April 29, 2019

Dispatches Spring 2019

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1965
James Stahl [SciEng] was appointed to the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board by Gov. Jerry Brown in November 2018. Stahl has been president of JFS Environmental Engineering since 2015.

1968
Rick Adelman [LibArts, GradLibArts ’76] was named in December 2018 as a candidate for the 2019 class of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, located in Springfield, Massachusetts. Adelman led the Lions in scoring in his junior and senior seasons and was the third player in program history to average more than 20 points per game in a single season.

1972 
David Grant [LibArts, GradEd ’80] was named a member of the American Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame in July 2018. For 35 years, he was head coach at Glendale Community College in Glendale, Arizona, as well as director of athletics from 2000–14. Grant also was a coach for the USA Under-18 team.

1973  
Samuel Abrahamian [CFA] was nominated and elected Grand Knight (Columbian Year 2018–19) of the Knights of Columbus Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta Council #14554 in Winchester, California.

Kathi (Robinson) Koll wrote a memoir, titled “Kick-Ass Kinda Girl” and released in October 2018, about caring for her husband after he suffered a stroke.

Gary Rafferty [SciEng] received the 2018 Associated General Contractors of California Construction Education Friend Award this past October. The award recognizes individuals who made outstanding contributions to construction education efforts and the development of a future construction workforce. Rafferty recently retired as president and COO of San Francisco-based Swinerton Builders.

1975 
Paul Sunderland [LibArts] was inducted into the Southern California Indoor Volleyball Hall of Fame on May 5. Sunderland, who played both basketball and volleyball at LMU, was a member of the U.S. National Men’s Volleyball team from 1976–84. He is a member of the LMU Athletics Hall of Fame and the U.S. Volleyball Association Hall of Fame.

1976
Neil Barclay [CFA, Law ’87] was named CEO of the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History this past January. He has been executive director and CEO of the Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans and also founding president and CEO of the August Wilson Center in Pittsburgh.

1977
John Corrigan [CFA], who has been The Wall Street Journal’s China business editor since 2016, joined the paper’s Washington, D.C., bureau in January 2019 as business editor. He was part of the team that produced the China surveillance series, “China’s Surveillance State,” which won the 2018 Loeb Award in International Reporting.

Nick Daffern [LibArts] flew his last trip as captain with Alaska Airlines on June 4, 2018, closing out a 32-year career with the company. His wife, Anne, retired from her position as CFO of a local company this past July. They’re completing the building of a new home in Woodinville, Washington, and looking forward to traveling to Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

1979
Mary (Cassidy) Keith [CBA], who is president of Global Product Solutions, an export management and consulting company based in Las Vegas, was honored on March 30, 2019, as a Distinguished Alum for Entrepreneurship by her high school alma mater, Ramona Convent Secondary School in Alhambra, California.

1981 
Norma Martínez-Rubin [SciEng] was elected to the city council of Pinole, California, on Nov. 6, 2018. The top vote-getter, she was sworn in for a four-year term on Dec. 4, 2018.

1983 
Jeffrey Kambak [LibArts] is CEO of U.S. Operations for Trident Global Inc., the U.S. division of The Trident Group. Trident is a manufacturer of bath towels, sheets and bath robes. He opened the company’s U.S. operation in 2014.

Marco Paolini [CFA] received an Academy Award at the Annual Scientific and Technical Awards Presentation this past February for scientific and technical achievement for his SilhouetteFX retroscoping and paint software.

Michael Pipich [LibArts] is a psychotherapist who has worked with adolescents and adults for more than 30 years. He is the author of “Owning Bipolar: How Patients and Families Can Take Control of Bipolar Disorder,” which was published in September 2018.

1984 
Markus Kessler [BusAdm] co-founded a consulting firm called Humanista that advises on questions about social entrepreneurship. Kessler works from his home in Munich, while his partner is based in Boise, Idaho.

1985 
Jon Peters [SciEng] was promoted to assistant chief of the Los Angeles Police Department in November 2018. He was previously the deputy chief of the Personnel and Training Bureau, commanding officer of Operations-West Bureau and captain of the Pacific Division, which includes Westchester and the LMU campus.

1988
Barbara Oliver [LibArts] was named executive director of the Minority Limousine Operators of America this past September. She was previously publisher of Minority Business Entrepreneur Magazine.

1989 
Anne Cavassa [LibArts] was named president of Saucony, which is headquartered in Lexington, Massachusetts. She took her post in May 2018.

Kate Sullivan Morford [LibArts] has produced a new cookbook, her third, “PREP: The Essential College Cookbook,” which she calls a starter cookbook for young people.

1991 
Juli Goodwin [LibArts] was appointed chief communications officer of the American Film Institute in September 2018. Goodwin previously was executive vice president of domestic publicity for Warner Bros. Pictures. Goodwin will serve on AFI’s senior management team, leading communications strategies for AFI’s national arts and education programs.

1992 
John Kovacevich [CFA] was named executive creative director at San Francisco ad agency Duncan Channon this past October. He wrote a piece posted on Medium.com about his decision to go to full-time work after more than three years of freelancing.

1993 
Faith DeVeaux [LibArts], Emily Aguilar [SFTV ’15] and Katherine Smith sold their movie, “Clara’s Ultimate Christmas,” to Bridgestone Multimedia Group at the fall 2017 American Film Market. Their horror film “Pipeline” appeared at the fourth annual Global Impact Film Festival in Washington, D.C., in August 2018.

1994 
Oliver de la Paz [LibArts] was promoted to full professor in the Department of English at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, in February. His essay on gluttony appeared in the summer 2017 edition of LMU Magazine.

Kimlin Charise Johnson [SciEng] published “Authenticity, Accountability & Ambitions: Speaking the Truth Through a Black Woman’s Eyes,” her first book, this past August.

1996
Ana Maradiaga [LbArts], who is a lecturer in the LMU Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, married James Bunker, associate professor of communication studies, on Oct. 26, 2018, in a civil ceremony in Los Angeles.

2000 
Thibaut was born to Lysandra (Sapp) [BusAdm] and Lucas Donigian on Aug. 22, 2018. Thibaut was welcomed by his older sister, Ruinara, 2.

Dan Wyat [GradCFA] produced an original radio play called “The D.B. Cooper Transmissions” that was staged in Vancouver, Washington, on the night before Thanksgiving 2018. That day in 1971 was when D.B. Cooper hijacked an airliner and parachuted over the state of Washington, never to be apprehended, or even seen again.

2002
Seth Pevnick [GradEd] was named curator in charge of ancient Greek and Roman art by the Cleveland Museum of Art in December 2018. Pevnick is said to be particularly expert in provenance, or ownership history of ancient artworks. Since 2009, he has been chief curator of the Tampa Museum of Art in Tampa, Florida, as well as curator specifically of the collection of Greek and Roman art.

2003
Jacob Padrón [CFA] was named artistic director of the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut, effective February 2019. A former member of the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, he earned a master’s degree from the Yale School of Drama, where he teaches artistic producing in the graduate theater management program.

2006 
Allison Leanos [BusAdm, GradBusAdm ’09] started a new job in January 2019 as social media advisor with Southern California Edison.

2007
Sauda Esoof Bholat [SciEng] and Sufian Akther Shahid were married June 30, 2018, in Hawthorne, California. Bholat is an internist at Yale-New Haven Hospital in New Haven, Connecticut, and an assistant clinical professor of medicine at the Yale School of Medicine.

Thomas Xavier was born to Ana Paula (Martinez) [BusAdm] and Matthew Delja [LibArts] on Oct. 19, 2017, in Tokyo.

2009 
Vianey Lopez [BusAdm] was sworn in on Dec. 11, 2018, as one of seven members of the City Council of Oxnard, California. Lopez was elected in the November 2018 election to a four-year term in her first run for a council seat. She won by 10 percentage points in a field of four candidates.

2010
Denise Valadez [GradEd] was named associate superintendent of curriculum, spirituality and accreditation for the Diocese of Orange County, and its Catholic schools, in Orange, California in November 2018. She has taught religion and served as vice principal and principal of several Catholic schools in the Southern California area.

2011
José Martinez [LibArts], former LMU Loyolan editor, and Laura Riparbelli [LibArts ’12], former LMU Loyolan managing editor, were married on May 5, 2018, at the Santa Clara University Chapel.

2012
Julianna Malogolowkin [GradEd] was named an associate in the litigation department at Hinckley Allen in the firm’s Boston office. She has worked on general litigation matters and on specific issues related to government investigations, white collar defense, and labor and employment.

2014
Caroline Liviakis [CFA] premiered her “There’s A New Kid in Town” in May 2018 in San Francisco. The shows featured a cast of 12 dancers, multimedia dance film projections by the company’s resident cinematographer, and original music compositions by the company’s resident composer.

2017
Erin Barisano [GradEd], a graduate of LMU’s Ed.D. program, was named superintendent of schools for the Diocese of Orange County in Orange, California, in May 2018. She took her post, which involves the oversight of 41 schools with 18,000 students, in July. Barisano previously was deputy superintendent of schools for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

Jess Gabor [CFA] has been appearing on the television show “Shameless.” Her acting career took off when a producer attended a campus production of “Our Good Country” in which Gabor was part of the cast. As a child, she appeared as an extra in “Pirates of the Caribbean” films.