1960s
Rod Swanson (’68 Chem.) was inducted into the Hall of Fame at Clark College in Vancouver. Swanson and Joe MacDonald’s two-man tennis team won the first state junior college title in 1965 and were named team of the year.
1980s
Jeannie Eylar (’81 Nursing) has retired after 34 years at Pullman Regional Hospital, most recently as chief clinical officer, a role she has held since 1994. Eylar was hired as nurse when the hospital was still Pullman Memorial and located on the WSU campus. She was critical in the planning, construction, design, and move to the hospital’s new location in 2004.
Paul Kossack (’84 MBA) has retired after a 40-year career in sales, marketing, contracts, finance, and accounting. Most recently, he was vice president of sales at Edward Sales Company in the Greater Chicago area. He started his career as a financial analyst for Recon Optical and later worked for Océ-USA, Inc., and Fellowes.
Dan Puckett (’86 Accounting) was appointed to the board of directors for Candid Therapeutics, a clinical stage biotechnology company. Previously, Puckett served as chief financial officer for Shockwave Medical, a cardiovascular medical device company; Counsyl, a DNA testing and genetic counseling company; and Ariosa Diagnostics, a molecular diagnostics company.
The Interior Design Society awarded Tanna (Pulse) Edler (’88 Busi.) best website and best social media presence for Tanna by Design in the 2024 Designer of the Year competition. This is the eighteenth DOTY Award Edler has earned from IDS, one of the nation’s largest independent design organizations. She is the only interior designer in Washington state to have this distinction.
1990s
Dan Gaulke (’90 Busi.) has been named president of Yakima Federal Savings and Loan Association. Gaulke joined the bank as a management trainee in 1990 and has worked as an auditor, compliance officer, and chief financial officer. He sits on the Yakima Federal Board of Directors.
Scott Rogers (’93 Mech. Eng.) is assistant general manager at the Palmdale Water District in Palmdale, California. Rogers has 31 years of experience in public and private water industry and previously served as the district’s engineering manager. He holds a lead role in Pure Water Antelope Valley, the water district’s upcoming advanced water purification project, which will clean recycled water for potable use.
Derek Young (’93 Comm.) is vice president of sales and community development at Karmik Outdoors, an innovator in outdoor recreation technology and community building space in Boise, Idaho. Young has more than 15 years of experience in sales leadership and community engagement and previously led sales and social media teams at Sawyer Paddles and Oars, a manufacturing company in Gold Hill, Oregon.
Julianna Marler (’94 Busi.) is WSU Vancouver’s 2024 Notable Alumni Award recipient. Marler is the first woman CEO at the Port of Vancouver and previously worked as chief financial and administrative officer for the port and as manager of procurement services for the City of Vancouver. She was recognized for providing numerous opportunities for WSU Vancouver students, including internships, mentorships, and job-shadowing experiences, and for financially supporting WSU Vancouver programs and events and advocating for funding to expand the campus.
Dawn Daniels (’97 Soc. Stu., ’98 History) is chief of the WSU Police Department after 26 years of service with the department. Most recently, Daniels served as assistant chief and previously held roles as a corporal, sergeant, and administrative sergeant.
Isaac Fontaine (’97 Busi.) was inducted to the 2024 class of the Inland Northwest Sports Hall of Fame. Fontaine was the all-time men’s scoring leader and remains the career leader in three-point shooting in men’s basketball at Washington State. He is one of just eight Cougars to play in three postseason tournaments and earned All-Pac-10 honors each of his four years at WSU. Fontaine was also a finalist for the John R. Wooden Award and was WSU’s Pac-10 medal winner in 1997.
Governor-elect Bob Ferguson selected Marcus Glasper (’97 MS Eng. Mgmt.) to direct the Washington State Department of Licensing. Glasper has been directing the DOL since April 2023 and serves on the Washington State Traffic Safety Commission and the Transportation Economic and Revenue Forecast Council. He has more than 30 years of public sector experience and previously served as director of the Washington State Lottery.
Jen Greeny (’99 Elem. Ed.) was inducted to the 2024 class of the Inland Northwest Sports Hall of Fame. As a volleyball player at Davenport High School, she was the state’s all-time scoring leader and kept that record for 25 years. She received a scholarship to WSU and was an All-Pac-10 selection, played on three NCAA tournament teams, and became part of WSU’s Elite Eight teams as both a player and an assistant coach. As WSU’s head coach for women’s volleyball for 13 seasons, she led the Cougs to seven NCAA tournament appearances and was Pac-12 Coach of the Year twice. She is head coach of women’s volleyball at West Virginia University and previously coached for Pullman High School and Lewis-Clark State College.
Mark Pérès (’99 MS Mech. Eng.) is vice president of engineering at Deep Fission Inc., a nuclear energy company. Previously, Pérès was vice president of engineering at Kairos Power and held key positions at NuScale Power, Fluor, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the Department of Energy’s Hanford K Basins Spent Nuclear Fuel and Liquid Waste Treatment facilities. He has more than 40 years of industry experience.
2000s
M. Alexander Shaw (’00 PhD Biochem.) is CEO of Archimedic, a medical device consulting company based in West Chester, Pennsylvania. Previously, Shaw was the chief operating officer of Nuventra Pharma Sciences, which he codeveloped into a full-service drug development consulting group with $22 million in annual revenue. He has 15 years of leadership experience in biotech and pharma consulting.
Lisa Kelley (’03 Busi.) has started a new position as president of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Montana. Kelley has worked in the organization’s legal department since 2010, most recently as general counsel. Previously, she clerked for Justice Jim Rice on the Montana Supreme Court and was an attorney at Hughes, Keller, Sullivan, and Alke of Helena, Montana. Kelley is an adjunct professor of health law at the University of Montana’s Alexander Blewett III School of Law.
Summer Derrey (’04 Poli. Sci.) is one of just 179 master public information officers in the world. Derrey earned her certification through FEMA at the National Disaster Emergency Management University. She has been a public information officer at the Washington State Department of Transportation since 2006 and plans to use her certification to further her career in emergency management and education.
Veronica Blankenship (’08 Comm.) is chief people and communication officer of Talking Rain, a beverage company that produces the best-selling sparkling water brand, Sparkling Ice. Previously, Blankenship was the executive vice president of people at Talking Rain.
2010s
Emily Hubbard (’10 Hosp. Busi. Mgmt.) was included in the Puget Sound Business Journal’s “40 under 40” list recognizing professional accomplishments and deep ties to community. Hubbard cofounded Sage Investment Group in 2020 and has since helped grow the company’s portfolio to more than $200 million while building projects that address neighborhood safety and housing access.
Bryan Sherman (’10 Ag. Econ.) represents District 3 on the Coupeville School Board on Whidbey Island. Sherman is vice president of financial planning and analysis at Wilbur-Ellis Agribusiness. He is also the son of Don Sherman, a former board member and president who resigned in 2014.
Sifiso Mhlaba (’11 MS Applied Econ.) is CEO of the South African Sugar Association, an organization dedicated to promoting the sustainability of the South African sugar industry. Mhlaba, a small-scale sugarcane farmer in Mpumalanga, South Africa, has been with SASA since 2015 and previously served as its national market and trade director.
Mike Simonson (’11 Soc. Sci.) is head coach for women’s basketball at Biola University in La Mirada, California. Previously, Simonson was head coach at Seattle Pacific University for six years and assistant coach for two. He started his career as a student manager for Washington State men’s basketball, later joining the coaching staff.
Mariah Boyle (’12 MFA) and Lisa Soranaka (’13 MFA) completed a mural on the south-facing railway retaining wall between Wall and Howard Streets in downtown Spokane. The mural was created as part of the Spokane Arts Mural Rally, which had eight artists paint seven walls during the month of September.
Girish Chummun (’17 Finance) is a branch manager at Enterprise car rental. Chummun has worked for Enterprise since 2021 in a variety of positions. Previously, he worked as a travel consultant at Avanti Destinations.
Muzi Liu (’17 Mktg., ’22 MS Busi., ’23 PhD Mktg.), assistant professor of marketing at Marist College, won the Best Paper Award at the 2024 National Conference in Sales Management for her paper “Whether Salespeople Should Be Held Responsible for Late-Paying Accounts: An Investigation into Controlling Customer-Directed Deviance.”
Ismail Karabas (’18 PhD Mktg.), assistant professor of marketing at Murray State University, received the Murray State University Board of Regents Teaching Excellence Award. The award honors faculty who, in the judgment of peers, are exemplary teachers.
Anna-Karin Roo (’18 PhD Lang., Literacy & Tech.) was selected by the US Department of State for a six-week English language specialist project at Cochin University of Science and Technology in Kochi, India. The program allows leaders in teaching English to speakers of other languages to make meaningful and sustainable changes in how English is taught abroad. Previously, Roo worked at the University of Science and Technology of China to help graduate students develop English fluency.
2020s
Shane Sullivan (’20 EMBA) is vice president of operations at SKYTRAC Systems, an aerospace satellite communications and intelligent connectivity company. Sullivan is a retired US Navy commander with 300-plus carrier landings and 4,000-plus flight hours. Previously, he led flight operations at ICON Aircraft and held operational roles in the aerial firefighting industry at Conair Group and at Aero-Flite Inc. He has more than 25 years of aviation experience.
Aaron Wheeler (’20 EMBA) has been appointed director of the Washington State Broadband Office. Wheeler is tasked with developing and implementing a five-year plan to create universal and reliable high-speed Internet across the state.
Avery Austin (’23 Sports Med., ’24 MA Athletic Trng.) is an assistant athletic trainer for the Central Washington University Wildcats. Previously, Austin assisted in the care for the men’s basketball and women’s volleyball teams at Washington State, in addition to off-campus rotations at Eastern Washington University and College of Western Idaho. She also assisted the Portland Trail Blazers’ medical staff in the 2022 Summer League Tournament in Las Vegas. She is a board-certified athletic trainer and a licensed athletic trainer in the state of Washington.
Patrick Dinges (’23 Soc. Stu.) is a college and career coach at Garry Middle School in Spokane. Previously, Dinges worked for the Pullman School District.
Nestor Herrera (’23 Land. Arch.) is a landscape designer at SPVV Landscape Architects in Spokane. Herrera is assisting the firm with the Spokane Valley Cross Country Course and a parks plan for the Town of Reardan, among other projects.
Nick Chapman (’24 Land. Arch.) is a landscape designer at SPVV Landscape Architects in Spokane. Chapman is assisting the firm with the West Central Infrastructure project and the new Sageview High School in Pasco. He previously managed the Spokane KOA campground, implementing landscape improvements to enhance visitor experience.