Career Seminars
exploring career opportunities
An important component of a complete education is helping students to develop a clear vision of service to humanity through their chosen profession. Andrews Academy is committed to providing opportunities for career exploration. The strongest motivation for career development is for students to see professionals who have graduated from their school return and talk about their journey.
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BJORN CLOUTEN, '89 CAREER: Architecture WORKPLACE: SRG Partnership in Portland, Oregon TRAINING: Bachelor of Architecture, LEED Accredited, working on an MBA. Andrews University, WSU, UW, Autodesk Univ. FAMILY/LIFE: I'm single, My son Cyrus just started his freshman year at Portland Adventist Academy. Interests - I volunteer with Pathfinders, my neighborhood association and at my son's high school; Hobbies - biking, ski/snowboard, rock climbing, mountaineering, backpacking and member of Mt Hood Ski Patrol. ACADEMY ACTIVITIES: Backpacking trip, band and orchestra, government tour, class office, NHS. (Unofficial Colorado ski trip with Steph, Eug, Chris, and John Reichert) |
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CALVIN KUBO, '74 CAREER: Family Practice Physician. WORKPLACE: I work for a corporation that I own called Golden Valley Medical Associates. Visit us online at: www.myhealthportfolio.net/gvma/. I work in an outpatient office at this location and I go to the hospital for some inpatient care as well. TRAINING: After graduation, I finished four years of college to finish a BA in Chemistry with a minor in French, to fulfill my pre-med requirements. Subsequently, I spent four years in medical school at Loma Linda University, then spent three years at Hinsdale Hospital in a Family Practice Residency Program. The residency program allowed for electives in different specialties with faculty in the Hinsdale area as well as in other parts of the country. FAMILY/LIFE: I am married to Sally Wall Kubo, who I met at Andrews University in my final years at college there. We were married after one year of medical school in 1980, and have four children ages 26, 23, 22, and 19. My oldest son, Jonathan, is employed at Bungie, where he is working on testing and developing new video games such as Halo 3. My second oldest son, Benjamin, is going to school at Walla Walla University where he is pursuing a Major in Business and a minor in PE and Nutrition. My third child and son, Christopher, is at PUC where he is in a pre-engineering program prior to transferring to Walla Walla University for his final two years of a Mechanical Engineering degree. My youngest child is my daughter Elisabeth, and she is in her first year at PUC, where she is pursuing a degree in Business in hopes of owning her own Gymnasium one day, that will instruct young children on how to do tumbling and gymnastics. In my spare time, I enjoy playing competitive racketball, usually every morning during the week, and bowling and disc golf on the weekends. I am also an elder at our local SDA church and enjoy visiting shutins and those who are otherwise, unable to attend church. I also enjoy teaching a Sabbath School class at my church and co-leading out in a Homeless Ministry to feed and clothe our local homeless people. I enjoy traveling as well and go every other year on a Mission Trip with Helps International to Guatemala. ACADEMY ACTIVITIES: During my years at AUA, I was involved with the choir as well as Silhouettes, was an active participant in the intramural sports program and lettered in music as well as sports, and received the Umek Award and was the Valedictorian of my class. |
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CHRISTINE TEDJASUKMANA, '99 CAREER: Public Health-Preventive Health Education WORKPLACE: Riverside Community Health Foundation, Riverside, CA TRAINING: BA History Andrews University, MPH Health Education & Promotion Loma Linda University, MPH Maternal Child Health emphasis in Reproductive Health Loma Linda University, Certified Health Education Specialist (CHES) FAMILY/LIFE: I am single and enjoy outdoor sports-trail running, rock climbing, canyoneering, swimming, travel and photography. ACADEMY ACTIVITIES: Music Organizations: Choral. Leadership: Freshman Class President, Junior Class President, National Honor Society President. Publications: Kaleidoscope and Yearbook, Intramurals: Flag football, floor hockey, basketball. Tours: New England History Tour, Washington DC History Tour, Choral Tour. AWARDS: Most Capable of Leadership, Daughters of the Revolution History Award |
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CURT JOHNSON, '89 CAREER: Mechanical Engineering WORKPLACE: Johnson Controls Inc. in Holland Michigan TRAINING: BS of Mechanical Engineering, Western Michigan University FAMILY/LIFE: I am married to my wife Cheryl and we have two boys 6 and 7 years old and another one on the way. I enjoy Biking and Skiing or anything else outside. ACADEMY ACTIVITIES: I was involved in the Men's Chorus and Band. I participated in the Canadian Tour and some Intramurals. |
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DAVID MACK, '99 CAREER: Software Developer WORKPLACE: ASRC Management Services, a contractor to the US Geological Service, in Fort Collins, CO. I write web-based software used by USGS scientists and researchers. TRAINING: I worked as a student software developer for ITS at Andrews University from my senior year at AA through graduating from AU. B.S. Mathematics and Computer Science, Andrews University. M.S. Computer Science, Indiana University. Following my M.S., I worked for AU ITS as a software developer for just over two years.I've been at the USGS for about 6 months. FAMILY/LIFE: I am married to Emily Szilagyi-Mack ('99), who works in architecture. We have no children. Aviation. I'm a pilot, flight instructor, and I'm building an RV-7 kit airplane in my garage. ACADEMY ACTIVITIES: Silhouettes (I was the pianist), Chorale, Band, Orchestra, Kaleidoscope (I directed Kaleidoscope at least one of those years). Some awards that I can't recall. |
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EDWARD WOODS III, '89 CAREER: Director, Office of Communications, Michigan Department of Human Services, Lansing, MI WORKPLACE: B.A. Oakwood University, M.P.A., Western Michigan University, American Management Association TRAINING: Strategic planning, communications, political science, public policy, theology. FAMILY/LIFE: Wife: Donnarie Woods. Children: Megan Elise Woods, Michael Edward Woods. Politics, education, public affairs and religious liberty, leadership, traveling ACADEMY ACTIVITIES: Music (band and orchestra) letter, Academic letter, Athletic (basketball, softball, flag football) letter, Class Pastor (freshmen, sophomore, senior), SA Religious Vice-President, Expo Editor, World Affairs Seminar, State FarmBurean Seminar, J.N. Andrews Leadership Award, National Honor Society |
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JEFF JOHNSON, '89 CAREER: Airline pilot, and F-16 instructor pilot. WORKPLACE: Southwest Airlines and the USAF Reserves. For Southwest Airlines, I'm based out of Sky Harbor Airport, Phoenix AZ. I am also an F-16 Instructor pilot at Luke Air Force Base in Phoenix AZ. TRAINING: In 1993 I graduated from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, AZ with a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the USAF.
FAMILY/LIFE: I am married to Romelda, also a 1989 Andrews Academy grad. We live in Goodyear AZ; a suburb of Phoenix. I enjoy running, biking and swimming to stay in shape (currently training for a 1/2Ironman triathlon), competitive skeet shooting around the country, riding motorcycles (Harley-Davidson as well as a dirt bike), and traveling around the world with Romelda! ACADEMY ACTIVITIES: I was always active in floor hockey and volleyball intramurals, and rode in the cycling club. I was a photographer for the yearbook committee for a year. During Christmas break my sophomore year, I helped with aMaranatha project in central Mexico. Played the clarinet in the orchestra for a couple years. Studied German for 2 years from Mr. Baker and took part in his first exchange trip to Germany and Austria (highly recommended). I also took Canadian History from Dr.Orrison and went with him on the 1-week extravaganza tour through Ontario and Quebec. Senior year, I took flying lessons from Andrews airpark, and completed my private pilot license that summer. Graduated with academic honors, a full Electrical Engineering scholarship from the USAF, and a few misc. awards. |
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JOEL BENNETT, '99 CAREER: Elementary Teacher WORKPLACE: I currently teach at Ruth Murdoch Elementary School. I have worked for the Texas Conference of Seventh-day Adventists and the Indiana Conference of Seventh-day Adventist TRAINING: I completed a four year undergraduate degree in Elementary Education at Andrews University and I am currently working on a Master's of Science from Indiana University. I was involved in designing and implementing an experimental summer school program. I attend conferences regularly. FAMILY/LIFE: I am married with an almost three year old girl. My beautiful wife grounds me in the more important things in life. I am most interested in designing learning environments and building a culture among my students to create positive peer pressure and support. ACADEMY ACTIVITIES: I treasure my memories and the friends I made while attending AA. I was in Band all four years. I traveled to Spain, Mexico, Romania, and Venezuela while at AA. I went on New England Tour and held roles as class pastor and class VP. |
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JOHN DRONEN, '89 CAREER: Physical Therapist, Clinical Specialist WORKPLACE: Lakeland Homecare, Niles Office; Lakeland HealthCare, Southwest Michigan TRAINING: Andrews University BSIT 1994; Andrews University MSPT 1997 FAMILY/LIFE: Married to Paula Kurtz ('88), Kids-Sam 11, Ben 9, Fin 3, Lil 10 months. Enjoys outdoor recreation-Snow and water sports, Home building/addition projects. ACADEMY ACTIVITIES: Silhouettes/Silhouette Tour, Class officer, Shydepoke, SA Campout, Senior class trip and campout. |
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KEVIN LEHMANN, '99 CAREER: Firefighter, EMT WORKPLACE: Elkhart Fire Dept, in Elkhart, IN TRAINING: Bachelor of Technology, Firefighter 1 & 2, EMT & other certifications. Worked on a volunteer dept., regional training schools & on the job training. FAMILY/LIFE: Married to Linaea(Chilson '99), 1 dog. Hobbies include Hiking, Backpacking, Camping, Golfing ACADEMY ACTIVITIES: Band, Kaleidoscope, Cycling tour, Intramural softball & hockey |
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KEITH PARRIS, '77 CAREER: Information Technology. I do computer consulting, specializing in the OpenVMS operating system, OpenVMS Clusters, disaster recovery, and disaster tolerance. My work-related website is http://www2.openvms.org/kparris/ WORKPLACE: Hewlett-Packard Company. Colorado Springs, CO. I'm a member of the Multivendor Systems Engineering team within HP's Services organization, doing “fly-and-fix” work and consulting in the areas of high availability and performance for mission-critical customer sites. TRAINING: I took two years of College classes with an Engineering emphasis, but most of my training has been on-the-job. I started as a student computer operator the summer after Academy and soon moved to student programmer, then a staff programmer. As time went on, I continued programming for a series of organizations, programming primarily in the Fortran and Cobol languages, then moving into system administration. Based on that training, I next worked in telephone support, which was an excellent training ground because you are exposed to a wide variety of different and difficult problems (and people) in a very short time, and this helps develop troubleshooting (and customer-relations) skills. Next I worked in a Systems Engineering group, where I learned to do troubleshooting at the level of an entire system, not just its individual components. After that I worked as a developer for an operating system engineering team. After that, I was part of a team developing RAID software for disk storage. I then took a turn into consulting, and after 9 months of that I started my own consulting company, which did well until the dot-com bust. I then went to work for a computer manufacturer again, applying my consulting skills.Two years of Engineering at Andrews University and a few additional college classes at Walla Walla . Most of my training has been on-the-job, starting as a student at the Computer Center at Andrews University and then working for the Corps of Engineers, Bureau of Reclamation, Digital Equipment Corporation, my own consulting business (Integrity Computing, Inc., working with clients such as E*Trade and the International Securities Exchange), and now Hewlett-Packard. FAMILY/LIFE: Married to Carol (Hamlin) Parris for 29 years now. Three children: Catherine, who will graduate from the Theological Seminary at Andrews this Spring with her M.Div.; Jonny, married for 2 years and just moved back to Colorado; and Bryan, newly married and residing in Berrien Springs. Serving as an Elder and webmaster for the Colorado Springs Central SDA Church, and helping plan an evangelistic series. Serving on the local church school board. Installing satellite dishes which receive Adventist TV and radio programming. Fixing PCs for friends. ACADEMY ACTIVITIES: Choir for 3 years; Silhouettes for 2 years, including the year we cut a record. Worked on the annual slide show (Kaleidoscope) for 2 years. History tours for Bicentennial Year (1976) and to Canada. Won the Spelling Bee in '77. |
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RICHARD MARSH, '89 CAREER: General Contractor, Carpenter/Builder, Construction WORKPLACE: Self-employed – work for the Client, job sites vary with each Client TRAINING: Degree from Andrews University in Architectural Studies & Construction Management. On the job work experience 20+ years working for various contractors and builders. Attending classes on General Contractor testing preparing for the General Contractors test. Study for legal and practical building codes, understanding how to read Blueprints and Specifications. FAMILY/LIFE: I have been happily married for 12 years to Margaret. I have four children. Brian(16), Kaitlyn (11), Cara (8) and Justin (6). I enjoy snowmobiling and outdoor activities like mountain biking skiing and golf. ACADEMY ACTIVITIES: While at Andrews Academy I participated in, choir and Silhouettes, Canada tour, Silhouette – East Coast Tour, flag football, floor hockey, softball, volley ball etc. |
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MELPHINE (PONNIAH) HARRIOTT, '99 CAREER: Microbiologist & Scientist / Medical Technologist WORKPLACE: Wayne State University School of Medicine, Detroit (Currently a PhD candidate) St. John Hospital and Medical Center, Detroit as a Medical Technologist TRAINING: Bachelors of Science in Clinical Laboratory Science, Andrews University, Masters of Science in Basic Medical Science, Wayne State University, Currently completing a PhD in Immunology / Microbiology at Wayne State School of Medicine FAMILY/LIFE: Married to Alwyn Harriott, MD , General Surgery Resident at St. John Hospital and Medical Center Detroit. No kids, just pets 2 cats - Giardia and Pasturella and 1 dog- Yogi. Reading, Gardening, Exercise ACADEMY ACTIVITIES: Class President - Sophomore and Senior years. Academy was so long ago, I know I held more offices and won some awards, but I old age has set in and I can't remember! |
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RYAN NACHREINER, '89 CAREER: Vascular Surgeon WORKPLACE: Inland Vascular Institute, Spokane, WA, 2008. Previously: Assistant Professor of Surgery, Indiana University, 2004 - 2007 TRAINING: Undergraduate: Andrews University, 1989 - 1993, Medical School: Loma Linda University, 1993 - 1997, General Surgery Residency: Indiana University, 1997 - 2003, Vascular Surgery Fellowship: Mayo Clinic, 2003 - 2004 FAMILY/LIFE: Wife: Lynette, Librarian. Daughter: Annalie, 2 years old. Snow ski, water ski, mountain bike, road bike, snowmobile, motorcycle ACADEMY ACTIVITIES: Band, Orchestra, National Honor Society, Canadian History Tour, Bible Camps, Intramurals |
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SEAN MATTINGLY, '89 CAREER: Information Technology Infrastructure Support WORKPLACE: Bank of America, Home Office TRAINING: BS Physics: Andrews University 1993, PhD Physics: University of Wisconsin - Madison 1999, Post-doctoral Research Associate: Brown University 1999-2005. My formal training is for a career in experimental particle physics research. During graduate school at UW Madison I spent 2 summers working on the ALEPH experiment at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland and 4 years working on the ZEUS experiment atDESY in Hamburg, Germany. In addition to conducting statistical analysis of data collected by the experiment to produce a measurement of virtual photon structure, my responsibilities included improving, maintaining and operating electronics for the experiment's triggering system. After finishing my dissertation and graduating with a PhD, I spent 5 years working as a post-doc with Brown University working on the DZero experiment atFermilab , near Chicago, IL. As a post-doc, I was in charge of building and operations of the experiment's data acquisition system. This required electronics design and building, writing network code, and creating an operations and monitoring plan. I also managed a group of graduate students analyzing data to measure Weak-boson properties. FAMILY/LIFE: Married to Rebecca de Wind Mattingly. Cycling, car racing, alping skiing. ACADEMY ACTIVITIES: Austria tour, intramurals (floor hockey, flag football, basketball), band, orchestra, men's chorus, Sanjo, NHS |
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VICKI WILEY, '84 CAREER: Former student missionary, Adventist Volunteer Services volunteer and church planter. WORKPLACE: Working at AFM helped me see the need of the unreached around the world. AFM had us do training, including church-planting training, for 10 weeks. We also attended Amazing Facts College of Evangelism for 4 ½ months. We worked with a pastor in Ireland for 1 year before we moved to a city that had no Adventists. TRAINING: I have an AS degree in Secretarial Studies and a BA in Teaching English as a Second Language from Andrews University. My year in Japan came between those 2 degrees and actually helped me decide to do theTESL degree. FAMILY/LIFE: I am married to Kevin Wiley. He works as Administrative Assistant in the Leadership & Educational Administration Department at Andrews University. We have no children but 2 very spoiled cats! He is accompanying me today because the Ireland story is our story. I enjoy bike riding, bird watching, planting flowers, reading and cats. I also enjoy telling people about Jesus. ACADEMY ACTIVITIES: I received the John Nevins Andrews Leadership award my senior year at AA. I was part of Ladies Chorus and the summer choir. I was senior class pastor. I also helped plan a student Week of Prayer and attended Bible Camp. I went on the History tour of Virginia, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C. I was in the National Honor Society. |