Alan Cass. Photo by Casey Cass

Theeeere . . . goes . . . Alan!

Fourth-generation CU alum Alan Cass (A&S ex’63, HonDocHum’99) grew up on campus playing in the ditches and fishing for crawdads in Varsity Lake with strung bacon.

But for the past 50 years, he has been known as the CU voice of “Here Comes Ralphie” and “Welcome to 5,345 feet of Rocky Mountain Altitude.” Alan has announced more than 2,000 CU sporting events from track to baseball, football and basketball. For 20 years, he also announced the Denver Broncos games at Mile High Stadium.

“The adrenaline always started to flow and I wanted to be there,” he says.

Last spring Alan finally switched off his microphone to retire.

During his tenure, Alan gained assistance from CU’s language department in correctly pronouncing athletes’ names. Many fans echo his enunciation of names such as Jaaay Jaaay Billingsley and “in . . . com . . . plete,” his creation when a Broncos’ opponent failed to catch a pass.

But Alan also spent a lot of his career as curator of CU-Boulder’s Glenn Miller Archive at the American Music Research Center, building and maintaining the significant repository of big band musician Glenn Miller (A&S ex’26, HonDocHum’84) memorabilia.

He credits CU-Boulder Alumni Association associate director Margaret “Peggy” Tague Earnest for suggesting he place a request in the Colorado Alumnus, known today as the Coloradan, for support and additional items. From then on, “bits and pieces kept coming in. It’s never stopped. Its scope is impossible to put your arms around,” he says.

As the archive’s curator, Alan reviews and accepts new memorabilia. He also gives 25-50 Glenn Miller presentations yearly. Last February the university acquired the Ed Burke Collection as part of the Glenn Miller Archive. One of the world’s most significant collections of Big Band era recordings and memorabilia, it contains 1,400 reel-to-reel tapes with live radio programs featuring virtually every musician of major importance between 1930-60, including Tommy Dorsey and Count Basie.

“It took us three years working with Ed Burke and his family to acquire his entire collection,” Alan notes. “You never know how life will lead you. It’s been quite a trip with wonderful people along the way.”

 — Marty Coffin Evans (Engl’64)

Kelly Heffer Green (Comm’97)

Kelly Heffer Green (Comm’97) may possibly head the most important company of which you’ve never heard.

In a largely male-dominated industry, Kelly is the third-generation owner and chairman of Birko, which manufactures concentrated chemicals and equipment used in the meat processing, food and beverage industries. Birko’s green products are used to help eliminate foodborne illnesses, such as E. coli and salmonella. The company’s customers consist of 80 percent of the top 10 U.S. beef processors, including Cargill and JBS.

Kelly is passionate about food safety, particularly the importance of eliminating foodborne illnesses such as E. coli. She also is interested in the role of meat, known as “protein” in the industry, in helping fight world hunger.

“Meat is high in nutritional value, but it can be hard for starving people in developing countries to afford,” Kelly says.

Birko is ranked No. 10 on the ColoradoBiz magazine list of Top 100 Woman-Owned Companies for 2011 and is the only Colorado manufacturing company in the Top 10. Kelly is one of two women serving on the board of the National Meat Association. The Henderson, Colo., company was started by her grandparents in 1953.

To help give the poor and hungry better access to protein, Kelly sponsors the Birko Greenjeans team through Heifer International, a global nonprofit that provides gifts of livestock to families that want to become self-reliant.

During her CU days, she spent a lot of time practicing her golf swing. As a member of the CU women’s golf team under coach Justi Miller, Kelly recalls most of her life revolved around golf and school. Team members took classes in the morning and practiced all afternoon at several Boulder-area golf courses. During the evening she studied.

Despite her hectic schedule, Kelly credits the CU athletic department with helping her learn several key skills that have stood her well in her business career.

“The athletic department really helped me succeed academically and being on the golf team taught me how to manage my ups and downs, take one day at a time and set goals,” Kelly says. “I learned time management, discipline and how to keep my head above water.”

Kelly remembers running the stairs at Folsom Field and hiking with friends at Chautauqua, which she dubs, “God’s Stairmaster.” She maintains her ties with CU through membership in the Alumni C-Club, a group of former CU letter winners.

— Jenny Herring (Jour’82)

Morgan Heim (MJour’09)

Forging a path in the jungle of journalism

With creative fundraising and social media savvy, Morgan Heim (MJour’09) is forging a path through the jungle of modern journalism and hopes to save a few species along the way.

A zoologist turned journalist, Morgan has become a strong voice for conservation just two years out of school. She turns dry research into real-life narratives, bringing hard science to the masses through writing, photography and video.

As a conservation journalist privy to a seemingly inexhaustible supply of stories, Morgan created Ecoleads, a website providing story ideas, resources and connections to science journalists.

Originally Morgan wanted to be a scientist. But while working as a fisheries ecologist in the Pacific Northwest a few summers ago, she saw the need to raise awareness about environmental issues she was witnessing.

“With science, you learn amazing things, you do amazing things, but when it comes to telling people about it, it’s often the opposite,” Morgan says. “The science is so dry that it’s hard to keep people engaged and that leads to misunderstandings, sometimes about really big things.”

Morgan’s latest project, CAT in WATER, aims to change that. This fall, Morgan and Joanna Nasar (MJour’09) will team up with a scientist in Thailand to document rare fishing cats in the wild. Little is known about these cats and their survival chances. Fewer than 10,000 exist in the wild.

Throughout the two-month trip, Morgan and Joanna will offer real-time, online reporting via blog posts, photos, videos and the opportunity for viewers to participate and ask questions. This interactive, multimedia expedition is a dream come true for Morgan.

Morgan and Joanna generated more than $10,000 for CAT in WATER through Kickstarter, an online fundraiser, in addition to support from nonprofits, gear sponsors and publications.

“It’s truly humbling and encouraging there is enough interest that people will reach into their pockets and help fund a project that’s going to teach us something about an animal,” she says.

Morgan and Joanna didn’t want to wait to get a big assignment, especially with current challenges in the journalism industry. So they went for it.

“There is greater freedom than ever to chart your own path in journalism,” Morgan says. “Those challenges are also our best gift.”

— Caroline Treadway

Jim Patton Jr. (Aero’56)

After more than 9,000 flight hours and 60 years as a pilot, James Patton Jr. (Aero’56) landed at the end of his career where he first took off — on the plane of his childhood dreams.

Jim retired from NASA after 21 years in 1987. Too restless to stay on the ground, Jim continued flight-testing until officially retiring in 2002. His last project brought him full-circle at age 74, testing the Boeing-Stearman Model 75 that his childhood heroes of World War II flew.

“It was a great way to exit stage left,” he says.

Growing up in Texas, airplanes fascinated him. His first plane ride at age 7 solidified his dreams. Jim built his career by “playing airplane,” a humble way of describing this 2009 inductee into the Virginia Aviation Hall of Fame, a fellow of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots and a pilot who purposely maneuvered his aircraft into over 8,000 spins.

Jim flew in the Navy for six years. Armed with the GI Bill, he moved to Boulder to attend CU. He lived with other ex-Naval aviators in a house on 11 acres on South Boulder Road. A Siamese cat named Smoky came with the property. During the week Jim studied and on the weekends he flew.

“I only took aeronautical engineering to be around airplanes,” Jim says. “We had a lot of scenery, but a lot of work was involved,” he says.

After graduating he accepted a position with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). There Jim tested airplanes with unrecoverable spins and realized no guidelines existed to ensure effective spin recovery. The FAA sent him to the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School, an opportunity he describes as “the tipping point” in his career.

That opportunity led Jim to what he calls “the best flying job in the world” — a position at NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., as chief research pilot and head of flight operations. He developed the NASA Spin Program, spurred by his realizations at the FAA. The program lasted more than 14 years during which he developed spin-resistant airplanes, improved flight training, wrote over 100 technical reports and collected data still used by universities. Ultimately, aircraft manufacturers adopted NASA’s recommendations, a decision Jim says has “undoubtedly saved lives.”

At age 82, Jim misses flying. He fills that gap by volunteering and finding satisfaction in helping others. Looking back, Jim offers sound advice.

“Be persistent,” he says. “Don’t give up knocking on the door. When the door finally cracks open, be ready and prepared.”

— Beth Phillips

Allen Lim (MKines’97, PhDIntPhys’04) - Photo by Jamie Kripke

Kevin Costner isn’t a sports scientist, but he played one on the big screen. Allen Lim (MKines’97, PhDIntPhys’04), on the other hand, is the real deal, and Costner can take some credit for that.

At the age of 12 or 13, Allen watched American Flyers, the 1985 bike-racing movie filmed partly in Colorado. Costner plays a sports physician who puts his brother through a stress test designed to gauge the rider’s fitness.

Fast-forward three decades. Allen is a sports physiologist for some of the biggest names in cycling, most recently seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong.

As director of sports science for Team RadioShack two years ago, Allen put Armstrong through a set of paces that could be fairly described as unusual.

Allen persuaded Armstrong to swallow a pill-sized thermometer to measure and transmit the champion’s core temperature during training rides in Hawaii. Allen also had Armstrong time-trialing along the Hawaiian coast with dozens of pieces of yarn [to indicate airflow] fluttering from his body suit.

Team RadioShack’s marquee rider endured a series of crashes and hard knocks in his final tour last year, but, assisted by Allen, RadioShack won the team competition.

He is known as the sports scientist who helped popularize the measurement of power output in cycling. His CU doctoral dissertation, which focused on biomechanics, aerodynamics and physiological responses to the stress of exertion in cycling, relied in part on measurements taken by the Saris CycleOps PowerTap, one of several power meters embraced by cyclists in the last decade. Power meters measure the human equivalent of horsepower.

Allen’s dissertation validated the measurements of PowerTap and found that power meters installed on bicycles provide a much more reliable indicator of a rider’s on-the-road performance than heart-rate monitors.

Allen says the sports-science community is still figuring out how to use all these data, but the general population could ultimately benefit as well.

“We need a universal metric for describing physical activity,” he says. That standardized unit could help people have a better grip on their level of exertion and health.

Although Allen loves what he’s doing, his longer-term goal is to become a Johnny Appleseed of physical fitness.

“If I can take what I’ve learned from elite athletes and apply it generally, I think people can lead better lives,” he says.

It is a daunting challenge. But a guy who persuades Lance Armstrong to go time-trialing in a Mardi Gras costume might have a good shot.

— Clint Talbott (Jour’85)

Sarah Welton (MBA’07) loved to eat and camp, so she decided to co-found PackitGourmet.

Sarah Welton (MBA’07)

“Our family has been canoeing, skiing and camping together my entire life,” she says. “My mother always prepared our meals in the style of what is now PackitGourmet — grab-it-out-of-the-pack bag.”

The idea of an online grocery store tailored for the camping community would not have gone anywhere without CU, Sarah says. Developing a business plan for professor Frank Moyes’ entrepreneurship program was invaluable. She learned her product concept was viable and could withstand the scrutiny of many area business professionals who reviewed it.

Her online product appeals to outdoors enthusiasts wanting good meals with minimal preparation with all the ingredients on hand. PackitGourmet’s three website sections —Trail Meals, Grocery Store and Gear & Supplies — meet these needs. Relying heavily on tasty and nutritious freeze-dried and dehydrated foods, it works well where refrigeration is not readily available.

Sarah focuses her attention on managing the website, monitoring the inventory and purchasing production items. Her mother and co-founding partner Debbie Mullins loves to cook and enjoys experimenting with different food options.

With family roots in Florida and Texas, Packit’s meals have a heavy Southern and Tex-Mex influence. But other regional and global dishes also make an appearance, such as chicken salad, tortilla soup, bangers and mash. The Big Easy Gumbo and Migas del Sol are some of the favorites.

After wading through export regulations, she aims to have her product go international. So far, it is available in Australia and Canada. Canada is an easier market because of NAFTA, she says, noting trademarking is challenging, too, since the company doesn’t fit neatly into a category.

Lessons learned have been many, including what it’s like to be an entrepreneur.

“You don’t hear very often how much this will impact you personally,” she says. “Starting a business is like having a baby. It changes your personal life and the challenges never go away.”

— Marty Coffin Evans (Engl’64)

Courtesy of Andrew Nelson (BioChem’09) and Leah Feazel (EPOBio, MCDBio’05)

DOORs open for two newlyweds

Andrew Nelson (BioChem’09) and Leah Feazel (EPOBio, MCDBio’05) were married in Cameroon last summer surrounded by people they had only known for a few weeks.

But their connection to the West African nation and its people began long before they boarded a plane. As a student, Andrew had befriended Cameroon native and philosophy professor Ajume Wingo [see Faces of CU in the December 2010 Coloradan]. When Ajume invited the couple to visit Kumbo, Cameroon, they began proposing ways they could help out the nation. The result? They founded the nonprofit organization Developing Opportunities for Orphans and Residents of Cameroon, or DOORs.

Last spring, the trio decided to collect bicycles and computers to repair in America and sell in Cameroon, a culturally diverse nation with more than 200 spoken languages and scenery that ranges from savannahs to rainforests and beaches. The fundraiser was a success. They collected 86 bikes and 90 computers. However, it was difficult and costly to ship the products and get them through the country’s customs.

After the couple landed in Cameroon for a two-month stay, they switched their focus to education. The two spent a lot of time with high school students learning about the education system in Cameroon and how it differed from that of America.

It became obvious that most students were not receiving a proper education because many needed to work to help for their families or did not have the funds to attend a university. Andrew and Leah chose to sponsor four students with scholarships to make college a reality for them.

“It was a motivating focus,” Leah says. “There are really bright students in Cameroon.”

The organization hopes to raise enough money to send more students to college after the initial four. Andrew says they want to ensure a steady stream of students goes to university.

“It is wonderful to see two young graduates of CU look at the world beyond the West,” Ajume says. “Traveling to my home of Cameroon gave them an opportunity for self-exploration, and DOORs gave them the opportunity to empathize with humanity beyond their own borders.”

Andrew and Leah received their master’s degrees in environmental science and engineering from Colorado School of Mines in Golden. They plan to expand DOORs into environmental aspects such as water quality, health and nutrition, agriculture and sanitation. Down the road they may join with nonprofit groups focusing on other countries.

“There is definitely enough need in the world,” Andrew says.

—Christie Sounart

Shelby Tisdale (Anth’80)

Caretaking thousands of years in the Southwest

Shelby Tisdale (Anth’80) has her dream job.

“Every day when I walk through the galleries I feel surrounded by so much beauty,” she says. “Everything is handmade. I have such deep respect for the Native American ancestors and their descendents.”

As director of the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture and Laboratory of Anthropology in Santa Fe, N.M., Shelby oversees 11,500 years of Native American history. The broad collection contains almost 10 million archaeological artifacts and about 75,000 ethnographic materials and fine arts.

Access to the native communities means this museum and its educational programs function differently than most. Members of the neighboring pueblos are asked for input to ensure historical accuracy of the collections documentation. Shelby says incorporating their voices in these exhibits and programs is critical. Furthermore, educational kits help children and youth learn about their cultural traditions.

“We are working with the pueblos and youth to create gardens of traditional food — beans, corn and squash — and its preparation,” Shelby says of the two-year-old project headed by her Navajo staff.

Her career path was shaped by a blend of anthropology, archaeology and museum studies led by anthropology professor Dennis Van Gerven and CU Museum of Natural History curator, the late Joe Ben Wheat.

“CU laid the foundation for where I am today,” she says. “I like to look at archaeological history and make it current by viewing living people in terms of their land, water rights and health issues such as diabetes.”

She has seen expanded dialogue among museums and Native Americans while serving on the Smithsonian Institution Repatriation Committee.

“It’s the most important collaboration I’ve seen in the museum where we play an active role,” she says. “It’s really important to me as an anthropologist/archaeologist to follow the law and have open communication.”

Whether working as a curator, director or collections manager, Shelby’s 32-year career has taken her to museums in Seattle, Palm Springs, Calif., Tulsa, Okla., Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico — all focused on Native Americans. She has captured their art and culture as director of the Millicent Rogers Museum in Taos with its jewelry collection and through her writing and editing of a book on Dine [Navajo] textiles.

“I love my work but I’d love to be a full-time writer,” she says. Her most recent book, Spider Woman’s Gift: Nineteenth-Century Dine Textiles (University of New Mexico Press), is scheduled for release in June.

— Marty Coffin Evans (Engl’64)

Matt Dockstader (Bus’78)

Running and wine a winning combo

Who would have thought that running and wine paired so well? Matt Dockstader (Bus’78) did and in 2004 produced the first Napa-to-Sonoma Wine Country Half Marathon.

“My vision was to produce a scenic race in a special part of the country that would appeal to people of all ages and abilities,” says Matt, who lives in Sonoma, Calif. “In the process we’ve uncovered and developed a niche market of runners and wine enthusiasts that continues to grow.”

His company, Destination Races, produces five wine country half-marathons — 13.1 miles — attracting more than 40,000 participants. It partners with hotels, wineries, visitors bureaus and other local businesses to make the races true destination events.

Matt came up with the idea after working on a committee to bring the Olympic Games to San Francisco in 2003. However, at times the logistics seemed overwhelming.

“We are producing major sports and entertainment events, including a race, a health and fitness expo, a wine and music festival and other ancillary activities all in three days,” he says. “A lot of moving parts need to come together at one time.”

With the help of dedicated volunteers and a small part-time staff, he prevailed. The icing on the cake is the trademark post-race Wine & Music Festival where runners join teammates, friends and family in the Sonoma plaza to celebrate, receive awards and sample wines from some of the finest wineries in the region. Runner’s World magazine selected Napa-to-Sonoma as the best half-marathon finish in a 2008 issue.

Matt expanded his Wine Country Half Marathons into Santa Barbara and Healdsburg, Calif., the Willamette Valley in Oregon and Loudoun County, Va. He credits his success to his education and life experiences at Boulder.

“My CU business education taught me the critical importance of planning, innovative thinking and persistence,” he says. “I also met so many diverse people from all over the country, just as I am doing now in my business.”

Randee Kadziel (MEdu’76), 59, and her daughter of Park City, Utah, ran the Napa-to-Sonoma and Santa Barbara Wine Country Half Marathons together in 2008 and 2010, respectively.

“Running these races was a special experience for my daughter and me,” says Randee, a breast-cancer survivor.

The winner of the inaugural Oregon Wine Country Half Marathon was former CU runner Stephen Pifer (Geol’08), who on Feb. 11, 2006, became the only Buff to record a sub-four-minute mile. Patty Roberts Rogers (Psych’96), a four-time All-American in track and cross-country at CU from 1992-96, was the 2007 Napa-to-Sonoma women’s champion.

For more information visit www.destinationraces.com.

— William Allen Baltz (A&S’78)

Ellie Vaughter - photo by Andi Fabri

After a lifetime of helping others and dreaming about what it would be like to serve in the Peace Corps, Ellie Vaughter’s (Thtr’91, MHum’00) aspiration is finally coming true. At age 77, Ellie will start an exciting new chapter in her life — a two-year journey to Kazakhstan in central Asia where she will teach people in a small mountain village to speak English.

“I love to travel but never had a lot of money to do it, so this will be a great experience,” says Ellie who has been to London and France but never to Asia.

While the prospect of living in a foreign country for two years might make some elders nervous, the adventuresome Ellie has no qualms about her upcoming journey, except her luggage limits.

“They told me I could only take 50 pounds of clothing, which is going to be absolutely impossible!” she exclaims.

Upon her arrival in Kazakhstan, Ellie will spend three months learning to speak the local language before diving into 21 months of volunteer work. She has had experience teaching English as a second language in Los Angeles, Minneapolis and Denver.

“I would like to encourage older citizens who are finished with their careers to step out and take some risks and make a difference in the lives of other people,” she says. “The baby boomers who are retiring from their jobs should consider doing something valuable, whether it be joining the Peace Corps or volunteering at a local school.”

Ellie is much older than the average Peace Corps volunteer but that doesn’t faze her. She enrolled in college in her 50s to broaden her horizons and obtain a degree in theater, a field for which she has long been passionate. While at CU she also served as the house mother at Sigma Alpha Epsilon and was involved with the French department.

“You don’t go to school to get jobs,” Ellie says. “You go to get an education and broaden your world.”

As Ellie prepares to leave for Kazakhstan, she is spending a lot of time with her family and is busy planning her son’s wedding. She stays active by swimming and cross country skiing. Despite being 77, age isn’t a barrier to Ellie.

“One of the reasons I keep going is because I get up every morning and I do something,” she says. “If someone gives me a discount, I’ll take it, but that’s about the only time I consider myself a senior citizen because I’m doing everything I want to do.”

— Alex Bak