1982: James Cudahy has joined Sabinsa Corporation as president of the company, which manufactures and supplies herbal extracts, cosmeceuticals, minerals and specialty fine chemicals. Edward Broderick was promoted to executive vice president of Gilbane Development Company, a full-service construction and real estate development company. The board of directors of Iron Mountain Inc. elected Bob Brennan president and chief executive officer of the company, which is a global leader in information protection and storage services. 1983: On July 1, 2008, Rev. Gerard Tully, CSP, was appointed pastor and superior of St. Philip Neri, his community parish in Portland, Ore. 1984: Nicholas Nigro has published several books, including 101 Best Businesses for Pet Lovers, The Everything Coaching and Mentoring Book, second edition, and No Job? No Prob! Direct Marketing Association named John Horan as senior vice president and chief financial officer as of April 14, 2008. He previously served as vice president and chief financial officer for Ablest, Inc., where he initiated strategic analysis that generated a successful management-led sale of the company. 1985: Brian Roberts was appointed senior vice president and chief financial officer of Warner/Chappell Music, one of the largest music publishers in the world and the award-winning publishing arm of Warner Music Group Corp. 1986: Construction firm Cauldwell Wingate Company, LLC, has named John Kennedy as vice president, core and shell services. 1988: Caroline Molloy currently works for Monday Properties, a real estate investment firm. She has 20 years of experience in financial reporting and management of commercial office buildings in the tristate area, where she manages 230 Park and 237 Park Avenue, two high-end properties in New York City. Aura Andina Zelaya has moved from Stamford, Conn., to Miami, Fla., where she will pursue another degree at a local university. Marco Lala, a former partner at Massey Knakal Realty, has been hired as an associate vice president of investments in the New York City office of Marcus & Millichap, the nation’s largest real estate investment services firm. 1989: Liliana DeAvila-Selibi is an assistant prosecutor in Bergen County and chief of the sex crimes and child abuse unit. 1990: Rev. Mark Vaillancourt is the new principal at John F. Kennedy Catholic High School in Somers, N.Y. Anthony Vaccaro is the commissioner of public works in the town of New Castle, N.Y. His wife, Alicia Rohde Vaccaro, is an engineer with URS Corporation in Paramus, N.J. 1992: Borton-Lawson, a Pennsylvania-based architecture and engineering firm, has hired William McFarland as a senior electrical engineer in its facilities engineering division. Jeff McCarthy is a top salesman at McGeorge’s RV Center in Ashland, Va. 1993: Radio personality Bob Stei has joined Clear Channel Modern Rock
40 38
Fall08Alumni-SHIP.indd 10-11
manhattan.edu manhattan.edu
WRFF-Philadelpha (Radio 104.5) for weekends. Chris Velenovsky passed the New York State Bar Examination. Vincent Dionisio has been hired as a science supervisor for grades 6-12 at Mahwah High School in New Jersey. 1994: In August, Sister Kathleen Fitz Simons of the Congregation of Notre Dame was appointed to assistant superintendent of Catholic schools for the Archdiocese of Hartford, Conn. 1996: Jayson Kiang works as chairman of the mathematics department at Longwood High School in Middle Island, N.Y. 1997: Electrical engineer Leonardo Gonzalez was promoted to associate at RTKL Associates Inc., where he works in the firm’s Baltimore MEP engineering studio. Kelly Oberle Tweed was appointed director of admissions of Immaculate Heart Academy in the Township of Washington, N.J., in July 2008. 1998: Joshua Marler recently became national sales manager at Desert Wind Winery in Prosser, Wash., which produces 25,000 cases of wine annually. 1999: Michael Gentile has been promoted to director of academic marketing at Random House, Inc., the world’s largest English language general trade-book publisher. 2001: Monica Cabarcas, who has been a teacher for seven years, was recently hired as a literacy specialist at Albemarle County Schools in Virginia. She will complete her M.A. in reading education from the University of Virginia in May 2009. 2002: Jennifer Frankola passed the New York State Bar Examination and currently works as an associate at a private civil rights law firm that focuses on special education and autism law. She was a Project Equity Fellow at CUNY Law School, where she studied public interest and civil rights law. Prior to law school, she completed the New York City Teaching Fellowship and received her M.A. from NYU’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development. Fred Kleinbardt works as a senior staff therapist in St. Vincent’s Comprehensive Cancer Center’s radiation therapy department. He also is employed as chief therapist at Vantage Radiation Oncology Services, a private radiation therapy center in Brooklyn, N.Y. 2005: Raymond Pirozzolo, a third-year student working toward a doctoral degree in optometry at the State University of New York College of Optometry, was elected secretary of the American Optometric Student Association at an event in St. Louis, Mo. Tara Berardi and Sean Murray ’98 announced their engagement. 2006: Our Lady of Mount Virgin School in Middlesex, N.J., has appointed Ann Major as its new principal. Carolyn Slattery is the new principal of St. Margaret’s Elementary School in Pearl River, N.Y. 2007: Shannon McCourt has moved to Madrid, Spain, to teach English as a second language.
Ed ’80 and Donna Cavanagh ’83 cheer on the Nittany Lions in the stands at a Penn State University football game.
alumni
ALUMNOTES
Jasper Entrepreneurs Score with Web site When Donna ’83 and Ed Cavanagh ’80 decided to launch their own Web site, they took a gamble. Neither of them had any experience with running a business, yet little could deter these ambitious entrepreneurs who met on Manhattan’s campus. In just two years, the husband and wife duo, who also are business partners, created PossessionPoints.com, a Web site that analyzes football stats. Their idea first came about while watching a Philadelphia Eagles playoff game in January 2007. The Eagles were down late and faced 4th-and-15 with the choice of punting or going for the first down. The team punted, which was the wrong move because it never got the ball back and lost to the New Orleans Saints. Ed, being the systems engineer that he is, started to wonder if there was a mathematical way for teams to know if they should go for plays or not. “I wanted to find some parameters to characterize the winning teams,” he says. To do this, Ed gathered statistical data from every game through the 2006 season and plotted the results on graphs to see if he found any patterns. “It was a lot of trial and error, making lots of graphs and correlating different parameters,” he says. “Is it a good time to take a risk or not? It’s kind of what this whole stat is about.” And so the Web site was born. Clicking on PossessionPoints.com leads to pages of stats analyzed according to
joys watching football games, worked Ed’s system and organized by team. as a marketing intern for the company Charts coded in red, yellow and green during the summer. break down PossessionPoints for the “You can’t just cheaply put up a Web 2006-2008 seasons. As described on site and expect people to come to the site, PossessionPoints “quantify you,” says Donna, who noted that they how a team’s offense plays a role in had to pay ad expenses, legal costs the success of its team’s defense on and startup fees. “You’re still putting both a physical and emotional level.” up the same money as if you’re putWhile anyone can navigate the site, ting up a store.” special information is available only to To promote the site, Donna uses subscribers, including access to articles, Facebook and Twitter to draw an fantasy football player ratings and audience. She also recently began to pages based on PossessionPoints that show trend lines for each team’s week- work with a public relations and marketing professional. ly performance, an indicator of how “Our stats are very unique,” Donna the teams will perform in the future. says. “We don’t challenge NFL analysis, Although the Web site is a boon for but many times we’re different from male players, coaches and fans in the NFL analysis. We use just math and 24- to 58-year-old age range, Donna stay away from subjective, emotional believes women are an untapped auinformation.” dience upon which to build. In little more than a year, the Web “I believe our audience will grow with women,” she says. “I’m starting to site is profitable, but Donna and Ed agree that they have some way to go hear from women who do watch and to make it more lucrative. To reach this love football.” point, they have decided to expand To keep the Web site going, Ed and with venture capital funding from priDonna split up tasks. He built the site vate equity investors that are part of a and works out the data analysis function, while Donna handles running the green technology fund. This arrangement makes sense because the pair business and writing for the site. As a has greened the business, so it does freelance writer for most of her career, not waste paper. her skills come in handy, combined “We’re very excited,” Donna says. with her degree in marketing from Manhattan and Ed’s degree in electri- “We’re starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel after all the business cal engineering from the College, as well as an M.B.A. from St. Joseph’s Col- startup stuff. We can see it’s paying off. lege. Their daughter Coleen, a junior in It was well worth the risk.” the Smeal College of Business at Penn State University, where the couple en-
manhattan.edu
41
10/30/08 1:58:45 PM