<Alum notes>

The Alumni Notes section contains communications dating back to August 2000. If you would like to say something to your fellow alumni, please send us a note or send an e-mail message to MichiganEngineer@umich.edu.

fifties Edward Boyhen (BSE EE ’51) is retired and living in Palm Coast, Florida. He began his career as an engineer with ATT and ITT, then progressed from vice president with Sprint to staff executive/corporate staff manager with ITT to private consulting. James Hubbell (BSE CE ’55) recently retired after 45 years with Hubbell, Roth and Clark, Inc., a 250-person consulting firm. He notes that he remembers many of his professors at Michigan, including Eugene Glysson and Ernest Brater: “I was also honored to receive the Engineering Alumni Society Merit Award for Civil and Environmental Engineering in 1997.” James and his wife, Dawn, have seven children, 13 grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. sixties Kenneth Ware (BSE SE ’61, MSE ’63, PhD ’68) wrote to say that he plans to settle down in San Diego, California, with his wife and enjoy an active life of retirement visiting friends and family throughout the world, after a decade each at a national lab, as a manager in industry, and as a government program manager (currently employed at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency in Alexandria, Virginia). Thomas Galloway (BSE AA ’62) retired from NASA Ames Research Center in June 2000 and recently became a part-time member of the Aerospace Systems Design Laboratory in the School of Aerospace Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology. Richard Patterson (PhD ’63) continues to teach undergraduate courses in industrial systems engineering at the University of Florida College of Engineering. He was voted outstanding professor of his department in the Spring 2000 term by the undergraduate student body. Jay Wetzel (BSE ME ’63) has been inducted into the National Academy of Engineering. He is currently vice president and general manager of the General Motors Corporation Technical Centers. Jay was cited for his accomplishments in “creating a simultaneous engineering environment, where design and manufacturing teams work concurrently to design and engineer vehicles throughout the development process.” William Carter (BSE EE ’66) retired from Detroit Edison after more than 34 years. He has also served as an executive committee member of the Electric Power Research Institute’s Power Delivery Group for the past several years. He and his wife, June, live in Plymouth, Michigan. Terrence Wegner (BSE CE ’66) continues to operate three construction service companies in Dallas, Texas. Additionally, Terry is serving his second term on the advisory board to the University of Texas-Austin School of Architecture and will join the board of directors of KERA, Dallas’ Public Broadcasting System radio station. He and his wife are building a second home in Big Sky, Montana, “a process that will take about two years.” seventies Tom Werkema (BSE CH ’71) works as director of Regulatory Affairs for Atofina Chemicals, the fifth largest chemical producer worldwide and a division of Paris-based TotalFinaElf. He leads a staff of regulatory professionals within the $600-million chemical business. He says, “I have participated for over eight years in United Nations’ processes for both the Montreal Protocol (ozone depletion) and the Kyoto Protocol (climate change).” Tom also travels extensively to destinations that include Africa, Asia, South America, and Europe as well as the United States. He and his wife, Suzanne, live in West Chester, Pennsylvania. Their son, Sean, graduated from Pennsylvania State University in computer science and daughter, Trina, is a graphic arts senior at the Tyler Institute of Art. Scott Wagner (BSE CE ’74, MSE ’75) is a ‘semi-retired’ civil engineer who designed the Woodward Light Rail Line and the Ann Arbor Commuter Rail Line for the Southeast Michigan Transportation Authority. In the 1980s, he also served as an Engineering Society of Detroit senate fellow on Michigan Senator Donald Riegle’s Washington, D. C. staff. He is fine-tuning his golf game and hopes “to debut on the Senior PGA Tour in August 2002.” He may be reached by e-mail at railman:pe@aol.com. Frank Murray (MSE ’79) has a new job as director of Environmental Health and Safety and director of Facilities for Koch Membrane Systems in Wilmington, Massachusetts. eighties Joseph Goldberg (MS ’80) is moving from Pennsylvania State University into a position with Oracle Corporation in Redwood Shores, California. He will be a principal research scientist in the Usability and Interface Design Department. Robert Meyerson (BSE AS ’87) moved to Seattle in 1997 to work for Kistler Aerospace, an emerging satellite launch company. For the past four years, he has been an active member of the team that is building the world’s first fully reusable launch vehicle, noting that “it’s been a wonderful opportunity to work with a number of different suppliers within the aerospace industry.” The Meyersons added a baby boy, Benjamin Andrew, to their family in November 2000. Ben and big sister, Elena, are getting along just fine. Dale Rosema (MSE ’88) started a company called IHS Prototyping in 2000. IHS makes ABS prototypes of three-dimensional computer models using fused deposition modeling technology. IHS supplies tier 1 and tier 2 suppliers during the product development phase and also for verification of engineering changes. “It is exciting to deliver the first parts of the customer’s design,” he says. nineties Lester Su (MSE ’91, PhD ’95) has been selected to serve as the American Society of Mechanical Engineers’ federal government fellow. His one-year term began September 1, 2000. Lester will spend the year in Washington, D. C., working with the staff of a congressional committee, a U. S. representative or a U. S. senator. Prior to being awarded the fellowship, Lester was a research fellow and lecturer at the Center for Turbulence Research within the department of mechanical engineering at Stanford University. His research specialty: laser imaging methods in turbulent flows, with or without combustion. S. Nazli Wasti (MSE ’92, PhD ’95) married M. Kemal Pamuksuz on May 17, 2000. Nazli is working as an associate professor in the department of business administration at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey. Her homepage is www.ba.metu.edu. tr/~nazli. John Robinson (BSE ME ’93) and his wife, Dorene, have recently relocated from California to the Kansas City area, where he works for Black & Veatch Consulting Engineers. Their two-year-old son, Joey, anxiously awaits the birth of a sibling in May 2001. Joseph Schumer (MS ’94, PhD ’97) was married to Amy Stirnweis at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, in May 2000 and the couple resides in northern Virginia. Joe is employed as a research physicist with the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D. C. His e-mail address is jwschumer@aol.com. Charles Noveloso (BSE EE ’95) worked closely with EDS colleague, Kelly Osburn (BSE IO ’98), to plan and execute several events at the College’s 2000 Summer Engineering Academy, including a problem-solving seminar, a résumé workshop, an engineering exposition, and an EDS Industry Night. Terry Lorber II (BSE ME ’96) recently made the move from the automotive industry to the medical devices industry. He also moved from a small town in New Hampshire to Cambridge, Massachusetts. He says it’s been great: “I now make teeth. . . well, I make tools with which to design abutments for dental implants. I’ve been coding up a storm lately, but still consider myself an ME. Heck, my card says I am.” Kevin Sullivan (BS CEE ’98) was among 20 current and former student athletes honored by the Regents of the University in October for participating in the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Sullivan, a runner who competed for his native Canada, placed fifth in the 1500-meter event; during his years at U-M, he was a ten-time All-American. Arul Thirumoorthi (BSE CH ’99) is a process development engineer for BASF Corporation in Ludwigshafen, Germany, and a member of Tau Beta Pi and OXE.		Hess Helps Astronauts Walk in Space Michael Hess (BSE AS, ME ’91) never left the ground, but was critical to the success of the space walk associated with last Fall’s Space Shuttle Atlantis mission (STS-106) involving the International Space Station. Michael was the lead extravehicular activities officer at NASA/Mission Control in Houston for that mission, tasked with supervising the planning, training, and flight control for the September 11 walk. During the walk, which lasted six hours and 14 minutes, Michael guided astronaut Edward Lu and cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko in connecting power and data cables between the new Russian-supplied Zvezda module and the rest of the space station. He also helped them assemble a magnetometer on the module. Prior to launch, he oversaw their training at the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory in Houston and at the Hydrolab in Star City, Russia. Michigan Alumnus Turns Fiction Author After retiring from a dual career as an adjunct professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at U-M and a research engineer with ERIM, William Becher (MSE ’61, PhD ’68) decided to write a book. “It was inspired by a girl I met in my hometown of North Canton, Ohio, who had been evacuated by her English parents to the safety of the U. S. during World War II,” William says. He spent six months researching the phenomenon in the British Library and through interviews with evacuees—including his former classmate—now resettled in Great Britain. The resulting historical novel, entitled “An Ocean Between,” chronicles the adventures of English children who spent the war years with foster families in the American Midwest. William notes that the book—which is self-published—is available in Ann Arbor bookstores and through Amazon.com.
Former Student Leader Dies in Safari Accident Natalie Waldinger (BSE AS ’99) died on January 6, while on a photo safari in Tanzania’s Ruaha National Park. The Aerospace Engineering graduate was serving with the Peace Corps in Tanzania, teaching mathematics and physics to secondary school students in the city of Dodoma. Natalie Waldinger, second from the left in the back row, at a ceremony welcoming new Peace Corps volunteers to Tanzania. Her decision to enter the Peace Corps rather than industry after graduation surprised no one who knew her at Michigan. “Natalie was an amazingly committed individual who brought vitality to the College and inspired those of us with whom she interacted,” noted J. Wayne Jones, associate dean for Undergraduate Education. During her academic career here, Natalie established U-M’s Engineering Service Day, an annual program that has grown to serve 30 community agencies and involve more than 300 of the College’s students, staff, and faculty. She was also vice president of the University of Michigan Engineering Council. As her father, Paul Waldinger, stated simply, “Natalie was a person dedicated to all of humanity.”