Young Alumni Awards

A true servant within her community, Carli Amlin Dean rises above professional duty to help those in need. Throughout her life, Carli has always been a giver.

In 2006-2008 she served on the Tipp City Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors. In 2007 Carli also served on the Tipp Monroe Community Service Board of Trustees, and as President from 2008-2010. In Fall 2009 she helped co-found the ClipShopShare coupon ministry, (www.ClipShopShare.com.) Since its launch, the ministry has donated over $48,000 in food, toiletries and household goods to local food pantries for less than $400 out of pocket expense. Carli teaches a coupon class twice a month to help show individuals how they can shop smarter and save money. She also helps churches and organizations around the country with this ministry. In 2011 Carli joined the Dream Builders Board of Directors at Ginghamsburg United Methodist Church.

Along with the time given to ClipShopShare coupon ministry and the Dream Builders Board of Director, Carli coordinates meals to families in need, sponsors individuals for the Vera Bradley Breast Cancer Foundation Fundraiser, volunteers with PALS (Parents Actively Linked with Schools) an organization within the elementary where her children attend, and currently serves as the 2011 Levy Chairman for the Tipp City School District.

Carli’s professional career is selling real estate with the Amlin Advantage Team at RE/MAX Alliance Realty throughout the Miami Valley area. Carli teamed with her mother, Sue Amlin, after graduating in 1999 with a double major in Speech and Organizational Communications. Since then Carli had earned her ABR (Accredited Buyer Representative) in 2006, CRS (Certified Residential Specialist) in 2007, continues to stay involved in the Dayton Area Board of Realtors all while working with buyers, sellers, transferees and relocation companies.

Carli’s hard work and compassion for others shines through all of her efforts. She makes the most of each opportunity, refuses to accept the status quo, and leads by example in her community.

Scott Lacy is founder and Executive Director of African Sky, Inc. (www.africansky.org), a non-profit organization that serves hard-working rural families in Mali, West Africa. The organization works within local ecological and cultural systems to promote sustainable food production, rural primary schools, adult literacy and numeracy, an annual Mothers & Daughters Summit, income generation capacity building, and collaborations with Peace Corps volunteers, agricultural scientists, and engineers.

After graduating from Otterbein, a small village of farmers from southern Mali adopted Lacy as a Peace Corps volunteer and gave him a host family. Lacy explains that he went to Mali to lend a hand to the poorest of the poor, yet before returning to the states he realized that his hosts were enriching his life far more than he was enriching theirs. A serious illness cut his Peace Corps service short, but after a brief period as a foster parent for seven Native American at-risk youth, Lacy earned a Ph.D. in Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara and returned to Mali as a Fulbright Scholar.

Humbled by the extraordinary generosity of the impoverished families that were the foundation of his academic success and publications, Lacy recruited family and friends in the U.S. to build a primary school for his host community. This single project has grown into African Sky, which has raised approximately $250,000 to complete over 200 projects throughout Mali. African Sky is an all-volunteer organization, so during the school year Lacy works as a professor of Anthropology at Fairfield University. Lacy has published widely, and he has taught at the University of California and Emory University; he has presented his research and work at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, Columbia University, MIT, the Institute d’Economie Rurale (Mali), and at the Guangxi Maize Research Institute in China.

Erica Hlavin Bell graduated with a Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology from Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2010, where she studied chemotherapy resistance and DNA repair.

Currently, Erica aids in the fight against cancer as a research assistant professor and Barbara Hughes Fellow in the Dept. of Radiation Oncology at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, James Cancer Hospital. This endowed position has a sole focus of research and enables Erica to manage multiple projects, publish scientific manuscripts, present research at national and international conferences, and teach lectures that pertain to her research at The Ohio State University. The goal of her research is to detect novel tumor biomarkers that correlate with treatment efficacy and survival. As a result of her dedication and contribution to the field, Erica has been published numerous times and has been invited to speak across the United States, as well as in China and Europe.

During Erica’s time at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the department of biochemistry and molecular biology in Baltimore, MD, her specific area of research was to elucidate the mechanism of repair of chemotherapeutically-relevant DNA interstrand cross-links and determine how cross-link structure affects repair.

Erica is currently a member of the American Association for Cancer Research, American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology, European Society for Radiotherapy & Oncology, and the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group.

Since graduating from Otterbein University, Rebecca Rossiter Lachman has had a distinguishable career as an educator, a poet and a musical composer. Currently, Becca is the assistant coordinator of Ohio University’s student writing center and an adjunct faculty member, where she trains and mentors undergraduate, graduate and community tutors. Becca also devotes her creative talents as a freelance lyricist and composer of musicals, folk operettas and children’s choir for various commissions, publications and community events.

While at Otterbein, Becca majored in Musical Theater Composition and English, serving as a Rotary International Ambassador Scholar to England her junior year. A recipient of Otterbein’s Fisher Memorial Writer’s Award and the Grabill-Shackson Award in music, she won a national undergraduate contest in 2004 with her senior chapbook “Songs from the Springhouse.”

Following graduation, Becca later earned an M.A. in English from Ohio University, preceded by a year of Mennonite Voluntary Service with the fair trade non-profit Ten Thousand Villages in Seattle, Washington. A recent graduate of the Bennington Writing Seminars, Becca focused her M.F.A. research on exploring a pedagogy of creative nonviolence for young poets in the “9/11 Generation.”

Her children’s chorus music (premiered at Otterbein) can be found through Heritage Press, and her first full collection of poems (The Apple Speaks) is forthcoming from Cascadia Publishing House. 

She lives in Athens with her husband Michael, a professional musician and fellow educator.

Entrepreneur and author Melissa Dawn Johnson is a Global Branding and Personal Transformation Strategist. Johnson is the CEO and President of Atlanta-based Velvet Suite Marketing Consulting Group, Inc. (www.velvetsuite.com) and Brand Me International (www.brandmelive.com). Velvet Suite Marketing Group authentically brands people, corporations, organizations and destinations with a patent-pending methodology called ID3^TM innovation.
Melissa was trained by her tenures at Procter & Gamble, Victoria’s Secret and Nationwide. Johnson’s work has also enabled her to develop a powerful branding model for people. She developed signature partnerships with personalities such as Shania Twain, Jessica Simpson, Mary J. Blige, Common, Hill Harper, Olympic athlete Carmelo Anthony and World Cup soccer player, Oguchi Onyewu. Her work with executives, pastors, politicians, collegiate and professional athletes gives her a proven platform to brand anyone.

Melissa is an international on-air contributor to CNN through a weekly Sunday segment Sunday Morning Motivation. "Making the Brand " an online-web series, gives her audience an insider’s view to the recipe behind the world’s most renowned entrepreneurs, personalities and influential individuals making their mark.

Melissa travels the world speaking about personal and global brand leadership and has been featured in national media including The Wall Street Journal, Black Enterprise, Essence, Ebony and InsideBrandedEntertainment.com.

Her first title, Brand Me: Make Your Mark: Turn Passion into Profit (Ambassador Press – www.brandmelive.com) offers a 7-Step Brand Blue Print^TM to package your passion into a profitable life.

Melissa received a Master of Science degree from the Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) program at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. She graduated cum laude, with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Public Relations and a minor in Business Administration from Otterbein.

She currently resides in Atlanta, GA and enjoys extreme fitness, dancing, cooking and spending time with family.

Michael W. Morgan is the senior vice president of marketing for Netsmart Technologies, a $90+ million healthcare technology company that offers software solutions to health and human services providers nationwide. In Michael’s role, he leads the organization’s marketing, communications, client service and programs areas. During Michael’s tenure as senior vice president of marketing, Netsmart has grown from $20M to over $90M in revenue and is recognized as one of the top 100 healthcare IT companies.

Previously, Michael served as a partner at ThreeSoft, Ltd., a marketing and project management service company, the vice president of marketing at fourth Channel, Inc., director of marketing at Enact Inc., and marketing manager at Sterling Software/Sterling Commerce.

Michael is also the founder and co-chair of Lifting Hopes (www.liftinghopes.com), an organization that hosts athletic events to raise money and awareness for central Ohio children’s charities. In addition, Michael is a volunteer for the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Greater Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana and actively works to support The Chapel Hill House.

Michael graduated from Otterbein in 1993 with summa cum laude honors, earning Bachelor of Arts degree in mathematics and business administration. He is married and the father of three children.

Wendy Bradshaw joined the Thirty-One Gifts organization in March 2011. The new position of Director of Philanthropy was created with Wendy – and her passion to help others - in mind. Wendy is responsible for Thirty-One Gives, a philanthropic platform that mirrors the company’s mission and culture. The charitable efforts of Thirty-One Gives will focus on the health and well-being of women, adolescent girls and families.

Before joining Thirty-One, Wendy served a dual role as Executive Director of the Columbus Blue Jackets Foundation and Director of Community Development for the National Hockey League (NHL) club for 11 years. As executive director of the team’s philanthropic arm, Wendy was responsible for the development and management of the Foundation. Under her direction, the Blue Jackets Foundation and its Board of Directors awarded over $3 million since 2000 to deserving organizations in Ohio that serve the Foundation’s primary pillars of giving: pediatric cancer; education; children’s health and safety; and the development of youth and amateur hockey.

Wendy was instrumental in the development of Hats For Heroes, a signature program which has raised over $1 million for pediatric cancer, the grand opening of the 5,000 square foot Columbus Blue Jackets Foundation Family Resource Center at Nationwide Children’s Hospital serving over 90,000 families locally, and Rick Nash’s 61 Good Health Challenge.

Wendy came to the Blue Jackets after spending nearly five years as Manager of Programs and Special Events for the Greater Columbus Chamber of Commerce where she developed and maintained corporate partnerships for event sponsorship.

Bradshaw is a member of the Hospice Fundraising Council for the Ohio Presbyterian Retirement Services Foundation and the YWCA Woman to Woman Steering Committee. Wendy, a Kent, Ohio, native, now resides in Westerville with her husband, John, daughter, Madeline, and son, Grayden.

Jason Jenkins is the Assistant Vice President of Community Outreach & Volunteer Recruitment at Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Ohio. During the past four years, Jason served as the African American Mentoring Manager and as a School Based Coordinator at Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Ohio, where he was responsible for enrolling, matching, and supporting volunteers, youth and families in BB/BS programs. Jason works with diverse populations and is committed to building strong relationships with marginalized youth in inner city Columbus.

Since his graduation from Otterbein in 2004, Jason has also worked as a case manager and teacher at the YMCA Truancy Center in Columbus, Ohio.

In addition, Jason is active with many community groups, including the African American Alumni Network at Otterbein University, Expanding Visions Foundation, the Youth Violence Prevention Advisory Committee, the Minority Male Provider Committee, Huckle Berry House – All Star Collaboration, the African American Male Initiative, and the Columbus Police Department Diversity Recruitment Council.

Recently, Jason received the Otterbein University African American Hall of Fame Award and in 2008, he was awarded the Big Brothers Big Sisters Mr. Project Mentor award.

Jason started dating his wife Melanie while attending Otterbein and they now have two beautiful daughters, Giana Marie (8 years old) and Graycin Belle (11 months old).