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Pivoting During a Pandemic

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In early March, Alyssa Nagai was living a good life. The 2015 Chaminade alumna would work her nursing shifts at Maui Memorial Medical Center, and always enjoyed coming home to her little dog who would jump on her as soon as she walked through the door. She loved living on Maui, and it was an easy and short flight to see her family back home in Oahu.

She felt comfortable at her job. Her time at Chaminade had prepared her well, and had given her the skills and knowledge she needed to be successful.

But nothing could have prepared her for what came next.

Alyssa Nagai in her face mask

“The nursing and the schooling part of Chaminade definitely prepared me to be a nurse,” says Nagai. “But I don’t know if anyone was really ready for a pandemic to hit.”

When COVID-19 made its way to the Islands, overnight her days became longer and her job became a lot scarier.

Her hospital floor was quickly turned into a COVID unit, and chaos ensued. Policies and procedures kept changing—no one really knew what to expect or what to do. The disease was still so new and unpredictable. 

“It was really scary,” says Nagai. “I think every day, or sometimes every hour, things were changing when it came to PPE, or just everything. Policies kept changing and it was really frustrating.”

Her unit converted into a closed unit, meaning team members weren’t allowed to come and go from the floor. It also meant nurses were doing total care for their patients, without help from nurse aides and patient care specialists.

It made for really long, emotionally draining days.

“You see what people are going through, and it’s scary on their end too,” says Nagai. “It was hard emotionally, for everyone.”

Alyssa Nagai and her co-workers

It was particularly hard when she saw her coworkers fall ill. “We all kind of saw this coming, we knew that we had the risk of getting sick,” says Nagai. “But it’s scary because you see these people every day and you can’t really help it.”

It was also lonely. For Nagai, the hardest part was staying away from the people she loved and cared about.

“I’d be afraid to hang out with people, and I knew they were afraid to see me too, because no one knew if they had it.”

When she would return home from her shift, she’d immediately shower off and try to stay away from people as much as possible. “I’d try to shower before my little dog would jump on me,” recalls Nagai. “You just feel dirty coming out of there.”

Nagai felt good about what she was doing. She knew she was helping. But she wasn’t sure other people saw it that way. Fears and anxieties were high all around the Island. It didn’t help hearing stories of how people were treating other healthcare professionals, like the story she heard about a nurse who went to the grocery store and had things thrown at her.

Now that COVID numbers have begun to slow down in Hawaii, Nagai’s unit is mostly back to normal. “There are still some changes in place, like the break rooms are different. We can’t be around a bunch of people anymore.”

Nagai has a positive outlook on what the future brings. She’s hopeful there won’t be too much of a second wave, and she’s enjoying the new teamwork and collaboration that has come out of the hospital. Everyone seems to have a new perspective and appreciation for everyone else now.

“When we were doing total care for our patients, I gained a whole new perspective on what nurse aides do,” admits Nagai. “It feels really good to be back to normal (or the “new normal).”

Called Into Darkness

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When the coronavirus pandemic hit the mainland U.S. in March, the hospital in El Paso, Texas where Shannon Wright ‘15 worked as a nurse was already experiencing troubles. But when elective procedures were canceled, the hospital began laying people off.

Shannon Wright '15 in her PPE

It was a weird feeling—Wright kept hearing about the nationwide shortage of healthcare professionals elsewhere, but she couldn’t get hours at her hospital.

“At the time, I was working in a facility that just kept calling me off and I wasn’t getting hours,” says Wright. “I kept seeing on the news that everyone needed help, and I kept getting called off. I really wanted to help the people who needed me most.”

So on Saturday, April 4, she hopped on the phone with a FEMA recruiter. They were recruiting healthcare professionals from around the U.S. to help the nation’s hardest-hit city, New York.

“The recruiter said ‘we need you and we need you to get here on Monday if you’re doing it,’” remembers Wright. “It only left me two days to make a decision.”

By April 6, she was on an empty plane to New York City.

Her parents and her boyfriend didn’t want her to go. The disease was so unknown, and stories of medical professionals getting sick and dying were flooding the airwaves.

“Everyone was like, ‘you should just write your will now,’” says Wright. “I was super freaked out signing up, and I cried the whole way to New York. I kept wondering if I was making the wrong decision,” says Wright. She was one of only three people on the flight from Texas to New York. It was an eerie feeling. But she was driven by her desire to serve those who needed her the most.

When she landed at the empty airport, she immediately grabbed a taxi to her hotel in Times Square.

“The cab ride through the city was beautiful—I had never been to New York before,” says the California native. “I started to feel much better. But then we got to Times Square which was completely empty and I got really scared again.”

The hotel was reserved for other FEMA healthcare professionals and there were strict safety restrictions in place. Residents weren’t allowed to socialize or have people in their rooms, and other than a cleaning crew once a week and one person at the front desk, there was no hotel staff. The kitchen was also closed, so Wright used delivery services for most of her meals.

Right away she went to an orientation where she met a few other new arrivals. They formed a text message chain, and throughout their time regularly texted each other to check in on one another.

Wright was assigned to a hospital in the Bronx. Every day, a bus would come to pick up her and the other nurses and drop them off at the hospital.

Her first day was eye-opening, and set the tone for what was to come. She was immediately placed on a team that was tasked with creating a brand new ICU unit.

Shannon Wright '15 in her PPE

“They had an overflow unit connected to their emergency room, so my team and I had to create a coronavirus ICU unit,” describes Wright. “We made a whole ICU unit from scratch within a day.”

They worked quickly to get the extra basement space ready and gather all necessary supplies, but they couldn’t work fast enough. Halfway through the day, before the unit was ready, hospital staff started wheeling in patients. They had run out of room in other parts of the hospital and were desperately trying to find places to put people.

“They were wheeling in patients while we were trying to get set up, and we were realizing things that we didn’t have, all at the same time. Patients were coding on us, and we didn’t have the right supplies.” Wright’s voice goes soft as she describes what it was like to have patients who suddenly couldn’t breathe while she and her colleagues frantically tried to find the right equipment to respond.

Supplies were scarce throughout the city—not just at her hospital. One of her friends worked at a hospital that completely ran out of oxygen, which was in high demand. Sometimes they just couldn’t get what they needed and had to figure out how to make do with what they had. In Wright’s unit, they were putting patients on really old ventilators that should have been retired, because the new ones were already being used.

Personal protective equipment (PPE) also quickly became a scarce commodity.

“At the start, we had amazing PPE and they were letting us change out our N95 respirators every day,” says Wright. “But halfway through the contract, things changed and they were making us reuse N95s and weren’t letting us use hair covers. They wanted us to use the same gown for 5 days. They made a full switch, and all of a sudden we didn’t have what we needed any more.”

It was up to each individual to figure out how to make it work.

Wright had signed a contract to work 12-hour shifts, seven days a week for 21 days. The long days without a break were exhausting.

“The whole time you can’t really breathe, and you can’t really talk,” says Wright. “You have a surgical mask over your N95, and you’re using tape around the edges to seal it off, and you’re breathing in your own CO2 and getting really really bad headaches for 12-hours straight.”

During the days, adrenaline would kick in and Wright was focused on her patients. But at the end of the day, when she’d go back to her quiet hotel room, the fatigue would come crashing down and the anxiety hit hard.

“When I got home every single night I would scrub my body nonstop,” says Wright. “I felt like I was dying, I thought I was dying. I would call my family all the time. I think I was just exhausted and run down.”

The physical exhaustion was real, but it was the emotional drain that was really taking a toll on Wright’s wellbeing.

In the month of April, the death toll in New York was six times higher than its average for that time of year. Wright’s first week at the hospital was the deadliest week on record. News stories of patients being turned away from hospitals, doctors making unthinkable life and death decisions and refrigerated trucks being called in to store bodies shocked households across the nation.

Wright had worked in a level 1 trauma center before but had never seen anything like what she saw in New York.

“I would go to lunch and leave the hospital, and outside I’d see the refrigerated trucks because the morgues were so overwhelmed,” she recalls.

She did her best to be a calming presence for her patients, all the while feeling anything but calm.

“They would wheel a patient in and sometimes they would be really scared,” said Wright. “You’d be talking to them and they’d be fine, and within that same minute all of a sudden you had to intubate them because they couldn’t breathe. And you’re wondering if you’re going to be the last face they see.”

For Wright, the hardest part was watching patients suffer alone, without having their families by their sides. She would try to set up FaceTime calls for her patients so families could see their loved ones.

“Just sitting there knowing these are people, you feel hopeless,” describes Wright, her voice shaking audibly over the phone. “You’re doing everything you can, but you don’t know enough about this disease yet to know if they’re going to come out of it.”

When asked about her mental health, Wright admits it’s taken a toll.

“Chaminade prepared me to be a nurse, but I don’t think anything could have prepared me for seeing that many people die at once,” she says. “You just see people nonstop who were there one second, and alive, and then gone the next. You’re body-bagging so many people who you were just caring for. It’s definitely traumatic.”

But Wright persisted. And when her 21-day contract was over, she agreed to stay another week. Because in between all the darkness, Wright was able to find moments of beauty.

Like when a patient recovered and had their ventilator removed.

“When we extubated a patient, they’d play a fight song over the hospital PA system so everyone knew there was good news, and we would all start crying.”

Her hospital was also one of the first to participate in antibody plasma trials, where patients who were on ventilators received donated plasma from individuals who had already recovered from COVID-19 and had antibodies. She noticed a drastic improvement in the patients who received the trial treatment.

“There were patients who had been on the ventilators for a month and weren’t showing any signs of improvements,” she says. “But then we gave them the blood and within a week everything started to look like it was improving.”

When her time in New York had come to a close, Wright initially struggled to find a flight home—everything was canceled. But she ultimately found an airline who let her fly for free as a first responder. When she got back to El Paso, she booked a vacation rental to quarantine herself for two weeks and recuperate before returning home and seeing her boyfriend.

She had given up her job at the hospital, so after spending some time at home she ventured out to visit her family in California. At the time of her interview in June, she had been with them for three weeks, relaxing and recovering, and making sure they wore their masks.

“I’m more scared of getting coronavirus in public now because I’ve seen how bad it can get—and it wasn’t just elderly people or immunocompromised people. It was healthy, young people.”

While she is no longer afraid of caring for a coronavirus patient, she is much more cautious about being in public. Wright acknowledges that things have gotten better and healthcare professionals have a better idea of what they’re doing now, but the illness is still very unpredictable.

As for her career, she doesn’t know what will come next. She’s slowly starting the job hunt, but she’s also just trying to take time to process everything she felt and witnessed in New York. Part of her wants a slower-paced job now, but long term she knows that she would miss the thrill of the emergency room.

In the meantime, life definitely feels more precious now and she’s just trying to spend time with her family.

“A lot of it was a blur and I have trouble expressing exactly how it was,” shares Wright. “But I am beyond glad that I went. It was one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve ever had in my life. I met some amazing nurses and people that I will remember for the rest of my life.”

Alum’s Passions Turn into Business Ventures

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It’s not often that our childhood fantasies turn out to be true. For many of us, our dreams of going to the moon one day or riding on the back of a garbage truck are never realized.

But for the lucky ones, like Dan Mangum ‘18, the life they envision as a child turns out to be exactly what adulthood is all about. 

Dan Mangum '18

Growing up, Mangum had two passions in life: music and basketball. And a family trip to Hawaii in the fourth grade left him determined to make the islands his home as an adult.

Now, as a young professional, Mangum has made a career for himself in both music and basketball, all from his island home in Honolulu.

As a high-school senior in New York, eight years after that life-changing trip to Hawaii, Mangum had his eyes set on studying in the Islands. He explored a few schools, but Chaminade stood out. He liked that the classes were small and that he would be able to form relationships with his professors and classmates.

“I didn’t want to be just another statistic in the classroom,” describes Mangum. “I was hoping to develop long-term relationships with my professors and classmates, which, looking back, was absolutely the case.”

His parents were also impressed with how responsive and attentive the Chaminade staff was. It’s not easy for a parent to agree to let their child travel 5,000 miles away and across the Pacific for school. But the Chaminade admissions team took the time to answer all of their questions, no matter how small they were. That put his mom at ease.

At first, Mangum was struck with culture shock. Hawaii was polar opposite to New York—he had grown up with long, cold winters and a fast-paced energy, and suddenly he was surrounded by a warm tropical climate where everything operated on island-time.

Chaminade was also the most diverse school he had ever attended.

“At Chaminade, my immediate group of friends included people from American Samoa, Guam, Hawaii and Australia,” says Mangum. “I don’t think you’re going to get diversity like that many other places.”

It didn’t take long for Mangum to adjust to the island lifestyle. He’s always been an outdoorsy person, and Oahu had so much to offer. He knew a lot of people that went off to college and started spending a lot of time at parties and at bars, but he didn’t want that for himself.

“I didn’t want to fall into the trap of just going to bars for four years,” he recalls. “Being on an island gave me healthier choices and provided alternative sources of fun, like hiking, surfing and diving.”

He remembers one of his philosophy professors, Dr. Peter Steiger, taking him and a few of his friends out surfing one morning during his freshman year.

“He woke us up at 5 a.m. and took us to this awesome local surf spot,” says Mangum. “He spent the day surfing with us and teaching us about local culture. I don’t think there’s a better place to learn philosophy than during sunrise on the ocean.”

But Mangum’s favorite class was news writing with Adjunct Professor Kim Baxter. He liked the class so much that he took it twice. Mangum was a writer for the student newspaper, the Silversword, and Baxter used to work for ESPN. She knew Mangum was a huge sports fan, so when the Clippers came to Honolulu for their pre-season games, she got Mangum a press pass to attend the team’s games and practices.

“I remember sitting courtside at this game, and I was right next to the reporters from the L.A. Times and ESPN. And here I was this 21-year-old kid from Chaminade,” says Mangum. “Not only was it an experience that I don’t think you can get at any other school, but it really gave me confidence that a professor who I had a lot of respect for was willing to put her reputation on the line for me.”

Dan Mangum '18 with Bro. Bernie Pleoger (9th president of Chaminade University)

At Chaminade, Mangum was also part of the Hogan Entrepreneurial Program. Students who participate in the program meet several times a week to learn the ins and outs of starting and running a business, and they network with business leaders around the Island. He found a second family through the Hogan program and a true mentor in retired Hogan director Dr. John Webster, and it gave him the connections he needed to launch one of his companies post-graduation—an adult basketball league.

Today, the league meets weekly at the Honolulu Club and encompasses four teams and over 30 players. The sales manager at the club was familiar with the Hogan program, and had faith enough in Mangum to offer up the space for the league’s games. One of Mangum’s Hogan mentors now also plays in the league.

Dan Mangum '18

As a communications major, Mangum took away two key lessons: how to write and how to market. He believes he’ll use those skills for the rest of his career.

After graduating he became the full-time marketing director for Nextdoor, a cinema lounge and concert hall in Honolulu’s Chinatown. He promotes their concerts, secures sponsorships and works with musicians to encourage them to visit Honolulu while on tour.

He also started his own company to book shows for musicians on the neighbor islands, and to market and promote events and small businesses. He loves his job—it puts him in contact with some of the musicians he used to idolize as a teenager.

Dan Mangum '18 and his parents

“These are all musicians that I was a huge fan of in high school,” says Mangum. “And now, just a few years later, I am able to be in business and work with them, which was a pretty cool realization.”

Coronavirus lockdowns have put much of his career on hold—concert venues are closed, musicians have paused their tours and the basketball league is postponed. But as a Chaminade graduate, the importance of adaptation and change is deeply ingrained in him. The core Marianist value has proved crucial as he finds ways to navigate the future.

“We’ve been adapting with various strategies to make sure we stay relevant, to find new ways to operate,” says Mangum. “I definitely credit Chaminade’s core values for helping me think through that.”

Mangum doesn’t know what the future holds, but if he can continue on his current path, he’ll be a happy man.

“I really love what I do now,” says Mangum. “I just hope to keep expanding and do it on a larger scale. Some day, I’d love to sell out something like the Blaisdell Arena. For now, I’ll just keep working harder and doing more.”

The Importance of Kindness

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When Henry “Jamie” Holcombe first arrived on-island in 1986 as an Army Officer, he knew he wanted an MBA. He explored a few different universities, and ultimately settled on Chaminade University.

Alexandria, Virginia -- February 27, 2019 -- Portrait of Jamie Holcombe, Chief Information Officer (CIO) at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). (Photo by Jay Premack/USPTO)

He was Catholic, and he liked that Chaminade educated in the Marianist tradition. But he was also attracted to the diversity that the campus offered.

And thus began his two-year foray acting as soldier by day, and student by night.

Over 30 years later, and Holcombe finds he still uses the knowledge he gained at Chaminade nearly every single day.

He’s the Chief Information Officer at The United States Patent and Trademark Office, and his department is responsible for overseeing nearly 10,600,000 patents.

When someone comes up with an idea that they want to implement, they have to make sure that it’s a unique and novel idea and that if they were to patent it, their patent would stand up in a court of law.

His office is responsible for designing and maintaining an easy-to-use platform so people all over the world can search for unique and novel ideas. His team relies heavily on computers and search algorithms, and builds classifications for all types of information, from genetics and microbiology to artificial intelligence.

Chaminade’s prime location offered Holcombe a valuable insight into Eastern business philosophies, which, as a businessman, has proved invaluable. When he was a student, Japan’s economy was surging and served as a great model to study. He also gained a better understanding of Japanese culture which is vital as he works regularly with his counterpart in Japan.

But the one thing that really impacted Holcombe, and that he reflects on every single day, are the pillars of the Marianist philosophy. At Chaminade, Holcombe came to value the importance of having a heart and extending kindness toward others. “I try to use kindness as a theme throughout my management style,” he says. “We’re all about results and getting things done better and faster, but life is too short. You have to have kindness.”

Designing While Quarantined

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Over 15 Chaminade alumni attended a virtual event on Saturday, May 16 to gain insider tips for updating their space during stay-at-home orders. The event, Designing Your Space, was hosted by Alumni Relations and featured a panel of four Environmental + Interior Design graduates who shared tricks for updating, organizing and styling home spaces.

Chaminade alumni attended a virtual event to gain insider tips for updating their space during stay-at-home orders

With so many people obeying stay-at-home orders and spending more time in their homes, Nicolle Soriano ‘18, junior interior designer at WCIT Architecture, offered ways to maximize space and feel less confined. Some tips included using furniture to section off spaces, measuring areas to ensure the furniture you use fits appropriately, using neutral colors to make spaces feel more open and using shelving for storage and artwork.

Many people are also finding themselves suddenly working from home. Catherine Valentine ‘18, project designer at Philpots Interiors, offered tips for designing a workspace when you don’t have a home office. The first step is to find a place away from your bedroom, kitchen or typical relaxing area—when you finish work for the day, you don’t want to be reminded of it while you’re cooking, relaxing, trying to sleep or playing with the kids. She also mentioned that lighting and air ventilation can make a big difference in productivity. Ultimately, pay attention to what your work station is like in your office at work and in places where you do your best work, and try to replicate that setup at home.

There are also ways to mitigate noises while you’re trying to work from home. Gerlie Valdez ’17, senior designer at Pyramid Premier Properties, offered both short-term and long-term solutions. If you’re looking for a short-term fix, consider using fabrics and rugs to help reduce noise transmission. You can look for fabrics that have a sound transmission class (STC) rating, or you can simply use fabrics that have double layers, like burlap or velvet. Even blackout curtains help absorb noise. If you’re looking for a more long-term solution, consider adding mass loaded vinyl (MLV) under your carpet, or using decorative acoustic panels on your walls.

It’s also important to consider color. According to Marisa Saito ’17, junior interior designer at AHL, colors can dictate your mood so choose the right colors for the right space. For example, use brighter colors like reds, oranges and yellows to bring in more life and energy. Use blues and greens to create a calm or serene feel. Also, pay attention to color intensity—more vibrant colors can often be distracting and too intense. The best thing to do is to analyze how you want a space to make you feel, and then plan accordingly.

Other tips that the panel shared included:

  • Spend the bulk of your budget on a statement piece—something to draw your eye that you’re proud of and that brings you joy. You’ll get more bang for your buck and it will help make your space more personal.
  • If you’re on a limited budget, consider using things like accent paint, plants, hanging artwork and accessories to bring a space together and make it your own.
  • If you own your home, consider how long you plan to live in it before undergoing a complete remodel. While you want your home to be personal, you also want to maintain its resale value.
  • If you rent your home, work with what you have, and not against it. It’s important to choose the right furniture to fit your space, and you can do small things like change light fixtures or curtain rods, cover floors with rugs and hang artwork to bring it all together.
  • Create separate spaces within your home by decluttering and using a rug to highlight an area, plants to separate places, and accent walls to define spaces.
  • Consider scale and room size before decorating. If you’re working with a small space, avoid bulkier pieces to ensure you have ample space to walk and move around. If you’re working with a larger area, use taller, elongating pieces to maximize space.
  • Don’t forget about the outdoor areas. Utilize your outdoor space and bring the outdoors in with plants and images of nature.

Ultimately, it’s about making your home personal and creating something that you can feel proud of and feel comfortable in. With so many of us staying home, now is as good a time as any to finally turn your house into a home!

A Transformative Experience

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When Sam Jones started full-time at Chaminade, he had overcome a lifetime of challenges.

Samuel Jones

By the time he reached 21 years old, he had lived through neglect, foster care and childhood homelessness, had lost close friends due to crime and military service, and lost close relatives due to illness. He didn’t know what career path he should take in his life and lacked scholarly direction. But he knew a lot was riding on him getting an education.

He came to Chaminade campus when his time on active duty in the military ended.

The Marines had offered him a clean slate—a place where he could prove himself through hard work. And he did. He entered as an infantryman and spent most of his time in the field. But he moved up the ranks quickly.

He had been taking Chaminade classes in the evening, and something inside of him really wanted to experience life as a full-time student living on campus. He also really didn’t want to return to the mainland without having some direction.

So he entered reserve status and moved into a shared apartment on campus with two Chaminade basketball players.

It was intimidating at first—the experiences he had had in the civilian world as a child were anything but typical.

“I had a great career as a Marine and it remains one of the most remarkable experiences of my life,” says Jones. “At the same time, as far as the civilian community was concerned, I was woefully intimidated by it and didn’t understand it.”

While the military had offered Jones a way out, Chaminade offered him a way forward.

At Chaminade, he began to see that there was something special outside of the military. That a sense of service and brotherhood existed in the civilian world also.

And he began to recognize that his reservations about what he could accomplish weren’t unique to him.

“We are all walking around with certain imperfections, fears and doubts about ourselves,” says Jones. “Some of my classmates who had traditional childhood experiences and came from wealthy families had just as many doubts and anxieties as I did, just of a different nature. Through sharing our imperfections and triumphs, we all became more aware of our individual talents.”

There was something about the way his professors believed in his abilities that helped propel him forward. They didn’t allow him to engage in self-doubt or disconnect himself from those around him.

With the constant encouragement he received at Chaminade, he began to reorient his thinking. He began to recognize his own unique talents and the contributions he could make in the civilian world.

The constant narrative at Chaminade of being loved and serving others, combined with his understanding of the frustration and indignation that so many in his childhood community felt, motivated Jones.

When one of his professors encouraged him to study law, Jones’ initial response was one of self-doubt. But through their discussion, he realized that entering the legal profession would provide him with the greatest opportunity to serve others.

“The talk fueled my desire to make a positive difference in the lives of others through the law,” recalls Jones. “But perhaps more importantly, I began to understand that what one person can do, I can do.”

Jones graduated with a degree in philosophy from Chaminade in the 1990s and then went on to get his Juris Doctor from Texas Southern University where he graduated cum laude. He got his advanced law degree, with recognition, from Columbia University.

His heart was always in legal education, so after a distinguished career in the military and working in corporate litigation, he joined the faculty at the John Marshall Law School at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Today, he serves as an associate dean and professor of law at the school and specializes in legal ethics, social justice and contracts.

And in January of 2020, he was selected by The National Black Lawyers to its list of Top 100 lawyers in Illinois, an exclusive invitation-only list limited to those who have achieved outstanding results in their careers.

If anyone knows how much an education can change someone’s entire trajectory, it’s Jones. Education was his ticket, and he attributes much of his success to his experience at Chaminade. “When I think of an institution that has had a profound impact on my life, of course I think of the military,” says Jones. “I ultimately served for 20 years. But I also think of Chaminade, Texas Southern and Columbia. And without Chaminade, there is no Texas Southern and there is no Columbia.”