Celebrating Alumni Excellence

Myrna J. Orsini ’68 is an accomplished sculptor and master stone carver with 45 years of experience. Besides stone, she also works in wood, clay, steel, glass and bronze, and her award-winning works are now displayed in private, corporate, and city collections in seven different countries. She has attended symposiums all over the world and now teaches her craft to students of all ages. “It’s a wonderful world. It’s a great life,” she marvels. 

In 1989, Orsini attended a symposium in Nikolaev, Ukraine, and was inspired to start a nonprofit contemporary sculpture park like the ones she saw in Europe. Over the following years, she worked tirelessly to bring her vision to life, purchasing five acres of land with her business partner Doris A. Coonrod in Tenino, Washington. In 1998, she opened the free Monarch Contemporary Art Center and Sculpture Park, which includes a butterfly-shaped maze and a sound garden, as her “gift to the community.” 

Some of the most rewarding parts of Orsini’s work have been helping other artists to progress in their careers and the delighted response of the park’s visitors. She can often hear children and families, filled with wonder and joy as they interact with the whimsical sculptures. “The laughter just fills the air in the park,” she says. “It’s amazing, and it’s one of the really poignant parts of my day.”

Soccer was the first love of Maya Mendoza-Exstrom ’03, and it never let her go. It carried her from childhood teams in western Washington to championship squads at the University of Puget Sound, then into coaching roles after graduation and ultimately into a career dedicated to advancing the game. 

After earning her law degree and spending seven years in private practice, Mendoza-Exstrom went on to work 11 seasons with the Seattle Sounders — three as the club’s chief operating officer. She is now the chief business officer for Seattle Reign FC. She also chaired the successful bid for Seattle to host the World Cup and is a member of the city’s 2026 FIFA World Cup Host Committee City Board (see story on p. 18). In addition, Mendoza-Exstrom contributes her expertise to a number of boards and nonprofits, including the RAVE Foundation, the Reign’s and Sounders’ charitable arm, which works to build small and innovative soccer fields designed for free community play. 

“I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up,” says Mendoza-Exstrom with a laugh. But professors like Mott Green and Nancy Bristow, who supported her development as both a committed student and an All-American athlete at Puget Sound, “meant the world to me,” she explains, and that is “probably why I am still working in this game. I can’t quite quit this game, because it’s as much academic and intellectual to me as it is a physical sport.”

Stacy Wells Chapin ’91 and her family endured unimaginable tragedy when her triplet son Ethan, a student at University of Idaho, was murdered along with his girlfriend and best friends in 2022. The case drew international media attention as well as a flurry of rumors from true crime fanatics, making an already devastating loss even worse. 

Although it would have been understandable for anyone to succumb to grief under such traumatic circumstances, Chapin showed extraordinary resilience. Drawing on her background as an educator and school principal, she counseled Ethan’s fraternity, Sigma Chi, through the aftermath. In response, the organization recognized her with a membership badge, making her the first nonmember to receive the pin. The University of Idaho bestowed her with an honorary degree and alumni status for her aid in healing their community. 

In honor of Ethan’s legacy, Chapin and her husband Jim founded the Ethan’s Smile Foundation, which has awarded $105,750 and 83 scholarships to date. She also wrote the children’s picture book The Boy Who Wore Blue in tribute to Ethan’s kind-hearted nature. “He made all of our lives better,” she says. “You have to figure out how to do it without him, but you bring his memory along with you. And I think that’s the most important part, the decision you have on how you move forward.”

Louis C. Smith ’69 summarizes his experience at University of Puget Sound as the famous opening line of A Tale of Two Cities: “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.” It was the best of times because of the freedom and flexibility he had as a first-year student away from home for the first time, but also the worst of times because he didn’t feel the support on campus he had experienced growing up in St. Louis, surrounded by a diverse community that strongly encouraged its young scholars. 

However, everything changed when he visited a friend at the University of Oregon and was invited to the Black Student Union, where he was welcomed with open arms. “It didn’t take long to realize that this was something I would thrive in,” he says. Newly inspired, he founded Washington’s first Black Student Union at Puget Sound in 1967, which immediately started advocating for the establishment of an African American studies program and the hiring of faculty and administrators of color. 

Smith continues his service to this day. As the president of the Black Alumni Union, he’s guided by his vision of “Creating Generational Value While Empowering Dreams.” He’s moved by the fact that the BSU has surpassed his original goals and still nurtures Black students’ experiences today. “The fact that it’s still supporting students some 50, almost 60, years later, there’s a sense of pride associated with that that outshines everything else,” he says

Jansen Jae Dacquel MPH’24 came to Puget Sound in 2022 after graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree in biology at St. Martin’s University, and he says he fell in love with the “servant leadership” feel of the Master of Public Health program. 

“The main thing that drew me to public health in the first place was that it’s more than just a diagnosis — it’s all the experiences an individual has throughout their life,” he says. 

Shortly after graduating, he found a role ideally suited to his values as the community health worker program lead at Pediatrics Northwest. He praises the organization’s “patient first, diagnosis second” philosophy, encouraged by the late founder Dr. George Tanbara, and has helped coordinate cultural humility training for his workplace through the University of Puget Sound. 

Already, Dacquel has given back to the public health program by providing mentorship for students, collaborating with faculty, and forging a partnership between Puget Sound and Pediatrics Northwest. He credits professors Alexandria Drake and Sara E. Fischer with changing the trajectory of his life. 

“If they were never my professors, I wouldn’t be the person I am today,” he says. 

“They always pushed me to the point where I questioned everything,” he adds. “I feel like curiosity, especially in the public health field, is vital, because if people aren’t curious, then things will remain stagnant.”

Mike Purdy ’76, MBA’79, who achieved a fulfilling career as a manager, historian, and writer, passed away in 2023 due to stage 4 metastatic prostate cancer. As the recipient of the university’s first posthumous alumni award, Purdy will be remembered as a respected expert in presidential history and politics, as well as an intelligent optimist and deep listener. 

Purdy arrived at Puget Sound in 1972; during the summer of 1973, he served as a congressional intern in Washington, D.C., at the same time as the Watergate scandal, which granted him access to the hearings of the Senate Watergate Committee — an experience that foreshadowed his lifelong interest in politics. In 1976, he graduated with a double major in business administration and public administration, and had served as student body president. 

After graduation, Purdy worked as an admissions counselor, assistant director, and marketing director for Puget Sound before spending the next three decades managing government contracts for the City of Seattle, the Seattle Housing Authority, and the University of Washington. In 2010, he launched a successful public contracting consulting business. He also became a U.S. presidential historian, starting a website (presidentialhistory.com), writing two books, delivering lectures, and acting as a frequent media commentator. “As one who has always loved history, I have often said we make history every day in the small and big choices we make and who we decide to become,” Purdy wrote in his 2023 memoir. “The history of our lives is the cumulation of innumerable decisions and actions.”