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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
Coming home
I am one of the lucky. After years of looking out onto a sea of suburban rooftops, my husband and I have been gifted the opportunity of returning to Cougar Country with our three boys and now watch nature at work as the seasons change the fields of the Palouse from winter gray to roborant green to an elegant and rich gold that glistens as it dances to the tempo set by the winds.
The winds and colors change and so do I. In this return to Pullman, I am learning to appreciate a saying I heard many times from my mother’s … » More …