Jake Midkiff: recent UMR graduate

Posted by
On March 13, 2007
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Vital stats

  • hometown: Farmington, Missouri
  • degree: bachelor’s in GeoE’06
  • current occupation: staff engineering, Qore Property Science
  • current location: recently moved from West Palm Beach, Florida, to Nashville, Tennessee
  • college activities: Engineers Without Borders (EWB), Pi Kappa Alpha
  • political views: liberal

Info

His motto: Take the road less traveled. “It’s important to forge your own way,” he explains.

“If people always did things the way those who came before them did, where would we be? It’s important to move beyond your comfort zone and explore things that do not have definite solutions.”

Jake’s journeys: As a UMR student, Jake’s travels sometimes included traversing up steep, stomach-turning roads into the Andes mountains or twisty, hilly roads into the Guatemala highlands. Last May, the 24-year-old led a group from UMR’s Engineers Without Borders student chapter to Inka Katurapi, Bolivia, where they installed a latrine system for the high school.

What EWB taught him: “When you go to wonderful places like Inka Katurapi, it changes the way you look at things. The residents work so hard for what they have and it’s amazing how happy they are. It really puts life into perspective. These projects are partnerships with the communities. I’d love to go back in 10 years and see how the community has improved.”

A passion for compassion: “Our generation more than any other is going to live and work in a world that is globalized and without borders. I think it is very important to understand how fortunate we are and to realize the unbelievable capacity that fortune gives us to help others.”

Posted by

On March 13, 2007. Posted in Features, Spring 2007