Business Alumni Forum ('08)

Seven business alumni from the May 2008 graduating class addressed the Spring 2009 Senior Capstone Students: Tara Watterson from WI, Micah Pfaffe from NC, Sara Anderson from WI, Ryan Wychopen from TX, Tim Reinert from MD, Zach Zepke from WI, and Dan Kaminski from OR.

Kim Marks ('98)

Kim is in the direct channel of blessings from God on her ministry in Romania! She writes:

"How can you deny the power of God when you see a recently illiterate woman now teaching the Bible to a church full of children? It was my great pleasure this last month to see Claudia, the pastor’s wife in Ciumeghiu, teach her first Bible lesson. I have been working with Claudia for two years helping her to learn to read and write. She started helping with kids’ class last summer and then this winter began teaching the children their weekly memory verse. After much work and prayer, Claudia taught the children about the creation of the world. It was awesome to SEE God strengthen this tentative woman to effectively teach and handle a class of restless children. I was so proud of her, but my heart almost burst with pride just two weeks later when Claudia held class all by herself because I was sick in bed. Despite her apprehension, she trusted God to help her serve Him in a new way. Our God still works miracles in this world."

Mary Strahm ('08)

No, this isn't Mary's bike but it's fun to think that she might have had a part in bringing it to the U.S. Market!

Mary writes: "I worked part-time in Trek's Oconomowoc warehouse while still a student at Maranatha. Around May 2008, I have the opportunity to interview for a starting office position. I applied, got the job, and worked as an Export Document Specialist for about 4 months. I was in charge of processing all Canadian shipments that were leaving our Wisconsin and California warehouses. I had to create spreadsheets that listed all parts exporting out of the country and forward the spreadsheets to our brokers so they could clear the shipments.

"In September, I accepted a promotion to a newly created position. I am currently one of two International Compliance Specialists at Trek Bicycles. (I didn't see that coming or I would have taken International Law!) The main responsibility of my current job is post entry. Post entry involves lots of auditing so attention to detail is a huge must! I currently spend 95% of my time auditing U.S. customs entries. I take entries that have errors to our different brokers and work with them on correcting the entries with customs. I also am working with a team from my department to help resolve an issue that we currently have with our vendors. We have Kaizan meetings about once a month and are working on updating our Import SOP to solve our issue."

Mary was an Assistant Team Leader during the Senior Capstone Project. It's good to see that Trek is recognizing some of the qualities that her faculty and peers recognized while Mary was a student!

Team Vince vs. Dr. Pfaffe

With a one mile race between freshman Vince Pardo and Dr. Pfaffe only one month away, the two decided that an early volley of competition would be appropriate. On Sunday night, February 22, 2009, Team Vince (some 10 students strong) met at the Pfaffe home for a best-2-out-of-3 pool competition. Well let's just say that Team Vince took its loss in good stride and salved its wounds with chili dogs, chips, and ice cream sandwich dessert (a special recipe that Mrs. Pfaffe prepared for the young Olympic trainee)...

Business Strategy Quiz Competition

The four senior project teams competed on Wednesday, February 18, 2009, for a pizza party at the Pfaffe home. Derek is proud of his right answers. Andrew has more answers and the winning team congratulates itself: Ben Huseby, Shannon Crayton, Matt Uplinger, Ryan Davis, Derek Robinson, Ken Clark, and Dan Fitch. Today, the celebrants enjoyed homemade Rodeo pizza, brownies, and soft drinks (oh, yes, and baby carrots and broccoli)!

Seeking Business Law Alum Input!

You suffered through successfully completed and thoroughly enjoyed Business Law at MBBC, so that makes you imminently qualified to help me make the class more interesting for current students! I had Dr. Brock for Business Law back in 1995, and it was a great head start for law school.

I would love to know what you liked a lot and what you liked "not so much" and especially what you actually use in your current employment. Please let me know in the comments, or email me directly with any feedback that comes to mind.

Thanks in advance for your help.

-Matt Davis

Ben Kieckhafer ('04)

Ben's a dad! He and his wife Jolynn "are now the happy parents of a beautiful baby girl! Brookelynn Anne was born on January 3, 2009. She weighed 8 lbs. 11 oz and was 21 inches long."

Ben says, that he is "still thoroughly enjoying [his] job at Charles Schwab [in Chandler, AZ]. It has been very interesting being a broker over the past few quarters, watching the markets plummet and helping clients react properly to these historical times."

Ben also rubbed it in a bit with his former professors (see golf picture from Ben)!