2000s

Ryan Kelley ’00, Cross Plains, Wis., won first place in the Risk Management Association’s 2017 Article Writing Competition for his submission, “Leveraging Data to Enhance Returns from the Commercial Appraisal Process.” It will be published in The RMA Journal. 

Jason Bain ’01, College Park, Md., is senior collections curator for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund in Washington, D.C. Last fall, Bain helped bring “The Wall That Heals,” the half-scale traveling replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, to his hometown of Troy in northwestern Montana. “To think of that coming through my own hometown and being a part of putting that through the community that I grew up in – it’s incredibly gratifying,” he told the Western News.

Ryan Patrick Killackey ’01, Washington, D.C., is a filmmaker whose documentary, “Yasuni Man,” was a finalist in the 2017 Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival competition. “Yasuni Man” tells the story of the Waorani, hunter-gatherers who live deep in the biodiverse Yasuni nature reserve in the Ecuadorian Amazon, whose existence has been threatened for centuries by attempted exploitation of resources. Killackey, who has a degree in wildlife biology from UM, worked for nearly a decade on research projects focused on conservation and population dynamics before moving to the Ecuadorian Amazon in 2005, according to an interview with Mongabay.com. “It was then that I first went into Yasuni and learned about the conflict that has pitted biodiversity and human rights against natural resource exploitation,” he told the website. 

Rachel VandeVoort ’01, Whitefish, is director of Montana’s newly created Office of Outdoor Recreation. She is the country’s first female director of a state office of recreation. 

Jed Wyman ’01, Coos Bay, Ore., published “Sparks,” a short story set in Missoula, in Volume No. 15 of The Radvocate literary journal. His work also has been featured in The Bangalore Review and 34th Parallel. He currently teaches writing at Southwestern Oregon Community College. 

Anthony Zuccarini ’01, Jefferson City, Mo., flaunts his Griz pride wherever he goes, including during his recent travels to Manila, Philippines. He’s pictured here with his three sons at the SM Mall of Asia in Bay City. Though he left Montana in 2002, Anthony still makes it back to Missoula every few years for Griz games. Now a resident of Missouri, he also catches Griz sports whenever they venture to the Midwest.

 Angelina Urbina ’02, M.Ed. ’08, Las Vegas, is in her third season as executive officer for the Thunderbirds, the demonstration squadron of the U.S. Air Force. She leads an executive support staff responsible for the squadron’s cyber/knowledge operations, budget, training and force support actions for the commander. 

After spending a decade in New York City pursuing her craft and continuing her education, Aleks Malejs ’02, West Falls, N.Y., has been active in the Buffalo theater community as a professional actor and theater teacher for the past five years. Last January, she performed in “Grounded,” a one-woman show by George Brant, at the Kavinoky Theatre, and in June she received Outstanding Actress in a Play accolades at the 27th annual Artie Awards. Malejs is a proud member of the Actors’ Equity Association stage actors union, an honor she earned in 2011 when she appeared in the Montana Repertory Theatre’s national touring production of “Bus Stop” by William Inge. Malejs writes that she is forever grateful to UM and everyone at the Montana Rep for the creative foundation she stands on.

 Tiffany Aldinger ’03, Great Falls, is the production manager for the Wendt Agency, the longest-standing full-service advertising agency in Montana. She oversees all production services and is responsible for scheduling, providing estimates, ensuring quality control, proofreading and managing workflow across the agency. Before joining Wendt, she worked as an editor at the Great Falls Tribune and at the Post Register in Idaho Falls, Idaho. 

 The National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development included UM alumni LeAnn Montes ’03, Havre, and William Shunkamolah M.A. ’09, Ph.D. ’12, Gallup, N.M., on its 2017 “Native American 40 Under 40” list. The prestigious honor recognizes individuals under age 40, nominated by members of their communities, who have demonstrated leadership, initiative and dedication and made significant contributions in business and their community. Montes, who earned a degree in business administration from UM while playing for the Lady Griz, is now the attorney general for the Chippewa Cree Tribe. Shunkamolah, who earned master’s and doctoral degrees in psychology from UM, is the acting clinical director of behavior health at the Indian Health Service in Gallup. 

 John Lloyd Ph.D. ’03, South Strafford, Vt., the director of science at the Vermont Center for Ecostudies, was named an Elective Member of the American Ornithological Society. Members are selected by their peers for their significant contributions to ornithology and/or service to the society. While at UM, Lloyd’s doctoral research focused on the ecology, evolutionary biology and conservation of grassland birds in eastern Montana and western North Dakota, with a special focus on chestnut-collared longspurs. He now focuses his research on the ecology and conservation of birds of south Florida, the Caribbean and mountains in the Northeast.

Brad Cederberg ’06, Missoula, is a vice president and financial adviser for D.A. Davidson in Missoula. Last fall, he became the affiliate faculty instructor for the College of Business’ $50,000 Portfolio Management course – a class he first participated in as a UM student in 2005. Students enrolled in the course participate in D.A. Davidson’s Student Investment Program, which provides student teams in senior-level investment courses at 20 colleges and universities with $50,000 each to invest in the stock market. Each team makes investment decisions with the guidance of a local D.A. Davidson financial adviser and manages the portfolio for one year, starting in September. The program is designed to provide a hands-on experience in finance, stock research, portfolio management and investment topics. In the most recent competition, under the guidance of then-instructor John Passuccio ’01, M.B.A. ’03, the UM team received the Fred Dickson Memorial Award, which recognizes one team for overall excellence and adherence to program standards. In earning the award, UM demonstrated consistent long-term performance over one-year, three-year and five-year periods, with strong results on an absolute and risk-adjusted basis. In addition to their share of profits from the competition, the UM team received a $2,000 award and an expenses-paid trip for five participants to the Davidson Institute, a premier D.A. Davidson event in Seattle in May.  

Haines Eason ’06, Denver, celebrated two years with Denver Metro Media as editor of iconic Denver community newspapers Life on Capitol Hill and the Washington Park Profile. He also marked one year as partner in the company in January. He and his wife, Joni, are happy to call Denver home. 

Baird Harper M.A. ’06, Oak Park, Ill., published his first novel, “Red Light Run: Linked Stories,” in August. Harper’s fiction has appeared in Glimmer Train, Tin House, StoryQuarterly and the Chicago Tribune, among other publications, and has been anthologized in “New Stories from the Midwest, 2015,” “40 Years of CutBank, Stories” and twice in “Best New American Voices.” The recipient of the 2014 Raymond Carver Award for Short Fiction, the Chicago Tribune’s Nelson Algren Award and the James Jones Short Story Award, Harper lives in Oak Park with his wife and two kids, and he teaches creative writing at Loyola University and the University of Chicago.

Caitlin Copple Masingill M.A. ’07, Boise, Idaho, joined branding agency Oliver Russell as public relations director in October. Her duties include designing and implementing public relations strategies for clients and telling Oliver Russell’s own story on the national stage, as well as promoting “Rise Up,” a  new guidebook for aspiring social entrepreneurs by agency founder Russ Stoddard. Masingill is a former Missoula city councilwoman, a longtime communications consultant and a former journalist. Most recently, she worked in the Boise office of one of the nation’s top public affairs firms. 

John Copeland M.A. ’08, Brooklyn, N.Y., and his wife, Erin Arnold, welcomed a baby girl on Sept. 24, 2017. Faye Rainer Copeland was born at Mount Sinai West in New York City. 

Hillary Parsons M.A. ’09, Bozeman, is a forensic anthropologist with History Flight Inc., which works to find missing World War II service members around the world. In July, she was part of an archeological team that uncovered graves of 24 service members on Tarawa, Republic of Kiribati, an atoll in the Pacific Ocean that was the site of the Battle of Tarawa in 1943. She’s pictured here following the discovery explaining positions and movements of troops during the battle to Marine Corps officers. 

Emily von Jentzen J.D. ’09, Kalispell, became the first person ever to swim the length of Flathead Lake and back – a total of 56 miles. Von Jentzen, whose 40-hour feat raised money for a 5-year-old boy with a congenital heart defect and a 4-year-old girl with cancer, also was the first woman to swim the length of Flathead in 2010, as well as the first person to swim 55-mile Lake Chelan in Washington in 2011.