{"id":9028,"date":"2023-11-20T09:20:28","date_gmt":"2023-11-20T17:20:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/?p=9028"},"modified":"2023-12-04T08:18:33","modified_gmt":"2023-12-04T16:18:33","slug":"building-a-legacy-eric-mackender-00-is-the-first-honors-college-graduate-to-become-an-hc-champion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/2023\/11\/20\/building-a-legacy-eric-mackender-00-is-the-first-honors-college-graduate-to-become-an-hc-champion\/","title":{"rendered":"Building a legacy: Eric MacKender, \u201900, is the first Honors College graduate to become an HC Champion"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Eric MacKender, \u201900, has built a career on the foundation he established during his Oregon State University Honors College education. He\u2019s paid back his success by becoming the very first HC alum to be an Honors College Champion, one of the group of leadership donors who have given $100,000 or more to the college to further the Believe It fundraising campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The core of the HC experience has not changed much since Eric graduated with his Honors Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering. As a student, he wrote a thesis, attended colloquia and took honors classes. \u201cCollege was the first time I can remember being a member of a community that was invested in and excited about learning,\u201d he says. During his tenure as an HC student, he developed a particular fondness for colloquia classes and came to appreciate the HC community\u2019s emphasis on excellence and continuous growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Eric\u2019s favorite honors course was BA 465H, Systems Thinking and Process, which focused on applying theory to real world challenges and problems, a hallmark of the Honors College approach to teaching and learning that has been particularly impactful in his professional life. After graduating, Eric put these ideas immediately into practice, joining Chevron\u2019s designs and process engineering team at the Oak Point Chemical Plant in Louisiana. He has remained at Chevron throughout his career, earning an M.B.A. at Tulane University along the way, and he is currently the technical manager at the El Segundo Refinery in California.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His thesis \u2013 \u201cDevelopment of a Predictive Model for Polymer Etching in a CF4\/O2\/Ar Microwave D\u201d \u2013 was an opportunity to build both technically-focused and broadly-applicable skills. Eric recalls, \u201cI was very career-focused and wanted to do something in my major.\u201d The experience allowed him to develop a range of abilities as he learned how to work with a team and write and defend his research, tools he continues to use. \u201cWe need people in the world that have breadth and we need those that have depth. The HC thesis is set up to allow for both.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since graduating, Eric has made supporting the Honors College through contributions of service and money a priority. Making nominal donations his first year out of college, he gradually increased his giving over time. In 2014, he became a member of the Honors College Board of Regents, the HC\u2019s development and advisory volunteer leadership group, and he and his family recently created a new scholarship endowment that will support Honors College students for generations to come. As a student, Eric was the recipient of several donor-funded scholarships that helped enable him to graduate debt-free. \u201cIt has been important to me to pay that same generosity forward,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eric, his wife, Heather, and their two children currently reside in the Los Angeles area, but distance has been no hindrance to his connections to OSU. In addition to his work with the Board of Regents, he has hosted alumni events for the Honors College in Houston, Portland and L.A.; facilitated community building programming for Oregon State alumni at Chevron; met with current honors students; and provided challenge donations for the HC on Dam Proud Day, the Oregon State University annual day of giving. He and Heather also support her alma mater, Montana State University, underscoring their life-long mission of giving back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With a first-hand understanding of the professional and personal benefits of an Honors College education, Eric is a true champion of the college and is committed to making the same experiences he has benefited from open to all students into the future. \u201cThe endowment allows me to leave a legacy that will help future OSU generations well beyond my time here and hopefully ease their burden, as they work hard to improve themselves and the world around them.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eric MacKender, \u201900, has built a career on the foundation he established during his Oregon State University Honors College education. He\u2019s paid back his success by becoming the very first HC alum to be an Honors College Champion, one of the group of leadership donors who have given $100,000 or more to the college to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13603,"featured_media":9034,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[645351,1163420,82,1048851],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni-and-friends","category-community","category-features","category-homestories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13603"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9028"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9028\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9070,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9028\/revisions\/9070"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}