Randy Mangelsen ’00 | The Kind of Connection That’s Unique

 Football brought Randy Mangelsen ’00 to Lawrence. Rick Coles, the head coach at the time, reached out to Randy’s high school coach looking for players who could meet the university’s academic standards, and Randy’s name came up. 

“I grew up in a very small town, with very small schools,” Randy recalled. “Twenty-six kids in my graduating class. Even Appleton seemed huge to me at the time.” Still, Randy knew he wanted to keep playing football after high school, and the large UW campuses, where his three older siblings had gone, felt impersonal. A smaller school made sense, one where he could get more attention and more engagement with faculty. 

The friendships Randy made on the football field are still going strong. He and his former teammates get together three or four times a year, and their families have grown up together. But those weren’t the only connections that stuck. 

As a math and economics major, Randy spent long hours in the office of his advisor, Professor Richard Sanerib. They still grab a beer when Randy is in town. He took a few classes with geoscience professor Marcia Bjornerud, from Freshman Studies to a seminar on dendroclimatology. On a visit to campus years later, he wandered through the geology department just to check things out on a Saturday. Marcia happened to be in her office, and he knocked on her door. She turned around and said, “Well, hi, Randy,” and immediately knew who he was.  

“It had been 20 years since she’d probably seen me,” he said. “That kind of connection is unique.” 

Today, Randy works in the financial industry, and what he sees there gives him a direct view of what Lawrence is up against. Demographic shifts and funding pressures are squeezing small private colleges across the country. He believes Lawrence is well-positioned, but not invulnerable. 

“I think there is a survival risk for schools like Lawrence,” he said. “If alums, especially athletes, aren’t willing to step up and fill that gap, we need to have the features that people are going to be drawn to.” 

That conviction led Randy to make a leadership gift to the Level Up project and serve on its fundraising committee. He has long believed Lawrence needed a fieldhouse and sees the new athletic facilities as essential, not just for recruiting, but for building the kind of connections across teams that he valued as a student. He wants current players to walk onto the field believing they can compete, not bracing for a loss. 

“I went into every season thinking we could win the championship,” Randy said. “I would have played even if we lost every game. I loved it, loved playing, loved the guys. But I don’t want kids to come to this program thinking they’re just going to get beat again today.” 

Randy’s motivation to give back goes beyond football. His family didn’t have the financial means to pay for college. His education was made possible, in part, by scholarship support from alumni who came before him.  

When it came time for his job search, a career counselor called him and said, ‘You have got to do this,’ pushing him to apply for a position on the last possible day. That application launched a 26-year run with the same company. He feels a responsibility to do the same for others. 

“Giving back is selfish on the one hand, because the better Lawrence does, the better all of our degrees look,” he said. “But also, I think it’s on us to make sure other people have the opportunity to get the experience we had.” 

For Randy, that experience wasn’t just a good education. It was a community and a set of relationships that have lasted a lifetime. 

Posted May 5, 2026 in Donor Profile.