October 25, 2025
Long ago Andrew was a young environmental engineer working at an employee-owned global consulting firm CH2M HILL. By the end of 1996 Andrew found himself pulled in two directions, as an emerging artist and an engineer, and made the difficult choice to turn away from a stable career into these past three-decades as a self managed independent artist. He's kept lots of ties with friends across the country from those days of course, and kept tabs on his old firm whose motto was “do good work, and do good works” up until their sale a few years ago.
Last year a group of longtime CH2M HILL employees started an Alumni Association, in part to help continue the traditions of helping support alumni doing good works in their communities. We are thrilled that Andrew along with Mack Bailey, the Executive Director of Music Therapy Retreats, have been awarded a CHAA Legacy Gift Fund Pay-it-Forward Project Grant to support their work helping veterans and trauma survivors find healing through the power of music therapy. The Alumni Association announced the grant award in their newsletter:
Music Therapy Retreats is a 501c3 non-profit formed in 2019 that provides evidence-based music therapy practices to support veterans and other people who experience post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It is an approved provider of continuing education for music therapists through the Certification Board of Music Therapists. Its mission is to help heal those who have experienced trauma. Three-day music therapy retreats, at no cost to the participants, so they can gain mental wellness through the power of music. The retreat approach helps people identify triggers, learn coping skills for self-regulation, and reframe lived experiences.
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