Class Notes submitted by Gene Woo on November 04, 2011
This is my first report as the Class Agent for the Class of 1985. I want to thank those of you that gave me updates and I appreciate the good wishes that I received from many of you. The Law School is trying to do a better job of keeping in contact with alumni and the Class Agent program is part of this effort.
I have not seen most of you since graduation or the end of the bar exam in Sacramento back on August 1, 1985. Here is a brief update on myself. I have spent the last 11 years at the Department of Insurance’s San Francisco office. I have had various responsibilities over the years, but my current job has me acting as an in house counsel for the Department’s Fraud Division, which is the law enforcement arm of the Department. I also handle some litigation, drafting regulations and analysis of legislative bills. Pretrice Curry-Bossett works as a paralegal for one of the Department’s bureaus and her office is down the hall from mine.
Some of you wondered why I took on the responsibility of being the Class Agent. The truth is that I was drafted. Last year, I was invited to join the board of the Law School Alumni Association. I think that I can “blame” Rex Perschbacher for this since I often saw him at various Law School events in San Francisco when he was the Dean of the Law School. So far, I have enjoyed being on the Alumni Association Board and I have had the opportunity to become more involved with the Law School and I have been able to attend a couple of UC Davis football games in Berkeley and Honolulu as a result.
That’s enough about me. Before giving the updates on our classmates, I am sad to report that Bruce Barr passed away earlier this year after a lengthy battle with cancer. It has been a tough year for King Hall since Gary Hernandez from the Class of 1984 passed away in May. At Gary’s memorial service in San Francisco, I saw Ray Churchill, Rene Chacon, and former classmate Joe Caldarazzo. I forgot what Ray was doing and I knew that Rene was a supervising deputy attorney general at the California Attorney General’s office. Joe ended up becoming an investment banker in San Francisco.
Speaking of former classmates who did not graduate with us, I heard from Don Root. Don is a writer and is living in Marin County. At one point, I think he did some work for Lonely Planet.
Diane Baker decided to go into business instead of practicing law. She is involved in the manufacturing and selling of two products called the Brush Guard, www.thebrushguard.com, which is a cover for cosmetic brushes, and the Brush Defender, www.brushdefender.com, which is a cover for artists’ brushes. She lives in Berkeley with her husband, Todd, and has two daughters. One recently graduated from college and is now working as a paralegal in Washington, D.C., while the other is still attending college.
Steve Chuck reports that he and his wife, Gabriel, have three children aged 22, 20, and 14. He is still practicing law and lives in La Cañada. Over the years, he has had various hobbies such as beer making, dry curing, and making charcuterie. His newest hobby is vintage car racing in his Datsun 510 racecar.
Linda McAtee was promoted to Presiding Administrative Judge at the State Personnel Board in March 2010. She has also served as a board member at Capital Stage, a professional theatre company in Sacramento. Her oldest child, Colin, graduated from DePaul University in Chicago with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting while her youngest, Shannon, graduated from high school and is a freshman at UC Santa Cruz.
Ian Fellerman is a partner in the Alameda law firm of Wiley Price & Radulovich. He specializes in labor/employment law and litigation. He and his wife, Jan, celebrated their 26 th wedding anniversary and they are now empty nesters since their children, Zack and Josh, are now in college.
Andy Jones is now at the University Counsel for the California State University system and is based in Long Beach. Other than the ongoing budgetary issues for governmental entities, he said that he did not have much to report except for having an 18 year child move out of the house, at least temporarily, and having a 5 year old start first grade.
Sandy Stradling is practicing transactional law in Orange County at the law firm of Knotterus & Associates. She reports that since much of her work is with residential developers that business has been somewhat slow. She has taken the slowdown to do some traveling. In particular, she has visited her daughter, Cristina, and her 4 year old granddaughter, Natalia. She helped Cristina relocate her family from Houston to Jacksonville, North Carolina. At Jacksonville, she welcomed her son in law, Allen, upon his return from a deployment in Afghanistan.
Clyde Platt has been quite busy. Five years ago, he was able to retire. He has traveled with his partner, Carolyn, on various adventures. In the past two years, he has sailed along the west coast of Canada, remodeled his place in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and wintered in a small town in British Columbia, where he skis from January to April every year. He followed a rock band through Europe with stops in Paris, Brussels, and Amsterdam. He went to the annual Airwaves festival in Iceland and he worked as part of a support team for the Race Across America bicycle race. The race crosses the US in six days on pretty much a nonstop basis. He is trying to get healthier and started a vegetable garden. He has obtained his beginning certification to teach skiing from the Canadian Ski Instructors Association and became a member of a Canadian artists co-op. He is headed to Peru in October to hike the Inca trail for four days and is trying to reach Machu Picchu during the full moon. He also will go to Argentina and Chile for a few weeks. He reports that his daughter, Lauren (who some of you may remember Clyde carrying her across the stage at graduation), is working for a nonprofit organization devoted to early education for the disadvantaged. Clyde also sent along some photos of what he has been doing.
Greg Mangani is working as a research attorney for the First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco. He is married to Tiffany Yee (Class of 1998), who works for the Natural Resources section of the California Attorney General’s office. They live in Walnut Creek with their children, William (age 8) and Natalie (age 6). He said that he is involved in the typical activities involving kids, namely swimming, soccer, and trips to Disneyland.
Jani Iwamoto resides in Salt Lake City. In 2008, she was elected to the Salt Lake County Council, and for a brief time, was part of a Democratic majority. After the Republicans became the majority again, Jani became the minority leader of the County Council and she is the only woman on the nine member council. Interestingly enough, one of her supporters is former Utah Governor and US Ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman. I guess Jani is doing a good job of being able to work with the opposition party. She reports that Salt Lake County covers 737 square miles with a population of 1,029,655 residents. There are 16 cities in the county. She travels to the Bay Area periodically to meet with bond rating agencies and her husband commutes to Hawaii for his business. They have two children, Katie (12) and Nate (14). She reports that she stays in touch with Debbie Hutton and Thelma Kido. She also saw Bob Matsueda and Lisa Ikemoto recently.
Jeff Spitz announces a move to a new firm: After 26+ years at Greenberg Glusker, arguably LA’s largest employer of UCD grads, including Dave Cranston, Jeff has joined two friends and former colleagues, Glenn Lerman (Davis undergrad, ’86) and Karen Pointer to form Lerman Pointer & Spitz LLP. Jeff joins a firm focused on employment law counseling and mediation, and employment and business litigation, and will continue his practice as a trial attorney and legal consigliere with an emphasis in the sports and entertainment arenas. On a personal note, Jeff is still happily married to Chris Jacobs (20 years and counting) and their daughter, Hannah is a sophomore honors student at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore.
Mark Askanas rejoined the firm Jackson Lewis in September 2007 after a sever year stint as General Counsel of Ross Stores, Inc.He writes, ‘I enjoy the practice of labor and employment law, and am glad to be back. The greatest good fortune of my life is unquestionably the wonderful person I married 24 years ago (she is a retired lawyer and now teaches English Literature at a local community college). We have two daughters, a senior at the University of Washington and a freshman at the University of Arizona, as well as a 14 year old dachshund who is the one female in the house with whom I consistently get along with and never talks back.’
In a future Class Notes, I will have a list of folks that we do not have good email addresses for. I am slowly updating the email list so hopefully, the next person will have an easier time communicating with everyone.
Submitted by KATHRYN DOI
MARK ASKANAS has been the General Counsel and Senior Vice President at Ross Stores, Inc. since January 2001. He and his wife Aynah live in Alamo. They just celebrated their 18th wedding anniversary. Aynah is an English instructor at Diablo Valley College. Their two daughters are Isabelle (16), a Junior at Monte Vista High School in Danville, and Anna (13), an Eighth Grader at Los Cerros Middle School.
DAVE CRANSTON recently returned from the 21st Annual Green Jacket golf and viticulture weekend at Silverado in Napa, a golfing weekend with a number of Davis alums, including JEFF SPITZ, CHUCK FARMAN, DAVE DITORA, and CLYDE PLATT, as well as Stan Frazier and Jon Vaught from the Class of '84. Dave Ditora has recently started his own practice, focusing on criminal defense. Chuck is a partner at MoFo doing big-time corporate financing and securities. (For more on Clyde and Jeff, see below.)
DAVE was recently elected to the firm's Management Committee, which he attributes to an apparent attempt to make up for the fact that he was one of the few Davis students who didn't get a call-back from the firm 22 years ago. He was also recently selected as one of the "World's Leading Environment Lawyers" (published in London) by a vote of various environmental lawyers nationwide (to whom he thinks he now apparently owes a lot of money). He also coaches his daughter's AYSO soccer team. Jessica (11) played on the All-Star team, as well, which was coached by Eric Waxman (Class of 81). Jessica attends Archer School for Girls with Dave's older daughter Hannah (15) and both are Dance Troupe Captains.
SUSAN FREEMAN and Minh Nguyen moved this past summer to Columbus, Ohio, where Minh is doing his medical school internship/residency. They have two sons, Ethan (10 months) and Grant (3-1/2). Susan is still working for Cisco Systems, Inc., in a business development role for the software group, and is a now a full-time telecommuter.
JANI IWAMOTO is living in Salt Lake City, Utah and was appointed by the Governor to the Appellate Nominating Committee for the Supreme Court and Appellate Courts. She was also nominated by the Council Council and appointed by the Governor to the Central Utah Water Conservancy District Board of the Trustees. Jani is also the vice president of the Japanese Community Preservation Committee, which seeks to restore a once thriving Japantown in Salt Lake City. She is also an instructor for radKIDS, an interactive safety course. Jani enjoys sharing her life with her husband Steve, who commutes to Hawaii for his business, Insurance Hawaii, Inc., and her two children, Katie (7) and Nathan (9).
HAL LIGHT is pleased to report that last year he was able to prevail in a equal protection case in which the rational basis test applied. He and his wife Susan live in Santa Monica, with their daughter Julia (3), who has just started preschool.
MARTHA LENNIHAN recently celebrated her 50th birthday in style with a big bash on the river side lawn of the recently remodeled home she shares with husband Paul along the banks of the Sacramento River. Classmates SUSAN CARLSON, KATHY DOI, JODY LERNER and LINDA MCATEE, and Nancee Murray ('86), were among those enjoying the riverside gazebo bar, "Davey Jones' Locker". Partygoers were a diverse mix from many slices of Martha's life, including those she and Paul have met through their latest activity ... wakeboarding! When not wakeboarding, Martha continues her water and natural resources law practice at Lennihan Law in midtown Sacramento.
MARTHA LOFGREN has transitioned from a twelve year public service career at the City of Folsom (City Attorney 1994-2000 and City Manager 2000-2006) to form a private law practice with local land use attorney Roy Brewer. Brewer Lofgren, LLP specializes in land use, government affairs, project management, economic development and public law. Contact information is MLofgren@landlaw.org.
LINDA MCATEE has been working for the Judicial Council/Administrative Office of the Courts since April 2005. After spending 4 and 1/2 years as General Counsel for State Treasurer Phil Angelides, she wanted to get back to employment law. Linda's oldest son, Colin, is applying for college and her youngest, Shannon, for high school! Linda regularly sees a number of her classmates including MARTHA LENNIHAN, JODY LERNER, NORINE MARKS, SUSAN CARLSEN AND KATHRYN DOI. Shortly after our 20th reunion, she had lunch with Brad Wishek and Jim Baker. And every fall, Linda and her family spend a long weekend in Ashland, Oregon with Mary Kyle McCurdy ('86) and her family.
CLYDE PLATT plans to retire at the end of December, after having worked on the Enron ERISA litigation and several private actions on behalf of certain European financial institutions which incurred large losses as a result of Enron's demise for the past five years. In the new year, Clyde will go sailing on his 40' sailboat with his girlfriend, Carolyn, who is also retiring from her job as a 737 pilot at Alaska Airlines. They plan to cruise the San Juans, Gulf Islands, and the Inside Passage in the Pacific Northwest from May - September 2007, crew on a friend's boat in the Mediterranean (from Italy to Sicily and Greece) in October 2007, and then sail from Seattle on a circumnavigation of the Pacific from May 2008 - August 2010. Once they return, they will split their time between Fernie, British Columbia and a not-yet-determined place in the US, most likely a rural location in the Pacific Northwest. Clyde's oldest daughter, Ana, is in Prague teaching English through next spring and is then bound for another country, probably Japan. Second daughter Lauren, who was born as we graduated Davis, is finishing her undergraduate degree at Scripps College in Claremont. His son, Connor, graduated high school and is working and deciding what he wants to do.
JEFF SPITZ continues his entertainment and sports litigation practice at Greenberg Glusker where he sees his partner, Dave Cranston, daily. Jeff and his daughter Hannah (14) recently took first place in the Upper School division of a bowling night event held by the Dads organization from her school, of which Jeff is the vice president. Jeff was also recently elected Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Youth Law Center, a non-profit legal group based in San Francisco which is the leading organization in California advocating for youth in foster care and government custody. It is a great organization that could use everyone's support; http://www.ylc.org/.
As for me, KATHRYN DOI, in October 2005, the law firm I work for, Livingston & Mattesich, became the Sacramento office of the national law firm Greenberg Traurig, LLP. My practice continues to be focused on representing clients in administrative and regulatory matters before state agencies and departments, with related representation in court in writ proceedings. My latest extra-curricular project is agreeing to serve as Regional Governor for the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA). My daughter Tara (15) is a busy high school sophomore, active in music, drama (on and off stage), and basketball.
I have enjoyed serving a class agent for the past few years, but now is the time to pass the baton on to someone new. Serving as class agent is a great way to keep up with classmates, as you hear from classmates with or without an interest in providing information for the class notes. Please give it your serious consideration and let me or the alumni office know if you are interested.