Alumni Profiles
Alum designs NCAA logo
Alum spearheads sports med program at Florida State
FBI's Pistole counters terror
Project teaches artist about faith in the face of doubt
Gospel changes family, community
Alum designs NCAA logo
Tammi Powlen-Burke BA ’95 made a slam dunk with her creation of the 2003 NCAA Men’s Final Four logo. Powlen-Burke, a graphic design major while at AU, is a graphic designer at the NCAA. Her inspiration for the logo came after researching both the New Orleans cultural scene and the collegiate basketball landscape.
“I’m pleased to be able to use my God-given abilities at a not-for-profit organization,” says Powlen-Burke. She has worked with the NCAA since August of 1999, when the organization moved from Kansas City to Indianapolis. As one of four designers, she is responsible in part for the creation of 45 championship logos, championship arena interior/exterior signage and collateral material, NCAA Hall of Champions materials and concept design and implementation for various NCAA programs. One of the NCAA projects she works closely with is the NCAA Woman of the Year awards banquet that is aired on ESPN. She creates the dinner concept, stage design, room décor and all collateral materials.
Though demanding at the time, she said she has come to appreciate the expectations for excellence from her AU art professors, and she appreciates her family’s support — especially her dad and sister Jenny who spent hours helping her with her many projects. She fondly remembers her “all-nighters” in the Anderson art department.
Powlen-Burke, her husband, Rich, and chocolate labrador, Roxy, reside in Pittsboro, Ind.
Alum spearheads sports med program at Florida State
By Heather Lowhorn
It wasn’t Dr. Angela Sehgal’s BA ’88 lifelong dream to pursue a career in sports medicine. In fact, when she first started at AU, she was a business major. But now, after 10 years of being in athletic training, she is developing Florida State University’s sports medicine program and leading others into the profession.
“I didn’t know much about it,” Sehgal says of sports medicine. “I think the Lord led me in that direction.” She was only a business major for one day. “When I found out Anderson had a sports medicine program, I immediately changed my major,” explains Sehgal, who had always been active in sports, even playing basketball for four years at AU.
As the athletic training/sports medicine education program coordinator for Florida State University, Sehgal has spent the last five years developing sports medicine curriculum for the school. She has spearheaded the effort to have the program accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Allied Health Education Programs (CAAHEP). “When we started we had one athletic training class. Now we offer 10 courses and 12 clinicals,” she says. “I’ve developed all of that in a short time. Five years sounds like a long time, but when you’re developing classes, it’s really not that long.”
Although Florida State is a large Division I school, Sehgal has made a priority of keeping a personal touch in the program. “We’re a big school, but we’re mimicking the model at Anderson. We’re going to keep it small so that we know everybody’s name and face,” she says. “The main drive of this university is research at the graduate and doctoral levels. Going back to what I learned at Anderson, I’m trying to take more of a teaching focus for our curriculum and saying, ‘The one-on-one with the students is very important.’”
Sehgal will know this year whether or not the program has achieved CAAHEP accreditation. Although the process is lengthy and intense, Sehgal is very optimistic and credits support from FSU. “We started out with the very basics at Florida State, and now we’ve got a premiere program. Our instruction has come a long way.”
FBI's Pistole counters terror
By David Harness
Less than a year after being named deputy assistant director of the FBI’s counter terrorism division, John S. Pistole BA ’78 still seemed to be pinching himself. After all, when the position came open last year, he neither applied for it nor felt especially qualified for such a high-ranking role. But his superiors argued otherwise, and when FBI Director Robert Mueller finally called, it was hard to say “No.”
“The director said, ‘Unless there’s a strong reason why you shouldn’t accept this position, I’m going to name you to the position,’” Pistole recalls.
Thus Pistole, a 20-year FBI veteran, became the number 2 ranking official in the bureau’s counter terrorism division: the person responsible for overseeing all its domestic and international terror investigations.
If the appointment seemed unlikely, it also seemed providential. “I just had the sense that … this would not have worked out but for God’s hand being in it,” says Pistole. “I’m here for a reason. So, I feel very fortunate and privileged.”
That sense of purpose and calling help motivate him, for a job whose demands are extraordinary. Pistole consistently works 14-hour days, keeps a secure phone at home for weekend briefings, testifies before congressional committees on intelligence matters . . . and yes, sometimes he wakes up in the night thinking of some new angle for stifling terrorist plots.
“It is very time consuming and very demanding, trying to keep on top of these things to make sure there’s nothing falling between the cracks, nothing that we’re not ‘connecting the dots’ on.” Still, he adds, “I thoroughly enjoy the job.”
Pistole helped build the bureau’s counter terrorism division from a staff of less than 200 to more than 1,000 personnel. As the only government agency with both law enforcement and intelligence responsibilities, Pistole says the FBI is uniquely positioned to gather, analyze and share information about would-be terrorists.
“We’ve shifted [since 9/11] to clearly make preventing the next terrorist attack the FBI’s top priority,” he says.
If stopping terrorists is a challenge, so is maintaining some sense of family life these days for Pistole, 46. He has a “very supportive” wife, Kathy Harp BA ’78, and two daughters, Lauren, 12, and Jennifer, 10.
“This job is not something that I can or will do for the rest of my life,” he says. (He can retire at age 50.) “But for now, it’s what I feel called to do, and I don’t think I can go about it with less than full commitment of my energy. There’s just too much at stake.“
As for the prospects for success in this seemingly endless “war on terrorism,” Pistole says, “I feel hopeful, but at the same time, I recognize — as, I think, most Americans either recognize now or will eventually — that there are no guarantees in this business.
“If you want a sense of security, that I think most people felt prior to 9/11 . . . I’m not sure we’ll ever get back to that.”
Gospel changes family, community
By Deborah Lilly
In 1981 David Miller BA ’74 and his wife, Barbara, moved to Bolivia, where he accepted the call of an itinerant evangelist for the Church of God. On his first trip to Oruro, Bolivia, he met the man who inspired his book Song of the Andes: The Impact of the Gospel on the Andean Peoples of Bolivia.
“I took the train to Oruro, where the Church of God is headquartered in Boliva, Florencio Colque met me and took me to his house,” says Miller. “Every time I went to Oruro over the next 21 years, I bunked at the Colque house. We became very close friends and co-workers.”
Miller and Colque took many long trips together along mountain roads to reach congregations. To pass the time, Colque would tell stories — legends of the Andean people, stories from his own life and stories of how the Gospel influenced the lives of his friends and family. Miller used those stories to write Song of the Andes.
Florencio was introduced to Christianity as an adult. His decision to convert influenced his mother, step-brothers and cousins. They were the first family in Lequepalca to become Christian, and their decision led to hostility from others in the village who viewed Christianity as a threat to their traditions. But before long, the community was transformed as well. The story includes Colque’s work with the church in Oruro and his commitment to evangelize throughout Bolivia.
According to Miller, the Church of God in Bolivia is the largest national church in all of Latin America, thanks in large part to the ministry work of the Andean indigenous people. The Millers worked with Colque for 21 years. During that time, the number of congregations grew from 80 to more than 200. “I think [Colque’s story] has a lot to teach us about how to do mission work.”
Originally published in Spanish, Song of the Andes was reprinted in English in 2002. Miller’s other books include Lord of Bella Vista, about the transformation of a Columbian prison, and The Path and the Peacemakers, the story of how the evangelical church in Peru confronted the terrorist war in the 1980s and 1990s. All three of his books have been published by Triangle and can be purchased through Pilgrim Press at www.pilgrimpress.com or (800) 537-3394.
Project teaches artist about faith in the face of doubt
By Deborah Lilly
Steven Durow BA ’98 encourages artists to never be afraid of any job. “It’s very good to push yourself, to tackle things you’ve never done before. It’s the only way you’re going to grow as an artist and a professional.”
Durow, an artist, follows his own advice. One of his most recent projects is a 16-foot, 2,200-pound glass cross commissioned by Cornerstone Outreach Ministries in Okemos, Mich. Durow, who lives in New Jersey, spent a year designing, building and shaping the piece from half-inch thick ultra clear glass plates. The design came from his ideas of an earthly cross and a spiritual cross.
“The earthly cross is the cross Jesus was actually nailed to and signifies his death and sacrifice,” Durow explains. The left side of the piece represents the earthly cross with its smooth edges and square corners.
“The right side of the piece represents the spiritual cross we all carry around inside of us.” Before laminating the glass plates together on the right side, he hand-chipped each piece of glass so it catches and reflects light much differently than the sandblasted plates on the left side.
After Durow finished the piece, he built the shipping container and shaped the thick Styrofoam packaging around the cross. Even though it was summer, he had to protect the piece from the cold temperatures in the Pennsylvania mountains; a severe temperature change would crack the glass.
“I was totally nervous the day they installed the piece,” says Durow. “I really wanted to be there, but I just couldn’t be in Michigan that day.” He did visit the congregation the following week — Fourth of July weekend — and spoke about the meaning behind the glass sculpture, the process of creating the piece and how the project influenced his spiritual journey.
“A lot of times we set up doubt as the enemy of faith,” explains Durow. He dealt with doubt many times when he entered his studio and became overwhelmed by the size of the project. “But I would pick up my chisel and start chipping the glass or I would pick up my scale and start weighing out the adhesive. I just put one foot in front of the other until the piece was finished,” he says. “Having doubt isn’t the problem. The problem is when you allow doubt to stop you from putting one foot in front of the other.”
Durow works on other freelance projects as he has time, but he also keeps busy working full time as the education director for UrbanGlass in Brooklyn, N.Y.
