CLASS NOTES AND ALUMNI UPDATES

ALUMNI UPDATES

LETTER FROM THE TARTAN ALUMNI ASSOCIATION PRESIDENT

Greetings from your first

alma mater! As we begin a new school year and enjoy the special moments it traditionally brings—from new classes, to new events, to new connections—I wanted to send along a note of appreciation to you all. It has been a remarkable few years for St. Margaret’s. We have been thrilled to reengage in meaningful ways, from our annual holiday party, to our career and ISP programming for our seniors, to our fundraising for the Tartan Alumni Legacy Endowment (TALE). Thank you for helping us lay the groundwork for another year of connection and support for St. Margaret's.

Most recently, you may have read about the appointment of Dr. Jeneen Graham as our next Head of School at the beginning of the 2023-24 school year. I can tell you from my firsthand experience with Dr. Graham that our alumni are going to continue to be in great hands and have opportunities to contribute to every facet of our school.

We are proud to welcome the Class of 2022 as the newest members of the Tartan Alumni Association and are here to guide and support the Class of 2023 as they begin their final year at St. Margaret's and prepare to be Tartan Alumni for the rest of their lives.

You will read about some updates from our fellow alumni in the following pages. Please continue to share your accomplishments and updates with us so we can celebrate alongside you.

Tartans Forever,

Mattingly Messina ’13 President, Tartan Alumni Association Member, St. Margaret’s Board of Trustees

Ways to get involved with the Tartan Alumni Association

• Join the Alumni Council. • Participate as a career mentor or

ISP host for students. • Hire a Tartan! • Host a summer internship. • Support T.A.L.E.

Give on Venmo @tartanalumni. • Recommend your family, friends, neighbors and colleagues to St. Margaret’s.

Upcoming Alumni Events

For the most updated list of alumni events, reunions and more, visit www.smes.org/ alumni or email alumni@smes.org. HOMECOMING September 23, 2022 FOREVER PLAID: ALL HALLOWS' EVENING October 29, 2022

ALUMNI CHRISTMAS PARTY December 15, 2022

TARTAN OPEN May 1, 2023

Connect With Us!

Follow, like and post to enjoy the latest alumni and campus news, events and nostalgic flashbacks!

 @TartanAlumni  Tartan Alumni Association  St. Margaret's Tartan

Alumni Association  Make a Donation: @tartanalumni  @TartanAlumni

'02 20TH REUNION: Twenty years have flown by, and it’s time to celebrate and reconnect! The Class of ‘02 will be getting together the weekend of October 7-9 in San Juan Capistrano. Reach out to alumni@smes.org to learn more!

'05 William Jacobson recently published a book, Clinical Dentistry Daily Reference Guide, a one-stop resource for myriad oral health conditions. It is available on Amazon. He works as a dentist and an assistant professor at California Northstate University.

'07 Will Sammons works as a specialty lighting technician, and recently returned to St. Margaret’s to lend his expertise to several arts productions, including a Lower School musical, Middle School play and the spring dance concert.

'11 Sarah Greenberg married Scott Gardner earlier this year in Las Vegas. One of her bridesmaids was fellow Class of ‘11 Tartan Shannon Kelly. Also in attendance was Keara Harrington.

'13 Yasmeen Antone married Michael Pinto on May 21, with many of her fellow Tartans present at the wedding. Yasmeen and Michael met at the University of California, Irvine School of Law, where they both graduated. Mattingly Messina started a new job as director of advancement at Bentley School, a K-12 independent school in Oakland.

Tartan Weddings

Sarah Greenberg

Yasmeen Antone

IN MEMORIAM

Nicole "Nikii" Sollberger '04

The Tartan family is saddened by the passing of St. Margaret’s alumna Nicole “Nikii” Sollberger on December 24, 2020. Nikii enrolled at St. Margaret’s in grade 6 and graduated in the Class of 2004. After high school, she went on to receive her bachelor’s degree in communication and music at the University of Southern California, followed by a law degree from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Nikii was an accomplished entertainment lawyer, as well as an entrepreneur, having founded an astrological consulting business that provided strategic business advice to Fortune 500 companies. She also served as in-house counsel at DISH Network in Denver. In addition, Nikii was a public speaker, visual artist, published poet and journalist. She will be missed by all those who were blessed to have known and loved her, and our hearts go out to the entire Sollberger family.

#TARTANTIDBITS WITH IAN THOMAS '09 & LIAM MCGREGOR '15

Ian Thomas and Liam McGregor were not classmates at St. Margaret’s, but they connected through the St. Margaret’s Alumni office and have since partnered in an ambitious Silicon Valley start-up. We recently caught up with Ian and Liam to see what they are up to.

Tell us a little bit more about your venture, and what you are hoping to accomplish in this space?

Liam: The Marriage Pact, Inc. has become a viral phenomenon at colleges over the last two years. It started with a simple premise: if you’re going to make that sort of backup plan, who’s the best person you could do it with? Could someone on your campus be good enough? And could we find that person for you? Here’s how it works: Over the course of a week, thousands of students fill out a questionnaire about 50 of their most deeply held values. We use a little linear algebra and a few cutting-edge algorithms from economics to evaluate all possible matches. Then, at the end of the week, everyone gets an email introducing them to their single best match on campus. It started as a class project at Stanford in 2017. But in the last two years, it’s become an annual tradition at 75+ schools and we’ve matched 250,000+ students.

What is your history together? How did you meet, get to know each other and decide to partner in this venture?

Ian: We really got to know each other after our respective SMES graduations. In 2017 I was looking for my next venture and trying to break into Silicon Valley; St. Margaret’s connected me with Liam McGregor and Austin Russell, who were in the process of building Luminar into the juggernaut it is today. The three of us had lunch together and that was my introduction to Silicon Valley. I had worked at startups before but that day showed me the scale at which Silicon Valley does things, and I knew that I had to be a part of that, somehow. I felt so fortunate that SMES connected me with some of our amazing alumni during a critical juncture in my life. After our first meeting in 2017, Liam and I had not chatted in a couple of years, but last September, Liam emailed me out of the blue, and asked if I would be interested in helping the Marriage Pact with their first series of apps. I joined Marriage Pact as their first app developer in June.

Before this venture, what have been some notable stops in each of your careers?

Liam: During my freshman year at Stanford, Austin Russell messaged me one day and invited me to his birthday party. I mentioned I was in the market for internships, we got dinner a few times, and that summer, I had the opportunity to work with him on this “small startup” he’d founded, building self-driving cars. I was asked to write the materials for our fundraiser, and that summer, we ended up raising $35M in venture capital. In fall of 2017 I went back to school full time. My first quarter back, I was taking an economics class called “market design,” and we were supposed to write a final paper, but… I didn’t really want to do that. So I made the Marriage Pact instead. Ian: For my independent senior project at SMES, I teamed up with my classmate Kristian Kiraly to start developing iPhone apps. This was back in 2009, at the time there were about three students who had iPhones in the school, including the two of us. As far as we know, we developed the first app made by SMES students. During college, Kristian and I partnered with a Boston biotech company to develop an app that helped diagnose individuals with genetically high cholesterol and connect them with treatment options. Since then, I’ve worked at a series of tech startups. Most notably, in 2019 I co-created the mindfulness app, WeCroak. The app was later profiled in the Atlantic Magazine and the New York Times.

How did St. Margaret’s prepare you for the work you are doing now?

Ian: I owe my career today to the Independent Senior Project program at SMES. The ISP program was a bit more rigid back in the day, so it was a stretch to let two students team up and collaborate for our “independent“ project. Furthermore, creating apps was such a novel and new thing, there was no one to teach us, so we learned everything ourselves. We owe a lot to Lora Allison for taking a chance on us and letting us team up.

Any advice for students/fellow alumni interested in technology or entrepreneurship?

Liam: Take initiative. Most things in my career weren’t going to happen anyway—they happened only because I sought someone out, took the extra step, or found some way to “make it so”. Sow seeds early on, seek out the things that animate your imagination, and then put one foot in front of the other to make it so. You have the power to bend the arc of the world around you to head in the direction you want it to go. Spot what needs doing, and do it!

'17 Nic Gitter, a graduate of Tufts University, was St. Margaret’s alumni speaker at the 2022 Cum Laude Society Ceremony. He is building a career as an independent music producer. Rebekah Olsen was named an Outstanding Honors Graduate by Brigham Young University and shared remarks at the school’s Honors Graduation exercises. She will begin teaching high school English while working on her master's in education at New York University.

'18 Gabriella Cinquini completed her degree from Lafayette College, double majoring in policy studies and environmental studies. Her senior honors thesis documented carbon emissions generated through Lafayette’s supply chain network, contributing data in support of the college’s climate action plan. Gavin Clarke finished his human capital management and entrepreneurship degrees from Miami University of Ohio and is now working as a football video assistant for the Los Angeles Chargers. Ryan Cragun completed his degree at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, while garnering All-Ivy League honors as a wide receiver for the football team. He utilized his fifth year of eligibility and is playing football for the University of California, Los Angeles this fall. Daisy Sellas was recently featured in the Capistrano Dispatch for her return to San Juan Capistrano to sing at the Rancho Mission Viejo Rodeo. She lives in Nashville and works as a singer/songwriter. Nic Gitter

Daisy Sellas via @uclafootball

Gavin Clarke

NOTABLE: SILLERS LEGACY SOCIETY

Named after our founder, the Ernest D. Sillers Legacy Society has been established to recognize those whose commitment to St. Margaret’s extends into the future. Members of the society have made provisions for the school in their estate planning.

Planned giving enables donors to make charitable gifts now or through one's estate later, while providing a host of financial benefits and safeguards for both the donor and their heirs. Unlike cash donations, these gifts are typically made from assets in an estate rather than from disposable income. We are very grateful to this special group of people for their commitment, vision and generosity.

If you have already arranged for a planned gift to St. Margaret’s, please notify us to include you in the Ernest D. Sillers Legacy Society.

If you are interested in learning more about this legacy society, or for sample bequest language, please contact: Jonathan Tufo in the Office of Advancement at (949) 661-0108, ext. 1318.

'20 Robbie Healy, currently a cadet at the United States Military Academy in West Point, returned to St. Margaret’s last year and spoke to the Tartan football team about leadership during its run to the CIF championship game. He also spoke to Boy Scout Troop 757, which includes several St. Margaret’s students.

'22 Congratulations to our newest alumni from the Class of 2022! Kate Cruse and Sasha Kuljis will serve as alumni class agents, partnering with the alumni relations office to ensure their classmates’ connection to St. Margaret’s. More than 75 Tartan alumni kicked off their break in December at St. Margaret’s, where the annual Alumni Holiday Party returned after a one-year hiatus! Tartans reconnected, had fun in the photo booth and enjoyed goodies under the stars outside of the Performing Arts Center.

Kate Cruse

Sasha Kuljis

NOTABLE: ALUMNI HOLIDAY PARTY

SAVE THE DATE FOR THIS YEAR'S ALUMNI HOLIDAY PARTY ON DECEMBER 15, 2022!

Parents of Alumni!

If your Tartan Alumni are no longer maintaining an address at your home, please notify the Office of Alumni Relations at alumni@smes.org of their new address. Thank you!