Longest tenured Alumni Association staff member recalls how times have changed, yet the goals stayed the same
With more than 35 years of experience, Jeanine Lake, senior director of information services, has seen the K-State Alumni Association grow and change into one of the leading alumni associations in the country.
“When I first started, our staff was small and the Alumni Association wasn’t really doing that much at that time,” she said. “We were just kind of dabbling in a little bit of everything.”
Over the years one of the major changes has been the technology we use.
“Technology has affected each department in the Association,” she said. “That's by far the biggest change we have dealt with over the years.”
Our goals have remained the same. To reach out, to connect, and to serve.
Having joined the Alumni Association team in 1987, Lake is the longest tenured member of the staff. In her role she oversees the information services department, including alumni database management, membership operations and Association networking technology and equipment.
She was initially hired as a membership assistant to Amy Button Renz ’76, ’86, who ran the membership program and would later become the Association’s president and CEO. In 1994 the university and the Association changed the structure of the records department. The staff in the records department would no longer be part of the university, but be staff of the Alumni Association. Some staff decided to relocate to a job at the university. A new supervisor was needed. Fred Thibodeau ’74, then Association president, tapped Lake to run the department.
“He said, ‘You just need to supervise the department and make sure the work gets done.’ So I said, ‘Okay, I can do that.’ But when I actually transferred to the department, I discovered there was a lot more to it,” Lake said.
Getting data from the database for membership bills and for mailing lists wasn’t a simple task at the time. Queries had to be written. Campus staff members Mike Stauffer and John Letourneau spent many hours teaching Lake how to use the then-fledgling database.
“I had to laugh because in high school algebra was my worst subject,” she said. “I needed tutoring to get through. And here I was in a job that required me to know algebra in and out.”
Lake helped usher in the digital age for the Association, helping organize efforts to computerize tasks, integrate email into the workplace, set up a web page and later a full website, among many other tasks.
Under her watch the Association carefully maintains the alumni database. The database has the most accurate and up-to-date information on K-State graduates, friends, faculty and others who make up the K-State community. The database is used by the Association, KSU Foundation, K-State Athletics and the university to stay connected with Wildcats around the world.
Through the database the Association emails constituents on behalf of the university and affiliated partners; assists K-State with accreditation and grant applications; connects faculty to alumni; assists with survey and research projects; and so much more.
Lake notes that since 1994 the Association’s database has grown from 142,000 records to over 440,000 records.
Part of why Lake has had such a long career with the Association is because of the supportive atmosphere. When she started her job the Association was headquartered in Hollis House. She shared office space with Grace Prusik, alumni program coordinator. The office space was an old screened in porch with orange shag carpet and heavy brown tweed insulated curtains. This space was a popular gathering area where Button Renz and Beth Hartenstein Tolentino ’80, ’88, the seventh editor of K-Stater magazine, would join Lake and Prusik for lively discussions. The four quickly became family supporting each other both professionally and personally.
Some of her favorite memories working at the Association include many of the bowl trips. For the Copper Bowl, the Association staff worked very hard preparing transportation, hotel accommodations, and other necessities, for over 6,000 alumni and friends. Thibodeau told the support team they could go to the bowl game if they agreed to share a hotel room.
“I think there were six of us. Thank goodness it was a big room,” she said.
In 1997 heading to the Cotton Bowl with Tolentino and Tim Lindemuth ’77, eighth editor of the K-Stater, in a van loaded with pom poms for the pep rally, Lake recalls Lindemuth having games for the three to play while they headed down to Texas. However, not much time was spent on the games because they were in awe watching bumper-to-bumper traffic from Manhattan to Dallas. The turnpike lanes were backed up with K-State decorated cars. When stopping for gas and snacks the stores were always full of K-Staters.
Lake said the Association is still a very family and community-oriented place to work.
“It is still family oriented, and I know that everybody cares about each other and we all try to know when there are special events going on in a person's life and help them either through it or congratulate them on it,” she said.
Earlier this year Lake announced she will enter into phased retirement concluding her career at K-State sometime in 2026.