Class Notes

1960

Michael Ford is a retired attorney. He spent 33 years with the Los Angeles County Counsel’s office and retired as an assistant county counsel and division chief. One of his career highlights was working on the Governor’s Committee on worker’s compensation reform. Michael and his wife Susan have two daughters and live in Nipomo, CA. Al Lumas retired from Straube Associates Inc. and has served as the Chairman since 2018. He and his wife June have three grown children, four grandchildren and reside in Milpitas, CA. Roger Smith served as an administrator and transplant coordinator for a regional organ procurement organization at UCLA for 33 years. He and his husband Gene have one grown son and two granddaughters.

1961

Ted Francisco retired as an advertising representative and management from Pacific Bell. He and his wife Lisa have four grown children, six grandchildren and two great grandchildren.

1962

Victor Vert has owned the MacSmith Corporation and VEV Investments, Inc. for 40 years and Boss Hoss of California, Inc. for 17 years. He and his wife have been married for 21 years, have three children, two grandchildren and live in Gardena. over 50 years. He and his wife Catherine reside in Newport Beach.

1963

John Zuerlein is a retired finance director from the engineering and utility construction industries. He has two grown children, one granddaughter and resides in San

Clemente. Neil McElwee is working as a marketing consultant to tech firms. He and his wife Cathie have three adult children and live in Sparks, NV.

1965

Charles (Burpee) Fiore spent the majority of his career as the vice president of human resources for Lockheed Martin where he specialized in designing, implementing and managing compensation and benefit programs. Charles makes his home in Lake Havasu City.

1969

Jim Normandin retired as president of Memorial Medical Center Foundation in Long Beach in 2016 and has since been working as a charitable gift planning consultant.

1970

Stephen Singer is retired and lives with his wife Christine in San Jose. They have three grown sons. He enjoys going on short backpacking trips every few months and is a volunteer for the San Francisco City Guides. Michael Petermann is engaged to his dream girl Susan Graves and lives in Escondido. Between them they have four children and four grandchildren. He is a retired banker and is now enjoying lots of travel and his 1940 Ford Coupe hot rod.

Greg Munro spent 35 years in the financial services industry in San Diego County and the Inland Empire with Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley before retiring last year. He and his wife Pam have two adult children and live in Fallbrook.

Richard Tres spent over 35 years as a high school teacher and was a Fulbright Scholar. He and his wife Janice have been married for 45 years, have two children, two grandchildren and live in Napa.

Phil Hendrie was a radio disc jockey for 17 years and then started a satirical talk show for radio that went national in 1999. He left radio in 2013 and started voice acting and acting in various sitcoms and television pilots. Phil currently operates a digital subscription business for his archived radio show and produces a daily comedy netcast.

Mark Krouse has spent 44 years working in human resources and is currently vice-president human resources for Kaiser Aluminum. He and his wife Kim have been married for 40 years, have two grown children, four grandchildren, and live in Coto De Caza.

consultant for the Department of Defense. He has worked in the oil and gas industry for over 40 years and owned and sold two engineering companies one of which designed and engineered the first installation in over 30 years of the sub-sea pipeline offshore California. He and his wife have been married for 47 years and live in Magnolia, Texas.

Howard Miller is a retired navy corpsman and retired postal worker. He was an avid bicycle racer averaging 10,000 miles a year for 38 years and a three time Military Road Race Champion. He and his wife Margarita have two high-school aged children and live in Long Beach.

Patrick Frey worked in the grocery industry for over 45 years before he retired. He and his wife Gloria have been married for 32 years, have five children, 13 grandkids, seven great grandkids and live in Fountain Valley.

Greg Danenhauer has worked for Parker Boiler, a mechanical engineering company, for 38 years. He has done a lot of designing with combustion systems and steam. He and his wife Leslie have been married for 20 years and have five kids between them. They reside in Laguna Beach.

Michael Moran had a varied career path in the engineering and construction industry which included two years in Saudi Arabia. He also spent years in the public transit industry and currently volunteers as a little league umpire. He and his wife Nancy will be married 36 years this fall, have three grown children and live in Concord, CA. financial services industry and retired as CIO of Wells Fargo Capital Finance a few years ago. He has served as the Executive Director of Innovate at UCLA and a board member for Here to Serve, serving low-income families with pediatric cancer challenges, and Children’s Advocacy Center of Covina, serving children victims of physical and sexual abuse or violent crimes. Don has also been an active volunteer at La Salle serving as the Chair of the Lancer Golf Tournament for the last 7 years.

Jim Goetz spent 40 years working in California agriculture and lives in Hollister, CA.

Kevin Sweeney was a pilot with American Airlines for 32 years flying domestically as well as to the Caribbean Islands, Central America and Europe before he retired. He and his wife Mary have three children, two grandchildren and live in Stowe, Vermont. Julio Salazar spent 37 years in the film industry, 30 with 20th Century Fox, working in transportation. He worked on 165 films, television series and tv movies and traveled all over the country. He still rides his Harley all over southern California and his classic cars keep him busy. Julio and his wife have two children and live in Acton.

1978

Doug Brignole won first place in the 2019 AAU Mr. Universe bodybuilding competition on November 2, 2019 in Las Vegas. This is Doug’s second Mr. Universe win, beating out younger competitors in their 20s and 30s. Doug turned 60 on December 15. His latest book, “The Physics of Fitness”, was published in January and is endorsed by Ph.D. professors from various backgrounds, including physics, exercise science, paleo-anthropology, neurology, biomedical engineering, sociology and psychology. It is also endorsed by three orthopedic surgeons. Doug conducted a two-day seminar in Norway last November and is considered one of the world’s foremost experts in “biomechanics of resistance exercise”.

1981

Frank Ferrante was chosen by the Chicago Tribune as one of the top ten performances of 2019. He earned the honor for his comic role as ’The Caesar’ in the cirque spectacular “Teatro ZinZanni.” In 2017, the Wall Street Journal selected Frank as one of the top performances in the country for his work in Philadelphia’s Walnut Street Theatre production of “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” which he also directed.

1985

Erich Braun is the parks superintendent for Polk County Conservation in Granger, Iowa. He and his wife Rhonda have one daughter and reside in Urbandale, IA.

1988

Patrick Ellis has been accepted as a member of the 2020 cohort for the US Chamber Foundation Fellowship Program. The Business Leads Fellowship Program is an inperson training designed to grow a new, informed coalition of business leadership on education and workforce issues in communities across the country.

1989

MAJ Leroy Cisneros is currently deployed to US INDOPACOM Headquarters at Camp Smith, Hawaii, where he is assigned to the J338 Homeland Defense desk. He is currently monitoring the COVID-19 situation across the Pacific Region. He just graduated from the Defense Planners Course, through the US Army War College, and is also attending the Joint Professional Military Education II Course through National Defense University.

1994

Brett Wong was promoted from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor with tenure in the Department of Kinesiology & Health at Georgia State University in April 2019. In April 2018 he was awarded a four year, $1.5 million research grant from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health. The title of the grant is “Microvascular and sensory nerve function in nonHispanic Blacks and Whites”. Brett and his wife Elizabeth Fallon reside in Alpharetta, GA.

1997

Susan Ehring is the vice president, business affairs for HBO in Santa Monica.

Hannah (Miller) Wilder was ordained an Episcopal priest in January 2020 at St Mark’s Episcopal Church where she now serves as a curate. St Mark’s is located in the City Heights neighborhood of San Diego, a diverse area with refugees and immigrants primarily from South Sudan, the Congo, Myanmar and Latin America. She supports volunteers in providing food, clothing, showers, prayer and connection to social services to the most vulnerable populations. She enjoys preaching and singing on Sundays and walking with her congregation through life’s ups and downs. You’re invited to visit on Sundays at 10:15 am (4227 Fairmount Avenue, San Diego).

1998

Mark Dizon works in information technology for Netflix in Amsterdam. He and his wife Cristina have a son, Philip.

1999

Oscar Holguin works in manufacturing as the vice president of technical services, production management and compliance for The Outdoor Recreation Group.

Jake Benitez was formerly a senior vice president for KBS Capital Markets Group and then Cole Capital, both in Michigan. He is currently raising capital as the regional vice president for the west coast with Nelson Partners, a student housing, DST sponsor in Southern California.

2003

Adam Inman received an Emmy

Award from The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in the category of Outstanding TransMedia Sports Coverage for his work on the 2018 FIFA World Cup, which was held in Russia. Adam is currently working as a senior associate producer at Fox Sports. He lives in San Gabriel with his wife of six years, Sheena, and two sons, Colin (3) and Liam (1).

2005

Brittany Vita is an art director for Tory Burch in New York.

2007

Charlie Barakat works in the software industry as a customer adoption associate manager for ServiceTitan in Glendale. He and his wife Nicole welcomed their son, Michael on June 28, 2019. Charlie and his family live in Pasadena.

Dale Santos reenlisted in the United States Navy on April 20, 2020, ten years to the date of his original enlistments ceremony in 2010. He is currently on shore duty at Joint Base Pearl Harbor Hickam as the Lead Instructor for Confined Space Safety. He previously served on the USS Louisiana out of Bangor, WA and the USS Columbia out of Pearl Harbor.

2009

Madeline Herlache is the director of operations for the Dave Knight Real Estate Team, Keller Williams Realty. Preston Grochmal is working as a senior accountant at ZipRecruiter. Molly Hulbert earned her master’s from USC in 2016 and is currently attending medical school at Florida Jackie Maniago graduated with a BS in Clinical Laboratory Science from Cal State Dominguez Hills and is currently in graduate school at Colorado Technical University for a MBA in Healthcare Management.

Thomas Justo works in ad sales for Twitter in New York.

Glen Willis earned his Master’s in Product Development Engineering from USC in 2014 and is working in data analytics for Mixpanel as a senior solutions architect in San Francisco.

Michael Petrovich is a staff

engineer with Tetra Tech. Asa Merrigan works in IT support for OnCall IT, located at the California Schools of the Arts San Gabriel Valley campus.

Jose Simbol is a video game designer at KIXEYE in San Francisco.

Ara Yardemian earned an MS in Integrated Design, Business & Technology from USC’s Lovine & Young Academy in 2019 and is a project manager for Mission Wine & Spirits.

Rita Kazarian is currently in graduate school for a master of science in nursing and is working at a family medicine clinic.

Sandra Trevino earned her BA in Child Development from Cal State LA and is working as a preschool teacher in Glendale. Ashley (Siewert) Leslie earned a Master’s in Social Work from USC in 2015 and is working as a social worker.

2011

Jessica Webster graduated from Arizona State University with a Master’s Degree in Business Administration in December 2019. Jessica successfully completed her MBA while working full time at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in the Robotics Section, and training as a competitive equestrian.

2012

Kelly Mercade started her master’s in accounting at USC in June.

2014

Caroline “CK” Knopp transferred from the University of Michigan to the University of Florida her sophomore year where she continued to compete as an indoor volleyball player. CK and the Gators were NCAA Division 1 national runnersup in 2017, losing to Nebraska in the National Championship. She was invited by USA volleyball to train with them as part of the US national team in the summer of 2018. CK completed her degree in sports management and graduated in December 2018. CK is now an assistant volleyball coach at the College of Charleston in Charleston, South Carolina. In addition to being one of the three members of the Cougar staff, CK is also the recruiting coordinator responsible for finding future players for the Cougars.

Sabrina O’Reilly has had a poem published in the poetry anthology Train River Poetry available on

2015

Bailey Toribio graduated in December 2019 from Cal State San Bernadino Atlantic 10 title as a member of the with a BS in Wildcats track team, snapping the Kinesiology tape in 2:51.03 in the 1,000-meters and finished in the final day of the A-10 Indoor his collegiate Championship. Her performance golf career. also broke her own school record, He has started previously at (2:51.96). graduate school at Cal Poly Pomona and is working on his master’s and Aly Hartman has completed her adaptive PE credential. junior year at Santa Clara Kimberly Mejia was selected to be a University and SEO Law Fellow and is spending the is spending the summer interning at the Newport summer as a Beach office of O’Melveny and Myers management LLP. consulting intern for TCF Holdings. 2016 Gabriella Navarro will start her Duncan McDonald is currently living in the town of Chaiya in southern Thailand where he is working at Phetpadung Weing Chai school. He is teaching English to children ages 2-8.

Diego Salgado joined the United States Army and graduated basic training in 2019. He is currently stationed at Fort Bragg, NC with the 82nd Airborne division where he is also pursuing a degree in criminal justice.

2017

Eleni Daughters, a senior at Davidson College, won her first senior year at UCLA in the fall where she is majoring in nursing. She is the secretary of LANSA (Latina Nursing Student-Alumni Association) at UCLA and also a member of the UCLA Nursing Fraternity, where she participates in community service on Skid Row. This next year she will spend at various clinics and hospitals in Los Angeles gaining valuable nursing experience. Gabriella is in an accelerated nursing program at

2018

Garien Agapito just finished his sophmore year at Northeastern University. He recently studied abroad in South Korea where he was able to do a research project on Korean architecture in places such as Seoul, Busan, and Daejeon.

Sarah Day will be a junior in the fall

at St. Mary’s College where she is majoring in politics and English. This past January she studied abroad in India where she explored over 12 cities. Throughout the month, she was able to engage with the locals, the animals, including camels, elephants, and monkeys, and everything that India had to offer.

2019

Josh Ng has completed his first

year at Harvard where he got involved in WHRB (on campus radio station), The Crimson newspaper, the Asian-American Dance Troupe,

the Asian-American Christian Fellowship, Camp Kesem and the Harvard Philippine Forum. Josh is majoring in mechanical engineering.

Leyna Hong has wrapped up her freshman year at Claremont McKenna College where she served as a research assistant for the Kravis Leadership her to work alongside professors and fellow students on researching women Shiraz Simonian ’98 and Sevag Simonian ’02 were both selected to the 2020 Southern California Rising Stars list, an honor reserved

Institute allowing for lawyers who exhibit excellence in practice. The brothers started their law firm Simonian & Simonian in 2014 in Glendale and specialize in employment law, personal injury, bankruptcy and landlord/tenant matters.

in leadership. She is also involved in the student-run organization Claremont Women in Business where she works as an analyst on the Legal, Risk, and Compliance team.

Matthew Crabtree ’14 got engaged to Lauren Gensheimer on October 26, 2019 at El Matador Beach in Malibu. The two met at the University of Oklahoma and are planning an April 17, 2021 wedding in Montgomery, Texas.

Angela Arunarsirakul ’09 married Arun Kambivalappil in September 2019. The two met while working in Japan. Angela recently completed business school at UCLA and earned her MBA. Matthew Jones ’05 married Laura Selvaggio in September 2019. The ceremony was at St. Rita Catholic Church with the reception at The Valley Hunt Club. Other alumni in attendance included Christopher Bigley ’05 (best man), Christopher Stellar ’05 (groomsman), Joseph Hamlin ’05 (groomsman), Malaika (Venegoni) Heinbaugh ’94, Nicholas Venegoni ’95, Jason Dineros ’05, Danielle (Encinas) Caster ’05, Kevin Drake ’05, Michael Grbavac ’05, Christopher Iglesias ’05, Brett Larson ’05, Benjamin Trousdale ’05, Fred Weideman ’05, Stephanie (Bakey) Zandieh ’05, Ryan Doeppel ’08, Amanda (Doeppel) Nulty ’06, Matthew Kohorst ’07, Michael Bigley ’07, Lindsey (Licher) Guest ’00, and Paul Bigley ’77. Matthew and Laura spent their honeymoon traveling around Italy for two weeks and currently reside in Pasadena.

James Castro ’94 and his wife Jessica welcomed

Sienna Hope Castro on November 2, 2019. Everyone is healthy and happy especially big brother, Braden!

Gabriel Castillo ’96

and his wife Natasha welcomed their son Vincent Joseph Castillo on May 10, 2020 weighing 7lbs., 9oz. The best Mother’s Day Gift ever! Kendall Grant ’98 and his wife Heather welcomed their daughter Gabrielle Corinne on April 22, 2020 at 3:23pm weighing 7lbs., 14oz. Kendall and his family

live in San Francisco.

Tim Valdivia ’02 and his wife Dulce welcomed their daughter Nova Luna Valdivia on October 30, 2019 at 6:57pm weighing 6lbs., 4oz. and 20in. long. Tim is an associate electrical engineer for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. He and his family reside in Ontario.

Katie Steben ’06

and her husband Andrew welcomed their first child, Miles Gregory Steben, on December 12, 2019. He was born in Anaheim at 11:19pm weighing 8lbs., 7oz. and 20 in. He is a sweet little guy and has brought so much joy to the family.

Courtney (Zimmerman)

Kutach ’08 and her husband Blake welcomed their daughter Georgia

Blake on January 3, 2020.

Shay Baluyot ’12

welcomed her daughter Kaia Patrice Ajdukovich into the world with all smiles and no cries on May 8, 2020 at 9:24am in North Miami Beach, FL.