Class Notes

C O N C O R D A C A D E M Y M A G A Z I N E S P R I N G 2 0 1 0Jen Collins Hogan ’93 with husband Judd and children Cael and Isabel; they livein Dharamshala, India.fund. He serves on the board of theYouth Empowerment Project, a groupthat gets kids out of the juvenile justicesystem and assists them in getting theirGED and jobs. Married to Jana Lipman(who’s book on Guantanamo came outlast year and is doing well), he is fatherto Liza, 3, and Ruth, 9 months. “We areall a bit surprised how much we lovebeing New Orleansians.” Having movedfrom Boston to Oakland, CA, Ethan Harrisis now working at two dental offices:City Center Dental Spa in Oakland, CAand Advanced Cosmetic, Laser, andRestorative Dentistry in Pinole, CA. InApril he takes his written examinationtoward accreditation with the AmericanAcademy of Cosmetic Dentistry. JenniferCollins Hogan writes in from theother side of the world! “We are nowsettled in India in a remote village in thefoothills of the Indian Himalayas, wherewe are learning to survive withoutaccess to Costco, hamburgers, Xbox,and junk mail. From my front porch I lookout at snow-capped peaks, dizzyinglygreen, stepped terraces, and a rockyriver valley. I have been counting monkeyswith the kids, learning Hindi fromBollywood songs, and eating lots andlots of Indian food!” It sounds amazing.More classmates are changing coasts.Aaron Jacobs and his wife Suzi, withtheir children Sylvia, 4, and Gabriel, 2,moved from the San Francisco Bay areato Newton last summer. Aaron practiceslaw as a patent litigator at Ropes & Grayin Boston. He watched a Steelers gamerecently with Ben Bennett ’92.“Although neither of us was remotelyinterested in football until after we graduatedcollege, we both ended up marry-72ing women from Pittsburgh and becamefans.” Jill Kantrowitz Kunkel alsoreturned to the Boston area from NYC.Her husband Greg took a job running theBoston office for his company, NextJump Inc., so they will make Cambridgetheir home. Jill will continue workingpart-time as the grant writer for SummerSearch NYC, her job for the last fouryears. Thanks to the move, her sonTheo, 2, is destined to become a RedSox Fan. Ming-Chu Yuen writes thatshe is now in Hong Kong. “Come visitme!”1994Class Secretary: Elizabeth Pinsky, egpinsky@hotmail.comThe class of 1994 had a wonderful timeat our 15th reunion, catching up withclassmates as well as their partners andspawn. Highlights of 2009 included therelease of Video Vision (video yearbook),the digital edition; many thanks to JoshTowvim for making it happen. JenCoose is living in Portland and teaches ata 5-year-old expeditionary learning publichigh school. She’s infusing the placewith CA traditions: last year their firstgraduating class gave “Final Word”speeches and Jen writes, “Imagine havingevery senior chapel, one right afterthe other for a week and a half. Our eyeswere worn out from crying.” Jen’s partnerMatt is also a teacher and “togetherwe are trying to incite all kinds of progressive,revolutionary spirit in the kids.”Last summer they went to MeishaThompson‘s wedding in Washington,DC, where they saw Reiko Tate andHilary Nieukirk ’93. Anyone interestedin a housing exchange in Portland, for allor part of a summer, should contact Jen,who is hoping to do a lot of traveling inthe next year—the more exotic the better.Stéphane Dreyfus married JessicaKung, and both continue to travel theworld teaching yoga intensives and Buddhistphilosophy. They spent their honeymoonin Florence and Rome, climbingup and down ancient culture, as well asin museums: Everyone should see allthe Bernini statues they can! They areboth preparing for their Great Retreat: athree-year, three-month, three-day silent,solitary (with each other) retreat in theArizona desert. Ben Harder and AmieHsia report from DC. Ben writes, “Ourkid, Zack, is a cheerful little guy andmakes me see life in a whole newlight.” Ben and Amie bought a house inthe ’burbs (Bethesda, MD) and, after tenyears, are giving up the city life. SiriKaur is living in LA, making photographs,and teaching full-time at OtisCollege of Art and Design. Jason Kolbeand Maureen Farrell are happy toannounce the birth of Cecilia Mae FarrellKolbe on February 4. Jason writes,“Armed with conjecture, prognostication,and almost no science, we werequite sure she would be a boy. We’redelighted she made fools of us.” NickLauriat and family moved to Lexingtonin September after spending the summerwatching their house being built.“We’re settling in to our new home andwatching our two little girls grow upvery fast.” Michael Lichtenstein andhis wife Erin were expecting their firstchild, a baby boy due in mid-April, whowill be named Benjamin Pavel. They livein Charlottesville, VA, where Erin is in anophthalmology residency at UVA andMichael practices construction litigation,representing architects and contractors.The dogs (Wilbur and Shorty) feel animpending sense of doom whenever thebaby kicks. Morgan Robinson is anassociate producer at Punched in theHead Productions in Brooklyn, makingMTV True Life episodes and variousother documentaries and documentarystylecommercials. He’s spent five yearsworking on a documentary about a solarenergy entrepreneur in Mali, WestAfrica; Burning in the Sun will have itsWest Coast premiere at the Santa BarbaraFilm Festival and has been admittedto three others, including theSedona Film Festival. Read about Morganin the winter CA magazine, onlineonly at concordacademy.org/magazine.Justin Samaha scored four films forFrontline this year, including documentariesabout the Madoff scandal and theHaiti disaster. He also got his EMT certificationand plans to begin part-timework with an emergency ambulanceservice. He still thinks heavy metal rules.Justin also reports on behalf of ElizaMiller, who began her third-year medicalschool rotations at Columbia this summer.Last fall she choreographed thedances for the med school musical Intothe Woods, bridging the gap betweenher previous profession and new medicalcareer. Every summer for the past fouryears Justin and Eliza have both workedat Summer Stages Dance on CA’s campus,with Amy Spencer and RichardColton. Justin has been sound and musicdirector and has contributed some composingand sound design. Justin andEliza’s daughters, Evie and Thea, say thatanyone in the class of ’94 who wantstheir little brother Leo can have him!Contact the girls to make arrangements.Emily Sapienza moved to DC to work inthe Pentagon. Paul Sommer and Sarah,as well as Thea (the big sister) and Kala(the black lab) are pleased to announcethe arrival of David Solmssen. JeremyTamanini is living in DC (after finishinghis master’s at Georgetown), where hestarted a consulting firm, Dual CitizenInc. The firm works with national and citygovernments on brand strategy and marketingservices to further their economicand foreign policy agendas. In addition toclient work, this year the firm held a conferenceabout whether the KENS (Kenya,Egypt, Nigeria, South Africa) have commonalitieswith the BRICs (Brazil, Russia,India, China); it also will publish a GreenCitizen survey, ranking countries onefforts to integrate green initiatives intotheir branding platforms. Jeremy findsthe life of an entrepreneur exciting andscary in equal doses!1995 15th reunionClass Secretaries: Jennifer MeagherCotton, jenniecotton@gmail.com; NadiaMadden, Nadia.Madden@gmail.comKate Cross is living in Belmont and stillrunning her dance school in Harvard,MA, Moving Arts Dance. She is applyingto graduate school for guidance counselingand just got the exact same score onher GRE that she got on her SAT. KarenaDetweiler is still enjoying living in Cambridge,MA and has taken up Pilates andyoga, which provide a great respite fromwork. Sasha Erwitt is still living inBrooklyn, working at Vanity Fair, havingfun with her little girl, who turns 3 inJune. Kenny Hillman is working withher film company, Cherry Films, andgraduating next spring from ColumbiaUniversity’s film program. Kenny will beofficially changing her name from Kendrato Kenneth. Sam Holtzman moved backto the U.S. from Japan and is living inBerkeley. He is a manager at a music halland working with Oakland and San Franciscopublic school teachers on art integrationand cognitive development in