Notes from the Cornell Class of 1991 - 2012 July/August

Class Notes, 2012 July/August

July/August 2012

First off, I'd like to thank everyone for answering the call for class news. It's only with your contribution that we can make this a great class column. So feel free to send updates whenever news happens that might interest your classmates. We're in the swing of summer and I hope you're enjoying the festivities of the season with your friends and family. I remember that Cornell was a special place in the summer, especially spending time on the Quad in shorts and hanging out in the gorges. Those attractions seem to keep some of us close to our alma mater--such as Andrew Sussman, who, with wife Caroline (Misciagna) '90 and their son Zachary, send news that they broke ground on a new hotel in downtown Syracuse with a planned opening in Spring 2013.

The Class of '91 is busy moving up the ranks. Donald Barrick was named vice chairman of Life's WORC, a Long Island-based nonprofit that houses more than 200 developmentally challenged people on Long Island and provides non-residential programs for an additional 1,000 participants. E. Mitchell Sayers was promoted from field applications engineer to technical center manager at Cree Europe GmbH in Munich, Germany. Closer to home, Pablo Quinones joins Reed Smith as partner in its global regulatory enforcement group in its New York office.

If you're looking for some summer reading, Dave Kleidermacher published Embedded Systems Security (Elsevier Press), which is increasingly important as these embedded computers become more ubiquitous in our everyday lives. From hardware to humans, Daniel Appelbaum published Nuclear Medicine RadCases (Thieme). Dan serves as director of nuclear medicine and PET and is associate professor of radiology at the U. of Chicago. He lives near downtown Chicago with his wife and four children. Physician Ted Mason moved to South Hadley, MA, with his wife and two daughters, ages 6 and 8. Ted specializes in diseases of the ear, hearing, and balance. He is getting ready to celebrate the ten-year anniversary of the Baystate Medical Center Cochlear Implant Program, which has performed more than 230 cochlear implants in children and adults since the program began. Keep up the good work!

Michelle Dortignac is busy traveling the world. In Athens, Greece, she had just finished offering a teacher training program for yoga instructors in Unnata Aerial Yoga. This is a new form of yoga, which Michelle initiated, that uses an aerial hammock to teach students about better alignment and more thorough relaxation. She also lets us know that you don't have to go to Greece, but can try this new yoga (www.aerialyoga.com) in New York City, where she is based. Joan Kochan Schade reports on a spring gathering in Arlington Heights, IL, with husband Mike, as well as Samir Khanjar and wife Kathy (Duffy), and Joe Riordan, ME '92, and wife Beth (Livolsi), '92, who trekked from Maryland and New Jersey, respectively, for the occasion. Joan shares that 11 future Cornellians in one house means someone's always crying, but everyone is having tons of fun!

Peter Sloane is a partner at Leason Ellis LLP, an intellectual property law firm in White Plains, NY. He and wife Michele celebrated their 17th anniversary with daughters Hannah, 13, and Molly, 11, and they are now in Mamaroneck, NY. Also in New York, Cherry L. Estilo is now in Manhattan with her husband and three young children. She has been a dentist with expertise in dental oncology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center since 2001 and serves as the director of the Dental Oncology Fellowship program. Susanna Suh, husband Jim Larish, and their three children live in Montclair, NJ, and vacationed in Costa Rica. Susanna shares this story: Her daughter put a "Class of '91" tattoo (from Reunion) on her arm. Despite Susanna's best efforts at sun protection, her daughter got a slight sunburn and when the tattoo finally wore off, the imprint from the tattoo remained. Now that's commitment to class spirit. Susanna is a corporate partner at Cahill Gordon & Reindel in NYC and focuses primarily on financing transactions.

Susan R. Lipetz Brown is a senior director of compensation for Siemens, responsible for the United States region. After living in New York City for more than ten years, with the addition of two young boys to her family Susan has decamped to the suburbs of New Canaan, CT. She looks forward to the adventure--including driving again! Brian Housh returned to the US after 12 years in Thailand, where he owned and managed the consulting firm English Solutions and served on five boards. During his time there, his company sponsored the "Scream for Charity" event, hosting a haunted house for local underprivileged Thai children and giving them a taste of the spirit of Halloween for nine consecutive years.

Rachel Cassidy shares the sporting adventures of the Cassidy Brown family. Her oldest son's soccer league is in the top five in the nation for U10s, and number one in Georgia. As a result, the family is traveling all over, spending the weekends at soccer fields. Her other two kids are juggling horseback riding, lacrosse, and, of course, more soccer. Rachel also has a new role at Red Hat as the vice president of global partner strategy and enablement. She will be traveling more internationally and looks forward to connecting with some friends along the way. Update your contact information so Rachel can find you. Susan Rosenblatt, a veterinarian, continues to work as a part owner of Kindness Animal Hospital in Waltham, MA. Her fiance, Chas, is an aerobatic pilot and an executive at IBM.

Steven Walton will move from Penn State to Michigan Technological U. this fall to take a faculty position in the Dept. of Social Sciences. The department focuses on the history of technology and industrial archaeology, his specialties! Lastly, while we love news from our class, some of our classmates report on the news full-time. If you're a regular listener of NPR, you've certainly heard David Folkenflik's reporting on the media--he's come a long way from his days at the Cornell Daily Sun. On television, you can see Kate Snow reporting the news on NBC. Hearing her voice will make you think you're back on the Hill listening to WVBR, where she used to do the news.

Don't forget to visit our class website, http://cornellclassof1991.com, to stay up to date on news of our class; or "like" us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/Cornell91. One more friendly reminder: send us your news updates. *Charles Wu, ccwu@mac. com; Tom Greenberg, twg22@cornell.edu; and Wendy Milks Coburn, wmilkscoburn@me.com.