ClassNotes

Brad Pizer J.D. '85 is a lawyer at Pizer & Associates, APC in Beverly Hills. He is a member of the American Bar Association Committee on Credit Unions. He maintains the highest rating by Martindale-Hubbell (AV). From 1995 through 2009, he has been the featured speaker presenting Silverman's Legal Update for California Credit Unions. He is a past recipient of the California Credit Union Collectors New Millennium Award. He is always current on the latest credit union legal developments.

Susan Mauriello J.D. ’85 of Aptos, has been appointed to the California Board of State and Community Corrections by Gov. Jerry Brown ’59. Mauriello has been the county administrative officer for Santa Cruz County since 1989.

Kate Lepow '85 has joined Yahoo! in Sunnyvale, CA. She will continue to focus on product management for e-commerce payment solutions. Kate lives in the Willow Glen area of San Jose, CA with her partner, Jim Lungaro.

Steve Kahl '84 has achieved National Board Certification as an English teacher. Steve teaches at Mountain View High School, where he also coordinates the GATE and AVID programs. He recently was named to the board of directors for the California Association for the Gifted.

Bret Hillman J.D. '85 was appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to a judgeship on the Tulare County Superior Court. Hillman has been partner in the firm Hillman and Lew in Tulare. 

Brian Harrison MBA '85 is president and CEO of Solyndra Inc., a manufacturer of cylindrical solar panels for commercial rooftops.

Kevin Harney '85 and Gina (Hornecker) Harney '87 live in Georgetown, Mass. Their eldest son, Michael, will be starting his freshman year at SCU this fall.

Omar Habbas J.D. ’85, the managing partner at Habbas & Associates law firm in San Jose, has been nominated for the 2012 San Jose Best of Business Award. Mr. Habbas earned this nomination through the outstanding legal prowess he demonstrated while representing clients in personal injury cases. 

Todd Goolkasian '85, president of Cornerstone Structural Engineering Group, received an award for outstanding civil engineer in community service from the American Society of Civil Engineers. He was awarded for his outstanding community service. Goolkasian has been and Fresno-based Cornerstone Structural Engineering Group have been serving the community professionally and personally for 25 years. He has proudly held numerous civic and professional organization positions such as: Director, California State University Fresno Civil Engineering Department Advisory Board, Scoutmaster, Boy Scout Troop 223, St. Anthony of Padua Church in Fresno, Grand Knight, Knights of Columbus Council 6092 in Fresno, President, American Council of Engineering Companies, San Joaquin Valley Chapter, President, American Society of Civil Engineers, Fresno Branch and as an Active Member of Structural Engineers Association of Northern California.

Heidi Gansert ’85 has joined the University of Nevada, Reno as special assistant to the president for external affairs. Said university president Marc Johnson, "Heidi will serve as a catalyst for opportunities and partnerships that will result in productive outcomes for Nevada. She will help connect the expertise of our faculty and resources of the University to result in solutions. The University's connection to economic development will be a priority, and Heidi has worked closely with economic development agencies throughout the state."

Barbara Esquivel '85 has returned to Northern California and is living in Roseville having accepted the Assistant Vice President of Workers' Compensation Claims with York Risk Services Group. Barbara was most recently Claims Manager at Keenan & Associates in Torrance, Calif. Her daughter Courtney now lives in San Diego and works for Gallagher Bassett, and her son Nathan lives in Lakewood and works for New York & Co.

David Drummond ’85, Google’s chief legal officer, will speak at the SCU law school commencement on May 25. 

Bob Collins '85 is celebrating the grand opening of a new branch of his Italian restaurant Pasta Market in San Jose's MarketCenter.

Christine Canelo ’80, M.A. ’85 is working as a marriage and family therapist at Kaiser Permanente Adult Psychiatry in Campbell, Calif.

Gordon Brion ’85 writes: “I always think of the great experience I had at SCU. It gave me the option in life to pursue a near life-long dream. Specifically, a path to becoming a physician. I never take that for granted. It is a remarkable honor that people trust me with their actual lives at times. Also, my patients have helped me over the years, and that was an unforeseen and unexpected benefit. I am grateful to have been in such an inspirational environment and met such great friends along the way. It made me think big.”

David Bowlby ‘85 is the chairman of the Alamo Municipal Advisory Council, an advisory body formed last year that gives recommendations to the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors and planning agency on issues that affect Alamo. He's also a current member and Chair-elect of the Contra Costa Council Board of Directors, and serves on the Board of Trustees for the ÿDe Marillac Academyÿ, a nonprofit school for underprivileged kids in San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood. He founded and directs the Bowlby Group, an advocacy firm in 2005 to provide consulting for communications and messaging, crisis management and community outreach issues. Clients include Safeway and California State University, East Bay. Bowlby has an economics degree from SCU and previously had a career in real estate.ÿ For two years he was a congressional aide for current U.S. Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Affairs Ellen Tauscher, whom he says remains one of his closest friends.

Ellyn Bloomfield MBA '85 has been appointed Registrar at Lincoln Law School of San Jose. Lincoln Law School is an evening law program in downtown San Jose. Previously she was employed in the lending and mortgage industry.

Mike Blach '85 reports that his company, Blach Construction, was ranked #1 in the "Best Places to Work" in the Greater Bay Area in the Large Company category (100-499 employees) by the San Jose/Silicon Valley Business Journal and the San Francisco Business Times.

Andrew Bewley '85 has picked up stakes and moved to Tennessee, where he will be taking a position as Director of Sales for the Compass Efficient Model Portfolios, an institutional and retail asset manager. He and his wife are expecting their first child together, and seventh overall, in December. They reside in the Chattanooga area, where Andrew's oldest son is a junior at the University of Tennessee campus, and only two hours from the University of Alabama where his second son has just started.

Debbie (Evans) Baker B.S. '75, MA '85 wishes to announce that daughter Julie Baker received her MBA from Santa Clara in June 2009. Subsequently, she married Ryan Broms at the Mission Church on Oct. 3, 2009. In addition, Debbie and her husband, Paul were blessed with their first grandchild, Logan Swirsding on Jan. 22, 2009. His parents are Debbie and Paul's older daughter, Katie, and her husband, Dave. Debbie lives in Los Altos, Calif., and is a volunteer with Catholic Charities of Santa Clara County working with the clients of the Refugee Resettlement Program and has had a Bhutanese family and an Iraqi woman living with her and her husband within the last couple of years. Life is great!

Joseph Alvarnas '85 is an associate professor of medicine in the division of Hematology & Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation at the City of Hope in Duarte, Calif. He is also the director of Quality Systems for Experimental Cellular Therapeutics, overseeing quality assurance for T-cell, hematopoietic stem cell and gene therapy-related therapeutic cell manufacturing at the City of Hope.

Joe Allanson ’85 writes that he was recently appointed to the board of regents at St. Ignatius College Preparatory in San Francisco. Joe is an alum of the high school and his son is currently there. Joe is the corporate controller of salesforce.com in San Francisco. He's been with salesforce for the past nine years and has helped grow the company from 400 employees to over 8,500 today.

Merlene (Medeiros) Akau '85 continues to live in Hawaii with her beautiful 17- and 19-year-old daughters. She is a human resources professional and oversees the Benefits Section for the State of Hawaii, Department of Education.

Helen Elizabeth Williams J.D. ’86 was appointed by Gov. Gerry Brown ’59 to a judgeship in the Santa Clara Superior Court. Williams, of Santa Cruz, has worked as an appellate court attorney at the State of California Court of Appeal, Sixth Appellate District since 2004, frequently serving in the lead position. She served as an attorney at Robinson and Wood Inc. from 2001 to 2004, at Olimpia Whelan and Lively from 1999 to 2001 and at Williams and Williams from 1987 to 1999. Williams is certified as an appellate specialist by the California State Bar. She earned a Juris Doctorate degree from Santa Clara University School of Law and a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California, Santa Cruz. She fills the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Douglas K. Southard. Williams is a Democrat.