Pomona 94

Ann Brower

Hello from down under. I'm living in New Zealand at the moment, in Christchurch on the South Island to be more exact. I can't say I'm fulfilling some life-long dream to escape the rat-race and live in the south Pacific, but here I am and it sure is nice. It's an amazingly pleasant life, a 7 minute walk from the beach (not that I've measured). I swim in the ocean all the time, but haven't run into a dolphin in months! But I did stumble upon a penguin recently.

]]> From the house that I share with 2 other internationals, we can see the ocean, the snow-covered Kaikoura mountains, and just a bit of the Southern Alps. Our garden cottage has become quite the honeymoon destination for visitors from the continent, the UK, and the US of A. Come on down! I promise you won't regret it.
annbrower04 [at] fulbrightweb [dot] org

Mike Lyde

Still living in Long Beach, CA. I opened a research consulting firm, Lyde & Associates, in 2001 and teach courses at California State University, Dominguez Hills. Local 'Hens are welcome to contact me at dr_lyde(at)yahoo.com.

Giselle Ow-Yang

Terribly sorry to have cancelled on Reunion (gasp, I almost wrote "graduation). Grand Aunt No. 11 passed away, and her funeral was held on Reunion weekend. She was the last of her generation here in North America.

]]> Home I call Maryland now, where I play part research scientist and part business strategist for the Venture Technology group in MeadWestvaco. The rolling countryside of Maryland on the East Coast reminds me often of the emerald and turquoise of the Bay Area. I keep thinking that I will return. It is a question of timing.

Work, play, and pig patch are a stones throw away from the political hubbub of Washington D.C. After a grueling 7 years in the plastic heat and humidity of Atlanta, I am thankful for clean air, fluffly clouds scudding across blue skies, and fresh vegetables right off my neighbor's farm.

Most of my time these days is spent ice skating to escape cold winter wind or summer heat and to forget work stress. There is a vibrant adult figure skating and ice dance community here. I still keep in touch with Banghee Chi up in New York. Every couple of months, I jump on Amtrak at monolithicly gorgeous Union Station and zip up to the urban jungle of Manhattan where we might meet at "the little Belgian place". And absolutely, whenever there's a ballet performance at the Kennedy Center, you can most certainly bet and win that I will have attended the performance. Thank heavens for Jacqueline Kennedy's fine taste and sense of design. Washington is spoiled with quality music and dance, even free performances 365 days of the year! Good thing I didn't know about this back in undergrads, or I would not have enjoyed the sunny charm of Pomona and the hallowed halls of Harwood, ever my favorite of all the dorms.

See you at the 15th Reunion!

Very best regards,
~Giselle

Marcia Feuer

Hey everyone! So sorry to be missing our reunion weekend! Things are going well for me here in Atlanta. I moved down here from Philadelphia in 1998 to attend Goizueta Business School at Emory University (now #19 in US News!!). After b-school, I got a job with a software company in town and have been loving it ever since. And I just found out (today!) that I'm going to be relocating to Germany for six months to work on a big project for our largest client! I can't wait to go back to Berlin!

]]> You'll also be happy to hear that I've gotten back into singing. I am a member of the Song of Atlanta Show Chorus, a women's barbershop chorus in Sweet Adelines International. This 125-member chorus is amazing! We won 8th place in the world in 2002, and compete once again later this year (I will be back from Germany for that!). I also sing Lead in a barbershop quartet, and we came in 12th (out of 21) in our regional competition in March.

My friends here call me the "soccer mom" without a family... I have my house in the suburbs and drive a Volvo, but am not married yet. I narrowly avoided a huge marital mistake several years ago and have not found the right man for me. Some day.

Hope you are all well -- maybe I'll make the 15th...

- Marcia

Andrea Fortus

CLASS NOTE // After ten years, I'm still firmly rooted in extended adolescence. I spend my free time out dancing, fiddling with a variety of half-finished art projects, preparing for Burning Man, or just hanging out with some of the biggest weirdos I've ever had the good fortune to meet. You'd recognize some of these upstanding citizens as fellow Sagehens: hi, Mike, Mike, Roger, Becca, Casey!

]]> I've been working as a technical writer for one high tech company or another for a while now, first with an ill-fated series of start-ups and now with a networking behemoth. In a time when so many people here in the Bay Area are out of work, I'm fortunate to have a great job that even lets me work from home. My professional wardrobe includes a pair of fuzzy slippers.

Recently I dipped my toe into the waters of adulthood by pooling my resources with Becca Shortle to buy a duplex in San Francisco. I'm flush with the pride of home-ownership. Or I will be once the house is no longer in danger of collapsing in the next earthquake.

I'm looking forward to seeing you all at the reunion. Until then, I'd love to hear from anyone who remembers me. You can reach me at andrea(at)fortus.org.

Dave Cooper

CLASS NOTE // Escaping mundane of big city law to follow dream to Vermont. Finally able to breathe and reconnect with friends lost and/or misplaced. Tell me how at elfnpotter(at)mac.com.

Chi-Wai Au

CLASS NOTE // I'm looking forward to seeing and catching up with old friends. After graduate school in Oregon, I moved back to LA and have worked here since. Folks are welcome to contact me at pekngduk(at)hotmail.com.

Ivan Labra

CLASS NOTE // Glad to see Pomona in the blogsphere. Anyway a hello to all the people whose class I was in (or missed by sleeping too much) while we spent time in that country club we affectionately remember as college.

]]> I am across the pond living in Europe having clumsy conversations in a difficult language and designing software systems which more often than not, present incomplete and imperfect metaphors of the real world to users every day. I wear bright yellow shoes with blue stripes when I play squash for my team which has a chance to make it to the second bundesliga despite the fact that I remain a chubby lover of slow food and thick beer. If anyone is on the continent, feel free to drop in as I live in the heart of Europe, Stuttgart to be exact.

Adee,

Ivan

Reunion Ideas?

We'd like to gather some ideas for our 10 year reunion. Post them here.

]]> Here are some topics to get you started:
� Event suggestions for the weekend?
� What should we bring?
� Any classmates from '94 who might showcase their band / documentary /
bestselling novel?

Reunion Fund Update - 3.30.04

ANNUAL FUND // We've made the leap out of last place in class participation, but are far from beating the 54% participation record held by the class of 1991. Please get your donation to Pomona in the next month so that it can be counted before the reunion! Also, many of you work at companies that will match your gift - please let them know of your donation so they can contribute as well!

]]> We've already given you many facts and figures about how your gift can help students and the school. Please also think about how Pomona has made an impact on your life and your career - would you be where you are if you hadn't gone to Pomona?

Thank you, and see you in May!
Meta Puttkammer Valentic
Reunion Fund Chair

Meta Puttkammer Valentic

CLASS NOTE // I've been working in film and television ever since I graduated from Pomona. Living in LA keeps me in great touch with so many Pomona classmates plus I've gotten to know many grads from other years as well. It's a fantastic connection to have!

]]> My new husband Kyle has been a member of the Pomona Husbands' Club for 6 years now, and he loves inaugurating new members with a cigar and secret handshake. We bought a house near Silver Lake last year and we're working on fixing it up. Some of our fellow Sagehens (yes, Angelike!) are starting to procreate, but we're still a long way from that step!

When I think of my time at Pomona, of course I think of the great classes I took, fabulous facilities provided to us, and the fact that I can write a coherent sentence. But ultimately I have something much more important - my friends, who I couldn't live without. Cheers to a fantastic reunion, and remember - DONATE!

Giselle Arteaga-Johnson

CLASS NOTE // I've been working at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art for the past four years. I am Rights and Reproductions Assistant in the Publications Department. I work on obtaining photography and permissions for our exhibition catalogues, as well as licensing our own images for publication. Before working at LACMA, I worked at the UCLA Hammer Museum, The J. Paul Getty Museum and the Getty Research Institute in various capacities.

]]> A couple of years after Pomona, I attended the Museum Studies Program at USC where I received a Masters in Art History. I sometimes think I should have listened to my "inner librarian" and chosen a MLIS degree instead, but I'm lucky to have found a job that appeals to my need for order and documentation.

Through all of this, I've been blessed to be married to Craig Johnson '96, now Craig Arteaga-Johnson. We were married in Seattle in June 1997. He now works for the Annual Giving Office at Pomona--so be sure to give to the class gift! I feel quite fortunate to have found such a wonderful and loving man. We've been house-hunting in the Los Angeles area for some time (no easy task) and are hopeful that we will soon have a bit of land to call our own.

Kirstin Cruikshank Sego

CLASS NOTE // Over the last five years, all of the pieces of my life have started falling into place (save the career piece). I rode the Internet boom and bust for all it was worth. The bust was painful, but I would not trade the learning I got out of the whole experience for anything. I met some of the smartest and most dynamic people I have ever known (outside of Pomona, of course). One, in particular, was so spectacular that I felt destined to share a mortgage with him. Bungalow in San Mateo established, we thought we might as well get married. My husband Tom has been embraced by my Pomona friends, and is now a certified member of the Pomona Husbands' Club.

]]> Today I work at the Stanford Business School managing Web projects for the students and the various academic offices. I don't always love the work - I find it a little slow after the crazy dynamics at Excite and AltaVista - but I am certainly enjoying the benefits of working at Stanford - I find that my life has diversified greatly since the "boom" days. I am reading a ton, taking classes in everything from psychology to painting. We travel whenever we get a chance - recent trips include Italy (honeymoon), the Mayan Peninsula, Thailand, and Turkey (our favorite).

I really look forward to reconnecting with all the '94 Hens in a couple of weeks.

Roger Lai

CLASS NOTE // The last 10 years have been an amazing ride. After graduating from Pomona, I worked in Silicon Valley for about 5 years, going from tech support to recruiting to product management, working mainly at Caere Corp (now a part of ScanSoft), culminating in the launch of my product at the Demo99 conference. I returned to Southern California for a few years to get my MBA from USC, focusing on high tech marketing strategy. I was elected President of the MBA High Tech Association and awarded a Dean's Scholarship. After business school, I got a job at Adobe Systems, where I was Product Manager for the eBooks products during a very exciting time (if you know what this is about - I swear it wasn't my fault!). I got laid-off during the downturn in the tech industry, and have been enjoying unemployment ever since.

]]> Life away from work has been an adventure. I played volleyball in the Texas heat, snowboarded indoors in Tokyo, and took an all-night train journey to see a concert in New York (and ran into Nancy Pollak there). I've been stranded on an island off the coast of Cambodia, and had to beg for money in order to leave Thailand. I've travelled to 20 countries, totaled 2 cars, and broken 1 finger. There are videos online that disqualify me from running for public office (ask Mike Allen). I've lit my hair on fire more times than any of our classmates (ask Becca Shortle). I've written bad poetry in praise of clam chowder. I sculpted giant undersea cephalopods out of chicken wire, created paper mache tributes to breakfast cereal characters, and made a seahorse-shaped hat out of a manilla folder and duct tape. I'm also pretty good at spotting bargains at garage sales and thrift stores.

Through it all, many of my closest friends have been my fellow Sagehens. I've been lucky enough to move to live in the Bay Area, where I see Mike Allen, Becca, Shortle, Andrea Fortus, Mike Ciranni, Pam Rino, and Ed Gulick on a somewhat regular basis. And for some reason I have a talent for running into Pomona Alumni. I've happened upon Sagehens in video stores, burrito shops, BART stations, Social Security offices, concerts, art openings, while spinning fire at a big crazy festival in the desert, and in the back of a cab at Comdex in Las Vegas. Strangely, I've run into Mike Lin at industrial robotic art shows, the Sony Metreon, art openings, and at the corner deli (his corner, not mine). I swear I'm not stalking him.

Mike Lin

CLASS NOTE // I�m currently living in San Francisco with my wife Rosanna Jeremias (PO �96) and our daughter Alegr�a. Rosanna and I married in August of 2001. Several class of '94 alum attended our wedding including: Jeremiah Knight (who was my best man), Elizabeth Berger, John Brown, and Indra Bhagat. We live in Potrero Hill, where we purchased a condo a few months before Alegr�a's birth, which occurred on Feb. 26, 2003.

]]> I've spent the past 6 years in the Bay Area working in the tech industry, and witnessed the dot-com boom and bust first hand. I�ve been at Yahoo! for the past two years, and currently work as a visual designer on Yahoo! Shopping. Previous to that, I was employed at Sapient (an internet consultant) for four years, and worked on websites for various clients including Walmart.com, Nissan, and Williams-Sonoma.

It seems like the major events in my life have made it to print � my wedding appeared in Northern California Modern Bride, and an article about planning for Alegr�a's college education appeared in the Oct/Nov 2003 issue of Budget Living.