Alumni Spotlight: Laramie and UW are Home for UW Alumna

April 19, 2018
head portrait of a woman
Mindy (Teters) Uitterdyk. (Photo by Katie Johnson)

As a teen, the more time Mindy (Teters) Uitterdyk spent in Laramie, the more it felt like home. The youngest of seven, the Rock Springs native didn’t think she’d follow her siblings to college at UW. But the more she visited Laramie to see her sisters, the more she saw that UW could be a perfect fit.

Uitterdyk started off majoring in elementary education. But when she was just a methods class and student teaching stint away, she says, “I panicked and decided to switch to finance.” As she puts it, “I just realized that certain people are meant to be teachers. I admire them tremendously, but maybe I wasn’t one of them.”

Instead, Uitterdyk says, she loved working with numbers, so she started researching the College of Business. That’s when she realized that finance would be a better fit. In 2009, she earned a B.S. as well as a real estate certificate.

As a result of a UW job fair, Uitterdyk was hired by a Fortune 500 company. The job required travel but was based in Laramie. She calls it a “great first job in the real world utilizing my degree and gaining experience.” She was on track to be promoted, then relocated. Once again, she listened to that small voice of “panic.” By then she was married and ready to start a family. “My husband and I decided Laramie was where we wanted to be.”

In 2011, Uitterdyk started researching area companies she liked, including the place where she had an auto loan and a checking account. That was UniWyo Federal Credit Union, which was looking for a marketing specialist. “I loved UniWyo and had been a walking billboard for them already.” Her enthusiasm must have been evident because she got the job, then soon became marketing director, and now is vice president of marketing. She was recently recognized as one of Laramie’s “Top Twenty Under Forty.”

Uitterdyk and her husband, Jason, are members of the UWAA, and UniWyo is the official credit union for UW Athletics. Those are a few reasons Uitterdyk is a driving force behind UniWyo’s annual walking entry in the Homecoming parade. “I’m in charge of getting UniWyo’s name out there, and the Homecoming parade is one way to do that,” she says.

Uitterdyk is proud of her UW roots and is a die-hard fan of the Cowboys and Cowgirls. “We have a 3-year-old and a 6-year old that we’re prepping to be the same,” she says. “We’d be proud of our kids if they also attended UW!”

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