Worker Bees

A St. Ambrose Education Begins as a Journey, and Almost Always Ends With a Great Job

The lasting impact of a St. Ambrose education lies within the journey.

In the classroom and far beyond, we ask our students to explore, question and seek.

Explore the world around them. And the world within them.

Question too-easy answers, incomplete thoughts, unchallenged truths and centuries-old dogma.

Seek joy. Seek truth. Seek friends. Seek fun. Seek wonder. Seek the invaluable lessons that lie within failure. Seek the inner strength that comes with resilience, renewal and the triumph of tenacity.

When the journey concludes, of course, those students will be seeking a rewarding job that feeds their passion. We're happy to say the value in a St. Ambrose education is that you will almost certainly find such an outcome.

Worker Bees

at Genesis

SAU Alumni are everywhere – including all of these healthcare workers at Genesis in Davenport.

A survey of recent graduates by the St. Ambrose Career Center determined that 93 percent of respondents had found employment in their field or were continuing their education.

That's what makes them greatly employable. And great employees. Just ask their bosses.

Pat Pollock '15 DBA, president and CEO of Genesis Systems Group, in Eldridge, Iowa, said, "St. Ambrose graduates are more diversified than just their specific degree - they have broader skills. Problem solving is a big part of what we do. That's how we add value for our customers. Also for what we do, it's extremely important that we have collaborators, and St. Ambrose grads are collaborators and communicators."

Genesis Health Systems President and CEO Doug Cropper said Worker Bees just come ready to work.

"St. Ambrose is a high-quality institution that graduates a high-quality student," he said. "We find that St. Ambrose graduates are well-prepared and supply a critical part of our workforce."

Tim Yara '18

Enterprise Systems Engineer
SAP, Chicago, Illinois

Rick Cushman '00

Computer Science Instructor, Leadership Advisor, Soccer Coach
Harding Middle School, Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Modern Woodmen of America Chief Operating Officer Jerald Lyphout '83, '91 MBA knows SAU from the inside. But that's not why 20 percent of his company's 520-strong workforce consists of St. Ambrose graduates.

He said Worker Bees bring the kind of critical thinking skills that are fostered by an education grounded in the liberal arts. They also bring values strengthened by SAU's commitment to service and social justice.

"Ambrose gives you a sense of broader thinking," he said. "You get in a business class, economics, management, organizational theory, whatever, you are always in that business mode. But, I'll tell you what. You go into that philosophy class and you unwind a little and then you start thinking about values, you start thinking about ethics, you start bringing all these other things to the table and then you start thinking about how does that play into the business world. What St. Ambrose brings to the table over other universities is that broader sense of ethics."

Meet the Rest of Our Worker Bees

Profiled below are alumni from programs across the curriculum, happily working in the Quad-Cities, Cedar Rapids and Muscatine, Iowa, as well as Chicago and Peoria, Illinois. These are just a sampling of tens of thousands of graduates who have successfully extended their journey into the workplace - a place where these Worker Bees continue to explore, question and seek.