Class Notes - Jan 2008

Shortly after our RPI graduation in ‘88, a group of us living in Boston joined on a quest to find the best Buffalo wings in Boston.  We happily settled on the wings at Tom’s Busy Bee Pub in Watertown, MA and became regulars there.  Our weekly wings and beer dinners at the Busy Bee soon grew to include our co-workers and friends, and eventually our spouses.  Our wings tradition lasted 18 years until the Busy Bee closed last year.  So we’re once again searching for the best Buffalo wings in Boston…. Meanwhile, the wings crowd and other friends from the class of ‘88 thought we’d post brief updates on our lives since we left Rensselaer.
 
Phil Hill (BS ’88, MS ’89) has his own consulting company, HBO Systems, working directly with universities on strategic planning.  Phil began his professional career in the US Air Force before moving into the private sector.  Phil and his wife Emily have 3 daughters Hillary, Betsy and Olivia who have been home-schooled for the past year and a half.  While home-schooling is a lot of work, the whole family is enjoying the change.  Emily is yearning for a lunch at Holmes and Watson. They currently live in North Carolina and will be moving to San Francisco this fall. Phil and the family are looking forward to our 20^th reunion next year.
 
Keith Jennings works at Partners Healthcare / Massachusetts General Hospital in IS Management and Planning.  Keith served in Operation Dessert Storm where he was stationed in Saudi Arabia and in Hungary for the peacekeeping efforts in Bosnia.  He and his wife, Renata, live in Boston where they have a fantastic view of the city, particularly from their rooftop deck.  Keith recently organized an alumni tour of the Deer Island Water Treatment Plant. The plant was an important part of the effort to clean up Boston harbor.  The tour was quite interesting and everyone returned safely and as clean as they arrived.  Keith is a ‘wings crowd’ regular.

Glenn Kaufman (BS ’88, MBA ’90) is the head of the Global Business Office at Citigroup Technology Infrastructure.  Glenn has worked in the financial services sector most of his career, working for AT&T, Banker’s Trust, JP Morgan and Deutsche Bank before Citigroup. Glenn and his wife Rachelle (Albany '89) live in Suffern, NY with their 2 children, Lauren 11 and Danny 7.  He enjoys playing video games with his children and set up an XBOX 360 Guitar Hero tournament for the 30 kids at Lauren’s 11th birthday party. Although Glenn feels left out of the wings/beer events in Boston, he makes do by serving up similar fare whenever any of the '88 grads visit.

Valerie Northrop (BS '88, MS '91) is a manufacturing engineer at Cambridge, MA based start-up E Ink Corporation.  She started her career at GE before moving to Polaroid in Norwood, MA.  During her 10 years at Polaroid, she moved from engineering to management to technical sales.  She then took some time off to regroup and recharge.  She spent her sabbatical traveling to Hong Kong, Scotland, Norway and the Western United States, doing interior painting and finish-work, and singing with local a cappella and theater groups.  Val can be reached at valeriecn@msn.com.

Dawn McGee (née Mertzer) recently joined MapleWorks where she works as a Business Development Manager.  Dawn’s career has focused on telephony and mobile communications.  Beginning as a support engineer at Wang, she became a support manager at Aspect Communications, moved on to product management at Nokia, and worked as a sales manager at TomTom.  Dawn indulges her love of good wine and good company with a side-business holding private wine-tasting parties, which she plans to turn into a full time career in the next few years.  Dawn and her husband Mike have an active 3 year old son named Spencer.  They live in Woburn, MA.  Dawn is another ‘wings crowd’ member.  She can be contacted at: dawn@ttvineyard.com.

Zoë McLaughlin is currently working for Technorati.com in San Francisco.  Zoë has lived and worked in Japan three times, first as a design engineer for Honda Research and Development, then as an Engineering Liaison for Kelsey Hayes and later as a Technical Support Manager for PTC.  She speaks fluent Japanese.  She has also lived (more briefly) in Ohio – where she escaped from a fire in her apartment – and Massachusetts before returning to her hometown of San Francisco.  Zoë owns a beautiful Victorian house that she shares with her 2 Labradoodles, Koko and Sasha.  Zoë has attended some of the San Fran alumni chapter functions, but hasn’t met too many RPI grads in the area.  She can be contacted at: zgeek3-rpi@yahoo.com.  She also writes the blog http://spectecdis.blogspot.com.
 
Bill Miller recently joined Juniper Networks after many years with the company that began as Wellfleet Communications (founded by ‘69 grad and Board of Trustee Paul Severino) and eventually became a part of Nortel Networks.  Bill and his wife Carole have two rambunctious boys Zach and Drew ages 7 and 6 respectively. They live in Groton, MA.  Bill spends his free time playing with his kids – often helping them build something – and doing woodworking projects.  Bill is an anchor of the ‘wings crowd’.

Bonnie Rind (née Woronoff) has her own consulting company, Bonfire Development Advisors, working with technology organizations to ensure the development staff builds successful products.  Bonnie began her career as a programmer, became a designer and eventually a product manager.  Bonnie has twice taken time-off from the professional working world, once to ski for a winter at Winter Park, Colorado and once to write a mystery novel.  (It's unpublished.)  Bonnie and her husband David live in Newton, MA with Alena, their affectionate 1 year old daughter, and Stella, their sleepy 11 year old Newfoundland dog.  Bonnie is a ‘wings crowd’ member.  She can be reached at bonnie@BonfireDA.com.

Kristin Stadelmann, our current chapter president in Boston, lives in Boston and runs her electrical supply company, Central Electrical Specialty Co. She also works part-time as a crew member of the Turner Motorsport auto racing team, traveling around the country to many different road courses throughout the season. Kristin volunteers weekly at the Children’s Hospital in Boston and helps fundraise for the Boys and Girls Club. She has traveled extensively internationally over the years and is recently returned from the America’s Cup in Valencia, Spain. Kristin lives part time in Islamorada, FL where she fishes, kayaks and scuba dives. She recently ran the Vancouver half-marathon with Wendy Kane ’88 of Portland, OR and accompanied Wendy and Sue Taylor ’88 on a trip to Scandinavia to run the Copenhagen marathon.  Kristin can be reached at kristin@stadelmann.com.
 
Every so often – particularly in our younger days – we’d have wings on the road.  Sometimes, the road was the Mass Pike leading us back to RPI to catch a hockey game, see friends, or even just for some nostalgic enjoyment of Sutter’s Buffalo wings.  Since writing these updates, we’ve begun chattering about a ‘wings on the road’ to Rensselaer for our 20^th reunion…so, maybe we’ll see you there.