A version of this story appears in the Spring 2015 issue of Kettering Magazine

At a glance, Donna Kostiuk Ray ’79's life story tells itself like an impromptu journey filled with adventure, longing for a greater purpose and the pursuit of selfless service. 

However, Ray will be the first one to emphasize that her life wasn’t scripted that way, nor does it feel all that grand. Quite the opposite, there was period from 1992 to 1994 when it was filled with tension, nervous uncertainty and fledgling family issues in the state of Missouri.

“I don’t think I ever had a plan,” Ray said. “Opportunities and situations presented themselves, so off we went. My husband and I probably would’ve stayed in Washington and the Portland area if it hadn’t been for the family situation in Missouri.”

While tending to a family emergency, Ray’s own marriage to her husband of now 25 years was challenged and it was that struggle that led her down a path that she had not traveled since childhood – the path back to Church.

Donna Ray '79 with Carol Goodman '79.

“In Missouri was when my life started changing.  It was the beginning of a wonderful relationship with God,” Ray said.

The Capitalist Years

Ray describes her former and current self as a “good capitalist” but after Missouri the degree to which she chased her own personal financial kingdom significantly diminished.

Ray grew up in Livonia, Michigan, the daughter of an automaker, and it was her family background that led her to Kettering University in the mid-1970s.

“My father worked for over 35 years at the Fisher Body-Fleetwood plant of General Motors. He said I should apply to GMI, so I did. He said I should go, so I did,” Ray said.

Ray graduated from Kettering in 1979 with a degree in Industrial Administration. She completed her co-op at Fisher Body Fleetwood (a Cadillac body assembly plant in Detroit) and returned to work there after graduation.  Shortly after starting her career, Ray received a General Motors Fellowship to complete her masters in business administration at the University of Chicago (now Chicago Booth).

“At the time I wanted to go for my MBA and it was an honor to receive the fellowship,” Ray said.

Ray returned to Fisher Body’s Tech Center in Warren after completing graduate school but was eager to exchange her “rust belt” upbringing and career into something resembling the “sun belt.” Her inspiration for doing so came from the renowned economics book Megatrends by John Naisbitt that was published in 1982 and became a world-wide phenomenon shortly thereafter.

“I read it and it really prompted me to move from the rust belt to the sunbelt,” Ray said. “At that time, Fisher Body was being absorbed and there was uncertainty about my position and my entire division.”

In 1984, Ray left the Midwest to go work as a quality manager for Penn Athletic Company (then a division of General Tire and Rubber) – a tennis ball manufacturer – in Phoenix, Arizona. Within months of her arrival, the company began consolidating and relocating which prompted her to pursue an opportunity with Oregon Steel Mills in Portland, Oregon.

“Oregon Steel Mills was a “mini mill” which melted scrap metal in small batches to produce steel plate,” Ray said. “With the addition of alloys and heat treating, specialty steel, such as armor plate used in military vehicles and gas pipeline plate, was manufactured.”

From 1984 to 1991, Ray worked for Oregon Steel Mills. She met her husband there and fell in love with him and the area.   

“I love the Portland area because it has a moderate climate, yet it is so close to both the Pacific Ocean and Cascade Mountain range,” Ray said.

In 1991, despite the depressed economic situation in the Pacific Northwest at the time, Ray and her husband experienced a once in a lifetime shift in their fortunes – Oregon Steel Mills went public which led both Ray and her husband to an early retirement. However, it was in their retirement where the focus of their lives shifted.   

A Nomadic Life of Service

From 1992 to 1994, Ray and her husband moved back to Missouri to tend to a family emergency and in the process, they both rediscovered their faith which also stamped their zeal for adventure and service.

While living in Missouri, the Rays attended a wedding in Alaska and it was on this trip where they fell in love with the vastness of the State.

“It’s the wild outdoors. It’s untamed. It’s free,” Ray said.  “And it’s huge. Everything is huge. Imagine the most majestic mountain you have ever seen, then imagine 100 of them side-by-side. That’s Alaska. Living in rural Alaska instills the pioneer spirit, where the great outdoors isn’t only scenery, it’s your grocery store as well.”

Ray and her family moved to Alaska in 1994 and resided there until 1999. During their time there, they continued to grow in their faith which prompted a calling to Costa Rica in 1999. For three years, Ray and her husband helped build and grow two churches in Costa Rica.

“It was a little too hot for my husband but I, myself, needed a sweater if the temperature dropped below 80 degrees,” Ray said. “We left in 2002 and came back to the States. We still had some real estate in the state of Washington, outside of Portland, so we decided to return there.”

For the next three years, the Rays resided in southwest Washington, a place she always loved and imagined settling in after leaving her upbringing in the midwest. But due to circumstances outside of her control, they would be uprooted once again. 

Serving in New Orleans Post-Katrina

In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina ravaged the shores of New Orleans, Louisiana. The scale of the destruction was unimaginable and it prompted empathetic responses from citizens all over the country. The Rays responded by packing up and heading to the site of the disaster.

“We actually drove an RV into New Orleans and stayed on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain, because there was electricity there,” Ray said.

Ray and her husband were there for a year-and-a-half assisting in the recovery and rebuilding process. Through their work, they met with those who, although had survived the disaster, had lost parts of their lives in the process.

“It’s a very eerie feeling when you walk into a house and the entire ground level is filled with black mold, the furniture has floated into strange configurations, blocking doors and windows, and when you go into the attic, you can tell that people were living there, waiting to be rescued.” Ray said. “It’s easy to understand why so many people never returned.”

Ray recalls being disheartened by seeing openings in roofs where residents were literally trying to escape from their own houses in the middle of the flood. The conversations Ray had with individuals in New Orleans still linger with and guide her decision-making today.

“We talked to nurses who had to make difficult decisions with limited resources and they didn’t want to return to the medical profession,“ Ray said. “It was a life changing experience for anyone who was down there.”

Back to Alaska

After a two year stint in Florida, in 2008, Ray’s husband received an offer to pastor a Church in the northernmost municipality in the United States -- Barrow, Alaska. The only paved road in the entire town is the airport runway. There are no stoplights, one bank, one major grocery store and one gas station.

“It’s outrageously cold and windy and the sun goes down for over 60 days in the winter,” Ray said. “It’s a barren place. People go up there and are culture shocked.”

In February 2009, the Arctic Slope Native Association, a non-profit organization focused on Alaska Native health care and social services, offered Ray an opportunity to work in their finance department. The job marked her first paid employment since 1991. Ray worked in Barrow until 2012 after which she received an opportunity to be the Chief Financial Officer at Kawerak Inc. in Nome, Alaska.

“I was really sad when we left Barrow,” Ray said. “I loved the company I worked for. I loved the Inupiaq people. I loved the people in the Church. God had given me a heart to serve them. However, it has been nice living in a warmer and sunnier climate since Nome is below the Arctic Circle.”  

Kawerak is an organization that provides services within the Bering Strait Region, where individuals of Inupiaq, Yupik and Siberian Yupik decent reside. The organization provides education, transportation, natural resource management and economic development services to the region.

Ray works at Kawerak to this day but is also simultaneously looking into the future as she approaches the legal retirement age. This time, for her next move, she’s considering places with department stores and strip malls and maybe some place warm as well.

“I certainly don’t see it as amazing,” said Ray about her journey to her current position in Nome. “I have  friends who have put their 30 years in and are retired, but I don’t have any regrets whatsoever. My husband and I have seen a lot of places, done a lot of things, made a lot of friends and have grown together as one. Can’t beat that.”