2010s

10 Grad School Greats

Congratulations to those of you who completed law school this spring, including Kate McClelland, who graduated from Northwestern U. Good luck to those of you beginning your final year of medical school, including Grace Ho at Vanderbilt U School of Medicine. Next year, I will take a year off from medical school to pursue an MPH from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Tom Staudt earned his MA in information and telecommunication management and policy from Michigan State in 2012 and his MS in new media management from Syracuse U in 2013. Next year, he will be earning his MBA from Cornell U in Ithaca. Other classmates have decided to return to school to pursue further education. Last year, Aaron Muscarella started Baylor College of Medicine’s Integrative Medicine and Biomedical Science PhD Program, where he plans to study the pathogenesis of aggressive prostate cancer. Since graduating, he worked at the Herman B Wells Center for Pediatric Research in Dr. Ryan Anderson’s lab, working on cell fate determination in type I diabetes. After working for two years at IBTCI, an international development consulting company, Paul Leuck will be studying for his MA at the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies this fall. Kevin Gallin is returning to Notre Dame to pursue a master’s in English after three years teaching high school English in New Orleans with Teach for America. The engagements and weddings continue this spring and summer. Liz Ruiz and Ben Fritsch got engaged in December. They will be married next March. Megan Kloet and Mark Bellantoni ’04, ’05MS in accounting, got engaged at the BYU game last fall. They recently moved to London, where they are working as accountants. They are busy exploring Europe and planning their wedding. Laura Cassel and Scott Andrews got engaged in February, while visiting Laura’s old ACE site in Brownsville TX. They are getting married in the Basilica in March 2014 and fully expect everyone to brave the weather. Laura is a middle-school language arts teacher at a Nativity Miguel school and Scott works for the private equity/M&A group of a regional bank. They live in Tulsa. Rachel (Davidson) and Stephen Meehan were married in August 2012 in Philadelphia. Kallen Wade and Kendra Jackson ’09 are getting married in July. Congratulations to all of the happy couples. It is with great sadness that I am reporting the passing of a classmate. Andrew Keber passed away unexpectedly on Dec. 2. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends. The three years since our graduation have passed so quickly. I sincerely hope you are all doing well in your lives. Play, study, heal, teach, account, work, and research like a champion. Please send me updates on your lives. We would all like to know how you are doing. Go Irish. — Matt Molloy; 602-510-7373; ndclass2010@gmail.com

10MBA News and Notes

Ruben Rueda shared that he finally has some news. He is moving to San Francisco. He accepted an account manager position with Xero. He will be selling beautiful accounting software to CPAs and bookkeepers. Not only does Ruben still keep his Notre Dame nameplate on his desk, but it is in the main photo of the Xero office space website in San Francisco. Rachel and Nick Ong are happy to share that they are expecting a baby boy in August. Nick works in Dallas as a performance improvement consultant for Ernst & Young. He is looking forward to hosting some classmates in Dallas this fall for the Arizona State game at Cowboys Stadium. Adam Anderson shared some more great news, he was promoted in February. He is now a senior manager of financial planning and analysis at Zappos. Adam and wife Erin reside in Las Vegas. Jeff O’Connor writes that he recently participated in the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Man & Woman of the Year fundraiser in Savannah GA. The event was a competition where participants honored a local boy and girl of the year, both of whom are leukemia survivors, by raising as much money as they could for LLS. He is VP, commercial relationship manager at First Citizens Bank and Trust Company, Inc. in Savannah. Walter Alves is still having a great time in South America. He recently left the corporate track to take over his family’s business and is running a 2000 acre working cattle ranch in northern Brazil. He is excited about the change and a chance to escape from a cubicle. You might think of him every time you hit up the Brazilian steakhouse.
Garrett Busch was engaged to Betsy O’Neill ’10 in April. They met while at ND in undergrad. The storybook engagement took place in Verona, Italy, and where Garrett proposed at the Marchesi Fumanelli Winery estate on a bluff overlooking their beautiful vineyards. Josh Miller shared excited news that his family is continuing to grow. Christine and Josh welcomed their second child in February. They had a little girl, Kendall Reese, on Feb. 20. She already has her fair share of ND apparel. Josh is a financial analyst at the Sterling Group. Got news, let me know. Go Irish. — John Gerberich; cell 847-331-4707; jgerberi@alumni.nd.edu

10JD Baby and Baracus

Layla and Paul Krog welcomed baby Mary Margaret, who will be called Daisy, in February. Big sister Rita Mae is delighted and happy to share her stuffed animals, blankets, etc. with Daisy, and all are healthy. Luckily, having two young daughters is not slowing Paul down; he’s figured out how to turn the settings on his office espresso machine up to 11. Things are going well in Indianapolis for Suj Pandya, who recently became a homeowner. Work keeps him busy doing mostly Chapter 11 corporate reorganizations, but he has had time to do pro bono asylum work in Chicago. He also traveled to Miami for the National Championship game. Before you rush to place blame for the outcome of the game on Suj (guilty as charged), please be aware that he also attended the glorious Stanford game and so is not a bad luck charm. He counts the Stanford game among the best he’s ever seen at ND, which includes the 2002 Michigan game, 2002 Michigan State game and USC in 2005. Rarely am I so jealous of a classmate as I am when a scroll through Tyler Wilson’s Facebook posts, wherein he seems to spend about 98 percent of his time skiing, lounging in Hawaii, cheering on ND at a football game, or soaking up the sun in Palm Springs. This led me to seek the truth from the man himself, who states that he does indeed work while he’s on vacation. He hung out his shingle two years ago and practices in the areas of securities, corporate finance, and commercial transactions. He’s based in Coeur d’Alene ID, but his travels have allowed him to see Mike Bergerson in Chicago, run into Kenny Coffin and Kathleen Donovan (mid-proposal at ND), and visit more exotic locales than James Bond. Also working hard is Brett Strand of Rockford IL, where he is an associate at Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP. He practices in labor and employment and immigration law. While he spends most of his lunches working and eating at his desk, he does manage to sneak in some television-watching and book-reading. He recently re-read The Princess Bride by William Goldman and highly recommends it. He’s very happy but misses the ND campus very much. Rob Sharp has been recruited for the Division II San Francisco rugby team, B.A. Baracus. After serving as the interim director of the Yolo County Law Library, Rob now works at Rocket Lawyer, a tech/law startup, drafting contracts and doing research. He has travelled to ND for a few games and to England with the family for Christmas, and enjoys his weekends exploring the beautiful Bay Area. Well, Larry Luppi, you’ve spent three years telling me, “Orange County isn’t big enough for the both of us.” You win, Larry. Matt and I are packing our bags and heading back to beautiful South Bend this summer, where he will be a transfer student at NDLS and tailgating guru. Please let me know if you’ll be in town for a game or otherwise. — Susie Wine; 574-514-3746; swine@alumni.nd.edu

11 Updates

Ryan Degnan and Samantha Nees were married at the Basilica on May 25. Sam Russ and Caitlin Nichols were married on June 20 in St. Paul. Congratulations to Joe Jensen and Lauren Walsh on their recent engagement. They were married on June 7, 2014, at the Basilica. Celia Johns and Trevor O’Brien ’10 are engaged and excited to be starting their married life in Louisville KY. They will be married by good friend and Holy Cross Priest Father Pete McCormmick, CSC, and surrounded by many good friends from Notre Dame, including Robert O’Brien ’08, Lauren Hall-Vugteveen ’10SMC, and Adam Joines ’10 in their wedding party. Nick “Dick” “Moose” Normandin, Michael Murray, Daniel Ostendorf, Joshua Von Schaumburg, Matthew Oleniczak, and Garrett “Kuder” Brown reunited over the weekend of April 27 in Houston to visit Dan, who is working as an architect at Curtis & Windham Architects, Inc. — Evan James; 145 N. Frontage Rd. West, Apt. C413; Vail CO 81657; 651-587-5445; ndclass2011@gmail.com

11JD Focused on Careers

Yi Fang has not been able to take herself away from Eck Hall and the South Bend area. She works for Dean Newton as an advisor for the law school’s internationalization, with a focus on Asian programs. Brendan Bush left his post in Iowa to take a post with Levin & Perconti in Chicago, continuing his practice in complex personal injury and medical malpractice matters. Brendan was also named to The National Trial Lawyers’ Top 40 under 40 list. Congratulations, Brendan, that is quite the coup. Aaron O’Dell reports that while he misses the South Bend weather, he is enjoying the sunshine and his work in Los Angeles for Richards, Watson & Gershon, representing large public entities in California. Our former 2011 SBA President, Danisha Anderson, is a staff attorney for the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission. Also, Danisha became engaged in December. Best wishes to all members of NDLS 2011 and the Notre Dame community at large. Send Class Notes; your classmates crave knowledge of how life is these days. — Chuck Flynn; charles.a.flynn@gmail.com

12 Engagements, Weddings, Other Announcements

Katherine Folger and Ryan Kavanaugh are engaged and were to be married in June at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. Christie Coughlin and Max Gabreski were engaged on New Year’s Eve at the Notre Dame grotto. They will be married in June 2014 at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. Brent Shawcross and Julie Wamser were engaged in September 2012. They will be married in May 2014 in Connecticut, after Brent completes naval submarine officer training. Liz Douville and Jay Williams got engaged last August. They will be married at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart in July 2014. Elizabeth Bramanti and Nathan Feldpausch were married April 20 in Houston TX. Edie Graham was elected president of her Loyola Medical School class. Joshua Zielinski is living in Ciudad Sandino, Nicaragua, teaching English and art to primary students at Colegio Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe as part of the Jesuit Volunteer Corps from December 2012 to December 2014. Kevin Rahill will be climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro in support of Open Arms Home for Children, the orphanage at which he has volunteered this last year. He hopes to raise $25,000 for his charity. More information can be found on his fundraising site, crowdrise.com/KilimanjaroSummitforOpenArms. Please mark your calendars for the Class of 2012 minireunion on the weekend of the Navy football game, Nov. 2. More details to follow. — Tyler Harmsen; 1925 NW 19th St., Oklahoma City OK 73106; cell 563-505-3708; tharmsen@alumni.nd.edu

12JD Jobs and Such

Back in February, Carter Mills accepted a position at Hewitt Wolensky, a small firm in Newport Beach CA, hot on the heels of wrapping up a few months at the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence. Manasi Raveendran is enjoying her time working on IBM’s in-house counsel team in New York and will be going to China for a few weeks with some high-school students to tutor them in Model UN stuff. Manasi will also be attending her first Kentucky Derby this year, and looked forward to obtaining an oversized floppy hat. Sana Din came to the Windy City from the wilds of Delaware this April to attend the NABL-sponsored Fundamentals of Municipal Bond Law Seminar. While not engrossed in that topic, Sana met up with Ryan Swan for a French toast brunch and Jimmy Champlin (that’s me) for halal crepes and mint tea. I can’t speak to the French toast, but the crepes were excellent. Katie Vujea has spent a solid chunk of the month of April reliving her high school glory days by crashing in her parents’ basement waiting for floodwaters to recede from her apartment complex in Grand Rapids. Despite two consecutive Halloweens of experience, Alvin Adjei recently turned down an opportunity to be a Kanye West impersonator at birthday parties in the greater Houston area. When I asked him why, he muttered something about being a “big fish in a small game” and abruptly hung up the phone. — James Champlin; jchampli@alumni.nd.edu