When Kara Blackstone hears the crack of the ball on a baseball bat, it’s not a moment of fan excitement for her — it’s a judgment call.
Blackstone, an alumna of Arizona State University, is an official scorer for Major League Baseball and the first female official scorer assigned to the Arizona Diamondbacks.
The job requires deep knowledge and love of the game.
Holding two degrees from Arizona State University, today Robert Campa handles many important responsibilities as emergency manager in the Office of Emergency Management in Mesa, Arizona’s third largest city and the nation’s 37th largest.
To achieve his success, he had much to overcome, starting with a difficult childhood.
It’s not quite the West Wing — his federal department is headquartered a few blocks away on Independence Avenue — but for an Arizona State University graduate only months out of school, Trey Leveque has succeeded at landing a Washington, D.C., job where he can help address Americans’ health concerns.
Leveque’s position is in an area of keen interest to Americans throughout the COVID-19 pandemic — the nation’s health — working for a high-profile federal health official: the surgeon general.
Graduates of Arizona State University's Watts College of Public Service and Community Solutions fared well in the November general election. One was elected to the U.S. Senate, two to statewide offices in Arizona and others to legislative and local offices.
Successfully combating the COVID-19 pandemic has depended on the minds, hands and hearts of thousands of individuals in a wide spectrum of fields, from medicine and public health to public affairs and social work.
One important component of the battle of the last two years involves case investigation and contact tracing — public health tools that involve identifying infected individuals and those with whom they’ve been in contact, as an attempt to prevent further infections and save lives.
Janey Pearl Starks describes what she chose to do in her public service career and how she went about it with confidence and satisfaction.
“One thing I’m most proud of is that I’ve never worked to make anyone money,” said the 2004 graduate from what is now the ASU School of Community Resources and Development. “My entire career has either been in the nonprofit sector or working in city, state or federal government. I’ve always worked on issues I’m passionate about or for elected officials who were addressing those issues.”
They’re more experienced, wiser and happy with how things turned out since graduation.
We asked several Watts College of Public Service and Community Solutions Outstanding Graduates from the last decade to share with the current generation of students what made them successful — both during their time at ASU and afterward.
Felicia Ganther’s higher education career spans more than a quarter century and includes a PhD degree from Arizona State University. On July 1, that career took a major step forward as Ganther became a college president.
Ganther built strong local roots and gained many memorable experiences before taking over as head of Bucks County Community College, which enrolls 7,100 students at three campuses in and near Newtown, Pennsylvania, and online.
Jose Pelaez was in the Middle East as a member of the U.S. Air Force Reserve when he realized he wanted to be more involved in emergency management and homeland security planning.
Pelaez had been serving as a security forces noncommissioned officer in the reserve. His bachelor’s degree is in criminal justice with experience as a civilian police sergeant.
Part-time jobs, which students often take while finishing school, aren’t usually known for their location at the Arizona State Capitol. Hannah Roehr won’t go full time in her position until she graduates from Arizona State University in December, but she’s already the public information officer, known as a PIO, for one of the state’s top elected officials.