Facetime - May 2012 - Alumni From 2000s News

Martìn Casado, '00 BS, was recently featured in two articles - THIS from The New York Times and THIS from Technology Review from MIT. Way to go Martìn!  Martìn cofounded a company called Nicira, which is poised to make the Internet more powerful than ever before. 

Roy DuPrez, ’02 BA & ’11 MED, is the CEO/Founder of Back2Basics Outdoor Adventures in Flagstaff. Roy graduated with a BS in Spanish and Latin American studies and a Masters in Bilingual Education. Back2Basics is a drug and alcohol rehab for young adults struggling with drug addiction and alcohol abuse. Their success rate is very high and tends to draw folks from all around the country. 

Axel Stanley-Grossman, ’03 BFA, is Senior Technical Artist at Sony Computer Entertainment America in Santa Monica. Axel has contributed to the success of multiple PlayStation®3 titles, including: Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction, Ratchet and Clank: A Crack in Time, Resistance 2 and Resistance 3. He teaches a “Gnomon Workshop” on “character rigging” in a new DVD. Read more about Axel.

Jessica Vespi (Scharer) Delph, ’04 BS, sent us this email about her Lumberjack family: “My husband (Robert Delph, ’03 BS & ’08 MS) and I met in Grad School and got married at Snowbowl. We have been busy since leaving Flagstaff! We both got jobs as military contractors in Utah, working at Dugway Proving Ground, he's a wildlife biologist and I'm the botanist. Our son goes to school at Dugway and we commute an hour every day together to work/school. We are doing a variety of projects, golden eagle trapping and study, exotic plant eradication, rare plant monitoring and management, wetland monitoring, assessment and restoration, herp and arthropod baseline monitoring, Urban forestry, landscape photo monitoring, and rangeland restoration. We just bought our first house in Tooele, UT, just outside of Salt Lake City. I teach fitness classes 6 days a week and am enlisted in the Utah Army National Guard, going into Officers Candidate School after Basic Training. Even with the slow economy, me and my family are doing well breaking into our careers out of college. Thanks NAU!” (Photo, left, Robert & Jessica doing field work at the Wilson Hot Springs)

Devin Ashby, ’04 BA & ’05 MED, is a Community Advocate for FamilySearch, the largest genealogical organization in the world. He recently presented at RootsTech 2012 about how to YouTube family history.

Alums Matthew Chandler, ’05 BS & ’06 MED, and Craig Lewis, ’05 BS & ’05 BS, are working to make a name for themselves in Hollywood. “We've taken acting classes, been in short films, and produced some of our own original work together,” Matt tells us, which includes a script for a new TV show called "Don't Take This The Wrong Way," a half hour comedy. “It's about three guys in their late 20's who will do anything but go with the flow of becoming an adult. After sending the script out to some industry people we know, we were eventually given only one note: Film the dang thing!” So that’s what they’re doing  this summer and they’re asking for your help. Find out more about Matt, Craig, their new show and how you can help them at www.indiegogo.com/wrongway. The pair is also blogging about their experience HERE. (Photo, right)

Roy McAfee, ’06 BS, is now a business development manager for IML/PRI Packaging Company in Chicago. He works with Fortune 100 Food Companies as well as “mom-and-pop firms” looking for “ideas and products to differentiate their foodstuffs.” As part of his work with IML, Roy helped convince a new packaging company to set up shop in Flagstaff. Read about Roy’s involvement in that deal HERE. (Photo, left: Roy and wife, Alysia, hiking Machu Picchu, Peru – October, 2009)

Alumnus Jacob Higgins, '06 BS & '10 MS & current NAU staffer, is featured in this video profile. Jacob is assistant curator for the Colorado Plateau Museum of Arthropod Biodiversity with the Merriam Powell Center for Environmental Research. He shows the world of insects and his subspecialties that range from tarantulas, scorpions, beetles and and other taxonomic specialization. 

Brett Soldwedel, ’06 BS, is now Marketing Manager for Prescott Newspapers Inc. He supervises marketing strategies for four newspapers:  The Daily Courier in Prescott, Prescott Valley Tribune, Chino Valley Review, and Big Bug News. He also now serves as project manager for the Community Directory Telephone Book and for Discovery Maps. Prior to moving to Prescott, Brett was with the Kingman Daily Miner. (Photo, right)

Since graduating with a degree in civil engineering, Stuart Telford, ’07 BS, worked for a large engineering consulting firm in Tucson before joining Coffey Engineering and Surveying in Laramie, WY. “My engineering experience has been very diversified with this company, as I have done everything from large scale residential and commercial site designs to getting out in the field and getting my hands dirty testing concrete and soil compaction,” Stuart tells us.

We got this message via email from former Lumberjack football player Lance Kriesien, ’09 BS: “Dobar dan! (Good afternoon.) I read the alumni relations updates often. I am a proud alumni and supporter. As I sit in this Serbian cafe reading the paper and updating my Facebook status, I felt encouraged to write in and share with the rest of the Lumberjack community. I have been traveling the world this past year playing football and achieving personal goals. Stay warm and have a brilliant day. Go Jacks!”

Former Lumberjack Josh Wilson, ’09 BS, talks future basketball plans on and off the court in THIS newspaper article. Josh is the founder of Roots Basketball training academy.

“After graduation in May 2009, I began work with Grant Thornton, an international public accounting firm with an office in Phoenix,” Marissa Hauk Graves, ’09 BS, emailed to tell us. “Since then, I have been promoted to senior audit associate and have become a CPA in the state of Arizona. I got married and am actively involved in NAU recruiting through my firm. I am also a member of the VAN program and have applied for a position on the NAU Alumni Board of Directors, where I look forward to continuing to promote NAU and the experiences I had while at NAU.”

Kitty Carlisle, ’09 BA & ’11 MA, has her paper, "Emily Brontë's Heathcliff: His Journey of Jealousy," published in "The Explicator" in March. “Although I have had numerous articles published in various newspapers and magazines, this paper has meant the most to me in my professional writing career thus far,” Kitty tells us. “I have always been a writer and have often said I emerged from the womb with a pencil in hand. I am currently working on a piece of fiction which explores familial relationships and how nurture versus nature can either lead us to good or evil. I am also ghostwriting a children's book which delves into addiction and a parent's role in overcoming his spouse's shortcomings while fostering his daughter's emotional needs. Two additional novels are in the works.” (Photo, left)