Alumni Profiles

2001 Heather Upton (Leaders)

When did you graduate from HHS and where did you go from here?

I graduated from HHS in 2001. Over the summer I moved to Kansas where I lived until 2015, when my family and I relocated back to Hillsdale. While in Kansas I worked on Ft. Riley Army post, helping soldiers with their housing needs and obtained my Bachelors of Science in Family Studies & Human Services degree from Kansas State University. I also volunteered as a CASA (Court appointed Special Advocate) for two years, working with children in foster care. I am married and have a daughter named Rachel, who is in 7^th grade at Davis Middle School.

Can you tell us a little bit about the company you work for?

I currently work for Hillsdale CASA, Inc which is a non-profit organization made up of volunteers who advocate for children who are in the foster care system due to abuse and/or neglect. I am the advocate supervisor.

What does your workday look like?

My work days always vary. I attend abuse/neglect hearings at probate court, I recruit new volunteers out in the community, and facilitate the mandatory 30 hour new volunteer trainings, I manage the Hillsdale CASA, Inc. Facebook page, and advertise upcoming events and stories about CASA. I manage the volunteer’s cases and make sure I am as accessible as possible to the volunteers to answer any questions they may have about their case, help with court report writing, and offer support.

Can you tell us what your time at HHS was like?

I absolutely loved high school. I had amazing teachers, wonderful friends, and enjoyed school over all. Sometimes I wish I could go back and do it all over again.

How did your time at HHS help you now?

I remember always being told that I could do anything I wanted with my life, but I had to put in the work. With determination and a lot of hard work, I am now working in my dream position, helping families. 

Is there a teacher who had a significant impact on your life?

I was blessed to have a lot of great teachers. Three of my favorites were Mrs. Robare Mrs. Webb, and Mrs. Dunlap. I had Mrs. Robare and Mrs. Webb for English and Mrs. Dunlap for life skills. They were kind, supportive, and wonderful at what they did. They always believed in me and were encouraging. They have had a long lasting effect on me. Specifically Mrs. Dunlap. In 8^th grade she gave us an assignment where we were to give a worksheet to an adult to fill out. The adult was asked to talk about what they hoped for us during our upcoming high school years. We turned it in, and then the following year while in our freshman year, she sent the worksheets to us. I had my mom fill mine out and during that summer she passed away. Receiving the worksheet that I had completely forgotten about and getting to read, in her handwriting, her dreams for me, meant the world to me. I still have the worksheet.  

Advice for current students?

Don’t take these years for granted! You will truly miss them when they are gone. Enjoy your high school years. I couldn’t wait to graduate and move away from Hillsdale and small town life. Now, I love living in a small town and love raising my family in this community.

Patti (Foust) Bailey, Class of 1983
 

When did you graduate from HHS and where did you go from here? I graduated from Hillsdale High School in 1983 and went to Hillsdale College, graduating in 1987. I started my career with Jacobson's Stores in July of 1987. I went through their Management Training Program for the first year, learning about everything from warehouse duties to store display to the buying offices. I then went to the Dearborn store as a Manager of Sweets & Treats, Stationary and Electronics. After a year there, I came back to the Jackson Main Offices as an assistant buyer in the Children’s Department. I eventually became a buyer for the Preteen and 4-6x department until I quit in 1994 when I had Megan. Then in 1995 I bought Maggie Anne's and have never looked back!

 

Can you tell us a little bit about the company you work for? I love being my own boss. I wear many hats and the training I received at Jacobson's comes in handy every day! Some days I work on displays, some days I help customers, some days I write orders - it's a lot to keep myself organized and I enjoy the different tasks from day to day.

What does your workday look like? Every day is different, however I try to make myself a schedule and stick to it. Since I work in the store on Monday and Tuesday, I take Monday's to pay bills and do paperwork, Tuesdays I am on the floor helping customers or creating displays. Wednesday and Thursday is my day off, but that doesn't mean I am not working! I am usually home working on emails and other marketing duties - ads for the radio, social media posts, contacting vendors for upcoming events etc... Fridays and Saturdays, if I am working, we are busy enough that I need to be available to be on the floor. If I am not working, I am home catching up on housework!! Cleaning, grocery shopping and doing any other store related items that I didn't complete on Wednesday or Thursday.

Can you tell us what your time at HHS was like? I loved high school! I was a cheerleader for the basketball season and a flag corps member in the Marching Band. I also played on the tennis team and some of my best memories are from the fun we had on the team! I was not in any particular "clique" but was friends with a lot of people. I also worked on the yearbook and was class president my Junior year, which meant organizing the Prom. I was sad to graduate and move on, but proud of my high school accomplishments. 

How did your time at HHS help you now? I learned to get along with a variety of personalities. Being class president, I learned about leadership and again, getting along with others when working on a project, like Prom! High school was at times very lonely and at other times full of friends and fun. I had a boyfriend who graduated my sophomore year so that is what convinced me to run for class president, I had lost out on some of the friendships because I spent so much time with him, so I needed something to do my Junior year. I so enjoyed my Junior and Senior year because I developed friendships with my classmates that I had neglected the first two years.  

Is there a teacher or coach who had a significant impact on your life? Most definitely my tennis Coach, Rich Trombley 

Advice for current students? Enjoy the time with your friends! It goes by so fast! Your friends are what is important and those are the relationships that will last. I keep in touch with my tennis teammates and my coach to this day! Just had dinner with coach Trombley in Vegas the other day and it was great catching up! Remember that high school is only a moment in time, a blip on the radar of life, so things, (the drama!) that seem so overwhelming or important today, are really not going to matter 10 years from now. Get involved in clubs, sports, and class projects - those are the things that are going to help you grow and mature, and prepare you for college. 

Anything else? Just live every moment, believe in yourself and do your best every day!

 

Thank you for reading the HORNET PROFILES, a place to highlight the work done around the world by HHS graduates. If you know of another person who should be highlighted in the future, please email Mindy Eggleston at Mindy.Eggleston@ hillsdaleschools.org.

1974 Dr. Geoffrey P. Goldsmith

• When did you graduate from HHS and where did you go from here? I graduated from HHS in 1974, and then attended Hillsdale College (BA in Accounting, 1978). Then I earned an MBA from Michigan State (1982) and a Master of Arts in Theological Studies from Wheaton College (1984). I have a Ph.D. in Accounting from Kent State University (1996).
• Can you tell us a little bit about the company you work for? I am the chair of the Department of Accountancy Studies in the Belhaven University School of Business. Belhaven University is an evangelical Christian liberal arts university with its main campus in Jackson, Mississippi, and branch campuses in Houston, Memphis, Chattanooga, Atlanta, and three additional sites in Mississippi for adult evening students. The university has over 4,000 students, including traditional on-campus students, part-time adult commuters at the multiple campuses, and online students. The students are very diverse, with no ethnic group forming a majority. Most students at the main campus, where I teach, are from the Jackson metro area, but my students come from many states and foreign countries.
• What does your workday look like? I drive to work and try to find a place to park (the campus has outgrown its parking areas). Then I go to my office, check my email, and get ready for teaching. I teach traditional day classes in accounting as well as online courses. I advise students and register them for classes, and grade homework and research papers. I have one or two meetings a week with administrators about various matters.
• Can you tell us what your time at HHS was like? I was a late bloomer and small for my age and shy, so it wasn’t always pleasant socially.
• How did your time at HHS help you now? My high school studies were a good foundation for my subsequent studies.
• Is there a teacher who had a significant impact on your life? Mrs. Spiteri was an excellent writing and composition teacher. I learned a lot from her; I was waived from having to take the freshman English composition class at Hillsdale College because I already wrote well. The ability to write clearly is essential in an academic career.
• Advice for current students? If you are interested in a college degree, but have not yet decided on a career, select a liberal arts college that allows you to take a wide variety of courses your first year to give you a chance to select a major in a field you find interesting. Make sure you master your math and writing skills. Read as much as possible. Learn a foreign language. Get involved in extra-curricular activities. Improve your social skills by talking to people face-to-face instead of texting all the time.
• The photo is of Dr. Goldsmith showing one of his students the letter giving her an accounting scholarship.

1971 Stephen W. Hillabrand

Six days after graduation from HHS, Jim Marvin and I, enlisted in the Air Force.  Three years and six months later I got out of the Air Force.  My last base was in Thailand and I met Tewie (my wife). In the first six months of 1975 I came back to Hillsdale and I realized Tewie wouldn’t like Michigan winters and so I moved to LA.  After the Air Force I attended a vocational school called “Computer Learning Center” in the Los Angeles area (back in the day with punch cards & tapes).  After completion of that class, I got a job at JPL (Jet Propulsion Lab) in California and have been working there ever since.  Later I studied at Valley College, earned AA from Glendale College, and then BA in Economics from Cal State Northridge.

I started out as a contractor and moved up with various companies such as ITT and JPL. I’m actually a CalTech employee working at JPL. The first project I worked on in 1976 was Viking – the original Mars Landers. After that I got hooked up with Voyager (we recently celebrated 40 years of flights). With Voyager we cruised to Jupiter and then to Saturn, after the Saturn flyby, Voyager kept going for 40 years.  After my work on Voyager, I got to work on Galileo, a Jupiter probe and orbiter for a number of years, then I was on the test team for Cassini and the plan all along was to move over to flight as a mission controller. Cassini is orbiting Saturn and it will run out of gas next soon. Interesting fact: because of Cassini we know there are over 70 moons around Saturn.

It is important for people to know that a lot of these technologies that NASA is developing are important for mankind . . . i.e. the first digital cameras were used in the satellites, the clean-room environments used for NASA spacecraft are now used in major hospitals (i.e. clean-room environments for burn victims), NASA’s continued push for use of solar panels has improved them so much that now they use them to power the space shuttles and satellites.

The current project I’m on is called DAWN. Dawn is an orbiter which is orbiting Ceres (dwarf planet) which is the biggest Asteroid in the belt (between Mars and Jupiter).  It has been flying for ten years.  We first cruised to Vesta (dwarf planet) and Vesta looked like a big potato. After we broke the orbit of Vesta we cruised two years to get to Ceres and we have been orbiting Ceres for a little over two years now. Through all those missions, it looks like Dawn is the last one for me. NASA headquarters has not yet decided when that will be.  We have enough gas to keep orbiting for one more year, or if NASA will let us break the orbit, we will fly for 18 months and do a flyby of an asteroid called Adeona.

I have worked on and off Cassini multiple times depending on the needs. SIRTF is the infrared brother of Hubble.  SIRTF trails the Earth in the same orbit and it is imaging deep space in the infrared field. I also worked for Ulysses, a solar probe (a European craft) and orbited and studied the sun.

I am a mission controller, I work on the ground, I’m a conduit to the spacecraft. Sometimes my job is boring, but boring is good, if it isn’t boring then we have problems.

Can you tell us what your time at HHS was like?

Pleasant, wasn’t the athletic type, wasn’t the nerdy type, still keep in touch with a few guys. Got a decent education. Nothing but fond memories of HHS.

 

Is there a teacher who had a significant impact on your life?

John Donnelly (his son is one of my buddies still today).  He taught civics and economics. I actually got a degree in economics and I’m pretty good with money.

Advice for current students?

Engineering and science are important.  If you are interested in anything I talked about make sure you take those classes.

Anything else?

The good mid-western philosophy work hard.

Dr. Becky (Monroe) Pletzer
is a 2002 Hillsdale High School graduate. She was born and raised in Hillsdale and went to Saginaw Valley State University to study social work for her undergraduate degree. 

She received her Master of Social work from Eastern Michigan University in 2010 while practicing medical social work in the greater Jackson area. 

In 2017, she was recruited to Anchorage, Alaska to work in one of the largest health care systems there for her medical social work specialty. 

Dr. Pletzer is annoyingly passionate about the practice of social work and the influence these practitioners have in all areas of need. She’s extremely annoying about the importance of having social workers where community decisions and influences are being made. Being a good human is her motto. 

Dr. Pletzer lives in Eagle River, Alaska with her husband Kevin and their two boys: Sloan and Sawyer. Follow Becky on FB @justaswkr