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WENDY NAIDITCH BRICKMAN MA produces the daily radio program “Karen Talk” – hosted by fellow Trojan alumna KAREN VERGA GRANT ’85 – which airs in Monterey, Calif., on KNRY 1240 AM. They also collaborated over the past year on Grant’s former weekly program, “In Search of Style.” Both shows explore trends and lifestyles worldwide with a current and historic perspective.
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DIANE BOCK and her husband, Larry Bock, of Encinitas, Calif., the co-founders of non-profit Community Cousins, received a $25,000 grant from the United Way of Orange County to expand their organization. Community Cousins offers an easy opportunity for families of different races to become “cousins – to genuinely know and care about each other.” Founded in 1995, it has formed partnerships with local YMCAs and hopes to eventually offer its services to YMCAs across the country. Community Cousins has also been featured in Oprah Winfrey’s new magazine, O.
MITCHELL A. KREEGER is a self-employed commercial real estate appraiser/consultant and construction disbursement inspector. He is also scheduled to receive his MBA with honors from Cal State Northridge in spring 2001. Kreeger is a lifetime member of the USC Alumni Association and has been a member of Cardinal & Gold for two decades. He and his family – wife Josette and daughter Neccole – are also long-time SCampers and Swim-with-Mike participants. They live in Palmdale, Calif.
KENNETH LEWIS, AIA, has been named president of AC Martin Partners, the Los Angeles-based architecture and engineering firm. He has been the firm’s director of design since 1995.
SCOT MacDONALD has published Rolling the Iron Dice: Historical Analogies and Decisions to Use Military Force in Regional Contingencies (Greenwood Press). He lives with his wife, Kippi, and their two dogs, MacDuff and Allegra, in West Los Angeles.
MARLENE PONTRELLI MAEROWITZ was promoted to Deputy City Attorney in the Tempe (Ariz.) City Attorney’s Office. Previously an Assistant City Attorney, she now assumes responsibility for both the civil and criminal divisions of the office.
BECKY BERKEY POTTS was named one of “Utah’s 50 Most Powerful Women in Business” by Utah Business Magazine. She is vice president/ general manager of AT&T Wireless Services.
ROY T. TAN MBA has been re-elected to the board of trustees of United College of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. His term runs through 2003.
GERALD K. TANAKA has been promoted to the newly created position of executive vice president and chief operating officer with Marie Callender’s Pie Shops Inc. He was previously senior vice president of operations and franchise services. Tan resides in South Orange County with his wife and son.
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OWEN NEWCOMER PhD was elected to the Whittier (Calif.) City Council last spring. Nine candidates, including two incumbents, competed for three seats and Newcomer came in first. For the past 11 years he has served on the Whittier City School District Board of Education, including three terms as president. He teaches political science and speech classes at Rio Hondo College in Whittier.
CYNTHIA DIAS SELASSIE PhD, a professor of chemistry at Pomona (Calif.) College, has been elected a Wig Distinguished Professor by a vote of the college’s junior and senior class. She has been a member of the faculty since 1990 and also first received the Wig award in 1993.
NORM THOMAS was named worldwide director of operations for Microsoft Consulting Services, a division of Microsoft Corp. in Redmond, Wash.
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LEON I. BLANKSTEIN became a founder of American Business Bank in downtown Los Angeles, which focuses exclusively on closely held middle market companies. He is a senior vice president and manager of corporate banking, along with his four partners. Since opening in 1998, the bank has grown to more than $150 million in assets.
BARBARA A. (MOHLER) BRACE joined Charter Bank as a vice president/relationship manager in its Bellevue, Wash., branch. She is active in the USC Alumni Association and Alpha Chi Omega.
PAUL WILLIAM JONES MPA ’84 has been elected and conferred the degree of Fellow by the board of governors of the American Osteopathic College of Anesthesiologists for outstanding service and contributions to the field of anesthesiology and to the American Osteopathic Board of Anesthe-siology. Jones currently serves as chairman and director of the department of anesthesiology at Robinson Memorial Hospital in Ravenna, Ohio.
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RUDY CASTRUITA EdD is in his seventh year as superintendent of San Diego County’s Office of Education, where he has concentrated much of the county’s efforts on low-achieving schools.
J. GEOFFREY GRANT was promoted and given the title first vice president of investments in the Los Angeles office of Merrill Lynch. He takes an active role in his community and contributes to charity, acting as the chairman for the Pacific Intercultural Exchange, a San Diego-based student exchange program. Grant is also president of the United States Adaptive Recreation Center, a program for the disabled based in Big Bear, and board member of the Friends for Life children’s charity. He and his wife, Sherry, live in Pacific Palisades and are business partners at Merrill Lynch.
ELIZABETH L. STAVRO joined Unique Investment Corp., an Anaheim, Calif.-based acquisition and management concern. She is playing a lead role in the management of the firm’s transaction activity. Stavro was formerly the vice president and manager of Bank of America’s Commercial Banking – Lever-aged Finance Division.
JOHN WELLS MFA took home an Emmy Award as executive producer of NBC’s “The West Wing,” which won in the Best Drama Series category.
NORM YODER MBT ’87 has been promoted to director, tax, in the general tax services group of Deloitte & Touche LLP. He resides with his wife, Joyce, and their two teenage daughters in La Crescenta.
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RUTH CAMPBELL MPW wrote two scripts, Snake Catcher and Spit Wars, which reached the semifinals of the Chesterfield script-writing contest. Snake Catcher is currently in the quarterfinals of the AMPAS Nicholl Fellowships competition, along with another Campbell script, The Kiss of Death.
JOHN DUNHAM MBA has assumed the role of vice president of marketing and business development for CAW Networks, a new Internet infrastructure company in Mountain View, Calif.
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MALLORY PRESTLIEN-CANGIALOSI has been promoted from producer of The History Channel to managing producer, A&E Television Networks, which includes A&E, The History Channel, The Biography Channel and History Channel International.
SCOTT ROEHR was promoted to director, solutions, at Deloitte & Touche LLP. He works in the financial advisory services practice and has been with the firm for five years.
YVONNE THOMAS opened Precision Captioning in Mission Hills, Calif., a company that specializes in captioning and subtitling of television and video programming for education purposes and for deaf and hard of hearing audiences. Previously, she had a 13-year career at the National Captioning Institute, where she was the director of production and facilities for the Burbank, Calif., office.
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LAURA CASTAÑEDA joined the faculty of the USC School of Journalism as an assistant professor.
JEREMY B. KLINE JD is a partner in the firm of Feinberg, Mindel & Kline of Los Angeles. He practices in the areas of business, real estate and commercial litigation, as well as family law.
GRANT GERSHON has been named music director of the Los Angeles Master Chorale, a position he will assume July 1, 2001, when its current leader, Paul Salamunovich, retires.
DOROTHY KAGARISE MPA joined My Virtual Corp. (www.myvirtualcomp.com), a business outsourcing company, as human resources manager.
MICHAEL MACK was sworn into office as a Las Vegas City Councilman after being appointed to fill one of two newly created seats on the council. He represents the burgeoning northwest area of Las Vegas.
JOYCE NEU PhD has been named the head of the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice at the University of San Diego. She was formerly associate director of the Jimmy Carter Center in Atlanta, where she recently received the National Peace Foundation’s Peacemaker/Peacebuilder Award. Neu is a conflict resolution specialist who has led high-level mediation efforts in several foreign countries. She will oversee the Kroc institute’s effort to promote world peace and social justice.
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ALBERT LOPEZ was promoted to global director of communications technology for Motorola’s Communications Enterprise organization. Most recently, he was director of internal communications for Motorola’s Europe, Middle East and Africa operations. While living in London for the last few years, Lopez coordinated events for area alumni, as well as hosted student events for the Annenberg School of Communication. Having repatriated to Chicago, he will again be active in USC’s Midwest Alumni Club.
ROBERT M. PAYAN, AIA, was promoted to vice president of Wimberly Allison Tong & Goo in Newport Beach, Calif. Since joining the firm in 1988, he has been associated with both the design and project management of major hotel, condominium, and golf clubhouse projects in Mexico, as well as several resort projects in California, Brazil, Puerto Rico and Panama.
LORI SMITH was made a partner, assurance, in the Costa Mesa, Calif., office of Deloitte & Touche LLP. She has been with the firm for 10 years and focuses on insurance and manufacturing. Smith and her husband, Bill, live in Irvine.
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KATHERINE GUSTIN DARNALL MS ’93 was named Elementary School Teacher of the Year for the Tustin (Calif.) Unified School District.
GARY VONDERLINDEN is the manager responsible for systems engineering analysis on the THAAD Missile Defense Program at Lockheed Martin Corp. in Sunnyvale, Calif. The program recently entered a $4 billion manufacturing and development phase to include construction of new radar, command and control infrastructure, and missiles.
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MARGOT McBATH is department coordinator for the art history department at USC.
KEITH McNAMARA accepted a position at Earthlink, where he is the director of finance/emerging technology. He and his wife, Patricia, and their infant son, live in Manhattan Beach, Calif.
STEVEN T. PURI recently co-produced the feature films The Watcher and Partners.
KEN SALGADO has been promoted to partner at Deloitte & Touche LLP. He practices in the firm’s Costa Mesa, Calif., office and specializes in high tech and Internet-related concerns. A member of the Accounting Associates of USC, Salgado lives with his wife, Jennifer, and their son in Irvine.
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DAVID ABDALLAH, an 11-year veteran at Deloitte & Touche LLP, was promoted to partner at the firm. Abdallah was recently assigned to the Mergers & Acquisitions Group after spending three years serving Hughes Electronics Corp. as a high tech auditor. He and his wife, Julie, live in Torrance with their son.
DAVID BONDELEVITCH MFA is a freelance music and dialogue editor and re-recording mixer in Los Angeles. Also a faculty member in USC’s School of Cinema-Television, he recently won his first Golden Reel award for his work as music editor on the IMAX film Island of the Sharks and recieved a Primetime Emmy in the category of sound editing for a movie for his work as music editor on the TNT original movie The Hunley. Bondelevitch was also nominated for a Golden Reel award for music editing on the NBC television series Cold Feet, and for dialog editing on the ABC television movie The Simple Life of Noah Deerborn.
BLAIR A. COHN is director of sales and marketing for the Long Beach Marathon and vice president of its Life Exposition. Cohn is single and lives in Long Beach.
Classmate JOHN GOLDMAN is executive race director and vice president of the Long Beach Marathon. As head cross country coach and assistant track coach at Orange Coast College, he was named women’s cross country Coach of the Year by the Orange Empire Conference. In 1998 he was named California Coaches Assn. women’s cross country Coach of the Year. Goldman, his wife and two sons live in Long Beach.
EDWARD P. GONZALES was named a partner at Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo in Boston. With the firm since 1997, he practices in the business and finance section and focuses on general business representation and transactional work.
LINDA JENNINGS MM is in her second year as assistant professor of music at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks. She is principal cellist in the Fairbanks Symphony and the Arctic Chamber Orchestra and performs in a faculty trio. Last summer, Jennings attended the World Cello Congress III, involving more than 600 cellists from 45 countries, and performed in the final concert in the 200+ Cello Ensemble.
ELAINE OTTOR LEVENTHAL MLA was recently honored by the Girl Scouts of America with its Grace Award for community service. A former Girl Scout herself, Elaine and her husband, Kenneth Leventhal, are long-time supporters of the university. Due to their generosity, USC’s Elaine and Kenneth Leventhal School of Accounting is named in their honor. Kenneth Leventhal is a Life Trustee of USC.
LISA (RUCKEL) TELLA has been named manager of strategic communications at Keep American Beautiful in Stamford, Conn.
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MICHELE E. BEUERLEIN JD joined the technology and emerging companies practice in the Los Angeles office of Perkins Coie. An author and public speaker, she has spoken at numerous seminars and written for many legal publications.
KEVIN OTA has been promoted to vice president at Blanc & Otus Public Relations, a subsidiary of Hill & Knowlton International and a high tech agency with offices in San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Boston, Washington, D.C. and Austin, Texas.
PAUL D. ECONOMON is an attorney with OneSoft, which develops and provides Internet commerce application software and services headquartered in McLean, Va. He and his wife, Kimber-ley Ann, reside in Fairfax with their two children.
STACE L. STRONG MPW was offered a lectureship in law at St. John’s College, University of Oxford, where she teaches tort and contract. In addition, she recently had a case note published in the Cambridge Law Journal.
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HOWARD DONNELL was awarded a Fulbright-Garcia Robles U.S. Student Award in the form of a fellowship and is in Mexico conducting his doctoral dissertation research during the 2000-2001 academic year. He is a PhD student and teaching assistant in the Department of Government at the University of Texas at Austin.
KEITH F. ELDER opened a new branch of his law firm, Keith F. Elder & Associates in Tarzana, Calif. The firm, which also has an office in West Los Angeles, will continue to specialize in personal injury, civil litigation, general business law, incorporations, business startups and landlord-tenant law. Elder also has new law firm website where one can find “free answers to your legal questions” at (www.law4la.com).
JONA-THAN KLEIN is the author of Corporate Failure by Design: Why Organizations Are Built to Fail (Greenwood Publishing Group Inc). He contends that individual self-interest motivates membership in a corporation and dominates behavior within it, resulting in self-destructive goals for the organization.
CHARLES SCOTT MBA was promoted to director of marketing at Jacuzzi Whirpool Bath, headquartered in Walnut Creek, Calif.
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DAVID CANFIELD MReD has been promoted to development officer for the South Florida and Midwest regions of Altman Development Corp., a developer of luxury apartment home communities. He resides with his wife in Boca Raton.
MARK GILES was named director of design for MCG Architecture in its Pasadena, Calif., office. He is a licensed architect in California and a member of the American Institute of Architects.
CHRISTINE KIM has “enthusiastically jumped into the fast-moving Internet world” by joining WWW.COM as publication relations and communications manager. Based in Los Angeles, the company is an Internet music broadcaster and music application service provider.
MICHAEL McKENZIE PhD has written Paul Ramsey’s Ethics: The Power of Agape in a Postmodern World (Praeger Publishing) and is now working on his fourth book, an intellectual biography of James H. Wilbur, Methodist missionary and Indian Agent to the Yakama Indians of eastern Washing-ton state during the mid-19th century. McKenzie teaches religion and philosophy at Keuka College in upstate New York.
DOUGLAS A. ROTHSCHILD has become a member of the Paul & Janofsky law firm in Santa Monica, Calif.
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MILLICENT C. BORGES MPW is a poet whose work has been included in two recent anthologies, Boomer Girls: Poems by Women from the Baby Boom Generation (University of Iowa Press) and To Honor a Teacher: Students Pay Tribute to Their Most Influential Mentors (Andrews McMeel Publishing). Poems by Borges, who teaches English and creative writing at Long Beach City College and Loyola Marymount University, have also appeared in a number of journals.
W. BRENT BROCKERMEYER is an entertainment lawyer with Lavely & Singer, P.C., in Century City, Calif.
EDYTA FRACKIEWICZ PharmD was promoted to senior research scientist of the outpatient department at California Clinical Trials in Beverly Hills, Calif.
MARK GOETZE was appointed to the newly created position of director, e-business, for ITT Industries Inc., based in White Plains, NY. He will lead the identification and structuring of electronic commerce opportunities within the company, business-to-business and business-to-consumer, that have the highest potential for value creation.
LEMUEL IGNACIO JR. is a digital musician who scores original music and audio effects for the Web. He lives in Santa Monica, Calif., with his wife, Tania.
HRATCH J. KARA-KACHIAN MBT ’94 was elected to the board of directors of the Armenian Film Foun-dation, an educational and cultural non-profit organization that produces documentary films and videos on all aspects of Armenian heritage.
JEFF LENNING published two articles in the Journal of Accounting, “Financial Reports in a Snap” (April 2000 issue) and “Drilling for Information” (August 2000 issue).
MURRAY LEVY EdD is professor of business and coordinator of cooperative education at Glendale Community College in Glendale, Calif. He was selected for inclusion in Who’s Who Among American Teachers 2000 and elected vice president of the California Cooperative Work Experience Association for 2000-2001.
LAURA L. STEINBERG DDS is one of a select group of dentists nationwide to receive the Academy of General Dentistry’s Fellowship Award for her commitment to life long learning and excellence in patient care. She is in private practice in Greensboro, N.C, where she lives with her husband, Ken.
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SCOTT COTA MD, his wife Julie and sons Clark and Bryce, have moved to Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, were he has been assigned to work as a staff doctor at the naval hospital there. An active duty officer in the U.S. Navy, Cota was recently promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Commander and completed a residency training program in family medicine.
ANDREA De La CERDA is director of facilities planning and construction in the Norwalk-La Mirada (Calif.) Unified School District.
JULIE DAVIS graduated from Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Conn., last spring and is currently a pediatrics resident at Oregon Health Science University in Portland.
FRANCISCO S. GUERRERO teaches painting and drawing at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.
SOPHIA A. (GONZALEZ) SHEEHAN is a licensed marriage and family therapist in Huntingon Beach, Calif. Her husband, JOSEPH SHEEHAN, is managing editor of baseballprospectus.com and editor and co-author of Baseball Prospectus.
ALEXANDRA SKILLMAN was promoted to public relations manager for Crave Entertainment. She is a member of the board of USC Junior Associates, USC/ Norris Cancer Center and USC Marshall School of Business. Skillman is an active member of Junior League in Los Angeles and is writing a column for San Francisco-based Epicurean Magazine that features Los Angeles restaurants and “in” spots.
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U.S. Navy Lieutenant CHRISTOPHER CORNELISSEN has completed his internship in internal medicine at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethseda, Md., and has been selected to begin training at the Naval Operational Medical Institute in Pensacola, Fla., leading to his designation as a Naval Flight Surgeon.
REA KIRK EdD, a faculty member in the University of Wisconsin-Plateville’s School of Education, was selected as one of four outstanding teachers to receive the 10th annual Alliant Energy Underkofler Excel-lence in Teaching Award. These $5,000 awards recognize and reward extraordinary teachers at UW system institutions within Alliant Energy’s service area.
CHRISTOPHER J. STEINS MPL is founder and CEO of the startup technology firm Urban Insight, which earlier this year was selected for membership in EC2, the Annenberg high-tech incubator project at USC. Urban Insight (www.urbaninsight.com) provides Internet consulting serves to the urban planning community. Steins was also appointed to the executive committee of the Los Angeles Urban Land Institute.
MANNY TRELLES MBT, MBA ’98, was promoted to partner at Deloitte & Touche LLP. His focus in the firm’s Costa Mesa, Calif.-office is real estate taxation, with an emphasis in the creative use of pass-through entities.
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PATRICIA BECKMANN received honorable mention in Playboy magazine’s multi-media Comix and Animation Contest for “Matilda.” She lives in New York City.
DARREN S. BELL MBA is employed with Lowe Enterprises, a Los Angeles-based commercial real estate investment, management and development firm, where he is responsible for pursuing new commercial development business in Orange County, San Diego and the Inland Empire. He resides with his wife, Sandra, and their two sons in La Cañada Flintridge, Calif.
LIV EISAMAN has been appointed public relations manager of Mediatrip.com, an entertainment firm in Santa Monica, Calif.
MARY E. HURLEY has been reappointed for a second year as instructor in communication at Truman State University in Kirksville, Mo. In addition to teaching courses in film, radio broadcasting and speech communication, she is adviser to KTRM, Truman’s 1,000-watt noncommercial FM station.
KEY-SHAWN JOHNSON, former USC football player and currently a wide receiver on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, led the groundbreaking of Chesterfield Square, a 22-acre retail center at Slauson and Western avenues in South Los Angeles.
HERB RATNER sold a screenplay titled Wally and Pepper to Universal Studios, to be produced by Larger Than Life Productions. He also sold a pitch to the same studio and production company, which he is currently writing.
PAULA SNYDER received the award for Practitioner of the Year at Bright Medical Associates, an organization of 40 physicians and five mid-level practitioners in Whittier, Calif. It is the first time a mid-level practitioner has been recognized with the award.
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CHRISTIAN D. ORR graduated from the U.S. Air Force Security Forces Academy at the top of his class, thus earning the Sgt. Louis H. Fischer Award, named after a U.S. Air Force Security Policeman who fought and died at the Battle of Tan Son Nhut in Vietnam. Orr is stationed at Minot AFB, N.D., attached to the 741st Missile Squadron, 91st Space Wing, known as the “The Rough Riders.”
BRIAN PETERSON was the screenwriter for the feature film But I’m a Cheerleader. He works in the dean’s office of the USC School of Cinema-Television.
FRANCES SCOTT MM has been named Certified Teacher of the Year by Western District of Ohio Music Teachers Assn. A nationally certified teacher of music for 23 years, Scott has had numerous articles published in professional music journals and has been active in community, state and national music activities.
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GARY C. LANGHAM joined Ernst & Young’s Los Angeles office as a manager in the personal financial counseling practice. The practice provides financial and investment services to senior executives and high-net-worth individuals.
WALTER LADWIG III was awarded a Rotary International Scholarship to study at the School of Economics, Prague, the Czech Republic, during the 2000-2001 academic year. As an ambassador/scholar he will also speak before Rotary clubs in the Czech Republic and in Slovakia.
NADIA MISHAEL MSW has established a private psychotherapy practice in Beverly Hills, Calif., working with individuals, couples and families, with specialization in the treatment of eating disorders affecting teens and adults.
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COROLLA (YAP) FLEEGER has started an Internet company, Online In Demand (www.onlineindemand.com), that specializes in wedding sales, purchases and consignment. Her aim is to help brides find quality wedding gowns suitable to their price range. Fleeger is also active in disaster services human resources personnel with the American Red Cross, coordinating and assisting in disaster in times of crisis. She and her husband, Shane, reside in Hollywood, Calif., with their two dogs.
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