Crossroads Fall/Winter 2014-15 - Alumni Magazine of Eastern Mennonite University

INFORMATION

TECHNOLOGY

fall/winter 2014-15

emu... preparing students to serve and lead globally

www.emu.edu | crossroads | 1

vol. 95, No. 2

crossroads

fall/winter 2014-15, Vol. 95, No. 2 Crossroads (USPS 174-860) is published three times a year

by Eastern Mennonite University for distribution to 14,000 alumni, students, parents and friends.

A leader among faith-based universities, Eastern Mennonite University emphasizes peacebuilding, creation care, experiential learning, and cross-cultural engagement. Founded in 1917 in Harrisonburg, Virginia, EMU offers undergraduate, graduate, and seminary degrees that prepare students to serve and lead in a global context.

EMU’s mission statement is posted in its entirety at www.emu.edu/mission.

Board of Trustees: Andrew Dula, Chair, Lancaster, Pa.; Kathleen (Kay) Nussbaum, chair-elect, Grant, Minn.; Evon Bergey, Perkasie, Pa.; Myron E. Blosser, Harrisonburg, Va.; Herman Bontrager, Ephrata, Pa.; Jonathan Bowman, Landisville, Pa.; Randall Bowman, Richmond, Va.; Janet Breneman, Lancaster, Pa.; David H. Hersh, Lexington, Pa.; Gerald R. Horst, New Holland, Pa.; Charlotte Hunsberger, Souderton, Pa.; Clyde G. Kratz, Broadway, Va.; Chad Lacher, Souderton, Pa.; Kevin Longenecker, Harrisonburg, Va.; E. Thomas Murphy, Jr., Harrisonburg, Va.; Dannie Otto, Urbana, Ill.; Shana Peachey Boshart, Wellman, Iowa; Mark Prock, Virginia Beach, Va.; Amy Rush, Harrisonburg, Va.; Jeffrey Shank, Sarasota, Fl.; Judith Trumbo, Broadway, Va.; Anne Kaufman Weaver, Brownstown, Pa. Loren Swartzendruber, president; Fred Kniss, provost; Kirk Shisler, vice president for advancement; Andrea Wenger, marketing and communications director.

Bonnie Price Lofton Jon Styer Editor-in-chief Designer/photographer bonnie.lofton@emu.edu jon.styer@emu.edu Braydon P. Hoover Mike Zucconi Mileposts editor Info/social media officer braydon.hoover@emu.edu mike.zucconi@emu.edu Marcy Gineris Caleb Hochstetler Web content manager Web designer and analyst marcy.gineris@emu.edu caleb.hochstetler@emu.edu Lindsey Kolb BJ Gerber Photographer/proofreader Mailing list manager lindsey.kolb@emu.edu bj.gerber@emu.edu Jessica Hostetler Kara Lofton Project & office coordinator/ Acting asst. editor proofreader for this magazine issue jessica.hostetler@emu.edu kara.lofton@emu.edu All EMU personnel can be reached during regular work hours by calling 540-432-4000, or via contact details posted on the university website, www.emu.edu.

Cover: Dan Shenk-Evans '92 is director of information technologies at the Capital Area Food Bank, which provides food to more than 500 partner agencies. They, in turn, feed 478,000 people in the Washington D.C. area. Story on p. 21.

Photo by Jon Styer.

POSTMASTER: Submit address changes to: Crossroads Eastern Mennonite University 1200 Park Road Harrisonburg VA 22802

My "portable" computer weighed 30 pounds In the mid-1980s, when Pat and I were executives in the denominational offices of the Mennonite Church, this advisory was issued about computers in our offices: “We do not anticipate any time in the future when having several computer workstations throughout the building will not be sufficient.” It was assumed that personnel could reserve a specific time slot to work at one of the publicly available stations.

Administrators should almost never need to have access to a computer.

Within a year or two I was provided my first “personal” computer. It operated with floppy disks, its screen was about 5 inches wide, and it weighed more than Loren Swartzendruber '76, MDiv '79, DMin 30 pounds. It was called a portable computer. Dutifully, most evenings I zipped it into a suitcase-sized cover and lugged it home.

Each of us, whether computer literate or not, are dependent on technology in all areas of our lives and on the skills of competent professionals who design systems, install networks, research hardware and software, and repair failures. Much of their work is behind the scenes (if not behind a firewall!) and we think of them when something does not work correctly. On the rare occasion of a malfunction we hardly know how to engage our routines.

As is the case for all universities these days, apart from institutional financial aid, our technology expenditures represent the single largest line item in EMU’s budget.

Fortunately, many of the costs on a “per unit” basis have been declining even as total demands keep climbing. That first “portable” computer provided to me 30 years ago would cost more than $2,000 in today’s dollars, but had less functionality than my iPod, which weighs about 3 ounces and fits into my pocket.

To be sure, there are serious spiritual, philosophical and psychological challenges to be pondered with the ubiquitous presence of technology in our society. During this academic year our “common read” book at EMU is The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. Some of us have advocated taking a weekly “sabbatical” from email and the Internet!

This issue of Crossroads centers on the contributions of more than 200 EMU alumni who are IT (information technology) professionals. We can be quite certain that their undergraduate preparation in the liberal arts at EMU provided them with a framework for addressing exactly these questions.

Loren Swartzendruber, President Cert no. SW-COC-001635

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Homecoming 2014

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Higher Ed I.T. Focuses on People

Browse our photos that show alumni, friends and parents gathering and interacting on campus for Homecoming and Family Weekend.

These alumni keep the digital world humming along in universities – they're invisible when all is going well, in the hot seat when things suddenly aren’t.

13

John Fairfield: Incomparable

The life of John Fairfield could read like novel, if he chose to write it up. And he's still going strong.

14

Computer Pioneer

17

I.T. at Choice Books

As one of the original brains behind what became Jenzabar, Dwight Wyse has been an IT visionary.

The mission of Choice Books, with Delbert Wenger in charge of its technology, is to share the good news of Jesus Christ in the general marketplace.

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In this Issue

6

13

14

17

20

24

32

20

Helped by Weird Learnings

John Swartzentruber has been working on data analysis software with OSIsoft for the past eight years.

24

Four I.T. Entrepreneurs

32

On Giving Sacrificially

The journey to starting one's own IT business may be circuitous, but in hindsight it all makes sense.

Charlotte and Henry Rosenberger speak with utter frankness about the joy, and the pain, of giving abundantly to EMU and other causes dear to them. www.emu.edu | crossroads | 1

Plan on being at the next Homecoming and Family Weekend, Oct. 9-11, 2015!

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photo by jon styer

homecoming 2014

photo by jon styer

homecoming

photo by lindsey kolb

The Sunday morning worship service, with Ken J. Nafziger conducting.

The Royals men's soccer team notched a 2-0 victory over Guilford College on Saturday, Oct. 11.

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photo by jon styer photo by jon styer

photo by lindsey kolb

Alumni found many folks to interact with when they showed up at the registration area in the Campus Center greeting hall on Saturday morning.

Glenn Kauffman, Clair Mellinger and Joe Mast were three of the six retired professors who spoke at the Suter Science Center gathering. photo by michael sheeler

photo by lindsey kolb

Joshua Mensah '14 (left) was one of a number of artists whose work was featured at an exhibit in the Margaret Martin Gehman Gallery.

Herm, the Royals mascot, posed with Margaret Gehman and the VW bug she drove for countless years.

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The 1994 France/Ivory Coast cross-cultural group reunited with their trip leaders, Carroll and Nancy Yoder, to mark 20 years since that experience.

photo by jon styer

photo by michael sheeler

homecoming

photo by lindsey kolb

The Clymer Kurtz Band played at the reunion opening program.

photo by lindsey kolb

The field hockey team beat Virginia Wesleyan 3-1 on Oct. 11.

Women's volleyball overcame Notre Dame of Maryland 3-0.

John Fast played organ music for the Encore! concert.

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photo by jon styer

I.T. IN HIGHER ED

In the End, It’s About People

David Brubaker ’03 (left) is senior IT project leader for the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Douglas Brunk ’86 (right) is a software development director for Penn Medicine Academic Computing Service, the IT department for the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine.

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AS A UNIX SYSTEMS ENGINEER at Virginia Tech, Josh Akers ’07 is charged with “provisioning” a few dozen “enterprise systems” at the university, while also “administrating VMware infrastructure” and supporting operation of “advanced research computing clusters.”

“Anyone in the field would know what I’m talking about,” said Akers, who majored in computer science at EMU. But yes, people not in the field, he acknowledges, are often confused about what all this actually means – and increasingly so as computer systems grow ever more complex.

“Oftentimes they don’t know how important the job is until I get that 3 a.m. call,” he says. “I’m providing critical services, and they have to be running for our tens of thousands of faculty, staff and students to do what they need to be doing.”

He likens this sort of IT role, at or near the front lines of keeping the digital world humming along, to that of a referee: invisible when things are going well, in the hot seat when things suddenly aren’t. It’s not a complaint, it’s just the way things are. Akers, about halfway done with a master’s degree in information technology from Virginia Tech, loves the challenge of the work.

“A lot of people, when they graduate, don’t find a job that they like, or one in their field,” he said. “I’m blessed to have found both of those.”

Derek Buchanan ’97 is another computer-problem first responder, as a PC technician at Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, Virginia. From the main help desk, Buchanan troubleshoots for faculty, staff and students. Forgotten passwords are their biggest bugaboo.

The job requires patience and the ability to handle people with different personalities and vastly different computer aptitudes. Some people top out at printing things and browsing the web, while others can pretty much fix any problem except in cases of major catastrophe. It generally breaks down along age-related lines. The younger the person, the more technologically proficient they’re likely to be.

The rapid pace of technological change

photo by kara lofton

IT

Tracy Smith ’94 is director of infrastructure support services and administration at the University of Virginia, supervising several dozen people.

that explains the generally age-correlated means Thomas’s crews can’t just install a abilities of computer users on college “network drop” at any most-convenient campuses has all sorts of other implicaplace. Rather, everything happens in tions for those colleges’ IT staffs. consultation with architects who keep an “One of the big things for us is that eye out for the integrity of the buildings’ students are coming with more and more original design. devices,” said John Thomas ’89, chief Wait a sec. Network drop? That’s the information officer at Florida Southern word for a wall socket that an Ethernet College in Lakeland, Florida (he calls it cable plugs into, and that’s exactly the the BYOD, or bring-your-own-device, kind of IT word that passes the non-IT phenomenon). world entirely by (a collection of others Based on wireless network usage, he collected during interviews for this estimates the average number of wireless- article: “central authentication system,” connected devices carried by students “portal,” and “migrating”). As one moves at Florida Southern at just below three. higher within a university’s IT organizaFiguring out how to accommodate and tion, translating this sort of technobabble capitalize on that reality are some of the to the technoignorant becomes a more big-picture tasks that occupy Thomas’s and more important skill. time – things like enabling students to “It is extremely difficult to use acroconnect their tablets to classroom projec- nyms and concepts that people aren’t fators, or rolling out a mobile version of an miliar with … We try to steer clear of it. online class registration system.

We try to protect people from the worst In 2000, when Thomas began his curof the details,” says Leslie Geary, class of rent role, there wasn’t wireless Internet ’90, a technical project manager with the access on campus at all. He’s since University of California, Santa Cruz. overseen installation of about 650 wireOne of her roles is managing teams less access points, at a college with fewer of up to a dozen people working on IT than 3,000 students. projects such as the recent rollout of an An interesting wrinkle to that story “enterprise web content management sysstems from the fact that the college is tem” – an application that makes it easy home to the world’s largest collection for someone with basic computer skills of Frank Lloyd Wright buildings. That to create and maintain their own webwww.emu.edu | crossroads | 7

“I help to translate technology into terms that anybody can understand. We also do a lot of listening.”

sites – for the university’s administrative departments. Next up: a similar system for faculty and graduate students.

After transferring from EMU, Geary earned undergraduate degrees in philosophy and biochemistry at Santa Cruz. Computers were something she fell into by chance while later working in financial aid. As a manager in the IT department, responsible for ensuring “clients” – IT folks’ term for IT users they’re helping – are getting their needs met, she needs to understand the IT stuff, but doesn’t have to live and breathe its finest details.

“I’m not a programmer. I don’t know anything about networking. I do have some technical background, but for the most part, what’s important are the soft skills, the people skills,” she said. “People are just happy to have somebody talking IT in a non-technical way to them.”

As director of infrastructure support services and administration at the University of Virginia, Tracy Smith ’94, also bridges the divide between the worlds of IT workers and the people who depend on them.

“I’m a translator,” he said. “I help to translate technology into terms that anybody can understand. We also do a lot of listening.”

With several dozen people reporting to him, Smith oversees all IT troubleshooting at the university, from single-user glitches to massive, system-wide failures.

He rarely gets involved in the technical details himself – nor does he feel he would be particularly adept at this.

“I wouldn’t make a good engineer, but I also wouldn’t be able to be something that requires a lot of right-brained power,” said Smith, who has found a foot-in-both-worlds niche he loves, helping technology at the university meet its 8 | crossroads | fall/winter 2014-15

users’ needs.

(Thomas and Smith both point out that good communication has to happen both ways; it can be very frustrating for helpdesk staff, for example, when they don’t get the clear, precise descriptions of problems necessary to solve them.)

In Philadelphia, Douglas Brunk ’86 is a software development director for Penn Medicine Academic Computing Service (the IT department for the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine). He oversees development of software for things as varied as medical student admissions tracking, management of test tubes in stockrooms, and tracking clinical research ongoing at the university.

“I enjoy bending computers to my will,” says Brunk, who studied education at EMU. “[But] oddly enough, working with people is the part I enjoy most.”

Take the clinical research. Healthcare workers collect huge amounts of data, primarily in ways designed to serve the goal of treating individual patients.

Sometimes those protocols make it very difficult to use that data for another purpose, like in research examining the treatment of thousands of patients. Software solutions can and do help with that, but cooperation between the various groups of people involved is also critical. Clinical researchers might need to convince other medical colleagues to adopt new record-keeping procedures to advance the long-term goal of better treatments for individual patients.

“Technology can help with a problem, but it will rarely solve the whole problem,” says David Brubaker ’03, senior IT project leader for the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Whole-problem solutions require effort from people using that technol-

ogy, which is why Brubaker spends very little of his time in front of a computer.

He’s out and about, meeting with users, trying to figure out how the technology available to him and his team can best help the Wharton School accomplish its goals. (His responsibilities include, among others, online services offered to alumni, the IT budget, and technology that supports the school’s large alumni events that are held all over the world.)

This all relates directly to a broader point raised by many of the alumni interviewed for this article. Whether someone at a university is one of those technical folks who keeps things running behind the scenes, or an end user who doesn’t spare a thought for those technical folks until they can’t check their email, or a go-between who speaks the languages of both, they’re all playing part in the same broader university mission.

“Everything that we do ultimately is to help people grow, mature, learn and go out in society and be more productive,” says Kevin Strite ’95, project manager for the University of Notre Dame’s Office of Information Technology.

He oversees parts of various IT projects around campus, focused on lots of day-to-day details – things like estimating costs for classroom projectors in the university’s recently opened study-abroad facility in Rome, Italy. But in the sense that these seemingly mundane details – combined with the daily details of life at the help desk and in systems engineering and in software development and a thousand other places – support higher education’s larger goals of education and understanding and collective betterment, et cetera…. Yes, it all feels very worthwhile.  — Andrew Jenner

photo by kara lofton

IT

It takes a village of information systems staffers to keep EMU functioning. The six IS personnel in the foreground are, from left: Dan Marple, Jenni Piper, Michael Stauffer, Becky Brenneman, Dan Risser, HB Belay. The six in the middle rows, from left: Marty King (in red jacket), Justin Hershey (in black jacket), Steve Gibbs (in green jacket), Ben Beachy (in white shirt), Krista Nyce, Jason Alderfer. Four in back row: Andrew Crorken, Austin Showalter, Holden Byler, David Penner. Not pictured: Alison D'Silva.

EMU'S OWN TECHIES AS A WORK-STUDY STUDENT at EMU’s helpdesk in 1999, these were Jason Alderfer’s tools: “A telephone and a legal pad.”

A couple times a day, Alderfer or another work-study student would check the phone and write down the messages – who had called and what their problem was – and then either go fix the problem or relay the question to someone else.

Since then EMU has almost doubled its information systems personnel to 17 full-time employees who operate on three teams – “technology systems” headed by Jason Alderfer ’00, “user services” headed by Jenni Piper ’92, and “student information systems,” which functions collaboratively.

Alderfer and Piper describe these teams as dealing with “everything from the network jack back,” “responsible for anything that plugs in,” and managing programs like myEMU and student records through EMU’s vendor-supplied software system, Jenzabar EX. EMU

also has eight or so work-study students, plus Krysta Nyce ’14, evening helpdesk manager.

Interestingly, given that EMU does not specialize in vocational IT training, all but two of the 17 full-time employees are alumni. Like Alderfer, most came to IT through their work-study position.

“You come on and basically it’s like an apprenticeship where you learn by getting out there and solving problems that you haven’t seen before,” he said. “For people who enjoy learning that way it’s a great place.” (See related story on p. 12.)

EMU’s diverse set of needs makes it a great place to learn, say several who have risen through the system. Ben Beachy ’02, MBA ’09, director of information services (IS), explained that the staff and administrators operate closest to IT corporate work, while students use the system much like one would use a home system, and faculty rely on technology as an important pedagogical tool. Each of these groups has different ways of using

the networks and different requirements for smooth functioning.

One of the most challenging aspects of the EMU system is linking all the components so that one part of the system communicates well with another. There isn’t really a user manual about how to do this; solving IS problems often takes creativity, collaboration, and trial and error. “It’s an ongoing process,” Alderfer said. “Things are always in flux and require us to revisit or reinvent solutions.”

A recent priority for IS has been improving Internet speed, Beachy said.

In a concentrated effort over the summer of 2014, IS tripled the amount of wireless access points in the dorms in order to increase bandwidth. “Eight years ago we just wanted to make sure everyone could get on with their one or two devices,” Beachy said. With students bringing up to seven devices each, though, the service in the dorms was no longer adequate.

When Jenni Piper was a freshman in 1988 there were only hall phones in the www.emu.edu | crossroads | 9

dormitories and no Internet connection.

In fact, EMU had no personal computer technology at all until the year before, when the business computer lab received 18 IBM-type computers with 5.25-inch floppy disk drives. The dorms didn’t begin to become wired until 1995.

Almost 20 years later, IS has been heavily involved with the recent renovation of Roselawn and ongoing renovation of the Suter Science Center by overseeing and facilitating the installation of the wires, technology and resources necessary to provide an efficient technology system to the EMU community.

IS staffers troubleshoot problems that may arise, install new technology into classrooms, and fix devices that suddenly don’t work the way they are supposed to.

Despite the inevitable frustrations that accompany relying on and upgrading technology, IS staffers find that folks at EMU are understanding and patient as the IS teams work to fix things. “By and large people are very kind, supportive and appreciative of what we do here,” said Beachy.

That may be one reason why EMU IS employees stay so long. Beachy, Alderfer and Piper have been with IS for 13, 14 and 19 years respectively (Piper worked in other capacities at EMU for five years before joining the IS team in 1995). Others like Dan Marple and Marty King ’85 have been at EMU for similarly long tenures. “Everyone has made a choice to work here,” said Piper.

Alderfer agreed. “The reality in tech-

nology is that people who have good IT skills can make a lot of money in some places” (and no one pretends that EMU employees make the big bucks). “But," added Alderfer, "for people who are motivated by service, who want to see their work go toward something larger, and have good technical skills, those kind of people enjoy working here and are successful.”

Other alumni who work in IS at EMU include Sam Sauder ’93, Michael Stauffer ’76, Andrew Crorken ’11, Holden Byler ’06, Alison D’Silva ’01, Steve Gibbs ’04, Dan Risser ’05, Austin Showalter ’13, Justin Hershey ’12 and HB Belay ’06.  — Kara Lofton

WOMEN IN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY work in what is still, very much, a man’s world. However, there are pioneering women who navigate the computers, cables, and testosterone to work in this quickly developing field.

At EMU, there are four such women who work directly in the information systems department: Krista Nyce ’14, Becky Brenneman ’07, Jenni Piper ’92 and Alison D’Silva ’01, MA ’06 (conflict transformation).

Like all the information systems employees at EMU, the women came to IS from a variety of backgrounds for a variety of reasons. Nyce, a psychology graduate, began like many of the current IS employees – by working at the EMU helpdesk in a work-study position.

Brenneman got into IS “by accident” over 30 years ago while working in a different capacity at EMU. She eventually left EMU to work as a programmer at the alumni-heavy company Jenzabar for 25 years (see p. 15) before returning to EMU to complete her undergraduate degree in 2007.

Brenneman is the only female programmer at EMU, a status that she hopes will change in future years.

Piper also originally worked at EMU in another capacity, left for a few years, and then returned to take the position as the associate director of user services. For a long time Piper was the only female in IS at EMU until she was joined

by D’Silva in 2009.

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photo by kara lofton

EMU Women Break Path in Men's Domain

Three of the women working in information services at EMU (from left): Jenni Piper '92, Krista Nyce '14, Becky Brenneman '07. (Not pictured: Alison D'Silva)

Piper, who is involved in hiring for IS, said she would like to see more females in the department, but that males are almost always the ones who apply for IS jobs.

“I would like to see more women in the field,” agreed Brenneman, “especially because it would be nice to have closer relationships with more of my colleagues.”

Until more females apply, though, these women are content to work in the collegial, supportive environment offered to EMU's IS employees – regardless of gender.  — Kara Lofton

photo by kara lofton

IT

Jack Rutt '72 moved from a management role in the private sector to direct EMU's information systems from 1999 to 2014.

The changes he oversaw were extensive. Computer technology has grown to claim about 5% of EMU’s total budget.

JACK RUTT’S JOURNEY TO EMU AFTER GRADUATING IN 1972 as a psychology major, Jack Rutt got his first job in the business world at Goodville Mutual Casualty Company in New Holland, Pennsylvania.

Rutt initially earned $1.85 per hour as a trainee in underwriting. Three years later – at age 25 – he was named head of the automobile underwriting department, succeeding his mentor, a pastor who was transitioning to full-time ministry work.

Suddenly, Rutt was managing a department of about a dozen people, developing underwriting procedures for no-fault automobile insurance. “The job of an underwriter is to find people you don’t want to cover with insurance and to exclude them,” he now says wryly, by way of explaining why he decided not to make a career out of the position as his predecessor had done.

Goodville did, however, expose him to the workings and possibilities of computers – the company had an IBM mainframe that processed data that Rutt’s underwriters needed.

Next life stage: one of six owners and president of an office supply and furniture business. Through the 1980s, this new company, The Office Works, added

a personal computers sales division and ident of enrollment at EMU, contacted grew to have seven retail outlets in Penn- him to consider the role of information sylvania and North Carolina. systems director at EMU, where Rutt’s Rutt found himself writing the softtwo children were then undergrads. Feelware code that his company needed for ing called, Rutt took a substantial pay inventory control, accounts receivable, cut to come to a place in December 1999 and service-work orders. He worked on where stability was needed – he would be a mini-computer that was one of the the third IS director in as many years. first to challenge the dominance of IBM The changes in EMU’s information mainframe computers for small busisystems since 1999 have been extensive. nesses.

Computer technology now claims about Ironically, the only class Rutt had ever 5% of EMU’s total budget. Key markers: dropped at EMU was Fortran taught by the staff nearly doubled in size under Joe Mast ’64, because the challenging Rutt’s leadership; about every seven years, class didn’t seem worth it when Rutt the core networking infrastructure has already had a full courseload. As a result, been replaced; its student information Rutt had to learn about computer techsystem was converted in 2007-09 to a nology the hard way – on the job. new operating platform.

Rutt and his partners sold their comIn May 2014, Rutt handed his director puter division to a national chain in 1990. position to Ben Beachy ’02, MBA ’09, Almost immediately, Rutt was recruited and stepped into a pre-retirement role of to be systems manager for a health doing project management and commumaintenance organization affiliated with nications facilitation for EMU’s building Blue Shield of Pennsylvania. There he renovations. supervised a small group of employees Rutt's wife is Gloria Short Rutt ’72, a responsible for keeping three high-availschoolteacher for much of their married ability, multi-million dollar computer life. Their children are Eric Rutt ’01 and systems running. There, too, he earned Megan Rutt Rosenwink ’02. the highest annual income of his lifetime.  — Bonnie Price Lofton That work continued until Beryl Brubaker (class of ’64), then vice-preswww.emu.edu | crossroads | 11

MATT ESHLEMAN ’02 began working for Community IT Innovators 13 years ago, during an internship for his Washington Study-Service Year (now Washington Community Scholars' Center). From providing IT support at a nursing home and teaching computer classes, Eshleman rose through the ranks as a systems administrator, systems engineer, and team lead to his current role as chief technology officer.

His experience over the years made him a “confirmed urbanite” and affirmed his belief in sustainable and positive business practices. As an undergraduate at EMU, Eshleman says he wondered how to fulfill his desire to “do work that had a positive and meaningful impact in the world.” (His parents, Roger '67 and Barbara '72 Eshleman, worked for Mennonite Central Committee.)

Community IT Innovators was a good fit right away, he said. The company was only seven years from its founding in the basement of the Mennonite Voluntary Service house in Washington D.C. Originally envisioned as the philanthropic arm of a small IT company responding to local nonprofit needs, the division was so successful that it became an independent company in 2001.

“Community IT occupies a unique space of social enterprise with a service mindset,” said Eshleman, who also holds an MBA from Johns Hopkins University. “From the beginning, when it was still a new idea, this company paid

College Work-Study Boosted Learning ONE SUMMER in the mid-‘90s, EMU embarked on a project to run fiber optic and copper computer cables to most of campus, including the ‘Woods dorms around the quad.

Much of the grunt work fell to a crew of students who spent the summer using hammer drills to bash holes for the cable conduit through the cinder block walls.

Among them was Daniel Zook ’97, who held a variety of work-study positions with EMU’s information systems department throughout his time on campus. The hands-on, practical learning that came with those various jobs – from staffing a computer lab to working the helpdesk to pulling cables through the walls in Maplewood – was “much more valuable after graduation than any of the classes I took,” he recalls.

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photo by jon styer

WCSC Internship Evolved Into Career

Matt Eshleman '02 earned an MBA from Johns Hopkins while working for an IT group in D.C. serving non-profits, begun by Mennnonite volunteers.

attention to what they call the triple bottom line, which takes into account not just profit, but also people and the planet. Twenty-one years later, its success really shows that it is possible to do good work, care for your employees, and help to make the world a better place.”

The company, employee-owned with 40 staffers, provides IT services for approximately 120 social mission-oriented clients, ranging from advocacy groups such as Sojourners Magazine and the Land Trust Alliance, to international NGOs like Bread for the World and Lutheran World Relief.  — Lauren Jefferson

Troubleshooting as a helpdesk staffer was particularly relevant to his work since college, says Zook, now a systems administrator at Lehman Hardware in Kidron, Ohio (see photo, p. 59).

Another student on the wiring crew that summer was Mike Stoltzfus ’98. In addition to the hammer drill, he recalls using an even heavier-duty core drill that he stood on, pogo stick-like, to punch through the steel-reinforced concrete between floors. Stoltzfus now works as director of business affairs at Eastern Mennonite School, down the road from EMU (see story, pp. 26-27). His responsibilities include overseeing IT at the school, and he also looks back on his succession of information systems work-study positions as the most useful aspect of his college education.

“The time that I spent working in the IS department was far and away the most valuable aspect of my academic time at EMU,” he said. “That’s really where I felt like I got the skills and the knowledge I needed to be able to dive into the workforce when I graduated.”  — Andrew Jenner

IT

In the 1990s, when John Fairfield '70 became the computer wizard behind the founding and growth of Rosetta Stone, he already had accumulated enough achievements to fill the curricula vitae of several highly successful people. He's not finished, though.

THIS IS A MAN who spent much of 1970-71 in Belgium’s national library absorbing British computer research. He was learning French too in Brussels, so that he could use French to teach math, physics and economics at a Congolese mission school.

This is a man who lived with his wife in a mud hut for two years – so remote in the eastern Congo that they needed to fly there in a small plane over a tree canopy as thick as broccoli heads packed together.

This is a man who got into a grad program at Duke University almost immediately after applying – far past any published deadlines, just a month before classes began. An intellectually provocative paper won him admission.

This is a man who made the worldrenowned Rosetta Stone languagelearning system possible through his computer know-how and vision.

The life of John Fairfield ’70 could read like novel, if he chose to write it up.

Fairfield’s introduction to computers occurred during his 1968-69 year abroad at 400-year-old University of Marburg, where he was asked to use Fortran to do a linguistic analysis of Italian poetry.

He would walk into Marburg’s computer center – with its massive mainframe attended by people in white lab coats – and hand in his punch cards for processing, then later retrieve reams of resulting printouts.

Back at Eastern Mennonite College in 1969-70, Fairfield presented his eclectic array of coursework to the dean, Ira Miller, and asked, “How do I graduate?”

Fairfield didn’t have enough chemistry courses to be a chemistry major – he had tested out of some of them. He knew German fluently, but needed another language to be a language major (French would be learned the following year). So he and Miller settled on “natural science” as his major.

Jumping to Duke University, Fairfield continued to be an unorthodox student while working full time. (He and wife Kathryn Stoltzfus ’70, who eventually became a Duke law student, had two children while they were both in grad school.) Duke’s fledgling computer science program relied heavily on faculty drawn from other fields – as was common during the birthing stage of computer academia. No Duke professors were involved in machine perception, the topic Fairfield decided to pursue, with or without their support.

“They kept saying, ‘Why don’t you do this or that?’ And I kept doing what interested me,” recalls Fairfield. “They didn’t know how to evaluate my work.”

Upon completing his not-understood dissertation, Fairfield had no assurance that the Duke faculty was going to grant him his PhD. He sent it to David Waltz, a renowned computer vision pioneer then at the University of Illinois, Urbana

-Champaign, who grasped its importance.

Waltz sent word back to Duke that he had granted PhDs for much less than what he saw in Fairfield’s work, and Fairfield got his doctorate.

Next came faculty appointments at James Madison University, where Fairfield remained for nearly 20 years, teaching all kinds of computer science courses, but especially relishing the 400-level research courses.

In 1992, Fairfield added his energy and talents to those of brothers-in-law Allen ’65 and Eugene Stoltzfus ’72 plus Greg Keim, to give birth to a worldwide business now known simply as Rosetta Stone.

They built a team which created and integrated three forms of software: human interface code for language learning via browsers, speech recognition code, and code running the servers on the backend. As vice president of research and development, Fairfield was a handson boss. “There were more keystrokes of mine in the software we were selling than anyone else’s.”

Fairfield retired in 2006 when the company was sold to financial investors.

Fairfield then shifted his focus to envisioning and establishing EMU’s Center for Interfaith Engagement, where he remains active as a research fellow. He is the author of The Healer Messiah: Turning Enemies Into Trustworthy Opponents (April 2014, available at rruuaacchh.org).  — Bonnie Price Lofton

photo by kara lofton

THE ONE & ONLY JOHN FAIRFIELD

www.emu.edu | crossroads | 13

photo by michael sheeler In the late 1970s, says Dwight Wyse '68, "I became convinced there was room for a business that could provide software to colleges and universities.” And so he started one, which was rolled into Jenzabar.

Dwight Wyse

COMPUTER PIONEER

FRESH OUT OF COLLEGE, Dwight Wyse ’68 took a job as accounts payable clerk at Eastern Mennonite College about the time the school’s first computer arrived. The year was 1968, and the computer was a massive IBM 1130 that filled up an entire room in the new science center.

The computer, purchased with a federal grant, was for academic as well as administrative uses. Wyse, who was a business administration major, was fascinated with computers and found opportunities to work with them whenever he could. “I never had any formal computer training except for two weeks at IBM learning some basic RPG programming,” he said.

Later he attended numerous computer seminars and earned a master of business administration (MBA) degree from James Madison University. From 1974 to 1981, Wyse was EMC’s director of business affairs.

In 1979-80, he spent half of his sabbatical year at the Small College Consortium offices in Washington D.C. “My 14 | crossroads | fall/winter 2014-15

role took me to 20-30 colleges, and I saw preparing him to create a business. In many of them struggling to integrate particular he points to Delbert Seitz ’64, computers into their administrative who taught Wyse in college and became operations,” he said. “EMC was really his supervisor in the business office. a leader in the field, and I became conLater Seitz was CMDS’s chief finanvinced there was room for a business that cial officer. Wyse also credits the many could provide software to colleges and alumni who came to work at CMDS. universities.”

“They made our visions and dreams a Back at EMC, Wyse convinced coreality,” he said. worker Mark Shank, who was computer In 2002, Wyse and his son Derek services director at the time, to join him started RecSoft, which produces Campin starting a company. “With a miniwise software for summer camps and mal investment we formed Computer conference centers. “We help them do Management and Development Services their registrations, take staff applications, (CMDS) in 1980 and went from there,” provide donor tracking, book their facilihe said. Their first and only employee ties and schedule meals,” he said. They was Harvey Mast ’80. have about 250 customers.

Wyse left EMC the following year to In 2013 Derek took over the company, work full time for CMDS. It grew to 160 and Dwight now works for him. When employees and nearly 300 organizational will he retire? Answer: laughter. customers in 45 states before Wyse sold Wyse is married to Sheryl King ’68, it to Jenzabar in 2000. Shank and Mast who worked for Harrisonburg Public have remained continously employed at Schools for 30 years as a first-grade Jenzabar. (See adjacent article.) teacher, principal and assistant superinWyse gives credit to EMC/EMU and tendent.  — Steve Shenk its professors and administrators for

IT

IT ALL STARTED in a corner of EMU's old administration building in 1980. Two employees began tinkering – on their own time − with ways for colleges and universities to manage their administrative affairs with a new technology called computers.

The employees – Dwight Wyse ‘68, the school’s director of business affairs, and Mark Shank, director of computer services − cobbled together a company they called Computer Management and Development Services (CMDS).

They hired Harvey Mast ‘80.

Mast, who shared with another student the distinction of being EMU’s first computer majors, recalls one of his first computer classes: “We built a very simple computer out of a Heathkit package and inputted information with an eightbutton keyboard, one 8-bit character at a time.”

CMDS soon moved to a farmhouse on Virginia Avenue, which was eventually torn down to make room for the expansion of Virginia Mennonite Retirement Community (VMRC). In 1983 CMDS moved to a house next to Miller Cabinet Shop at the southwest edge of town and in 1986 to an office building on Virginia Avenue north of VMRC. The company grew to 160 employees, providing software and services to customers in 45 states. CMDS became one of the nation’s leading developers of administrative software for colleges and universities, serving the offices of admissions, registration, alumni, development, financial aid and accounting. Its best-known software was TEAMS. In 1999 CMDS built an imposing corporate office building, designed by architects LeRoy Troyer and Randy Seitz (class of ’87), on Technology Drive off Mt. Clinton Pike near North Main Street (U.S. Route 11).

In 2000 CMDS made the momentous decision to be acquired by a new Boston company named Jenzabar. Jenzabar also acquired three of CMDS’s competitors – Campus America of Knoxville, CARS of Cincinnati and Quodata of Hartford. CMDS and two of the other companies maintained their own buildings.

After the merger, there was a period of significant employee turnover. A number of the key players in CMDS, including Wyse, left or were laid off. The imposing CMDS building was now too big, and Jenzabar moved its Harrisonburg offices to the headquarters of a former technology firm nearby at 1401 Technology Dr. Jenzabar now supports more than 1,000 campuses in the United States and around the world. Some 20% of all U.S. colleges and universities use Jenzabar software. Among them is EMU. “The core product EMU uses today is Jenzabar EX, the flag-

photo by michael sheeler

From Local Threesome to National Jenzabar

Jenzabar employees Harvey Mast ‘80 and Mark Shank began with one of its predecessors, Computer Management and Development Services in Harrisonburg in 1980.

ship student information system sold by Jenzabar,” said Jack Rutt ’72, EMU’s director of information systems from 1999 until mid-2014. “Several other systems which supplement the functionality of EX have been added over the years, including myEMU and a retention management system.”

Ben Beachy ’02, MBA ’09, Rutt's successor at EMU, notes, “A longstanding rumor in our department is that EMU was customer no. 1 of CMDS," adding with amusement, "but I’ve never seen the actual database record to verify that.”

Today, 35 years after the founding of CMDS, Shank and Mast are still with the company. Fifteen EMU alumni work for Jenzabar. About half of them pre-date the merger. One of them, Mark Showalter ’91, joined the day – May 1, 2000 − that the merger was announced.

The alumni at Jenzabar, in addition to Mast and Showalter, are: Lois Ann Handrich ’67; Don Bomberger ’72; Dale Hartzler ’85, MDiv ’08; Brian Boettger ’86, MDiv ’88; Mike Engle ’87; Mark Deavers ’89; Mike Weaver ’90; Robert Ranck ’90; Dale Hess ’92; Derek Christner ’97; Eric Weaver ’02; Mark Horst ’05; and Jessie Groeneweg ’07.  — Steve Shenk

www.emu.edu | crossroads | 15

photo by kara lofton At Jenzabar in the 1990s, Daryl Myers '84 (right) was a colleague of Dave Smucker (left), a graduate of EMU's sister Mennonite institution, Goshen College. In 2001-02, the two struck out on their own, forming VistaShare to serve small businesses and non-profit organizations. Today, VistaShare's headquarters happens to be next door to Jenzabar's in Harrisonburg.

Former Jenzabar Men Co-Own VistaShare AS A TEENAGER in the mid-1970s, Daryl Myers ’84 didn’t know anyone who owned a computer in his town of Lowville, New York. But he took his own money, trekked to a Radio Shack store and bought a TRS 80.

“It was really just a calculator on steroids,” he laughs now.

It had no games, no word processing. Later the TRS 80 was derided as “Trash 80.” But Myers caught the computer bug.

Today Myers is exercising his gifts in technology and business leadership as the co-founder and vice president of VistaShare, a computer software company in Harrisonburg.

Travelers from the north on their way to the EMU campus pass the sleekly glassed VistaShare building at 1400 Technology Drive off Mt. Clinton Pike.

At Hesston, a Mennonite junior college in Kansas, Myers majored in aviation. However, he did take courses in the two popular computer programming languages of the time – Fortran and Basic.

After Hesston, Myers transferred to EMU to major in psychology and play varsity soccer. His roommate one year was Eric Shenk ‘84, a computer whiz and son of his soccer coach. He was one of the few people who had a computer in his room. It was an early Apple model.

During this early ‘80s period, Dwight Wyse ’68, a former EMU administrator, started a software company called Computer Management and Development Services (CMDS).

In 1986 the company, with offices on Virginia Avenue in Harrisonburg, decided to double its work force from 16 to 32.

Myers was hired on the basis of his skills in math and logic – and not on the basis of his computer knowledge and college major. It turned out that CMDS was the perfect fit

16 | crossroads | fall/winter 2014-15

for him. “I loved the job and the culture of the place,” he said.

“I was a fish in water!”

In 2000, a relatively new Boston-based company called Jenzabar bought CMDS and three of its competitors.

“The culture changed completely,” said Myers. “Everything became more political, and the staff argued over issues like what software products to highlight.” A number of former CMDS employees began leaving Jenzabar.

Myers started talking with a Jenzabar colleague, Dave Smucker, about launching their own company. Smucker, a graduate of a sister Mennonite college, Goshen, was already involved in an effort by Mennonite Economic Development Associates to help disadvantaged people start small businesses. He noticed that small businesses, as well as small nonprofit organizations, needed computer software to organize and keep track of their activities.

Myers and Smucker founded VistaShare in one rented room in 2001, holding onto their day jobs initially – Smucker left Jenzabar in October 2001 and Myers in January 2002.

Today VistaShare’s primary product is Outcome Tracker, a software package that helps over 500 nonprofit organizations keep track of their clients and outcomes. The organizations they serve fall into three categories − community and economic development agencies, social-service agencies, and asset-building programs.

“It took us three years until the product [Outcome Tracker] was ready and another five to seven years until we turned a profit with it,” Myers said. “We grossly underestimated how much time and money it would take to get rolling.”

In 2011 they purchased their futuristic-looking building that was previously known as an “incubator” for start-up technology firms. Today they have 11 employees, six (not counting Myers) being EMU alumni: Chris Kratz '95, Matt Trost '98, Tim Shoemaker ’03, , Peter Nelson ‘08, Patrick Ressler ’09 and Sam Kauffman ’12. — Steve Shenk

photo by kara lofton

IT

Delbert Wenger, class of '86 (center), is the information systems administrator and accountant at Choice Books' central office in Harrisonburg, where CEO/director John Bomberger ’77 (right) and program assistant Dale Mast ’88 (left) also work. Choice Books sells more than 5.1 million books annually from about 11,350 displays.

I.T. AT CHOICE BOOKS INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SPECIALISTS often have two jobs, the one they get paid for and the charitable roles that inevitably arise when folks discover that you know something about computers. Delbert Wenger, class of ’86, acknowledges both responsibilities with good humor. He is an information systems administrator and accountant at Choice Books’ central office in Harrisonburg, and also the “extended family go-to IT person” for relatives and do-good organizations near and far.

Wenger says his life’s work has always consisted of “creating solutions to solve an issue.”

Those creative solutions may “fall into the quick and simple answers, like ‘Is your printer plugged in?’ - to - ‘Hmmm, let me login remotely to your computer and see that ‘funny screen,’” he says.

“Getting to a positive outcome on some interesting quirk always gives me a sense of satisfaction.”

Since 2000, Wenger has worked at the Choice Books central office with CEO/director John Bomberger ’77 and program assistant Dale Mast ’88. Choice Books is a direct-store-delivery distributor, annually selling more than 5.1 million books from approximately 11,350 displays around the country. Its mission, says Bomberger, is to “share the good news of Jesus Christ in the general marketplace through inspiring and whole-

some reading materials.” Popular genres include Christian living, devotionals, self-help, adult and juvenile fiction, and cookbooks.

A strong IT department enables the organization to fulfill its mission, Bomberger says, and meet the technical protocols for vendors set by major retailers such as Walmart, Kroger, Publix, Walgreens, and CVS. Wenger provides technical and management support for seven regional distributors, including 250 employees, around the country. Along with troubleshooting hardware and software issues, he develops, tests, evaluates and installs custom-written software for Choice Books distributors.

This software allows service representatives to use a hand-held device to scan all of the books on display, review sales history by title and then restock the display with books that will likely sell in that particular store, Bomberger says. The restocking is followed by auto-generated invoicing that allows for quick data compilation and daily reporting, so that the organization can manage inventory effectively and make better purchasing decisions.

Wenger says he’s always been interested in “how things work,” and when computers came along, he added them to the list. His first job after college was as a programmer with Mennonite

Central Committee in Akron, Pennsylvania – working closely with Cal Roggie ’76, Phil Horst ’76 and LeVon Smoker, MAR ’06 (profiled on p. 18).

In 1996, he became program codirector for MCC Appalachia, working with several nonprofits based in Whitesburg, Kentucky, on housing, economic development, environmental issues, and media and education. These groups included Sharing with Appalachian People (SWAP), the Letcher County Action Team, Southern Appalachia Recycling, and Appalshop.

Along with running a helpdesk for his family, Wenger also sits on the Community Mennonite Church office and technology committee, volunteers in IT support and data entry for the Virginia Mennonite Relief Sale and Eastern Mennonite School auctions, and has developed webpages for a few local businesses.

Mast, an employee since 1999, also works in IT. Mast does “a little bit of a whole lot of different things,” from compiling the monthly organization-wide newsletter, creating graphic designs for sales materials and signage, and processing payments and past due invoices. The variety keeps him busy and interested.

“Most of my IT knowledge has been gained through learning by doing and trial and error,” says Mast, who started as an elementary schoolteacher, spent five years as stay-at-home dad, and then decided on a career change. “I have found that computers are mostly forgiving when you press a wrong button, but not always.”  — Lauren Jefferson www.emu.edu | crossroads | 17

Helping People Do Good Work Better ON HIS MESSIAH COLLEGE APPLICATION in the early ‘80s, LeVon Smoker checked computer science as his major (with a pen − the online application being years in the future) “on a whim,” he recalls. “Computers were new, I thought it would be fun, and not a lot of people would be doing it.”

Since his graduation in 1986, Smoker has spent his career supporting people who help others. He currently works as an IT specialist with the Harrisonburg-Rockingham Community Services Board. The agency, which employs approximately 250 people working at various locations in the area, provides services to individuals and families affected by behavioral health issues or developmental disabilities.

“If I look back over my career, I like helping people who I think are doing good work,” he said. “I may not be going with food shipments to the Horn of Africa, but I’m helping people send those shipments. I’m not doing therapy for someone with substance abuse or addiction, but I’m helping a clinician do that work.”

After Messiah, Smoker spent three years with Goodville Mutual Casualty Company in New Holland, Pennsylvania.

Started in 1926, the company was moving into the digital world and Smoker was laying the infrastructure, using a mid-range IBM and a thick binder-filled cabinet stocked with programming manuals.

“Basically, I looked around and if we needed a program, I wrote it,” he said. “I wrote programs that handled policies, insurance information, and claims. Remember the Internet was there, but not available to everyone, so what you needed, you created yourself.”

In 1990, Smoker joined Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), working in the computer services department in Akron, Pennsylvania. He was there for 12 of the next 13 years.

By chance, he became the first computer services manager for SELFHELP Crafts, an MCC venture that supported international artisans (SELFHELP Crafts eventually became Ten Thousand Villages, which now employs a full-service IT department, including Rick Rutt ‘84, as explained on p. 23).

In 2003, LeVon and wife Cindy, who had also worked with MCC, moved to Harrisonburg. With Cindy working in EMU’s development office (she is its office coordinator), LeVon decided to attend seminary, where he earned a master's of religion in 2006 and was a stay-at-home dad to their son, then in middle school (now an EMU junior).

“I really wanted to know more about peace theology,” Smoker said. “I had gotten into enough debates and arguments in my church about why we should be embodying this theology rather than making excuses for causing death and destruction that I really wanted to study it,” Smoker said.

18 | crossroads | fall/winter 2014-15

LeVon Smoker has rounded out his professional life as a computer specialist with a master's degree of religion from Eastern Mennonite Seminary. Given that he actively questions the military policies of the U.S., "I really wanted to know about peace theology."

“I wrote my thesis on the conflict between the American narrative and the Gospel narrative and how words like ‘freedom’ and ‘sacrifice,’ so prevalent in the Gospel narrative, are used and abused in the American nationalistic narrative.”

Smoker says his seminary work has informed his involvement at Park View Mennonite Church more than it has his current position, but it’s clear that he, as well as the many other computer specialists involved with non-profit or not-for-profit work profiled in this magazine, seeks valuesdriven engagement with their professional skills.

His current position as IT specialist is a generic title, Smoker says, that denotes flexibility. Basically, he writes programs for whatever is needed by the community services board. “I write a script, extract the data, convert that data to files for various clinicians who would be interested or affected, and write a report,” he said, adding that he takes an occasional turn at the “helpdesk.”

Smoker calls programming “a sophisticated way to be lazy and look productive,” but this definition is slightly tongue in check. When he finds himself doing something over and over, he says his response is to “write a script so the computer does it for me.”  — Lauren Jefferson

IT

FROM SOFTWARE TO 3D CARRIAGE WHEELS WHEN ASKED WHAT HE DOES IN HIS SPARE TIME, Lynn Roth ’99 mentions his 3D printer, home built with the help of open source plans. He’s printed “doodads,” his catch-all word for a variety of objects to replace, repair or decorate things around the house for his wife, Anita. For his equine-crazy daughters, Kate and Leah, he generates 3D horsethemed items, such as carriage wheels.

At work in Wauseon, Ohio, Roth is just as multi-faceted. He is director of information technology with Solana, a company that provides business management software and related IT support services to agencies that serve people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Roth has been with the company since 2003. (He worked at Jenzabar after graduation for two years and then in Wauseon, with Fulton County Health Center, for one year before joining Solana as a network administrator and software developer.)

Solana serves more than 130 providers in 23 states (one of its Virginia-based customers is Pleasant View home in Broadway, a ministry of the Virginia Mennonite Conference). The company is owned by Sunshine (formerly Sunshine Children’s Home), a non-profit, faith-based service provider for the developmentally disabled in northwest Ohio. The company was started in 1997

by Lynn Miller, a Hesston and Goshen graduate who developed the ProviderPro software that is the basis of the company’s line.

Roth, who studied at Hesston College before transferring to EMU as a junior, enjoys the variety in his work. “Being a part of a small company, and working on the IT and programming side, really keeps things interesting,” he said. “I like to do all of it, but it’s hard to have a wide

Lynn Roth '99 is director of information technology with Solana, an Ohio company that provides business management software and related IT support services to agencies that serve people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

scope any more with how much there is to know about everything now. This role allows me to do some of each.”

A constant challenge for Solana’s clients is managing data specific to their needs, ranging from the usual business basics such as human resources and payroll, to more specific tracking of billing information, fundraising, client demographics and incident reports.

“We work with our clients to help them find more efficient ways to do their business,” Roth said. “That may be something as simple as adding electric time clocks instead of handwritten paper time sheets, so they can digitally track everything they are doing. We make our software as easy to use as possible, and the trainings short and simple to accommodate staff turnover.”

Recently, Roth has led the implementation of a virtualized data center that allows for upgrading hardware and handling hardware failure with little or no downtime, and a secondary data center that would function if the Wauseon site experienced a major disaster. He’s also helped design single-page web applications that “work on any device from a phone, tablet, or PC with a load balanced back-end” to accommodate new growth.

“We’re always developing new products or improving older products, designing new things and looking ahead to technologies we want to work on in the next few years,” Roth said, in words that encapsulate his creative and technical endeavors, from software to 3D facimiles of carriage wheels.  — Lauren Jefferson www.emu.edu | crossroads | 19

photo by jon styer Due to a stroke of bad luck at EMU – which turned into good luck in the end – John Swartzentruber '85 spent his senior year working on Apple IIe computers. This put him at the vanguard of the coming PC revolution.

IN DEFENSE OF LEARNING WEIRD STUFF IN COLLEGE RUNNING A POWER PLANT effectively requires keeping tabs on an awful lot of data relating to fuel consumption, power output, weather conditions, grid demand, etc. & etc. And in turn, keeping tabs on all this data effectively requires clever software that allows users to visualize and understand what might otherwise be a confounding torrent of raw information.

John Swartzentruber ’85 has been working on that very sort of software with a company called OSIsoft for the past eight years. Swartzentruber is a development lead, working out of the company’s Philadelphia office. He leads a team working on next iterations of the data analysis software, while coordinating with other team leaders, helping to plan release cycles, recruiting new staff and consulting with clients – power plants aren’t the only ones; many different industries have lots of data to manage – to improve the software’s “user experience design.”

An ideal user experience would render its designers invisible. When programs are working smoothly, doing what they’re supposed to, people don’t spend 20 | crossroads | fall/winter 2014-15

time thinking about why that’s the case. grammer? Go down the rabbit hole with “We strive to be unappreciated, almost,” something weird or obscure. Diversify Swartzentruber says. “If people don’t your toolbox. notice the software, you’re doing your “It’s important to think in a different job right.” kind of way, to try something completely Accomplishing that often requires out- different,” he says. of-the-box thinking; new challenges keep Between Swartzentruber’s junior and things interesting. senior years, EMU’s nascent computer “It’s not just rote,” he says. “You really science program suffered something of a have a lot of creative flexibility to figure setback: its PDP-11 – the machine that out the best way to get there.” every computer student shared time on – Thirty years ago, when Swartzentruber died. (The PDP-11 was a “minicomputer,” was working on his computer science an amusingly dated description in this minor at EMU (a major wasn’t available smartphone era.) yet), he took a class called “Programming That meant Swartzentruber spent Languages,” during which longtime his senior year working on Apple IIe computer science professor Joe Mast ’64 computers, which turned out to be at the assigned something involving a fairly vanguard of the coming PC revolution, esoteric language known as LISP. It was and which ultimately meant that the dea toughie – so difficult, in fact, that Mast mise of the PDP-11 was actually a stroke eventually cancelled the assignment. of good fortune for students affected by Inspired by the challenge, though, Swart- the loss. zentruber buckled down and kept at it “In a lot of ways, I felt very well preand finally came up with a solution. pared [for work after college],” he says.

LISP isn’t something he actually uses “We sort of got into the PC world a little anymore, but the appreciation it taught quicker.”  — Andrew Jenner him for approaching problems from new angles has. Thinking of becoming a pro-

IT

DAN SHENK-EVANS ’92 characterizes his career in technology as “falling backwards” into God’s calling. For years, every position he sought in direct social ministry eventually led him reluctantly to a computer, where he would quickly solve IT problems and streamline organizational workflow.

“I wasn’t sure I would find meaningful work in computer science. I thought I should be in direct service, and I tried to find a way to do that kind of work, but it wasn’t what I was best at,” said Shenk-Evans.

Now director of information technologies at the Capital (D.C.) Area Food Bank, Shenk-Evans oversees the technological systems within a new 123,000-square-foot warehouse and office that provide food to more than 500 partner agencies, which in turn feed 478,000 people in the Washington D.C. metro area. His goal is to develop technology as a strategic asset so that more hungry adults and children can be reached.

And while he may not be meeting those hungry people face-to-face every day, Shenk-Evans says his work is enriching and fulfilling. “At some point, I’ve decided to be at peace with the idea that I’m a technologist,” he said. “That is how I serve. It took me 15 years to be able to say that: I am good at this. I’m not a spokesman or a fundraiser. I’m a missionfocused technologist and this is my contribution to society.”

Now Shenk-Evans can tell his story of “running away from computers” with a sense of humor. In his first year of Mennonite Voluntary Service (MVS), he turned down a computer teaching position in Jamaica in favor of an agency liaison position at the Capital Area Food Bank.

“Almost immediately, someone was programming a custom inventory management system and he needed help,” Shenk-Evans said. “Within a few weeks, I was the database administrator.”

At the end of his first MVS year, he requested a different part-time position and was placed in a job referral program at the Spanish Catholic Center. “Again, I was trying to get away from computers, but I have a tendency to want to make things as efficient as possible, so I developed a database so they could track applicants, jobs, and employers.”

In the ensuing years, Shenk-Evans earned a master’s of divinity at Duke University, which included taking a restorative justice course at EMU, and did a two-year stint as executive director of a Habitat for Humanity affiliate. There, his true aptitudes emerged.

“No matter what I did at this small nonprofit, the IT work always fell on me,” he said. “I spent two years automating our office to make our organization more efficient. I set up the first email system, [and] the first network, and implemented a database to track our mortgages.”

Finally, a friend pointed out that his strengths – admin-

photo by jon styer

Falling Backwards Into God’s Calling

Dan Shenk-Evans '92: At some point, I’ve decided to be at peace with the idea that I’m a technologist.

That is how I serve. It took me 15 years to be able to say that: I am good at this. I’m not a spokesman or a fundraiser. I’m a mission-focused technologist and this is my contribution.

istrative and IT experience with nonprofits – would be useful at his company, Community IT Innovators. From 2000 to 2010, Shenk-Evans was a senior consultant with CITI (described further on p. 12). Then he returned to the Capital Area Food Bank as its first full-time IT director. Shenk-Evans now supervises a staff of three: a geographic information systems specialist, an information systems manager, and a network administrator.

Asked what advice he would give others following in his footsteps, Shenk-Evans said: For a long time, I had a narrow definition of what meaningful work was. I thought direct service was the most important way to help. Then when I tried to do it, I found out that I wasn’t very good at it. I had other skills. If you’re trying to do something that is outside your true skill set, you won’t be as effective at your work. Keep your mind and heart open to different ways to serve. Keep in mind that you’ll only be happy if you use your gifts to the good. Try to find the intersections between what the world needs, your gifts and God’s calling.  — Lauren Jefferson

www.emu.edu | crossroads | 21

photo by jon styer Working with Real Estate Digital, Darren Kipfer '96 specializes in teaching real estate agents how to use technology.

TEACHING HOW TO SELL IF YOU’RE A REAL ESTATE AGENT IN 2014, having a website isn’t an option.

It’s a must. That can be challenging, though, because you may well be about 56 years old – the average real estate agent’s age in 2014 – and you’ve probably been in the business since long before “website” was a part of the vocabulary.

That’s where Darren Kipfer ’96 comes in. A regional sales director for Real Estate Digital, Kipfer spends nearly all his time on the road selling customizable websites and related software that allow real estate agents to focus on the core parts of their business.

“Most real estate agents are not computer programmers, nor should they be,” said Kipfer. “Their business is a people and relationships business. I can help them use these sometimes-complicated tools to further their business. To me, it’s about helping others get what they want, and I find that very rewarding.”

After EMU, Kipfer spent three years as a second-grade teacher before his growing interest in technology led him to an 22 | crossroads | fall/winter 2014-15

instructor role with a software company and, since 2005, into technology sales.

He’s been with Real Estate Digital since 2011, and works in numerous states from his home base in suburban Washington D.C. On paper, Kipfer’s job is selling things.

But he considers himself more of a teacher than a salesman, and looks back on his education at EMU and subsequent teaching experience as ideal preparation for what he’s doing now.

“It’s been a huge benefit to have that background,” he said. “I educate about using technology to improve processes, extend marketing and grow business … and I find it exciting to take something that can be complicated and explain it in a way that can be easily understood by anyone, at any level.”

Kipfer’s teacher-like approach to sales has been a successful one; he’s racked up six Top Salesperson of the Year awards with several companies and led all sales staff nationally for 59 of the past 64 months.

Sometime around 1995, Kipfer taught himself rudimentary HTML and, from the computer labs, put together a “very basic” website that was hosted on EMU’s server – making him, to his knowledge, one of its very first students to have a personal site. He can’t remember everything that was on it, but knows it did include some information about Canada, where he grew up as a hockey nut and Wayne Gretzky’s biggest fan.

He still plays ice hockey twice a week and goes to every Washington Capitals game he can. In 2007, after one of his first successful years in tech sales, he made good on one of his lifelong dreams: Wayne Gretzky Fantasy Camp. (He went again in 2013.) Once, he recalls, chuckling, when Gretzky took the ice with Kipfer’s team, the two flew down the rink together on a two-on-one. Gretzky’s pass set him up perfectly in front of an open net, but Kipfer shot it wide. No matter. He’d skated with The Great One.  — Andrew Jenner

photo by jon styer

IT

Rick Rutt '84 began handling and extracting data for research projects at the University of Alabama in Birmingham while doing voluntary service with Eastern Mennonite Missions. Now he's at Ten Thousand Villages.

One of 8 Doing I.T. at Ten Thousand Villages EACH HOLIDAY, RICK RUTT ’84 and his family add an ornament from Ten Thousand Villages to their Christmas tree.

This year, 14 ornaments from different countries hang from its branches, a sign of Rutt’s commitment to the business and its values. When Rutt purchases gifts for himself and his family, he leans toward Indonesian crafts. He spent his childhood there while his parents, Clarence '53 and Helen '54 Rutt, served with Mennonite Central Committee.

Ten Thousand Villages, too, has mission roots. It was founded in 1946 by Edna Ruth Byler, wife of an MCC administrator, during a trip to Puerto Rico. Still a nonprofit partner of MCC, the company is a fair trade organization that brokers artisanal crafts from people around the world desirous of fair and dignified ways of supporting themselves.

Working mainly with inventory and accounting systems, Rutt customizes both to meet the business’s changing needs. He designs reports and extracts data, as well as providing troubleshooting services.

“A tremendous amount of information is needed to import goods from 30 different countries and then distribute them to almost 80 branded retail stores and other wholesale accounts,” Rutt said. “We would not be able to do what we do without computers and the programs that run on them.”

He is one of eight people in the company’s IT department

(see p. 18 for a profile of alumnus LeVon Smoker, who was the first IT employee for SELFHELP Crafts of the World, as the organization was known until 1996).

Rutt actually had little computer training at EMU, arriving on campus when the technology was in its infancy in the early 1980s. Attracted to the rigor and discipline of the hard sciences, Rutt double-majored in chemistry and math (his non-Euclidean geometry course was what really taught him to “think outside the box,” he remembers). His two computer courses were electives in an otherwise busy schedule.

But when doing voluntary service with Eastern Mennonite Missions at the University of Alabama in Birmingham, he began handling and extracting data for research projects and when his year of service ended, he was hired at the university, eventually becoming a programmer. “They were glad to have someone who understood the nature of the research, even though I didn’t have a degree in programming.”

Six years later, he was still at University of Alabama when he met his future wife, Michelle, also working on a voluntary service assignment. Together, they ran a Ten Thousand Villages festival sale each December for five years.

In 2000, wanting their two children closer to both sets of grandparents, the Rutts moved back to Lancaster County and Rutt began work at Ten Thousand Villages. Both daughters attend Lancaster Mennonite High School. Katie, 17, is a senior and Joy, 14, is a freshman.

The Rutts attend Landisville Mennonite Church. Rick, a former Sunday school teacher and superintendent, recently began serving as assistant treasurer.  — Lauren Jefferson

www.emu.edu | crossroads | 23

photo by jon styer

4

Philip Horst '76 centers his small company, Integral Design Software, on the values of environmental stewardship, a holistic approach to spirituality, and improving others’ quality of life.

I.T. ENTREPRENEURS STARTING IN REFUGEE CAMPS Philip Borkholder’s ’89 journey to information technology began by majoring in fields that had little to do with computer science: biology and international agricultural development.

This led to a five-year stint with Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) shortly after graduation in 1989. Borkholder spent one year in Honduras and four in El Salvador, where he handled computer matters in refugee camps.

Teaching himself from books with help from a local university professor, Borkholder converted information stored in gunny sacks and written on cardboard boxes into electronic files. Through his work, food distribution and peace negotiations became more reliable.

After returning to the States, Bork24 | crossroads | fall/winter 2014-15

holder wryly noted that “MCC ruins you” in that he didn’t want to settle into working for the typical employer. After cycling through two employee roles, he became an independent, self-employed software developer in Michigan. Never foreseeing himself in this field as a young man, Borkholder says that each step along the way has opened another door towards his career.

Borkholder encourages those interested in starting a business to “just go for it!”

SUPPORTING HUMANITARIAN PROGRAMS Like Philip Borkholder, Philip Horst ’76 – who is president and chief technology officer of Integral Design Software in Pennsylvania – has spent time with Mennonite Central Committee. He says

that his “career choices have been shaped by values that are rooted in significant ways from my time at then-EMC.” Those values include environmental stewardship, a holistic approach to spirituality, and improving others’ quality of life. Integral Design Software applies these values by serving organizations that offer international relief and development programs. For example, their program “PlanWin” manages data for humanitarian programs to better organize, communicate and fundraise.

Horst founded the company in 2008.

The staff consists of himself, his son, and a few others doing contract work. The small scale of the operation means Horst does “everything and anything that needs to be done,” even when this includes new challenges and skills. “I can learn

photo by Abigail Shelly

IT whatever I need in order to do my work,” says Horst.

Horst encourages potential entrepreneurs to have foresight: “I would say to be prepared to be always on, both in terms of responsibility and needing to get things done. Realize you probably can’t really anticipate what’s ahead.

Find some key people you can trust and collaborate with, even if it is informally.

And think a second time if you really want to do this – then have fun.”

TURNING SCHOOL EXPERIENCE INTO BUSINESS In 1986, Paul Shelly ’89 and Kevin Baer ’90 lived on the first floor of the Oakwood dorm. Their friends group remained close post-college, gathering for yearly golf trips. This friendship laid the groundwork for what would later become Educational Leadership Solutions.

For Shelly, information technology is his second career. His first was being a public school educator. After graduating from EMU, he and wife Lisa Zendt Shelly (also an ’89 grad) moved to Meridian, Mississippi, where he was a public school educator for eight years.

Similarly, Baer spent his first three years after graduation working in Meridian, living in an intentional community (a shared house) with Shelly and three others. They attended Jubilee Mennonite Church, then pastored by J. Daryl Byler ’79, MA ’85 (now a top EMU administrator with a UVA law degree).

Shelly and his family later moved a couple of hours north to the Tupelo Public School District, where he was named the 2003 “Administrator of the Year.”

Shelly’s 15 years in public education “coincided with technology becoming part of the classroom, giving me a chance to become an ‘expert’ as technology progressed,” he explains. As an administrator, Shelly wanted to streamline curriculum planning and student assessment in a customizable way.

In the early 2000s, Shelly contacted Baer for technical advice on installing and distributing software for other school administrators. “This contact was the starting point for the living room-based endeavor that within about a year turned into ELS,” says Baer, who now functions as the company’s chief technology officer. The company now

Paul Shelly '89 and Kevin Baer '90 first got to know each other living on the first floor of Oakwood dormitory. They then shared a house in Meridian, Mississippi. Now they live 900 miles from each other, but share ownership of a business, Educational Software Solutions.

has software in over 90% of Mississippi’s school districts.

Problem solving, rather than entrepreneurship, is what drove the two to start ELS. “Business never had any appeal to me while in college,” Shelly says. “If I remember correctly, I think I got a C in the only business course I ever took. But I have always enjoyed building things and figuring out shortcuts.”

While Baer had a business administration minor with his computer science major, he too did not intend to become an entrepreneur. Instead, Baer says that professionals should always be on the lookout for ways to improve their output, which could become “the seed for a service or product that some day becomes the core of a business.”

In an arena where change occurs quickly, an adaptive mind is necessary. “A business like ours seems like it is always one year away from extinction if we make the wrong guess as to what the next trend will be,” says Shelly.

In light of such a cutthroat field, Baer measures their success based on “how pleased and satisfied our customers are with how they interact with our software and services.” He is rewarded by the absence of bureaucracy, and the flexibility for developers to develop and decide software function rather than “tending to process and procedures.” On that note of creative freedom, Baer advises aspiring enterprisers to “not be afraid of trying something new when opportunities arise.”  — Randi B. Hagi www.emu.edu | crossroads | 25

photos by michael sheeler Craig Shoemaker '78 is responsible for the functioning of the computer systems in two schools in Harrisonburg.

A LITTLE BIT OF EVERYTHING IN SCHOOLS' I.T. IF A COMPUTER GLITCH threatens to derail something like a state-required proficiency test at Harrisonburg (Virginia) High School, Craig Shoemaker’s phone is bound to start ringing. “[Teachers] get anxious,” he said, chuckling. “I’m the one they try to get ahold of.”

A computer resource technician with Harrisonburg City Public Schools, Shoemaker (’78) likens his job during the school year to firefighting, swooping in to sort things out whenever someone can’t log into their computer or get their projector to behave. Shoemaker is responsible for one high school and one middle school in the city – though these days, he’s able to fix lots of problems remotely without leaving his office.

During the summers and other calmer times, Shoemaker also keeps the schools’ computers and other devices, like iPads, 26 | crossroads | fall/winter 2014-15

up-to-date and in good working order.

In neighboring Rockingham County Public Schools, Obe Hostetter ’00 has a slightly different role as an instructional technology resource teacher. Though he also gets involved in technological troubleshooting, he visits all the division’s 24 schools to train teachers on how to better use technology in their classrooms, and sometimes co-teaches technologyenhanced lessons with them. A recent example: teaching a kindergarten class how to scan QR codes with iPads.

“I enjoy the teaching part, seeing the kids getting excited [about technology],” said Hostetter, who spent his first five years after college teaching elementary and middle school before going down the technology path.

One of the tricky technology-related issues that comes up in school settings is the fact that after Hostetter’s lesson on QR codes, those kindergartners may well

be more adept at using them than many of their teachers.

“They’re not as comfortable, because they have not grown up with it,” says Shoemaker, of teachers who began their careers before computers had so thoroughly infiltrated education.

While younger teachers, as a rule, don’t tend to be as intimidated by technology, there’s a flipside. Doug Moyer ’91, a systems technician for the Warren County (Virginia) Public Schools, tells of a young teacher whose Smart Board went out of service and was thrown into a tizzy by the prospect of resorting to primitive substitutes like the markerboard.

Moyer and Shoemaker both spent some time in the business world before getting into school technology, and both say they enjoy the generally lowerpressure school atmosphere. Computer emergencies happen both places, but the stress and aggravation usually aren’t as great in education.

“It has its moments of intensity, but it’s not nearly as great, and I appreciate that part of it,” said Shoemaker.

Mike Stoltzfus ’98 also began his IT career in private business, beginning with CMDS (now Jenzabar; see story p. 15) after graduating with a computer information systems degree. He then spent several years handling IT for Harman Construction, a company that has worked on numerous projects at EMU

IT

over the years, including the ongoing renovations of the Suter Science Center.

While he worked for Harman, Stoltzfus also ran his own web hosting business on the side. One of his clients was Eastern Mennonite School (EMS), which created a full-time IT position and hired Stoltzfus to fill it in 2008.

With just under 400 students in grades K-12, the school’s IT needs are modest enough that Stoltzfus handles most technology-related issues (Andrew Gascho ’09 assists him, and teaches digital communication classes at EMS).

Those range from systems maintenance to troubleshooting to repairs to keeping up with the rapidly changing digital world by planning things like a Chromebook-for-every-student initiative that the school is exploring.

“That’s something that really attracts me about working at a place where there isn’t a huge technology infrastructure,” Stoltzfus said. “I can be involved in all those different things…. I enjoy seeing the whole picture.”

(Since starting at EMS, Stoltzfus’s job has expanded well beyond that whole IT picture; now the director of business affairs, he also oversees school finances and a few other operational matters.)

There’s never a time when there’s not something new to check out. With a relatively tight budget to be conscious of, for example, Stoltzfus has been exploring opportunities offered by open source software.

“I really enjoy learning new things.

That’s one thing that I’ve always enjoyed about technology – it’s always changing,” said Stoltzfus. “As you learn about things, you realize more and more how much you don’t know.”

Like Stoltzfus, Jon Harder ’82 also works as a technology generalist for a small school system, handling “pretty much anything to do with technology” for Mountain Lake (Minnesota) Public Schools.

In addition to all the usual school troubleshooting and software updating, Harder has been able to put his programming background to good use as the schools’ technology coordinator. When a need was identified for a computerbased method for staff to reserve rooms

Andre Hertzler '92, Ben Brunk '97, and Obe Hostetter ’00 all work in information technology in support of the Rockingham County (Va.) public school system.

Mike Stoltzfus '98 moved from the business sector to Eastern Mennonite School in 2008.

or vehicles to use, Harder couldn’t find existing software that fit the bill. Instead, he created his own web-based application that’s now in use. It’s the kind of thing that’s kept the job interesting for the past 14 years (prior to which, he was a software engineer in the Twin Cities).

“I guess I’m a real problem solver,” he said. “It’s always fulfilling to run into new challenges and figure out how to do something.”

When Harder was at EMU, tinkering with the mainframe computer that used to be in the old administration building or the few really early Apples that belonged to the psychology department, he had no clue that computers were going to become such a thing. The Internet

as it exists now wasn’t something anyone could conceive of.

That makes it hard to guess as to what sorts of technologies people like him will be troubleshooting in schools in decades to come. Fewer keyboards and more spoken commands, he suspects.

Hostetter concurs on the voiceinterfacing thing. 3-D printers are coming, too. Maybe “wearables” like Google Glass will make their way into classrooms eventually. Whatever it is, it’s bound to be something that seems hard to imagine right now.

“It is pretty amazing what all we can do now that just a couple years ago wasn’t possible,” he said.  — Andrew Jenner www.emu.edu | crossroads | 27

Roundup of Alums in I.T. More than 200 graduates work in the information technology field, according to EMU’s alumni database.

Crossroads reporters interviewed about a quarter of these alumni for their histories and insights, found in nearby articles. Through emailed queries and Internet searches, we found updates for the alumni listed below (compiled by Kara Lofton ’14). Crossroads would be pleased to run a supplemental list of IT alumni in the spring of 2015. If you were inadvertently left out of the current series of reports on alumni in the IT field, please email your name, address, job title and place of IT work to Crossroads@emu.edu.

28 | crossroads | fall/winter 2014-15

photo by jon styer

IT

RICH LANDES '71 // Earned master’s degree in computer science, Northern Illinois University, 1974. // Worked in IT for The Hershey Company for 24 years before retiring in 2002. // Spent two years in Mennonite Voluntary Service in Colorado, assisting various organizations with IT and computer classes. // Now contracts for several businesses that don’t require full-time IT staff; primary client is Mennonite Disaster Service. // “I am blessed to be working for an organization which is dedicated to helping people rebuild their homes and restore their lives in the name of Christ.”

JIM ALDERFER ’80 Technical Lead Vanguard, an investment management company JOHN BOZER ’89 Director of Information Systems and Data Security Sarasota (FL) Memorial Healthcare System GREG FEENSTRA ’94 IT Manager Foley Inc., Caterpillar dealer JASON GARBER ’05 Software Engineer and Co-founder PromptWorks, a custom software development company LYNDA GINGERICH ’89 Senior Manager, Project & Programs Symantec, which makes security, storage, backup, and availability software JOHN GLICK ’73 Systems Developer Everence, a Christian, member-owned financial services organization

JAMES GOOD ’89 IT Manager NST LLC, a holding company that exists to support other small companies in the group MARY GOOD ’77 Technical Writer Dragonfly Editing, which provides copywriting and editing services JOEL KAUFFMAN ’95 Office Manager, implementing electronic health records and practice Oakhill Medical Associates CRYSTAL KNOTT’ 09 Technical Support Manager County of Augusta (VA) JEREMY LEICHTY ’98 Project Manager DataStrong, providing consulting services to other businesses MARK LONGACHER ’91 Computer Systems Analyst Douglas County (CO) Assessor – with a

website that is used by the public to look at the property data in Douglas County KIM MASSIE ’10 Master Data Analyst Hollister Inc., a medical supply company JEFF MCNEAL, MBA ’03 Manager, IT Security Rosetta Stone, a software company that develops technology-driven language, literacy and brain-fitness solutions CHRIS MILLER ’99 Director, Global IT Infrastructure and Operations Keystone Foods, a global food services company KEVIN MILLER ’96 Network Specialist Goodville Mutual Casualty Company JEREMY NAFZIGER ’91 Senior Functional Analyst Korestone Technologies, LLC – provides quality software development, systems integration, and project management services to government clients

www.emu.edu | crossroads | 29

photo by Carolyn Lagattuta / UCSC

AARON SPRINGER ’13 // Springer is in a combined master's-PhD program in computer science at the University of California, Santa Cruz. // At EMU, Springer was an honors student who ran cross-country and track, worked as an academic tutor, and received recognition in an international contest involving math modeling. // He was mentored by professor Dee Weikle, with a PhD in the field (see p. 60). // He first interned at VistaShare (p. 16), then worked there for a year after graduation. // His sister, Rachel, is a junior at EMU; his brother, Jesse, graduated in 2011 with a degree in psychology.

ENEA RRAPOKUSHI ’07 Senior Content Manager SNL Financial, which provides news, financial data and analysis on various business sectors COURTNEY RYAN ’13 Data Analyst Approved Colleges, a resource for adult learners to research, discover and compare online education institutions, degree programs, professional development and continuing education courses, and skills assessment tests DELMER SCHLABACH ’74 Data Center Manager Mennonite General Hospital in Puerto Rico

30 | crossroads | fall/winter 2014-15

ERIC SHENK ’83 Software Engineer Intuit, a software company that develops financial and tax preparation software and related services for small businesses, accountants and individuals KRISTIN SHOEMAKER ’06 Customer Care Manager Vision Technology Group, a network infrastructure company working with educational and business environments DENVER STEINER ’04 Director of Information Services BeneTrac, which uses technology to streamline employee benefit administration

YAO TSIKATA ’97 Manager, Solutions Engineering Verizon Enterprise Solutions STEVEN TWOMBLY ’09 Senior Systems Analyst Genworth Financial, centering on financial security DAVID WAYBILL ’14 Software Analyst/Developer Wyse Enterprises Inc., a software management system designed for camps RANDY YODER ’83 Senior IT Technologist Jonson Controls Inc., a global diversified technology and industrial leader

photo courtesy of travis duerksen

IT

Travis Duerksen '12 (right) is on a year-long voluntary service term at JKI Maranatha Church in Ungaran, Indonesia.

Duerksen is a digital media specialist with the church, pictured here with others attending a YouthTeen service.

From I.T. to Digital Media Volunteer in Indonesian Church ON ANY AVERAGE DAY, Travis Duerksen ’12 shares breakfast with his host family before setting out by bike through the hectic streets of Ungaran, Indonesia, to the JKI Maranatha Church, where he’s serving a one-year volunteer assignment through the Mennonite Mission Network’s Journey program. As a digital media specialist, Duerksen’s mornings are often filled with web design work of some sort; afternoons frequently involve photo or video shoots to prepare material for a Sunday service or one of Maranatha’s many outreach efforts.

Each of the church’s three services – the first of which begins 6 a.m. – is attended by around 150 people. On Sundays, Duerksen usually takes pictures and videos of the various services, edits them immediately afterwards and then helps push them out through the church’s ambitious social media operation.

“That’s a very big thing. That’s a lot of their outreach.

Instagram and Facebook are a much bigger thing here than at home,” said Duerksen, who majored in digital media at EMU. (Indonesians are some of the world’s most enthusiastic users of social media.)

The stuff he puts out from the Sunday services are typically intended for other church members; the bigger projects – like the Christmas video he was planning with other church staff in late November when Crossroads reached him

by Skype – are intended for outreach to the broader community, the vast majority of whom are Muslim.

English is taught in schools, but not terribly widely spoken in Ungaran, making communication a challenge at times, despite Duerksen’s best efforts to get up to speed on Indonesian. And cultural barriers also sometimes present themselves as he works with church staff on various projects – certain emotions aren’t necessarily expressed and communicated in the same ways as they are in the United States “What I’ve really enjoyed is being quiet and just listening and experiencing how other people work and relate to other people in their lives,” he said. “I’m used to doing things myself in a very specific way, and being in a culture that’s a lot of times very, very far removed from what I’m used to has been fun.”

Before he went to Indonesia, Duerksen spent two years working in Kansas with the IT department at Hesston College. While his work now – recording sermons to post on Facebook, taking pictures for the church website, etc. – places him in a very different part of the digital realm, it’s also shown him how meaningful computer-oriented work of any kind enhances human connections.

“In digital media, you’re always trying to connect with someone through a medium. You’re trying to get someone to bring emotions to the surface through your work with a camera or video or audio.

"And, in a way, working with IT is similar because everyone calls the helpdesk with a certain problem. They’ll tell you what’s wrong, but a bit of the art of it is understanding why they’re having that problem, or what they really want that computer or bit of technology to do,” he said.

“Both of them are working with technology, but really they are about connecting with other people and practicing empathy.”  — Andrew Jenner

www.emu.edu | crossroads | 31

HONOR ROLL

OF DONORS

ON GIVING WITH ABANDONMENT AND GRATITUDE These are slightly edited excerpts from reflections offered by leading donors Charlotte '65 and Henry '67 Rosenberger to about 375 people at EMU’s annual donor appreciation banquet on Oct. 10, 2014.

PARENTAL MODELS OF GIVING Charlotte: My Graber family participated in building the community of faith and justice for the common good in the rural Mennonite farming community of Wayland, Iowa, where I grew up. As a young child, I remember my mother handing me a coin tied carefully in the corner of a handkerchief for me to put in the offering; she had experienced very hard times growing up during the Great Depression of 1930 in the dustbowl of Nebraska before there was any public assistance for anyone.

Henry: I learned early to save my money in dividend earning investments.

My Pop would say, “I’ll buy you 100 shares of PP&L and you can pay me back as you earn it!” I never had any money to spend because I was always paying back my Pop for all the stock he 32 | crossroads | fall/winter 2014-15

bought me! A friend in my adult years called that “contrived poverty.”

Charlotte: When Henry and I married and we began to live in his community in Pennsylvania, I discovered that his family lived in a closely observed “fish bowl.” The Rosenberger family was considered to be wealthy – no matter the generation – in contrast to the community where I had grown up where everyone was more or less in the same class.

Henry: Actually, I inherited a lot from my Pop, but it wasn’t money. In the first years of our marriage a development officer from EMC suggested we might give 10K to the annual fund. That is probably what my Pop gave. At the time our combined yearly salaries were less than 20K. Clearly EMC had high hopes for us!

LESSONS ALONG THE WAY Charlotte: Henry and I always agreed we should give in priority to our church, but in addition, Henry thought we should give to all the Mennonite endeavors and community organizations that solicited us. We gave what we could. We were often stretched.

Henry: When the company I founded, Rosenberger Cold Storage & Transport, reached a point, we started a foundation with a tithe of the company’s gross income: Henry & Charlotte Rosenberger Family Foundation. Our children were involved. We received grant requests from many organizations and we tried to please them all. Our giving was broad and mostly unfocused. We experienced the joy of giving as well as being overwhelmed and weary of more requests than we could honor. We learned later that this is called “checkbook philanthropy.” We still do some of this because we live in community, but our major gifts follow the mission we have chosen for our philanthropy.

When the company was sold in 1998, the advisor for our foundation suggested we get involved with The Rockefeller Philanthropy Workshop. We learned how to develop a mission statement for our giving and ways to focus our giving for the greatest impact and multiplier effect. We learned it was important to care about the health of the organization we were giving to. We learned that

photo by michael sheeler

2013 - 2014

if we focus our giving on places where our convictions and passions are and if we get deeply involved, energy and joy replaces the weariness. This approach has brought us together in our philanthropy; we each have different skills that broaden our discerning process.

The mission that we developed has three legs: (1) Anabaptist education; (2) land stewardship and local food production; (3) peace and justice.

Charlotte: We need to underscore that we have never in our entire lives reached a point at which giving is easy. And, making a commitment is often easier than writing the check. In response to the question “How much is enough?” even John D. Rockefeller replied, “A little more.”

what we have given or pledged to EMU. We often wish we had given it sooner, when we had more to give.

WHY WE STRONGLY SUPPORT EMU Charlotte: EMU combines so strongly all of our philanthropic passions: peace and justice, Anabaptist education, and land stewardship. Our largest, longest, and earliest gifts have gone to EMU. And this will continue. EMU was, after all, where we met, at a 1965 square dance, held off campus at Oakwood cabin. We received our education here and we still do: In May 2013 we were part of Dorothy Jean Weaver’s study tour to Israel/Palestine and it changed us profoundly, just as cross-cultural study changes EMU students.

Henry: Giving to EMU offers the ON GIVING EVEN WHEN IT HURTS greatest leverage, promise and impact, Henry: While Charlotte was on EMU’s where the investment has a multiplier board from 1991 to 2002, we made two effect. We experienced that leverage helpmajor commitments to the University ing Ted Swartz earn his arts and seminary Commons building fund. We sold a soft education from EMU and seeing him pretzel company in 1996 and decided launch his career in drama ministry to to give the total profit from that sale the Mennonite church and beyond. to EMU, because they said they really We cannot take along our money, or needed that new building. Several years need any, in the life to come. My Pop later, after we sold Rosenberger Cold used to say to his friends, “Do some Storage in 1998, we made a second major good while you’re living!” We supcommitment. port EMU’s vision for the next century, We kept this money invested until believing we must teach and share the EMU’s construction would begin. We love and mercy of the Jesus way – and no didn’t agree on this strategy. This was our longer partition the church and ourselves dialogue: into safe zones.

Char: “Henry, we’ve sold the company Charlotte: We believe that generous now. Let’s pay off our pledges.” giving to EMU represents investing into Henry: “But why now? It’s all invested: cutting edge world change, developing Cisco, Enron, Microsoft, World Com, moral conscience in the world, training Global Crossing – our advisor projects we “movers and shakers” who live as disciples could be worth $60 million in a few years. of Jesus Christ incarnate.

It will be easier to give it then.”

We anticipate each issue of Crossroads, Char: “The investments have already witnessing to the impact of our EMU increased amazingly! I think we should give alumni careers – outcomes of the long it now! Let’s pay it and get it finished.” historic vision of EMU leadership. We Henry: “We’ll be giving this fixed sum are very proud of our EMU alumni out of a growing portfolio; it’ll be a smaller throughout the world, as beacons of faith percentage in two years compared to 20% of and hope, as living examples of God’s our capital now. love and mercy.

Henry: Charlotte was right. The tech At this age in our lives, we believe that bubble crashed and our genius investour giving needs to include reducing ment advisors looked stunned – as we all our net worth, downsizing, investing for were in 2000 and 2008. We have worked future generations, like others did before for the past 12 years to fulfill those two us. At the end of life, the only wealth we major pledges out of a much smaller pot, have is what we have given forward to and we are happy to report that we are what we believe in.  almost there. We have never regretted

Donor Clubs EASTERN MENNONITE UNIVERSITY President’s Partners Unrestricted annual gifts of $5,000 and above Associates in Discipleship Unrestricted annual gifts of $1,000-$4,999 Blue and White Society Unrestricted annual gifts of $500-$999 Business and Professional Club Unrestricted annual gifts of at least $1,000 from Valley business donors Jubilee Friends Donors who have made provision for EMU in their estate plans EMU ATHLETICS Athletic Partners Annual gifts of $1,000 and above to University Fund - athletics Blue and White Society - Athletics Annual gifts of $500-$999 to University Fund - athletics EASTERN MENNONITE SEMINARY Aquila and Priscilla Partners Annual gifts of at least $500 John Wesley Partners United Methodist donors Annual gifts of at least $500 CENTER FOR JUSTICE AND PEACEBUILDING Partners in Peacebuilding Annual gifts of at least $1,000

www.emu.edu | crossroads | 33

EMU Finances at a Glance For the fiscal years ending June 30, 2014 and 2013

2013-14

2012-13

23,011,602

21,116,755

Contributions

5,240,735

5,293,758

Grants and contracts (government and nongovernment)

1,576,248

1,616,317

Auxiliary enterprises (such as room and board, apt. rentals, bookstore)

5,114,775

4,883,683

Other income (such as summer conference income, endowment earnings)

4,270,618

4,293,165

39,213,978

37,203,678

16,960,619

16,198,473

234,642

207,375

Academic support

2,873,578

3,049,092

Student services

5,805,181

5,441,461

995,076

983,768

Auxiliary enterprises

3,927,387

3,855,101

Institutional support

5,600,661

5,444,154

36,397,144

35,179,424

2,816,834

2,024,254

NON-OPERATING ACTIVITIES

3,092,933

1,471,913

Total change in net assets (operating and non-operating)

5,909,767

3,496,167

53,069,759

49,573,592

58,979,526

53,069,759

OPERATING REVENUES Tuition and fees (net of student financial aid)

Total revenue and gains

OPERATING EXPENSES/LOSSES Instruction Research

Public service programs

Total operating expenses Change in net assets from operations (the difference between operating revenues and operating expenses)

NET ASSETS Beginning

Ending

These figures have been summarized from audited statements. For a complete financial statement, email your request to: Crossroads@emu.edu.

58 | crossroads | fall/winter 2014-15

photo by April Jackson / LifeScapes Studio

mileposts

DANIEL ZOOK ’97 // Systems administrator, Lehman’s Hardware, Kidron, Ohio. // Hired almost 11 years ago as first full-time IT employee; now has three people working under him. // Recently helped lead deployment of new software package to run point of sale, call center, accounting, shipping and other systems. // Always seeking ways to use technology to gain efficiency. // Web sales account for nearly one-third of total.

Faculty & Staff David (Dave) King ‘76, director of athletics, Harrisonburg, VA, was honored with one of the distinguished service awards from Christopher Dock Mennonite High School. The award is based on mission or service involvement since graduation. Dave has spent his entire professional career in athletics and recreation. His philosophy: “Athletics is the avenue through which many young people develop themselves to their fullest potential. My passion has always been to see personal growth and development of lifetime skills in players, coaches, and community through the athletic experience.”

Jim Yoder ‘94, professor of biology, and Doug Graber Neufeld, professor of biology, Harrisonburg, VA, have a two-year grant funded by the National Fish and Wildlife Federation for stream restoration and riparian buffer work in the Bergton, VA, area. The grant is a collaboration between EMU’s biology department, its Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, Ecosystems Services LLC, the Shenandoah Valley Soil and Water Conservation District, and the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute. Students and faculty from biology and CJP are working together in the assessment part of the grant (measuring water qual-

ity, ecological health, and community social dynamics).

Nate Koser ‘02, MA ‘09 (counseling), assistant professor of counseling, Harrisonburg, VA, has established the Harrisonburg Center for Psychoanalysis.

The center began with the formation of a reading group addressing the question: What is a psychoanalytic clinic? Nate also delivered a paper presentation titled “Of Anguish and a Feast,” at the 12th annual conference of the Affiliated Psychoanalytic Workgroups, centering on the topic “On Desire.” He prepared another paper addressing the Lacanian and Freudian perspective on depressive states for the Lacanian Forum of Washington D.C.’s annual International Conference in early December.

Edwin Lehman, assistant director of the physical plant, Harrisonburg, VA, received the Certified Educational Facilities Professional (CEFP) credential.

The CEFP is a way to validate the unique knowledge and competency required of an accomplished professional in the educational facilities field.

Martha Eads, professor of language & literature, Harrisonburg, VA, along with composer Gwyneth Walker, has published the choral setting of “From Dusk to Dawn” from The Peacemakers, based on the autobiographical

Mighty Be Our Powers by Leymah Gbowee, MA ‘07 (conflict transformation). The music is available through ECS Publishing in Fenton, MO. Don Clymer, MA ‘08 (church leadership), assistant professor of language & literature, Harrisonburg, VA, co-authored a book with his sister, Sharon Clymer Landis, titled The Spacious Heart: Room for Spiritual Awakening. The book takes modern spirituality and turns it on its head to flesh out a Christian spirituality of emptiness. Through riveting stories and text grounded in Scripture, the book speaks to the deep cynicism of soul and despair that grip so many in this age.

1960-1969

Willard Helmuth ‘63, Harrisburg, NC, medical director of the Tree House Children’s Advocacy Center in Monroe, NC, has published a young adult novel about sexual abuse titled Climbing up to the Tree House. The story focuses on two girls: Lily, an American, and Antoinette, a Haitian. With compassion and sensitivity, it seeks to bring awareness and guidance to victims of sexual abuse.

1970-1979

James (Jim) Buller ‘75, Goshen, IN, guidance counselor at Bethany Christian

Schools (BCS), has been named interim head of school for BCS, effective Jan. 1, 2015.

Michael Kurtz ‘77, Oak Ridge, NC, published his latest book, MICHAEL’S MUSINGS: A Pastor Blogs on Life, in October 2014.

1980-1989

Jill Basinger ‘84 Mullet, Berlin, OH, joined Rea & Associates as a client service specialist. She splits her time between their New Philadelphia and Millersburg offices.

Elaine Hunsecker ‘89 Dunaway, Harrisonburg, VA, a psychotherapist at Sentara Hahn Cancer Center, completed courses at Duke Integrative Medicine to become an integrated health coach.

Elaine uses integrated health coaching with cancer patients and their caregivers by being a biofeedback practitioner, providing counseling, stress management care, and psychosocial education.

1990-1999

Stacy Atkins ‘93, Roanoke Rapids, NC, has been named chief financial officer at Southern Virginia Regional Medical Center in Emporia, VA. Stacy worked 10 years as a health care financial controller before being promoted to CFO.

www.emu.edu | crossroads | 59

Allison Rohrer ‘93 Kokkoros, Washington D.C., is now executive director and CEO of Carlow Rosario International Public Charter School.

Kirsten Nafziger '93 Parmer, McGaheysville, VA, has recently authored a book titled Rocktown Food. It is a 100-page, softbound publication highlighting Harrisonburg's local food culture, from restaurants and recipes to chefs and farmers. This publication is filled with stories and beautiful photographs that illustrate why downtown Harrisonburg is Virginia's first culinary district.

Dee Weikle, PhD, is an associate professor of computer science at EMU who was formerly an electrical engineer. (Photo by Kara Lofton)

Weikle: Electrial engineering to computer science pioneer In the male-dominated field of computer science, Dee Weikle is used to being in the minority. The associate professor of computer science at EMU can name all of her female students majoring in the field on the fingers of one hand.

One of those students, among the approximately 18% of women who will earn a computer and information science degree in the United States, is Jennifer Fawley, in the process of earning her second bachelor’s from EMU (her first is in environmental sustainability).

Weikle and Fawley together attended the October 2014 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing in Phoenix, Arizona, which attracted 7,500 women in STEM-related professions, particularly computer science.

At the convention, Fawley chose from a variety of sessions, workshops, and networking opportunities, from her particular interest of cybersecurity to data science, programming languages, cloud computing, wearable computing, hacking for social justice, and plenary sessions with technology executives from companies such as Google, Microsoft, Symantec, and Mozilla.

“Right now is a wonderful time for women in this profession,” Weikle said. “The field is changing so fast. If you’ve been out of the job market for a while, it’s OK, because, guess what? Everybody has to learn new things in this field.”

Weikle earned a PhD in computer science at the University of Virginia. She began her career journey with a bachelor’s of science in electrical engineering from Rice University. She subsequently worked as an engineer at Tracor Aerospace and then Motorola Semiconductor in Austin, Texas. In a mid-career shift, she focused at UVA on computer architecture with an emphasis on memory system analysis and design.

At EMU, she teaches a wide range of subjects, including “Introduction to Computer Science,” “Computer Architecture and Operating Systems,”and “Analysis of Algorithms.”

She is currently involved in computer architecture research attempting to characterize parallel programs. In addition, she has conducted research on workload characterization for parallel programs, educational initiatives in computer science, and the effect of computing technology on society. — Lauren Jefferson

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Dianne Warren ‘94, MA ‘04 (conflict transformation), Buckeye, AZ, began a career in the Maricopa County Library District. She works at the Northwest Regional branch in Surprise, AZ, as a library assistant. Dianne believes that conflict resolution begins with education and bridging the digital divide to minimize the economic and social inequalities in our society.

Lynda Brockington ‘95 Lutz, Charlottesville, VA, and her family recently returned from a missons trip to Nicaragua with Because We Care Ministries (BWCM), a Christian nonprofit organization with a mission to evangelize the lost. While there, they built houses, provided basic medical care, and testified to the town of Somotillo. Founded in 2000, BWCM has built many churches and houses, and has provided food and medical care to thousands. The Lutz family hopes to return to Nicaragua in the next couple of years.

Jonathan (Jon) Shenk ‘96, Goshen, IN, was nominated for the MutualBank BetterLife Award for his holistic medical care approach - treating the emotional and spiritual, as well as the physical needs of each patient.

Roscoe Johnson ‘97, North Chesterfield, VA, head coach at Atlee High School, was recently named the Washington Redskins High School Coach of the Week. The Redskins announce a “coach of the week” every week. Each coach chosen receives a $1,000 donation to the school’s football program, and a framed certificate signed by head coach Jay Gruden.

The nomination included this quote from the Atlee director of student activities: “Coach Johnson knows how to motivate and communicate well with his student-athletes. He is an amazing role model and works hard to help his players be successful on and off the field.”

Derek Yoder ‘98, Hesston, KS, is the new director of fund advancement at the Bluestem Communities of Kidron Bethel Village of North Newton, KS, and Schowalter Villa of Hesston, KS. He oversees fundraising for projects,

campaigns, and tax credits at both continuing-care retirement communities.

2000-2009

Kevin Gift ‘02, Essex, MD, accepted a call to be the senior pastor at First Baptist Church in Essex, MD. He and Laura Ward ‘02 Gift and their two children, Hallie and Xander, began their ministry in December 2014. Kevin will continue teaching courses offered online

by Liberty University. Laura will be closer to her doctors as she continues to battle gastroparesis disease, which requires a permanent feeding tube.

Nathanael Overly ‘02, Havertown, PA, is senior 401K account executive at Ascensus.

Manjrika (Manjri) Sewak, MA ‘02 (conflict transformation), New Delhi, India, has enrolled in the PhD program at the Nelson Mandela Center for Peace and Conflict Resolution at Jamia Millia University in New Delhi.

Micah Robinson ‘03, Strasburg, PA, was recently accepted to the Pennsylvania College of Osteopathic Medicine.

He is pursuing the doctoral program in clinical psychology, which will lead to a PsyD. Adam Starks ‘03, Pittsburgh, PA, founder and chairman of Urban Light Initiative, a nonprofit established for the purpose of providing stability and a 21st century education to homeless and at-risk youth in Pittsburgh, has recently published an e-book titled Broken Child, Mended Man. It is an unabashed account of his life that highlights how he overcame the odds from years of childhood neglect and foster care to graduation from college and beyond.

The paperback is slated for release in December 2015.

Joshua Suderman ‘03, Ada, MI, completed his medical residency and fellowship at the University of Michigan in June 2014 and began working at the Javery Pain Institute in Grand Rapids.

Benjamin (Ben) Wideman ‘04, State College, PA, is now the Anabaptist campus pastor for Penn State University in State College, PA. The position, funded by University Mennonite Church, includes overseeing a new student organization called 3rd Way Collective.

Sharon Kniss ‘06, South Bend, IN, is a security fellow at Partners for Democratic Change, an organization that works through a global network to support local leaders and create partnerships that transform conflict, strengthen democratic institutions, and achieve sustainable development.

Amy Umbel ‘06, Markleysburg, PA, owner of Fiddlehead Woodworking, was a design finalist in the Martha Stewart American Made contest for her handcarved kitchenware. She sustainably uses wood harvested from her family’s land to make beautiful, functional items

that are meant to be interacted with on a daily basis.

Kyle Mast ‘07, Canby, OR., is now the owner of Clarity Financial, LLC, a fee-only financial planning firm in Portland, OR. Bébhinn Egger ‘09, Front Royal, VA, was elected to the Front Royal Town Council on Nov. 4, 2014. She is the third woman in the history of the town to serve on the council. Her four-year term begins Jan. 1, 2015. Bébhinn will also continue her work as a Suzuki violin teacher in downtown Front Royal.

2010-

Mary Beth Spinelli, MA ‘10 (conflict transformation), Ontario, NY, is the restorative practices coordinator with the INSPIRE Initiative (Invested Neighbors Seeking Progress, Inspiration, Restoration & Empowerment). INSPIRE is the neighborhood arm of the Rochester Drug Free Streets coalition group through Ibero-American Development Corporation in Rochester, NY. Mary Beth recruits and trains residents from challenged neighborhoods to participate and lead INSPIRE’s restorative process.

Muhammah (Asad) Asadullah, MA ‘11 (conflict transformation), Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada, successfully defended his master's thesis at Simon Fraser University titled “Values of a reconciliation for Bangladesh’s independence war: a restorative justice and peacemaking criminology approach.”

Jerod Bontrager ‘11, Harrisonburg, VA, was recently hired as accounts payable specialist with Rosetta Stone. His duties include handling the company’s daily invoices and organizing payments.

Monika Burkholder ‘11, Norfolk, VA, is in her second year at Eastern Virginia Medical School for a master's in art therapy and counseling. Among her studies, she’s completed a number of internships where she practiced art therapy with a variety of populations. Of her experience thus far, she says, “It has been a challenging, but rewarding journey, and I have been excited to see the power of art to express, communicate, and heal people’s experiences.” Monika expects to graduate May 2015.

Ryan Wolz ‘11, Charlottesville, VA, is now a strength coach at Power Training.

As such, he is responsible for programming workouts, helping with technique, and coaching athletes in golf and rugby.

Adam Blagg, MDiv ‘12, Harrisonburg, VA, was recently appointed head pastor at Otterbein United Methodist Church, where he was a member before going into the ministry. Adam’s first order of business at Otterbein was getting to know the church members and regular attendees. “The best ministry and the best mission work stems from the passions of the congregation,” he says.

Katie Jantzen ‘12, Elkhart, IN, is a coordinator of Church Community Services’

Seed to Feed program, which began in 2012 in response to the need for local fresh produce in Elkhart County. Katie works with hundreds of volunteers from various ethnic, political, religious, and business backgrounds to provide good food to hungry people. Last year she helped Seed to Feed disperse 150,000 pounds of food to families in need. The harvest included fruits and vegetables from ten area gardens, 64,000 pounds of potatoes, and multiple donations from other farms and gardens. The program also received $50,000 in donations from other farmland proceeds, which help fund logistical support.

Justin King ‘12, Harrisonburg, VA, a government and world history teacher at East Rockingham High School, was one of 21 local teachers who received Gold Star awards from Working In Support of Education (WISE), an educational nonprofit dedicated to providing educational support services nationwide. Gold Star teachers must achieve a 90% pass rate in at least one of their classes on the WISE Financial Literacy Certification test.

Hannah Wenger ‘12 Richter, Souderton, PA, is an administrative assistant with Family Food, LLC, an organization that makes reliable nutrition information easily accessible by providing evidencebased nutrition counseling in convenient locations, such as the home or work settings.

Lois Walters, MA ‘13 (nursing), Drumore, PA, is a full time mental health instructor for Lancaster General Hospital’s associate nursing degree program.

She is also PRN at Philhaven Mental and a behavioral healthcare provider.

Brittney Wenger ‘13, Dayton, VA, is a therapeutic day treatment specialist at Crossroads Counseling Center.

Grace Yoder ‘14 Huxman, Moundridge, KS, joined the professional staff of Adams, Brown, Beran & Ball, a firm of certified public accountants.

Virginia (Ginny) Morrison, Grad.

Cert. ‘14 (conflict transformation), San Anselmo, CA, is president of Collaboration Specialists, an organization committed to the principle that conflicts can be healed, differences can be managed, and seemingly insurmountable distances can be bridged. Ginny is most interested in drawing out communities’ resilience and building on traditional practices. She works through conflict assessment, facilitation, training, mentoring, structured dialogue, system design, and building networks.

Brandon Waggy ‘14, formerly of South Bend, IN, began a one-year term of Mennonite Voluntary Service in Washington D.C., as an administrative and legal intern at Catholic Charities DC.

MARRIAGES

Lisa White ‘99 to Eddie Cameron, Nov. 1, 2014.

John Swartzendruber '79 was the mastermind behind one of the first intranets deployed in a major global corporation. (Photo by Matt Kiefer)

Swartzendruber pioneered early global intranet for Lilly Soon after graduating with a degree in chemistry, John Swartzendruber ’79 landed a job in the scientific research group of Eli Lilly and Company, one of the top pharmaceutical companies in the world. That’s where Swartzendruber says he got interested in computing, writing software for the Lilly X-Ray crystallography group.

He also began working with high-end scientific workstations and a Cray-2 Supercomputer as part of a broader Lilly computational chemistry initiative, carried out in conjunction with the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois.

Through this partnership Swartzendruber became familiar with a software project named “Mosaic” – the very first graphical web browser – and with Marc Andreessen, co-author of the software.

In 1993, Swartzendruber traveled to the NCSA to talk with Andreessen (who now serves on the boards of Hewlett-Packard and Facebook). Over a pizza dinner, Swartzendruber talked with Andreessen about the idea of an intranet within Lilly. “All he said was ‘cool,’ although in fairness he was busy eating at the time,” recalls Swartzendruber.

Back at Lilly, Swartzendruber worked for the next year to build web prototypes and to sell IT management on the concept.

This ultimately led to the deployment of one of the first intranets at a major corporation. Within 12 months of its release in 1995, ELVIS (or the “Eli Lilly Virtual Information Service”) extended across the global Lilly computer network, linking together 35,000 employees across 120 countries. Swartzendruber’s pioneering work was highlighted in Business Week, Information Week, and the Chicago Tribune, among other major media outlets.

“It was gratifying,” he says, “watching ELVIS grow the way it did. It was interesting and energizing to walk into a Lilly affiliate in Europe or Asia and see what they were doing with ELVIS.” Swartzendruber, who holds a master’s degree in computer science from Purdue University, retired from Lilly in 2009, but continues to work in the IT field, focusing on ubiquitous computing, system design and IT architecture.

He is currently an IT consultant with Apparatus, an Indianapolis-based IT consulting firm. One of his first responsibilities in 2009 was to help rebuild the computing infrastructure for post-bankruptcy Lehman Brothers so that regulators could dismantle the assets of the investment bank in as orderly and as fair a manner as possible. www.emu.edu | crossroads | 61

Jeremy Good ‘03 to Joanna Snyder, Aug. 16, 2014.

John III ‘14 and Ashley Skelly, Broadway, VA, Coleman Moore, June 27, 2014.

Chelsea Mast ‘09 to Jonathan Stewart, Aug. 2, 2014.

Janet, MA ‘10 (conflict transformation) and Scott Hines, McKees Rocks, PA, Lachlan Emory, Oct. 7, 2014.

Sara Derstine ‘12 to Tyler Bergey, June 28, 2014.

Travis Nyce ‘12 to Emily Hodges ‘14, Aug. 2, 2014.

Owen Longacre ‘13 to Kimberly (Kim) Floyd ‘13, Aug. 2, 2014.

(From left) Yonatan Daniel, Matej Gligorevic, Richard Robinson, Londen Wheeler, and Christian Parks stand in duct-taped silence, holding balloons that Celeste Thomas pops to symbolize those who have been killed in connection with being black. (Photo by Randi B. Hagi)

Vigil held for killings of black men in U.S. About 60 people held a vigil in the heart of EMU’s campus in early December for black people killed by police in America. Participants attracted by the Black Student Union’s “#StandForFerguson” appeal gathered quietly in the gray mist at Thomas Plaza as club advisor Celeste Thomas invited them to “speak in silence,” showing their solidarity with presence.

The vigil’s name refers to the death of Michael Brown, who was killed in August in Ferguson, Missouri. His death and resulting protests in Missouri spurred the BSU to organize a demonstration in solidarity.

A broadcasted gospel song contained these words, “There is power in the name of Jesus to break every chain.” Five students stood in front of the circle, their mouths covered by duct tape, a chain at their feet. In their hands were white balloons, each bearing a name written in black marker.

Undergraduates Kaltuma Hassan and Philip Watson read short eulogies for each person’s name written on the balloons at the Dec. 2 vigil. “One black person is killed every 28 hours in America, whether innocent or guilty,” stated Hassan. “Trayvon Martin, killed February 26, 2012. Seventeen years old, shot in Sanford, Florida, allegedly shot in self defense by George Zimmerman.” As they read through 18 names, Thomas went down the line of balloons, popping each as its name was read. “Dante Parker, killed August 12, 2014. Thirty-six years old. Tased to death. Killed by San Bernadino police department.”

“Being a black, 20-year-old male, I couldn’t help but think that every name that was read aloud could have been me,” said BSU President Londen Wheeler, who was one of those holding balloons. “I hope that the attendees were able to feel the discomfort and the disbelief. I also hope that this was an opportunity for the attendees to see that their voice – although this was a silent protest – against racist police brutality can help make a difference in the nation.”

History professor Mark Sawin attended to listen to the BSU and “support them and all my black students and colleagues who are finding ways to speak out…. We need to tease apart and closely examine the privilege that allows incidents like this [the shooting of Michael Brown] to happen.” — Randi B. Hagi

62 | crossr oads | fall/winter 2014-15 62 | crossroads | fall 2007

Krista Johnson, MA ‘10 (conflict transformation) to Clint Weicksel, Aug. 9, 2014.

BIRTHS & ADOPTIONS

Patrick ‘00 and Christine Lehman ‘00 Nafizger, Millerburg, OH, Aidan William, Aug. 29, 2014.

Eric Rutt ‘01 and Mahlet Aklu ‘01, Cambridge, MA, Naomi Aklu-Rutt, Sept.

2, 2014.

Jared Hankee ‘02 and Mindy Nolt ‘01, Lancaster, PA, Moselle Sinead Nolt Hankee, Oct. 10, 2014.

Vania Moskal ‘02 and Michael Whitlock, Schuylkill Haven, PA, Elliott Johnathan, July 14, 2014.

Michelle Kuhns ‘03 and Josh Brodesky, San Antonio, TX, Sylvie Elizabeth, June 30, 2014.

Sara Neuenschwander ‘03 and Sunday Obri, Cleveland Heights, OH, Issac Ukwin-Ada Paul, May 2, 2014.

Amanda Sanders ‘03 and Charles Mullen, Churchville, VA, Judah William, April 14, 2014.

Joshua ‘03 and Jaclyn Lederman ‘02 Suderman, Ada, MI, Jaren Kai, April 13, 2014.

Emily Sommers ‘04 and Dariush Meraj, Hartville, OH, Cyrus Iman, March 27, 2014.

Seth ‘07, associate residence director, and Kristen Souder ‘07, MA ‘12 (counseling) Miller, Harrisonburg, VA, Abigail Lynne, Nov. 1, 2014.

Rachel Schlegel ‘07 and Andrew McMaster, Moundridge, KS, Natalie Claire, June 11, 2014.

Andrew ‘08 and Annie Johnson ‘08 Dutcher, Madison, WI, Hans, Feb. 15, 2014.

Christopher (Chris) ‘10 and Heidi Hershberger-Esh ‘10, Philadelphia, PA, Camilo Sky, Aug. 26, 2014.

Aaron ‘10 and Andrea Bowman ‘10 Yutzy, Broadway, VA, Levi Edward, Sept.

30, 2014.

Joshua ‘14 and Sarah Demaree ‘10, MA ‘12 (counseling), Defnall, Northlawn residence director, Harrisonburg, VA, Elana Rae, Oct. 12, 2014.

Hong (Scott) Kim, SEM ‘12, MA ‘13 (conflict transformation), and Cheryl Woelk, MA ‘11 (education), Saskatoon, Canada, Rohan, Oct. 1, 2014.

Charles Kwuelum, MA ‘14 (conflict transformation) and Helen Momoh, Hillside IL, Roy Chiwetalu, Aug. 29, 2014.

DEATHS

Marjorie Yoder ‘35 Guengerich, Harrisonburg, VA, died Oct. 21, 2014, at age 99. Her 26-year teaching career included 14 years in Iowa, 11 years at McGaheysville Elementary School, and one year at Hokkaido International School in Sapporo, Japan. Following her retirement, Marjorie helped to found and co-manage the Harrisonburg Gift and Thrift Store. She was an active and faithful member of the Mennonite Church all her life. For the past 35 years, she was a member of Community Mennonite Church in Harrisonburg, VA.

Richard Weaver ‘36, Harrisonburg, VA, died July 27, 2014, at age 94. He was ordained as a Mennonite minister by lot in 1948 and pastored several churches since.

A lover of the radio, Richard opened Weaver Audio Studio in 1954, was the announcer on The Mennonite Hour for many years, and enjoyed his ham radio until his passing. For many years, he operated the Dale Enterprise Weather Station, the third oldest in the U.S., begun in 1868 by his wife’s grandfather, Bishop L.J. Heatwole. He loved people and often volunteered his time with organizations, including Rockingham RELAY, Mennonite Disaster Service communications, and the Red Cross.

Susanna Kurtz Umble, class of ‘37, Atglen, PA, died Oct. 23, 2014, at age 94.

She was a member of Maple Grove Mennonite Church, where in the past she was a Sunday School teacher and a member of the sewing circle. Along with her husband, John, she operated Swampy Hollow Dairy Farm of Atglen. She enjoyed gardening, sewing, and spending time with family. She also volunteered at the Coatesville Re-Uzit Shop.

Elizabeth Hostetter ‘47, Harrisonburg, VA, died April 27, 2014, at age 87. She spent almost 30 years in service abroad, beginning with Mennonite Central Committee in a children’s home in the Netherlands, continuing with Eastern Mennonite Missions in a bookstore in Addis Abba, Ethiopia, and finally serving for 16 years as hostess of the Mennonite Guest House in Nairobi, Kenya. Returning stateside, Elizabeth worked as copy editor for Christian Light Press until her retirement in 1998.

John Drescher ‘51, died July 10, 2014, at age 85, after many productive decades as an author, teacher, and pastor. Among his 37 books was Seven Things Children Need, with over 125,000 sold and publication in over a dozen languages.

Another well-known book was titled Why I Am a Conscientious Objector. He was a pastor in three Mennonite congregations, bishop or overseer in three Mennonite conferences, a one-term moderator of the Mennonite Church in North America, editor for 12 years of the Gospel Herald (predecessor to The Mennonite), and a college pastor and seminary teacher at EMU. His articles were published in over 100 magazines, including Reader's Digest, Christianity Today, and Catholic Digest.

David Hostetler, class of ‘51, Bluffton, OH, died Sept. 24, 2014, at age 84. He was dedicated to the Mennonite Church and served as pastor, missionary with the former Mennonite Board of Missions, journalist and editor of Mennonite publications with Mennonite Publishing House, and program director at Laurelville Mennonite Church Center in Mt. Pleasant, PA. David also served as overseer to Mennonite congregations in Pennsylvania.

Florence Weaver Keener, class of ‘51, New Holland, PA, died Aug. 1, 2014, at age 92. She was a homemaker who grew food for her family of six, worked in and out of the home in various capacities, and could break an apple in half with a twist. She nourished her family physically and emotionally and maintained grace and dignity through the loss of a daughter and her husband. She was an active member of Stumptown Mennonite Church, participating in sewing circles and praying daily for her family and friends.

Ruth Martin Horst, class of ‘52, Elkhart, IN, died Sept. 24, 2014, at age 92. Her role and calling was to maintain a strong and well-functioning home base and family while her husband, Ray, traveled for the former Mennonite Board of Missions. She was a loving mother, a superb organizer, an excellent financial manager, had great problem-solving and engineering abilities, and loved nature and natural beauty, especially flowers and birds. When she had free time she enjoyed doing counted cross stitch and other crafts.

Addona Nissley, class of ‘54, Harrisonburg, VA, died Aug. 23, 2014, at age 90. He began his career in missionary work in 1956, serving in Puerto Rico and Trinidad, as well as Virginia Mennonite Missions, where he served as secretary of missions. Addona helped start Christiansburg Mennonite Fellowship, serving as pastor there and at congregations in Chesapeake, VA, Asheville, NC, and Beldor, VA. He volunteered at the Caring Friends ministry at VMRC and was an active member of Lindale Mennonite Church.

Floyd Zehr ‘54, Lancaster, PA, died Sept. 19, 2014, at age 85. He was a physics professor at Westminster College in New Wilmington, PA, from 1965 to 2000. He also taught astronomy and energy conservation. In 1999, the college honored Floyd with the Distinguished Faculty Award. After his retirement, he worked for four years with the Science in Motion program to support high school teachers to conduct physics experiments.

He and his wife, Pearl, were active leaders at Maple Grove Mennonite Church in New Wilmington, PA, for nearly 50 years before moving to Lancaster.

Isaac (Ike) Risser, class of ‘55, Roanoke, VA, died Aug. 29, 2014, at age 85. He was a Mennonite minister for 50 years, serving the congregation of Hopkins Gap the longest. As an evangelist, he combined ministry and business and was a loving husband, father, and grandfather.

Marcus Smucker ‘59, Lititz, PA, died Oct. 29, 2014, at age 82. He was known as a pastor, teacher, spiritual advisor, and conflict mediator for his roles at Portland Mennonite Church, Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, and Eastern Mennonite Seminary. As a conflict mediator, Marcus offered a healing ministry to hundreds of pastors and churches struggling with divisive issues. He was an expert teacher in spiritual formation, mentoring individuals and teaching at the seminary level.

Arnold Moshier ‘60, Sarasota, FL, died Nov. 15, 2014, at age 88. He was the first full-time music teacher at Lancaster Mennonite School and created Campus Chorale, which continues to sing together today. Early in his teaching career, Arnold founded the Choraleers, a traveling music ministry; he directed the group for over 40 years. The choir members, who were mostly young adults he had taught in high school, toured the United States, the national parks, Central America, Jamaica, and various other places. They were the first group to sing with instruments in Lancaster Mennonite Conference churches. In 2008, when he was 81, Arnold led about 75 of his former singers in a homecoming reunion concert at Lancaster Mennonite’s fine arts center.

Amos Bontrager ‘62, Quarryville, PA, died June 12, 2014, at age 87. He pastored for 38 years, retiring in 1993 from the former Christiana Mennonite Church.

He was active in mentoring, influencing men to be better husbands and fathers through Bible studies and enjoyed woodworking, ceramics, gardening, and engaging his children and grandchildren.

Noah Martin ‘63, Johnstown, PA, died Nov. 16, 2014, at age 74. He was an ordained minister in the Western Pennsylvania district of the Church of the Brethren, pastoring and serving as marriage and family counselor at Moxham Colonial Church of the Brethren.

EMU and Secure Futures, LLC – led by Anthony Smith, PhD (pictured) – have announced plans for a second solar array on campus, operational by the summer of 2015. (Photo by Michael Sheeler)

Solar energy expands with parking lot array Four years after a 104-kilowatt solar panel array on the roof of EMU’s Hartzler Library came online, the university has announced plans to significantly expand its commitment to renewable energy with more solar panels on and beside the University Commons.

The new installation, expected to be in operation by the summer of 2015, will be able to generate 511 kilowatts of electricity (as measured in “direct-current” or DC power). The panels will be mounted on canopies above the University Commons parking lot and on that building’s roof. Along with the original library array, the new installation should allow EMU to produce up to 14% of its annual electric demand from solar energy.

“That’s a huge percentage,” said Drew Gallagher, Virginia campus organizer with the Chesapeake Climate Action Network who attended a public meeting in early October announcing the new solar initiative. Afterwards, in an email to EMU President Loren Swartzendruber, Gallagher wrote of his plans to begin “showcasing EMU’s efforts as your campus is on the cutting edge among Virginia colleges.”

As was the case with the installation on the library roof, EMU has entered an agreement with Secure Futures, a solar energy development company based in Staunton, Virginia, to install, operate and maintain the new array. Secure Futures president and CEO Anthony Smith is also a professor at EMU’s master’s of business administration program.

The new solar project will proceed under a unique “customer self-generation agreement” between EMU and Secure Futures.

The arrangement, devised by Secure Futures to overcome various regulatory hurdles that have made Virginia a relatively difficult state for solar energy development, requires no capital investment from EMU and will reduce the university’s electric bill from the very start.

EMU will achieve further operational savings with the help of a natural gas generator installed concurrently with the solar panels. The generator will help the university lower its peak electric demand, a measurement of consumption used to set electric rates throughout the year. With the additional solar capacity and occasional help from the generator – primarily during the winter, when the solar panels produce less electricity – that lower peak demand will put EMU on a cheaper rate scale with the Harrisonburg Electric Commission, Smith said. — Andrew Jenner www.emu.edu | crossroads | 63

Noah was founder,retired director, and counselor of New Day, Inc., a Christian ministry to at-risk families. He also established Noah’s Ark Publishing Company, authoring, editing, and publishing a number of inspirational books, pamphlets, and articles. He dearly loved his family and treasured time spent with his children and grandchildren.

Steve and Lois Alderfer (behind) have a trio of offspring enrolled at EMU: (from front left) Josh, Elizabeth, Andrew. (Photo courtesy of the Alderfers)

100 share campus with their siblings Basketball players, religious studies majors, Iraqi STEM students, and missionary kids are among the 100 siblings who have chosen to attend EMU together.

The EMU database contains 46 family names associated with siblings enrolled in the fall of 2014. Three families have a trio of offspring enrolled, including two sets of parents who themselves graduated from EMU: Steve and Lois Alderfer '86, parents of first-year Andrew, third-year Josh, and fourth-year Elizabeth; and Pat and Kathy King '81, parents of triplets who are sophomores, Emma, Isaac and Rachel. A third trio of sophomores: Kennedy I. Okereke and twins Chidera T. and Chinazo A. Nwankwo, children of Theodora Nwankwo.

Not surprisingly, the largest cluster of siblings (14 sets) come from Harrisonburg and vicinity. Besides Virginia, home states of siblings are: Pennsylvania (12 families in nine municipalities); Ohio (eight families, all in different locations), two sets of siblings from Maryland, and one set each from Goshen, Indiana; Wellman, Iowa; Rochester, New York; Plymouth, Minnesota; Puyallup, Washington; and Charles Town, West Virginia.

The 46 surnames of siblings culled from EMU’s database in October 2014 are: Alderfer, Baltimore, Barrett, Beachy, Bills, Bishop, Blosser (two different families), Clemens, Cox, Driediger, Dutcher, Ferrell, Gallardo, Gish, Gonzalez, Graber, Hartzler, Jones, Kauffman, King, Kiser, Kratz, Longenecker, Luther, Mack-Boll, Mansoor, Martin, Mast, Miller, Mumaw, Myers, Nafziger, Nussbaum, Okereke, Patterson, Poplett, Raber, Salladay, Shenk-Moreno, Sprunger, Treichel, Trotter, Weaver, Wengerd, Ygarza, and Yoder.

The stories of three sets of siblings recently on campus can be read on EMU’s news blog: emu.edu/siblings. The three sets are: 1. Austin, Aaron and Adrian Ardron, commuters from Fishersville, 30 miles south of Harrisonburg. They are the sons of healthcare professionals and were attracted to EMU due to its strong reputation in nursing and pre-med preparation.

2. Shawn and Kevin Treichel, brothers from Philadelphia who grew up in and out of foster care and who are both interested in psychology-oriented careers.

3. Sisters Alicia and Katrina Poplett of Plymouth, Minnesota, both of whom perform musically at EMU. Alicia is majoring in elementary education and Spanish; Katrina is interested in peacebuilding. — Randi B. Hagi and Bonnie Price Lofton

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Ronald (Ron) Sawatzky, class of ‘71, Souderton, PA, died June 28, 2014, at age 64. He had a passion for the church, and patience for endless meetings and conversations. Always willing to put himself in the midst of controversy, he freely gave great amounts of time to be present where he was needed. His commitment as moderator of the Conference of Mennonites in Canada exceeded what most people could give to a voluntary position, and it was invaluable through creative and sometimes conflicted years.

In 1999, he became chief executive officer of Rockhill Mennonite Community in Sellersville, PA, a position he held until December 2012.

Jonathan (Jon) Dutcher ‘72, Harrisonburg, VA, died Sept. 2, 2014 at age 64. He was a dedicated teacher and administrator with a passion for education. After retiring, he volunteered and was active in the community, continuing his commitment to helping and connecting with others. His gentle spirit, heart for service, and compassion were an inspiration to those who knew him.

Freeman Lehman, class of ‘83, Dalton, OH, died Oct. 18, 2014, at age 82. He had recently retired from Central Christian Schools as a music teacher and respected piano tuner. Freeman was a member of the Sonnenberg Mennonite Church and sang in the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus for more than 30 years.

Kenton Miller ‘91, Toledo, OH, died Sept. 9, 2014, at age 51. He worked as a medical technologist at various hopitals, including St. Luke’s for 13 years and, most recently, North Campus Lab at Toledo Hospital.

Thomas McGinn ‘97, Harrisonburg, VA, died July 30, 2014, at age 61. Until his retirement, he served as vice president of global sourcing with the National Geographic Society in Washington D.C. Thomas was a member of Vision of Hope United Methodist Church.

Shirley Crabtree, MA ‘02 (counseling), Berkeley Springs, WV, died July 12, 2014, at age 73. She was a teacher at Thomas A. Edison High School in Fairfax County, VA, from 1973 to 1995 and considered teaching and education to be her greatest achievements. Shirley also provided inmate ministry at the Shenandoah County Jail in Woodstock, VA. Kevin Quick ‘10, Afton, VA, died Feb. 6, 2014, at age 45. He joined the Waynesboro Police Reserves in 1990 as an active volunteer, eventually rising to the rank of captain. For the last 18 years, Kevin

was employed with Invista, where he worked as supervisor and volunteered with the company’s fire brigade. One of Kevin’s enjoyments in life was watching and attending any sporting event by the University of Virginia. In addition to UVA sporting events, he enjoyed watching his nieces and nephews play sports and family beach trips to Nags Head. Those who knew him will miss his smile, his willingness to care for those around him, and his sense of love for life.

Sad News at Press Time Nicole R. Mathewson, 32, was found dead of traumatic injuries inside her home after she failed to show up for her teaching work on Monday, Dec. 15, at Brownstown Elementary School in the Conestoga Valley School District of Pennsylvania. At press time, Lancaster City police had arrested a 16-year-old boy and 25-year-old man and charged them with murder. Nicole may have lost her life during a burglary. She earned an MA in education at EMU Lancaster in 2013.

Pam Rutt, who was Mathewson's advisor, said that she had “a wonderful sense of energy and passion.” Mathewson also held a certificate in peacebuilding & conflict transformation in educational settings from EMU. Degree Key CLASS OF - attended as part of the class of a given graduation year HS - high school degree from era when high school and college were one MA - master of arts MDiv - master of divinity SEM - attended the seminary

Mileposts is compiled by Braydon Hoover '11, who may be reached at braydon.hoover@emu.edu or at 540-432-4294. send news directly to braydon or to alumni@emu.edu.

Editorial Policy Milepost entries regarding alumni employment, degrees obtained from other universities, marriages, 50-year and 60-year anniversaries, births, adoptions, and deaths are printed on the basis of submissions from alumni or on the basis of publicly available information. We do not do further research to verify the accuracy of the information that alumni provide us, nor do we make judgment calls on the information that they wish to be published, beyond editing for clarity, conciseness and consistency of style.

The information provided to us does not necessarily reflect the official policies of EMU or of its parent church, Mennonite Church USA.

MAKE AN ENDURING GIFT

That Reflects Your Values

Catherine Mumaw was a 1954 graduate of EMU (and daughter of then-president John R. Mumaw), who went on to get her master’s and doctorate. She taught home economics at EMU for 17 years, then taught at Goshen College and Oregon State University.

Catherine also spent four years in Nepal, helping to further education at Kathmandu University. Over the years she traveled to more than 40 countries, making numerous friends.

To provide assistance to an international student with financial need, Catherine established an endowed scholarship in 2006. She made annual contributions to support international students.

The late Catherine Mumaw '54 is pictured with her husband, Clair Basinger. “We are glad that God gave us the gift to be able to help students get a better education," says Clair.

"We can't take it with us, so why not help?"

Catherine died July 17, 2014, but her generosity continues. She named EMU as a beneficiary of a life insurance policy and asked that this be added to the scholarship fund. That fund will continue to provide scholarships for international students each year.

TO MAKE A GENERAL BEQUEST

TO REACH US

please use the following language: “To Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, VA, I give __________% of my estate.”

Or feel free to specify a fixed dollar amount.

Phone: 800-368-3383 Email: robyn.hill@emu.edu Visit: www.emu.edu/giving/giving-options

If you have made arrangements for this type of gift, please let us know by mailing this coupon in a stamped envelope. Or send this information via email to robyn.hill@emu.edu.

 Yes! I have included EMU in my will, Mennonite_

Name ____________________________________________

Foundation account or other estate planning.

Address__________________________________________

Please tell me how I can direct my gift to be used for a specific purpose.

_________________________________________________



You may include me in the Jubilee Friends Society.*

Email____________________________________________



Please include me anonymously.



I have not yet included EMU in my plans, but would like information about how to do so.

Mail to: Office of Development Eastern Mennonite University 1200 Park Road Harrisonburg VA 22802

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Phone ___________________________________________

*The Jubilee Friends Society, which has over 500 members, honors those who have made estate or other planned gifts. (We list members’ names, but not amounts, in the annual report.)

www.emu.edu | crossroads | 65

EASTERN MENNONITE UNIVERSITY

PERIODICALS POSTAGE PAID Harrisonburg, Virginia

1200 Park Road Harrisonburg VA 22802-2462 Parents: If this is addressed to your son or daughter who has established a separate residence, please give us the new address. Call 540-432-4294 or email alumni@emu.edu.

next up...

LAW AND ORDER EMU-style, that is . . .

FAREWELL TO

EMU HELLO AFGHANISTAN

BUILDING SPRING 2013

emu... preparing students to serve and lead globally

www.emu.edu | crossroads | 1

vol. 93, No. 3

fall/winter 2013-14

emu... preparing students to serve and lead globally

www.emu.edu | crossroads | 1

vol. 94, No. 2

The spring 2015 issue of Crossroads will focus on alumni working as lawyers, judges, law-enforcement officials, restorative justice practitioners, alternative-dispute experts, and others in the field of justice. This issue will also permit us to highlight the contributions of Howard Zehr – prolific writer/editor, esteemed teacher, and world-renowned pioneer in the theory and practice of restorative justice – as he heads into retirement from full-time roles at EMU.

summer 2014

emu... preparing students to serve and lead globally

If you are involved in any law-related work as an alum, please provide a brief summary of your story via:

emu.edu/crossroads/update Alternatively, email messages to the editor at: crossroads@emu.edu Or send information to the address listed in the Crossroads mailing box on this page.

We would like to receive information intended for the law issue by Feb. 15, 2015.

66 | crossroads | fall/winter 2014-15

vol. 95, No. 1