Notes from the Cornell Class of 1991 - 2007 March/April

Class Notes, 2007 March/April

March/April 2007

Greetings, Class of 1991. In the months following our 15th Reunion, a highly energized new team of class officers took the helm, led by president Bob Baca. The team boasts a great balance of veterans, many serving in new roles, and new volunteers. For a complete list of the current class officers (and for other interesting and useful information), visit our class website at http://classof91.alumni.cornell.edu. The Class Council is committed to creating new opportunities for class involvement during the non-reunion years, and we welcome your input and suggestions for activities, projects, etc. Please feel free to contact any of the officers with your input. Thank you to all retiring officers for your dedicated service to the class during the previous five years. Please don't be strangers.

Kathryn Kraus Bolks, Sharlyn Carter Heslam, and I (Ariane Schreiber Horn, JD '96) look forward to our new roles reporting your news to the Cornell community during the next five years. Please send us whatever information you wish to share. You do not have to limit your news to jobs, weddings, or babies. You may write about gatherings of classmates, new houses, interesting trips, volunteering experiences, personal achievements, Cornell memories, or just about anything (other than engagements or pregnancies). You can submit news through a link on our class website, directly to us via the e-mail addresses listed at the bottom of this column, or on the News Form included in our class mailings.

Speaking of news, wedding bells continue to ring for the Class of '91. On October 28, 2006, Jason Saul married Lisa Jenna Fine at the Peninsula Hotel in Chicago. In attendance were Cornellians Basil Demeroutis, Andrew Stifel, and David Wiseman '92. The couple lives in Chicago, where Jason is an entrepreneur and Lisa is a real estate attorney at Mayer Brown Rowe & Mawe LLP. Denise Law and R. Robert LaGalia were married on September 22, 2006 in Ramsey, NJ. Suzanne Schafer Skalski, Liza Jones Hards, and I attended the happy celebration. Denise recently changed jobs and is now a sales VP for Health Advocate, a company that provides corporate clients with advocacy services to help employees and their families navigate complex healthcare and insurance systems. In November, Denise and Liza met up with Crissy Moeder Shaul and Cindy Cheney Wian '92 in New Haven to root for the Big Red as the men's ice hockey team trounced Yale 5-2. Sitting near the Cornell pep band, the group had a blast screaming familiar cheers and taunts. They were pleasantly surprised to see at least half of the spectators at Ingalls Rink sporting Cornell red. Crissy and husband Matt are living in Davidson, NC, where Crissy volunteers at the school of their son James, 6, and works part-time as a classroom shadow for a special needs student. Matt is the general manager of the Charlotte, NC, business unit of Hewitt Associates, the company for which he has worked since graduating from Cornell.

Many of our classmates have been busy expanding their families. Congratulations to Karen Finkston Payes and her husband Giora, who became the proud parents of daughter Sarah Lucy. Sarah joins older brother Noah. Karen writes that they are having a lot of fun with their expanded family living in Chappaqua, NY; however, they are not getting much sleep. Also sleep-deprived are Nicole Bisagni DelToro and her husband Armando, who welcomed second child Andrew last summer. Older brother Colin made his first trip to Cornell last summer for our 15th Reunion. Nicole and her family live in the Washington, DC, area, where Nicole owns and operates an executive search firm. Amy Gellert Lebovitz writes that she is enjoying her growing family in New Jersey. The most recent addition (and future Cornellian) is Natalie, 6 months, who joins Amy, her husband Marc, and their older children Zachary, 5, Emily, 4, and Jeremy, 3. Jim and Cynthia Lee Doware living in Old Greenwich, CT, and welcomed their third child, Henry Maxwell, in August 2006. Big brother Nicholas, 5, and big sister Eliza, 3, compete vigorously to take great care of "Baby Max."

Tammie and Chris Schallmo couldn't make it to Ithaca for our 15th Reunion because they were busy welcoming Nicholas James on June 11, 2006. It won't be long before Nick joins his parents for his first golf tournament or curling match. He is already accompanying them to both! The Schallmos enjoy getting together in Highland Park, IL, with Jim and Nicole Halpern Murphy. The Murphys welcomed a son to their family on April 6, 2006. Owen James joins big sisters Madalyn, 5-1/2, and Audrey, 2- 1/2. All three love their Cornell shirts, Big Red teddy bears, and Cornell picture book. Amy and Chris Field, MBA '95, celebrated their first Thanksgiving in San Antonio, TX, with son Hunter and new daughter Sydney Elizabeth, born November 20, 2006. Getting back to campus for Cornell football games will be a little more challenging for the Field family now. Fortunately, kids start playing football at an early age in Texas, so Chris is already teaching plays to Hunter (who turns 4 in March)!

On the professional front, Kimberly Epstein is an attorney at Bartlett Hackett Feinberg PC in Boston, MA, concentrating her practice in real estate, commercial and real estate lending, and banking, with a special focus on affordable housing and community development financing. She recently moved to Lynn, MA, with her fiancé Peg Martin and their various and sundry pets. Debbie Fine writes that she left NYC a while ago to return to Washington, DC, where she previously worked in the Clinton Administration for five years. She is currently working as in-house counsel for the Center for American Progress, a nonprofit progressive think tank. Last fall, Dorine Colabella Scher trotted up to New Jersey from her home in Virginia to conduct a Pampered Chef cooking show for Dan Svitavsky and wife Elena Stremlin '94 and Jake Freivald and wife Sue (Scharpf) '93. Dorine reports that they all had a wonderful time.

According to the director of Cornell's Audit University, a number of our classmates returned to Ithaca last summer to participate in a wide variety of CAU on-campus summer courses. Class of '91 participants included Sharon Wolfson Bader, Kim Brown Bixler, Amy Wefer Faucher, Jim Jackson, ME '93, Alicia Kowalchuk, Heather Tatkon Powers, MPA '93, Melissa Raksa, and Debra McMahon Williams. What a wonderful way to experience summer at Cornell, either with or without your family. Kim Bixler, who participated in the tennis clinic, raves about the CAU summer youth program on the CAU website: "This is a fantastic program. My kids absolutely love it. The counselors are bright, energetic, and enthusiastic."

Finally, are you or any of your Cornell friends lost and don't know it? Please check the list of Lost Classmates on our class website and update your contact information, or advise your friends to update their information, as appropriate. Our 20th Reunion will be here before we know it, and we want to continue our tradition of crushing university attendance records. The first step is ensuring that we are able to contact everyone.

Now it's your turn. What have you been up to? We look forward to spreading your news. *Ariane Schreiber Horn, ams14@cornell.edu; Kathryn Kraus Bolks, klk22@cornell.edu; Sharlyn Carter Heslam, sheslam@berkshirepartners.com.