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CLASS NOTES COLUMBIA COLLEGE TODAY
now runs his own consulting firm,
Cross-Border Communications.
“Since 1997, we have been helping
clients from all over the globe
develop essential skills to achieve
personal, team and organizational
goals,” CBC’s website reports. Sam
Bloom, who visited Michael in
China a few years ago, writes, “I
teach French at Barnard and Fordham
(I got my Ph.D. from Columbia
some time back) after having taught
in Israel for eight years.”
Claudia Kraut Rimerman writes,
“I wish I had excitement of global
proportions to report, but I guess the
globe is exciting enough right now,
so I’ll just report on the small doings
in Stamford, Conn. I live here with
my children, ages 8, 10 and 12, and
my husband. I run a small consulting
firm that advises health- and
insurance-related entities on strategic
issues, legislative and regulatory
matters, and new products and
distribution. I have recently begun
Muay Thai kickboxing, which I do
enthusiastically three times a week;
I’m up to my orange belt with one
stripe. I am going for black belt. This
summer, some kickboxing buddies
and I ran in the Warrior Dash in
New York state. It’s a wild, 3 ½-mile
course up a mountain, with 12 obstacles,
such as climbing over cars and
trucks, scaling walls, crawling under
barbed wire and jumping over fire. I
finished in the top 22 percent, which
was pretty cool, since the bulk of the
contestants were men between the
ages of 20 and 35.”
Claudia has maintained contact
with a number of classmates. “I
keep in touch with Diane Bauer
Orlinsky and planned to visit her
in Baltimore this fall,” she says.
“[Diane]’s a high-profile dermatologist,
and she was going to help
make my skin beautiful in advance
of my son’s bar mitzvah this fall.
Laurence Holzman has finally left
the city but continues to write musical
theater with Felicia Needleman
and also manages the White
Plains Performing Arts Center. He
lives with his wife and two sons in
Dobbs Ferry, N.Y. Johnny Roskes
has been in New York City for a few
years, after a decade in Hong Kong.
He lives right near Columbia and
boasts a phenomenal art collection
and an enviable social life.”
Please keep the updates coming!
Email me or friend me on Facebook.
89
Emily Miles Terry
45 Clarence St.
Brookline, MA 02446
emilymilesterry@me.com
Filic Chung ’89E, who has been in
land development for about 15 years
in Florida, wrote, “[I] have been very
fortunate in having dodged the bulk
of the economic meltdown since ’05.
I have two children, 7 and 5, who are
both looking forward to attending
Columbia one day. The brainwashing
has already begun! Of course,
they are still at an age where they
believe the words I say and do not
discount them out of hand.” A busy
single dad, Filic keeps in touch with
a few friends from college and got
together with Michelle Chung-Han
last summer in New Jersey with the
kids. You can find Filic on Facebook,
where he has enjoyed reconnecting
with fellow Columbians, such as
Dave Kooby.
It’s been a long time since my
husband, Dave Terry ’90, and I
listened to Paul Greenberg ’90 on
1010 WINS, but Paul hasn’t slowed
down any. He is the CEO of CollegeHumor,
which is owned by IAC
in New York, responsible for the
leadership, strategic development
and day-to-day management of
CollegeHumor.com, Dorkly.com,
Sportspickle.com and TodaysBigThing.com
as well as their related
mobile and social applications.
Together, the sites reach a combined
15 million monthly unique visitors.
Previously, as president, digital, of
Time Inc. Lifestyle Group, Paul was
responsible for 10 digital properties
(including RealSimple.com,
MyRecipes.com, CookingLight.
com and AllYou.com) and in 2009
was named one of The Hollywood
Reporter’s “Top 50 Digital Power”
executives while serving as e.v.p.
and general manager of TV Guide
online. Paul has two girls (7 and 4).
I should have a lot more in our
next column, as Dave and I and
our three kids planned to go to
Homecoming on October 15.
Hope to hear from more of you
soon!
90
Rachel Cowan Jacobs
313 Lexington Dr.
Silver Spring, MD 20901
cowan@jhu.edu
In August, I was in New York and
walked from West 104th Street to
College Walk. What fun to relive
some memories as I passed by
Koronet, Famous Famiglia and
Amir’s, but I also experienced a
touch of melancholy to discover
Café Pertutti is no more. (I’m sure
I did more than eat in college
but these are the neighborhood
places I remember best.) The best
newcomer to the neighborhood,
though, is the Columbia Alumni
Center at 622 West 113th Street
(between Broadway and Riverside
Drive). It’s a lovely space that
offers alumni wonderful hospitality
(water, coffee and tea, work
stations, Wi-Fi, air conditioning,
comfy couches), so if you’re in the
neighborhood, stop by and check it
out. And now, onto the news:
WINTER 2011–12
84
Thank you, Scott Hall, who
writes: “OK, after seeing so many
issues where only one of us wrote
in, sandwiched between years with
many more updates, I finally made
the decision to devote 30 seconds of
my time for an update. If I can get
my 3-year-old to turn the volume
down on Scooby-Doo maybe I’ll
even extend it to 45. I am married
with three children (10, 9 and 3),
living in Long Valley, N.J. I own a
spice-importing business, dealing in
a wide range of bulk spices, herbs
and seeds we import from India,
Spain, Peru, Mexico, Guatemala,
Honduras and China, selling bulk
product to manufacturers and
spice-packers throughout North
America. Business has been great,
growing steadily over the years.”
German Gomez has left the private
sector and returned to working
for Uncle Sam. You can find
him at the Department of Justice,
where he is an assistant general
counsel in the General Counsel’s
Office Executive Office for United
States Attorneys. As German
describes it, they are “the lawyers’
lawyers” in that they represent
and provide counsel on a variety
of issues to the attorneys working
for the United States Attorneys’
Offices across the country.
Justin Abelow is a managing
director at Houlihan Lokey in New
York. He has a pre-school-aged
daughter, and a son in second
grade who already is a big Lions
football fan. Justin runs into Regine
and James Stone frequently.
Sandra Garcia reports that “after
20-plus years in Student Financial
Planning at Columbia’s medical
campus, I now am assistant dean
of admissions and student affairs at
the College of Dental Medicine. I’ve
been doing this since August 2010.
My daughter, Chloe, started her
third year of college at Clark University
in Worcester, Mass. Columbia
has been my home for all of my life
… it educated me (M.A. from Teachers
College in 2007) and employed
me most of my adult life.”
Jeffrey Berk wrote to me from
California, I think. “For much of
the last few years, I’ve been working
abroad. I recently returned
from four months in the Cordillera
Blanca mountain range of Peru and
the Bolivian Amazon producing a
series for History Channel. In 2010,
I spent much of the year in the Himalayas.
Next month, I’m scouting
some particularly remote locations
for another series. While the work
is physically challenging (often in
extreme weather conditions) and
requires long hours (often seven
days a week), it’s also tremendously
rewarding and fun. I may never
go back to producing shows in a
cushy soundstage again.”
If any of you has a story about
a remote location you’ve been to,
perhaps based on a vacation experience,
let us know about it.
My Carman hallmate architect
Isaac-Daniel Astrachan’s latest
masterpiece as principal at Stephen
B. Jacobs Group was the design
and completion of the new Gansevoort
Park Avenue NYC hotel
that opened in February. He’s on
the board of son Aidhan’s soccer
club, Downtown United Soccer
Club, and also is involved in the
club’s inner-city program, City Soccer
in the Community, in partnership
with Manchester City Football
Club. I’d say that’s a lot of soccer
know-how for a former member of
the JV Columbia tennis team.
Anita Bose has left the agency
side of public relations after many
years. Since June, she’s been v.p.
of external communications at
inVentive Health, a global clinical,
commercial and consulting services
provider to the pharmaceutical, biotech
and life sciences industries. She
lives in New York but spends a lot
of time in Boston, at the company’s
global headquarters. She passed
along the happy news that Arlene
Hong, Darren Duffy and their son,
Colin, welcomed son Spencer to the
world on September 1.
Jim Barkley is the CAO and
managing director in charge of
Global Compliance Risk Management
at Citigroup, where he has
been for the last 10 years. He lives
with his wife, Pam, and 13-yearold
twin daughters, Hope and
Sarah, in Tarrytown, N.Y. Pam and
Jim recently were in Virginia for
the wedding of Filippo Ghia ’92E
to Elizabeth Cosby, where they all
celebrated among friends and Pi
Kappa Alpha fraternity brothers.
Sometimes, the news I report
comes to me from the University,
such as with the updates that follow.
Janice Min now is editorial director
of The Hollywood Reporter. If you
read the May 29 article on Janice in
The New York Times, you will see that
she has hit another home run.
Dr. Warigia Bowman, assistant
professor of public policy at the
University of Mississippi and visiting
assistant professor at American
University in Cairo, Egypt, has
been named assistant professor at
the University of Arkansas Clinton
School of Public Service.
According to Crain’s New York
Business (June 13 issue), Jared I.
Sandberg has become an editor
at Bloomberg.com. He previously
was a banking and finance editor
at The Wall Street Journal.
Jan Castro, CEO of Pala Investments
in Switzerland, recently joined
the board of Capstone Mining Corp.,
a Canadian mining company.
As for the rest of you, if you have
news, let me know. And happy 2012
to everyone!