ALUMNA OF THE YEAR Maya Sewald—an Aspirational Alumna

ALUMNA OF THE YEAR Maya Sewald—an Aspirational Alumna

By Caitlin Sorensen ’19

The Outstanding Oak Award honors a Menlo College alum who achieves professional success and dedicates their time and resources to the Menlo College community and elsewhere. At OAKtoberFest this past fall, I had the great privilege of presenting the 2022 Outstanding Oak Award to Maya Sewald ’73. I was joined by Jessica Carlson ’19 and 2020 Outstanding Oak Award recipient Frances Mann-Craik ’76.

Successful businesswoman and involved Menlo College alumna Maya Sewald is one of Menlo’s “firsts”—she was in the first cohort of women at Menlo, and she and her husband Philip (Phil) Sewald are celebrated as Menlo’s first married couple!

“When I graduated from Menlo I felt like I could apply for any entry-level job in the business world,” Sewald said. “I had accounting, business, marketing and real estate (which proved to be my future career) down.”

Maya began her work life as a Quality Assurance Engineer for Bechtel. When she found out she was having twins, she devoted her time to motherhood and undertook a major move to Saudi Arabia for five years due to her husband’s work. Once the family returned to the United States, she decided to pursue a career in real estate. As she explains, “I’d always wanted to do real estate, so I went and got my license. Now, I’ve been in the business for 27 years.” Four years ago, she and her son Jason started their own real estate LLC, Ovation Real Estate.

Maya and Phil’s reasons for giving back to the Menlo community are clear: “We want the great college experience that we had to continue to the next generations to come. We want Menlo to continue to succeed. We think every alum should feel that way.”

Getting calls from alumni inspired their philanthropic passion. “Menlo had phone banks, with 10 or 15 alums making calls to other alums. It never started out with a request for money,” she said. “It always started with asking how you were, giving you some information, and telling you how they were trying to increase contributions.”

Since those phone calls, Maya has served Menlo in many ways, participating in classroom discussions with her husband, serving on the Board of Trustees, and mentoring Menlo students.

Maya and Frances Mann-Craik are role models to all Menlo College alumni who are grateful for the experiences we had at Menlo. Like Maya, we also want to ensure that future generations reap the benefits of a Menlo College experience—just as we did.