If your definition of looking great is hot, sweaty, a little sunburned and a bit nervous, then, as predicted, we all looked fantastic at our one score reunion. Dawn McGee (née Mertzer) and I drove to a very comfortable hotel in East Greenbush late Friday night and finished the drive to Troy on Saturday morning. Upon arrival on campus, we joined our classmates to become reacquainted and work on a cheer as part of the parade of classes that introduce themselves to RPI President Shirley Ann Jackson.
We were Christine Burkhardt and Rob Lackey and children, Kris Edwards (née Provenzano), Suzanne Cano Meeker and her family, Debbie Haines (née Miller), Michael Jacoby, Christopher Montalbano, Bob Unnold, Ron Lowry, Dawn and myself. It was morning. Creativity was sparse.
Thank goodness for Suzanne. She created a wonderfully simple introduction:
We're here,
We're great.
We're the Class of
'88.
We met President Jackson and cheered. Several of us alumni complemented President Jackson on her work renewing Rensselaer and her efforts to reach out to us graduates.
A few of us took an unofficial tour of the campus. It is truly beautiful now. The approach has been rebuilt. The football field and surroundings are gardened beautifully. The new buildings are stunning. We even took an unauthorized tour of the new, stunning EMPAC. (Getting yelled at by a voice of authority took me back a score of years...) Late afternoon, Dawn brought out some wine, cheese and crackers that we shared them beside the new fountain in front of Warren, Sharp and Nason halls.
Our wonderings led us to meet a few graduates of other years. Robert Vienneau, ’83, helped us investigate the LEGO program and Becky Matheus, ’78, encouraged us to … well, no reason to get her into trouble too. We also bumped into more ‘88ers Jesse Edelman and his wife Lisa and Andrew Wasielewski and his wife Mimi.
Here’s the latest news on the class of ‘88:
Suzanne Cano Meeker began working at GE for the Renewables Quality department as the Regulatory Product Compliance Leader in Schenectady NY back in March. Her commute is a fabulous 10 minutes. After so many years in health care and small business, she says she’s very pleased to be working for a major corporation once again. The position is very challenging and the easy commute helps her manage the soccer/baseball/football/ballet carpooling after 5 pm! Suzanne says she had a great time at the reunion. Her kids Billy, 9 and Sierra, 8 really enjoyed the LEGO robotics program and playing in the pool. Her husband Bill had fun at Casino night.
Kris Edwards-Provenzano has recently been awarded the
T-Ball Mom of the
Ron Lowry is the manager of SeaTech Bioproducts Corporation, a manufacturer and supplier of marine products and by-products for use in the agricultural, cosmetic, pharmaceutical, and chemical industries. Ron earned his Master of Healthcare Administration from Duke University in 1990. His company enables (and necessitates) a fair amount of travel nationally and internationally as he does business in Central and South America, North East Asia and China, South East Asia and India, Western Europe and North America. Ron lives in Boston, MA right near beautiful Fenway Park. He stays appraised of the successes of the RPI football program
Andrew Wasielewski is a practicing attorney in Las Vegas, NV. He earned his Juris Doctorate at McGeroge School of Law in California and now works for the Wasielewski Law Firm. Andy briefed President Bush after the US captured Saddam Hussein.
Jesse Edelman and his family have settled in San Antonio, Texas, after several years of traversing the country. Jesse has his own company, ArchPoint Consulting, which solves clients’ growth challenges by developing strategies and execution plans to win in the marketplace. ArchPoint Consulting’s primary client focus is consumer products manufacturers Jesse and his wife Lisa love being back in Texas. He says, “While I am enjoying life as an entrepreneur, my greatest joy is spending time with our 2 kids, AJ, who is 9 and Lena, who is 3.” Jesse came all the way from Texas for the reunion and encourages more people to attend our 25th (or one score and a quarter) in 2013.
Rob Lackey and Christine Burkhardt are both specialists in Family Medicine employed by the Wellspan Medical Group. Rob recently expanded his role when he became an Ambulatory Informatics Specialist and uses his engineering background in implementing the group's electronic health record across the group's 300+ physicians. They have 2 children – Alexandra, age 13 and Robbie, age 11. Since Alexandra is heading to high school this fall they thought it would be a good time to show her a college campus. Chris says “The kids really enjoyed exploring the campus, but they could not believe it was as cold as we told them since it was extremely hot for Troy during the Reunion. We enjoyed attending the Reunion in June. We had not been back to the campus since the year that we graduated. Some areas of the campus looked the same but there were many new changes that we enjoyed seeing. It was also nice to meet some new people who we graduated with, but had never met before.” Chris and Rob have lived in York, PA since they got married in 1992. They can be reached at rlacke01@comcast.net and cburkhardt1@comcast.net .
Jem Anderson and his wife Gretchen live in Front Royal, VA. Jem works as a Systems Engineering Specialist and engineering supervisor for BAE Systems. He left Air Force active duty in 1999 and was recalled to active duty in 2001-2002 and in 2008. In fact, Major Anderson was in Iraq with the Army’s 360th Civil Affairs Brigade at the time of our reunion. Jem says, “Best wishes to the Class of 1988!”
Paul Grous and his wife Beth
live in Franklin, MA. Paul earned his MBA from Babson College Olin School of
Business and works as an Enterprise Architect at Perot Systems. Paul and Beth
have two daughters Jennifer, 5 and Caroline, 1.
Alan Brill lives in Kansas City, MO. Alan earned his
MS in Biomedical Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute. He has
2 patents for angioplasty catheter designs while working at SciMed Life
Systems/Boston Scientific. Alan currently works as a Delivery Consultant for
Cerner Corporation. Alan also is a member of his local Community Emergency
Response Team (CERT). He has 2 sons ages 8 and 10. Alan is still in
touch with RPI alums Keith Carangelo, Ken Daniels, Mike Smith
and Dennis Begley.
James Gilbert lives in Niwot, CO. He and his wife Michele McGovern have 2 daughters, Madison McGovern Gilbert,10 and Kendall Melanson Gilbert, 7. Jim earned his MBA in Finance and Entrepreneurial Management from the Wharton School in 1997.
William T. Cooley and his wife Janet live on Hanscom Air Force Base in Lexington, MA where Bill is the Commander of the 350th Electronic Systems Group. They have 3 daughters Kelly, Katherine and Rachel. Bill earned his Ph.D.in Physics at the Air Force Institute of Technology and a Masters in National Security at the National War College. The highlights of Colonel Cooley career include his service in Kabul, Afghanistan, in Germany and at the Pentagon. Bill runs 26 miles and 385 yards – and presumably shorter distances – for fun.
Ann Noyes McGuire lives in Bloomington, MN. She and husband John have two sons. Jack, 8 and Michael, 5. They have an great addition to the family – for one year only – an AFS exchange student named Korn from Thailand.
Christine Bachrach (née CJ Nivala) says: “After getting my Masters at UC Berkley, I went into healthcare eventually becoming a Principal at Navigant Consulting. I got tired of traveling all the time, so joined HealthSouth Corporation 4 years ago. Last year I was promoted t o Senior Vice President and Chief Compliance Officer. I’ve been married 14 years to Yoav and have 2 children: Sivanne, 8, and Aitan, 5.”
Robert Rottenbucher works as a Chief Structural Engineer for the City of Boston (Public Works Department). He is responsible for city-owned bridges, tunnels, retaining walls and landfills.
Christine Bennett (née Lioni)
lives in Marlboro, MA with her husband Andrew and their children Michael, 9 and
Matthew, 7. Christine worked at Digital Equipment Corporation (later Compaq)
from the time of graduation in 1988 until 2000, when she left paid employment
to become a stay at home mom. Christine volunteers at the American Cancer
Society and works on her jewelry business part time. She stays in touch with the women of Pi Beta Phi.
Sidharth Bhargava lives in Thousand Oaks, CA with his wife Vaishali, daughter Sona, 7, and son Ajay, 5. Sid earned his Ph.D in Electrical Engineering from the University of California, Santa Barbara. He works for Teledyne Imaging Sensors where he is the manager of the Detector Array Processing Group.
George M. Kappaz and his wife Amarie lives in the Washington D.C/Maryland area. George is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Comsat International, Inc a leading global satellite and terrestrial communications company. He previously founded KMR Power Corporation, a global owner/operator of power generation plants. KMR Power was successfully sold in 2000. George has four children Alexandra Delores, 15, Michael Fitzpatrick, 13, Katherine Elizabeth, 2 and Patrick Francis Xavier, 1. He stays in touch with Bryan Mitchell.
Erwin Karl currently lives in a farmhouse in Jefferson, NY with his girlfriend and two dogs. He has lived in Africa and Europe. Erwin enjoys renovating barns and houses with mostly recycled material. In addition to working his farm, Erwin is a freelance writer. He has published non-fiction, poetry and short stories in the US, Japan and South Africa. Erwin is a Trustee, Secretary for the Stamford Village Library Association, an member of the Catskill Community Players and the Open Eye Theater. He is still in touch with alumni Juan Escobar and Dave Hale.
Rich
Siegmund is living in Austin, Texas and working for IBM (still). Rich began
his career with IBM in Poughkeepsie, NY, and is currently a manager of a chip
design group that develops server processors. Past projects of interest at IBM
include working on the processor chip for the Xbox 360. He has a 10 year
old daughter and spends all his free time investing in real estate. Rich stays
in touch with Gwen Owens.
Kirk Schell was in the news. He is Dell’s Corporate Director of Marketing for Dell Computers’ China Design Center in Shanghai. Kirk’s team will be responsible for product strategy, business development and product management for Dell’s portfolio of business products worldwide. Prior to Dell, Kirk earned a degree in Business Administration from the University of Michigan. He served in the US Navy for 7 years where he had multiple shipboard leadership position in the U.S. Navy Nuclear Power Program. Kirk and his family will live in Shanghai on a two-year expatriate assignment.
Speaking of Shanghai, Steve Mushero left Shanghai for the Olympics and visited with friends and family along the east coast. Ron Lowry, Dawn McGee and I caught up with him at the Sunset Bar and Grill. Of course, we tried their buffalo wings. I got a picture of the 3 of them, but cut off a bit of Ron’s head. (What can I say – Steve and Ron are much taller than I.) Bill Miller, Ron and Steve got together the following night.
Making new friends and becoming reacquainted with old friends, I was struck by how terrific my former classmates are and how interesting and diverse our lives have become. The twenty years does look great on us.
More updates on the class of ’88 in the next edition. If you’d like to let your classmates know more about your life, please write to me: Bonnie Rind (née Woronoff) Bonnie@BonfireDA.com
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