For Mark Kranz, the career pivot came after drinking scotch, smoking cigars and discussing life, relationships and theology with three buddies post-grad in Boston.
By Chris Graves (’87)
For Karen Jennings, it came after she took her brother’s advice about finding passion in her work.
For Pernell Jefferson, it came in a desire to stop living paycheck-to-paycheck.
For Steve Gangwish, the notion of building bridges morphed into building businesses after a series of internships, his first job and personal connections he made along the way.
For Kaitlyn Rosploch, it came in career advice and a well-placed internship that turned into a full-time job while she was still a UNL student.
The Husker grads don’t know each other, each pursued different degrees and after graduation fanned out across the nation. But they share a commonality: Each works in careers that have little, if anything, to do with their conferred undergrad degrees.
They are far from alone. Nearly three-fourths of college graduates work in jobs not closely related to their college major, according to the 2010 U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey.
And the reasons for that are as varied as Kranz, Jennings, Gangwish, Jefferson and Rosploch.
Mark Kranz
Dance graduate finds future in connecting body, spirit and soul as Lutheran pastor.
While studying dance at Nebraska, Mark Kranz (’10) dreamed of a future on stage leaping, pirouetting and floating in the air.
At the same time, the lapsed Catholic met Bethany Luebbe (’09) who made his heart soar. He converted to Lutheranism, which was her faith, and the two married in the church between his second and third year of college.
He earned his dance degree and followed her to graduate school in Boston, where he performed in several dance companies and found kinship with three men in “the only Lutheran church in Boston.”
“They knew a lot about Scripture and a lot about the Lutheran faith and so I would spend a lot of time hanging out with them,’’ said Kranz, 35. “We would sit on the front porch and we would drink scotch and smoke cigars and talk about theology and our life and girls and whatever.
“It was a formative experience for me,” the father of four added.
Later, his wife struggled to find a job in Boston, so the couple moved back to Lincoln, where he worked as a paraeducator in the Lincoln Public Schools and continued to dance. The work wasn’t as fulfilling as he wanted and he was continually drawn to reading Scripture and studying Lutheranism.
Wanting more, he said, he turned to their pastor and asked about seminary.
“He said to me: ‘I wondered how long it was going to take you before you came to talk to me.’ ”
“My experience as a performer has made it easier to stand up and deliver a sermon. I don’t have the butterflies that some guys have.”
Kranz was accepted into the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where he earned his Master of Divinity from Concordia Theological Seminary in 2020. He was installed pastor of Mount Calvary Lutheran Church in Excelsior Springs, Missouri, on Aug. 9, 2020.
Dance remains in his bones.
“I have a unique perspective on this connection between the body and the soul that my training as a dancer won’t ever let me forget,’’ he said. “At a very practical level, my experience as a performer has made it easier to stand up and deliver a sermon. I don’t have the butterflies that some guys have.
“I’m a little used to it.”
Karen Jennings
Finding her passion in creating ‘forever clients’
Karen Jennings’ journey from record-setting Husker basketball standout, to physical therapist to award-winning Omaha real estate agent is a bit back to the future.
Jennings (’93) earned her Bachelor of Science degree in exercise physiology and decided to attend graduate school at the University of Nebraska Medical Center to pursue her master’s degree in physical therapy, a field she worked in for four years.
“I enjoyed the profession because of the relationships I built.’’ she said. “But I didn’t think that was where my passion was. I wanted more autonomy and have an entrepreneur’s spirit.”
A conversation with her brother, Bill Jennings, who owned a thriving real estate firm in Ames, Iowa, convinced her to pursue his career. “He said: ‘You have the drive, competitiveness, work ethic, the follow through and you will work tirelessly.’ ”
He encouraged her as she earned her real estate licenses in Nebraska and Iowa. Jennings, continued to work as a physical therapist during the day and sold houses on nights and weekends, she said. The extra income helped her pay down her student loans, as well. She caught the real estate “bug” and began selling real estate full time in 2002.
She sold 10 homes her first year, 20 in her second year and doubled it again in her third year. As the leader of Berkshire Hathaway’s Team Jennings, she sells homes from $150,000 to more than $2 million and had a recent school listed for $13 million. She was recently awarded Best of Omaha by Omaha Magazine for the 11th year in a row. She has finished in the Top 10 and Top 25 nationally for Berkshire Hathaway Homeservices.
Selling, she found, comes naturally. A trait she learned growing up watching her father who worked as both a farmer and salesman.
“I think I was homeschooled in sales,” she laughed. “We learned how to answer the phone … We learned how to market because we would send out calendars every year to every one of his clients. He taught us how important it was to maintain clients and to keep them as forever clients.”
She said she enjoys the relational part of working in real estate and added it is akin to being a physical therapist: “It is always about the client or the patient.”
“You want to be mentally stimulated and you want to have fun at what you are doing so that it doesn’t feel like work.”
Jennings incorporated her tall stature in her tagline, “Standing Tall for You!”
Working for herself and growing her business has afforded her the luxury of working from home as well and being actively involved with her daughter, who is in high school. She’s also been able to volunteer, coach youth basketball and to engage in some motivational speaking.
“God has extremely blessed my real estate career and I enjoy it,’’ she said. “Isn’t that what life is about?
“Each day you want to wake up and be challenged. You want to be mentally stimulated and you want to have fun at what you are doing so that it doesn’t feel like work.”
Pernell Jefferson
Former Husker linebacker tackling student issues at high school alma mater.
Pernell Jefferson had his eye on the NFL when he arrived at Nebraska in 2016.
The linebacker from New Orleans honed his tackling skills at Memorial Stadium but he never imagined four years later, he would be knocking down fires for the New Orleans Fire Department.
Jefferson, 26, loved the work. But he said the low pay meant living paycheck to paycheck at a time he was starting a family.
“I was sad to leave firefighting. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed my team,’’ he said. “But everyone understood.”
And while his bachelor’s degree in Child, Family and Youth Services wasn’t an exact fit, he turned to his alma mater, Warren Easton Charter High School, where he started as a substitute teacher and now works as its dean of students. He started his third year this fall, and the job helps him provide for his 1-year-old son.
“My job is to make sure the day goes accordingly … making sure transitioning from class to class goes smoothly,” he said as the school’s intercom blared in the background. “Anytime a kid gets irritated or upset or anything of that sort, my job is to find them the help they need and to make sure that they don’t disturb others from their learning environment.”
Jefferson’s next step is to finish up a master’s degree in social work.
Steve Gangwish
From civil engineering degree to CEO of a multimillion dollar potato-growing business.
Two student internships convinced Steve Gangwish (’04) civil engineering was not for him, despite his degree in the field.
“When I went to work every day, I was less and less interested in doing engineering work,” said Gangwish, 41. “I was more interested in maybe someday running the business.”
After graduating, Gangwish took a job in Chicago with a business-consulting firm and it was there the farm boy from Shelton discovered his peers discussing MBAs to catapult them. So, it was off to Harvard Business School and an MBA, which in turn opened doors for him and ultimately another internship at First National Bank of Omaha, where he worked on a transaction for CSS Farms and was hired by the potato-farming business as a vice president in 2009.
“You can take the boy off the farm but can’t take the farm out of the boy,’’ said Gangwish, who rose through the ranks at CSS Farms, becoming its president and CEO in 2019.
He moved the company’s headquarters to Kearney, which is where he lives with his wife Meggan (Cover) (’04) and their three daughters. CSS, with farms in 11 states, grows chip potatoes for customers, seed potatoes and grows and packs specialty baby potatoes. The privately-held company’s total holdings have grown to more than $600 million in revenue, he said.
“Ultimately, the path I took proved valuable because it seemed like the most fun to do,’’ he said. “Just wake up tomorrow and do something that you’re going to have fun doing. And one thing will lead to another.”
Kaitlyn Rosploch
Turns crime-scene clue detection skills into problem-solving for cosmetic clients.
Kaitlyn Rosploch (’17) imagined she would use her passion for problem-solving to help police officers investigate crimes with her degrees in forensic science and biochemistry.
But as she sought internship and career advice while still a Nebraska student, she was told she would most likely have to become a police officer before transitioning to crime scene investigator. That did not appeal to her in the least. So, she turned to a friend of her mother, who worked in the cosmetic industry, for help in finding an internship that would use her science know-how.
“She came back with a long list of them and she also mentioned that Estee Lauder had one, so I applied to the entire list of internship programs at each of those companies, and Estee Lauder was the one who ended up moving forward,” said Rosploch, who interned for Estee Lauder during the summers of her sophomore and junior years.
The first week of her senior year, the global cosmetic giant called her with a job offer: “I was like ‘Wow, I have a job before I graduate.’ ”
Rosploch, 27, works as a formulator for the company, but was on a temporary six-month assignment as manager of Global Brand Quality where she has applied her forensic science education to ferret out quality issues and resolve them, often working in teams.
“It’s very investigative. I definitely use my forensic science background and my investigative skills that I developed to aid me in this job,’’ she said from her New York office. “It is pretty much being a CSI for makeup. It’s pretty cool.”
As a formulator, she innovates products for lips and cheeks, she said. In less than six years, she has formulated nine anhydrous makeup product launches including lipstick, concealer and lip care products which have generated over $330 million in sales.
One of those products includes Pure Color Envy Lip Repair Potion, a best seller on many department store websites.
“It’s like cooking; mixing ingredients together. But you also have to think of the biochemistry behind it: ‘Is this ingredient going to be compatible with another ingredient?’ So, I’m using my biochem background in that respect.”
As a student, she never fully realized the amount of work and science that goes into creating makeup, she said.
“It’s like cooking; mixing ingredients together,’’ she said. “But you also have to think of the biochemistry behind it: ‘Is this ingredient going to be compatible with another ingredient?’ So, I’m using my biochem background in that respect.”
Rosploch earned a Master of Science in agriculture with a focus on food science and business management from Washington State University in 2021 and said she isn’t quite sure where the degree will take her.
“I thought I could learn some tips from the food industry to apply to cosmetics,” she said. “I wanted to be different, and I wanted to be able to learn something new.”