Alumni Updates! [as of February 1, 2009]
To submit your own update, please e-mail it to Igor Pesenson. Thank you!
Dirk H. Van Vuren, '70-'72. I am back on the job full time as a professor of wildlife biology at UC Davis, after a much needed sabbatical leave, staying too busy with teaching, research, and committee work.
Kern Trembath '73 has left the academic world to begin a new startup with 3 friends from college. It's called Captured Speed Inc., and we intend to make it the premier online home for rowers and rowing. You may have seen some of our race videos online. We will add considerably to them in the upcoming months. His oldest son Mark just joined the US Army's Special Operations unit, and his youngest sons Alex and Cal are looking forward to their second year in the Cal Lightweight Varsity boat. Go Bears!
Jim Evart, '70-'74. Member of the first Lightweight CAL crew '70/'71 with Gerrge Wallach from Columbia University as Coach and Ed Graham as the trainer on loan from the Intercollegiate Dept. along with our own free bus which picked us up on Bancroft in front of Harmon gym and dropped us off one block south after practice. We had the loft then and Jim Lemmon was the Director of the Dept. f Int. Athletics. Things were easier then. Rowed #2,#4 and #8. We rowed in San Diego at the end but also against Berkeley High School and Santa Clara. We were raw, it was good. Marty McNair was head coach. 73/'74 used our own transportation and bought our own shirts, still had the loft and Kelly Moore was our coach....no trainer or bus by this time. Beat Washington and UCLA but gassed ourselves in the back of one of the crew father's van with a leaky back door seal on the way to the Newport Regatta and we lost badly for the rest of the season. Cowell hospital showed all our blood levels anemic from the CO poisoning but getting a Washington shirt made it all worthwhile prior to that. I rowed #2 and #4. We were not a close boat personally but we shared the spirit on the water and were respectable before the gassing. Steve was head coach.
At 61, I am in my last years as a professional pilot, instructing and doing intermitent contract work for various corporations. Living in Hayward, I look after an older brother who is in poor health and am the sole Trustee of a family Trust set up for his benifit.
The "Lights" have a great heritage, especially after the last few years of virtually no outside support and then taking the IRA last year. I see your strength and unity from this. I am honored to have been an early part of that heritage, especially watching how you have hung-on through all of this. You have friends who are helping in their own way, quietly.
Be aware. I am not the only one watching and you are well thought of. Our time will come. GO BEARS
Ron Sjostedt, '79-'82. I am a 7th grade "Life Science" teacher in Morgan Hill. I worked in forestry after graduation for 5 years, got a teaching credential, taught near Fresno, went to Ecuador as a Peace Corps volunteer and stayed for almost 10 years as a naturalist guide for the Galapagos National Park.
Farid Tamjidi, '80-'84. Usually port engine room. Rowed under Mike Finely, Tom Tiffany. Moved to LA for several years then Aspen Colorado and have now been living back in the Bay Area for more than ten years. Principal/owner of Architecture firm in San Francisco.
Robert Benun, '83-'84.
I graduated Cal in ’86, and Harvard Law School in ’89. At Harvard, I overlapped with Michelle Obama for 2 years and Barak Obama one year.
I have been heading the business and legal affairs dept at an independent film company (Lakeshore Entertainment) in Beverly Hills for the past 12 years. We won an academy award for “Million Dollar Baby”. We have several films coming out this year including a Katherine Heigl romantic comedy (“The Ugly Truth”) in April.
I have 4 kids, and my wife Sue and I are raising them in Santa Monica, California.
Jeremy Fish, '82-'84. Stroke for Pac-10 3rd place team(back when Washington was peerless and we were a novice team), won Newport Regatta. Now: Running 10K's and marathons--trying to run as fast as I did in college before I'm 50 (not looking likely but a good goal none the less). Am now Program Director at our UC Davis Teaching Hospital at Contra Costa Regional Medical Center where we train Family Docs to provide full-access care to underserved populations in California and in Global settings of need. Celebrated 11 years of marriage to my wife, Susan, and our 9 year old, Ben, loves to read and play tennis.
Eric Scriven, 82, 84 & 85. SVP, De La Rosa & Co., Inc. (Municipal Investment Banking) Live in Napa with wife, Barbara (Cal-‘86), daughters: Elycia (18) & Cierra (16) and son: Hunter (10)
Charles Griffin '86. Rowed port off and on from Fall '81 to Spring '86 with lots of time off. Helped assist Jeff Wilke coach '88 and '89. Right now I am teaching English and Social Studies at Torrance High School in the other South Bay, and every spring I put on tights, trunk hose and a doublet at the Renaissance Fair, and I am also a jungle gym for my 3 year old daughter.
Mike Daniel, '86-87. I live in Westchester County, just outside New York City. I am a trader for Credit Suisse. I have 3 boys and a wife, Seema.Arthur Keller, '87. I live in Geneva, Switzerland with my wife and three daughters, and I work as an fixed-income investment manager.
Jonathan Davidorf, '87. Rowed under Vince Horpel, Cal Lightweight '83-'85; I had fun learning to row skulls on Mission Bay in San Diego while in Medical School, and then in Argentina during a research/surgical fellowship following my ophthalmology residency. For the last 10+ years I've been playing a lot of tennis; I was on the US Masters Tennis Team at the 2005 Maccabbi Games in Israel. Now the shoulder hurts! I'm an ophthalmologist in the Los Angeles Area, on the teaching faculty at UCLA, and have a wife and three kids. Go Bears!
Daniel Diaz, '91. I rowed for one year in 1988 and I was a port. I'm currently a financial analyst at ADP. I have a wife and one child (2nd child due in late June). We live in in Whittier, CA.
Ian Formigle, '91-'94. Port oarsman (2 seat). I live in Portland, OR with my wife Tonka and our daughter Annika. I am co-founder and CEO of Clarus Property Ventures. In January I co-founded a spinoff called Candesco Group, which focuses on development in emerging markets.
Andres Davidovits, '96. I'm currently living in Palo Alto, CA and working on a new group sharing (multimedia) start-up. We're planning to launch our Beta in 2 months! I'm also getting married to Lisha Bronson this March!
Joshua Shapiro, '94-'97. In 2009 I will be starting a PhD program at UCLA in Electrical Engineering and potty training my daughter.
Roger Yu, '96-'00. Roger graduated from UCLA medical school and is currently finishing up his year as Chief Resident of Internal Medicine at Olive View-UCLA Medical Center. This summer he will be moving to Boston where his wife currently lives. He aspires to run the Boston Marathon and perhaps even row in the Head of the Charles.
Xiao Xiao, '99-'00. He just finished his PhD from Cal in Mechanical Engineering last December, ending his 8.5 yrs stint as a student of UC Berkeley.
Benjamin Sae-Tang, '99-'00. Right now, I'm receiving theological instruction at The Master's Seminary in LA, and I do ministerial work on the weekends at my church in Berkeley. While I haven't rowed in a long time, whenever I see an erg, I can't resist the temptation to jump on it and time myself.
Winston Tseng, '02. I rowed from 1998-2002 and now I'm currently out of shape and living in New York city. After years of rowing, I am now mentally and physically unable to wake up before 9am, nor do I have any desire to. Every so often, I'll feel inspired to sit on an erg and pull with all my might for 30 minutes at a blistering 2:10 split.
Evan Morris, '99-'02. I am a Pediatric Occupational Therapist at Miller Children's Hospital in Long Beach, CA. I just bought my first Harley and am loving the ability to sleep past 4:45 am. I am also too soft and heavy to be a Lightweight anymore, unfortunately. Go Bears!
Chris Ling, '02. Working in the solar industry at Solaria, making solar power more affordable and providing more savings for the people.
Melissa Schwab '02 currently lives in Jerusalem, Israel. She divides her time between two organizations that make Israel a better place--PresenTense and B'Tselem. She is the International Relations Associate at B'tselem, a human right organizations that documents and publicizes human rights violations in the Palestinian Territories. At PresenTense, she is the Hub Animator, where she works to equip the next generation of social entrepeneurs. In Fall 2008, she received her Masters Degree from Ben Gurion University in Middle East Studies. She moved to Israel in 2007, after completing a Bachelors in Political Science at University of California, Berkeley in 2004. For more on her life, thoughts, and photos, go to melissaschwab.blogspot.com. She grew up on Maui.
Stephanie Hutsell, '99-'03. I am a biochemistry graduate student at UNC Chapel Hill and rowing with the Carolina Masters team.
Raymond Chetty, '04. I'm living in San Francisco and working as a Programmer at The Carnegie Institution for Science.
Greg Moe, '01-'05. Going back to school for a masters in environmental engineering.
Emily Matienzo,'03-'04. I was the coxswain for the Novice Lightweight Women's 4+, 8+ boat in the Fall and Spring of 2003, and the coxswain for the Varsity Lightweight Women's 4+, 8+ in the Fall and Spring of 2004. I remember beating Stanford soundly at the Windermere Regatta as a Novice, and witnessed my girls give a valiant performance at the 2004 Head of the Charles. After graduating from Berkeley in May 2006 in the field of Medieval English, I'm vying for a PhD program at Yale University soon. I am, therefore, gathering letters of recommendation as well as working of a few art projects (sculpting granite).
Carl Tharp, '03-'05. I'm hoping to make it to alumni day this year, but we'll have to see. In any case, I'm working for a construction project management firm, living in San Francisco with my girlfriend, and skiing my ass off. I'm in Canada this month staying with some friends and getting as much fresh snow as possible
Patrick J. Samuel, '07. I walked in December, and am off to study abroad in Adelaide, Australia for the semester. I rowed from fall '05 to '07 for Cal Lights, and was President from fall '06 to spring '07.
Sean Farrell, '05-'07. Life certainly comes at you fast: transferred to Cal, two years flew by rowing and then I started training to be an investment advisor in 2007 with LPL Financial (2008 was a bruising year). Despite work and ongoing studies I still manage to row nearly every weekend with a club in Redding, CA. It's not the same as rowing with the team but at least it's a boat.
To submit your own update, please e-mail it to Igor Pesenson. Thank you!
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