Aiming to put students first
Junior Erik Mikkelsen, 2011-12 ASUSU President, doesn’t have all the answers. He said so himself.
“I know how to ask the right questions,” Mikkelsen said.
Mikkelsen, 23, grew up in Bunkerville, Nev., with free reign of the desert, he said. Mikkelsen said the tiny town near the Nevada-Arizona border is “a joy to behold.”
Mikkelsen is the second of three brothers. Growing up, they loved to shoot stuff and once tried to blow up a washing machine, he said.
“I look back at the bike ramps we used to make,” Mikkelsen said. “Horrible idea.”
He said these ramps often involved large hills leading into ponds.
Mikkelsen attended Virgin Valley High School. There were no secrets in a school of 750 students, Mikkelsen said.
“In high school, I never did anything in the realms of student involvement and leadership,” Mikkelsen said.
He said he was scared of girls and didn’t like “peppy leadership people.”
Former ASUSU Athletics VP Alex Putnam lived next door to Mikkelsen in Bunkerville.
“We have grown up next to each other since I was 13,” Putnam said. He said he always felt Mikkelsen was like a little brother.
“In high school he was a lot quieter. He wasn’t super involved, but he was a great student, a great athlete,” Putnam said.
From a young age, Mikkelsen and his brothers were “playing every sport known to man.” He golfed, played football and wrestled in high school. His senior year, Mikkelsen was captain of all three teams.
The same year, the football and golf teams took second at state, and Mikkelsen took second in state wrestling. He said wrestling was his strong suit. This may be due to the fact that Mikkelsen wrestled since he was young.
“They definitely had kindergarten wrestling,” Mikkelsen said.
Not the sort of wrestling that all kids practice with their peers, but an actual, organized kindergarten wrestling team.
Mikkelsen graduated in 2006, one of a class of 110. He said he did not hesitate in his choice to attend Utah State.
“The question is why would I not come here,” Mikkelsen said. “It was a family conspiracy to get me to go to BYU, but I wouldn’t cave.”
Mikkelsen said his Bunkerville neighbor and current USU Director of Admissions Jenn Twist was influential in his decision.
“She’s pretty persuasive,” Mikkelsen said.
Mikkelsen studied civil engineering his first semester, having enjoyed math and worked for an engineering company in high school. He also joined the A-Team, HURD and the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity.
“He was shy when he got here but he was super involved,” Putnam said, “he was everywhere, doing everything.”
After his first semester, Mikkelsen left Utah State for two years to serve an LDS mission in Atlanta, Ga. There he met Jacob Schiess, now a junior in Civil Engineering.
“(Mikkelsen) is definitely a perpetual optimist,” Schiess said. “He lives the values that he shares. He’ll never ask you do something if he’s not willing to do it himself.”
Following in the example of his neighbor, Mikkelsen was influential in recruiting Schiess.
“I went to BYU for a year and a half and he was telling me the whole time to come up here,” Schiess said. “You can place a strong value on anything he says.”
It was his last week in Georgia that Mikkelsen decided he wanted to be student body president, he said. He also realized he no longer wanted to be an engineer.
“I narrowly escaped the field of engineering and switched to business and speech,” Mikkelsen said. “Engineering just wasn’t me anymore. I liked people too much.”
The summer before returning to Utah State to study human resources and speech communications, Mikkelsen sold cable for two months in Atlanta. He then picked up and drove across the country for 40 hours to Spokane, Wash., where he stayed for two months. He said a road trip of that length will “never happen again.”
Mikkelsen came back to USU and threw himself into school with a new fervor.
“He came back and he has really done a good job being involved,” Putnam said.
Mikkelsen said from that point, everything he did was a step toward his goal of ASUSU president.
“I love goals with a passion,” Mikkelsen said.
He began to build a network of friends, from incoming freshman and ambassadors to campus administrators.
“Ever since I came to USU, I’ve had a goal to meet five new people a day,” Mikkelsen said. “It’s been hugely successful.”
He organized a “personal board of directors” for campaign advice.
“My dad is probably the CEO, the captain of the board of directors,” he said.
Mikkelsen experienced leadership as president of Sigma Phi Epsilon last year. He is also an avid reader of leadership and motivational books, his two latest favorites being “Leadership and Self-Deception,” from the Arbinger Institute, and “Orbiting the Giant Hairball” by Gordon MacKenzie.
“(Mikkelsen) knows and understands how important people are,” Putnam said. “He is such a good leader.”
Schiess also vouched for Mikkelsen’s leadership skills.
“(Mikkelsen) goes right to the heart of an issue,” Schiess said. “He’s confident in himself because he really puts a lot of effort into any instruction that he gives … He’s not an argumentative person. In all the time that I’ve known him, no one will believe me, but I’ve never had an argument with him.”
Mikkelsen said he is ready for his new position, but the most difficult part of the job is discerning what exactly students want and need, as everyone is so diverse. He said this is important in order to be fiscally responsible with the students’ money.
“I’m not really scared yet,” he said, “right now I’m good.”
– noelle.johansen@aggiemail.usu.edu