Class Notes

We regret to inform you that Hal Treen, a DU at Wesleyan, passed away in October. He spent most of his professional career as a sales executive, and is survived by his wife, three sons, three daughters, and five grandchildren. We send our condolences to his family.

We received this message from Jud Miner: “Jud and Jean Miner have just celebrated 67 years of marriage. On Dec. 21, 1951, we were married in the worst blizzard Buffalo had that year. I was on leave from the Korean War service with the 9th Field Hospital MASH unit stationed at Ft. Sam, Houston, and Jean had just completed her degree in physics, Mt. Holyoke College.

“On Dec. 13, 2018, we moved to our new address, 120 Windsor Park Drive, Apartment A 101, Carol Stream, IL 60188. At ages 90 and 89 we are still driving and singing in the Windsor Park Chorale and Treble Clef. I am completing my memoir, They Didn’t Mention That in Sales Class, in January and will be seeking publishing ideas shortly.”

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

Stuart J. Hendel ’80, passed away  on October 20, 2018 at the age of 60, after waging a courageous battle against Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS).  Diagnosed in 2016, Stu, in typical form, turned his  considerable intellect and business savvy, toward raising funds to help find a cure for this horrible disease.  For example, since 2017, Stu hosted two fundraisers in New York City that raised almost $3 million for Project ALS, with the funds going toward ALS drug testing studies being conducted at Columbia University and at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard University. Scott Philllips ’80 and Richard Cohen ’81 attended the 2018 fundraiser this past January, and, while speaking was difficult for Stu at that point, they both reported a large smile instantly spreading across his face upon seeing them.  It took Scott back to his days with Stu in 1976 in Clark Hall freshman year when they met for the first time and coined nicknames for each other that they used for more than 40 years.

Richard in 1981 followed Stu to Cornell Law School, where Stu once again distinguished  himself academically without taking himself too seriously, winning traits of his that stayed with him throughout his life.

After Cornell, and following a short stint with a large NYC law firm, Stu embarked on a very successful career in the “prime brokerage” business in the NYC area, spending time at firms such as Morgan Stanley, UBS, Bank of America , Eton Park Capital Management and most recently, with Lightkeeper LLC.

Stu will  be missed by all of us who had the good fortune to have known him, but especially by his family, including his spouse Leslie of 28 years,  and their three children, Michael, Evan and Lauren.

Thank you to Scott Philllips ’80 and Richard Cohen ’81 for this heartfelt tribute.

Steven C. Hiscox ’81, who passed away on Nov. 20 2018, was the prototypical Wesleyan student—academically smart in the usual ways, but with wide-ranging and unexpected interests.  Steve was a music major who composed and played classical music for course credit, but then listened to rap music for pleasure, well before it was hip to do so.  He made college look effortless—he was at once scholarly and down to earth, serious and affable.  I well remember the time when he pulled an all-nighter to read Gone with the Windin one sitting!  His passions included pick-up basketball (he was a beast) and cars. He devoured Hot Rod magazine the minute it hit the newsstand, and spent countless hours under the hood of his car acquiring the skills and knowledge that eventually led to his life’s work as the owner of an automotive training school.  I regret that I did not stay in close touch with Steve after Wes, but I will always cherish our friendship during that formative time in our lives.

Thank you to Tom Miceli ’81, P’12, P’17 for this heartfelt tribute.

Herbert D. Kelleher ’53 passed away on Jan. 3, 2019. A full obituary can be found here.

Hey, Class of 2018, hope you are all doing great! Here are some updates: Adriana Phillips is getting her master’s in dance/movement therapy at Sarah Lawrence College. Jason Mitchner is working at Paradigm Talent as a music assistant to continue his passion for music and to stay competitive.

Joanna Paul is working for a nonprofit college access program in Chicago as a reading coach. She is helping first-generation, low-income students from underrepresented backgrounds get the support they need to get into college. She is taking her students to see Hamilton next month and is super excited. She misses y’all.

John Henry Vansant and Sarah Regan are serving as the campaign manager and field organizer for a Democratic campaign for the Colorado House of Representatives.

Diana Dominguez is an intern at the Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center. Among other projects, she is doing health education on HPV and recruiting patients for a study on HPV prevalence and persistence in inner city youth. She is very excited to start her position as a care coordinator at Mount Sinai next month. She will be working with high school youth in school based health clinics, navigating them through barriers and advocating between staff for their needs.

Brandon Sides is living in New York. He begins an intensive coding boot camp in January and will work as a web developer upon completion of the course. Out of the 52 New York-based alumni in tech that Brandon reached out to, more than half responded to his cold e-mails! Brandon would like to thank Peter Frank ’12, Nathan Shane ’13, Sam Wheeler ’15, and Tim Devane ’09, who offered their advice or provided career support of some kind.

Jamie Shi, Ray Miao, and Phoebe Chen worked on a Wes alumni art showcase in New York that opened in September. See the poster at magazine.wesleyan.edu.

Thank you to everyone who reached out and be on the lookout for future e-mails to let us know what you are up to!

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

Brett Keating is in L.A. writing for The Infatuation, which reviews restaurants. He often brings Andrew Hove and Sara Guernsey out to eat with him for an unreliable second or third opinion.

After teaching in the Boston area for three years, Paulina Jones-Torregrosa moved to Chicago to start her PhD in English at Northwestern University. She’d love to see any Wesfolk in the area!

Peter Cornillie was planning a beer dinner with a Detroit restaurant for late October.

Silvia Diaz-Roa has moved back to Connecticut. She just started her master’s in biostatistics at Yale.

Emmett McConnell is finishing up his graduate degree at Medill with a residency at the Johannesburg Citizen covering soccer.

Jaxie Friedman is a zero-waste coordinator for the NYC Department of Education’s Office of Sustainability, implementing recycling/composting programs and working on diverse sustainability initiatives in over 1,800 NYC public schools. Outside of work, she is getting crafty with waste and transforming “trash” into treasures, edible and otherwise.

Steven Susaña-Castillo has started his MPH at Yale in epidemiology of microbial diseases.

LaDarius Drew became the director of student activities at the Gunnery. He has been working on getting the students to involve themselves more outside of campus and in the community.

Earl Lin is still living in Washington, D.C.—though now living in the District proper, as opposed to Arlington, Va., and is still living with Josh Atchley. In June, Earl started working as a paralegal with the Roderick & Solange MacArthur Justice Center, a nonprofit civil rights litigation and advocacy law firm that works mainly on issues of criminal justice reform, including police misconduct, prisoner rights, wrongful convictions, and the death penalty. Specifically, as a member of the MacArthur Justice Center’s Appellate Project, Earl gets to work on litigation before higher courts around the country, up to and including the U.S. Supreme Court. In his free time, he’s been trying to take advantage of all D.C. has to offer, including regularly hanging out with fellow Wes alumni in the area and trying to find opportunities to get back into sailing.

Lina Mamut is a product owner at Ahold Delhaize designing tech for brands like Stop and Shop, Hannaford, and Giant.

The weekend of Sept. 14, Kaito Abe played poker with Miranda Linsky ’14, Yohei Okada ’16, and Dan de Rienzo ’11 over locally-produced sake in Kyoto.

Next time let’s go camping!

Jenna Starr | jstarr@wesleyan.edu