“I have a lot of spreadsheets that I use. [Some are] even for work,” says Dennis Nelson, a senior accountant in the College of Science and Engineering’s Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics (AEM) department. Dennis has a spreadsheet for everything, including his vacation time accrual. Spreadsheets help him “to figure stuff out, to capture data.”
Dennis has always had a mind for math, though he wanted to be an architect when he was young. “But that was probably because I was watching too much of This Old House when I was a kid.” Luckily for AEM, his parents saw his mathematical abilities and encouraged him to pursue accounting.
Career Path Detour
However, the road to University accounting had a few twists. Dennis was pursuing an undergraduate degree at the U of M’s Twin Cities campus when he stopped his studies to support his growing family. “I told my son when he was born that I was going to graduate from college before he graduated from high school.”
Dennis worked his way from grocery stores to sales, representing companies including Frito-Lay and Nabisco. Eventually, a job loss led him to work in human resources at Minneapolis College, where he used his state benefits to earn an associate’s degree at Century College. But he still had a bachelor’s in his sights, which spurred him to enroll in a U of M class in January 2012.
“That Fits Me to a T”
A few months after starting the class, Dennis was doing competitor research on the U of M’s career site to help inform Minneapolis College’s talent acquisition strategy. He wasn’t even considering looking for a job, but a payroll position caught his eye. “I’m like, ‘that fits me to a T,’” says Dennis of the posting. “It kind of fell into my lap.” He applied, interviewed, and started his new job on Tax Day 2013. (When asked what year he had started, he says, “Let me look at my spreadsheet.”)
Dennis took the rest of the classes toward his bachelor’s using the Regents Tuition Benefit Program, which covered 100% of the credit costs. He graduated in December 2014, six months before his oldest graduated from high school.
More than ten years later, Dennis is still working at the University. He started in central payroll, moved to the College of Liberal Arts, then to the College of Continuing and Professional Studies before landing in AEM in 2022. As an accountant in AEM, he works primarily with pre- and post-award grant administration, currently managing 45 awards with about $10 million in funding. His job also touches on payroll accounting, which Dennis loves. “Payroll accounting always struck me as something that wasn’t easy, but I could figure things out.”
Dennis appreciates the benefits of working at the University, such as reduced season ticket pricing for Gopher men’s hockey and football games, as well as his pension plan. “I’m taken care of.”
A Workplace With History and Impact
AEM is housed in Akerman Hall, which used to house actual airplanes. While the former airplane hangar area has been repurposed as an atrium, visitors can still see that the entryway windows used to be large doors. The atrium also has spacecraft artifacts on display. Dennis’s office in Akerman Hall boasts plenty of natural light from large antique-style windows. It’s decorated with Gopher memorabilia, family photos, and space-themed balloons from AEM’s graduation ceremony.
“I punch numbers,” says Dennis. “I get to build spreadsheets, but I [usually] don’t see what I do.” In AEM, he sees his accounting turn into award-winning research, Minnesota Space Grant Consortium rocket launches, and more. “It’s nice seeing our work pay off.”