Point Out Loud: Women Trailblazers

Cheryl Schreier '79, is a retired Superintendent of Mount Rushmore National Memorial and passionate advocate for the protection of national parks and natural resources. She has worked at 10 different national park units throughout her career, and now serves as a member of the Midwest Regional Advisory Council for the National Parks and Conservation Association and Vice President of the Executive C...

Tracy is the author of Wild Hair, A Courageous Woman’s Guide to a Bold and Authentic Career where she shares her no-nonsense, empowering lessons on how women can use the power of authentic choice to create the career they love. Tracy is a genuine, passionate, and compelling speaker on the topics of authenticity, leadership, women and career, and diversity and inclusion.

Lark Lewis (she/her) is based in Washington, D.C. (but originally from Stevens Point) where she works in content and digital strategy, currently as the Senior Manager, Creative & Digital Strategies at the National Women's Law Center. She was a founding board member of Uplift and considers herself a vocal and passionate advocate for women and women's rights. Outside of her work and advocacy, sh...

Angie Heuck, Uplift founder and director, is a champion of women’s rights, empowerment and encouragement. After stepping away from a career in strategic communications and foundation management, Angie founded Uplift after seeing individual need for direct financial assistance and witnessing three women in her own life experience crisis. Named Portage County Business Council’s Entrepreneur of the Y...

Pratima Gandhi, vice chancellor for Business Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, is a financial officer with 20 years of academic experience. Gandhi began her role as UW-Stevens Point’s chief financial officer in June 2020 after serving as the chief financial officer and treasurer at Bradley University in Peoria, Ill., since 1993. While at Bradley, she provided leadership and ope...

Nerissa Nelson is a librarian/professor at UWSP with over 30 years in the library profession in corporate and academic settings. At UWSP, she has served in shared governance leadership roles and is an active member of the AFT-affiliated faculty/academic staff union, SPARC. Previously, Nerissa coordinated the Women’s & Gender Studies program at UWSP for three years and served on its advisory co...

Sarah Ross joined the Community Foundation of Central Wisconsin in 2023 as the Director of the Women’s Fund of Portage County. She works with a dedicated volunteer advisory board to build grant-making programs that support local non-profit organizations that center Portage County women and issues important to women. Philanthropy is a career shift for Sarah and is in response to the incredible supp...

I am a working artist, an art fair exhibitor, an encaustic workshop instructor, owner of Buzz in Art Studios, a mural artist, and an art event planner. My first year of college, I stumbled across the book about ancient funeral portraits that were painted with beeswax titled “The Mysterious Fayum Portraits: Faces from Ancient Egypt” by Euphrosyne Doxiadis.  I became fascinated by the lost art of en...