When Matthew Bergeron \u201908 graduated from Mac with a double major in history and religious studies, he dreamed of becoming a political speechwriter. After attending law school and working at the state legislature and on several political campaigns, he found a way to incorporate both law and politics in his career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today, he\u2019s a health care and government relations attorney and partner at Larkin Hoffman, representing various health care providers and advising nonprofits on governance issues. He\u2019s also one of nine co-founders of the Minnesota Aurora FC a pre-professional women\u2019s soccer team\u2014and serves as its general counsel. He told Macalester Today<\/em> more about volunteering his skills in service of the college, his role in the college\u2019s upcoming Brighter campaign, and his strong connections to Mac.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Q: What kinds of volunteering have you done for Mac?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n A: I\u2019m now in my fifth year on the Alumni Board. I spent two years chairing the Athletic Working Group, focused on engaging with alumni athletes, and then one year chairing the Arts, Athletics and Affinities Work Group. Now I\u2019m one of the Alumni Board\u2019s representatives on the Brighter campaign committee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Throughout my career I\u2019ve done a lot of informational inter- views and coffees with Mac students interested in politics and law and health-care systems. I\u2019ve always enjoyed mentorship relationships and a lot of people invested time for me early in my career so it always felt like a good way to pay that back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Q: What will you be focusing on during the college\u2019s Brighter campaign?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n A: In politics the term is \u201cwrite or raise.\u201d Folks either contribute a specific amount themselves or they engage others to contribute that amount collectively. I\u2019ve got two kids four and under and I\u2019m not yet in a position to write a big check. But reaching out to folks during this campaign and helping to plant the seed for future campaigns is something I can do. There are a lot of alumni situated similarly to me that I hope to engage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Q: Do you have a favorite Mac memory?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n A: Meeting my wife, Ashley Nepp \u201908, on the third floor of Bigelow Hall the first weekend of our sophomore year, and then later proposing to her under the Bell Tower. This October, we will have been together for twenty years. I can think of nothing more influential or significant in my life than that.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From political dreams to soccer team builder, this Macalester grad’s journey proves a liberal arts education can score big in unexpected fields, even leading to a love story under the Bell Tower.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1077,"featured_media":26883,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,26],"tags":[46,101],"class_list":["post-26875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-community-engagement","tag-history","tag-religious-studies","mediatype-articles"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"fields":{"article_type":[8],"flickr_photoset_id":"","youtube_id":"","square_thumbnail":false,"press_photos":false,"story_title":"","story_caption":"","rotations":false,"maps":false,"marker_title":"","marker_text":"","geographic_location":false,"feature_embed":"","custom_link_url":"","news_icon_name":"","image_options":false,"main_feature_story":"","custom_image":false,"custom_feature_title":"","custom_feature_caption":"","custom_markup":"","custom_markup_link":"","custom_markup_title":"","custom_markup_caption":"","byline":"","post_thumbnail_style":"default","press_downloads":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1077"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26875"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26875\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30370,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26875\/revisions\/30370"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}