Nominated by President Obama in January 2011, and confirmed in March, Eric Postel ’77 joins the leadership team at the U.S. Agency for International Development as assistant administrator for Economic Growth, Agriculture and Trade. Postel, an experienced economic development expert and financier with a background in emerging markets investments, has worked in Africa, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East as an adviser and financial officer. In 2006, he served as Commissioner on the bi-partisan Senate Helping to Enhance the Livelihood of People Around the Globe (HELP) Commission. A mathematics/economics major at Wesleyan, he is also a four-year veteran of the U.S. Navy and a graduate of Stanford University Graduate School of Business.
The law firm of Miller Canfield has elected Megan P. Norris ’83 to serve a two-year term as a managing director, effective January 1, 2011. She is part of a five-person management administration that works with the CEO to oversee the firm’s offices in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Poland and China. A principal in the Detroit, Michigan, office, Norris is leader of the firm’s Employment + Labor Law group practice. She counsels clients on employment matters that include discipline and discharge, discrimination, harassment, and tort claims. She is a nationally recognized expert on the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). Cited as a “2011 Leader in the Law” by Michigan Lawyers Weekly, she also has been recognized for her work in The Best Lawyers in America, Chambers USA and Michigan Super Lawyers. A government and music major at Wesleyan, she earned her J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School. Norris is a member of the Wesleyan University Board of Trustees.
Beth Rose ’84, P’14, of Sills Cummis & Gross P.C., was recognized as one of the 10 Most Admired Product Liability attorneys by Law 360: Newswire for Business Lawyers. Rose, whose specialty is defending pharmaceutical and medical device companies facing product liability and mass tort litigation, has “earned a reputation as a quick thinker and a team player,” according to fellow litigators who nominated her for the title. A history major at Wesleyan, she received her JD from Georgetown University Law Center and then joined Sills Cummis.
Sarah Wildman ’96 won the $10,000 Peter R. Weitz Prize from the German Marshall Fund for excellence and originality in reporting on Europe and the transatlantic relationship. Her five-part series, “Paper Love: Inside the Holocaust Archives,” was published in Slate in January 2009. Entwining personal family history with the larger struggle to categorize, analyze, and understand Nazi records and survivor accounts, Wildman examined the International Tracing System (ITS), the world’s largest Holocaust archive, located in Bad Arolsen, Germany. “The story of Bad Arolsen has been told, but not like this…with such detail, dogged pursuit, passion, and deeply felt, first-person storytelling,” said one judge. While her search was ultimately inconclusive, the series illustrated the difficulties facing the field and the shadow the Holocaust continues to cast over Europe. Wildman writes about foreign policy and culture wars for Politics Daily, and is a regular contributor to The New York Times and the Guardian.
Todd Snyder ’84 was named one of six Rainmakers of the Year in Institutional Investor (Dec. 2009/Jan. 2010). The feature focused on the people behind six of the world’s top 10 transactions, noting that the economic environment was “perhaps the ultimate challenge for dealmakers.” Considered “a top U.S.-based restructuring specialist at Rothschild,” Snyder had been selected to advise the U.S. government on how to handle the country’s difficulties within the auto industry. Then-Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez called Snyder on Thanksgiving Day 2008 to let him know that Rothschild had been selected the sole adviser to the government in the rescue—and for the next year, Snyder “slept with his Blackberry under his pillow,” so relentless and imperative was communication between negotiators. “We were trying to figure out how the administration could stabilize the industry and preserve as many jobs as possible, but, at the same time, make a prudent and recoverable investment of taxpayer money,” explains Snyder in the article and recalls that the most challenging talks centered on GM’s Opel/Vauxhall operations in Europe. A May 2008 meeting at Germany’s Chancellery building included German Chancellor Angela Merkel, her economic adviser Jens Weidmann, and GM representative John Smith, with then–GM CEO Fritz Henderson, U.S. Auto Task Force’s Ronald Bloom ’77, and Magna International CEO Frank Stronach participating via conference call. Now, Snyder is leading the financial advisory teams in the reorganizations of Tronox and Visteon.
Joseph Haddad ’78, MD, received the 2008 Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine Award for his compassionate patient care and as a humanistic role model for students and young physicians. Given by the Arnold P. Gold Foundation, the award was presented at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons commencement ceremony last spring. A biology major at Wesleyan, he is a professor of clinical otolaryngology/head and neck surgery, associate dean, and vice chairman of otolaryngology at Columbia. Additionally, he is the director of pediatric otolaryngology/head and neck surgery at Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital of New York-Presbyterian Columbia University Medical Center, and since, 1991, has been traveling twice a year to Honduras to teach and perform surgery for cleft lip/palate and other facial deformities. He received his M.D. from the New York University School of Medicine. An alumni-elected trustee of Wesleyan, he received the Alumni Service Award in 1988.
Omar Rahim ’96 has been chosen to participate in the Asia Society’s fifth annual Asia 21 Young Leaders Summit. He is among more than 200 emerging leaders—all under the age of 40—from some 30 countries and economies in the Asia-Pacific region. Rahim is an actor, dancer, choreographer, and social entrepreneur who lives and works in New York. He will appear in a feature film titled Meherjaan, which was shot in Bangladesh in 2009/2010 and is due for regional release in January 2011. In his entrepreneurial work, Rahim has established Soof Designs, an award-winning home textile brand that showcases Pakistan’s extraordinary textile heritage and promotes Pakistani craft and design to international buyers and designers worldwide.
Jed Koslow ’99 (above left next to brother Rory ’04) along with Aaron Yowell ’99 and Alex Nemeth ’99, as well as two additional friends, raised more than $34,000 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, through sponsorships and pledges for their commitment to run in the Wildflower Triathlon, held in Los Angeles last spring. Their team, the Brooklyn Landsharks, trained with Team In Training, a fundraising chapter of the Society. The Landsharks earned a place in a recent book on philanthropy for their success in garnering financial support. “We were assertive and creative,” Koslow explains, with teammates selling and auctioning goods (t-shirts with an original design) and services (a gourmet dinner party, prepared and served by the Landsharks). Koslow, who had never participated in a triathlon before, cites his younger brother, Rory ’04, a two-time triathlete who raised more than $30,000 for the society, as his inspiration. The Koslow brothers look forward to completing future triathlon together.
Catherine Rob Rogers ’91, a Laramie County, Wyo., Circuit Court Magistrate and a private practice attorney, was appointed to the First Judicial District Court by Gov. Dave Freudenthal last September. In a Wyoming Tribune Eagle article, Freudenthal praised her, saying, “Her reputation for honesty and ethics is of the highest order. What makes her uniquely qualified is that the Circuit Court is really the people’s court, and she has a great people sense about her.” A sociology major as an undergraduate, she earned a JD from the University of Wyoming College of Law and was admitted to the Wyoming State Bar in 1998. “I am humbled by the Governor’s confidence in me, and I will do my best to serve the judiciary and the people of Laramie County with fairness, courtesy and a commitment to equal justice,” Rogers said. She is married to Kevin Ohlson ’90.
Jeongdo (Alfred) Hong ’04 was selected as one of this year’s Young Global Leaders by the World Economic Forum, a Geneva-based nonprofit that brings together business and political leaders, intellectuals and journalists to discuss the most pressing international issues, including health and the environment. This year the forum selected 197 Young Global Leaders from 72 countries for their professional accomplishments, commitment to society, and potential to contribute to shaping the future of the world. Hong, of South Korea, is head of strategy for the JoongAng Ilbo, one of the country’s three big newspapers. Klaus Schwab, the founder and executive chairman of the WEF says that the group represents “the voice for the future and the hopes of the next generation” offering “new energy to solve intractable challenges.”
