保持海岸与海岸之间的联系:Elizabeth Aaroe ' 81
“的re is such a natural corollary between the two states: their commitment to the environment, 他们的海岸, 森林, 山, 和湖泊. 有滑雪，雪鞋徒步，登山，帆船.”,, 她补充说, “从根本上, 他们分享了一种真正的关怀, 深入参与, 有社区意识的公民.”
Aaroe thought those corollaries would make Bowdoin an ideal fit for 俄勒冈州 students, especially those interested in environmental and coastal studies. So she took it upon herself as a chair of the Bowdoin Regional 招生 Volunteer Organization (BRAVO) to achieve the College’s goal of attracting more students from the Pacific northwest. Though she was busy helping to start what would become a very successful construction business with her husband, Aaroe made it one of her top priorities to traverse the state to introduce high schoolers to her alma mater.
“超过15年, 这成了我在俄勒冈州的使命, all of 俄勒冈州—not just the private schools where we historically recruited in metro Portland but to really mine the state—to get to know the schools and guidance counselors.”
Her efforts paid off: the first year after she started her push, 买球平台录取了近12名来自俄勒冈州的学生.
对于Aaroe, supporting Bowdoin and helping to share Bowdoin with younger generations is about giving students the chance to have a transformative education that opens up the world. 这是买球平台将他们与一生联系起来, 支持的朋友网络, 让他们接触价值观, 比如为公共利益服务, 这可以帮助他们度过一生.
“我总是说, I want everybody to go back to the Offer of the College—to count nature and art as your friends, 口袋里装着世界图书馆的钥匙. 这些话的力量是多么不可思议啊, 以及它们对你的生活意味着什么, 在你一生中, 如果你真的相信它们，并运用它们,”她说。. 的 Bowdoin experience, 她补充说, “is a deep vein that stays with you.”
作为那些“奇怪的人”之一, 典型的, 出色的买球平台学生”, Aaroe double majored in art history and government—prodding her dad to joke at the time: “那你打算怎么做?粉刷国会大厦??”
事实上, she went into global corporate and project finance while maintaining a lifelong love of and commitment to the arts. Right out of college Aaroe landed a job in Citicorp’s Houston-based oil and gas division, 尽管经济不景气. “So, there I was, all of twenty-two years old, with no MBA. 我在大学里没有学过金融，”她说. “But the people saw in me the raw material—an incredibly determined, 精力充沛的, 热心的态度, 或者我称之为不屈不挠的北极熊精神.”
她在买球平台的其他校友身上看到了这一点——一种勇气, nimble Robert Peary-esque attitude: “No matter how harsh the environment, 你要弄清楚如何在地形上穿行.”
接下来的十年, 为了在花旗集团的职位，她走遍了世界, all the while breaking down barriers as one of the few women in global finance.
In her thirties, she left the company and became an entrepreneur. In 2003, 她创办了一家建筑公司, 富通银行, 她的前夫住在波特兰, 俄勒冈州. One of 富通银行’s specialties is building data centers for technology companies—like 脸谱网, 微软, 苹果, and Yahoo—that can hold and transmit the vast reams of information which are now critical to the global economy and our way of life.
富通银行 Construction builds data centers for some of the world's leading tech companies—like this one, 在新加坡, 脸谱网.
But as 富通银行 was becoming the fastest-growing private company and top general contractor in 俄勒冈州, Aaroe was become debilitatingly ill with Lyme and other tick-borne diseases, 四年都没有被诊断出来. From an athletic forty-nine-year-old who was summiting the highest 山 in the northwest and scaling ice walls in Argentina, 她开始依赖轮椅和呼吸机.
然而,, 即使在这种情况下, she applied her Polar Bear spirit to the challenge of recovery, 并倡导更多的资源来预防, 治疗, and eradicate what she calls “the fastest growing infectious disease pandemic of the world.”
After years of “extremely frustrating and slow” incremental gains, Aaroe and her fellow national Lyme advocates—with key involvement from Maine—recently celebrated a big success: in December of 2019, 美国参议院通过了凯·哈根·提克法案, named after the former senator who died due to a tick-borne infection. 的 Act allocates $150 million in federal funds over the next few years to combatting tick-borne diseases.
“It’s that Bowdoin skill set—that indomitable and unselfish skill set. You don’t give up and you use your complex problem-solving abilities to help improve the lives of others.”
She also credits her lasting bonds with classmates with helping her surmount her health ordeal. Bowdoin friends drove her to medical appointments and put her up in their homes as she consulted specialists around the country.
“No matter what it is you’re interested in or what you need, you have this incredible network of friends and family that spans every generation and every class, 而且在你需要的时候会帮你亚罗说.
自从生病以来, Aaroe的大部分倡导工作都是在家完成的, 当她虚弱得起不来的时候，她经常从床上爬起来. 这是可能的, 在某种程度上, because of the endless amount of data available at the touch of a finger—a digital grid that she played a part in building. Now, she uses it to stay even more connected to the people who matter most to her.
“Everybody in the world is accessible through the use of smartphones, laptops and tablets. All the information you hope to find you can get through the enormous store of data now,”她说。. “We all have the ability to connect and use our Bowdoin network to access people, 工具, 随时获取信息.”
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