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Our People
THE BUSINESS OF GRATITUDE
Student experiences translate into professional success for MSU alumnus
By Sasha Steinberg, Photo by Beth Wynn
Ben Bailey is a firm believer that new technology opens the door to new opportunities to solve new problems in new ways. The Starkville native said he explored this concept as a Mississippi State student, and those lessons prepared him for his current role as manager of content marketing for one of the world’s leading software companies.
Bailey works for Frame.io, a video review and collaboration platform designed to help creative teams work together securely and in real-time from anywhere in the world. He said he enjoys “wearing a lot of hats,” from working on the company’s industry publication and automation projects to helping internal departments tell technical stories of all kinds.
“Frame.io is the perfect intersection of all of my professional and creative interests—technology, cinema, filmmaking, storytelling, incredible design, and attention to detail and quality,” Bailey said. “It is fortune and providence that the opportunity to work here opened up to me, and I’m incredibly grateful that it did.”
Bailey joined Frame.io in 2018, fresh out of graduate school at Princeton Theological Seminary, where he earned a Master of Divinity in ethics. Nine years prior, he was a bright-eyed Mississippi State freshman, hungry for opportunities to explore his interests in international culture, language, business and problem solving. He found just what he was looking for in MSU’s College of Business.
“Pursuing a management major in the international business program was a natural melding of those two interests,” said Bailey, who also earned bachelor’s degrees in foreign language and philosophy/religion. “Dr. Allison Pearson and Dr. Melissa Moore were really good at teaching concepts, making lessons memorable and bringing up case studies to flesh out what we were talking about,” he said. “Dr. Jon Rezek was tenacious in the way he helped students with what they wanted to accomplish.”
Bailey was an early member of the university’s entrepreneurship club and received support from the Entrepreneurship Center Advisory Board to start a video production business while an MSU student. Now living some 1,000 miles away, he serves as a member of the Center for Entrepreneurship and Outreach’s Peer Review Entrepreneurship Panel, advising current students eager to create their own startups.
“Becoming an entrepreneur or being involved with entrepreneurs allows you to do things that you couldn’t have imagined. I never would have imagined that by the time I was 31, I would be at this stage of my career, running a sizeable team at a major company,” Bailey said. “My involvement with the E-Center taught me it’s OK to fail and to keep looking for that pathway to success.”
Bailey attributes his open mindedness as a young entrepreneur to his student years in MSU’s Lab Rats Comedy troupe.
“I never would have guessed how relevant the skills of improv are in the professional world,” Bailey said. “Lab Rats taught me how to think fast on my feet and adapt to new scenarios, and that has been super helpful to me. Being able to iterate, learn new things and take correction from other people who know a lot more than you is important.”
Bailey said he also highly recommends for current students to consider the Shackouls Honors College’s University of Oxford study abroad program, as well as the college’s Cursus Honorum curriculum. He said studying abroad taught him the importance of “discovering what other people have done, what they can do, who they are and how they live.”
“There’s nothing that can prepare you for the future in a rapidly changing world quite like a genuine, humane education,” he said. “Learning how to ask questions, look for deeper insight, and use reason, logic and rhetoric to explore new ideas—that was by far the most beneficial part of my MSU experience.”
His parting advice to current students and soon-tobe-graduates?
“Drink the chocolate milk in Perry cafeteria. Every time I think about it, I regret not having it at every meal,” he said with a laugh. “I’m serious; you will regret it. You will turn 30 and will say, ‘Why didn’t I drink the chocolate milk? It was free, it was there, and it was delicious.’” n
CHANGING COURSE
Financial struggles helped alumna find direction in life
By Susan Lassetter, Photo by Jared Wickerham
Growing up in Jackson, Lacretia Wimbley always considered Mississippi State her school, so when it came time to start her pre-med education, becoming a Bulldog was a no brainer. What required more thought was how to pay for that education once she was accepted.
“I love learning about health and consider myself a science geek. Naturally, I always figured I’d go into the medical field,” Wimbley said. “By the end of my sophomore year, I wasn’t really enjoying my classes, and I was having trouble paying for school. I didn’t have enough grants and loans to sustain me.”
Wimbley said she made the only decision she could at the time. She dropped out of school to focus on paying off past-due tuition and finding support to ultimately finish her undergraduate degree.
“I was so sad to leave,” Wimbley recalled. “You hear stories of people leaving school and never returning. I was scared that would happen to me, especially since I was working two jobs. I was terrified I would get used to not being in school, but knew I wanted to finish what I started.”
Wimbley moved back home for what would ultimately be a yearlong break from her studies. During that time, she worked day shifts at Taco Bell and nights at Walmart to begin chipping away at her debt.
“I was keeping track of how much I needed to pay off so I could register for classes again,” Wimbley explained. “By the grace of God, I managed to get it all paid off the week before fall classes were to start. I didn’t have a place to stay, but I got my classes locked in and was officially a student again.”
Though she made headway in finding additional support to cover her tuition, Wimbley admits to still feeling a little lost at the time.
“There’s something about working hard to pay tuition out of pocket that just gives you extra drive,” Wimbley said. “I started thinking about my biological science classes and asked myself, ‘Is this something you really enjoy?’”
“My mother asked, ‘Why don’t you try something writing focused?’ But I wasn’t sure,” she continued. “I’ve been a writer my whole life—short stories, poetry—but because I enjoyed writing so much, it didn’t cross my mind as a career choice. It was more of a hobby to me until my mom mentioned the idea.”
Wimbley said once she re-enrolled at State as a communication major, things just started to click. With an emphasis in journalism, she immediately joined the staff of
the twice-weekly student newspaper The Reflector. By her second year, she was promoted to news editor and ultimately became the paper’s first African American editor-in-chief. During her tenure on the staff, she won awards for writing, editing, reporting and page design.
Frances McDavid, a longtime communication instructor and 20-year adviser to The Reflector, said Wimbley displayed an impressive ability to manage people and high-pressure situations.
“She brought maturity to her leadership,” McDavid recalled. “Her ability to listen and understand a variety of perspectives and her willingness to make hard decisions became one of her greatest strengths.”
Wimbley still uses those skills daily as a reporter and editor with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which she joined as an intern following her graduation in 2016. She found the position through the MSU Department of Communication and, with a push from her adviser, took a leap into uncertainty, much like when she left school after her sophomore year.
“I was absolutely nervous,” Wimbley said. “I had no connections in Pittsburgh—no family, no friends. It was a brand new start for me. But for all my nerves, I was also extremely excited.”
She started on the copy desk—fact checking and editing stories for grammar and style. Soon, Wimbley was also compiling national and international news briefs and designing pages.
“You’ve got to start somewhere, and I’m glad I started there because it helped sharpen my writing and skill as a reporter,” she said. “Writing and reporting is my passion. It’s where my heart is.”
Within two years, Wimbley was hired full time with the Post-Gazette. For the past three years, she has covered breaking news, including accidents, crime and courts, and social justice issues for the Pittsburgh area. She is currently a columnist for the paper’s features department and covers a beat focused on entertainment and the city’s underserved communities.
“I’ve enjoyed breaking news since I got a taste for it with The Reflector,” Wimbley said. “There is something so humbling about being a reporter and covering the human
experience. I’ve cried with parents who have lost their children to gun violence while covering these stories, and I’ve gotten to know all kinds of people in the community. Journalism is truly a service. There are stories everywhere, and everyone has a story. How we handle people as journalists is equally as important as the meticulous work that goes into our research.”
Though the COVID-19 pandemic has temporarily changed how reporting is done and limited some of the faceto-face interaction Wimbley enjoys, her passion for journalism hasn’t waned since her first day at The Reflector. And she’s using that passion to benefit her fellow Steel City journalists.
After a midterm resignation left a vacancy at the top of the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh, Wimbley successfully ran to fill the elected position. She is the union’s first Black president and represents its more than 200 members from the PostGazette and Point Park University.
“I never envisioned I’d be doing the work I do today as a journalist and labor union leader,” Wimbley said. “I give all the glory to God. Sometimes while following your passions, you can stumble into your calling. I’m a huge advocate for student journalists, and I always credit my experience working at The Reflector, along with the help of wise advisers and teachers at MSU, with preparing me for professional journalism. There is much work to be done in the world, so whatever our passions are, we must work to be the change the world needs.” n
ALUMNA LEADS DOD EFFORTS TO BOOST U.S. MANUFACTURING CAPABILITIES
By James Carskadon, Photo Submitted
From the War of 1812 jumpstarting the Industrial Revolution in America to the unprecedented industrial effort required for World War II, U.S. manufacturing has always been vital to military efforts and economic security. With the Department of Defense conducting ever-more technologically advanced operations, a Mississippi State alumna is working to ensure U.S. industry is prepared for a changing military and economic landscape.
Adele Ratcliff is spearheading Department of Defense efforts to meet military needs and create well-paying jobs in the country’s manufacturing sector. The McComb native is director of Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment, or IBAS, in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
“Being involved in this work since 2004 drives home the important role that manufacturing plays in underpinning our economic security and being available when called upon for national security needs,” said Ratcliff, a 1988 MSU graduate. “It’s been hugely rewarding to be able to walk across the many manufacturing floors of this country to see how they contribute to their local communities as well as to the defense of our nation.”
Ratcliff initially trained to be part of U.S. manufacturing, majoring in mechanical engineering with an emphasis in marine engineering at MSU. She worked at a Florida shipyard in her last
summer before graduation, which led to a full-time job after graduation. She soon found an opportunity to join the research and development taking place at Elgin Air Force Base in the Florida Panhandle.
While at Elgin Air Force Base, Ratcliff was test manager for the Wind-Corrected Munitions Dispenser program, one of the first Air Force programs to convert highaltitude bombs into guided weapons. The guided weapons became part of the Air Force’s arsenal not long before the September 11 attacks and the beginning of the War on Terror. The R&D project she worked on was put to use as U.S. forces launched the war in Afghanistan. Her efforts earned her the Air Force Material Command Test Engineer of the Year Award.
Interested in broadening her career opportunities, Ratcliff moved to Washington, D.C. and began working in the Secretary of Defense’s Foreign Comparative Test Program. Later, she would serve in the Department of Defense’s Manufacturing Technology Program. In that role, she took the lead in establishing the DoD’s Manufacturing Innovation Institutes, now known as Manufacturing USA Institutes. The institutes, a national effort to grow manufacturing in the U.S., were a presidential priority and outlined in former President Barack Obama’s 2013 State of the Union Address.
In her current role, she is wellversed with the challenges facing America’s manufacturing sector. As more manufacturing moved overseas in the latter half of the 20th century, career and technical education was often de-emphasized by schools. Now, with an aging workforce, there are an estimated 2-2.5 million manufacturing jobs that need to be filled. At the same time, the manufacturing process and the products being manufactured use increasingly advanced technologies, making it difficult for schools and community colleges to prepare students for current jobs.
“When we de-industrialized, chasing lower cost instead of quality, we began to erode our ecosystems of innovation and manufacturing in this country, and the relationships between them,” Ratcliff said. “Decades ago, people thought we could continue to innovate here and make somewhere else and maintain our global leadership in innovation. And we know that’s simply not true. So now the race is on, to revitalize and to restore our manufacturing prominence in this country.”
A large part of Ratcliff’s efforts have focused on getting youth to recognize the promise and opportunities of careers in manufacturing. To that end, her office launched Project MFG, a competition that brings together teams from across the country to compete in trade skill challenges. It has become a video series titled “Clash of Trades” on the Project MFG YouTube page. Ratcliff said that with Mississippi’s growing manufacturing base, she would love to see a team from her native Magnolia State win the national competition.
As the U.S. seeks to grow manufacturing capabilities, Ratcliff said research and land-grant universities like MSU can play a major role by facilitating connections across the states they occupy, filling research gaps and solving problems collectively.
“I think there’s a special leadership role in manufacturing workforce for the land grants when you go back and look at their history of why they were established,” Ratcliff said. “It goes beyond agriculture. It is to help provide the people of their state a practical education, and these jobs in manufacturing are supported by a practical education that can pay dividends for the state and for the community.”
An alumna of MSU and the Army War College, Ratcliff said that even though her education at MSU focused on a specific engineering discipline, it gave her a solid foundation for tackling national problems and working with public and private sector partners across the country.
“I got a sound engineering degree that taught me critical thinking,” Ratcliff said. “In our role and mission space for the industrial base, we’re exposed to a broad range of technology, with a lot of depth that we have to grasp in terms of understanding the state of that technology, the value of it, and how to continue to develop it in this country. I feel like my degree at Mississippi State gave me a solid foundation to continue
to build on.” n
