1940s
Benjamin Berger (BBA ‘42) received the National Order of the Legion of Honor, France’s highest award, in December 2008. He was given the rank of Knight. The award was made in recognition of his service in France during World War II. Pierre Vimont, ambassador of France to the United States, made the presentation.
1950s
Dr. Joseph M. Gowgiel (DDS ’50) will be honored by the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Dentistry. He will receive the Raffaele Suriano Award, named for a former dean of Loyola’s dental school.
Dr. Louis J. Glunz III (BS ‘51) received the Bishop Edwin M. Conway Caritas Christi Urget Nos Award, given to a person who exemplifies the words of St. Paul, “the love of Christ impels us,” through dedication to the mission of Catholic Charities to serve the poor and vulnerable.
Phyllis Haladay (NURSBSN ’59) lives in Florida with her husband, Bill. They have six children; the oldest is 50 and the youngest 27. She went back to school at the University of South Florida and graduated with a master’s degree in counseling in 1979. Since then, she has been the nursing services administrator of two hospitals and started her own consulting company for rehabilitation. Currently, she is doing psychiatric nursing for Medicare patients in their homes.
1960s
George P. Sullivan Jr. (BA ‘66) and Dorothy Turek (BS ‘66) are now grandparents. Their daughter, Nora, and her husband, Philip Chiu, recently had a daughter, Catherine Emily Chiu, and live in Boston.
Edmund A. Napieralski (PhD ‘67), professor emeritus at King’s College in Pennsylvania, has been appointed for a second threeyear term to the governing board of the Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH). CEPH is authorized by the U.S. Department of Education to accredit schools of public health and graduate programs in public health.
John Ronan (BA ’67) recently published a new book of poetry, Marrowbone Lane. Reviews are strong.
Patrick Sweeney, MD, PhD (A&S ’67), director of the Women & Infants Hospital’s Division of Ambulatory Care, was given the Women & Infants’ Medical Staff Association Distinguished Service Award at the hospital’s annual meeting.
Virginia Anderson (BA ‘69) recently retired as a Latin teacher from Barrington Middle School in Barrington, Ill. Anderson taught Latin for over 30 years and was named Illinois Latin Teacher of the Year in 2003. She is married to David L. Anderson (BA ‘69, MEd ‘73).
Arthur R. Colaianni (BA ’69), whose pen name is Arthur Cola, is now a writer after spending 35 years in education. His book, Papa and the Leprechaun King: The Secret Legend of the Shamrock, will be published in 2009. Colaianni’s next novel, The Shamrock Crown and the Legend of Excalibur, should be out next year. He has partnered with CIE Tours to develop two travel programs that follow the plots of his novels through Wales, England, and Ireland.
1970s
John H. Gerding, DDS (DENT ‘70) has been elected vice president of the Chicago Dental Society.
Dan K. Webb (JD ‘70), leading defense attorney, chairman of Winston & Strawn, LLP, in Chicago, and the former U.S. attorney, has been named Chicago Lawyer magazine’s 2008 Person of the Year.
Denis Curran (BS ‘71, MEd ‘76, EDd ‘89) has been accepted by the Bishop of Fort Worth, Texas, to be a Catholic priest for that diocese. Curran began two years of seminary training in January at Hales Corners, Wis.
Brian A. Forgue (A&S ‘72, LAW ‘75) has been appointed to the Tax Advisory Board of the John Marshall Law School Center for Tax Law & Employee Benefits. Forgue received a master’s degree in taxation, with honors, from John Marshall in 2004. He continues his Elmhurst, Ill., law practice concentrated in the areas of estate planning and estate and trust administration.
Richard F. Hren (A&S ’73) has been named strategy director at Euro RSCG Discovery, the consumer loyalty marketing and global data analytics unit of the Euro RSCG Worldwide division of Havas.
John Mitterer (BA ‘73) is working at CSC, a global consulting, systems integration, and outsourcing company in Schaumburg, Ill.
Mary Ellen (Kramer) Mitterer (BA ‘73) is teaching Spanish at Geneva High School in Geneva, Ill.
Gale A. Yee, PhD (BA ‘73, MA ‘75), was appointed the Nancy W. King Professor of Biblical Studies Chair at the Episcopal Divinity School in October 2008.
Jack O’Keefe (PhD ‘74) recently published a historical thriller, Brother Sleeper Agent, about an Irish plot to assassinate Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill during World War II.
Melvin C. Terrell (Med ’74), retired vice president for student affairs at NEIU, was granted the title of vice president emeritus by the NEIU Board of Trustees.
Paul Lombardo (MA ‘75), professor of law in the Center for Law, Health, and Society at Georgia State University College of Law, recently published a new book, Three Generations, No Imbeciles: Eugenics, the Supreme Court and Buck v. Bell. His book is the first complete study of the notorious U.S. Supreme Court decision that led to more than 60,000 involuntary sterilizations of people described as “feebleminded and socially inadequate.”
Pat Luehrs (BS ‘77, MSW ‘80) completed her PsyD at theInstitute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis in Los Angeles. She has a private practice in Pasadena.
Charles A. Nozicka, DO, FAAP, FAAEM (BS ‘78) was appointed medical director of pediatric emergency medicine at Advocate Condell Medical Center in Libertyville, Ill., and associate clinical professor of emergency medicine at Rosalind Franklin University / The Chicago Medical School in Great Lakes, Ill.
1980s
Julie Garbarczyk Hyzy (SBA ‘81) released a second novel in her White House Chef Mystery series called Hail to the Chef. Following State of the Onion, it features Olivia Paras, who feeds the First Family and saves the world in her spare time. It is Hyzy’s sixth book. Hyzy and her husband, Curt Hyzy (BBA ‘81), live in Tinley Park, Ill.
Michael Rice (SBA ’81), a managing director in the Chicago offices of Novantas LLC, chaired the 2008 Middle Market Commercial Banking Symposium (sponsored by SourceMedia) and was involved in developing its agenda and session content. At the symposium, Rice also presented the findings of the Novantas 2008 Middle Market Customer Acquisition Survey.
Robert K. Rasmussen (BA ‘82) is the dean of the University of Southern California Gould School of Law and was elected to the American Law Institute.
Rev. Jimmie L. Flewellen (MPS ‘83) now is retired from his position as the first African-American Catholic chaplain for the United States Justice Department. He is still active at his parish, St. Jude Thaddeus. Rev. Flewellen was honored by the state of Georgia on May 28, 2008, for his work. This honor is reflected in the Georgia State Archives.
Earl E. Rubinoff, CLU (BBA ’83), president and CEO of the Rubinoff Group, LLC, was recently named, for the 20th consecutive year, to the Guardian Life Insurance Company of American Leader’s Club. To obtain Leader’s Club prestigious qualification, a financial representative must produce a high level of overall services on behalf of new clients.
Robert A. Vitas, CFRE (BA ’84, PhD ’89), has been named vice president of the IFT Foundation. Vitas will play a leading role in the foundation’s goal of connecting people, resources, and information to raise the standard of food science and technology in the world.
Alfred A. “Fred” Spitzzeri (JD ‘86) recently was nominated at the Naperville Township Republican Caucus for reelection as a Naperville Township trustee and will be on the ballot in the April general election. He has served as a trustee for seven years and recently completed a term as president of the DuPage County Bar Association (2007–08).
Lisa A. Festle, RN-NIC, MSN, APN/CCNS (BSN ‘87, MSN ‘93), recently was selected by the National Association of Neonatal Nurses to receive the Robyn Main Excellence in Clinical Practice Award. The award was presented at the NANN annual conference in September. Festle is a staff nurse at Loyola University Hospital Systems Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.
Rosemary De Angelis Laird (BS ‘87) co-wrote a book entitled Take Your Oxygen First: Protecting Your Health and Happiness While Caring for a Loved One with Memory Loss, along with Leeza Gibbons and James Huysman. It is being published in May 2009.
Brenda Reeb (BA ‘87, Rome ‘84) has written a book entitled Design Talk: Understanding the Roles of Usability Practitioners, Web Designers, and Web Developers in User-Centered Web Design. Since 2001, Reeb has practiced usability methods in Web design at the River Campus Libraries of the University of Rochester in Rochester, N.Y. She has worked as a librarian in academic research libraries since 1994.
Dr. Muriel Hawkins (PhD ‘89) was recently honored for her legacy of promoting diversity and providing a sense of welcome and inclusion among students who compose the growing multicultural student population at the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh.
1990s
Paul Christin (MBA ‘90) and his wife, Julie, adopted a baby girl, Genevieve Marie, in December 2008.
Maria L. Vertuno, JD (BA ’90), has been named the founding director of the Pre-Law Center at Bradley University. Prior to her appointment at Bradley, Vertuno was a partner with the law firm of Cassiday Schade LLP in Chicago. For the past 15 years, she has spent her career in civil litigation primarily representing and defending hospitals, physicians, and other health care professionals in medical malpractice cases.
Dr. Jeffrey A. Frick (PhD ‘91), Illinois Wesleyan University associate provost for academic services, was named a consultant-evaluator in the Peer Review Corps of the Higher Learning Commission.
Edward McNabola (JD ’92, MA ’95) was named among the top attorneys in Illinois for 2009 by Illinois Super Lawyers magazine and is featured in the February issue of Chicago Magazine. McNabola is a partner at the Chicago law firm Cogan & McNabola, P.C., and successfully has handled hundreds of professional negligence, personal injury, and class action cases. He is also an adjunct professor at Northwestern School of Law and has been named one of the 40 Illinois Attorneys Under 40 to Watch by Law Bulletin Publishing Company.
M. Grace Sielaff’s (MUND ‘92) commercial and residential interior design firm, M. Grace Designs Inc. (MGDI) was contracted by Hanamint, a distributor and manufacturer of midmarket cast aluminum furniture and accessories, to redesign the company’s Merchandise Mart showroom in Chicago, Ill. MGDI used Green designs to renovate this space.
Jason Kuzniar (BA ‘96) was named a new partner of the international law practice Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker LLP. He is a graduate of Chicago-Kent College of Law.
Jennifer Metz Maxwell (MBA ‘96) wrote an editorial as a guest columnist for the Baltimore Examiner in December called “This Christmas: Bucking the Trend.” Catherine Coffaro (BA ‘97) married William Talatzko on October 4, 2008. The couple resides in Wauwatosa, Wis.
Jacquelyn Frausto (BS ‘97), a Chicago police officer, recently earned a PhD in business administration from Argosy University. She is married to Daniel Frausto. The couple has three children: Danie (4), Diego (1), and David (1).
John Sadowski (BA ‘98, Rome ‘97) and his wife, Sherry, welcomed their second child in September, a baby girl named Willow. They have one son, Jonah, who is now two. Mr. Sadowski is a Ramsey County assistant public defender in St. Paul, Minn., and Mrs. Sadowski is an E.R. nurse at Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis.
James Shea’s (BS ‘98) first poetry collection, Star in the Eye, was selected as winner of the 2008 Fence Modern Poets Series and was named by the Chicago Sun-Times as one of its “Favorite Books of 2008.” Shea teaches creative writing and literature at DePaul University and Columbia College Chicago. His poems have been published in numerous journals.
Melissa C. Serpico Kamhout (A&S ’99) earned a BFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and launched a line of clothing in 2006. She opened a clothing storefront called Serpico in the fall of 2008 in Chicago.
2000s
Melissa Daniel (BS ‘01, Rome ‘00, MBA ‘04) married Denton Cunningham Jacobs on May 17, 2008, in Chicago. The couple went to Turkey on their honeymoon.
Ufuoma Otu (BA ‘01) played a lead role in landing her firm the Public Relations Society of America 2008 National Capital Award for Crisis Communications Program of the Year. Otu works for Media & Communications Strategies, LLC, a Washington DC-based public, media, and government relations firm.
Liz Hoffman (BA ‘02) founded a theater group called Project 891 Theater Company in Chicago. Hoffman founded the group with the hope of infusing the local theater scene with a bit of history.
Dr. George E. MacKinnon III (PhD ‘02) was appointed by the University of Dallas as the founding dean and professor of the university’s new pharmacy school, scheduled to open in 2011. Before his appointment, Dr. MacKinnon was vice president of academic affairs at the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy.
David J. Schwaner (BA ’02, JD ’05) and his wife, Candis, were blessed with the birth of their first son, Nicholas Robert Schwaner, in July 2008. Schwaner has spent his entire career with the firm of Morici, Figlioli & Associates representing the seriously injured.
Sonal Shah (A&S ‘02) is playing new intern Dr. Sunny Dey on SCRUBS this season (7
episodes) and is the star of the Web series SCRUBS: INTERNS on ABC.com (12 episodes).
Meghan Anzelc (BA ‘03, BS ‘03) received her PhD in physics from Northwestern University last June. She is a consultant at Travelers Insurance in personal insurance research.
Ann Konkoly, RN (BS ‘03, BSN ‘04), earned an MS from UIC in maternal-child nursing in May 2008.
Marc Wezowski (BS ‘03, MS ‘06) earned a JD from the University of Michigan in 2009.
Kristen Fenton (MSW ‘05), has joined Paradigm Shift, a U.S. nonprofit, and is training South African churches to fight poverty in their communities by utilizing the highly successful tool of microfinance.
Evelyn Salazar (A&S ’08), who worked with Loyola University Chicago Department of Philosophy chair Dr. Paul Moser’s project, Beauty: The Sources, has been selected in a national competition to present the Latin American research to U.S. senators and representatives in Washington.
Laura Sienas (BS ‘08),completed a ride-andbuildtour with Habitat for Humanity that covered over 4,000 miles, 12 states and 10 building days over this past summer. Sienas was supported by Loyola, which held a mass collection for her during the spring of 2008. Photos of her tour are available at: www.picasaweb.google.com/laurasienas.