Class Notes Archive 1931-2014
Class Notes are searchable back to our spring 2000 issue. You can browse the notes by decade (click on a decade to view its class notes):
Class notes from the 1990s
| 1994Kevin Martens, D.V.M. ’96, was named technical services veterinarian in July for the Nutrition Physiology Co., providing support in the Western U.S. for products the company makes for dairy producers. He previously owned and managed Two Hats Veterinary Service in Oregon and New Mexico. (appeared in the Fall 2009 issue) • Cathy (Salita) Phillips and Jeff Phillips ’96 welcomed their second child, Jake Preston, in March. Their daughter, Katelyn, is 4. (appeared in the Fall 2009 issue) • Blake Sasaki married Staci Kawakami in June. They honeymooned in South Africa. Sasaki recently accepted a job for the athletics department at UC Berkeley, where he is handling corporate sponsorships for the university. He previously worked for UC Irvine athletics and the San Francisco 49ers. He lives in San Francisco. (appeared in the Winter 2010 issue) • Shane Loomis recently became an associate for Marron Lawyers in Long Beach. He practices business litigation, labor and employment and family law. He and his wife, Jodi, a substitute teacher, live in Aliso Viejo with their daughter, Taylor. (appeared in the Spring 2010 issue) • Luis Rios Jr. is a contributing writer for Hablando bien se entiende la gente (Santillana USA), a Spanish language reference book. (appeared in the Spring 2010 issue) • Lindsey (Litchfield) Mann and her husband, Chris, welcomed their second child, Timothy, in March. The family lives in Miami, Fla. (appeared in the Summer 2010 issue) • Matt Mason, M.A., has been named executive director of the nonprofit Nebraska Writers Collective, dedicated to putting visiting poets into schools for the benefit of both students and teachers. (appeared in the Summer 2010 issue) • Terri Bates Walker recently joined Village Associates Real Estate in Orinda as a broker associate (www.terribateswalker.com). A former practicing real estate attorney, she is in her ninth year of selling residential real estate. She will continue to represent buyers and sellers of distinguished homes in Contra Costa County’s Lamorinda area, as well as in Piedmont and Oakland. She lives in Orinda with her husband and three children. (appeared in the Summer 2010 issue) • Kathryn Boor, Ph.D., began a five-year term as the Ronald P. Lynch Dean of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University in July. She is also a professor and past chair of Cornell’s department of food science and director of the university’s Milk Quality Improvement Program, as well as secretary and scientific adviser to the New York State Cheese Manufacturers’ Association. (appeared in the Fall 2010 issue) • Scott Griffin, a rare coin and precious metals dealer, opened Griffin Coin Co. in the San Francisco Bay Area. He recently organized a coin show and auction at the Old San Francisco Mint building. He is the founder of Yerba Buena Historical and Numismatic Society. (appeared in the Fall 2010 issue) • David Palecek died from complications of a staphylococcus infection at Stanford Hospital in February at 37. While attending UC Davis, he served as controller for the ASUCD government in 1993–94, and was instrumental in acquiring Unitrans buses that run on compressed natural gas, and in opening the U.S. Post Office on campus. He also earned his pilot’s license. After graduating, he took a job with the management consulting firm, McKinsey & Company, in Prague, Czech Republic. He left for two years to earn an M.B.A. from Stanford University, then rejoined the firm and, in 2003, became a partner. A skiier from age 2, he spent 20 years as an Alpine Meadows Ski Patrol volunteer. He also windsurfed, waterskiied, sailed and was a certified dive master. At 14, he became an Eagle Scout with 28 merits. He is survived by his wife, Melissa, whom he met during business school; daughters, Katrina and Caroline, 7, Sierra, 5, and Annika, 1; his parents Peter and Hana; and his brothers, Misha and Tom ’99. Friends may contact Tom at tompalecek@gmail.com. (appeared in the Fall 2010 issue) • Phil Kilbridge ’94 by David Owen Occupation: Executive director, Habitat for Humanity San Francisco Home-maker: Phil Kilbridge never loses sight of what’s important. As the executive director of Habitat for Humanity in a city where, he says, only 12 percent of residents can afford the median-priced home, he scrambles to secure land for affordable new housing developments. But when he’s not toiling on the business side of things, he likes to get outside on the work sites. “Sometimes I’ll get out there and swing a hammer,” he says. “It’s important for me to stay connected to what we’re doing on the ground.” Play it again: On a recent trip to Louisiana, Kilbridge joined volunteers from Habitat New Orleans to help build some of the city’s first new homes since the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, including the so-called “Musicians’ Village.” Kilbridge hopes that the village, which will house 81 displaced musicians and their families, “can help restore one of the vital pieces of the economic and cultural fabric of the city.” Born to run: Kilbridge, a former Aggie distance runner, traveled to New England last year with 11 other alumni for the Boston Marathon. “Participating in intercollegiate athletics was a strong part of my development as a person,” he says. “The thing I loved about Davis was that the coaches and administrators emphasized the scholar before the athlete. We had plenty of support to do as well as we could academically, while we learned leadership skills representing the university. I know that it absolutely helped me.” “The best part of the Habitat mission is that you’re working alongside the people who will ultimately own these homes…. In the gulf region in particular it really gives a sense of hope to people who are homeless.” (appeared in the Fall 2006 issue) • Kimi Lee by Teri Bachman Occupation: executive director of the Garment Worker Center in Los Angeles, which advocates for fair wages and safe working conditions. Roots of activism: As a child, Kimi Lee would go with her mother to the San Francisco factory where her mother, an immigrant from Burma, sewed wedding dresses for Gunny Sax. Her mother made $2 a dress, which sold for $200-$300. Today, Lee is doing all she can to fight against such exploitation of factory workers, who in Los Angeles, she says, still make an average wage of only $3.28 an hour. Lee heads the Garment Worker Center, a small nonprofit organization that educates workers about their rights and provides support and training for their organization efforts. Sweatshop capital: The center is headquartered in Los Angeles, home to the largest garment industry in the country, with some 4,000 factories and 100,000 workers. “The factories don’t pay the legal minimum wage or overtime,” says Lee. “The workers are subject to dangerous conditions. There are huge violations of health and safety regulations." And with only four Department of Labor garment inspectors in the state, the laws are seldom enforced. Successes: In the five years since the center was established, it has won workers $3 million in owed wages and staged a national boycott of Forever21, which resulted in the company agreeing to work with the center to improve conditions. In 2002 Lee received the Activist of the Year award from the Office of the Americas—one more accomplishment in a long list that includes helping establish the Cross Cultural Center at UC Davis. “People love fashion but they need to think about where it comes from. Every garment is made by a person. What conditions did they have to work under?” (appeared in the Winter 2007 issue) • Lisa Harper, M.A., Ph.D. ’98, received the 2010 River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize for her book, A Double Life: Discovering Motherhood (University of Nebraska Press), due to be released in March. She is a faculty member in the M.F.A. program at the University of San Francisco and lives in Redwood City with her husband, an art director at PDI/Dreamworks, and their two children. (appeared in the Winter 2011 issue) • Lisa Harper, M.A., Ph.D. ’98, received the 2010 River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize for her book, A Double Life: Discovering Motherhood (University of Nebraska Press), due to be released in March. She is a faculty member in the M.F.A. program at the University of San Francisco and lives in Redwood City with her husband, an art director at PDI/Dreamworks, and their two children. (appeared in the Winter 2011 issue) • Jennifer Anderson, M.A., recently wrote The Illustrated Frankenstein, a retelling of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein in a picture-book format. She is a former Stegner fellow in fiction writing at Stanford University. Her first published story “Things That Make Your Heart Beat Faster,” included in The Best American Mystery Stories 2001, received a Pushcart honorable mention. She lives in Napa with her husband and two daughters. (appeared in the Winter 2011 issue) • Emmett Rahl completed the Rocky Raccoon 100 Mile Trail Run in Huntsville, Texas, in 29 hours, 42 minutes and 1 second in February. Since starting running at age 25, he has completed more than 500 races, including 24 marathons, 22 50-kilometer, 10 50-mile and two 100-kilomoter races. In 2004, he had an article published in Marathon & Beyond magazine about his first ultramarathon, the Way Too Cool 50K, which starts and finishes in the El Dorado County town of Cool. (appeared in the Spring 2011 issue) • Doug Wright swam the English Channel last August to raise money for UC Davis Health System research on Alzheimer’s disease. He dedicated his swim to his mother, who taught him how to swim and who has Alzheimer’s. Wright, a teacher and water polo coach at Davis High School, swam over 30 miles in less than 12 hours. Fewer than 900 people have successfully swum across the channel. (appeared in the Spring 2011 issue) • James “Bo” Pearl, a partner in O’Melveny’s Century City law office, was appointed to the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Federal Judicial Improvements for a three-year term. (appeared in the Fall 2012 issue) • Shane Loomis is a principal attorney at Loomis Law Firm in Westlake Village. The family law firm, which he founded in July 2010, recently expanded into special education law. Loomis lives in Thousand Oaks with his wife, Jodi, a special education teacher, and their fifth-grade daughter, Taylor. (appeared in the Winter 2013 issue) |