80s
Cool Things Happen When You Speak a Foreign Language (Willowgate Press) is both a true statement and the title of a new book co-authored by Christopher Gallagher ’80 — his eighth, in fact. Gallagher has also done some stand-up comedy, but by day he’s a cardiac anesthesiologist at Stony Brook University on Long Island, New York.
Eric Lui ’80, an associate professor and chair of the civil and environmental engineering department at Syracuse [New York] University, is one of two educators there to receive a Meredith Professor of Teaching Excellence award. Lui proposes to use the funds from the three-year honor to create a course that will study the elements of a sustainable environment holistically.
John Matel MA’80 has been a career foreign-service officer since 1984, serving in Brazil, Norway, Poland, and Washington, D.C. Now he knows plenty about Iraq as well — he’s recently been a provisional reconstruction team leader at Al Asad Western Anbar. Matel planned to return to Washington in September to direct the U.S. State Department’s International Information Programs policy office.
Speaking of foreign service, Daniel Speckhard ’80, MA’82, MS’83 has gone on to another ambassadorship — this time in Greece. A career diplomat, Speckhard’s last posting was as the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, following a year directing the Iraq Reconstruction Management Office there.
Barbara Cox JD’82 has recently been named the Foltz Professor of Law at California Western School of Law in San Diego. An expert on gender issues, she served on the 1980s Madison Equal Opportunities Commission that drafted one of the country’s earliest domestic-partnership ordinances. Cox’s work was honored in April by the San Diego Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Community Center.
The new work by Steven Meyers PhD’82 won’t be a must-read for the general public, but its publisher says that MRI of Bone and Soft Tissue Tumors and Tumorlike Lesions: Differential Diagnosis and Atlas (Thieme Medical Publishers) is “practical, in-depth, invaluable.” Meyers teaches radiology, imaging sciences, and neurosurgery at the University of Rochester [New York].
Amy Vedder MS’82, PhD’89 has long admired the Washington, D.C.-based Wilderness Society’s focus on “good ecological, economic, and policy information,” and now she’s directing its ecology and economics research department. The society was co-founded in 1935 by the late UW professor Aldo Leopold. Vedder is known for her pioneering studies of Rwandan mountain gorillas and for co-founding the Mountain Gorilla Project.
Performance psychologist Rob Smith ’83 of Waltham, Massachusetts, has published Black Belt for Life: A Memoir of Personal Development and the Martial Arts (Xlibris). He says he views it “more as an extended letter to his son, whom he tries to teach the principles inherent in the martial arts.”
What’s Steve Burrows ’84 been up to lately? He’s been shooting comedic commercials in the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Japan, and Thailand, and finds that “humor is indeed universal.” He also works in TV, short films, and feature films, and this spring, he joined the directorial roster of Great Guns USA, a production company in L.A. See burrowsofhollywood.com “for all the silliness.”
Most people probably wouldn’t mind being paid to think about cookies all day, which is what Greg Hundt ’84 does. He’s the VP of supply chain for the HoneyBaked Ham Company in Atlanta, but he’s also the new president of Heidi’s Heavenly Cookies, a recent HoneyBaked acquisition. Yum.
Depression strikes one in five people, and research shows that writing can help. That’s why Hayward, California-based science journalist and editor Elizabeth Maynard Schaefer ’84 has provided therapeutic techniques in Writing through the Darkness: Easing Your Depression with Paper and Pen (Ten Speed Press). A bipolar-depression sufferer herself, Schaefer has also taught a creative-writing course for people with mood disorders through Stanford University since 1988.
Jay Sorensen ’84 says that “ancillary revenue” in the airline industry — revenue beyond ticket sales — is both the industry’s best way to cope with fuel costs and the subject of his new book, Ancillary Revenue Guide: The First-Ever Resource for Airlines Seeking Ancillary Revenue Nirvana (AirlineInformation.org). Sorensen is the president of IdeaWorks, his own brand-marketing firm in Shorewood, Wisconsin.
Jeffrey Toretsky ’84 was one of only thirteen physician-scientists this spring to receive a 2008 Clinical Scientist Award in Translational Research from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund — a $750,000 award, given over five years. Toretsky is a pediatric oncology physician and researcher at Georgetown University’s Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Christopher Struck ’85 writes that he’s worked in Denmark, became director of engineering for Dolby Laboratories, and then was VP of engineering for Tymphany Corporation. Now he’s founded CJS Labs in San Francisco, a consulting firm specializing in acoustics and engineering for audio and telecommunications. Struck also reports that John Radanovich ’85 is a music journalist living in Delaware; Milwaukee attorney Tomislav Kuzmanovic ’85, JD’88 spent time this spring trying his second case at the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague; and Mark Giaimo ’86 is a mural artist, cartoonist, and musician in Washington, D.C.
The Great Lakes Water Wars (Island Press) is a comprehensive account of the people, stories, and issues behind the battles over the earth’s largest collection of fresh surface water — and a timely offering by Madisonian Peter Annin ’86 that’s now in its fifth printing. The author is a former Newsweek reporter.
With a recently completed MBA from DePaul University under his belt, Kenneth Blazer ’86 of Aurora, Illinois, has been promoted to director of global accounts at APL Logistics — part of the Singapore-based NOL Group.
You’d have to try hard to keep up with Helen Klebesadel ’86, MFA’89 (klebesadel.com) — the Madison-based artist, educator, and activist has led many watercolor and creativity workshops this summer and fall throughout Wisconsin and in Kansas City.
When publishers of Detroit’s major ethnic and minority newspapers gathered for a roundtable conference this spring, their host was Hayg Oshagen MA’86, PhD’90, a professor at Wayne State University and the director of its Project Ethnic Media. The event was part of New Michigan Media, a networking initiative that Oshagen founded in 2006.
The top 1 percent: that’s where Washingtonian magazine ranked Mark Behrens ’87 among Washington, D.C., attorneys. He’s a partner in the public-policy group of Shook, Hardy & Bacon. Thanks to Mark’s father, Edwin Behrens ’60, MS’61 of Great Falls, Virginia, for letting us know.
Duke (Victor) Fisher III ’87 has a long history of success as an activist, mediator, special professor of law at Hofstra Law School, and as the co-founder, CEO, and lead trainer of Learning Laboratories — a Bainbridge, New York-based training and facilitation organization. Fisher’s work was honored in 2007 with the Cooke Peace Innovator Award from the New York State Dispute Resolution Association.
Since 2006, (Barbara) Erin Gallagher ’87 has been working in The Hague as a war-crimes investigator for the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, focusing on the 1995 Srebrenica Massacre in Bosnia. Gallagher earned California’s 2005 Investigator of the Year award for her work in her previous post as a criminal investigator for the San Francisco district attorney’s office.
Gloria Materre ’88 is just one of several Badger attorneys who’s been on the move recently. She’s a specialist in corporate, real estate, and entertainment law who’s joined Chicago’s Handler, Thayer & Duggan as senior counsel. Solheim Billing & Grimmer in Madison has welcomed Lauren Lofton ’96 as an associate; Amanda Prutzman ’02, JD’07 and Jillian Walker ’02 have joined the collections group of Messerli & Kramer in Minneapolis; and Michael Strand ’02 is a new associate in the real estate and land-use groups at Denver’s Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck. Lastly, patent attorney Bryan Clark ’04 is a new associate with the Webb Law Firm in Pittsburgh.
A Markwardt Award has gone to Robert White PhD’88 from ASTM International, one of the world’s largest international standards-development and delivery systems. The honor recognizes White’s contributions in developing standards for the fire performance of wood in building construction. He’s been with the USDA’s Forest Products Laboratory in Madison since 1975.