The 17th Annual
Jay & Betty Van Andel
Legacy Awards Gala
A Prehistoric Party
Wednesday, November 12, 2025
At the JW Marriott Grand Rapids
The Museum’s largest fundraiser, The Jay & Betty Van Andel Legacy Awards Gala, honors outstanding leaders throughout West Michigan who have inspired others with their personal and professional investments in the Grand Rapids and West Michigan communities past, present, and future.
Event Co-Chairs: David & Carol Van Andel, Linsey Gleason
Tickets Will Be Available Soon
Tickets: $200
Table of 10: $2,500
Purchasing a full table at $2,500 qualifies you to be recognized as a Sustainer sponsor of the event, with additional benefits included.
Our 2025 Honorees
Jay & Betty Van Andel Lifetime Achievement Award
John Dean
John Dean is a community leader in Information Technology (IT). He graduated in 1973 from Grand Valley State University (GVSU) with a degree in Environmental Science and Land Use Planning. As a Land Use Planner at West Michigan Regional Planning Commission, computer mapping was one of John’s responsibilities, which sparked his love of IT. This led to a career change and a variety of IT positions at Interstate Motor Freight, before embarking on a 25-year career including a broad range of roles including executive leadership roles at Steelcase, Inc. During his career, he served on many boards and councils, continuing this community service even after retiring from Steelcase in 2008. John continued in several different consulting roles from 2008 through 2021 with an emphasis on helping students, professionals, and businesses to be successful with information technology careers and implementations.
John sat on the Grand Rapids Public Museum Board of Trustees and the Board of Directors from 2001-2018, serving as Board of Directors Chair. He has held board positions with Cyber Michigan; the GVSU CIS Advisory Board; the Western Michigan University CS Advisory Board/Executive Council; the GVSU Seidman School of Business Student 2 Business Advisory Board; West Michigan Tech Talent, the Information Technology Managers Association, and Grand Rapids Goodwill Industries. John is passionate about creating systems to foster and retain homegrown tech talent in West Michigan. In 2013, he was instrumental in the launch of the GRPM’s leading-edge digital Collections strategy and platform, “Digital ME.”
John and his wife Jane have two sons and daughters-in-law, and nine grandchildren. John’s favorite dinosaur is the brontosaurus.
John wants to give a special thank you to the many people who have been directly or indirectly involved with the journey of the Digital Me project.
Dave & Carol Van Andel Leadership Award
David Bulkowski
David Bulkwoski is a community organizer and connector. A native of Grand Rapids, Dave is a graduate of the University of Waterloo (Ontario), the Catholic University of Louvain (Belgium), and Wayne State Law School. Dave has worked with Disability Advocates of Kent County since 1995, serving as Executive Director since January 2000. He leads the organization in advocating for accessible and welcoming communities, and in working alongside people with disabilities as they seek to lead self-directed lives. He served on the Grand Rapids School Board from 2001 to 2004 and the Kent County Board of Commissioners from 2013 to 2022. In his work, Dave has successfully advocated for accessibility, expanded employment opportunities, increased public transportation, and affordable and accessible housing in the Grand Rapids community. His work centers the voices of persons with disabilities as “exclusion experts”, striving to future-proof the community. He helped launch the Absolutely Accessible Kent project, which held its seventh annual workshop in May 2025. He was named as one of Crain’s 200 Most Influential Leaders in West Michigan in 2022, 2023, and 2024.
Dave has been an important partner to the Grand Rapids Public Museum, providing feedback and guidance to help ensure accessibility in Museum programming, exhibits, and in every aspect of the GRPM’s Expanding Curiosity campaign. He has been instrumental in ensuring the Museum is cognitively and physically accessible for all.
Dave and his wife, Melissa, live in Grand Rapids. In his spare time, Dave works as a volunteer blacksmith at Sleeping Bear Dunes. Dave’s favorite dinosaur is Sue the T-Rex.
“The Casey” Award
Matt Vriesman
Matt Vriesman is an AP history teacher at East Kentwood High School. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Calvin University and his master’s degree in history from Missouri State University. After teaching U.S. History in South Korea and Kuwait for four years, he returned home to Michigan to tell the story of American history through a local community lens.
Influenced by his mother’s love for reading and history, Vriesman never wanted to be anything but a history teacher. His work as an educator focuses on the use of historical archives and primary source documents to bring history to life. In 2020, Matt and his students began making “COVID Journals,“ which led them to get connected with the GRPM. From there, they began working closely with the GRPM to tell the story of the Great Migration through the experiences of Black migrants to Grand Rapids. For the 2025 rendition of “GR Stories,” commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Fall of Saigon, Matt, his colleague Le Tran, and their students worked with the GRPM to tell the story of Vietnamese refugees to the United States. These emotional accounts were shared by the children and grandchildren of these refugees, some for the first time.
In 2023, Matt was selected from 7,000 nominated educators as the National History Teacher of the Year from The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. Matt serves on the Board of the Michigan Council for History Education, and produces free online content making history education engaging and meaningful for every learner through his nonprofit, Empowering Histories at empoweringhistories.org.
Matt, his wife Katie, and their sons James and Lewis live in Grand Rapids. Matt’s favorite dinosaur is a parasaurolophus.
Matt wants to give a special thank you to the Kentwood Public Schools community, his social studies colleagues, and his East Kentwood High School students.
Please contact Lyric Floria with questions regarding sponsorship | lfloria@grpm.org, 616.929.1704
Sponsored By
Title
Ambassador
Patron
James and Barbara Haveman
Sustainer
- Custer Inc.
- DTE Energy Foundation
- Disability Advocates of Kent County
- Ferris State University
- Marlin Feyen and Ruth Posthumus
- Feyen Zylstra
- Independent Bank
- John Ball Zoo
- Meijer
- David Morgenstern
- Seyferth PR
- Valo Media
- Van Andel Institute
- Vicinity Energy
- Warner Norcross + Judd LLP
Friend
- Anonymous
- Comcast
- Mary Free Bed Rehabilitation Hospital
Revisit the 16th Annual Jay & Betty Van Andel Legacy Awards Gala
