Grant Niver graduated from Augsburg in 2013 with a degree in Communication Studies. He credits the decision to make the transition to Minnesota from his home state of Alaska as the top three decisions he has ever made. “Moving allowed me to experience living in a new state and I met my wife down here,” Grant shared. He also has strong family ties in the state with both his parents growing up in Prior Lake. Although he only spent two years at Augsburg, he developed lasting friendships and discovered his entrepreneurial drive through the courses he took. “In the more advanced communication classes, we talked a lot about marketing, business, and how to build your brand,” said Grant. And it was in these classes that the idea to start a business with his family began. 

Starting when he was 11 years old, Grant has fished in Bristol Bay, Alaska on his family’s boat, Surrender. “I would always get seasick growing up, so fishing was never a favorite activity of mine,” he reflected amusingly. As he found his sea legs, Grant’s passion for catching fish (specifically salmon) and educating others on sustainable fishing grew. “One year, I brought back around 200 pounds of salmon for friends and family in Minnesota and it grew progressively from there.” was established in 2017 with the goal of bringing the world’s best wild salmon to Minnesotans, directly from the fisherman. Grant’s father, Mark, runs the boat and Grant and his two younger brothers, Blake and Bryce, make up the crew on deck.  

SUSTAINABLE FISHING

Sustainability is a core tenet to the Surrender Salmon business. “We work closely with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.” Grant said. Bristol Bay is heavily regulated since it is the world’s largest sustainable salmon run. It accounts for roughly 75% of the world’s sockeye salmon supply. “They literally count each and every salmon that escapes up the river to spawn in the lake. Once they reach the targeted “escapement number”, the fishing season is open and we are fishing around the clock.” There is a short window to catch fish, and a typical run is from mid-June through the end of July. Flash freezing the salmon within 12-24 hours of catching it is crucial in making sure it stays fresh for consumers for up to two years. “If you’re buying salmon in the Midwest, it’s best to buy frozen and even better to know who caught it,” Grant said. On top of sustainability, all of the packaging they use to ship their salmon is 100% recyclable! 

OPERATING A SMALL BUSINESS

Surrender Salmon previously worked with local businesses such as Lunds & Byerlys in 2018-2019, as well as other local restaurants, but they have since switched to e-commerce. “It was a hard pivot to make, but it has allowed us to have a more robust business where we could be in more control,” Grant said. Since transitioning to online-only purchases, they have been able to expand to nationwide shipping. “Our first shipping with FedEx is something I am extremely proud of. We’ve come a long way since tabling at farmers markets, gyms, and hand-delivering all of our orders,” Grant said. “Starting a business can feel insurmountable, but for anyone interested in pursuing this path, I recommend two things: 1) find a good mentor, and 2) find someone you can trust as a business partner. Having those resources will make a huge impact.” In fact, one of Grant’s high school friends, Stuart Krueger, moved to Minnesota in 2016 and has taken the lead on helping Surrender Salmon’s marketing and reach. “We definitely would not be where we are today without him.” 

Now that Grant’s business has grown in recent years and he has found himself shipping salmon to some Auggies, he is thrilled to share his family’s story with more people in the community. “I am so grateful to Augsburg and I’m appreciative of any opportunities to pay it forward and make more connections by raising awareness about what Surrender Salmon is all about.” 

The post Surrender Salmon: A Family Business appeared first on Alumni, Parents, and Friends.

This marketing success convinced Hawks that she had found her niche in marketing and communication, and that her decision to forego the field of broadcasting—even after an internship at the local ABC-TV station—was the right one for her. At each step in her career since then, new positions seemed to call out her desire to “build” something—whether in terms of products, experiences, relationships, a fine-tuned team, or an unusual market launch. She loved finding undiscovered opportunities, using good communication tools, and assembling a good team—and she still loves the challenge and fun of doing it.

She uncovered such an opportunity at Paper Direct, a high-end specialty paper company, where she was given 45 days to convince the leadership that her alternative idea to existing market launch plans could work. She did so, and the company followed her lead toward specialty retailing to small businesses, setting up distribution networks all across the country at outlets that sold computers and printers.

Hawks later landed at Musicland, where she led the full gamut of communications—investor relations, public relations, employee communications, earnings releases, annual reports, investor reports, etc. Soon after, when the company was acquired by Best Buy, she was invited to take a leadership role in Best Buy’s communications department. She enjoyed some “phenomenal” experiences over the 12 years she worked there, including launches that involved The Rolling Stones, Bill Gates, Usher, and other pop culture figures.

Asked often about her management style, Hawks believes it can best be described as coaching, stemming from her experience at Augsburg. She says Augsburg was a fabulous place to play sports, and she feels lucky to have had excellent coaching from Marilyn Florian and Mary Timm, and to have played with driven student athletes who performed beyond what they thought possible. Hawks was a three-time All-MIAC pitching selection in softball, earned AIAW All-State and All-Region honors twice, and All-West Region honors. A member of the team that won the Minnesota AIAW state softball title in 1982 and 1983, as well as MIAC championships in 1982, 1983, and 1984, Hawks holds the second-best record in Augsburg history for both her 1.35 career earned run average, and for her 47 pitching wins. In volleyball, she earned All-MIAC honors in 1984. She served as captain of both teams and was named Augsburg’s Honor Athlete in 1985. Appropriately, she is a member of the Auggie Athletic Hall of Fame.

Hawks recalls—with some relish—the determination of Athletic Director Joyce Pfaff ’65 to create opportunities for female athletes. “She fought hard for program development and funding,” says Hawks. Since the women’s teams had no analog to the men’s A-Club, Hawks proposed to Pfaff—and Pfaff agreed—that the softball team could raise money to fly south for softball games against teams in different leagues and divisions. The team raised funds by various methods, including staffing Metrodome concession stands for numerous events, such as professional wrestling contests and concerts. It worked, and theirs was probably the first Auggie women’s softball team to “have a spring break game in the sun.”

Hawks sees the College as a “pillar of faith,” one of the reasons she chose Augsburg and why she continues to be involved. She served six years on the Alumni Board and is a founding member of AWE (Augsburg Women Engaged). She recalls hosting one of the first focus groups in her home to ascertain what form AWE could take. She and other founders discovered that the wishes were as varied as the people who attended—yet very specific. Some wanted to give back, others wanted to help students, others wanted to connect and donate money or time. AWE has opened the door to all sorts of involvement, and women may opt in as they see fit.

Currently, Hawks is vice president, external communications, for United Healthcare, where she feels her retail experience is serving her well. She is focused on helping simplify the complicated healthcare landscape for the consumers so that they can live healthier lives.

In her spare time, Hawks enjoys gardening, cooking, and playing golf and other sports. She also enjoys coaching her 10-year-old son Andrew’s baseball team, which she has done for the past three years.

Hawks’ corporate success is likely related to her love of confronting a challenge, and she offers three insights that have guided her: (1) Find something you care about and see where you can contribute, (2) Surround yourself with people from whom you can learn (she benefits regularly from her “Board of Mentors”), and (3) Lead with humility and integrity, and then be proactive about using what makes sense to you. Apparently, that has worked very well for her!

—by Cheryl Crockett ’89

The post Corporate Coach appeared first on Alumni, Parents, and Friends.

Today, Harris is working with other community leaders in Baltimore on many initiatives, including one to build a network of individuals, businesses, and organizations who can provide internships, scholarships, and mentorship opportunities for high school students, many of whom may be less than hopeful about their future. He believes that young people who have already enjoyed some level of professional success are those who can best effect change in the likelihood of success for other young people, particularly African-Americans.

Working primarily through Alpha Phi Alpha, a community-service-oriented fraternity, Harris serves as managing editor of The Sphinx, the APA’s journal about what is happening in the African-American community, and how their members impact the world around them. APA has 703 chapters worldwide (both undergraduate and alumni). The fraternity is noted as historically the first inter-collegiate fraternity founded by African-American men. Harris joined while still a student at Augsburg. The fraternity claims alumni such as former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and currently has eight members in Congress.

Harris says that his greatest hope for the young people in Baltimore (and beyond, for that matter) is that those who feel little sense of hope for a promising future can draw inspiration from connecting with young professionals who at one time were in a similar situation—increasingly confident that they, too, can be successful. Sometimes, he says, we “don’t realize our own worth” and are not aware of the many resources available to help propel our lives to the next level.

At Augsburg, Harris was a Communications major with a strong interest in broadcast journalism. While the broadcast part of that has been put on the back burner, he certainly uses his journalism skills daily. He mentions Pastor Dave Wold (“awesome influence”), Trena Bolden Fields, and Mohamed Sallam (both directors of the Pan-Afrikan Center) as helpful Auggie mentors. Besides his B.A. in Communication Studies, he is especially grateful to Augsburg for having gained a sense of himself as a global citizen, most clearly articulated in Augsburg’s mission—to educate students to be “informed citizens, thoughtful stewards, critical thinkers, and responsible leaders.” He thinks Augsburg really lives that mission statement, and those ideas have definitely helped shape his thinking.

Though he had been offered various positions in Minneapolis after his Augsburg years, he felt drawn to the service opportunity through APA in Baltimore, so he moved east. The more he has worked in the area of philanthropy, the more he has come to realize that policy could better aid in providing opportunities for citizens of Baltimore—and could change the narrative in the city. As a result, he has decided to throw his hat in the ring and run for mayor of Baltimore. He made his formal announcement in mid-November. Committed to building Baltimore and creating solutions to many of the decades-old issues that plague the city, he would surely carry the essence of Augsburg’s mission statement to that work as well.

—by Cheryl Crockett ‘89

The post Helping the Young to Do Better and Be Better appeared first on Alumni, Parents, and Friends.