Celebrating Black alumni

Among the hundreds of thousands of Sacramento State graduates are countless Black alumni who are making a positive impact in their community, region and the world.

During Black History Month, we highlight some of these alums – Hornets who are excelling in a variety of fields, often making history while doing so, and defining what it means to be Made at Sac State.

Lester Holt
Anchor, NBC Nightly News

Lester Holt came to Sacramento State to study Government and got his first taste of journalism while on campus. The University, he says, “set me off into the world.” Today, he is one of the world’s most respected broadcast journalists. In 2015, NBC named Holt anchor of NBC Nightly News, making him the first Black full-time anchor of a weekday nightly newscast. That same year, he received his honorary doctorate from his alma mater. Read more.

---

Nicholas Haystings
Founder, Square Root Academy

Nicholas Haystings was the only person of color at all but one of the jobs he held after graduating from Sac State with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. If things were going to change, he knew a fundamental shift in education was needed. In 2016, he launched Square Root Academy, a nonprofit that provides STEM-based education and experiences to underrepresented fifth- through 12th-graders, all at no cost to the participants. In 2019, he was named among the Sacramento Business Journal’s“40 Under 40” young professionals. Read more.

---

Elaine Welteroth
Best-selling author, journalist and television host

As a biracial woman, Elaine Welteroth rarely saw herself reflected in popular culture or the media. During her career as a journalist, author and TV host – often as the only woman of color in the room – she has worked to change that. As the groundbreaking editor of Teen Vogue, she amplified voices of color and built a more inclusive publication. Her best-selling book, More than Enough, offers lessons from her journey for future generations of girls and women. And as a judge on Project Runway and now co-host of The Talk, she’s helping change the face of television. Read more.

---

Daniel Hahn
Sacramento chief of police

When Sacramento swears in a new police chief, it’s typically done at city hall. Daniel Hahn, however, chose to have his ceremony at a place near and dear to his heart: Sacramento State. It is where he earned a Marketing degree in 1995 while also serving as a Sacramento police officer. More than 20 years later, a crowd of more than 1,000 gathered in the University Union Ballroom to watch the Oak Park neighborhood native sworn in as the city’s first Black police chief. Read more.

Eleven Sacramento State alumni make annual ’40 Under 40′ list

Every year, the Sacramento Business Journal honors the “40 Under 40” – a group of young Sacramento professionals who are making their mark on the region. And every year, Sacramento State alumni make up a significant portion of the list.

This year is no exception: 11 Sacramento State alumni have been named to the 2019 “40 Under 40” list, a testament to the tremendous impact Hornet alums have throughout Sacramento and beyond. They and their fellow recipients will be honored formally at an event in November.

The full list was announced Sept. 30 on the Business Journal’s website. This year’s Hornets included on the “40 Under 40” roster are:

• Maggie Bender ’11 MBA, president, Bender Insurance Solutions.
• Tiffanie Berkhalter ’04 (Business Administration), VSP Ventures chief operating officer, VSP Global.
• Jita Buno ’13 MBA, director, Supply Chain Management, UC Davis Health.
• Matt Ceccato ’11 (Communication Studies), district director, Congressman Ami Bera.
• Sarah Correa ’03 (Criminal Justice), corporate sales and marketing manager, Westervelt Ecological Services.
• Jessica Cruz ’04 (Communication Studies – Media Communications), CEO, National Alliance on Mental Health in California.
• Lindsey Goodwin MA ’10 (Government), vice president of public affairs, Randle Communications.
• Joseph Hernandez ’16 MBA, director of client relations, Premier Healthcare Services.
• Lorena Martinez ’07 (Accountancy), owner, The Colour Bar.
• Chelsea Minor ’15 MBA, corporate director, Consumer and Public Affairs, Raley’s.
• Amber Rosen ’06 (Communication Studies – Public Relations), founder and program director, Breakroom Fitness.

A 12th individual, attorney Adrian Carpenter, is not an alum but participated in Sacramento State’s Capital Fellows Program.

“These young professionals, through their hard work, talent and leadership, are helping drive Sacramento’s economy forward. Moreover, they’re making the region a better place to live by supporting worthy causes,” the Business Journal writes. “By way of example, they’re leading the way for future generations of business leaders.”

The strong presence of Sacramento State alumni on the list continues a trend. Last year, 12 alumni were included in the “40 Under 40.” Nine alums were recognized in 2017 and in 2016, and a record 12 Hornets made the list in 2015.

The full list can be found on the Sacramento Business Journal website. (subscription required).

Alumnus and former State Hornet reporter wins Pulitzer Prize

Russ Buettner ’90 (Journalism), along with fellow New York Times investigative reporters David Barstow and Susanne Craig, spent 18 months digging into the complex finances of the family of President Donald Trump.

“We didn’t do anything else during that period of time,” he said. “There were at least two times when we thought we might be finished and we were going to make one more round of contacts, and each of those times when we thought we were finished those additional reporting contacts we made yielded more results that required more process and analysis and then circling back to what we had done before.”

That hard work paid off last week when Buettner and his colleagues were awarded journalism’s most prestigious honor: the Pulitzer Prize. The award, given in the Explanatory Journalism category, was one of two for the Times this year and a first for Buettner. It also marks the second year in a row a Sacramento State alum has received a Pulitzer: Hornet graduates Derek Moore, Jim Sweeney and Martin Espinoza earned the award last year for their coverage of the 2017 Sonoma County wildfires in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat.

While a student at Sacramento State, Buettner spent two semesters as a reporter for the State Hornet student newspaper. He joined the Times in 2006 after working on investigations teams at the New York Daily News and New York Newsday, and was a finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for a series of articles highlighting abuse, neglect and deadly mistakes in New York’s system of caring for developmentally disabled people.

Below, Buettner discusses his Pulitzer-winning work and his time at Sacramento State (interview has been edited lightly for length and clarity).

What was your reaction upon learning you had received the Pulitzer Prize?

It’s a very exciting moment. I’ve been doing this a long time and have gotten close before. But it’s kind of a pure excitement that you share with your colleagues. You feel good about what you’ve accomplished. You feel very good about the work that you did, that kind of reinforcement and recognition from that particular body. This means a lot in journalism.

Russ Buettner addresses the New York Times newsroom following the announcement that he and his colleagues had received a Pulitzer Prize. (Photo courtesy Russ Buettner).

Why did you feel this story was important to report?

When somebody is president of the United States, getting to the truth of their lives and what they’ve done that led them there is always going to be important. Some of the ways that Donald Trump is very different than other presidents is that most often in modern times, by the time they get to the point when they’re running for president, most of their life has been thoroughly vetted before. People have gone through it, looked at all the relationships they’ve had, connected the dots that need to be connected, and there’s kind of an extensive public record on all that. Donald Trump had been a public figure for decades, obviously, but never had been taken seriously in that kind of way before. So it was worthwhile to go through that and test, basically, his origin story that he’s always told about himself, that he told during the campaign as to why his ideas should matter and why he was the best person to be president.

How do you feel Sacramento State prepared you for a career in journalism?

I owe almost everything to Sac State. It was a place I could afford to go and a place that welcomed me, so those were two things that I’ll be forever grateful for. It was place that taught me both new ways to think critically, which is everything in my work, and to believe in myself that I was capable of doing that at a fairly high level. I learned to write when I was there. There was a professor there named Jeanne Abbott who worked closely with the Hornet, and when I wrote something, a longer thing to try and get it in the paper, Jeanne would spend hours with me giving me feedback, helping me to massage it into something that was publishable at what seemed like a professional level. Writing is a particular kind of skill. There are some people I’m sure who can just get it and nail it first time they try. I wasn’t like that. I had ideas and talent but I needed to do a lot of work to perfect it for a large audience. All the journalism staff and the English Department at Sac State really moved me along in that direction.

What lessons from Sacramento State do you use most today?

No matter where you’re from, and I don’t mean Sacramento, I just mean from no matter what the economics or cultural background is of your family, you can find a path to get to a place that is mentally satisfying and will challenge you throughout your life. You can feel like when you see your friends going off to huge prestigious universities, that it must be true that your fate is determined when you’re 17 years old and you’re as good as you’re ever going to be when your 17 years old. Sac State shows you that that’s not true. It’s just all a big journey and you just keep learning and keep digging, and you’ll find the life for you that is the best use of your skills and talents and the most rewarding. The lesson for me about Sac State is that it’s a big door opener to the world.

What advice do you have for current Sacramento State journalism students?

Dream big and never quit learning. Realize you got there and you had some skills and some talent and you learned about things you wanted to do. You made a lot of progress. But you are literally not going to stop making progress if you keep working hard on that same pace for your entire life. I know that’s true in journalism. That’s one of the best things about it, you’re just constantly learning and being exposed and being challenged in new ways. And I think that’s true in most fields today. The world is constantly changing underneath our feet and that’s a wonderful thing and wonderful process, and just embrace it and go forth.