together with the Classes of ’08,
’09 and ’10, and you get 3,966 undergraduate students, the
largest enrollment of any undergraduate national liberal arts
college.
Enrollment Continues Strong
The Class of 2011
(From the Beloit College Mindset List®)
Here are some things that most members of the Class
of 2011 – born in 1989 – have in common. Kind of
makes you think …
• What Berlin Wall?
• They have grown up with bottled water.
• Nelson Mandela has always been free and a force in
South Africa.
• “Off the hook” never had anything to do with a
telephone.
• U2 has always been more than a spy plane.
• Stadiums, rock tours and sporting events have
always had corporate names.
• They learned about JFK from Oliver Stone and
Malcom X from Spike Lee.
• Women have always been police chiefs in major
cities.
• Virtual reality has always been available when the
real thing failed.
• The purchase of ivory has always been banned.
• They’re always texting 1 n other.
(Photo by Michael W. Becker)
The Class of 2011 in front of the Abbey Church.
4
BEHIND THE PINES
csbsju.edu/news
Public Policy and Global Education
Centers Established
Saint John’s University and the College
of Saint Benedict have received pledges of
$10.3 million to establish two centers of
academic excellence and distinction. Th e
centers will enhance student learning, pro-mote
faculty development and raise public
awareness about pressing issues of our day.
SJU received a $5 million gift pledge
from Dan and Katharine Whalen for the
creation of the Eugene J. McCarthy Cen-ter
for Public Policy & Civic Engagement,
named in honor of this former Minnesota
senator, congressional leader, presidential
candidate and 1935 graduate of Saint
John’s.
In announcing the McCarthy Center,
SJU President Br. Dietrich Reinhart, OSB,
emphasized SJU and CSB’s long record
of producing political leaders at the local,
state and national level. “Th rough policy
institutes, learning communities, fi eld
work, faculty development, visiting lec-tureships
and student internships, the Mc-
Carthy Center will leverage our strengths
and become a catalyst for helping solve the
real-world challenges that loom over our
communities in this globally interdepen-dent
century,” he said.
Dan Whalen is a 1970 graduate of
Saint John’s and immediate past chair of
Saint John’s Board of Regents. Katharine
Whalen has an M.A. in public policy from
the University of Minnesota’s School of
Public Aff airs and has held various posi-tions
in city and environmental planning.
CSB received a $5.3 million commit-ment
from Tom Petters, founder, chairman
and CEO of Petters Group Worldwide,
for the creation of the Th omas J. Petters
Center for Global Education.
Th e Petters Center will help broaden
understanding and strengthen engagement
of students and faculty in looking outside
the United States to understand the global
nature of business and model citizenship
in our world. It will also build on a nation-ally
recognized study abroad program.
CSB and SJU operate 16 separate study
abroad sites on six continents including a
25-year partnership with Southwest Uni-versity
in BeiBei, Chongqing, China.
Petters, a St. Cloud native, is a mem-ber
of the CSB Board of Trustees. He is
an active philanthropist with particular
interest in the development of young
people pursuing global understanding and
international business.
Students Work with Mayo Clinic
Four students at Saint John’s University
and the College of Saint Benedict are
participating in an internship program
to research projects submitted by Mayo
Clinic professionals.
Th e Mayo Scholars Program gives select-ed
undergraduate science and business stu-dents,
working with M.B.A. students, the
opportunity to research specifi c projects
through the Mayo Ventures and Licensing
activity. Last spring, eight students from
SJU and CSB participated. One group
analyzed costs of several knee implant
devices to determine if it was possible to
reduce implant costs without sacrifi cing
positive clinical results. Th e other group
researched the use of designed or isolated
If A Road Runs Through It Airs on Public Television
Produced by The Project for Under-Told Stories at SJU under the direction of Fred de Sam Lazaro, the fi lm documentary If A
Road Runs Through It made its broadcast premiere on Twin Cities Public Television on Oct. 28. It was also screened at Saint John’s.
The documentary addresses the challenges that rapid development has brought to the Avon Hills area of Stearns County. This
area includes Saint John’s and has been identifi ed as one of the last best places to live by the Nature Conservancy and as an
Important Birding Area by the Audubon Society.
The fi lm is, in part, an elegy for the passing of a way of rural life nurtured for over a century by family farms, Saint John’s Abbey
and Saint Benedict’s Monastery. The Saint John’s Arboretum may be the last refuge of the old landscape and ecosystem.
(To view If a Road Runs Through It, go to csbsju.edu/undertoldstories.)
(Photo by Jim Kron)
5
BEHIND THE PINES
csbsju.edu/news
peptides as indicators of treatment options
in medicine.
Th e program is a collaborative eff ort
between the Mayo Clinic and Minnesota
private colleges and universities with fi nan-cial
support from the Medtronic Founda-tion
and the Minnesota Private College
Council.
Graduates Teaching in Austria
Th ree recent graduates are teaching in
Austria through the Austrian Ministry of
Education Teaching Assistantship program
administered by the Fulbright Commis-sion
in Vienna.
Th ey are Mark Bublitz ’07, Erik Hen-drickson
’07 and David Lambert ’07.
Since 1962, the Austrian Fulbright
Commission has managed the U.S. Teach-ing
Assistantship Program for the Austrian
Ministry of Education. A record number
of 144 U.S. teaching assistants will be in
Austria for 2007-08.
Students Receive Awards
for Study in Asia
Two SJU students received Freeman
Awards for Study in Asia (also known as
Freeman-ASIA). Aaron Brown ’08 and
Zachary White ’09 each received $5,000
grants.
White, from Duluth, studied this past
fall at Southwest University in Beibei,
China. Southwest and CSB/SJU have
had a relationship for more than 25 years.
Brown, from Grand Rapids, studied this
past fall at Bunkyo Gakuin University in
Tokyo, Japan, which has been a collabora-tive
partner of SJU and CSB for more
than 15 years.
Freeman-ASIA’s primary goal is to in-crease
the number of U.S. undergraduates
who study in eastern and southeastern Asia
by providing them with information and
fi nancial assistance. Since the program’s
launch in 2000, it has helped more than
3,000 U.S. undergraduates to study in
Asia. Freeman-ASIA is administered by
the Institute for International Education
with the generous support of the Freeman
Foundation.
John Gagliardi Named National Coach of the Year
Saint John’s University head football coach, John Gagliardi, was named the 2007 Liberty
Mutual Coach of the Year for NCAA Division
III on Dec. 29. The award honors the col-lege
football coach who best exemplifi es
responsibility and excellence on and off the
playing fi eld.
Gagliardi will receive $50,000 from Liberty
Mutual to support his civic and charitable
activities and $20,000 in scholarship funds to
the Saint John’s Alumni Association. He’ll also
be recognized in the permanent Liberty Mutual
Coach of the Year display at the National Foot-ball
Foundation’s College Football Hall of Fame
in South Bend, IN. For more information and a
video of this award, visit gojohnnies.com.
In the past year two SJU coaches have
received national coach of the year honors.
Last May, Golf Head Coach Bob Alpers ’82 was named the Eaton Golf Pride National Coach of
the Year after his team won the national title.
Campus Ministry Assists Flood Relief
A SJU and CSB Campus Ministry trip took students to southern Minnesota to assist
in fl ood cleanup after abnormally heavy rains last August.
Th e group helped Paul ’99 and Sarah ’99 Freid rebuild an environmentally sustain-able
straw bale house. Th ey also repaired areas of the house that had been damaged by
the heavy rains. In addition, they helped in a cleanup eff ort at an elderly man’s house in
Rushford, MN, one of the communities hardest hit by the fl oods.
(Photo by Michael Crouser)
6
BEHIND THE PINES
Lilly Grant to Address
Men’s Involvement
Saint John’s University has been awarded
a $599,900 grant from the Indianapolis-based
Lilly Endowment to identify ways to
increase men’s involvement in volunteer-ing,
leadership training and vocational
decision-making activities.
Th ere is growing concern nationally that
men attending liberal arts colleges are less
involved than college women in intern-ships,
study abroad, volunteering and
other experiential learning activities. As
one of the four remaining men’s colleges
in the country, Saint John’s is uniquely
positioned to tackle this project.
Saint John’s will convene teams from 14
schools to experiment with pilot projects
to identify the best ways to increase college
men’s involvement. Some of the schools
are Davidson, Morehouse, Georgetown,
Hastings, Wabash, Hope, Saint Norbert
and Luther colleges, and Saint John’s,
Duke, Wake Forest and Furman universi-ties.
Two colleges have yet to be named.
Th e Saint John’s pilot project is a service
and study trip in 2008 to India, Nepal,
and Tibet. Th e Men’s Center at SJU will
host two national conferences where
“think tanks” will develop conceptual
models to better understand why men are
less likely than women to participate in
vocational exploration activities and what
might increase their involvement.
Governor Declares
Saint John’s Abbey
and University Day
Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota
declared Friday, Nov. 9, 2007, Saint
John’s Abbey and University Day in
Minnesota in honor of the “contri-butions
of Saint John’s Abbey and
University to the community, state
and world.”
Nov. 9 was the fi rst day Saint
John’s held classes 150 years ago.
Nov. 9, 2007 marked the closing
event of the Saint John’s Sesquicen-tennial.
Th e closing was celebrated at
Saint John’s with a program includ-ing
remarks by Annette Atkins,
author of Creating Minnesota: A
History from the Inside Out and
CSB/SJU professor of history, as
well as the presentation by Min-nesota
Housing Commissioner Tim
Marx ’79, representing Gov. Tim
Pawlenty, of the offi cial proclama-tion
declaring Saint John’s Abbey
and University Day.
Former Regent Named 2007 Philanthropist of the Year
Nicky Benz Carpenter was awarded the Association of Fundraising Professionals’ highest honor,
the Twin Cities Philanthropist of the Year award.
Carpenter served on the Saint John’s University Board of Regents from 1984-1993 and is cur-rently
serving on the university’s capital campaign committee. She served as chair of the board of
the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library (HMML) of Saint John’s University from 1994 to 2005. She
was awarded lifetime membership on the HMML Board in 2005 for her exemplary leadership and
commitment. In the same year, she was vested as a member of the Order of Malta.
Nominated by the HMML staff, Carpenter received letters of support from Minnesota Public
Radio, Minnesota Orchestra, Minnesota Opera and MacPhail Center for the Arts – all organizations
that have benefi tted from her leadership and philanthropy.
Carpenter received a B.A. from Vassar College. She has been self-employed as an educational
consultant in Wayzata, MN, since 1977. Her background includes various admissions positions at
Barnard and Pembroke colleges and Villa Mercede School in Florence, Italy.
Minnesota Housing Commissioner Tim Marx ’79,
representing Gov. Tim Pawlenty, presented an offi cial
proclamation declaring Nov. 9, 2007 Saint John’s Abbey
and University Day at the closing celebration of the Saint
John’s Sesquicentennial.
(Photo by Jessica Handwerk ’08)
csbsju.edu/news
7
BEHIND THE PINES
Naples Art Museum to Host Tupa Exhibit
Painting the Pilgrimage: From Paris to Compostela, a show of 42 watercol-ors
and 22 oil paintings by Fr. Jerome Tupa, OSB, opened at the Naples
Art Museum in Naples, FL, on Jan. 29. Tupa’s work is a visual recollection
of a pilgrimage he made in 2001 to the shrine of Saint James at Compos-tela
in northwestern Spain. Th e show recounts scenes from the traditional
routes to Santiago that originate in France, as well as diversions to cities in
the south of Spain.
Painting the Pilgrimage is one in a series of works by Tupa that focus
on pilgrimage to the great shrines of Christianity. Th e Road to Rome and
Th e Road to Jerusalem complete the trilogy, while his earlier exhibit on
Th e California Missions served as an artistic preparation for the pilgrimage
trilogy.
Tupa has taught French and led international studies programs. He
currently serves as director of campus ministry at Saint John’s University.
Painting the Pilgrimage runs through May 18.
ACCU Honors Finn
Daniel Finn, CSB/SJU professor of
theology and William E. and Virginia
Clemens Professor of Economics and the
Liberal Arts, received the third annual
Monika K. Hellwig Award, presented to
an individual in recognition of outstand-ing
contributions to Catholic intellectual
life by the Association of Catholic Colleges
and Universities (ACCU). Th e award was
presented at the ACCU’s annual conven-tion
in Washington, D.C. on Feb. 2.
“All of us at Saint John’s and Saint Ben’s
are very proud of Dan’s accomplishment,”
said Br. Dietrich Reinhart, OSB, presi-dent
of Saint John’s University. “He has a
distinguished record in the areas of theol-ogy,
social justice and economics, and his
contributions to Catholic intellectual life
certainly qualify him for this award.”
Th e award was created in memory of
the late Monika K. Hellwig, Ph.D., an
internationally renowned theologian and
former president of the ACCU. Hellwig
was a pathfi nder in ecumenical and inter-religious
dialogue, in initiatives to open
opportunities for women in higher educa-tion
and theological scholarship, and in
eff orts to foster peace and justice through
education.
csbsju.edu/news
(Photo by Michael Crouser)
8
It wasn’t long ago that the U.S. corporate establishment viewed
the terms “renewable” and “profi table” as mutually exclusive con-cepts.
In those not-so-good old days, a seemingly endless supply
of natural resources enabled companies to maximize output and
profi ts without much regard to the long-term impact of their deci-sions.
The harsh realities of climate change, resource depletion and
national security have begun to change this business model. “Busi-nesses
are waking up to the environmental and social implications
of their decisions,” says Ernie Diedrich, professor of economics at
Saint John’s University and the College of Saint Benedict. “Once the
costs of pollution and waste disposal are considered, the economic
equation changes dramatically.”
Joe Pavicic ’81, Ed Driscoll ’83, Doug Jaeger ’89, Mason Soren-son
’96, Brad Matuska ’95 and Bob Goff ’62 have discovered that
this new, more comprehensive economic model can open doors to
business opportunities that are both profi table and consistent with
their desire to steward the Earth’s resources.
GREEN
IN THE B Y P E T E R B . M Y E R S
9
The Road to Biofuels
Joe Pavicic ’81 and Ed Driscoll ’83 em-body
the dual qualities of entrepreneurial
spirit and a sense of responsibility to future
generations often found in SJU graduates.
Th eir business acumen led each of them
into a series of successful ventures en route
to the biofuels industry. As the world ad-justs
to the stark realities of global climate
change and $100-a-barrel oil, it may just
be that these Johnnies have picked an
industry whose time has come.
Neither Pavicic nor Driscoll arrived
at biofuels through any deliberate career
path. On the contrary, both received their
inspiration when they least expected it.
For Driscoll, it came during a family road
trip, courtesy of a carload of opinionated
college students.
“A few years ago, my family and I were
taking a weekend trip in our old bus,
which we had bought in lieu of a cabin,”
Driscoll recalls. “As we were driving
through Santa Monica, this VW Beetle full
of college kids asked us to roll down the
window and, in a very condescending and
judgmental tone, asked, ‘What kind of gas
mileage do you get with that thing?’ And
I had a horrible answer: about eight miles
to the gallon. It really irritated me. So I
got to work on cleaning up my act. And
that’s how I got into alternative energy as a
business.”
Today Driscoll is a principal in Ra-tional
BioEnergy, LLC, an engineering
company dedicated to the development
of a technology platform that will convert
non-food biomass into renewable fuels and
chemicals for which there is an existing
demand and distribution infrastructure.
One example is dimethyl ether, which is
used as a propane and diesel substitute.
Th is model is fundamentally diff erent
from the standard model used in ethanol
or biodiesel production, which produces a
single product for an end user. As Driscoll
explains, “We’re in a commodity-driven
business. If the price for your product is
good this month, you’re fi ne. If not, you’re
dead. Th e petroleum industry long ago fi g-ured
out that you need to make multiple
products and have a multiple client model
in order to survive in a commodity-driven
business.��
Driscoll believes this fl exible model can
be replicated anywhere in the world be-cause
it can utilize whatever local biomass
is available, from farm waste to orange
peels to coconut shells, and it can adjust
production according to current demand
for each of its products.
Th e petroleum industry is not the only
sector that holds valuable lessons for
Driscoll. He sees parallels between the
evolution of information technology and
today’s progression from a petroleum-based
economy to a multiple-fuel-source
economy. “For years, all we had was the
mainframe, and when we shrank that
down to a minicomputer it opened up
a whole new market,” he notes. “When
we shrank the minicomputer down to
a PC we opened an even bigger market.
Instead of the highly centralized produc-tion
model that you fi nd in petroleum, we
can have a completely decentralized model
with smaller plants, redundancy and close
proximity to sources of biomass. It’s a
sustainable, self-recovering model. His-tory
is repeating itself, just in a diff erent
industry.”
Like Driscoll’s encounter with the col-lege
kids, Pavicic’s entry into the biofuels
industry sprang from a challenge, in this
case issued by his wife. “One day Kay Ma-rie
told me she’d like to run a car on used
Ed Driscoll ’83 and the bus that inspired his interest in alternative fuels.
10
vegetable oil,” he remembers. “I didn’t
know what she was talking about, so
I did
some research. It turned out that straight
veggie oil would cause carbon to build up
on the cylinder heads, but that adding a
small percentage of biodiesel would
solve
the problem.” Pavicic then set out to
see
whether the economics of biodiesel would
work. Convinced of its potential, he
formed Liquid Renewable Fuels in 2006
along with Johnnies Scott Nelson ’81 and
Hans Alwin ’84. Th e company was incor-porated
to focus on biodiesel using proven
technology. While he has since stepped
down from management, his confi dence in
biofuels remains high.
Pavicic sees many advantages to
biodiesel: It is biodegradable, recyclable,
non-toxic, safer to store and handle than
petroleum-based fuels, and emits dramati-cally
less carbon dioxide than regular diesel
fuel. Th e major drawback is a higher nitro-gen
oxide (NoX) output, which be believes
technology can solve.
Th e convergence of diminishing oil
resources, environmental concerns and
technological advances in biofuels point
to a promising future, in Pavicic’s opinion.
“Th e future of plant-based renewable fuels
is in alternative feedstocks (raw material),
including prairie grasses and oilseed crops
that grow on marginal lands with no need
for inputs such as irrigation and fertilizer.
Even the big energy companies like BP,
Shell and Dupont are involved now.”
While biofuel technology is now his
focal point, Pavicic says that his fascina-tion
with the three Rs – reduce, reuse and
recycle – began at Saint John’s, courtesy of
Fr. Gordon Tavis, OSB, and the garbage-burning
incinerator. At the time, Fr.
Gordon was in charge of the physical plant
and the burner. Garbage haulers would
pay Saint John’s a tipping fee to deliver
refuse that would power the burner, which
in turn generated both heat (steam) and
electricity. At the same time, landfi ll use
would be reduced. It was an intriguing
business model. “Getting paid to deliver
the fuel you need to operate? Could this
be? Really?” he remembers asking Fr. Gor-don
in an interview on student-run radio.
It would be many years before the
young entrepreneur would return to the
three Rs as a business. After graduating
from Saint John’s, his interest in invest-ments
led to senior management positions
at several high-profi le companies includ-ing
Merrill Lynch and Shearson Lehman
Brothers. Along the way, he earned an
array of investment licenses and currently
is president of J. Pavicic Securities, Inc.,
a fi nancial consulting fi rm he founded in
1988.
Like his fellow Johnnie, Driscoll has
also pursued a variety of business ventures
since leaving Collegeville. As co-founder,
chairman and CEO of WAM!NET, Inc., a
content delivery network for businesses, he
led the enterprise from a two-person start-up
to a global IT powerhouse, prompt-
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8
ThTh i
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11
ing Ernst & Young to select him as an
“e-Commerce Entrepreneur of the Year” in
2000. He also has been involved in grow-ing
and fi nancing numerous businesses, in-cluding
a small fi lm production company,
and last year was executive producer of the
acclaimed feature fi lm Sweet Land.
Having such diverse business interests
begs the question of whether there is a
common thread that weaves through
them all. In Driscoll’s view, that common
thread is responsibility: to one’s self, one’s
family and the community. Th is value was
instilled in him by his father, whom he
describes as “a tremendous example of per-sonal
and community responsibility, with a
strong work ethic and a strong personal re-lationship
with God.” It was also nurtured
by the Benedictine philosophy that he ab-sorbed
while at Saint John’s and continues
today in the form of a “personal board of
directors,” a group of four (including two
Johnnies) who meet regularly to help each
other stay true to their values in both their
personal and professional lives.
Pavicic also is motivated by a combina-tion
of entrepreneurial energy and social
responsibility. He believes in biofuels not
only because they make good business
sense, but because “being good stewards of
the land is in step with Benedictine values.
Creating things and using your talents
makes life interesting and fulfi lls the mis-sion
of improving our collective sense of
community. I hope that biofuels will help
provide for the world’s energy needs while
lowering greenhouse gas emissions.”
Currently he is moving forward with
pioneering three new biofuel invest-ments,
two in feedstocks and the other in
producer technology. In the meantime, he
says, “My mechanic could not believe how
nice it was to change the oil on our diesel
that was running on 100 percent biodiesel.
And how quiet it was when he started the
car, and most of all the incredible lack of
diesel smell. Wow.”
And what about Driscoll’s bus? “We
still have it,” he proudly claims, “but now
it runs on biodiesel. I’m looking for those
kids in the Beetle and I’m going to tell
them, ‘Listen, pals, you’re burning up a lot
more fossil fuel than I am!”
Catching the Wind
“It’s Not Easy Being Green,” sings
Kermit the Frog in one of the most
memorable songs from the long-running
children’s program Sesame Street. While
the title refers to the skin color of the
likeable amphibian, it could easily be the
theme song for today’s electric utilities. An
enormous industry originally built around
the burning of fossil fuel is now facing
immense pressure to simultaneously go
green, maintain stable rates and satisfy an
ever-growing hunger for electricity.
Doug Jaeger ’89 and Mason Sorenson ’96
are tackling these formidable challenges by
reinventing the way in which Americans
get their electric power. Th ey are deeply
involved in the burgeoning wind power
industry, where they have discovered
opportunities to promote viable business
models that meet a critical need while
appealing to their sense of good steward-ship.
In diff erent ways, they are working to
unlock the tremendous potential of wind
power by overcoming complex physical
and political obstacles.
It is the complexity and challenge of
the industry that most excites Jaeger, vice
president of transmission for Xcel Energy.
Xcel is one of the nation’s largest utilities,
serving customers in eight states from
Minnesota to Texas and Colorado. One of
Jaeger’s primary responsibilities is to enable
the company’s growing use of wind power
by overseeing the building of transmission
lines that move power from the windy,
rural areas of southwest Minnesota and
the Dakotas to the cities where it is most
needed.
As part of Xcel Energy’s senior leader-ship
team, Jaeger takes an active part in
the company’s environmental conscious-ness.
“We now question every decision
from the standpoint of environmental
impact,” he explains. “For example, new
pole-mounted transformers are using soy
instead of oil. And while replacing carbon-based
power with renewable energy is great
for the planet, it will cost more, at least in
the short term. In order to help custom-ers
stabilize their costs, we’re working
to help them reduce their energy usage
through conservation. Since 1992, we have
helped customers save 2,200 megawatts
of electricity. Th at’s the equivalent of nine
medium-sized power plants.”
While Jaeger approaches wind power
from the corporate perspective, Sorenson
sees it from the entrepreneur’s point of
view. He is the manager of legal aff airs and
project development for Midwest Wind
Finance, a young company in Minneapolis
that helps landowners fi nance their wind
turbines.
Financing and building wind farms is a
relatively new activity, one that does not
fi t neatly into familiar business models.
Midwest Wind Finance fi lls this niche by
funding projects that traditional banks of-
At all times let us recall that everything which we use in this life was here before us and will be here
after we are gone. This world and everything in it is on loan, entrusted to our care for our time.
The Rule of St. Benedict
Doug Jaeger ’89
12
ten cannot. “We get calls almost every
day
from interested landowners,“ says Soren-son.
“It could be a sophisticated developer,
or Bob the Farmer who calls up and says,
‘It’s windy here. Can you help me fi nance
a wind farm?’”
A typical wind turbine costs anywhere
from $1.2 million to $3 million and
generates between one and 2.5 megawatts
of electricity. Most of Midwest Wind’s
projects are 10 to 40 megawatts in size.
In many ways, installing the turbines is
relatively easy compared to the other parts
of the equation. “Th ere are many moving
parts in this complex business,” Sorenson
explains. “Th e permitting process can be
extensive. Each owner must negotiate a
power purchase agreement with the local
electric utility. And the lead time for order-ing
turbines can be two years or more.
General Electric, the country’s largest
turbine manufacturer, is already sold out
through 2009. Th ey’re now taking orders
for 2010 delivery.” Midwest Wind helps
customers navigate these and other hurdles
to bring their projects to fruition.
It’s easy to understand landowners’ en-thusiasm
for wind power. First, a successful
wind farm can generate a permanent in-come
stream for the landowner after loans
are paid off , while requiring only routine
maintenance. And the Upper Midwest has
abundant wind resources, particularly in
the Buff alo Ridge area, in southwestern
Minnesota, sometimes referred to as the
Saudi Arabia of wind power. However, as
Jaeger explains, “Th e areas that are richest
in wind capacity tend not to be where the
customers are. Building new lines is no
simple matter. It can take three to seven
years to build a transmission line. Second,
there is always the question of who should
pay for these lines. Th ird, landowners like
wind turbines but not transmission towers
and lines. Part of my job is to educate
people about the importance of transmis-sion
if we want to take advantage of this
renewable energy source.”
Jaeger and Sorenson are both work-ing
on CapX 2020, a multibillion dollar
initiative to build major transmission lines
in order to tap the vast wind resources of
southern and western parts of Minnesota
and the eastern Dakotas. Th is will require
approval from regulatory commissions in
four states. It will also require an ongo-
Mason Sorenson ’96
(Photo by Steve Woit)
Sore
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13
ing eff ort to educate the public about
the importance of these lines in order to
overcome objections.
Despite the challenges, both Johnnies
are bullish on wind power. “Xcel is the
number-one provider of wind energy in
the nation,” Jaeger states. “Today, nine
percent of our power comes from wind. By
2020, wind will account for 25 percent of
our portfolio.”
Sorenson is equally optimistic, believing
that “Wind is the most exciting energy
source that is available today in the com-bination
of cost-eff ectiveness and clean
energy. It’s exciting to be working with
landowners on projects they will eventu-ally
own, after the loans are paid back.”
He also sees enormous room for growth.
“Denmark gets 20 percent of its electric-ity
from wind. Th e U.S. gets less than one
percent. Th e good news is that we’re fi nally
at a tipping point with the national debate
about climate change. We have serious
momentum down this green path. We
simply cannot aff ord not to do this.”
Sorenson’s foray into wind power actu-ally
began when he was writing his under-graduate
honors thesis, titled Th e Econom-ics
of Wind Energy with a Case Study at the
College of St. Benedict/St. John’s University.
“Back in 1996, wind power was not viable
from a strictly economic perspective,” he
says. “However, if you took into account
the external costs of other power sources,
such as the environmental damage caused
by strip mining or the CO2 emissions
caused by burning fossil fuels, the econom-ics
of wind power started to look pretty
attractive.”
Working with Ernie Diedrich, Soren-son
developed an economic model that
attempted to quantify these externalities.
Th ey even made presentations to SJU
faculty groups and the SJU Board of
Regents. Diedrich then succeeded in get-ting
a grant that funded the installation
of anemometers on Saint John’s and Saint
Ben’s campuses to measure wind patterns,
the fi rst step in determining the feasibility
of a wind turbine installation. Business
opportunities for wind power did not re-ally
exist when Sorenson graduated, so he
applied his entrepreneurial instincts to the
fi elds of education, publishing and small
business consulting. He joined Midwest
Wind Finance in June 2007.
For Jaeger, wind power is consistent
with the Benedictine mandate to care for
the earth. “In my freshman English col-loquium,
Fr. Roger Kasprick challenged us
to consider how our decisions can impact
an entire population. Similarly, Ernie
Diedrich forced us to look at the impact
of U.S. decisions on the well-being of the
whole world.” Th e core message for Jaeger
is stewardship, as stated in the Rule of Saint
Benedict: “At all times let us recall that
every thing which we use in this life was
here before us and will be here after we are
gone. Th is world and everything in it is on
loan, entrusted to our care for our time.”
Waste Not
When Brad Matuska graduated from
Saint John’s University in 1995, the notion
of owning his own business was far from
his mind. His route to entrepreneurship
resulted from a series of opportunities that
more or less fell into place. Trips to China,
a job selling composting systems, and the
needs of one business ultimately drew the
young biology major into a venture that
would transform a waste product into a
valuable commodity.
Today, Matuska runs Mississippi
Topsoils in Cold Spring, MN. His plant
takes in more than 100,000 pounds of
biosolids each week from the Cold Spring
Gold’n Plump chicken-processing facility
and mixes it with wood chips to produce
clean, organic compost that is sold to
regional garden centers and nurseries. Th e
process produces a high-quality consumer
product and solves what had become an
overwhelming waste-disposal challenge for
Gold n’ Plump, which processes 170,000
chickens per day.
“We were in a unique situation in which
Gold’n Plump was under pressure from
multiple directions to handle its waste in a
manner that would be acceptable to neigh-bors
and to the environment,” Matuska
recalls. “Applying biological organic waste
directly to farm fi elds made sense in this
agricultural area, up to a point. But they
just had too much for the agricultural mar-ket.
Th ey needed a diff erent solution.”
Inspired by his trips to rural China,
where virtually nothing is wasted, Matuska
began wondering how America could turn
more of its waste products into something
useful. While working for a company that
made composting systems, he visited the
Brad Matuska ’95
(Photo by Amy Leither)
14
Gold’n Plump facility and learned about
their waste disposal problem. He also
met Math (Mathias) Miller, a longtime
entrepreneur who owned the property next
door. Seeing a unique opportunity, they
formed a partnership and raised $1.5 mil-lion
to build a waste processing facility on
Miller’s property. Nine years later, the busi-ness
is thriving, the “Soil Essentials” prod-uct
line has expanded to include compost,
potting soil, planting mix and composted
manure, and Matuska is brokering other
products to his customers.
“Th e whole premise behind our business
is that we’re taking a waste product and
making a value-added product,” explains
Matuska. “To me, that’s our future, and
that’s what gets me out of bed every morn-ing.
As a society, we have to look at things
diff erently. We can’t continue down the
path that we’re going. You need the profi t,
but you also need to be a good citizen.”
Matuska’s philosophy blends econom-ics
with a strong belief in stewardship. As
he explains, “I don’t consider myself an
environmentalist. I would hang my hat
more on the sustainability concept, not
only environmentally but also economi-cally
and socially. And if you can get those
three pillars of sustainability accomplished
in whatever you’re doing, I think you’re
headed in the right direction.”
Market Forces and Fuel Cells
Bob Goff ’62 has three words of advice
for the Saint John’s Class of 2008: Join the
revolution! Strong sentiments from a soft-spoken
engineer, perhaps, but Goff knows
the satisfaction that comes from choosing
a profession that is poised to revolutionize
the way we live.
Goff is president of R4 Energy, a con-sulting
fi rm that he co-founded in 1999
after completing a 31-year career conduct-ing
R&D and launching high-technology
businesses at 3M. One of these was fuel-cell
technology, which Goff believes is the
energy source of the future.
“When we started this venture at 3M,
there were six companies in the U.S.
involved in fuel cells, and we knew them
all,” Goff recalls. “Today it’s hundreds, if
not thousands. Th e growth of the fi eld,
and the fact that we were pioneers, is fun
and rewarding. If we used a crystal ball to
look 50 or 100 years into the future, we’d
see a world powered by clean nuclear and
hydrogen, and pollution from energy pro-duction
would be virtually nonexistent.”
Market forces are rapidly taking hold in
this emerging industry where early research
was supported largely by government
R&D grants. In Goff ���s view, there will
Bob Goff ’62
15
be three primary applications for hydro-gen
fuel-cell technology: transportation,
stationary power and portable power. “Au-tomakers
are less than 10 years away from
producing viable hydrogen-powered ve-hicles,
which will emit no pollution, only
water vapor,” he says. “Th e big challenge is
the infrastructure.” In order to overcome
this challenge, Goff does pro-bono work
for Upper Midwest Hydrogen Initiative
(UMHI), an industry-led, public-private
eff ort to accelerate North America’s shift
toward clean, domestic, carbon-neutral
hydrogen production and use.
Fuel-cell technology will also be found
in power generation, forecasts Goff , in-cluding
small home-based systems and dis-tributed
energy, which relies on a network
of smaller interconnected sources rather
than one large, central power plant. But
the fi rst widespread commercial applica-tion
may be in portable electronics. “Fuel
cells will off er much longer life for laptop
computers, camcorders and other devices,”
he believes. “Rather than three hours of
battery life, you’ll get eight hours from a
methanol-water fuel cell cartridge.”
Goff ’s interest in energy dates back to
his high school days when he wrote to
a Russian scientist about a new device
designed to make hydrogen fusion. It con-tinued
at Saint John’s, thanks to two infl u-ential
faculty members. “One of them was
my physics professor, Fr. Casper Keogh.
He taught a very rigorous course, with
diffi cult tests. But on Saturday mornings
he would often dispense with the rigor
and just talk about the future. He would
inspire us with tales about the future of
technology and how it would impact our
lives.” Th e other infl uential professor was
Fr. Walbert Kalinowski, OSB, his calculus
professor, who taught him that the only
way to learn math was to push the pencil.
“Back in those days, the big revolutions
were in semiconductors and telecom-munications.
People in those fi elds were
entering exciting, fast moving and satisfy-ing
careers. Today, the revolutions are in
energy, the blending of medicine with elec-tronics,
and biotechnology. Th ose are the
areas with the greatest opportunities, and
that’s where I would aim my ship.”
Peter B. Myers is a writer and media
consultant based in Saint Paul, MN. He
frequently covers environmental issues.
SJU Pledges Carbon Neutrality
Dietrich Reinhart, OSB, president of Saint John’s University, has joined
other national campus sustainability leaders as a charter signatory of the
American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment, direct-ing
Saint John’s to an ultimate goal of carbon neutrality as part of an on-going
commitment to good stewardship. The climate agreement requires
SJU to conduct annual audits of its climate-changing emissions, carefully
track energy and fuel use and develop effi ciency strategies to reduce the
environmental impacts of all campus operations. The new agreement will
build upon years of stewardship work, including such projects as the earth
homes, waste incinerator and Saint John’s Arboretum, while also provid-ing
momentum for new efforts.
Because of the connection between climate change and energy produc-tion/
use, many options for conservation and greening the power we must
use are currently being explored. Campus visitors in the not-too-distant
future may be greeted by wind turbines that reduce our need for grid
power produced from coal, a major source of carbon emissions. Rooftops
may be graced by photovoltaic solar arrays, cleanly and quietly generating
power for offi ces and labs. The familiar smokestack of the power plant
may even be connected to boilers fi red by synthetic gas produced from
biomass, such as wood or agricultural residue, instead of coal.
In addition to the policies developed under the Presidents Climate
Commitment, SJU has taken the signifi cant step of establishing an
endowment, the Green Fund, targeted specifi cally to future environmental
projects ranging from feasibility demonstrations of new technologies to
student-initiated and more traditional efforts such as ride-sharing and
recycling competitions. (For more information on the Green Fund, please
contact Jim Dwyer at 320-363-2116 or 1-800-635-7303.)
– Derek Larson, associate professor of history and environmental
studies program director
16
ARTS & CULTURE
When fi ve monks steamed up the Mis-sissippi
River to St. Cloud in 1856, a few
trunks fi lled with books were among their
prized possessions. It was unlikely baggage
for the Minnesota frontier, but it was the
seed of a dream to be a center of culture
and learning for the newly-settled German
immigrants.
Th eir vision has materialized into an
educational resource they scarcely could
have imagined. Today the surviving books
from that journey reside in Alcuin Library,
which boldly sits opposite the Saint John’s
Abbey Church in the center of campus.
Together with the collections at the Col-lege
of Saint Benedict, the joint library
system ranks as one of the largest among
liberal arts colleges in the United States.
Responsibility for Alcuin Library today
rests on the shoulders of Kathy Parker,
who came from West Virginia Wesleyan
in 2006 to assume the position of director
of the libraries and media. She arrived at a
crucial moment: Collection development
has strained shelf capacity, the Breuer-designed
building is in need of signifi cant
renewal, and the role of libraries is under-going
dynamic transformation.
Parker values most two major assets of
the library system she directs. First, Alcuin
Library has remarkable strength in history,
theology, literature and the arts. Along
with the resources of Clemens Library
Th e University’s Living Room
Creating a Learning Commons
by Eric Hollas, OSB
Senior Associate for Arts & Culture
at CSB, this collection serves both the
resident academic community as well as
thousands of users across the country via
interlibrary loan.
Th e second element that has been
important for the quality of the library
is its dedicated staff , says Parker. “Th eir
continuity in offi ce and professional
dedication have built the remarkable col-lections.
But their eagerness to serve has
made it more than a job. Th ey appreciate
most the chance to interact with students
and faculty.”
Expectations of libraries are evolving,
and in Parker’s judgment a library cannot
be merely a book depository. “It has to
provide a learning environment that is
an extension of the classroom. It needs to
support students in their pursuit of indi-vidual
research, but it can also be the living
room of the university, where faculty and
students meet to discuss great ideas.”
Th ose concepts have signifi cant implica-tions
as the university begins planning
the renovation and expansion of Alcuin
Library. Nearly 40 years after its construc-tion,
book storage is at capacity and space
for expanding collections is vital. New
space designed to enhance the work of the
staff is also necessary. And if the library is
to be the learning commons that Parker
envisions, the seminar rooms and lecture
halls in Alcuin Library must be reclaimed
for their original purpose.
Since the initial design of Alcuin Library
in the 1960s, technology has been the
factor that has most infl uenced libraries. It
has enhanced access to resources and made
the search process vastly more effi cient.
But rather than replacing traditional librar-ies,
it has made them increasingly valu-able.
“Our students have a high comfort
level with technology, and they have high
expectations of it as well,” says Parker.
“Yet, what’s on Google isn’t good enough.”
Parker views the university’s willingness
to invest in expansion as a key element in
nurturing a lively intellectual culture.
Parker has other hopes for Alcuin
Library. Among her objectives is the
increased use of special collections and the
creation of a rich visual environment that
includes art, photography, maps and arti-facts.
She points to a recent student exhibit
of handmade books as an example of the
creative exchange that should character-ize
a library that blends both self-directed
research and collaborative learning.
Parker concludes with the observation
that Alcuin Library is “a great building
with great bones.” It is a place created for
reading and the arts, and she is convinced
that the university understands well the
role of Alcuin Library as the living room of
the campus.
(Photo by Steve Woit)
17
CSB/SJU Director of Libraries Kathy
Parker under one of two giant concrete
“trees,” distinctive architectural features
of Breuer-designed Alcuin Library.
Did you know…
Date Alcuin opened 1966
Architect Marcel Breuer
Number of books in Alcuin collections 436,463
Total items circulated annually 64,873
Annual visitors to library 155,547
Typical number of visitors per week 4,300
Most circulated book Theological Investigations by Karl Rahner
Rare books 7,080
Oldest printed book St. Thomas Aquinas, Diui Thome Aquinatis
continuum in lib[rum] euangelii [secundum]
Mattheu[m] [-Iohannis], Rome, 1470.
Students receiving library instruction annually 4,100
Languages spoken or read by library staff 16
Th e Shoe Guy
He claims he’s just a “college student who paints shoes.” But don’t you believe it.
With a customer list that includes music and sports celebrities, and a waiting list so long
he can’t keep up with it, you know there’s something else going on here.
It began with Jon Goodman’s own appreciation for shoes. He’s got lots of them. “Shoes
are a great way to express your individuality. I’ve been seriously into shoes, especially Nikes,
since junior high.”
In tenth grade, after seeing a pair of painted Nikes on NikeTalk.com, the Web site for
Nike super fans, Goodman painted a pair of his own. He “got some good buzz,” so he
created a Web site to advertise his designs.
He soon found himself in business as JGoods, Inc. “It
was helpful that I knew my way around the Internet so
well. I’m not sure it would have been possible other-wise.”
Most high school kids don’t run businesses, but
Goodman says it was fun. “It didn’t feel like work,” he
explains. “I was able to grow at my own pace. I still had
time to be captain of the golf team.”
Th e Donald McNeely Center for Entrepreneurship
attracted Goodman to Saint John’s, and things have been
moving faster ever since.
Rap musicians Cam’ron, Memphis Bleek and Paul
Wall are now shod in JGoods designs. He also designed
a pair for Jay-Z (“possibly the most famous rapper in the
world,” says Goodman) that were auctioned for charity
in Jay-Z’s Water for Life event.
And Joe Mauer of the Minnesota Twins has recently
been in touch about footwear.
Most of the shoe designs are one of a kind, and these
days a pair will typically run you about $700-$1,000.
Goodman is also marketing a line of paint kits for do-it-your-self
shoe painters, using the paint formula he designed himself, which doesn’t crack when
the shoe fl exes – an important aspect of JGoods quality.
Going
Sneakers for the stars? Polyal-bums?
Implementing federal election
laws? Ph.D.-level math proofs?
Meet Jon, Charlie, Nick and Matt
- four enterprising students. You
might be surprised by what each has
accomplished as an undergraduate.
Of course, maybe you knew it all
along: Saint John’s students can do
just about anything… Beyond
18
(Photo by Steve Woit)
By Jean Scoon
Jon Goodman ’09 can help
you express your shoe-self.
But get in line quickly. Business
is booming for this Johnnie
entrepreneur.
Between writing papers for classes and keeping up with JGoods growth, Goodman
admits he struggles to maintain balance. He paints shoes in his apartment when he has
time, and his younger brother fulfi lls paint-kit orders and manages the Web site. “It can
take anywhere from four to 48 hours to produce a pair of shoes. I had hoped to play golf
at SJU, but I couldn’t do it.”
But Goodman is content being a student entrepreneur. “I make a profi t, and I have a lot
more shoes now. But mostly I love running my own business. I like making all the deci-sions.”
“At fi rst it was about designing and painting,” he continues. “Now it’s about the whole
creation – the Web site, everything I’ve done and built.”
And according to Goodman, this is just the beginning: “Th ere’s tons of potential. All
those plain, white shoes out there. Pretty boring, don’t you think?”
For a look at some Goodman designs, go to thejgcustoms.com.
Th e Music Man
Th e excitement in his voice is almost palpable: “Hearing my composition played by an
orchestra was the best musical experience of my life.”
McCarron won the Duluth Superior Orchestra’s Young Composers Competition last
year for his composition Th e Singing Bone. As part of the prize, the symphony performed
his piece at a series of public concerts in April 2006.
But his most recent composition might be a new best for McCarron. It’s called Grey
Matters and is a ��polyalbum” – two pop-format CDs that can be played alone or together.
McCarron is a music composition major, and Grey Matters is his honors thesis.
He hopes listeners will hear and enjoy
the two CDs separately, then play them
together for a third distinct listening
experience. Grey Matters draws on several
media: music for orchestral and folk rock
instruments, spoken dialogue and elec-tronic
sound mixing.
Th is sounds incredibly complex, and it
is. Th at’s why McCarron likes it.
“I like to make things hard on myself,”
he says. “It’s fun. It’s rewarding mentally
and stimulating to break new ground.”
Th e polyalbum tells the story of a man
named Grey Matters, who discovers
supernatural cognitive abilities as his tale
unfolds throughout the CDs. McCarron
intends the three pieces to provide an ex-perience
that will feel “uplifting, epic and
ambiguous” but not too far out. “I want
to create a cohesive and tasteful body of
music that will not alienate listeners,” he
says.
McCarron comes from a musical family
and says he’s always been able to pick up
tunes quickly. He “messed around on the
piano” when he was little but didn’t start serious
music training until he took up violin in fi fth grade. His fi rst formal composition followed,
a piece for two violins composed a few years later. He started guitar in high school and
formed a band that continues to perform today under the name awayfromcaves.
19
(Photo by Steve Woit)
A Charlie McCarron ’08 composi-tion
was featured by the Duluth
Superior Symphony Orchestra
when he was a sophomore. Now
he’s producing two CDs – or is
that three?
Th e computer is as much a part of McCarron’s own story as music. He’s been fascinated
by computers since he was two and still is. (He has a double minor in psychology and
computer science in addition to the music composition major.)
“I don’t know how I could compose major works without computers,” he muses, refer-ring
to the computer’s ability to synthesize notes of diff erent instruments and play them
back to him. “Haydn had a live orchestra to try things out on as he wrote. My orchestra is
in my computer.”
Good news: you can hear the premiere of Grey Matters when McCarron presents his
thesis on May 2, in the Stephen B. Humphrey Th eater. “Everyone’s invited,” he says. If you
can’t make that, come to CSB/SJU’s Creativity and Scholarship Day on April 23 to hear
some excerpts.
To hear some of McCarron’s music right now, go to CharlieMcCarron.com.
Th e Election Administrator
He showed up for work at the Minnesota Secretary of State’s offi ce in May 2006. His
task? To implement a new federal election law by the November elections.
Called the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), the law mandated that every polling place
make it possible for voters with disabilities, like the blind, to cast a private vote at the polls.
(In the past, many disabled voters had to rely on the assistance of an election judge to
mark their ballots, which meant they had to disclose their private opinions.) To accomplish
this, Minnesota unveiled a voting machine that made it possible for voters with disabilities
to privately mark a paper ballot like everyone else does.
“I was given two goals: fi rst, election administrators and election judges
throughout the state had to know the law and how to use the new machine;
second, disabled voters had to know how to use it. I had eight college student
workers to do training in the fi eld. It was up to me to fi gure it out from there,”
says Truso.
Th is meant coordinating the largest voter education initiative ever undertaken
in the state of Minnesota. From scratch.
But when November rolled around, Truso had successfully coordinated govern-ment,
nonprofi t and private sector partners statewide to make the education and
outreach as comprehensive and far-reaching as possible. Ultimately, he organized
130 training events statewide in 52 counties throughout Minnesota.
“My approach was to work with the existing infrastructure,” Truso explains.
“It was about establishing trust. Many in the disability community have felt
disenfranchised when it comes to elections. But once they knew they could trust us,
it went smoothly.”
On Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2006, Truso and his team waited eagerly to learn if they’d
been successful. “When all we heard were positives, no negatives, we knew we’d
done it,” he says with a smile.
After election day, the testimonials came pouring in. Today, Minnesota’s
implementation of HAVA is considered a national model. Truso has since won
four awards for his accomplishment – the Medallion Award from the National
Association of Secretaries of State, the Odyssey Service Award from the Minnesota
Department of Human Services and Minnesota Board on Aging, the Excellence
in Assistive Technology Award from the Minnesota Department of Administra-tion
and the Human Rights Award from the League of Minnesota Human Rights
Commission.
According to Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, “Th e success of our offi ce’s voter
education initiative was due in large part to Nick’s winning personality… Nicholas
set the tenor for the whole voter education team and for the initiative.”
So … Nicholas Truso is a political science major, right?
Wrong. Accounting and management!
“Ernst & Young, here I come,” he says, referring to his plans for next summer.
“But I’ll always strive to be an involved and engaged citizen.”
20
(Photo by Steve Woit)
How does a college sophomore
implement a federal election law?
“I asked people their opinions.
I didn’t dictate to them,” says
Nicholas Truso ’09.
Mr. Math
So … we all know what stars are, right? And we know stars are complex – physics and
light years and all that.
Problem is, it’s not really about those stars. And the complexity is so, uh … complex,
that, for most of us, Matt Voigt might as well be living on another planet (or star?) when
he starts to explain it.
“Matt’s honors thesis is in pure mathematics at the graduate-school level,” says his thesis
adviser Kris Nairn, CSB/SJU associate professor of mathematics. “Th is is the level of math
you’ll fi nd in math Ph.D. dissertations.”
Nairn, whose Ph.D. is in pure mathematics, says she found a “kindred spirit” in Voigt.
Early on, she recognized both his ability and his love of math for its own sake. “So I sug-gested
he might want to try his hand at some entry-level work related to my Ph.D. thesis,
and he went for it.”
“It was the hardest and most fulfi ll-ing
thing I’d ever done to that point,”
says Voigt, without hesitation.
First step: Master a few graduate-level
math concepts – before you’ve
taken the undergraduate courses that
most people take just to be able to
apply to grad school.
In order to quickly establish the
math foundation necessary to tackle
the proofs, Voigt received a research
grant from CSB/SJU and spent the
summer before his junior year study-ing
intensively under Professor Nairn.
He completed his honors thesis as
a junior – something most students
don’t attempt until their senior year.
“It takes much more than math
aptitude to do what Matt did,” Nairn
asserts.
She elaborates: “It took fortitude,
commitment, maturity – to learn the
necessary math over the summer, and
then to launch into the unknown
of the two proofs. And to keep at it
despite the inevitable setbacks, dead-ends,
frustrations.
“Matt might easily work on an equation
for six hours straight, only to fi nd that it wouldn’t work. Th is just goes with the territory.
He had to take it in stride and keep going.”
Voigt agrees: “After staring at my computer for hours and hours without coming up
with an answer, I’d sometimes feel like I was going insane.”
Also frustrating was how hard it was to explain what he was doing.
“I’d tell my friends how sweet it was, how I was really loving it,” Voigt says. “But if they
asked me what I was doing, and I’d begin explaining it, it was like I was speaking a foreign
language. I’d end up just saying, ‘Oh, stuff .’”
Yet Voigt is really clear about what kept him going despite the grueling work and isola-tion:
“Exhilaration! Th e ‘aha’ moments, when I would feel it clicking. I owned it. I knew
no one else had shown the proof this way before.”
Nairn claims that “after doing this, Matt can do anything.” Anything? “Well, anything
that takes complex math.” Voigt hopes that means graduate school and a career as a profes-sor
some day.
21
(Photo by Steve Woit)
It’s titled The Complexity of the
Stars, and Matt Voigt ’08 did
this honors thesis in doctoral
level math as a junior. Alge-braic
geometry, anyone?
22
ADVANCING THE MISSION
150 Years . . . $150 million
By Rob Culligan ’82
Vice President for Institutional Advancement
When the Saint John’s University Board of Regents authorized the Saint John’s capital campaign, One Generation to the Next, in May
2005, it set two ambitious goals. Th e fi rst was to raise $150 million. To put this into perspective, the largest previous capital campaign
at Saint John’s netted $38 million. Needless to say, this represented quite a stretch, and there were more than a few skeptics among the
Johnnie faithful. And as if the fi rst goal wasn’t a big enough challenge, there was a second: to raise the $150 million by June 2009. In
many respects, this was even more daunting. Th e clock was ticking.
For the past few years, the Saint John’s capital campaign has been running well ahead of schedule. In January 2006, Saint John’s
announced that it had eclipsed an historic landmark – $100 million. About a year later, in February 2007, we announced that we had
reached $125 million. When we completed the fi scal year on June 30, 2007, that number had risen to $140 million. It was then that
we realized it was well within the realm of possibility to surpass $150 million by our Sesquicentennial Homecoming (Oct. 5-7, 2007),
which would be a fi tting way to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Saint John’s University.
But fi rst, all of the cards would have to fall into place.
Over the summer months, Saint John’s received a number of campaign gifts and pledges, and we continued to inch closer and closer
to $150 million. Near the end of September, we were approaching $145 million, but it appeared we would fall short of $150 million by
homecoming.
But something remarkable happened. Over the course of about a week, Saint John’s received fi ve commitments that totaled slightly
more than $5 million. Th is is the story of fi ve donors who helped Saint John’s celebrate its sesquicentennial and along the way propelled
the capital campaign beyond $150 million.
Susan and Steve Zimmerman ’72
Five Days, Five Donors
Th ursday, September 27: Th e tide began to turn a week before
homecoming when Saint John’s received offi cial word of two
signifi cant grant awards from the Lilly Endowment. Th e fi rst, for
nearly $1 million, was the renewal of support for the Conversatio
program at Saint
John’s School
of Th eology•
Seminary to
help us serve and
connect with
those working
in the church.
Th e second, for
approximately
$500,000, was
for a program to
identify ways to increase men’s involvement in volunteering, lead-ership
training and vocational decision-making. Th e Lilly Endow-ment
is an Indianapolis-based private foundation that supports
church-related, liberal arts colleges and universities in establishing
or strengthening programs that help students examine the relation-ship
between their faith and vocation.
Tuesday, October 2: Th e campaign received another signifi cant
boost the week of homecoming when Saint John’s received noti-fi
cation of an estate gift from Albert Kosek. A resident of Edina,
MN, Al had named Saint John’s a $2.5 million benefi ciary of his
estate. Neither an alumnus nor a parent, Al was a dear friend who
became a member of the Saint John’s Fellows Society many years
ago. His legacy gift will support a number of priorities at Saint
John’s, most notably student scholarships and the construction of a
community center in Flynntown.
Wednesday, October 3: Earlier in the campaign, Steve Zimmer-
23
man ’72 and his wife, Susan, had named Saint John’s University
as the benefi ciary of two $1 million life insurance policies. But
this was not the extent of their generosity to Saint John’s. On
homecoming Wednesday, the
Zimmermans notifi ed Saint
John’s that they had estab-lished
a third life insurance
policy. As a result, upon their
passing, Saint John’s will
receive $3 million in support
of an endowed scholarship
fund.
Th ursday, October 4: Th e
day before the Homecom-ing
Banquet, the board of
regents held its fall meeting
at Saint John’s. Th e student
representative to the board of
regents is a young man, Nick
Truso ’09. Upon learning
that the Saint John’s cam-paign
was within a stone’s
throw of $150 million, Nick
said that he would do his
part by pledging $100 to the
Annual Fund. In thanking
Nick for his generous sup-port,
the chair of the capital
campaign, Dan Whalen ’70,
noted how especially moving
it was to receive this gift from
a student.
Friday, October 5: When
the sun rose the morning of
the Saint John’s Sesquicenten-nial
Homecoming Celebra-tion,
Saint John’s was roughly
$400,000 shy of $150 million. Clearly we were in need of divine
intervention. And, as fate would have it, that’s exactly what hap-pened.
At approximately noon that day, a fax arrived from Ev and
Ardeth Duthoy. A 1952 SJU graduate, Ev was celebrating his 55th
Reunion that weekend, and in honor of this occasion, he and
Ardeth informed us that they had made a $500,000 will provi-sion
to Saint John’s and a similar amount to Ardeth’s alma mater,
the College of Saint Benedict.
Th at evening, before a capacity crowd at the Sesquicentennial
Homecoming Banquet, Dan Whalen made the following an-nouncement:
“I am pleased to announce that we have surpassed $150
million in our capital campaign, One Generation to the Next.
I would like to take this moment to publicly thank everyone
who has contributed to the Saint John’s campaign thus far. It
speaks volumes to your loyalty and dedication to alma mater.
Th e capital campaign is slated for completion in June 2009,
so there are still 21 months left to go … Th ere are nearly $27
million worth of priorities in the campaign that have not been
funded or are underfunded, and a number of new priorities
have arisen …
In light of these circumstances, our instinct is to keep going
full throttle on the campaign. And yet, before forging ahead,
we recognize the importance of engaging in a conversation
with our alumni and friends and to involve you in the discus-sion
of our needs and priorities and the future course of the
campaign.
So, with this in mind, we plan to enter into a consultation
period. Th is will be an opportunity for us to tell the story of
the success of the campaign thus far and what it has been able
to accomplish for Saint John’s. It is also an opportunity to
discuss our current needs and future aspirations. And it is a
time to listen and to seek advice and direction.
I invite all of you to be part of this process by sharing your
ideas with Saint John’s. Together, we will continue to create
exciting opportunities for our students and faculty, from one
generation to the next.”
Nick Truso ’09
Ardeth CSB ’52, and Ev Duthoy ’52
(Photo by Steve Woit)
24
ADVANCING THE MISSION
Bill “Oak” O’Connell ’70 has accepted
the new volunteer position of national
chair of the Saint John’s University Fellows
Society. In this position, he will lead vol-unteer
eff orts to increase both membership
in the Fellows Society and Fellows-level
contributions to the Annual Fund.
Th e new position was created because
of the importance of Fellows – those who
give $1,000 or more annually – to the
Annual Fund. Th ere are currently 650
Fellows, and their contributions account
for more than 60 percent of Annual Fund
support.
“Th e generosity of others enabled me
to attend Saint John’s, and the education
I received has been the foundation of my
modest success in life,” says O’Connell.
“I’m passionate about this position, and
I’m happy to support Saint John’s this
way.”
A native of St. Cloud, MN, O’Connell
was an economics and accounting major
at SJU. He is currently a national partner Bill O’Connell ’70 with daughter, Cari Ann (L),
and wife, Jeanie (R).
(Photo by John Biasi)
at the accounting and consulting fi rm,
Deloitte & Touche, where he has worked
for the past 35 years. He and his wife,
Jeanie, live in Georgetown, TX. Th ey have
four children and, more importantly, says
O’Connell, fi ve grandchildren.
O’Connell led the eff ort to establish the
Th omas J. Murray Accounting Endow-ment
in 2000 and also supports the
Senegal Student Scholarship at SJU.
He says that, for him, one of the most
satisfying aspects of Annual Fund giving
is that the funding goes to work imme-diately.
“Endowment and planned giving
play a critical role in the overall picture, of
course,” he says. “But it’s important to me
that current SJU students are benefi ting
from my giving.”
He would love to hear your thoughts
on the Fellows Society. Please contact
O’Connell at woconnell@deloitte.com or
214-679-6552 or Jon Ruis, director of an-nual
giving and Fellows relations, at jruis@
csbsju.edu or 320-492-9577.
Bill O’Connell ’70 Becomes National Fellows Chair
25
ALUMNI NEWS
Let’s start with your passion for Saint
John’s. Where does it come from?
Most alumni have a passion built into
them from their college days. But the pas-sion
you’re asking about – that’s something
that’s happened since I’ve reconnected
with Saint John’s as an older person. Th is
reconnection is about a lot of fi ne people
that I’ve rediscovered here.
What has surprised you the most since
becoming president of the Saint John’s
Alumni Association?
In my role as president, many doors
have opened. And what I have found is
a fi ne collection of men and women – a
whole community that’s associated with
this place, not only regents or staff but the
entire community that surrounds Saint
John’s. Th e surprise for me was how deep
this community goes and how readily ac-cessible
people are.
What do you wish more alumni
understood about the Saint John’s
Alumni Association?
Th at there is a Saint John’s Alumni As-sociation,
and all alumni are automatically
members. We all know there is a strong
Johnnie following out there, but the
alumni association is more than that. It’s
a connection, an opportunity for personal
enrichment. Th e Saint John’s “fraternity”
connects men of all backgrounds, age
groups, geographical locations. We can all
personally benefi t from this alumni asso-ciation
and also give back to the university.
What are Saint John’s greatest
challenges in engaging alumni?
A major challenge is balancing its
relationship with alumni as a resource
with its desire to help alumni connect with
each other for social, career, educational
and other needs. Both are legitimate and
necessary. Th e university must support
alumni in forming this volunteer organiza-tion
while also encouraging and educating
alumni about the essential role they play in
giving back to Saint John’s.
What is the alumni role in ongoing
university advancement?
In addition to helping alumni maintain
and grow their connections to each other,
the alumni association must have a higher
mission of community service. All of the
most meaningful and long-lasting fraternal
associations have a higher mission. One
of the reasons for forming our alumni
association is to have Saint John’s here.
Th at is our higher purpose – to give to one
another and this institution. We are here
to help keep this distinctive community
healthy and vital for future generations of
families and young men.
How can alumni be involved in Saint
John’s ongoing success?
A natural channel is to be involved in
your alumni association. Th e more active
and more involved I’ve become, the more
doors have opened up. It’s the nature
of this place. Th e alumni association is
welcoming and willing to listen to your
ideas and is a venue for those ideas to be
materialized.
What is your favorite place here on
campus when you come to visit?
To pick one place is diffi cult, but
I’d have to say the abbey church – the
permanence of it all. And when I look at
the complexity of the curved pews sur-rounding
the altar, it reminds me of my
father, who built those pews. Th ey speak
so much to my father’s passion for want-ing
to do something exceptional. He was
impassioned by the project. At fi rst it was
the rare opportunity to work with Marcel
Breuer. But after a while, what he became
more impressed with was the monastery
– the culture of this place and the men
who chose Breuer. I think he was abso-lutely
accurate about that.
Alumni Association President to Members: “It’s for All of Us”
A Conversation with Bernie Tuohy ’72
(Photo by Andra van Kempen)
Bernie Tuohy ’72
Award-winning picture “Aguas Vistas” by Michael Crouser ’85 from Los Toros.
36
JOHNNIES IN THE NEWS
26
(L to R) Herb and Sue Lethert; Katie and Nick
’97 Abdo; Julie, Libby and Jay Abdo.
ALUMNI NEWS
Nicholas Abdo ’97 won an Emmy for
Best Director-Promotion for a compilation
of promos he directed for FOX TV in the
Twin Cities. He dedicated his award at the
Oct. 20 ceremony to his grandfather, Ken
Berg, the late former editor of the Mankato
Free Press in Mankato, MN.
Matt Schnobrich ’01 is competing for a
spot on the U.S. Rowing Team at the 2008
Olympic Games in Beijing and competed
for the U.S. in the Men’s Four at the
World Championships this past August.
Schnobrich, who began rowing at Saint
John’s in 1997, is a three-time national
team member and is currently training for
the winter with the U.S. team in Clemson,
SC. “My rowing experience at Saint John’s
was wonderful in fostering an overall
enjoyment of the sport. In my mind there
is no more idyllic or peaceful venue than
Lake Sagatagan,” says Schnobrich.
Michael Crouser ’85 was featured in
Sports Illustrated with six photos from his
new photo book on bullfi ghting, Los Toros
(Twin Palms Publishers, 2007). Los Toros,
an exploration of the world of the bullfi ght
in Spain, Mexico, South America and
France, was also profi led in Rangefi nder, a
national magazine for professional photog-raphers.
Rangefi nder writer Peter Skinner
said, “If commitment to personal work is
an indicator of a photographer’s passion
for his craft, then it can be truly said that
editorial and advertising/commercial
shooter Michael Crouser is the consum-mate
photographer’s photographer.” An-other
book, Dog Run, is due in the fall of
2008 (Viking Studio). Many alumni may
already be familiar with Crouser’s photo
essay of Saint John’s, Saint John’s in Pictures
(Th e Veronica Press, 1994). Examples of
Crouser’s work and books are available on
www.michaelcrouser.com.
E. Chip Ray ’82 has been promoted to
the position of executive vice president–
corporate planning for Chicago Bridge &
Iron Company N.V. (CB&I), according to
Forbes online. Ray has more than 25 years
of global experience in strategic planning,
mergers and acquisitions, marketing, sales,
operations and communications. He holds
a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Saint
John’s and an M.B.A. from Duke Univer-sity.
CB&I is one of the world’s leading en-gineering,
procurement and construction
companies.
Matt Schnobrich ’01 hopes to row for the U.S. at the 2008 Olympic games.
For more alumni news,stories and
class notes, visit sjualum.com
27
A Homecoming to Remember
ALUMNI NEWS
The weekend kicked off by welcom-ing
back more than a thousand
Johnnies from the classes of 1957,
1962, 1967, 1972, 1977, 1982, 1987,
1992, 1997 and 2002 for reunion
year gatherings. The celebration
continued with a post-game carnival
and hospitality tent with activities for
guests of all ages.
All roads lead to Collegeville again
next year, so mark your calendars
now for Reunion and Homecoming
2008 on Sept. 26-28.
A sea of Johnnie red swept over
campus on Oct. 5-6 at SJU’s Reunion
and Homecoming 2007. Nearly 12,500
fans made the journey to Collegeville
from all parts of the country and fi lled
the stands at Clemens Stadium to
cheer on the home team. It was the
largest homecoming attendance in the
university’s history.
(Photos by Andra van Kempen)
28
ALUMNI NEWS
For the fi rst time since its inception, 19 Fr. Walter Reger Distinguished Alumnus Award
recipients gathered on Friday, Oct. 5, during the Alumni Association Homecoming Banquet
to celebrate Saint John’s University’s Sesquicentennial. Th e recipients in attendance dated back
to the 1978 award. Th eir presence reinforced the historic nature of this year’s homecoming
banquet.
Front row (l to r): Tom Joyce ’61, Dan Coborn ’52, Fr. Don LeMay, OSB, ’49, Fr. Don
Talafous, OSB, ’48, Dan Whalen ’70, George Hawkins ’49, Leroy Lilly ’55, Tom McKeown ’52.
Back row (l to r): Jerry Donovan ’53, Len Mrachek ’58, Jack O’Connell ’42, Bob Wicker ’64,
John Rogers ’63, Michael Dady ’71, Joe Mucha ’66, Dick Nigon ’70, Bill Sexton ’55 and Th om
Woodward ’70.
Th is year’s award was presented to Dick Nigon ’70. Th e award recognizes outstanding service
to the Saint John’s community by an alumnus and is the highest honor given by the Alumni
Association.
An Historic Reunion
29
ALUMNI NEWS
Mark Your Calendar!
February 13 Saints Network Midwinter Luncheon with the Presidents
Solera Restaurant, Minneapolis
February 18 Twin Cities Job and Internship Fair Reception
Securian, St. Paul
April 16 Senior Banquet
SJU Campus
April 18 Saint John’s Day
SJU Campus
July 14 Alumni Golf Scramble
Bunker Hills Golf Club in Coon Rapids
September 26-28 Homecoming and Reunions 2008
Go to sjualum.com “Events��� for more information about these events and others.
F I N E A RTS P ROGRAMMING EVENTS
(Photo by Andra van Kempen)
Turtle Island Quartet with Stefon Harris
Sunday, February 10 @ 2:00 p.m.
Stephen B. Humphrey Theater, SJU
Seán Curran Company
Saturday, February 16 @ 7:30 p.m.
Petters Auditorium, CSB
Max & Ruby
Friday, February 22 @ 7:00 p.m.
(family performance)
Stephen B. Humphrey Theater, SJU
Minnesota Orchestra
Sunday, March 2 @ 2:00 p.m.
Petters Auditorium, CSB
Regina Carter Quintet
Saturday, March 8 @ 7:30 p.m.
Petters Auditorium, CSB
Edgar Meyer
Sunday, April 20 @ 2:00 p.m.
Stephen B Humphrey Theater, SJU
Urban Bush Women
Saturday, April 26 @ 7:30 p.m.
Petters Auditorium, CSB
Minnesota Orchestra
Sunday, April 27 @ 2:00 p.m.
Petters Auditorium, CSB
BeauSoleil avec Michael Doucet
Saturday, May 3 @ 7:30 p.m.
Petters Auditorium, CSB
Four Stand Up Dads
Sunday, June 15 @ 2:00 & 5:00 p.m.
Stephen B Humphrey Theater, SJU
Visual Arts Series
Samuel Johnson-Ceramics
February 11-April 7, 2008
Gorecki Gallery, BAC
Jennifer Davis-Paintings/Collage
February 11-April 7, 2008
Gallery Lounge, BAC
Sam Spiczka-Sculpture
February 25-April 7, 2008
SJU Art Center
CSB/SJU Senior Exhibits
April 14-May 9, 2008
Gorecki Gallery & Gallery Lounge, BAC
SJU Art Center
Brian Gardner-Photography
May 22-July 11, 2008
Gallery Lounge, BAC
Kim Bromley-Paintings
May 30-July 25, 2008
SJU Art Center
Performing Arts Series
AZ
315
CA*
653
CO*
352
ID
49
KS
93
ND
334
SD
252
NE*
177
AK
78
HI
29
WA*
278
WY
21
TX*
300
NM
61
UT
50
NV
51
OR*
134
MT
110
ALUMNI NEWS
Where Johnn
NORTH AMERICA ALUMNI
Bahamas * 230
Canada 54
Cayman Islands 1
Costa Rica 3
Guatemala 2
Honduras 1
Jamaica 3
Mexico 8
Panama 4
Trinidad and Tobago 10
SOUTH AMERICA ALUMNI
Brazil 4
Chile 1
Ecuador 1
Peru 5
Saint John’s alumni can be found in all 50
for an alumni chapter near you, go to sjualu
don’t fi nd one where you live, call Jody
ASIA ALUMNI
Bangladesh 1
China * 5
Hong Kong (China) * 50
India 1
Indonesia 1
Israel 1
Japan * 35
Korea (North) 1
Korea (South) 2
Nepal 3
Pakistan 2
Philippines 1
Russia 2
Singapore 1
Taiwan 2
Thailand 2
United Arab Emirates 1
Vietnam 1
* CHAPTERS
AR
27
AL
26
CT
53
DC*
44
RI
12
FL*
309
GA
101
IA*
335
IL*
598
IN*
115
LA
18
MA
117
MD
135
DE
6
ME
26
VT
23 NH
NY 29
176
NJ
80
PA
93
OH
113
WV
4
MI
166
WI*
967
KY
39
VA*
202
NC
TN 122
42
SC
35
MN*
13259
MO
171
OK
30
MS
7
ALUMNI NEWS
nnies Connect
AFRICA ALUMNI
Ghana 4
Mauritius 1
Nigeria 1
Tanzania 2
Uganda 1
AUSTRALIA/OCEANIA ALUMNI
Australia 12
New Zealand 1
North Mariana Islands 1
50 states and in 61 countries. If you’re looking
ualum.com and click on Alumni Chapters. If you
ody Yurczyk at 1-800-635-7303 to start one.
EUROPE ALUMNI
Austria 3
Belgium 1
Bosnia & Herzegovina 6
Croatia 1
Cyprus 1
Denmark 1
France 3
Germany 10
Greece 1
Hungary 1
Ireland 3
Italy 4
Luxembourg 1
Malta 2
Netherlands 2
Norway 1
Poland 1
Spain 6
Sweden 1
Switzerland 1
United Kingdom 13
The Stats
Hometown: Eagan, Minnesota
Major: Political Science
Sport: Hockey: Forward with 38
points (22 goals), four-year
letter winner, All-Conference
honorable mention, and
assistant captain during the
2007-08 season.
Other: Dean’s Council member
28
JOHNNIE SPORTS
32
gojohnnies.com
Tom Freeman ’08 recalls that his fi rst taste of politics was listening to his grandparents,
parents and older brother discuss Jesse Ventura’s candidacy for governor.
“What infl uenced me most was that I was never told how to think politically. In fact, in
many ways, my politics are the opposite of my parents. Well, similar to my grandfather.”
His father, John Freeman, is the Distinguished McKnight University Professor in politi-cal
science at the University of Minnesota and an internationally respected writer on the
implications of market globalization for democracy. “Dad never directly infl uenced me;
maybe it’s in my gene structure,” Freeman refl ects.
Goal-Directed
On and Off the Rink, Tom Freeman ’08
Knows Where He’s Going
By John Taylor ’58
(Photo by John Biasi)
33
gojohnnies.com
Freeman grew up in Eagan, MN, and
played hockey and soccer in high school,
where he was a three-year letter winner in
hockey and four-year in soccer. Now an
assistant captain for the Johnnie skaters, he
observes that “hockey has helped focus me,
given me a strong work ethic, thick skin
and taught me how to work with others.
“However, the most important skill it
has taught me is time management,” he
emphasizes. “I spend more than 30 hours
on the rink during the season. Given my
credit load and academic expectations, I
really have to manage my time. It’s tough
reading Plato’s Republic on a crammed
bus.”
Freeman got turned on to the study of
government in a fi rst-year American politi-cal
science course and the Bush v. Kerry
presidential race that year. “As far back as I
can remember, I loved the study of Ameri-can
history. It seemed the only subject that
I really understood. In my sophomore year
at Saint John’s, I had to write a political
autobiography. I was able to articulate my
more conservative bias in that paper. I had
to think it through for myself.” Freeman
talks about how this helped him grow. “I
had to be able to defend my position, and
that intellectual challenge has given me
more poise and confi dence.”
Th is past summer, Freeman partici-pated
in the Washington Summer Study
Program sponsored by the Eugene J. Mc-
Carthy Center for Public Policy & Civic
Engagement. As an intern for David Turch
’63, a principal in a federal advocacy fi rm
in D. C., he helped write the company
newsletter, research bills and followed the
appropriation process. “David and his as-sociate,
Kody Hill-Davis, were so helpful.
I met with every Congressperson and staff
in the Minnesota delegation.”
After fi nishing his senior thesis on state
judiciary elections and graduating, “I
would love to catch on as a Hill staff er for
a couple years, and return to Minnesota,
study law and raise my family here,” Free-man
says.
JOHNNIE SPORTS ROUND-UP
FOOTBALL ended 2007 with a 10-2 overall record and a 7-1 record in the MIAC. The
Johnnies earned a berth in the NCAA Division III playoffs for the third consecutive season
and 18th overall but lost in the second round to Central College, Iowa. Quarterback Alex
Kofoed ’08 ended his career as the MIAC’s all-time leading
passer and holder of eight SJU records. A 2007 Gagliardi Trophy
fi nalist as Outstanding NCAA Division III Football Player, Kofoed
set Aztec Bowl records for completions and attempts in Team
USA’s 37-19 win over Mexico. Defensive tackle Nick Gunderson
’09, Andrew Salvato ’08 and defensive end Mike Schumacher ’09
were named to the D3football.com All-West Region team. Safety
Kevin Boegel ’08 earned Academic All-America honors. Head Coach John Gagliardi, the
winningest coach in college football history, won his 450th career game this season at
Gustavus Adolphus, 40-0 on Oct. 13. Gagliardi fi nished his 59th season with a 453-122-
11 (.782) career record and a 429-116-10 (.782) record SOCCER fi nished with a 7-6-2 overall record and a
5-4-1 record in the MIAC, good for fi fth place in the
fi nal regular season conference standings. Head coach Haws completed his 30th season at the helm of the Johnnies’
soccer program with a 325-123-47 (.704) career record.
CROSS COUNTRY, led by MIAC Men’s Cross Country
Coach of the Year Tim Miles, won its second consecutive MIAC championship and
fi nished 13th out of 32 teams at the NCAA Division III Championship. It was the Johnnies’
23rd appearance at the NCAA Championship, and the 19th under Miles. Chris Erichsen
’08 earned All-America honors and was named the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Coun-try
Coaches’ Association (USTFCCCA) Central Region Cross Country Athlete of the Year
and the MIAC Cross Country Athlete of the Year. Erichsen, Kelly Fermoyle ’08 and Zach
Hunter ’09 were named to the 2007 USTFCCCA All-Central Region Team.
GOLF fi nished in the top three in six out of the seven tournaments this fall, including a
second-place fi nish at the MIAC Championship. SJU has now fi nished in the top two at
the MIAC Championship nine consecutive seasons. Joe Schoolmeesters ’09 led the MIAC
with a 73.7 stroke average.
rd in 55 seasons at SJU.
Pat
nnies’
d.
34
MILESTONES
Marriages
’80 Shereen Loth to Don Schultz ’80, Aug. ’07
’94 Ensign Tilney to Thomas Burke ’94,
Sept. ’07
’94 Abby Young to Mike Cunningham ’94,
Oct. ’07
’94 Josie Villasenor to Tim Jendro ’94,
Aug. ’07
’96 Karen Doyle to Andrew Kaus ’96,
June ’07
’96 Takako Fujimoto to Joe Sandkamp ’96,
Aug. ’07
’98 Shannon Hogan to Luke Hattenhauer ’98,
Sept. ’05
’98 Beth Siracusa to Jeremy Yokota ’98,
July ’07
’99 Kay Ward to Patrick Breen ’99, July ’07
’99 Ashley Bryant to Brian Eisenschenk ��99,
Aug. ’07
’99 Karey Gertsema to Scott Frieler ’99,
Sept. ’07
’99 Nicole Heitzman to Jeremy Kletzin ’99,
May ’07
’00 Andrea (Terhaar ’02) to John Krueger ’00,
June ’07
’00 Robyn (Magalska ’00) to Daniel Liebl ’00,
May’07
’00 Jessica (Lessard ’01) to John Maslow
’00, Sept. ’07
’00 Debra (Chelberg ’02) to Mark McCarthy
’00, Aug. ’07
’00 Bridget Johnson to Jon Meyer ’00,
Aug. ’07
’00 Sejal (Shah ’99) to Matthew Peckosh ’00,
Apr. ’07
’00 Stacy (Deery ’00) to Shane Stennes ’00,
Sept. ’07
’01 Sara (Egan ’02) to Dave Hassel ’01,
Dec. ’06
’01 Emily Bunce ’01 to Peter Wanning ’01,
Nov. ’06
’01 Jessie (Engelhardt ’01) to John Zins ’01,
Aug. ’07
’02 Alice Rosenwald to Aaron Bidle ’02,
Aug. ’07
’02 Kathryn (Hoen ’02) to Jason Mousel ’02,
Aug. ’07
’02 Evelyn Johnson to Nathan Nelson ’02,
Aug. ’07
’02 Angela (Laveen ’01) to Gaurav Pokharel
’02, Oct. ‘07
’02 Sarah Montag to Luke Yurczyk ’02,
May ’07
’03 Sarah (Johnson ’03) to Mark Bot ’03,
July ’07
’03 Catie (Scherer ’03) to James Brackin ’03,
June ’07
’03 Andrea (Barnett ’03) to Matthew Egberg
’03, July ’07
’03 Monica (Hurtubise ’04) to Kevin Hartman
’03, June ’07
’03 Kimberly (Shackleton ’07) to Brian Kuhl
’03, July ’07
’03 Christa (Lynner ’03) to Thomas Sebo ’03,
June ’07
’03 Amy (Moeller ’03) to Jared Shogren ’03,
June ’07
’03 Heather Hall to Dustin Upgren ’03,
Sept. ’07
’04 Susan (Bellin ’04) to Jeremy Bye ’04,
Apr. ’07
’04 Erin (Cooney ’02) to Ben Fisher ’04,
June ’07
’04 Allison (Grones ’04) to James Haws ’04,
June ’07
’04 Bea (Egan ’04) to Michael Hellickson ’04,
Dec. ’06
’04 Elizabeth (Koch ’05) to Aaron Hirsch ’04,
Aug. ’07
’04 Ashley (Thiner ’06) to Pius Kimeu ’04,
Aug. ’07
’04 Juliet (Govern ’04) to Thomas O’Keefe
’04, Aug. ’07
’04 Leah (Laurich ’04) to Jacob Omann ’04,
Nov. ‘07
’04 Amanda (Henning ’04) to Paul Stenberg
’04, Aug. ’07
’04 Melinda Brockopp to Derek Tamm ’04,
Oct. ’07
(Photo courtesy redbrickhealth.com)
Design for Sustainability: Bill Pelfrey ’88
Bill Pelfrey admits he wasn’t especially interested in sustainability until “my wife dragged me, kick-ing
and screaming, to live on a farm.” She began raising organic products under the Morning Glory
Farms label, and Pelfrey became intrigued by the possibility of turning the Stillwater, MN, farm into a
model of sustainability.
Pelfrey is president of Red Barn Development, Inc., a business development company that works
with start-up businesses.
He says that life on the farm woke him up to natural cycles. “Farmers used to burn their own timber
for heat and raise their own meat and vegetables. Animal waste fertilized the fi elds. It was an indepen-dent
and self-sustaining cycle.”
He’s particularly interested in energy. He’s got 11 buildings, six furnaces and a pool on the farm and
would like to integrate wind, solar and geothermal options throughout. “To make signifi cant strides, I
need a whole system designed for sustainability,” he says.
Pelfrey hopes to achieve this goal with help from Sustainability Associates, a CSB/SJU student
consulting business led by Ernie Diedrich, CSB/SJU professor of economics. The Pelfrey farm served
as their pilot project last year. “It’s still on the drawing boards, but I look forward to implementing it
some day,” says Pelfrey.
35
’04 Melodie (Attema ’04) to Nicholas
Winscher ’04, Dec. ’06
’05 Mara (Ebacher ’05) to Patrick Hegel ’05,
July ’07
’05 Jackie (Pelgrin ’05) to Joseph Henry ’05,
Sept. ’07
’05 Kristin Seal to Jeremy Laughlin ’05,
Sept. ’07
’05 Nicole Johnson to Brent Peterson ’05,
Aug. ’07
’05 Gillian (Korpi ’06) to Erik Siverson ’05,
June ’07
’05 Mary (Simmons ’06) to Joshua Thom ’05,
July ‘07
’05 Claire (Spanier ’05) to Brian Wavinak ’05,
Aug. ’07
’06 Carol O’Brien to Seth Allen ’06, Sept. ’07
’06 Johanna (Hatch ’05) to Evan Creed ’06,
June ’07
’06 Kathryn (Enger ’05) to Joshua Enke ’06,
Aug. ’07
’06 Liz (Sieh ’06) to Michael Henderson ’06,
Sept. ’07
’06 Kelly (Denne ’06) to Adam Minnich ’06,
July ’07
’06 Angie (Moeller ’06) to Dave Nolan ’06,
Oct. ’07
’06 Christine (Pladson ’06) to Christopher
Wayne ’06, Oct. ’07
’06 Abby (Schwalbach ’07) to Dan Willaert
’06, Aug. ’07
’07 Jessica (Lund ’07) to Eric Denn ’07,
Aug. ’07
’07 Tara (Fasciana ’07) to Benjamin
Durheim ’07, May ’07
’07 Megan Ekstrom to Adam Gosiak ’07,
July ’07
’07 Dorothy Johnson to Adam Hanna ’07,
June ’07
’07 Martina (Talic ’06) to Russel Younglao
’07, Sept. ’07
Births
’79 Nancy Nistler & James Jarvis ’79, boy,
Christopher, June ’07
’81 Suzette (Sutherland ’84) & Brad Neary
’81, girl, Moira, Sept. ’07
’84 Mary Beth & Mark Nicklaus ’84, girl,
Lucia, Aug. ’07
’85 Leslie Ferster & Bryan Leary ’85, girl,
Devyn, Jan. ’07
’87 Rita (Rosenberger ’89) & Dave Barthel
’87, boy, Ernest, Aug. ’07
’87 Nancy & Dan Bieniek ’87, boy, Luke,
Feb. ’07
’87 Helen & Tim Healy ’87, girl, Shannon,
Sept. ’07
’88 Andrea & Sean Harlin ’88, boy, Tadhgan,
July ’07
’89 Kimberly & Tim Teske ’89, boy, Adam,
Apr. ’07
’90 Laura & Jim Brattensborg ’90, girl,
Brooke, Aug. ’07
’90 Renee & John McGeary ’90, boy, Joseph,
Aug. ’07
’90 Betsy (Struck ’94) & Vincent Moga ’90,
boy, Matthew, Mar. ’07
’90 Cindy & Mike Ramler ’90, boy, Nathan,
Aug. ’07
’91 Megan & Michael Cummings ’91, girl,
Molly, Sept. ’06
’91 Jamie & Tim Flynn ’91, girl, Katherine,
June ’07
’91 Christine & David Minke ’91, girl, Hannah,
May ’07
’91 Sarah (Hogan ’92) & Pete Odegard ’91,
boy, Samuel, Feb. ’07
’92 Ann & Jim Hardman ’92, boy, Daniel,
Sept. ’07
’92 Anne (Battig ’94) & Dave Kaluza ’92, girl,
Evelyn, Sept. ’07
’92 Kathi & Jon Mocol ’92, boy, Jacob,
Sept. ’07
’92 Joanne (Hansen ’92) & Chris Ostman ’92,
boy, Nathan, Nov. ’06
Important Bird Area Ahead: Bob Russell ’67
A wetland bird biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bob Russell also serves on the
Saint John’s Arboretum board and the Important Bird Area Committee for the Minnesota Audubon
Society. These two roles came together last November when he successfully nominated the Avon
Hills in Central Minnesota – an area that includes the SJU campus – for Important Bird Area (IBA)
designation by the Audubon Society.
IBA is an internationally recognized term for a site that provides essential habitat for one or
more species of bird. The designation helps drive conservation priorities. A 2007 Arboretum bird
count yielded more than 125 species of birds, making it one of the most diverse sites in the state,
according to Russell.
Three of those species are threatened by widespread habitat destruction and are the main
reason for the Avon Hill’s IBA status: the red-shouldered-hawk, the cerulean warbler and the blue-winged
warbler.
“You’ve got a valuable habitat there. Due to preservation and good land management by Saint
John’s, it’s probably a healthier ecosystem now than it was in the 1960s. IBA status should
increase the local community’s appreciation for this area,” says Russell.
36
MILESTONES
’92 Christine & Donn Scroggins ’92, boy, Leo,
Aug. ’07
’92 Paula & Randall Sturm ’92, boy, Brayden,
Mar. ’07
’92 Annette Marthaler & Joe Twomey ’92, girl,
Willa, July ’07
’93 Orit & Dominic Ackerman ’93, girl, Libi,
July ’07
’93 Dawn & Chris Connor ’93, boy, Ayden,
Apr. ’07
’93 Tina & Joe Hengel ’93, girl, Reagan,
May ’07
’93 Ashley & Sean Mahoney ’93, girl, Laura,
Sept. ’07
’93 Jennifer (Holton ’95) & Steven Tacheny
’93, boy, Delvin, Sept. ’06
’93 Janelle & Dennis Wenzel ’93, girl,
Josephine, June ’07
’94 Jennifer & Greg Bastian ’94, boy, Louis,
Aug. ’07
’94 Holly & Matthew Etzell ’94, girl, Addison,
June ’07
’94 Stephanie & Bruce Hennen ’94, boy,
Andrew, Nov. ’06
’94 Jennifer & Terry House ’94, girl,
Alexandra, May ’07
’94 Kerry (Fierke ’96) & Gardner Lepp ’94,
boy, Sawyer, Feb. ’07
’94 Mayko (Vang ’96) & John Moline ’94, boy,
Kellen, Sept. ’07
’94 Jodi (Boerboom ’94) & James Reddan
’94, boy, William, June ’07
’94 Amanda & Steve Thielen ’94, boy, Beau,
Apr. ’07
’94 Tina (Kerkhoff ’95) & Jeffrey Zignego ’94,
girl, McKenna, Feb. ’07
’95 Teresa & Bob Donnett ’95, girl, Bridget,
Oct. ’07
’95 Elena & Bill Frank ’95, girl, Claire, Feb. ’07
’95 Julie & Daniel Jost ’95, boy, Oliver, Aug.
’07
’95 Sarah & Jon Klocker ’95, girl, Lillian,
May ’07
’95 Angie & Jim McDonough ’95, girl, Clare,
July ’07
’95 Susan (Willard’96) & Alexander Roeser
’95, boy, Charles, Nov. ’06
’95 Cori & Jeremy Schroeder ’95, boy, Kaden,
Jan. ’07
’95 Anita (McNamara ’95) & Matt Sonnek ’95,
boy, Owen, June ’07
’95 Teresa (Sandy ’96) & Andrew Westrich
’95, girl, Anya, July ’07
’96 Sherry & Tony Amelse ’96, boy, Anthony,
June ’07
’96 Amy & Brent Feddema ’96, girl, Abby,
June ’07
’96 Michelle (Wetternach ’98) & Steve Just
’96, boy, Isaac, May ’07
’96 Kelly & Mick Mullen ’96, boy, Logan,
Feb. ’07
’96 Rachel (Hoof ’96) & Curtis Ricard ’96, girl,
Sophia, Aug. ’07
’96 Susan & Doug Stang ’96, girl, Monica,
Sept. ’07
’96 Kara & Michael Sullivan ’96, boy, William,
May ’07
’96 Lisa (Johnson ’97) & Mike Wolf ’96, boy,
Nathan, May ’07
’96 Nicole (Vaia ’95) & John Wood ’96, boy,
John, Oct. ’07
’97 Anne & Ethan Gannaway ’97, boy, Henry,
Dec. ’06
’97 Molly & Peter Griffi th ’97, boy, Harrison,
July ’07
’97 Jennifer (Arnold ’97) & Jesse Kuechle
’97, girl, Isabella, Sept. ’07
’97 Kathryn (McLoone ’98) & Jason Marsh
’97, boy, Evan, May ’07
’97 Christy & John McBroom ’97, girl, Zara,
Apr. ’07
’97 Luz & Marc Mortl ’97, girl, Madeline,
Apr. ’07
’97 Charlene & Jeb Myers ’97, twins, Sela
and Paxon, July ’07
’97 Melissa & Danny Notsch ’97, boy, Brady,
June ’07
’97 Tina (Baggenstoss ’98) & Ryan Spanier
’97, boy, Maxwell, Nov. ’06
’97 Katie (Vanselow ’98) & Michael Zuehlke
’97, boy, Griffi n, May ’07
’98 Jodi (Friedrich ’98) & Michael Berndt ’98,
boy, Andrew, Aug. ’07
’98 Laura (Schwope ’99) & Josh Capistrant
’98, girl, Thea, Apr. ’07
’98 Angie (Schmidt ’98) & Christopher
Churchill ’98, boy, Samuel, July ’07
’98 Kadi (Kutchmarek ’98) & John Groppoli
’98, girl, Elise, Mar. ’07
(Photo courtesy fueledbyrice.org)
Biking Is Better: Fueled by Rice
On Sept. 16, 2007, four Johnnies and a Bennie left Beijing
and headed for Europe via Asia – on bicycles.
Calling themselves Fueled by Rice (FBR), the group consists
of, from L to R, Adam Wolf ’03, Jim Durfey ’04, Nakia Pearson
’05, Drew Spidahl ’03 and Pete Ehresmann ’04.
By August 2008, they hope to have traversed China, Viet-nam,
Laos, Thailand, Myanmar, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan,
Iran, Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Austria, Germany,
and be pedaling into France.
Their goal is threefold: To learn more about the people of the
world, to support a charity in each country they pedal through
and to advocate reducing carbon emissions.
“We hope that our (rather extreme) example of how effective bicycles are in human (and luggage) transport may encourage you to
keep that car of yours parked a little longer between outings,” writes Ehresmann in his FBR blog.
For the latest updates, go to fueledbyrice.org
37
MILESTONES
’98 Denise & Stephen Heinz ’98, boy, Joseph,
July ’07
’98 Sandra (Matschke ’98) & Chris Jerdee
’98, boy, Gavin, Aug. ’07
’98 Eleanor (Mamer ’98) & Micah Kiel ’98,
boy, Harrison, Aug. ’07
’98 Bethany (Vukson ’98) & Matthew
Kostolnik ’98, boy, Joseph, Feb. ’07
’98 Angela (Schmalzer ’98) & Nicholas
Kulenkamp ’98, girl, Teagan, July ’07
’98 Jennifer (Finder ’99) & James Meyer ’98,
boy, Alexander, Dec. ’06
’98 Mandy & Dennis Olson ’98, boy, Chase,
July ’07
’98 Amy & Nate Omann ’98, boy, Drew,
July ’07
’98 Mae & William Petrangelo ’98, boy,
Jack, May ’07
’98 Teri & Matthew Schrandt ’98, boy,
Cael, June ’07
’98 Mellissa & Eric Stalboerger ’98, boy,
Jacob, May ’07
’98 Kristin (Koch ’98) & Chad Terrell ’98, girl,
Danika, Apr. ’07
’98 Lori & Kevin Uphoff ’98, girl, Megan,
Aug. ’07
’98 Anne (Berrisford ’99) & Patrick Joseph-son
’98, boy, Ryan, Apr. ’07
’99 Lori & Jamie Andler ’99, boy, Aden,
June ’07
’99 Sara (Heinz ’99) & Scott Bryan ’99, boy,
Maxwell, May ’07
’99 Angela & Heath Carter ’99, boy, Kieran,
June ’06
’99 Robyn (Ruschmeier ’99) & Chris
Courchane ’99, boy, William, July ’07
’99 Laura (Fahey ’99) & Peter Michon ’99,
girl, Erin, May ’07
’99 Amy (Moulzolf ’01) & Willy Patefi eld ’99,
girl, Lauren, Dec. ’06
’99 Meagan (Sauder ’99) & Eric Ricard ’99,
boy, Gavin, Aug. ’07
’99 Monica & Colin Robertson ’99, boy, Tate,
Apr. ’07
’99 Kristi (Meier ’00) & Cory Sabrowsky ’99,
girl, Kenna, June ’07
’99 Cindy & Casey Scheidt ’99, boy, Parker,
Aug. ’07
’99 Lisa (Soma ’98) & Ryan Vaske ’99, girl,
Sarah, Jan. ’07
’99 Beth & Bill Zacher ’99, boy, Owen,
Aug. ’07
’99 Angela (Hoffmann ’99) & Eric Strabala
’99, boy, John, Nov. ’06
’00 Erin (Peterfeso ’03) & Chad Edlund ’00,
girl, Brooklynn, Aug. ’07
’00 Katie & Kris Hagen ’00, girl, Madison,
July ’07
’00 Anna & Josh Hart ’00, girl, Piper, Oct. ’07
’00 Abby & David Kreft ’00, boy, Saul,
June ’07
’00 Kelly & Chad Krueger ’00, boy, Cullen,
May ’07
’00 Laura & Jacob Menden ’00, boy, Wilson,
July ’07
’00 Stacy (Kaye ’01) & Nigel Nagassar ’00,
girl, Annaliese, Apr. ’07
’00 Sally (Roering ’99) & Karl Nathe ’00,
twins, Gabriel & Nicholas, July ’07
’00 Johanna (Steffen ’01) & Michael O’Malley
’00, boy, Lucas, Mar. ’07
’00 Jennifer & Brian O’Neill ’00, boy, Deklan,
July ’06
’00 Stacy (Otto ’00) & Dave Rynders ’00, girl,
Abigael, Aug. ’07
’00 Emily (Haeg ’01) & John Saunders ’00,
boy, Atticus, Apr. ’07
’00 Christina & Matthew Tinguely ’00, girl,
Rosemary, Aug. ’07
’00 Melanie & Michael Wirth ’00, girl, Isabel,
Feb. ’07
’01 Jessica (Kollmann ’02) & Joe Beckman
’01, girl, Sophia, Mar. ’07
’01 Angela (Sinner ’01) & Joe Begnaud ’01,
girl, Ella, May ’07
’01 Susan (Gebeck’01) & Mark Berglund ’01,
boy, Maxwell, Apr. ’07
’01 Wenonah (Speltz ’02) & Benjamin
Carmody ’01, boy, Joachim, Sept. ’06
’01 Michelle (Crow ’01) & Sean Flannery ’01,
boy, William, Apr. ’07
’01 Billie Jo & Gregg Fox ’01, girl, Ava,
July ’07
’01 Valerie (Meyer ’00) & Brian Jarstad ’01,
twins, Alexander & Elizabeth, June ’07
’01 Carrie & Adam Klepetar ’01, girl, Ellen,
July ’07
’01 Kelley (Schmidt ’01) & Nick Polasky ’01,
boy, John, Sept. ‘07
’01 Alicia (Baumgarn ’01) & Travis Radel ’01,
girl, Ariana, June ’07
(Photo courtesy Grand Forks Herald/Eric Hylden)
For the Sake of the River:
Jim Huot-Vickery ’73
He’s paddled thousands of miles in the past 30 years. And when author Jim
Huot-Vickery (in the bow) was asked to canoe the length of the Red Lake River
in northwestern Minnesota for the Red Lake River Corridor Enhancement Group
(RLRCEG), he says he knew immediately it was something he was meant to do.
The RLRCEG planned the 195-mile trip last spring to raise public aware-ness
of the river’s environmental, historical, recreational and aesthetic values.
Huot-Vickery, who grew up on the Red Lake River, adds one more value to the
list – spiritual.
“The Red Lake River has exceptional scenery, high water quality, 50 miles of
intermittent rapids and is a refuge for wildlife. It evokes reverence.”
Huot-Vickery and Wayne Goeken, organizer of the trip, were joined at various
stages by 60 other canoeists and kayakers and a hydro-biker. Their passage was celebrated with food, music and education at riverside com-munities
along the way. Both the Grand Forks Herald and the Thief River Falls Times gave the trip ample coverage. “Mission accomplished,”
says Huot-Vickery.
An Ely-area resident, former park ranger and author of three books, Huot-Vickery is now at work on a book about his 1,100-mile canoe
journey from northeastern Minnesota northward to Hudson Bay.
38
MILESTONES
’01 Molly & Brian Willaert ’01, boy, Lukas,
Aug. ’07
’02 Becky (Cole ’02) & Justin Ahlstrom ’02,
girl, Carly, Apr. ’07
’02 Laura (Sufka ’02) & Jeff Campbell ’02,
girl, Carly, Sept. ’07
’02 Sarah (Madge ’03) & Mike Carey ’02, boy,
William, July ’07
’02 Katie (Low ’02) & Curt Coudron ’02, boy,
Ethan, Apr. ’07
’02 Ingrid & Tom Hildreth ’02, boy, Jackson,
Aug. ’07
’02 Mindy (Schumer ’03) & Shane Hoefer ’02,
boy, Benedict, Sept. ’07
’02 Kate (Tillemans ’02) & Travis O’Hara ’02,
boy, Thomas, Feb. ’07
’02 Jessica (Anselment ’02) & Mike Pocrnich
’02, girl, Anna, Jan. ’07
’02 Adina & Bob Schneeweis ’02, boy, Kian,
June ’07
’02 Jana & Chris Schuver ’02, boy, Nathan,
July ’07
’03 Megan (Sand ’06) & Charlie Carr ’03, boy,
Nathan, May ’07
’03 Sara & John Crever ’03, girl, Lauren,
May ’07
’03 Mara & Joshua Halverson ’03, boy,
Logan, Oct. ’07
’04 Dayna (Logering ’05) & Stephen Francis
’04, girl, Jayda, Jan. ’07
’05 Heidi (Krippner ’05) & Brad Lucas ’05,
twins, Brock & Mava, Dec. ’06
Deaths
’23 Rev. Angelo Zankl, OSB ’23, July ’07
’35 Zook Iten ’35, Aug. ’07
’36 Virginia Cater, spouse of Kenneth ’36,
July ’07
’37 Joseph Keller ’37, May ‘07
’37 Quirren Klasen ’37, Nov. ’06
’38 Robert Thielman ’38, July ’07
’39 Hildie Callanan, spouse of deceased
Edward ’39 and mother of James ’68,
May ’07
’39 Lyle Hartman ’39, father of Terrance ’66
and Denny ’76, Aug. ’07
’39 Mary Knese, mother of Bill ‘70 and the
sister of Rev. Charles W. Henry OSB ’50,
Edward Henry ‘43, Robert Henry ‘51,
deceased John Henry ‘39, June ‘07
’40 Tom Erchul ’40, June ’07
’40 The Rev. Bernard Gervais ’40, July ’07
’40 Frank O’Keefe ’40, Aug. ’07
’40 Phil Raths ’40, father of Jeremy ’75 and
Tim ’76, June ’07
’41 Earl Blommer ’41, June ’07
’41 Hazel Egerman, spouse of Lyle ’41,
June ’06
’41 Wallace Ess ’41, June ’07
’41 George Wegener ’41, May ’07
’42 Raymond Bauer, Sr. ’42, July ’07
’42 Marie Nollette, daughter of deceased
Leon ’42 and mother of Peter Lafferty ‘89,
Sept. ’07
’42 Joe Twit ’42, Aug. ’07
’43 Albin Schleper ’43, July ’07
’44 Rose Livingston, spouse of Paul ’44,
Sept. ’07
’44 Bob Matthews ’44, Sept. ’06
’47 Dick Schmidt ’47, twin brother of Robert
’47, Aug. ’07
’47 Vera Zins Werner, mother of Donald ’47,
June ’07
’48 Rev. Earl Barcome ’48, Sept. ’07
’48 Rev. Alfred Scheidler, OSB ’48, Sept. ’01
49 William Macaskill ’49, Mar. ’07
’49 John Reisdorf, brother of deceased George
’49, Donald ’58, Richard ’59
’49 Clara Schanhaar, spouse of Bob ’49,
July ’06
’50 Don Dobmeyer ’50, Sept. ’07
’50 Dorothy Hilsgen, sister of Melvin Warnert
’50, July ’07
’50 John Hollenhorst ’50, Apr. ’07
’50 Al Kunkel ’50, Sept. ’07
’50 Bill Ridley ’50, Apr. ’07
’50 John Terhaar ’50, May ‘07
’50 Herbert Terhaar ’50, brother of Jerome
’48, Roger ’50 and deceased Severin ’36,
Aug. ’07
’50 Bob Yanz ’50, July ’07
’51 George Nelson ’51, July ’07
’51 Warren Potter ’51, Sept. ’07
’51 Donald J. Walsh ’51, July ’07
’52 Robert Van Sloun, brother of Bill ’52,
Oct. ’07
’53 Rev. Theodore Gustin ’53, Dec. ’06
’53 Richard Rentz, brother of Donald ’53,
June ’07
’54 Regina Collins, spouse of Bob ’54, May ’07
’54 Rev. Placid Hatfi eld, OSB ’54, date unknown
’55 Al Macho ’55, Aug. ’07
’55 Edwina Meyer, mother of Alvin ’55 and
Harvey ’56, May ’07
’55 Jim Schneider ’55, Apr. ’07
’55 Philip Urbanski, son of John ’55, July ’07
’56 Luella O’Fallon, mother of Mike ’56, John
’59 and David 65, July ’07
’56 Larry Tavis ’56, 2004
’58 Allen Cebulla, brother of Thomas ’58,
July ’07
’58 Catherine Gales, spouse of George ’58,
Aug. ’07
’58 Francis Hughes ’58, father of Daniel ’84,
Michael ’86, Paul ’89 and Nathan ’91,
Apr. ’07
’58 Donald Marohn ’58, Sept. ’07
’58 Malcolm Morley, brother of John ’58,
Oct. ’07
’58 Beata Wanger, sister of H. Peter Meysem-bourg
’58, July ’07
’58 George Wright, father of Rev. David SOTA
’58 and Donald ‘64, July ’07
’59 Roger Claesgens ’59, July ’95
’59 Tora Enestvedt, spouse of Dave ’59,
June ’07
’59 Michael Lischke, son of John ’59,
Sept. ’07
’59 Edward Virnig ’59, Oct. ’07
’60 John Connelly ’60, July ’07
’60 Lois Ries, sister of Jim Simon ’60, Oct. ’07
’61 Margaret Leahy, mother of James, Jr. ’61
and Tim ‘64, June ’07
’61 Bernard Legatt ’61, July ’07
’61 Marie Reim, mother of deceased Vic ’61,
May ’07
’61 Raymond Tauscher, brother of Rev. Donald
OSB ’61 and Leon ‘69, June ’07
’61 Kathy Tenvoorde, spouse of Jack ’61 and
mother of Mike ‘95, Oct. ’07
’61 Mary Varley, mother of Jim ’61, Tom ’65
and Leo ’79, May ’07
’62 Leone Bauerly, mother of Ronald ’62,
June ’07
’62 Earl Blaylock, father of Lawrence ’62 and
David ‘72, July ’07
’62 Helen Brandt, mother of John ’62, May ’07
’62 David Esselman ’62, brother of Gerald ’59,
June ’07
’62 Viola Klein, mother of Jim ’62, Sept. ’07
’62 John Kuffel, father of Dick ’62, May ’07
’62 Mary McRaith, mother of Bernie ’62,
May ‘07
’62 John Moosbrugger ’62, father of Thomas
’84, June ’07
’62 Jim Veit ’62, June ’07
’63 Jim Blake ’63, brother of William ’65 and
Jerome ’69, Sept. ’07
’63 Thomas Kinney, brother of Vincent ’63,
May ’07
’63 Ervin Kohorst, brother of Melvin ’63,
July ’07
’63 Tom Roufs ’63, Oct. ’07
’63 Elmer Schmainda, brother of Frank ’63,
June ’07
’64 Michael Byrne ’64, June ‘07
’64 Lorraine Grahn, mother of Frank ’64,
July ’07
’64 Mary Hanson, sister of Roger Wagner ’64,
Aug. ’07
’65 Genevieve Gobeil, mother of deceased
Edward ’65 and Daniel Hawthorne ’69,
Oct. ’07
’65 Lawrence Bloch, brother of Don ’65 and
Bea Britz SOTA ’00, June ‘07
’65 George Hennig ’65, son of Bernard, Sr. ’38,
father of James ’92, brother of Bernard, Jr.
’62, Richard ’67 and Michael ‘78, Dec. ’06
’65 Roman Saffert, father of Ken ’65 and Ron
‘76, Sept. ’07
’65 S. Marilyn Sieloff SOTA ’65, unknown
’65 Florrie Sipe, spouse of John ’65, mother of
John Jr. ’89 and Daniel ‘91, Oct. ’07
’66 James Hartle, son of Joseph ’66, June ’07
’67 Joseph Delisi ’67, Feb. ’07
39
MILESTONES
’67 Catherine Johnson, mother of Donald ’67,
July ’07
’67 Richard Krekelberg, father of Chuck ’67,
July ’07
’67 Crist Pohlen, father of Chris ’67, May ’07
’67 Norb Skarie ’67, Apr. ’07
’68 Carl Luxem, Sr. father of Carl Jr. ’68,
Michael ’73, Dennis ’75, May ’07
’68 Margaret Mullen, mother of Joseph ’68,
July ’07
’68 Frances Precourt, mother of Robert ’68,
May ’07
’68 Kathleen Voight, mother of James ’68,
May ’07
’69 John Bahnak, Jr. ’69, brother of deceased
Bruce ‘71, Aug. ’07
’69 Daniel Thiegs, Oct. ‘07
’70 Bette Keyes, mother of Jim ’70 and Dan
‘76, July ’07
’70 Beatrice Mumma, mother of Dave ’70,
Dec. ’06
’70 Forrest Olson, son of Rod ’70, Aug. ’07
’70 Joseph Roche, brother of Patrick ’70,
July ’07
’71 Kathryn Anderson, mother of James ’71,
June ’07
’71 Kathleen Debruycker, mother of Rev.
James DeBruycker ’71, Sept. ’07
’71 Clara Friendshuh, mother of Frank ’71,
Apr. ’07
’71 Rose Hackenmueller, mother of Tony ’71,
Aug. ’07
’72 Russell Gilmer, father of Michael ’72,
May ‘07
’72 Anna Spinler, mother of Mark ’72 and
Paul ‘75, Aug. ’07
’73 S. Maryanne Dooher, OSB, SOTA ’73,
July ’07
’73 Herbert Kelly, father of John ’73, Apr. ’07
’73 L.T. Miller, father of Rev. Greg Miller, OSB
’73, Sept. ’07
’74 Mary Jane Byron, mother of Dennis ’74,
George ’76 and Raymond ‘78, Apr. ’07
’74 John Suerth ’74, Aug. ’07
’76 William H. Muske, Sr., father of Mike ’76,
June ’07
’77 Norman Berns, father of Robert ’77,
July ’07
’77 Judy Chavez, sister of Richard J. Chavez
’77, Aug. ’07
’78 Leo Lenczewski, father of deceased Joe
’78 and John ‘84, Sept. ’07
’78 Ernest Stoll, father of Joseph ’78, Sept. ’07
’78 Jim Yurczyk, Jr. ’78, July ’07
’79 Toni Meyer, sister of Marty Meyer-Gad ’79,
June ’07
’79 Jacquelin Sullivan, mother of Joe ’79, Dan
’82 and Tom ‘85, May ’07
’79 Jane Ellen Teigen, mother of Robert ’79
and Richard ‘82, July ’07
’80 Douglas Hanowski, father of John ’80 and
Paul ’87, Oct. ��06
’81 Vince Bazzachini, brother of John ’81,
Aug. ’07
’81 Terry Bishop, brother of Dan ’81, July ’07
’81 Donna Hoban, mother of Richard ’81,
June ’07
’81 Leroy Jasmer, father of Br. Paul Jasmer,
OSB SOTA ’81, Aug. ‘07
’81 James D. Touhey, brother of Nadine
Touhey, OSB SOTA ’81, June ’07
’82 James A. Piechowski, father of James C.
’82, John ’86 and Dave ‘89, Oct. ’07
’83 Eva Barnard, mother of Michael ’83,
June ’07
’83 Carol Leach, spouse of Joseph (Dan) ’83,
June ’07
’83 Lyle McCloskey, father of Michael ’83,
July ’07
’83 Murray Mylrea, father of John ’83,
Sept. ’07
’83 Aloysius Nordick, father of Rev. Jerry
Nordick SOTA ’83, Aug. ’07
’83 David Ring, father of Robert ’83, June ’07
’83 Rufus Wilson, father of Steve ’83, May ‘07
’84 Luverne Carlson, father of Gregg ’84,
Aug. ’07
’84 Emmett McCue, father of Joe ’84, May ’07
’84 Joseph Offerman, father of Steve ’84,
June ’07
’85 Mary Larson, mother of Gregory ’85,
Sept. ’07
’86 Mary Ann Caldwell, mother of Dave ’86
and Dan ‘95, Sept. ’07
’86 Linda Weidner, mother of Frank ’86,
May ’07
’87 John O’Brien, father of Joe ’87, May ’07
’88 Shirley Auran, mother of Paul ’88, July ’07
’88 William Mealey, brother of Mary Melia
SOTA ’88, Oct. ’07
’90 Mary Cutter, mother of John ’90, Aug. ’07
’90 Jerry Doran, father of Patrick ’90, July ’07
’90 Virginia McDonell, mother of David ’90,
Sept. ’07
’91 Daniel Dorn, brother of James SOTA ’91,
Aug. ’07
’91 Marcene Reder, mother of Dean ’91,
June ’07
’92 Joseph Mocol, father of Jon ’92, July ’07
’92 LeRoy Oelrich, father of Rev. Anthony
Oelrich SOTA ’92, Aug. ’07
’92 Leonard Williams, father of Roy ’92,
Sept. ’07
’94 Katherine Gamble, mother of James ’94,
Aug. ’07
’94 Monty W. Hoffstrom, father of Monty J. ’94,
Aug. ’07
’95 Georgeann Pyke, mother of Daniel ’95,
Mar. ’07
’97 John Elsen, father of Mike ’97, Aug. ’07
’97 David Swanson, father of Dan ’97, Jan. ’06
’99 Judy Grossman, mother of Craig ’99,
Aug. ’07
’00 Donald Abrams, father of Ben ’00,
Sept. ’07
’00 Robert Landkammer, father of Andy ’00,
Aug. ’07
’02 Richard “Kevin” Lindstrom, father of
Derrick ’02, May ’07
’02 Suzanne Walsh, mother of Michael ’02,
Oct. ’07
’02 Richard Young, father of John ’02,
Sept. ’07
’03 Ambrose Sherping, father of Dec. Rick
Scherping SOTA ’03, July ’07
’05 Kendrick Laloo, brother of Br. Neal Laloo,
OSB ’05, Sept. ’07
’05 RaeDell Robbins, mother of Will ’05,
Sept. ’07
’06 Mark Klocker, father of David ’06, Aug. ’07
’06 Joseph Thomas ’06, July ’07
40
INSPIRING LIVES
What Our Leaders Could Learn
from the Benedictines
by Eric Schubert ’92
Editor’s Note: Th e follow-ing
article is excerpted from an
op-ed piece in the Star Tribune
on Sept. 19, 2007.
Before the last two regular
Minnesota legislative sessions,
policymakers gathered at
the Humphrey Institute to
discuss overcoming gridlock.
Yet each time they return to
the people’s house, they seize
opportunities to squander
opportunity.
Before they and the gov-ernor
meet again on Minne-sotans’
behalf, they’d ben-efi
t from insights of humble
leaders whose adherence to
centuries-old rules help them stay tethered
to what is benefi cial about the past while
stepping boldly forward to shape tomor-row.
In 1856, fi ve Benedictine monks left
Pennsylvania for Minnesota. Th e men
built Saint John’s Abbey and Saint John’s
University. All are celebrating their sesqui-centennial.
Th ey carried Th e Rule of St. Benedict, a
73-chapter sixth-century guide for bring-ing
individuals together to build vital,
permanent monastic communities. Within
its medieval prose are intentional acts such
as listening, moderation, hospitality, hu-mility,
service, stewardship, empowerment,
embracing change, respecting people,
personal responsibility, learning, prayer
and work.
Called “the little rule for beginners,” it
fuels collaborative leadership to take “what
could be” to make “what is better.” Among
other things, Benedictines brought health
care and schools, innovated in natural-resource
management, preserved ancient
global texts, built timeless architectural
works and made Minnesota Public Radio
possible. Ignoring merger mania, they
maintain single-sex colleges and traditions
within a unique coeducational experience.
Th e Rule worked yesterday; it works
today, and tomorrow policymakers could
borrow from it to seize opportunity in-stead
of squandering it.
• Listening: Benedictines listen to all
members of their community when mak-ing
decisions. Rather than leading to weak
groupthink, disciplined listening expands
possibilities and spurs deci-siveness.
St. Benedict says
“listen with the ear of your
heart.”
• Trust: Benedictines
fundamentally trust and
extend hospitality. When
individuals egregiously
break trust, community
members join to bolster
what’s broken.
• Empowerment: St.
Benedict says “keep death
daily before your eyes.”
In doing so, Benedictines
empower individuals to take
initiative for their commu-nity’s
common good.
• Stewardship: Benedictines protect
and expand entrusted resources to make
things better. Policymakers must realize
that stewardship isn’t simply about saving
or saying no. It also means investing new
dollars to innovate.
Br. Dietrich Reinhart, OSB, president of
Saint John’s University, says that Benedic-tines
have built strong communities in
Minnesota for 150 years because coura-geous
people saw needs in the broader
world, often anticipated them, endured
opposition, and pulled together to make
new things happen. Th at tradition of
transformation to meet the deepest needs
of others drives the Benedictines’ story.
And it’s not over.
Eric Schubert ’92 is a communications pro-fessional
living in Inver Grove Heights, MN.
ADDRESS SERVICE REQUESTED
Non-Profi t Organization
U.S. Postage
PAID
INSTITUTIONAL ADVANCEMENT Saint John’s University
P.O. Box 7222
Collegeville, MN 56321
Jeff Jackson ’08 and toddler friends in the play house at Resurrection House AIDS Haven in this photo
by Alexa Gallet ’08, which won fi rst place in CSB/SJU’s study abroad photo contest last fall. Jackson
and Gallet were among 25 Johnnies and Bennies who studied in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, for a
semester in 2007. The group volunteered weekly at AIDS Haven, a support community for children
and adults living with AIDS.
Well Traveled
The College of Saint
Benedict and Saint John’s
University are ranked
No. 1 nationally among
similar institutions by the
Institute of International
Education for the number
of students who study
abroad in semester-long
programs.