Download this issue as a PDF - Columbia College - Columbia ...

CLASS NOTES
COLUMBIA COLLEGE TODAY
COLUMBIA COLLEGE TODAY
CLASS NOTES
Karin Small Wurapa has been
whisked away to the scenic byways
of Columbus, Ohio, since finishing
her medical training in New York.
She is a mother of three munchkins
(daughters Sydney and Jordan,
and son Christian) and married to
Ray, an orthopedic surgeon. Karin
has taken a hiatus from clinical
medicine and has been focusing her
attention on family, public health
initiatives and the publication
of her daughters’ book, Mimi the
Mermaid and The Pearl Necklace. As
a board member of the United Way
of Central Ohio, Karin also works
to promote wellness and good
nutrition.
Heading east, Greg Palega
dropped a line from North Carolina,
where he recently was named
medical director of regulatory
affairs at MedManagement. He’s
able to combine his medical and
law degrees daily to help clients
respond to Medicare fraud investigations
and other Medicare audits.
Greg says work is busy, challenging
and always enjoyable but not
so much that he doesn’t also spend
time with his three daughters.
Centrally located in the D.C.
metro area, Melissa Steinman and
Liz Poston often play host for Columbia-on-the-Potomac
reunions,
when friends such as Claudine
Wolas Shiva, Chris Alexander
and/or Laura Schiele Robinson
roll into town. Visitors, please call
if you’re in the area and thirsty.
Melissa notes, “I’ve been busy
in both my personal and professional
life. My boys, Charlie (14)
and Jamie (11), are growing by
leaps and bounds (as in, literally
… Charlie just hit 6 ft.). Charlie
is a high school freshman and a
champion debater who also plays
banjo and sings lead in his band.
Manage Your
Subscription
If you prefer reading CCT
online, you can help us
go green and save money
by opting out of the print
edition. Click “Manage Your
Subscription” at college.
columbia.edu/cct and follow
the domestic instructions.
We will continue to notify
you by email when each
issue is posted online. You
may be reinstated to receive
the print edition at any time
by sending a note to cct@
columbia.edu.
Jamie recently got his bar mitzvah
date, so we are looking forward
to that with both joy and apprehension
as we start the process
again. I run my busy advertising
and marketing law practice as a
partner at Venable, and I recently
was elected to a second term on the
board at the Promotion Marketing
Association, now the Brand
Activation Association, having
recently co-chaired it 34th Annual
PMA Law Conference in Chicago.
I’m hoping to stop to draw breath
soon, but for now I’m just holding
on tightly and enjoying the ride!”
Lori and Peter Spett relocated in
2010 from Manhattan to Boca Raton,
Fla., where Pete has a solo law
practice representing victims of
financial adviser misconduct and
other clients involved in general
business disputes (spettlaw.com).
Their children, Benjamin (3) and
Julia (1), enjoy the local pursuits of
sandcastle building and strawberry
picking.
Sounds like quite the life!
Checking in from Harrison, N.Y.,
is Lauren Zinman. “I am in-house
counsel at Tradition Energy in
Stamford, Conn. (after being the
general counsel of EDGAR Online
for almost six years), and really
enjoy the new position. Addison
Armstrong ’86 appears weekly on
CNBC giving reports on the energy
market for my company. My twins,
Matthew and Samantha (14), are
both taller than I. I have a 10-yearold
daughter, Ava, as well. I have
been married to Daniel Zinman,
with whom I went to Fordham
Law, for 15 years.”
Rick St. Hilaire is celebrating his
20th anniversary as an attorney. He
is in private practice after having
served for 15 years as a prosecutor,
with seven of those years as an
elected chief prosecutor. He writes
the award-winning blog Cultural
Heritage Lawyer Rick St. Hilaire
(culturalheritagelawyer.blogspot.
com) and focuses his legal practice
on cultural property and museum
law, government relations, criminal
justice and nonprofit counsel. Rick
recently was named affiliate associate
professor at Plymouth State University,
where he has been teaching
cultural property law since 2007. He
presented a panel in October 2012
at the International Association of
Prosecutors meeting in Bangkok on
global antiquities trafficking and
serves on the Archaeological Institute
of America’s Cultural Heritage
Policy Committee.
George Suarez married Sao
Paulo native Sonia Akamatsu last
June after a three-year, NYC-SP
courtship. They live in NYC, where
Sonia is acclimating well. Attorney
Linden Thomas got himself registered
in City Hall as an officiant
and conducted their ceremony.
George was Linden’s best man a
few months later.
Noreen Whysel had a vacation
to Ireland planned shortly after
she sent me this news, and I’d say
she deserved it! “On February 9, I
planned, co-produced and MC’d
the second annual Information Architecture
Institute’s World IA Day
(worldiaday.org) at Bloomberg in
NYC, part of a single-day, 21-city
festival of the Information Architecture
Institute (iainstitute.org), a
professional association for which I
have been consulting for almost 10
years. My girls are at Bronx Science
(10th grade) and Hunter College
H.S. (7th grade). I went back for
a master’s at the Pratt School of
Information and Library Science,
where I study digital humanities
and cultural informatics. My poster
on ‘Folksonomies in Museums’
was accepted at the IA Summit in
Baltimore in April.”
Nicholas Stern lives in Greenwich
Village with his wife, Courtney,
an interior designer, and their
three children. He runs his own
50-person, high-end residential construction
management and general
construction firm, Stern Projects,
which specializes in the renovation
of Manhattan townhouses and
apartments.
We can also find Gregory Torborg
in New York, where he is a
sports and corporate lawyer. After
working with several NYC law
firms, he founded a law firm and a
sports consulting firm. It represents
a number of MLB clubs in a variety
of areas, including salary arbitration,
and represents individuals and
ownership groups in the acquisition,
sale and day-to-day operations
of professional sports franchises. He
and his wife, Karen, have a son and
daughter, Jeff (12) and KeIly (9), and
they live in Manhasset, N.Y.
My birthday twin John Vincenti
(of Six Milks fame) and his wife,
Robyn, can be found in Glen Rock,
N.J., along with their sons, who finished
third and first grades. I could
hear a chuckle in his email when
he wrote, “Both of our sons are doing
well and making their parents
proud, although my younger one,
clearly to punish his father for
some unknown transgression, has
become a Philadelphia Phillies fan.
Still, we must love our children, no
matter what their faults.
“I practice law, partnered with
my brother and father, in lower
Manhattan. I’ve been working a
lot with Italian clients through the
years, which helps me practice
what little language skills I have.
Our offices were closed for two
months after Hurricane Sandy but
we are reopened and getting back
to normal, and planning to relocate
— still downtown, but uphill. We
are planning to visit Italy this summer
with the kids. I’ve also been
having a great time taking Columbia’s
Mini-Core Courses. I started
about four years ago and I’ve been
taking them pretty regularly yearround.
Alumni from all different
classes sign up. It is a lot of fun and
good mental calisthenics. Plus, by
my calculations, I’ve completed
another round of CC, Lit Hum and
Art Hum — I think I’ll petition the
College for a second B.A.”
Winding up this column is
exciting news from Vera Scanlon.
“On August 14, I was sworn in as a
United States Magistrate Judge for
the Eastern District of New York.
I am based at the United States
courthouse in downtown Brooklyn
(visitors welcome). On November
9, there was a formal public investiture
ceremony at the courthouse
with a swearing-in, some speeches
and a nice reception. Cousins and
friends came from Ireland, California,
Maine, Missouri, Boston and
Baltimore, which was touching. It
was a nice Columbia moment, as
one of the speakers at the investiture
was Robert A. Katzmann
’73, U.S. Circuit Judge for the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the Second
Circuit, for whom I clerked in
2000–01. District Judge Nicholas
Garaufis ’69 also was on the bench
for the ceremony.
“In other Columbia connections,
I visited with Eric Haxthausen in
October in Washington, D.C. Eric
works on climate change issues.
In December, Molly McDonald
and her husband, Jonathan Gelber,
visited NYC from Atlanta. It was
great to see them.”
Well, dear classmates, this column
concludes the direct solicitation
program I enacted a couple
of years ago to get people to write
to me. I divided the alphabet into
groups so as to get a reasonable
number of replies for my approaching
deadline. I need to give a huge
shout-out to those of you whose last
names start with S–Z. Your reply
rate was astronomical! I conclude
this column with my familiar,
friendly nudge that everyone is
always encouraged to drop me a
line with news. Happy summer!
91
Margie Kim
1923 White Oak Clearing
Southlake, TX 76092
margiekimkim@
hotmail.com
Greetings, all!
Noah Elkin has big news: “My
first book, Mobile Marketing: An
Hour a Day, was published in December.
Co-authored with Rachel
Pasqua, it’s packed with proven
techniques and strategies that
teach how to successfully build
your business and brand with
mobile. The whole idea behind the
book is that you can learn what
you need to know in just an hour
a day. I hope it comes in handy for
some of our fellow alums! I’ve also
been traveling a lot for work, and
the good thing is that it provides
an opportunity to catch up with
classmates. I had dinner with
David Soloff on a recent trip to
San Francisco and met up with
Catherine Geanuracos and Joel
Barron on a swing through Los
Angeles. I have plans to see Melanie
Seidner and Kif Scheuer on
my next trip to San Francisco.”
After almost 20 years shuttling
between New York and Europe,
Michael Block now lives in Buenos
Aires with his Argentine wife and
three kids. He has plans to host
John Ehlinger for a visit. Michael
ran into Michael Stewart ’92, who
also lives in Buenos Aires, last
summer while having drinks with a
mutual friend.
Justin Kerber lives in Saint Louis.
This year, he’s been serving as a
hospital chaplain at Barnes-Jewish
Hospital as well as visiting a small
Jewish community in Quincy, Ill.,
two times a month. Quincy is about
two hours north of his home and
across the Mississippi River from
Hannibal, Mo. He’s looking forward
to getting certified as a professional
hospital chaplain. Justin enjoys his
periodic encounters with Chris
Front, whose kids play in the same
indoor soccer league as Justin’s older
son, Eli.
John Griffin writes, “In 2009,
I was widowered but still see my
teenage stepson once every few
months. After 15 years writing and
producing historical and pop culture
documentaries for various cable TV
series, I went back to school and got
my J.D. I am now a civil litigation attorney
in L.A., where I draw on my
extensive knowledge of entertainment
industry issues from my years
of production work. Would love to
connect with any Columbia lawyers
in SoCal for networking.”
Elizabeth Wollman was awarded
tenure at Baruch this past year as
well as a promotion to associate
professor of music. Her second book,
Hard Times: The Adult Musical in
1970s New York City, was released in
October.
Finally, Melanie Jacobs writes,
“I wanted to share that as of July
1, 2013, in addition to my regular
professorial duties, I also will be
associate dean of graduate and
international programs at Michigan
State University College of Law.
This is a relatively new position and
I am excited to interact with LL.M.
and M.J. students from around the
globe through my travels, teaching
and recruitment as well as by working
extensively with our foreign students
on campus in East Lansing. In
other news, my son is 2 and I enjoy
motherhood more than I could ever
have anticipated!”
I hope you have a fun and
happy summer. Until next time …
cheers!
92
Jeremy Feinberg
315 E. 65th St. #3F
New York, NY 10021
jeremy.feinberg@
verizon.net
Hello again! I asked for more news,
and you were kind enough to
oblige. Let’s get right to it.
Our own Eric Garcetti has been
elected mayor of Los Angeles!
Following a protracted campaign,
he defeated city controller Wendy
Greuel in a run-off election held on
May 21.
Eric held a campaign event in
New York City on March 22, hosted
by Peter Hatch and his wife, Hilary
Hatch, at their apartment. Several of
our classmates were in attendance,
including Jean-Luc Neptune and
Dane Holmes. Although we have a
class with diverse political leanings,
there is nonetheless something
tremendously uplifting about being
able to say we knew the mayor of
a major metropolis back when he
took Lit Hum.
Congratulations, Eric!
Ken Hayes recently became a
published author under the nom de
plume K. Scott. Listed as a self-help
text, Amazon describes Ken’s
book, Drive Me To Think, as a good
read for anyone “who isn’t using
their drive time to make their lives
flourish.”
Congratulations on publication,
Ken!
Rebecca Johnson ’06 GSAS wrote
in via CCT’s online note submission
form (college.columbia.edu/cct/
submit_class_note). She has relocated
to Bogor, Indonesia, as part of
her role as director of education, professional
development and outreach
for the Center for Environment,
Economy, and Society at Columbia.
Rebecca earned a master’s in conservation
biology at Columbia and has
been developing conservation education
and training programs at the
University since 2001. Rebecca will
remain a Columbia employee and
will act as an on-the-ground program
manager and liaison between
the U.S. and Indonesian partners.
She welcomes visits from classmates
who happen to be in the area.
Rebecca recently enjoyed a trip
to Palo Alto, Calif., where she
caught up with David Derro. She
said that David is a manufacturing
engineer at Spectra-Physics.
I was pleased to see a brief item
in Crain’s New York Business on
Julie Rottenberg. The article noted
Julie’s longtime partnership with
colleague Elisa Zuritsky as writers,
producers and executive story
editors. The two most notably collaborated
on Sex and the City and
are working together again on the
NBC show Smash. Julie described
their teamwork, saying, “It’s really
like a marriage. There are many
weeks when we definitely spend
more time together than with our
families.”
Given the hordes of devoted
fans of the two shows, it seems
only appropriate to say keep up
the great work!
For the first time in more than
20 years of serving as your class
correspondent, I heard from Dara-
Lynn Kubovy-Weiss. Dara, who
lives in lower Manhattan with her
husband and two children, passed
along the exciting news that she
recently wrote The Heavy: A Mother,
a Daughter, A Diet — A Memoir,
which was published in January. As
Dara explained, the text “chronicles
the efforts — and unexpected challenges
and controversy — involved
in helping my then-obese 7-year-old
daughter reach a healthy weight.
The book has received a great deal
of attention, and I was interviewed
about it on the Today Show, The
Dr. Oz Show, Starting Point, Fox &
Friends, HLN’s News Now, Good
Day New York, The Joy Behar Show,
Anderson Live and on radio stations
across the United States as well as
television news shows in Australia,
Canada and the United Kingdom.”
Congratulations, Dara!
Finally, there is the news I wish
I didn’t have to report. We lost
two members of our class recently.
First, I heard of the passing of
Andrew Littell at 44 on December
17, 2012. Andrew earned an M.B.A.
from Chicago and was a managing
partner at CVC Credit Partners in
London, where he was responsible
for European loan and bond trading.
According to an online obituary,
Andrew was an avid traveler
throughout Europe who never lost
sight of his roots in New England.
We also lost Kevin Pratt, a
professor of architecture at Cornell’s
College of Architecture, Art, and
Planning (AAP), on February 19,
2013, at 43. Tim Griffin passed
along the sad news. According to
Tim, Kevin had just gotten tenure
at Cornell, where he focused on
renewable energy and sustainable
design. In Kevin’s obituary,
the dean of AAP, Kent Kleinman,
described Kevin as “one of a kind,
a whirlwind of creative energy and
intellectual generosity.” Tim also
indicated that at Kevin’s memorial
service, Harvard Graduate School
of Design co-director Sanford
Kwinter ’90 GSAS referred to Kevin
as “the most important architectural
critic in three generations.”
It’s never easy to have to share
news like this — here’s to being
able to report only happy and positive
goings-on next time.
Take care till then.
93
Betsy Gomperz
41 Day St.
Newton, MA 02466
Betsy.Gomperz@
gmail.com
Greetings, classmates. It was great
to see everyone a few weeks ago at
our 20th Alumni Reunion Weekend!
Unfortunately, this issue went
to press before the big event, but
please email me about your experiences
for the roundup in the Fall
column. The class photo, however,
may be found on the CCT website
(college.columbia.edu/cct) as part
of this issue’s reunion follow-up
article.
REUNION WEEKEND
MAY 29–JUNE 1, 2014
ALUMNI OFFICE CONTACTS
ALUMNI AFFAIRS Vanessa Scott
vs2470@columbia.edu
212-851-9148
DEVELOPMENT Esfir Shamilova
es3233@columbia.edu
212-851-7833
Leyla Kokmen
440 Thomas Ave. S.
Minneapolis, MN 55405
lak6@columbia.edu
94
Jon Bonne sent a great update
from San Francisco, where he has
spent six years as the wine editor
and chief wine critic of The San
Francisco Chronicle. “Certainly not
a bad gig as journalism jobs go;
perhaps without the glamour of
the old WKCR days,” Jon writes.
“But I’m gratified that my endless
hours at The West End served a
larger purpose. Wine (along with
food) has become a major franchise
for the paper and in my time here
I’ve shared in two James Beard
Columbia College
Alumni on Facebook
Check out the new
Columbia College
Alumni page!
facebook.com/
alumnicc
Like the page to get
alumni news, learn
about alumni events and
College happenings,
view photos and more.
SUMMER 2013
100
SUMMER 2013
101