Class Notes
January 2005
Send your updates to dbusler@mail.utexas.edu.
Class of 1975
Peter A. Bernstein is the Director
of Global Marketing Communications, Wireline Business, for Telcordia Technologies
in Piscataway, New York.
Class of 1978
Susan Heitman works in U.S. Energy
Knowledge Management for PricewaterhouseCoopers in Houston.
Class of 1979
Jim Dimas has "been with the
Annie E. Casey Foundation in Baltimore for about four years now, where I am
a senior consultant. My part of the Foundation is a start-up enterprise that
helps state and local governments reform their human services systems by helping
our clients develop data-driven reform strategies and guiding them through
the early states of implementation."
Class of 1980
Isabel Nart is the Communications
Manager for the City of Houston Housing Authority.
Class of 1981
Tura Campanella Cook is a volunteer
grant writer for the American Friends Service Committee (Texas, Arkansas,
Oklahoma Area Office).
Class of 1982
Blaine Bull has left Public Strategies
and joined The StratCom Group in Austin.
Class of 1983
Paula Thiede, who surely must have
many visitors, is a Political Officer at the U.S. Embassy in Rome.
Susan Krivacic is Consultant and Owner
of PBG Consulting in Austin.
Class of 1984
Bill Coll is the Clinical Commander-Infection
Control Officer for the Austin-Travis County Emergency Medical Services Department's
Clinical Practice.
Class of 1985
Joanne Bogart is the Director of
Evaluation and Policy for the El Paso Collaborative for Academic Excellence.
Class of 1987
Brenda Harvey-Williams serves citizens
of the City of Pasadena as Finance and Management Services Administrator.
Class of 1988
Geoff Laredo has returned to the
National Institute on Drug Abuse as a Special Advisor to the Director of the
Office of Science Policy and Communications. He spent a year working as a
Policy Fellow with the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions
Subcommittee on Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services.
Scott DeFife works as a Senior Policy
Advisor to Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland on fiscal and economic
issues.
Class of 1989
Maria Labadan spent the summer in
Bulgaria, and when her USAID assignment there was cancelled, she and her family
moved back to Cairo, where she is taking a year off to spend more time with
her two children.
Amy Siebert is the Superintendent of Public
Works for the Town of Greenwich, Connecticut.
Class of 1990
Thanks to Jill Schamberger, for sending
information about herself and Larkin Jennings ('89),
who received awards from the Executive Council on Integrity and Efficiency
(PCIE). "The PCIE, composed of the Inspectors General of agencies whose
IGs are appointed by agency directors, each year accepts and reviews nominations
from the IG community for work completed on reviews, audits, and investigations.
Larkin, who is at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
OIG, and his team received an award for excellence for work they did on telecommuting
policies and potential cost savings. I am at the National Science Foundation
OIG, and my team and I received an award for excellence for an audit we did
on NSF's plans to evaluate its Math and Science Partnership Program."
Class of 1991
Joseph Bowman is Vice President for
Training and Curricular Development for The Wellness Promotion Group, LLP,
in Houston. And he looks quite well.
Jayne Nussbaum is Director for the Center
for Consumer and External Affairs at the Texas Department of State Health
Services.
Class of 1992
Barbara Samuels, another alumna who
probably has lots of visitors, is a Pediatric Fellow for Developmental Disabilities
with the University of Hawaii's Kapiolani Medical Center in Honolulu.
Class of 1993
Paige Buechley is the Managing Senior
Auditor with the Texas State Auditor's Office.
Tim Armstrong has enrolled in the one-year
Master of Laws (LL.M.) degree program at Harvard law School ending in June
2005. He continues his practice in Supreme Court and appellate litigation
with Howrey Simon & White in Washington, D.C., on a part-time basis. He
recently published an article, "Chevron Deference and Agency Self-Interest,"
in the Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy (volume 13, page
203, Spring 2004).
Class of 1994
Colleen Mahony continues to enjoy
her life as Agency Budget Specialist for Baltimore County and as a mom.
Class of 1995
Kennard Wright is a Placement Specialist
for Goodwill Industries of Central Texas.
Robin Redford is Assistant Vice President
for the Housing Finance Group with UBS Financial Services in New York City.
Class of 1996
LaTanya Flix is back in Texas, happily
working for the Fifth Ward Community Redevelopment Corporation in Houston.
Cliff Johnson is also in Houston working
as the Director of Public Affairs for NACE International: The Corrosion Society.
Tom Vincent is Country Director for the
American Refugee Committee in Minneapolis.
Andrea Fuller "got a tremendous
opportunity to go work for the National Center for Academic Transformation.
For those of you who are not familiar with the Center and the fabulous Carol
Twigg, the NCAT has proven that it is both possible to lower institutional
costs and improve quality in higher education through the effective use of
technology."
Class of 1997
From Mark Youman: "After 7
years in the same organization (unheard of in Northern VA), I've finally
made a career change. I'm now working at ICF Consulting. ICF is a leading
management, technology, and policy consulting firm. Drawing upon extensive
industry knowledge, experienced professionals, and innovative analytics, the
firm develops solutions to complex energy, environment, homeland security,
community development, and transportation issues. I will be focusing on management
and IT consulting in the public sector transportation area, initially focusing
on U.S. Department of Transportation agencies. In this position, I'm
looking forward to using more of the LBJ side of my joint program!"
Jose Carrillo directs Constituency Services
for the NALEO Educational Fund.
Class of 1998
Moving up the local government ranks, Wyatt
Shields is the Assistant City Manager of City of Falls Church, Virginia.
Class of 1999
Jeremy Mazur is the Chief of Staff
for Texas Representative Bill Callegari.
Sarah Glover is also headed for the Texas
Legislature, leaving the Center for Reform of School Systems, having accepted
a position with Speaker Tom Craddick to serve as an Education
Policy Analyst. "For a poly sci major, public affairs junkie, ed policy
geek, this is the heart of the action. (Maybe this indicates I need to get
out more.)"
Class of 2000
Abbie Wolf Dubin is Director of Corporate
Programs, National Shelter Outreach Department, for the American Society for
the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Durham, North Carolina.
Moon Gi Jeong has joined the faculty of
The University of Texas at San Antonio's Department of Public Administration.
Dinah Sbelgio Kinard serves St. Edward's
University as Assistant Director of Admissions. "Things are exciting
and dynamic over here. We are bringing in our largest freshman class ever,
615 kiddos, and they are the smartest, most diverse group the University has
ever enrolled."
Class of 2001
Elango Rajgopal is a Senior Telecommunications
Policy Analyst at the Texas Public Utility Commission.
Bert Ritvo has been selected for the position
of firm-wide Pro Bono Manager for Piper Rudnick in Washington, D.C. Earlier
in her career, Bert worked on a variety of pro bono projects,
including drafting part of an amicus curiae brief in the University of Michigan
affirmative action case, representing couples adopting children out of DC's
neglect system, and teaching sexual harassment classes.
Susan Vermeer is Project Manager, National
Center for Learning and Citizenship, for the Education Commission of the States
in Denver.
Prasant Sar has moved into the federal
government as a Financial Analyst with the Asset Sales Office, Office of Finance
and Budget, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Chris Reynolds and Gabriela Monzon
are both in the Washington area. He works for Abt Associates in Bethesda,
Maryland, and she for The Hispanic Council on International Relations in Washington,
D.C.
Class of 2002
Courtney Walker Hendricson is an
Executive Assistant in Management Services for the City of Austin.
Jessica Biddle Holoubek works in public
finance for Fulbright & Jaworski, LLP, in Houston.
Class of 2003
Stacey Crawford is a grant specialist
for the Round Rock Independent School District.
Mike Faust works for USAID as a Web Content
Specialist for the Office of Conflict Management and Mitigation.
Gilja Koo is a Homeless Services Program
Assistant for the Austin/Travis County Health and Human Services Division.
Jacob Reid has joined the Office of Representative
Dawnna Dukes as a Legislative Assistant.
Julien Ross is the Coordinator for the
Central Texas Immigrant Workers' Rights Center (CTIWoRC) in Austin.
According to its mission statement, "CTIWoRC empowers low-income immigrant
working men and women to secure fair treatment in the workplace through legal
advocacy and collective action. CTIWoRC seeks to create a safe place where
immigrant workers can unite and organize to systemically challenge and reform
exploitative conditions in the work-place. It achieves this mission through
workers' rights education, community organizing and the creation of
a workers' association, direct legal action, and coalition building
among workers and community partners." Umbrella organizations and partners
are: the Equal Justice Center, Catholic Charities Office of Immigrant Concerns
and Casa Marianella.
Class of 2004
Sweta Singh and Damon D'Arienzo
are both Carey Fellows working for the State of New York's Division
of the Budget in Albany.
Thomas Farmer is the Director of Government
Relations for the Nature Conservancy in Atlanta.
Francisco Campos-Ortiz is a Consultant/Visiting
Professor of Public Policy, working for Strategic Solutions Consulting and
the Mexico Autonomous Institute of Technology in Mexico City.
Isabel Oregon works as a Research Associate
for EdSource in Palo Alto.
Silvia Mera Gamboa is a Risk Manager in
Monetary and International Affairs for Banco de la Republica in Bogota, Colombia.
Meredith Despain has joined Deloitte Consulting's
Public Sector Practice in Austin.
Claire Campbell is an Executive Assistant
for Special Reports and Politics for NBC News in New York.
Hilary Cain is Representative
Lloyd Doggett's legal Counsel in Washington, D.C.
On the far side of the continent, Corey Walrod
is working for ConocoPhillips Alaska in Anchorage as a Financial Analyst.
Alison Garfield, a Presidential
Management Fellow, has joined the Department of Defense, Office of Economic
Adjustment.
