Attorney and Author Prepared for Successful Careers

Atlantic Union College

by Cindy Kurtzhals

Their first date was a late night visit to the Wachusett Reservoir in Clinton to watch the stars on a very cold fall evening. They stood on the dike off Route 110 and took in the moonlit sights. “We mostly saw stars,” remembers Doug, “most likely the brighter fall constellations, Orion and Cassiopeia.”

Ingrid verified her experience by locating a poem she later wrote. “It wasn’t an entirely clear night,” reflects Ingrid. “There were banks of clouds that a biting wind was sending across the sky. The clouds were like a rolling overlay; when they moved, you then could see pieces of a crystal-clear sky.”

Doug Pelley and Ingrid Satelmajer met in the AUC Accounting Department where they worked in the fall of 1988. Ingrid was a freshman and Doug was a senior at South Lancaster Academy. “We didn’t start dating until two years later,” Doug said. Later, Doug moved to Ithaca, N.Y., in the fall of 1993, to go to Cornell Law School, and Ingrid remained in Massachusetts to finish her master’s degree at Simmons College. In August, 1994, the coupled married.

As newlyweds, they lived in Ithaca for two years before moving to Washington, D.C. Doug is a tax lawyer specializing in pensions, executive compensation and other areas of corporate transactions for the firm of Arnold & Porter, LLP.

Ingrid is an educator, writer, and author. She is also a lecturer in English and University Honors at the University of Maryland where she has taught 13 different English and Honors courses. Some courses she has designed and taught include New York City and the American Dream, Literary Prizes and Their Controversies, and How to be Famous: Celebrity Culture and British Literature, 1800-present. Her areas of research and teaching specialization are nineteenth-century American literature, Dickinson studies, nineteenth-century periodical culture, poetry, textual studies, and digital studies.

Both Ingrid and Doug attribute their success in part to the academic and values foundation they experienced at AUC. Ingrid said learning to ask tough questions and developing an original critical perspective are invaluable to her career. Doug said AUC’s emphasis on hard work and doing one’s best has given him an edge in the workplace.

Courtesy of Atlantic Union College, South Lancaster, Mass.

Coolest Teacher in New Zealand

Canadian University College

During the education process, many people have had at least one teacher who has impacted their lives and challenged them to be the best they could be. For the students at Kamo High School in the city of Whangarei, New Zealand, Anita Moore Magee is that teacher.

In 1996 Anita graduated from Canadian University College with a BEd in Elementary Education. She later moved to New Zealand where she has been living and teaching for the past few years.

“Each of the teachers that taught me made a huge difference in my life, either for the good or the bad,” Magee said. It was those who had a purpose in mind that stand out as being powerful and who brought about change.”

And to the students of Kamo High School, “stand out” is exactly what Magee has done when because of their feedback, she was featured in national newspapers for being the “Most Praised” teacher in all of New Zealand, and into the “Hall of Fame” on ratemyteacher.com.

The website ratemyteacher.com gives students and parents the opportunity to rate teacher performances. There are a number of countries that participate including Canada, United States and New Zealand. “It is a little scary as kids can say what they like,” Magee said. “However, each school that participates must have a person who moderates what is put on the site. Comments about race, looks, weight, etc. are not allowed. It allows students to be honest about what they like and don’t like.”

Anita Moore Magee on a field trip with a few of her students.

However, for the students at Kamo High School the comments they posted were nothing but praise:

“O, you are just brilliant, you are inspiring and amazing”

“Coolest teacher in the whole world!”

“Awesome teacher, awesome person, awesome, awesome, awesome.”

Magee has been shocked by all of the attention and continues focus on her work with students. “I have always just gone about my business doing what I thought I was meant to do,” Magee said. “We all have an influence on others around us. We need to regard the seriousness of that and treat it with care. In hearing students’ comments, I realized that what I do each day is analyzed and has an effect. It is a sobering thought.”

Magee still remembers and values the lessons she learned from her teachers at CUC. “The reason I am doing well is because of what Keith Leavitt [CUC associate professor of education] modeled for me,” Magee said. “He also instilled within me the knowledge that teaching is more than a job. It is a mission. It bears incredible responsibility. And that teaching is never to be taken lightly. Walking into the classroom with a positive attitude and taking the time to encourage students makes a huge difference in their lives and that is what I feel I have been called to do. I believe that is something great!”

Courtesy of Canadian University College, Lacombe, AB, Canada

What Do You Do with
a Bachelor in English?

Union College

Photo by Chet Williams Photography

Ruthita Fike, a 1971 graduate of Union College thought she would be a writer and later a teacher. But never did she think the twists and turns in her career path would lead to becoming CEO of Loma Linda University Medical Center, one of the nation’s most prestigious health care institutions.

While at Union College, she studied English in college, and at the encouragement of one of her professors, she added a teaching endorsement as a way to earn money.

Fike taught high school English for four years before taking a job as a grant writer in the Advancement Office at Union College. She eventually became vice president for advancement and then followed her husband to Kansas City in 1985, where she completed a master’s degree while working in the marketing department of Adventist Health System.

Fike went on to serve as an administrator at Shawnee Mission Medical Center in Kansas City and then CEO of Porter and Littleton Adventist hospitals in Denver before being named executive vice president of Centura Health, Colorado’s largest health system.

In 2004, Fike became CEO of the five-campus, 1,000-bed Loma Linda University Medical Center, the teaching hospital for the Seventh-day Adventist church’s flagship medical training institution, Loma Linda University. As CEO and administrator of this regional medical system serving Southern California’s Inland Empire, Fike oversees the issues facing a billion dollar, 7,000-employee operation.

Even though success came in a very different field from the degree she earned in college, Fike traces the roots of her success to what she learned at Union. “I think the smaller environment gives a lot of leadership opportunities where you can participate and explore your interests,” said Fike, who held several leadership posts while a student at Union. “The professors taught me to learn how to learn and gave me pragmatic advice to leverage that learning to make a living.”

Taking time off from college to serve as one of Union’s first student missionaries, Fike administered hundreds of thousands of vaccinations in war-torn Vietnam. “I saw the impact that doctors and nurses made at crucial times in people’s lives,” she said.

This admiration for health care providers has driven her to work hard to improve the care offered by the institutions she serves. “This is a profession dedicated to making the world a better place and furthering the healing ministry of Christ.”

Fike believes few things are more valuable than a Christian education. “Education is so critical to success,” she explained. “Your earning capacity is greater, but it’s more about your ability to navigate the issues in life. A Christian education like Union provides is critical—a small setting where you can have support while making choices that will affect the rest of your life. Christian education has proven to keep people connected to their church and help them make wiser choices in life.”

Courtesy of Union College, Lincoln, Neb.

Physician Assistant Graduate Runs
Mobile Clinic Ministry in Africa

Kettering College of Medical Arts

by Julie Thompson

Sometimes the journey between hearing God’s call and fulfilling it is a long one.

Echo VanderWal discovered God’s plan for her life when she was 8 years old.

“I was sitting in a church service and heard a missionary speaking about the medical need in Zaire,” Echo said. “It was then that I decided that this is what God wanted me to do.”

It would be more than two decades between Echo’s commitment and when she set foot on African soil. Years of growth and study would prepare her educationally and spiritually for her work.

During her years of preparation, Echo met and married her husband, Harry, who also felt a conviction to serve the poorest of the poor in Africa. She enrolled at Kettering College of Medical Arts to receive an education that would equip her for serving those in developing countries.

In 2000, Echo graduated from Kettering College as a certified physician assistant and started practicing surgery in the Dayton area. After she switched to pediatrics, God blessed her and Harry with triplet sons. She worked and waited another six years – adding another baby boy to the mix – while Harry finished his residency in internal medicine and pediatrics.

Echo VanderWals with her husband, children and some villagers.

“Dr. David Lim [former PA department medical director] was very influential and encouraged me to pursue the goals I had set,” Echo said. “It was a long wait between the time I was called and the time I actually got to go. Dr. Lim told me to be patient.”

Today, the VanderWals have a mobile clinic ministry called The Luke Commission, which reaches out to people in Swaziland, in southern Africa. The family spends up to 10 months a year in Africa, where they often travel three hours three times a week to conduct clinics. The VanderWals arrive in villages by late morning and often stay as late as 1 a.m. to care for people who have sometimes waited up to six months to see them.

The ministry not only helps care for physical issues – from eyeglasses to surgery – but also helps heal souls torn apart by the world’s highest HIV/AIDS rate. The couple has served more than 50,000 Swazi and distributed more than 17,000 Bibles since starting their ministry.

Echo fights for words to explain how such a devastating place can also be one of the most peaceful for her and her family.

“There is a lot of pain and heartache in this work,” she said, “but I can’t imagine doing anything else with my life. I can think of easier lives, but I can’t think of anything better. There is a sense of peace and contentment that I wouldn’t trade for any position or money.”

Courtesy of Kettering College of Medical Arts, Kettering, Ohio

Paraplegic Graduate Summits Kilimanjaro, Sets World Record

Pacific Union College

By Larry Pena, student writer

Photos by Phil Chester

When she lost the use of her legs a year after her 2004 graduation from Pacific Union College, athlete Erica Davis wasn’t content to give up her active lifestyle. But she never expected to set a world record—as the first paraplegic woman to reach the peak of Mt. Kilimanjaro.

In 2005, doctors found a hemorrhage at the base of Davis's spine that resulted in full paralysis below the waist. But it never occurred to her to give up her lifestyle. “I just thought, ‘How am I going to be able to play sports again?’”

Davis immersed herself in the challenged athlete community. She took up tennis, softball, basketball, rowing, climbing, even triathlons — anything she could find. She was so active and visible as an athlete that in October of 2009 she was approached by the C.H.E.K Institute, an organization that promotes corrective exercise and high-performance physical conditioning. The Institute offered to train and sponsor her if she agreed to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro and appear in a documentary of the journey, raising awareness for other athletes with physical challenges.

Eric Davis (right) and Tara Butcher (left) on the summit of
Mt. Kilimanjaro.

Another challenged athlete, Tara Butcher, whose left leg is amputated below the knee, also joined in the adventure that began in January 2010. They were accompanied by the film crew, representatives from the C.H.E.K Institute and several other sponsors, and a team of porters.

The ascent took six strenuous days. At several points the porters had to carry Davis’s specially designed wheelchair over boulders and sharp crevasses. At the upper altitudes the temperature dropped to extreme lows, and many in the group experienced debilitating altitude sickness.

But when Davis reached the summit (pictured above), she knew that all the trials had been worthwhile. As she watched the sun rise from the roof of Africa, she felt like her hard work had finally paid off.

Since she returned to the States at the beginning of February she’s faced a slew of interviews to publicize her groundbreaking feat. “I’m not used to it; I’ve never been much in the public eye,” she said. But with her upcoming documentary Through the Roof scheduled to come out this spring, she may have to make the ongoing adjustment as a role model for other athletes facing physical challenges.

Davis, who plans to return to more conventional sports in the coming months, still dreams of competing in Ironman, and has every intention of someday being able to walk again on her own two legs.

“What she does next will only be determined by where she wants to focus,” says Bob Paulson, Davis's coach at PUC. “Her determination allows her to do more than you’d expect she’d be able to do.”

Courtesy of Pacific Union College, Angwin, Calif.

Biology Graduate Submerged in Research

Walla Walla University

“I felt completely detached from the rest of the world. It was all at once grotesque, alien, wondrous and beautiful. Outside our windows animals of all shapes and sizes were flashing brightly all around us. It was a display that would make a Christmas tree jealous.”

No, this is not a deep-space adventure. Kirt Onthank, a 2006 biology graduate, was submerged below the ocean surface headed to the Mothra hydrothermal vent field on the Juan de Fuca Ridge in the North Pacific.

Kirt Onthank (center) inside ALVIN.

Onthank completed a master’s degree in biology at WWU in the summer of 2008, focusing on octopuses. This dive to the thermal vents was the opportunity of a lifetime to observe some of these creatures in their natural habitat.

“It was an enormous privilege to be able to look at life and phenomenon that only a handful of other people have ever been able to glance with their own eyes,” Onthank said.

The dive was made possible through Onthank’s doctoral program at Washington State University. His lab professor, Ray Lee, is studying animals that live at the vents, particularly focusing on how they can survive the high temperatures and high amounts of sulfide in the water, which is very toxic to humans.

The space in the submarine was quite cramped. Three people were crammed in a six-foot diameter titanium sphere, along with all the computer and equipment needed to operate the sub.

“It sounds claustrophobic,” Onthank said, “but I was so enthralled with what was outside, I barely noticed my tight quarters.”

While on the ocean floor, Onthank and those with him on the dive collected animals and rock samples from areas of the vents and switched out an incubator.

The ALVIN, the sub Onthank dove in, is one of the most famous deep-submergence submarines. It has been in operation since 1964, and has done some noteworthy explorations, such as locating a sunken U.S. submarine armed with nuclear missiles and exploring the Titanic when it was rediscovered in the 1980s.

“Honestly, this was one of the most amazing experiences of my life,” says Onthank. “I feel like it was something of a rite of passage for me into marine biology.”

Courtesy of Walla Walla University, Walla Walla, Wash.

SAHP Alumus Joins Shangri-La to Develop Healthy Menus

Loma Linda University

Asia Pacific’s leading luxury hotel group, Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts, is advancing its food and beverage leadership by developing new menus with a nutritionist to provide healthy cuisine to guests at its properties worldwide.

Wong Chi Wing, a registered dietician from the Commission on Dietetic Registration accredited by the American Dietetic Association, and a 1997 graduate of the Nutrition and Dietetics program at Loma Linda University, has been retained to work with Shangri-La in a major initiative to bring healthy dining to a higher level of creativity at the hotel and resort properties.

Shangri-La will work closely with Wong to develop menus to meet the nutritional and lifestyle needs of its guests. Nutritional needs are unique to each individual; the new menus will allow guests to select from a variety of dishes that are specific to their dietary needs while on the road.

Wong is also department head of food and dietetics at Hong Kong Adventist Hospital. He has 10 years of experience as a dietician. Wong was the previous vice president of the Hong Kong Practicing Dieticians Union and is often featured as an expert source on local radio stations and in publications. He is also a frequent guest speaker at seminars organized by the Hong Kong Cancer Fund and Hong Kong Breast Cancer Foundation.

Courtesy of Loma Linda University, Loma Linda, Calif.

Telly Award-winning Adventist Shares Miracle Stories from around the World

Southern Adventist University

By Lori Futcher

After three years of producing the Making Waves television program in partnership with AWR, Terry Cantrell, who graduated from Southern Adventist University in 1985, was recently recognized with two Telly Awards: a silver Film/Video Telly in the Religious/Spiritual category and a bronze People’s Telly in the TV Programs/Segments category.

Yet, while he appreciates the recognition of excellence from broadcast and industry professionals, what he is most grateful for is the ability to witness and share compelling stories of people worldwide whose lives have been touched by Christ.

“We all have a story to tell,” Cantrell said. “Christ has a plan for each of us. It is my privilege to tell the world the story of His children.”

One such story, the one that won him the Tellys, is the story of Ruben, a lay minister in Kenya whose life was forever changed with a face-to-face encounter with a man-eating lion.

Though raised an Adventist, Ruben had left Christianity behind and was working as a long-haul truck driver. One day, as he and his partner were passing through Tsavo, an area known for man-eating lions, their truck broke down. After calling in for help, they turned on the radio to pass the time. The men half listened as a preacher shared the Word and made an appeal.

Then a large male lion approached the truck and looked in through the window. Ruben urged his partner to put on the bright red vest the company had provided in case of an encounter with lions. They had been told that because lions don’t like the color red, this would help keep them away, but his partner scoffed. “If we’re going to die, we’re going to die.” The preacher’s words flashed through Ruben’s mind. He knew he needed God’s protection.

Ruben then watched as the lion leapt onto the hood of the truck and crashed through the window, grabbing his partner and taking him outside. Then Ruben listened as the screams of his partner vanished into deathly silence.

As the lion backed up and prepared to jump on the hood again, Ruben said his first prayer in years: “God, please forgive my sins!” The lion pounced on the hood and then continued up to the roof of the truck cab where he settled down for the night, remaining there until Ruben was rescued in the morning. Today, Ruben has devoted his life to serving the God who saved him that night.

Cantrell says that as he’s producing, directing, writing, and filming stories such as Ruben’s, he remembers the lessons he learned while a student at Southern. The most important approach to communicating, he remembers, is to use Christ’s method—story telling.

“There are so many amazing miracles happening around the world, and to talk to these people and witness their experiences firsthand is humbling,” Cantrell said. “Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that because of my education at Southern, I’d be able to witness such miracles in more than 25 countries.”

Terry Cantrell, producer and director of Cantrell Productions,
captures footage of Jim Ayer, vice president of AWR and host
of Making Waves.

Courtesy of Southern Adventist University, Collegedale, Tenn.