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UC Davis Magazine

Class Notes Archive 1931-2014: Winter 2009

1954Neil Harold Phillips Sr. died in January 2008 at his home in Patterson, on the same farm where his grandparents once lived. He was 74. A Korean War Army veteran, he married his college sweetheart, Carolyn Goodhue, and they settled in Patterson where he worked as a USDA inspector at a Modesto cannery, a pest control adviser, farmer and an agricultural consultant and expert witness. He retired in September 2007. In addition to his wife of 51 years, survivors include daughters Cindy Georgette and Susan Foreman and sons Samuel and Neil Jr., 11 grandchildren and a sister, Ruth Boesch.
1964David Lett, who pioneered winemaking in the Pacific Northwest, died of heart failure at his home in Dundee, Ore., in October 2008. He was 69. He graduated from the University of Utah in 1961 and planned to be a dentist but decided to major in viticulture at UC Davis instead after he toured the Napa Valley. After graduating, he was the first to plant commercial wine grapes in Oregon in 1965 and became internationally known after his pinot noir won second place at an international wine tasting competition in Paris in 1980. He continued making wine until 2005, when he retired. He is survived by his wife of 42 years, Diana, his sons, Jason and James, and his two granddaughters.
1967George Miller Brown III retired in July after 21 years with the San Luis Obispo County Office of Emergency Services. Before taking that job, he taught agricultural mechanics at Sonoma State, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and Michigan State universities. He and his wife, Pat, currently live in Baywood Park and say they plan to spend most of their time goofing off.
1969James Francis Wright, Ph.D., died of a heart attack in January 2008 in Raleigh, N.C., at age 83. During a veterinary career that spanned more than 50 years, he studied the effects of radiation and environmental stress on animals--including research in 1965-69 at UC Davis--worked at zoos in Washington, D.C., North Carolina and Senegal, and taught veterinary students at North Carolina State University. Survivors include his wife, Helen, four children and seven grandchildren.
1971Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger recently appointed Victoria Bradshaw as deputy chief of staff and cabinet secretary of California. She works as a liaison between the governor and cabinet members, including all agency directors and department directors. She had served as secretary for the Labor and Workforce Development Agency since 2004.
1973Loren Raymond, Ph.D., retired in 2007 from Appalachian State University after 35 years of teaching. He co-founded the ASU Sustainable Development Program in 1991, published the text Petrology: The Study of Igneous, Sedimentary, and Metamorphic Rocks and recently self-published a small book of poetry, Poetic Thoughts in the Blue Ridge and Beyond. Currently, Raymond is operating a consulting business, GEOSI Inc., making geologic maps, assessing slope stability for home builders and locating rural water well sites.   Mark Safarik was featured in the 2009 winter edition. Mark Safarik by Rachael Bogert and Elizabeth Stitt Occupation: Executive director of Forensic Behavioral Services International, a consulting company that specializes in the analysis of violent crime and criminal behavior through crime scene analysis, and a retired profiler for he FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit. Real-life crime drama: Former Supervisory Special Agent Mark Safarik ’76, whose specialty is the subject of elder homicide and sexual assault, is one of the few experts contacted by law enforcement agencies around the globe when they encounter any atypical violent crime committed by someone exhibiting “the extreme end of human behavior.” After working for the FBI for 23 years, Safarik formed his own consulting firms with former FBI agent Robert Ressler, and he shares his expertise with prosecutors and other attorneys in cases involving homicide, sexual assault and other violent crimes—sometimes appearing as an expert witness, explaining to a jury what happened and why. He also lectures around the country on profiling and behavioral analysis. Having what it takes: Safarik teaches and writes on his area of expertise and was awarded the Jefferson Medal from the University of Virginia for his research efforts. With the FBI, Safarik dealt with the worst in human behavior on a daily basis while assessing and interpreting the nuances of killers’ actions. “It takes a certain type of out-of-the-box thinking to put yourself into the victim’s and offender’s shoes,” he said. “Remaining emotionally distant is paramount for success when analyzing such violent human behavior through the lens of gruesome injury and death.” He currently lives with his wife and two sons in Fredericksburg, Va. “I have put people in prison, and I have assisted countless agencies and police officers…. It has been rewarding to be part of so many investigations.”
1974Attorney Bill Sims recently spent two weeks in Texas, volunteering his legal services to Hurricane Ike victims in the Galveston area. After traveling 1,500 miles from Tustin in his RV, he was appointed to work at several Federal Emergency Management Agency and state of Texas Disaster Recovery Centers. He said while the rest of the country has moved on, the victims of Hurricane Ike fight a daily battle to restore some sort of normalcy to their disrupted lives.
1975William E. Rosen, M.A., Ph.D. '78, died at his home in Brooktondale, N.Y., after a 14-month battle with brain cancer. He died in May 2008; he was 57. Since 1996, he had been a lecturer at Cornell University's College of Human Ecology, where he taught economics and statistics courses and won awards for excellence in teaching and advising. He also directed a Cornell undergraduate internship program at the state capitol in Albany, N.Y., and the New York State Assembly passed a resolution in 2005 honoring his contributions. He is survived by his father, Saul, and two sisters, Joanne and Barbara.
1976Kathy Weatherholt Englert, Cred. '77, was recently named Teacher of the Year for the Moreland School District in San Jose. She is now a third-grade teacher but spent the last 31 years teaching grades second through sixth. She says she was greatly influenced to become a teacher by her maternal grandmother.
1977Mark Mandeles, M.A., has written the book Military Transformation Past and Present (Praeger Publishers). He is currently president of a defense consulting firm, the J. de Bloch Group. He has also written two other books and co-authored three books. He lives in Fairfax, Va.    James Ward, M.S. '81, won the John Templeton Foundation Essay on Freedom and Free Enterprise competition, a major national legal essay award. As a law student at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island, he is a member of the honors program and the Gallogly Family Inn of Court, and he served as an executive board member for the Multi-Cultural Law Students Association.   Stuart Webber was appointed the department head of Trinity Lutheran College's business program in Everett, Wash. He also teaches economics, accounting and business courses at the college. Webber lives in Seattle with his wife and daughter, while his son attends Pacific Lutheran University. His e-mail address is stuart.webber@tlc.edu.
1979Barry Broad, J.D. '82, wrote a new book called Eve of Destruction (Seven Locks Press), which is an international spy thriller set against the backdrop of the "war on terror." Broad is an attorney and a lobbyist representing organized labor. He lives in Sacramento with his wife and two children.    Bruce Pavlik, M.S., Ph.D. '82, has written The California Deserts: An Ecological Rediscovery (University of California Press), which explores the diversity of life in the deserts. Pavlik is currently a professor of biology at Mills College in Oakland.
1981Paul Harris wrote a book about his experiences with Hurricane Katrina titled Diary from the Dome. He was trapped in the Superdome with other evacuees when the hurricane struck New Orleans. Harris recently retired from working at the UC San Diego library for 21 years, most recently as manager of the information desk. He now lives in Eureka Springs, Ark.    Marilyn Woolkalis, Ph.D., died of ovarian cancer in June 2008 at her home in Rosemont, Pa. She was 57. When she joined the physiology faculty at Philadelphia's Thomas Jefferson University in 1992, she concentrated her research on vascular endothelium, the cell layer lining blood vessels. After her diagnosis in 2005, she turned her focus to the signals controlling the growth of ovarian cancer cells. After becoming acutely ill, her primary goal was to see her daughter, Julia, graduate from high school, which she did via a video recording. Survivors include her husband, George Gerton, Ph.D. '80, her daughter, her mother, Mary Louise Woolkalis, and a brother, David Woolkalis.
1982Deborah Tellier is a partner with the law firm Farella Braun + Martel in San Francisco. She recently returned to the firm after working for the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation as an associate general counsel and chief compliance officer for six years. Tellier has more than 20 years of experience in environmental law and counsels clients on compliance with hazardous waste, water and air pollution control and underground storage tank laws.
1983Anne (Westgate) Ahlman has written Naked Elbows: A Physical Therapist's Reflections on Patient Care, Intuition, and Healing (Gannett Healthcare Group). It is a medical narrative that looks at the personal and professional stories surrounding patient care. Currently, Ahlman works as the editor of Today in PT and as an outpatient physical therapist in the San Francisco Bay Area.
1986Glenn Croston has written 75 Green Businesses You Can Start to Make Money and Make a Difference (Entrepreneur Press), in which he describes how to be ecologically friendly while making an income. He is also the founder of Starting Up Green, a support resource for green entrepreneurs.