Kyle Smith Takes the Helm in Levien Gym - Columbia College ...

CLAss NOTEs Columbia CollEgE Today
on field trips with her preschool
class. I’m always glad to know of
another classmate in the area. Given
the number of CC/BC/SEAS ’90
alumni in the D.C. area, we could
throw quite a party. If anyone wants
to organize, let me know. It’s just
too bad that gemma tarlach won’t
be able to supervise the desserts.
She wrote in July, “Since graduating
from The Culinary Institute of
America a couple years back with
a fancy pants degree in baking and
pastry arts, I’ve worked everywhere
from the mega casino-resorts of
Las Vegas to a luxe ranch perched
at nearly 9,000 feet above sea
level in the Rockies to a super-posh
lodge on the South Island of New
Zealand. By the time this issue of
CCT is out, I will be in Antarctica.
I’m going to be one of the bakers at
McMurdo Station for about eight
months. This will be my seventh
continent and the realization of a
dream I’ve had since I was little, so I
am super-excited.”
Gemma, this is way cool. Have
any of the rest of us spent time in
Antarctica?
dan Max joined the law firm
of Apatoff Peters Ebersohl in Falls
Church, Va., as a partner and chair
of the business department. He
invites everyone to get in touch.
This is kind of funny. With
ijeoma acholonu Ejeh bringing
this column to a close, you will now
have read about 100 percent of your
Class Notes columnists. (Ijeoma and
Dan were my predecessors.) Ijeoma
and her family have been in Fayetteville,
N.C., for three years, having
finally stopped moving around
so much for fellowship training and
job opportunities, and are happy to
be back on the East Coast. She is a
laparoscopic general and bariatric
surgeon, and chief of bariatrics at
Cape Fear Valley hospital in Fayetteville.
She regrets having missed
seeing everyone at reunion.
If any of you has regrets for not
having sent me news or updates,
please don’t live your life in regret.
Just write!
REUNION JUNE 2–JUNE 5
ALUMNI OFFICE CONTACTS
ALuMNI AFFAIRs Taruna sadhoo
tds2110@columbia.edu
212-851-7849
DEVELOPMENT Rachel Towers
rt2339@columbia.edu
212-851-7833
91
Margie Kim
c/o CCT
Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
margiekimkim@
hotmail.com
Greetings, all! It’s a short column this
time, but entertaining nonetheless.
chris Kotes sent in this update:
“My wife, Lori, and I welcomed
our second 9 ½-plus-pound baby
into the world on July 21: 9 lbs.,
15 oz. Kyle Christopher, or KC, as
his older brother, Tyler (2), calls
him. I had 12 paid paternity weeks,
some unreal benefit of Bank of
America. I am truly blessed and
am enjoying my time with the
boys. I am not on Facebook but
my e-mail is kotey29@comcast.net
if anyone wants to catch up with
me. I recently changed positions at
the bank and now manage credit
card authorization approvals from
a fraud perspective. So if you have
good credit and still get declined,
that’s my team. Tyler is quite the
athlete already, playing golf, which
makes Dad happy.”
In January, ted stern ’94L started
a new job as general counsel at Envision
EMI in Vienna, Va. Envision
is a leader in providing experiential
educational programs to students
from grade school through college
throughout the world. In addition
to handling all legal matters, Ted
works in business development.
He and his family live in Washington,
D.C., and son Teddy recently
turned 7.
Looking forward to hearing from
more of you. Until next time, cheers!
92
Jeremy feinberg
315 E. 65th St. #3F
New York, NY 10021
jeremy.feinberg@
verizon.net
With a little bit of help from superhero
Class Notes Editor Ethan Rouen
’04J, I asked, and you answered. I
hated to have an empty column for
you last time. Absolutely hated it.
But you wouldn’t want me to make
stuff up. Please do keep the communication
lines open and let me know
what’s going on, like those who
wrote in this time.
I need to give credit to the first
of our classmates to use the newest
means to submit Class Notes, as
Ethan detailed in the last issue
(college.columbia.edu/cct/submit_
class_note). I was pleased to hear
from brenda (peterson) fowler
in this way, which is via the CCT
website. Brenda is a psychotherapist
and works with couples in Portland,
Ore. She “loves the wonder of being
a new-ish mom to Eleanor Rae
(1).” Brenda’s husband, Ben, is with
a start-up software company and
plays alto sax on the weekends.
Brenda raved about the life in the Pa-
cific Northwest, “Here in Portland,
life is full of gardens, backyard BBQ
gatherings, hikes in the woods and
other activities that make it a total
contrast to NYC.”
Facebook allowed me to catch
up with peter robbins. Peter is an
attorney for the U.S. Department of
Commerce and also has developed
a second full-time job as a writer
for and about the fishing and boating
industries. I don’t think Peter is
likely to be proven wrong in asserting
that he is “the only Ivy Leaguer
with a blog about professional bass
fishing called ‘Pete Weighs In’ (in
sideline.net/index.php/blog-pete).
Peter spends “just about every moment
away from the office” either
in a boat or towing the boat someplace.
Alums who live near Zapata,
Elizabeth weeks leonard ’93 was promoted to full
professor at the university of Kansas school of law.
NOvEMBER/DECEMBER 2010
62
Texas, Guntersville, Ala., Culiacan,
Mexico, or Lake Biwa, Japan, may
have seen him passing by.
Peter is in frequent contact with
his junior year roommate, greg
wiessner. Peter shares that Greg
and his wife, Jennifer, live in North
Yarmouth, Maine, with their sons,
Keji and Breton. In March, Peter
attended a surprise 40th birthday
party for rich brosnick in NYC,
where he reconnected with a host
of his fellow alums from Beta, including
Matt DeFilippis ’93, Bruce
Wacha ’95, Francois Furstenburg
’94, Matt Murphy ’94, Miguel
Javier ’93E, Rick Brenders ’95 and
Linden Edsel (Buff) Thomas ’91.
I saw andy contiguglia on his
New York visit this summer. He and
his girlfriend had a whirlwind tour
of Manhattan, in which he saw peter
hatch, Amy (Blumberg) Schraeder
and Karen Sendler ’94. Andy’s
encounter with Amy was the sort
of thing that could only happen in
New York: He was walking on 76th
Street toward Central Park when
two kids who were playing in a
street yard hit their tennis balls over
the fence and out into the street. One
of the balls bounced across the street
to where Andy was walking. When
he picked it up and went to toss it to
the mom crossing over to retrieve it,
that mom was Amy. As Andy put
it, “In a land of eight million people,
and me just visiting, what were the
chances that Amy’s kid would almost
hit me with a tennis ball?”
All I can say is, come back soon
Mr. Contiguglia.
I heard for the first time in a
while from rob carey. Rob has had
his own journalism and marketing
communications firm in NYC
since August 2007, when he left his
position as editorial director within
the business-media division of The
Nielsen Co. Rob started there as an
editorial intern during his senior
year at Columbia and moved up
another rung of the ladder every
three or four years. He explains,
“While it was a bit scary to leave
in order to do my own thing, it’s
allowed me to do projects across
several industries, which has been
incredibly interesting and made
me a better businessperson in addition
to a more-informed writer and
editor.”
Rob is pursuing development of
a humorous decorative brand for
golf apparel, hats, towels and club
head covers called OhMyGolf!, and
is presenting it to the large sportinggoods
retailers around the country.
Those who wanted to take a peek
at some of Rob’s work can visit a
website designed for individual
purchases: OhMyGolfStuff.com.
Rob took a vacation in August
that involved flying to Denver with
his girlfriend, renting a Harley
and riding through the mountains.
As he described it, “Coming over
Wilkerson Pass on day No. 2, we
stopped at a scenic viewing spot
and noticed that the 14,000-ft. peaks
before us were named Mount Harvard,
Mount Princeton, Mount Yale
and Mount Columbia. Although
it was not the tallest of the peaks,
it was apparent to everyone that
Mount Columbia was the most
well-rounded one.”
Sounds like a fitting tribute to
alma mater and a fitting end to this
writing. I look forward to serving
you up more news next issue.
93
betsy gomperz
41 Day St.
Newton, MA 02466
Betsy.Gomperz@gmail.com
A huge thank you to isolde brielmaier,
who recently provided
me with loads of information for
this column! Isolde reports: “All
is great by me. I am a professor at
Vassar College, where I teach art
history and cultural studies. I’ve
also been guest teaching a contemporary
photography and video
course at Barnard the last four
years, which has been fun. I’ve
been doing a lot of independent
curating in NYC and abroad with
a big museum exhibition opening
here in NYC at the Bronx Museum
in January. My fiancé, Mangue,
and I welcomed a daughter, Farrah,
in the summer, and although
sleep-deprived, we are loving life
and little Farrah! Clearly, we are
a class with loads of energy and
creativity! Case in point: I’m in
touch with my dear friends diana
Mcclure and Herby Raynaud ’97,
who both live near me in Brooklyn.
Diana remains a true creative guru