This year, cohort 2005 celebrated the 10th anniversary of their graduation. Twelve members of the cohort attended the Raikes School's reunion activities this fall where they enjoyed catching up with each other and reconnecting with the Raikes School. In honor of their graduation anniversary, we asked members of the cohort to respond to the following questions:
1. Tell us about yourself and what you’ve been up to since graduating from Nebraska.
2. What are highlights or key takeaways from your experience as a student in and alumnus of the Raikes School?
Paul Bauer
1. After graduating I stayed in Lincoln to work in the startup scene with Nebraska Global. For 7 years I worked with several startups, then decided to pursue a more focused product management role at Hudl, where I've been for two years. My wife Nicole and I live near UNL and have two cats. We recently purchased and are renovating a rental duplex. I still help on my parent's farm and play video games when I can.
2. My key takeaways from the Raikes School are a great network of fellow grads and valuable real world experience in Design Studio. Both have greatly impacted my career.
Kyle Deterding
1. I spent 10 years working for Hudl here in Lincoln. I now work for a 100% distributed startup building the "Slack for education" (replacing Blackboard and Canvas for those of you familiar). My wife, Katy, and I still live in Lincoln. We recently celebrated our daughter Kenna's first birthday.
2. I still remain close with a large number of our Raikes School cohort. The living and learning community forged great relationships that have outlasted almost all others from high school and college. My career was built on "networking" with other Raikes School grads. I am very happy with where I'm at today, and attribute a lot of that to the people I met through the Raikes School and the opportunities I received.
Nick Ebert
1. I have been working in Engineering at Spreetail, a Lincoln-based E-commerce company, for the past 6 years. My main focus with Spreetail is to keep developers happy and to build software systems that are maintainable, reliable and scalable. My wife and I recently celebrated our 7 year wedding anniversary, and our daughter just turned 2 years old.
2. The best experience (by-far) as a student and an alumnus of the Raikes School has been the connections with other students. The relationships made in the school are incredible, and all of the alumni continue to do great things while still being very down to earth.
Nate Lowry
1. Living in Lincoln with my wife Carrie and our two bunnies, Scotch and Rue. Running IT and writing software at Silverhawk Aviation. Co-founded (and closed down) the company JetHop. I really enjoy riding my bike and learning stuff. If anyone wants to help explain quantum computing to me, please let me know! :)
2. So many opportunities from listening to amazing speakers, learning about recessions while in a recession, working with very talented classmates, working on real projects for businesses, being part of the amazing Kauffman culture.
Matthew Nespor
1. Since my time at Nebraska, I’ve mostly spent my time wishing I took more math classes. I’ve been building iPhone and iPad apps continuously, starting about ten minutes after graduation.
2. My takeaway from the Raikes School remains, “Analyze your audience.”
Erik Person
1. After graduation I moved to Austin, TX to work for IBM but quickly learned I would rather be at a small company. I joined Hudl in Fall 2009 as a software engineer. In Austin, I was roommates with Cohort ’05 members Matt Rosno and Trevor Thompson. Matt and I hold the unofficial record for most number of years as roommates for a single cohort. I loved my time at Hudl, and met my future wife, Ann Moenius, there but I left in Spring 2016 to be an independent software consultant. In Fall 2016, Ann’s job moved us to Boston, MA. In Spring 2017, I joined Corvus Insurance, a cyber insurance startup, as the VP of Engineering. Ann and I got married in May 2018 and moved back to Austin at the start of 2019 where I still work remotely for Corvus, but am no longer living with Matt Rosno.
2. The Raikes School curriculum was a fantastic foundation for a future software engineer and entrepreneur. Learning software and business fundamentals, followed by building real products for real customers in Design Studio set me up for a successful career. It sounds like the curriculum has only gotten stronger and students are graduating from the Raikes School far more prepared than we were ten years ago.
