{"id":28876,"date":"2017-07-25T14:12:07","date_gmt":"2017-07-25T19:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/?p=28876"},"modified":"2017-07-25T14:13:33","modified_gmt":"2017-07-25T19:13:33","slug":"bemidji-state-alumna-tessa-haagenson-recognized-as-nwf-ecoleaders-top-50-inspirations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/2017\/07\/25\/bemidji-state-alumna-tessa-haagenson-recognized-as-nwf-ecoleaders-top-50-inspirations\/","title":{"rendered":"Bemidji State Alumna Tessa Haagenson recognized as NWF EcoLeaders Top 50 Inspirations"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bemidji State alumna Tessa Haagenson has been recognized as an EcoLeaders Top 50 Inspirations honoree by the National Wildlife Foundation.<\/p>\n

NWF EcoLeaders is the nation’s first project-based leadership development program for sustainability, leading to certification for college students and young professionals. EcoLeaders provides a career edge that helps the planet while helping thousands of emerging leaders do well by doing good for their communities.<\/p>\n

In 2016, the EcoLeaders Career Center began celebrating the motivating stories and career accomplishments of past National Wildlife Federation interns, fellows and partners who are making an impact in the sustainability movement.<\/p>\n

Haagenson, a principal planning analyst at Great River Energy in Maple Grove, Minn., has been leading efforts to educate people on climate change and renewable energy since her days as a 2005-06 Campus Ecology Fellow at Bemidji State. While at BSU, she helped institute a student fee to support wind energy, and in her current role she runs a resource-forecasting model that helps guide Great River Energy’s long-term resource decisions and tracks renewable energy standard obligations.<\/p>\n

Haagenson’s motivation to pursue an environmental career came from a love of nature instilled by her parents.<\/p>\n

“At the time I was approaching college\/major selection, I thought environmental policy was the vehicle through which I could best achieve my goals,” she said.<\/p>\n

She enrolled in BSU’s environmental studies program with an emphasis in policy and planning. After receiving her degree, she spent a semester in Denmark as a guest graduate student in sustainable energy planning and management at the University of Aalborg.<\/p>\n

“Over the course of the semester it became clear to me that I needed a better understanding of the underlying science of the electric power system, so I decided I would pursue an engineering degree when I got back to the U.S.,” she said.<\/p>\n

She completed that goal in 2011, earning her second bachelor’s degree — in electrical engineering — from the University of North Dakota, and credits her time at BSU for providing her with a springboard into her current career.<\/p>\n

“I certainly had support when I was at Bemidji State from professors who helped me learn what I needed to — and wanted to — at the time, when I thought I may be going into energy policy,” Haagenson said.<\/p>\n

Haagenson believes everyone should gain some knowledge of how electrical power systems work.<\/p>\n

“For students who want to make a difference for sustainability in the electric power industry — even if you’re coming at it from a non-technical angle — gain at least a cursory understanding of the way the electric power system works and the regulatory world that governs many aspects of it,” she said.<\/p>\n

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