Category: Alumni

Alumnus thriving as cybersecurity expert and Arizona State University adjunct professor

St. Clair County Community College alumnus Alexander Neff credits his alma mater for helping him keep pace while pursuing his career along today’s information superhighway.

Neff, 33, of Mesa, Ariz., is employed as a cybersecurity and compliance manager for VisualVault and recently became an adjunct professor at Arizona State University.

“Everything I learned prepared me to jump into my career full steam and allowed me to catch up to speed quickly on technologies I hadn’t learned yet,” he said. “Without SC4, I would have never achieved the level of success I have today.”

The Algonac High School graduate earned his Associate of Science degree in computer information systems (networking) from SC4 in 2006. He then went on to attend Northern Arizona University where he earned his Bachelor of Science degree in information technology management in 2012 and later his Master of Science degree in management of information systems from the University of Arizona in 2017.

Neff began working as a systems analyst for Magellan21 in Glendale, Ariz., in 2010 and later became an information security architect for the Public Safety Personnel Retirement System in Phoenix in 2011 before accepting his current position this year with VisualVault. He is also a Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH).

“In my first few positions after graduation, I supported small business networks,” Neff said. “My degree from SC4 aligned well with those positions. In order to move forward with my career, I transitioned to cybersecurity and was able to leverage all of my experience up to that point. In my current position, I’m in charge of cybersecurity and compliance for a company that provides software as a service.”

He also will soon teach college classes similar to the ones he took at SC4.

“I actually just accepted the position at ASU to teach night classes,” he said. “I will be teaching a couple of 100 and 200 level information technology and cybersecurity classes a semester, exactly the kind of classes I took at SC4. I feel it’s a way to strengthen my own knowledge while training the next wave of cybersecurity engineers as they are sorely needed in the industry. In the next few years, there’s expected to be a shortage of millions of cybersecurity workers.”

Neff added SC4 was a stepping-stone to higher education.

“The education I received at SC4 gave me a solid foundation of how technology works and allowed me to get my feet wet in my career,” he said.

SC4 alumna fulfills dream of becoming a nurse, leader in health care

Caren Kosal didn’t have to roam far from home to make her dreams of becoming a nurse come true.

caren-kosel-alumni-pics14.jpgKosal, who earned her associate degree in nursing from St. Clair County Community College in 2006, today serves as the trauma program manager at McLaren Port Huron.

“The SC4 nursing program helped me fulfill a lifelong dream of becoming a nurse,” she said. “It is a very humbling experience to help others when they need it most. I am very proud to be a nurse.”

“The SC4 nursing program was very well organized and the instructors were very helpful. SC4 was affordable and conveniently located close to my home, and this helped to make my dream a reality.”

After graduating from Richmond High School in 1988, Kosal worked as an administrative assistant in the orthopedic department at Children’s Hospital from 1988-89 and transferred to the spina bifida clinic where she worked from 1989-96. She went on to work as an administrative assistant for a pediatric orthopedic surgeon until 1999.

She then stayed home with her two young sons for four years, typing medical transcriptions at home before deciding to go back to school.

“I decided to stay home with my first child when I was 29 years old,” she said. “After being home, I knew I really missed working at the hospital but I was ready for more of a leadership role if I were to return. While working in the spina bifida clinic, the manager was a clinical nurse specialist. That’s when I decided I needed to pursue a nursing degree.”

Kosal attended SC4 from 2003-06. While in nursing school, Kosal decided she wanted to become an emergency room nurse when finished with her degree, so she worked part-time as an ER tech at Henry Ford Macomb Hospital until receiving her nursing license.

After graduating from SC4 in 2006, she transitioned to an ER registered nurse role at Henry Ford Macomb.

Kosal said she later decided to apply for an assistant clinical manager position in the ER and was told she needed a bachelor’s degree to be considered.

“I remembered SC4 was affiliated with the University of Michigan-Flint Nursing School at the time, and knew I wouldn’t have a problem with credit transfers,” she said. “I obtained a bachelor’s degree while working full-time hours.”

She finished her bachelor’s degree in nursing from University of Michigan-Flint in December 2013 and the next month became the emergency room manager at McLaren Macomb.

Kosal has been the trauma program manager at McLaren Port Huron since 2017. She lives in Columbus Township with her sons, Noah and Owen, who are now 19 and 17, respectively.

“Without my degree from SC4, I would never have been able to achieve my goals of being a nurse

Internship leads to full-time employment in Texas for SC4 alumna

When St. Clair County Community College alumna Emily Walsh enrolled in the Blue Water Middle College Academy (BWMCA) in 2016, she had no idea her path would lead to full-time employment in Texas in just three short years.

Walsh, who walked with her Port Huron Northern High School peers at the school’s Commencement Ceremony in June 2018, secured a digital marketing internship with the USA Today Network in her third year as a BWMCA student.

“I received a recommendation for the internship from one of my instructors at SC4, Dan McCarty, who cited my commitment and hard work,” said Walsh. “SC4 helped me immensely by letting me use my internship as my elective credits. I was able to take all my other classes online while pursuing my internship.”

In May 2019, she graduated from SC4 and BWMCA with an Associate in Applied Arts and Sciences with a focus on web development and a high school diploma, respectively. She also was hired by the USA Today Network two months prior to her internship ending for a full-time position as a client success manager.

Walsh credits the BWMCA, SC4 professors and her digital marketing internship for helping her improve her skills and abilities and secure full-time employment at the news network.

“Without this program, I wouldn’t have met my professor and I wouldn’t have gotten my degree, which enabled me to get this job,” Walsh said. “I am so thankful for the help and resources SC4 and the BWMCA provided.”

Walsh’s future plans include pursuing a bachelor’s degree in computer science at the University of Texas and one day opening her own design business. For now, though, she’s thoroughly enjoying her new role at the USA Today Network and exploring Plano, Texas.

“I love living in the North Dallas/Plano area,” Walsh said. “My mom is from Texas and it was always my dream to move to Dallas. I never expected it to be so soon, though. There’s always something to do, and you never get bored living here. On top of that, my work environment is amazing. I never expected my life to turn out this way, but I’m so glad that it did. I look forward to living in Texas for many years to come!”

SC4 a springboard for world traveler, professor and photographer

Port Huron native David Zurick has been across the globe to places like Nepal, India and Tibet as an academically trained geographer and self-taught photographer. Yet, Zurick traces his footsteps back to his first degree at St. Clair County Community College.

“It was the first step along the path,” he said.

A Port Huron Northern High School graduate, Zurick, 64, just wrapped up a 31-year career as a geography professor at Eastern Kentucky University last year.

In 2017, he earned the prestigious Nautilus Silver Award for his book, Morning Coffee at the Goldfish Pond: Seeing a World in the Garden. The autobiographical work was one of three awarded in the lyrical prose category, and one of 209 recognized across 43 categories. Past Nautilus winning authors include the likes of Desmond Tutu, the Dalai Lama and Deepak Chopra, M.D.

For his latest book, Zurick spent a month or two every winter for the past five years photographing the majestic painted towns of Shekhawati in rural Rajasthan, India. A glimpse of the book, A Fantastic State of Ruin: The Painted Towns of Rajasthan, can be found on YouTube.

“My work bridges science and art,” he said “Much of it centers on the Himalaya mountains. My most recent photo book dealt with an amazing set of beautiful ruins in a handful of small desert towns in Rajasthan, India.”

Zurick earned his associate degree in business administration from SC4 in 1975. He went on to Michigan State University where he earned a bachelor’s degree with high honors in geography in 1978 and his master’s degree in geography in 1981.

He then traveled to Hawaii where he earned his Ph.D. in geography from the University of Hawaii in Manoa, Honolulu, under fellowship at the East-West Center, Honolulu.

Zurick presently lives in rural Madison County, Kentucky, with his wife and two cats and maintains that SC4 served as a great place to explore what he wanted to pursue as a career.

“I attended SC4 because it was close to home, and I didn’t know what I wanted to do or study,” he said. “I was able to complete the general education requirements I needed in a convenient and helpful setting with quality instruction. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do at the time. SC4 got me going in the right direction.”