2005

Gordon Beecher (Nitka) is the coach of Team GB Fitness in Scottsdale, Ariz. He has coached power lifters, Olympic lifters, and fitness competitors. Gordon is coaching Amanda Loy, a 4-foot-tall bodybuilder. They traveled to New York City in April for the New York Metropolitan Championships, where she took fourth. After a feature on “Inside Edition,” Gordon and Amanda have signed a deal to produce an as-yet unnamed reality series in the fall.

Jon Wilson, who lost a leg to cancer in 2006, started the AKP Foundation to help cancer survivors pursue adventure. After chemotherapy, a second surgery, and radiation, he was given a clean bill of health. Just a few weeks after his amputation, he got on a bike with the mantra “Always Keep Pedaling.” Jon started his foundation so that young adult cancer fighters and survivors in financial need could have the same opportunities to rebuild their lives that he did. He married Amy Salm ’05 the summer after their graduation, and they live in Manchester Center, Vt.

2007

Holly Garlow has opened Ragged Print Co., a printmaking shop in Colorado Springs that also offers live music, classes, and art shows. After graduating from CC, she taught art at Manitou Springs (Colo.) High School.

Ashley Smith, below, is an academic manager in Thailand, using her minor in Asian Studies. She has been teaching there for four years and loves living overseas.

Lauren Watel is a high school science teacher at St. Mary’s Academy in Denver, and a PolarTREC teacher headed out on an arctic research expedition this summer. She is researching microbial changes in arctic freshwater, studying whether their evolution and changes as a species and a community are related to climate change. She is writing an outreach blog (polartrec.com/expeditions/microbial-changes-in-arctic-freshwater) to teach the public about the research.

2009

Leslie Robertson has launched a clothing line, Blackberry Maverick (blackberrymaverick.com), with her business partner, Alexis Raney. They are taking orders for their first collection of five occasion dresses, which will be made by contract seamstresses throughout the United States.