The Wisconsin Alumni Association honored 23 young University of Wisconsin alumni last week for their outstanding accomplishments in their years after graduation.
WAA is presenting these UW graduates with the Forward Under 40 Award. The recipients of the award ? all under the age of 40 ? have all been honored for the positive difference they have made to their communities.
?This award recognizes that a lot of alumni are doing really great things just a few years after graduation,? WAA spokesperson Kate Dixon said.
Dixon said the idea for this award came from the large number of young UW graduates WAA has been hearing about for years. She added the alumni who received the award are all very diverse, finding success in fields such as business, education and public service.
One of the recipients of the Forward Under 40 Award is Neil Peters-Michaud, a current Madison resident who graduated from UW with his bachelor?s degree in 1993 and his MBA in 1999. Peters-Michaud founded his own computer recycling company called Cascade Asset Management.
Peters-Michaud said he developed and honed environmental ethics as an undergraduate at UW. He said he began looking at ways he could incorporate environmental sustainability into the business world.
?I used to manage the university?s swap shop, which sold all of the surplus property owned by the university and the state,? Peters-Michaud said. ?We were trying to dispose of all of the property through weekly sales, but it was becoming more and more difficult to do.?
He said the store had to start throwing away the goods and saw this as a waste of a big resource. Peters-Michaud saw a market for things that were being thrown away.
His company now resells used computers and electronics for companies that are trying to get rid of them. They also try to fix and sell a company?s unusable equipment.
Peters-Michaud said his customers recognize a need for his service, and they are willing to pay the service fee for recycling their computers and electronic waste.
?We need to take responsibility for what we have created,? Peters-Michaud said.
Cascade Asset Management also refurbishes and sells equipment to schools in Africa. In addition, Peters-Michaud said they have begun setting up reuse and recycling programs in Africa.
Dixon said that the recipients of this award will be publicly recognized in a WAA magazine. The publication will detail the biographies and achievements of the 23 honorees and will be sent to more than 100,000 UW alumni and members of WAA in March.
Many of the other recipients of this award have founded nonprofit organizations that help children and promote education. Others help with crises efforts in the United States and abroad, such as Hurricane Katrina and HIV/AIDS relief in rural villages.
