Category: Alumni

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.”

Todd Dmytryshyn credits St. Clair County Community College for getting his career flowing in the right direction. The SC4 alumnus is an engineering manager at Moulton Niguel Water District in Laguna Hills, Calif.

Dmytryshyn, 35, of Irvine, Calif., grew up in Marysville and graduated from Port Huron High School in 2002. He graduated summa cum laude from SC4 in 2005 with an Associate of Arts and Associate of Science in pre-engineering.

“Looking back on my time at SC4, my experiences there had a profound impact on putting me on the road to where I am today,” Dmytryshyn said. “Not only did I end up on a path toward engineering as a result of my coursework at SC4, my extracurricular experiences there helped shape my ultimate career trajectory.

While at SC4, Dmytryshyn was involved in the Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society, the Environmental Concerns Organization club and student government as president.

“Through those experiences, I developed a strong interest in the environment – in particular water issues – and public service. Now, as a civil engineer in the water industry, working at a public agency, I think it’s fair to say that SC4 put me solidly on the road to where I am today.”

Dmytryshyn decided to attend SC4 toward the end of his high school senior year but was unsure what potential career paths interested him.

“I felt that SC4 would provide an opportunity for me to experience a variety of educational courses and give me a better sense of direction going into a university,” he said.

“It turned out learning the science of the world around me and being able to understand why things work the way they do was something that really appealed to me,” he continued. “I have a fondness for film and television production, but math and science was my calling. During my time at SC4, I learned that engineering provided me the opportunity to combine my artistic and scientific interests.”

Dmytryshyn then enrolled in an engineering program at the University of Michigan, graduating summa cum laude in 2008 with a Bachelor of Science in civil engineering.

After college, Dmytryshyn worked as a project engineer at Malcolm Pirnie Inc., now Aracadis U.S., in Irvine, Calif., as a consulting project engineer for public sector clients on a variety of water infrastructure projects.

Among those was a 600 million-gallon-per-day ultraviolet water treatment facility – the largest facility of its type west of the Mississippi River and second largest in the U.S. – for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. Another included a 50 million-gallon-per-day seawater desalination facility – the largest desalination plant in the Western Hemisphere – located in Carlsbad, Calif., serving about 400,000 people in San Diego County.

Dmytryshyn transitioned to Moulton Niguel Water District in 2014 and presently oversees a $500+ million, 10-year capital improvement program related to the replacement and construction of new drinking water, recycled water and wastewater infrastructure, serving about 170,000 customers in six cities in southern Orange County.

He added his local community college gave him a chance to get his feet wet.

“SC4 provided me with the opportunity to ‘test the waters’ before setting out in a particular direction with my education,” Dmytryshyn said. “In my case, I ended up on a different path when I left SC4 than I was on when I started. SC4 also provided smaller class sizes than some universities, allowing me to have more direct interaction with the teaching staff where I was able ask questions that helped guide me on my educational path.”

For 2016 Capac High School graduate Megan Jamison, the Blue Water Middle College Academy (BWMCA) was too good an opportunity to pass up.

“My experience at SC4 was very memorable. I was able to get a head start on my college career, explore different fields of study and earn a degree just one year out of high school,” said Jamison, who enrolled in the BWMCA and graduated from St. Clair County Community College with an associate degree in arts in 2017.

While at SC4, Jamison participated in the Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society and found her passion for science thanks to Professor Suzanne Doherty’s geology course. She also was able to adjust to college life and finish most of her general education requirements for her bachelor’s degree.

Jamison transferred to Oakland University in fall 2017 and in 2019 earned a bachelor’s degree in environmental science with a concentration in resource management and environmental sustainability.

She currently works as a research assistant in an environmental chemistry lab conducting research on hydrothermal vents in the deep ocean and the impact of climate change on soil microbes. A paper she co-authored, “Temperature sensitivity of mineral-enzyme interactions on the hydrolysis of cellobiose and indican by β-glucosidase,” was recently published in Science of the Total Environment. Additionally, she is hard at work as an interpretive guide through the Huron-Clinton Metroparks, teaching STEM-based programs to pre-K-12 school groups.

Just three years past high school graduation, Jamison has experienced a great deal of success and shows gratitude for her community college experience at SC4.

“My goal is to continue my education, focusing more on environmental chemistry,” Jamison said. “Community college helped me transition easily from high school to college to the workplace and was a more affordable, accessible option. If I had the choice to go back in time, I would still choose to go to SC4 because I think it was the perfect fit for me.”