{"id":2019,"date":"2021-05-19T21:54:43","date_gmt":"2021-05-19T21:54:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nau.edu\/aspirations\/?p=2019"},"modified":"2021-09-10T21:41:03","modified_gmt":"2021-09-10T21:41:03","slug":"alumnus-starts-community-brewery-company","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/legacy.nau.edu\/stories\/alumnus-starts-community-brewery-company\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrating ‘radical hospitality’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Entrepreneur and NAU alumnus Michael Marquess combines brewing and community as CEO of Flagstaff\u2019s Mother Road Brewing Company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the wall of the brewpub, behind Michael Marquess, is a guitar. \u201cThat belonged to one of our regular guests,\u201d Marquess said. \u201cHe liked to strum the guitar, so he brought it in, and when he moved out of town, he left it for all guests to use.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marquess, who graduated from NAU in 2001 with a bachelor\u2019s degree in Hotel and Restaurant Management<\/a> and a minor in Photography<\/a>, is the founder and CEO of Flagstaff’s Mother Road Brewing Company. Building community is part of Mother Road’s mission, whether it\u2019s housing a guitar, providing a place for people to hang out, or helping NAU students complete their internships. The complete mission is \u201cto brew distinguished beers and build community one pint at a time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the age of 15, Marquess knew he wanted a career in food and beverage. \u201cWith brewing especially, there’s great beauty of taking four ingredients with your own two hands, work with them for a day, and two weeks later, you have a pint of something absolutely divine that you can share with your friends and family. That’s cool,\u201d Marquess said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mother Road Brewery opened to the public in 2011 and expanded to a second location on Butler in 2018. While the new site concentrates on production, they experiment with new processes and flavors at the old location. The concept of community continues with Mother Road Brewery\u2019s beers\u2014from the names \u201cPluto Porter,\u201d a limited-edition brew honoring the discovery of Pluto in Flagstaff at Lowell Observatory, to the sales of \u201cConserve and Protect Ale,\u201d where a portion of proceeds are donated to Arizona Fish and Game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of our four values is “dauntless.\u201d Sometimes you just have to keep going. The crew depends on you to be around, make good decisions, and do what you need to do.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Marquess and his team are governed by Mother Road Brewery\u2019s values: curiosity, puckish, dauntless, radical hospitality. These values help them through challenges. \u201cOne of our four values is \u2018dauntless,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cSometimes you just have to keep going. The crew depends on you to be around, make good decisions, and do what you need to do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paying it forward to NAU students<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Even though Marquess jokes he wasn\u2019t the best student at NAU, he remembers his college years fondly. \u201cIt was where I learned to be an adult; I guess you could say,\u201d he said. \u201cI remember living in the dorms the first couple of years at Peterson Hall. A group of us formed a friendship, and those guys and gals are still my friends today, 25 years later.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

He has also remained in contact with NAU professors. The brewery is a co-inventor on a patent with Interim Associate Vice President for Research and Biochemistry Associate Professor Andy Koppisch.<\/a> Marquess works with various professors to bring students in for projects. These professors include The W. A. Franke College of Business Senior Lecturer Emy Tice<\/a>, from the School of Hotel and Restaurant Management, Associate Professor Wallace Rande<\/a>, and Senior Lecturer Mark Molinaro<\/a>. NAU students who work with Marquess are provided a \u201ctesting ground\u201d for their ideas. These have included a student from Franke working on cash-flow issues and another designing a restaurant brewpub for a capstone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Marquess puts it, helping these students is part of the Mother Road Brewery culture, but it\u2019s also his way of making sure the students get the experience they need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne of the hardest things when I was a student was actually getting internship hours or trying to get experience,\u201d he said. \u201cNot a lot of businesses back in the ’90s wanted to take a chance on a punk kid. If someone asks and I have the time, I really try to help any NAU student that comes here asking for anything. It’s a cool thing that we do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Entrepreneur and NAU alumnus Michael Marquess combines brewing and community as CEO of Flagstaff\u2019s Mother Road Brewing Company. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":316,"featured_media":2024,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,3],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/legacy.nau.edu\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2019"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/legacy.nau.edu\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/legacy.nau.edu\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legacy.nau.edu\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/316"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legacy.nau.edu\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2019"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/legacy.nau.edu\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2019\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2625,"href":"https:\/\/legacy.nau.edu\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2019\/revisions\/2625"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legacy.nau.edu\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/legacy.nau.edu\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legacy.nau.edu\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legacy.nau.edu\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}