Ken Krings patiently answers these predictable questions about working for one of the world's most identifiable companies. Taylor Swift and Taylor Hicks did perform in the Yahoo! courtyard. Employees did get to watch a personal interview with Tom Cruise in their cafeteria. The company founders did sumo wrestling on the lawn.
But his career is not about perks. This is Silicon Valley, home to Google, Apple, and about 6,600 other technology companies. The coffee is free because the workday at a global company can sometimes be around the clock.
In the past year, health care reform captured America's attention. People packed town hall meetings. They flooded senators with correspondence. Because the reform is a complicated departure from the status quo, most are armchair quarterbacks in the debate.
Amanda Bennett Lothrop '06, however, has as much expertise as some of the politicians who cast a vote. As a health care actuary with Deloitte Consulting LLP in Chicago, it's Amanda's job to know the intricacies and repercussions of health care reform.
On a July afternoon in 1984, the world reeled from the largest single-gunman massacre in U.S. History. The rampage of an unemployed security guard killed 21 people at a McDonald's in San Ysidro, California.
Herbert Cousins Jr., was on the scene, part of an FBI Special Weapons and Tactics team, making sure the shootings were not a security threat to the upcoming Summer Olympic games in Los Angeles.
MaLinda Henry '92 knew she wanted to study primates by her eighth-grade year at McCook Middle School. She met her share of doubters. McCook is a long way from primates and forests. But fortunately, role models can go anywhere and they made their way to MaLinda in textbooks, television and visits to the zoo. The more she learned about female scientists like Dr. Dian Fossey and renowned primatologist Jane Goodall, the more she wanted to emulate them.
Taylor
Hometown: Ogallala
Campus involvement: Doane Owl, Student Congress Senator, Honors Program, Delta Kappa Pi Fraternity, former Resident Assistant
Major: Journalism
From a College on the Hill to Capital Hill
by Taylor Foy, '09 alumna
As I chugged along atop my uncle's old 3020 John Deere one hot dusty August afternoon, I contemplated what I would pack into my suitcase. In less than a week, I would be trading in my Wranglers with the blown-out knee and paint splatters for a suit and tie. I would be leaving that patch of earth south of Ogallala, Neb., for the White House.
Two months after graduating from Doane with a journalism degree, I was selected to be an intern in the Communications Department for the Obama Administration. I had no background in
political science . I never worked on a campaign. I wasn't even a Democrat. How could some kid with little experience from a red state be qualified for such a post?
Go to college?
Ryan Rodriguez?
No one talked about college, least of all Ryan.
Successful people go to college, he thought.
Not some kid from central El Paso, who could see gangs and crime from his window.
He felt lucky to graduate high school; to make enough tackles to be an all-state linebacker in Texas.
The phone rang in his apartment the spring of his senior year.
Doane assistant football coach Chris Bessler was talking to him about a college 18 hours away.
Jennifer Crunk had plenty of time to think as she commuted from Lincoln to Omaha.
She thought about rising gas prices and the young son and daughter at home who depended on her.
She thought about how, at some point in the 17 years since graduating from Doane College as a math major , all of her jobs had begun to blur.
Night auditor.
Office manager.
Accounts receivable clerk - they all felt like the same job, with no real future.
She remembered a program at Doane's Crete campus. Called the HELPS program (Higher Education for Life Planning Systems), it provides two semesters of free tuition to graduates who have gone into the workplace and not been able to flourish.
It's 1987 in southern Sudan.
Santino Akot is nine.
A slender boy tending cattle at the edge of his village, Marial Baai.
Until this moment, he is a middle child in a middle-class family with seven children.
The second Sudanese civil war was a part of this life. His father had died from war-related disease. Eighteen months earlier soldiers had taken his family's property and burned their home to ashes.
His mother made a hut and kept them alive.
The soldiers are back now.
Killing.
Burning.
Destroying.
Defining moments.
They sound big, don't they?
Big and loud.
Moments that say: 'Life change headed your way.'
But they are quiet, and usually only seen with hindsight.
Jeremy Wilhelm is not even 35, but he's had his share.
His biggest was more like a defining 30 seconds, during a round table board meeting of a new renewable fuels company based in California.
Wilhelm was leading the meeting, when, 15 minutes in, the board member with an MBA from Harvard looked at Wilhelm and told the farm kid from Unadilla, Nebraska:
"You don't have the pedigree to lead this company."
Trash Bags to Handbags It all started with a question.
"Could Doane help a local effort to replace plastic shopping bags with a better alternative?" Linda Kalbach and Karla Cooper asked Brad Elder.
If you meet these three faculty members you'll understand how the question leaped from "Can we do this?" to "How big can we do this?"
And then to the answer: start local and make an international impact.
Those flimsy plastic bags that carry so many groceries home around the globe each day are the scourge of environmentalists, the detriment of municipal infrastructure and the enemy of wildlife.
Sure, a lot of students are involved in a lot of activities in high school and college.
But José Mejia stands out.
He even tries activities and courses he's not interested in, just in case it could help him in the future.
For him, the easiest way to open a door is to try.
He tried an internship in high school, when he was pretty sure he wanted to go into physical therapy. But once he tried it, he realized, he's really more of a business man.