Valerie Ettenhofer
Staff Writer

Three former Pierce College students were awarded for their success and inspiration in the annual Distinguished Alumni Celebration held on April 17 at the Puyallup campus.

Alumni achievers included the co-owner of a plastics corporation, a magazine founder and an advocate working for higher education. Each of them received a standing ovation after regaling an audience of faculty with their stories of success and citing Pierce as the starting point that made a difference in their lives.

Kurt Fletter, the co-owner of Power Plastics Corporation, spoke with humor and humility about hard work and the road to achievement. A graduate of Lakes High School who was the type of student who “never gets it first,” Fletter went on to create a Portland-based company that manufactures complexly structured plastics that are replacing steel as the moving parts of roller coasters, bridges and more.

“[Pierce College] gave me the confidence I needed to go on,” said Fletter, who admitted to joining the school in the late 1980s because it had a nice swimming pool. While studying at Pierce, he struggled with dyslexia and became interested in microeconomics because of the options it offered in way of “the human pursuit of cash.” Now Fletter’s company rakes in three million dollars annually.

In the twelve years since graduating from Pierce, recipient Alan Kropf was everything from a bartender to a philanthropist. Once a Running Start student and student body president, Kropf moved to Los Angeles after graduation where he attended bartending school.

Kropf eventually rose to become the youngest sommelier, or resident wine professional, at the exclusive Beverly Hills Hotel. After spending years pouring drinks of up to five thousand dollars per glass for celebrities and politicians, he helped chef Gordon Ramsay open up one of his restaurants.

In 2008, Kropf created “Mutineer” magazine, a successful and accessible guide to beverages that has a circulation of 75 thousand. He also supports the “most important fine beverage” by aiding in bringing clean water to schools in Nepal.

While at Pierce, Kropf says he learned to better understand the situations of others. The dinner turned emotional when he mentioned that the recent Boston bombing had got him thinking that all people need places that will better themselves and the community. Kropf emphasized that community colleges elevate communities to a higher level and can be the first chapter of a better story for many people.
A 2003 graduate of Pierce College, L. Denice Randle was roped into going to Pierce by her mother, who didn’t think Randle was ready for her dream of attending a potentially far-off prestigious African American college. 
Randle is now thankful for her time at Pierce, where she learned the life skills that led to her current position as a director of education and employment for Making a Difference in Community, a non-profit organization working to support and prepare low-income and first-generation students.
When accepting her award, Randle shared that she learned from the diversity of Pierce college as well as from her failures. Though Pierce hadn’t been a part of her plan, Randle explained that it cultivated a lifetime of success as she learned to work her way up to where she hoped to be.

Attendees at the dinner included members of the Board of Trustees, Steilacoom mayor Ron Lucas, Chancellor Michele L. Johnson and former alumni. The Honorable Pierce County judge Gary Johnson summed up the interests of Pierce College as an institution academic jumping-off with a Robert Louis Stevenson quote; “Do not judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.” According to these notable alumni, Pierce planted the seeds that grew into their success.