Campus News - Alumni News
Early Years
We learned about the lives of brothers Robert ’33 and Harry (Henry) ’33, LLB’36 Hutchison from UW emeritus professor Richard Merelman of Madison. Robert, an agricultural chemistry major, did post-graduate work with former UW President Conrad Elvehjem. During World War II, Robert was a nutrition fitness officer in the Army Air Forces (AAF), and Harry served in the AAF as a photo-topologist. After the war, Robert founded a lumber company in Dubuque, Iowa, where he still resides. Harry spent his career with the Veterans Administration and lives in Mineral Point, Wisconsin.
Congratulations to Irving ’35 and Carlyn Strauss ’35 Ungar of Chicago, who celebrated their seventieth wedding anniversary this spring, and to Harold Fennema ’38, who shared this double news: it was three score and ten years ago that he graduated from the UW and married his wife. “Two seventieth anniversaries in one year is an accomplishment to be proud of,” says the New Brighton, Minnesota, resident.
Congratulations to Irving ’35 and Carlyn Strauss ’35 Ungar of Chicago, who celebrated their seventieth wedding anniversary this spring, and to Harold Fennema ’38, who shared this double news: it was three score and ten years ago that he graduated from the UW and married his wife. “Two seventieth anniversaries in one year is an accomplishment to be proud of,” says the New Brighton, Minnesota, resident.
40s–50s
A half-century spent at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville made Raymond Bice, Jr. ’40, MPh’42, PhD’54 quite a celebrity on the campus. His “Bice devices” — household items that he tinkered with to illustrate difficult concepts — and storytelling skills, employed during his packed, five-hundred-seat lecture class in psychology, were legendary, as was his service as the assistant to the president, secretary to the board of visitors, and the school’s history officer. His many friends gathered to toast his ninetieth birthday in July.
“Pivotal studies on thermal radiation, propulsion, combustion, and energy systems; directing government studies; founding a university department and energy center; and training future leaders”: all of these were attributed to Stanford Penner MS’43, PhD’46 when he earned the National Academy of Engineering’s 2007 Founders Award. Penner is a distinguished professor emeritus at the University of California-San Diego.
Eileen Martinson Lavine ’45 of Bethesda, Maryland, has become — in her “retirement” — an associate editor of Moment magazine, a Washington, D.C.-based publication about Jewish politics, culture, and religion. During a recent interview with Anthony Shadid ’90, a Pulitzer Prize-winning Middle East correspondent for the Washington Post, the pair reminisced about their work at the Daily Cardinal, which Lavine edited in 1944–45.
The staff and readers of the Idaho State Journal in Pocatello will miss Joy South Morrison ’46: she’s retired after more than sixty years, many of which she spent as the community editor. “She’s a local institution,” says the Journal’s editor. “There’s probably not another newspaper in the country that has someone with that much time in the trenches.”
This summer the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation received a most generous gift: a collection of rare, nineteenth-century folk art and antiques valued at nearly $2 million. The donors were Winnetka, Illinois, residents Juli (Mildred) Plant ’48 and David ’50 Grainger and their Grainger Foundation. Several of the objects filled long-standing holes in the collection, and will become part of the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum.
Paul Athan ’49, MS’50 of Poway, California, sent us a summary of his broad life experiences titled “My Testimonial.” It begins, “More than two careers were made possible by graduating from the University of Wisconsin, and new innovations in thinking about our society were created and implemented with this knowledge and these skills.” It ends with advice on how to live to be 112 — the age at which one of Athan’s ancestors died. At 83, he’s on his way!
Poetic English translations of Slovak folk-song lyrics by Milan Maliarik ’52 were published recently as part of a trilingual songbook — in Latin, Slovak, and English — called Resonantia Tatrae (Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers). Maliarik, of Lake Forest, Illinois, says that this endeavor is quite a departure from his physical-sciences background.
Roger Axtell ’53 has been pretty much everywhere; he’s written the Do’s and Taboos book series about how to behave when traveling or working abroad; and he’s given countless presentations. But even he had to admit to a few jitters before speaking to U.S. Olympic hopefuls about their summer trip to Beijing. His advice? Do some homework about the culture; be aware and respectful; and go with the flow. Axtell is a retired Parker Pen executive who lives in Janesville, Wisconsin.
Henry Schwarz ’54, MA’58, PhD’63 offered us an unusual submission: news that President Nambaryn Enkhbayar of Mongolia had awarded him the Order of the Polar Star — one of that nation’s highest honors. Schwarz is a professor emeritus of East Asian Studies at Western Washington University in Bellingham.
“Pivotal studies on thermal radiation, propulsion, combustion, and energy systems; directing government studies; founding a university department and energy center; and training future leaders”: all of these were attributed to Stanford Penner MS’43, PhD’46 when he earned the National Academy of Engineering’s 2007 Founders Award. Penner is a distinguished professor emeritus at the University of California-San Diego.
Eileen Martinson Lavine ’45 of Bethesda, Maryland, has become — in her “retirement” — an associate editor of Moment magazine, a Washington, D.C.-based publication about Jewish politics, culture, and religion. During a recent interview with Anthony Shadid ’90, a Pulitzer Prize-winning Middle East correspondent for the Washington Post, the pair reminisced about their work at the Daily Cardinal, which Lavine edited in 1944–45.
The staff and readers of the Idaho State Journal in Pocatello will miss Joy South Morrison ’46: she’s retired after more than sixty years, many of which she spent as the community editor. “She’s a local institution,” says the Journal’s editor. “There’s probably not another newspaper in the country that has someone with that much time in the trenches.”
This summer the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation received a most generous gift: a collection of rare, nineteenth-century folk art and antiques valued at nearly $2 million. The donors were Winnetka, Illinois, residents Juli (Mildred) Plant ’48 and David ’50 Grainger and their Grainger Foundation. Several of the objects filled long-standing holes in the collection, and will become part of the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum.
Paul Athan ’49, MS’50 of Poway, California, sent us a summary of his broad life experiences titled “My Testimonial.” It begins, “More than two careers were made possible by graduating from the University of Wisconsin, and new innovations in thinking about our society were created and implemented with this knowledge and these skills.” It ends with advice on how to live to be 112 — the age at which one of Athan’s ancestors died. At 83, he’s on his way!
Poetic English translations of Slovak folk-song lyrics by Milan Maliarik ’52 were published recently as part of a trilingual songbook — in Latin, Slovak, and English — called Resonantia Tatrae (Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers). Maliarik, of Lake Forest, Illinois, says that this endeavor is quite a departure from his physical-sciences background.
Roger Axtell ’53 has been pretty much everywhere; he’s written the Do’s and Taboos book series about how to behave when traveling or working abroad; and he’s given countless presentations. But even he had to admit to a few jitters before speaking to U.S. Olympic hopefuls about their summer trip to Beijing. His advice? Do some homework about the culture; be aware and respectful; and go with the flow. Axtell is a retired Parker Pen executive who lives in Janesville, Wisconsin.
Henry Schwarz ’54, MA’58, PhD’63 offered us an unusual submission: news that President Nambaryn Enkhbayar of Mongolia had awarded him the Order of the Polar Star — one of that nation’s highest honors. Schwarz is a professor emeritus of East Asian Studies at Western Washington University in Bellingham.
60s
The Minnesota Speech-Language-Hearing Association has given its Lifetime Achievement Award to Diane Barber Sineps ’60 in recognition of her forty-five years as a speech language pathologist in university, hospital, and private-practice settings. The St. Paul resident has recently retired, and is president of the board of the Minnesota Speech and Hearing Foundation.
Frederick Fosdal ’61, MD’64 recently received the 2008 State Bar of Wisconsin President Award and a commendation from Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle ’67 for his forensic psychiatric service to the state. He’s a longtime fellow of both the American Psychiatric Association and the American College of Forensic Psychiatry. Fosdal, of Middleton, has performed many criminal- and civil-law forensic evaluations, and has testified on numerous occasions.
In June, the American Nurses Association bestowed its Curtis Award on Mary Bryant Behrens ’64 for her contributions to nursing practice and health policy through political and legislative activity. She’s served as the mayor of her home community of Casper, Wyoming, and in county and state roles — always advocating for the nursing profession and health care issues.
We bet you’ll chuckle all the way through I’ll Never Be French (No Matter What I Do): Living in a Small Village in Brittany (Free Press), a charming tale by Mark Greenside ’66, MA’68. The book shares how a reluctant visit to France turned into a semi-permanent stay and “celebrates the joys and adventures of living a double life.” That double life includes time in Alameda, California — where Greenside writes, teaches, and is politically active — and in Brittany, where he says he “still can’t do anything without asking for help.”
Michael Grow ’66,MA’68 writes that he “still vividly recalls the feeling of inner terror that swept through him” during his 1968 oral master’s comprehensive exam when he was asked to identify the factors that led the U.S. to overthrow Latin American governments. Four decades later, he’s written a book about his answer: U.S. Presidents and Latin American Interventions: Pursuing Regime Change in the Cold War (University Press of Kansas). Grow, of Scotland, Connecticut, recently retired from Ohio University, where he taught and directed the Contemporary History Institute.
Donald Zillman ’66, JD’69 has been reappointed as president of the University of Maine at Presque Isle. He’s co-authored Strategic Legal Writing (Cambridge University Press), and is an author and the lead editor of Beyond the Carbon Economy (Oxford University Press).
Bettelheim: Living and Dying (Rodopi Publishers) is the fourth book by Los Angeles-based psychoanalyst and psychotherapist David James Fisher ’68, PhD’73. The work explores the life and writings of Bruno Bettelheim, who, after Freud, was the most widely read psychoanalytic public intellectual. Fisher was a student of the late UW history professor George Mosse.
When the space shuttle Discovery lifted off on a two-week mission to the International Space Station in May, the group of distinguished onlookers included Brewster Shaw, Jr. ’68, MS’69, the VP and general manager of Boeing Space Exploration in Houston. He was a member of NASA’s first shuttle-astronaut class in 1978, which had gathered for a thirty-year reunion. Shaw flew three missions as a pilot and commander in the 1980s.
In light of this fall’s financial meltdown, Macroeconomic Policies for Stable Growth (World Scientific) by Dan (Delano) Villanueva MS’68, PhD’70 could hardly be more timely. The book is a collection of his papers, written over the last two decades during his tenure at the International Monetary Fund, the South East Asian Central Banks Research and Training Center, and Singapore Management University. Villanueva, of Fairfax Station, Virginia, is now a special consultant with the Central Bank of the Philippines.
Claudia Orde Bartz ’69 is the coordinator of the International Classification for Nursing Practice, a program of the International Council of Nurses. She’s also a retired colonel of the U.S. Army Nurse Corps and a clinical associate professor of nursing at UW-Milwaukee.
Frederick Fosdal ’61, MD’64 recently received the 2008 State Bar of Wisconsin President Award and a commendation from Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle ’67 for his forensic psychiatric service to the state. He’s a longtime fellow of both the American Psychiatric Association and the American College of Forensic Psychiatry. Fosdal, of Middleton, has performed many criminal- and civil-law forensic evaluations, and has testified on numerous occasions.
In June, the American Nurses Association bestowed its Curtis Award on Mary Bryant Behrens ’64 for her contributions to nursing practice and health policy through political and legislative activity. She’s served as the mayor of her home community of Casper, Wyoming, and in county and state roles — always advocating for the nursing profession and health care issues.
We bet you’ll chuckle all the way through I’ll Never Be French (No Matter What I Do): Living in a Small Village in Brittany (Free Press), a charming tale by Mark Greenside ’66, MA’68. The book shares how a reluctant visit to France turned into a semi-permanent stay and “celebrates the joys and adventures of living a double life.” That double life includes time in Alameda, California — where Greenside writes, teaches, and is politically active — and in Brittany, where he says he “still can’t do anything without asking for help.”
Michael Grow ’66,MA’68 writes that he “still vividly recalls the feeling of inner terror that swept through him” during his 1968 oral master’s comprehensive exam when he was asked to identify the factors that led the U.S. to overthrow Latin American governments. Four decades later, he’s written a book about his answer: U.S. Presidents and Latin American Interventions: Pursuing Regime Change in the Cold War (University Press of Kansas). Grow, of Scotland, Connecticut, recently retired from Ohio University, where he taught and directed the Contemporary History Institute.
Donald Zillman ’66, JD’69 has been reappointed as president of the University of Maine at Presque Isle. He’s co-authored Strategic Legal Writing (Cambridge University Press), and is an author and the lead editor of Beyond the Carbon Economy (Oxford University Press).
Bettelheim: Living and Dying (Rodopi Publishers) is the fourth book by Los Angeles-based psychoanalyst and psychotherapist David James Fisher ’68, PhD’73. The work explores the life and writings of Bruno Bettelheim, who, after Freud, was the most widely read psychoanalytic public intellectual. Fisher was a student of the late UW history professor George Mosse.
When the space shuttle Discovery lifted off on a two-week mission to the International Space Station in May, the group of distinguished onlookers included Brewster Shaw, Jr. ’68, MS’69, the VP and general manager of Boeing Space Exploration in Houston. He was a member of NASA’s first shuttle-astronaut class in 1978, which had gathered for a thirty-year reunion. Shaw flew three missions as a pilot and commander in the 1980s.
In light of this fall’s financial meltdown, Macroeconomic Policies for Stable Growth (World Scientific) by Dan (Delano) Villanueva MS’68, PhD’70 could hardly be more timely. The book is a collection of his papers, written over the last two decades during his tenure at the International Monetary Fund, the South East Asian Central Banks Research and Training Center, and Singapore Management University. Villanueva, of Fairfax Station, Virginia, is now a special consultant with the Central Bank of the Philippines.
Claudia Orde Bartz ’69 is the coordinator of the International Classification for Nursing Practice, a program of the International Council of Nurses. She’s also a retired colonel of the U.S. Army Nurse Corps and a clinical associate professor of nursing at UW-Milwaukee.
70s
Felicitations to John Burd MS’70, PhD’75! He’s received the American Association of Clinical Chemistry’s 2008 Ullman Award, which recognizes contributions to the clinical-chemistry field through new or adapted technologies or analytical methods. Burd is currently a co-founder and general partner of San Diego’s Sabur Technology — which develops innovative medical testing products — but he’s also founded and run numerous other companies.
Job’s Daughters International — an organization of females aged ten to twenty who are related to Master Masons — elected Janine Albee Coley ’70, MS’80 of Mukwonago, Wisconsin, as its supreme guardian last year. Since then she’s been traveling the world, representing the group as its top adult leader. Coley’s friend Karen Cigale ’86 of Madison shares that Coley has been “teaching the chicken dance every chance she gets” during her travels.
Cary Herz ’70 has earned a first-place award for the best non-fiction book on religion in the National Federation of Press Women’s annual communications contest for New Mexico’s Crypto-Jews: Image and Memory (University of New Mexico Press). Herz, of Albuquerque, is a professional photographer whose work has appeared in national media and at the Smithsonian Institution.
A note from Bill Stark MA’70, PhD’73, a professor of biology at Saint Louis [Missouri] University, had a definite air of contentment about it. He writes that he’s developed a Web site for his research and teaching; has celebrated his thirty-ninth anniversary; and is pleased to have two happily married sons and three grandchildren, with another on the way. He adds, “September [marked] my thirty-second year of not missing a day of running at least a mile.”
Peter Weil ’70, JD’74 was the center of attention this summer when he received the 2008 Community Service Award from the Los Angeles chapter of the American Jewish Committee. Weil is a senior partner and real estate specialist in the L.A. law firm of Christensen, Glaser, Fink, Jacobs, Weil & Shapiro, as well as a longtime supporter of the UW’s Center for Jewish Studies and the UW’s Hillel.
Interviews with people aged thirty-five to ninety-two formed the foundation of My Word Is My Bond: Voices from Inside the Chicago Board of Trade (John Wiley and Sons) and a Telly Award-winning documentary by Chicagoan Arlene Michlin Bronstein ’71. Both celebrate the board’s 160 years as a leading financial institution and preserve its history. Two of the interviewees were Keith Bronstein ’71 of Chicago and Burt Gutterman ’71 of suburban Glencoe.
Speaking of Chicago, Mayor Richard Daley recently presented Caroline Orzac Shoenberger ’71 with a Sage Award as part of the city’s Women’s History Month. She’s an attorney specializing in immigration and guardianship law who joined the nonprofit Chicago Legal Clinic after retiring from a quarter-century in city, county, and state government, including a city-cabinet post as commissioner of consumer services. She also lectures at Harold Washington College.
How can job seekers find meaningful, desirable work, even in tough economic times? Sue Taylor Swenson ’71 and co-author Joe “The Job Search Guy” Turner tell how to do it in Paycheck 911: Don’t Panic … Power Your Job Search! (OPA Publishing). Swenson was a recruiter in the semiconductor industry who’s now a writer in Phoenix.
Avid runner Jay Jacob Wind ’71 was only the twenty-ninth person in fifty-one years to join the Arlington [Virginia] Sports Hall of Fame when he was inducted in May. Wind has completed 118 marathons and thousands of shorter races, directs track meets and longer races, coaches youth and adults, and writes a weekly sports column. And when he’s not doing all of that? Wind is a statistician who manages the cost-accounting project for the 2010 Decennial Census.
A Badger attorney is one of the Fifty Most Influential Minority Lawyers in America, according to the National Law Journal. He’s John Daniels, Jr. MS’72 — chair of the firm at Quarles & Brady in Milwaukee, the only Wisconsin attorney to receive the distinction, and one of the first African-Americans to lead a top U.S. law firm.
Peter Holsten ’72 is a force for change in Chicago as president of Holsten Real Estate Development Corporation. His firm renovates old buildings using green building practices and creates mixed-income properties that include community and green spaces. Holsten’s latest major project has been the renaissance of Cabrini Green, now called North Town Village. You can view a video clip about it here.
We have a photo of the world’s largest smile — on the face of Sharon Fredricks Wallace MS’72 as she received the Birkner Leadership Award for her “inspiration, enthusiasm, and mentorship” in her home community of Sedona, Arizona. To top it off, Governor Janet Napolitano praised Wallace for her vision, knowledge, and focus on education.
Among the authors accepted into the Madison-based Wisconsin Book Festival this fall was Kendall Hale ’73. She said it was “a great honor” to return to the scene that opens her memoir, Radical Passions: A Memoir of Revolution and Healing (iUniverse). That opening also takes readers back forty years, to 1968 — the year that set in motion Hale’s lifetime of discovery about herself and the world.
A thwarted, Columbine-like plot to attack Green Bay [Wisconsin] East High School in September 2006 thrust school superintendent Dan Nerad ’73, MS’75 into the national spotlight. Many said that his leadership after the crisis was a highlight of his tenure, but he’s also been praised for his emphases on listening, outreach, communication, and accessibility. Now Nerad has moved south to become the Madison Metropolitan School District’s new superintendent.
The Society for Technical Communication (STC) named Thea Teich MS’73 of Cincinnati a new fellow this summer in recognition of her thirty-plus years of work in industry, government, nonprofits, and research institutions. In 1995, she founded Teich Technical and Marketing Communications, and has been heavily involved in STC leadership.
Tom DeCotiis PhD’74 has penned Make It Glow: How to Build a Company Reputation for Human Goodness, Flawless Execution, and Being Best-in-Class (Greenleaf Book Group). The author is the CEO of CorVirtus, a firm specializing in enterprise-growth solutions in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
The UW-River Falls College of Agriculture, Food, and Environmental Science has honored Michael Kaltenberg ’75, MS’76, PhD’83 with its 2008 Outstanding Faculty Teaching Award. He’s a professor of forestry and environmental education who also manages the UW-River Falls School Forests, and is an expert forestry witness and consultant, a certified tree farmer, the owner of a large tree farm, and a wildfire-suppression trainer.
If you ever visit the Stanley Lambert winery in Australia’s Barossa Valley, tell owner Jim Lambert ’75, MS’76 that you’re from Wisconsin — he’ll probably give you a VIP tour of his twenty-thousand-case-per-year boutique-winery operation. Lambert is also the founder of a California data-storage company called Dot Hill, but he stepped down in 2006 — after twenty years as its CEO — to move Down Under.
An unusual hobby has led to a book for Barbara Boehm ’76, ’81. For the past fifteen years, she’s been making teddy bears, costumes, and props, and photographing them to use in calendars and greeting cards. Now HNB Publishing has compiled her often-amusing images in Bears I’d Like to Meet! A Bear’s-Eye View of 101 Notable Figures in History. Boehm is also a nurse at Madison’s Meriter Hospital.
(Margaret) Ellen Birkett Lindeen ’76 and other college educators used their Fulbright-Hays fellowship this summer to learn about — and live — the legacy of Mahatma Gandhi in contemporary India. Lindeen, an assistant professor of English at Waubonsee Community College in Sugar Grove, Illinois, says the experience furthered her goal to introduce peace studies to community colleges in her state.
For “exemplifying outstanding citizenship and serving as excellent role models,” Joseph Marinelli PhD’76 and his spouse, Rebekah, have earned the 2008 Distinguished Citizen Awards from the Finger Lakes [New York] Council of the Boy Scouts of America. Joseph is the district superintendent of the Wayne-Finger Lakes Board of Cooperative Educational Services, and the couple lives in Macedon, New York.
A Madison team won the 2008 United States Men’s Club National Curling Championship in March, and Richard Maskel ’76 was part of it. He also finished third at this year’s U.S. Mixed National Championship, and ninth at the 2008 U.S. Men’s National Championship, marking the first time that an American curler has qualified for three separate national championships in a single year.
Taking the reins in the new role of chief operating officer at the American Humane Association in Denver is Dale Austin ’77, MA’86. He was previously senior VP and COO for the Dallas-based Federation of State Medical Boards of the U.S. Austin’s new employer is the only national organization dedicated to protecting both children and animals.
CarolAnn Garratt ’77 of Ocala, Florida, spent twenty-five years in industrial manufacturing, but her passion is flying. The evidence? In 2003, she flew a single-engine plane around the world, and in December, she plans to improve on that: Garratt and a co-pilot hope to break a world record by flying around the globe in seven days — and to raise money for ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease) research in the process. Stay tuned to the fearless duo’s progress at alsworldflight.com.
Robert Lebel MS’77, MD’82 has been the senior clinical geneticist at the Greenwood [South Carolina] Genetic Center for the last five years, but this summer he joined the faculty of the State University of New York Medical Center in Syracuse. There he’s chief of the medical-genetics section, a lecturer in bioethics, and a professor of pediatrics, internal medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, and pathology.
This spring, Larry Wert ’78 of Riverside, Illinois, was promoted to president of the central and western regions of NBC Local Media. He now oversees five NBC-owned television stations in San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Dallas, and Chicago. Wert most recently served as president and general manager of Chicago’s WMAQ.
The UW-Extension has welcomed Christine Quinn ’79, MS’82 as its new provost and vice chancellor. Her background includes service at UW-Stout, New Mexico State, and the University of Minnesota, and most recently, as the associate VP for academic affairs at Winona [Minnesota] State University.
The list of Badgers who are leading colleges and universities just keeps growing. The latest is Patrick Schloss PhD’79, who was named president of Valdosta [Georgia] State University in June. Formerly, he was president of Northern State University in Aberdeen, South Dakota, where the strategic planning process that he initiated was highly lauded.
In March, Karolee Hogden Church Sowle MS’79 became CEO of Desert Regional Medical Center — a 394-bed tertiary trauma center in Palm Springs, California. She’s also won her second Circle of Excellence Award from Tenet Healthcare.
Job’s Daughters International — an organization of females aged ten to twenty who are related to Master Masons — elected Janine Albee Coley ’70, MS’80 of Mukwonago, Wisconsin, as its supreme guardian last year. Since then she’s been traveling the world, representing the group as its top adult leader. Coley’s friend Karen Cigale ’86 of Madison shares that Coley has been “teaching the chicken dance every chance she gets” during her travels.
Cary Herz ’70 has earned a first-place award for the best non-fiction book on religion in the National Federation of Press Women’s annual communications contest for New Mexico’s Crypto-Jews: Image and Memory (University of New Mexico Press). Herz, of Albuquerque, is a professional photographer whose work has appeared in national media and at the Smithsonian Institution.
A note from Bill Stark MA’70, PhD’73, a professor of biology at Saint Louis [Missouri] University, had a definite air of contentment about it. He writes that he’s developed a Web site for his research and teaching; has celebrated his thirty-ninth anniversary; and is pleased to have two happily married sons and three grandchildren, with another on the way. He adds, “September [marked] my thirty-second year of not missing a day of running at least a mile.”
Peter Weil ’70, JD’74 was the center of attention this summer when he received the 2008 Community Service Award from the Los Angeles chapter of the American Jewish Committee. Weil is a senior partner and real estate specialist in the L.A. law firm of Christensen, Glaser, Fink, Jacobs, Weil & Shapiro, as well as a longtime supporter of the UW’s Center for Jewish Studies and the UW’s Hillel.
Interviews with people aged thirty-five to ninety-two formed the foundation of My Word Is My Bond: Voices from Inside the Chicago Board of Trade (John Wiley and Sons) and a Telly Award-winning documentary by Chicagoan Arlene Michlin Bronstein ’71. Both celebrate the board’s 160 years as a leading financial institution and preserve its history. Two of the interviewees were Keith Bronstein ’71 of Chicago and Burt Gutterman ’71 of suburban Glencoe.
Speaking of Chicago, Mayor Richard Daley recently presented Caroline Orzac Shoenberger ’71 with a Sage Award as part of the city’s Women’s History Month. She’s an attorney specializing in immigration and guardianship law who joined the nonprofit Chicago Legal Clinic after retiring from a quarter-century in city, county, and state government, including a city-cabinet post as commissioner of consumer services. She also lectures at Harold Washington College.
How can job seekers find meaningful, desirable work, even in tough economic times? Sue Taylor Swenson ’71 and co-author Joe “The Job Search Guy” Turner tell how to do it in Paycheck 911: Don’t Panic … Power Your Job Search! (OPA Publishing). Swenson was a recruiter in the semiconductor industry who’s now a writer in Phoenix.
Avid runner Jay Jacob Wind ’71 was only the twenty-ninth person in fifty-one years to join the Arlington [Virginia] Sports Hall of Fame when he was inducted in May. Wind has completed 118 marathons and thousands of shorter races, directs track meets and longer races, coaches youth and adults, and writes a weekly sports column. And when he’s not doing all of that? Wind is a statistician who manages the cost-accounting project for the 2010 Decennial Census.
A Badger attorney is one of the Fifty Most Influential Minority Lawyers in America, according to the National Law Journal. He’s John Daniels, Jr. MS’72 — chair of the firm at Quarles & Brady in Milwaukee, the only Wisconsin attorney to receive the distinction, and one of the first African-Americans to lead a top U.S. law firm.
Peter Holsten ’72 is a force for change in Chicago as president of Holsten Real Estate Development Corporation. His firm renovates old buildings using green building practices and creates mixed-income properties that include community and green spaces. Holsten’s latest major project has been the renaissance of Cabrini Green, now called North Town Village. You can view a video clip about it here.
We have a photo of the world’s largest smile — on the face of Sharon Fredricks Wallace MS’72 as she received the Birkner Leadership Award for her “inspiration, enthusiasm, and mentorship” in her home community of Sedona, Arizona. To top it off, Governor Janet Napolitano praised Wallace for her vision, knowledge, and focus on education.
Among the authors accepted into the Madison-based Wisconsin Book Festival this fall was Kendall Hale ’73. She said it was “a great honor” to return to the scene that opens her memoir, Radical Passions: A Memoir of Revolution and Healing (iUniverse). That opening also takes readers back forty years, to 1968 — the year that set in motion Hale’s lifetime of discovery about herself and the world.
A thwarted, Columbine-like plot to attack Green Bay [Wisconsin] East High School in September 2006 thrust school superintendent Dan Nerad ’73, MS’75 into the national spotlight. Many said that his leadership after the crisis was a highlight of his tenure, but he’s also been praised for his emphases on listening, outreach, communication, and accessibility. Now Nerad has moved south to become the Madison Metropolitan School District’s new superintendent.
The Society for Technical Communication (STC) named Thea Teich MS’73 of Cincinnati a new fellow this summer in recognition of her thirty-plus years of work in industry, government, nonprofits, and research institutions. In 1995, she founded Teich Technical and Marketing Communications, and has been heavily involved in STC leadership.
Tom DeCotiis PhD’74 has penned Make It Glow: How to Build a Company Reputation for Human Goodness, Flawless Execution, and Being Best-in-Class (Greenleaf Book Group). The author is the CEO of CorVirtus, a firm specializing in enterprise-growth solutions in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
The UW-River Falls College of Agriculture, Food, and Environmental Science has honored Michael Kaltenberg ’75, MS’76, PhD’83 with its 2008 Outstanding Faculty Teaching Award. He’s a professor of forestry and environmental education who also manages the UW-River Falls School Forests, and is an expert forestry witness and consultant, a certified tree farmer, the owner of a large tree farm, and a wildfire-suppression trainer.
If you ever visit the Stanley Lambert winery in Australia’s Barossa Valley, tell owner Jim Lambert ’75, MS’76 that you’re from Wisconsin — he’ll probably give you a VIP tour of his twenty-thousand-case-per-year boutique-winery operation. Lambert is also the founder of a California data-storage company called Dot Hill, but he stepped down in 2006 — after twenty years as its CEO — to move Down Under.
An unusual hobby has led to a book for Barbara Boehm ’76, ’81. For the past fifteen years, she’s been making teddy bears, costumes, and props, and photographing them to use in calendars and greeting cards. Now HNB Publishing has compiled her often-amusing images in Bears I’d Like to Meet! A Bear’s-Eye View of 101 Notable Figures in History. Boehm is also a nurse at Madison’s Meriter Hospital.
(Margaret) Ellen Birkett Lindeen ’76 and other college educators used their Fulbright-Hays fellowship this summer to learn about — and live — the legacy of Mahatma Gandhi in contemporary India. Lindeen, an assistant professor of English at Waubonsee Community College in Sugar Grove, Illinois, says the experience furthered her goal to introduce peace studies to community colleges in her state.
For “exemplifying outstanding citizenship and serving as excellent role models,” Joseph Marinelli PhD’76 and his spouse, Rebekah, have earned the 2008 Distinguished Citizen Awards from the Finger Lakes [New York] Council of the Boy Scouts of America. Joseph is the district superintendent of the Wayne-Finger Lakes Board of Cooperative Educational Services, and the couple lives in Macedon, New York.
A Madison team won the 2008 United States Men’s Club National Curling Championship in March, and Richard Maskel ’76 was part of it. He also finished third at this year’s U.S. Mixed National Championship, and ninth at the 2008 U.S. Men’s National Championship, marking the first time that an American curler has qualified for three separate national championships in a single year.
Taking the reins in the new role of chief operating officer at the American Humane Association in Denver is Dale Austin ’77, MA’86. He was previously senior VP and COO for the Dallas-based Federation of State Medical Boards of the U.S. Austin’s new employer is the only national organization dedicated to protecting both children and animals.
CarolAnn Garratt ’77 of Ocala, Florida, spent twenty-five years in industrial manufacturing, but her passion is flying. The evidence? In 2003, she flew a single-engine plane around the world, and in December, she plans to improve on that: Garratt and a co-pilot hope to break a world record by flying around the globe in seven days — and to raise money for ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease) research in the process. Stay tuned to the fearless duo’s progress at alsworldflight.com.
Robert Lebel MS’77, MD’82 has been the senior clinical geneticist at the Greenwood [South Carolina] Genetic Center for the last five years, but this summer he joined the faculty of the State University of New York Medical Center in Syracuse. There he’s chief of the medical-genetics section, a lecturer in bioethics, and a professor of pediatrics, internal medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, and pathology.
This spring, Larry Wert ’78 of Riverside, Illinois, was promoted to president of the central and western regions of NBC Local Media. He now oversees five NBC-owned television stations in San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Dallas, and Chicago. Wert most recently served as president and general manager of Chicago’s WMAQ.
The UW-Extension has welcomed Christine Quinn ’79, MS’82 as its new provost and vice chancellor. Her background includes service at UW-Stout, New Mexico State, and the University of Minnesota, and most recently, as the associate VP for academic affairs at Winona [Minnesota] State University.
The list of Badgers who are leading colleges and universities just keeps growing. The latest is Patrick Schloss PhD’79, who was named president of Valdosta [Georgia] State University in June. Formerly, he was president of Northern State University in Aberdeen, South Dakota, where the strategic planning process that he initiated was highly lauded.
In March, Karolee Hogden Church Sowle MS’79 became CEO of Desert Regional Medical Center — a 394-bed tertiary trauma center in Palm Springs, California. She’s also won her second Circle of Excellence Award from Tenet Healthcare.
80s
Paul Gibbons ’80 first registered at the UW as a fifteen-year-old special student in 1976, earned several degrees elsewhere, and has now re-enrolled at the UW to earn a doctorate. The chair of management-consulting firm Future Considerations, Gibbons has just returned to Madison after twenty-seven years in London and was recently featured in CEO Magazine as one of the world’s “CEO super coaches.”
Radio and film historian Clair Schulz MA’80 of Muskego, Wisconsin, has created Fibber McGee and Molly: On the Air 1935–1959 (BearManor Media), a comprehensive guide to the nine-hundred-plus episodes that made the show such a broadcasting triumph. Schulz has been a teacher, librarian, bookseller, and the archives director at Chicago’s Museum of Broadcast Communications.
When the faculty honors were bestowed this summer at UW-Stevens Point, Emmet Judziewicz ’81, MS’85, PhD’87 took home the University Scholar Award. He’s an associate professor of biology, the curator of UW-SP’s Freckmann Herbarium, and one of the world’s authorities on bamboos and grasses. Last year he was named a three-year honorary research associate with the U.S. National Herbarium at the Smithsonian Institution.
“I’ve recently switched careers from the film industry to the nonprofit world,” says Megan Vidis ’81, MA’83, speaking of her new role as senior director of marketing and communications at the Respiratory Health Association of Metropolitan Chicago. Her previous work includes producing advocacy media and serving as the deputy managing director of the Illinois Film Office.
The online store Bag Borrow or Steal — of which Mike Smith ’83 is the Seattle-based CEO — got some big-time publicity during the May release of the Sex and the City movie. Smith’s company rents luxury accessories such as designer purses, jewelry, and sunglasses, which were, natch, a topic of conversation for the film’s Carrie Bradshaw.
In Your Child’s Strengths: Discover Them, Develop Them, Use Them (Viking), Jenifer Fox ’84 describes “a girl who almost didn’t graduate from high school, but somehow got into the UW.” That girl is Fox, who learned to fly on her strengths — wisdom that fueled three degrees, a career in education, and founding an international educational-reform initiative called the Strengths Movement in Schools. Fox also runs the Purnell School, a high school for girls with learning differences, in Pottersville, New Jersey.
The Happy Soul Industry (Inkwater Press) by Steffan Postaer ’84 sets up a most intriguing situation: the CEO of L.A.’s hippest ad agency takes on a troubled new client — God — who laments that in this “hip-hop age of Internet porn and reality TV, who has time for goodness?” The book is being promoted through a blog (How-Are-You.net) and a national advertising-design contest. Postaer is chair and chief creative officer at advertising giant Euro RSCG Chicago.
The Family Sabbatical Handbook: The Budget Guide to Living Abroad with Your Family (The Intrepid Traveler) has been named a silver-award winner in ForeWord Magazine’s 2007 Book of the Year competition, and it’s the pride of Elisa Bernick ’86. The St. Paul, Minnesota, author is also a journalist who’s worked in radio and TV.
Gladys Hart DeClouet MBA’86 is a pioneer. Beginning her career as a reservoir and production engineer for Conoco, she acknowledges that being an African-American woman in a white, male-dominated field was tough, but she persevered, moving on to British Petroleum Oil Company and then into fast food with Jack in the Box. She’s now Burger King’s senior VP of North America Company Operations, overseeing the restaurant chain’s re-imaging efforts from Miami.
Who’s adding a new hat to the two he already wears at Dean Foods Company in Dallas? It’s Steven Kemps ’86, JD’91. He’s been promoted to executive VP, but retains his general-counsel and corporate-secretary duties. He was previously with Kimberly-Clark.
Author Patricia Cumbie ’87, ’88 of Minneapolis began her recovery from a sexual assault years later, as she delved into the subject of her first novel, Where People Like Us Live (HarperTeen). The young-adult book explores the friendship between two girls, and what would happen if someone did something about an act of sexual violence. Cumbie hopes that shedding light on this disturbing subject will help society to see, discuss, and end sexual violence.
Marine Corps Reserve Lieutenant Colonel Roderick Arrington MS’88 has returned from a month-long deployment to Latin America through Partnership for Americas 2008. The deployment included humanitarian work in San Clemente, Peru, in the wake of a 2007 earthquake.
Lamont Colucci ’88, MA’89, MS’98 is a former U.S. State Department diplomat who’s now an assistant professor of politics and government at Ripon [Wisconsin] College, as well as the coordinator of its new national security studies program. Colucci’s new book is Crusading Realism: The Bush Doctrine and American Core Values after 9/11 (University Press of America).
The capital and real estate transformation practice of Deloitte Consulting has welcomed Kurt Ochalla ’88 to its Boston office. He lives in Needham, Massachusetts.
If you don’t know anyone who has a mite species named after him or her, then meet Kier Klepzig MS’89, PhD’94 — an entomologist, plant pathologist, and the newly promoted assistant director of research at the USDA Forest Service’s Southern Research Station in Pineville, Louisiana. Research entomologist emeritus John Moser, who recently discovered two new mite species, named the Caesarodispus klepzigi after Klepzig in honor of his contributions to understanding the symbiosis among insects, fungi, and mites.
Radio and film historian Clair Schulz MA’80 of Muskego, Wisconsin, has created Fibber McGee and Molly: On the Air 1935–1959 (BearManor Media), a comprehensive guide to the nine-hundred-plus episodes that made the show such a broadcasting triumph. Schulz has been a teacher, librarian, bookseller, and the archives director at Chicago’s Museum of Broadcast Communications.
When the faculty honors were bestowed this summer at UW-Stevens Point, Emmet Judziewicz ’81, MS’85, PhD’87 took home the University Scholar Award. He’s an associate professor of biology, the curator of UW-SP’s Freckmann Herbarium, and one of the world’s authorities on bamboos and grasses. Last year he was named a three-year honorary research associate with the U.S. National Herbarium at the Smithsonian Institution.
“I’ve recently switched careers from the film industry to the nonprofit world,” says Megan Vidis ’81, MA’83, speaking of her new role as senior director of marketing and communications at the Respiratory Health Association of Metropolitan Chicago. Her previous work includes producing advocacy media and serving as the deputy managing director of the Illinois Film Office.
The online store Bag Borrow or Steal — of which Mike Smith ’83 is the Seattle-based CEO — got some big-time publicity during the May release of the Sex and the City movie. Smith’s company rents luxury accessories such as designer purses, jewelry, and sunglasses, which were, natch, a topic of conversation for the film’s Carrie Bradshaw.
In Your Child’s Strengths: Discover Them, Develop Them, Use Them (Viking), Jenifer Fox ’84 describes “a girl who almost didn’t graduate from high school, but somehow got into the UW.” That girl is Fox, who learned to fly on her strengths — wisdom that fueled three degrees, a career in education, and founding an international educational-reform initiative called the Strengths Movement in Schools. Fox also runs the Purnell School, a high school for girls with learning differences, in Pottersville, New Jersey.
The Happy Soul Industry (Inkwater Press) by Steffan Postaer ’84 sets up a most intriguing situation: the CEO of L.A.’s hippest ad agency takes on a troubled new client — God — who laments that in this “hip-hop age of Internet porn and reality TV, who has time for goodness?” The book is being promoted through a blog (How-Are-You.net) and a national advertising-design contest. Postaer is chair and chief creative officer at advertising giant Euro RSCG Chicago.
The Family Sabbatical Handbook: The Budget Guide to Living Abroad with Your Family (The Intrepid Traveler) has been named a silver-award winner in ForeWord Magazine’s 2007 Book of the Year competition, and it’s the pride of Elisa Bernick ’86. The St. Paul, Minnesota, author is also a journalist who’s worked in radio and TV.
Gladys Hart DeClouet MBA’86 is a pioneer. Beginning her career as a reservoir and production engineer for Conoco, she acknowledges that being an African-American woman in a white, male-dominated field was tough, but she persevered, moving on to British Petroleum Oil Company and then into fast food with Jack in the Box. She’s now Burger King’s senior VP of North America Company Operations, overseeing the restaurant chain’s re-imaging efforts from Miami.
Who’s adding a new hat to the two he already wears at Dean Foods Company in Dallas? It’s Steven Kemps ’86, JD’91. He’s been promoted to executive VP, but retains his general-counsel and corporate-secretary duties. He was previously with Kimberly-Clark.
Author Patricia Cumbie ’87, ’88 of Minneapolis began her recovery from a sexual assault years later, as she delved into the subject of her first novel, Where People Like Us Live (HarperTeen). The young-adult book explores the friendship between two girls, and what would happen if someone did something about an act of sexual violence. Cumbie hopes that shedding light on this disturbing subject will help society to see, discuss, and end sexual violence.
Marine Corps Reserve Lieutenant Colonel Roderick Arrington MS’88 has returned from a month-long deployment to Latin America through Partnership for Americas 2008. The deployment included humanitarian work in San Clemente, Peru, in the wake of a 2007 earthquake.
Lamont Colucci ’88, MA’89, MS’98 is a former U.S. State Department diplomat who’s now an assistant professor of politics and government at Ripon [Wisconsin] College, as well as the coordinator of its new national security studies program. Colucci’s new book is Crusading Realism: The Bush Doctrine and American Core Values after 9/11 (University Press of America).
The capital and real estate transformation practice of Deloitte Consulting has welcomed Kurt Ochalla ’88 to its Boston office. He lives in Needham, Massachusetts.
If you don’t know anyone who has a mite species named after him or her, then meet Kier Klepzig MS’89, PhD’94 — an entomologist, plant pathologist, and the newly promoted assistant director of research at the USDA Forest Service’s Southern Research Station in Pineville, Louisiana. Research entomologist emeritus John Moser, who recently discovered two new mite species, named the Caesarodispus klepzigi after Klepzig in honor of his contributions to understanding the symbiosis among insects, fungi, and mites.
90s
The University of California-Santa Barbara’s Institute for Energy Efficiency has a new executive director: Daniel Colbert PhD’90. Previously, he was the chief technology officer and a principal at NGEN Partners, a venture-capital firm focusing on “cleantech” investments, as well as a founder of Carbon Nanotechnologies with Nobel laureate Rick Smalley.
If you’ve visited the Grand Canyon lately, chances are excellent that you saw the work of Todd Berger ’91. In April, he was promoted from managing editor to director of publishing for the Grand Canyon Association, overseeing its books, visitor newspaper, brochures, and more. In November, Berger also became president of the Publishers Association of the West.
People studying English as a non-native language can now learn through a textbook created by Mary Ward ’91, MA’95 called What I Believe: Listening and Speaking about What Really Matters (Pearson-Longman). The author is a TESOL (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages) instructor at the Institute for European Design in Rome, Italy, and at New York’s Columbia University. Her spouse, Luca de Caprariis PhD’98, is a professor of history at John Cabot University in Rome. Thanks to Ward’s mother, Marion Benson Ward ’88 of Lake Mills, Wisconsin, for letting us know.
Have you ever seen a visitor to Madison searching a map — fruitlessly — for a road called “the Beltline”? A new online business, City Dictionary (citydictionary.com), aims to explain similar mysteries across the nation by asking users to contribute entries about their cities’ landmarks, slang, attractions, and quirks. It’s the brainchild of the spouse team of Colleen Gatterman ’92 and John ’95 Carmona, plus John’s brother, Thomas Carmona ’04 — all Madisonians.
Who’s in charge of men’s hoops at Wingate [North Carolina] University? It’s Brian Good ’93, the Bulldogs’ new head basketball coach. He’s held the same post for the last four seasons at Queens University of Charlotte [North Carolina]. Good was a four-year letter winner at the UW and a Big Ten free-throw champion.
An award of $700,000 in research funding over five years is going to Jeffrey Henderson ’94, one of sixteen scientists to receive a national Burroughs Wellcome Fund award for medical scientists. Henderson studies bacteria that cause urinary-tract infections and is an instructor of medicine at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.
The new program director in the communication sciences and disorders graduate program at Boston’s MGH Institute of Health Professions is Gregory Lof PhD’94. He’s been with the institute since 1997, focusing on childhood speech sound disorders.
Way to go, Vishy (Viswanath) Poosala MS’94, PhD’97! He’s made the move from his position as the chief technology officer at Geopepper — an Alcatel-Lucent venture based in New Jersey — to become the new head of Bell Labs’ research and ventures division in Bangalore, India.
It’s been a good year for Kevin Christy ’95: the Casualty Actuary Society (CAS) has bestowed its highest credential of fellow upon him, and he’s been promoted to vice president and chief actuary at Western National Insurance Group in Edina, Minnesota. He’s the company’s first CAS fellow.
Three ’90s grads shared word of their new advanced degrees: Amy Seif Hattan MA’95 has graduated from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government with a master’s of public administration and a focus on climate change and energy policy. Jennifer Rider Stark ’97 has received a doctorate in epidemiology from Harvard’s School of Public Health and is now a post-doctoral research fellow at Harvard and at Brigham and Women’s Hospital’s Channing Laboratory. And, Rachel Gavelek Konkle ’98 has completed her second master’s — in management — through Cardinal Stritch University, while working full time as an information scientist for Abbott in North Chicago, Illinois.
If The Last Days of Old Beijing: Life in the Vanishing Backstreets of a City Transformed (Walker & Company) sounds familiar, perhaps it’s because its author, Michael Meyer ’95, was interviewed about the book on NPR’s All Things Considered in August. The work is based on Meyer’s observations — first as a Peace Corps member after graduation, and then over the last three years while volunteering as an English teacher in a public school — of how Beijing’s oldest neighborhood is being destroyed by relentless modernization.
The Doorpost Film Project is an international, online, short-film-making contest aimed at nurturing visionary filmmakers who can inspire and influence, rather than simply entertain. When round one of the inaugural project ended this summer, L.A. filmmaker Bragi Schut, Jr. ’96 was one of its fifteen finalists, for his film Scarecrow Joe. He then received $10,000 to produce a final-round short film based on the topic of hope, which he called Charlie Thistle. In the end, Schut won third place and $20,000.
It’s estimated that more than 10 percent of children have some form of sensory-processing disorder, which is often misdiagnosed. Now Tara McCaghey Delaney MS’97 has written The Sensory Processing Disorder Answer Book: Practical Answers to the Top 250 Questions Parents Ask (Sourcebooks) to clear away the confusion. Delaney, of Granite Bay, California, is a pediatric occupational therapist and the founder of BabySteps, a pediatric-therapy and educational-services company.
In 2003, Marine Reservist Jodi Miller Maroney ’97 was the first pilot to fly the CH-53 Super Stallion — the U.S. military’s largest and most powerful helicopter — into Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom. In June, she landed the thirty-three-thousand-pound craft at the Dane County airport while helping to move the fleet. Major Maroney is based in San Diego, California.
Vincent Purpero ’97 is a post-doc researcher at the University of Minnesota; Betsy (Elizabeth) Maloney MS’06 is an academic adviser for Capella University; and as of May, they’re spouses as well. Though they live in Minneapolis, she swears that they’ll “always be avid Badger fans.”
If you’ve visited the Grand Canyon lately, chances are excellent that you saw the work of Todd Berger ’91. In April, he was promoted from managing editor to director of publishing for the Grand Canyon Association, overseeing its books, visitor newspaper, brochures, and more. In November, Berger also became president of the Publishers Association of the West.
People studying English as a non-native language can now learn through a textbook created by Mary Ward ’91, MA’95 called What I Believe: Listening and Speaking about What Really Matters (Pearson-Longman). The author is a TESOL (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages) instructor at the Institute for European Design in Rome, Italy, and at New York’s Columbia University. Her spouse, Luca de Caprariis PhD’98, is a professor of history at John Cabot University in Rome. Thanks to Ward’s mother, Marion Benson Ward ’88 of Lake Mills, Wisconsin, for letting us know.
Have you ever seen a visitor to Madison searching a map — fruitlessly — for a road called “the Beltline”? A new online business, City Dictionary (citydictionary.com), aims to explain similar mysteries across the nation by asking users to contribute entries about their cities’ landmarks, slang, attractions, and quirks. It’s the brainchild of the spouse team of Colleen Gatterman ’92 and John ’95 Carmona, plus John’s brother, Thomas Carmona ’04 — all Madisonians.
Who’s in charge of men’s hoops at Wingate [North Carolina] University? It’s Brian Good ’93, the Bulldogs’ new head basketball coach. He’s held the same post for the last four seasons at Queens University of Charlotte [North Carolina]. Good was a four-year letter winner at the UW and a Big Ten free-throw champion.
An award of $700,000 in research funding over five years is going to Jeffrey Henderson ’94, one of sixteen scientists to receive a national Burroughs Wellcome Fund award for medical scientists. Henderson studies bacteria that cause urinary-tract infections and is an instructor of medicine at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.
The new program director in the communication sciences and disorders graduate program at Boston’s MGH Institute of Health Professions is Gregory Lof PhD’94. He’s been with the institute since 1997, focusing on childhood speech sound disorders.
Way to go, Vishy (Viswanath) Poosala MS’94, PhD’97! He’s made the move from his position as the chief technology officer at Geopepper — an Alcatel-Lucent venture based in New Jersey — to become the new head of Bell Labs’ research and ventures division in Bangalore, India.
It’s been a good year for Kevin Christy ’95: the Casualty Actuary Society (CAS) has bestowed its highest credential of fellow upon him, and he’s been promoted to vice president and chief actuary at Western National Insurance Group in Edina, Minnesota. He’s the company’s first CAS fellow.
Three ’90s grads shared word of their new advanced degrees: Amy Seif Hattan MA’95 has graduated from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government with a master’s of public administration and a focus on climate change and energy policy. Jennifer Rider Stark ’97 has received a doctorate in epidemiology from Harvard’s School of Public Health and is now a post-doctoral research fellow at Harvard and at Brigham and Women’s Hospital’s Channing Laboratory. And, Rachel Gavelek Konkle ’98 has completed her second master’s — in management — through Cardinal Stritch University, while working full time as an information scientist for Abbott in North Chicago, Illinois.
If The Last Days of Old Beijing: Life in the Vanishing Backstreets of a City Transformed (Walker & Company) sounds familiar, perhaps it’s because its author, Michael Meyer ’95, was interviewed about the book on NPR’s All Things Considered in August. The work is based on Meyer’s observations — first as a Peace Corps member after graduation, and then over the last three years while volunteering as an English teacher in a public school — of how Beijing’s oldest neighborhood is being destroyed by relentless modernization.
The Doorpost Film Project is an international, online, short-film-making contest aimed at nurturing visionary filmmakers who can inspire and influence, rather than simply entertain. When round one of the inaugural project ended this summer, L.A. filmmaker Bragi Schut, Jr. ’96 was one of its fifteen finalists, for his film Scarecrow Joe. He then received $10,000 to produce a final-round short film based on the topic of hope, which he called Charlie Thistle. In the end, Schut won third place and $20,000.
It’s estimated that more than 10 percent of children have some form of sensory-processing disorder, which is often misdiagnosed. Now Tara McCaghey Delaney MS’97 has written The Sensory Processing Disorder Answer Book: Practical Answers to the Top 250 Questions Parents Ask (Sourcebooks) to clear away the confusion. Delaney, of Granite Bay, California, is a pediatric occupational therapist and the founder of BabySteps, a pediatric-therapy and educational-services company.
In 2003, Marine Reservist Jodi Miller Maroney ’97 was the first pilot to fly the CH-53 Super Stallion — the U.S. military’s largest and most powerful helicopter — into Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom. In June, she landed the thirty-three-thousand-pound craft at the Dane County airport while helping to move the fleet. Major Maroney is based in San Diego, California.
Vincent Purpero ’97 is a post-doc researcher at the University of Minnesota; Betsy (Elizabeth) Maloney MS’06 is an academic adviser for Capella University; and as of May, they’re spouses as well. Though they live in Minneapolis, she swears that they’ll “always be avid Badger fans.”
2000s
Generating power from wind using large kites: that’s the vision of Rob Creighton ’00, MBA’07 — an inventor and the founder of Windlift, a firm that’s working to perfect kite-powered systems to replace diesel-engine-powered irrigation systems in developing nations. Creighton’s initial invention took second place in the 2007 Burrill Technology Business Plan competition at UW-Madison, and he’s since moved to Durham, North Carolina, to tap into steadier winds.
Liz Lance ’00 of San Francisco is using her Fulbright fellowship to complete a Web-based radio, photo, and print documentary project about how the mass media influence body image in young Nepali women. And she made the most of her UW experiences to prepare — participating in the UW’s College Year in Nepal program, studying the Nepali language, writing for the Badger Herald, and serving as the news director of the UW’s student-run radio station, WSUM.
In July, L.A.-based filmmaker Dave O’Brien ’00 wrote about what a crazy — crazy good — month it had been. First, he received the Outstanding Emerging Talent Award at Outfest 2008, one of the world’s largest LGBT film festivals, for his feature documentary, Equality U. Then the L.A. Times publicized the innovative HIV-prevention campaign that O’Brien is working on, including what it terms his “racy Web show” — a gay, online soap opera with a serious message called In the Moment.
A “clean, domestic, and economical energy future”: sounds great, doesn’t it? Ben Cipiti MS’03, PhD’04 has outlined his plan for this very thing in his new book, The Energy Construct (BookSurge Publishing), which he hopes will help us to “find realistic solutions and develop a path forward.” Cipiti is a nuclear engineer and researcher at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Jenny Green’s KILLER Junior Year (Simon Pulse) — a new, young-adult work co-authored by Jacob Osborn ’03 of Los Angeles — hit bookstores this fall. Osborn describes it as a “dark comedy about a spoiled teenage girl who goes to boarding school in Montréal and kills all the boys who
mistreat her, one by one.”
Folks in Des Moines, Iowa, will never forget the flooding there this summer, nor will they soon forget the leadership demonstrated by Bill Stowe PDE’03. As the city’s director of public works for the last ten years, he got plenty of TV time as he advised citizens on what to expect next. Said one city-council member, “Bill is the most competent person I know. He’s like the Jedi knight: just teach me your ways.”
Brian Faudree ’07 of Madison celebrated a promotion in May at JP Morgan Chase, advancing from sales and service associate to personal banker. His promotion came exactly one year after the date of his UW graduation.
Alumni News compiler Paula Wagner Apfelbach ’83 is the mother of a first-year Badger. What a time warp.
Liz Lance ’00 of San Francisco is using her Fulbright fellowship to complete a Web-based radio, photo, and print documentary project about how the mass media influence body image in young Nepali women. And she made the most of her UW experiences to prepare — participating in the UW’s College Year in Nepal program, studying the Nepali language, writing for the Badger Herald, and serving as the news director of the UW’s student-run radio station, WSUM.
In July, L.A.-based filmmaker Dave O’Brien ’00 wrote about what a crazy — crazy good — month it had been. First, he received the Outstanding Emerging Talent Award at Outfest 2008, one of the world’s largest LGBT film festivals, for his feature documentary, Equality U. Then the L.A. Times publicized the innovative HIV-prevention campaign that O’Brien is working on, including what it terms his “racy Web show” — a gay, online soap opera with a serious message called In the Moment.
A “clean, domestic, and economical energy future”: sounds great, doesn’t it? Ben Cipiti MS’03, PhD’04 has outlined his plan for this very thing in his new book, The Energy Construct (BookSurge Publishing), which he hopes will help us to “find realistic solutions and develop a path forward.” Cipiti is a nuclear engineer and researcher at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Jenny Green’s KILLER Junior Year (Simon Pulse) — a new, young-adult work co-authored by Jacob Osborn ’03 of Los Angeles — hit bookstores this fall. Osborn describes it as a “dark comedy about a spoiled teenage girl who goes to boarding school in Montréal and kills all the boys who
mistreat her, one by one.”
Folks in Des Moines, Iowa, will never forget the flooding there this summer, nor will they soon forget the leadership demonstrated by Bill Stowe PDE’03. As the city’s director of public works for the last ten years, he got plenty of TV time as he advised citizens on what to expect next. Said one city-council member, “Bill is the most competent person I know. He’s like the Jedi knight: just teach me your ways.”
Brian Faudree ’07 of Madison celebrated a promotion in May at JP Morgan Chase, advancing from sales and service associate to personal banker. His promotion came exactly one year after the date of his UW graduation.
Alumni News compiler Paula Wagner Apfelbach ’83 is the mother of a first-year Badger. What a time warp.
Events
- Around the World by Private Jet - November 1
- Maui Invitational Basketball Tour - November 21
- Maui/Oahu Football Tour - November 29
- The Florida Everglades - December 6
