Photos courtesy of Nathan Boulton and Brianne Sanchez.
BY DRAKE RHONE
In Des Moines Business Record’s annual 40 Under 40 class, 10 Drake University alumni were recognized.
The 2017 class is made up of business professionals from the Des Moines community that have achieved success in their career and have a high degree of community involvement. From the list, Karen Karr, Kylee Krizmanic, Jill Niswander, William Scales, Kim Wall, Brianne Sanchez, Maggie White, Alyssa Young and Nathan Boulton were all Drake alumni.
Boulton is a former adjunct professor at Drake who received both his Master of Public Administration and Juris Doctor from Drake. He said he was honored to be recognized.
“The thing that means the most is when I look at people who have received the award and are in this class with me,” Boulton said. “It means a lot to be put in the same category with some of the great people who I know do important things for the Des Moines community.”
Sanchez, the Community Relations Manager at Des Moines University, received her Masters of Public Administration from Drake in 2013. Sanchez said that seeing other Drake alumni doing great things in the Des Moines community is one reason she went to Drake in the first place.
“I went to Drake for graduate school so I was already looking to pivot from being in this straight communications role to doing some more transformational work,” Sanchez said. “I really identified that a lot of the people who were recognized as 40 Under 40 and were leaders in the community had that credential, that M.B.A. credential, which was never really on my radar before. It was sort of cyclical, seeing that people who were doing really interesting things in the community had this degree and a lot of them had it from Drake, so they inspired me to go to graduate school and figure out what was going to be next in life after journalism.”
Sanchez said that she thought the mindset that Drake encourages on its campus was one of the factors in why 51 members of the Drake community were named to a 40 Under 40 class in the last three years.
“I think that the whole concept of being an engaged citizen that Drake promotes really works well with the idea that you’re a civic minded professional,” Sanchez said. “You’re doing things for the good of the community. It builds networks and webs and really creates more opportunities for more people to help. This is where you kind of see it paying back to the reputation of the school.”
Boulton agreed, saying his experience as a law student at Drake was very important to him in his legal and legislative careers.
“When we look at the Des Moines area and the people who are stepping up as leaders in this region,” he said, “it’s clear that an important part of that is the involvement of Drake alums doing good in their community.”