Classmates
Hello, Classmates! We've been here for 10 years now... We would love to have you update your profiles to include any changes during this time. For those of you just joining us, please include answers to the following questions:
1. What would you like to tell us about your life over the past 60 years? High points, unusual experiences, travel, career(s), jail time, family, passions, regrets, etc.?
2. What are your plans for the next years of your lives?
Select the "Add Your Profile" button below. Fill in the info (NOTE: PLEASE TYPE YOUR COMMENTS DIRECTLY INTO THE COMMENTS BOX. DO NOT CUT AND PASTE FROM ANOTHER WORD PROCESSING PROGRAM) and please upload your favorite "Now" photo. We will upload your "Then" photo from the yearbook for you when we receive your information.
We're looking forward to hearing from all of you!
1. What would you like to tell us about your life over the past 60 years? High points, unusual experiences, travel, career(s), jail time, family, passions, regrets, etc.?
2. What are your plans for the next years of your lives?
Select the "Add Your Profile" button below. Fill in the info (NOTE: PLEASE TYPE YOUR COMMENTS DIRECTLY INTO THE COMMENTS BOX. DO NOT CUT AND PASTE FROM ANOTHER WORD PROCESSING PROGRAM) and please upload your favorite "Now" photo. We will upload your "Then" photo from the yearbook for you when we receive your information.
We're looking forward to hearing from all of you!
Eva Long, Ph.D. (Long)
Then
Now
| Marital status: | Widowed |
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| Occupation: | Educator/Medical Science Researcher, Self-employed President/Founder, Center for Longevity, Transition, and Renewal |
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Comment:
1. I serve as a Gerontologist, Medical Science Researcher, and as Founder/President of the Center for Longevity, Transition, and Renewal in Kentfield, California. A national seminar presenter, I conduct research on the 4 best longitundinal Longevity Studies, using the findings to provide training, and provide program/product development. Since 2005, have been an active member of UCD Internal Medicine Mini-Medical School (MMS) Advisory Council. Currently serve as Principal Investigator (PI) with my Associate Team evaluating Lifelong Learning as a significant variable in life extension/expansion through the MMS program. I have served since 1962 in public education as a K-12 - higher education teacher, Superintendent of Schools, adjunct faculty UC - Berkeley graduate courses, and University of Southern California teaching doctoral students Leadership and Organizational Development. A lifelong educator and administrator, Founder/President of Excellence Launch Associates, a management consulting group, certified by the State to conduct the governor’s school accountability management audits. For over two decades, served as Founder/ President of Ahlers and Long Associates, a business management and corporate training company. For fun, I collected antiques until I had no more room in my home, and finally dabbled in a retail business specializing in antiques in San Anselmo, while I continued a multi-real estate holding. Receiving a bachelor’s degree in Education, I went on and received two master’s degrees, at Stanford University in Educational Administration, Curriculum and Supervision; the other at San Francisco State University, Art (Painting, Metal Arts, Sculpture/Jewelry, and Political Science; and a doctorate from Fielding Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara in Education Research. I also hold post-doctoral Fellowships/Studies from the Western Institute for Group and Family Therapy; U.C. Davis, Internal Medicine, Mini-Medical School; Medical Science and Aging. National honors include fellowship awards from the Ford, Rockefeller and Fulbright Scholar Foundations. In my free time, I am very active in Marin County serving in elected offices such as the Ross Valley Sanitary Service District Board and numerous other volunteer board positions including serving my fourth term (16 Years) elected to the Marin Community College District Board of Trustees in 1999. My current term expires in 2015. Recently was elected to Stanford Alumni Association, Marin Chapter, among many more civic/community Board of Directors, and leadershiip councils. On a personal level, the joy and love of my life was being married to Hartwig W. Ahlers, M.D., Ph.D., a soul mate for over twenty years. I have been widowed for 10 years. Together we raised his three children and now have two grand daughters. Enjoying the single life style with family and friends. Although in the past two decades, like many of you, loss of family members/friends resulting in loss/grief, followed by life changes in a compassionate and humane journey undertsanding to love deeply is to grieve deeply. Since 1963, travel and study have been extensive, to Central America, Belize; Australia; Caribbean; Mexico; Canada; both eastern and western Europe; China; Japan and the US. My interests are many including: executive coaching/life transition; mastering self-renewal and lifelong learning; financial management, including real estate and other investments; trends and politics; communications, including the psychology and motivation of people; and my continued interest in the fine arts, music and S.F. Opera. 2. I plan to continue my research work/writing on longevity, transition and renewal. Lifelong learning: how to sustain passion in your life and work are my high priorities. I am currently writing articles and two books: Book: 1 The Magical Journey of Life, “Why do people have to die?” a collection of writings. Book: 2 From Existing to Living completing all chapter titles. Professional work has been an important part of my life, having fun, creating balance in life, and relaxing are areas I monitor and wish to spend more time pursuing in the future. I love spending time with friends/family who help me laugh, play, have fun. I'm working my way through to the 10 best dive sites in the world to swim, snorkel, and free dive so I can maintain my "Snorkel Queen" title. I am actually thinking of competing for the new title of "FUN Queen." |
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Rod Luck
Then
Now
| Marital status: | Divorced |
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| Children: | 3 |
| Occupation: | VP of IT |
Comment:
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Susan MacLean (Craig)
Then
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Comment:
1. Fifty-years have certainly gone by quickly! After high school, I spent four years at the University of California, Berkeley. I met my husband, Lee, in a freshman chemistry lab. I went from Berkeley to Boston for a year of dietetic internship and then back to Berkeley for graduate school. Lee and I were married when he finished graduate school and we moved to Livermore where we raised two boys. We have been here ever since, except for a brief year and a half in the Washington, D.C. area. I worked as a chemist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, going from halftime to three quarter-time and finally full-time as the boys’ school days lengthened. We retired about eight years ago and have traveled and enjoyed our four grandchildren. Two of the grandchildren live in Livermore and two are in Redding, CA. 2. In the next fifty years I would hope for more of the same —traveling and enjoying family. Maybe I will finally get all the pictures organized! |
Steve Madden
Then
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Comment:
After OHS, I went to San Jose State to be a drama critic. In 1964, I got married and had a son. In 1967, I got divorced. I worked at the Paramount, Gerber Baby Food, and the Port of Oakland. Lately, I have been doing Old West Re-enacting. My role is “Harold the Hangman.” In the future, I plan to have good health and good friends. That would make me a very rich man. |
Jeanne Madison (Viera)
Then
Now
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Comment:
I graduated from Merritt Hospital School of Nursing, then San Jose State University with a Bachelor of Nursing. I entered the University of Minnesota receiving a Masters in Public Health. When I moved to Australia in 1991 I received my PhD from the University of New England. I was married following graduation from my nursing program and have a lovely son and daughter, a granddaughter and grandson who now live in Salinas and Felton California respectively. I worked in various California hospitals from 1971 to 1991 with the last 13 years at the executive level of hospital management. Finding myself single and both children educated and on their own, I moved to Australia to a lovely, small university town in eastern Australia to teach health management. By 1991 I had been single for 16 years and thought a little adventure was in order. The career change and the migration experience was definitely an adventure. I thought Australia was a good choice because they spoke English, oh stupid woman. I had a private pilots license and had to give that away because I could understand not one word from the tower! Considering myself a worldly and experienced person I was seriously challenged by the multiple social, cultural and scholarly changes and perspectives that I experienced in Australia. All Americans and all women should travel and/or live overseas to fully appreciate another world-view of 'Americans' and 'women.' Despite the serious adjustment, I loved my career change, enjoyed the academic environment and found myself developing skills and attributes I did not know I had. I've held a variety of positions over time, from entry-level lecturer to Head of School and am currently one of two academic staff members, serving my second elected term on the University governing body. All roles have been challenging and most rewarding. After several years at the University of New England, I decided it was time to return to the U.S. and my family. With no warning and certainly no intent, I had a completely coincidental lunch with a colleague I barely knew from across the campus and discovered my soul mate, an overnight sensation, literally. Confronted with the dilemma of my planned return to the U.S. on the one hand, and settling down with the most lovely man on earth, I chose this man and never looked back. We live in this wonderful university town with seven apricot trees, a duck pond, many gum trees, great veggie garden, on an edge of a town property with our Labrador named Angus. Yes, I'm a very lucky lady. I'd love to say that you must plan and prepare for your life goals but life does not always follow planning. Coincidence, luck, and a little risk-taking are all part of where we find ourselves in 2009 50 years post Oakland High School. 2. Rest, relax, read, travel and stay connected to the University in an adjunct, honorary capacity when the mood and need arises. |
Adrienne Mannis (Fertig)
Then
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Comment:
Four children and thirteen grandchildren are the lights of my life. I have enjoyed my different employment and volunteer jobs over the years. My husband and I travel extensively and I am a “ski bum” in my old age. Beyond family, skiing is my “passion”. No regrets—one door closes and another opens! My plans for the next 50 years are to keep skiing and enjoying our family and friends. |
K. T. aka Kwan-Tai MAO
Then
Now
| Marital status: | Married |
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| Children: | 4 |
| Occupation: | retired |
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Comment:
There is a classic Chinese idiom, which tells you to remember where you drank your first water. My first beginning in America was at OHS in April 1957 when I immigrated to the U.S. by way of Hong Kong and before that Shanghai. I was like a fish out of water. John Yen recently remarked and described me as looking like an orphan. Unbeknownst to John, I had lost my Mother to leukemia on the morning after Christmas Day 1958 of our senior year. Mother and I were inseparable and we were not even two years into our new life in America. John's characterization of me was right on. In retrospect, the process of assimilating and integrating me into the American way of life that began at OHS was just what I sorely needed. College was next. Mr. Buckham counseled me to go to UC Berkeley. But one of my aunts mentioned Cornell in upstate New York as a possibility. I had never heard of it. With a two-cent postcard and an address taken from the back pages of the Webster's Collegiate Dictionary for colleges and universities, I applied for admission. Months later, a bulky envelope arrived. In it were an acceptance invitation and a full tuition scholarship to Cornell. Somebody upstairs must had been looking after me. With Mother gone and no more ties in the Bay Area, I left for the East Coast. Less than a year into my freshman year, I realized that engineering physics, a program that I was admitted into would not be a part of my academic future. My fellow classmates were like mini-Einsteins and I was way out of my depth. Engineering education at Cornell in the 1950s had a very different bent. Cornell's idea was to produce liberally educated engineers in five instead of the traditional four years for a bachelor's degree, offering a student an additional year to pursue electives in areas other than engineering. I was allowed in my freshman year and I had signed up to take an elective in History 103-104 besides the core courses required of engineering students. I read a new book each week, which covered the western civilization from the Greeks and Romans to the present. I struggled with the heavy load in reading and writing. It was a love-hate relationship at first, as my English was well below par. In time, I grew to love the humanities and the love blossomed into a passion. I wanted a liberal arts education. In my second year, I switched out of engineering into arts and sciences. In my fourth year, another crisis of conscience loomed in the horizon. What would I do to make a living as a philosophy major with a mediocre academic record? Answers from my fraternity brothers with majors and records similar to mine elicited a typical response: "Damned if I'll know!" After much soul searching, countless of conversations with friends and teachers, I reached a decision. I saw myself with an unrelenting interest to be a generalist. But that same notion had a way with many in the microcosm I lived in, spewing a whole lot of horse manure of what a generalist would do with a liberal arts education. To be a credible generalist, I concluded that I must acquire a skill set of a specialist or at least the discipline and the hard work of a speciialist necessary to navigate as such. Executing on that decision resulted in my returning to engineering. Six years after OHS, I received two degrees from Cornell: a bachelor and a master in civil engineering. I tell this long-winded story because of what I discovered about myself had unknowingly set the stage for my career the rest of life. I pursued a path of a generalist, always with the confidence and conviction that the specialist in me would find the way to make things work. In the 50-plus years, I changed careers four times. I began my career in engineering at Woodward-Clyde. Six years later, I was given the opportunity at Woodward-Clyde to start up as the co-founder of an environmental practice. The practice grew from five to 500 professionals and it was ranked as one of the premier environmental firms in the nation. I left Woodward-Clyde after 18 years and joined Chartwell & Co, an investment-banking boutique where we worked with early stage and middle market companies in investor relations, corporate finance, IPOs, mergers and acquisitions. In early 2000s, I returned to Mainland China and built on the footprint of Hysen International, a firm that I founded much earlier to do business in China, which turned out that China's market was not ready in the early 1980s. I have been residing full time in Beijing since 2005. Hysen brokered the purchase and sale of anthracite and coke for customers in UK, France, and Belgium. We arranged the import of coal preparation plant equipment from Poland, South Africa, U.S. and Australia for Chinese state-owned enterprises. In 2008, Hysen was selected to provide comprehensive project management services for the development of a greenfield coking coal mine in western Mongolia. Four years ago [2010], I stepped down from the daily grind of managing a mining business, which gave me time to reflect. The major disconnect that I have witnessed working in China is a serious lack of real understanding between Americans and Chinese, as each go about their business in commerce and government. I am working on a book for readers in the West to don on a pair of glasses with filters to better understand the cultural core values that are driving mainland Chinese in their decision making and behavior in contemporary China. With a unique set of bi-cultural and language skills, and a deep historical understanding of China, I believe I have a one-of-a-kind quaification of someone from our high school class of 1959 generation to do this. Condensing a life's story into 1000 words or less, because of space limitation, often has to portray a story more upbeat and rosy than otherwise. My life's story has many interesting ups and plenty of downs, plus trials and tribulations. Life is a test of patience and endurance and a constant check on my own shortcomings and limitations. I was married and divorced twice. The phrase single father first entered into popular culture with the movie Kramer vs. Kramer in 1979. I thoroughly identified with Ted Kramer portrayed by Dustin Hoffman in the film because I was right in the thick of my first divorce and the raising of my two young boys in Mill Valley. Two decades later, the story repeated itself with another divorce, and another young son and a daughter. I took an 8-year pause to my career so that I could devote myself to raising my two young ones in Denver. Betsy who is wife to an old colleague of mine once remarked: " K.T. why are the women always leaving you?" It stunned me at the time, generating all kinds of guilt and feelings of inadequacy, which have long since dissipated with the passage of time. Betsy asked a very insightful question, which I have pondered long and hard but I have yet to come up with a clear, concise, and to-the-point answer. Life takes its own course. And we are always messing around in the middle of it, hoping and believing that we can have some impact on the uncertainties of the future. What I do know for sure is the love that I have for my three sons, a daughter, and their families, including four grandsons. And I am blessed to be an integral part of their lives. We are now in the back end of our life's rainbow. Enjoy it...Class of 1959! You have a standing invitation to dinner with me in Beijing and I'll be happy to be your personal guide. Besdies working on a book about cultural core values of China and its difference with the U.S., I have been busy with the Mao family genealogy. I plan to update and complete another set of writings, compiling a thousand years' of ancestral heritage to the present. Check out http://www.ktmao.net for a sketch of my profile, which was posted online less than a year ago. Contrary to the practice in the U.S., it is best to keep a very low profile when doing business in China. Until recently, there was virtually nothing on the web about my business. I decided to surface because I see a need for me to pivot to the U.S. and get to more Americans who really care and want to be engaged in China. |
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JUDY MARSH (BENEVIDES)
Then
| Marital status: | Divorced |
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| Children: | 3 |
| Occupation: | Vice Pres/Wealth Consultant |
| Comment: Married in '62; divorced in '78. Eight Grandchildren. Moved to HI in '85. Have worked for Bank of Hawaii for 23 yrs; plan to retire in 2010. | |
Judy Marshall, PhD (Becker)
Then
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Comment:
1) I earned a PhD. in Philosophy and Aesthetics from UC Berkeley. Currently I run the Advanced Placement Program for high school students seeking college credit prior to admission to a school of higher learning. I also teach two AP courses, Rhetoric & Literature and Composition, along with two freshman English and an Honors sophomore English class. I have published articles on philosophy and aesthetics and am a consultant on ethical and philosophical questions for businesses, groups and schools. Music is my avocation and as a cellist I play in string quartets, the occasional quintet and piano quartets. My daughter, Ariela, just graduated from medical school and is now doing her residency in oncology at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital. 2) I plan to keep teaching and running the Advanced Placement Program in the coming 50 years. Damn few people get paid for what they like to do, and I'm one of the few, albeit grossly underpaid. |
Stanley Mazor
Then
Now
| Marital status: | Married |
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| Children: | 2 |
| Occupation: | retired |
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Comment:
1) Married high school sweetheart Maurine, wrote 5 books, 3 patents, built a chateau, lived/taught in many countries, in 5 startup companies, (Intel's first computer chip): Inventor's Hall of Fame, Kyoto Prize, SFSU Honary Dr. of Science. Awarded by President Obama: National Medal of Science and Industry, many more. 2) Past 5 years working on playwriting. |
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