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What can you do with a degree from the University of Mary? Pretty much anything you put your mind to! Every day, our graduates are serving others and accomplishing amazing things all over the world.
Check out these success stories from some of our graduates:
Kurt Snyder, ’91, ’06, had hit rock bottom. He had dropped out of college after just one year of failing every class. He had gone to college to wrestle— but his addiction had gotten the best of him. “My addiction really destroyed something I loved in my life … I loved wrestling, and I remember walking away from it feeling just tremendous regret.”
He was living in San Antonio, far away from his home state of North Dakota. That’s when his brother-in-law reached out to help him find recovery. It was through his brother-in-law’s encouragement that Kurt was able to start going to addiction counseling — counseling that eventually saved his life and helped him overcome his addiction. About a year after that, his brother-in-law died by suicide. “It was really devastating; he was like a brother to me,” Kurt said. “Here’s somebody that saved my life, and I really couldn’t do anything to help him at the time.”
Kurt decided he wanted to go back to college to become an addiction counselor, and at the age of 30, Kurt enrolled at Mary and joined the wrestling team. “My teammates called me ‘gramps,’” he joked.
He didn’t have the best wrestling season — he was hurt all the time, and he didn’t have a winning record — but he showed up every day, he didn’t quit, and he didn’t use drugs or alcohol. At the end of the season, coach Milo Trusty could take 12 people to the national tournament — ten to compete and two alternates. To Kurt’s surprise, Milo chose to bring him as an alternate. He went to nationals with the team, and another guy ended up getting hurt, so he got to wrestle. After losing his first match, Kurt wrestled some of the best he had in his life and ended up winning seven matches in a row to get third place. “I had one good day, and it was that day,” he said with a smile. “It was incredible.”
He didn’t wrestle the next year, but he helped coach the team as he completed his degree in addiction counseling.
“I felt like I was somebody who was thrown away at one time, but then I was given this community at the University of Mary that supported me in incredible ways. Mary gave me more than a chance to redo my college athletic career. I was successful; I was valued. I reclaimed my life,” Kurt said.
After graduating from Mary, he began his career as a licensed addiction counselor, most of it at Heartview Foundation in Bismarck. Eventually, the role of executive director opened, so he went back to Mary for his master’s in management.
Now he helps those struggling with addiction to find recovery like he did. Heartview Foundation is a nonprofit that provides treatment for drug and alcohol addiction. During his twenty years at Heartview, their staff has grown from eight people to 125, yet the need for addiction counseling has grown even faster. “Between April of 2020 and April of 2021, 100,000 Americans died from an opioid overdose. That is more people than the city of Bismarck. That’s a fully loaded jumbo jet crashing every day with no survivors. That’s how many people are battling addiction,” he said.
Kurt and his wife, Lisa, have two boys, Jack and Will. The boys don’t wrestle, but they both enjoy basketball.
“Mary has been there for me at every turn,” Kurt said. “I’m so grateful.”
Erica, who earned both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in business from the University of Mary, took the charming baby booties she made for her own children and started selling them through Etsy and other social media channels. They took off spectacularly. Her unique children’s “Bison Booties” were even chosen to be part of the wardrobe of the network television show “Parenthood.”
Now, she’s able to share her success with others. Her entrepreneurial drive benefits a wide circle of people, such as the contract workers who help supply her product, among them stay-at-home workers, teachers, and military spouses.
While she didn’t initially foresee the direction her creativity would take her, she says she stayed open to opportunity. “This was not in the plan when I left Mary,” she says, “but everything came together like a perfect storm, with my background and my degrees from Mary.”
Colton, who earned his master’s in business from the University of Mary, has been a self-motivated innovator since he was in high school, buying and selling everything from high-end vehicles to electronics. Over the years, he’s advanced from operating a single restaurant franchise to owning it, then to opening another and another—and he’s still expanding.
How does he keep moving forward? He believes in thinking outside the box, being proactive, staying ahead of trends, understanding his customers, and engaging his staff in idea generation and creative marketing: “Relationship is everything,” he says.
Colton regularly returns to the University of Mary to speak to classes of hopeful business students and aspiring entrepreneurs, giving high marks to the university’s Gary Tharaldson School of Business.
In September 2019, Colton was awarded the Entrepreneur of the Year by the Bismarck Mandan Chamber EDC.
But despite his seemingly limitless energy, his goals are simple. “We don’t want to be big,” he says. “We want to be great.”
A woman of many titles, Callie Wachendorf, '12, seems to do it all. She currently works as a health care IT professional, but that wasn't what she originally had planned for herself.
"I actually went to my undergrad for fashion. So, my degree is in apparel and textiles retail merchandising," Wachendorf said.
She started at the Buckle, intending to work her way up to being a purchaser for the company. But when she had her son, Cooper, Wachendorf decided that working nights and weekends would not work for her anymore.
“I was thinking of the life I wanted to give my son, and I was not content with where we were. I wanted to show him how hard work can pay off, so I applied to the University of Mary for my MBA," she said.
"When I got accepted to grad school at Mary, it was a pivotal moment in my life. It changed who I was as a person and told me that I was good enough to go after my dreams, and I didn't have to settle for the status quo," Wachendorf continued. "When the days were long and the hours were short on a project, my professors were understanding, and they worked with me, and they encouraged me to get through it. The education I obtained opened my eyes to what I wanted to do."
After completing her Master of Business Administration in Management, she joined the hospital's IT department as a business analyst. Since then, Wachendorf has held various IT positions leading up to her current position as a health care IT consultant with Briljent.
Wachendorf still wanted a creative outlet, so she bought a machine to make her own shirts, and soon people started asking where they could buy them. She started ND T-Shirt Co in 2017 and makes soft t-shirts with fun and snarky sayings. In 2019, she began ROAM Wear 701 with a friend, a Midwest wander brand of clothing.
Now Wachendorf gets to do both, working as an IT consultant during the day and working on her apparel businesses at night. On top of that, she juggles being a mom and finds time to run a nonprofit, ND Giving Co., which puts on annual toy drives and sends birthday packages to families of fallen soldiers.
Wachendorf says that while it may seem like her day job and her other passions are very different, to her, it all comes down to finding creative solutions to a problem. Balancing it all keeps her busy, but she says she would not change a thing.
In his role as the President of the Bismarck Mandan Chamber EDC and the former president and CEO of the Bismarck-Mandan Development Association (BMDA) and Bismarck-Mandan Chamber of Commerce, Brian is responsible for supporting and encouraging an exciting and expanding ‘renaissance’ of the city. In addition to overseeing the agency’s operations and its Strategic Plan, he is a tireless advocate for local businesses and for building relationships between public and private sectors.
He is also keenly aware personally of the irreplaceable advantages that strong, innovative higher education bring to a community. An internship at the BMDA through the University of Mary helped launch his career and his two degrees from Mary took it to the next level.
Recruiting talent to this community is his passion, and he sees two ways to accomplish this: “Targeting alumni and expatriates [among others],” he said, “or grow our own."
This graduate degree program is already affordable compared to other universities, but as a military student, the affordability can’t be matched by any other institution in my area. Additionally, students are supported throughout the entirety of their program.
University staff and faculty are committed to providing students with an affordable, worthwhile experience.
Kelly, who earned a Master of Science in Bioethics degree from the University of Mary, is the Senior Nurse of Medical Planning and Preparedness on the Emergency Response Team of the International Medical Corps, based in Washington, DC.
It was when she volunteered to help in the aftermath of the devastating 2010 earthquake in Haiti that she discovered that full-time disaster relief work was what she wanted to do.
“I try to stay close to my faith,” she says. “I believe in the value of every single human life, and that everybody has goodness within them. God puts everybody in a spot for a reason, and you have to discover that reason.
“People can do good wherever they are,” she says. And she’s devoted her life and career to doing just that.
In 2018, Joanne used the savings from her job in Alaska to travel to Kenya to volunteer with the Catholic Medical Mission Board in the village of Mutomo. Practicing without some of the basic medical equipment and supplies that are taken for granted in the U.S., she worked in pediatrics, helping train local nurses with what was available.
After all, she says, “In Kenya, living simply and serving others is the given.”
Joanne was drawn to the nursing program at the University of Mary because of its Catholic identity. “The University of Mary can provide a private education that’s competitive in cost,” she says. “I feel like I got my education that prepared me for the real world as a nurse.”
Each day, Joanne re-reads a sticky note on which she’s written these words of inspiration: “Don’t be afraid. If there’s something you want to do, you just have to find it.”
Jackie, a family nurse practitioner who graduated from the University of Mary, drives 350 miles each week to see patients, dividing her time among several small North Dakota communities to ensure that people far from the state’s medical centers receive the medical care they need to stay in their home community.
This kind of personal connection with patients is the reason many healthcare graduates decide to serve in rural North Dakota.
“It’s not just a job,” Jackie says. “Patients put their hand over mine and say, ‘I trust you.’”
Jackie’s philosophy of care is based on the example of the Benedictine Sisters at the University of Mary. “Be compassionate,” she says. “This is not just a career. It’s trying to instill the idea of being a steward of one’s community.”
Our online and evening degree programs are designed for working adults who need the flexibility to complete their bachelor’s or earn a graduate degree.
