In the Spotlight
Kansas

Chris Martindale
Chris Martindale is the Financial Aid Coordinator at Kansas State University-Salina, coming to that institution in September 1998. Previous to that, she worked as the Assistant Director of Financial Aid at Kansas Wesleyan University. Like so many others in the industry, she got her start as a work study student in the Financial Aid Office. She is a member of KASFAA and RMASFAA.

The move from private to public was quite a change and some adjustment, she said, was initially required. It took a little time to understand "the state way." She notes, however, a serendipitous discovery she made after her job change. She found that her new boss and co-workers at K-State, Salina were as wonderful as those with whom she had worked while at KWU.

Chris has been active in KASFAA, serving as co-chair and then chair of its Membership Committee as well as a Conference Planning Committee, and is currently serving as a member of the Awards Committee. She co-taught the Neophyte session at a KASFAA conference and has been a member of the western team that conducted the high school counselors' training workshops for the past two years. Chris has attended Summer Institute on two separate occasions. KWU sent her there in 1990 and she had the honor of being selected by KASFAA to attend the "Training for Trainers" session at the 1999 Summer Institute.

Besides the opportunity to attend state and regional conferences, she says that one of the best perks of the financial aid business is the opportunity to form friendships with colleagues and associate members of the organizations. Generally speaking, she said, those involved both directly and indirectly in financial aid are among the nicest people she's ever met. "There's just a good sense that we're all here to help the student. And due to the nature of our business, everyone seems blessed with the greatest weapon of all - a wonderful sense of humor."

Chris comes from a military family. Her father made a career of the army and so the family lived all over the world and in different parts of the U.S. She was born in Japan and lived in Germany on two different occasions. The experience, she thinks, helped her to understand and appreciate other cultures as well as gave her great memories she might not otherwise have had. It did leave its mark in other ways, too. Chris blames her globe trotting younger years for the wanderlust she still feels today.

She loves to travel, camp, and hike and most weekends and vacations find her somewhere new and exciting (any place new IS exciting, she claims). Whether it's swinging her leg over a friend's Gold Wing motorcycle as they prepare to "hit the open road" or heading out with a group of Scouts to help them earn a merit badge for bicycling 50 miles in 8 hours ("Whew! At least the Kansas wind was at our backs!"), she's almost always ready to go and experience new things. Chris recently returned from a hike down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon where she insists it was much harder going down than it was coming back up.

The Grand Canyon trip was her way of celebrating 5 years of being cancer-free. A diagnosis of breast cancer in 1995 came in the middle of working on her M.A. degree at Kansas State University. The experience slowed her down - a little - but certainly did not stop her. Rather, it seems to have increased her zest for life. "I feel that God has given me five years that I may not have had. Of course I want to enjoy as much of this beautiful world as I can and do as much as I can for as long as He sees fit to let me." The experience has also made her much more conscious of her health and the best means by which to keep it. She learned something else as well. "Having no hair and then REALLY short hair was sooooo very convenient."

Chris has been single for 15 years ("it's just better that way, I think") and has four children, all grown and on their own. The toughest job she ever had, she said, was raising her children as a single mother. "That was hard. I was going to school, trying to maintain a decent GPA (she graduated valedictorian in 1990 at KWU), dealing with 4 teenagers, and living on student loans. I wouldn't want to do it again, though I don't ever regret doing it." Even completing her thesis (she received her M.A. in history in May 2000) wasn't as hard.

"As frustrated as I sometimes get with the financial aid 'system,' I suppose it suits me in many ways. It is never boring, there is usually plenty of variety that includes a good mix of people and paper, and my office is always 'hopping.'"

That's her story and she's stickin' to it.