4 Earn ‘Grizzly of the Last Decade’ Honor from UM Alumni Association

UM News Service

MISSOULA – The University of Montana Alumni Association recently honored four exceptional alumni with a 2026 Grizzly of the Last Decade selection. The recognition highlights graduates whose work is making a mark in business, public service, entrepreneurship and innovation.

Each honoree has taken a distinct path, but all have turned their UM education into work that creates a real impact beyond campus. The Grizzly of the Last Decade honors those whose careers demonstrate leadership, purpose and continued connection to UM.

The alumni recipients are:

Alexa Coyle, B.S. Business Management Information Systems and MBA ’20 ’21

Alexa Coyle graduated from UM in 2021 with a bachelor’s degree in business management information systems and a Master of Business Administration. Her career has the quicksilver quality of someone who never quite stopped running, even after the final whistle. At 26, the former record-setting Griz soccer player is the marketing manager for the Seattle Seahawks, where she oversees event marketing, brand marketing at Lumen Field and retail marketing. She reached this position in fewer than four years after graduating college.

While playing professionally in Scotland, Coyle co-founded The Female Edge, a mentorship-driven business that helps young female athletes navigate recruitment and the leap beyond sporting. Her athletic career taught her how to compete, and her post-college work suggests something more durable: how to build a path and then turn back to light it for others.

Bailey Durnell, B.A. Political Science, B.A. Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies, MA Political Science ’19, ’21

Bailey Durnell graduated from UM in 2019 with bachelor’s degrees in political science and women, gender and sexuality studies, and achieved a master’s degree in political science from UM in 2021. Durnell began by making jewelry but has ended up making a civic case for the value of local craft, shared space and women’s economic power.

What started as a graduate-school sideline became Warm House Designs, a business she has led since 2019 and one that has helped define a corner of Missoula’s creative life. Through the Missoula Makers Collective and Making Missoula, the nonprofit she leads, she has built a community that allows other makers to be seen, supported and sustained.

William Lapointe, B.S. Management and Marketing and MBA ’13, ’17

William Lapointe graduated from UM in 2017 with an MBA. In an era when ambitious graduates often leave Montana in search of scale, Lapointe made an argument for staying. He helped turn Pathlabs into a national digital advertising firm without severing its Missoula roots.

As CEO, Lapointe has overseen a company that now employs more than 125 people, manages more than $200 million in annual media spend and has become an engine for UM talent through its YourPath program. He built a business large enough to matter nationally and close enough to matter personally. In Missoula, he has shown that opportunity need not be imported – it can be made in Montana.

Genevieve Lind, B.A. Communication Studies ’06, Ph.D. Neuroscience ’17

Genevieve Lind graduated from UM in 2006 with a bachelor’s degree in communication studies and in 2017 with a Ph.D. in neuroscience. Lind’s trajectory reads like deliberate zigzagging: from communications to neuroscience, from research to policy, from university life to the machinery of federal innovation. She now serves as a senior program manager at the federal Small Business Administration, where she leads national strategy for America’s Seed Fund, a multibillion-dollar research and development portfolio spanning 11 agencies.

After an American Association for the Advancement Science & Technology Policy Fellowship at the National Institutes of Health, Lind moved into leadership roles at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Small Business Association, helping shape programs that support entrepreneurship and climate resilience.

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Contact: Jodi Moreau, UM Alumni Association associate director, 406-243-6124, jodi.moreau@umontana.edu.