Giving

Alphabetized

Karla Aho

Karla Aho

  • Assistant Vice President for Advancement and Gift Planning
  • Corporate Secretary, Michigan Tech Fund

People could reach out to me for:

  • Fundraising strategy
  • Charitable giving tax law and policy
  • Michigan Tech Fund policy and procedures
  • Advancement and FSO/MTF policy and procedures
  • Fundraising productivity and campaign progress reports
  • Donor pipeline and engagement
  • Advancement and Gift Planning operations
Joanne Anderson

Joanne Anderson

  • Director for Charitable Giving

Specialties

  • Meet with alumni and established donors to secure major gifts valued at $25,000 or greater
  • Identify and develop key potential alumni/friends/donors as top prospects within portfolio 
  • Meet with prospects to determine their affinity and readiness, introduce strategic opportunities, and discuss gifting options for their consideration
  • Present gift proposals that best represent the donor's intention and capacity
  • Assist in the gift process, follow up, and stewardship of secured gifts
  • Represent College of Business and College of Computing as areas of special concentration
Carol Argentati

Carol Argentati

  • Senior Administrative Aide, Alumni Engagement

Specialties

  • Provides administrative support for the AVP of Alumni Engagement and all programmatic areas of the Alumni Engagement team’s work
  • Manages and responds to alumni inquiries and assists visitors
  • Manages the inventory for events and programs for Alumni Engagement and Advancement purposes
  • Assists with campus logistics for on-campus traditions (Homecoming, Winter Carnival, Reunion) as well as with Alumni Board of Director and Presidential Council of Alumnae meetings on campus
  • Assists with coordination of special projects (Traveling Tech Talks)
  • Assists with planning campus visits for key donors/alumni and special events for Alumni Engagement and Advancement
  • Assists with CRM Advance data entry
Jennifer Biekkola

Jennifer Biekkola

  • Associate Director for Alumni Engagement

Specialties

  • Responsible for the planning and execution of alumni & student engagement programs hosted locally
  • Manages and executes key annual giving stewardship programming
  • Provides support and represent professional staff for the Alumni Board of Directors
  • Serves as the primary staff partner to the R&R committee
Jessica Comfort

Jessica Comfort

  • Executive Director for Advancement Services and Operations

Specialties

  • Provides strategic leadership to the University’s Advancement and Alumni Engagement information infrastructure 
  • Aligns business support functions, policies and procedures and technology infrastructure with the strategies, resources and priorities of Advancement and Alumni Engagement and the University
  • Leads a team of business, data and research analysts 
  • Supports the stewardship and donor relations team 
  • Responsible for data management, advanced find, report output and dashboard creation within CRM Advance
  • Provides support for the fundraising campaign consulting team
Sana Dicks

Sana Dicks

  • Director for Annual Giving
Wes Frahm

Wes Frahm

  • Director for Advancement & Alumni Communications

Specialties

  • Responsible for Advancement marketing communications, including newsletters, brochures, websites, print and electronic publications, and social media
  • Works with university departments to coordinate communications with alumni and friends
  • Editor, Michigan Tech Alumni monthly e-newsletters and manages the alumni communications calendar
  • Contributor, Advancement and Alumni Engagement content for Michigan Tech Magazine
  • Produces campaign fundraising pieces
Eric Halonen

Eric Halonen

  • Assistant Vice President for Principal Giving

Specialties

  • Provides overall strategy, direction and support to increase the number of transformational principal gifts
  • Oversees, and participates as appropriate, in the process of identification, cultivation, solicitation and stewardship of the principal giving prospects
  • Networks across the University to generate and ensure global awareness of “big ideas”
  • Updates the Michigan Tech Fund Board of Directors on principal giving activities and recommends potential new members to this board
  • Provides direct and indirect management of prospects and donors with the capacity to make principal gifts
  • Supports the Dean of the College of Business with direct support of a portfolio of the College’s major and principal donors and prospects
Damon Huotari

Damon Huotari

  • Director for Charitable Giving

Specialties

  • Meet with alumni and established donors to secure major gifts valued at $25,000 or greater
  • Identify and develop key potential alumni, friends, donors as top prospects within portfolio 
  • Meet with prospects to determine their affinity and readiness, introduce strategic opportunities, and discuss gifting options for their consideration
  • Present gift proposals that best represent the donor's intention and capacity
  • Assist in the gift process, follow up, and stewardship of secured gifts
  • Represent College of Engineering  as special area of concentration
Kevin Kainulainen

Kevin Kainulainen

  • Director for Advancement Services and Operations

Specialties

  • Works with the Advancement and Alumni Engagement team to align technology solutions with business strategies
  • Supports complex business processes, working closely with users to understand their needs, translating those needs into technical/functional requirements, and contributing to quality assurance and training initiatives
  • Creates and executes queries using WebFOCUS, CRM and SQL for reporting
  • Serves as a project lead on large, complex projects involving multiple stakeholders
  • Member of the CRM Advance implementation project team
Tyler Kinnunen

Tyler Kinnunen

  • Associate Controller
Marney Kloote

Marney Kloote

  • Executive Director for Charitable Giving

Specialties

  • Maintains a portfolio of alumni and donors to secure major gifts valued at $25,000 or greater
  • Collaborate with campus partners to understand initiatives and strive for best donor outcomes
  • Meet with prospective donors to gauge capacity and interest in supporting university initiatives
  • Offer strategic coaching to the frontline fundraising team to accelerate the donor's journey/experience
Alisha Kocjan

Alisha Kocjan

  • Director of Charitable Giving

Specialties

  • Meet with alumni and established donors to secure major gifts valued at $25,000 or greater
  • Identify and develop key potential alumni, friends, donors as top prospects within portfolio
  • Meet with prospects to determine their affinity and readiness, introduce strategic opportunities, and discuss gifting options for their consideration
  • Present gift proposals that best represent the donor's intention and capacity
  • Assist in the gift process, follow up, and stewardship of secured gifts
  • Represent AE Seaman Mineral Museum and Campus Wide as special areas of concentration
Morgan Laajala

Morgan Laajala

  • Assistant Director of Advancement & Alumni Communications

Specialties

  • Assists the Advancement and Alumni Engagement team with digital marketing and communication initiatives including direct solicitations, events, and special projects. Specific focus on annual giving and alumni engagement initiatives
  • Helps to effectively use the web, mass email, and social media to communicate with and engage alumni and friends to promote their involvement with and investment in Michigan Technological University
  • Promotes stories about students, alumni, donors, faculty, and campus traditions to further Michigan Technological University’s philanthropic initiatives
  • Collaborates with the Advancement and Alumni Engagement team on fundraising priorities to implement online giving initiatives and crowdfunding campaigns
Debra Linn

Debra Linn

  • Senior Administrative Aide for Gift Administration

Specialties

  • Supports the Advancement and Gift Planning Team
  • Drafts correspondence, maintains scholarship files, and assists with planned giving files.
  • Coordinates planned gift recognition, including delivery of acknowledgement and gift.
  • Assists in processing gifts, biographical updates and donor correspondence.
Jennifer Lucas (Jung)

Jennifer Lucas (Jung)

  • Assistant Vice President for Alumni Engagement & Annual Giving

Specialties

  • Provides direction and leadership to the team of Alumni Engagement & Annual Giving professionals and respective priorities and programming at Michigan Tech. 
  • Works collaboratively with alumni and university leadership to develop, implement, and maintain a comprehensive program designed to provide meaningful opportunities for alumni to enhance loyalty, dedication, and financial support for Michigan Tech through three core pillars - events, volunteerism, and communications:
  • Serves as the on-campus spokesperson for more than 84,000 living alumni, leading efforts to create and sustain valuable connections for alumni and friends across the state, country, and around the world.
  • Develops, implements, and measures effectiveness of structure and programming to facilitate lifelong dialogue, relationships, and overall engagement between the University and its constituents to increase alumni participation and giving.
  • Develop and maintain cooperative and collaborative relationships and programs with other University units, such as Admissions, Career Services, Athletics, Student Affairs, University Marking & Communications, and all academic colleges and departments.
Cyndi Martin

Cyndi Martin

  • Business Systems Analyst/Data Visualization Specialist

Specialties

  • Supports Michigan Tech’s alumni and donor information systems and working closely with users to understand their data needs
  • Member of the CRM Advance implementation project team
  • Provide ad-hoc reports using Ellucian CRM Advance, WebFOCUS and SQL
  • Liasion for Web Focus Reports for Campus partners
Allie Millina

Allie Millina

  • Student Office Assistant

Links of Interest

  • Allie is on Michigan Tech's Women's Soccer team, majoring in Social Sciences.
  • Off the field and outside of the classroom, she is a part of our Gift Processing team
  • Full bio and stats
Mike Olson

Mike Olson

  • Associate Director for Strategy and Market Development

Specialties

  • Develops and implements the moves management and strategies relevant to a diverse set of potential donors.
  • Assists in fundraising strategy for special initiatives.
  • Implement specific methods and tactics to expand market potential in high- and ultra-high net worth individuals.
  • Consults regularly with colleagues regarding marketing and outreach programming to identify, qualify, engage, and elevate new prospects and sustaining and legacy donors.
  • Consults with Directors of Advancement to make informed recommendations for strategic qualification, cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship of managed donors.
  • Actively and strategically manages portfolios and pipelines to maximize donor involvement.
Kari Price

Kari Price

  • Research and Donor Records Manager

Specialties

  • Develops and manages ongoing initiatives to collect and maintain alumni, donor, corporate and foundation data in support of Advancement and Alumni Engagement priorities
  • Conducts biographical and financial research on alumni, friends, corporations, including donors and prospective donors
  • Works closely with the Director of Donor Relations and Stewardship to support mass donor recognition programs and individualized stewardship initiatives. This includes support for annual and lifetime giving society recognition
  • Member of the CRM Advance implementation project team
Meredith Raasio

Meredith Raasio

  • Director for Foundation Relations

People could reach out to me for:

  • Campus priorities and identified faculty leads for pursuit of significant proposal opportunities
  • Gift and grant requests to foundations

Specialties

  • Leads and implementation of the University’s professional advancement and Flagship campaign priorities through foundation partnership
  • Establish relationships, present gift proposals, follow up, and stewardship of secured gifts from foundations, public charities, associations, and other organizations
Shanna Reynolds

Shanna Reynolds

  • Senior Administrative Aide for Advancement Services and Operations
William Roberts

William Roberts

  • Vice President for Advancement and Alumni Engagement
  • Vice President, Michigan Tech Fund
Julie Seppala

Julie Seppala

  • Associate Vice President for Finance
  • Treasurer, Michigan Tech Fund

Links of Interest

 

Specialties

  • Bond issuance and compliance
  • Treasury Management
  • Facilities and Administrative Rate (F&A) and Fringe Benefit rate proposal submissions and negotiations
  • Utilizes LEAN/continuous improvement principles and tools for process improvement initiatives

About Julie

  • For the first 20 plus years of Julie’s career at Michigan Tech was in research administration, where she was provided the opportunity to participate in providing administrative and compliance guidance to the dedicated faculty and staff regarding post award and pre-award activities. During her time in research administration Julie has participated in: a 4-year national pilot program to implement a new certification of payroll expenses, which resulted in revisions to federal grant and contract regulations to allow universities across the nation to implement project payroll certifications to document time charged federal grants and contract; the Lean Facilitator training program and was an early adopter of the Lean principles and methods; the finance software conversion; the development of Universities first Disclosure Statement, a federal requirement to document the accounting system for direct and indirect costs on externally funded research. Seppala is a native of the Copper Country and when not working, she enjoys spending time at the lake with her family and friends.
Jordan Shawhan

Jordan Shawhan

  • Assistant Director for Advancement & Alumni Communications

Specialties

  • Assists the Advancement and Alumni Engagement team with digital marketing and communication initiatives including direct solicitations, events, and special projects. Specific focus on annual giving and alumni engagement initiatives
  • Helps to effectively use the web, mass email, and social media to communicate with and engage alumni and friends to promote their involvement with and investment in Michigan Technological University
  • Promotes stories about students, alumni, donors, faculty, and campus traditions to further Michigan Technological University’s philanthropic initiatives
  • Collaborates with the Advancement and Alumni Engagement team on fundraising priorities to implement online giving initiatives and crowdfunding campaigns
James Shortt

James Shortt

  • Director for Charitable Giving

Specialties

  • Meet with alumni and established donors to secure major gifts valued at $25,000 or greater
  • Identify and develop key potential alumni, friends, donors as top prospects within portfolio 
  • Meet with prospects to determine their affinity and readiness, introduce strategic opportunities, and discuss gifting options for their consideration
  • Present gift proposals that best represent the donor's intention and capacity
  • Assist in the gift process, follow up, and stewardship of secured gifts
Mary Stevens

Mary Stevens

  • Assistant to the Vice President for Advancement and Alumni Engagement

Specialties

  • Supports the VP for Advancement and Alumni Engagement
  • Princiapl Gift Process Manager
  • Manages VP’s calendars and meeting schedules
  • Manages budgetary and human resources operations for Advancement and Alumni Engagement
  • Processes travel reimbursements for AVPs
  • Department, Space, and Equipment Coordinator
  • Website updates
Tayler Tankersley

Tayler Tankersley

  • Associate Director for Alumni Engagement

Specialties

  • Assists in the planning and execution of alumni and student engagement programs
  • Promotes a culture of engagement and philanthropy
  • Manages regional alumni engagement programming
  • Manages the corporate alumni network and all engagement of corporate points of contact
  • Provides program management and execution support for Reunion
Joan Tapani

Joan Tapani

  • Donor Relations Coordinator

Specialties

  • Manage the day-to-day activities, correspondence, email and calendar management of the AVP for Advancement and Gift Planning
  • Coordinate the Flagship Campaign working committees
  • Liaison between the department and the Provost Office for management of the academic endowed positions
  • Works with Alumni Engagement on the Time and Talent Initiative
  • Works with Alumni Engagement on the alumni award nomination process
  • Assists advancement colleagues with visit preparation materials and follow up after the visits
Lorraine Thoune

Lorraine Thoune

  • Associate Director for Gift and Estate Administration
  • Lean Facilitator

Specialties

  • Leads the gift administration team, who ensures the correct entry, designation, and acknowledgement of all gifts to the University
  • Leads the gift proposal and documentation process in support of the advancement team, preparing proposals and gift agreements
  • Leads the management of the planned gift registry and related files and oversees the recording, acknowledgment, and realization of planned gifts
  • Leads a personalized and donor-centric advancement multi-channel marketing and outreach program, with special emphasis on education 
Cera Trevino

Cera Trevino

  • Senior Administrative Aide for Gift Administration

Specialties

  • Supports the Advancement and Gift Planning Team
  • Processes monetary gifts, gifts of securities, and gifts-in-kind
  • Submits matching gift forms and verifies and confirms matching gift receipt
  • Manage gift receipts and gift acknowledgement
  • Updates biographical data for all constituents, including merging duplicate IDs
  • Enters contact and receipt preferences and exclusions to donor records
Karin Van Dyke

Karin Van Dyke

  • Director for Charitable Giving

Links of Interest

Specialties

  • Meet with alumni and established donors to secure major gifts valued at $25,000 or greater
  • Identify and develop key potential alumni, friends, donors as top prospects within portfolio
  • Meet with prospects to determine their affinity and readiness, introduce strategic opportunities, and discuss gifting options for their consideration
  • Present gift proposals that best represent the donor's intention and capacity
  • Assist in the gift process, follow up, and stewardship of secured gift
  • Represent College of Sciences and Arts, College of Forest Resources and Environmental Science, and Graduate School as areas of special concentration
Bryant Weathers

Bryant Weathers

  • Director for Charitable Gift Planning

People could reach out to me for:

  • A donor situation where they might have a question on how a planned giving vehicle might help them.

Specialties

  • A front-line fundraiser as a certified Specialist in Planned Giving
  • Possesses maintains, and shares expert knowledge in the field of gift planning with a special emphasis on acquiring and staying current with technical expertise in the tax and legal aspects of charitable giving
  • Manage onboarding of new employees to implement best practices for frontline fundraising team
  • Oversees Directors for Charitable Giving as the University's major gift frontline fundraising team
  • Coordinate and approve travel for frontline fundraising team
  • Certified Specialist in Planned Giving, Represent College of Engineering and Pavlis Honors College as areas of special concentration
Linda Wittbrodt

Linda Wittbrodt

  • Business Systems Analyst

Specialties

  • Acquire and maintain operational and functional knowledge of all aspects of the current Ellucian Advance CRM, and all other systems required to support the departments serving alumni and donors
  • Design, implement and modify ad-hoc and routine reports using Ellucian Advance CRM and SQL queries
  • Provide CRM Functional/Technical support
  • Assist with the analysis of business processes. Create and maintain user documentation for processes, procedures and reports
  • Work closely with the Executive Director for Advancement Services, raise new issues, communicate the status of issues, and seek direction as needed
  • Assist with maintenance, upgrades, and enhancements of CRM Advance and all systems required to support the responsibilities of Advancement and Alumni Engagement