2023
Lauren Hite
After her time at UT, Lauren began working as the Communications Coordinator for the Sisters of Notre Dame in Toledo. In this role, she manages social media, creates engaging videos and helps lead major projects like the annual SHINE Women’s Summit, all while continuing to grow as a storyteller and creative communicator.
2022
Caleb Gill
After graduation, Caleb took a Sports Director job in South Dakota at KJAM Radio. There he did a morning show, wrote and produced local sports content for the station, and called Play-by-Play for football, basketball, and baseball. This allowed him the chance to travel with the Dakota State University football and basketball teams and call games in a wide-range of different places, including calling games during Dakota State’s Women’s Basketball teams NAIA tournament in 2023. After a year away from home, he realized that South Dakota wasn’t the place for him. Since June 2023, Caleb has been working at Cumulus Media here in Toledo and sells for local stations like K100, 93.5 WRQN, 94.5 WXKR, Q105, and the local ESPN station, 100.7 The Ticket. This still gives him the ability to be in the radio environment, which he loves, and will allow him to some day give another crack at being on-air if he wants to. Caleb has a podcast (Party Chat Sports), which helps to scratch the itch of wanting to be behind a microphone.
2021
Jacob Plagens
Jake is working at Old Brook High School in Parma, OH as a Placement Specialist. He assists the next generation with finding jobs, colleges, and whatever future path they want to pursue in life. He is also back in school studying Pastoral Ministry to become a Youth Pastor.
2020
Alyssa Plotts
Alyssa started her career in news at WILX in Lansing, Michigan as a Multimedia Journalist and Fill-In Anchor. She later left news to work in corporate communication and started with ProMedica as a Communications Strategist. Alyssa is currently working in Marketing and Communications at Trinity Health Michigan as a Marketing Specialist.
Morgan Castleberry
Morgan works for the City of Columbus Recreation and Parks department as a Digital Marketing Coordinator. She manages over 10 department social media accounts, captures, edits and posts content, assists in curating digital media marketing plans, website design and more! Morgan is also a content creator and freelance photographer, videographer, marketing strategist and she does commercial voiceover work.
Bailey Lustic
Bailey is currently working as a Photojournalist at WKYC Studios, the NBC-affiliate in Cleveland, Ohio. He primarily works on the television station’s number one rated 11pm newscast, “What’s Next.” He previously worked at Toledo sister station WTOL 11 starting in 2021, before transferring within the company to Cleveland the following year. He works alongside fellow UToledo alum Christi Paul, who anchors evening newscasts.
Isaac Petkac
Currently, Isaac serves as the Director of Athletic Communications & Creative Content at Gannon University in Erie, PA. In this role, he is responsible for digital and creative media (video, graphics, etc) for all Gannon athletic teams, while also working to bolster GU’s community platform. Part of the job entails working as a liaison with the local media as well as our universities leadership team (President, provost, etc). He also serves as the executive producer for gameday broadcasts on the PSAC sports network and serve on the PSAC broadcasting & streaming committee. Outside of his work, Isaac was fortunate to have founded the Gem City Sports Podcast Network, a local sports podcasting platform that hosts multiple shows per week all aimed at providing local high school, college, and professional sports talk to those in the Erie, PA area. He lives in Erie with his wife, Ali, and two children, Bennett & Parker.
2019
Alyssa (Norden) Waisner
Alyssa is currently the Events Coordinator for the Rocket Career Center at UToledo. Through her work she helps students make meaningful career connections and prepare them for their career journey after graduation, by planning events to connect them with employers and each other to practice networking and professional skills. She also does some data reporting and analytics, and general office work as well, which always keeps things interesting!
Before she began working for the University, she had a very non-traditional career path. She started off after graduation as a shift supervisor at the Campbell’s Company in her hometown of Napoleon, Ohio, and quickly learned that wasn’t for her. Alyssa then secured an internship with OI Glass, Inc. in Perrysburg, in their Internal Communcations Department, but then COVID-19 happened and her internship was cut. She later worked for a staffing agency before returning to her hometown of Napoleon to work for a private practice eye doctor as an office assistant. Finally, after two years there, Alyssa landed in RCC and has loved every moment since. She loves being able to give back to the campus community, and really enjoys working with students and helping them work towards their own personal successes. Her career path is proof that just because you start out with an idea for your future job, that doesn’t mean you have to stick to that path.
Jess (Zientek) Delaney
Jess has spent most of her career working in sports production. She began as a Producer and Director for BCSN, while continuing to freelance with several other sports networks. She spent several years with the Toledo Mud Hens and Walleye on their broadcast team, and later joined their front office as their Game and Event Production Coordinator. Jess is now back at the University of Toledo as the Production Studio Coordinator for the Department of Communication and Media.
2018
Madison (Humphrey) Friar
Madison graduated from the Media Communication program at the University of Toledo in December 2018. She joined UT:10 as a reporter in January of 2017 and was promoted to news producer and lead anchor in August of 2017. Madison’s work with UT:10 was recognized both regionally and nationally with the Society of Professional Journalists and College Broadcasters Incorporated. Madison worked on-air at WAOW in Wausau, Wisconsin with an internship during the Summer 2018 semester before moving back to Toledo after securing a full-time multimedia journalist position at WTVG where she was eventually promoted to traffic anchor.
Madison left the television news industry in 2020 to pursue a career in healthcare and is currently earning her clinical doctorate of occupational therapy at the University of Toledo. She would like to work in pediatric inpatient rehabilitation or in pediatric oncology. Madison credits her ability to effectively communicate with members of the clinical team and to give engaging research presentations to the Communication and Media faculty at the University of Toledo.
2016
Courtney Shaw
Courtney is working as a Digital Producer at News 5 in Cleveland, Ohio. She recently launched a new Morning Digest that she updates throughout Good Morning Cleveland with any breaking stories. Courtney also works with the creative services department to help create graphics and vertical videos for their social media sites.
2008
Meghan Harshbarger
Meghan is serving as the Chief of Communications for the Ohio Department of Agriculture in Columbus, Ohio. She has been with the department for six years after spending a decade as a general assignment reporter, anchor, and producer in television for local stations across the country.
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