Skip to content
Marietta College Logo horizontal

PROFILES OF PIONEERING SPIRIT

Browse
Close
People Location
Aditya Shah ’25

Birguj, Nepal

Adriana Roberts ’90

San Francisco, California

Amy Giannotti ’95

Winter Park, Florida

Angelique Evans ’09

Champaign, Illinois

Ashley Thomas ’14

Garfield Heights , Ohio

Darren LaShelle ’89

San Francisco, California

Don and Leslie Straub Ritter ’81

Dallas, Texas

Dr. Joseph Webb ’07

De Pere, Wisconsin

Dr. Kenneth Andrus ’70

Honolulu, Hawaii

John V. Ulakovic ’81

Oakland, California

State

California
John V. UlakovicAdriana RobertsDarren LaShelle
D.C.
Lindy Nester
Florida
Amy Giannotti
Hawaii
Dr. Kenneth Andrus
Illinois
Angelique Evans
New Jersey
Krista Tkacz
North Dakota
Rachel Baughman Bachmeier
Ohio
Ashley ThomasScott and Rachel Worthington Burnham
Pennsylvania
Megs Schreck Yunn
Texas
Sarah MayoDon and Leslie Straub Ritter
West Virginia
Leah Seaman
Wisconsin
Dr. Joseph Webb

Country

Nepal
Aditya Shah
Browse
Close
People Location
Aditya Shah ’25

Birguj, Nepal

Adriana Roberts ’90

San Francisco, California

Amy Giannotti ’95

Winter Park, Florida

Angelique Evans ’09

Champaign, Illinois

Ashley Thomas ’14

Garfield Heights , Ohio

Darren LaShelle ’89

San Francisco, California

Don and Leslie Straub Ritter ’81

Dallas, Texas

Dr. Joseph Webb ’07

De Pere, Wisconsin

Dr. Kenneth Andrus ’70

Honolulu, Hawaii

John V. Ulakovic ’81

Oakland, California

State

California
John V. UlakovicAdriana RobertsDarren LaShelle
D.C.
Lindy Nester
Florida
Amy Giannotti
Hawaii
Dr. Kenneth Andrus
Illinois
Angelique Evans
New Jersey
Krista Tkacz
North Dakota
Rachel Baughman Bachmeier
Ohio
Ashley ThomasScott and Rachel Worthington Burnham
Pennsylvania
Megs Schreck Yunn
Texas
Sarah MayoDon and Leslie Straub Ritter
West Virginia
Leah Seaman
Wisconsin
Dr. Joseph Webb

Country

Nepal
Aditya Shah

Sarah Mayo ’15

Spring, Texas

B.S. Petroleum Engineering, Marietta College

About

Well Site Representative - Chevron · Softball · Society of Women in Engineering · Society of Petroleum Engineering · Student-Athlete Advisory Council Representative

Don and Leslie Straub Ritter ’81

Dallas, Texas

Don: B.S. Petroleum Engineering, Marietta College; E.M.B.A., Southern Methodist University — Leslie: B.S. Industrial Engineering Management, Marietta College; M.B.A., University of Pittsburgh

About

Don: Lambda Chi Alpha • President & CEO, Endurance Resources • Co-Founder, Category 5 Amplification • Marietta College Emeritus Trustee • Marietta College Music Therapy Program, Lead Donor — Leslie: Sigma Kappa • Principal & Executive Coach, Square Knot, LLC • Marietta College Board of Trustees • Marietta College Music Therapy Program, Lead Donor

Icon for their major

Sarah Mayo ’15

Spring, Texas

B.S. Petroleum Engineering, Marietta College

About

Well Site Representative - Chevron · Softball · Society of Women in Engineering · Society of Petroleum Engineering · Student-Athlete Advisory Council Representative

Main montage image

Sarah Mayo ’15 works for Chevron Corporation as a well site representative — though the more common term for the job she does is “company man.”
And, when she had her first college internship with an oil and gas company, she spent the summer living in a “man camp.”

The language is a nod to the fact that petroleum engineering careers, historically, have been dominated by men. But Mayo is challenging those stereotypes, as she is one of only a handful of women working out in the field for a major oil company.

“It seems to be getting a lot better, but there used to be this stigma that females didn’t know how to ‘make it’ in a ‘man’s world’ working out here — a lot of that has changed, though which is wonderful. More and more [men] are getting used to seeing women working out here, and it’s not as big of a deal when one shows up.”

Mayo works in Texas in the Permian Basin, which is the largest oil-producing region in the country. Her job is to manage 40 to 50 people at any given time, all of whom are all coming together from different companies to accomplish a task that Chevron has hired them for.

“My favorite part of the job is taking a crew that’s newer to Chevron and each other, and helping guide the crew into a ‘well-oiled machine’ that’s performing at a high level safely and efficiently.”

Middle montage image

Mayo always has loved math and science and knew she wanted to pursue some form of engineering in college. She was drawn to petroleum engineering because it was new to her and had many exciting possibilities — internships as early as freshman year, high job placement with good starting salaries, and the opportunity to travel all over the world.

When she visited Marietta, the petroleum engineering department chair told her that, usually, 10 percent of the petroleum engineering students were women. And that was the case for Mayo’s class — of the 70 or 80 people who graduated with degrees in petroleum engineering, she was one of only seven or eight women.

The same ratio seems to hold true today at her company. While the male-female breakdown in the office is more balanced, she estimates women account for just 15 percent to 18 percent of the staff out in the field. And when Mayo is leading a crew, she only sees about one woman for every 50 to 75 men she meets.

She doesn’t feel alone, though. One of her three direct supervisors is a woman, and her Marietta roommate also works at Chevron as a petroleum engineer. Plus, Mayo’s company has a strong Women’s Network. And it’s fun, she said, when she gets to work with another woman because they build a relationship more quickly — because they both understand what the other is going through.

“There’s a lot wrapped up in being a female working in the field out here, but I’ve enjoyed it. Every aspect of it.” 

Icon for their major

Don and Leslie Straub Ritter ’81

Dallas, Texas

Don: B.S. Petroleum Engineering, Marietta College; E.M.B.A., Southern Methodist University — Leslie: B.S. Industrial Engineering Management, Marietta College; M.B.A., University of Pittsburgh

About

Don: Lambda Chi Alpha • President & CEO, Endurance Resources • Co-Founder, Category 5 Amplification • Marietta College Emeritus Trustee • Marietta College Music Therapy Program, Lead Donor — Leslie: Sigma Kappa • Principal & Executive Coach, Square Knot, LLC • Marietta College Board of Trustees • Marietta College Music Therapy Program, Lead Donor

Main montage image

Vision. Ability. Drive. When certain people discover their passions in life, they find ways to make them more accessible to others.

Years ago, Don Ritter ’81, H’18 was introduced to music therapy by dear friend and fellow musician, John Catt. Catt worked with an organization called Blue Star Connection, a nonprofit that supports the work of music therapists by purchasing musical instruments to donate to children’s hospitals and other care facilities. The allied health field uses music interventions during therapeutic treatment for a patient’s physical, emotional, cognitive and social needs, and these types of therapists are typically placed in hospitals, nursing and rehabilitation facilities, hospice care and schools.

Knowing Blue Star relied heavily on donations to purchase new instruments so each ailing child could use one exclusively, Ritter and his wife, Leslie Straub Ritter ’85, H’18, decided to donate the profits from a custom amplifier company— Category 5 Amplification — to the charity.

“We lived with a ‘music heals’ banner, and trudged on from there,” Don says. “It turns out that with Blue Star Connections we have given instruments to over 55 hospitals across the U.S. and a couple of international hospitals. We essentially just gave them what they needed. There was no grant writing process, nothing like that. You would basically just send us an email with a list of things you need, and within two or three weeks, we would send it to you.”

The impact Blue Star has had on children undergoing treatments for cancer or working through trauma continues to be tremendous: immunocompromised children in treatment receive instruments they can keep in their hospital room so they don’t risk contamination; children needing to work on their fine motor skills have a variety of instruments from which to choose; children who have lost their parents to drug addiction have an instrument to help play out their fears and aggression. And Blue Star has been able to make those life-changing connections because the Ritters made the commitment to help fund the charity with Category 5 profits.

Anyone who has stayed connected with Marietta College over the past five years knows that the Ritters’ impact on the music therapy field doesn’t stop with Cat 5 and Blue Star.

Don, who is the owner and CEO of Endurance Resources, had served on Marietta College’s Board of Trustees and knew during the mid-2010s that the College was struggling with enrollment numbers and had an imbalanced ratio of male-to-female students. Leslie, a current Trustee, is a Vice President and Principal for Square Knot, LLC. The couple, who met as alumni during a Homecoming Weekend, reminisce about the bustling Marietta College campus when they were undergraduate students.

Middle montage image

Don’s love of music began when he started playing guitar as a high school student at Newport Catholic in Northern Kentucky. As a Petroleum Engineering student at Marietta, he and some of his Lambda Chi Alpha brothers had a band. The live music scene at Marietta during the early 1980s was impressive — he worked security when The Police and The Ramones played on campus in 1980 — and so was Greek life, with about 40 percent of the student body belonging to one of the many fraternities or sororities. For the past 21 years, Don and about 50 Lambda Chis meet in Wheeling, West Virginia, for a weekend to spend time together and play music. Leslie came to Marietta from the outskirts of Pittsburgh to study Industrial Engineering Management and to play tennis. She connected with the Sigma Kappa sorority and, like Don, has kept a steady connection to her Greek life friends.

The Ritters wanted to see their alma mater return to that level of vibrancy — strong, balanced enrollment numbers, an actively engaged campus and, of course, live music.

At an annual blues festival in Colorado, Catt introduced Don to a talented young blues guitarist who was then a freshman in high school. She planned to skip college and tour Europe with her sisters. By her junior year, Sadie Johnson had gotten to know the Ritters — and the Ritters had formulated a plan to help Sadie and other musicians keep pursuing their love of music, as well as help others with their musical talents. They were determined to start a music therapy program at Marietta College.

“Having worked in the music industry with a couple other ventures I’ve had, I’ve seen musicians that they live from gig to gig and sometimes they are very successful and other times they are not, and a lot of them did not have a Plan B,” Don says. “Music Therapy looked like something that could help a lot of musicians have a solid base.”

With the majority of music therapists being women and the average salary for this in-demand profession being about $50,000 per year, the program would a solid endeavor for musicians wanting to diversify their professional options.

Around Christmas 2016, Don and Leslie made calls to Sadie and Marshall Kimball, then Chair of the Music Department, to let them know that he was donating $1 million to establish a Music Therapy Program at Marietta, and also funding the renovation of The Gathering Place and the Band Rehearsal Hall. The caveat for the College was that the renovations to McKinney Hall, the Gathering Place and the Band Rehearsal Hall would need to be completed by the following October.

“That’s a little more of Ritter’s drive,” Leslie says. “We have to give a kudos to Fred Smith, who just retired (as Director of Physical Plant). Don really pushed Fred and his team in getting some of the things done. We knew the sooner we could get it, that we could start getting students in the door.”

The deadline was made and the program is accredited through the American Music Therapy Association. In spring 2021, Sadie, Lauren Eakle and Hannah Miller became the first three students to earn a Bachelor of Music in Music Therapy, and all three landed summer internships to finish off the program requirements.

“The other piece that I wanted to leave was a love of live music,” Don says. “That’s what The Gathering Place (renovation) is about. Putting the stage, the sound system and also the first- class recording studio was to really have a place where you can make music. Interesting, the Lambda Chi meeting that we have every year is called ‘The Gathering.’ When we saw The Gathering Place, I was also able to get a few of my fraternity brothers to help out with that project. We’d like to add a green room on that venue to make it a top-notch venue for artists but we will get there.”

By creating spaces for students to learn, practice, perform and record their music, the Ritters believe the College can attract non-Music majors who love music to enroll and have a rewarding experience at Marietta. To them, the College offers a dynamic place for young people to mature, create lifelong friendships, build skills and feel connected to a common history.

“I don’t know what it is about Marietta College — but you can’t verbalize it — there is just something truly special about the place,” Leslie says, adding that everyone in the campus community seems accessible and welcoming. “We talk about the transformational experience a Marietta education provides. We meet them wherever they are and help them transform and Pioneer in whatever path they choose.”

View More Profiles