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group at the law firm of Dinsmore & Shohl in Dayton,Ohio. TIFFANY COX STRICKLAND ’02 ’08joined Physicians East in Greenville in the pulmonary,critical care and sleep medicine division.2001DOUG BATCHELOR was named general managerat Pecheles Honda in New Bern. He was salesmanager at Pecheles Ford Toyota in Washington. Dr.MARK BOWLING, a specialist in pulmonary andcritical care medicine, joined ECU’s Brody School ofMedicine as an assistant professor in the Departmentof Internal Medicine and its group medical practice,ECU Physicians. He was an assistant professor ofmedicine at the University of Mississippi. Dr. LISABROOKS is the owner and pharmacist at Clayton’sPharmacy in Cambridge, Md. KAREN FLORESKERR and DARREN KERR welcomed their fourthchild and second son on Sept. 30. She is an agencyfield specialist for State Farm Insurance, and he isan account executive for Deltek in Hickory. KELLYDEAN JOYNER LANCASTER and her husband,William, announce the birth of Chase Cameron onOct. 4. She is the director of student services andfinancial aid at ECU’s Brody School of Medicine.2000JAVIER CASTILLO JR. of Castillo LanguageServices was elected to a two-year term on the boardof directors of the Carolina Association of Translatorsand Interpreters, a chapter of the American TranslatorsAssociation for North Carolina and South Carolina.LAUREN GAST JACKSON and husband, Ashley,had a son, Logan Wyat, on Oct. 21. JOY LORENTZLOCKHART ’00 ’02 and husband, Jason, had adaughter, Journey Sheridan, on Oct. 22.1999Scott Avett ’99 ’00 and his group, the AvettBrothers, performed at the 53rd Grammy Awardslive CBS telecast. Dr. SHANNON B. DOWLERis vice president of the N.C. Academy of FamilyPhysicians. She is the medical director at the BlueRidge Community Health Center in Hendersonvilleand will serve a one-year term for the academy. DONHEARD was appointed the environmental, safetyand health director of Inspectorate America Corp. inHouston, Texas, where he has HSE responsibilitiesfor the company’s 1,200 employees in the Westernhemisphere. He was HSE manager with JohnsonMatthey-Tracerco. He recently earned his CertifiedHazardous Materials Manager certification.1998CHAD ALDRIDGE is a mortgage lender withFCSB Mortgage, a division of First Carolina StateBank, in Greenville. ALICIA MARIE TALMADGEDELSASSO and husband, Chris, had a son, MasonFrancis, on Aug. 18. He joins brother Parker. Sheworks for Johnson & Johnson in New Jersey.Alumni SpotlightJust getting admittedto the softwareengineering graduateprogram in ECU’sCollege of Technologyand ComputerScience was a big dealfor twin sisters Mekara’09 and Natara ’09Bryant of Battleboro.Neither had majoredin computer scienceas undergraduates. Plus, they knew there are only tiny numbersof African-American women working in the field. Mekarasuggested the idea after carefully researching careers andlearning that software engineers are well paid. She told hersister there were other compelling reasons to learn softwareengineering. “I told my sister, society has already concludedthat we are against the odds of being successful in thisprogram for a variety of reasons. We’re females, we’re African-American, and I didn’t have the computer science relatedbackground,” said Mekara. “But, as I saw it, your backgrounddoes not always determine success, but by how hard you’rewilling to work and your attitude.” Although both sisters admitthe program has been difficult, their hard work anddetermination have paid off. Neither has earned less than a B inall their grad school classes, and both were to graduate in May.“I knew that with a strong belief in ourselves, we can excel atanything we put our minds to,” Natara said. “Our parents,Alphonzo and Alice Bryant, instilled that in us.” —Dana NewellIt takes a lot of smart people toprepare a space shuttle forlaunch from the Kennedy SpaceCenter. One is Michael McGuirk’71, who retired in April after a31-year career in space sciencemanagement. McGuirk, afour-year football letterman atECU, was involved with the firstshuttle launch, STS-1, in April1981 and worked on most of the133 subsequent times that oneof the shuttles blasted intospace. “My career began in Firing Room One in November1979 as an operations analyst with the Checkout, Control &Monitor System,” he said by e-mail. “Later I moved intomanagement and was responsible for two firing rooms and 37operations personnel while employed by Grumman TechnicalServices from 1985 to 1995. I moved over to United SpaceAlliance in 1996 as a supervisor of operations for the threesubsystems within the Launch Processing System.” McGuirkexplained that the LPS, which he manages, is an integratednetwork of computers, data links, displays, interface devicesand software required to control and monitor flight systems.In all, the LPS monitors some 40,000 temperatures, pressuresand other vital signs of a shuttle in flight.47