Sonja Oxnard

## Sonja Oxnard, Ares Sr VP

* **Name:**Sonja Louise Oxnard
* **Position:**Senior Vice President in charge of operations, Ares Agribusiness-Fargo
* **Metatype:** Dwarf (*Homo sapiens pumilionis*)
* **Education:** Bachelors Degree in Agribusiness (Management Emphasis) from University of Wisconsin - Platteville.
* **DOB:**12/15/2042, Casselton ND (now Okwegan Nika, Upper Yankton CF, Oceti Sakowin )
* **Family:** Randal Oxnard (father), Nadia [Kedrova] Oxnard (mother), SSgt Ivan Oxnard (brother), Annika Oxnard (sister)

Born at Sanford Hospital in Fargo (now a part of Sanssentia Health Services), and raised on her parents' farm outside what was then Casselton ND, Sonja was always ambitious and always interested in the land, head of her school's 4H club and a national winner of the Future Farmers of America's annual Ares-Monsanto (tm) Essay Contest in 2057, at age fourteen.

She was class Valedictorian in her year at Central Cass High School, class of '61, and went on to attend University of Wisconsin-Platteville (still roots for the Pioneers). In 2064, as a junior in the agribusiness program (management emphasis) she was awarded an internship at Ares' Madison offices, which is where she was serving when the Red River Crisis of '64 hit in the middle of the New Revolution . Despite being locked-down in the Ares's Nolen Shore location for the duration of the crisis, she used the corporate resources available to find her parents and to arrange for the release of her brother, then-PFC Ivan Oxnard, who was being held in the Oceti Sakowin's temporary detention camp in Arvilla. Her quick thinking and decisiveness under fire got her the attention of top management and she was offered an accelerated training program under corporate scholarship, graduating with a Masters in Agribusiness Management in 2066, after which she took a position as Executive Assistant to Dylan Heppner, Sr VP of Acquisitions for Ares Ag-Madison.

In 2068, with Heppner's sponsorship, Oxnard applied for the position of Account Management Director for Ares Ag-Topeka, serving the whole of their Kansas area, receiving the position and beginning in 2069. By 2072, she had been promoted up to Sr VP for Executive Initiatives, second only to Chief of Operations Connie Setanta. When Drew McNally announced in 2073 his intention to step down in two years from his position as Sr VP of Operations for Ares Ag- Fargo, Oxnard's name was near the top of the short list to replace him and she took over the position at the beginning of 2075.

Oxnard has always been the brightest kid in the room, the one that always did everything right. In Kansas she was known as a bit of a goody-goody, but was good enough at playing The Game to get away with it. Her close ties with her mentor Dylan Heppner, who now represents Ares Ag at Ares Macrotechnology headquarters, have helped her career, but hurt her standing with her new boss, Glen Cavendish, the head of Ares Ag in the Minneapolis-St.Paul Metroplex (MSPlex), Heppner's long-time corporate rival and she knows that any mistake would be held against her by the infamously critical Cavendish. Fortunately Sonja Oxnard has made a life's work of not making mistakes.

What she didn't realize was how badly her predecessor, the aging Drew McNally, had been letting things go, and how much of what he'd been doing he'd managed to keep from the Corporation, ceding more territory to local rivals in The Group and even losing control of corporate assets to criminal organizations. But Oxnard has always been a problem solver, and doing whatever it takes to get the job done, no matter what, has always been the Ares Way (tm).

Oxnard's first full year has been a turbulent one, with backstabbing from her own office, the (mostly successful) battle to regain the McLovins, a troublesome sugar beet harvest, a number of suspicious murders, rumors of a rogue shadowrunner and finally, the events of the Solstice Blackout, which forced her to activate the Security Clause in Ares' loan agreement with the Group, effectively giving Ares full control over the local conglomerate in order to protect their financial interest when it becomes obvious that current management cannot be trusted to maintain sufficient peace and order to repay the loan (a standard megacorporate agreement). Effectively this makes the Group an unofficial Ares subsidiary and Sonja Oxnard the most powerful person in Fargo.

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