Alumni Newsmakers

Working from dorm rooms at CWRU, Alex Yakubovich ’07 and

brought online food ordering to campus and to America in the early 2000s. They sold their first startup, Onosys, for millions after graduating, but their success in entrepreneurship was just beginning.

In November, the former classmates announced the sale of their latest venture, Scout RFP, to Workday Inc. for $540 million in cash.

They have not forgotten where their success began.

“As students, we found mentors who have helped us nearly every step of the way,” Garber told CWRU’s online news source, The Daily. “As alums, we’ve found the CWRU network to be full of successful people who want to help other people.” Yakubovich and Garber — both refugees from the former Soviet Union — grew up together in Cleveland’s eastern suburbs and both graduated from CWRU in 2007. Yakubovich, Scout’s CEO, earned a degree in mechanical engineering while Garber, Scout’s president, earned his degree in business from the Weatherhead School of Management.

Starting with Rascal House, the pair developed software that enabled restaurants to take online orders. The dorm team included childhood friend and fellow refugee Oleg Fridman, ’07, now a senior vice president of technology at Panera. Five years after they graduated, the founders sold Onosys to daily-deal provider LivingSocial for more than $6 million.

Yakubovich and Garber went on to launch Scout, which offers online tools for sourcing and managing a company’s supply chain. Their San Francisco-based company sparkles with Case talent, including co-founder Chris Crane ’08, who earned his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering.

Todd Schwarzinger, the interim executive director of the Veale Institute for Entrepreneurship at Sears think[box], sees a success story to inspire others.

“This is a huge success for our alums at Scout and their entire team,” he told The Daily. “It’s inspiring for our students to see young entrepreneurs from Case Western Reserve leverage their skills and connections toward such an outcome.”

When Ben Gomes ’90, PhD, visited his high school alma mater earlier this year, students positioned themselves for selfies and clamored for autographs. It’s not every day the engineer behind the most popular search engine on Earth drops by.

As Vice President of Search Engineering at Google, Gomes is known globally as the “diplomat of search,” a status Case helped him attain.

Born in Tanzania, Gomes was raised in Bangalore, India, where he started programming at the St. Joseph School for Boys. He came to Cleveland to study at Case Institute of Technology.

In a 2011 interview with Case Alumnus, Gomes fondly recalled “all-nighters spent in the Smith computer lab with friends” and the value of summer internships. Support from the Case Alumni Association helped him to earn his bachelor’s degree in computer engineering. He went on to UC Berkley for his doctorate in computer science.

Gomes helped develop the Java programming language at Sun Microsystems before joining a childhood friend at Google in 1999, only a few months after the company started. He worked on its early search algorithms and, over the years, helped shape and grow the company’s flagship service. In 2018, he was named head of all search at Google.

In August of 2019, Gomes returned to his high school to much excitement. According to the Economic Times of India, he offered this advice to students gathered in the computer lab:

“When you have curiosity, follow it. Find more about it. Don’t study anything by rote. Just try and understand what it is. It is not easy sometimes. It is the thing that will stay with you later on. Understand what it is about and later use it in creative ways.”

He stayed to sign autographs and to no doubt inspire many more careers.

When he pulled off the highway near Cleveland one night last winter, the senior editor of Food & Wine magazine was surprised to find a restaurant serving his favorite Indian street food. David Landsel saw the traditional tandoor ovens behind the big, bright windows of Choolaah Indian BBQ and wondered, who engineered this authentic experience?

He soon learned of Randhir Sethi ’96, who earned his bachelor’s degree in computer engineering from Case, but soon detoured into the restaurant trade. Sethi and his business partner, fellow engineer Raji Sankar, started with Five Guys franchises in Northeast Ohio. Then came the dive into fast-casual food inspired by recipes from their native India.

With his wife, Simran, on board, the trio opened the first Choolaah Indian BBQ off I-271 in Orange Village in 2014. They have since opened Choolaahs in four other cities, mostly recently Pittsburgh, where people lined up overnight to dine. Another Choolaah is being anxiously awaited in Ohio City.

Landsel credits the healthy, tasty meals that don’t cost much more than a burrito bowl at Chipotle.

“I ate an entire order of the samosa chaat, a bowl of chicken tikka, lots of rice, some naan too, and I still felt nearly virtuous,” he wrote in the magazine’s January 2019 issue. “With any luck, we’ll see Choolaah by many more highway off ramps in no time.”

That’s the idea.

“The dream is to have Choolaah in every part of the world,” Sethi told Cleveland Scene in November, adding, “If Cleveland hadn’t embraced us, Choolaah wouldn’t exist. We’re very grateful.”

It was quite a fall for Christo-

PhD ’89, a senior technologist at the NASA Glenn Research Center and one of the space center’s leading innovators.

In early October, the resident of suburban Cleveland received ASM International’s 2019 Engineering Materials Achievement Award at MS&T19 in Portland, Oregon. The awards committee recognized his work in the development and commercialization of high-strength, super elastic, nickel-titanium-based bearings and gears that do not rust. That same month, the Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers named him editor of Tribology Transactions, the society’s peer-reviewed journal.

DellaCorte started at NASA in 1985 as a graduate student in its Surface Science Branch. He was hired full-time after earning his master’s in mechanical and aerospace engineering at Case and came to specialize in tribology (friction and wear) problems in extreme environments.

In 2018, he helped Glenn win its first Commercial Invention of the Year Award, a coveted award within the space agency. He was the co-inventor, with NASA retiree Brian Edmonds, of a new high-temperature lubricant coating for super alloys. Despite the lack of a catchy name, PS/PM400 is said to outperform grease, oil and graphite in rocket engines, aircraft turbines and steam generators.

PhD ’91, was named interim director of the NASA Glenn Research Center in September, succeeding the retiring Janet Kavandi and continuing her impressive ascent at the nation’s space agency.

Since joining Glenn in 1983, PerezDavis has held several key leadership positions, including deputy director, director of aeronautics research and chief of electrochemistry. As deputy director of the Research and Engineering Directorate, she was responsible for leading all phases of Glenn’s research and engineering and overseeing nearly 1,000 researchers and engineers.

Born and raised in a small town in Puerto Rico, Perez-Davis earned three engineering degrees, including a doctorate in chemical engineering from Case Institute of Technology, where she was advised by Professor Donald Feke ’76, MS ’77.

She’s now preparing Glenn and its staff of 3,200 civil servants and contract workers for the coming Artemis expeditions. The next generation Orion spacecraft arrived at Glenn in November for pre-launch testing.

She also continues the Case-NASA leadership tradition set by T. Keith Glennan, the former president of Case Institute of Technology, who helped launch the National Aeronautics Space Administration as its first administrator.