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Alumni Spotlight MPA 2023 2015 2000–2004
David Tanner brings the skills he gained through BYU Marriott's MPA program to the state of Georgia, where he consults state leaders, community organizers, and county and city elected officials.
Clark Pew has learned over the course of his life that persistence pays off. The EMPA alumnus now lives in India working for the Department of State.
In December 2022, BYU Marriott alum Scott Adams retired after 30 years of service as the CEO of Pullman Regional Hospital in Washington state.
Being a soldier in the armed forces can be physically and emotionally demanding. As an army chaplain, MPA alum Lt. Col. Thomas Helms has been offering soldiers moral support and religious services for nearly two decades.
It reads like a worst-case scenario: you’re slicing through rough air to check on an offshore oil rig when the unfathomable happens—the chopper goes down. Would you survive?
By gaining the ear of the Canadian government, alum Ken Kyle helped snuff out the light of tobacco companies in his home country. And the effects of his work are still filtering across the world.
Playing the part of butcher Lazar Wolf in Fiddler on the Roof came naturally to 1983 MPA alum Chris Miasnik: his last name is made up of the Russian occupational suffix and the word for meat. But there were a few other factors involved in landing the role of rejected suitor in the Bluffdale Arts Council production. “I was the oldest guy there, and I had the whitest beard,” he admits.
Cody Strong, a 2002 MPA graduate, has spent the last year working as a public servant—not as a city or state administrator—but as a second lieutenant with the U.S. Army in Iraq.
Although Amy Olsen Clark has worked for numerous organizations—Microsoft, UVSC, United Way, Johnson & Johnson to name a few—she says her best job experience came when she worked as a program coordinator for CES youth and family programs while attending BYU.
When G. Tracy Williams goes on business trips, he sometimes ends up halfway around the world.
When Corine Larsen Bradshaw participated in MPA class discussions on governmental work, she wasn’t just talking about information she knew second-hand—she was talking about her previous job.
Lorin Killian and his wife, Lindsay, decided on ten days’ notice—just a week before his graduation from the Marriott School—to move to New York City. Killian felt uneasy about declining a job offer in Salt Lake City to move to New York without any job leads. “I was told countless times during my Marriott School MPA days that networking was crucial in all aspects of business,” Killian said. Out of desperation, he sent emails to his network of friends and acquaintances in the Manhattan area.
Krescent Hancock’s daily commute to Foggy Bottom via the metro’s blue line hasn’t gotten old yet. In fact, “each day is a new adventure,” she says.
Peter Christensen launched his writing career as an undergrad working for The Daily Universe. He was promoted from sports reporter to editor and then to editor-in-chief filling numerous other positions while on staff. "If I had my druthers, I might have ended up being a sports writer," Christensen said.