Danae McNamara-Phillips crosses the stage, closes one chapter and opens another

BY KELLI MCKEE

Contributing Writer

After years of long nights, early mornings and unexpected obstacles, Danae McNamara-Phillips will soon walk the stage at Tarleton State University, earning a degree she could only once imagine. 

She started a little ahead, taking college courses at only sixteen years old. She began college as a sophomore, finished her associate’s degree, then moved to Texas to pursue her career at Tarleton. 

McNamara-Phillips spent years being homeschooled in Stevensville, Montana. Once starting her college career, she chose the degree plan to become a hydrogeologist. Now, she is on her way to graduate and join a master’s program at Baylor University at 28 years old.

“I actually chose my major by listening to a podcast while I was working my second job that day, and they were interviewing this guy that was actually a software engineer. He was talking about some sort of system that was made to monitor groundwater wells,” McNamara-Phillips said. “They made the system work in a way where they could monitor the water quality and production constantly instead of waiting till it breaks and people don’t have water again. So then I thought that was super cool and started researching groundwater in Texas and saw what an issue it was here and around the world.”

Like most college students, her road to graduation was not always a walk in the park. It entailed long nights and endless jobs, but each challenge she faced became a part of her story. 

Before college, McNamara-Phillips took some time off from school and worked as many jobs as she could in order to save as much money as possible. 

She worked so much that she ended up being able to graduate with no debt, a huge accomplishment for McNamara-Phillips. 

While in college, she had the opportunity to teach a couple of lab classes and learned to be more appreciative of professors in general.  

She was able to teach a physical geology lab for students at Tarleton, teaching them about things like minerals, rivers, groundwater, faults, and metamorphic and igneous rocks. 

Being in the geology department had a positive impact on McNamara-Phillips. She explained how everyone in the geology department is close and has little to no drama. She thinks that being close with these people has shaped her into the person she has become today. 

In order to stay motivated through her college career, McNamara-Phillips leaned on her husband, family and friends. 

Jentri Olson, a junior at Tarleton and dear friend of McNamara-Phillips, studies civil engineering. She recalls the moment their friendship started. 

“I actually first met her at the first internship that we shared. It was at Corsair Consulting. She started about a year after I had started there. We worked together a good bit of the time.” Olson said. “She was on the hydrogeology side, and I was on the civil engineering side, but we worked pretty closely together and formed a friendship while doing so.”

As they got back to Tarleton, their friendship only grew closer by talking every day and studying together. They both took on great challenges within their internships and learned a lot doing so. 

Olson has seen her go through many challenges and describes her as a person who always “puts her feet to the fire,” not only at work, but in school as well. 

Despite all the challenges she has gone through, including coming back to physics and calculus after years of no math courses, Olson says that McNamara-Phillips has “done amazing” and “is going to be getting very high grades in both courses.”

“One thing that I really appreciate about her is that no matter how tired or stressed out she gets, she shows up to class, she puts her head down, she does extremely well on that test, she submits that assignment, she will give you a call and is a friend and will hear a vent session,” Olson said. “No matter what, she excels in every aspect,” 

One challenge that stood out to McNamara-Phillips was completing her undergraduate research, which was a high-level feasibility report. After finding out her professors had left Tarleton, she did not know whether she would be able to finish the research she needed before her presentation date. But with focus and confidence, she did. 

As she goes on, she has learned great advice that has given her the confidence she needed to finish out her college career. 

“Don’t do anything halfway, there are a lot of things you can get away with by doing it halfway, but give everything you do 110%, no matter how hard it may seem. Whatever your best is for that day, that’s what you need to give,” McNamara-Phillips said. 

As she goes on to graduate, McNamara-Phillips hopes to make a great impact on the world. With all the issues that the world has regarding water wells, she hopes to be able to make a change with the knowledge that she has learned at Tarleton and beyond.

She will be attending Baylor University to earn her master’s in hydrogeology and hopes to start her career with as much knowledge as she can. She plans to stick to her standards. As she likes to say, “Did you double-check that?”