Dartmouth Engineer

1940s

Henry Keck ’43 Tu’44 Th’44: Three years ago I retired from the firm Keck-Craig Inc., which I founded in 1951. Since then I’ve been very busy with inventors from all over the United States who need help in getting their inventions ready for production. I write business plans for them to help raise money. I’ve also written a new book, How Design Changed America.

Robert Sundblad ’44 Th’48: I retired from active engineering work in 1989. I moved to Florida in 1994 from Marion, Mass. I have served as president of our local engineering society for several years here in Florida. Otherwise, I enjoy a quiet retirement watching boats and the world go by from our waterfront property.

Bob Pretat ’46 Th’48: I just returned to Virginia from Dartmouth, where we drove for the class of 1946 65th reunion. I have only been to my 50th reunion, previously living farther away in Texas and Florida. I live in the Tampa area six months of the year but now have a home in southwest Virginia during the summer and fall. I called Paul Lacke ’46 Th’48 about the reunion, but he couldn’t make it. I haven’t been involved in engineering since I retired from a cement company in 1989, starting there in 1948 when I left Thayer School. Lafarge ended up being the largest cement company in the world—I helped a little. My life has been recently blessed with a new soulmate, Carol, after my wife of almost 52 years died in 2002. Between travel and hobbies—mine is genealogy—we keep busy. I’m working on my fourth book, and more beckon me.

Charles Quinn ’47 Th’47: I was one of the approximately 25 Navy and Marine Corp V-12 members, all Thayer classmates, who received our degrees in early 1946. It was a wartime program that compressed the eight college semesters into less than three years. Dartmouth, the Navy, and engineering have always been wonderful, happy memories for me. But after two more years in the Navy, I felt that I was being called to the priesthood. I was ordained as a Catholic priest of the Dominican Order at Washington, D.C., in 1955. My first assignment was to Pakistan, where I stayed for 16 years. I was then elected the superior of the Dominicans of New York Province. Following eight years as provincial, I then did much parochial ministry in the States (mostly in Jersey City, N.J., and Pleasantville, N.Y.). I also had another foreign mission assignment to the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea. For the past year, I have been at the Dominican Priory in Cincinnati, Ohio, helping out at a large parish, but also being present for the young men who are here in our novitiate, beginning their years of study for the priesthood. I have not remained in engineering, except for those memorable years at Dartmouth and the great group that made up that V-12 portion of the class of Thayer School 1947.

Tad Comstock ’48 Th’48: We have moved into a very nice continuing care facility in Exeter, N.H., known as the Boulders at Riverwoods. I have met a number of Dartmouth grads here. We are looking forward to making my class of ’48 mini-reunion next fall.

1950s

Pete Knoke ’55 Th’56: I’m a full-time associate professor of software engineering at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. I teach graduate and undergraduate courses in computer science and software engineering, conduct and publish research in software engineering, mentor students, and perform the usual other university service activities. I’m working on a book titled Legal Issues for Software Engineers. For several years I have performed volunteer work for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Computer Society (test development for the IEEE computer software development associate and professional as well as the evolving nationwide software engineering professional engineer program). I do this work because I believe more professionalism might help in improving software quality. I am 77 years old and am thinking of retiring; my children and grandchildren in Florida complain that we don’t get to see each other very often.

Stanley Sklar ’55 Th’56: My first engineering job was as a summer intern at the Bell Telephone Laboratory, working on a vacuum tube project. After graduating from Thayer in 1956 my engineering career moved on to the design of aerospace data processing and display systems based on digital transistor logic circuits, then integrated circuits, then microprocessors, hybrid circuits to reduce size, and finally custom integrated circuits. In 1972–73 I designed the command/control display system for Boeing’s AWACS airplane that was based on the first 1,024-bit (128 byte) memory chip. We received the serial number 1 chip from National Semiconductor Corp. in 1973. Today chip capacities reach one megabyte and beyond. Since I graduated at a time of transition from vacuum tubes to the digital world, the components and digital system design techniques were not yet taught at Thayer. They had to be learned on the job and through night courses at local universities. I think there is a message here. In retirement my technical activities are limited to keeping up with the ever-growing advances in personal computing and communications. I am an avid follower of national and international affairs. Also, I have become obsessed with ballet. I attend a performance every week when one is playing in N.Y.C. I go to Broadway shows and museums and take long walks. When my wife was alive we took yearly trips, to Russia, China, Spain, England, Israel, Malta. For the last seven years I have been taking yearly trips to Europe with my youngest daughter. I have four grandchildren, ages 13 to 17.

Rick Burkhart ’56: I am owner and CEO of RMB Consulting, which I started 12 years ago after retiring from ExxonMobil Chemical (with more than 32 years of service). The consulting business continues to thrive and that, along with being the president of our local American Contract Bridge League duplicate bridge studio, keeps me active. My wife of 43 years and I enjoy travel and look forward to many more years of semi-retirement.

G. Leonard Neely Jr. ’56: For the past four years I have been confined to home and the local Kaiser health facilities. I now do not drive or take long vacations, so I couldn’t attend my class 55th reunion. For the same reasons I did not attend my 50th M.B.A. reunion at Stanford.

Jerry Allyn ’59 Th’60: I have been retired from engineering activities since 2003. Other than keeping all my equipment running (I take care of 10 acres of land) and maintaining my sailboat, I am not active in any engineering endeavors. Nevertheless, life is good, and I spend time with family, friends, and church. I enjoyed attending my 1959 class reunion in Hanover and found that most of my classmates have retired, too.

1960s

Peter Tuschak ’61: Other than doing university teaching for several years, I have been an employee of the DuPont Co. for the last 38. Sometimes a person can prepare for one type of career for years and then circumstances move him into a somewhat different field, which ends up being the perfect fit. I was training to do research, accumulating two bachelor’s, a master’s, and a Ph.D. degree in engineering. I worked about 14 years in research, development, and teaching, but due to circumstances out of my control, I ended up in marketing. It still involves some engineering consulting, but the nature of this is quite different from pure engineering. It turned out to be the perfect fit for me. One never knows what lies ahead.

Mel Meyers ’63 Th’64: I own my own manufacturing company, Bry-Air Inc. We manufacture large equipment to precisely control humidity and temperature in mostly manufacturing operations. I have three children and two granddaughters. My youngest, a daughter, is a junior at Ohio State University. I have stayed in touch with the College through the alumni fund. Plans have been made to spend a week in Portland, Ore., with a group of my Phi Gam brothers.

John Kunz ’65 Th’66: I teach and lead a center in the civil and environmental engineering department at Stanford. I just finished an inspiring 100-person workshop on integrated facility asset planning and management that is enabled with virtual design and construction methods.

Steve Smith ’66 Tu’68 Th’68: I am president of the board of Chikaming Open Lands, a nonprofit land trust in southwest Michigan. We have protected 1,000 acres in the 11 years since four neighbors formed the land trust in 1999. We now have a small staff of three. I also have started a home energy inspection business in southwest Michigan. I conduct energy audits for homeowners that give them an analysis of the energy efficiency of their home and what they can do to improve the energy performance and consequently reduce their energy costs. Most owners of homes over 25 years old can usually save 25 percent of their utility costs if they follow up on my recommendations.

1970s

Bob Stevenson ’74 Th’76: I am the COO for TerraSpark Geosciences, a software provider to the oil/gas industry.

Will Fraizer ’78: I am continuing in my senior project engineering role with Chevron in Houston. We are completing the front-end engineering (FEED) phase for our new Wheatstone liquefied natural gas project, which will be built in northwestern Australia. Since Bechtel is providing the engineering support for our FEED, I spend most of my workdays in the Bechtel office near the Houston Galleria. I traveled to Australia for several weeks to assist our staff there in making presentations to the local regulatory authorities on our project. A Greenfield LNG project is a multibillion-dollar development, with a construction phase typically lasting around four years. I enjoy the challenge of continuing to work on world-scale projects. Outside of work, I take advantage of the various cultural activities in the Houston area, like the symphony, museums, and musical performances at the local pubs and clubs. I don’t see too many Thayer alums here in Houston, but I do participate in the periodic Dartmouth alumni events. The various alumni clubs of the Ivy schools, “Seven Sisters,” MIT, etc., also collaborate to sponsor a monthly “InterClub” social hour. I took advantage of my Australian trip to catch up with old friends in Perth (I had two prior work assignments in Perth and lived there a total of about four years). A pleasure of working in the international energy business is that you have friends in many corners of the world.

Martin Sklar Th’78: Presently my company, Automated Medical Instruments Inc., is in the early stages of developing a “game-changing” instrument for treating a major cardiac arrhythmia. We are presently seeking early financing. As we progress through this process I have seen a few Dartmouth alums referenced, and plan to connect with them soon. We will also be trying to connect with electrophysiologists (Drs. Gerling, Greenberg, Holzberger, and Sangha) at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. Any contacts within Thayer or the greater Dartmouth community are appreciated. My wife, Janis, is helping along with a team of colleagues. Medical Development Group, which I co-founded in 2001, is the leading grass-roots med-tech business organization in New England, with more than 30 programs per year, almost 2,000 individuals in the network, and more than 400 dues-paying members. This June I am stepping down from the governing board, after serving on it as the organization’s first president and then as a board member for the past seven years. Our offspring Adam is heading back to school to learn and obtain a master’s in project management. Our daughter Jennifer and her husband, Evan, are doing well in a Boston suburb. She works as an account manager for a growing telecom firm and Evan for his dad’s healthy vending company.

Bill Hooper ’79: I’m married to Christy Reid Hooper and have two sons, Will (28) and Christopher (21). I’m a professor of computer science at Belmont University—not exactly engineering, but close!

1980s

Pat Guiney ’80: I just finished a nine-year stint at Hologic, managing new product development programs for the diagnostic division. Hologic focuses on women’s health, and my teams developed imaging/microscopy systems for cervical cancer detection as well as an analyzer for quantifying risk of pre-term birth. Next, I am moving on to Philips Medical Systems, where I will be senior program manager in the emergency care and resuscitation division.

Laurie Komornik Hartman ’80 Th’80: I did some engineering early in my career. However, in my journey I branched into a few other areas. I started my own baking business providing desserts for a natural food store. I then got an M.E. in counselor education with an emphasis in community counseling. And I am now working in pastoral care—and have been privileged to work with a few trauma survivors who suffer from dissociative identity disorder (DID). My Thayer education gave me tremendous tools and orientation that I use to this day. Someone with DID is someone with a system—albeit in a human body rather than in a machine.

Donald “Brad” Bradshaw ’82: I run a high-tech clean-energy company in the Boston area that manufactures systems used to power cell towers in developing countries. We manufacture hydrogen purifiers and hydrogen generators that feed pure hydrogen to fuel cells that deliver electricity to the radio transmitters in cell tower installations. The market for our technology is focused in areas of the world where power is either non-existent or unreliable. For context, about 1.5 billion people in the world have no electricity, but want cell phone service. The greatest growth in cellular subscribers in the world is in areas where power constraints are the most significant, especially in Africa, India, and Southeast Asia. The only alternative to fuel cells is diesel generators, which are expensive to operate and unreliable, hence the interest in fuel cell power systems. The company I run, Hy9 Corp., manufactures a system that efficiently and cleanly converts liquid methanol into pure hydrogen, which is fed into polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells to generate electricity. My engineering education at Dartmouth has helped me work with engineers to shape and integrate advanced technologies into practical business products and strategies. Applying sound engineering principles and process in a purposeful and focused manner is critical to overcoming technical challenges in high-tech startups.

Peter Lambert ’82: I am senior VP of Nordson Corp., a multinational company with direct operations in 30 countries. I lead the company’s adhesive dispensing segment, which includes the packaging, product assembly, nonwovens, and web-coating systems product lines. I joined Nordson in 1993 as product development manager in the powder systems group and in 1997 became managing director of Nordson Australia. In 2001 I was named director of corporate development and global business information, responsible for the company’s acquisition activities as well as the integration of information systems across all of Nordson’s geographic locations and businesses. I also chaired the company’s technology strategy committee. In 2003 I was named vice president of packaging and product assembly and was responsible for engineering, product development, product line management, marketing, and communications activities. I was named vice president of EFD Inc. in 2005 and served in that position for four years before being named to my current position in 2009.

Mike Adams ’83: I have been working for Bechtel, the global engineering, construction, and project-management company, for the past 20 years. I am a main board director and president of one of Bechtel’s five global business units, the civil infrastructure business. I am responsible for a number of exciting projects around the world, including a new airport in Qatar, a new offshore port and related industrial zone in Abu Dhabi, a new motorway in Kosovo, an extension of the Washington, D.C., metro toward Dulles Airport, and a new rail line across London. I have lived in London for the past 11 years with my wife and four sons. I have enjoyed my career at the sharp end of building infrastructure around the world, and in so doing, helping enable countries achieve stronger economic growth.

Thane Russell ’84 Th’85: We live in Alberta on a small ranch about halfway between Calgary and the Rockies. My lovely wife Kerri runs an equestrian center that we started about five years ago now and we have 65 horses that board and train there. We also have a small but growing herd of purebred Black Angus cattle. I work in the oil industry at Absolute Completion Technologies when I am not feeding animals, fixing fences, or haying. Every once in a while my partners and I seem to be able to come up with a new bit of kit that people want to pay for, so that’s what covers the bills. However, most of the people who want it seem to live in places like Venezuela, Indonesia, or West Africa, so I spend quite a good deal of time on airplanes. Kerri and I have two children, Paige (18) and Matthew (16). Paige is a freshman at Texas A&M and a member of the equestrian team there. Matthew is a gentle soul who was born with autism. He has a great sense of humor, attends high school (where he is in regular classes with the help of an aide), and generally keeps us smiling. His was a gift of a very unexpected sort, but a blessing all the same.

Mark Gies ’86 Th’88: John de Papp ’86 Th’88 and I were good friends at Dartmouth and Thayer, and we have been working together since 2009 at PanelClaw, a solar energy startup making commercial roof and ground-based solar panel mounting systems. I was the third employee and am VP of Technology and Innovation. John is VP of Western U.S. sales and is employee No. 5. The company is based in Massachusetts with more than 30 employees and offices in Texas, Vermont, and California. We’re always looking for people interested in a career in renewable energy.

John Rajala ’88: I have been keeping a blog as part of my role with Rajala Companies in Bigfork, Minn.

1990s

Durward Sobek ’91: I am a professor of industrial engineering at Montana State University, completing my 14th year here. I’ve been doing work in the areas of product development and healthcare delivery systems, applying lean and other industrial engineering principles to those sectors. Starting in September, I’ll be on sabbatical as a visiting professor at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden. My wife, Sarah Robbins Sobek ’91, and I would love to connect with Dartmouth folks who may be in the area.

Maureen McGrath Hahn ’92 Th’93: What have Steve Hahn ’92 Th’93 and I been up to? Brendan (13), Clara (11), Eveleen (9), Maeve (7), Delia (5), Quinlin (4), and Tilley (2). We love our crazy life in South Carolina.

Takami Kihara Th’93: I work for Accenture as senior manager and am based in Tokyo. My current responsibility is to lead Asia-Pacific process improvement activities, such as quality assurance, high-risk engagement management, and Capability Maturity Model Integration appraisal and training. As everyone knows, Japan had the worst natural disaster in March. I had to stay at the office in Tokyo since all transportation was stopped. Luckily we are recovering from the disaster; however, we face an electronic power-saving challenge in the summer since we are heavily using air conditioning due to the hot and humid weather. Each company must establish some policies, such as shifting working hours or dates, forcing employees to take longer vacations, or adding extra days off during the summer to save the electronic power as much as possible. I have a wife and three kids. My hobbies are working out, fishing, and reading.

Michael MacAvoy ’93 Th’94: I am a hand surgeon and orthopedic surgeon in south San Francisco. I use my engineering skills both in surgery and in my publications pertaining to fracture fixation and muscle strength testing.

Jim McClellan ’93 Th’95: I’m the bald guy with glasses and blue shirt sitting next to Katherine Knapp Carney in the TIME video of Pratt & Whitney Co., “What it Took to Create a Job for One Bright Engineer.”

Ted Arons Th’94: After graduating from Thayer, I spent three years working as a research scientist for the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, doing geophysics fieldwork in polar regions. Then Fish & Neave, a major New York patent law firm, asked me for assistance understanding petroleum exploration technology. I went to work for the firm in 1998 and have been practicing patent law ever since. I spent about 10 years working for the firm and its successor, Ropes & Gray. For the last four years, I’ve been practicing in New York at my own firm, which I founded with a colleague. I advise major international corporations and startups regarding intellectual property in connection with product development, fundraising, litigation risk, and patent portfolio development. My Thayer education proves its value every day in both legal and technical analysis, whether I’m dealing with telecommunications, energy, mechanics, bioengineering, quantitative analysis, or finance. I invite fellow Thayer and Tuck community members to be in touch.

Ryan Bradeen ’94: I am the cultural affairs officer for education and exchanges for the U.S. State Department, based at the U.S. embassy in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Jim Bradley ’94A: Even though I retired almost four years ago, I continue to work on patents for Navistar. I also continue to use and study the Russian Theory of Inventive Problem Solving. When we are able to slow down, Sue and I love to travel.

Dan Frem ’97 Th’97: I am starting off on a new career, my third, and I hope, last. I recently graduated with a doctorate of veterinary medicine from the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University and will be an intern next year in Ventura, Calif. I hope to obtain a residency in small animal surgery afterwards. I had worked at Ford Motor Co. with Chris Dorros ’97 Th’98, Sharon Spatz ’96, Jeremy Crane Th’98, and several other Thayer M.E.M. graduates, but after two-plus years I left Ford to return home to Massachusetts to help manage the family business, Cyprian Keyes Golf Club, a public golf and reception facility in Boylston, Mass. After seven years there, I needed a dramatic change and took post-bac classes and applied to vet school. Professor Kennedy wrote a recommendation for my application.

Jan Lammerding Th’97: I just accepted a joint faculty position between the Weill Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology and the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. The research in my lab combines engineering and microfabrication approaches with cell and molecular biology techniques to probe the physical properties of cells and how they modulate cellular function under physiological conditions and in disease, with applications ranging from muscular dystrophy and cardiomyopathies to premature aging and cancer.

Stephen Lee ’99 Th’00: I’m working at a stretchable electronics startup, MC10 Inc., in Cambridge, Mass., as their senior electrical engineer. We have several projects but I spend most of my time developing stretchable circuits that lie on an elastomer. In one case, the elastomer is a polyurethane balloon catheter. Our electronics can stretch with the balloon. We map electrophysiological data and perform ablation at the same time on a balloon catheter, simplifying a pulmonary vein isolation procedure. I’m happy to note that we’ve had several Thayer interns here this year. They include Andrew Ceballos ’12, Robert D’Angelo ’08, Roja Nunna Th’12, and Nishan Subedi Dual-Degree ’12.

2000s

Joe Brown ’00: I finished a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2010. I’m currently employed as a post-doc research associate there. My research areas include microelectromechanical systems for nanomaterial tensile testing and mechanical and electrical characterization of nanoscale structures and materials. The company I helped start in 2004, NanoComp Technologies Inc., continues to improve its capabilities to produce bulk quantities of high-quality carbon nanotubes and is currently based in Concord, N.H.

Jonas Akermark Th’01: I work for AGA Gas AB (a member of the Linde Group) and market liquified natural gas (LNG) as a fuel for shipping. A major activity included in this work is the distribution net of LNG and being able to supply vessels with LNG from ship to ship. Coming regulations (from International Maritime Organization and the European Union) force shipowners to run their vessels on fuels that reduce sulphur emissions close to zero. The LNG environmental impact is also reduced for CO2 (25 percent), nitrogen oxide (85 percent) and particulate matter (about 0 percent) emissions as well. Apart from AGA, I’m trying to get involved in “early-bird” projects at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. Family life dominates my spare time, with our daughter and two sons, 8, 6, and 3.

Mara Winn Th’01: I live in Alexandria, Va., with my husband, Rob Winn ’99, two children, and new puppy. I work for Zeichner Risk Analytics, a small cybersecurity and risk and security governance analysis government consulting firm. I act as the principal program manager, directing programmatic and strategic management support for Department of Homeland Security’s supply-chain risk management program and the management of programs within the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative.

Zac Carman ’02: I’m the CEO of ConsumerAffairs.com.

Gabe Farkas Th’02: We had our first child in September 2009 (a son, Jacob). In October 2010 I accepted a new position as coordinator of basketball analytics with Spurs Sports & Entertainment. It’s a bit of a divergence from engineering. My other grad degree is in statistics, which is what I’m using more in this position.

Jieli Li Th’02: After a few years working as an electrical engineer at Apple headquarters in Silicon Valley, I was assigned by the company to Shanghai, China. I helped establish the first local engineering team and am now the China office’s engineering manager. I manage a team of both hardware and software engineers and look to continue to grow the team in the region. When I’m not busy tinkering with Apple’s next cool gadgets, I devote my time to my twin toddlers, Jennifer and Andrew.

Bob Neill ’03: I spent the last four years working for an energy consulting firm in Atlanta. I left at the beginning of the year to travel in South America and am headed to MIT in August for a master’s in logistics. Although in my last job it varied a lot by project, I think you could say I’m still working in engineering.

Tom Byron ’04: Since my years in law school, I’ve been working as in-house counsel at the MathWorks, a company familiar to all Thayer engineers as the makers of MATLAB. (And Dartmouth is certainly not unfamiliar to us at MathWorks—we’ve got a conference room named Dartmouth, right next to conference rooms MIT and Stanford.) In my spare time, I write intellectual property law review articles. My latest offering was chosen for inclusion in Thomson West’s 2010 Intellectual Property Law Review publication, a collection of what they deem the best intellectual property law review articles of the year. Personally, I’m living in Allston, Mass., with my wonderful wife, Elise Robinson ’05, and two dogs, a 10-year-old Lab hanging around from my days at Dartmouth and a 3-year-old snaggletoothed terrier mutt that does half marathons with me.

Erik Dambach ’04 Th’05: I completed my Ph.D. in aerospace engineering at Purdue University. My dissertation’s title is “Ignition of Hypergolic Propellants.” I moved to Los Angeles to join SpaceX as a propulsion development engineer working on the Dragon capsule.

Tara Ryan Rahemba Th’04: In 2009 I joined the law firm Axinn, Veltrop & Harkrider LLP as a patent attorney. I practice in the firm’s Hartford, Conn., office and my focus thus far has been on patent litigation relating to pharmaceuticals and medical devices, as well as FDA/regulatory issues unique to pharmaceuticals.

Riad Khan ’05 Th’06: After graduation I spent five years outside of the engineering field and one and a half of those years searching for a job during the recession. In mid-June, I started a new position in energy management at Toronto Hydro, where the M.E.M. is certain to come in handy.

Min Song Th’05: I became a full professor in Central South University in Changsha in September 2010. And I was also named a New Century Excellent Talents in University by the ministry of education of the People’s Republic of China.

Adams Baker ’06: Improving the energy efficiency of commercial and industrial infrastructure can be a lot like buying a new hybrid car: It can be difficult to determine how much energy and money you’re actually saving. I work as an energy engineer and am developing statistical models for our customers who make large investments in energy-saving technology (often based upon our recommendations) so we can show them how much money and energy they are actually saving on an ongoing basis, even as conditions change going into the future.

Josh Kjenner Th’06: After four year of doing energy and daylight simulation and research at an architecture firm, I’m going back to school to become an architect. I’ll be starting school at the University of British Columbia in the fall.

Chuck Rosenwasser ’06: I earned a master’s of engineering in product architecture and engineering from the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, N.J., in 2010. The program is part of the mechanical engineering department and is directed by John Nastasi, a practicing architect. The program operates as a design studio, encouraging students to work on self-directed projects while applying theory from the coursework. Courses I took outside the core studio work were sustainable engineering, physical computing, numerical optimization, parametric design, and active and passive heating and cooling analyses. I am currently a product engineer at OXO, where I am part of a team that develops water bottles, travel mugs, thermometers, scales, baking tools, and other consumer products. It’s a great place to work and I’m really enjoying it!

Mukta Acharya Th’07: I use quantitative and analytical skills that I gained from my engineering education to solve real-world problems in the healthcare industry. I have been working with CVS Caremark since 2010. I started off working as an analyst in the retail strategic product development group, performing analytics to understand the performance of various pharmacy products and then help implement strategies to improve these products. Just this month, I was promoted to a senior analyst role in a different group, called enterprise strategy and analytics. I am working on a program called pharmacy advisor, which is focused on improving healthcare outcomes and reducing the overall healthcare costs. So far I really enjoy my job.

Jing Tan Th’07: I’m currently working in Bonn, Germany, for the logistics company DHL. I’m working on lean projects (Six Sigma, continuous improvement, etc.) in warehouses.

Wei Xing Th’07: I am currently working as a client manager at a Swedish financial technology firm in New York.

Ada Danaher Th’08: After graduating from the M.E.M. program, I was hired by Eaton for their engineering and technology leadership program. I was a product engineer for Eaton Automotive, supercharger division, for one year in Michigan, functional excellence product engineer for Eaton industrial sector in Minnesota for one year, and now I’m the lead design engineer for Eaton Aerospace, conveyance systems division, in Warwick, R.I.

Elizabeth Jensen Th’08: I just completed my third year of graduate school (out of five) for a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering at Princeton University. This summer I married George Young. I look forward to returning to Dartmouth next year for graduation to see friends graduate.

Watson Sallay ’08: For a little more than a year I’ve been working in Seattle at a company called Electroimpact. We specialize in providing assembly automation for aircraft manufacturers, both in tooling and robotics. The project I’m working on is an assembly line for the wings of a new business executive jet for Embraer. It has allowed me to work abroad in Brazil and Portugal and has provided some excellent design challenges.

Matt Wallach Th’08: After completing a two-year development program with BMW MC in Greenville, S.C., I moved over to Munich in January for an 18-month ex-pat assignment. I’m working on engineering development for the next generation X5, which should be released to the market around the end of 2013.

Katie Gray ’09 Th’09: I graduated in 2009 with the B.E. from Thayer and have been working as an engineer ever since. I currently work as a development engineer for Encana Corp., Canada’s largest natural gas producer. My current role is in the regulatory and government relations group where I am able to work across the company on many different projects. In my latest project I helped to submit 11 applications to the Ministry of Energy and Mines in British Columbia requesting $55 million under its infrastructure program. This program promotes putting production from stranded wells online by granting 50 percent of the project cost to the producer, which greatly helps the economics of certain projects within the Encana portfolio. We will hear back in early September on the results of the projects that we submitted. I hope they will grant us at least $30 million!

Andrew Herchek Th’09: I have been working in Taiwan for the last six months for their government, refurbishing and upgrading various government owned-equipment. Because of the island’s hot and humid climate, the mechanical equipment requires specialized maintenance and technology in order to keep operational. In addition to maintenance, we work with their government to install and upgrade communications equipment, hardware, and software to modernize their older equipment. Some of the challenges we face are collaborating between our offices in the United States and in Taiwan, time zone (12-hour difference, EST) and travel time (about 30 hours), and, of course, the language barrier and cultural differences. I’m grateful that I’m able to work directly or indirectly with fellow Thayer alums Andrew Pitts Th’08, Jason Rathbone Th’02, and Chris Castonguay ’96 Th’97.

Emily Koepsell ’09 Th’10: I’m finishing up my Fulbright Scholarship studying sustainable energy with a focus on energy savings in the built environment at the Technical University of Denmark. I’ve had an incredible year here studying engineering, learning Danish, visiting museums and historical sites, and making friends with Danes and other international students. This opportunity has enabled me to learn a lot about a field of engineering that greatly interests me, but I think that the most valuable part has been the intercultural experience.

Lauren Miller ’09: I’ve been living in Chicago since last September and finished up my first year in a Ph.D. program at Northwestern University studying mechanical engineering (yes, still in engineering!). I’m working in the laboratory for intelligent mechanical systems there.

Nolan Reis Th’09: I live in San Francisco and work as an engineer for Tesla Motors. I am on the propulsion team designing the motor for our next electric car, the Model S. I am loving it.

Steve Walker ’09: I started a new position as a project engineer for Stanadyne Corp. in Windsor, Conn., as of June 6. Previously, I was working as a management trainee for Praxair in Austin, Texas, so this new job marks my transition back to engineering after a short hiatus to develop my project management skills. Stanadyne is a fuel systems manufacturer, and I’m working on developing their line of common-rail diesel injection pumps.

2010s

Claire McKenna ’10: I am enthusiastically employed as an energy engineer at Solar Design Associates in Harvard, Mass. We specialize in custom photovoltaic (PV) system designs, but we also work on solar thermal and wind power systems. It’s my job, as part of a small team of architects and engineers, to design PV systems from the feasibility stage through many iterations to construction documents. At home I’m attempting to make rustic furniture and assembling a portfolio for my application to M.Arch. programs.

For more photos, visit our Alumni Events and People and Summer 2011 sets of images on Flickr.

1940s

Warren Daniell ’48 Th’50: One of my professors at Thayer was John Minnich ’29. In the fall of 1951, while working diligently but not too happily for a public utility, I got a call from John. In his folksy drawl, he said he was consulting at a “great engineering company” with an office in Concord, N.H., that needed structural engineers, and I would be a perfect fit. So I talked with Tad Comstock Th’48, who was with the firm (Anderson-Nichols), met with the office manager, negotiated a salary ($100/week), and started work in November. By 1955 I had been transferred to the Boston headquarters with management rather than engineering responsibilities, but I continued to work with John until the mid-1960s. In 1999, now co-owner, and having been responsible for engineering projects worldwide, I sold Anderson-Nichols, staying on with the new firm, Dewberry, as consultant until 2008. I owe it all to John!

1950s

Weston G. Bruner ’55 Tu’56 Th’56: I was a Tuck-Thayer major and in the Air Force ROTC. After graduation, I went to work for Westinghouse Electric Corp. A month later I was called to active duty in the Air Force. I spent one and a half years at Griffiss Air Force Base as a second lieutenant and studied radar. When I returned to Westinghouse, after I received an early out from the Air Force, I worked on advanced airborne radar. I was very involved in the development of the radar for the F-16 aircraft. In 1993, after 38 years, I retired from Westinghouse. My wife and I are very active in our church and I play bridge weekly with some friends I have known for a long time. We have done some traveling overseas and throughout Canada and the U.S.A. My son, a plastic surgeon, has three girls. My daughter, a teacher, has two boys.

Philip Coyle ’56 Th’57: For 33 years, from 1959 to 1979 and then later from 1981 to 1993, I worked at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which was originally called the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, retiring in 1993. In 1979, during the Carter administration, I left the lab to serve as principal deputy assistant secretary for defense programs in the Department of Energy (DOE). In this capacity I had oversight responsibility for the nuclear weapons research, development, production, and testing programs of the department, as well as the DOE programs in arms control, non-proliferation, and nuclear safeguards and security. I’ve remained in engineering, although I haven’t been in a job that involved detailed engineering calculations and design work since I left the lab. From there, from 1994 to 2001, I served as assistant secretary of defense and director of operational test and evaluation in the Department of Defense (DOD), where I was the longest-serving director in the 25-year history of the office. As director of operational test and evaluation, I had responsibility for overseeing the test and evaluation of more than 200 major defense acquisition systems. This included reporting to the Secretary of Defense and Congress on the adequacy of the DOD testing programs, and on the results from those testing programs. At the DOD my responsibilities also included stewardship of the major range and test facility bases of the DOD, including the large test ranges and test centers the DOD operates from Maryland and Florida to California and Hawaii. After leaving the Pentagon I became a senior advisor to the president of the World Security Institute, and to its Center for Defense Information, a Washington, D.C.-based national security study center where I still serve. In 2005 and 2006, I served on the nine-member Defense Base Realignment and Closure Commission appointed by President George W. Bush and nominated by House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi. The commission was responsible for determining those U.S. military bases and facilities to be closed or realigned beginning in late 2005. On October 28, 2009, the White House announced my nomination to become the associate director for national security and international affairs in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. I was appointed to the position in July of 2010.

1960s

Frank Barber ’62: Until two years ago I was at the National Center for Physical Acoustics at the University of Mississippi, directing an Army program trying to stop soldiers from bleeding to death on the battlefield using ultrasonic Doppler and imaging to locate internal bleeding, followed by high-intensity, focused ultrasound to cauterize the wound — all non-invasively. My retirement was concurrent with the loss of hope for early success, and the funding. Timing is everything! My wife, Debbie, and I now live in Golden, Colo., for our “golden” years. Life is hiking, biking, climbing, skiing, etc. With three kids (two Debbie’s and one mine) and two grandkids nearby we are blessed. Retirement feels more like being on sabbatical. I maintain usefulness by teaching cross-country skiing for the Colorado Mountain Club, volunteering at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, and, to pay my REI bill, instructing and mentoring students at Red Rocks Community College in its medical imaging program. The Dartmouth Winter CarniVail is the greatest thing since the freshman trip and I recommend it highly to any of you out there who want to get together with old friends and a few faculty and staff from the College. It’s a three-day weekend every February, organized by graduates of Dartmouth and its affiliated schools who live in Vail, Colo. Skiing is optional, so they say.

John Pearse ’62: I married my childhood sweetheart two weeks after graduation — my best life decision. I founded a software company in 1979; grew it for 25 years to a very respectable size, and sold it for a bundle in 2004. Now I’m enjoying my wife and the good life in Florida during the winter, and the grandchildren in Connecticut during the summer. Who could ask for anything more?

Thomas E. Brady ’66 Th’68: I am the interim dean for the Judith Herb College of Education at the University of Toledo (UT). Prior to this I was the founder and chairman of Plastic Technologies Inc. and six related companies in plastic packaging, plastics technology development, and plastics recycling. Before that I was vice president of plastics technology for Owens-Illinois Inc., where I directed the technical activities for all plastic product lines. I sit on the Ohio governor’s Third Frontier Advisory Board and served as a trustee for the Medical University of Ohio and the New University of Toledo from 2005 to 2009. I’m active in the Society of Plastics Engineers and the American Chemical Society, and serve on the boards of the Ohio Polymer Strategy Council, the Regional Growth Partnership, the Toledo Symphony, the UT Innovation Enterprise Corp., and the engineering advisory boards for the materials science department at the University of Michigan and the College of Engineering at UT. My wife, Betsy, and I have three married children, and I spend my spare time playing the piano, restoring classic cars, and working in my woodshop with my grandchildren.

1970s

Chris Yule ’70: I am the president of Yule Development Co., a real estate development firm based in Newton Center, Mass., that focuses on energy-efficient commercial rehab projects. Our Abbot Mill project in Westford, Mass., looks like it’s finally about to go into its main construction phase. Securing financing has been difficult because of the financial and political climate, but now appears to be coming together via local banks. This will allow the final renovations to take place to convert the historic mill complex to residential housing. During the past three years we have been constructing two levels of parking underneath the existing structure, and also built a tunnel under a part of the building to gain access. This proved to be an extraordinary engineering challenge because of the complex structural issues and also because of the two canals running under the complex, but that work is now complete. (It had to be done before the rest of the work could proceed.) The project also includes one building that will be dismantled and moved across the site. Also, I wrote an article on energy conservation that was published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that proposes we consider recycling energy as a means of getting off our addiction to oil. This is done via hybrid vehicles, which are commonly misunderstood as an energy recycling technology. The article mentions Thayer School’s Formula Hybrid program as a powerful example of the progress already being made in hybrids.

J.R. Bartlett ’72 Th’73: I’m retired now. I currently spend my time totally involved in charitable activities — Habitat for Humanity, teaching life skills to those in need, community leadership, etc. A 180-degree about-face from a career in engineering. I managed to accumulate a sizeable retirement portfolio and now I am driven by two things: the desire to give back, and the God-inspired imperative of the parable of the talents.

Bob Tsigonis ’72 Th’73: I am the president and owner of Lifewater Engineering Co. in Fairbanks, Alaska. I started Lifewater as an environmental engineering consulting company in January of 1998. In 1999, some friends asked me to design an above-ground sewage treatment plant for their house on permafrost. They wanted a system that would not put heat into the ground, causing the permafrost to thaw. I designed a system and eventually received U.S. and Canadian patents on it. Lifewater morphed into a manufacturing company that designs and manufactures sewage treatment plants for extremely cold climates and harsh environments. We also offer cold regions engineering consulting and I teach portions of a cold region engineering short course at the University of Washington four times per year. I recently did the conceptual design and guided my small team of engineers and fabricators through detailed design and fabrication of a fun sewage treatment project on Mount Washington, N.H., “home of the world’s worst weather.” Waste-water treatment has been one of the greatest challenges on the mountain due to a steadily increasing number of summer visitors, large seasonal variations in flow, and the complexities of discharging into a sensitive alpine environment during harsh winter conditions. Now the effluent product is close to drinking water quality and much better for the environment.

Steve Askey ’76 Th ’77: I’m still with Schlumberger Oilfield Services, after 32 years, as an international accounts manager. I repatriated to Houston in February 2008 after about 10 years in Indonesia. I also came back with an Indonesian wife, the second one for me, after divorcing in 1998. I’ve been in the technical sales and marketing side of Schlumberger for most of my career, after spending five years as a field engineer working on rigs offshore in the Gulf of Mexico and a couple of years as an applications development engineer in New Orleans. I’m currently working on a retirement plan, I hope by 2011, with the idea of either working for an operator (the other side of the desk!) or hitting the beach and being a Walmart greeter to keep busy and out of the house (and keep my wife happy). I still play the guitar whenever possible, for sanity now rather than money. The louder the better. Also try to work out, golf, run, etc., although recent rotator cuff surgery has put a damper on that — can’t have anything to do with age.

Doug Cogswell ’77: I am using my Thayer School skills to lead Advizor Solutions, a well-regarded data discovery and analysis software company that leverages in-memory-data-management and data visualization technology, which I spun out of Bell Labs. Advizor is enabling business people to understand their business data without relying on others to prepare data or interpret the results. I live in the Chicago area with my wife, Kim. Our son, Dan, just received his Ph.D. from MIT and is working on advanced battery technology there. Our older daughter, Heather, is in Zambia working on HIV/Aids prevention programs and will attend grad school in public health at Johns Hopkins next year. Our younger daughter, Brenna, is a student at Mount Holyoke.

1980s

Kim Quirk ’82 Th’83: I recently moved from the Boston area back to the Upper Valley after 27 years in various high-tech jobs. I started a renewable energy company called the Energy Emporium. The goal of the company is to provide information, demonstrations, products, and support for people who want to decrease their dependence on fossil fuels and their energy use and help take better care of the environment. I have two retail stores and provide full-service sales, installation, and support for solar hot water systems, solar electric, and wind and water turbines as well as energy monitoring devices, LED bulbs, and energy-efficient and sustainable products. My husband and I are renovating an 1860s house into my business and our home (on the upper floors). This will be a zero-net-energy house, which means all of our energy usage for heating or running appliances will be generated onsite from renewable sources. We have built an annual water/sand storage tank that is being heated by thermal solar collectors all summer. It will provide the heat we need next winter. The house will be super-insulated, cutting down the requirement for heat to a lot less than the Energy Star rating for this house. The solar collector will continue to provide some heat in the winter, but most of the heat will come from the stored energy we are putting in there this summer. We will have solar photovoltaic modules on the roof to provide the needed electrical energy. I am blogging about conservation, renewable energy products and ideas, as well as detail­­s on the house renovation project.

Michael Collette ’84: I am CEO of Healthy Advice Networks, a provider of patient education programs for physician office and hospital environments.

Sumit Guha Th’88: I will complete 10 years with Intel this year and have a sabbatical planned for next year. I’m an engineering manager in the latest technology node (45nm), and lead two metals process technology groups. I’m about to complete my advanced program management degree from Stanford and am changing my career focus and coming back to Tuck School for executive education this summer. My wife, Aruna, is also an Intel employee, and we have two daughters, 11-year-old Indira and 2-year-old Ishya. Life is hectic. We’ve lived in New Mexico since 2009. I’m traveling a lot nowadays — Australia, Asia, and Europe in the past few years and Africa planned for 2011. My advice to other Thayer alums: It was awesome going back to Thayer after 19 years and meeting my professors. For those who haven’t done it, you should try it.

1990s

Brian Crounse ’94 Th’95: I’ve been appointed to the Concord, Mass., municipal light board. This board oversees the activities of the Concord Municipal Light Plant, our town electric utility. We’re implementing a smart-grid project and looking closely at a megawatt-scale solar installation in town. I was primarily an environmental engineer at Thayer and later at MIT. My day job is still principal at Carlisle & Co., a small supply chain consulting company in Concord, where I’ve been for a decade.

Vishal Gupta Th’94: I am a vice president at Cisco Systems and have completed two years of a three-year international assignment to Bangalore, India, where Cisco has established a globalization center and its second world headquarters. I lead global delivery of advanced services for Cisco and have established a network of global delivery centers in India, China, Jordan, and Mexico, with almost 700 engineers. I am also incubating innovative healthcare solutions for the East out of Bangalore to enable affordable access to healthcare for all. My family (wife Anjali and daughters Meera and Richa) and I are all having a great time in Bangalore.

Heather Harries Adv’97: I started a medical device consulting company in 2009 and am keeping quite busy! I am now the proud mother of a daughter who is 3 and a son who just turned 1. I live with them and my husband, David, in south Florida.

Andrea “Andi” Korber ’98: I’m an architect working in Colorado for Land+Shelter, a cross-disciplinary firm that does planning, development, and architecture. I’ve been here three years now, working on a mix of commercial, institutional, and residential projects, both new buildings and remodels, and have even been able to develop some renewable energy projects.

After Dartmouth I went to design school for an architecture master’s at Harvard, which I graduated from in 2002. I have been working since then in architecture.

My current job expands the architect title into planner/developer as well, and Land+Shelter is totally connected to the rural community where we’re located. We just finished remodeling the old elementary school into a nonprofit center, and I’m renting an art studio space in the building. I love knowing all the players in our projects — the neighbors, the town. We recently completed a super-efficient residential project that we designed and built to LEED-platinum standards. The home includes some pretty incredible geometry and structural moments that sprang from a site concept. We modeled the roof in-house and I worked with the structural engineer to design and size the visible members. It was a moment where my engineering background came in handy in my architectural career.

2000s

Kate Baus Bogumil Th’05: My husband Thomas and I would like to announce the birth of our daughter, Sophie, on May 4, 2010. We are still enjoying life in Germany!

Eric Gruber ’07: I started medical school in August at the University of Massachusetts. For the past two years, I’ve been working in a medical physics lab at Tufts Medical Center in Boston. At the lab, I did R&D work on several portable devices to detect muscle atrophy and elemental deficiencies in aging populations.

Mukta Acharya Th’08: I graduated from the M.E.M. program in December ’07. After graduating, I started working with Kaiser Associates, a boutique management consulting firm in Washington, D.C. At Kaiser, I worked on several strategy projects in the technology, telecommunications, and manufacturing fields. After almost two years with Kaiser, I am now working with CVS Caremark in their retail strategic product development group. In both my previous and current job, I have been able to put engineering and business concepts that I learned at Dartmouth into practice. For example: I was working on an operational strategy project for a global flour manufacturing company. I was the only engineer in my team and was able to understand and perform in depth analysis around their manufacturing process. At the same time, I was able to apply my business skills to give some recommendations on process improvements to increase efficiency and lower costs. Overall, this project was a success and my Thayer experience and learning played a key role in the final outcome of the project.

Elizabeth Jensen Th’08: I just finished my second year as a Ph.D. candidate in the mechanical and aerospace engineering department at Princeton University. I am working on designing instrumentation for telescopes to take pictures of exoplanets (planets orbiting stars besides our sun). Also, I recently got engaged and will be married next year in Princeton, N.J.

Laura Weyl Th’08: I’ve repositioned my trajectory since Thayer a number of times from product development to management consulting to ATDynamics (a Tuck/Thayer startup) and back to school for structural engineering. I graduated with my M.S. this spring from Stanford and am figuring out my next move. I hope to find something in northern California, allowing me to continue my love affair with the lifestyle here. Between Tahoe, Yosemite, Emigrant Wilderness, Big Basin, Marin, the Bay Area in general, I’ve found the ultimate playground for non-work time and am not ready to give that up. I’m spending time and in touch with a number of Thayer grads out here (there is a surprising number!). I hope to find a position with an environmentally conscious structural design firm in the Bay Area before I go broke paying off my student loans!

1940s

Henry C. Keck ’43 TT’43: Thayer, with its teaching of fundamental principles, has been of profound importance to me in my more than 50 years of product development and machine design. I am semi-retired from Keck-Craig Inc., the company I founded in 1951. I am writing a book about product development in the United States since the 1920s, including chapters about the work of my firm. I still work with companies and inventors developing new products.

Bob Sundblad ’44 Th’48: I’m retired for some 30-odd years now and live by the water in southwest Florida. My wife, Eleanor, and I have had reasonably good health since moving south in 1994. I was president of our local engineering society for a period in which we tried to help our fair city with some expansion problems.

Tad Comstock ’48 Th’48: Highlights in 2009 included a cornea implant — it works! — and renewal of my driver’s license for another five years. I still play golf, and Rotary remains one of my longtime favorite organizations. My wife, Georgie, and I are looking into moving into a continuing care facility but nothing is definite yet. Meanwhile, we enjoy our camp on Bow Lake in New Hampshire.

1950s

Charlie Schneider ’57 TT’58: I have been retired for 13 years and am active as a part-time caregiver for my wife, very much involved in a local education program called Vistas For Lifelong Learning, and as a board member for a new nonprofit called Center For Successful Aging. I keep physically active with tennis, lawn bowling, golf, and cycling. Jane, my wife, and I are lucky with accessible culture in Santa Barbara, Calif., and have subscription tickets to theater and music organizations.

1960s

Harris McKee ’61 Th’63: Our civic and volunteer activities continue. My wife, Mary, is off the Bella Vista, Ark., library board but on other boards and still edits the weekly Rotary newsletter. I finished Rotary and Master Gardener presidencies, became a Rotary assistant district governor, and continue as treasurer of the Literacy Council of Benton County and as webmaster for four websites, including for my Dartmouth class of 1961. I also serve as the 1960s chair for the Thayer School Annual Fund. I enjoy playing golf all year here in Arkansas. Thayer continues to influence me every day in my approach to problem solving and analysis and my curiosity. This influence is more obvious to my friends than it is to me. They frequently call attention to my approach to almost any issue.

Neil Drobny ’62 Th’64: I enjoy what I am doing now more than anything I have ever done. I divide my time between teaching in the Ohio State Fisher College of Business and running a small nonprofit organization. Both focus on sustainability, which I now understand was my interest at Thayer, but at that time there was no language to express it. The teaching started about six years ago when I approached the dean of M.B.A. programs about teaching M.B.A. students about sustainability. I knew other business schools were doing so, and in 30-plus years of environmental consulting had concluded that my clients’ “environmental” problems were really business problems. I got the go-ahead to teach one course and now teach six courses per year — both graduate and undergraduate. This year Fisher’s sustainability curriculum was ranked 24th in the world by the Aspen Institute and our student chapter of Net Impact (an international organization for business students interested in sustainability) was recognized as Chapter of the Year. The nonprofit is called the Waste Not Center. It is a place where businesses and individuals donate gently used and new things that are no longer needed and that fall into the general category of arts, crafts and school supplies. We give the donated materials and supplies to teachers, artists and nonprofits that have after-school programs for kids. We take in and distribute about 2,500 pounds per week of stuff that would otherwise end up in the landfill. It is a membership-based organization that I have grown from about 300 members four years ago to more than 2,000 today. The members who take our stuff estimate the value of what they receive from the center to be about $300,000 per year. Every city should have one! Perhaps the one thing that Thayer instilled in me that has served me well is the courage to pioneer new initiatives. Myron Tribus was probably a major source of that.

John Kunz ’65 Th’66: I have served as the treasurer of the Dartmouth Outing Club of northern California and Nevada for a number of years. A few years ago, when the stock market was running wild, one of my fellow DOCers suggested I move our hard-won assets from the money market place to a stock fund. I recalled the decision-analysis class I took as an undergrad from Myron Tribus and reflected on the upside of greater return, which had financial appeal but would not change the option set for a major renovation we had planned but not scheduled. I also reflected, as we had been taught in that class, on the downside, which would be that I would feel really awful if the market crashed and we could not do the renovation. A few years later the market crashed and I felt lucky and appreciative of that class I took so many years ago. As an undergrad I got to build simple computational implementations of similarly simple mathematical models of many of the systems we were discussing in classes. The computer hooked my interest and now, years later, I teach computer modeling and analysis in the engineering school at Stanford. I finally am able to do some of the things I dreamed of with the teletype clacking away slowly late at night in Cummings Hall.

1970s

Jack Howanski Th’75: The Dartmouth setting, individual attention, and academic challenge I experienced made me a more complete and better engineer and person. The Thayer education instilled in me two basics. First, always look at the total problem; at times the technical portions of an issue may be the least important. Second, always take time to reflect on alternative solutions. The one course at the Thayer School that has stayed with me through my career was the internship program taught by Professor Robert Dean. Professor Dean essentially gave us a real-world problem with the simple instruction to solve it. The value in the course came from Professor Dean challenging us at every step in the process and constantly asking us to understand the thought process we used. Since taking this course, I have continually challenged my own thinking and the route chosen to solve a problem. Since leaving Thayer in 1974, I have held several positions in industry, ranging from a research-and-development engineer designing equipment to measure heat transfer in various building sections to doubling the output of a major wire and cable facility as the general manager of one of the largest medium-voltage cable producers in the United States. My most recent position was as vice president of technology for a group of wire and cable plants that stretched from Honduras to Thailand. After spending substantial time in China, Thailand, and Chile, I decided to leave the corporate world and teach high school for a few years. I recently obtained teaching certification in physics and mathematics and expect to be in the classroom very soon. My intention is to return some of my education to today’s youth. I am also bringing to life our family farm in Justus, Pa., which my great-grandparents purchased in 1921. We are trying to raise grass-fed beef and free-range chickens and turkeys along with growing various types of berries for jelly and jam production. The challenge is to raise the various food sources with a minimal carbon footprint. My great-grandfather operated the farm with two draft horses and no electricity. I just need to figure out how he did it as we enter a world where the words “eat local” take on new meaning.

Fred Kriebel ’75, Th’76: After 33 years in the San Francisco Bay Area working as an executive for contractors, corporate owners, and developers in the building industry, I have started my own company (Kriebel & Associates) as a real estate development/construction management consultant, serving owners, developers, and banks that need outside expertise to deliver their projects. My background in commercial, multi-family residential and medical projects, from steel to wood-framing, and from the contractor’s and owner’s perspectives gives me the ability to see and resolve problems from all angles. This diversity and ability to work with people with different viewpoints is a skill first nurtured at Dartmouth, and in the B.E. year at Thayer.

Martin Sklar Th’78: With children Adam and Jennifer out of college and moving on in their lives, I have focused on my major professional interest: medical devices. Luckily, my wife, Janis, understands my passion for this industry. In the past year and a half, in addition to my consulting since 2001, I and a small team of savvy business and technical professionals have been researching the market and developing an innovative product to help cardiac surgeons perform an improved atrial fibrillation ablation procedure. We welcome any Thayer or Dartmouth alumni or Dartmouth physicians with relevant experience in this area to contact us. At Thayer I learned how to run a project, from defining the project goals to planning activities and implementing the plan. Professor Francis Kennedy was instrumental in helping me develop a friction and wear test apparatus, which was used to simulate various ASTM friction and wear tests. I understand from more recent Thayer students, whom I met at alumni gatherings in Boston, that it ran as a test instrument until a few years ago. It was also designed for implant testing. That experience was critical to my future work and has served me well when leading the development of other medical products. I can be contacted via LinkedIn and am a member of the Thayer School group.

1980s

Toby Reiley ’81: Other than re-engineering the used-car finance business, I just bought a clean diesel car that gets 50-plus miles-per-gallon, burns cleaner than a gas engine for particulate emissions, and is certainly more fun to drive than a Prius.

Steve Morris ’84 Th’85: In the news I always hear how this country does not have enough engineers, yet in our society engineers are considered expensive overhead. Often engineers in their 50s are put out to pasture. I was able to avoid this by starting my own successful business, Accuware Inc., 10 years ago. Although my children are not yet at the age where they will be choosing paths for their futures, I struggle with recommending engineering. Most of us have witnessed the engineer becoming merely a necessary resource. It is no wonder that the economy no longer has any traction.

Jack Oswald ’84: Today I am entirely focused on establishing an intelligent clean energy strategy for the United States and beyond. The strategy has three main thrusts that all need attention today but bear fruit at different intervals. Phase 1 is all about energy efficiency. Focus on getting every light bulb in America changed. Blanket every city and town and just provide them at no cost. Seal homes and place reflective paper in attics. These few things alone will reduce the country’s energy used in buildings by 20 percent. Given that buildings use about 45 percent of all energy, we can get a very quick national 18-percent overall reduction — just like that. Phase 2 is about “drop-in” renewable fuels that are fully compatible in the existing fleet and infrastructure. Today, we make about 8 billion gallons per year of ethanol that must be brought to market either in specialized rail cars or trucks because the fuel is incompatible with existing pipelines and other distribution methods. It’s also not very compatible with existing vehicles. That means no more ethanol, cellulosic or otherwise. Several companies, SynGest Inc. and Optinol Inc. (two of my startups) among them, are making such fuels at lower cost than any ethanol produced or contemplated. The issue isn’t even so much about the cost. It is an infrastructure issue. We just can’t build out specialized infrastructure fast enough and it just doesn’t make sense unless it has many uses. Phase 3 is all about achieving an abundance of solar energy. There is more than enough solar energy hitting the planet every day to meet our needs many times over. The fact that we don’t collect enough of it is simply an engineering problem. As soon as we can achieve a five-times increase in solar collection, we will have an abundance of energy, even if we do not solve the energy storage problem as elegantly.

John Chae Th’86: My professional life is focused on medical research. I credit Thayer for sparking this interest in me. I am a professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation (PM&R) and biomedical engineering at Case Western Reserve University. After med school and clinical training at New Jersey Medical School, I completed a rehabilitation medicine scientist training program fellowship at Case Western. I am director of stroke rehabilitation and director of research for the department of PM&R and associate director of clinical affairs for the Cleveland Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) Center. My research focuses on the application of FES for neuroprostheses, neural plasticity, and shoulder dysfunction in hemiplegia. On a more personal level, I married Linda Oyer, Ph.D., who I met at Dartmouth. We have two wonderful sons, 17 and 15. We live in Strongsville, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland. My favorite activities outside of work include spending time with family, church, and mentoring young men.

1990s

Ike Anyanwu-Ebo ’94 Th’95: I am an engineering supervisor at Ford Motor Co. working in engineering design and testing on budget, service, and prototype development for the six-speed auto transmission for the Ford Fiesta, scheduled to be launched in May. However, I have just given my notice that I’ll be leaving the auto industry after nearly 14 years to enter the renewable energy field of wind turbines. I’ll be taking a position at Vestas A/S in Denmark as a senior quality specialist charged with improving product and process quality and reducing waste, working with both product design and our supplier partners. The change was driven by the personal desire to meet the biggest challenge we face today: the environment. Building fuel-efficient cars is important, but I wanted to do something more directly tangible to addressing global warming. Reading about the fine work led by outstanding researchers such as Lee Lynd inspired me in part. My wife of nearly 10 years, Carmen Harden ’96, and I have two children, Nnamdi, 6, and Amara, 8 months. My passion is working out and staying healthy, a legacy of being on the Dartmouth varsity track team for two years. Thanks to Dartmouth, I also have a love for languages. Throughout my career at Ford I used the Japanese I learned at Dartmouth. I strongly recommend that all Thayer engineers leverage their language skills! Dartmouth has influenced my life, personally and professionally, beyond belief. Thank you!

Dan Mazzucco ’98: I am the president of a start-up medical-device company called ZSX Medical. We are developing surgical closure products. Our company is small, new, and growing. The problem-solving skills I learned at Thayer School continue to guide my approach to new problems, whether technical or strategic. I’ve always found that working in small, collaborative teams, as we did in bridges, systems, controls, thermo, etc., is the most efficient way to solve these new challenges.

2000s

Tom Campbell ’01 Th’02: I’m working as a composites applications engineer at Fiberforge, where I’ve been since 2003. My work is generally to make things from thermoplastic composites, though it also extends to developing new manufacturing processes to work with the composite materials as well as creating new machines with which to do that processing. My projects are in a variety of industries, from consumer goods and recreation equipment to aerospace and the military. I live in Glenwood Springs, Colo., and just got engaged to Meghan Palmer. I’m in the mountains and get to play outdoors a lot!

David Koch Th’02: Our second child was just born, so we’re excited! I am continuing DFR project in a way, developing heavy-duty truck engines for Daimler Trucks (Mercedes-Benz, Freightliner, Western Star, EvoBus).

Keith Dennis ’03 Th’05: I was married to Allison Bellins in June on the beach in Chatham, Cape Cod. In attendance were M.E.M.s Brian Henthorn ’04 and Dan Tadesse ’03 Th’05. Dartmouth alums Christian Haines ’01, Dave Pereira ’03, and Sergey Polissar ’04 were also in attendance. Allison and I met at Vermont Law School, where we both earned a master of studies in environmental law, a program I became involved in while taking a class that counted toward my M.E.M. Allison is director of communications for EPA’s green power partnership. I work for First Environment on issues related to energy, climate change, and greenhouse gas management. I also recently earned my professional engineering license.

Brian Mason ’03 Th’05: Jocelyn and I continue to love California. I am in my fifth year at IDEO and have spent the last year working on a medical product that began as a technical investigation and has moved all the way to final industrial design and clinical trials. Jocelyn and I will be back in Hanover in June for her five-year reunion. We hope to catch up with many friends.

Elizabeth Jensen Th’08: I am in my second year as a Ph.D. student in mechanical and aerospace engineering at Princeton University. My research focuses on directly imaging planets around stars (besides our sun). My work allows me to use the world’s largest telescopes in Hawaii. Thayer provided me with a fantastic background of engineering and science courses that I can apply to my courses and research at graduate school. In my free time, I play the oboe in the Princeton University orchestra and enjoy traveling all over the world.

Laura Weyl Th’08: Having gone to three different schools now, it’s interesting to see which one seems to follow me and continue to shape and change my life. Dartmouth connections got me my last two jobs, Dartmouth friends and friends of friends have become my main social scene in this new city, and my current relationship is with a Dartmouth grad I met recently. Thayer is also the only school I’m still involved with as far as alumni activities and annual fund volunteer work. I live in Palo Alto, Calif., and am getting my environmental structural engineering degree. I spend time in San Francisco with friends I made while living there last year. I worked at Oliver Wyman with several Dartmouth and Thayer grads and then at ATDynamics, a small Thayer/Tuck startup in the South Bay.

Katie Gray ’09 Th’09: I work as a development engineer at Talisman Energy Inc. in Calgary, Alberta. I play hockey for the Strathmore Rockies in the Western Women’s Hockey League and coach my community Peewee 5 boys’ hockey team. I have also taken snowboarding up again.

1950s

Em Houck ’56 TT’58: I chair an accounting firm in St. Louis, and I am working on my second book. My first book, Go Huskies! Beat Felix the Cat!, was a collection of stories of why some of our high schools selected the mascots they did for their teams. Schools in all 50 states were covered, emphasizing unique names, such as Appleknockers and Corn Jerkers. The second book concentrates on Indiana alone, again using mascot choice to group schools together, but examining the history of 800 or so schools that have been closed as well as the 400-plus still open. This book is titled Hoosiers All, since no matter what name we choose for our teams, at the end of the day everyone in Indiana is a Hoosier. It will be published in August by Hawthorne Publishing.

1960s

Gib Myers ’64: I’m involved in growing a bison herd and acquiring land for a wildlife reserve in eastern Montana as the chair of the American Prairie Foundation.

1980s

Xiaolong “Dennis” Cai Th’88: After leaving Hanover in 1992, Emma and I worked for Texaco in Houston until August 2001. Then, with our two daughters, we moved to Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, when I took an assignment with Saudi Aramco, the largest oil company in the world. We have enjoyed the expats’ lifestyle and many adventurous traveling opportunities to various parts of the world. Our older daughter recently returned to the United States for boarding school at Deerfield Academy, with the younger one following in two years.

Joyce Mechling Nagle Th’89: I have been a research engineer at U.S. Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory since 1989. I work in the area of decision analysis and stability operations.

1990s

Durward K. Sobek II ’91: You may be interested to know that a book I co-authored was published this year. It’s titled Understanding A3 Thinking and is published by Productivity Press.

April Whitescarver ’96: I’m a new lawyer now! I passed the bar in Virginia in February.

Heather Bartholf Harries Th’97: I am thrilled to introduce Ryan Tobias Harries, born May 17. He weighed 9 pounds, 5 ounces, and was 20.5 inches long. He joins me and my husband, David, and big sister Calista.

Johan Tegin Th’99: I was a project manager and design engineer at telecom company ADC’s Swedish laser business, which shut down. I’ve since been in the Ph.D. program at Sweden’s Royal Institute of Technology in cooperation with Orebro University. I successfully defended my thesis, “Tactile Grasping for Domestic Service Robots: Simulations, Experiments, and Hand Design,” in June. The faculty opponent was Rudiger Dillman from the University of Karlsruhe. I will stay at KTH Machine Design as a research assistant to continue research with robotic grasping and autonomous manipulation in domestic environments.

1950s

Len Neely ’56: I retired from a career in mainframe data processing (programming, systems analysis and design) in 1995. I do not consider myself to be an engineer since I worked in related areas and may have used engineering approaches to work. And I did not complete my master’s work at Thayer School. No work going on except to handle the health issues associated with being a senior citizen!

Charlie Schneider ’57 TT’58: I have been retired 12 years now. I did not use my Tuck-Thayer skills in engineering directly. Started as a sales engineer and moved into management. Always appreciated engineering work/results and how they have been used to better our lives.

1960s

Frank Barber ’62: I’m semi-retired to Golden, Colo., enjoying its mountains, now covered with snow.

John Walkup ’62 Th’63: In 1998 I retired from my position on the faculty at Texas Tech University and my wife, Pat, and I returned to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1999. We had met and married out here when I was a graduate student at Stanford after I left Thayer in 1963. Since our return we have been directing a ministry to university professors at UC Berkeley, Stanford, UC Davis, and San Jose State University. It is called Faculty Commons and is the faculty ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ, International, an evangelical but nondenominational ministry. I organize fellowship groups for Christian professors at all of these universities. While it’s true that many of the engineering professors I work with are engaged in energy research, my time is spent on encouraging them spiritually and helping them integrate their faith and their academic discipline. The latter can be a challenge, as you might expect. Looking back on my Dartmouth/Thayer educations, my graduate work at Stanford, and my career at Texas Tech, I can only say how much I appreciate the broad liberal arts education I received at Dartmouth. As you might expect, I’m really a networker and people person. At Dartmouth I learned to think critically and take a big picture look at life as well as at engineering. This has been invaluable to me, both in my career and now in our ministry.

Robert Dalrymple ’67: I’m with the department of civil engineering at Johns Hopkins University. Right now I am working on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ efforts on providing hurricane protection to south Louisiana, water waves propagating over mud, and numerical modeling of breaking waves.

1970s

Dan Malwitz ’77: I have worked at Moog Inc. near Buffalo, N.Y., for the past 15 years. Right now I am designing the upper-stage thrust vector control actuator for NASA’s Ares I spacecraft. This is the crew launch vehicle that will replace the space shuttle. Moog is a fun place to work; seven hours from Hanover and two from Toronto. The space and defense group, where I work, currently has 25 openings for mechanical, electrical, project, and systems engineers at various experience levels. I have had a great engineering career since leaving Dartmouth: Five years at Split Ballbearing in Lebanon, N.H., designing ball and roller bearings; two years at Lockheed Electronics in Plainfield, N.J., designing antenna structures; and eight years at Contraves in Pittsburgh, Pa., designing motion simulators and telescope structures. While at Contraves I designed the 50,000-pound payload crew station/turret motion base simulator for the U.S. Army Tank Automotive Command in Warren, Mich. I also designed the primary mirror support system for the AEOS 3.67-meter telescope that is now atop Mount Haleakala, Hawaii (see Thayer in the Landscape). Here at Moog I designed the electric flight simulator actuators that FlightSafety is now using. I have been fortunate to be able to apply my God-given design abilities that were awakened at Dartmouth. Andrea and I have been married for 29 years. We have two great children: Sarah, who with husband Scott has our first grandchild, Haley; and Daniel, who is a freshman at Gordon College.

Nelson Valverde ’77: As my third successful career (after international finance and Internet service), I am currently enjoying bringing to the developed world the novelty and pleasure of Bolivian coffees. Visit my Invalsa website for details.

1980s

Jay Hole ’81 Th’82: At present I have two jobs. I’m helping another ’81 engineering major, Toby Reiley, start a new company offering financial services to automotive dealers. The offering is an innovative way to allow a small segment of the deep sub-prime market to purchase used vehicles that is beneficial to the buyers and the dealers. My “day job” is with ChemPak International LLC, a very small chemical company that does specialty packaging of specialty chemicals, mostly polymerization inhibitors, catalysts, and pigments. I work across the spectrum but mostly on procurement/supply chain, quality, operations, and strategy. Prior to ChemPak International LLC, I had an entrepreneurial “learning experience” with a company trying to make ethanol from waste liquids, primarily beverages. The start-up, management, and technical team grossly underestimated the complexity of the operation, particularly as related to fermentation and waste treatment/disposal.

Greg Woods Th’83: I am president of Performance Motion Devices. PMD has some very unique intellectual property that essentially puts a high-performance motion controller on a chip. The chips are marketed to high-volume original equipment manufacturers, primarily in the life sciences and other high-tech markets where the customer is looking to develop his own machine control, such as blood analyzers, semiconductor fabrication, energy technology, defense, etc. I’m proud to report that my son Chris was just admitted to the Dartmouth class of 2013! That will get me back up to the campus more frequently over the next four years.

Sean Hogan ’88: I started my career in environmental and waste management, developing waste to energy facilities. During that time I spoke several times to Lee Lynd’s environmental engineering classes, which I always enjoyed. Currently I work at IBM on health care-related topics and the transformation that needs to take place in our health system to make it more cost effective. We have been doing some groundbreaking work in these areas — from the Genographic Project with National Geographic to pandemic response — and in consumer activation as an important factor in improving the system and individual well-being.

2000s

Lauren Scopaz ’00: I graduated from Harvard Business School in June 2007 (with fellow Dartmouth engineer Brian Nickerson ’00), have worked at the Harlem Children’s Zone, a nonprofit in N.Y.C. since then, and got married in September 2008.

Erik Dambach ’04 Th’05: I just completed my M.S. from Purdue University in aeronautics and astronautics. I am now working on my fifth and final degree, my Ph.D. at Purdue. I have had a great time designing and testing rocket engines. This past summer I worked at Edwards Air Force Base testing advanced fuels in the high desert of southern California. And I look forward to playing with even more fire over the next two years as I work on my Ph.D., investigating new non-toxic (or at least less toxic) propellants.

Daniel Hassouni ’05 Th’05: I completed my first marathon — the SunTrust National Marathon in Washington, D.C. — in 3:11:46 as a member of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s Team in Training. In the process I raised $5,608 to help in the fight against blood cancers. The group of 53 runners that made up Team in Training’s squad for this race surpassed $150,000!

Subha Srinivasan Th’05: I love working at the interface of math and engineering. When I am not involved in implementing some numerical formulation or computing in 3-D for imaging, you will find me in a yoga class or my studio at home doing sun salutations or tai-chi or dancing to Middle Eastern music. Music, movement, and books are my passions.

Afua Amoah Th’06: A little about my life after Thayer: I moved to New York City and worked with BlackRock for two years. Currently, I am pursuing a Duke M.B.A. I have a long-term goal of using my engineering and M.B.A. experiences to establish a mechanized farming industry in Africa, which will allow people to get better access to food.

Hannah Murnen ’06: I’m working with bio-inspired polymers (mimicking proteins) in the area of biomineralization. I’m a graduate student at UC Berkeley in the chemical engineering department. My advisor is Dr. Rachel Segalman, and my project uses synthetic molecules to mimic the behavior of proteins. The end goal is to use these synthetic proteins to catalyze the growth of inorganic crystals into desired shapes and morphologies so that they can be utilized for optoelectronic applications (photovoltaics, semiconductors, etc). I’ll be here for about four more years. Right now I’m thinking that I’d like to go into academia at the end of it, but that’s a long ways off!

Glenn T. Nofsinger Th’06: This May I relocated to Honolulu, Hawaii, taking a position with BAE Systems as principle scientist. I’m helping the development of image processing algorithms. Life on the island is great, and I managed to find a Dartmouth alumni club in Honolulu.

Peter Rice Th’06: I am still working at Alarm.com with Colin Murray’04 Th’05 and Colin Ulen Th’05 from Thayer and am expecting to pick up a few more Thayer grads in the near future. In my personal life: Betsy ’06, my wife, and I welcomed our own little engineering project into the world on July 16, 2008: Samuel Bartlett. He loves spitting up on his Thayer School bib, which I picked up while on campus for recruiting, and has shown an interest lately in bridges.

Rui “Anny” Zhang Th’07: Both life and work are good here in upstate New York, though cold recently. Thayer’s engineering educations, especially the practical skills I acquired in the M.E.M. program, greatly helped me in the real-life work. I am working in the marketing group with Indium Corp. of America in upstate New York. I like my job and the company a lot.

John Walkup ’62 Th’63: In 1998 I retired from my position on the faculty at Texas Tech University and my wife, Pat, and I returned to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1999. We had met and married out here when I was a graduate student at Stanford after I left Thayer in 1963. Since our return we have been directing a ministry to university professors at UC Berkeley, Stanford, UC Davis and San Jose State University. It is called Faculty Commons and is the faculty ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ, International, an evangelical but nondenominational ministry. I organize fellowship groups for Christian professors at all of these universities.While it’s true that many of the engineering professors I work with are engaged in energy research, my time is spent on encouraging them spiritually and helping them integrate their faith and their academic discipline. The latter can be a challenge, as you might expect. Looking back on my Dartmouth/Thayer educations, my graduate work at Stanford and my career at Texas Tech, I can only say how much I appreciate the broad liberal arts education I received at Dartmouth. As you might expect, I’m really a networker and people person. At Dartmouth I learned to think critically and take a big picture look at life as well as at engineering. This has been invaluable to me, both in my career and now in our ministry.

Robert A. Dalrymple ’67: Right now I am working on reviewing the Corps of Engineers’ efforts to provide hurricane protection to south Louisiana, water waves propagating over mud, and numerical modeling of breaking waves.

Dan Malwitz ’77: I have worked at Moog Inc. near Buffalo, N.Y., for the past 15 years. Right now I am designing the upper-stage Thrust Vector Control actuator for NASA’s Ares I spacecraft. This is the Crew Launch Vehicle that will replace the Space Shuttle. Moog is a fun place to work; seven hours from Hanover and two from Toronto. The Space and Defense Group, where I work, currently has 25 openings for mechanical, electrical, project and systems engineers at various experience levels. I have had a great engineering career since leaving Dartmouth: Five years at Split Ballbearing in Lebanon, N.H., designing ball and roller bearings; two years at Lockheed Electronics in Plainfield, N.J., designing antenna structures; and eight years at Contraves in Pittsburgh, Pa., designing motion simulators and telescope structures. While at Contraves I designed the 50,000-pound payload Crew Station/Turret Motion Base Simulator for the U.S. Army Tank Automotive Command in Warren, Mich. I also designed the primary mirror support system for the AMOS 3.67-Meter telescope that is now atop Mount Haleakala, Hawaii. Here at Moog I designed the electric flight simulator actuators that FlightSafety is now using. I have been fortunate to be able to apply my God-given design abilities that were awakened at Dartmouth. Andrea and I have been married for 29 years. We have two great children: Sarah (who with husband Scott have our firstgrandchild Haley) and Daniel, who loves to play ice hockey, is a freshman at Gordon College.

Jay E. Hole ’81 Th’82: At present I have two jobs. I’m helping another ’81 engineering major, Toby Reiley, start a new company offering financial services to automotive dealers. The offering is an innovative way to allow a small segment of the deep sub-prime market to purchase used vehicles that is beneficial to the buyers and the dealers. My “day job” is with ChemPak International LLC, a very small chemical company that does specialty packaging of specialty chemicals, mostly polymerization inhibitors, catalysts, and pigments. I work across the spectrum but mostly on procurement/supply chain, quality, operations, and strategy. Prior to ChemPak International LLC, I had an entrepreneurial “learning experience” with a company trying to make ethanol from waste liquids, primarily beverages. The start-up, management and technical team grossly underestimated the complexity of the operation, particularly as related to fermentation and waste treatment/disposal.

Erik Dambach ’04 Th’05: I completed my M.S. from Purdue University in aeronautics and astronautics in December 2007. I am now working on my fifth and final degree, my Ph.D. at Purdue. I have had a great time designing and testing rocket engines. This past summer, I worked at Edwards Air Force Base – testing advanced fuels in the high desert of southern California. And, I look forward to playing with even more fire over the next two years as I work on my Ph.D., investigating new non-toxic (or at least less toxic) propellants.

Daniel Hassouni ’05 Th’05: I completed my first marathon — the SunTrust National Marathon in Washington, D.C. back in March — in a time of 3:11:46 as a member of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s Team in Training. In the process I raised $5,608 to help in the fight against blood cancers. The group of 53 runners that made up Team in Training’s squad for this race surpassed $150,000!

Hannah Murnen ’06: I’m a graduate student just starting my second year at University of California-Berkeley in the chemical engineering department. My advisor is Dr. Rachel Segalman, and my project uses synthetic polymers to mimic the behavior of proteins. The end goal is to use these molecules to catalyze the growth of inorganic crystals into desired shapes and morphologies so that they can be utilized for optoelectronic applications (photovoltaics, semiconductors, etc). I’ll be here for about four more years. Right now I’m thinking that I’d like to go into academia at the end of it, but that’s a long ways off!

ADD YOUR THAYER NOTE! Tell us what you’ve been up to, whether or not you’ve stayed in engineering!