Class of 1998

Class Secretary: Tyler W. Munoz, 156 St. Paul St., B, Brookline, MA 02446, tyler.munoz@razorfish.com

Class President: Robert R. Curtis, 123 Bennett St., Brighton, MA 02135, rcurtis@eatonvance.com

Next Reunion in 2002. Got news? Tap out a note to magazine@bates.edu!  After traveling around New Zealand for eight weeks, Allison Auerbach settled in Auckland and plans to stay a year and visit Australia before she returns to the U.S. She recommends New Zealand, but not taking chemistry (towards a vet degree) while there. “It kind of ruins it!”… This past year, Katie Barnes has been at Duke Marine Lab. in Beaufort, S.C., working on her master’s in coastal environmental management. Previously she taught environmental education on the beach outside of Charleston…. Living in NYC, Maria Barton works on the Web site for Scholastic Inc…. Jen Bergeron is in rotation for her second year of medical school at UVM…. Halfway through law school, Susanne Bines is working this summer for Bingham Dana in Boston…. Brian Blongastainer is a special education program teacher at Lexington (Mass.) High School…. Andrew Byrne teaches at Convent of the Sacred Heart in Greenwich, Conn., as department chair of math…. While Thad Carlson is at Rochester for a dual degree, Neva (Corbo-Hudak) works in the development office at the Memorial Art Gallery…. Rob Curtis works for Eaton Vance, a Boston mutual fund company in the financial district. “I absolutely love Boston, but am waiting to get repositioned by my company somewhere in the U.S…. Julie DeSarbo lives in NYC and works in the events planning department at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter….Mike Drunsic and his wife live in Jamaica Plain. He hopes to start a career in environmental policy, slow going, but he loves Boston…. Mike Ferrari has returned from his Peace Corps service in Guatemala. Last year he had a visit from classmates Tyler Munoz, Pete Sanders, Nate Kostoulakos…. Justin Freeman decided it was time he did something with his life, dropped out of the Ph.D. program in physics at Colorado Univ. and has been ski racing full time, lots of time in hotel rooms, catching up on sleep, driving to find snow. “I can’t say I would trade this life for any other, especially since I’m going to spend the next six weeks sleeping and chasing snow in Central Europe.”… Damion Frye teaches science, grades 6-8, at the Whitney Houston Academy for the Creative and Performing Arts in East Orange, N.J. Earlier he taught English, grades 7-8, for a year at the Benjamin Banneker Charter School in Cambridge, Mass…. Living in Taibei, Taiwan, since graduation, Emily Gee is a marketing specialist in the Global Marketing Center. “Trying to make use of all the Chinese I studied in school has worked out well. Great fun, and I think I will stick around for several years. At times I would never think I was on the other side of the world. Taibei is like any other city, except they speak a different language and have a different culture.”… Kate Gibson is back in her hometown of NYC studying forensic psychology. She moved to Florida after graduation to work at Coastal Recovery Centers as an emergency screener/crisis counselor, then moved to the company’s program at the Sarasota County Jail as a juvenile assessor….. Portia Hard works in a small Portland public relations firm down in the Old Port… Living on Martha’s Vineyard, Cathleen Jasper trains horses and teaches horseback riding…. During the winter, Sam Judd took a month off from his job to ski and travel, including a week in the Alps. He works in the private client division of Deutsche Bank Alex. Brown…. After being laid off from a dotcom in Chicago, Peter Kawada moved to New York City to commiserate and network with other unemployed colleagues in Manhattan’s Silicon Alley. “My roommate, Mark Meadows ’97, an executive recruiter for Korn/Ferry International, has a few good leads in my search for a new career.” Peter joined JP Morgan as an analyst last March…. Art major Jessica Klein has started a business and “makes the most incredible handbags,” according to Alex Wilke. For info, e-mail her at jesseklein@disinfo.net…. Ben Kloda has been teaching French at St. Johnsbury (Vt.) Academy and led a student trip to France during February vacation. He hopes to go to grad school full time in the fall…. In Chicago, David Klotz recently obtained his Series 7 and is currently working on the Chicago Exchange…. While in law school, Ben Levy worked part time at Network for Women’s Services (NWS) helping Bronx women in need of legal advice relating to matters of divorce, child custody and visitation. This fall he will join the Manhattan firm of Willkie Farr & Gallagher as an attorney in their corporate department…. In Amsterdam since this past January, Jessica Lindoerfer works for EF Tours, negotiating and booking train contracts with SNCF, the French rail company for American high school groups traveling abroad. “I love living here, riding a bike to work every day, trying to navigate my way around pedestrians, trams, and cars without falling in a canal.” She is trying to learn Dutch and is glad to be putting her French major to good use…. “Working very hard, but playing hard too,” says Jessica Lord, who is doing research on developmental disabilities, especially autism, in the clinical psychology program at UConn…. Jessica Ludders, in Seattle, is managing director of EXITheatre, a small, experimental company that does four shows a season. She’s also a part-time development and marketing assistant for Passages Northwest, a non-profit that serves adolescent girls through outdoor education leadership training, and an art consultant doing part-time administrative work and representation to galleries and buyers for several Seattle glass artists…. Katie Mason teaches French and religion at her old high school in Naples, coaches field hockey and tennis, “which I absolutely love.” She works with classmate Carolyn Richards who teaches Spanish, and notes that Kelly Richards lives there also….Sean McGonagle has been living in Boston working for EF Education in Cambridge. At present he is director of information systems for the EF Au Pair division within the marketing department…. Elizabeth Moreau, a free-lance stage manager in New York City, worked on a Broadway revival of Bells Are Ringing. Her next project is as production stage manager for the SITI Co.’s production of Bobrauschenbereamerica at the Humana Festival Actors Theatre of Louisville…. After two and a half years Tyler Munoz is still at Razorfish. While based in Boston, he has managed a project for a large client in the San Francisco Bay area…. Tracy Myer has been the business development executive at IAPPS, a Web site consulting and developing firm. “D.C. is incredible. I’ve seen quite a few Bates folks and hosted an alumni function at my house in Georgetown. The city is full of young, energetic, work-hard party-types — just like us Batesies. I still feel closely connected to good ol’ Bates since I’ve been to visit my little brother, Josh ’03 a few times to catch his soccer games.”… After a year teaching physics at Phillips Academy with Marino Inchaustegui, Gad Nestel moved overseas and taught a semester at each of two Aga Khan schools, one in Nairobi and the other in Dhaka. “Now Melissa Leier and I live and teach in Santa Barbara. Anyone has an open invitation to enjoy the beach 50 yards from our cottage.”… Caleb Newman is at California School of Professional Psychology in Fresno, working on two degrees: forensic psychology and organizational behavior…. In Lakeville, Conn., Jody Reilly teaches eighth-grade U.S. and ESL history at Indian Mountain School, a junior boarding school. Jody also works as the assistant director of athletics, coaches the ski team and girls’ lacrosse, and is a dorm adviser. Adam Piandes ’96 worked there last year and Dan Bliss ’85 is the dean of faculty…. John Renner works in a real estate development company in Baltimore City. He sees a few Bates folks in
D.C., but not too many around Baltimore…. In January Steve Simmons moved from NYC to Dusseldorf, Germany. He still is with Grey Worldwide Advertising as a senior account executive working on launching new Procter & Gamble brands globally…. Ryan Spring teaches and coaches at Blair Academy in New Jersey. “I am starting to make tentative plans for grad school for history.”… On Catalina Island in California, Ben Tassinari is a marine science instructor for the Island Marine Institute at Toyon Bay. He takes kids grades 4-12 snorkeling and hiking and teaches them marine biology and ecology. In March he switched to teaching grades 4-12 on the Pilgrim of Newport, a 118-foot schooner. “A nice change, to sail around the island every week, taking kids snorkeling and playing my banjo and mandolin as much as possible.” Ben and the directors recorded a sea chantey CD for the schools that come on the tall ship…. Ben Treat enjoys his job in the Boston Public Library’s telephone reference department. “If you have any weird questions you need answered, call the library.” Anne Marie (Miller ’97) is finishing her degree for an M.S.W…. After a month in Ireland where she was working on a beef cattle and sheep farm in Athenry, County Galway, Christine Unger now is back in New Hampshire working as a financial analyst in commercial banking at Fleet Bank…. Alex Wilke worked with sea birds for a field season on a deserted island in the Gulf of Alaska, then moved back East to be nearer to her family and is at the Manomet Center for conservation sciences as a research assistant in the wetlands and wildlife program. In the summer she works with tree swallows, a project investigating the effects of agricultural pesticides on wetland developed for the management and conservation plan of waterbirds in North America…. Following a long-time dream, David Vincent and Erin Carr ’99 headed to South America to travel and teach for five months…. In Bethesda, Md., James Williams was promoted to lieutenant at Cabin John Fire Department. He splits time between working at Cabin John and at TRII Data Corporation, a fire-fighting consulting firm…. Sara Wolverton is a human resources manager at Boxer Learning Inc., an educational software company…. Michelle Wong lives in a tiny studio on the Upper West Side. She is a content strategist for Sapient, a consulting firm. “Life after Bates is better than life at Bates, in no small part because my Bates experience was good preparation for everything I’ve done since graduation.” Classmates in graduate school: Jean Bergeron, M.D., UVM; Susanne Bines, Jus. D.,Virginia-Charlottesville; Thad Carlson, M.D./Ph.D., Rochester; Kate Gilman, M.A., forensic psychology, John Jay College of Criminal Justice; Ben Kloda, M.A., French linguistics, Indiana; Chanhua Liu, M.D., UVM; Jessica Lord, M.A., clinical psychology, Connecticut.; Courtney Marshall, M.A., midwifery, Yale; Caleb Newman, Ph.D./M.A., forensic psychology and organizational behavior, CSPP, Fresno, Calif.; Tim Sargent, Jus.D., UVM; Sonia Szlyk, M.D., George Washington. Graduate degrees: Katie Barnes, M.S., marine environmental management, Duke; Brian Blongastainer, M. Ed., special ed., Cambridge College; Jessica Brown, Jus.D., Temple; Andrew Byrne, M.Ed., UMass-Boston; Damion Frye, M.A.T., elementary education, Brown; Ben Levy, Jus.D., NYU; Ben Treat, M.S.L.S., Boston; Michelle Wong, M.A., comparative social policy, Oxon; M.A., journalism, Columbia.