A few brothers will remember. It was the mid-2000s. The mission: a second attempt to “borrow” one of the composites from a local sorority house. The first mission had been a success. However, on this night, Brother Andrew Rolph ’08 and friends weren’t so lucky. The security alarm went off, and they had to quickly find their way out of the house.
“We had a lot of fun,” Andrew describes. “We were really a small chapter — one of the first groups through the fraternity after we re-established. We grew from a 20-man chapter to more than 60. The more we grew, the more opportunities we had to connect and hang out.”
Andrew lived in the house … in 69 and then in Lighthouse. As he describes, 69 was nothing more than a closet, which could only accommodate a queen mattress and a desk. Sharing the house with several brothers named “Andy” meant that they had to figure out how to distinguish one from another. Thus, he became known as “AP” (his first and middle initials) while he was in the house.
Andrew graduated with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in industrial and operations engineering. In 2010, with both degrees completed, he took a job with Westinghouse in Pittsburgh, camping out on the couch in Tom Zak’s (’09) house. After six weeks, he knew the job wasn’t for him. He returned to Michigan where he took a position as the manager of strategy consulting for the P3 Group, a German-owned consulting firm. Later this year, Andrew will complete his MBA at U of M and plans to join the Detroit investment banking firm, Cascade Partners.
With great accomplishments in his career, one would think that Andrew’s greatest achievements would be professional or academic. However, he is certain that his great accomplishment was finding his wife. He and wife, Kristen, attended high school and church together in Waterford, Mich. After leaving Pittsburgh and returning to Michigan, Andrew’s mother encouraged him to return to church. He did, and there was Kristen. They rediscovered their friendship. “Thanks, Mom!” Today, Kristen is a criminal attorney for Legal Aid and the Defenders Association of Detroit.
Andrew and Kristen live in Royal Oak, Mich., about 40 miles north east of Ann Arbor. When not working, Andrew can be found on the water or in the air. As he explains, “If there is a boat, I want to be on it.” He also has his pilot’s license and is part of a flying club. When he can, he makes trips home to watch his little brother, Mikey, play in his eighth-grade football games.
To those undergraduates just now making their way through their U of M adventures, Andrew has a few words of advice: “I took school too seriously. If I were to do it again, relax and have fun.”
