Matt Jaeckel, B.S. of business administration ’06, district sales manager at Premier World Discovery, offers group travel programs for alumni and community groups all across the country. The company’s travel programs are also fundraisers for Chapman University. Destinations include Cuba, Italy and Ireland. He lives in Orange.
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Andy Knauer, B.A. screenwriting ’06, wrote Arnold Schwarzenegger’s newest film, The Last Stand, coming to theaters in 2013. Leia Lineberger, B.A. political science ’09, has accepted a job as communications adviser in the Budget, Policy and Planning Division of the office of Texas Gov. Rick Perry. She will move to Austin soon. L Matthew Lohr, MFA
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screenwriting ’02, co-authored the upcoming book Dan O’Bannon’s Guide to Screenplay Structure. After completing his studies at Chapman, Matt worked with former Chapman filmmaker-in-residence Dan O’Bannon (Alien, Total Recall, Return of the Living Dead) on the book, which outlines a proprietary screenplay structural method known as “dynamic structure.” Dan passed away in 2009 with the manuscript unpublished. At the request of Dan’s wife, Diane, of Michael Wiese Productions, Matt completed the manuscript, which will be published Jan. 1. Luis Lopez, B.S. business administration ’09, was recently engaged to Lauren Johnson. Monica Mordaunt, BFA dance performance ’12, recently performed in the San Diego Dance Theatre’s annual Trolley Dances, in which the audience travels on a trolley to the different performance sites. She was pictured on the front page of the Union Tribune newspaper.
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Olicer Munoz, BFA film and television ’03, was second unit director for a feature film titled Anatomy of the Tide, starring Jamie Lynn Sigler. He is also pitching a television show he directed and produced and is raising money for a feature film he wrote titled Nathan’s Kingdom. With support from fellow alumni, he has already put together a production team and filmed a movie trailer that will be posted this year. M Kendra Pearce, B.S. business
administration ’04, owns a new women’s clothing boutique called Taim in Laguna Beach. The airy seaside space features popular and respected brands. N Whitney (Duncan) Prag, B.A.
French ’09, married Russ Prag, B.A. economics ’08, on Aug. 11 at Oheka Castle in Huntington, N.Y. They were honored that many Chapman alumni made the trip to celebrate with them as guests and members of the wedding party. Brian Reinsch, B.S. chemistry ’06, has received his Ph.D. from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, where he also received an M.S. in ’09. He has accepted a postdoctoral research position at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale in Lausanne, Switzerland. His next research project will remediate groundwater from uranium mining in Kazakhstan. Lisa Roach, M.A. education ’08, is a first-grade teacher at Girls Preparatory Charter School of New York. “As a proud alumna of Chapman University, I am eager to share my college experience with my students. I look forward to telling them all about my time on the Orange Campus, especially during the acquisition of the piece of the Berlin Wall for the reflection
From left, Rebecca Pantaleon ’06, Noel (Villasenor) Tyner ’04 (MBA ’09) and Patricia (Waddy) Alexander ’88.
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oel (Villasenor) Tyner ’04 (MBA ’09) calls it seed money, but the $500 that spawned an endowment might be better described as a preface. Because the fund is now helping students in need pay for textbooks, which speaks volumes about the generosity of Chapman alumni at SchoolsFirst Federal Credit Union. With the help of SchoolsFirst CEO Rudy Hanley, the fund has grown to $25,000 and is providing books for students in Chapman’s College of Educational Studies. “It’s amazing to me that so many have contributed,” said Tyner. “We knew we wanted the fund to grow to the level of an endowment, but we figured it would take five or six years. For it to happen in three years is remarkable.” Tyner and Rebecca Pantaleon ’06 chair a Chapman alumni group at SchoolsFirst. The 17 members also volunteer at Homecoming and other campus events. Their efforts build connections to Chapman, but then that has never been a concern for Tyner. She and her husband, Neal Tyner ’04, met as students at Chapman, as did his parents, Tom ’80 and Luisa Tyner ’81. Noel and Neal were married in the Wallace All Faiths Chapel; Tom and Luisa said their vows in what is now the Chapman Chapel. “When people say Chapman is like a family,” Noel Tyner said, “we’ve lived that.”
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