1950s
Georgina LaBerge (B.S., ’58) won two gold medals in power walking at the Huntsman World Games in St. George, Utah, in October 2022, and one gold medal at the Bay Area Senior Games in San Mateo, California, that April. Since taking up power walking 10 years ago, she has won 14 gold medals. LaBerge is a former mayor of Redwood City, California, and recipient of several awards for community service.
Joe Motheral (B.S., ’58) retired from a career in engineering after almost 40 years, including 28 years spent in Taiwan, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait. He also worked as a freelance writer for small-town newspapers and local magazines and wrote a children’s book, Curly the Llama, as well as Northern Virginia Luminaries. Motheral met his wife at CSU, where he pitched for the baseball team. They’ve been married for 64 years and live in Leesburg, Virginia.
1960s
Roger Brandt (B.S., ’62), former president of Allerderm Pharmaceutical Co., was named outstanding alumnus of Lincoln Southeast High School in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Kathleen (Kathy) Miranda (B.S., ’65) and her husband, Steve, celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary with a luau in Colorado Springs. They have four children, seven grandchildren, and one great-granddaughter. Miranda retired from personnel management at Fort Carson, Colorado, in 1998. Her husband retired in 1990 from the Colorado Springs Police Department.
Quentin “Dell” Isham (M.A., ’69) has spent a life of public service in Oregon and South Carolina. In Oregon, he served as a mayor as well as a state senator and senate majority leader; chaired the state transportation committee; became the first manager of the Devils Lake Water Improvement District; and was the chief petitioner to establish the Oregon Lottery. He was the executive director of both the Oregon Dental Hygienists’ Association and the South Carolina Chapter of the Sierra Club. Isham was awarded the Bronze Star as a local government adviser in South Vietnam. Returning from Vietnam, he taught high school history and government and coached championship wrestling teams before being elected to the Oregon State Senate. He has written seven history and historical fiction books.
1970s
Kent Deitemeyer (B.S., ’70) is co-owner and joint managing partner of Pacificvet Limited, an animal health and veterinary diagnostic laboratory in Christchurch, New Zealand, which celebrated 30 years of service to the livestock industry in the South Pacific. He has spent 46 years in the international animal health industry, having lived in Asia, Europe, and Australia before settling down in New Zealand. Deitemeyer is actively involved with the New Zealand government’s endangered native avian species recovery program, where he donates vaccine and technical advice.
James D. Oliver (B.A., ’70; M.Ed., ’72) is associate chancellor and assistant dean of urban and metro affairs at the University of Illinois, Cooperative Extension Service, in Chicago.
Frank Kelly (B.S., ’72) taught math for 30 years and has been retired 21 years last June.
Bob Kinney (B.S., ’72) received the FAA’s Wright Brothers Master Pilot award from the Colorado Pilots Association. This elite award recognizes pilots with 50-plus years of safe civil or military piloting experience. Kinney started flying gliders as a senior at CSU. He’s actively involved in the Colorado Pilots Association and flies for both the animal rescue group Pilots N Paws and Angel Flight West.
Monte Watson (B.S., ’72) and his wife, Linda, welcomed their only grandson, Leo Paul Jensen, son of Rebecca and Sean Jensen, on Dec. 28, 2021. As a retired occupational therapist, grandpa, and weekly babysitter, Watson studies and fosters Leo’s amazing development and hopes he may be a future Ram.
Rudy Carey (B.A., ’74), a coach for more than 40 years, became Colorado’s all-time leader in career high school basketball wins, notching his 877th win coaching Denver East – his high school alma mater – to a 93-60 win over Palmer High School in December.
Vernon Lowrey (B.S., ’76) and his wife, Nancy, moved to Hawaii in 2021 and settled in the village of Kailua-Kona, where they volunteer at the local Kailua Pier tourism booth as cruise ships arrive and strum with a local Kanikapila ukulele group. They continue to enjoy retirement and learn Hawaiian traditions while soaking in the endless summer.
Ailene McManus (B.S., ’76) returned to Northern Colorado after nearly 40 years in Southern California and is looking forward to attending campus events.
Randy Schindle (B.S., ’78) retired after 42 years with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, spending most of his career working with private landowners on forestry and prairie restoration. During that time, he helped develop hardwood direct seeding guidelines on private land. He received the University of Minnesota Forester of the Year Award in 2009 and the Carol Mortenson Lifetime Achievement award in 2022. He plans to spend retirement chasing grandchildren, writing, practicing photography, and managing his own forest and prairie.
William Deininger (M.S., ’79), an Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, has been named to the AIAA Systems Engineering Technical Committee.
1980s
McCoy Smith (B.S., ’84) wrote two chapters on the intersection of copyright law and patent law and free and open-source intellectual property licensing in the recent Oxford University Press publication, Open Source Law, Policy and Practice (Amanda Brock, et al.). He lectures around the world on these topics, including a presentation at CSU in 2015. Smith is the founding attorney at Lex Pan Law LLC, a full-service intellectual property law firm.
Michael Hannigan (B.S., ’86) and his wife, Becca, moved from Bellingham, Washington, to Galway, Ireland, where he works for ÉireComposites as a senior aerospace engineer.
Steve Moos (B.S., ’87) began a new position as executive director for the Breckenridge Film Festival in August 2022, after spending six years as the festival’s high school programming director. Moos spent 23 years as a business and video production teacher, varsity basketball coach, and FBLA sponsor in Steamboat Springs and Hayden, Colorado. He spent the last seven years before retirement as the career and technical education director for the Thompson School District in Loveland.
Clay Lambert (B.A., ’86) was promoted to editor and publisher of Coastside News Group Inc., based in Half Moon Bay, California. The group publishes Half Moon Bay Review, Pacifica Tribune, Coastside magazine, and affiliated special publications and websites. Lambert took the news group’s top management position after nearly 20 years writing and editing the San Mateo County coast’s newspapers. He has won top awards from the California News Publishers Association and was named the national Editor of the Year by the Suburban Newspaper Association in 2010. He is a member of the Colorado State University Media Hall of Fame.
Dayna Ashley-Oehm (B.A., ’88) and the Aurora Housing Authority completed construction of affordable housing designed for senior veterans, Liberty View Apartments, on the former Fitzsimons Army Base in Aurora, Colorado. The property has 59 spacious housing units, common areas, and exterior social spaces. A public art installation is in the works, and an exterior sculpture will be placed on site by Veterans Day 2023.
Stacy Houk (B.S., ’88) was recently appointed Chief People Officer at Extend, an insurtech startup based in San Francisco. Houk’s home base is still Austin, Texas.
Carson Walker (B.A., ’89) was hired as the first CEO of South Dakota News Watch, a nonprofit news organization that produces in-depth journalism for its media partners and readers. Walker worked in radio while attending CSU and was previously a multiplatform reporter, photographer, and editor in television and newspaper and at the Associated Press.
1990s
David Ridpath (B.A., ’90) was promoted to full professor of sports administration with tenure in the college of business at Ohio University. Ridpath has been at Ohio University since 2006 and tries to catch CSU athletics teams any time they play east of the Mississippi.
Karen Schroeder (B.S., ’91) started as senior regulatory specialist at Givaudan Flavors Corp. in Cincinnati, Ohio, in September.
Laura Antrim Caskey (B.A., ’92) has embarked on a second career and another passion – food and nutrition – after practicing as a registered dietitian at Unity Care NW community health center in Bellingham, Washington. During the pandemic, Caskey developed Dietitian Kitchen, an online cooking video series, to share tasty, budget-friendly recipes. She now works in Seattle as a board-certified lifestyle medicine practitioner at Kaiser Permanente, a field that promotes a whole food plant-based diet for prevention, treatment, and reversal of chronic disease.
Dr. Eric Richardson (B.S., ’93) recently won his hospital’s Physicians Good Citizen Award. The award goes to a physician who shows superior team-player skills in working with hospital staff and other physicians to take great care of patients. The winner is picked from nominations submitted by nursing staff.
Mohamed Rami (Ph.D., ’95) is a certified engineer in irrigation and drainage, environmental impact assessments, and remote sensing, and specializes in the application and development of mathematical models for environmental, hydrologic, and agricultural systems. Over the last decade, he worked as assistant minister for research and technology and director of environment at the Climate Change Research Institute based in New Delhi, India. Rami has worked as a consultant with many international organizations, and has received awards from international and national organizations, including ICID and the American Geophysical Union.
Kristi Pohly (B.S., ’98) started Pohly Hat Co., a custom hat-design business. Each creation is a wearable tribute to a person, pet, place, or time imprinted on the wearer’s heart. The Pohly Hat Co. logo incorporates the official cattle brand her grandfather created for his ranch in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She donates 5% of every purchase to a different charity each quarter to give back to local nonprofits.
Shoshana Shamberg (B.S., ’98) authored a textbook chapter for rehab professionals.
2000s
Jennifer Jelinek (B.S., ’00) has been elected to the board of the American Society of Interior Designers following two decades of interior design working with homeowners on luxury interior projects. As president of ASID Colorado and owner of JJ Interiors, Jelinek looks forward to helping the next group of design professionals make a difference and enhance human experience within the built environment.
Ken Doll (Ph.D., ’03) was named the scientific technology transfer coordinator for the Midwest Area of the USDA Agricultural Research Service. Doll joined the National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research in Peoria, Illinois, as part of the Plant Polymers Research Unit. There, he introduced technology that enabled natural carboxylic acids to be incorporated into high-performance carbohydrate polymers. More recently, Doll worked within the bio-oils research unit, leading research that transforms vegetable oils into polymer building blocks for industrial applications and consumer products.
Emily Gaspar (M.S., ’05) graduated from Coastal Carolina University with a Ph.D. in education specializing in higher education administration, with a dissertation titled “Disability Justice in Higher Education: The Lived Experiences of Disabled White Women Disability Services Directors.” Gaspar serves as the director of accessibility and disability services and ADA compliance officer at CCU alongside her husband, Steve Harrison, who serves as vice president for auxiliary enterprises and chief sustainability officer.
Cora (Sloan) (B.S., ’06) and Tristan (B.S., ’07) Bonser welcomed a baby boy in November 2022.
Rachael Coffren (B.A., ’06) received a master’s degree in art therapy from Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado, and now has a private practice based in her Old Town art studio. She appreciates Gary Voss for encouraging her throughout her journey and loves CSU for providing the foundation for all that she has accomplished. She still maintains the friendships she formed at CSU.
Teressa Gehrke (M.A., ’07) is the CEO of PopCykol, a cybersecurity awareness company for kids. She was a keynote speaker at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, and participated as a UN delegate for Canada representing her networking club, Business and Professional Women. She was nominated for Cybersecurity Woman of the Year in 2022 by the United Cybersecurity Alliance and is the current vice president of the BPW Denver chapter and social media chair of the Women in CyberSecurity Colorado chapter. Gehrke is also an award-winning kids’ music singer-songwriter, author, and cyber blogger.
Beki Toussaint (B.S., ’07) has been named to the class of 2023 Top Forty Under 40 by the Alaska Journal of Commerce and the Anchorage Daily News. She works as the education program director for Alaska Resource Education.
Nick Ota-Wang (B.A., ’09) completed his master’s degree and a graduate certificate in U.S. history with a focus in LGBTQ+, gender, and sexuality history at the University of Colorado-Denver in December. This is Ota-Wang’s second master’s; in 2014, he earned a Master of Arts in higher education with a concentration in college student development from the University of Denver.
2010s
Whitney Crutchfield (M.F.A., ’10) received a tenure-track job in textile development and marketing at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York.
Melisa Panagakos (B.A., ’10) has been elevated to principal at the national employment law firm Jackson Lewis P.C. She works as an attorney in the firm’s Denver office and represents public and private employers in labor and employment law matters.
Vicki J. Wade (M.B.A., ’12) joined Thrivent Financial as market developer in Iowa in January 2023.
Daniel Haddad (M.S., ’14) and his wife, Madeline, celebrated the birth of their second child, Amelia “Millie” Lee Haddad, on Feb. 8, 2023, in Waco, Texas.
Dr. Maryhen Arrieta (Ph.D., ’15) has fulfilled her childhood dream of becoming a dentist. She can now provide quality dental care to those in need. Arrieta is grateful for the education and opportunities that have allowed her to make a positive impact in her community.
Andrew Eggleston (B.A., ’15) was awarded the Denver English-Speaking Union’s Teach and Learn Abroad scholarship in March 2023, which allowed him to apply for the national ESU’s TLab program. He was accepted into the Teaching Shakespeare Through Performance program at Shakespeare’s Globe in London last April and attended the program during the summer before returning for his fifth year as a teacher at Grandview High School in Aurora, Colorado.
Marianna Savoca (Ph.D., ’16), associate vice president for career readiness and experiential education at Stony Brook University in Long Island, New York, was recently published in The Handbook of Student Affairs Administration, 5th edition (Wiley, 2023), edited by George S. McClellan and Judy Marquez Kiyama. Savoca’s chapter, “Student Employment as Learning Integrated Work,” is an extension of her CSU dissertation and subsequent book, Campus Employment as a High Impact Practice.
Ajit Karna (Ph.D., ’17) returned to Nepal from the U.S. in 2019, just in time to lead COVID-19 preparedness and response activities funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development to support the government of Nepal.
Liam Aubrey (B.A., ’19) was named a “Rising Star for 2023” by the Colorado Springs Business Journal.
Francesca Giambrone (B.S., ’19) graduated from the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine in May with a doctorate of veterinary medicine. She plans to move to Rhode Island to work at Ocean State Equine Associates. Giambrone is extremely excited to finally fulfill her lifelong dream to be an equine veterinarian.
2020s
Isabella Wells (B.S., ’22) finished the taught portion of her master’s degree in applied animal welfare and behavior at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. Over the course of her degree, she helped build cheetah enclosures, conducted behavioral research with penguins at the Edinburgh Zoo, and gave talks about animal cognition and consciousness to a panel of experts. Over winter break, she traveled to Thailand and volunteered with a program researching the behavior of rehabilitated elephants in the hills of Chiang Mai.