This month’s Hero Award recipients are (from left) Bobby Stilwell, software support analyst for Information Technology Services; Allison Heimsath, associate director for first-time college recruitment in the Office of Admissions; and Mike Seper, director of the Office of IP Management and Commercialization. (Photos by Derik Holtmann)
University of Missouri–St. Louis Chancellor Kristin Sobolik and her cabinet continue to recognize the exemplary efforts of staff and faculty members from across campus by bestowing the UMSL Hero Award on up to three individuals each month.
This month’s honorees are Bobby Stilwell, software support analyst for Information Technology Services; Allison Heimsath, associate director for first-time college recruitment in the Office of Admissions; and Mike Seper, director of the Office of IP Management and Commercialization.
Bobby Stilwell
Had life gone a bit differently for Stilwell, he might be forecasting pop-up storms rather than fixing the technological storms that pop up across campus.
A Bethalto, Illinois, native, Stilwell graduated from Saint Louis University in May 2018 with a degree in meteorology and a minor in communications. Heavily involved in numerous formats of student media at SLU, Stilwell was hired as a digital meteorologist at WHNT-TV in Huntsville, Alabama. The station was sold shortly after he arrived in October 2018, and with the ensuing change in management came a change in Stilwell’s duties.
“I never got to be the digital meteorologist like they wanted me to be, but I did do literally everything else behind the scenes,” Stilwell said.
That, Stilwell noted, included an unofficial role as the information technology specialist on weekend mornings at WHNT-TV, troubleshooting issues for his colleagues as best as he could. But after about four years with the station, Stilwell decided he was ready for a new challenge, and with his interest in computers, Stilwell started sending out applications for openings in the IT industry.
“I think what draws me to tech is the problem-solving aspect of it,” Stilwell said. “It makes me think, ‘What is the solution? No matter how goofy it is, what’s the solution to fix this ongoing problem?’”
Laura Patterson, associate director of UMSL’s Technology Support Center, was intrigued by Stilwell’s problem-solving nature, and he was hired to join the Help Desk in October 2022. Then about year ago, Stilwell was promoted to software support analyst, managing single-user machines that are issued to UMSL’s faculty and staff, as well as any iMacs used in classrooms or computing labs.
“Basically, I’m the last line of defense if something goes wrong in Apple land,” Stilwell said.
Stilwell has done his job when few even realize there was a job to be done. But while acknowledging Stilwell “for his helping all of us Mac users,” Steven J. Berberich, UMSL’s provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs, stressed that Stilwell’s impact on campus goes beyond simply resolving technical issues.
“Bobby is proactive, innovative and deeply committed to continuously improving the quality and reliability of support services,” Berberich said. “Through his dedication, responsiveness and willingness to go above and beyond his role, he ensures that faculty, staff and students can focus on teaching, learning and research without disruption. Bobby’s efforts strongly reflect UMSL’s core values of trust, innovation and success, making him exceptionally deserving of this recognition.”
Stilwell, who is currently working on a master’s degree in information systems at UMSL, with a target graduation date of December 2027, said he got the email indicating that he was one of the latest recipients of the UMSL Hero Award on April 1, so naturally, he figured it must be “a very cruel April Fool’s joke.”
“I often sit behind the scenes and don’t get recognized too often, except within ITS exclusively, or occasionally somebody sees me on campus and thanks me for fixing a problem or something,” Stilwell said. “But it really is nice to kind of get a higher level of recognition, and when I found out it was the provost that nominated me, of all people, I was even more honored.”
Allison Heimsath
Heimsath didn’t set out to build a career in higher education. In fact, her path began in a different, but perhaps not entirely unrelated, field: hospitality. What ties it all together, however, is something much simpler.
“I love people,” Heimsath said. “That’s just the core of everything.”
That philosophy has guided Heimsath from her time as a student at Missouri State University to her current role at UMSL, where she has become a familiar and trusted presence for students navigating one of the most important transitions of their lives. It’s a role that feels deeply personal for Heimsath, who as a first-generation college student knows how meaningful it can be to have someone there to help navigate the process.
“I had great leaders when I went through orientation, people who really helped me and who I really admire,” Heimsath said. “So now, being able to be on the other side of that, hopefully I get to impact students even just the tiniest bit like they impacted me.”
While completing her bachelor’s degree in hospitality in 2020, Heimsath studied abroad in Barcelona, where she examined the impacts of mass tourism on the city. It was an experience that broadened her perspective, both academically and personally, and it reinforced her interest in working with people from diverse backgrounds.
Heimsath also found herself drawn to roles that centered on helping others get through their own college journeys. As a student, she worked with peers interested in studying abroad and served as an orientation leader for two summers, helping incoming freshmen adjust to campus life.
“I don’t know if I would have completed college without having people there to help me,” Heimsath said. “Now that I get to be that person in students’ lives, it’s very special to me.”
After graduating, Heimsath spent time working in hotels and retail sales, but she ultimately realized she wanted something more closely aligned with her passion for connection and impact. That opportunity came when she saw a job listing in the summer of 2023 for assistant director of first-time college recruitment at UMSL, and though she was nervous about making her trip to campus for the interview, Heimsath said from the start, there was something about UMSL that just seemed right.
“I honestly felt a completely natural fit, just researching the students that come here and where they come from and how we can help them,” said Heimsath, who also decided to pursue her MBA from UMSL and is a few weeks shy of graduation. “As I was making my presentation for the interview, it felt super natural, and I really did feel like it fit.”
Heimsath, who was promoted to associate director of recruitment in February 2025, said she’s grateful to work in the supportive, collaborative environment cultivated by Vice Chancellor for Strategic Enrollment and Career Advancement Reggie Hill and Executive Director of Enrollment Management Megan Green Simonds.
“I would not be able to do what I do without the support of the amazing team and leadership here,” she said.
In her nomination, Corlia Spears, a former enrollment coordinator with the University Advising Center, called Heimsath “the embodiment of what it means to be an UMSL Hero,” touting her role in growing FTC and Honors College enrollment, recruiting both domestic and international students and collaborating with campus leaders to ensure student needs are met. Spears also cited Heimsath’s support for students in pursuit of leadership opportunities, internships and study abroad programs.
“Allison’s journey has come full circle: what once inspired her, she now pays forward,” Spears wrote. “Whether she’s guiding students through the admissions process, mentoring first-gen students, or helping women navigate their academic and professional goals, Allison leads with empathy and care. She’s a reliable and compassionate presence for so many, and her impact is felt across campus.”
Mike Seper
Seper has always been driven by a desire to create solutions for life’s challenges. Now, he’s giving UMSL researchers a pathway to do the same.
As the director of UMSL’s Office of IP Management and Commercialization, Seper works at the intersection of research and real-world impact, leading the effort to turn Triton ideas into innovations that can benefit society. He oversees the university’s patent portfolio while guiding faculty and students through the process of identifying, protecting and advancing their discoveries. From encouraging invention disclosures to filing patents, he plays a key role in helping researchers translate their work into viable technologies and connecting those innovations with the people and industries that can put them to use.
“I’m really excited to be contributing to the great innovation happening at UMSL, supporting innovation in the St. Louis community and helping students prepare for the future with skills in innovation, AI and entrepreneurship,” Seper said.
A St. Louis native who grew up near the Hill neighborhood, Seper said he was always creating new ideas in his book of inventions as a kid. While studying engineering at Missouri S&T, Seper developed and later marketed a color-changing chemical cold pack designed for sports application.
“Studying engineering was great, but I wanted to be able to build something, build a business, build things to help others that I can get excited about,” Seper said.
Seper left Rolla and took online courses through UMSL and the University of Missouri–Columbia while he continued to work on his cold pack business. Spurred largely by a lifelong fascination with Japan and the Hawaiian Islands, he transferred to the University of Hawaii. Finding that the school’s existing degree programs weren’t entirely aligned with his ambitions, he went through the process to create a new major focused on innovation and entrepreneurship that became the Bachelor of Business Administration in Entrepreneurship program. Seper also revitalized a dormant Entrepreneurship Club that he said has become one of the bigger clubs on campus.
“I am happy I was able to contribute to innovation and entrepreneurship at UH years ago, and it is awesome to see the excitement and support for innovators in Hawaii,” Seper said.
After earning his bachelor’s degree, Seper stayed in Hawaii to begin working on his MBA. He got a job with ESPN as part of a team that executed events in Hawaii, such as the Sheraton Hawaii Bowl, then fulfilled his dream of going to Japan, and lived in Nagano for about six months while teaching English and traveling around the country. Upon his return to St. Louis, Seper – inspired by a childhood friend battling leukemia – took a role organizing blood drives with the American Red Cross.
Through the 2010s, Seper continued his journey into innovation and entrepreneurship, owning a zipline facility near Hermann, Missouri, and developing a proprietary braking system while completing his MBA online through the University of Alaska–Fairbanks. Seper also participated as Entrepreneurial Lead with the National Science Foundation Innovation Corps program, and he was an associate director and NSF I-Corps St. Louis site director at the Skandalaris Center for Interdisciplinary Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Washington University in St. Louis.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Seper went through a program with the Department of Defense called the National Security Innovation Network Defense Innovation Accelerator. That led to roles supporting innovation as the university program director at WashU and the regional engagement principal with the Defense Innovation Unit, building an innovation network across the Midwest and teaching classes on innovation at WashU.
Seper took his current role at UMSL last August, and he has already made a significant impact, working with university researchers to turn what they are developing into patentable technologies that can benefit society. Seper has also organized campus-wide lunch-and-learn events to showcase innovation and collaboration at UMSL, including a vibe coding workshop designed to expose students, faculty and staff to an emerging approach to software development utilizing artificial intelligence. Seper also helped coordinate a collaborative partnership between UMSL’s School of Engineering and Elevate, an Airmen-led hub of the 375th Air Mobility Wing’s Innovation Office at Scott Air Force Base, to host a robotics demonstration for students, staff and faculty at the UMSL Innovation Center.
“This collaboration supports the School of Engineering’s goal of experiential learning by providing students with concrete examples of how they can partner with industry to apply the concepts they are learning at UMSL,” said Justin Roberts, vice chancellor for marketing and communication, in his nomination of Seper for the Hero Award.
Seper gave all the credit of this award to Vice Chancellor Chris Spilling and UMSL’s Office of Research, Economic and Community Development team for providing support to the amazing researchers at UMSL, and he expressed his gratitude to be part of an outstanding team that is dedicated to advancing research, economic development and innovation on campus and in the community.
