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Cal Poly Alumni Class  Notes header

1950's and Earlier | 1960's | 1970's | 1980's | 1990's | 2000's

Updated quarterly | Click Here to Submit a Class Note


1950s Class Notes header

  • Melvin Nelson (‘51, ENVE) worked on the Apollo Program, and on different environmental problems in space.  He wrote test procedures and guidance components.  Melvin spent  significant time at Cape Canaveral working with the astronauts of the 60's and 70's.

  • Bob O'Dell (‘57, CRSC) has been retired from the banking industry for 15 years.  He and his wife are having fun traveling around the U.S.

  • Larry Peterson (‘58, ED (MS) is a member of the San Luis Obispo County School Board, volunteers at French Hospital and is an floor captain usher at the Performing Arts Center. He "tries to play golf" in his spare time.


1960s Class Notes  Header

  • Jim Coelho (‘62, AG) of Fremont received the 2005 award for "Livestock Man of the Year" at the Grand National Rodeo.  In addition to farming a diversified crop and livestock ranch, Jim taught Ag Science and Business at Livermore High School and Chabot College for more than 25 years.

  • Karen Watson (‘68, MATH) is finishing her 34th year of teaching math at Gridley High School.  She is just taking it one year at a time, while she decided when to retire.

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1970s Class Notes header

  • Nancy Fetterman (Math (BS, MS) ‘70) is the program chair of the Math Department of Cabrillo College in Aptos, California.

  • Payne Geneva (HE ‘72) has completed her Clear Multi-subject teach credential and plans to teach 4th grade.  She hopes to move into Music with a supplemental credential in 2007.

  • Lt. Col. Jack Nickel (MSIT ‘71) is a NASA research pilot.  He flies the T-38N, the C-9 "Vomit Comet" zero G Jet.  He also trains astronauts to land the  shuttle in a training aircraft.  In addition, he is an amateur astronomer with an asteroid name after him the "14511 Nickel".

  • Ken Soderlund (SOCS ‘73) was recently promoted to GS-13, Supervisory Financial Systems Analyst, within the Defense Finance and Accounting Service.

  • Janet Robertson (SOCS ‘74) is a school psychologist for Los Angeles Unified School District.

  • Elizabeth Avila Dadigian (CFD ‘77) is the principle budget analyst in UCSB's Budget Office. She and her husband, Bruce, live in Buellton and their son and daughter attend Santa Ynez High School.

  • Al Morelli (ME ‘77) was named President and General Director of Searchtec Group, a business advisory service located in Orange County. In addition, he is an industry professor in University Southern California's Industrial and System Engineering department.

  • Don Tillquist (OH ‘78) recently opened a commercial embroidery business in Ventura, California, Coastal Embroidery. He is proud to have his son Brian, a recent Fresno State Graduate, as co-owner of the company.

  • Mike Seibel (EL/EE ‘79) was just promoted to Director of Operations Engineering for Turin Networks in Petaluma, CA after managing their HW Test Engineering group for the past 5 years.  Mike Joined Turnin Networks after 20 years at HP/Agilent in various HW and SW design engineering roles.

  • Sara Wagoner Patterson (LS ‘79) is a full-time counseling faculty member at West Valley College in Saratoga, CA.

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1980s Class Notes Header

  • Don Murphy (AERO ‘80) is a consultant within the military defense industry.

    Wendy (Zolla) Treadway (AS ‘81) has been in private psychotherapy practice for 16 years and lived in West Virginia for 17 years. She and her husband, John, have one daughter.

  • Mark S. Robinson (CE ‘82) is project manager for recently completed Vasona Light Rail project in San Jose and group manager of facilities on the BART extension to Santa Clara County.

  • Bernard Aguilar (NRM ‘83) has been employed for 20 years with the California Department of Fish and Game.  He began his career as a Fish and Game Warden and is currently as Associate Fisheries Biologist in Northern California, working in the high mountain wilderness lakes conducting field research.

  • John Lawson (ARCH ‘83) received the 2006 TCA Engineering Achievement Award at the World of Concrete Convention in Las Vegas this year.  John was selected for this award because of his significant efforts of improving the performance of tilt-up buildings under earthquake loads.

  • Maryann Quartuccio (HE ‘84) is an Account Manager at ABD Insurances Services Financial.

  • Thomas Tolan (ESCI ‘85) is a Senior Staff Engineer with Northrup Gruman Space Technology Corporation.

  • Brenda Boylan (ART ‘86) is living in Portland, Oregon where she is a fine artist specializing in pastel "waterscapes."  Her husband of nearly 20 years, Joe Boylan, also a Poly Grad (GRC '86) are raising their two children in a suburb outside of Portland.

  • Jim Medeiros (EL ‘86) lives in San Luis Obispo with his wife and two daughters.  He has been fortunate to build a career in SLO with Ziatech, Intel and Performance Technologies and now owns Seven Pinnacles, a small engineering firm.  He serves on the advisory board for the computer engineering program at Cal Poly.

  • Marjorie Ormsby (ENGL ‘86) has been promoted to Account Director for Sepracor, Inc. Pharmaceuticals.  She attained her MBA at Pepperdine's Graziadio School of Business in 2004 and has been happily married for 17 years to Brad Ormsby (EE '70).  They reside in Westlake Village with their two children, Ashley (16) and Kirstyn (12).

  • Daniel Patterson (ARCH ‘86) is a Project Architect with Burton, Cliffor and Associates.

  • Michael Darbro (BUS ‘87) continues to live in London, England. He is a vice-principal at a middle school in London and has twins - one boy and one girl.

  • Steve Irwin (BIO ‘87) owns a fee for service dental practice which provides general dentistry, orthodontics, and implant surgery. In addition to their daughter, Ella, who was born in 2006, Steve and his wife have triplet boys who were born in 2004.

  • Raul Linares (ECON ‘87) After returning to his home town of Caracas, Venezuela Raul is the CEO of a local trading company, specialized in dairy products.

  • Mark G. Wittgraf (CE ‘87) is a civil engineer with his own practice that focuses on public works infrastructure projects in the Central Valley.

  • Greg Hauser (LA ‘88) joined The HLA Group Landscape Architects & Planners as a Senior Associate Landscape Architect.  He serves as project manager from production of concept and design development as well as complete construction packages.  Capital Village in Rancho Cordova and Natomas Village in Sacramento are among his current projects.

  • Paul Verke (ENGL ‘88) works for the California Department of Developmental Services as communications coordinator (Public Information Officer).  In his time off, he telemark skis, runs and mountain bikes with his sons, Jeremy and Noah.

  • Kelly McClure (CPE ‘89) is director of engineering at Second Sight Medical Products and working on a retinal prosthesis for blindness.

  • Scott Picanso (ABG ‘89) is currently selling tomato and vegetable seeds and transplants in the Sacramento Valley.

  • Jeff Schumacher (POLS ‘89) is a senior vice president with Wells Fargo & Co. and resides in Northern California with his wife and two children.

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1990s Class Notes Header

  • Mark Charbonneau (OH ‘90) owns and operates a grounds services business in San Luis Obispo and is the proud father of two.

  • David Mason (ET ‘90) is a licensed Mechanical Engineer with the State of California. He is married and has a son named Jack. He regularly brings his family back to the SLO area on vacation to enjoy the beaches and visit the campus.

  • Rebecca Mieliwocki (SPC ‘90) has been named Middle School Teacher of the Year by the California League of Middle Schools.  She has been teaching since 1996, and currently teaches English to 7th and 8th graders at Luther Burbank Middle School.

  • Shannon Fraser (SOCS ‘91) currently resides in Oregon with her husband Robert (HIST '89) and children Mackenzie and Griffin.  Shannon volunteers as a Board Trustee for the independent school (K-8) where her children attend.  She also enjoys teaching P.E. part-time at the middle school and coaching little league softball.

  • Shannon Hamilton (AGB ‘91) currently manufactures nutritional supplements that are 100 percent natural.

  • Kapic Kapic (IT ‘92) is living in Green Bay, Wi with his wife Jennifer and their four children: Christopher (6), Bridget (4), William (2) and Gretchen (6 months).  He is also the Director of Logistics for Schreiber Foods, Inc.

  • Shannon Porga (OH ‘92) after starting with the USDA, is now working with Customs andBorder Protection in the agriculture field.

  • David Whitaker (AERO ‘92) is an Emergency Medicine Physician for Kaiser Permanente and lives in San Clemente, CA.

  • Rey Braga (EE ‘93) married Holly (Smith) Braga in November 2004.  They welcomed their first child, Brayden in October 2005.  Rey is currently working for a fiber optics company, Finisar, as a Senior Product Engineer.

  • Rex Briggs (BUS ‘93) is CEO of custom research company Marketing Evolution and has just published his first book, "What Sticks: Why Advertising Fails and How to Guarantee Yours Succeeds."

  • Pantaleon "Torch" Rivera III (ARCE ‘93) is a retired U.S. Navy Chief, who spends his time now as a design engineer for Ventura County.

  • Michael J. Thompson (ME ‘93) was recently promoted to vice president and general manager of Nuance Communications, a leading supplier of voice recognition software and services.

  • Grace Vanderheyden (BUS '93) lives in Avila Beach and is the Controller at Union Asphalt in Santa Maria. She is married to Bruce Nash and they have a beautiful five-year-old daughter.

  • Valeria Pedersen (HE ‘94) resides in Northern California with her husband, daughter and two sons.  After putting a successful career in Commercial Interior Design on hold to raise her children, she currently does design consulting.

  • Julie De Blasio (CRSC ‘95) is in the process of completing her graduate research at UCLA in Urban Planning-Environmental Analysis and Policy.  Her topic of inquiry is Environmental and Infrastructural effects of fuel management zones in the Santa Monica Mountains.

  • James Manalad (BUS '95) was named CFO for Fertility Physicians of Northern California (FPNC).

  • Clarissa Guffey Nagy (FS ‘95) is making wine with Bonaccorsi Wine Company and living in Orcutt, California. She also happens to be married to a winemaker - Jonathan Nagy of Byron Winery.

  • Shannon Nash (ARCH ‘95) is employed by the City of Simi Valley as a Senior Planner in the Housing & Special Projects Division monitoring over 1,000 affordable housing units with another 50 coming online in Fall 2006.

  • Rob Croxall (FIN ‘96) has been promoted to Senior Business Manager for Sensors and Payloads in the Northrop Gruman Space Technology Sector in Redondo Beach, CA.

  • Alex Elmer (ENVE ‘96) is currently an Associate Civil Engineer with Otway Water District in San Diego where he manages and designs pipeline, pump stations and reservoir capital improvement projects.  He received his processional civil engineering license in 2004.  He has been with his partner Johnny Stellini for 3.5 years.

  • Kathy (Hawk) McVeigh (BUS ‘96) has been living in San Diego for the past 3 years with her husband.  They have a daughter who is 15 months old.

  • Joshua Clark (AE ‘97) is married and owns and runs Clark Vineyard Management, a vineyard management company, in Napa Valley.

  • Ricky Gan (AERO ‘97) enjoyed working Areojet from '97 - '01.  He is currently working in a small business in Folsom, CA.  Specialized in business automation, development, and marketing with web-based technologies.

  • Kholood Hassan (MCRO ‘97) is currently a veterinarian in a small animal practice in Aptos which is also owned by another Cal Poly alum and married to Foaad Khosmood (Computer Engineering '99)

  • Roger Barnes (ENVE ‘98) is living in Grover Beach and working for Caltrans as a Transportation Engineer.  He is registered in both Civil and Traffic Engineering.  Roger is married and has two children.

  • Jennifer Kraker (BCHEM ‘98) is one of 19 graduates from the collaborative Ben-Gurion University-Columbia University Medical School For International Health (MSIH). Jennifer has actively demonstrated a dedication to global health over the years-serving as a research associate with Columbia's Obesity Research Center and as a nutritional educator/health promoter in Nakuru, Kenya through Farming Systems Kenya.

  • Robert Fernandes (BUS ‘99) is a software development manager at ADP, Inc. His wife, Erin (LS, '98) is an elementary grade teacher at Greenbrook Elementary School in Danville.

  • Joshua Smith (ME ‘99) is working as a Naval Aviator flying the S-3B Viking stationed in San Diego, Ca.

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2000s Class Notes header

  • Laura Gidney (SPC ‘01) finished her M.S. degree in Marriage, Family , Child Counseling in May of 2005.  In July she married Brian Gidney, and now she is working towards her California license.

  • Kate Koering (BUS ‘01) married her new husband Mikel on January 21, 2006 in Calabasas.  For their honeymoon they traveled for two weeks around Ireland.  They have made their new home together in Sherman Oaks, CA.

  • Marci Murphy (BUS ‘01) has been working in the fashion industry since graduating.  Shebegan as BCBG Max Azria as an Account Executive and has since joined the designer label Rebecca Taylor as the West Coast Sales Executive.

  • Micah Pechersky (BUS ‘01) passed the C.P.A. exam and has been hired as a supervisor with the firm of Miller, Kaplan, Arase and Co.

  • Debra Wacker (BUS ‘01) was recently elected president of the central coast chapter of the California Society of Certified Public Accountants (CalCPA).  Debra provides tax and accounting services to individuals and small businesses.  For the past 16 years, she has also been a part-time accounting lecturer at Cal Poly.

  • Julius Jefferson (BUS ‘02) works in the Mortgage Business, and will be starting Law School this fall at Santa Clara University.  He is also engaged.

  • Jeffrey Lazo (SPC ‘02) and his wife Caitlin Castillo (HIST '05) opted to stay in SLO and love it.  They recently opened a Pro Photo Lab.

  • Jamie Lichauco (CPE ‘02) is currently working as a software development engineer for CustomFlix Labs, a subsidiary of Amazon.com, in San Luis Obispo.

  • Jon Munger (AGB ‘02) is the controller for Mantra Farms.

  • Brad Vieselmeyer (ME ‘02) is a mechanical maintanence supervisor for Chevron Corporation's Gulf of Mexico Business Unit.

  • Stephanie (Kanda) Pasternack (BUS ‘03) married Manny Pasternack (BUS '03) in March 2006 and was recently promoted to senior treasury analyst at Toyota Motor Credit Corporation in Torrance.

  • Carrie Schwartz (SPC ‘04) is currently working for Borland Software in the consulting services and operations department.

  • Nicole Silkton (EDUC ‘04) Is teaching 5th grade is West Sacramento.  She enjoys using her Christmas vacations to travel the world with her wife.

  • Meguire Caldwell (NSCI ‘05) is working on her Master of Science in Holistic Nutrition with Clayton College of Natural Health.  She plans to continue and finish with her PhD in Holistic Nutrition.  She is eager to teach others about natural health.

  • Marion Cook (FSN ‘05) is a lab quality assurance supervisor at a creamery in Turlock, Ca.  She will also be starting-up their product development sector.

  • Lindsey Dunn (JOURN ‘05) is doing outreach development for the Women's Shelter of San Luis Obispo County.

  • Amy Golladay (REC ‘05) is the Assistant Manager  of Arillaga Sports Center, at Stanford University.

  • Chandani Patel (BUS ‘05) is currently living in San Jose and working for Apple Computers in the iTunes Music, Marketing and IP Department as a Legal Specialist.  She loves it there and is currently studying for the LSATS with hopes for law school and to remain in the legal entertainment industry.  She is also advocating for three children as a Court-Appointed-Special-Advocate (CASA) in Santa Clara County.

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Date Last Modified:9/16/2008