Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton will visit Gustavus Adolphus College on Friday, Oct. 3, and will speak at the inauguration ceremony of President Rebecca M. Bergman. Bergman, who started her duties as Gustavus’s President on July 1, 2014, will be officially inaugurated as the College’s 17th president at 2:30 p.m. in Christ Chapel.
Bergman is the first woman to serve as president in the 152-year history of Gustavus. She spent the previous 26 years at Medtronic, Inc., including the last 14 years as a senior executive. Her most recent position was Vice President of Research, Technology, and Therapy Delivery Systems for the company’s Cardiac Rhythm Disease Management business, where she led a research and development team of scientists and engineers.
Bergman earned her B.S. degree in chemical engineering from Princeton University and undertook graduate study in a Ph.D. program in chemical engineering and material science at the University of Minnesota. She was elected as a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering in 2001, and elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2010. She serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Sigma-Aldrich, and on the Board of Directors of The Bakken Museum. Bergman also served on the Gustavus Board of Trustees for seven years from 2007-2014.
Dayton—the 40th Governor of the State of Minnesota—is in the middle of the fourth year of his first term as Governor. For most of the past 37 years, Dayton has served Minnesotans, as Commissioner of the Minnesota Departments of Economic Development and of Energy and Economic Development, as State Auditor, and as United States Senator.
Senator Klobuchar became the first woman elected to represent the State of Minnesota in the United States Senate in 2006. She is Senate Chair of the Joint Economic Committee and also sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, the Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee, as well as the Rules and Administration Committee.
Before serving in the Senate, Klobuchar headed the largest prosecutor’s office in Minnesota for eight years, making the prosecution of violent and career criminals her top priority. She has received awards and recognition from many organizations including Mothers Against Drunk Driving, The American Prospect, Working Mother Magazine, the Bush and Clinton Justice Departments, the Service Women’s Action Network, and Disabled American Veterans, among others.
Other individuals who will give remarks at President Bergman’s inauguration ceremony include George Hicks ’75, Chair of the Gustavus Board of Trustees; The Rev. Heather Teune Wigdahl ’95, President of the Gustavus Adolphus College Association of Congregations; and the Rev. Dr. Harold Weiss, father of President Bergman and former Bishop of the Northeastern Pennsylvania Synod in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). The Rev. Jon Anderson, Bishop of the Southwestern Minnesota Synod of the ELCA will also be present to take part in the ceremony.
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