2012 GLCI grad opens two Frankfort restaurants in four years
2012 GREAT LAKES CULINARY INSTITUTE GRADUATE NATALIE CRAWFORD AND HER HUSBAND NICK OPENED BIRCH & MAPLE IN FRANKFORT IN 2018.
CHEF NATALIE CRAWFORDand her sommelier husband Nick were trying to choose a name for their frst restaurant together while hiking in Benzie County’s Green Point Dunes.
They hung up their hammocks to take a break. While talking it over, they noticed they’d chosen a birch and a maple tree for their hammocks.
Thus was born Birch & Maple, the Frankfort establishment where Natalie’s created a menu of “elevated comfort food” and Nick handles all things beverage. Customers have responded so enthusiastically since the doors opened in 2018 that the couple is now poised to open a second restaurant, Dos Arboles, a taco and tequila bar, next door.
Crawford, 34, who worked at three different restaurants in Colorado, where she met Nick, uses lessons from the Great Lakes Culinary Institute daily. Keeping an immaculate kitchen, as preached by former director Fred Laughlin, and the recipe template from Chef Joel Papcun, are two foundational ones.
YUM YUM SAUCE
THE YUM YUM SAUCE APPEARS HERE OVER BRAISED SHORT RIBS, BUT IS VERSATILE OVER MANY PROTEINS.
1 1/4 cup tamari
1 1/2 cup rice wine vinegar
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup scallions sliced as circle
1 tbsp red pepper flakes
1 1/4 fl oz sweet Thai chili sauce
1 1/4 tbspsesame oil
1/2 tbsp fish sauce
6 cloves garlic, minced fine
2 tbsp cilantro, chiffonade fine
3 tbsp ginger, peeled and minced fine
Mix all ingredients together in Cambro. Let sit overnight before portioning into quarts.
Make sure to portion all the goodies evenly when putting into quarts.
“I try to take kind of humble ingredients and turn it into something exquisite,” she said. The menu changes four times a year, to take advantage of seasonal ingredients. Meanwhile, Nick, 36, crafts cocktails and a wine list that complements his wife’s menu.
They’ve thrown themselves into serving Frankfort. That’s meant sleeping on Birch & Maple booths and opening at 4 a.m. to serve Ironman competitors, adapting their menu to be takeaway-friendly during COVID-19, and cultivating an employee-driven culture that includes one fellow GLCI alumnus and even staff housing inside Dos Arboles.
“We want to be in this industry. We love hospitality. We’re lifers,” Crawford said.
ALUMNI NOTES
2021 OUTSTANDING ALUMNI SELECTED
Established in 1988, Outstanding Alumni are chosen for their professional achievements and/or leadership in the local or global community.
ALEX BRACE
Engineering 2017: Since NMC, Brace earned his bachelor’s in engineering at the University of Michigan and has begun PhD studies at the University of Chicago. As part of research teams at Oak Ridge and Argonne National Laboratories, he has been applying artifcial intelligence to molecular biophysics. This work led to his team winning the 2020 Gordon Bell Prize for discoveries related to the infection of human cells by the COVID-19 virus, bridging computational studies with experimental biology.
DR. AMANDA KIESSEL
1995: Post-NMC, Kiessel studied at Boston University, Brandeis and the University of California, Santa Cruz, completing her PhD in agroecology and sustainable food systems. Kiessel helped co-create the Good Market, a platform of social enterprises and responsible businesses that started in Sri Lanka and moved online in 2016. It now features businesses, cooperatives and community organizations from more than 70 countries, including many fromnorthern Michigan.
DR. CLIFFORD MCCLAIN
Associate in Arts 1971: Following NMC, McClain received degrees from the University of Idaho and a PhD from the University of Nebraska. As a career and technical educator, he taught and led state programs in Wyoming, Nebraska and Idaho, and was on the faculty of University of Nevada-Las Vegas from 1988-2015. He authored nearly 150 publications and presentations, and was honored as the 2015-16 Career and Technical Postsecondary Educator of the Year.
CINDY WARNER
1980-1983: An executive technology leader, Warner has spent her career applying technologies to solve operational challenges in global enterprises. She has worked at IBM and FedEx and has served as an advisor to GE, Microsoft and HP, among other Global 1000 clients. Throughout her career, Warner has maintained a commitment to get women into technology. She currently serves on the Michigan Strategic Fund within the Michigan Economic Development Corp., investing in the future of work in Michigan.
PHOTO COURTESY OF TODD AND BRAD REED PHOTOGRAPHY
TODD REED
Arts 1969, published Todd Reed: 50 Years Seeing Michigan Through A Lens. In his half-century of photography, Reed has shot more than one million photos all over the state and his retrospective photography art book explores Michigan’s beauty through his eyes. Reed’s work can be seen everywhere from ArtPrize in Grand Rapids (he has exhibited 10 times) to Pure Michigan billboards throughout the Midwest to the gallery he operates with son Brad Reed in Ludington.
TRAVIS HOUSE
Law Enforcement 1997, was appointed commander of the Michigan State Police Cadillac post. He will also be responsible for the Traverse City Detachment. The two regions jointly serve the people of Wexford, Manistee, Benzie, Leelanau and Grand Traverse counties. House joined the MSP in 1998 and has held the ranks of trooper, sergeant, detective sergeant, specialist lieutenant, and first lieutenant.
DR. ANDREA KRITCHER
2001-02, was the team lead at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Cal., which in summer 2021 made an important fusion breakthrough that could open up the possibility of limitless, clean energy. Her team yielded a record-breaking burst of energy of more than 10 quadrillion watts using a ground-breaking method of creating nuclear fusion.
After NMC, Kritcher earned a degree in nuclear engineering and radiological science from the University of Michigan. She completed her masters and PhD at the University of California at Berkeley in nuclear engineering and high-energy density plasma physics.
ELIAS DE ANDRADE JR.
Arts & Sciences 2008, was named executive director of the Texas-based Institute of Space Commerce. Originally from Recife, Brazil, de Andrade’s career in space started in 2012 as Brazilian diplomatic delegate at the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. After NMC, he graduated from the University of Vienna and International Space University.
NATALIE HOLLABAUGH
Education 2010, earned a law degree from Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Ore., in May 2021 and passed the Oregon bar exam in July 2021. She was named as a 2021 fellow by Equal Justice Works, a Washington DC-based organization that facilitates opportunities for law students and lawyers to engage in public service. Hollabaugh will work in Oregon to reduce youth entanglement in the criminal justice system by providing tools for self-advocacy, empowering system-involved youth, and ensuring pro bono access to reduce barriers.
KRISTA FRYCZYNSKI
Law Enforcement 2019, an offcer with the Traverse City Police Department, was named the LGBTQ liaison as part of a proactive effort to build on and strengthen the relationship between the LGBTQ community and the department. She is pictured with Traverse City Police Chief Jeff O’Brien, a 1991 alumnus.
NOAH BYTWERK AND TIA LEHMANN
both Maritime 2021, were hired as engineers aboard the R/V Oceanus, a research vessel owned by the National Science Foundation and operated by Oregon State University. Equipped for up to 30 days at sea, Oceanus covers the eastern Pacific Ocean, with trips ranging from the Bering Sea in the north to the equator in the south and as far west as Hawaii.
Know someone you would like to nominate? Visit nmc.edu/alumni for more information and a nomination form. Nominations received by March 1, 2022 will be considered for 2022 recognition.
Share your alumni news by emailing alumni@nmc.edu
DRAKE’S DISCIPLES
MATH TEACHER'S PROTÉGÉ PUPILS FOLLOW IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF HIS HALF-CENTURY CAREER AT NMC
JASON TEICHMAN (LEFT) AND STEVE DRAKE (RIGHT). JASON WAS ONE OF STEVE'S STUDENTS AT NMC IN 1999 AND EVENTUALLY FOLLOWED HIS MENTOR ONTO THE FACULTY. TEICHMAN JOKES DRAKE “EVEN TAUGHT ME HOW TO DRESS".
As the first NMC faculty member to attain the 50-year teaching milestone, you might say math instructor Steve Drake has had a multiplier effect.
At least six current NMC math faculty members had him as a teacher. So did a former math department chairman at Traverse City West High School. Even a professor who’s gone on to dual positions at both Harvard and Washington University in St. Louis.
“I TOOK THAT CLASS WITH STEVE AND IN THE FIRST WEEK, I KNEW WHAT I WANTED TO DO WITH THE REST OF MY LIFE."
Drake’s disciples tell a similar story of an instructor both respected and liked, who not only has a mastery of the material, but has mastered presenting a subject that often challenges students, and who, at 79, still enjoys going to work.
“He truly made me love math. I had a very hard time in school with math, and he changed the entire way I thought about math,” says Liberty Vittert, a visiting statistics professor at Harvard University, who had Drake in 2005.
“Most people think (math) is a thing they’ve got to get past,” says NMC adjunct instructor Jason Teichman, who first took a class from Drake in the summer of 1999.
“I THINK ABOUT PROFESSOR DRAKE AND REMEMBER THAT THERE IS ALWAYS A WAY TO TEACH SOMEONE."
LIBERTY VITTERT, 2005 DRAKE STUDENT
“You have to change the thinking. Drake did that a lot for us.”
Back in 1999, Teichman was enrolled in NMC’s Police Academy and aspired to a career in high-level law enforcement, like the FBI or the DEA.
“My whole goal was to be a federal agent,” Teichman says. “I took that class with Steve, and in the first week, I knew what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.”
Law enforcement was out. Teaching was in. Teichman went on to earn a bachelor’s in math from Ferris State University and taught as an adjunct at NMC from 2001-2012. In 2007 he won the Adjunct Faculty Excellence award, the counterpart to a faculty excellence award that Drake’s received twice. Teichman left NMC for a few years and earned his master’s in physics, then rejoined the adjunct faculty in 2018. Now 50, he still considers himself a protégé of Drake.
“I always hoped I’d have the kind of effect that Steve had on me,” he says.
“STEVE WAS SO WELL-LIKED BY HIS STUDENTS, BUT IT WAS BECAUSE HE EARNED THEIR RESPECT.”
“He was just so good,” agrees Diana Lyon-Schumacher, the retired Traverse City West High School math instructor. She had Drake when she attended NMC between 1975-78. At the time she thought she might become an accountant, but Drake helped change her trajectory, too.
“I like to think that I followed in his footsteps, of being that type of teacher that the kids always talked about,” Lyon-Schumacher says. “Steve was so well-liked by his students, but it was because he earned their respect.”
In her 39-year career, Lyon-Schumacher taught everything from remedial math to advanced placement classes. Drake, she says, modeled making math accessible for all students.
DIANA LYON SCHUMACHER, 1975 DRAKE STUDENT
“Everybody can do math,” she says. “The best teachers can reach all kids, not just teach to the high-level kids that are good in math.”
“Whenever a student doesn’t understand what I am teaching, I think about Professor Drake and remember that there is always a way to teach someone,” said Vittert, who is also editor of the Harvard Data Science Review and a visiting assistant professor at Washington University in St. Louis. “He allowed me to think about a problem the way I was able to think about it, found different ways for me to understand it and inevitably solve it.”
Drake will complete his 51st year in an NMC classroom this spring.