Notes from the Cornell Class of 1991 - 2010 November/December

Class Notes, 2010 November/December

November/December 2010

The Class of 1991 is as busy as ever. Please keep sharing news with your class correspondents! Congratulations to our classmates who were elected to the Cornell University Council in 2010. New and returning '91 Council members are: Anuj Atul Bhagwati, MS '94, Andrew Galligan Jr., David Rickerby, Meredith Clark Shachoy, and Karen Paul Zimmer, MD '98. Thanks for your outstanding leadership and service to Cornell!

Joan Kochan Schade writes that she is a full-time mom and volunteers at her children's school in Arlington Heights, IL. Joan and husband Mike enjoy taking their kids on an annual trip east to visit family and Cornell friends. They were thrilled to learn that their son's eighth grade graduation in 2011 (from K-8 school, not just middle school) does not coincide with our 20th Reunion! We look forward to seeing the Schades on the Hill. Plan ahead now so you can also attend Reunion, June 9-12, 2011!

Robert Spencer, PhD '97, works for Intel and lives in Portland, OR. He and wife Karen (Klingemann), MBA '96, enjoy spending as much time as possible with their daughters Meredith, 10-1/2, and Kathryn, 7-1/2. Robert has fond memories of watching hockey games at Lynah Rink and would love to hear from Todd Jessup '92 and Neeraj Mangla '92. Susan Starowitz Williams lives in Houston with her husband, Neil. She is a Pilates instructor/personal trainer at Lifetime Fitness on Lake Houston. Alpha Zeta tops the list of favorite Cornell memories for Susan. She would like to hear from Virginia Hoskins, DVM '95.

We also heard from Robert Dunlap, a project engineer with UOP, a Honeywell company. Robert and wife Heather have fun raising their daughter Avery, 2. He would like to hear from John S. Martin. Johnny Tseng lives in Hong Kong with wife Noelle Lee. He is the managing director at a clothing export company. Alan Leibel and wife Amy live in West Orange, NJ. Joseph Suh is a partner at Schulte Roth and Zabel LLP in NYC. He was previously employed at McDermott Will and Emery LLP. "Schulte Roth and Zabel LLP is a leading New York firm with unsurpassed strength in investment management and financial products practices," Joseph writes. "The firm was therefore a much better fit for my clients." He remembers working for the Cornell Lunatic. Michael '90 and Letitia Todd Kim welcomed son Dashiell William Jaeyoung Kim on August 9, 2010, a mere 15 minutes after arriving at the hospital! Big sister Anabel, 3-1/2, is excited about baby brother "Dash." Best wishes to the Kim family. Kudos to Steven Davi for joining the Long Island Chapter Advisory Board for Best Buddies, a nonprofit organization dedicated to establishing a global volunteer movement that creates opportunities for one-to-one friendships, integrated employment, and leadership development for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

We received heartwarming messages from a few classmates. Lisa Epstein Jay (Suffern, NY) wrote with a special shout out to Rachel Laiserin. "In September 2009, I was diagnosed with breast cancer," Lisa writes. "I chose to have surgery and all follow-up in NYC. Rachel was and is my amazing support person, meeting me and supporting me at most of my yucky appointments. I am fine, but love to tell everyone to get checked over by their doctors (mine would not have shown in a mammogram)." Lisa is a preschool music teacher and serves as the 2010-11 elementary school PTA president. Meanwhile, Susan Bennett-Gonzalez and Yovany Gonzalez are praying for a cure for daughter Mackenzie, 6. She is battling stage IV rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare and aggressive muscle cancer that metastasized to her lungs just before Christmas 2008. Visit Mackenzie's website www.Caringbridge.org/visit/MackenzieGonzalez to follow her journey. Susan and Yovany are also the proud parents of Alicia, 9, Anthony, 7-1/2, and Christopher, 3-1/2.

Ben Stewart (Windsor, CA) is a financial advisor for Merrill Lynch. His work focuses mainly on retirement planning and investment strategies for retirees and small businesses. In addition to golf, skiing, and fitness, he enjoys spending time with his son and helping him with lacrosse now that he is playing in a league for the first time. Swimming in Beebe Lake is one of Ben's favorite Cornell memories. Perhaps there will be an opportunity to relive the experience during our 20th Reunion in June! In the meantime, Ben would love to hear from Paul Gascoigne, MRP '92.

Many thanks for continuing to share your news! As a reminder, you can provide updates about work, travels, family, visits to campus, classmates you've seen or contacted, favorite memories, or anything else Cornell-related (other than engagements and pregnancies--please wait till the wedding or the birth). You can contact us via e-mail, the link on our class website (http://classof91.alumni.cornell.edu), the news form in our class mailings, the Class of 1991 Facebook page (Cornell91), or through Cornell's new online community, CornellConnect (https://cornellconnect.cornell.edu/)! Kathryn Kraus Bolks, klk22@cornell.edu; Sharlyn Carter Heslam, sheslam@berkshirepartners.com; Ariane Schreiber Horn, ams14@cornell.edu.