Dear Alumni Community,

Letters to the Editor are usually your chance to share stories, memories, and reflections, but this time, I’d like to take the opportunity to share an exciting new change coming to our office.

Our mission is simple: to help you feel connected to your alma mater. You’re likely familiar with some of the ways we do this – through signature events like Homecoming and Western Ski Weekend, The Westerner alumni magazine, and cheering on Mountaineer Athletics.

Still, we know getting back to Gunnison isn’t always easy. With that in mind, we’ve been working on ways to bring Western to you. What we realized is that we were missing something: a central hub where alumni could connect directly with each other and with Western. A place to offer mentorship, access career services and job boards, view upcoming events, share stories, and showcase alumni-owned businesses.

That’s why we’re excited to launch Mountaineer Connect, our new online alumni community hub. It goes live this fall, and I encourage you to set up your profile and take advantage of this powerful resource. We will make an announcement as soon as it goes live.

In the meantime, we’d love to hear from you. Please keep sending us your Class Notes and Letters to the Editor – we value your stories and voices.

Thank you,

Megan West

Director of Alumni Relations

The Western Mountain Rescue Team (WMRT) is proud to represent Western as the only Team accredited by the Mountain Rescue Association (MRA) whose primary membership is based out of a university.

This year, we are undergoing the demanding MRA reaccreditation process, a rigorous evaluation of our technical skills, safety standards, and ability to respond effectively in the field.

Reaccreditation requires our student members to demonstrate proficiency in wilderness search tactics, avalanche response, and high- and low-angle rope rescue. These skills are not only tested but practiced throughout the year in real missions, as WMRT continues to serve Gunnison County and other counties around the state under the Sheriff’s Office.

Looking ahead, our goals include vehicle upgrades, expanding training opportunities, and strengthening the leadership development that comes from serving on WMRT. Some of our other priorities for the future are to strengthen alumni and community support, increase funding opportunities, and ensure long-term sustainability. As Homecoming approaches, we’re proud to share these efforts with Western alumni and celebrate the commitment of our rescuers, both past and present, to serving the Gunnison Valley.

Respectfully,

Riley LeHane, WMRT President

The Mountaineer Football Alumni Association is a non-profit organization that works with the Western Colorado University (WCU) Foundation, the athletic program, and specifically the football program to raise money for football scholarships. Anyone can join as a member and we have approximately 80 current members, raising $75,000 yearly to football scholarships. The goal is to reach 300 members and achieve $300,000 in donations. 

WCU football is approximately 10 scholarships below our peers and what the NCAA regulations allow. Yet, Western has been ranked in the top 10 nationally for the past few years even though the program is competing with a scholarship disadvantage.

The renovated Mountaineer Bowl is a great start to help in recruiting, but the football program is still hamstrung due to the lack of scholarship dollars. Coach Bains and his staff are dedicated to recruiting players who embody the Mountaineer spirit, both on and off the field and the University has set a goal to increase enrollment by approximately 900 students in the near future. Increased student enrollment enhances WCU and the entire community while providing a wider perception of the University and elevating its visibility and appeal. A successful athletics program with a positive family-friendly environment will help attract new students and improve retention. The MFAA is dedicated to helping achieve this goal and we are always accepting new members. New membership funds are deposited directly into the MFAA Legacy Fund and new members are asked to make a tax-deductible donation for an amount that is comfortable for each member. Every dollar positively impacts Mountaineer Football and helps to provide Coach Bains and his staff with the resources needed to take the football program to the next level.

Learn more about becoming a member or to donate below. Every contribution matters. Your support sends a powerful message to WCU student-athletes: you believe in them and their potential.

Join the fight today!

Michael Wade, MFAA President

mrwade05312@gmail.com

Fifty years ago, two alumni of Western Colorado University and a several friends started a tradition of getting together every summer for a men’s camping trip.  After several fun filled years and the addition of new friends, we decided we needed an official name and after much deliberation, we finally settled on the name Bigfoot for our group.

Over the years the majority of trips have been in the mountains of Colorado and Wyoming and as our group has grown we have taken some epic adventures in some beautiful places.  We have taken a house boat up the Mississippi River, rented house boats on Lake Powel (three times), a horse packing trip into the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and a fishing trip to Rainy Lake in International Falls, MN.

Although the trips first started primarily as camping trips, we have progressed to renting Ranger cabins here in Colorado.

This year, in honor of our first trip, we met for a week at Harmel’s Resort on the Taylor River.  There were 13 alumni and several friends that have been involved in our Bigfoot trips over the years.  We loved getting together once again to reminisce, eat good food and toast some wine to our friends who couldn’t make it.

Bigfoot voted this year to continue our outings, but change from every year to every 2 yrs.

-Larry Fitzsimons (’71)

The picture includes: FRONT ROW (L to R) –  Jim Inglis ’72, Larry Fitzsimons ‘71, Dave Inglis ’74;  BACK ROW – Mel Coleman ’72, Gary Rogers ’76, Terry McLachlan ’72, John Inglis ’71, Gary Jessen ’73, Doug Taylor ’74/’77, Larry Klick, Greg Widmar ’72, Bill Howard ’73, Greg Coleman, Fred Iozzo ’72.

After my graduation from the Western Geology program in 2015, I ventured to the University of Texas at Austin Institute for Geophysics (UTIG) to obtain a Ph.D. in Geosciences. At UTIG, I utilized my Geology and Mathematics background, forged by the amazing professors at Western, to become a solid-earth geophysicist. My Ph.D. studies primarily used marine active-source seismic data to tackle several major outstanding questions in plate tectonics: What processes allow continents to break up and form new ocean basins? And how do new subduction zones initiate and become self-sustaining convergent tectonic boundaries? 

I was fortunate to participate in two marine seismic expeditions aboard the R/V Marcus G. Langseth to collect new deep-penetrating, high-quality multichannel seismic reflection and wide-angle seismic refraction datasets in New Zealand. These experiences cultivated my passion for sea-going fieldwork. I love getting to work with diverse scientists from all over the world in remote places and exploring what lies beneath the Earth’s oceans!

My research projects were part of the broader National Science Foundation GeoPRISMS community, which is a collection of geoscientists dedicated to studying tectonic processes along rifted margins and subduction zones. This was exciting and gave me the opportunity to collaborate with a wide range of scientists and present my research at various scientific workshops and meetings. 

In 2021, I finished my Ph.D. at UTIG and received a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO) at Columbia University in New York City. Over the last few years, I have expanded my research program and applied my geophysical skills towards better understanding geohazards at subduction zones. I worked with a new seismic dataset from the Cascadia margin along the northwest US, and also helped lead a new seismic dataset acquisition with the Langseth offshore Mexico as a Co-Chief Scientist. As I write this note, I am currently sailing on the JOIDES Resolution, a scientific ocean drilling vessel, as a Physical Properties / Borehole Geophysics specialist for International Ocean Discovery Program Expedition 402. We have 30 geoscientists from all over the world, along with 130 total crew on this massive 470-foot-long ship, with the goal of drilling down over 12,000 feet and recovering rocks from the Earth’s mantle in the Tyrrhenian Sea. 

Now in my third year as a postdoc at LDEO, I am hoping to land a full-time tenure-track faculty job soon and continue studying the tectonic process on our planet and helping train the next generation of geoscientists. Coming out of high school, I was not a very good student, and I could have never imagined I would be where I am today. I truly give all the credit to the fantastic educational environment at Western, which has such a positive and hands-on teaching culture that sparked my curiosity and gave me the encouragement I needed to succeed.

Brandon Shuck (’15)