Fellows

Bill Jarrett and his wife Nancy recently moved to Minneapolis. For the prior 25 years, they lived in Edina, where they raised a daughter and two sons. All three children were born in New York City, where Bill and Nancy met, were married, and began their corporate banking careers. After their children went to college (and settled in far-away cities), Nancy began her encore career as a psychotherapist.

Bill grew up in suburbs of New York City, Boston, and Chicago. He is a graduate of Dartmouth College, where he majored in History and played football, and The Yale School of Management.

Bill began his career on Wall Street, where he provided financial advisory services to large corporate clients. He was recruited to Minnesota by US Bank to establish a middle-
market investment banking group. Since then, Bill has advised owners of privately owned companies - primarily in either selling their companies or raising capital. Also, as a member of Twin Cities Angels, Bill has made personal investments in early-stage companies.

For most of his years in Minnesota, Bill worked for Lazard Middle Market. Several years ago, he established the Minneapolis office for the NYC area-based investment banking firm, TrueNorth Capital Partners.

Carol V. Sheldon grew up in a tiny town in central Illinois and attended college at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, Illinois, where she met Roger Sheldon in German class. She was a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma, Egas honor society and secretary of the Student Senate. She married Roger in 1965 and they lived in Chicago while he attended medical school. She was a programmer and systems analyst for Illinois Bell, a bank service company and later for Boston Children’s Hospital while Roger was in training. A son, Christopher, and a daughter, Rebecca, were born in Boston and El Paso respectively. When Roger continued his training in Denver, Carol entered CU Medical School, earning her MD degree in 1979. The couple has 6 grandchildren.

Her training in radiology and Roger’s work took them to Oklahoma City where they practiced for 31 years. Carol was Chief of Radiology, practicing general radiology at Presbyterian Hospital and the Oklahoma City Clinic for many years, followed by a faculty position in breast diagnosis at OU. Then she and 2 other women radiologists founded Breast Imaging of Oklahoma in Edmond, providing mammography, MRI, ultrasound, biopsy diagnosis and genetic counselling until her retirement in 2010. Carol was the first female member of the hospital executive committee and clinic board, and president of the Oklahoma County Radiological Society. She is currently president of the Minneapolis branch of the American Association of University Women.

Dana W. Woods is an Iowa native and an accomplished marketing and communications professional with over 35 years of experience. For the last 20+ years, she has focused her energies in the health care space, serving in a variety of leadership roles for three health insurance companies: Wellmark Blue Cross and

Blue Shield (Iowa and South Dakota), CoOportunity Health (a start-up nonprofit CO-OP for Iowa and Nebraska), and Medica Health Plans (9-state service area). Prior to moving to Minneapolis in January 2016, Woods led a successful integrated marketing communications consulting practice serving a range of health care sector clients including Blue Cross Blue Shield Plans. Other professional experiences include marketing and communications roles at The Des Moines Register, Missouri State University, Marsh USA, and Nationwide Agribusiness. Woods also taught junior high school language arts for two years before pursuing a career in corporate and marketing communications. Woods served as Executive Director of The Wellmark Foundation, and currently serves on the grant review committee of the Medica Foundation. She has been active on several nonprofit board- appointed committees including United Way of Central Iowa/Women’s Leadership Initiative, Des Moines Symphony, Salisbury House, Wellness Council of Iowa, and Iowa Sports Foundation/Iowa Games.

Woods earned a bachelor of arts in English/Speech communications (magna cum laude), at Simpson College, Indianola, Iowa, and has completed graduate studies in journalism/mass communications at Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa.

Woods has three grown children and passions include time with family, international travel, gardening, fine wines, performing arts, movies and bicycling.

George Brewster is a lifelong Minnesotan who finds it hard to believe that as a second-half-of-lifer he finally gets to attend the University of Minnesota! George and his wife, Robyn, live in Woodbury, Minnesota. They have four children ages 17 to 29. They also have a 6-year-old granddaughter that consistently reminds them how cool it is to stay grounded in the best parts of childhood. He graduated with a BS in Psychology from St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota and received his MA in Community Leadership with a focus in adult education from Regis University in Denver, Colorado. George has invested his entire career contributing to rapidly-growing organizations. He has done so within communities of faith, a regional staffing & training company and - for the past 20 years - as senior management at Allied Solutions (an independent subsidiary of Securian Financial). The growth, development and differentiation of individuals and the well-being and success of the organizations and communities they serve have been the one consistent link between. George’s educational pursuits and his career experience. George is conversationally competent in Spanish and is a certified facilitator of Integrity Coaching & Integrity Selling.

Linda Freeman has lived in Minnesota for more than twenty years. She is originally from Milwaukee but has lived in nine cities across the United States. She is married to Rich Freeman and has two sons, Ben and Matthew, who currently reside and work in New York City. Ben is an attorney and Matthew is a doctor.

Linda has a PhD from the University of Minnesota in Communication Studies, a master's degree in Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School, and a bachelor's degree in Business Administration from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Linda’s career as a professor includes publishing research on interpersonal communication, technology, and health. She has more than ten years of experience teaching communication, writing and business management classes. She also worked as an accountant for many years.

Linda is passionate about the arts, and is especially enthusiastic about dance and music. She plays classical piano and is an enthusiastic participant in an urban pop dance class.

Meg was born and raised in Minneapolis. She graduated from the University of Minnesota School of Nursing with a BSN and worked for 15 years in different areas of maternal-child health care including labor and delivery and teaching Lamaze classes. She also volunteered for the Minneapolis Children’s Hospital Association and ran the Hospital Gift Shop.

She and her husband have 3 children, 2 of which live in the Minneapolis area and one who lives in St. Louis, MO. Their oldest son is a Family Practice doctor in St. Paul, having graduated from the University of Minnesota Medical School. They also have 3 grandchildren. In 1994, Meg got her real estate license and has worked with her husband at Edina Realty in residential sales for the last 25 years. She has volunteered on the Edina Realty Foundation which reviews grants for issues relating to homelessness in the Twin Cities.

Meg and her husband also raise honey bees as part of the Hive to Bottle program with the University of Minnesota Bee Squad. Her hobbies include gardening (a pollinator friendly garden), needlepoint, golf and spending time at their cabin in northern Minnesota.

Richard Harney is a relative newcomer to Minnesota, moving here, with his wife Colleen, from Wisconsin in the Fall of 2018 to be close to children (and grandchildren) who all found their way to the Twin Cities over the past several years from throughout the Midwest. They live in Minneapolis, near Lake Hiawatha.

His background is sales and marketing strategy and management, primarily to other businesses (vs consumers) and has worked most prominently at divisions of Lands' End and W.W. Grainger. He has both right and left brain marketing experience in many industries, including apparel, food, industrial supplies, technology, publishing, and pre-K-12 education.

Consistent with that right and left brain orientation he appreciates and can contribute collaboratively with both data geeks and creative apostles to craft and execute sales and marketing plans that help elevate and escalate the stories that companies have to tell in reaching their goals. He's currently part of a consulting group that provides chief marketing officer support to emerging businesses.

Richard has a B.A. in Advertising from Michigan State University. Hobbies include needlessly analyzing all sorts of movies, particularly film noir.

Roger Sheldon grew up in several small towns in central Illinois and attended college at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, Illinois, where he and Carol Thompson met. They married after her graduation in 1965. After medical school at Northwestern, Roger continued his training in Boston, El Paso and Denver, where their son and daughter were born. Since Carol worked (in computers) and put Roger through school, he returned the favor in Denver where she earned her MD degree. They have 6 grandchildren—students at Northeastern and Vassar and at Breck School.

Their work careers were in Oklahoma City where Roger was Chief of Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine, and Assistant Dean for Continuing Medical Education at the University of Oklahoma as well as medical director of Mediflight Neonatal Transport for the Western 2/3 of Oklahoma. He was president of the Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy and was active in legislative affairs for state medical and pediatric groups. Since retirement to Minnesota in 2010, Roger is active in barbershop harmony and sings with the Giving Voice Chorus, a mixed chorus partly made up of people with early stage dementia. He records books for the Minnesota State Services for the Blind.