Saint Michael's College

Tom Lanagan '09

Woods Hole
Oceanographic Institution

Tom Lanagan participated in the Saint Michael's Wilderness Program. He
reflects on how that experience influences his job now.

Tom's story:

"It's a dream job – it's all about exploration and adventure and underwater robots. I'm working on designing those," says Tom Lanagan '09, who lives on his sailboat and works full-time at Wood's Hole Oceanographic Institute not far from his coastal Massachusetts hometown of Mattapoisett, MA.

The "exploration and adventure part" is a natural outgrowth of his extensive Saint Michael's Wilderness Program experience and training right down to knots he ties for rigging his ocean robots -- knots learned on college Wilderness treks.

Having learned to survive "off the grid" on all those adventures helps him live on his boat, he says. And his challenging "3+2" Saint Michael's/UVM engineering program with its quality academics grounded him in the science and math that his dream job demands. "The only problem is, I still crave the mountains," says Tom, an avid ice-climber.

Kara MacKeil '09

Community Health Center
Burlington, VT

Kara MacKeil participated in Saint Michael's Wilderness Program, and worked for Fire and Rescue. She reflects on how those experiences influence her job now.

Kara's story:

"The most important thing I got out of the Wilderness Program was the ability to make decisions and be confident in the decision," says Kara MacKeil, now a medical assistant at Community Health Center in Burlington.

"Put yourself in the woods with six peers who may not know what they're doing, and if something goes wrong, then something needs to be done."

Leading Wilderness trips and working on ambulances for the college's Fire and Rescue squad over four years made her present job possible, says Kara, a political science and journalism graduate from Biddeford, Maine. "My journalism projects usually ended up being Wilderness-related anyhow," says Kara, who may try grad school some day, but now enjoys the medical-related tasks she performs daily.

Owen Glubiak '08

NativeEnergy
South Burlington, VT

Building on strong business training from his classes and practical campus-activist experience, Owen Glubiak now works for NativeEnergy in South Burlington, a company that consults with corporations, institutions and individuals on ecological matters.

Owen's story:

Our [NativeEnergy] clients number well into the thousands, from individuals to large corporations. We’re in a voluntary market. We look towards projects, mostly farm, Native American, school district-type projects for reducing pollution, or toward renewable energies such as wind, methane digesters, bio-mass, solar, anything that will take carbon-dioxide-emitting pollution out of the atmosphere.

Say a farm puts up a windmill or solar panels. They are thereby promoting renewable energy. So we help finance these and in exchange, we’ll take pollution offset credits. We sell these to companies that have an environmental policy; they look towards increasing their environmental awareness, and whatever they can’t reduce, they’ll offset by a purchase through us. Basically, it's a transferring of tons from one polluting source to a renewable source.

The biggest thing I learned at Saint Michael's was time management and the ability to learn as you go. They throw lot at you at a start-up company [such as NativeEnergy], so being able to learn as you go is important and something I grew accustomed to at Saint Michael's.

Kim Fischer '06

Law student
University of Denver's Sturm College of Law
Colorado

Kim Fischer '06, pursued a double major in Classics and Political Science at Saint Michael's, and is now enrolled in law school. Kim lives with her twin sister, Elaine Fischer '06, who is working on a Ph.D. in Political Science at the University of Denver.

Kim's story:

I remember the first day of Latin class as though it were yesterday. Dr. Begley just asked question after question, responding to each answer given by a student with another question -- not telling us if we were right or wrong, but letting us figure that out for ourselves through this series of Q and A. Dr. Begley made the language fun -- a sentence was a big puzzle waiting for us to piece together accurately, guided by his questions.

Dr. Begley suggested that I go to Rome the summer following my junior year to study under a world-famous Latinist, Reginaldus Foster. It was a trip and class of a lifetime. Reginaldus is an amazing man who demanded that we speak in Latin -- whoever says Latin is a dead language is sorely mistaken.

Today, I apply what I have learned from studying Latin to everything -- to writing an essay or speaking in public, to my law school classes, to teaching a group of disadvantaged young girls how to play basketball, to searching for my car keys that I have "accidentally misplaced," to life in general. The world, like a Latin sentence, is filled with mysteries and splendor that you can sometimes only realize through meticulous observation.

I love what I’m doing now, and know that my happiness today, and any success I may have in the future is a direct outcome of my Classics training, and the overall experience I had during my four short years at Saint Michael's. 

See more of the paths that Saint Michael's graduates take:

Biology >>
medical school, dentistry, food science, forestry, veterinary medicine

Computer Science >>
software development and engineering, network and technical analysis

Mathematics >>
finance, accounting, tax services, investment banking, research and development

Sociology >>
international travel, service and research

Theatre >>
acting, playwrighting, directing, designing