May 11, 2023, GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – The Grand Rapids Community College baseball and softball pitchers dominated their competition on Thursday, helping the teams advance in the NJCAA Region XII tournaments.   Izzy Regner struck out a career-high 16 batters as the softball team shut out Mott Community College, 3-0 to advance to the winner's bracket final. Jerad Berkenpas, Caden VanDeBurg, Lucas McKinney and Ethan London allowed just two runs in the team’s two-game sweep over Ivy Tech Community College to advance to the final four of the regional baseball tournament. In the softball game, Vanessa Hewitt, Annika Roersma and Lauren James drove in runs for GRCC. In game one of the baseball doubleheader, Berkenpas held Ivy Tech scoreless until the seventh inning. The offense totaled 18 hits and cruised to a 12-2 victory. Every batter had at least one hit including a five-for-five performance by shortstop Joe Hoeks and a team-high three RBI.  Trevin Laming opened up the scoring for GRCC with his ninth home run of the year in the first inning. In the nightcap, GRCC's Laming, Hoeks, Fernando Rivera-Calderon and Zacarias Salinas all had a hit, helping the team to a 3-0 victory. Both the baseball and softball teams earned their way to regional tournaments by winning the MCCAA Northern Conference crown. The softball team (24-16) moves on to face Jackson College on Friday at noon, while the baseball team (35-12) awaits its opponent for next week's final four. This story was reported by Ben Brown.

May 11, 2023, GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – Grand Rapids Community College adviser Erin Busscher was honored recently for her advocacy for students and career of helping them along a pathway to success. Busscher, an associate professor in GRCC’s Academic Advising and Transfer Center, was presented with the Outstanding Academic Adviser Award from the Michigan Academic Advising Association at the organization’s recent conference at Kalamazoo Community College. “This award means so much to me!” she said. “I strive to contribute to the advising profession at GRCC and at the state and national level.  It feels wonderful to be recognized for those contributions! Working alongside advising colleagues across the state supports me in my unique role as an adviser who helps students transfer, and together we are supporting seamless transfer from GRCC to all of our colleges and universities in Michigan.” The award’s selection committee considered evidence of qualities and practices that distinguish the nominee as an outstanding academic adviser, faculty adviser, advising administrator, graduate student, or pacesetter. Busscher started her career as a student employee at Grand Valley State University and enjoyed the environment and helping students succeed. She worked in various positions at GVSU for more than 10 years before coming to GRCC to serve as the transfer and articulation coordinator. She quickly missed working with students and was able to step back into an adviser role. Busscher earned a Bachelor of Arts from GVSU in Professional Writing with a minor in Public Relations. She then earned her Master of Education - Higher Education, College Student Affairs Leadership at GVSU. She is certified as a Global Career Development facilitator and enjoys helping students with career exploration.    

May 10, 2023, ADA, Mich. – Drew Harrington led the Grand Rapids Community golf team to a GRCC Invitational win and the team’s 13 th consecutive Western Conference championship on Wednesday at Egypt Valley Golf Course. The golf team is the third GRCC team to earn a conference title this spring, following the baseball and softball squads. "The team had specific goals to achieve during the spring season," coach John Forton said. "The student-athletes' dedication to get better every day paid off. Regardless of the obstacles, we stayed the course and it resulted in success."  GRCC tied Muskegon Community College with a score of 327. The Raiders earned the title because GRCC's No. 4 golfer scored better than Muskegon's No. 4 golfer. It was the final conference invitational of the year, and because GRCC finished with the lowest score of all five tournaments combined, it earned the Western Conference championship as well. The championship marks the 22nd since 1969 for GRCC, and 13th consecutive title. Harrington shot a 78 and earned Western Conference medalist by finishing with the lowest score in all five conference tournaments. Conner Oman, who earned All-MCCAA honors on Monday, shot an 81 to finish in fourth place. Brad VandenHout, 83; Ty Marchlewski, 85; and Sam Foss, 87; rounded out the Raiders’ golfers. The team now sets its eyes on its ninth regional title as it competes in the three-round tournament May 15 and 16 at Bedford Valley Golf Course in Battle Creek.   This story was reported by Ben Brown. 

May 8, 2023, WEST BRANCH, Mich. – Conner Oman led the Grand Rapids Community College golf team to a second-place finish at the Michigan Community College Athletic Association Championship on Monday. The baseball team was also in action, dropping its final regular season game of the year, despite a team-leading 10 th home run from Fernando Rivera-Calderon. Oman finished second place overall with a two-round score of 148, including shooting a 72 in the first round with four birdies. He finished with seven birdies on the day. Ty Marchlewski, Drew Harrington, Brad VandenHout and Sam Foss finished 12th, 13th and 14 th , respectively. GRCC finished 11-strokes back of Muskegon Community College, which won the championship with a score of 611. The baseball team lost to Lansing Community College, ranked No. 5 in the nation, despite out-hitting the Stars, 16 to 13. GRCC fell behind 8-0 after three innings, but clawed back into the game by scoring five runs in the fourth, four in the fifth and three more in the sixth to tie the game at 12. Lansing regained the lead 13-12 in the bottom of the sixth and piled on nine more runs in the next two innings to win 22-12. Five GRCC players had multiple hits, led by Aaron Bess and Andres Rivera-Calderon with three.  They also combined for five of the teams' eight RBI. Fernando Rivera-Calderon hit his third home run in three games, giving him a team-high 10 for the year. GRCC's next game will be in the first round of the Region XII Tournament on May 11 at 1 p.m. against Ivy Tech Community College, in a best two-of-three series.  Game two of the series will be at 5 p.m. and should both teams split, the decisive game three will be Friday at 1 p.m. The golf team will compete in its final conference tournament May 10 at Egypt Valley Golf Course in Ada.  This story was reported by Ben Brown.

May 8, 2023, GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. -- Pickleball is one of the fastest-growing sports in America, and Grand Rapids Community College alum James Grochowalski is all in on the new craze. In fact, he is one of the owners of the aptly named All In Pickleball Gym which just opened at 76th Street and 131 in Grand Rapids. Grochowalski said the new facility, an old Safelite AutoGlass shop, includes five full-sized, dedicated pickleball courts, plus dinking and skinny singles courts, with 16-foot-high containment nets around all the courts and industry-leading lighting. It’s open from 4 am to midnight seven days a week, year-round and offers an easy booking app to make reservations without a phone call. Interestingly, Grochowalski did not pursue a business degree at GRCC or afterwards. After four years at Byron Center High School, where he played tennis and bowled, he decided to attend his hometown community college because it struck him as an affordable way to get some of the prerequisite courses, he’d need for an eventual transfer to Grand Valley State University. In his first year, he took English and science and a number of other courses he knew he’d need at GVSU, but then he decided to go in a different direction. He transferred instead to Compass College of Cinematic Arts, now Compass College of Film and Media. That decision launched his current career as the owner of James Grocho LLC. “We’re a post-production company,” he said. “That includes editing and motion graphics. We serve multiple organizations throughout the country by editing and animating videos for concerts, webinars, online conferences, churches and social media companies.” He has zero regrets about his decision to pivot from his original path to Compass and is grateful not just for what GRCC gave him academically but also for the contagious, can-do spirit that he said is part of the DNA at GRCC. And he is grateful now to have two passion projects to keep him busy. “I oversee all of the creative marketing and media for All In, so what I do at my day job and what I'm doing for All In is a perfect fit,” he said. ““Media is my passion, and I love telling stories and making videos that help companies grow.” All In opened in April 2023, and the run-up from turning an old Safelite into a state-of-the-art pickleball facility meant some long days, nights and weekends for him and majority owner and founder Dan McConnon and fellow owners Scott McAllister and Mike Davis. He estimates that he has been spending 30 to 40 hours per week beyond his day job getting ready for the All In launch. He smiled as he recalled the first steps he took to becoming a pickleball gym owner. “I saw a post by Dan on Facebook, so I messaged him online asking to meet with him,” Grochowalski said. “And a few short months later, it has blossomed into a meaningful relationship and our partnership at the pickleball gym.” Despite the extra hours, and the many details involved in starting a new business, Grochowalski said he wouldn’t change a thing. As he grows older, he added, he is realizing more and more that life is short. And he hearkens back to lessons he learned at GRCC. “Take the leap of faith and follow your passion,” he said. “You’ll find happiness and fulfillment.” This story was reported by Phil de Haan.

May 6, 2023, GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. -- It is a box that has the potential to withstand the tremendous G- forces created when rockets launch. And oh, it’s edible. The space-saving consumable packaging was designed not by aeronautics scientists, but by Cole Herring and Abby Tichelaar, students in the Launch U program, a partnership between Kent ISD and Grand Rapids Community College. Their effort was one of 22 finalists in the Health and Biomedical Science category of the NASA HUNCH competition, and they pitched their project to a panel that include astronaut Victor J. Clover and NASA scientists on April 19 at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. They hope to hear how their project fared this month. NASA HUNCH challenges students around the United State to create innovative products that could be used by the aeronautics and space agency. Each of the competition’s eight categories undergoes a critical design review that determines who will go to Houston to present. Cole and Abby’s review took place via a video and brochure they created, and the pair got some practice presenting at a February preliminary round for the NASA HUNCH culinary program, in which two GRCC/Ottawa County Intermediate School’s Careerline Tech Center students participated. “I expected a lot more older people or people who were interested in engineering to come, but it turned out to be a whole bunch of kids and their parents who came (to the February event),” Cole said, adding they got a lot of positive feedback about their design. “They had no idea about any of the engineering, so you’d have to explain it to them. I think that was really great, because I think it helped get more people to understand the project without necessarily having to understand the engineering behind it.” The ‘HUNCH’ Moment GRCC professor Arthur Ward brought up the competition to Cole and Abby, who are in Launch U’s Middle College Engineering and Mechanical Design program. In the Health and Biomedical Science category, participants chose projects based on needs for future NASA missions. Out of six potential projects, the pair decided to focus on edible packaging. GRCC Secchia Institute program director Werner Absenger, who coaches the GRCC NASA HUNCH team with institute instructor Jennifer Struik, told the students about a composite resin created by Michigan State University material scientist John Dorgan’s lab. Abby researched the material, which Dorgan used to design wind turbine blades that have to withstand a G-force of 3-3.5. A rocket launching has a G-force of 3-4, so Coby and Abby concluded that a box made from the composite resin would work on a spaceship. “The material could be broken down into edible material that could be used for gummy bears, or sports drinks,” Cole said. “The rest of it that wasn’t edible could actually be reused to make anything that you could 3D print. “So that’s when we went, ‘Oh, that’s great material. Now we’ve just got to come up with a design for it.’” Saving Space in Space Using the measurements from the original NASA box, Cole and Abby created one with slots to hold granola bars. The goal was to provide the astronauts an easily accessible snack in a container that could be reused for other purposes. “The box can be broken down into their wall (side) segments, and when you need it, you can build them up to be a box and when the box is empty, you can break them down to save space,” Cole said, adding that a spacecraft does not have a lot of extra room for items such as empty boxes that have no other purpose. By using the composite resin, the box’s sides can be placed in a chemical bath that dissolves them into reusable and non-reusable material. Removing the non-reusable material and adding an alkaline solution such as baking powder separate out the lactic acid, which can be used to make edible items such as gummy bears. “Each wall segment can be broken down, so the astronauts don’t need to take the whole box and break it down at once,” Cole said. “They could break down half a box, and the other half could still be used for granola bar storage. “Once they’re through with the granola bars and there’s absolutely nothing else to do with that (box) panel, they can just dissolve it, get the edible material out of it, and then they can reprint whatever they need because they actually have a 3D printer up there (in the space station.)” Through the project, Cole said, he could see other potential uses for Dorgan’s composite resin, such as using it to build the rocket ship itself. “I wouldn’t want to make the assumption that it could be done, but I mean, if it could, that would be really great because instead of a bunch of waste orbiting us, we would have edible rockets that we just break down and eat and stuff.” This story was reported by Joanne Bailey-Boorsma of the School News Network.

May 5, 2023, GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. - Victoria Keenan has the opportunity to support the growth of a new program at Grand Rapids Community College. The water and wastewater treatment programs are a partnership between GRCC, the City of Grand Rapids and Bay College in Escanaba. The program prepares students for careers in the water treatment industry. These workers are in high demand and are essential to protect public health. Keenan is a Community Recruitment Specialist for the Leslie Tassell MTEC. She is responsible for connecting the community with resources and programs by attending events, building relationships and creating outreach strategies.  Keenan also works with students to help them overcome barriers to their education both before admission and throughout their programs. She is passionate about connecting students with opportunities to benefit them and their communities.  “The best part of my job so far has been seeing the students in the water career pathway grow professionally and take interest in water careers,” Keenan said.  Keenan has a bachelor's degree in Public and Nonprofit Administration and Environmental Land Use and Planning from Central Michigan University and a Master of Public Administration degree from Grand Valley State University.   Prior to working at GRCC, Keenan was the assistant director and program manager for Seeds of Promise, a nonprofit organization focusing on urban community improvement.  Keenan’s experience has taught her the value of making connections and building relationships, a skill she uses daily when connecting with community partners and students.  Keenan encourages students to “be as curious as you can”. Encouraging students to ask questions and know that faculty and staff are here to help students be successful!  More information about the Waste and Wastewater Treatment Program can be found here.

May 3, 2023, MUSKEGON, Mich. – Fernando and Andres Rivera-Calderon combined for three grand slams helping the Grand Rapids Community College baseball team to a non-conference sweep over arch rival Muskegon Community College on Thursday. GRCC out-hit the Jayhawks 19-6 during the 17-5 win in game one, before completing the sweep with a 20-8 five inning victory in the nightcap. Fernando Rivera-Calderon hit a grand slam in each game, running his season total to a team-high nine homers while his twin brother Andres hit his grand slam in game two, his second of the season. Andres Rivera-Calderon led the team with four hits in the opener, while Jake Gumieny, Xander Reisbig, and Aaron Bess all had three hits.  Reisbig was a triple away from hitting for the cycle, with his home run being his eighth of the year. In the nightcap, 10 GRCC players contributed to 12 total hits, led by Joe Hoeks and Dominic Palamara with two each. On the mound, Jerad Berkenpas and Lucas McKinney each improved their record to 7-1 while the team improved to 33-11. GRCC has one more game scheduled before hosting an opponent in the first round of the regional tournament. The team will visit fourth-ranked Lansing Community College on May 8 for a nine-inning game starting at 2 p.m.   This story was reported by Ben Brown.

May 4, 2023, GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – Trevin Laming of the Grand Rapids Community College baseball team was named Michigan Community College Athletic Association Northern Conference Player of the Week after helping the team sweep its five-game series against Bay College. "Well deserved," head coach Mike Eddington said. "Trevin has been a consistent hitter all year long and he also plays great defense in center field." Laming, a freshman from Kenowa Hills High School, had nine hits, including four doubles and two homers against Bay College.  He batted .429 and had a slugging percentage of .905. Laming has played in all but one game for the Raiders this season, primarily playing in center field. He leads the team with eight home runs and is second on the team with 88 total bases.  He is batting .322 with 32 runs batted in and has nine steals to his credit. The baseball team is now 31-11 overall and finished first place in the conference with a 23-2 record.  It plays Muskegon Community College Thursday in a double-header beginning at 2 p.m. This story was written by Ben Brown.