As many corporate leaders seek to maintain a healthy STEM workforce, Brynn (Mundahl) Watson ’89 is “laser-sharp focused” on promoting STEM (science/technology/engineering/math) careers for middle school students (especially girls) and has been known to “take her show on the road.” As director of software engineering at Lockheed Martin, where she has served since 1996 and currently leads over 1,200 software engineers in the Space Systems Company (SSC), Watson has concluded that diversity drives performance and innovation, and she is determined to “pay it forward.”

She continues to speak at various local and regional STEM events, and was recently at the Houston Space Center as the keynote welcome speaker for the Spirit of Innovation Challenge finals sponsored by the Conrad Foundation, which gathers high school STEM students and their coaches for a session in developing innovative products to help solve global and local problems in a sustainable way.

Recently honored by Lockheed Martin with a 2013 Full Spectrum Leadership NOVA Award, Watson was recognized for her commitment to creating and fostering an inclusive environment to complete performance evaluations across the entire SSC Software organization with a newly adopted enterprise-focused process. The annual NOVA award is granted by the company to a select few employees who have made outstanding contributions to customers, business, and strategic goals. In a workforce of over 115,000, only 58 of the awards were granted in 2013.  The black-tie award ceremony, held at the National Air & Space Museum in Washington, D.C., was an incredibly exciting event and venue for Watson, especially since the museum showcases the very industry that the company serves.

Just a year earlier, Watson had been overwhelmed by the recognition she received from the Silicon Valley YWCA with their Tribute to Women (TWIN) award. She has since joined that organization’s board and is excited about its commitment to empower women, children, and families, and to eliminate racism, hatred, and prejudice. She is helping to grow their TechGYRLS program, an after-school empowerment program that provides girls aged 5-14 with opportunities to increase their skills and confidence in the use of technology and engineering.

Watson remembers asking many “how questions” as a youngster, and was always intrigued by how things work. It was in the tenth grade that she decided she wanted to become a computer programmer, perhaps inspired by her frustration with games like Pong. The encouragement of family and friends and the mentorship of her professors at Augsburg played a big role in shaping her future, especially with regard to “thinking big” and becoming a creative problem solver. She feels very fortunate to be in a position now to support such fascinating programs as Orion (the next generation of human space flight), the MAVEN and JUNO spacecraft that will explore the atmosphere on Mars and Jupiter, and other space and missile defense systems that protect our freedom every day.

After corporate relocations from Riverside, Calif. (where she earned her M.S. and met her husband of nearly 22 years), to Colorado Springs, Denver, and McLean, Virg., Watson and her husband Tim have happily settled in Silicon Valley (Los Altos, Calif.), where they live with their 10-year-old daughter, Claire, and a golden retriever named Liberty.

Augsburg alumnus John Cerrito ’11 wrote an article for College News in which he described how internship opportunities at a Twin Cities radio station helped him to discover and develop an enjoyable career before he completed his degree. Read the story, “It’s Not About Getting A Job, It’s About Finding a Vocation,” on the College News website.

When Sonja (Daniels) Zapchenk graduated from Augsburg in 1977, she hoped fervently to find work with teens and young adults in a psychiatric hospital setting, similar to the fascinating work she had enjoyed in her internship. Instead, the only job she could find was as a music therapist with elderly in a nursing home setting—not what she had planned. But it wasn’t long till she realized that was what she really wanted to do. Music therapy, she learned, was at the core of her being, and helping people with Alzheimer’s Disease was becoming her passion.

In her various jobs working with senior adults (as music therapist, recreation director, volunteer coordinator, and adult daycare provider), Zapchenk encountered many individuals who were lethargic, non-communicative, or confused; and she was delighted to discover—daily—that the music therapy she provided was making a difference in their lives. Adding music to the equation always seemed to open doors in communication, and she loved seeing them “come alive.” When she started playing the piano, the residents would often begin to sing the lyrics to the hymn, clap their hands, tap their toes, or nod their heads in rhythm. And she found that, for individuals with Alzheimer’s Disease in particular, music therapy could provide a way to communicate with their families as well—even without conversation.

At Eaglecrest, a Presbyterian Homes community in Roseville, Minn., where she has served for 20 years and is now Recreation and a Volunteer Director, Zapchenk is also the Intergenerational Coordinator, which provides the special opportunity of leading intergenerational activities for the senior residents and the toddlers and preschoolers who attend the childcare center in the same facility. She has seen music bring age groups together more quickly and effectively than anything else.

Zapchenk chose Augsburg after some friendly urging from her mother, Sigrid (Kvenberg) Daniels ’48, and because of its highly regarded music program. She was thrilled to sing under “Doc” Sateren’s direction in choir, and the start-up of a Music Therapy program in her junior year was perfect timing. She has stayed in touch with Augsburg in numerous ways—by singing in Masterworks and Vespers (under the direction of Prof. Peter Hendrickson, her classmate), by providing a music therapy internship program that drew in many Augsburg students, through countless reunions and singing opportunities with friends from choir days (including all-day “brunches” with many women friends), and by regular contact with Prof. Roberta Kagin and other music therapists from her graduating class. She is still moved when she thinks about the special bond among the “Sateren singers,” the many sustained and treasured friendships, and all the “really neat people” at Augsburg who have affected her life.

For years, Josh Thelemann ’14 had been more than a little concerned about kids growing up in neighborhoods like his—neighborhoods where fewer than 50% of public school students would graduate from high school, typical 8^th-graders were three levels behind their peers in math and two levels behind in reading, and the housing/income gap is among the highest in the nation. Then it struck him! While studying Elementary Education at Augsburg, he came up with an idea that has now become reality—a nonprofit organization that takes at-risk kids off the streets and provides programs to give them a fair shot. He named it SOS (Saving Our Schools).

In an area where crime rates peak in after-school hours, students and chaperones bike across the city to learn about history, art, science and more. SOS provides programming that aims to decrease suspensions and increase cooperative activity in a school where 99.7% of children live below the poverty line. One annual SOS event, Thanks4Giving Day, is hosted on Black Friday and involves collecting donations for hundreds of families in need, as well as school supplies for schools serving large numbers of at-risk children. Also, SOS is a sponsor of the Minneapolis Math League, providing weekly practices, transportation, and other support for at-risk students to participate.

In launching the nonprofit and finding ways to engage young adults and professionals to help, Thelemann first obtained endorsements for SOS from community leaders, such as then-Mayor R.T. Rybak, the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce, and Senator Terri Bonoff; then partnered with some of the state’s largest education-related organizations. In SOS’s first year, nearly $30,000 in funds, goods, and services was allocated to programming and resources for at-risk students of Minneapolis.

Thelemann, Behavioral Interventionist at Meadowbrook Elementary School in Golden Valley, Minn., is grateful for the amazing support he received from his family and community throughout his youth, as well as for numerous extra-curricular activities, all of which made a difference for him. He acknowledges the “huge role” Augsburg played in his creation of SOS (see www.SaveOurSchoolsToday.org/blog), and is particularly thankful for the “unwavering” support from Dr. Stanley Brown and Prof. Dan Jorgensen, who pushed him to reach new heights and guided him in efforts to foster good will in the community. Thelemann was recently recognized by OTA+Pollen as a “young professional on the rise” and for “outstanding work in the community and personal achievements.”

Perhaps he sensed it as a child, spending the first nine years of his life in a Congregational church (in Genesee Depot, WI), then moving easily to a Lutheran church in a different community (Erskine, MN). But it became increasingly evident to Ronald C. Nelson ’62 that keeping one’s mind and faith open to the bigger ecumenical picture was an important choice, even an asset. Anyone reflecting on his service in Lutheran ministry would have to agree.

In January, Luther Seminary honored Pastor Nelson with a 2014 Faithfulness in Ministry Cross Award, which recognizes alumni who have demonstrated exemplary ministries as a symbol of the multitudes of Luther graduates who serve faithfully through the years wherever they are called.

Having served in Canadian parishes for his entire career, Nelson was called out of retirement in 1999 to serve part-time at Trinity Lutheran, a Winnipeg congregation established in the 1800s by and for German immigrants, facing challenges in dwindling membership. On his arrival, he found a congregation of about 30 members, already engaged in the community (hosting a monthly food bank and community lunch, and lending space to a refugee organization), but struggling financially and anticipating closure. Under Nelson’s leadership, the congregation began to ask themselves, “How might God be at work in our midst?” In the years that followed, they found ways to share their facility with various other faith groups in the community, requiring more than a little negotiation to arrange facility usage for all. They eventually decided to rename the church “Good Shepherd Place.” And inevitably, in 2013, Trinity handed over the church’s deed to one of its tenants, a Mennonite church, just months after Trinity had celebrated its 125^th anniversary. The synod office stated, “We’re losing a congregation, but we’re proud of the legacy they leave.”

Reflecting on his student days at Augsburg, Nelson credits friend Orval Moren ‘57 for good advice on choosing a small faith-based college in the inner city, even though several other options would have been more convenient. On his first day at Augsburg, he met Lewis Sundquist ‘62 and many others like Orval and Lew who were older than him, and many of whom had served in the military/war efforts, often emerging with a renewed appreciation for God and Church “in this crazy world.” Nelson says he is glad that Augsburg has stayed in the inner city, continuing to teach people to serve wherever and however they are called to serve people. He is grateful for the professors who gave him a sense that they cared about him, and for the service requirements in the community that continue to this day. He says, “God works in many and varied ways through ordinary people, even the likes of me. Yes, it takes a village.”

Augsburg College alumnus Andrew Kent ’09 traveled halfway around the world for the adventure of a lifetime.

Kent served as goalie coach for the Finland women’s hockey team in the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. A goalie for the Augsburg men’s hockey team from 2005 to 2009, Kent has turned his love of hockey into a profession, serving as a director of goaltender development for MEGA Goaltending, a Twin Cities-based development center for hockey goalies. He has served as a volunteer goalie coach for the University of Minnesota’s women’s hockey team for the past four seasons, which led to his role on the Finland coaching staff for the 2014 Winter Olympics. More…

Andrew Kent in the News
Star Tribune
MIAC Athletics
USCHO
BIG 10

Augsburg College alumna Beth Franklin ’09 was featured in the Star Tribune‘s Jobs section, and she described how her studies led her to a “dream job” as a Certified Public Accountant at a firm serving writers, artists, and musicians. Read the article online.

In July of this year, Augsburg alumnus and former NBA player Devean George ’99 was featured in the Star Tribune for his efforts to bring a sense of hope to the North Minneapolis community. Read more here.

This past month, Devean’s non-profit Building Blocks released a video 15by15 Campaign, an ambitious plan to “rebuild a community, one block at a time.”

Scot Davis is the winningest high school wrestling coach in the United States. On December 13, he added another chapter to an already historic career as he celebrated career win number #1000 against Columbia Heights.

Davis gathered with his team and friends after the match – a 58-17 Eden Prairie victory – to take photos with a special banner celebrating the achievement. The first-year head coach at Eden Prairie spent most of his career in Owatonna, where he won two team titles and still drives home to each night.

Davis said he has never set a goal for wins even though he was happy to get number 1,000 on Friday.