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Brooke VanRosendael, BSBA ’17, MSA ’20 (center), wasn’t born until 50 years after the allied invasion of Normandy, but this June she got to relive that historic campaign as part of celebrations marking the 80th anniversary of D-Day. A company commander in the US Army Reserve and a certified jumpmaster, she joined scores of other US service members who parachuted into the Normandy countryside—in broad daylight, unlike WWII paratroopers who had to make the jump by night in support of the amphibious invasion at daybreak.
“To be there and actually talk to the survivors and the families of survivors, it's a feeling like no other,” she says. “You finally get to kind of comprehend the sacrifice that was made, because you’re standing on Omaha Beach.”
For the past several years, VanRosendael has combined her Army Reserve service with her work as a management consultant at PwC. Pulling double shifts is nothing new for the 2023 10 Under 10 honoree, who completed her graduate degree in accounting while she was deployed. Next up: Studying for her MBA at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business this fall.
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fall 2024
Photographs: courtesy of Brooke VanRosendael
By Ben Hall
