1990s

90 A Six-Month Holiday, Twice a Year 

I was honored to attend the retirement party of our classmate, Dan Roberts. Hosted by Dan’s daughters, Bridget ’22 and Kerry, the guests included Mike Walsh and Jeremy “Jake” Walker.  Dan had been working with The Wolak Group for over 20 years. He officially joined the company in January of 2010 as its General Counsel. Prior to that, Dan was a partner at Pierce Atwood, LLP (a 150+ attorney firm headquartered in Portland ME), where he had represented The Wolak Group since 1998. Dan will be starting the next chapter with a long-awaited trip to Alaska with his daughters and wife, Judy. They will be flying into Anchorage and renting an RV for two weeks. Sightseeing, hiking, and fishing are on the itinerary, and they are hoping to meet Parker Schnabel and find a little gold to supplement retirement. The trip is to celebrate Dan and Judy’s 25th anniversary, two graduations, and retirement (what a year!). Bridget graduated from ND in May with a chemical engineering degree and will be working in Chicago with Pariveda. Kerry graduated from high school in June and will be helping with Dan’s retirement by accepting a ROTC scholarship to study nursing at UNH. Recently, I was happy to host Jim Carroll and Chris Travers for a few cocktails and a boat ride around Sebago Lake. I asked Chris for a few highlights from his trip back to the States and he said the tour of my two ND themed “man caves” was definitely at the top of his list. While hiking Mount Saint Helens, Jim Kilway checked in to report that his son Peter will be a freshman at ND in the fall living in Dunne Hall.  The whole family will be making the trip to South Bend to drop off Peter, including Jim’s wife, Mary and his younger son, David. We hope to see you at the California game on Saturday, Sept. 17, the official “Irish Wear Green” game this year. If you want tickets through the Class, please contact Chris Broadhurst at cmbroadhurst@gmail.com or through the Class of 1990 Facebook page “Notre Dame Irish Class of 1990” which is administered by Chris Paul. Please keep track of us at http://1990.undclass.org. Go Irish! — Marty Falkenberg; 23 Casselton Road, Raymond ME 04071; 847-323-4717; martin.falkenberg@yahoo.com 

 

90MBA Class Secretary — Dave Wilson;

104 N. Wilson Court, Palatine IL 60067; david_c_wilson@hotmail.com

 

90JD Class Secretary — Cathy (Pollock) Gregory;

cagregory@sbcglobal.net

 

91 Fluffy Laundry

David Latherow gives us a fist time update: “All is well in Ashland KY. My wife, Leigh, and I are attorneys. We have three kids. Our oldest is in his 4th year of medical school at U of Louisville. Our twin girl just finished her freshman year at Miami of Ohio. The boy twin finished his first year at West Point. I keep in regular contact with my old Zahm dorm-mates from the class of ’91 – Ed McKiernan, Jon Barry, Erik Heitmeier, Eric Werge, Mike Castellino, Tom Ehrhardt, Errin Hoffman, Paul Delave, and Terry Wilkin ’92. We are planning on meeting for the BC game. I’ll be back for the Marshall game also.” Maria Jukic is keeping busy in Cleveland OH, especially since her daughter, Gabriela Leskur, graduated from Notre Dame in 2017. Maria is a first-term Councilwoman for Ward 7 in the City of Euclid. This is her first time serving in elected public office. Maria tells us she loves the work of city council such as buying fire engines and getting grants for lakefront development projects, but she doesn’t like constituents yelling at her. She’ll keep us posted on how she manages to resolve these issues. Maria also reports that she recently completed a Master’s in Theology and Religious Studies at John Carroll U with a focus on Catholic Social Teaching and Public Policy. Maria is very disappointed that our 30-year Reunion was kiboshed by COVID last year and hopes to see many of you during football season this fall. Greg Pfiffner always with the light hearted commentary: “I just wanted to report that I recently purchased a dryer and my laundry is fluffier than ever.” John J. Bannan recently self-published a book entitled God for the Intellectual: From Atheism to Belief in Christ available on Amazon books. Among other things, Tom Tressler reports: “My oldest son Matt ’22 graduated from ND this Spring & is heading to Chicago for his first job with Capital One Bank as a Software Engineer! I also have another son, Ryan, who is a rising Junior at ND living in Sorin College. Last football season we had a blast hosting tailgates for both of them and their friends. Looking forward to another fun fall this year!” Bridget Baumstark, Lisa (Datz) Burk, Kelly Morrison, Laura (Olszewski) Peterson, and Bridget (Mickus) Baumstark enjoyed a recent weekend together in New Orleans, dining on beignets and hurricanes and other great food, but more importantly remembering that ND friendships are forever. John Egan writes: “I was visiting my daughter while she was doing a semester abroad in Ireland last month.  We were touring the Guinness Brewery and saw this poster there. ND was the only university represented in the whole facility! Very cool!” On Facebook? Join our Class of 1991 page. We have 670 members. — Suzi (Criqui) Mueller; suzi@cbglobalsearch.com 

 

91MBA Good News

Mike Brothers shares that after almost 30 years in Chicago, he and Karen will be moving to Charlotte NC where he will be transferring with his current job as Managing Director, Debt Capital Markets at Fifth Third Bank. They will be closer to their cottage in Kiawah Island, South Carolina. As for their daughters, Courtney is going back to get her Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist degree this fall after five years as a Cardiac ICU RN, Kaylyn is a 4th grade teacher in Lemont IL, and Olivia is getting her Masters in publishing at Oxford Brookes in Oxford UK. Mike still gets together with Vance Clipson, Mike Repp and Frank Pagura. Rick Shalaby reports he works for Syneos Health and runs Global Commercial Business Development. Rick and Christina live in New Hope PA with their children, Ellie (13) and Cooper (11). Since 2003, they have lived in an old Stone Farmhouse and claim they will never move. Rick still appreciates his friends from Notre Dame, still watches ND Football lose bowl game leads and still, by and large, is the same person. Megan Frigon Cohen shares that she is retired, but since her husband Mike is not, she still does non-profit HR consulting work about 20 hours/week. Megan also teaches hot/Bikram style yoga about 3-4 hours/week. She lives in Denver CO with a place near Vail so let her know if you’re ever coming through town. Dan Mackey reports that his daughter, Julia, graduated from Notre Dame in May with degrees in Economics and Global Affairs. She is now pursuing a Masters in Environmental Economics at The London School of Economics. Dan is in his 15th year as owner and President of Viozzi Sprinkler Company in Hershey PA. They design, install and maintain commercial and industrial fire protection systems. Some of his clients include Hershey Foods, Mars North America and Kellogg’s. Vance Clipson reports that he is a marketer at Nuance Communications (recently acquired by Microsoft) and continues to live in Seattle, where he was born. His wife, Terri, is a speech pathologist and they have two daughters. Grace went to Bowdoin College, and just finished her Masters in Art History at the U of Oxford and is moving to Boston to start her career. Sophie is a rising junior at Kenyon College and is planning to go into publishing. Their family’s greatest love is international travel and they took a summer trip to South Africa and then Dublin to drop Sophie off for study abroad. Vance is still great friends with Mike Brothers and his family. Vance and his daughter Sophie stopped by their house for deep dish takeout when they were driving her car out to Ohio. Now that he is an empty nester, Vance hopes to travel to ND for his first game in decades and tailgate with as many of you as possible. Join the ND MBA 1991 Facebook Group! Please keep sharing your news! — Patty (Spiekermann) Lynch; pattylynch05@gmail.com

 

91JD Hello Out There

I do not have any news to share for this issue (insert sad face emoji). Help me change that and send me an update. I know many of you have interesting news to share so please do so. Call, text, email, or snail mail me even the slightest bit of news.  Until next time, act justly, love tenderly, and walk humbly with your God. — Martha Trout; 12823 Clark St., Clive IA 50325; 515-249-9235; marthatrout@gmail.com

 

92 Onto the Next Celebration

The buzz of our 30th reunion was the official changing of the words of the Victory March to now say “…while her loyal sons & daughters march on to victory.” My roommates and I always sang the song with those words, so we like to think we were early adopters leading this charge. Was fun to see so many gather (almost 150 classmates attended) and share memories and family updates. I came to the realization that we graduated 120 columns ago. I think I missed one or two submissions over the years, but if hearing 30 years did not make me feel old, 120 articles did. Some of us even made it to the ‘Backer for a few drinks – and they still ask for ID! It was the same sidewalk-free walk back towards campus. Thanks to Steve Fortunato’s comments – we only have 5-6 reunions left – well after we hit the 50th reunion, we can actually attend every year if interested. Best Airbnb goes to Gil Gomez and Mike Flecker who rented a home that had a room with a bar. Debartolo is not just a building but a quad of buildings, so definitely ask twice when seeking directions. Maureen (Nelligan) and hubby Tom Fischer made the trek to campus three weeks in a row – for their daughter Anna’s Class of ’22 graduation then Patrick’s return to campus for his ’20 graduation celebrated in ‘22, so why not come see classmates and friends for their 30th?! It was fun that they made it back to the tents for a quick catch up. Laura McCoy was also on campus prior to reunion for her son’s graduation redo – Eddie was part of the class of 2020. He received his degree in Civil Engineering. Her other son graduated from TX A&M in 2020 and became a police officer in April. Her daughter will be a sophomore in high school. Diane Russo shared the travel journey and details about hubby Col. Joe Russo USMC celebrating 30 years of service to our nation as a Marine with a special retirement ceremony in June on the 104th anniversary of the WWI battle. The celebration of retirement and history “Through the Wheat” took place in Belleau Wood, France fields where the WWI battle of Belleau Wood was held in 1918. What a special way to honor that day. College bound: Wendy (Shields) and Kyle Freimuth’s daughter Ariana will be a freshman at Vanderbilt in the fall. Books released: in July by author and journalist Pete Loftus: The Messenger: Moderna, the Vaccine, and the Business Gamble That Changed the World. Check out peteloftus.com for more details. Also released during the summer: Power Priests by Greg Hendry. It features 12 stories for teens with three ND alumni featured. More at fromheavenbooks.com. In July, seven of the Lewis 8-Chick gathered in Ocean City, NJ for a quick mini reunion. Maria (Reda) Gulli, Colleen (Danaher) Contreras, Kris (Cebulla) Thompson ’93, Lisa (Broeren) Richards, Kathy (Lamprecht) Prue, Jen (Sorice) Clark, myself, and honorary Lewisite Kristin Friel enjoyed yoga and walking on the beach, biking, tennis and some dolphin watching in Cape May. Definitely energizing to spend time with classmates – on an off campus. If I did not share the scoop you sent me, please resend! If you have scoop, please share. Note the new alumni website & photo directory. Go to my.nd.edu & share any family news, mini-reunions, or graduations. Class FB Page: U of Notre Dame, Class of 1992. God Bless & Go Irish! — Jill-Beth (JB) Hayes; ndclassof92@gmail.com 

 

92MBA Class Secretary — Julie Pendell;

pendell.julie@gmail.com 

 

92JD Class Secretary — Paul A. Drey;

6701 Westown Parkway, Suite 100, West Des Moines IA 50266; bus 515-271-1765; paul.drey@brickgentrylaw.com 

 

93 In Memoriam

I am sorry to share that we have lost two classmates. Sean Kelley passed away unexpectedly on March 9. Sean is survived by his mother; his college sweetheart and wife, Maria Kelley and his children, Aidan and Megan. Sean founded Depasquale, Kelley & Co, a property tax consultant firm, in Irvine CA, over 27 years ago. He was an avid fan of Mel Brooks movies and some of his fondest moments were movie nights at home with the kids. He loved to travel and have adventures, from the Grand Canyon to the top of The Empire State Building, a trip on the London Eye or the Eiffel Tower; he enjoyed every journey. He was a video gaming master and loved gaming with his kids and his nieces and nephews, sometimes “letting them win;” back in the day, his Tetris and Guitar Hero skills were epic! Please visit www.oconnormortuary.com to sign an online guest book and share your memories with Sean’s family. Dr. Vincent Buonaccorsi of Huntingdon PA, passed away on June 30 at his residence following a courageous battle with cancer. Vince is survived by his parents, Janice Patricia (Holland) and William Thomas Buonaccorsi ’60, as well as his wife, Kristin (Caruso) of almost 28 years. In addition to his wife and parents, Vince is survived by three children, Andrew, James, and Grace, all of Huntingdon. He also leaves behind seven siblings and numerous nieces and nephews. After Notre Dame, Vince attended the College of William & Mary, receiving his doctorate in marine biology in 1998; he then worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Southwest Fisheries Science Center, part of the National Marine Fisheries Service in San Diego. Dr. Buonaccorsi next relocated to Huntingdon to join the faculty at Juniata College, where he was a professor of biology for the past 21 years and was recently named the 55th recipient of the Beachley Award for Distinguished Teaching on May 17. He transformed undergraduate education in genomics and bioinformatics through his innovative contributions to scholarship and research. Vince was an outdoor enthusiast who enjoyed hiking, skiing, kayaking, and biking. He also loved bird watching and was affectionately known as a giant pumpkin growing expert. For those of you who regularly flipped through our freshman year dog book, you’ll remember Vince as the classmate who humorously submitted a picture of a dog (one can only assume it was his!) instead of his senior year high school headshot. Please visit www.johnbbrownfuneralhome.com to sign an online guest book and express your condolences to Vince’s family. We will remember Sean and Vince, as well as all classmates who have gone before us, at our 30th reunion next year, so mark your calendars for early June to be back in the Bend. Connect with me via LinkedIn if you have suggestions for reunion activities. Joe Huston, Joe Burke, Kelly (Fitzpatrick) Wevley and I would love and greatly appreciate your input! — Anne Marie (Krauza) Yuhas; 623-606-7000; yuhas93@gmail.com

 

93MBA Football Season is Here!

Hello everyone! I hope you are all healthy and making joyful moments and seeing God every day in this crazy world. Speaking of joyful moments, football season is here! I will be attending the UNLV game on Oct. 22. If any of you will be in town for this game, please text me at 317-987-5000. I would love to say hi and catch up for a little bit! — Tricia Hug Schorr; 317-987-5000; thugschorr@yahoo.com

 

93JD Class Secretary — Joe DiRienzo;

DiRienzo & DiRienzo, 116 Saint Paul St., Westfield NJ 07090; res 908-812-2765; bus 908-233-6700; jd1@dirienzo-law.com

 

94 Fifty is Nifty

50th celebrations abound this year as most of our classmates celebrated this milestone birthday along with a celebration of the University’s admission of women in 1972. Sean Quinn celebrated his 50th birthday with his two brothers golfing at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Oregon. Ellen (Zahren) and Herbie Calves were part of a ’94 group who celebrated their birthdays in Aruba in May, along with Jen and John Ghingo; Sara and Michael Masone; Christina and Matt Thrall; Elizabeth and Dave Coleman; Melissa and Dave Hoeffel; Olga and Pete Skinner; and Robin and James Ford. Classmates at the Golden is Thy Fame reunion in May included Anne (LaFleur) DeMarco, Alicia (Feehery) Wolf, Kate (Bambrick) Richardson and Elizabeth (Macor) Groupp. They also celebrated Kate’s promotion to full professor of Management at Pace U’s Lubin School of Business in NYC. Others working in education include Jessica O’Hara, a tenured professor at Penn State U and Ashanti Ordone, CEO and Owner of Gifted and Talented Child Development Academy in Indianapolis. Other career achievements include Michael Zimmer being named Director of the new Center for Data, Ethics, and Society at Marquette U, where he’s also on the faculty of the Department of Computer Science. Sean O’Reilly has served on the NDAA Board of Directors for four years and has been elected to serve as President of Notre Dame’s Alumni Association for the coming 2022-23 term. Sean and his wife Sara ’98 live outside Philadelphia with four children, Maureen (ND ’25 and a sophomore in Farley), Bridget, Delaney, and Patrick. Matt Cashore began photographing our class’s freshman orientation for The Dome Yearbook in 1990, and 32 years later, serves as Senior University Photographer. Matt shared that he’s lucky to have had a front row seat to ND’s visual history for the last 30+ years, and he hopes that he has helped alumni and friends far and wide stay connected to campus. If you see Matt at a football game, give him a shout and say hello! Oscar McBride has been named head football coach of Murrieta Mesa HS in California while Bryant Young was inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame. Congratulations are also in order to Jerome Bettis, who will always be part of the class of ’94 while also a graduate of ND’s class of ’22. Erika (Lindhjem) and Ben Horan celebrated 24 years of marriage (they got married at the Basilica!) and have four sons – a senior and two freshmen at Indiana U and an 8th grader adjusting to being the only child at home. Mary Gleason had lots to celebrate this year including ND and the FBI both admitting women 50 years ago. She attended the Golden is Thy Fame event in May, and is celebrating 16 years with the FBI where she is currently a Supervisory Special Agent in Phoenix. Mike Rozembajgier has been named Global VP of ESG for Stericycle. He and his wife, Rose (Dilenschneider), serve on the board for the ND Alumni Club of Indianapolis and have two daughters at ND. Look for their “Rozembajgier” flag this fall in the Stadium lot! In sad news, please keep the families of Maureen Haley Swade and (Karmen) Latrice Waters (who passed in December ’21 and January ’22, respectively) in your prayers. Finally, many thanks to Joe Poe who’s been managing these updates for the past few years and has passed the baton to Matt Cannizzo and Elizabeth (Macor) Groupp. They want to hear from you, so please email them your update at — Joe Poe; ndclass1994@yahoo.com

 

94MBA An Eventful Summer 

By the time this is published, we should be into the fall and football season. Summer has gone way too quickly. As indicated in the last column, several are attending (or have now attended) the Marshall game: Angela (Stavropoulos) Laurite, Elizabeth (Ix) and Tom Buccellato, Jenner Davis, Scott Steiger, Diana (Stratbucker) Cook, Megan (Lee) and Dave Hilal, and J. Matt Carr will all be in attendance. Michael. D. Mulligan and Matthew Kavanaugh will be at that game as well. David Pasquale and Kevin “Dook” Dougherty are making an appearance at the Cal game. If anyone has a place for Dave to stay, please let him know. Attendees at the BYU game in Vegas will be Hilal, plus Mulligan, Pierre Nona, Daniel J. Pezolt, Matthew Kavanaugh, Christopher B. Ohlmeyer and myself. It’s been an eventful summer. Jenner came to visit us in Atlanta which was of course the highlight. We hung out by the pool, played a lot of games, and laughed. Jenner also attended the “Marcus vs. Marcus” ND Law event in NYC with Kristina Laurite. Matt Carr has started a new position at AWS in analytics, and he and his wife Kelly spend as much time as possible at their lake house in Oconee GA. Angela and I are still waiting for the invite. Varun Gera and his family have apparently been doing a lot of fun traveling including to the Seychelles. Charles Oliva, our fearless class President, turned 60 this year! As Jenner pointed out, Charles has known his MBA classmates for half of his life. His wife, Adele, threw him a surprise birthday party/event in Carmel CA. Bob Crissman and Andy Banton represented our class in celebrating Charles. They played golf at Pebble Beach and Spanish Bay. From the pictures I saw, it looked like a great time. Charles did reach out to me with a very nice email and provided some additional updates. His two sons are attending USC and he plans to be at the USC game in LA over Thanksgiving weekend. Charles has been enjoying retirement by helping nonprofits with their multimedia needs and helping them tell their stories through videos and photos. A very impressive and cool endeavor, if I do say so myself. I can’t recall if I wrote yet about Gretchen and Dan Brewer moving back to Michigan from Colorado, but there’s no harm in repeating it. Perhaps we will see them at a game in South Bend this year? I was able to attend the Billy Joel concert at ND Stadium in June with M. Scott Aubry (thanks for the tickets and hospitality, Scott), Nona, Kavs and the Dookster.  I’m now on the third column, thanks to Shannon (Davis) Pezolt ’92SMC, with the “where are they” section of the column. I will keep the pressure on Mark Murphy and Mike Smiggen, who I called out in the last column, as well as Jim Gates, Sara Gill, Chris Fitzsimmons, Kevin Fitzsimmons, and Bob and Colleen Costello. Please reach out to me with updates on your own lives. Beth Bonczek or Laura Tonella – nothing?  You too, Kevin Berch and Dan Gillig! And I’ll try one more time with Craig Hartman, Miguel Ardaiz and Julie (Ying) Sheng? How about Sandy Schmitz? I could research on LinkedIn, but what would be the fun of that? Please let Angela and me know how you’re doing! I need more info to fill out this column. — Rodger Laurite; 678-644-0422; rodgerlaurite@hotmail.com

 

94JD Wedding Bells and Concert Season

Corinne and Russell Carr celebrated the wedding of their daughter, Emmi, to Jeffrey Clemence in Chicago over Memorial Day Weekend. Emmi and Jeff met in undergrad at Michigan – where Emmi continued on to earn a Master’s Degree in Health Informatics. The groom is completing his medical degree at Michigan State. Other classmates in attendance included Melissa (McAndrews) McCaulley, Lisa and Pete Smith, Lisa and John Rita, and Christine and Mike Castellino. Despite all of the Michigan alumni in attendance, a great time was had by all. Russ is continuing his tax practice at EY and Corinne is now the Chief Compliance Officer at Route. In June, Kurt Kjelland flew in from San Diego and Jim Carrig came down from Milwaukee to meet up with Pat Nagle in Chicago for the Dead & Company band’s show at Wrigley. — Doug Duncan; pdouglasduncanjr@yahoo.com

 

95 The Big Conn

In June, our class celebrated our 25th reunion two years later! A special thank you to Steven Cieckiewicz, Class President, for his work in organizing a wonderful weekend. Mary Ellen (Conte) Ault writes that she was able to make it back to ND in June for the reunion with Marie (Hauck) Wilson, Eileen Murphy, Sergio Lucero, and Joanna (Parsons) Sherry. She also picked up her dad Frank F. Conte ’56 in Pittsburgh on her way there and got to spend the weekend with him, too. Even though it was a small group, they had a blast and she hopes to see more of you at the next reunion! Mary Ellen has been living in Houston for the past 16 years with her husband, Nick, and their ten-year-old son, Anthony. After 14 years as an IT Project Manager and Certified Salesforce Administrator, she decided to branch out last year and is currently Sr. Director of Technology Services at United Allergy Services working fully remote. Congratulations to Christopher Cavello and his wife who welcomed their first daughter in the spring. The baby was delivered by classmate Dr. Linbee Valencia. If all goes according to plan, she will be ND Class of ’44! Lynn and Michael Hanley live in the north suburbs of Chicago and are thrilled to have their first child off their payroll. Their oldest son graduated from Indiana U. They have three more to go, including a son at U of Illinois, a daughter in high school, and a son in fifth grade pulling up the rear. Keary Husain shared that after graduating, he returned home to Columbia MO where he took graduate level classes at the U of Missouri and coached his former high school soccer team. He also coached the U of Missouri women’s soccer team and transitioned them from a club to a D1 varsity sport. Keary then attended medical school at Wayne State U in Detroit and completed his general surgery residency and surgical critical fellowship at Washington U in St. Louis. He was on faculty at Washington U for eight years as a trauma and emergency surgeon and surgical intensivist. Keary is currently based at a level one trauma center in St. Louis. Keary has three amazing children, Danny, 11 (named after Keary’s grandfather and former ND football coach, Dan Devine) and twin daughters, Maggie and Charlie, who are six. I am excited to report that Trey Alford was featured in a recent true crime documentary produced by Apple TV+ called “The Big Conn.” Trey was a prosecutor involved in this case that involved an estimated $550 million Social Security fraud scheme – the largest in American history. Since 2008, Trey has served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney (a federal prosecutor) for the Western District of Missouri in Kansas City Missouri. Trey served in the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps (JAG corps) for seven years prior to being a prosecutor for the Department of Justice. We are looking forward to a great football season at our house and will be heading back to campus for the Stanford game! Thank you for all the great updates, please keep them coming. Go Irish!  — Molly Donius Boscarino; 745 LeBrun Road, Amherst NY 14226; 716-834-1893; mdboscarino@gmail.com

 

95MBA Class Secretary — Renee Werner;

134 Willow Blvd., Willow Springs IL 60480; 773-528-3929; renee.werner@alumni.nd.edu

 

95JD A Bright Future

Tom Conaghan, a partner at McDermott Will & Emery in Washington, DC writes: “I was able to attend an ND Law reception in NYC a couple weeks ago where I was able to see Dean Marcus Cole host a discussion with Coach Marcus Freeman. After hearing both, I am very excited about the future of both ND Law School and ND Football!” Hope to see you all on campus this fall. Keep the updates coming. — Julia Meister; meister@taftlaw.com

 

96 Class Secretary — Kate Crisham;

Seattle WA; catherine.crisham@usdoj.gov 

 

96MBA Class Secretary — Maureen Maher;

ndmba96news@hotmail.com

 

96JD Good Times, Bad Times

Tammy Ramos has been back to Notre Dame twice this year supporting ND’s DEI goals. She’ll be back again in August. Tammy got to enjoy the Blue Gold game and tailgate with Ed Purdue and their respective families, including Tammy’s 18-year-old son, Gabriel Ellis, who is considering Notre Dame. Go Irish! Jodi and Chris Spataro took a dream vacation to London/Paris, where they saw The Rolling Stones and The Eagles in concert in Hyde Park on consecutive nights. In other Spataro music news, Chris’ daughter, Rebecca Spataro, recently moved to Chicago and signed a contract with a small record label. She hopes to be a singer, and plans to have her “name in lights within five years.” On a sad note, Matthew Hicks had a heart attack and passed away in his home in Boise ID on Easter Sunday. He is survived by his two teenage children. Please keep the Hicks family in your prayers. Finally, tickets to the UNLV vs. ND mini-reunion football game on Oct. 22  are still available. Reach out if you are interested. — Chris Spataro; 57027 Wedgefield Court, Elkhart IN 46516, 574-596-2417; chrisjspataro@gmail.com 

97 Reunion Fun

It was the perfect weekend for our 25th reunion. The weather was perfect and the Dome was looking especially Golden welcoming us all back home. It was great to see old friends and make new friends. This year had the extra wrinkle of having the Class of ’95 celebrating with us. It was great to see those schoolmates as well. It was reliving the “golden days.” Special thank you to all my fellow Reunion Committee members, Mike Zinser, Pete Ugo, Tim Kerr, Bridget (O’Connell) Collins, and Courtney (Grounds) Lowery for all the hard work that went into making our 25th Reunion weekend extra special. Thank you also to Rev. Chris Trenta who helped in planning, celebrating, and even singing a Capella in our Class Mass at the Grotto. Another shout out to G.R. Nelson and Kristin (Ausanka) Cefalo for volunteering to be the readers for the Mass. We were also able to give special prayers and reflection to our 24 deceased classmates. A candle was lit for each one at the Grotto in remembrance of their life and legacy. For our Class Dinner on Saturday night, we were treated to an amazing dinner in the Stadium with a fun talk by Tommy Rees ’13. Thank you to Jim Collins for helping to secure Tommy. Tommy was a great sport and really allowed for a lot of leeway in our Q&A time. It looks like we are going to have a great football season under a new leader. Please mark your calendars for five years from now, the first weekend in June, for our 30th reunion. The other class officers and I may have finally figured out how we can make the weekend perfect. With every reunion we come up with bigger and better ideas. I can only imagine what the 30th will bring. For those that could not make it this year, I sure hope to see your faces in town for a football game this fall. Please stay safe and healthy. Please send all updates to Kate (Fisher) Murray. — Kate (Fisher) Murray; 1840 Huntingdon Road, Huntingdon Valley PA 19006; kmurraynd@yahoo.com

 

97MBA New Opportunities

Fellow MBAs of ’97: I hope this edition of our class notes column finds you all doing well. Since our last class notes I’ve had the opportunity to hear from a few of our classmates.  Anthony Jowid informed me that he has joined American Residential Services as their VP and is based out of Los Angeles. Congratulations, Ant, on this exciting opportunity! Wishing you much success and happiness. John “JJ” Evans and I are still working on plans to hang out together soon. I will keep you posted on this as we continue to make progress toward our goal.  Meanwhile, JJ lives and works up in Poughkeepsie NY practicing law. Tim Coff stays in touch often which is always appreciated. Tim is CEO at Viewpointe, cloud-based services headquartered in Charlotte NC. Tim and family (Katie, Mary Elizabeth & Charlie) are all doing great! Here in New York, we had a great summer season. On Long Island, where we live on the south shore, shark-sightings at the beaches were the hot topic. I personally didn’t see any sharks when at the beach, but I did see a dolphin (at least that’s what the lifeguard said it was). Speaking of Long Island, this summer’s 16th Annual Long Island Comedy Festival shows continued to feature top comic talent from around the country with hilarious shows at top area venues. Several of the theater venues we partner with are still struggling with COVID challenges, which impacted attendance at several of the performances. But the “shows went on” as they say. We remain positive and continue to move forward as we work through these issues. We can only control what we can control. Or something like that. As always, please stay in touch. You can find me on LinkedIn as “Paul Anthony,” call or text at (646) 584-7340, or email me at paulanthonymba@gmail.com.  I look forward to hearing from many more of you for our next installment! Until then, stay well! — Paul Anthony Mongelluzzo; 646-584-7340; paulanthonymba@gmail.com

 

97JD Florida and a Trip to DC

Mitch Silver headlined a standup comedy show, “Mitch Silver’s 50th Birthday Comedy Bash!” in Orlando. Mitch will also appear in the feature film to be released this fall, A Christmas Karen. In other Florida news, Brad Larson switched jobs from being the State Staff Judge Advocate for the Florida National Guard to being the United States Property and Fiscal Officer for Florida. Brad is enjoying his move from practicing law to money and military equipment. Ray Tittmann chaperoned his high school daughter’s senior trip to DC. While there, Ray and the students met with Justice Amy (Coney) Barrett who took substantial time to answer questions from the young graduates, inspiring several future lawyers. Jack and I hope to catch up with some of you at the Clemson or BC games in November. Send me a note with news, let me know what’s happening or just say hi. The next set of updates is due in mid-October. Go Irish! — Julie Vales; cell 973-727-5767; juliemvales@gmail.com; john.vales@dentons.com

 

98 Educational Leaders

Kathleen (Jordan) Stowe was reelected to the Board of Education in Greenwich CT and was also elected Chair. Like all public-school systems across the nation, COVID has brought many challenges, but she has helped guide their system of nearly 9000 students and 15 schools through these memorable times. Job well done servicing your local community, Kathleen. David Madden is entering his 25th year of teaching and loving every minute. Most of his time has been spent in Chicago, then Seattle, and he now lives with his wife and two children in Tallahassee FL. Dave created a YouTube channel called Madden Science with the goal of inspiring wonder and awe. He is helping viewers learn science by highlighting the fun and interesting concepts in our natural world. Dave covers subjects ranging from biology to physics to biomimicry. Search for “Madden Science” on YouTube and check out his page at maddenscience.com. He would love the help building up his channel. Go Irish! — Bob Flannery; rflannery98@gmail.com

 

98MBA Great to Hear From Friends

Well, it seems the benefit of me picking up this role is reconnecting with people I really enjoyed back in the day. I hope it’s great for you, too! In this edition, Dan Marchetti wrote in to celebrate a great milestone: 30 years of marriage with Trudy! It seems they survived not only the MBA journey together, but much, much more! And their daughter, Belle, is starting her Junior year at ND to boot! Dan is the CFO at Urschel, a global company making the slicers, dicers, shredders and more that get your foods prepped. Mike Riegel is now CEO of ScoutAPM, a small software company, and is also an operating partner at Camber Partners, a small private equity firm that just focuses on Saas companies. Seems that after his four years at CloudFactory, he was ready for something with a lot less global travel. Liz – another great spouse during those MBA years! – is now working in Campus Ministry at Duke. Their eldest child, Sarah (born just after our MBA graduation), is an ER nurse at Duke Hospital, while his son, Mark, is a senior at Gonzaga, and Megan is a sophomore at Boston College. They still reside in Cary NC, where they moved after leaving South Bend. Justin Johnson has been active with work and kids, too. He founded an NFT company in the sports and entertainment space called Mercury. It represents universities, teams, and leagues in the space capitalizing upon NIL opportunities in college and professional athlete platforms. His eldest daughter, Sydney, will be a Junior at Stonehill College; son, Casey, is attending Salve Regina U in Newport RI where he plays lacrosse; and youngest daughter, Shea, is a senior at Saint Dominic High School in Oyster Bay NY. He and Dave Kucyk are headed on a hunting trip to Kentucky in the fall so, y’know, lay low if you’re in that area! Thanks to all for writing in. Keep it coming! — Mark Holloway; mholloway@alumni.nd.edu

 

98JD Class Secretary — Chris Putt;

574-514-3703; crputt@gmail.com

 

99 You’re in the Army Now

Greetings from South Bend. I hope you all had an enjoyable summer and are having an equally enjoyable fall. Elizabeth (McPike) and Ryan Ray ’98 are proud to announce their oldest son, Owen, accepted an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point, and is a member of the Class of 2026. Owen completed New Cadet Basic Training over the summer prior to beginning his studies, which he found challenging but very rewarding. Elizabeth and Ryan’s daughter, Hannah, is a graduate student at Marquette getting her DPT (doctorate in physical therapy) degree. She is planning on working in pediatrics upon graduation. Elizabeth and Ryan have two other sons at home, Liam, 12, and Finn, 6. Elizabeth is a 7th grade science teacher, and Ryan works for Abbott. Let’s go Irish! — Ryan D. Costantini; 414 S. Notre Dame Ave., South Bend IN 46617; mobile: 574-339-8050; ryan.costantini@gmail.com

 

99 MBA Class Secretary — Christy (Hayes) King;

christyking@alumni.nd.edu

 

99JD Class Secretary — Steve Boettinger;

boettinger@alumni.nd.edu