Former Milwaukee Art Museum Director among those to be honored at UW-Green Bay’s annual Alumni Awards

UW-Green Bay to honors its ‘most distinguished’ and ‘outstanding recent’ alumni, October 2, 2018 at evening celebration

The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay will recognize five meritorious graduates of the institution at the 2018 Alumni Association Awards Night, Tuesday, October 2, 2018.

This year’s honorees are Daniel Keegan ’72, Sheila Kohl ’96 and ’05 and Doug Wirth ’89, each receiving the Distinguished Alumni Award; and Cordero Barkley ’09 and ’16, Lisa Fay Coutley ’04 and Joshua Kaurich ‘07, recipients of the Outstanding Recent Alumni Award.

The annual program spotlights UW-Green Bay alumni who have made special contributions to the University, their communities and professions. The ceremony takes place at the Weidner Center for the Performing Arts on the campus at 2420 Nicolet Drive, Green Bay. The event is open to the public. It begins with a 5 p.m. social and includes dinner at 6 p.m. followed by the program. The cost is $50 per person. For more information, contact the UW-Green Bay Alumni Office at 920-465-2074 or alumni@uwgb.edu.

Dan Keegan

Dan Keegan ‘72 (Art) served nearly two decades as a museum director and cultural leader, the most recent at the internationally recognized Milwaukee Art Museum from 2008 until his retirement in May of 2016. Throughout his career, he has worked to build destinations that matter, strengthening city economics through cultural tourism. Keegan guided the Milwaukee Art Museum through the recent major economic recession growing attendance, building support and expanding programming and facilities. Under Keegan’s leadership, the Museum completed a $34 million renovation and expansion, and endowment grew from $28 million in 2008 to $65 million in 2016. The Museum saw tremendous visitor growth during his tenure to 400,000 annually and membership grew to historic levels of over 21,000 households. The Kohl’s Art Generation Center opened at the Museum in 2012 and served thousands of children and families; and MAM After Dark series attracts young professionals to experience the museum through music, art and maker experiences after hours. In 2015, Keegan was named Milwaukee’s #1 Cultural Leader by Milwaukee Magazine. Prior to Milwaukee, Keegan was the Executive Director of the San Jose Museum of Art from 2000 to 2008 and he was the Director of Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City, MO from 1997-2000. He lives with his wife, Janne’, in upstate New York. They have a daughter in Colorado and a son in Arkansas.

Sheila Kohl, Ph.D. ‘96 (Elementary Education and ’05 Applied Leadership for Teaching and Learning) is in her twenty-first year as a sixth-grade teacher at West De Pere Middle School. She has taught math, language arts, social studies and currently teaches science. She is also an adjunct instructor and advisor for Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota. In 2017, she completed her doctorate from Marian University with a Ph.D. in leadership; her dissertation analyzed teacher self-efficacy and teacher leader behaviors. Kohl became a National Board Certified Teacher in 2007, and with it, came an opportunity to lobby members of Congress regarding educational issues. She took part in the first Department of Education’s “Teach to Lead” conference which brought together educators from across the United States to develop plans focusing on specific issues in education. She has also met with members of the Department of Education’s policy team. Always a teacher/mentor, she is an Educator Effectiveness Coach for state’s teacher evaluation program, and is part of both the district’s Science Curriculum Team and Digital Learning Team. She is behind the creation of both a Tech Club and a Science Club for her school. Kohl lives in Appleton with her husband Shane Kohl ‘96 (Communication) the Director of Foundations for the ThedaCare Health System.

Doug Wirth

Doug Wirth ‘89 (Social Work) has served as president and CEO of Amida Care, a Medicaid Special Needs Health Plan in New York City, since 2006. Amida Care provides a safety net along with health care coverage for Medicaid eligible patients, who have chronic conditions such as human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), serious mental illnesses and substance use disorders, or who are homeless or at significant risk of HIV. Under Wirth’s leadership the plan grew from 8% to 46% share of the Medicaid SNP market in New York City (NYC) and has produced over $150 million in Medicaid cost savings from helping members be well. Wirth is a national board member of the Association of Community Affiliated Plans — an alliance of 61 plans covering more than 20 million people through health coverage programs. Wirth is a member of the board of directors of RCHN Community Health Foundation. He is an active contributor to health care policy and funding conversations at both national and local levels, and has been featured on National Public Radio, Crain’s Health Pulse, Politico, Newsweek, and other national media. Prior to Amida Care, Wirth was executive director of CommunityCare Partners Medicaid health plan, a senior faculty member at the APA and served as a senior health policy advisor to New York City Mayors David Dinkins and Rudy Giuliani. Prior to moving to NYC, Wirth ran two homeless shelters and three housing programs in Green Bay. His life-work has focused on creating innovative programs and services to address intersectionality and overlapping issues of poverty, physical and behavioral health concerns, human sexuality and cultural competency. His long list of awards and recognition includes the 2018 Association of Community Affiliated Plans Advantage Award.

Cordero Barkley

Cordero Barkley (’09 Business Administration and ’16 Master’s in Management), joined Associated Bank in 2011 and currently serves as assistant vice president, trust relationship manager with Associated Private Client & Institutional Services. In this role, Barkley focuses on the service execution of clients’ customized plans. He is responsible for service delivery of both fiduciary trust accounts as well as investment agency accounts. Additionally, the former high school (Racine St. Catherine’s) and college basketball standout continues to share his knowledge and passion for the game, serving as director/president and coach with the Green Bay Purple Aces Inc., a not-for-profit club basketball program for girls in Northeast Wisconsin. He provides color commentary online with ESPN3 and on television with Spectrum Sports for the Green Bay men’s and women’s basketball home games. Barkley serves on Associated Bank’s Diversity and Inclusion Council. He also is a member of the UW-Green Bay Council of Trustees, the UW-Green Bay Foundation, the UW-Green Bay Alumni Advisory Board, Northeast Wisconsin Technical College Educational Foundation and the Green Bay Police Foundation. In addition, he serves as a financial committee member for Young Life – Green Bay. He currently resides in Green Bay with his wife Erin Templin Barkley ’09 Business Administration and ‘11 Educational Leadership and their Great Dane, Nala.

Lisa Coutley

Lisa Fay Coutley ‘04 (English), is an assistant professor of Poetry and Creative Nonfiction in the Writer’s Workshop at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. As a student, Coutley helped to revive UW-Green Bay’s literary journal Sheepshead Review and served as its poetry editor. She later earned her MA/MFA at Northern Michigan University, where she served as Poetry Editor of Passages North, NMU’s annual literary journal, before earning her PhD at the University of Utah, where she was a Vice-Presidential Fellow and poetry editor for Quarterly West. Her debut collection of poetry, Errata, won the Crab Orchard Series in Poetry Open Competition and was published by Southern Illinois University Press in 2015. She is also the author of two chapbooks — In the Carnival of Breathing (Black Lawrence Press, 2011), winner of the Black River Chapbook Competition, and Back-Talk (Articles Press, 2010), winner of the Rooms Chapbook Contest. Her writing has been anthologized and published widely in journals such as AGNI, Kenyon Review, Prairie Schooner, Gulf Coast, The Los Angeles Review and Poets & Writers. She has received a literature fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, fellowships and scholarships to the Sewanee and Bread Loaf Writers’ Conferences, and an Academy of American Poets Levis Prize. She has taught writing at Northern Michigan University, the University of Utah, Snow College and the University of Oregon.

Josh Kaurich

Josh Kaurich ’07 (Master’s in Environmental Science and Policy), serves as a principal for Verita Energy, LLC, a company “mind focused on energy savings best practices and a heart towards philanthropy.” Beyond this, Kaurich founded and manages Midwest Energy Procurement Solutions, LLC, a Wisconsin-based energy purchasing company focused on the procurement and purchasing of natural gas and electrical energy in the Midwest. Prior to this, Kaurich was vice president of H&H Group Holdings, Inc., a company made up of roughly 200 field and office employees. Kaurich’s experience with energy management and efficiency, renewable energy and biofuels, helps him identify integrated energy solutions. His experience and connections have helped him to develop and grow a successful energy performance contracting company and consulting group. His auditing experience covers the educational, industrial, commercial, agricultural and residential sectors. He has developed and managed more than $40 million in work. In the early part of his career as a physics and chemistry teacher, Kaurich earned the 2005, Science Teacher of the Year Award (in Wisconsin Dells). Outside of work, he serves as the chapter lead for Madison Leading with Power — an organization that helps to enrich, build up and connect area men to be the best version of themselves by balancing work, family and community. Kaurich also serves at his church and devotes his extra time to counseling and encouraging friends and peers on an individual basis. He and his wife Jenny have three children — Isla (7), Alaina (5) and Ian (1).

About the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay
The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay is a comprehensive public institution offering undergraduate, graduate and doctoral programs to nearly 8,000 students with campus locations in Green Bay, Marinette, Manitowoc and Sheboygan. Established in 1965 on the border of Green Bay, the University and its campuses are centers of cultural enrichment, innovation and learning. The Green Bay campus is home to one of the Midwest’s most prolific performing arts centers, a nationally recognized 4,000-seat student recreation center, an award-winning nine-hole golf course and a five-mile recreational trail and arboretum, which is free and open to the public. This four-campus University transforms lives and communities through award-winning reaching and research, innovative learning opportunities, powerful connections and a problem-solving approach to education. UW-Green Bay is centrally located, close to both the Door County resort area and the dynamic economies of Northeast Wisconsin, the Fox Valley region and the I-43 corridor. UW-Green Bay offers in-demand programs in science, engineering and technology; business; health, education and social welfare; and arts, humanities and social sciences. For more information visit www.uwgb.edu.

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