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Robert Hardt
Jr. Happy New Millennium - and I hope no one is reading this in a fallout shelter where there are only pickled eggs to eat and no DVD players. I received lots of news via e-mail so please keep the flames and spam coming. Unsolicited manuscripts will continue to be discarded. David Charytan wrote a great electronic missive with the following news: Daren Kragenbring is married to April Manlapaz '91E. They live in Minneapolis where Daren works in banking. No kids, but they do have a small dog that keeps them highly entertained. A Spectator media-love connection from the early '90s continues. Spec arts editor Bob Kolker writes for New York magazine after leaving his job as one of the original editors of Time Out New York. He married Kirsten Danis '92 (former Spec editor in chief), a City Hall reporter for the New York Post. They are happily living in Brooklyn. WKCR's Frank Tipton was a Ph.D. student in political science at MIT. He recently took a leave from his program and is teaching high school history in the Boston suburbs. He moved to Newton, Mass., with his partner Jonathan Krasner. Ed Mitre (one of the nicest guys in the world) is married to Debbie Appelbaum B'93. After completing his residency and chief residency in internal medicine at N.Y.U. Medical Center, Ed has moved to D.C. to start a fellowship in infectious diseases, at the NIH. As far as David is concerned, he dropped out of a Ph.D. program in philosophy (to his parents' infinite joy) and settled on a career in medicine. He is a second-year resident in internal medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston and is married to Shoshana Jacobs B'91. They have a 1-year-old boy, Natan. David (who promises to be back in touch in about seven or eight years) also tells me that Sara Cosgrove is finishing an infectious disease fellowship at Beth Israel. (Stay healthy Sara!) In October 1998, Ted Stern, another WKCR legend, joined the legal department at America Online, working at the headquarters in Dulles, Va. (That probably means he can read all of the class e-mail before I do.) Ted is a member of the transactional practice team, specializing in intellectual property work. In College, Lee Benaka was a religion major from Kansas who wrote his fantastic senior thesis about pro wrestling. Back in 1991, Lee decided to get heavily into CDs (not certificates of deposit) and sold me his stereo and some of his records. Now, all that behind him, he's married with a baby boy. Lee and his wife, Danielle Feuillan B'91, moved to Washington, D.C. in January 1999. Their son, Isaac George Benaka, was born in March. Lee works for the National Marine Fisheries Service and recently served as editor of Fish Habitat: Essential Fish Habitat and Rehabilitation, published by the American Fisheries Society in 1999. Lee also says that George Abney has been living in Washington, D.C. where he works for the Justice Department; currently he is on special assignment in Tucson. Lee reports that Joel Johnson continues to be the guiding force of 2 Skinnee J's, ''a rap/hip-hop/ funk band that is going to make it big any day now.'' Joel is living in Brooklyn, tours often, and is working on the band's second CD. Lee still likes the CDs, I see. Tami Luhby '92, a reporter at Crain's New York Business, wrote about the wedding of Cristina Baiata and Michael Martinez in September in Long Island. Guests included Ilan Scharfstein, Dina Kotkin, Julie Chow '91E, Rob Lanstein, and Herman Chow '92E. After graduating from Brooklyn Law School and working for four years in the Bronx District Attorney's office, Cristina is now a clerk at the New York Court of Appeals. After graduating, Aida Saleh, took a year off to "flounder in a law firm." She then went to the Architecture School. After "laboring in obscurity at a few architecture firms in New York and briefly in Japan," she launched her own practice last year. Aida says: "I now labor in obscurity at home.'' Aida's last name is now Stoddard because she married Christopher Stoddard, another New York architect. Aida says they "live in a small, but efficiently appointed, condominium in Brooklyn.'' Last but not least is Margie Kim, who gave me a very comprehensive update that follows: Marriages: Vijay Sud married Irene Bojko in September 1999 in Cincinnati. In attendance were: Bob Cooper and his wife, Debby Williams Cooper B'94; Margie and her husband, Dean Kim; Cory Flashner; Sonya Cho Hong and her husband, David Hong '92, who were married in 1999; Jeff Michaelson, his wife, Jody, and their 1-year-old son, Connor. Javier Loya married Lucinda Vincent on New Year's Eve 1998 in Houston. In attendance were; Joe Kim '88 and his wife, Carmen Kim; Tara Kreidman Steinberg and her husband, Mark; Margie Kim and her husband, Dean; and Neil Flynn and his wife Jennifer. Serving as best man was Mareo Loya '92. Births in 1999: Melanie Frager Griffith and Jason Griffith '92 - Emma; Laurel Daniels Abbruzzese and Greg Abbruzzese - Lydia; Melanie Seidner and Jeff Bashaw - Oscar; Julie Levy and Matt Tropp - Katie; Joe Kim and Carmen Kim - Matthew; Elise Scheck and Gil Bonwitt - Joshua. Accomplishments: Beth Shubin Stein - completing her residency in orthopedic surgery at Columbia Presbyterian in 2000, applying for fellowships now. OK folks. As you were. We're one year away from our 10th reunion when we can point our Palm Pilots at each other and wonder what the hell happened.
Jeremy Feinberg
Happy 2000! Lots of mail and e-mail this time, including from a lot of people I hadn't heard from before. Thanks - that always makes my day. Rachel Peterson is the executive director of Urban Ecology, a non-profit organization in the Bay Area. She asked that I send a message to the ultimate frisbee team, "White Plastic Blue Death" (one of my favorite teams to cover while I was at the Columbia Daily Spectator). The message: anyone up for a reunion team at any tournament in 2000? Bryan Paul is working for USA Capital, an investment firm in Philadelphia. He added that Sean Feren and his wife, Liz, have a recently born daughter. A Loomis Sayles & Company press release announced that John Tribolet was named a vice president and portfolio manager. He will be partly responsible for managing close to $250 million in international equity assets. Mignon Moore sent a lengthy e-mail detailing a lot of comings and goings. Mignon reports that she, Sandra S. Smith, Ezra, and Mary Pattillo-McCoy '91 all graduated with Ph.D.s from the department of sociology at the University of Chicago. Mignon and Sandra are now postdoctoral fellows at the program on poverty and social welfare policy at the University of Michigan. Mignon's e-mail had plenty of other news. Galia Austin-Leon married her high school sweetheart, Rodney Leon, in August 1997. Lea Henry, LaTonya Carter, Marjorie Momplaisir-Ellis and Mignon were all in the wedding party. The same group were also bridesmaids in Marjorie's wedding to William Ellis in July 1997. Marjorie now has a son named Aker and is finishing a master's in public health at Columbia, while applying to medical school. LaTonya is completing the master's program in social work at Fordham and looks forward to working as a women's and children's advocate in the New York legal system. Lea received a master's in public policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. After two years in non-profit consulting on workforce development in Durham, N.C., she is working for the Self-Help Credit Union as construction manager for an affordable housing project. She is also a realtor working on her own real estate projects. I received a lengthy e-mail, from Eric Guth in Moscow. Since graduation Eric had been living in Moscow where he had been studying literature for two years at the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute. Since then, he has worked at a real estate company and enjoyed "working with a country of people who grow up on Dostoyevsky and Mayakovsky." Eric reported that Chad Breckinridge was married a year ago to Joy Drachman B'92. He is now finishing at N.Y.U. Law School and plans to move to Washington, D.C. and work for the Cleary Gottlieb law firm. According to Eric, Michael Sant'Ambrogio is also finishing his legal training at N.Y.U. Eric also "tattled" on Jon Henick, who is in the foreign service working as advisor to the State Department, Office of the Special Negotiator for Nagorno-Karabakh & NIS Regional Conflicts. Try saying that 10 times fast! Kim Colosimo Cavitt e-mailed me that she married Kirk Cavitt, Jr. on September 4, 1999 in Sewickley, Pa. Several '92ers were in attendance, including Laura Weinfeld, Phil Fischer and Kara Lisi Tuccio '92E. Kim reports that Laura is still an attorney in Florida, and Phil is employed by Bayer Pharmaceuticals. Kim and Kirk took their honeymoon in Hawaii, including Maui, Kauai and Oahu, explaining that "words cannot describe the beauty of the landscape and the loving and kind people we met on our trip." Kim also spent a vacation in Florida with Elizabeth (Lisa) Lim, who is an attorney living in Pemroke Pines, Fla. Finally, Eric requested word from his three first-year floor "blockmates" Nick Diamand, Rafi Salamon '92E and Mik Smith. I'm happy to post news if you'll write in. Thanks for all the news Mignon and Eric - you make my job easy. And, to everyone else, I look forward to hearing from as many of you as possible during the new millennium.
Elena Cabral
Antonio Borrelli, who graduated from Georgetown Law School in May, moved back to New York City over the summer. After passing the bar exam, Antonio moved to the litigation department of Paul, Hastings, Janofsky and Walker, where he is specializing in intellectual property and entertainment law. Antonio wrote that Tsahai Tafari is finishing up a doctorate in cell biology in Southern California. Aileen Torres bought her first apartment on the North Shore of Long Island and is loving life outside New York City. She is graduating in May from Teachers College, where she will earn a masters and clinical certification as a bilingual speech and language pathologist. Aileen is doing research on bilingualism and the drawbacks of using standardized language tests to assess language disorders among minority children. Aileen's friend Linda Ayala was appointed director of LULAC's National Education Center a year ago. She wrote that Kerry Ogle is teaching Spanish at Roosevelt High School on Long Island. Jody LaPosta, a.k.a. Jody Walker, announced the birth of her first child, a girl named Anneke Rose, on May 2, 1999. Jody and her husband, Vincent, live in central Massachusetts, where Jody is a software engineer. Rubén Fontes and his wife, Anne, welcomed their first child Rubén Antonio on March 17, 1999. Rubén is the director of business development for an electro-mechanical contracting business in Tijuana, Mexico. He is finishing a master's degree in international business at the University of San Diego. The Fontes wedding in 1997 featured fellow KCR buddies and football players Nkem Okpokwasili, Matt Mosca, and Jason Smith as the groomsmen. Nkem works for a pharmaceutical company in New Haven and plans to start medical school in the fall of 2000. Jason lives in New York and Matt, who was recently promoted to vice-president for BlackRock in New York, will head the company's division in Tokyo. Lisa Rutkoske attended the wedding of Mike Sardo and Kathleen Johnson on July 24, 1999, in Scarborough, Maine. Lisa, Kathleen, and Kerry Lunz were teammates for four years on the women's basketball team. "Needless to say the event was simply fabulous,'' Lisa wrote. "The bride was beautiful and the groom was handsome.'' Classmates who attended included Tony and Penny Apollaro, formerly Penny Schneider, Kenny Hayes '92, Greg Kearney, Chris Bordoni, and Nkem Okpokwasili. Tony and Penny recently bought a house in Flower Meadow, Texas. Kerry is practicing law for Weinstock & Scavo in Atlanta. I'm glad to hear from more and more of you. Keep 'em coming.
Leyla Kokmen I was treated to a quasi-Columbia Reunion Weekend last December, at the wedding of Danny Franklin and Ruth Halikman '95. They got married in a lovely ceremony on a balmy weekend in Baltimore, with a slew of happy festivities to launch their new life together. (Danny is still working for Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and Ruth works at The New Republic.) Other classmates in attendance were Kay Bailey, who did not move to Texas and instead has a new job in Washington, D.C. working on development issues in Guatemala, and Tanya Larkin, who is finishing up her poetry degree at the University of Iowa. Also present were Jenny Lee '95 and my fellow groomsmen: Eric Roston '93, Tim Carvell '95, and Mike Fein '95 (who himself got married last fall to Marjorie Feld). Another wedding that slipped by my last deadline was that of Marina Gurin and Erik Groothuis in the fall. Marina says it was a beautiful event, followed by a relaxing honeymoon in Hawaii. She also says married life has been wonderful, although they're both incredibly busy now - Marina works as the marketing director at UGOdirect.com, an online video game store, and Erik works at the law firm Cleary, Gottleib, Steen & Hamilton. In other news, I got an e-mail recently from Anne Kornblut, who's covering Congress for the Boston Globe's Washington bureau. At the time, she was vacationing in South Africa, where her fiancé, a TV producer for the BBC, is posted. Anne updated me on several classmates she stays in touch with: Eliza Lowen McGraw successfully defended her Ph.D. thesis at Vanderbilt; Rebecca Weinberg, after living in Chile for several years, has returned to New York, where she works for an international firm that arranges specialized corporate conferences; Libby Eynon also works there. After several years living in Beijing, Rachel Dewoskin is in Boston, where she's getting a graduate degree in creative writing. Anne says they all got together in Philadelphia last year at the wedding of Susannah Rosenstock. Stacy Feigenbaum e-mailed that she plans to be married in November to Aaron Turnof '98B, whom she met at Columbia Business School. Stacy works as an equity research analyst at Merrill Lynch in the retailing group, and Aaron is a senior trader at Freimark-Blair, specializing in emerging markets. Thanks to everyone who wrote in - please keep the news coming. Until next time, take care.
Janet Frankston
I hope this especially long update finds everyone well. It's very exciting to hear that so many of our classmates are doing so well. Last we heard from James Stoterau, he was finishing up a film school degree at Columbia. During school, he landed a job working for David O. Russell as his assistant on The Three Kings with George Clooney. (Check out James's name in the credits!) After finishing the grueling shoot, James accepted a job as Mike Nichols's set assistant on his new movie, What Planet are You From? starring Garry Shandling and Annette Benning. "During the middle of production on the Mike Nichols movie, Sony and MGM got into a bidding war over a romantic comedy script that I had written,'' he writes. "MGM won out, and now the movie is being produced by the people who made Blue Streak, Cruel Intentions, and I Know What You Did Last Summer." If that isn't enough, MTV also hired James to create a TV show called Shotgun Love Dolls, a retro-comedy about a group of sexy, tough female crime fighters. James is now living in Venice, Calif., and has taken up surfing. Stay tuned for more details. After receiving his master of philosophy in Modern Middle Eastern Studies from St. Antony College at the University of Oxford, Jed Weiner served as an assistant to Congressman Benjamin Gilman, chairman of the International Relations Committee in the House of Representatives. Jed worked in his personal office and the International Relations Committee. Now, he's first-year at N.Y.U. Law School. Allyson Baker is also there after transferring from Cornell. Also in New York, Adlar Garcia was recently promoted to development officer at the Double Discovery Center, where he has been working since he graduated. Adlar said he enjoys working for DDC and being at Columbia. Ryan Mossman's having a great time in business school at the University of Texas, Austin. After quitting his job with Andersen Consulting last May, Ryan spent a busy summer traveling all over the world with Columbia friends. He spent time in Madrid and Morocco with Hilton Romanski (who's now at Stanford Business School), and they met up with David Webber (also at N.Y.U. Law) in Egypt. "It was an amazing time,'' Ryan says. The group also went to Israel and Jordan. In addition, Ryan saw Erin Bertocci (see below) and some Andersen Consulting friends in Prague. "I came back to New York and met up with Craig Bernstein (now at Morgan Stanley) and Dave Attanasio and we went to Nantucket for the 4th of July,'' Ryan writes. "Later in the summer I went to San Francisco, where I was in the wedding of Bert '96 and Lareina Galleno B'95. It was a beautiful ceremony. After that I hurried to Austin to begin school. I love it.'' In addition, Jonathan Berkun, a rabbinical student, and Greg Mancini are both engaged. Greg is finishing up med school at Mercer in Georgia. Also in Austin is Karen Schwartz, who works in advertising. You may have seen some of Karen's work, like commercials for Southwest Airlines. "I never know which of our spots are running where, but you may have seen one of them that has a girl in a bikini jumping around freezing on the beach because she's had to take her vacation at the wrong time of year. That was the first commercial I wrote and produced,'' Karen writes. "You think it's going to be all glamorous shooting on the beach until you have to be out there at five in the morning!'' Karen and her former roommate, Hannah Glass, both plan to be at reunion. Hannah is in medical school in Montreal. Here are updates on parents: Matt Weinstein is the proud papa of Shulamit Shoshana Weinstein ("Shuli"), a sixth-generation Philadelphian who was born last Sept. 21 and weighed 8 lbs., 6 ozs. Matt writes that he and his wife, Shira B'94, plan to stay in Philadelphia for the foreseeable future. Matt will finish law school at Villanova this May and plans to take the Pennsylvania and New Jersey bars this summer. Starting in September (and hopefully after a nice August vacation) he'll work for Wolf, Block, Schorr & Solis-Cohen, a Center City Philly firm. "I'm planning on starting in the real estate department,'' Matt writes. Jeremy Senderowicz and Chana Sommer have been married for three years and now have a baby girl. Ayelet Rina was born on July 18, "the same day as David Cone's perfect game, which we all watched together in the hospital," Jeremy writes. "She's growing by leaps and bounds. I don't have a scanner, so you'll have to take my word for it about how beautiful she is." As for mom and dad, Chana received her M.A. from Columbia in East Asian languages and cultures last May, and she's working at the China Institute in Manhattan, helping run its teacher-training programs. Jeremy graduated the law school last May; he's now a first-year associate at Clifford Chance Rogers & Wells in Manhattan. Jeremy's e-mail is JeremyS470@aol.com. Mohit Daswani is back in grad school. "After four years of investment banking and private equity at Chase, I'm enjoying student life again at Harvard Business School,'' he writes. "I'd love to hear from everyone: mdaswani@mba2001.hbs.edu." Mohit is in touch with Sejal Patel, who is currently at MIT's Sloan School of Management. After graduating from SIPA in 1996, Sejal worked at Mitchell Madison Group for two years and then co-founded Katzenbach Partners, a management consulting firm. Sejal's e-mail is: spatel@mit.edu. More bankers: Ray Chan left SalomonSmithBarney last year to join Lehman Brothers, where he is working with the principal transactions group in Asia. He's been splitting his time between Thailand and the Philippines. Aryeh Portnoy is living in Bethesda and working for the D.C. firm of Crowell & Moring. He graduated from N.Y.U. Law, where he met his wife, Alison. Sara Cross completed her master's at Oxford in women's studies this year. Erin Bertocci has had a hefty traveling schedule with Andersen Consulting. She's worked in London, Moscow, Singapore, Prague, and Paris and also lived in Zurich for eight months. Her home base is New York, where she shares an apartment with Melissa Shea, who works at the law firm of Mendes & Mount. Erin reports that Mara Giattina '95E is in her second year at Einstein Medical School and Kendra Crook is working in Tucson on the Biosphere 2 project. Kaara Radon is working for a pharmaceutical company in Ravensbourg, Germany, and Chad DeMartino is back at Georgetown for a law degree. Sonia Pabley is a literary agent in New York; Donna Paoletti is teaching in the D.C. suburb of Bethesda; Nick Judson is continuing to work on his Ph.D. at Harvard in biochemistry and is also in the orchestra; and Jeremy Szerlip is teaching high school history in New York. Alex Cortez spent last summer working in e-commerce at Dell Computers in Austin, Texas, where he saw Ryan Mossman and Karen Schwartz. Alex is now back Harvard Business School, where he sees Daniel Barash, who worked for Disney in Florida last summer; Axel Martinez, who worked for the Central Bank of Honduras last summer; and Alice Gugelev, who worked as a banker in Singapore before returning to school. Here is more from Gene Mazo, via Alex, on people at the wedding of Ben Cramer and Naoko Hokari in Tokyo last May. Included in the tour were several West Coasters: Naseema Asif, who works for an architecture firm in San Francisco; Elissa Swift, who works for the Israeli consulate in San Francisco; Reina Maruyama '95E, a Ph.D. student in physics at the University of Washington in Seattle; Jocelyn Liang, who is engaged and also living in San Francisco; and Rajen Parekh, who graduated from SIPA last May, spent the summer in Seattle working in a refugee resettlement program for Kosovars, and is now relocating again to the East Coast to work on human rights-related issues. Gene is getting his master's in public policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government while working on his Ph.D. from Oxford. Then, he'll go to Stanford Law School. The next two paragraphs are also from Gene via Alex, so I apologize if anything has gotten mixed up in the translation. Vikram Jaswal is studying for a Ph.D. in psychology at Stanford. Ruth Krieger has just completed her architecture degree at Columbia. Tanya Walter is working at SIPA and living in Brooklyn. Chris Kerkering is finishing up at Harvard Law School. Rohini Nadgir is finishing up her last year of medical school at Penn med school and is applying to residency programs in radiology. Tim Carvell has left New York for California to work for the L.A. bureau of Fortune magazine. (Tim, write in and tell us your thoughts on the New York vs. L.A. debate. We know they'll be funny!) Kim Harrison is an assistant director for an organization dedicated to court reform. Prudence Howes is teaching English in Korea. Ruby Chin '95E graduated with her master's in engineering from Berkeley and is preparing to leave for a tour of duty in the Peace Corps. Angeles Pai is living in New York and is working in a senior post for the Administration for Children's Services. After graduation, Alison Fogg studied in Aix-en-Provence, France, as a Fulbright. After earning a master's in education in Maryland, she is now living on 110th Street in Morningside Heights and working as a teacher in the Bronx. From Jean Huang, '94, via Alex: Minnie Shu works in retail at TSE Cashmere on Madison Avenue. Elizabeth Poon works in marketing at the Franklin Mint after finishing a degree at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government last year. Winifred Teng completed dental school and now practices in New York, and moonlights at Morgan Stanley. And we couldn't end without any wedding announcements. This one is from Mike Fein, who was married to Marjorie Feld at Temple Beth Shalom in Cambridge, Mass., on Oct. 10. They live in Somerville, Mass., and are both working toward their doctorates in American History at Brandeis University. "In addition to both being knee-deep in dissertation writing, I'm a research associate at the Harvard Business School, and Marjorie, a graduate of SUNY Binghamton, works in urban education and as an editorial board member for the journal Radical Teacher,'' Mike writes. Fellow Columbians (and Spekkies) Tim Carvell and Danny Franklin '94 were in the wedding party; Ruth Halikman attended as well. "Sad to say,'' Mike writes, "Brian Frank and Laura Margolis couldn't make it in from the West Coast, nor could my freshman year roommate, Alex Liss.'' Former Carman 10 resident Saara Bickley attended the October marriage of Dara Marmon to Jack Kaplan. Dara is living in New York and works for a hedge fund. Both Patty Irigoyen, who is a fourth year at P&S, and Saara, who works for the big firm Cravath Swaine & Moore after graduating from Yale Law School, were in the wedding party. Rob Flores also attended the fete. Rob is a med student at N.Y.U. and is engaged to Tania Lee. Finally, you'll see that my address has changed. I have moved to Atlanta to work for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, where I'm writing about growth and development. If anyone is in the sprawling Atlanta metro area, do let me know. Thanks for all your updates. I hope to gather more at our fifth reunion the weekend of June 2. If anyone is interested in helping to plan it or has any questions, feel free to e-mail me. In the meanwhile, keep the news coming!
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