Alumni Stories

Named Chief Operating Officer in 2019, Marin serves as the leader of the Private Industry Council of Westmoreland/Fayette, Inc. Martin, who earned her degrees in business administration, manages a $23 million budget for the organization, which operates over 24 programs and has more than 300 employees.

Melanie Boyer ‘12 is executive director of the Pittsburgh Metropolitan Area Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. Boyer has been a member of the Allegheny Regional Asset District Advisory Board, the Port Authority Stakeholder Advisory Group, the UPMC Community Health Partnership, CCAC Community Equity & Diversity Council, President's Advisory Board of the Pittsburgh Technical College and more.

U.S. Army Col. Jon Brierton ’94 is the commander of U.S. Army Support Activity at Fort Dix and deputy commander of Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst. The Joint Base, with more than 40,000 acres in New Jersey, is a merger of A.S.A. Fort Dix, the U.S. Air Force’s McGuire Air Force Base and the U.S. Navy’s Naval Support Activity Lakehurst. As deputy commander, Brierton directs the Army’s role as the services work together to meet the needs of the nation.

Already the CEO and founder of Sparq Designs in Pittsburgh and Nashville, Nick Brucker ’09 and a friend developed the idea of combining electrostatic sanitization and drones in order to sanitize large areas, such as stadiums, in a short amount of time. Aeras has sprayed for the Pittsburgh Penguins’ games at PPG Paints Arena, and for ASM Global.

Clarion University alum La-Aja Wiggins Hernandez ’06 won a Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Live & Direct to Tape Sound Mixing on the Price is Right in 2020.

When Clarion English professor Dr. Brian Roberts ’91 decided to pay tribute to his heritage and how he became who he is, he did it in the way that he knows best – the written word. More specifically, Roberts, who worked to revive the Black Studies minor in 2019, embarked on a project to pen a trilogy of plays that told the stories of his grandfather, uncle and father and their experiences as Black men in America.

Born with cerebral palsy, a condition that has limited his range of motion through abnormally tightened muscle structures, Kyle Hurysz (’21) overcame his physical obstacles to graduate with a Bachelor of Science in economics, a Bachelor of Arts in political science with a focus in legal studies and minors in mathematics, applied mathematics and data analytics. He also served as vice president of the Student Government Association, later serving on Edinboro’s Council of Trustees.

1st Lieutenant Halle Lienhart ’20, who commissioned as an active-duty engineer officer with Edinboro University’s ROTC program, became the 91st woman in U.S. history to graduate from Army Ranger training. Additionally, she is the first female Ranger to graduate from the 37th Engineer Battalion, 82nd Airborne Division.

From his home in Mauritius – a tiny island in the Indian Ocean off the coast of South Africa – Jalil Sadool ’04 graduated with a degree in applied media arts – animation and co-founded Steamroller Studios. He also served as animator for blockbuster films such as “Avatar,” “How to Train Your Dragon 2” and “Rise of the Planet of the Apes.”