How you answer a question may change the course of not just your own life, but countless lives to come. That’s what happened when Doug Mehlenbacher ’11, originally a chemical engineering major, responded to a College of Natural Resources professor when he asked, “Doug, have you thought about getting a degree in paper science and engineering?”

“At first, I turned up my nose at the idea. I had the attitude of, ‘What does natural resources have to do with me?’” Doug said. “But they sent me a thoughtful letter and a compelling pitch that said I could graduate with a second engineering degree if I gave them an extra semester’s worth of my time — and I could get a full ride for tuition. That changed everything.”    

By embracing the idea, Doug was taking his first step toward an unforeseen career he loved, a woman he would marry and the eventual creation of the Mehlenbacher Family Scholarship with a $50,000 gift. 

Lifting a Burden and Launching a Future

Doug’s parents moved from the Midwest to start a hog farm and raise their two boys in North Carolina. When it was time for college, he knew his parents had been saving for years and weren’t wealthy. He also understood the concept of “opportunity cost.” 

“I think about my parents and the burden of paying for college for two kids, everything they had to give up to save enough money,” Doug said. “So, the idea of lifting half the burden off my parents with a scholarship meant a lot to me.”  

Doug decided to visit a classroom in the Robertson Wing of Biltmore Hall to get a better idea of what it might be like to join the paper science and engineering program. He was hooked, said his wife, Dani.

“All the processes and people and machinery — Doug totally loves all that stuff,” Dani said. “In pulp and paper, he could get great internships. He ended up getting one at Rayonier Advanced Materials, which he liked so much he went to work there right out of college.”

After graduating with degrees in both chemical engineering and paper science and engineering, Doug stayed with Rayonier Advanced Materials (now RYAM), which manufactures and sells cellulose-based products, for nine-and-a-half years. 

Three promotions took Doug from process and quality engineering at RYAM’s pulp mill in Jesup, Georgia, to managing sales, inventory and operations planning at the company’s Florida site in Jacksonville. During this time, he earned an MBA from the University of Florida.

After relocating to Florida, Doug met his future wife. “I played guitar at church, and he introduced himself after he saw me on stage. And the rest is history,” Dani said. “Now we have twin two-year-old boys and are in a solid financial position.”

For the last three years, Doug has been a senior integrated business planning consultant at My Supply Chain Group. Dani, who was most recently employed as a transportation coordinator for Crowley, has taken a break from her career to focus on raising their children.

Paying It Forward To Come Full Circle

Doug was thinking of his boys as future college students — and his own college days — when he broached the idea to Dani of endowing a merit-based scholarship program for paper science and engineering students in the College of Natural Resources.

“My scholarship meant a lot to my whole family,” Doug said. “My brother, Zach (Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management ’15), took some time off before he went to college, and in some ways he had that freedom because I received a scholarship and our parents didn’t have to pay for me.”

Dani gives full credit to Doug for the idea. “We were already giving to NC State, but one day he was talking about a hallway on campus lined with plaques recognizing supporters and students who have received scholarships. Seeing those really inspired him,” she said. “We’re at a point in our lives now where we are stable financially, and we decided that the earlier we could help someone the way Doug was helped, the better.”

“We’ve talked about my career path, but I credit it all to getting a scholarship to go through pulp and paper. I was able to graduate without any debt, and that set me on a path to where, 10 or so years later, we’re creating more scholarships,” Doug said. “It is the least we could do to repay everything I took from my time at NC State, time that laid the groundwork for everything I have become since.

He added, “If there’s anything we want this endowment to represent, it’s the family and support you get here. It’s why we’ve made this investment publicly: We want others to see this as a place worth attending and supporting.”

This article was written by Cindy Dashnaw Jackson for the College of Natural Resources.