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Alumni

Summer 2009

Letters in the Summer 2009 issue

 

Celebrated lentils

We at the Pullman Chamber of Commerce were so delighted to see your article in the most recent issue, titled “Local, Delicious, Neglected,” about our lovable legume: the lentil. We sincerely agree that lentils are local and delicious and having worked at the USA Dry Pea & Lentil Council before starting at the Chamber, I can indeed verify that all information you printed about the agronomic qualities is accurate and the recipes you printed are indeed delicious.

However, as the National Lentil Festival Director, I was disappointed to see the word “neglected” applied to lentils which have an entire festival devoted to … » More …

Spring 2009

Roger McClellan – A suitable combination

As a teen, Roger McClellan ’60 D.V.M. went to work at his high school farm. By helping manage a flock of sheep that were a control group in a Hanford nuclear facility study, he became part of a major research project on radioactivity in animals. The work put him in touch with Leo Bustad, at the time the research veterinarian at Hanford and later the dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine at Washington State University.

Bustad’s study focused on ungulates consuming the radioiodine that had been deposited on pasture land on the Hanford site, which was then run by General Electric. Bustad would often … » More …

Spring 2009

Jason Ambrose ’99 – Counting beans in Costa Rica

Jason Ambrose learned to drink coffee as a college freshman. “Then it was more about function than flavor,” he admits.

These days, Ambrose starts his morning with a French press. He heats milk for his son Jackson, who is not yet two, and water enough to make two big mugs of Ethiopian-grown coffee for himself and his wife Julie (Dertinger, ’94).

It’s a far cry from the cafeteria cups he first sampled back at WSU, he says.

Moving to Seattle after graduating from Washington State University in 1999, Ambrose couldn’t help but get caught up in the coffee culture. Today the 33-year-old Starbucks employee … » More …

Spring 2009

Letters in the Spring 2009 issue

 

A time machine

My hat is off to your staff for what should be an award-winning issue. It was like a time machine for me. I spent many hours in the Conner Museum as an undergrad, marveling at the enormous moose and large black wolf. My high school friends and I explored Point Defiance Park in Tacoma every time our basketball team made it to the state tournament. Your article, “Rethinking the fundamentals,” is a classic. I can’t agree more that we need to rethink the way we farm. I’m glad you had as much fun with Shepherd’s Grains’ co-owner Fred Fleming as I … » More …

Spring 2009

A gift toward fuel research

Oil industry executive Gene Voiland ‘69 and his wife Linda have promised $17.5 million to Washington State University’s School of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering, contributing to the school’s focus on energy research.

An immediate $2.5 million gift will allow the school to hire faculty who will focus on transforming agricultural and municipal waste into useful fuels and chemicals.

In the pressing challenge to develop clean and sustainable energy sources, researchers are looking for alternative energy solutions that can employ the existing petroleum-based infrastructure. Municipal and agricultural waste can be converted to fuels that look and perform just like gasoline or fuel oil. But, because … » More …

Spring 2009

Cougar Memory

An essential part of being a Cougar (as well as being human) seems to be the need to tell one’s story of one’s youth and experiences here at Washington State University.

To make it easier to do so and to share it with your fellow Cougs, we have introduced a new feature on our website called Our Story.

Together, the 140,000 or so living alumni of WSU have an extraordinary collective story to tell, not necessarily of the comings and goings of presidents and professors, of scientific breakthroughs and other major news, but of the day-to-day life on campus, of one’s … » More …

Winter 2008

Joey Nelson – What he saw

In the rough-hewn world at Columbia Vista Corp.’s lumber mill near Vancouver, the sight of Joseph “Joey” Nelson ’00 pushing spectacles into place might invoke visions of Clark Kent there among the conveyor belts and screeching saws.

But if the workers around him knew that it’s Nelson’s laser-scanning equipment–technology he started developing as a high school kid–enabling their mill to convert raw logs into perfect lumber within seconds, they’d recognize a technological Superman in their midst. Nelson founded his company, JoeScan, from his dorm room in Washington State University’s Streit Hall in 1999, the year before earning his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering.

A … » More …

Winter 2008

Carol Edgemon Hipperson – Writing History

When Carol Edgemon Hipperson was growing up in Coulee City, the eastern Washington community was too small for a library. However, every other Thursday during the summer, the Bookmobile from the North Central Regional Library pulled into town. “I was allowed to check out as many books as I could carry,” says Hipperson ’75. “I’d go straight home and curl up with my books until dinner time.”

The idea that one day books with her name on the spine would appear on library shelves and in book stores didn’t occur to her. “I never intended to become a writer,” she says. “I just wanted to … » More …

Winter 2008

What I’ve Learned Since College: An interview with Sonny Spearman

Sonny Spearman ’86 has traded technology for toys. As co-founder and chief marketing and operating officer of Matter Group, she leads a company focused on creating products to foster awareness of the environment.

Spearman started her career in technology and media, riding the wave of the Seattle-based tech boom in the late 1980s and early 1990s. She’d still be in the tech sector if she and company co-founder Amy Tucker hadn’t decided develop a business focused on sustainability.

Their first product, which was released in 2006, is Xeko, an award-winning eco-adventure game for children eight and older. With a force of “secret agents” intent … » More …