Alumni impact

GOOD BUSINESS Deep roots of giving back

His parents taught the value of hard work and a generous heart.

IN 2016, AT JUST 30 YEARS OLD,

Andy Wannemacher ’08 was named president of a complex logistics and manufacturing company with 150 people on the payroll. It was a high-pressure, prove-yourself moment.

Three years into his tenure as president, both Wannemacher and the company are thriving — a fact Wannemacher credits to the University of Dayton. The magic, he said, comes from pairing the UD curriculum with the Marianist values and tradition of giving back.

After graduating with a double major in finance and leadership, Wannemacher returned home to Lima, Ohio, and began working as a salesman for Wannemacher Total Logistics. His father had led the company since the early 1990s — transforming it from a local trucking operation into a diversified company with several sites across Ohio.

Each rung on Wannamacher’s ladder to the top had to be earned. He rose from salesman to sales director and then to vice president. His earliest days at the company were anything but easy: As a teenager, Wannemacher worked part time sweeping floors and cleaning bathrooms.

Today, the voices of faculty in UD’s School of Business Administration still ring in his ears. “A lot of the theories and strategies resonate,” he said.

Wannemacher’s passion for community and giving back is significant, but so is his modesty, with an extensive Google search required to understand the range of his philanthropy.

The Lima Rotary Club, Young Professionals and Chamber of Commerce get his time. And his company supports a range of community causes, such as STEM programs for kids and programs promoting the performing arts in Lima, Ohio.

In 2016, Wannemacher’s parents donated $1 million to their alma mater, Bluffton University, where his father serves as a trustee.

Following in his parents’ footsteps, Wannemacher donated to UD’s School of Business Administration Dean’s Funds for Excellence during the inaugural University giving day in 2019. Although he’d made annual gifts before to UD athletics and the business school, this investment was directly prompted by his parents’ tradition of philanthropy.

“My parents always taught me that, when you’re successful, you owe to the people who helped you get there,” he said.

“I’d been meaning to do this,” he said about his gift to UD. Giving day caught his attention and made it easy. His hope is that his gift enables the business school to deepen its excellence and grow its advantages. —MELINDA CHURCH

ALUMNI IMPACT Providing internships, providing support

FOR CURRENT LAW STUDENT

Marcus Vickers and his fellow classmates, spring was unlike anything they’ve ever dealt with.

Even as COVID-19 forced the suspension of in-person classes, it soon became clear that wasn’t all that was going to be impacted.

“I was waiting around to hear from a few different internships,” Vickers said. “Once the virus hit, I stopped hearing anything.”

And it wasn’t just Vickers.

“What became clear is that we had a number of students still seeking internships, but more than that we had a handful whose internships were rescinded because the employers could not provide them,” says Tim Swensen, assistant dean and director of the Career Services Office.

So Swensen decided to use social media to ask Dayton law alumni if they could offer any internship possibilities.

“I was hoping I’d find 10 or 15 in my wildest dreams,” Swensen said. “In a day, I had 25.”

That number has since grown to around 40 openings. The offers include varying areas of law and range from in-person to remote work and full time to part time.

“It’s been phenomenal what the alumni have done and how willing they’ve been to step into that void and offer these opportunities,” Swensen said.

They include alumni like Matt Altick, who graduated in 2018.

“The reason I wanted to go to law school is I always liked problem solving and helping people,” said Altick, who now works at the Clark Firm in Dallas.

“My internship was a great experience, so I wanted to pay it forward,” Altick said. “This was a good opportunity to help. We want those students to have the same advantages we had.”

Which is why Vickers will be working remotely with Altick’s firm over the summer.

“I’m really excited,” Vickers said. “I feel I’ll have a lot of back and forth with attorneys and get a firsthand experience of how they deal with things.” —JORDAN BURGESS

THE ALUMNI

BACK PORCH

DAYTON NEWSPAPERS INC. SCHOLARSHIP EXTRA! EXTRA!

Community partners creating versatile Flyers

LOCAL PARTNER THE DAYTON DAILY NEWS PROVIDES

UD students with valuable resources to receive the best education. For more than 30 years, nearly 200 students have received funding from the Dayton Newspapers Inc. Scholarship. The scholarships, endowed with a gift of $160,000, are awarded to many students each year. “By putting the money toward my tuition, I was able to focus a bit more on opportunities that helped me to grow as both a journalist and individual,” said Emily Biery ’19, a communications fellow with OhanaHealth.

Students coming from 25 majors have had the opportunity to further their learning because of the Dayton Daily News, founded in 1898 after James H. Cox purchased and renamed the Dayton Evening Herald. “While I may not be in the same field I studied, my educational foundation from the University allowed me to find myself in a career where I can apply passion for building relationships and helping the community every day in an intellectually challenging environment,” said Tracie Johnson Jones ’08, an electronic media major who now manages health care IT.

These versatile Flyers have applied their skills in communications to a variety of fields, with great success. “The scholarship gave me confidence in my writing skills, which transferred into my belief and application of my skills into my communication degree,” said Bridget Garavaglia Rush ’92, a theology teacher in St. Louis. “It made all the difference.” —MICHELLE GREGG ’21

Geographic snapshot

A quick look at where recipients of the Dayton Newspapers Inc. Scholarship now reside

Washington: 1

Oregon: 1

California: 3 Wyoming: 1

Colorado: 2 North Dakota: 1 Minnesota: 2

Wisconsin: 2 Vermont: 1

Michigan: 5

Pennsylvania: 9 Ohio: 63 New York: 2

Kansas: 1

Oklahoma: 2 Illinois: 32 Indiana: 9

Missouri: 3 Kentucky: 7

Tennessee: 3 Massachusetts: 1

Rhode Island: 1

Connecticut: 3 New Jersey: 2 Maryland: 5 Washington, D.C.: 1

Virginia: 4

North Carolina: 1

Scotland: 1 Texas: 2

Louisiana: 1 Georgia: 1

Florida: 3

Puerto Rico: 1

Majors of recipients

Dayton Newspapers Inc. Scholars have come from 25 majors across four schools

Communications Communication Management - 20 Communication - 64 Journalism - 23 Public Relations - 23 Electronic Media - 15

Liberal Arts English - 3 Psychology - 1 French - 1 German - 1 Spanish - 1 Geology - 1 Political Science - 3 Religious Studies - 1 International Studies - 1

Sciences and Engineering Pre-Med - 1 Biology - 1 Engineering - 1 Business Economics - 1 Marketing - 4 Education Business Economics - 1 Elementary Education - 1 Middle School Education - 1 Early Childhood Education - 1 Adolescent to Young Adult Education - 1 School Counseling - 1

The lessons I learned at UD inform everything I do as a writer to this day. The Dayton Newspapers Inc. Scholarship gave me access to the best in the business, and I received the hands-on training necessary to write well for newspapers or any other organization.

—JULIA GOODWIN ’93

NOW READ | SEE | HEAR THIS

Building Brands, Nourish Your Tribe: Creating Cultures Empowering Parents to Stacy Wall Schweikhart ’01Grow Strong, Smart, Stacy Wall Schweikhart is no stranger to communiSuccessful Kids Nicole Brindisi Magryta ’96 ty involvement. She credits After becoming a mother, much of her expertise Magryta became interested to the lessons she learned in learning how to best from Brother Raymond Fitz, S.M., and mentor support a child’s growth. She began noticing Don Vermillion while earning her master’s the destructive nature of poor quality food and degree in public administration. “In every realized the need for parent education on role I’ve held since, servant-leadership has adolescent food consumption. Her interest been my why,” she says in her how-to book culminated in Nourish Your Tribe, which titled Building Brands, Creating Cultures. Wall describes the impact food and the environment Schweikhart outlines the interdependency have on children’s development and long-term of branding and culture in the workforce and success. A 20-year veteran of clinical nutrition, how it can be achieved. Magryta writes, “Quality nourishment profoundly affects our well-being and is a critical Defiance ingredient to helping our children grow to their E.J. Law ’09 full potential biologically, physically, mentally and emotionally.” Passing the bar exam is not easy, and UD law graduate Evan J. Law knows this firsthand. He Palliative Care: A Guide for Health Social Workers often crafted his own Meagan Lyon Leimena ’03 stories when studying for the bar to help the test material become more relatable. Now an immigration lawyer, Law helps aspiring lawyers prepare in a similar way — through legal thrillers. His first novel, Son of a Sleeper Spy, and the next book in the series, Defiance, weave legal principles into suspenseful plot lines. In both novels, the legal principles are isolated in italics and footnotes, allowing law students to stop and comprehend the terminology. Published in Leimena is co-editor of this 2019 social work textbook about palliative care for health social workers. Leimena said she hopes the textbook serves as a guide to show students pursuing a degree in sociology the rich possibilities for their degrees especially in how they can apply their degrees to health and social fields. 2018, Defiance aims to entertain and educate audiences. Your Kids Will Lead: A Father’s Message Blood on the Chesapeake of Hope Andy Kiehl ’86 Randy Overbeck ’77 When Kiehl’s youngest After more than 30 years in education, it is no surprise that Randy Overbeck uses schools as settings and teachers as protagonists in his novels. Published in April 2019, Blood on the Chesapeake tells the story of a high school teacher who encounters the supernatural when he moves to Wilshire, Maryland. The haunting story is the first of the anticipated trilogy. When Overbeck is not writing, he is giving presentations to audiences all over the country or spending time with his grandchildren. His debut novel, Leave No Child Behind, won the 2011 Silver Award for Thriller of the Year from ReadersFavorite.com. —LAUREN DUNHAM ’22 son became a senior in college, he had a chance to reflect not only on raising his three kids but on the time he had spent volunteering and coaching. He writes, “The 10 years or so prior to writing the book, the world was changing rapidly, not just technology, but social media, working parents, school issues. I had conversations with hundreds of parents, all expressing the same concerns about raising their own kids. I decided that if I was thinking things that so many others were, there were probably even more with similar thoughts.” Your Kids Will Lead is a father’s message of hope that kids who are strong and confident will lead. For more information, visit www.yourkidswilllead.com. — GITA BALAKRISHNAN

THE ALUMNI

MY FLYER STORY

ACCESS Beating the odds

To avoid cancer, Brooke Schleben ’20 underwent surgery while continuing her education.

FOUR YEARS AGO, I HAD THE BRCA GENE my skin. I had to have emergency surgery, and test to see how likely I was to get breast three surgeries turned into five because of the cancer. Ends up I had an 87% chance. complications. And, beyond all of my struggles,

It wasn’t a surprise. Both of my my beloved aunt passed away during this time. grandmothers passed away from breast cancer Despite my health struggles, I decided — and my mother had it as well. Thankfully, she against taking medical leave. I didn’t want to recovered and has been cancer free for almost be stuck at home, depressed about my situation. 18 years. It was the right choice for me; being immersed

I waffled with what to do about the diagnoon campus helped me power through a lot of sis. It was a big decision to have my breasts rebad days. moved — a bilateral mastectomy — to avoid a So many faculty and staff members came to battle with cancer down the line. my aid, ensuring that I was able

In the summer of 2018, my to handle my workload — and evpath forward became clear. My aunt, my mother’s sister, was diagBeing erything else in my life. My fellow law students were also there nosed with terminal breast cancer. Over the course of the summer, I watched her go from a person to a skeleton. My life was busy, pursuing a joint JD and MBA at UD, but seeing my aunt struggle pushed me to make a decision. I wanted immersed on campus helped me power for me, from carrying my book bag to just lifting my spirits, getting me to laugh or smile. They provided a sense of normalcy and cameraderie that I really needed. And others in the UD community — people I had never to avoid the same fate, no matter how difficult the journey, so I emthrough a met — made my road to recovery easier, as well. Three donorbarked on the bilateral mastectomy that summer. lot of bad funded scholarships kept financial worry from hanging over This process, including reconstruction, normally involves two days. me. I can’t thank these donors enough for easing my burden. to three surgeries. Your breasts By God’s good graces, I’m fulare removed, a tissue expander is ly recovered and extremely happut in to prepare for the implants, and then the py I took the route I did. I graduated with my JD expander is taken out and the implants are inin May and only have four classes left to achieve serted. That was the plan for me — but it went my MBA. It’s been a bumpy road, but I’ve come awry. out on top, and it’s because so many people have

On the second day of my second year of law been in my corner: my family, my close friends school, I woke up with a quarter-sized hole in my and a campus community that really cares — my chest. The tissue expander had broken through Flyer family. —BROOKE SCHLEBEN ’20

Flyer connection — from student to alumnus to mentor

The University of Dayton prides itself on the continuous connectivity of alumni to the University. One of the programs is the recently launched Flyer Connection.

Through this online networking platform, students are given the opportunity to develop professional connections with alumni through flash mentoring meetings.

“I have heard about many positive interactions and stories since we launched. During the pandemic, these connections have been extremely helpful,” said McKenzie Morin, senior associate director of alumni and constituent programs.

With the COVID-19 pandemic creating a divide between UD students and campus, online access to Flyer Connection has increased.

“As of May 15, 2020, there are 1,932 users in Flyer Connection — that includes 1,243 alumni and 683 students,” Morin said.

Mentor James Polifroni ’09 worked with Johnny Carlson ’20 during his senior year and, through the mentoring program, was able to help Carlson receive a job offer in Chicago.

“It feels good when you realize you were a small part in something so important to someone’s future,” Polifroni said.

During these uncertain times, students have begun to reach out to Flyer Connection for advice and assistance in their future endeavors.

“Flyer Connection is a great resource as individuals are social distancing but still need to make professional connections,” Morin said.

Flyer Connection is available to all alumni and current students. Sign up at FlyerConnection.udayton.edu. —LAUREN DURHAM ’20