ALUMNI MAGAZINE
THE MAGAZINE FOR ALUMNI OF LICK-WILMERDING HIGH SCHOOL | FALL 2015
Cover Story: Cover story to come
Lick-WilmerdingLux Alumni Board Members 2015-2016 Alexander Hochman 1988, President Marjorie Zaharin Albarran 1954 Frances Kawalkowski Bertetta 1936 Catharine Clark 1985 Philip Galante 1987 Adam Gasner 1988 Anthony Grant 1987 Jason Gullion 1987 Sita Brooks Hanlon 1996 Yennie Lee 2006 Matthew Levy 2001 Angus MacDonald 1992 Fred McCrea 1985 David Mitchell 1991 David Morgenstein 1979 David Salazar 1994
LWHS Mission Statement A private school with public purpose, Lick-Wilmerding High School develops the head, heart, and hands of highly motivated students from all walks of life, inspiring them to become lifelong learners who contribute to the world with confidence and compassion.
Matthew Tolve 1998
Lick-Wilmerding Board of Trustees 2015-2016 Sam Fleischmann 1983, President Eric Temple, Head of School Charles Bullock Tom Chavez John Clawson Peter Engel Steve Guttmann Parker Harris Alexander Hochman 1988 Deirdre Hockett Pam Hommeyer Misha Hurd 2009 Kathy Kimball Wally MacDermid 1987 William Madison 2001 Sima Misra Tori Peterson Andrew Rich Tricia Stone Doug Tom Golnar Yazdi
Join Our Online Communities Connect with Alumni Join our growing LWHS alumni community on Facebook. Search for the group “Lick-Wilmerding High School Alumni” and request to join!
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The History of Flexible Tuition at LWHS
published by
The Lick-Wilmerding Alumni and Development Office lick-wilmerding high school 755 Ocean Avenue San Francisco, CA 94112 415-704-5593 E-mail: alumni@lwhs.org keena golden The Fund for LWHS Manager 415-704-5592 kgolden@lwhs.org
Contents 4 On Access Message from Head of School Eric Temple 6 Graduation 2015 9 Class of 2015 College Destinations
nancy kehoe Director of Alumni & Development 415-704-5590 nkehoe@lwhs.org
16 Professional Development at LWHS
miwa kozuki Alumni Program Manager 415-704-5593 mkozuki@lwhs.org
42 Gap Years Home and Abroad
mila krush Database Manager 415-704-5594 mkrush@lwhs.org camille walker Development Associate 415-704-5591 cwalker@lwhs.org EDITOR: NANCY KEHOE
20 Student Notables
30
Alumni Events
45 Recently Published Alumni Authors 48 Class Notes with updates from the Class of 1964 and 2009, and profiles on alumni working at AethLabs and IDEO 74 In Memoriam 75 Alumni Calendar of Events
PRINCIPLE PHOTOGRAPHY IN THIS ISSUE
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Barre Fong Gene Cohn Max Kellenberger Santiago Mejia Eleanor Sananman
The Center at LWHS
A look at the ways LWHS students are fulfilling the school’s mission.
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LWHS ALUMNI MAGAZINE 3
On Access
E
ach year we welcome a new group of talented
and accomplished students to Lick-Wilmerding High School. What makes the incoming classes different from many other independent schools (and different from many community’s public schools) is the economic diversity represented in the student body. Through the school’s commitment to Flexible Tuition (Flex), LWHS is an oasis in a city where income disparity is defining access to housing, health care, and education. By allocating 26% percent of the operating budget to Flex (this year’s Flex budget totals $5.3M) we uphold the founding principles of the school and the importance of creating as much access as possible to a LWHS education.
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MESSAGE FROM THE HEAD OF SCHOOL
In the past, we have looked the US Office of Personnel at the Flex program through Management, the lens of social responsibility “Increased creativity is and as “the right thing to do.” another byproduct of However, our understanding capitalizing on differences. of the importance of Flex has Historically, some of the evolved from seeing it as an most creative periods in “enrollment cost” to having civilization have emerged a central and vital role in the when people of different school’s ability to provide backgrounds have contact an exemplary education to and work together... More recently, research has all LWHS students (a core shown that... inclusive work “program cost” that enables the environments improve school to meet its mission). This organizational performance shift in mindset creates a deeper and innovation. Employees commitment to inclusivity and from varied backgrounds elevates the importance of the bring different impact of having such a diverse perspectives, ideas and community. solutions to the work place that result in new products In the current strategic plan, and services, challenge to Making the Future: Strategic the status quo, and new Directions 2013–2018, one of the collaboration.” school’s initiatives is to, “Further realize and apply the strengths It is exactly this type of of its diversity to the learning innovative and vibrant process, thus contributing to community where students individual and group success.” learn the best. Economic Without the Flex program, the diversity is only one type of LWHS community’s diversity diversity that is valued at is diminished. As reported by LWHS, but given the traditional
“Economic diversity is only one type of diversity that is valued at LWHS, but given the traditional history of independent schooling in America, creating access through Flex carries tremendous weight as we forge heterogeneous learning spaces.”
history of independent schooling in America, creating access through Flex carries tremendous weight as we forge heterogeneous learning spaces. The school’s collective valuing of the benefits of this multilayered community supports the ongoing quest to support and expand Flex. I look forward to partnering with alumni now and well into the future to ensure that Flexible Tuition remains a defining characteristic of a LWHS education. With gratitude for all you do to support the school,
Eric Temple head of school
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Left: From left to right: Morgan Valentine, Kenzo Yanni Velasquez, Katie Vestal, Gordy Webb, and Nathan Wertheimer share a huge smile before they process into graduation. Below: Class-elected speaker Keturah Nobles shares a personal letter that she wrote to the Class of 2015.
Class-elected speaker KETURAH NOBLES exemplified her gratitude for the LWHS community in her personal letter to the Class of 2015, and pushed her peers to take risks and chances fearlessly. “Never stop exploring, even if its re-exploring and rediscovering what was always right in front of you because I feel like, most of the things that we really want, and really need, usually are right in front of us, and it’s just a matter if we’re ready and willing to see it or not.”
Graduation: Congratulations Class of 2015! BY KENZO YANNI VELASQUEZ 2015
A
t graduation in June, a unique, talented, passionate, and energetic class of 109 students from all walks of
life took pride and joy in officially gathering together one last time at the beautiful Nourse Theater to celebrate all of their accomplishments over the last four years.
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Class Valedictorian MINA CHING shared her perspective on the importance and significance of sleep in everyone’s life, reminding everyone to always try but also remember that it’s okay to give oneself limits. “I also see Lick as somewhat of an incubator, where we students were lying dormant, preparing for the world. Instead of nice warm blankets, we slept with a nice warm community sheltering us from the outside world and giving us safety to explore who we were.” This class, as demonstrated by the college matriculation list, is ready to take the next steps in their journey of lifelong learning and adventure. We wish them the best!
GRADUATION 2015
Left: Head of School Eric Temple addresses the graduates and audience at the Nourse Theater. Below, left: Alfredo Lopez and Julian Holmes happy and proud post-graduation. Bottom, left: Pure joy. Logan Pierce. Below: From left to right: Danya Rubenstein-Markiewicz, Iman Rostami, Stefania Ruibal, Sabrina San Diego, and Gabriella Sanchez-Correa.
GRADUATION SPEAKERS 2015 Class-Elected Speaker: Keturah Nobles, introduced by Junior/Senior Dean Dr. Chinh Nguyen Valedictorian: Mina Ching, introduced by Technical Arts faculty member Laurel Nathanson Faculty Speaker: Robert Sanborn 1970, introduced by Learning Strategies Director Winifred Montgomery
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GRADUATION 2015
Left: From left to right: Zac Oji, James, Rich, Yassi Roberts, Cameron Rosen, August Rock, and Amelia Roskin-Frazee. Right: Valedictorian Mina Ching
Above: Faculty Speaker, Robert Sanborn 1970 Above, right: Head of School Eric Temple and Director of Enrollment Lisa Wu show their excitement as they congratulate each member of the Class of 2015. Right: From left to right: Lillian Saunders, Sophie Schneider, and Jane Schoeneweis
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GRADUATION 2015
Bard College
Scripps College
Barnard College (4)
Seattle University
Bennington College
Smith College
Boston University
Sonoma State University
Bowdoin College (2)
Stanford University (5)
Brown University
Syracuse University
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (2)
The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science & Art (2)
Carleton College
The George Washington University (2)
Carnegie Mellon University (2)
The University of Texas, Austin
Chapman University
Trinity College
Colgate University
Tufts University (2)
Columbia University (4)
Tulane University (2)
Cornell University (3)
University of British Columbia
Dartmouth College
College Destinations for the Class of 2015
C
ongratulations to the senior class on their graduation and stellar
acceptances to colleges and universities throughout the country. We can’t wait to hear about your adventures, studies, and fun, so please keep in touch. Listed below are the college choices for the Class of 2015. The number in parenthesis indicates the number of students planning to attend that school, when more than one.
University of California, Berkeley (2)
Davidson College Duke University
University of California, Los Angeles (2)
Hamilton College (2) Harvard University
University of California, Santa Barbara
Haverford College
University of Maryland, College Park
Johns Hopkins University (3) Lewis & Clark College (2)
University of Michigan
Macalester College (2)
University of Oregon
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2)
University of Puget Sound (2)
McGill University
University of Rochester
Middlebury College
University of San Francisco (3)
New York University (2)
University of Southern California
Northeastern University (4)
University of St. Andrews
Oberlin College
University of the Pacific
Occidental College (3)
University of Virginia
Pitzer College (2)
University of Washington
Princeton University
Vassar College
Reed College (2)
Washington University in St. Louis
Rhode Island School of Design (2)
Williams College
San Francisco State University (3)
Yale University (3)
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LWHS ALUMNI MAGAZINE 9
On Access:
The History of Flexible Tuition at LWHS BY CLARA CHAN 2014
A
private college-preparatory high school’ and ‘economic accessibility’ seem like two phrases that would never be uttered in the same sentence.
For Lick-Wilmerding High School, the desire to promote accessibility and diversity harkens back to the very mission of the school’s founders, James Lick, Jellis Wilmerding, and Miranda Lux. For the first 77 years of LWHS’ existence, the school remained completely tuition-free.
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ON ACCESS
Flex History 1895 School enrollment
In 1972, as the desire for academic resources increased with the enrollment expanding and becoming co-ed once again, the need arose for LWHS to begin collecting tuition. In keeping with the ideology behind accessibility, former Head of School Al Adams said in a recent interview that LWHS eased into how it charged tuition. In 1988, when Adams began his tenure, similar private high schools located in the Bay Area—University, Urban, Marin Academy, Branson—were charging students about $8,800 per year, whereas LWHS was only charging $4,400 per year. “It was based on the assumption that keeping tuition low would keep the school accessible [to students] from all walks of life,” Adams said.
“These days you’d probably call it the ‘Tesla Phenomenon,’ but it has to do with the notion that because Lick charged half of what other schools were charging, some people—maybe many people—thought, ‘Well, my gosh, it must not be as good.’ We knew that we were as good and so we wanted to demonstrate that, or at least convey that.” On top of that, a large majority of LWHS families were able to afford paying market rate tuition, according to Adams.
LANGUAGE OF DISCOURSE: THE CREATION OF “FLEXIBLE TUITION”
With the tuition increase, however, the Board of Trustees and Administrative Team realized that they would need to create a sustainable financial aid During Adams’ first year as program that would keep the Head of School, two major school as inclusive as possible. decisions were made: to Former Chief Financial Officer increase tuition to market rate Rick England, who retired from and develop a financial aid LWHS last spring, said that program. The decision to move to market rate tuition was driven the dedication to finding the partly by what Adams describes solution to this dilemma was what made the school stand out as the “Cadillac Phenomenon.” to him.
1956 School enrollment
1985 School enrollment
1995 School enrollment
2005 School enrollment
Students
136
136 or 100% received flex grants
172
172 or 100% received flex grants
295
55 or 22% received flex grants
Students
Students
350
116 or 33% received flex grants
410
177 or 43% received flex grants
490
186 or 38% received flex grants
550
219 or 40%
Students
Students
2015 School enrollment
Students
2025 School enrollment (projected)
Students
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will receive flex grants
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CELEBRATING TEACHING
something else, like a sliding tuition scale. “There was literally a palpable sigh of relief among these 100 parents,” Adams said of the response.
“I realized that the school had a significantly different emphasis on access than most private schools,” England said in an interview with the Paper Tiger. “That really appealed to me that the school made that a key element in admission—that they wanted to accept as many people as they could regardless of ability to pay.” England, Adams, and the Board of Trustees then began gauging how the school’s families felt about the increase in tuition in order to determine how best to develop a financial aid program. Adams began meeting with groups of parents to discuss the decision to increase tuition and how having a financial aid program would actually improve economic diversity on campus.
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But it was at one of these meetings, which were held inside the old cafeteria, that Adams said the idea behind Flexible Tuition (Flex) was born. While Adams was presenting, a dad sitting in the audience spoke up. “He said, ‘You know Al, I don’t care how much financial aid you have, I’m not going to ask for it, I’ll never ask for it.’ So I said, ‘Well, why?’ and he said, ‘Well, you know, I’m a self-made man and I’m proud and to me, financial aid sounds like secondclass citizenship—it sounds like a handout,’” Adams said. Thinking on his feet, Adams asked the father if he would feel differently if the system was still the same but it was called
From there, LWHS decided to use the language “Flexible Tuition” to make its financial aid program more encouraging and respectful to families interested in coming to the school. “It’s just so much different if you say, ‘So how much is tuition at LWHS?’ and I would say, ‘Well, it ranges from $500 to $42,000 depending on your family’s ability to pay,’” Adams said. “That’s just so much more welcoming than to say, ‘It’s $42,000, but we have a lot of financial aid.’”
FINDING THE 1.5X MODEL Terminology aside, the school needed to ensure that its Flex program would be sustainable and avoid the “barbell effect,” whereby the school would only have students from wealthy or poor families, but not any students from families whose financial circumstances fell in between. “We definitely didn’t want to do that, first of all, because we wanted to keep the families we had, but also because we were so clear that the middle group, we really do believe, is the literal and
ON ACCESS
significant bridge between the extremes,” Adams said. “For a healthy community, you want the whole continuum represented.” A standing committee of the LWHS Board of Trustees, then called the Access and Affordability Committee, was created to develop a successful distribution formula. The committee experimented until deciding upon a 1.5x model—created by Professor Emerita of Particle Physics and Astrophysics at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and LWHS Board of Trustees Emerita Helen Quinn—to ensure that the Flex budget would increase at a faster rate than the percentage of tuition increase. For example, if tuition were to increase by three percent, then Flex would increase by roughly 4.5 percent. “People were happy to have a rule of thumb to work from,” Quinn said of the formula. “I think it is very key to the mission of LWHS to have it be an economically diverse community of students, and so this was an important decision for thinking about how to maintain that.” “Everybody else just says, ‘Oh, it’s the magical formula. Helen says it should be!’” she added with a laugh.
NOT JUST A MATTER OF DOLLARS AND CENTS In 2009, 23 percent of the LWHS operating budget was dedicated to the Flex program. Though this decision signaled how important the program was to the school, it also meant that the LWHS Board and Administration needed to make a conscious decision on where to cut back on spending. “We made choices not to be as fancy,” Adams said. Not all families were on board with the decision, however. Though the number was small, Adams said a few families thought that the decision to commit so much to the program was an indication that the school was biased toward low-income or public school students. “Most people would be embarrassed to say this out loud, but I know there were some families who chose not to come to LWHS—this might sound weird—but because it was too diverse.” But Adams said that the focus on inclusion and diversity was not something that would be compromised. “We were just so clear about our values that we wanted everybody equally celebrated and cared for and cared about that if some people chose not to buy into that, that was fine,” he said.
ON ACCESS:
Rick England, 2015 Will Hancock “Unsung Hero” Award Recipient
A
t the end of the 2014–2015 school year,
Chief Financial Officer Rick England retired from LWHS after 22 years of outstanding service. In recognition of his remarkable work and tenure at Lick-Wilmerding High School, Rick was selected by the National Business Officers Association (NBOA) to receive the “Unsung Hero” Award, which is given to business officers who have made an extraordinary and significant difference in their schools. These business officers, in doing their job, exemplify a high standard of integrity, knowledge, and motivation to help their schools succeed. They are team players whose work supports faculty, staff, trustees, and administration. They are both excellent managers and true leaders. In order to be considered for this award, a business officer must have clearly demonstrated an effective mastery of their job. Yet more importantly, this individual must have made a significant difference to the school, its staff, and its students. Just prior to his retirement, Rick was presented with this award by Head of School Eric Temple. We couldn’t have said it any better—Rick is truly an unsung hero. Congratulations to Rick on this achievement, and most importantly, thank you, for doing so much to make LWHS the wonderful community it is today.
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Flexible Tuition Today at LWHS Thanks to its 120-year history of being accessible to students from all walks of life, including 77 years of being tuition-free, LWHS enjoys the legacy, the resources, and the strategic resolve to push the limits on what it can mean to be a truly accessible independent school. This commitment to inclusion is an essential element of LWHS’s distinctive educational program and atmosphere. The school’s endowment earnings are dedicated almost exclusively to making the school more financially accessible. The Flexible Tuition program allows families to apply for reduced tuition, which ranges anywhere from $1,000 to $41,468 for the 2015-2016 year. As mentioned in the article, the formula used to calculate flexible tuition is complex—and many factors are taken into consideration when calculating the Flex range. A committee of dedicated staff and faculty, who annually elect to serve on the Flex committee to help fulfill the mission of the school, thoroughly review each and every application. Flex is based on much more than family income—factors such as number of family members attending tuition-paying schools, family size, assets, income sources, and unusual expenses (i.e. legal fees, parent educational loan payments, etc.) are all carefully considered. Based on this information, the committee calculates a family’s ability to afford tuition. This process operates separately from the admissions process. Currently, 186 students benefit from the Flex program. The school’s commitment to Flex is nearly double that of the national average for independent day schools.
INCLUSIVITY OUTSIDE OF TUITION Though the Flex program was successful in helping a larger number of families afford to come to LWHS, the school didn’t want to restrict its Flex efforts to just tuition. The Access and Affordability Committee realized that
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additional fees for items such as textbooks and other activities were costs which were not factored into tuition yet. “The range was everything from scuba diving in Baja—that would be one extreme—to film noir on campus... and families had to pay for them,” Adams said of the former Intersession program. “As you can imagine, it turns out that... kids from affluent families went scuba diving in Baja or did things like that, and kids who didn’t have money did things on campus, so that felt terrible.” The Access and Affordability committee eventually decided to change its name—first to the Access and Inclusive Community Committee, and finally to Access and Success— to better reflect the school’s efforts toward inclusivity. One of the first issues addressed by this committee was Intersession, according to Adams. The program was limited to a maximum of $75 per student, and it was included in tuition. From there, the committee worked to include costs for textbooks, the yearbook, and sports team uniforms into tuition. But Adams said the most rewarding—and most
challenging—additional cost that was eventually included in tuition was school lunch, an effort which England spearheaded. England discovered, based on the IDs which were punched into the school’s dining system, that a disproportionate number of Flex students were not purchasing lunch from the school. In what was about a five-year process, the cost of lunch was included in tuition, beginning in 2010.
PLANNING AHEAD For the 2015–16 school year alone, the Flex budget is $5.3 million, which is roughly 26 percent of the operating budget, according to current Head of School, Eric Temple. Currently, 37.8 percent of students attending LWHS participate in the Flex program. Temple said that as the school hopes to increase its student body numbers from 490 to 550, he wants to increase the number of students on flex to 40 percent. “We believe that students learn best in a truly diverse community and that includes economic diversity,” Temple said. “What we’re trying to do is shift the dialogue a little bit to be less around ‘help support kids
ON ACCESS
Though the school continues to look inward to continually improve upon the Flex program, both Temple and Adams said that the program has influenced schools around the Bay Area and the U.S. to start developing more inclusive financial aid programs. “Personally, one of the reasons I was attracted to LWHS is because of its commitment to creating a diverse community,” Temple said. “You’re not only attracting families and students, but you’re attracting faculty and administrators, really talented people who are really committed to these ideals.”
who deserve to get a great education at LWHS’ to ‘help support the entire community by creating a diverse student body that deepens learning in the school.’” In order to better understand how to improve the Flex program, Temple said that he created an Institutional Researcher position, which is currently held by faculty member Mariel Triggs. Among other projects, Triggs has begun collecting data for a longitudinal study that will track
information about Flex and students participating in Flex. Though the study is still in its infancy, Temple said the data has already been fascinating. “An example that we found out from this data gathering is Flex students are disproportionately more involved in leadership positions at the school,” Temple said. “That to me is super exciting data because... it shows that kids feel really empowered to fully participate in the community, no matter what they’re paying.”
“We believe that students learn best in a truly diverse community and that includes economic diversity...”
“The world is changing, and I think schools understand if we’re not diverse, then we’re not going to be offering a good education,” Temple said. “In order to survive, you’re going to have to diversify your student body.” And LWHS will continue to do just that.
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ON ACCESS
Left: Natalie Freed and Suzy Shimek participate in the Project Zero Conference held on the LWHS campus.
Professional Development at LWHS BY RANDY BARNETT, ASSISTANT HEAD OF SCHOOL
H
ow do we make a great school better? New construction and
technology, strategic plans, and dynamic programming are the most visible signs of Lick-Wilmerding High School’s resistance to complacency, but the beating heart of the school is found in the classroom, where teachers are devoted to creating the most meaningful educational experiences on the planet. Teachers embrace the mindset of continuous improvement, and the school supports their efforts through a robust professional development budget and a system that raises the bar for professional excellence.
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2014-2015 Milestones: Faculty & Staff Years of Service at LWHS 5
YEARS
Alba Yani Lovos Prep Cook Rangel Mis First Cook Lydia Greer Film Teacher Yetta Allen Science and Math Teacher
In the fall of 2014, a working group led by Head of School Eric Temple unveiled the Standards for Teaching at LWHS. The first of four meta standards is lifelong learning: “Teachers use their deepening knowledge of their subject area, pedagogy, and adolescent development to design and deliver a compelling curriculum.” In order to breathe life into these words, LWHS updated its Support, Development, and Evaluation program by placing professional development as a critical implementation step in the annual goal-setting and achieving cycle. Just as faculty ask students to regularly reflect on performance and grow, teachers mirror this process. They reflect on feedback from classroom observations and student course evaluations, while working with department chairs to identify the following years’ goals and the professional development opportunities that will best support their growth towards these goals. In order to support teachers in meeting their professional development expectations with intention, we’ve identified the categories of content knowledge, pedagogy, adolescent development/learning and the brain, cultural competency, and leadership. To meet the goals of building a healthy climate and the strategic goal of “leveraging the strengths of (the school’s) diversity to enhance student success,”
Chandra White Facilities Manager Oscar King Junior/Senior Dean and Math Teacher William Sauerland Vocal Music Teacher Winifred Montgomery Learning Strategies Director
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YEARS
20
YEARS
25
YEARS
Wilson Hong Controller
Chris Yin Freshman/Sophomore Dean
Cynthia Yu Business Office Manager
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ON ACCESS
Right: Longtime Math Teacher Steve Simon at the Project Zero Conference.
“Teachers embrace the mindset of continuous improvement, and the school supports their efforts through a robust professional development budget and a system that raises the bar for professional excellence.”
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LWHS asks that faculty engage in cultural competency development at least every two years. The school also strives to identify and develop a wide variety of means to achieving individual professional development goals. The most obvious tend to be the workshops, institutes, and conferences around the country. In the 2014–15 school year, teachers attended events such as NAIS People of Color Conference, White Privilege Conference, the Stanley King Institute for Counseling, The Future of Learning Institute at Harvard, Women in Leadership, and the Innovative Leadership Conference. Faculty teams used professional development funds to develop innovative
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curriculum and work on strategic alignment goals. Since not every teacher can travel due to family constraints, it’s important to provide creative options for professional development. A significant source of professional development has been on campus. This past year, three nationally recognized educators worked with faculty. First, Daniel Wilson, Director of Harvard’s Project Zero, deepened our knowledge of effective collaboration, sharing his years of research in a handson session. Then, Rosetta Lee led a two-day workshop helping us build cultural competency. Finally, David Kelley of Stanford Design School and IDEO shared his thinking around Creative Confidence and led faculty in
invigorating exercises from the book of the same title, co-authored with his brother. Each of these presentations comprised a segment of the school’s ongoing work around alignment and habits of mind, guided the work that happens during faculty and department meetings, and challenged teachers to experiment in the classroom and share their results.
ON ACCESS
EXAMPLES OF SOME OF THE SPECIFIC WORK FACULTY AND STAFF PARTICIPATED IN DURING THE 2014–15 SCHOOL YEAR Alan Wesson
Service Learning Educators Conference hosted by CSEE
Amy Pitsker
American Association of Teachers of French annual conference
Andrew Kleindolph
Parametric Design Summer Program @ CCA (100 Scripts) Gray Area Festival Workshop Day
Anna Lea
A new section of “How to Learn Math: for Teachers”
Annie Mehalchick
BATDC, Women in Leadership
Becca Glowacki
Arduino Microcontrollers: Building Smart Art
Beverly Boitano
Math conference CMC
Chandra White
Kate Wiley
NAIS People of Color Conference
Laralyn Bergstedt
A.P. Chemistry Workshop
Linnea Ogden
Writers’ conference
Lisa Wu
BATDC Leaders of Color Workshop
Lissa Crider
Developing a Digital Branch (Online)
Mariel Triggs
NAIS People of Color Conference
Miguel Zavala
Improv Intensive Weeklong Broadway Teacher’s Workshop
Mike Khavul
Choices Program
Monica West
NAIS People of Color Conference
Nancy Kehoe
Stanley H. King Counseling Institute
School Dude University Facilities Software
Natalie Freed
Programming Language Clojure Conference
Chinh Nguyen
NSTA National Conference
Oscar King
Christine Godinez
NAIS People of Color Conference
California Mathematics Council—South Division
Christine Sebastian
Core Strength Coaching Skills Certificate
Colleen Nyeggen
American Association of Physics Teachers summer meeting in Minneapolis
NAIS People of Color Conference Randy Barnett
Leadership + Design
Rebecca Hong
NAIS People of Color Conference Learning Hip Hop pedagogy, engaging best practices in multicultural educational approaches
American Society of Engineering Education K–12 Workshop American Association of Physics Teachers National Conference and Physics Education Research Conference Cristal Ogletree
NAIS People of Color Conference
Daniel Tesfai
Climbing Wall Summit
Don Rizzi
Presentation on BlendEd at the OESIS Conference
Eleanor Sananman
“Free Your Voice”—10 weeks of vocal expressive arts and improv performance, as an alternative approach to a traditional public speaking course.
Eric Friedman
WFR Recertification Course
Erika Solís
NAIS People of Color Conference
Goranka PoljakHoy
Portrait Painting with Oils Autobiographical Painting: Turn inward and explore your own story, cultural identity, or family history through hybrid painting practices.
TEA Korea Seminar at the National Consortium for Teaching about Asia Regina Liu
Chinese Language Education & Research Center—PD WEBINAR 2015: Responsive/Interactive Classroom 2 morning webinars on Effective Strategies in Preparing Students for the Chinese Subject Test
Robin von Breton
Harvard Alumni People of Color Conference
Solana Diaz
Menu of Change
Tamara Pellicier
UC Berkeley Greater Good Science Center’s Summer Institute for Educators
Winifred Montgomery
White Privilege Conference
Yeshi Gusfield
White Privilege Conference
Yetta Allen
Stanford “How To Learn Math” online course White Privilege Conference
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Student Notables COMPILED BY KENZO YANNI VELASQUEZ 2015 AND TAFT WEBER-KILPACK 2016
T
his year, the LickWilmerding Organization of Women (LWOW) hosted the second annual Girl Talk, partnering with The Urban School’s SWEAR (Students for Women’s Equality and Rights) for the first time. Girl Talk, comprised of anonymously written monologues from community members and performed by female student volunteers, featured musical performances from The Muses (an all-female acapella group at LWHS), as well as talented musicians from both schools. The ticket sales from the event benefitted La Casa de Las Madres, a shelter and advocacy group for victims of domestic violence.
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Helen Keller Birthday Party is an anti-folk experience, spanning genres such as comedy punk, queer ghost core, and crime rock. Born from the creative partnership of DANIEL HOLZMAN 2017 (vocals) and LOÏE PLAUTZ 2015 (guitar and vocals), who met in a summer improv class, the band now features NICK FRANGENBERG 2015 (drums) and Kavi Dalal (bass) of University High School. The group has performed at multiple community meetings, the Student Council Showcase, and several events outside of school. Find them and listen to their album on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/ helenkellerbirthdayparty.
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During the fall of their sophomore year, KK NARITA 2016 and ZOE HARRIS 2016 launched the Hyphen, the online extension of the Paper Tiger newspaper. The site not only publishes articles from the Paper Tiger written by the LWHS Journalism class, but posts stories, articles, and photos in between newspaper printings. Contributors to the Hyphen have included club leaders, faculty, activists, Student Council
Top: LWOW Class of 2015 club leaders at Girl Talk: Natalie Gable, Bix Archer, Jacqueline Blaska, and Claire Fry. Above: The Helen Keller Birthday Party performs in the Ehrer Theatre.
STUDENT NOTABLES
Above: The LWHS Hyphen, lwhshyphen.org Right: Cameron Rosen’s 2015 award winning submission to the California State Fair—a 14 inch tall tower made of 149 individual pieces Far right: A member of beekeeping club tends to the LWHS beehives.
members, and many others outside of the Journalism class. Zoe and KK consider their greatest accomplishment to be Gender Week, a weeklong, schoolwide event that included a documentary screening, silent chalkboard discussions, and a photo series on their “Lick Who?” feature. As co-managing editors, KK and Zoe look forward to finishing their senior year with the Hyphen have hopes of leaving an exciting opportunity for the next editors. “This site was exciting to us for the same reasons we hope it will be exciting to the next Hyphen generation,” says Zoe. Follow them on Twitter @HyphenLWHS and read their latest articles at lwhshyphen.org.
CAMERON ROSEN 2015 continues to excel at woodworking, launching an Etsy shop last summer to sell his handmade creations. He also won first place in
Woodworking at the California State Fair last July. “Of all of the skills and micro-focuses involved in woodworking, woodturning appealed to me the most because of the degree of precision involved and the potential to reveal the inner beauty of wood, which is otherwise hidden,” said Cameron. He will continue woodworking through college, saying “you can devote a lifetime to the practice, and still have more to learn.” Check out his Etsy shop: PeninsulaWoodwork.etsy.com
NIKHIL BROCCHINI 2016 started Beekeeping Club in the Fall of 2013, a group committed to educating students about bees, the craft of beekeeping, and issues surrounding bees in the modern world. Nik is leading the club in a multiyear process of renovating the garden at LWHS, beginning with developing a drought-
resistant garden and installing two new beehives. The club members assist in the Hive Manager program, where students take turns looking after the bees and doing daily upkeep for the hives.
MALHAR SINGH 2016 is continuing his work with Vibha, in international nonprofit that invests in individuals, charities, projects, and companies to impact the lives of underresourced children in need of education. This year, Malhar organized the second annual Penny Wars, an inter-grade competition to see which grade could raise the most money to benefit vibha.org.
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STUDENT NOTABLES
FRANKIE LEWIS 2015 was awarded second place in the Bay Area Sport Hall of Fame Art Rosenbaum Sports Writing Scholarship last summer. His article, “The Third Team,” profiles umpires and referees in high school leagues and was published in the Paper Tiger and the Hyphen.
LEILA KASHANI-SABET 2017 and DAVID LUDEKE 2017 worked with recent graduate CHASE HOMMEYER 2014 to raise awareness around human trafficking in India. As an intern in Inida with the NGO Guria, Chase’s goal was to involve as many schools around the world in a global art exchange. Working with Chase, Leila and David asked schools around the Bay Area to create artwork around the issue of human trafficking, submit the artwork online and, on International Women’s Day (March 8th),
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display artwork from across the world as a powerful statement protesting modern day slavery. David and Leila spearheaded the project at LWHS, leading multiple art sessions and encouraging students to support Chase in this process. In total, they collected and submitted over 30 pieces of artwork from LWHS students, as well as other schools in the Bay Area.
SOPHIE SCHNEIDER 2015 and EMMA GREENBERG BELL 2015, presidents of Community Action Club, partnered with the Afghan Friends Network organization and and current parent Humaira Ghilzai to create a pen pal program that connected LWHS students with high school students in Afghanistan. The two won the 2015 Head of School Award for Civic Engagement for their work in bringing this pen
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pal program to life at LWHS, as well as the multitude of service projects and events they organized through their club. Sophie and Emma headed off to college with the hope that the pen pal program they started will continue to grow and expand each year.
PARKER DITTMORE KLEBAHN 2017 has been sailing for nine years and started a sailing team at LWHS during his sophomore year. The club team, which includes Parker and BRYN ANDERSON 2018, has competed on a national level, earning 5th in California. They also received accolades for their service work and excellence on both a team and individual level. Next year, Parker will continue to compete and hopes to expand the club team to five members.
Top, left: Frankie Lewis 2015 (second from left) receives his award at AT&T Park. Above: A piece of art created by Maia Shwarts 2017 for Guria.
STUDENT NOTABLES
Above: The dynamic duo of 2015 classmates Emma Greenberg Bell and Sophie Schneider. Above, right: Kenzo Yanni Velasquez 2015 performs at YBCA’s first annual Young Artist Laboratory, Volume 1: Emergent (Eco)nomy. Right: The LWHS Robotics Team, top row from left to right: Parent Thomas Wu, Darius Rudominer 2016, Zach Cummings 2016, Matthew Eng 2018, Rafael Quinteiro 2016, parent Craig Cummings, Annike Cummings 2017. Bottom row, from left to right: Isaac Lau 2018, Grant Rajapakse 2016, Trent Hommeyer 2016, Lizzy Wu 2016.
From the summer of 2014 to the spring of 2015, KENZO YANNI VELASQUEZ 2015 worked as a Young Artist at Work (YAAW) with other high school students from the Bay Area to learn about social change and activist work through the lens of art. Having the opportunity to work with students and professional artists who are passionate about social justice pushed Yanni to create a multimedia movement spoken word piece entitled Reach (youtu.be/ Uqd4osJFB6g). This piece shares part of Yanni’s narrative as a young man of color hoping to achieve the best education in today’s society. Topics of race, class, inequities, education, and privilege were addressed in order to highlight the reality Yanni believes that many students encounter when applying to elite colleges. As of today, Reach has over 1k
views. Yanni has performed this piece twice, at the Yerba Buena Center of the Arts and at the Student Council Showcase.
In their sophomore year, LIZZY WU 2016 and ZACH CUMMINGS 2016 started the LWHS Robotics Club and received a grant to register as a First Tech Challenge Robotics Team. The two, along with TRENT HOMMEYER 2016, RAFAEL QUINTEIRO 2016, GRANT RAJAPAKSE 2016, DARIUS RUDOMINER
2016, ANNIKE CUMMINGS 2017, MATTHEW ENG 2018, and ISAAC LAU 2018 spent months building a robot and went on to win the Think award for their documentation of the build and design process at the qualifying tournament in San Jose. In addition, the group placed in the top four at Northern California Regionals.
NIZA CONTRERAS 2016 launched an Etsy shop to sell her handmade creations during her freshman year.
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STUDENT NOTABLES
Her Etsy store is her way of sharing her work with others. Niza hopes to expand her store (be on the lookout for some knitted creations and more jewelry!) so that she can offer a variety of different things. See her Etsy shop at FatCatCoSF.etsy.com.
JILL WU 2016 has been a San Francisco Youth Commissioner for the past year. She was appointed by a District Supervisor to serve on a board of advising youth whose job is to identify and address youth issues in San Francisco. Since January, Jill has been working with OLIVER YORK 2017 on Vote16, an initiative to lower the voting age for municipal and school board elections to age 16. She’s presented before the Board of Supervisor’s Governance Committee and assisted with the Vote16 Rally in March 2015. As a Youth Commissioner, Jill also serves on the Youth Justice Committee, which addresses issues between youth and the justice system in San Francisco.
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Her work on the Youth Justice Committee includes collaboration with Project WHAT (We are Here And Talking), a group of youth with incarcerated parents, and the Memorandum of Understanding between the SFUSD and the SFPD, which addresses how police officers are allowed to arrest students on campus. And Jill’s not stopping anytime soon! She’s been reappointed under Supervisor Eric Mar of District 1. She’ll continue to push the Vote16 campaign forward, work with the Youth Justice Committee, and gain more experience in politics. You can learn more about the Vote16SF campaign on twitter, instagram, facebook, and their website: vote16sf.wordpress.com.
ALEX SAHAI 2016 and ALEX FINE 2017 are teen
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entrepreneurs who have been at work since middle school. Alex S. got his start in entrepreneurship in 8th grade when he took an entrepreneurship class and pitched to investors at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. In his sophomore year he co-founded Planet of the Kids with his sister to enable teen entrepreneurs to collaborate and share their experiences globally. Alex F. also started his entrepreneurial endeavors in middle school, where he developed a search engine for students, Harvix (harvix.com). In Fall 2014, Alex and Alex co-founded Bay Area Student Entrepreneurs (BASE), a student-led app and business development company that enables teenagers to have hands-on exposure with entrepreneurship. The BASE team currently has eight LWHS students involved. BASE won
Top, left: One of her handmade creations, a felted sheep by Niza Contreras 2016. Top: Jill Wu (second from left) and other youth community leaders at a rally for Vote16. Above: The BASE student team from left to right: Trent Hommeyer 2016, Alex Sahai 2016, Troy Mock 2015, Jackson Vachal 2017, Alex Fine 2017, Ryan Kearns 2017, Ryan Stewart 2017, John Craig 2017, David Ludeke 2017.
STUDENT NOTABLES
Above: Katie Vestal 2015 after completing her Gold Award. Above, right: Blythe Engel 2017, founder of Taking Out Toxo.
2nd place at the AccelerateSF DevWeek Hackathon in February 2015 for their student search engine, Dragonfly (dragonflysearch.com). They are currently exploring a new direction for BASE to accelerate and incubate teen entrepreneurship through a joint venture. Learn more about BASE, the team, and their projects at base.codes.
KATIE VESTAL 2015, who has been a Girl Scout for 12 years, recently completed her Gold Award in May. The Gold Award requires a scout to find a problem in her community and provide a sustainable solution, so Katie decided to help the bees who are losing their habitats. She created a bee garden in Golden Gate Park (25th at Lincoln), with the help of fellow troop members and gardeners at the San Francisco Rec and Park department. The bee garden is made up
of over 150 native plants that attract honey bees and other pollinators, and it will continue to be weeded and watered by San Francisco Rec and Park. Learn more about her project at goldawardkv.tumblr.com.
While in middle school, BLYTHE ENGEL 2017 founded Taking Out Toxo, an organization that works to raise money for the Toxoplasmosis Research Institute (TRI). Over the years she has rallied her friends and fellow volleyball teammates to participate in many Taking Out Toxo activities, raising awareness and funds for this cause. This past year, she partnered with a donor who would match the money she raised. In total, Blythe was able to raise $56,180 in one year to give to TRI. Learn more about her work on the Taking Out Toxo Facebook page, facebook. com/takingouttoxo.
JULIA POLLAK 2015 was paired with local filmmaker Matt Szymanowski through the San Francisco Film Society mentorship program during the Summer and Fall 2014. She created her own documentary film about San Francisco’s dog culture, titled A Walk in the Park, by approaching strangers at dog parks and asking them to answer questions from the point of view of their dog. Though the process of interviewing people was challenging at first, Julia says, “it forced me to step outside my comfort zone by conversing with skeptical and shy strangers while proving my credibility as an interviewer and filmmaker.” She hopes the film “reflects the humorous, whimsical, and sentimental relationship between man and man’s best friend.” You can view Walk in the Park on her YouTube channel: youtube.com/ JuliaPollakFilms.
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STUDENT NOTABLES
Senior Awards Anne Murray Ladd Award Michele Gee and Steven Page Jeannette Gaehwiler Award Gordon Webb Female Scholar/Athlete Sabrina Larsen Male Scholar/Athlete Nathan Wertheimer Female Athlete of the Year Julia Thompson Male Athlete of the Year Matthew Jenkins Carrie Howland Award Kenzo Yanni Velasquez Head of School Award for Civic Engagement Sophie Schneider and Emma Greenberg Bell Signer Award Emma Rose Wirshing
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JOELLE PARK 2015 began making videos on her YouTube channel during her sophomore year at LWHS. She began with simple makeup videos, similar to what other young women were creating, but since then her videos have evolved into a creative space where she is able to document her life, express her thoughts and creativity, share tips and advice on anything from simple makeup application to high school drama. Joelle has started to vlog, documenting significant events such as the dance concert or her last week of high school, capturing and sharing these special memories. Joelle has gained an unexpected following on her YouTube channel, forming new friendships and even partnerships with companies in the US and China. Joelle says, “I hope to have a career in the entertainment industry, and I’ve always felt there were a lack of entertainers I could identify with as Christians and AsianAmerican females. I hope to use the media to break down
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stereotypes surrounding my identifiers by being candid with my followers and simply being myself on and off camera.” Check out her Youtube channel: youtube.com/joellolol.
During the second semester of her senior year, BIX ARCHER 2015 decided to do an independent study to focus on her artwork. She found that during first semester, between classwork, extracurricular activities, and the college process, she had neglected her art practice. She wanted to make up for this and provide a space for herself to reflect on and process all that had happened in the fall by devoting time in her schedule to make art. Every week or two, she researched a different artist and then designed and executed a piece inspired by some element of their work, including technique, subject, and meaning. You can view some of Bix’s art work at cargocollective.com/bixarcher
Left: Joelle Park 2015 on the set of one of her short films. Above: A sample of some of the artwork created by Bix Archer 2015 for her independent study.
STUDENT NOTABLES
Top: Students on the Guatemala trip led by Maya Rich 2017 and James Rich 2015. From left to right: Jackson Vachal 2017, Lindsey Bach 2017, Liza Phillips, Maya Rich 2017, Jill Reilly 2017, Maddy Leibovitz 2016, Drew Tomao 2017, James Rich 2015, and Nate Joseph 2017. Above: Front and center, Dominic Masotto 2016 performs at the LWHS Dance Concert.
MAYA RICH 2017 and her brother JAMES RICH 2015 led a group of 10 LWHS students to Guatemala this summer. They planned and organized the trip with a small, familyrun organization called OUR Guatemala. The aim of this trip was to integrate the students with the culture and land of Guatemala and to provide service to families and children in need. The main project was the Bunk Bed Project, bringing space efficient new beds to families. They also connected
audition for Young Skull Club (YSC), a semi-professional, competitive hip-hop dance team. Having no prior dance experience, but a good ability to flip, he was accepted on the team and has spent the last two years dancing with them. With YSC, he’s competed at events such as World of Dance and Body Rock, and they were even recruited by America’s Got Talent to audition for the show. They also have been hired by Twitter to perform. Depending on the competition schedule, YSC members practice anywhere from 9–40 hours a week. In addition to these practices, Dominic also takes weekly ballet classes outside of the studio. He hopes to continue dancing in college, on either a competitive team or in a dance company.
with El Amor del Patricia, a children’s home in San Lucas.
During his days in middle school, DOMINIC MASOTTO 2016 started taking tricking classes, which combines martial arts kicks with gymnastics flips and breakdancing moves. This eventually spurred his interest in learning how to breakdance. Since he couldn’t find a breakdancing class, during his freshman year his mom suggested that he
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Athletics Notables AUDREY LUKAWSKI 2018 is a star swimmer, both at LWHS and in international competitions. She has competed at Junior Olympics, Far Westerns (Canada, Mexico, and Western States), and the California/Nevada Sectional Meet in Los Angeles. This summer, Audrey traveled to Hawaii for Western Zones, a selective, all-star travel meet, where she represented Pacific Swimming. A Far Westerns champion for the 50 & 100 Breaststroke in her age group, Audrey also placed in the March 2015 Junior Olympics—4th in 200 Freestyle, 10th in 100 Backstroke, 4th in 100 Breaststroke, and 2nd in 200 Breaststroke. RON OPPENHEIMER 2016 has been training with circus companies since the age of
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8 and currently works with ACROSANCT and Circus Center’s Youth Circus. Ron diligently trains every day of the week with hopes of one day performing with Cirque Du Soleil and 7 Fingers. Additionally, he brings his skills to the LWHS Dance Program, where he continues to practice his contemporary dance, and the annual Oracle half-time show, where he has performed with his sister, OR OPPENHEIMER 2014, as well as other circus teammates. With a background in ballet, contemporary, and tap dance, Ron continues to train in Hoop-Diving, Chinese Pole, Acrobatics, Hand Balancing, Aerial Silks, Aerial Rope, and Aerial Straps. LEO ZAROFF 2018 is a nationally renowned fencer and has worked hard to succeed in this extremely competitive sport. He is A-rated and is ranked first in the nation for the 14-and-under level. In addition,
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he’s ranked 16th for the under-17 level. During his career, he has traveled internationally to France, Poland, Spain, and Italy, as well as many states, such as Kentucky, Oregon, Virginia, and Arizona.
Top: Ron Oppenheimer 2016 performs during half-time at the annual Oracle Games. Above: Steven Page 2015 helps lead the Boys Cross Country Team to a third consecutive championship. Opposite page, top: Isa Canlas 2015, member of the 2014 Girls Varsity Tennis Championship Team, shows off her forehand during a match. Opposite page, middle: Ivan Barrales 2015 locks down his opponent during a match. Opposite page, bottom: From left to right: Aidan Lisker 2016, Sonia Martin 2016, Jennifer Yeo 2018, and Audrey Lukawski 2018 represent LWHS in two relays at NCS.
STUDENT NOTABLES
LWHS Athletic Highlights— Way to Go, Tigers! FALL HIGHLIGHTS • Boys Cross Country won their league title for the 3rd year straight, and the Girls Cross Country won for the 2nd year in a row. • LWHS captured the BCL West Team Championship in Girls Tennis. CATHERINE PEABODY 2016 reached the semi-finals in individuals at the North Coast Section (NCS) Championship.
player—AUDREY KALMAN 2018. They also made it to the BCL Finals as well as the 2nd round of NCS. • In Varsity Boys Track, ERIK STEIN 2018 set freshman school records in the 400, 1600, and 3200 meters. • Varsity Boys Tennis won the BCL Championships.
• Varsity Girls Track team was the seven-time defending BCL League Champion. JILL • Girls Varsity Volleyball made REILLY 2017 won first in the it to the semifinals for the 1600 and 3200 meter events. BCL Championship. EVA LAXO 2016 won first in the 100 and 300 meter WINTER HIGHLIGHTS hurdles, KELLEY OMRAN • Varsity Girls Basketball 2015 won first in shot put team clinched the BCL and second in discus, and Championship for the 2nd SHEVANN STEUBEN 2016 year in a row. The team made won first in discus and second it to the second round of NCS. in shot put. • JV Girls Basketball team was undefeated in league play!
• For the first time in LWHS history, Varsity Boys Swimming was undefeated.
• At the BCL Wrestling Championships, CAL • Varsity Girls swimmers CROMPTON 2017 and AIDAN LISKER 2016, SONIA NATHAN WERTHEIMER 2015 MARTIN 2016, JENNIFER won first place, and IVAN YEO 2018, and AUDREY BARRALES 2015 second LUKAWSKI 2018 qualified place in their respective for the NCS Championships weight classes. in the 4x200 medley relay and 4x200 free relay. This is SPRING HIGHLIGHTS the first time in recent LWHS memory that the women • The Varsity Baseball team have qualified a relay team welcomed their first female into NCS!
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Left: Rafael Cuevas 2004 speaks to the student audience about his career path, while Rosie Glenn-Finer 2009, JR Wong 2009, and panel moderator Alex Hochman 1988 listen and prepare to comment. Below, left: The 2015 Tigers Helping Tigers Alumni Panel, from left to right (back row): Rafael Cuevas 2004, JR Wong 2009, Alex Hochman 1988, and Catharine Clark 1985. From left to right (front row): Rob Mitchell 1990, Allegra Bandy 1994, Ellie Powers 2000, Rafael Mandelman 1992, and Rosie Glenn-Finer 2009.
Fortunately, during the HAPPY HOUR and CLASS REUNION dinners, the game was televised, and the Giants pulled off an amazing win over the Royals. During the afternoon events, alumni were able to attend a student panel, led by Head of School Eric Temple, about the future of LWHS; there was also a special session that focused on the Shops and the Tech Arts program. Additionally, there were a few alumni winemakers and representatives from the wine industry who offered tastes of their products.
Alumni Events
2
014-2015 was another year filled with events for
Lick-Wilmerding High School alumni. The year started with celebrating the GOLDEN TIGERS, alumni who graduated from LWHS 50+ years ago. The annual Golden Tigers luncheon was held the day before ALUMNI REUNION in October. And, Alumni Reunion took place during the 2014 World Series! Another great reason for alumni to come home to San Francisco—to cheer on the Giants AND celebrate their time at LWHS!
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Head of School Eric Temple and Director of Alumni & Development Nancy Kehoe then traveled to NEW YORK CITY in November to host a happy hour for a group of LWHS alumni in Midtown. The ANNUAL HOLIDAY PARTY in SF took place at Mr. Smith’s (owned by MAX YOUNG 1983) in SOMA again. We had a great turnout of alumni, representing classes ranging from 2011 to 1962.
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The annual COLLEGE-AGE LUNCH was held in the McCullough Library on campus right after Winter Break. It was wonderful to have the library filled with graduates from 2011– 2014, members of the class of 2015, faculty and staff. In February, Eric Temple and Nancy Kehoe visited BOSTON to attend the annual National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) Conference. While there, Nancy lunched with some of our collegeage alumni. Additionally, Eric and Nancy hosted a small alumni dinner, with alumni in attendance from the classes of 1963–2014. Junior/Senior Dean Chinh Nguyen and Math faculty Mariel Triggs also joined the dinner. In March, Eric Temple, long-time Math faculty Steve Simon, and Alumni Program Manager Miwa Kozuki traveled to LOS ANGELES to meet up with a group of Southern California alumni for happy hour in Downtown Los Angeles. For some, this was their first event as LWHS alumni.
Above: Members of the Class of 2014 return to campus and reconnect with faculty, staff, and their classmates. From left to right: Izzy Fong, Junior/Senior Dean Chinh Nguyen, Clara Chan, Corey Robinson, Charles Ryan, Elyh Lapetina, Jewell Sparks, Kyle Lee, and Rebecca Green. Right: Sam Mihara 1951, the recipient of the Sam Mihara Public Purpose Award, stands with Dean of Students Kate Wiley, Head of School Eric Temple, and Lick-Wilmerding-Lux Alumni Association Board President Alex Hochman 1988.
SAM MIHARA 1951 visited the school in the spring and spoke to the LWHS community (students, faculty, parents, alumni, and PALS) about his experience in an internment camp at Heart Mountain, Colorado during World War II. This was a moving and educational presentation, followed by Q&A. Sam also was recognized as the first recipient of the SAM MIHARA PUBLIC PURPOSE AWARD, which recognizes the efforts of LWHS alumni who have exhibited a sustained commitment to their community and civic engagement, reflecting the school’s social justice, service, and public purpose mission.
Now in its third year, TIGERS HELPING TIGERS is a career networking event for the LWHS community. Held in the Bothin Gymnasium at LWHS in February, a panel of alumni representing a variety of different industries spoke to current students about their career paths over lunch. In June, the Tigers Helping Tigers event focused on connecting younger alumni with more seasoned alumni, so that they could make connections with each other and share stories. The event was held at Gershoni Creative, which is owned by AMY ESKEN GERSHONI 1990, in a beautiful historic building in downtown San Francisco.
In May, beloved faculty members Wendy Foster Leigh and Ann Maisel hosted an intimate reception with alumni in LONDON. It was like a mini advising group meeting, and we look forward to hosting this event again in the future.
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ALUMNI EVENTS
Reunion 2014
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ALUMNI EVENTS
Left: Members of the Class of 1994 meet to celebrate their 20th reunion. From left to right: Eva Popper, Moonwater, Alex Goldhammer, and Brooke Patterson. Below, far left: Don Morrill 1965 and Steve Langmaid 1965 look through the senior section of their yearbook. Below: left: Alumni visit the Shops and hear from current students during one of the tours offered at reunion. Below, bottom: Alumni catch up over lunch outside at reunion.
Spotlight: New Alumni Board Members Meet the new members of the Lick-Wilmerding-Lux Alumni Association Board Yennie Lee 2006 Yennie Lee has recently returned to the Bay Area from Seattle, where she worked for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. There, she supported a team that invested in teacher tools to implement the Common Core State Standards in classrooms. Yennie is currently the Impact Manager for IDEO.org, which designs new, innovative solutions to combat poverty. It’s at IDEO.org that her high school education from Lick-Wilmerding has come full circle. Every day—in equal parts—she uses her head, heart, and hands. She joined the Alumni Board with the ambition to be continuously involved with LWHS current students and to develop new opportunities for young alumni to engage with the school beyond graduation. She’s excited to connect LWHS alumni with LWHS’s rich, vibrant network as well as resources for emerging careers.
David Mitchell 1991 David is an Assistant District Attorney with the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office, where he prosecutes juvenile cases involving homicides, gang violence, and hate crimes. Prior to joining the DA’s Office, he practiced Labor and Employment law. David received his law degree from the University of Michigan Law School, where he was the Editor in Chief of the Michigan Journal of Race and Law. He received a B.A. from the University of California, San Diego, where he double majored in Political Science and Ethnic Studies, with a minor in Law and Society. David says, “I had a wonderful time going to Lick-Wilmerding—I valued the Shops, the sports, and the academics. It provided me
with unique education and practical skills that I continue to use today. LWHS was an important part of my life and I wanted to be more involved in the community and give something back to the school.”
David Morgenstein 1979 After graduating from LWHS, David went to the University of Arizona, obtaining a Business/Marketing degree. Following college, he spent seven years in the Air Force as an F-15 pilot before obtaining his MBA. After leaving the Air Force, David has led small and medium sized companies, including an aerospace distribution company, a B2B software company, and most recently a company that helps Fortune 500 companies recover funds from class action lawsuits. After selling the last company, he now consults for them. David wanted to get involved with the Lick-Wilmerding-Lux Alumni Association Board after attending his 35th reunion in 2014, which had strong support and participation. Spending time with so many of my classmates led to his desire to help other graduates stay connected to their peers and to the school. Interested in getting involved with the LWHS community again? Whether you would like to help plan local or regional events, fundraise, attend and volunteer at networking events, or become a board member and gain valuable nonprofit board experience, please contact Alumni Program Manager Miwa Kozuki mkozuki@lwhs.org or 415.704.5593 for more information. Go Tigers!
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ALUMNI EVENTS
Right: From left to right: Head of School Eric Temple, Tor Archer, Neal Benezra, and Lorenzo Pisoni
THE event 2015
O
n Friday, April 17, LWHS welcomed parents, students, alumni, faculty, staff, and friends to the Ehrer Theatre
to enjoy an exciting and stimulating conversation about the creative and artistic process. THE event showcases and celebrates the immense talent found within LWHS’ own adult community (parents, alumni, and PALs), and this year’s panel was no exception.
Sculptor TOR ARCHER (parent of BIX ARCHER 2015), Director of San Francisco Museum of Modern Art NEAL BENEZRA (parent of AVA BENEZRA 2011), and actor/comedian/choreographer LORENZO PISONI 1994 each gave a short presentation about their work and creative process, followed by a discussion led by Head of School Eric Temple. The evening concluded with a reception, so that both students and adult audience members could have an opportunity to meet the panelists. THE event kicked off a 30-day fundraising challenge, where this year, LWHS was committed to raising money to support a new Artist-in-Residence program, which would enrich the arts curriculum at the school. The artist, alumna Jessica Sabogal 2006, will collaborate with a designated art class for one semester to create a final project that can be enjoyed by the entire LWHS community. Post-event fundraising surpassed its goal and raised more than $60,000, funding the Artist-in-Residence program for the next two years.
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Left: LWHS alumni gather at the reception after THE event. Below, left: From left to right: Tor Archer, Lorenzo Pisoni 1994, Head of School Eric Temple, Neal Benezra Below, right: Actor Lorenzo Pisoni 1994 Bottom, left: Sculptor Tor Archer Bottom, right: Director of San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Neal Benezra
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The Center: Social Justice & Black Lives Matter BY KENZO YANNI VELASQUEZ 2015
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n August 19, 2014, a young black man by the name of Michael Brown was shot multiple times and left dead in the streets of Ferguson, Missouri for hours. In addition to the hundreds of black lives that have been taken away before and after the passing of Michael Brown, this tragic death pushed the leaders of the LWHS Center for Civic Engagement—Director of Student Inclusion, Leadership and Civic Engagement
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CHRISTINE GODINEZ, Public Purpose Program Director ALAN WESSON, and Student Life Program Assistant MARLEY PIERCE—to launch the Black Lives Matter (BLM) Initiative on campus. Various emotions and feelings from both students and teachers about these events filled the hallways and classrooms at LWHS, and Christine and Marley mentioned, “We saw a lot of potential energy. People wanted to do something, but didn’t know how.” Although schoolwide conversations with regards to race in society
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have taken place at LWHS, the Center believed talking could only go so far and that the school needed action. The Center posed the question to the student body, “what can we do?” From August–October 2014, multiple debriefs and discussions were held, as well as sharing news to set the foundation of what was factual and what the collective purpose of the initiative was. From November onward, the Center created three groups that would focus on specific topics—
education and knowledge, fundraising, and direct action and opt-in events. In support of the BLM initiative, the Center hosted a workshop with Youth Speaks poet Donte Clark, who is based in Richmond and founded a nonprofit called RAW Talent. Donte shared his poetry and then helped the LWHS community understand how art can be used for sharing experiences, talking about difficult topics, and bridging relationships. Secondly, the Center hosted a session with
THE CENTER
Opposite page: Poet Donte Clark shares his poetry with LWHS students and teachers in the Center for Civic Engagement. Left: BLM posters created by LWHS students that were used by participants in the SF Jail Fight rally and meeting in February. Below, left: Oree Originol, whose art has influenced social justice work across the nation, leads a screen printing workshop at LWHS.
signs, and shoot a video to help the BLM movement. These signs and posters were then used by those who participated in the SF Jail Fight rally and many of them were shared via Twitter, as well as other forms of social media.
Juvenile Defense Attorney Sidney Hollar (parent of JORDAN HOLLARSMITH 2008, LOGAN HOLLARSMITH 2010, and CAMRYN HOLLARSMITH 2016). SFPD Commander Robert Moser spoke in the Center about knowing your own rights as an American citizen. Additionally, the Center held a screening of the movie Fruitvale Station, which touched upon topics of racial profiling, police brutality, and injustice for black lives.
In terms of service and community-oriented projects, the Center organized fundraisers, selling Black Lives Matters bracelets. Proceeds from the bracelets went to the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, which advocates for restorative justice and ultimately the abolishment of prisons. The Center also organized the Martin Luther King Day of Service, where LWHS students volunteered to screen print posters, paint
LWHS was very lucky to host Oree Originol, a profound artist and activist, whose work is known across the nation especially with regards to the BLM movement. He led a screen printing workshop working with his own designs. These posters and screen prints were used by students who attended the Black Lives Matter March and Vigil, which took place this past May. The Center reached out to multiple school communities, including public, private and Catholic high schools, to participate in the 3 hour event, which took place in downtown San Francisco. The vigil included poetry and performances by LWHS students and ended with participants setting candles and
taping posters to a pillar in the Embarcadero, across from the Ferry Building. The Center is committed to raising awareness around all social justice issues. With diverse programming throughout the school year, the Center creates opportunities for discussion, expression, and sharing for LWHS students. During the 2015–2016 school year, the Center has decided to focus programming on raising awareness around transgenderrelated issues in addition to discussing whiteness and white identity. The Center plans to select and address a specific social issue each year, while also supporting all of the student clubs and initiatives on campus. While the Center focuses on a different social issue this school year, the foundation and impact that the BLM initiative has had on the community will remain, and discussions and participation in BLM initiatives will continue.
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THE CENTER
Left: From left to right: Taliah Mancini 2015, Jack Fong Gougoutas 2016, and Ivan Barrales 2015 take turns signing the check.
The Center: Philanthropy Initiative BY KENZO YANNI VELASQUEZ 2015
T
he Philanthropy Initiative is a unique course about giving that prompts students to broadly define and consider philanthropy through a multitude of perspectives and experiences. The course is led by Director of Enrollment LISA WU and Director of Student Inclusion, Leadership and Civic Engagement CHRISTINE GODINEZ.
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Throughout the spring semester, students focus on answering two questions dealing with social justice, equity, and ethics as it pertains to giving:
professionals from for-profit and nonprofit organizations to better understand the variety of ways corporations, foundations, and individuals approach philanthropy. Students directly engaged in service learning projects to share their talents, strengths, and resources with the community.
At the end of the school Why give? What does it mean to year, the class was tasked to give responsibly? make a charitable donation to a nonprofit organization, The class had a section called which was made possible the Philanthropy Speaker by the Stephanie and Bill Series (PSS), where students Mellin Fund for Philanthropy. heard from experienced
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Students were asked to act as a board of directors for a philanthropic foundation and began the process by issuing an RFP (request for proposal). Democratically, they researched each organization after receiving 30+ applications, made a few site visits, and narrowed the list down to two finalists—Larkin Street Youth Services and Compass Family Services. A main distinction between the two organizations is that Larkin Street works primarily with homeless youth, while Compass focuses on supporting homeless families, especially single mothers and people of color. The class unanimously voted on granting a $20,000 check to Compass, and officially handed the check to Jenna Hayashi, a representative of Compass, at the final weekly community meeting in May. The participants in this course were able to experience firsthand the art of giving and philanthropy. Students had some wonderful insights to share from their participation. DANYA SAUERHAFT 2016 interned with Youth Art
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Left: Representing the Philanthropy Initiative, Class of 2016 members Brandon Balladares, Max Ozer-Staton, and Jack Fong Gougoutas with Jena Hayashi from Compass Family Services.
Exchange, a nonprofit located on the LWHS campus. She found the hands-on work most interesting. Danya, along with her classmates, heard from people involved with nonprofits, wrote an RFP, read over 30 subsequent proposals, and visited two different nonprofits before awarding grants. She believes the skills she learned from this class are key to her work as an intern for the Center for Civic Engagement, Peer Counseling, and holding the Student Inclusion Chair position for 2015–2016. JACK FONG GOUGOUTAS 2016 thought a great aspect of the Philanthropy Initiative was that LWHS parents, alumni, and others involved in philanthropy/ nonprofits discussed and shared their work, opinions,
and thoughts with the class. He initially came into the course hoping to learn how to give and what to give when he’s an adult. One takeaway Jack had was to pay close attention on what to look for during a site visit, an example being whether the nonprofit talked more about their new facility or the actual cause. Jack felt the emotional and gut feelings of the site visits played the largest role in students’ choices regarding where to give the grant. He enjoyed learning from the nonprofits and being able to help them achieve their goals. The time, effort, and passion for a cause that volunteers and staff members invested in their work for nonprofits was eye-opening.
“The participants in this course were able to experience first-hand the art of giving and philanthropy. Students had some wonderful insights to share from their participation... ”
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THE CENTER
Love Notes fill the foyer with warmth and heartfelt support.
experiment with facilitating conversations about topics of importance, and then evaluate what had gone well and what could be improved.
The Center: Patterson Ethics Initiative
I
n 2008, Pat Patterson 1959 funded the Patterson Ethics Initiative, the goal of which was to develop ethics curricula and programming that would be woven into the student experience during each of their four years at LWHS. The original curriculum was created by Jim Bell, former LWHS Co-Director of College Counseling, with the goal to help push students to be more engaged with ethical issues on a daily basis. Ethical decision-making and consequences became a main topic for students to focus on routinely in their classes. In 2011, Biology & Psychology Teacher ANTON
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KRUKOWSKI and U.S. History Teacher REBECCA HONG accepted positions as CoChairs of the Patterson Ethics Initiative. They conducted a long period of research, examining what exactly was happening in every department at the school, while also looking into best practices in high schools around the country. According to Ms. Hong and Mr. Krukowski, the goal of this initiative was to create spaces on campus to address inclusion and any major ethical issues of concern within the community. The idea was that a group of adults and students would go through training together,
As a result of this work, the 2014 Student Council Executive Board created a brand new position—Student Inclusion Chair. KENZO YANNI VELASQUEZ 2015 and TALIAH MANCINI 2015 were elected by their peers as co-chairs. After collectively reflecting on their diverse experiences, their mission was to help students find spaces where they could safely share personal experiences of both feeling included and excluded within the LWHS community. This goal led to the creation of the first student inclusion blog at LWHS, which serves as a platform for students to share comments, experiences, and ideas with regards to inclusion and equity. Because students had the choice to be anonymous when submitting, Yanni and Taliah hoped more people would be encouraged to share. They believed this would help the LWHS community realize that
THE CENTER
Left: Student Inclusion Chairs Yanni Velasquez 2015 and Taliah Mancini 2015 share updates about their work at a community meeting. Below, left: Love Notes fill the foyer with warmth and heartfelt support.
Council, the first Commons were created. Commons are designated meeting spaces on campus exclusively for students where serious conversations can take place facilitated by students. The topics of the discussion are organized and chosen by the Ethics Council.
many of the obstacles and adversities individuals feel like they encounter alone are actually experiences shared across many students and teachers. After the launch of the blog, numerous submissions were received, which addressed a variety of topics including race,
socioeconomic status, gender, sexuality, religion, etc., and how these core identifiers affect the culture and atmosphere of the school for both students, faculty and staff. Taliah and Yanni both understood that the blog wasn’t enough action to make change at LWHS, so through collaborating with the Ethics
Last year, two Commons took place—one addressed religion at LWHS, and the other discussed the LWHS “bubble,” where students highlighted the different stereotypes and experiences often attached to attending an independent high school. On average more than 20 students attended the Commons, and the Ethics Council is planning on increasing the number of discussions in the future.
of 2014, the Inclusion Chairs hosted a booth where students could write anonymous love and appreciation letters that would be hung in the LWHS foyer. This booth quickly transformed to an online platform where students could continue to submit amazing and supportive comments about people and events in the LWHS community. So far, there have been nearly 1,000 submissions to this page, and the future student Inclusion Chairs plan on continuing this online platform. Both Yanni and Taliah believe that although these new spaces allow for more inclusion at LWHS, there is always more work to be done.
The Inclusion Chairs also created the LWHS Love Notes Facebook page. In the fall
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GAP YEARS: HOME AND ABROAD
Gap Years Home and Abroad Each year, several LWHS graduates decide to take a gap year after completing high school. Here are two examples of recent gap year experiences.
A Gap Year Abroad
C
hase Hommeyer 2014 spent a gap year between LWHS and Princeton University in Varanasi, India through
Princeton’s Bridge Year Program. The Hyphen team entered into an email correspondence with Chase for an exclusive interview.
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GAP YEARS: HOME AND ABROAD
The Hyphen (LWHS): When and why did you first decide to go to India? What were your initial hopes and fears about the trip?
LWHS: Describe the NGO, Guria, which you’re working for fulltime. What are its goals? What is your role in the program?
Chase Hommeyer (CH): I actually decided to take a gap year before I decided I wanted to go to India. In my opinion it was the decision to take the gap year that was more important; it took the most thought and courage to forego going straight to college. Once I had decided, it wasn’t scary to decide to go to India with the Princeton Bridge Year program. At the beginning of senior year, I decided to take a gap year before starting college, not because I felt burned out but because I was starting to be plagued with questions like “Where am I blindly rushing off to and why?” and “What do I actually care about and what is just ambition?” I wanted to give myself some time off to figure out stuff like this! I didn’t know what I wanted to do, I just knew I wanted time to be challenged as a person instead of as a student… and being in Varanasi, India challenged me. This city has a special way of walloping you in the face every day that is both endearing and overwhelming.
CH: Guria is an organization based in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh that fights human trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation in Northern India. Guria’s model is holistic, tackling the issue from every angle—rescue operations, legal intervention, education, prevention, and advocacy. Ajeet Singh, the founder and director of Guria, has a really unique vision for how change is created. He doesn’t believe in impersonal projects or throwing money at a problem. He and the entire Guria team have literally dedicated their entire lives to stopping human trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation. They are an incredibly small team, which allows them to stay innovative and dynamic, as well as integrate into the community and forge the trust and credibility required to make real change. In the morning I work in the office and in the afternoons I work at one of Guria’s non-formal education centers for the children of sex workers in the red light district of Varanasi. I help out with
everything, but most frequently, I help out with grant writing, volunteer coordination, and social media outreach. Recently, I’ve started a project for Guria to involve 100 schools around the world in an art exchange leading to an exhibit on March 18, 2015, so that has taken up the majority of my time. LWHS: What does a typical day look like for you in India? CH: I wake up at my host family’s home at 6:20am and at 7am I bike to our “program house” where I eat breakfast with the six other Princeton Bridge Year students. I bike to work at 9am, get there by 10am (things in India open late,) work until 2:30pm, when I eat lunch with Ajeet Ji and his family at his house in the downstairs floor of the office. Then I bike to the red light district to get to Guria’s center. There I work and play with kids until 4pm, then at 5:30pm I bike to either Hindi class or the Ayurvedic medicine and massage course I’m taking (depending on the day). Finally I go home to eat with my family at 8pm; I’m in bed by 9:30pm.
CH: I’m not sure if I am going to express this in a way that makes sense, but being in India for this long has made me really question the way people, religions, and institutions try to label the human experience. There are so many ways that people try to explain what our purpose is—to be happy, to make others happy, to get into heaven, to escape reincarnation, to fight injustice, to fight the enemy… but sometimes I am biking to work past cows, buffalos, dogs, baby humans, old humans, teenage humans, etc. and it occurs to me how weird life is. We all put labels on what we are doing—working hard, having fun, helping others—but really no one knows what they are doing! Being in India has made me less judgmental of all types of life, because how can you judge something that you barely understand?
This interview was published in the Hyphen by Zoe Harris 2016 earlier this year. The interview was conducted via email while Chase was in India ; she is now in her first year at Princeton University.
LWHS: How has your outlook on yourself or your experience at Lick changed over these past months?
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GAP YEARS: HOME AND ABROAD
A Gap Year at Home BY JOHN RIBEIRO-BROOMHEAD 2012
L
-I-C-K-W-I-L-M-ER-D-I-N-G!” pretty much sums up how I felt about LickWilmerding High School all the way through. It was wonderful and exhausting, and primed me to try something a bit different before heading off to college. For my gap year, I stayed in the city and was introduced to the strange and surreal experience of working in an office for the first time at the San Francisco Department of the Environment.
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As an intern in the Department’s Urban Agriculture program, I was exposed to the rolling landscape of San Francisco’s community garden scene. I was tasked with creating a new newsletter for community gardeners, which allowed me to meet garden managers and visit gardens all around the city. We planted hundreds of publicly accessible fruit trees (in areas where falling fruit wouldn’t soil sidewalks or busy streets), held conflict resolution workshops for gardeners (plenty of thorns for every rose grown in a garden), and conducted legislative research on topics like the economic benefits of public gardens in urban neighborhoods.
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Aside from starting the internship, I joined the San Francisco Choral society and a few other singing groups to keep up my voice and to perform fantastic repertoire like David Lang’s Battle Hymn, and Verdi’s Requiem. But most importantly, I spent time with friends and family, and took a good, long deep breath.
wonderful madness I’d spent four years in. And I got it. The benefits of sitting with my own life were innumerable. Working in my backyard, taking the train to work, and doing the dishes were small wonders as my subconscious gradually slowed, calmed, and spun through my time at LWHS on replay. So the year was great, the year was a gift, and it made me ready to start school again with the enthusiasm, wide eyes and desire to dote on every sparkle and splinter that the next one had to offer.
It is very true that I had some fantastic experiences with my internship and other activities, but it is also true that having those experiences was not the purpose of my year off. I took the year off because I was tired and I had the privilege of the John is currently a Public Policy major at Stanford University. option. I wanted time to rest, reflect, reinvest, and process the
ALUMNI AUTHORS
Alumni Authors In addition to this book, Mark has published several legal papers which are available for download on the Social Science Research Network (ssrn.com).
The BDS Movement: That Which We Call a Foreign Boycott, By Any Other Name, Is Still Illegal
Entrepreneurship Study Guide + Set Your Own Salary Clint Day 1960
Mark Greendorfer 1982 In his book, Mark delves into the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement (BDS Movement), which is a global campaign attempting to increase economic and political pressure on Israel. This movement originated in the Arab League’s boycott of Israel and has grown into a multi-faceted entity. The BDS Movement explores specific United States’ laws, including the Export Administration Act’s anti-boycott provisions, antitrust laws, racketeering laws, and anti-terrorism statutes, to show that there are a number of federal laws that apply to, and prohibit participation in, the BDS Movement’s activities.
The Gamble House: Building Paradise in California Edward Bosley 1972 Ted, who is the Director of The Gamble House, which is both a National and California Historical Landmark and a museum in Pasadena, CA, contributed as an author and editor to this publication. This book documents the design, construction, and landscaping of the Gamble House, the icon of early 20th century Craftsman-style domestic architecture. This book can be purchased at the Gamble House bookstore or online: gamblehouse.org
Clint recently authored the first entrepreneurship study guide for academics, published by Bar Charts, Inc. This guide is the first chart for entrepreneurship classes in colleges and universities in the United States and can be purchased online under the Business section at barcharts.com. His book Set Your Own Salary was just published in October and contains the latest thinking in entrepreneurship education and explores the best methods to start a new business venture. For more information, visit clintoneday.com.
Guittard Chocolate Cookbook: Decadent Recipes from San Francisco’s Premium Beanto-Bar Chocolate Company Amy Guittard 2001 Amy presents tried-and-true favorite recipes from five generations of Guittards, ranging from start-your-dayright Chocolate Cherry Scones to fudgy Mocha Cookies and deep, dark Chocolate Caramel Pecan Bundt Cake. Leave it to the Guittard family, people who really know chocolate, to make a collection of recipes that are sure to make every chocolate lover long for one bite more. This book is available to purchase on Amazon.
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ALUMNI AUTHORS
Our Personal Space Andrea Meibos Landaker 1997
Elvis’ Dog… Moonbeam and Other Stories Robert Moulthrop 1957 Robert just published his second collection of short stories—Elvis’s Dog… Moonbeam and Other Stories. Both Kirkus reviews and Clarion Foreword reviews praised his use of voice, subtle narration, psychologically sophisticated characters, dialogue, and prose. Many of his short stories have been published by top literary journals such as Berkeley Fiction Review, Sou’wester, Eclipse, Portland Review, and Confrontation. These stories form an eclectic mix of drama at a New York City post office, a canine mystery at Graceland, shocking costumes at the local pool, and a memorable cast of strange mothers, uncles at the City Lights bookshop, lovers, and friends. This volume and his previous short story collection, To Tell You The Truth, are available on Amazon.
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Andrea published an opensource science fiction relationship simulation game. It is free to download for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. https://play.google. com/store/apps/details?id=net. icecavern.metasepia. PersonalSpace
American Qur’an Edited by Catharine Clark 1985 Catharine both edited and contributed an essay to American Qur’an, an art book based on a series of exhibitions by Sandow Birk. She has been representing Mr. Birk’s art and career since 1993. This book also includes essays by Reza Aslan, Iftikhar Dadi, and Zareena Grewal. Published by Norton, and available on Amazon.
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The Delight GlutenFree Cookbook Vanessa Maltin Weisbrod 2001 Vanessa, the editor of Delight Gluten-Free magazine, has published her third cookbook this year. This cookbook features allergen-free options, everyday basics, and recipes fit for holiday celebrations. With 150 recipes, including chocolate chip peanut butter cookie cheesecake, prosciutto and pineapple stuffed-crust pizza, sparkling cider apple fritters, and many more, these recipes prove that gluten-free eating can be full of flavor. Available on Amazon.
True Religion Joel Weinberg 1971 True Religion is Joel’s debut novel, a genre-bending fusion of paranormal horror, spiritual therapy, American history, and New Age enlightenment. An unexpected encounter with an otherworldly spirit at a holiday party in the Orenda Valley sends the protagonist Seth Davis, a gay journalist from Manhattan, on a profound religious journey. Along the way, Seth stumbles into a quarreling coven of witches in the charming tourist town of Hope Springs, Pennsylvania, formerly known as Hell’s Ferry and one of the most haunted destinations in America. As Seth learns more of the town’s remarkable history, he also uncovers his own shocking past, and in order to seek peace for his troubled soul, he must determine the fate of the coven, the town, and the entire Orenda Valley.
ALUMNI AUTHORS
Stop the Ocean Laura Neuman 1999
Anya’s War Andrea Alban 1977 It is the eve of World War II. Anya Rosen and her family have left their home in Odessa for Shanghai. At first Anya’s life in Shanghai is privileged and relatively carefree—she has crushes on boys, fights with her mother, and longs to defy expectations just like her hero, Amelia Earhart. Then Anya finds a baby, a newborn abandoned on the street. Amelia Earhart goes missing. And it becomes dangerously clear that no place is safe—not for Jewish families like the Rosens, not for Shanghai’s poor, not for adventurous women pilots. Based on Andrea’s family’s past, Anya’s War, is about finding strength within, when the world spins out of control.
RNA Shotgun Metagenomic Sequency of Northern California (USA) Mosquitoes Uncovers Viruses, Bacteria, and Funghi Rachel Liu 2012
This is Laura’s first book of poems. Her poems have appeared in numerous publications including The Brooklyn Rail, Tinge, Fact-Simile, EOAGH, The Encyclopedia Project, and Troubling the Line: An Anthology of Trans & Genderqueer Poetry.
Rachel recently published a scientific research article from work that she had done at the Academy of Sciences during her junior and senior years at LWHS. The research is on identifying Bay Area mosquitoes and then characterizing their microbiomes.
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The day before people could walk across the bridge, six girls from Lux and six boys from LW walked across the bridge to Sausalito and then took the bus to Mill Valley. They hiked up Mount Tamalpais and had a picnic lunch, which the girls made. The boys paid for the bus tickets. It was a wonderful day!
1951
Class Notes 1937 VIRGINIA KLUTE HAIR is now 96 years old and lives in a retirement home in Bakersfield, CA. She moved there from northern California four year ago to be close to her two sons and their families. She plays bridge three times a week and participates in other activities provided at the retirement home. She is enjoying good health but does use a walker. Life is good! Her mother was
ELEANOR HAUERKEN KLUTE 1913. Her cousin was MARION BECKER SWARD 1936. Virginia was President at Lux from 1936– 1937. She shares that the week of her graduation was the week the Golden Gate Bridge opened.
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After graduating from Stanford, BOB GLEDHILL spent two years in the USMC ending up as a Company Commander in the 1st Tank Battalion. In 1959, he married Carole Moody and together, they have two remarkable children, Sue and Scott. In 2005, Carole passed away after 46 years of a wonderful marriage. He spent many very rewarding years in the steel industry. While working, Bob was able to find time volunteering, which included serving on the Board of Trustees at LWHS, finishing his term as President of the Board. He retired in 1998. Now, Bob finds traveling is much more fun than it was during his career. In 2007 Bob reunited with his Stanford classmate Lois Lippincott and together they travel together enjoy each other’s companionship. Bob still enjoys hiking and fly fishing with the many friends he met during his career and has a close relationship with his children.
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Top: Robert Ferber 1959 and his wife Lois on their recent trip through Cambodia and Vietnam.
1959 After retiring from teaching science for more than 34 years, ROBERT FERBER has been spending time working on community service projects through Lions International with his home club in San Jose. He and his wife of 49 years, Lois, traveled throughout Cambodia and Vietnam along with three other couples from Lions. They started with two days in Ho Chi Minh City, followed by seven nights on the Mekong River. After
CLASS NOTES
entering Cambodia at Siem Reap, they spent three days seeing the local cultural and historic sites. They ended the trip in Hanoi with a visit to the infamous “Hanoi Hilton” before flying home. The highlights of the trip include the temples Angkor Thom and Angkor Wat and other historic sites from the “war.” After visiting one of the “Killing Fields” and Tuol Sleng prison (S-21) they had a chance to talk with one of the few survivors of the Pol Pot mass exterminations. Robert and his wife recently returned from Hawaii, visiting Maui for the first time, and then spent a week in Waikiki visiting the sites and seeing friends at the Lions International Convention. They are grateful to have the opportunity to associate with other Lions from around the world. Their son Ken became a grandfather when his daughter gave birth to a boy, which means that Robert and Lois became great-grandparents in February. Ken’s son is in high school and is now talking about college plans. Their daughter Karen and her family live in Livermore. They started the New Year with Karen being diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. Karen has been responding well to the continuing treatments. Karen also has a son in middle school and another son who just started high school. Time sure flies! Robert and Lois have had a chance to see a couple of the boys’ soccer games and watching them learn about
teamwork! They still reside in San Jose and Lois retired as Director of Human Resources from a local school district.
1960 Above: Clint Day 1960
After CLINT DAY retired, he returned to graduate school for an MBA in Entrepreneurship. He now serves as an adjunct professor in entrepreneurship at the State College of Florida. Clint just authored and published the first academic study guide for entrepreneurship. He and his wife just returned from the U.K. where they represented the AACSB Business School Bridge Program. Clint enjoys giving back in this way. Please see Alumni Authors to read more about Clint’s recently published works.
JOHN MCCARTHY regrets that he wasn’t able to attend the Golden Tigers luncheon on October 2 because he was singing with the Slavyanka Russian Chorus in Boston at the time. John was a co-founder of the Slavyanka Russian Chorus in 1979 and recently resumed singing with the men’s and mixed chorus when Irina Shachneva became its fourth Artistic Director in 2012. The Slavyanka Russian Chorus now includes women in addition to its core men’s Russian chorus. Contact John if you’d like to sing or learn more—john.mccarthy@ comcast.net
1962 C. DELL LINDSTROM enjoys traveling, keeping up with the grandkids, and working as a docent at the Nevada State Railroad Museum in Carson City, NV.
1964 JAY PERRY recently retired from his professional design engineering career and has embarked on a new one! He is an instructor in the Engineering Department at Portland Community College. Amongst the classes he teaches, Electronic Controls is his favorite since it’s his technical engineering area of expertise.
1965 JESSE TEPPER shared a couple of blasts from the past. 1) After Jesse graduated from LWHS, he went to college in Santa Fe for a year and decided he was no more academically inclined in New Mexico than in San Francisco. He returned to San Francisco and worked in the Fillmore doing community organizing. After a couple of years, he realized that if he was ever to become Mayor of San Francisco, he needed more than a year of college. With
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CLASS NOTES
help from Rita Dionese Adrian, a couple of reference letters (including one from Dr. Kelly), Jesse applied to 100 graduate schools and was accepted at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, where he obtained his MA in Sociology. He is one of a small number who has an advanced degree without a BA. Stony Brook also made him a teaching assistant and that helped him buy his first house in San Francisco in 1973. 2) In 1996, his ten year old son was big into baseball but the city’s Park and Rec system was awful so Jesse decided to start Little League baseball in the city. His first team, the 1996 Brickell Plumbing Giants, had a tough time but the league persisted and grew. San Francisco Little League (SFLL) now has over 100 teams (in the main baseball division, in girls softball, and the Challenger program, which is SFLL’s program for disabled children), 2,000 players, and the online signups sell out in about 15 minutes (like a rock star). Jesse didn’t know it before it happened but when they got their diamond on Treasure Island, the Board of Directors, without his knowledge, named the field “Tepper Field.” Jesse thinks many of LWHS’ baseball players for the last 10–15 years probably spent time honing their baseball skills there without knowing it was due to a LWHS alumnus.
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1966 After 32 years as a Senior Psychologist with the California Department of Corrections– Juvenile Division, EDWARD DAUBE has retired. Since his retirement, he has enjoyed traveling, teaching, hanging out with his wife and friends, and writing books. As a speaker on a cruise ship in the Caribbean, Edward and his wife had their expenses paid by the cruise line, which was very nice. He and his wife went to China in the Winter and, without having to deal with crowds, were able to visit all the usual places such as the Great Wall and the Terracotta Warriors. They also went to Longman Caves (2 hours outside of Xian), which is also called the Cave of 1000 Buddhas; well worth seeing even though not many people go there. On a trip to Alaska, Edward put on crampons and walked on a glacier. As a certified Open Water Scuba Diver, he has enjoyed the fish and the kelp forests off the coast of Southern California and the fish, turtles, and Manta Rays in Hawaii. As a Senior Adjunct Professor of Psychology, Edward teaches classes at the University of La Verne at the Point Mugu campus. He will continue to do this as long as it is more fun than it is work! In July 2016, Edward and his wife will celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary. She is a two-time survivor of Breast Cancer. As a
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writer, Edward has contributed articles to a number of websites and has published two books, both of which are on Amazon. His “brand” is The Emotions Doctor. His first book is titled Emotions as Tools: A Self Help Guide to Controlling Your Life not Your Feelings and the second book is titled Beyond Anger Management: Master Your Anger as a Strategic Tool. Edward is working on his third book, which will deal with anger and relationships. If anyone is looking for a speaker on the topic of feelings in general or anger specifically, please contact Edward. Two of Edward’s children are married, and he was honored that both of his children asked him to officiate their weddings. Edward also officiated the wedding of his friend’s daughter. Edward is enjoying life to the fullest and would enjoy having contact with any of his classmates. He wishes his classmates the best!
JOE GARRETT, along with ERIC LEONARD, will be coordinating the 50 year reunion for the Class of 1966. Anyone who wishes to help out, or be invited, please email Garrett510@aol.com. The Class of 1966 will celebrate their 50th Reunion the weekend of March 19, 2016.
CLASS NOTES
Left: Back Row (L to R): Don Morrill, Dave Cherney, Steve Corcoran, Jay Perry, and Eric Richardson. Front Row (L to R): Steve Langmaid, Jim Anders, Glen Pritzker, David Fleishhacker, Joel Wine, and Gary Schweid. Not pictured, but was in attendance: Terry Sullivan
The Class of 1964: Golden Tigers BY JOEL WINE 1964
O
MG!!... FIFTY YEARS!!... GOLDEN TIGERS, ALREADY? We, the graduates from the Class of 1964, are now Golden Tigers.
We had a great time seeing our old classmates at reunion. We were also honored to have one of our first teachers join us, David Fleishhacker, at the two-day festivity. Most of the class had not seen or heard from each other in the fifty years since graduation, but it was almost like yesterday when we got together. Surprisingly, classmates came to town from all over the U.S., mostly from cities in California, but some came from as far away as Oregon, Arizona, and even Georgia. A bit of aging, a few grey hairs, a few less hairs, but the smiles and jokes kept coming just as they did fifty years ago, and we all had a great time getting caught up on our lives and what we’ve done. Some of the highlights of the reunion weekend were not only seeing the 1964 graduates again, but also taking a tour of the “new” Lick-Wilmerding High School. For most of us, we were in awe of how much “our” school has changed, evolved, and grown. The biggest shock was the concept of LWHS going COED. The faculty has grown, as well as the student body, and the school itself. The only landmark we all recognized was the gym. That was the only area we remembered. The old cafeteria? Forget it! We now have something that resembles a dining hall. The Shops? SHOCKER! They now look like factories. The machinery is top notch and it was amazing to see what sophisticated and creative projects the students are turning out.
As a remembrance of the special 50th reunion, we are beginning to put together a compilation of our classmates, with current information, as well as a brief update of what’s been going on in our lives since graduation (jobs, career, family, etc.). Surprisingly enough, we have received a total of 26 bios. Not bad, considering we graduated with only a class of 56 from the “old days.” We are hoping the other Class of 1964 new Golden Tigers who are reading this magazine, but haven’t responded yet, will send in their information and bio for inclusion. If you would like to submit your bio, receive a copy of all of the bios emailed to you, or if you have any questions, please send an email to either DAVE CHERNEY, dnlcherney@hotmail.com or JOEL WINE, grapeguy123@yahoo.com. All in all, I believe we all enjoyed the brief time we had together and many are looking forward to possibly getting together again soon. While some Tigers had made the trek to the reunion, others had made prior plans and could not partake in the gathering. A few of our fellow Tigers have since passed away and will be greatly missed. We enjoyed their camaraderie while classmates and we now remember them in memoriam— TIM DUTRA, JOHN KUKULAN, STEVE SALOMON, and BILL WRIGHT.
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Top, left: Photo of Doug Kaye 1960 from the early 1970’s. Left: Doug Kaye 1966 Above: Alan Pampanin 1967 with one of the families he met during his trip to Honduras.
After 26 years as a computer software and dot-com startup executive and another ten years of running a nonprofit, DOUG KAYE has returned to his passion for photography. He leads photography workshops in Cuba and teaches photography both locally and online. Doug’s preferred genre is “street”
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photography and his images have received many awards. He has been married for 44 years to his wife, Cessna, whom he met when they were both students in the Dramatic Art Department at UC Berkeley. They have one son, Warren (39), who was born when Doug and Cessna lived in New York in the ‘70s and is now a
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computer programmer for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.
JOHN PALMER reports that his older daughter, Heather, is a women’s health practitioner and certified nurse midwife in Anchorage, AK. Heather just married a very nice man and presented John with a 7 year old granddaughter. His younger daughter, Kirsten, is completing pharmacy school in Hillsboro, OR. John is thoroughly enjoying retirement and traveling the Western US mountain biking sites. He also enjoys biking in British Columbia, Canada. Life keeps getting better and better, or as John likes to say, “it just doesn’t get any better than this!”
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1967 ALAN PAMPANIN visited Honduras this year, where his daughter teaches at Amigos de Jesus, which provides education and a home to children who have lost their parents under horrendous circumstances. Alan notes, “the work Amigos de Jesus does is bold, beautiful, and inspiring.” Alan recommends watching a few videos to see firsthand the impressive, meaningful, and fun work this organization does. LWHS alumni may even consider volunteering there, just as his daughter has! Alan continues to run his immigration law firm and is pleased to report that his firm was included on the Best Law Firms list of the US News and World Report. He does wish to slow down and finds the idea of retiring, at least from the day to day practice of law, very appealing. If anyone is yearning for snow, come to Boston!
GEORGE RICHARDS is working with the Academy for Future Science, a scientific and spiritual organization founded by Dr. J. J. Hurtak (The Keys of Enoch) with an international presence on six continents. The Academy is involved with many different efforts to make the world a better place, including new
Right: Russ Tahir 1967 with his sons Darius (left) and Jason (right) at Jason’s graduation from Duke University.
science, environmental science, archeology, ancient cultures, and the protection of ancient ruins and indigenous populations, film and music projects, the UN, and the Parliament of the World’s Religions. For more information visit affs.org or keysofenoch.org
RUSTAM RUSS TAHIR reports that his younger son Jason just graduated from Duke University in May. Jason received an award from the Duke Tennis Team for achieving 100 career singles wins. He is taking a year off to go on the Pro Tennis tour before enrolling in the Business School at Duke to get his Master’s in Business Management. Darius, Russ’ older son, is a Stanford graduate and is working in Washington, D.C., at POLITICO
as a medical reporter. Russ’ wife Vivian is currently a vice-provost at the University of Rochester. Russ is semi-retired, taking care of his property interests, traveling, and taking photographs, which can be viewed on his blog westminsterroad.com. Russ also is on twitter @rustamtahir and mainly focuses on tennis and sports-related things. Russ and a few members from the Class of 1967 are already in the early stages of planning for their 50th Reunion. He has contacted many of his classmates, but if you have not received an email from him, please contact Russ, GEORGE MIERS, RON FRIEDMAN, or GREG RICHARDSON. They are hoping to create a very special and memorable event!
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JIM WALSH retired after 38 years of service for the City and County of San Francisco. He started in construction at the Materials Testing Lab, testing soil compaction, asphalt, rebar strength, and concrete strength. Jim also worked as a construction inspector and a project manager of various construction projects. Most of his time was spent in hydraulics, designing the City’s sewer replacements or sizing new/ replacement sewers. Jim also worked for the Airport, Port, and Muni as a project manager on a new fleet of busses. Jim started jogging to lose weight and ran the Bay to Breakers at age 24, eventually running faster each year for 10 years culminating in a time of 47 minutes, 280th place, and lost 25 pounds. Jim started cycling at age 34 and racing at 35. He raced for ten years with moderate success. He did the National Road Race at age 47 (45+) and ended up leading the bunch but got
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passed by 20+ riders in the last 200 yards. Jim still rides today, but a lot slower, due to a bad hip.
1968 DAN FRANK sends greetings to all LWHS alumni. He is a Professor of Philosophy at Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN. He is not contemplating retirement any time soon. His research is too interesting for him to stop. Dan has four children, ages 20–31. Unfortunately, he doesn’t get out to San Francisco very often, but he would very much enjoy hearing from classmates.
DREW HOWARD returned in January from a trip to Gabon, the country where he had been a Peace Corps volunteer in a school construction program from 1976–1979. He was a part of a project, Encore de la Paix, which is comprised of a group
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Top, left: Jim Walsh 1967 on Maui at the top of the volcano. (He considers this his best picture after retiring.)
of return volunteers from the 1960s and 1970s, and their friends and partners. They identified a school which had been built by Peace Corps volunteers in 1965 Top: Drew Howard 1968 that needed some renovation. and his wife Claire with the crew in Doumandzou. Over a month and a half, five of Above: Drew Howard 1968 them from Encore de la Paix, and his wife Claire playing including Drew’s wife Claire, along a game called Songo, which with people from the village is played throughout Africa Doumandzou, transformed a forest in a number of variations. overrun and leaky structure back into a three classroom school ready to serve a full assignment of teachers and students in September. The bonus was a visit from the newly installed US ambassador on her first upcountry visit. Drew said that the woodworking skills learned from Mr. Sachs as a freshman served him well in Doumandzou.
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After working on the research faculty at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, CA for a number of years, LEE LINDBLOM moved during this past year to take up new challenges as a Research Scientist at the Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences at the University of California at San Diego. His research is focused on astrophysical situations in which strong gravitational fields play an important role, e.g. black holes, neutron stars, etc. He also spends a couple of months each year at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, where he holds a part time professorship at the Mathematical Sciences Center.
1969 WILLIAM (BILL) KNOX is still here, there, and everywhere he can be. Bill maintains family roots in San Francisco and even some business over the years, as he has traversed the wilds of the entertainment and restaurant real
Above: From Left to Right: Rusty Selix 1968, Steve Blumlein 1968, Bill Claster 1969, Will (Bill) Knox 1969, and Joel Wineroth 1969, who came down from Lowell to play cards with all of them when they should have been in study hall. Above, right: Eric Anderson 1971 and his wife, Anita Right: Eric Anderson 1971 behind the camera.
estate world. Bill has been married for 29 years and has one 20 year old son. He is still young and curious… . Want to know more, give him a shout!
1971 ERIC ANDERSON continues to work in the Film Industry in Southern California as a Director of Photography. He is married to his wonderful wife, Anita, and they are going on 29 years. His
daughter, Natasha, just graduated from Santa Monica College and is off to UC Berkeley in the spring for her Bachelor’s degree. Eric’s son, Noah, received his Master’s in Psychology from California State University, Northridge and is working towards his hours for his MFT license. Eric and his family live in the mountains of Southern California, near the town of Frazier Park. He still remembers his great years at LWHS, and still uses his hands, heart, and occasionally his mind.
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Left: Walter Melion 1971 in The Hague, just outside the Gemeentemuseum, in the Netherlands this summer.
1975 BRAD MCCULLOUGH just
After a three-year stint as Chairman of the Art History Department at Emory University, WALTER MELION spent 2014– 2015 on sabbatical. He held the Franqui Chair in the Humanities at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and the Université Catholique de Louvain in Belgium during academic year 2014–2015. He was concurrently an NEH-Mellon Fellow at The Newberry Library in Chicago, and is now finishing a fellowship at the Scaliger Institute of Leiden University. Walter started another three-year term as Chairman in September. Walter and his husband, John, loved Chicago so much that they’re planning to make it their primary residence in a few years’ time.
JOEL WEINBERG has written a novel called True Religion, which was published by Chelsea Station Editions, a boutique New York press, in October. The novel
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explores what happens to a person when he has an encounter with a ghost, and examines how such an encounter radically alters his life. See the Alumni Authors section for more details.
1972 EDWARD TED BOSLEY writes he is grateful for LWHS’ polytechnic education for inspiring his career in architectural preservation and historic site management. Ted has recently contributed as an author and editor to the new publication, The Gamble House: Building Paradise in California (CityFiles Press, 2015), which documents the design, construction, and landscaping of the Gamble House, the icon of early 20th century, Craftsman-style domestic architecture. See the Alumni Authors section for more details.
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celebrated 35 years with Chevron in Finance and IT. His older daughter, Colleen, is about to start her 2nd year at University of Washington in the Nursing program. His younger daughter is a junior at Miramonte High School in Orinda. Brad’s wife Jennifer is an accomplished quilter, of which he has gotten into as well. They travel quite a bit as a family and are enjoying their remodeled home with its garden and bocce court. Brad was a reunion coordinator and helped organize a gettogether for the Class of 1975 to celebrate their 40th reunion.
1977 ANDREA ALBAN’S criticallyacclaimed debut novel, Anya’s War, will publish in its paperback edition in March 2016 with a new cover. The novel is loosely based on Andrea’s family history and is a little known passage in Jewish Holocaust history. The novel was originally published in hardcover in 2011. See Alumni Authors section for more information.
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DOUG FONG lives with his wife Kathleen and their three grandchildren in San Francisco. They are grateful and excited that their middle grandchild, ALEIGHA BEAVAN-SZABO 2019 entered this year’s freshman class at LWHS.
1979 BETTY SCHWARZ MARCON loved seeing all of her old friends at the reunion last year. She’s so proud to be part of such an accomplished and interesting group of people. As for Betty, her son LOIC MARCON 2017, is currently at LWHS and loves it! Over the summer, Loic traveled with a group from LWHS to Spain (with Ms. Cortez, who is now Ms. Osipova). Her daughter, Camille, is in her senior year at Syracuse. Betty doesn’t think her daughter
Above: Andrea Alban 1977 speaks to 8th graders at Live Oak School in San Francisco about the Shanghai Jews. Above, right: #1 Arizona Cardinals fan, Greg Zieman 1979, even has his own card to prove it.
is coming back West any time soon. Betty and her family live in Alameda and she has a new position as a payroll manager for a company based at SFO, so if anyone is ever at the airport with some time to kill, give her a holler! Last spring, GREG ZIEMAN was accepted into law school and began in early August. Greg shares that he was impressed during his interview with the Dean when he mentioned his knowledge and respect for Lick-Wilmerding High School. During the day, Greg is Principal and Education Director of a school for students with Special Education needs. Prior to serving as a principal, he was a teacher. The past two years brought some political involvement for him, as in June he just completed a successful 2-year term as a Chairperson of the Child Abuse
Council of Santa Clara County. This entity is a commission of the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors. The weekends include coaching youth basketball and, during the fall, trips to Arizona to watch his beloved Arizona Cardinals.
1981 STEVE WOZNIAK had another busy year on the water. In June of 2014, he set his 100th International Game Fish Association world record, qualifying him for the IGFA’s Lifetime Achievement Award. The trophy was handed out in June, and Steve is now staying busy going for a hundred more.
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Keeping it in the family— CHARLES HUTCHINS and his wife, Tehmina Khan, are happy to announce that their son, OMAR ALI KHAN HUTCHINS, is a member of the LWHS Class of 2019. Congratulations to Omar for all of his hard work and dedication at James Lick Middle School. It certainly paid off! Hopefully, Omar will have a chance to be taught by some of his dad’s teachers, such as Mr. Osipoff and Ms. Boitano, and perhaps even Señora Osipova, although Charles took German with Ms. Von Doyen.
1982
ROBIN HAUSER REYNOLDS
MARC GREENDORFER shares that in addition to his corporate law practice, he is also active in Constitutional scholarship and advocacy, focusing on individual rights. He has published a number of scholarly papers on topics ranging from the Second Amendment to the anti-Israel “BDS” movement’s standing under US law, and has been featured as a guest legal commentator on the Cumulus radio network. Marc’s legal analysis of the BDS movement was cited numerous times by the Supreme Court of Israel in its recent landmark decision to uphold Israel’s domestic antiboycott law. Marc filed an amicus brief in the Obergefell v. Hodges same sex marriage case, arguing that federalism required the court to defer to states on the question of marriage rights. Marc also filed
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an amicus brief in support of the Hobby Lobby parties, in which he argued for the religious exercise rights of de facto as well as quasi benefit corporations. That brief was subsequently published as an article in the Delaware Journal of Corporate Law. Marc’s scholarly papers can be viewed at his Social Science Research Network page. Marc has also published two books: And the Ban Played On: The Public Safety Threat to Individual Rights and The BDS Movement: That Which We Call a Foreign Boycott, Is Still Illegal. See the Alumni Authors for more information.
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Top, left: Steve Wozniak 1981 and his Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Game Fish Association. Top: Charles Hutchins 1982 with his wife Tehmina Khan and son Omar Ali Khan Hutchins 2019. Above: Robin Hauser Reynolds 1982 filming her documentary CODE: Debugging the Gender Gap.
directed the documentary film CODE: Debugging the Gender Gap, which debuted at Tribeca Film Festival in April. The film has been featured in numerous national publications and both Congress and the Department of State held private screenings this past summer. CODE was also screened at the prestigious Mill Valley Film Festival in Marin in October 2015.
1984 This past Father’s Day, the nonprofit Matter of Trust, founded by LISA CRAIG GAUTIER, launched the first Zero Waste Flash Mob to promote recycling and composting globally to help with climate change. A video of the event was sent to the United Nations for the Climate Conference,
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which takes place in December in Paris. #ZeroWasteFlashMobs are a fun compliment for the middle of any large event, such as concerts, marathons, rallys, etc. For more information, visit MatterOfTrust.org
1985 For the past couple of years while
CATHARINE KATIE CLARK’S daughter, LILAH BELDNER 2017, matriculated to LWHS, Katie has been serving on the Alumni Board, which has been an intriguing challenge and fun experience. Don’t be surprised if you hear from her acting in that capacity! Plus the class of 1985 has a major reunion on the horizon. On the professional front: in the fall of 2013, Katie moved her gallery (Catharine Clark Gallery) from downtown San Francisco to Utah and 16th Streets, and has since been re-branding the area from Dogpatch to Potrero Hill to Mission Creek as the DoReMi Arts District. In collaboration with fellow arts organizations in the neighborhood and the Sputnik students at California College of the Arts (CCA), they created a DoReMi arts map, which is available to anyone stopping into the galleries, nonprofits, educational institutions,
and museums that are part of the piano and is playing soccer for association—come check it out! The the traveling team selected by gallery also has a Facebook page. the Northern California Olympic Development Program (ODP). Another exciting professional While training and competing in milestone for 2015 is the inclusion tournaments with ODP, he also of one of the gallery’s artist’s continues his local training on an work in the Venice Biennale. Nina academy team at USF. Katie feels Katchadourian is among the really lucky to be the mom of such artists representing the Armenian athletic, ambitious, and passionate Pavilion, which was awarded the children. Golden Lion. The Venice Biennale was up through November, PETER YOLLES founded which was an amazing survey WaterSmart Software in 2009 of international contemporary to change the way people use art. In coming months, a major water. WaterSmart, based in San monograph on Sandow Birk’s Francisco, is now the leading data American Qur’an project will be analytics tool for water utilities released to coincide with the and their customers. WaterSmart traveling museum exhibit on the uses behavioral science to nudge same subject (which began with people to save about 5% of their the Orange County Museum of Art water and energy use every year. in November). Katie was an editor They serve over 40 cities in 7 states and contributed to American and process data from over 10% Qur’an, which was published of all of California’s water meters. by Norton this fall. Finally, two WaterSmart is helping solve the exciting developments that pertain drought and is hiring! You can find to Katie’s children’s extracurricular out more at WaterSmart.com/ lives—this past summer, Lilah careers. Peter says his family is auditioned and was accepted to doing well and he and his wife Jill, School of American Ballet (SAB), along with his children Sam (12), which is a training program for the and Amanda (11), live in Marin. Both New York City Ballet. She spent of his children attend the local the summer living in Manhattan Reed schools. Peter and his family and studied classical ballet for six see his brother JOHN YOLLES days a week at SAB. Katie’s son, 1987 and his family frequently. Max, who is an 8th grader at Live Oak School, still loves to play the
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1986
1988
SUSANNA KHAVUL was
ADAM GASNER recently
awarded the Leverhulme Visiting Professorship at the London School of Economics and has been spending part of each year in London doing research on crowdfunding and mobile money, as well as teaching executives from all over the world. Her kids, now 9 and 11, are having a lovely time attending English schools.
traveled on a grant from the U.S. Department of State to Montenegro (in the former Yugoslovia) to teach plea bargaining to the local judges, prosecutors, and defense lawyers. He also was recently selected to be a judge pro-tem in the San Francisco Superior Court, where he is assigned to the Juvenile Justice Center. So far he has not presided over any cases involving LWHS students.
Never ones to want to miss out on all life has to offer, BEN KLAU and his wife, Joan, welcomed their first child, Avery Josephine Klau, into the world on July 16. They look forward to raising her as a native San Franciscan and Giants fan, and finally getting some value out of ETHAN CUTTS 1986 being a pediatrician.
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1989 After learning that some of her college choir friends had participated in Sing for America,
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Top, left: Ben Klau 1986 and his wife Joan with daughter Avery Top: Adam Gasner 1988 leads a course in plea bargaining in Montenegro. Above: Jennifer Schwartz 1989 accepts a check for her fundraising efforts to support Musical Theatre Works.
JENNIFER SCHWARTZ decided it would be a fun and different way to fundraise. Jennifer later learned that Sing For America was founded by ERICH STRATMANN 1957, whose son ERIC STRATMANN JR. 1988 was in the LWHS Chamber Singers with Jennifer—what a small world! Coincidentally, she was also singing with her parents’ longtime neighbor, as well as the Dad of a former childhood church choir singer friend. Jennifer raised over
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$2,500 for Musical Theatre Works, a musical theatre company for children, which her mom founded in 1997. The concert was held at the Palace of Fine Arts, and it was the 2nd time she’d been on that stage—the first time being her LWHS Class of 1989 Graduation! It was a fun experience, and it was especially unique to link different periods of her singing career for a great cause. Additionally, Jennifer has been keeping busy playing in ice hockey tournaments around the country, like Florida and Texas.
Above: Jennifer Schwartz 1989 and the Sing For America choir Right: Tom Jacobson with his son Samadhi Below, right: While working with Jensen Architects, Lincoln Lighthill 1990 worked on and completed several cafes for Blue Bottle Coffee. This is the Venice, CA, Blue Bottle Café location. Photo by Elizabeth Daniels
1990 Twenty five years after her first attempt, two other degrees, and a couple of careers later, LISA CASEY has finally completed her engineering degree! She earned a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from Portland State
University this year and is excited to start her new career with Bonneville Power Administration.
TOM JACOBSON and his wife Shari Epstein are enjoying life with their son, Samadhi, who turned two in July. Earlier this year, after almost a decade as a project architect at a
firm in San Francisco, LINCOLN LIGHTHILL fulfilled a lifelong dream and opened his own architecture practice. He spent the last few years focused on foodrelated projects, including Shed, a market hall in Healdsburg that won the James Beard award for best restaurant design in 2014, and several cafes for Blue Bottle
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Above, left: Chelsea Eng 1992 and Count Glover performing in a fashion show at the 2015 USA Tango Championships. Photo by Michael Kass.
Coffee. His new practice is focused on modern, sustainable design across a range of commercial, hospitality, and residential project types, including a new home in the Lake Tahoe area for fellow LWHS alumnus ROB FYFE 1988.
1992 CHELSEA ENG is still working professionally in Argentine Tango. Dance highlights of her year included performing original choreography at the Teatro ND in Buenos Aires for shows with CITA (Congreso Internacional de Tango Argentino) and Latin Grammynominated band Tanghetto; modeling/dancing in Buenos Aires-based designer Viviana Laguzzi’s fashion show at the USA Tango Championships; and being a
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featured dancer in Latin Grammynominated band Orquesta Victoria’s Bay Area tour stop at the Marines’ Memorial Theatre in SF. Chelsea continues to teach tango in the Dance Department at SF City College—just across the street from LWHS! In addition, she has been venturing into film and voiceover. Chelsea would love to (re)connect with LWHS alumni— particularly those based in SF, NYC, and Seattle, who are working professionally in the performing arts and/or animal advocacy. She sends much gratitude to LWHS faculty and hugs to the Class of 1992! www.TangoChelsea.com
KELLY GRIMES gave birth to her first child, a boy named John Marsman Grimes-Drysdale on March 7. Last August, along with EUGENIA WANG, JENNIFER BARRETT, and ANDY SNAIDER
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Above: Lori Decter Wright 1992 and her family
there was an impromptu Class of 1992 reunion at the Giants v Red Sox game. Kelly is living between San Francisco and Manila, Philippines where she is lucky to see Fawn Aguirre Babin 1991 and enjoy fun ex-pat adventures. In January 2014, LORI DECTER WRIGHT launched her own business as an independent consultant for Jamberry, where she rose to the top 1% in the company during her first 100 days and continues to grow with them to this day. Doing so enabled her to have the financial freedom to resign her full-time position of 6.5 years as the Director of Education and Membership for Sweet Adelines International, a nonprofit association for female singers. She was also able to spend three months at home full-time with her children Libby (5) and Theo (3). In January 2015, Lori started a new part-time position as the Executive Director for Kendall
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Whittier Inc., a community-based nonprofit organization focused on solving food security issues in the historic Kendall-Whittier Neighborhood of Tulsa, OK. In partnership with the University of Tulsa and several neighborhood churches, they run an emergency food pantry that delivers a week’s worth of groceries for each person in the household up to four times in a rolling 12 month period. Kendall Whittier Inc. serves the needs of approximately 15% of the residents of the neighborhood annually. They also sponsor two organic urban community gardens. The Tipton Community Garden is a traditional community garden with more than two dozen raised beds that can be adopted for free and tended by neighbors to raise their own produce. And their GROW Teaching Garden is located across the street from a HeadStart Community Preschool and the largest public elementary schools in Tulsa. This garden serves as a demonstration garden and outdoor classroom for the elementary school students, the vast majority of which are economically disadvantaged and are identified as at-risk youth.
Above: Nina Wildorf 1995 and her family Above, right: Erik Weiner 1995 and his daughter Roxy
The organization also distributes the yield from this garden to the students and their families, as well as to clients through their emergency food pantry.
1995 NINA WILLDORF ENDELMAN writes that she and her husband moved back to San Francisco with their two children Mimi (6) and Noa (3) after living in New York for 13 years. Nina works as a strategic marketing consultant for early-stage consumer startups. Her husband, Michael Endelman, is creating content strategy for Airbnb. They consider themselves happy refugees from the crumbling remains of the publishing industry (Rolling Stone, Spin, Travel + Leisure, Budget Travel, etc.). Nina would love to reconnect with old friends from LWHS!
AMELIA HARDGRAVE HUMBLE writes that she lives in a rural village north of Nottingham in England. She is mother to Ben (4) and Sam (2). She has a craft business and works from home. She and her husband, Daniel, enjoy running in the Robin Hood Marathon and growing vegetables in their garden.
ERIK WEINER and his wife, Kerry, welcomed a new baby girl, Roxette Frances Weiner, aka Roxy, to the world on February 27, 2015.
1996 SEVRA DAVIS works at the RSA, a nonprofit in London, where she is Director of Design and Challenges. She runs a global design program for students in higher education, the RSA Student Design Awards. In addition, she speaks widely about design thinking and the rise of open innovation challenges.
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ROLAND GAUTHIER writes that it’s now been 12 years since he and his wife, Amy Taramasso, moved from the Bay Area to beautiful Portland, OR. And it’s been almost 20 years since the Class of 1996 graduated. Amy and Roland celebrated their 6 year wedding anniversary and 13 years together in July. Their daughter, Sylvie, turned six in August and started first grade. Sylvie loves to draw, sing, dance, and play dress up— she would be perfect for LWHS! Amy and Sylvie spent six weeks in France over the summer and stayed with family to kick their French language skills into high gear. Roland joined them for the last few weeks of their trip for a bit of summer vacation. His animation and VFX production studio in Portland, Hinge Digital, also celebrated six years in business last March. His team is doing work for ad agencies and brands alike. Roland is very proud of what they’ve built and the best is yet to come! While they work mostly on commercials for their clients, they also create their own projects like Snow Knows. Roland is looking forward to seeing his fellow LWHS graduates at the next reunion— 20 years!
RENINA JARMON is currently a doctoral student at the University of Maryland College Park, studying the intersection of race, identity, and venture capital.
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She is also an instructor at the University of Maryland where she has taught Intro to Women’s Studies, Black Culture in the US, and Black Women in Popular Culture. Renina is the author of the book Black Girls Are From the Future: Essays on Race, Digital Creativity and Pop Culture which is available on Amazon.
THEKLA ASTRUP RICHTER and her husband David welcomed a new baby girl, Kaia Naomi Richter, on November 1, 2014. Her older brother, Arden, is 5 years old. Thekla is currently self-employed as a playful productivity coach for parents and is teaching herself the ukulele.
1997 Congratulations to MIRANDA GARDINER, who was awarded a Robert Bosch Foundation Fellowship for the 2015–2016 year. Miranda will be studying and working in Germany. Her proposed research project will compare cities in North America with similar cities in Germany through the lens of green building rating systems such as LEED-ND, Living Communities, and Envision. Miranda plans to investigate what’s working (or not) with policies, incentives, penalties, etc, in an effort to get North America on track with better environmental practices.
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1998 JULIE BERNSTEIN SILVERSTEIN writes that it’s coming up on four years in beautiful Washington, D.C., with her husband and four young children. Her children keep them laughing and of course, very busy. Julie works as the COO at a UX creative agency, focused on digital and branding. She spends her time hiking Rock Creek Park (think Golden Gate Park, with seasons). If alumni come through the nation’s capital, please reach out!
STEPHEN OSSERMAN recently released On an Overgrown Path, a new CD from the Lyrical Strings Duo (Stephen on classical guitar with Lucie Zálešáková on violin). The album explores the intersection of folk traditions, romanticism, and storytelling in the instrumental music of Lucie’s native Czech Republic, and other countries at the border of Western and Eastern Europe. The duo hopes that presenting this music on violin and guitar will help bring out both these Romantic and folk elements, and in the process help break the barrier that has emerged between concert hall music and the popular traditions that inspired it. Find out more at www.LyricalStringsDuo.com
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Left: Steven Blair 2004, Jeff Blair 1999, and Andrew Rauch 2013
Spotlight: LWHS Alumni at AethLabs BY TAFT WEBER-KILPACK 2016
T
his past summer, the brother duo of AethLabs, Jeff Blair 1999 and Steven Blair 2004, welcomed
a new team member, ANDREW RAUCH 2013. Andrew, while looking through the 2014 LWHS Alumni Magazine, read Jeff’s class note about his company, AethLabs, which he founded along with his brother Steven in 2011. Based in San Francisco, AethLabs manufactures air quality monitors for measuring black carbon in the air; the monitors are used in health and climate research. Andrew, who is currently studying Electrical Engineering at John Hopkins University, was applying for summer internship opportunities and decided to contact Jeff and Steven to inquire about an internship at their company. Jeff, Steven, and Andrew immersed themselves in the Shops during their respective tenures as students at LWHS. It was during Jeff’s internship as a LWHS senior at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) when he built his first air monitor under the mentorship of an LBNL staff scientist and Tom Brown, the LWHS machine shop instructor at the time. Jeff says this project, as well as his other machine shop projects, were his first adventures in engineering, and the basis for what he does now with his brother.
After graduating from college, both Jeff and Steven continued their work in engineering individually, and eventually the brothers decided to start their own company. Their work is a perfect example of how math, science, and technical arts all tie together, something that they had also experienced at LWHS. All three say they developed their day-today design thinking and technical skills during high school. Steven in particular recalls furniture making and the drafting skills he learned as a Teacher’s Assistant in architecture classes. Andrew enjoyed his time at AethLabs and the opportunity he had to create, working with his hands and using the tools he missed from the Shops. “Every project has been exciting because there are so many small and large challenges to overcome. Sometimes a whole afternoon of troubleshooting can boil down to switching two wires in a circuit, which is frustrating. But when it all comes together, I can look at something I would have never thought I could make, and it’s worth it,” says Andrew. Moving forward, Jeff and Steven plan to continue developing their business in San Francisco and are open to exploring more collaboration with students and interns.
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MORGAN VENABLE married Matleena Hanninen Venable on March 28, 2015—they met in Helsinki shortly before he left Microsoft in June 2014. They shared a beautiful, blue-skied wedding day with JORDAN MILLER 1997 and his wife, Sasha, in the Marin Headlands. During Morgan’s first six month break from work in over a dozen years, they enjoyed paragliding, riding bicycles all over the place, remodeling projects, and a sunless two weeks of Christmas in Lapland with, “only brief episodes of mortal fear of freezing to death in the woods.” Out of necessity Morgan has become a passable baker of Finnish sourdough rye bread. Morgan is now at Amazon in downtown SF trying to figure out how to safely deliver packages by drone without mulching anything inappropriate.
PATRICK WARD founded nomiddleman.co, which enables design professionals, as well as residential and commercial customers to access home
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furnishings directly from overseas factories at prices up to 50% lower than comparable products purchased through established channels. Patrick founded the company after several years of overseas sales experience during which he saw the huge difference between normal retail prices and factory prices. The company is working with factories in Mexico and China. Patrick hopes to carry a wide variety of furniture in the near future. Patrick recently moved to Columbus, OH, where his wife is an Assistant Professor of Orthopedic Surgery at Ohio State University.
1999 MIKE MCCAFFREY works internationally, consulting banks and telecoms to better use technology to extend financial services to low income and rural populations (modern microfinance). This work has
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Above, left: Morgan Venable 1998 and his wife Matleena Above: Patrick Ward 1998 Right: Mike McCaffrey 1999
taken him to over 65 countries around the world. Mike has been writing about the people, places, and perspectives he encounters. He recently published an article about his trip to the India-Pakistan border. Read more at www. nomadic-by-nature.com
LAURA NEUMAN’S first book of poems, Stop the Ocean, was published in 2014 by Stockport Flats. She lives in Philadelphia, where she teaches writing at Temple University and at the Community College of Philadelphia. See the Alumni Authors section for more details.
CLASS NOTES
2000 In June, LAURA JONES, KATIE
SWINERTON RINDERKNECHT, MAIA BOOKOFF, and DIANA LEVIN met up and introduced
Above: From left to right, Class of 2000 friends Maia Bookoff, Laura Jones, Diana Levin and Baby Ezra Ben-Artzi, Katie Swinerton Rinderknecht and Baby Luka Rinderknecht
2004
2005
TIFFANY NG has made
GABE CHAN received his PhD in
Gothengburg, Sweden, her home base for the moment (formerly Above, right: Vanessa their newest baby tigers, Luka Maltin Weisbrod 2001 and Copenhagen, Denmark), while Rinderknecht and Ezra Ben-Artzi, her family celebrate glutenretaining partial residence in and baby tigers-to-be to each free living at an event at the Copenhagen and Lisbon, Portugal. Children’s Hospital. other. In addition to continuing her work with Silver.Spoon, a gastronomic brand experience, Tiffany also started a new food tech project in December called RSVP, which is a VANESSA MALTIN WEISBROD discovery and booking app/website shared that her third cookbook, for users focused on curated gastro The Delight Gluten-Free Cookbook, events. They are still in the early was published in October by stages of the project, but Tiffany is Harlequin Press. She and her excited about the potential it holds. husband recently welcomed a This Fall, as a part of his exchange baby boy name Brandon. Vanessa program in Copenhagen, HARRY is the new President of the Board GLENN-FINER 2013 is interning of Celiac Disease Program at with Tiffany and working on the Children’s National Health System RSVP project. What a small world! in Washington, D.C. For more information, visit rsvp.dk
2001
Public Policy from Harvard University in May. This Fall, he started as an Assistant Professor at the University of Minnesota Humphrey School of Public Affairs, where he will continue to do research on energy and environmental policy.
2006 CAITLIN O’BRIEN shares that she has just begun the Harvard School of Education’s Teacher Education Program. She started in June and will earn her Master’s in Education, Massachusetts Teaching License, and “a whole lot of grey hairs” next May. Caitlin thanks all of her LWHS teacher and says, “I am reflecting fondly on my time spent at Ocean Avenue!”
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SECTION NAME
Spotlight: LWHS Alumni at IDEO BY KENZO YANNI VELASQUEZ 2015
T
he world is small—a phrase that is frequently repeated. So it should be of no surprise that LWHS
alumni, with the unique skillset they have, find themselves interested in working at the same place. This year’s case study is IDEO. Over the summer, MATT KERNS 2006, YENNIE LEE 2006, and CYRUS STOLLER 2006 found themselves working at IDEO in San Francisco/Palo Alto, while TAÍS MAUK 2009 was interning at IDEO in Boston. IDEO is known for taking a human-centered, design-based approach to help organizations in both the public and private sectors grow. Given the LWHS educational experience they share, and the emphasis placed on the head, heart, and hands philosophy, it is not a coincidence that LWHS students and alumni have taken an interest in this award-winning global design firm. Yennie is the Impact Manager at IDEO.org and has been working at the organization for a little over two years. IDEO.org is the nonprofit design organization that works to empower those who are in greatest need (and solve some of the world’s most difficult problems) through design solutions. This summer, Matt worked as a Business Development & Strategy intern at OpenIDEO in San Francisco and Cyrus as a Business Design intern at IDEO in Palo Alto. Both Matt and Cyrus are currently finishing MBA programs at the University of Southern California and Harvard University respectively. Taís interned for a year at IDEO in Boston, doing Interaction Design, where she worked on projects such as investigating how Bitcoin and digital currencies can affect the world and how music affects bodies at a quantifiable level. Taís is currently finishing the last year of her Master’s Degree in Interaction
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Above, left:Yennie Lee 2006 guides a tour at IDEO in San Francisco.
Design at the Institute of Design at the University of Umeå in Sweden.
Above: Taís Mauk 2009
Although it has been almost a decade since these three alumni from the Class of 2006 graduated, they mentioned that the principles for which LWHS stands, regarding lifelong learning and service has strongly influenced their work ethic and purpose at IDEO. The head, heart, hands motto is still a lifestyle they continue to live by. Both Yennie and Cyrus believe that the problem solving techniques they learned while they were students in the Tech Arts Shops are regularly applied to their work. In addition, they emphasized that their fellow co-workers dedicate years to specific research and projects that they are passionate about, making global impact through interweaving design, service, and productivity. In terms of creating a new product, Cyrus elaborated on the importance of going back and forth between designing a product simply with basic, everyday tools and materials (even 3D printing) and prototyping. He shared how much the LWHS Technical Arts curricular focus on aesthetics, ergonomics, and
Above; right: Class of 2006 classmates Yennie Lee and Cyrus Stoller together in the IDEO.org offices.
CLASS NOTES
anthropometrics serves as the basis for the design processes that take place at IDEO.
2008
Taís also credits her experience in the Shops and the architecture department. She said, “You truly have to build it to test it out, and at LWHS I began making my ideas real. I learned the values of making, an idea may be perfect in your head, but build it and reality will show you the intricacies you could never have pictured. I feel exploring through building is even more important in the digital age where a human touch can be lost.” “IDEO exemplifies values I learned at Lick,” said Yennie, who majored in Sociology at the University of Chicago. She shared how IDEO.org invests in exploring and understanding different cultures and subcultures around the world before even coming up with a product. Similar to the work LWHS does with the Private Skills for a Public Purpose Tech Arts class, as well as the annual Senegal trip, Yennie appreciates how she can combine service work with using the resources IDEO has to offer to help others on a global scale. Taís may have captured the feelings of all four LWHS alumni, “I always wanted to work for IDEO because they always seemed to work on solving the world’s best and noble problems.”
Top: David Quevedo 2006 in Paris during his recent trip to Europe, where he visited London, Paris, Nice, Cannes, Monoco, Madrid, Barcelona, and Ibiza. Above: Jocelyn Chan 2008 and her family after her graduation from the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Design.
DAVID QUEVEDO is a registered nurse and works as a travel nurse across the United States. He has worked in the SF and LA area and will be working next in Portland. His brother, Juan Carlos Quevedo, graduated in 2002 and went to UC Davis and now works as an environmental health specialist in Monterey County. His younger sister’s name is Ilse Cadena. Their family adopted her from Mexico when she was 6. She is a rising 8th grader and they hope she can be a Tiger, too.
In May, JOCELYN CHAN graduated with her Master of Science in Historic Preservation with a focus on Architectural Conservation from the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Design. She was awarded the Elizabeth Greene Wiley Award for Outstanding Promise and was selected to present her master’s thesis work, “An Investigation of the Painted Finishes of Mission San José De Tumacácori Façade: At the Interface of Materials Analysis, Conservation, and Cultural Confluence” as a student scholar at the annual Association for Preservation Technology conference in November. In June, she moved from Philadelphia to New York to begin working as a conservator for Integrated Conservation Resources, an architectural conservation company that conserves and consults on the preservation of historic structures. In addition to applying to law school, CAROLINE WONG continues to lead editorial for her online lifestyle publication, Tastevin Magazine, and writes for the award-winning national publication Audrey Magazine. Most recent interviewees include actress/model Tina Desai and actress/singer/songwriter Hayley Kiyoko.
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2009 JUSTINE HONG and MIA DIVECHA have been friends since freshman year of high school. Summer of 2013 they traveled to Bali together, and once they moved to their respective cities (Mia in Minneapolis and Justine in Chicago), they made sure to visit each other. In July 2015 Mia went to visit Justine in Chicago. They explored “the bean” sculpture, tried delicious food and drinks! Mia has also met up with GABE CHAN 2005, who just moved to Minneapolis for his new job.
back country hikers and skiers to easily assess the probability of avalanches. The AvaTech SP1 probe was funded by MIT and is currently in production. In 2013, Taís began pursuing a Master’s Degree in Interaction Design at the Umeå Institute of Design at the Umeå University in Sweden. Taís also attended the OzCHI TAÍS MAUK graduated from Computer-Human Interaction Rhode Island School of Design in conference in Brisbane, 2013 with a degree in Industrial Australia, where she presented Design. For her senior project her team’s 24 Hour Student she teamed up with Business Challenge entry to redesign and Engineering Masters email, winning the prestigious students from MIT to invent worldwide competition. She the first proactive avalanche also was a speaker at this safety device to measure snow year’s IxDA interaction design strength. This product enables conference in San Francisco.
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Top, left: 2009 classmates Mia Divecah and Justine Hong reunite in Chicago this past summer. Top, right: Taís Mauk 2009 above the Arctic Circle on a class project at the Umeå Institute of Design, Umeå University in Sweden. Above: Aaron Goldstein 2010 presents his thesis at Cornell University.
Her entry in the “Connected City Wearables” competition was a runner-up. After she completed her interaction design internship at IDEO in Boston, Taís returned to Sweden to begin the last year of her M.F.A.
2010 AARON GOLDSTEIN graduated from the 5 year Bachelor of Architecture Degree at Cornell University. He received a Charles Goodwin Sands Memorial Award for his thesis, as well as the Clifton Beckwith Brown Memorial Medal,
CLASS NOTES
and Henry Adams AIA Medal. Aaron will be staying at Cornell for an additional year as a teaching instructor in the first year architecture studio.
2012 Representing the film department and fellow students, JASMINE EHRHARDT was presented with an opportunity to speak alongside the Chancellor of University of California Santa Cruz to major donors. The chancellor’s consultant and advisory team worked to script and prep her weeks before the event. After all that prep work, once Jasmine heard her professor’s speech, she decided she would speak from her heart instead. It went so well that Jasmine was invited to go on the road to help fundraise. She declined because she had classes and school to attend in order to graduate! Read more at: chancellor.ucsc.edu/blog/2014/ spire.html After the expected and unexpected ups and downs of the college transition, JOHN
RIBEIRO-BROOMHEAD writes that he has settled in nicely for his junior year at Stanford. He’s become heavily involved with the Stanford Fossil Fuel Divestment
campaign, which is part of a national movement to get leading institutions like universities to withdraw any investments they hold in fossil fuel companies, with the intent to shift the rhetoric and sociopolitical landscape of climate change. To find out more about the Stanford campaign, visit GoFossilFree. org John writes that he has gotten to know “many wonderful, brilliant, carbon-minded students” and has learned a lot about organizing and working with university administration. Along the lines of his climate change interest, John will be traveling with a class to the international climate policy negotiations in Paris this winter. John and his class will have the chance to meet policy makers and other students from around the world and get some insight into the push and pull of international policy making. John notes that he is looking forward to a busy year. See article about John’s gap year on page 44.
ALEX FRAKNOI, aka “Frak,” is a senior at Pitzer College and is also a rising Bay Area hip-hop artist. He recently released his album, Bagels, a thirteentrack project that is the hiphop alternative of a baker’s dozen. The album featured
Below: Members of the Class of 2009 before they tour the brewery. Bottom: From Left to Right: Simone Crew, Emma Smart, Livy Low, and Sarah Bindman
Class of 2009 Reunion BY SARAH BINDMAN
O
n July 25, the Class of 2009 celebrated their 6-year high school reunion at local brewery Triple Voodoo
in San Francisco. Alumni came from all across the country (and even London!) to see old friends. This class sure loves to use their heads, hearts, and hands. Current pursuits of the Class of 2009 include: completing PhDs, designing furniture, running startups, empowering youth, supporting professional athletes, attending medical school, and acting on stage. Can’t wait to see what the next five years has in store for this class!
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realized she enjoyed using her hands and visualizing the designs. This was the driving force that led cosigns from rappers such as Dalia to dive deeper into the world Watsky, Shad, and Kendrick of jewelry. During her time at Lamar, and was featured as one LWHS, Dalia spent a lot of time in of SF Weekly’s top local Bay Area the jewelry shop because she felt albums of 2014. Alex has been she had found her true passion! playing shows from the Bay Area Since then, she’s made body to L.A., and has been releasing adornment her independent study, music videos, one of which was and after she graduated, Dalia made for a diabetes campaign focused on gathering her own called “The Bigger Picture” and tools—hammers, a jeweler’s saw, was featured on the website torch, solder, flux, pickle solution, Upworthy. You can listen to and etc. She’s been working on her purchase Bagels at frak.bandcamp. own for several years, is running a com/album/bagels. jewelry blog, and trying to start a business. Please feel free to check out her work and contact Dalia at: http://d-a-l-i.blogspot.com/
2013
DALIA GONZALEZ has been developing a new business idea in which LWHS has played a big part. Starting her sophomore year at LWHS, Dalia eagerly signed up for jewelry class. A few months before this, she had explored and played around with beading and
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2014 CHASE HOMMEYER spent nine months in India with the Princeton Bridge Year Program. She lived in the city of Varanasi for seven months, where she lived with
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Left: Alex Fraknoi 2012 performs at a recent show. Above: Chase Hommeyer 2014 with her homestay brothers, Rinchen and Thinles, in Ladakh. Together they played a lot of cricket!
a host family, learned Hindi, and worked at Guria, a small grassroots nonprofit organization that fights human trafficking. The experience was incredibly humbling and inspiring and Chase would recommend taking a gap year to every student about to attend college. She returned much more ready to attend Princeton this fall and is committed to use her education to continue being humbled and giving back. Chase is grateful to have had the opportunity to reflect on and expand her view of the world and her role in it. Read more about Chase’s gap year on page 42. During his gap year, KYLE LEE spent three months in Nepal with the organization Where There Be Dragons. He trekked in the Himalayas, stayed in city homestays, lived in Tibetan Buddhist monasteries, and spent time in remote villages. A large portion of his time was dedicated to studying the language, religion, culture, and the highly complicated matter of development in Nepal. Kyle was trekking just off of the Annapurna circuit when the 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit on April 25. His group, instructors, and crew were safe and unharmed. One week later, they left the country, which distressed Kyle to leave this place that had offered him so much under the circumstances. Kyle writes that Nepal has had its own fair share of turmoil and now finds
CLASS NOTES
itself faced with incredibly difficult tasks. Since returning, Kyle has been funneling donations through Where There Be Dragons to support Armit Ale, a Nepali native and instructor on his course, who is focused on helping communities regain their footing in their livelihood and self-sustainability. Over the summer, RACHEL LIU was granted the opportunity to participate in scientific research aboard the R/V Atlantis, looking at microbial systems near natural hydrocarbon seeps in the Gulf of Mexico. She has now traveled 1027m underwater in HOV Alvin
Top: Kyle Lee 2014 with his village homestay family in Balamchaur.
and looks forward to continuing her research at UCSB!
Above: Rachel Liu 2014 inside HOV Alvin
CHARLOTTE REIDER-SMITH
Top, right: Charlotte Reider-Smith 2014 in Ecuador, where she climbed Volcano Pichincha.
just returned from her bridge year in Ecuador with Global Citizen Year. She spent eight months in Otavalo, living with a host family and working various jobs, which included an indigenous museum, a fair trade jewelry shop, a dog shelter, working with a holistic doctor, and sometimes teaching
English. Over the summer, Charlotte interned with Global Citizen Year and also worked as a restaurant server on evenings and weekends. Other summer projects included painting/decorating her family’s old Toyota van and trying to meditate. Charlotte started college this fall at Middlebury. Read more about Charlotte’s year in Ecuador on her blog: www. ecuatime.tumblr.com
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In Memoriam
1930 Bernice Jean Caminata
1937 Erma Lucas Zink
1973 Joseph Potter
1978 Thomas Dallman
Alumni Events Calendar 2015-2016 DECEMBER 22
JUNE 2016
Annual Alumni Holiday Party 6:30–9:00pm Mr. Smith’s, San Francisco
Tigers Helping Tigers Networking Event in San Francisco
JANUARY 6
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Annual Lunch at LWHS for College-Age Alumni (Classes of 2012-2015)
FEBRUARY 19 Tigers Helping Tigers Networking Event at LWHS with current students
APRIL 28 Fourth Annual THE event at LWHS
Alumni Reunion at LWHS Special dinners for classes ending in 1 and 6. Interested in helping plan your reunion? Contact Miwa Kozuki mkozuki@lwhs.org for more information.
Please check the Alumni Page on the LWHS website www.lwhs.org/alumni for the latest information on alumni events.
SPRING 2016 Southern California Regional Alumni Event
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FPO DOES NOT
ALUMNI MAGAZINE
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