Class Notes – Winter 2020

May 22, 2020

Bob Brown (MPA ’71) sold The Scottish Salmon Company and fully retired from active business life at age 73.

John Reinemann (MPP ’90) will begin teaching in the Certified Public Manager (CPM) program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in fall 2020. He will continue to serve as an aide in the Wisconsin Legislature. John and his wife Sarah are parents to five-year-old twins, Lizzie and Teddy, so John's wages from his part-time instructor role are going straight into his twins' 529 accounts.

Aaron Schutz (MPP ’92) works with local community organizing groups on racial justice, equity, and schools. He published Empowerment: A Primer (Rutledge 2019), which he says shows “how esoteric he is for a policy graduate.” 

Bill Moseley (MPP/SNRE ’93), DeWitt Wallace Professor of Geography, Macalester College, was appointed in fall 2019 to the International Steering Committee of the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition, which provides independent, comprehensive, and evidence-based analysis at the request of the UN Committee on World Food Security.

Aidoo Osei (MPP ’97) recently assumed vice president responsibilities for product strategy and innovation at Global Payments, Inc. He continues to serve on the board of Atlanta-based nonprofit Caring for Others, Inc.

Steve Tobocman (MPP/JD ’97)co-authored an opinion piece in Politico advising Democratic presidential campaigns on how to improve their messaging on immigration to turn the issue from one that divides the voting public between two extremes to one that unites the country solidly behind values of inclusion and compassion. 

Mike Landweber’s (MPP ’98) next novel, The In Between, came out at the end of February as an exclusive audiobook from Audible Originals. 

Mike Scholl (MPP/MUP '02)recently left the City of Loveland, Colorado Economic Development staff to join Ayres, a nationally renowned firm in Fort Collins, as an economic development and planning consultant. 

Karishma Shah Page (MPP ’03) was selected to serve as co-leader of the K&L Gates Public Policy & Law practice. Established nearly 50 years ago and now one of the largest lobbying practices in a law firm, the group provides legislative and regulatory advocacy for a diverse range of clients.

Jose Stevenson (MPP ’03) and his wife, Dalia Trinidad, welcomed their second son, Javier Gelvin Stevenson, on May 11, 2019. His older brother, Emmanuel Stevenson, is madly in love with his little brother. Jose continues to work at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where he has been for fourteen years. 

Bulbul Gupta (MPP ’04) is CEO of Pacific Community Ventures in Oakland, CA, a community development financial institution doing small business lending in California and providing guidance to small business owners nationally. 

Kay (Milewski) Kelly (MPA ’05) is a transportation climate change specialist for the state of Colorado’s Energy Office. She works across all of the state agencies with a stake in transportation policy and their many stakeholder groups.

Chris Dorle (MPP '07) and Areeta Bridgemohan (MPH '09) were married on November 22, 2019 in Fredericksburg, VA with several Ford School alumni in attendance. 

Brendan Moriarty (MPP/MUP ‘09) joined the City of Oakland in January 2020 after a decade with the Trust for Public Land. In his new role, he manages the city’s real estate portfolio to help confront issues such as homelessness and housing affordability.

Nathan Cole (BA ’11) recently published his third major book, From Dawn to Perfect Day: Walking in the Light of Progressive Revelation, which discusses the progressive nature of theological revelation. 

Lelia Gowland (MPP ‘11)released her first book, You Got This: The Ultimate Negotiation Guide for Professional Women in November of 2019. She's grateful to Mary Corcoran's Women and Employment Policy class for exposing her to key research on the topic.

Parvati Patil (MPP ’11) and her husband, Kripal Kavi, welcomed Aditi Kavi into their lives on June 16, 2019. Aditi means "boundless" in the Sanskrit language, and per her name, Aditi is quite boundless in her energy and curiosity! Parvati continues to work at Global Good on product development related to global health technologies, specifically focused on improving lives in developing countries. 

Christopher Crachiola (BA ’12) was hired as a community planner in the transportation planning division at the U.S. Department of Transportation Volpe Center in Cambridge, MA. He is a recently returned Peace Corps volunteer where he served as a university instructor at Sichuan International Studies University in Chongqing, China.

Anju Mary Paul (PhD ’12) received an honorable mention for the American Sociological Association's 2020 Distinguished Scholarly Book Award for her book Multinational Maids: Stepwise Labor Migration in a Global Labor Market (Cambridge University Press 2017).

John Stanczak (MPP ’12) and Dr. Julie Rosenthal were married in November 2019 in Birmingham, MI.

Pooja Bhatt (MPP ’13) and Monica Cox (MPP ’13) will be married later this year. They met at the Ford School in 2011. Both have founded their own consulting businesses in Portland, Oregon.

Rohan Dharan (BA ’13) and Trisha Rai were married on November 26, 2019 in New Delhi, India. They met while Rohan was teaching in New Delhi as a Fulbright Scholar. 

Lauren Frohlich (MPP ’13) and Reece Flexner welcomed baby Asher Frohlich Flexner on October 3, 2019.

Steven Rzeppa (BA ’14) became the mayor of Trenton, MI in November 2019 and will serve in the role for two years.

Ahmed Alawami (MPP '15) recently joined Latham & Watkins LLP in Los Angeles, California as a senior financial reporting analyst in their newly created statutory reporting team. He will assist various firm stakeholders in ensuring compliance with local statutory rules and regulations that govern financial and tax reporting in multiple countries around the world.

Samina Hossain (MPP ’15) married an old friend, Montasir Islam, on January 18, 2020 in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Diana Won (MPP ’15) and Emad Ansari (BA ’10, MPP/JD ’15) celebrated their wedding in August 2019 in Germantown, NY, surrounded by family, friends, and Fordies. Diana is a program manager at the Pershing Square Foundation. Emad is currently on sabbatical from his assistant professorship at Lahore University of Management Sciences.

Qi Zha (MPP ’15) moved back to Michigan and married Christopher Taylor in September 2019. She also started a new job as associate director of Blackpeak in January 2020.

Pete Haviland-Eduah (MPP ’16) was recently hired as a communications manager at Facebook to work on encryption and cyber security policy communications for Facebook Messenger.

Andrea Gillespie (MPP ’18) was hired as an advocacy coordinator at the American Jewish World Service in August 2018, and promoted to policy advisor in December 2019. In her new role, she oversees international human rights policy and advocacy for women, girls, LGBTQI people, and sex workers across the globe.

Sarah Magnelia (MPP ’18) joined Temple University's Hope Center for College, Community, and Justice as a research project manager.

Talha Aziz Mirza (BA ’18) is in his second year at Berkeley Law School and externing at the UN Human Rights Council. He is happy to see that there are so many Michigan student externs and alums in Geneva!

Max Gigle (MPP ’19) was hired in January 2020 as program manager for the state of Connecticut's Digital Service, a team focused on adopting and building digital technologies and practices for a more citizen-centered government.

In Memoriam 

Nancy Glass (MPP '90) died at her home in Schoolcraft, Michigan on March 5, 2020, from complications of years of ill health. She was 57. She was a native of Portage, Michigan. While an undergrad at U-M, she played tennis. After graduating from the Ford School, she spent her career working in accountancy. She was active in government and electoral advocacy, volunteering in her community in many ways. She will be missed by her family, classmates, and all who knew her. 


Below is a formatted version of this article from State & Hill, the magazine of the Ford School. View the entire Spring 2020 State & Hill.