Alumni Notes

To get alumni news delivered to your inbox, subscribe to the UCSC e-newsletter.

COWELL COLLEGE

'69 Patricia Zylius recently self-published Dear Sweeties: Tom Cuthbertson on His Dance with Cancer. The book is a collection of email letters that Tom CUTHBERTSON (Cowell '67) wrote about his life with pancreatic cancer, from diagnosis, through following an alternative treatment that seemed promising for some time, and ending with his preparation for death. The book includes a wonderful introduction by Paul SCHOELL HAMER ('69), a small selection of the 2,200 replies Tom received, a few short stories about Tom at different times in his life, and a final letter from his wife about his passing.

'76 David KAHN recently joined Renne Sloan Holtzman Sakai LLP in San Francisco as a partner, where he will continue to practice government and land use law after 32 years in the public sector. He said he is looking forward to the new challenges and rewards of private vs. public practice. His sailboat at South Beach Harbor will be a place to stay after a long day at the office.

'77 Ron BENSON, AIA, NCARB, LEED AP, was hired in August by HGA Architects and Engineers as senior associate in its Los Angeles office. A licensed senior project manager with more than 25 years of international and domestic experience, Benson joined the firm's higher education and healthcare practice groups.

'77 Bob LOMBARDI is a motorcycle safety instructor at a Bay Area Harley Davidson dealer. He continues to be active in the Modesto Tea Party, Madison Society, and other Bill of Rights support organizations.

'78 Jean ROSS recently moved to New York to take a position as the U.S. Program Officer for Transparent, Effective, and Accountable Government at the Ford Foundation. She looks forward to linking up with other Slugs-in-exile in the big city. Mark SCHACK is a longtime middle-school math teacher who is beginning his third year as president of the California Teachers Association. With an empty nest at home, he is continuing his journey into the mandolin world, playing with bluegrass musicians in the area.

'79 Kathleen (Kathy) ADAMS was selected by the Princeton Review as one of the 300 "Best Professors" teaching at universities and colleges in the United States, Canada, and England. She is appreciative of her undergraduate UCSC mentors for their modeling of great teaching. She is a professor of sociocultural anthropology and Southeast Asian studies at Loyola University Chicago.

'92 Ethan O. BRYSON, MD, has released his new book Addicted Healers: 5 Key Signs Your Healthcare Professional May Be Drug Impaired from New Horizon Press. He is an award-winning associate professor in the departments of anesthesia and psychiatry at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. He and his family live in Bridgewater, N.J.

'95 Neal ROGERS is editor-in-chief of Velo magazine, the leading cycling magazine in the U.S. An interest in all things rock 'n' roll led Neal into music journalism while attending UCSC. After several post-grad years spent waiting tables, surfing, and mountain biking, Neal moved to San Francisco where he worked stints as a bike messenger and at a software startup. He moved to Colorado in 2001, taking an editorial internship at VeloNews, and never left. When not traveling the world covering races, Neal can be found riding his bike, skiing, cooking, or attending a concert. Follow him on Twitter at @ nealrogers.

'92 David SCHROEDER, Toby NEGRIN ('96), and Jeff MORSMAN (Porter) celebrated their 20th college anniversary by climbing and skiing Mount St. Helens in May. Greg MCPHEE (Crown '93) was also on the trip.

'99 Amber Strong MAKAIAU won the 2011 Teacher Tolerance Award for excellence in Culturally Responsible Teaching. She teaches at Kailua High School and in April gave a talk at a UCSC Admissions event in Honolulu for prospective students.

STEVENSON COLLEGE

'71 Charles STREE TMAN starred in It Ain't Nothin' But the Blues on the Main Stage at Portland Center Stage in Portland, Ore., in May and June.

'87 Lance BERNARD recently left Reno (for the final time) and moved to Cloverdale, which he enjoys immensely.

CROWN COLLEGE

'69 Barbara THORNTON got an MCP at Yale, finishing at MIT. In 1977, she married Ron Alex, an architect. She worked with the state of Massachusetts to implement deinstitutionalization, escaped for six months to Mexico and South America, returned to work with local government and public policy issues and have children, Rucker and Byron. She returned to school and in 1995 received an MBA from HBS. She worked in investment banking, management consulting and in 1997 started the e-commerce company, www.DesignerShoes. com, where she is now employed, while plotting a next career in public policy, then science fiction writing.

'77 Michael PAPARIAN recently started his sixth year as executive director of the California Pollution Control Financing Authority in the State Treasurer's Office. He is implementing new programs to help small businesses get financing, especially those seeking to assist or implement strategies for energy efficiency and environmental improvement.

'85 Maggie SHIFFRAR was appointed dean of the Graduate School at Rutgers University, Newark, in April. Shiffrar joined the psychology department at Rutgers-Newark in 1991.

'93 Greg MCPHEE helped Jeff MORSMAN (Porter '92), David SCHROEDER (Cowell '92), and Toby NEGRIN (Cowell '96), celebrate their 20th college anniversary by climbing and skiing Mt. St. Helens together in May.

'94 Terran Elizabeth McGinnis (née ROSEN BERG) is the education supervisor at Dolphin Connection in the Florida Keys. She was formerly the education director at Marineland in St. Augustine, Fla., which is the world's oldest oceanarium. She co-authored a book about the history of that facility that was published by Arcadia Publishing in May 2011.

'11 Forrest PHILLIPS graduated as a film and digital media major with honors and is associate producer on the cultural/political radio show In Deep with Angie Coiro.

MERRILL COLLEGE

'73 Bob CAREY received the 2012 Presidential Jefferson Award for public service. He is founder and executive director of Sarah's Kitchen, an interfaith group that runs five soup kitchens in St. Lucie County, Fla., where the unemployment rate has been as high as 16 percent. Bob coordinates over 600 volunteers who served more than 38,000 hot meals last year. Sarah's Kitchen does not have any paid staff. Everyone who serves is a volunteer, including Bob.

'86 Kris PERRY was appointed executive director of the First Five Years Fund in August. Perry, a nationally recognized early childhood advocate, has been instrumental in driving effective early learning policy at local, state, and national levels. As executive director, Perry will oversee policy and communication efforts nationwide for the First Five Years Fund, one of the country's leading organizations focused on improving federal policy regarding quality birth-to-5 education programs for at-risk children.

'91 Carl ZIMRING is associate professor of Sustainability Studies at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, where he talks trash and recycles a lot of material. His most recent publication is the two-volume Encyclopedia of Consumption and Waste: The Social Science of Garbage (SAGE, 2012).

PORTER COLLEGE

'72 John COFFEY was awarded a Fellowship in the Academy of General Dentistry. The award is presented to dentists who seek to provide the highest quality of dental care by remaining current in their profession. He completed 500 hours of continuing dental education within three years and passed a comprehensive exam in order to earn the honor. He has practiced dentistry in Santa Cruz since 1982 after earning his dental degree at UCLA.

'75 Lori HIGA is development director for Asian Neighborhood Design, a SoMa-based architecture, community planning, green construction, and solar PV installation training nonprofit in San Franciso. Gregory MEHRTEN played the part of Pandarus in the Wooster Group/ Royal Shakespeare Company coproduction of Troilus and Cressida, which started August 3 at the Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon- Avon.

'77 Laura MARELLO published The Tenants of the Hotel Biron, a novel that takes the historical facts of a string of famous artists living in the Hotel Biron in Paris at the turn of the 20th century to create a fictional universe.

'86 Mary LOCKWOOD was an honored guest of the 11th gathering of the International Indigenous Grandmother's Council held in mid-July, in Lame Deer, Mont. Hosted by Cheyenne-Arapaho Grandmother Margret Behan in the Cheyenne Reservation with the theme of healing intergenerational trauma, the gathering was an intensive effort of prayer and ceremony. Near the site of Custer's Last Stand, the historic battle of Little Big Horn, the intention of healing historic trauma was indeed appropriate.

'88 Carma SPENCE announced the publication of her fourth book, 57 Secrets for Branding Yourself Online, which is due out from Logical Expressions Inc. this fall. An author and speaker, she is an award-winning editor with more than 20 years of experience in marketing, public relations, and science communication. She also has written two cookbooks and a book about homepage design.

'92 Andrew FENTON, MD, was elected president of the California chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP). Representing nearly 3,000 physicians, California ACEP advocates for ER doctors and the rights of all patients to emergency health care 24/7. Andrew works in Napa and lives in Sonoma with his wife, Elizabeth, and daughter, Lucy. The family is also expecting twin sons in September.

'92 Jeff MORSMAN, David SCHROEDER (Cowell '92), and Toby NEGRIN (Cowell '96), celebrated their 20th college anniversary by climbing and skiing Mt. St. Helens in May. Greg MCPHEE (Crown '93) was also on the trip.

'00 Nick SALICK operates the Salick Family Law Group in Beverly Hills. He attended the University of La Verne Law School, graduated on the Dean's List in 2004, and passed the California bar exam on the first try, obtaining his law license in 2005. After working at four law firms, he started his own practice and has more than 37 clients and is considered a "Rising Star Super Lawyer," which, he noted, is quite a recognition considering his age (33) and his years in practice (6). His sister, Adrienne SALICK, graduated from Stevenson College ('92).

'01 Joe DE PAGE is a reformed man. Forest F. WHITE has published a book of poetry, Gospels of Rage, which will benefit the Combat Paper Project, an art program for veterans. He lives in Verona, N.J., and is married to the artist Ashli Sisk. He writes software manuals and leads training courses in his day job.

'05 Angilee WRIGHT, J.D., is a patent attorney at the intellectual property law firm of Thorpe North & Western in Salt Lake City, UT. She moonlights as a court-rostered domestic mediator, and teaches ski lessons to individuals with special needs. She is also a candidate in phase II testing to be an FBI Special Agent. The professors and classes in UCSC's Legal Studies Department and Psychology Department, as well as the year she spent in Perth, Australia (through UCSC's EAP), inspired her life journey. She looks forward to returning to Santa Cruz to visit her family's local farm.

KRESGE COLLEGE

'79 Julie HUTCHINSON earned a BA in theater and is now senior vice president of casting at Universal Pictures. She lives in Los Angeles with her 11-year-old daughter.

'84 William BERGER was featured in the documentary Wagner's Dream. The film tracks the staging of Robert Lepage's production of Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City where Berger works as a writer, producer, and radio commentator.

'98 Christopher BROUGHTON has been selected as a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations. The Term Member Program provides promising young leaders with an opportunity to deepen their knowledge and experience with international affairs and U.S. foreign policy through interactions with high profile leaders from government and the private sector, both from the U.S. and abroad.

'99 Reyna GRANDE is the author of the new memoir, The Distance Between Us, hailed by Kirkus Reviews as a "standout immigrant coming-of-age story." It received a starred review from Publishers Weekly. Her two previous books include Dancing with Butterflies (2009) and Across a Hundred Mountains (2006), which was the recipient of a 2007 American Book Award. Visit her at www.reynagrande.com.

OAKES COLLEGE

'94 Ernie BRAY has led his company to a fourth consecutive year ranking on Inc. Magazine's prestigious list of Fastest Growing Private Companies in America. As founder and CEO, Bray has also become known as a respected national business leader having been named 2012 Executive of the Year in Insurance at the American Business Awards this past June.

'97 April ECONOMIDES, founder of Green Octopus Consulting, created the continent's first Bike- Friendly Business District (BFBD) program for the City of Long Beach to increase bicycling trips to local businesses. Its success garners significant national media coverage and has inspired other cities to follow suit. She's hired to speak around the U.S. and Canada about the business case for bicycling and is helping San Diego launch a BFBD program this summer. She was recently named one of Long Beach's "40 Under 40," was featured in Long Beach magazine for her green, car-free lifestyle, and serves on the host committee for TEDxSoCal.

'00 Amber TURPIN ended up staying in Santa Cruz after graduating from the Community Studies Department and works at Life Lab at the UCSC Farm, promoting garden-based education. She is also a freelance food writer, regularly contributing to Civil Eats and Edible Monterey Bay. In 2008, Amber was a staff member for Slow Food Nation, a groundbreaking event in San Francisco, prior to which she owned and operated the Sweet Pea Cookie Company for five years. She now lives with her husband on their small farm in the Santa Cruz Mountains, and they are expecting their first child.

COLLEGE EIGHT

'76 Henri Bensussen (née FINGOLD) serves as secretary on the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens board, and is on the board of the Mendocino Coast Writers Conference. Recent publications are in Bridges: A Jewish Feminist Journal and Drash: Northwest Mosaic. A member of Audubon, A.R.S., Mendocino Coast Writers Club, and Ft. Bragg Garden Club, she is the usual ardent birder, smitten gardener, and blocked writer who manages to keep upright most of the time.

'96 John HERNANDEZ is married to Karla Hernandez (née HERRERA) ('97). They have three children. John is a workers' compensation judge; Karla is a project director for the East Valley Community Health Center in West Covina.

COLLEGE NINE

'06 Lindsay FLESHMAN pursued a career in health care and won the Robert Wood Johnson scholarship for future nurse leaders at New York University. After graduating with her bachelors of science in nursing, she became certified as a trauma nurse in the emergency department. She recently left the ER to work in the field of rheumatology, and she started a nurse practitioner program at UCLA in September to advance her skills and assist with the primary care provider shortage.

'12 Paul CRACIUNOIU worked full-time at the nonprofit tech company Mozilla after graduation. In February 2011, together with his brother and a friend from college, he started a company aimed at connecting people. They hired great UCSC computer science interns, grew to a few thousand users in the Bay Area, and then met with difficulty. Eventually they ended their project, but Craciunoiu learned a lot about what it takes to build a product, assemble a team, drive a vision, and build company culture.

GRADUATE STUDIES

'99 Philip Choi was promoted to Associate Professor at Pomona College. He joined the faculty in 2007 and teaches Physics, Introductory Astronomy, Observational Astronomy, Life in the Universe Laboratory, and Stellar Structure and Evolution. His primary research interests are observational studies of galaxy evolution, including both detailed studies of nearby galaxies as well as large infrared and optical surveys of distant galaxy samples.

'02 William YARYAN is a lecturer in English, linguistics, and translation at Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya University in Thailand and presented a paper June 1, 2012, at a conference there on "'Big Tent Buddhism': Searching for Common Ground Among Western and Asian 'buddhisms.'"

'05 Tonya CLAYTON published How to Read a Florida Gulf Coast Beach: A Guide to Shadow Dunes, Ghost Forests, and Other Telltale Clues from an Ever-Changing Coast.

'08 Sean BURNS received the CLR James Award for Best Book of 2011 for his biography Archie Green: The Making of a Working Class Hero. The Working Class Studies Association granted Burns the award for his study of the influential, San Francisco-based, historian and folklorist of workers' culture Archie Green (1917–2009).

IN MEMORIAM

'71 Sandra J. (CHASE) Horlick (Stevenson) died March 1, 2012, after a long battle with cancer. She graduated with a BA in psychology from UCSC and worked as a self-employed bookkeeper and investment consultant. She was 63. Robert George TANIGUCHI (Crown) died in Campbell, Calif., on April 10, 2012.

'87 Chuck L. PETERSON (Cowell) died May 25, 2012. Chuck was well-known to the UCSC computer subculture of the 1980s as author of "tforum" and the popular "mtrek" real-time multiplayer game, both of which ran on the campus network. After graduation he worked as a software engineer and entrepreneur. He was 47.

'91 Randy JUDGE (Crown) died unexpectedly at his home on April 7, 2011. He held a BA in Earth sciences from UCSC and worked as an environmental consultant in Hawai'i and Nevada. He also worked as a regulator for the California Water Quality Control Board in Redding, Calif. He was 52.