Class Notes

Howard Goodrich wrote me 27 lines of verse and perhaps he’ll allow me to quote from two of them, as following: “Is hope learned from others? Is it the outcome of forgiveness? / Perhaps an attribute of love.”

This was Howard’s first offering and I trust it will not be the last. He and his wife Darlene are 90 and 87 and enjoying full health. Five months ago, he received a surprise phone call from Dave Welsh, who, Howard said, was apparently in good shape. Dave played football at Wesleyan.

Dick De Gennaro ’51, MALS ’60 wrote from Florida with the sad news that his brother George DeGenaro had passed away at age 94. Dick indulged in a multifaceted career, as I’m sure is true of others who have lived past 90.

Frank Hassell passed away last Nov. 29 after a bout of pneumonia. Frank’s youngest son and daughter-in-law were with him at the end. He was a great asset and friend to all who knew him.

Bill Stewart wrote in from Fort Wayne, Ind., and would be glad to hear from other Wesmen.

Walt Cook wrote from Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., and judging from the many activities he listed, he hasn’t slowed down a bit. He sets an example for the rest of us.

Dr. Bill Hillis, wrote from Wallingford, Conn., from a retirement community where he had been living with his wife for 15 years. He earned his MD from Cornell University, went to Cleveland to start medical training, then practiced general surgery in Greenwich, Conn. He retired in 1997 and moved to Goshen, Conn. The Hillis family includes six daughters, eight grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren. He also served two years in the Navy, a good chunk of it aboard the USS Midway.

Ken Barratt in Green Valley, Ariz., wrote in, too, as did Bob Willett from an assisted living facility on the West Coast. His wife, Martha, visits him every day and his daughter visits and takes care of his estate. Bob wanted to know how many attended the 65th Reunion and it was 20, give or take.

Dave Briggs also wrote in: “In answer to your recent note and belated answer to your letter from last September, I have not been in contact with Wesleyan classmates in many years. To provide a brief biography: after attending Wesleyan for two years, I transferred to Swarthmore College and graduated two years later with a BA in psychology. Then I worked as an aide at McLean Hospital and studied for a MS in psychology at Boston University for about a year before spending two years in alternative service with the Brethren Service Commission during the Korean War. They sent me to Germany where, during a peace seminar of which I was co-director, I met Gertrude Heine of Bremen. She agreed to come to America, where we were married in 1956. We have four children (three girls and a boy), all who are now doing well in their chosen professions, and two grandsons, one who is a lawyer and one who has just completed a combined MD-PhD degree in bio-medicine. After completing a doctorate in psychology from BU, we moved to Augusta, Maine, where I worked for 40 years for the Togus VA Center. After retiring, we moved to Marion, Mass., in 2006 where we have been living in a renovated family cottage. This has been my life since Wesleyan.”

DAVID M. PHILIPS | davephilips69@hotmail.com
57 Grandville Court, Wakefield, RI 02879

Elizabeth Evans notified us that her father John J. Evans III passed away on Feb. 16, 2019, at the age of 90. At Wesleyan, John, a Beta Theta Pi, majored in economics and was the business manager for the Argus. After Wesleyan, he studied at NYU and Harvard Business School. His entire career was with the Hanover Bank and its successor, Manufacturers Hanover Trust Co., now part of J.P. Morgan. He retired as vice chairman of the board of directors. In retirement he was active in a number of nonprofits. He is survived by Noreen, his wife of 67 years, three children, five grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren. Our thoughts are with his family.

BUD DORSEY | margiedorsey5@gmail.com
121 Renegar Way #105, St. Simons Island, GA, 31522 | 912/638-5616

That attic I call my mind houses countless memories of things I have read, or written, of glorious things I have seen and atrocities I have witnessed. And special memories of dear friends and loves long gone. I do not remember all the delights of Dante’s Hell, but I do remember one helluva funny incident starring a fellow Wesman and 10th Mountaineer, the late Chip Lofstedt ’44. Our mountain warfare training regularly took us into the high peaks of Colorado, frequently at altitudes above 10,000 feet. On the day I recall with a chuckle, our squad was enjoying a lunch break when Chip, acting radio man, suddenly heard, “This is Scouts Out Lowry Field at 9,600 feet, gliding, gliding.” We rushed to the edge of our lunch area to see a small observation trainer plane cruising along below, and heard Chip, momentarily inspired, “This is Private Lofstedt at 11,000 feet, walking, walking. You’d better get your plane up and out of here pretty damned fast or you’ll be wearing our mountain.” The plane skirted away with nary word of thanks, but Chip’s radio caught a fragment of something about “smart-ass college boy snowbunnies.” Nope, war is not 100% hell.

Well, it’s hard to be secretary to a silent minority, but I am always optimistic that some one of you will send me a word of news—or caution. Slán go fóill.

FRANCIS W. LOVETT | lovettfrancis@gmail.com

315 14th Street, Unit A, Windsor, CO 80550 | 907/460-9338

Parents Class of 2018 Wesleyan Scholarship
Caroline Pitton ’22, Seattle, WA
Owen Shin ’22, New Canaan, CT

Hello, Class of 2018! How has it already been eight months since graduation?! I don’t know about you, but I would kill for a pail right about now. Anyway, time for some updates!

Steven Kidder is in New Hampshire working with the ACLU. He will be working on their 2020 campaign focused around the idea of getting people to vote like their civil rights depend on it. One goal is getting presidential hopefuls and local politicians to address where they stand on civil liberties.

Meanwhile, in D.C., Matt Renetzky and Hannah Skopicki are finishing their first year of law school at the American University Washington College of Law. When the government is not shut down, they enjoy visiting the National Mall, watching Supreme Court arguments, and “learning how to get away with murder.”

Steven Chen works for Smitten Ice Cream in San Francisco as the innovation and new product manager. Smitten is a Californian ice cream brand known for churning fresh ice cream using their patented Brrr machines. He manages ingredient sourcing, supply chain, and new product launches for eight locations. He works with local farms, family-owned businesses, and craft food purveyors to find exceptional and ethically-sourced new ingredients to feature and amazing stories to tell when new products launch.

That’s it for now, but make sure to write in next time for a feature!

Najwa Anasse | nanasse@wesleyan.edu
Garett Larivee | glarivee@wesleyan.edu

Micaela Kaye was chosen by the Knowles Teacher Initiative as a member of its 2018 Cohort of Teaching Fellows. The Knowles Teaching Fellowship is an intensive and cohesive five-year program that supports early-career, high school mathematics and science teachers in their efforts to develop teaching expertise and lead from the classroom.

Ellen Paik left her job in investment banking and joined New Story, a San Francisco nonprofit that aims to pioneer solutions to address global homelessness. New Story helped develop a 3D printer that can print homes in less than 24 hours and will hopefully be putting this technology to use soon!

Tim Israel lives in Portland, Ore., and started exploring a newfound passion for karaoke. Reach out to Tim with any great go-to karaoke songs.

Chris “Gla” Glabicky is alive and well. Gla is working with Pierre Plantevin, Dara Mysliwiec, Theodore Eugene Sullivan, G. Foley, and Nicole Roman-Johnston on another full-length album. Stay in touch through pdgworld.net.

Abby Gruppuso is opening a liquor distillery in Patchogue, N.Y., The Better Man Distilling Co., with Peter Cornillie ’15. Doors open this summer!

Mike Greenwald is starting another year at the Westminster School in Simsbury, Conn., teaching math (calculus and algebra) and coaching lacrosse and basketball, and is planning to attend a graduate program at the Bread Loaf School of English up at Middlebury this summer. Mike is still running marathons and did a trail running vacation to New Zealand. Mike’s next big race will be the Burlington Vermont City Marathon in May, and the weekend after that he will be running the Covered Bridges Half Marathon with Liz Weinstein, Jordan Sapnar, and Greg Goldstone.

Tabitha Gillombardo is in Cleveland and totally stoked about the Browns. She is the John Lewis Fellow and paralegal at The Chandra Law Firm—a civil rights and constitutional rights law firm. She is learning every day from the firm’s high-stakes litigators, who—with co-counsel—secured the largest settlement in Cleveland history on behalf of Tamir Rice’s family.

Ellen Paik | epaik@wesleyan.edu

Peter George has been living in Sydney, Australia, for the past two years and can confirm people do not ride kangaroos to work.

Jimmy Nguyen and Marianna Ilagan moved back to San Francisco last August. They are happy to have finally escaped the snow. Marianna regularly grabs lunch with Marie Valdez and coffee with Erik Islo.

Last summer, Scarlett Perry made a career switch and attended Flatiron School’s software engineering immersive program. She will be starting her first role as a software engineer at an NYC AdTech company in January. She looks forward to connecting with other Wes grads in the field!

Sarah Gerton’s second young adult novel under the pen name Sara Holland, Evermore (the sequel to last year’s Everless), was released on Dec. 31 and appeared at number eight on the New York Times bestsellers list.

Andrew Hove has been in Los Angeles working in music as an artist manager and with a music/tech company. On his down time, he’s either seeing local music or helping Brett Keating get a date with Demi Lovato.

Eva Frieden is enjoying life in San Francisco where she works at Airbnb and trains for triathlons in her spare time; outside of that she keeps busy either getting together with local Wes alumni or convincing far away Wes friends to come visit!

Jon Coombs and Dana Louie live together in Boston. They plan to move across the Charles River to Cambridge when Dana starts at Harvard Business School later this year.

John Pacheco and Tawni Stoop will be getting married this May! She’s on her second year of a clinical psychology PhD program at Penn State University in State College, Pa., and he’s in his first year of medical school at Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine in Scranton, Pa. They’re working hard, living apart when they have to, and still missing their classmates and fun times at Wes every day.

Rebecca Wyzan lives in Brooklyn. She works in talent management at Untitled Entertainment, which represents actors, writers, musicians, artists, and directors. She also produces film and VR projects on the side.

Ming Zhu has been working at San Mateo, Calif.-based Crop One Holdings, Inc.—one of the world’s largest vertical farming companies in the world—and will be moving to Dubai. He’ll be there representing his U.S. parent company as their regional development manager, working with Emirates Airlines with whom they are building the world’s largest vertical farm. Ming would love to connect with any alumni there. If anyone knows any interesting endeavors (both companies and investors) in areas such as sustainability, indoor farming, vertical farming, digital agriculture, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and big data and sensor application in food/ag, please let him know and he’d love to learn more about them and explore together.

Scattered all over the world since graduation, the 146 Cross Street crew, Adin Vaewsorn, Dylan Awalt-Conley, Matt Burgunder, Dat Tien Vu, Erin Chase, Pierre Gerard ’16, and Michael Leung managed to navigate through time zone differences and reunited over video during Christmas.

Jenna Starr | jstarr@wesleyan.edu

Randy Linder writes: “After getting YTT [200-hour yoga teacher training certification] certified in Rishikesh, India, I traveled for eight months all around India and Southeast Asia. I returned to Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth at the UCSC site to teach my favorite course, Paradoxes and Infinites. After that, I joined Facebook as a data scientist. I can’t wait to see all of you this summer at Reunion.”

Amy Lindland reports: “I’ll hit my five-year anniversary with Indeed.com in June and am a director of sales on our national franchise accounts team. I am also getting married in September. So much to look forward to this year!”

Leah Khambata graduated from Cornell University with an MBA in May and is now in the post-production phase of her short film, (t)here, which she wrote, produced, and acted in while in NYC. She is in LA now working at

ShortsTV while also acting, with hopes to eventually have her own production company that bridges the gap between Hollywood and Bollywood.

Leslie Lai is finishing up her PhD. in psychology at Brown University this spring. Meanwhile, she and her husband are expecting their first child!

Remi Ojurongbe is graduating from Harvard Law School in May and Alexander Mehner is graduating from American Law School in May, too. They are getting married (to each other) in November. Mazel tov!

Andrew Cohen launched a small animation company, Confidential Cartoons, in Los Angeles, alongside his work as a publicist for composers, cinematographers, and production designers in TV and film.

Russell Madison has been applying his analytical skills as a data scientist for Foundation Medicine in Cambridge but will be moving to San Diego this summer to pursue his lifelong dream of having unfettered access to fish tacos and learning to surf. He eagerly anticipates telling people in his new home that if the weather isn’t nice, they just need to wait five minutes.

Alex Nunez has been working for EA Games in NYC, maximizing brand value by slinging partnership deals and playing FIFA at his desk.

After stints in banking in Cleveland and Denver, Troy Sampson migrated west to Los Angeles, where he’s been running the West Coast operations of a customs broker and supply chain shop. He “singlehandedly keeps Bottega Louie in business.”

Dylan Keegan will graduate in May from Vanderbilt with a JD and master’s in finance. He will join the firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison as an associate after graduation, where the demands of being a corporate lawyer will be challenged by his commitment as the commissioner of one of the “most active fantasy football leagues in North America.”

Patrick Newman is working at Mosaic Media Group in Los Angeles, representing and managing talent.

After working at IBM Watson alongside faithful henchman and close friend, Blair Corbin ’15, Chase Hochman left for greener pastures at Hoboken-based AI startup Innoplexus. When he’s not slinging SaaS or playing squash with Alex Nunez, he “spends his days debating which CAVA server gives the most generous portion sizes with roommate Jackson Ulrich.”

As for me, I am in my second year of law school at Fordham University School of Law (still reppin’ the red and black everywhere I go). I am hoping to become a litigator in the area of white collar/securities.

See you all in May. Let’s make our five-year a good one!

Mary Diaz | mcdiaz@wesleyan.edu 

Happy 2019 to the Class of 2012! Last year was an exciting one for many of our Hilltop friends.

Lizzie Simon is in her second year of study toward becoming a family nurse practitioner. She can usually be found playing Ultimate or doing acroyoga, thanks to Wesleyan. She is grateful to be enjoying Seattle with Jennelle Taylor ’15 and Bryce Fintel ’16.

Alyssa Lanz, in LA, a television literary agent at United Talent Agency where she has been since graduation, was featured on Forbes’ 30 Under 30.

Andrew Dominguez has been shuttling between LA and his hometown in the Philippines for the better part of two years. In LA, he is involved with the local alumni community and helps them support Wesleyan and NESCAC events in the city. In Manila, he organized a gathering for alumni of small liberal arts colleges; there were 20 attendees, half of whom hailed from Wesleyan, with a trio from Williams, and individuals from other peer schools. There is enthusiasm for similar events in the future. Andrew is aiming to build a network of support in LA for Raghu Appasani’s MINDS Foundation. Andrew is active in the alumni filmmaking community in LA, too.

Tess Minter graduated with her MBA from the University of San Francisco in May and started a job with Gartner as a management consultant in state and local government with a focus on homelessness response departments. Tess and her partner bought a condo in Oakland and are expecting to get engaged in the next few months.

Along to more wedding bell news: Hillary Biggs and Grant Covington were married in September, and their wedding had lots from the Wes crowd!

As for me, I am still at Bridgewater Associates and am planning my own wedding for May. Wishing the entire Class of 2012 continued success.

Daisey Perez | deperez@wesleyan.edu

Hi, Class of 2011. Always great to hear everyone’s updates!

Nick Luby, who double majored in music and philosophy, writes, “Over the last two years I founded and now codirect The Concert Truck, a mobile concert hall that delivers performances of classical music to diverse and unexpected locations. My partner and I have brought music to schools, parking lots, street corners, city squares, restaurants and bars, parks, zoos, homeless shelters, children’s homes, farmers markets, and scenic landscapes.

• Voice of America / NewsGram video 1
• Voice of America story and video 2

From Cheryl Tan, “Not broke, still in Singapore! Learning more about money, starting to work with an Australian agent, shortlisted for the Women of the Future Award (SEA). Won Best Libretto at a short musical festival in KL. The story was about sperms! Have visa in SG (whew). Web series, Derek, is out on Toggle.sg this Valentine’s Day and currently rehearsing a new play about humanitarian workers. It’s intense and really good. Also have regular singing students now and doing grant writing work. Thinking about getting more acting training, maybe in Europe.”

Bulaong Ramiz is a director of the multicultural resource center at Amherst College. She had her first baby this past August, Kimaya, who has already spent some time visiting mama’s alma mater.

Brendan “Shem” Sheehan was in Chicago for the annual Russian baths meetup where he tubbed, sauna’d, and kvassed it up with Charlie Lang, Matt Katz, and Justin Spring ’10.

Kim Prosise is living in Cambridge, Mass., near Davis Square. In 2018 she founded an entertainment company that provides circus and specialty performance art (@goldarrowllc), explored Costa Rica, Nebraska, and Bermuda, and made frequent trips to NYC to visit Gabriel Urbina ’13, Zach Valenti ’12, Ariella Axelbank ’14, and friends.

Timur Khanachet is a fellow at the American Film Institute and will be graduating in 2020.

Mat Larkin writes, “I majored in studio art, and I own a highest-end metal shop in Providence, R.I., called Nine and Two Thirds, specializing in fine art fabrication, architectural metalwork for homes, restaurants, and offices, and custom furniture. We were awarded the DESIGNXRI Design Catalyst Grant to purchase a large CNC milling machine, which is very exciting. We typically work with architects, interior designers, and our own design and engineering acumen to engineer and fabricate custom, large-scale pieces. We have two ongoing public art projects that will be seen on Boston’s Rose Kennedy Greenway this May, as well as myriad residential and commercial projects.”

McKinley Tennant is living in Bali and working and teaching yoga at a women’s retreat called Goddess Retreats in Semiyak. She is very happy to call this place home. She writes, “My partner opened up a matcha cafe and we have a Bali dog, Maya, who is the sweetest.”

Thanks to all those who contributed! Look forward to hearing continued contributions from our class in the next cycle.

Allie Southam | asoutham@wesleyan.edu