Meet our new alumni board members

By California State University, Bakersfield

June 5^th, 2019

Three CSUB graduates from the worlds of real estate, oil and healthcare who are proud of their alma mater and want to promote and enhance all it has to offer are joining the CSUB Alumni Association Board of Directors effective July 1.

They are Nik Boone (BS Business Administration ’14), Jason Goklaney (BS Chemistry ’10) and Stephen Muchinyi (BS Chemistry ’11). They come on board following a hugely successful year for the Alumni Association and the university, with a record amount raised at the Alumni Hall of Fame dinner, more than 100 people participating in the Runner Alumni Mentor Program and CSUB, led by a new president, graduating an all-time high number of students.

“I’m excited to have Nik, Stephen and Jason join the Alumni Association board,” said outgoing board President Justin Salters. “Each of them brings unique professional and personal experiences that will help us maintain the association’s positive momentum and continue to grow and expand alumni engagement. It’s a great time to be a `Runner.”

Boone, 27 and a Bakersfield native, is the broker-owner of Ascend Real Estate and Property Management. His expertise is in representing first-time home buyers; selling, purchasing and managing large apartment complexes; and bulk portfolio sales, which involves selling large numbers of properties bundled together.

He’s a member of the Institute of Real Estate Management, the Active 20/30 Club and Downtown Rotary.

Boone said he wants to help change some perceptions of CSUB, saying “there are some people who love it and some people who just think, ‘It’s in Bakersfield, I’ll go there.’”

It’s a great university, he said, and people should be immensely proud to have studied there. Boone would also like to mentor students.

He and his wife, Mackenzie, have a 5-month-old son, Remington.

Goklaney, 31, is an environmental engineer and compliance specialist for Sentinel Peak Resources, an oil and gas company that primarily focuses on heavy oil development in California. One of his key roles is managing the company’s climate change program.

After graduating from CSUB, Goklaney went on to earn a master’s degree in environmental science and engineering at the Colorado School of Mines.

Now that CSUB has an accredited engineering program, Goklaney would like to help promote it with a goal of developing and retaining engineers locally. As a mentor in the Runner Alumni Mentor Program, he’d also like to help recruit more mentors who work in STEM fields, a real need as RAMP enters its fourth cycle this fall.

Goklaney is a member of the Active 20/30 Club and serves on the board of the Air and Waste Management Association.

Muchinyi, 30, is an emergency room/urgent care physician assistant originally from Nairobi, Kenya. He immigrated to the United States in 2005 at age 17 and received an academic scholarship to CSUB.

He said he’d like to “promote CSUB’s vision and mission to the community,” including promoting the work of the Alumni Association, as well as help students with career advancement and opportunities.

In his free time he plays in Bakersfield A.C.E.S., an adult soccer league.

Leaving the Alumni Association board is Carla Barrientos, who has served for six years, including as president and past president. She said now was the right time to move on because she accomplished all she’d hoped to on the board, she just had her first child, a son, and she just started a podcast, Hello Bakersfield.

And Linda Lara, a budget analyst at CSUB who has been on the board since 2016, will succeed Salters as president.

There will be a total of 18 CSUB alumni on the association board for 2019-2020, not including ex-officio members representing faculty, students and CSUB Alumni Engagement Office staff.

Board member terms last two years and are voted on by the full board. They represent the more than 50,000 people who have graduated from CSUB since its founding.

There’s huge momentum at the back of the new Alumni Association board. In the last year, its Alumni Hall of Fame dinner raised more than it ever has, $27,760, for scholarships and mentoring while its signature fall fundraiser, Party in the Park, raised $10,615 for the same.

The second and third cycles of the mentor program again proved successful, with major changes designed to enhance it coming next fall. And at least 2,000 new alumni joined our ranks; 1,975 walked at undergraduate and graduate commencement.