When Mac Childers BA'28 was 12 years old, he was diagnosed with Ewing sarcoma, a rare bone cancer. Through the Make-A-Wish Foundation, Childers, a lifelong LEGO fan, was offered a trip to LEGO headquarters in Billund, Denmark. There, on the exclusive LEGO Inside Tour, he explored the factory where the bricks are made and sat down for a build session with master designers.
The biggest surprise was learning about a career path Childers never knew existed: a LEGO corporate historian — someone who manages their archives and brings the company's history to life.
“It's such a unique thing,” Childers says. “And that really lifted my spirits because I've always loved history and knowing that I could combine that with LEGO was mindblowing.”
The experience in Denmark gave Childers a dream to pursue: working in archives and telling stories through history, preferably at LEGO. Then, Childers’s journey took him to Willamette University — where he’s pursuing that dream thanks to the community, courses, and faculty he’s found on campus.
Building a path back to LEGO
Childers’s love of history guided him to Willamette. Growing up in Salem, he had always been fascinated by the historic campus of the first university in the western United States. After a campus visit, he discovered that that legacy has informed a commitment to community — rooted in Willamette’s 184-year history and its motto: Not unto ourselves alone are we born.
“It was the culture that was spoken about and what was actually shown through everyone I interacted with during Bearcat Day,” Childers says. “It just made it such a welcoming place that I really wanted to go to and get a good education that I knew was possible here.”
That culture and motto formed a bond between Childers and Laila BA’98, CEO of Make-A-Wish Oregon and a Willamette alum. They recently met on campus.
“I was so lucky to visit with Mac at Willamette,” Cook says. “We shared our mutual love for this special place as we discussed our remarks for the Make-A-Wish gala, all centered around the Willamette motto, and how it has guided each of us in our lives. I will be among his biggest cheerleaders for life!”
Now, seven years into remission and two years into his Willamette experience, Childers is thriving — charting his own path, not just in history, but in all the other fields he has discovered since he arrived on campus.
“The history department has been fabulous,” Childers says. “It's a very clever interdisciplinary program with great courses that cover a breadth of topics throughout the world and its history.”
Guided by that commitment to interdisciplinarity, Childers’s advisor Wendy Petersen-Boring recommended a course that gave him hands-on experience in the archives. Working in the Willamette University archives, Childers got a tangible sense of history. It reminded him of the transformative experience he had seeing the Magna Carta in person during his Make-A-Wish trip.
“I was reading about it in a class, and then actually got to see it in person. That connects to actually getting to feel these documents and everything in an archive,” Childers says.
Four disciplines, one dream
Childers has taken so many different relevant and interesting classes at Willamette so far that he now plans to pursue a double-major in History and Cinema Studies and a double-minor in Data Science and Philosophy.
All of those areas of study might not seem to go together, but Childers says he’s already seeing the connections. In his cinema classes, Childers has been fascinated by how historical films give a window into the past, and his philosophy classes help him think critically about history and how we come to know what we know.
His data science courses have had an unexpectedly strong connection to his history interests — helping to enhance his ability to tell compelling stories by revealing what matters.
“There's so many different things that you're working with data and cataloging in an archive,” Childers says. “Getting data can help you know what's actually useful, and what's not.”
The opportunity to bring all of these areas together has been key to preparing Childers for the creative multidisciplinary storytelling of a corporate historian. With the personal attention of his advisor and other Willamette faculty, Childers hasn’t just been able to take classes across different fields, he’s been encouraged to do it at every turn.
“I discovered Willamette’s interdisciplinary programs and how you can craft your own course if that's something you choose to do, since I wasn't entirely sure what avenues I wanted to take other than history,” Childers says. “Knowing that was an option and knowing that there was willing support to do that was really refreshing.”
Now Willamette is helping Childers build a direct bridge back to LEGO. Childers was just accepted into a study abroad program in spring of 2027. The destination? Denmark, of course. There, Childers hopes to meet with LEGO employees and network with their corporate historians.
“I discovered Willamette’s interdisciplinary programs and how you can craft your own course if that's something you choose to do, since I wasn't entirely sure what avenues I wanted to take.”
At Willamette, a small campus gives students like Childers the personalized attention they need to pursue their dreams, whether at home or across the world. From Salem to Denmark, Childers has learned to wield the tools he’ll need to build his future in history.
“Growing up in Salem, Willamette sort of snuck its way into my life,” Childers says. “But it wasn't until I actually ended up here as a student that I realized how impactful that is and how much I appreciate actually being here. Willamette is just this magical world — a world of learned people and people who are really engaged in various ways. I know I won't fully know the impacts of Willamette until I'm well outside of my time here, but I know it will carry with me for a long, long time.”
