What inspires you? How does that manifest itself in your personal and professional life?

Girls for a Change will host a group of accomplished, professional, and creative female mentors, including Susan Agre-Kippenhan, Jen Grace, Stephanie Quayle, Gennifre Hartman, and Alison Watson, as they discuss how they have reached the pinnacles of success in their respective fields. How do females discover, prepare, negotiate, and take advantage of the opportunities around them? These women have created their professional lives by turning their passions into successful careers. Through sharing inspirational stories, advice, and tools they will offer a sense of how girls and women can recognize their gifts and realize their dreams in order to propel themselves towards their individual goals.

These Hatch panelists will each take on a Girls for a Change member for one-on-one mentoring during their stay in Bozeman. In turn, these women and girls will lead the panel discussion. The questions formulated by these and other young women will explore such things as: What were the top three skills used to achieve success, what risks they had to take, what their best idea was and how they made it work in their favor, how they identified and focused on their passion, and how they find balance in their lives. Panel participants will walk away with a better sense of how to recognize their gifts, grab hold of opportunities and face challenges with a positive attitude.

Susan (AK) Agre-Kippenhan – Moderator

Susan Agre-Kippenhan

Susan is a Professor and Dean of the College of Arts and Architecture at Montana State University, home to 1600 majors in the School of Architecture, School of Art, School of Film and Photography, the Department of Music, Shakespeare in the Parks and the Creative Research Lab. Susan is a graphic designer, her designs have been juried into prestigious design exhibitions and her writing and work have appeared in more than a dozen publications including design journals, textbooks and books on creative inspiration. She will be included in the forthcoming book Émigré: The Look Back Issue – Celebrating 25 Years in Graphic Design (Gingko Press).

Susan also has a keen interest in the connection between the community and the university with a specialized expertise on the arts and civic responsibility. Her work in this area has been recognized with awards and published and presented widely. Susan holds a BS from Skidmore College in Painting with Highest Honors and a Masters in Fine Arts in Visual Communication from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Alison Watson

Alison Watson

Alison Watson is an executive producer at Dokument Films, a company that focuses on telling meaningful stories. Dokument Films only takes on clients that promote healthy, positive culture and community. Watson recently finished several projects for Participant Media and their new social action arm, TakePart. She began her career directing and producing documentary films, which have won recognition and awards across the US. She spent several years getting her hands dirty with outdoor films, television shows and commercials for clients like Thule, Teva, Highgear and Redbull. Watson launched her own company just out of college and has consulted with start ups in fundraising, marketing and producing content for branding. Her dedication the last few years has been to study and create compelling and intuitive visual projects to increase understanding of key issues on our planet through 3D animations, documentary filmmaking and narrative.

She holds a Master of Business Administration (Marketing) from Western Carolina University and a Master of Entrepreneurship. Her bachelor’s degree is in Mass Communications from the University of North Carolina Asheville.

Gennifre Hartman

Gennifre Hartman

As a high school student, Gennifre once found her own life transformed by an academic year overseas. She has since devoted her life to academic teaching and introducing youth to the adventures of outdoor skills and foreign travel. She holds a Master’s degree in English Education from the University of Montana, and a BA in Journalism from the University of Oregon, in addition to her professional experience in traditional academic fields and as an outdoor educator.

Gennifre has worked as an adjunct college professor, a high school Principal, as an Associate Head of School for a Cultural Studies/ Outdoor Adventure program, and as an English Department Head, in addition to traditional teaching in a high school environment. Gennifre has extensive experience with curriculum design, leading international expeditions, wilderness guiding, student mentoring, academic advising and professional teaching experience at high school and college levels.

Fluent in several languages, she has traveled extensively around the world and has visited more foreign countries than US states. She has led high school student trips to numerous countries throughout southern Africa, Southeast Asia, South America, and New Zealand. Gennifre has made cultural awareness and responsibility a key aspect in her life. She believes that travel is an essential component to a solid education, and when travel is combined with traditional academic studies, outdoor skills, and fun, there is no limit on what girls can learn and achieve.

In addition to running international programs in the field, she is experienced in backpacking, mountaineering, rock climbing, skiing, scuba diving, whitewater rafting, mountain biking, caving, and telling stories. She shares her passion for education and travel with her husband, Taylor, and their son, Zane. Gennifre recently received the 2007 Steinlein Shapard Secondary School Teacher Award at Randolph College awarded to an outstanding teacher who has had a significant impact on the life of a Randolph College student.

Jen Grace

Jen lives in Bozeman, Montana where she is a graduate student of Science and Natural History Filmmaking at Montana State University.

Jen Grace

She has a BS in Biology from the University of New Mexico and worked as research assistant in such places as the Museum of Southwestern Biology, the Sevilleta LTER, Los Alamos National labs, Glacier National Park and the Galapagos Islands. At 23, Jen moved to Lake Tahoe to become a professional snowboarder. A dual citizen of the USA and Ireland, she became the first Irish snowboarder to compete on the World Cup. She raced across the globe for five years, and competed in three World Championships. After a heartbreaking near miss with the 2006 Olympics, she found her current graduate program. It is a perfect fit for her love of conservation, art and communication.

In her first semester of graduate school she wrote, produced and directed Breaking Boundaries the Sondra Van Ert story. It was a winner at and toured over 120 cities with the 07/08 Lunafest film festival. The Smithsonian Institution commissioned her to make a video on environmental contaminants and amphibian declines for an exhibit at the National Zoo.  The result was Frog, Chemical, Water, You which won a 2009 national student Emmy, best newcomer at the 2009 International Wildlife Film Festival and is a finalist in two categories at the 2009 Jackson Hole wildlife film festival.

Jen is currently making a documentary called Soul Dog about pets as surrogate family members in America. She is also co-producing a contemporary ballet with renowned music producer, Patrick Leonard; directing for the Jim Henson Company’s webisode Wilson and Ditch, Digging America; and making time for snowboarding and mountain biking with her husband Steve. Jen would be happy if she could make conservation, rock ‘n’ roll, ballet, puppet multi-media for the rest of her life!

Stephanie Quayle

Stephanie Quayle

A hand-picked guest speaker at Maria Shriver’s upcoming “The Women’s Conference” Stephanie is a Bozeman native, now recording in Los Angeles.  In her song “Alley of Desires,” Los Angeles based Country Recording Artist, Stephanie Quayle may boldly declare she’s “living the dream,” but she sure didn’t get there by resting on her laurels or coasting by on her good looks — though she certainly could have. But Stephanie is not that type of woman. The road to her latest project, No End, is paved with a surprising amount of life experience worn into this bold singer-songwriter’s cockroach killers. From the slow burn of “Promise You Won’t Feel a Thing” to the bold, boogie-woogie declaration “Ain’t No Housewife,” Stephanie sounds as confident as she does earnest, paying respect to country elders while pushing the envelope of Americana music.