Class Notes
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Jim Dimos was installed as the 117th president of the Indiana State Bar Association at its annual meeting in October. An attorney with the Indianapolis firm of Frost Brown Todd, Dimos will serve through 2014. Our condolences to John VanNuys, whose mother, Kathleen VanNuys, died January 2 in Franklin, IN. Richard Gunderman was awarded the Spinoza Chair of Medicine at the University of Amsterdam. Gunderman is professor of radiology and imaging sciences at Indiana University School of Medicine. Gunderman will teach master classes at the university, including “Achieving Personal Fulfillment” and “Professionalism Gone Wrong.” Steve Kent was elected to a two-year term as president of the International Behavioral Neuroscience Society. Doug Coy reports, “I married Kelly Hyatt on July 6, 2013, in a beautiful backyard ceremony attended by family.”
Making Plastics from Thin Air LEAVE IT TO A WABASH MAN to find an environmentally and economically sustainable way to make the plastics contained in practically everything we use these days. That is the goal of Cornell University’s Tisch University Professor Geoff Coates ’89 and his start-up, Novomer, and he returned to campus in September to tell the Wabash community exactly how it’s done. “Whether you know it or not, you’re living in the age of plastics,” Coates said. But the virtues of plastic are equaled by its vices. “So how do we get rid of the downsides of plastics while keeping the benefits?” Coates asked. “We need to develop synthetic methods that limit energy and raw-material consumption, and the plastic must be better than what’s out there now, and cheaper.” The answer he and his colleagues at Cornell (including Syud Momtaz ’07) and Novomer came up with is a family of what they call high-performance, environmentally responsible polymers: plastics made “from renewable sources and with decomposition programmed into them so their lifetime matches their use time.” At a repurposed chemical plant in Orangeburg, SC, Novomer is capturing CO2 that would normally escape into the atmos-
84 Tom Broecker is best known for his wardrobe designs for Saturday Night Live, but he is also the costume designer for the American version of House of Cards. For 30 Rock fans, Liz Lemon can thank Tom for her hoodie. Read the interview by the Hollywood Report about his design and shopping for the show at www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/housecards-costume-designer-tom-561231
86 Tim DeLong was named global managing director of North American Whiskey at Brown Forman in Louisville, KY.
87 Scott Cougill heads Portable Church Industries (PCI), a business that provides setup and management for mobile churches and church planting, and multimedia equipment movement and storage for portable churches. Steve Badger serves as counsel to the president (Wabash’s own Jim Dimos) at the Indiana State Bar Association. Badger is with the Indianapolis law firm of Benesch Attorneys at Law in business litigation. Michael Carl joined the Neenah neuroscience group’s Interventional Pain Management team, in Neenah, WI. Tom Halverson was named the chief banking officer at CoBank in Greenwood, CO. Halverson is in charge of the regional agribusiness, corporate agribusiness, and rural infrastructure banking groups. David Shafer and his wife, Jennifer, are partners in Shafer Consulting in Sarasota, FL, an environmental consulting firm specializing in communication of science and science-policy issues through analysis, outreach and creative design.
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Kevin McCrea is the owner of Wabash Construction, a home renovations and commercial builder in the greater Boston area. You can read more about his business at www.wabashconstruction.com Eric Stark has been named director of choral activities at the Jordan College of Fine Arts at Butler University. He will oversee 62
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administration, planning, and strategy for the Butler Chorale, University Choir, Chamber Choir, and Jordan Jazz. Stark is also the director of the Indianapolis Symphonic Choir.
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Jeff Perkins is Vice President of Human Resources at SpaceX, the company founded in 2002 by Elon Musk to revolutionize space transportation through manufacturing rockets and spacecraft. In 2013 Perkins also graduated from the global executive master’s in business administration program at Georgetown University School of Business/School of Foreign Service in Washington, DC. His course of study included training in Bangalore, Barcelona, Beijing, Buenos Aires, Madrid, New York, Sao Paulo, and Shanghai. Jacob Isaacs was awarded with the Citation of Honor from Theta Chi Fraternity for his work advising and helping to restart Delta Pi Chapter at Indiana State University. Isaacs was initiated as an alumnus member of Delta Pi Chapter when the newly revived chapter received its charter.
91 Mark Kosior has been with Celgene Inc., a US-based biotech company, since 2007 as a hematology and oncology consultant. He writes, “I just completed two terms on the foundation of the IU Health La Porte Hospital board serving as chairman and serving four years as chairman of the Tour de La Porte, a bicycling, running, and walking fund-raiser for local cancer patients. I was elected to the La Porte Community School Board in 2010 and have been president since 2012. Working with this board and the executive team to drive academic excellence and fiscal responsibility has been a very rewarding experience.” He and his wife, Amy, have teenage twins, Mason and Alexa, and a daughter, Ava (3). Brian Burdick was named an at-large management committee member at Barnes and Thornburg. Burdick is partner at the Indianapolis law offices and concentrates his practice in the areas of government services and public finance.