NORTH DAKOTA STATE UNIVERSITY - FARGO, N D



DEPARTMENT OF GEOSCIENCES
NORTH DAKOTA STATE UNIVERSITY

ALUMNI NEWS: 2004 - 2007


Sarah Flaskerud (2004) works for Navteq in its Kansas City office.


Mike Nelson (2004) is living in Blaine, MN with his wife Corrine and two kids Quinn and Conley. He is working at Clark Engineering Corporation as a licensed land surveyor. The company is a Structural and Civil engineering firm.


Aric Olsen (2004) graduated with his M.S. degree from Utah State University in Logan, UT. The title of his thesis was: "Discharge Monitoring, Chemical Characterization, and Source Identification of Springs Along the East Side of Southern Cache Valley, Utah". He reports that he enjoyed graduate school and Utah. He finally was able to get into rock climbing!!

Aric and his family moved back to Minnesota and he now works for Carlson Professional Services, Inc. carrying out environmental and enineering projects. Formerly, Aric worked for ProSource Technologies in Coon Rapids as a Staff Hydrogeologist.
Aric and his wife have two children, Skylar and Sunny. He can be reached at a_aolsen@hotmail.com or tel 320-491-2882.


Peter Schlater (2004) is completing his M.S. degree at the Department of Geological Sciences, Wright State University in Dayton, OH. During part of his time there, he was a Teaching Assistant, for three sections of physical geology. He took courses such as Site Remediation and Hydrogeochemistry while carrying out his thesis research, which involved measuring the amount of bioremediation carried out in wetlands. He is currently employed by Brown and Caldwell and says " I am loving it. I am working as a geologist, getting a good mix of field work and office duties."


Justin Soberaski (2004) earned a M.S. degree in hydrogeology from Clemson University in December, 2007. Congratulations, Justin! He is now employed in North Dakota.


Chris Nelson (2005) is currently working at Northern Technologies Inc. in Fargo. He and his wife Kyja spent time living in Iceland before returning to Fargo. Kyja teaches film and video production at MSUM.


Jennifer (Thorstad) Rose (2005) completed her M.S. degree in hydrogeology at Oklahoma State University. Jennifer's thesis was titled: "The Influence of Borehole Construction on LNAPL Thickness Measurements." She is now living in New Zealand! She writes: " I now work for the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences (GNS) as a hydrogeologist in Taupo, New Zealand. The town of Taupo is next to Lake Taoup which is a collapsed volcano.
I'm studying the groundwater flow and quality in the Lake Tarawera catchment where very little information is known...Work is rough." Jennifer married Sam Rose in 2011 - the picture above shows Jennifer and Sam next to Lake Taupo with Mt. Ruapehu (an active volcano) in the background.


Stefanie (Seeger) Costa Rica (2005) is employed at the environmental consulting company Broadbent and Associates in the Las Vegas area. She is mostly responsible for air quality work which includes dust monitoring. She and Justin live in Henderson, NV.


Justin Costa Rica (2005) is currently working at the Yucca Mountain Project as a well-site geologist. He writes that some of his duties include field identification of geologic units and geologic logging of conventional and sonic core. He is in charge of the drill pad during drilling activities. Justin has been employed at the environmental consulting company Broadbent and Associates in the Las Vegas area as a Staff Geologist working primarily in the field. His responsibilities included collecting soil and groundwater samples, doing weekly maintenance on remediation systems, over-seeing drillers and doing lithlogs. He was also responsible for quarterly reports. He and Stefanie live in Henderson, NV.


Abigail (Marohl) Franklund (2005) earned her M.S. degree at the University of North Dakota at Grand Forks in Geology with a focus in Hydrogeology. She is currently employed by AECOM Environmental as a Staff Geologist and resides in Katy, Texas with Roark and their son Reece and a new little geoscientist due in September 2011!


Roark Franklund (2005) earned his M.S. degree at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, with the thesis title of: Cenomanian Unconformities and Regional Paleogeography in West Texas. He is currently employed by BHP Billiton Petroleum as a Geoscientist and resides in Katy, Texas with Abigail and their son Reece.


Damion Knudsen (2005) is pursuing a M.S. degree in Environmental and Conservation Sciences at North Dakota State University in Fargo. His research interests are in Environmental Remediation. He is currently employed as a Research Scientist at the Energy and Environmental Resource Center in Grand Forks, ND.


Troy Kummer (2005) earned his M.S. at New Mexico Tech in Soccoro, NM. He enjoyed research and attended international conferences, including in Italy in 2007. He also published two papers in geological journals. According to troykummer.com, Troy worked for the environmental consulting firm AMEC Geomatrix as a Staff Hydrogeologist. There, he gained experience working on a Sonic Drill Rig installing CMT (Continuous Multilevel Tubing) wells, collecting groundwater samples, and working on quarterly groundwater monitoring reports.

Troy is now a student at University of California, Irvine in the Department of Education. He plans to become a physics teacher in Orange County, CA.


Abigail (Marohl) Franklund (2005) earned a M.S. degree at the University of North Dakota at Grand Forks. She and Roark are moving to Louisiana, and are very proud parents of Reece, born 2005.


Dan Stephney (2005) is employed at Navteq in Fargo.


Chad Weisenburger (2005) completed his M.S. degree at University of Texas - Austin. He, his wife Halona and their new daughter Isabelle have moved to Tyler, TX, where Chad is employed by EOG Resources. Tyler is a resort community on Lake Palestine. He writes that "the oil companies are lining up to recruit" and encourages geology seniors to consider the petroleum industry for employment.


Michael Wright (2005) is pursuing a M.S. degree at University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee. He can be reached at wrightm@uwm.edu


Jason Triplett graduated from NDSU with an Earth Science Education major om 2005. In Fall, 2007, he was accepted into the Masters of Science program in Environmental and Conservation Science (ECS) at NDSU. He continues teaching at Richland County School in Colfax, ND.

Nick Schmitz received a geology minor from NDSU in December, 2006. He is currently pursuing a M.S. degree in Land Use Economics at the University of Nebraska - Omaha.
He can be reached at UNO Real Estate Research Center, University of Nebraska-Omaha, Roskens Hall 515 D, Omaha, NE 68182-0048. Tel. (402) 554-2453.


Dan Weihrauch (2006) is employed at Northern Technologies Inc. in Fargo.


Todd Morken (2006) earned a M.S.degree on a remote sensing topic, from University of Nevada-Reno.

Reuben Panchol (2006) graduated in December, 2006. He and his wife Betty Adau Majak are very proud of their son Duot Reuben Panchol, who was born in 2007. Reuben was employed by Navteq in Fargo, before joining the firm of another NDSU alum, Lance Loken (1985), Western Plains Consulting, Inc. WPC is an environmental, regulatory and natural resources consulting firm based in Bismarck, North Dakota.

Cody VanderBusch (2006) graduated in December, 2006. Cody joined the North Dakota Oil and Gas Division (OGD) in their Dickinson office as a field inspector.

Nicky Zurn (2007) graduated in May, 2007, and is currently working at Navteq in Fargo.

Andrew Podoll (2007) graduated in May, 2007. He is currently pursuing a M.S. degree in Geology at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.


Michael Newbrey (2007) received his Ph.D. in Biology under the direction of Allan Ashworth. His research interests focused on the growth of contemporary and fossil fish. He and Jennifer (also Ph.D. Biology 2007) are now off to post-doctoral positions at the University of Alberta, in Edmonton, Canada. His web page is www.ualberta.ca/~mnewbrey/ .

Rebecca Mink (2007) received her M.S. degree in Biology, under the direction of Allan Ashworth. She is now happily employed by the North Dakota Geological Survey in Bismarck. Her research interests are in dinosaurs.

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