![76届校友凯西·沃尔夫格兰]()
的博士. 苏斯标题”哦，你要去的地方 comes to mind for alumna Kathy Wolfgram ’76 when she reflects on her time at Carroll and the start of a career in chemistry that she said might have been intimidating if she knew what was to come.
“To anticipate what turned out to be my bio would have possibly been intimidating, 令人兴奋的, 奖励,”她说。. “让我们回到恐吓上来. There are so many points along the career that you just had to say, ‘They see something in me that I’m not aware of. Let’s see if this works out or not’.”
She will share more details of her career journey as keynote speaker of this year’s 校友领导午餐会 早上11点开始.m. 8月19日. The cost per person is $25 to attend.
在她的职业生涯中, Wolfgram worked at a multinational for-profit company with 50,000 to 60,000 employees — Dow Chemical Company — as well as a not-for-profit global scientific professional society with 1,400名员工- CAS, a division of the American Chemical Society. She said she found she drew on the same skills and training experiences to succeed at both, despite their significant differences.
“我职业生涯的大部分时间, I was surrounded with those who had a deeper technical expertise or technical creativity. I tended to offer process optimization skills,”她说。. “我不是什么都能干. I’m very well aware of that and it was always important for me to team up with somebody who had the stronger talent in thinking a certain way or doing a certain type of work.”
Wolfgram said she realized in her career the importance of observation, 好奇心, and self-awareness in gaining an appreciation of what type of work she enjoys and what comes naturally.
The youngest of seven children, her eldest sibling was in college by the time Wolfgram turned 1. 她向他们学习, watched as each went off to college, and became familiar with the Ripon College and Lawrence University campuses, 有些人出席了. 她没有考虑过卡罗尔, which was near her childhood home in Pewaukee, until an older friend from high school introduced her to the college.
“I was drawn to the atmosphere I felt on campus,”她说。. “(Former 招生 Counselor) Shirley Hilger’s recruiting efforts certainly made a difference. The letters I received from faculty in chemistry, math and even music - they took the time to try to connect to me as a potential student, and the financial aid support stood out. So ironically, I ended up at a college seven miles from home but I lived as if I was two hours away. It was important for me to be far enough from home that I devoted my attention to the full college experience.”
While growing up in Pewaukee, she took college prep courses in high school, doing well in math. So, when she went to college at Carroll, she explored numbers as well as science. She majored in chemistry and minored in education. She said teaching was one of the only careers she had witnessed growing up so thought “that’s what I should pursue.”
Math, she said, quickly became too abstract. She didn’t enjoy “all of the memorization” of biology. She became drawn to the logic and analytical aspects of chemistry and “the expectations that it could lead to interesting career options,”她说。.
After graduating from Carroll in 1976, she was employed by the Dow Chemical Company in Michigan and Ohio for more than 20 years. That included a variety of process, product and business development management assignments. When Dow relocated the Ohio Research and Development Center and staff to Michigan, Wolfgram chose to stay in the Columbus, 俄亥俄州的区域. She served for the next 17 years with CAS, and was a director from 2006 until her retirement in 2014.
While at Dow, she became familiar with United Way because of Dow's strong support of the agency. She reached out to seek the first of her volunteer opportunities with United Way in the Columbus metro area. Her giving grew as she became involved with other organizations as well to become president of a 1,250名成员的集会, president of the Foundation Board for the Columbus Ohio Rotary, and as a member of the Capital University Board of Trustees.
“It was important for me to get to know the community dynamics in Columbus and to see where my skills and experience might be helpful,”她说。.
Wolfgram said she built upon her 好奇心 and developed a strong network through each life and career experience. Looking back on where it all started at her alma mater, she said Carroll “opened the door and qualified me to walk through the door.”