Notes from the Cornell Class of 1991 - 2004 January/February

Class Notes, 2004 January/February

January/February 2004

Happy New Year, Class of '91! As we embrace the year 2004 and all of the exciting developments that will soon unfold, we thought we'd take a moment to recap the milestones that our classmates experienced during the past year. Congratulations go out to Erika Ackermann Duffy, who was married to Michael last July. Erika and Michael currently reside in Reading, MA, where she recently took a position at Marblehead High School as a social worker. Jeff Goodman also joined the newlywed club last summer as he celebrated his marriage to Hope Heinecke at the Four Seasons in Las Vegas. Other Cornellians in attendance included Rob Williams, Dan Jones, who works as CFO of Bolt Industries, Stephen Dyott, who has a marketing job at Pfizer, and Jason Foehrenbach, who works at Computer Associates. Thanks go out to Rob Williams, who reported on the nuptials and also shared news of the birth in August of his daughter Caroline. Rob shares that he and wife Melissa are doing well. It seems the years of sleep deprivation while studying at Cornell has prepped them well for parenthood. Rob also reports that classmate Christopher Ruggio and wife Jackie celebrated the birth of another baby boy, Benjamin, last summer. Christopher works at Accenture in London and has been taking every opportunity to travel through Europe with his family, including trips to Provence and Tuscany.

Other Cornellians who are celebrating their new state of parenthood include Nate Bailey who, along with wife Camille, welcomed son John last April. Nate and his family live in Kansas City, MO. Also, Stephen Holden and wife Kristine had their first child, Stephen, in March. Stephen lives in Bronxville, NY. He staged a "mini-reunion" in New York City during the 2002 holidays with classmates Chris Field, MBA '95, and Brian Finnegan '93, as well as Mike Roark '92, Anthony Tabasso '94, and Hans Maentz '93. Congratulations also go out to Celeste Tambaro-D'Alessandro, who celebrated the birth of her first son, now 1 year old. Celeste, husband David D'Alessandro, and son David (the III) reside in New York City. Lauren Rosenblum Goldman writes to announce the birth of her daughter Anna, who was born last July. Lauren and husband Geoff are both attorneys in Manhattan; Lauren practices appellate litigation at Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw. Lauren also shares that classmate Liz Kleinberg and husband Mike Kanarick completed a six-month hiking expedition along the Appalachian Trail, having started in Georgia in March and finishing in Maine in mid-October. Lauren and Mike were hiking as a fund-raising venture to benefit the Child Welfare League of America, which aids abused and neglected children.

It seems the Class of '91 is no stranger to adventure. In addition to explorations in Tuscany and Provence and along the Appalachian Trail, classmates traveled the globe far and wide during 2003. Debbie Sniderman, ME '92, reports that she completed her second year of world travel, having most recently lived in Spain and the Canary Islands. Chris LaPunzina spent two months traveling through Southeast Asia after finishing an MBA at Duke U.'s Fuqua School of Business and is now pursuing a career in real estate investment. Corinne Kuchling also spent a month in Thailand in order to escape Seattle's dreary winter skies. Finally, last summer many classmates embarked on a pilgrimage back to Ithaca to participate in Adult University (CAU) summer programs. Kim Brown Bixler spent a term improving her backhand at the Tennis Clinic and followed that up with a few weeks in the Personal Fitness Clinic. Stephen Gagnon spent the summer exploring the Gorgeous Gorges of the Finger Lakes. And finally, both Amy Wefer Faucher and Keith McAfee spent some time honing their culinary talents with CAU cooking workshops.

Elleke Monster Haggerty reports that, "it's great to be back!" She has returned to the United States with her family after living abroad for 13 years. Elleke has settled in the Washington, DC, area, where husband Steve '90 works for Marriott headquarters. She is busy settling in with their children Anneke, 7, Mia, 5, and 2-year-old Ryan. David Ratner also changed address recently and now lives with wife Darcy in Los Altos, CA, where he works at Openwave headquarters in the Silicon Valley as director of engineering. Also living in the Silicon Valley is Lane Patterson, who lives in San Jose with wife Mimi (Lee) '92. Lane writes that he attended a fun alumni event at San Jose Tech Museum last summer, where he had the opportunity to meet many alumni and become reacquainted with some whom he'd lost touch with. Gregory Florio writes that he'd recently seen alumni Jimmy Pitaro and Dave Koch. Gregory lives in New York City with wife Rachel.

Having shared news about the new parents of the Class of '91, we should also share news of those classmates who are celebrating parenthood for the second or third time around. Laura Hubbert DiCarlo lives in Oxford, MS, and welcomed the arrival of their third son, William, who recently celebrated his first birthday. Cristos Goodrow and wife Elizabeth (Toole), JD '97, reveled in the delivery of their third child last summer; baby Brendan joins the Goodrow family and siblings Corran, 3, and Isabelle, 2. Cristos also reports that he was visited by classmate Thomson McCormick while he was in San Francisco on a business trip. Andrea Belusko Hertzendorf saw a few big changes last year. Not only did she give birth to son Cade (who joins big sisters Caitlin, 5, and Cassidy, 2), but her family moved to Fort Leavenworth, KS, where her husband Michael is attending the US Army's CGSC School for Majors. Elaine Chiu and husband Rob Leung recently announced the birth of their second son, William, who joins big brother Ryan, 2. Elaine and Rob live in New York City, where Elaine has just finished her first year as assistant professor of law at St. John's, teaching both criminal law and family law. Elaine adds that Rob works at the corporate law group Boies, Schiller & Flexner in Westchester and that they both miss Ithaca!

Beyond family fluctuations, our classmates have new developments to report in the form of career changes, too. David Hwang reports on both. He and his wife Jiyoung live in Watertown, MA, where he has been working as division intellectual property counsel at Teradyne Inc. since the summer of 2001. David and his wife also welcomed the birth of their daughter Hannah later the same year. Susan Chen writes that she resides in San Francisco, where she works as director of business development for International Overture Services. Last summer David Nocilly joined the Syracuse law firm of Bond, Schoeneck & King PLLC as an associate, concentrating in intellectual property law. And congratulations to Michele Ruiz, who last summer earned the rank of partner at Sidley, Austin, Brown & Wood LLP in Chicago, where she practices primarily in matters of investment products and derivatives.

Once again, we'd like to congratulate all of our classmates on their myriad accomplishments and adventures. We hope that 2004 will bring us even more to celebrate! We're glad to hear that many of you are keeping in touch with each other and hope that this column inspires you to continue to check in with your classmates and keep your class correspondents abreast of your activities. You can update us either at the Class of '91 website, http://classof91.alumni.cornell.edu, or by e-mailing us: Corinne Kuchling, kuccori@hotmail.com; Nina Rosen Peek, nsr5@cornell.edu; or Dave Smith, docds30@yahoo.com.