Dispatch Justin Springer TORREY THEALL (B ’06) is an integral member of the creative team at the Gulf Coast marketing firm Deveney Communication. He played a significant role in producing work that received three platinum and four gold Hermes Creative Awards from the Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals’ global competition. Theall lives in the Lakeview neighborhood of New Orleans with his wife, Katherine, and their triplets, Blythe, Gretchen and Ronan.
EVAN FRIPT (B ’09) and BENJAMIN EARLEY (B ’09) have partnered to launch Paul Evans, a brand of luxury dress shoes for men, Based in New York, their e-commerce website is paulevansny.com. SAMANTHA J. PEITLER (NC ’09) and Theo Zois were married on July 20, 2013, at Bridgeview Yacht Club in Island Park, N.Y. Several Tulane alumni from the class of 2009 attended. Samantha Zois is an audit manager at Verus Financial and Theo Zois is an orthopedic surgery physician assistant. The couple lives in Long Beach, N.Y. ERICA WASHINGTON (PHTM ’09) was named a 2013 White House Champion of Change for helping Americans live healthier lives, reducing disease and contributing to lowering healthcare costs by focusing on public health and prevention. Washington is the healthcare-associated infections coordinator for Louisiana. 2010s MICHAEL HOCHBERG (’12) received a Fulbright Scholarship with which he taught politics and led a Model United Nations program at a public high school in a small fishing village on the northern coast of Spain. Hochberg recently started working as a White House intern. ARIANA G. ASPELIN (’13) was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps upon graduation from the Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps program. DAVID R. EWENS (’13) was awarded a Fulbright U.S. Student Program scholarship to Germany for an English teaching assistantship. MICHAEL KAHN (A ’13) presented “Reincorporating Redfern: Remediating Colonial Planning and Its Effects on Indigenous Populations” at the “Architecture at the Ragged Edge of Empire: Race, Place, Taste and the Colonial Context” symposium hosted by the Centre for Architecture Theory Criticism History of the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, last spring.
PHOTO FROM JusTin sPRingeR
JORDAN SACHS (B ’07) and DENILLE WACHTENHEIM (NC ’08) were married on Sept. 1, 2013, at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Denille Sachs is a member of the legal department at the Estée Lauder Cos. and Jordan Sachs is the founder of the real estate brokerage and consulting firm, Bold New York. The couple lives in New York.
A SOLDIER'S PERSPECTIVE Justin Springer (TC ’03) over and over again witnessed from up close on the frontlines soldiers sustaining the “signature wound” of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. And when he returned home, he made a film about it. Commissioned as a second lieutenant through the Tulane Army ROTC program, Springer served in the U.S. Army for two tours of duty in Iraq as a battalion communications officer with the Army’s 1st Brigade/1st Infantry Division. The mission of his battalion was route-clearance operations—“basically clearing and looking for mines.” Dozens of soldiers in Springer’s battalion sustained traumatic brain injuries (TBI) as a result of exposure to roadside bomb blasts. “It was a scary thing,” says Springer. After a blast, soldiers he knew on a first-name basis were having difficulty finishing sentences and remembering things. “I was, like, what’s going to happen? What are the long-term effects of this?” After he left active duty in 2009, Springer set out to find out what happened to four soldiers suffering from TBI. For nearly two years, Springer filmed the soldiers’ treatment at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio and moments from their everyday lives as they struggled to get back to “normal.” TBI is a complex injury that doctors do not fully understand. Symptoms are headaches, chronic pain, impaired memory and concentration, and behavioral distress. It is estimated that nearly 20 percent of combat troops are affected by TBI and posttraumatic stress disorder. Along Recovery, a documentary produced, directed, filmed and mostly edited by Springer, presents the “unbiased reality of what these guys go through.” Along Recovery premiered at the GI Film Festival in Washington, D.C., in May 2012. It was awarded the best feature documentary at the San Antonio Film Festival. And this November, Gravitas Ventures, an independent film distributor, released Along Recovery through online platforms such as Netflix, iTunes and Amazon Prime. The website for the film is www.alongrecovery.com. Springer hopes that the film will help decrease the stigma associated with TBI—and “hold the military accountable for treatment.” “I feel that this is something the public should know about and should understand in an intelligent manner, without it being embellished and dramatized.” Springer majored in film studies and communication. His current job is as a producer and director for a production company in Denver. —MARy Ann TRAVIS
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