Class Note 1995
Issue
Morgan Drmaj writes: “In August 2012 I married the lovely and wonderful Cher Hawrysh (a fellow Canuck) with a number of family and friends in attendance, including Justin Wells and David Gonzales. About six months later Cher and I moved from Toronto to Los Angeles and we’re now living in the fabulous Hollywood Hills. After completing a stint helping a small Los Angeles business quadruple in size, I took a summer sabbatical. Even though I’m living in Hollywood I’ve left the entertainment business behind and am focusing on entrepreneurship and business consulting—and very psyched about it! Some of my favorite sabbatical activities? A silent meditation retreat, traveling all over the continent and attending Burning Man for the first time.” Kent Dahn hosted Henry Soo Hoo, Tony Choe, Vil Ramos and Tim Weaver and their families at his Hollywood, California, home last summer. “We had a blast swimming, BBQing and sharing old stories of our glory years.” Kent was at Walt Disney Studios in Los Angeles working in marketing and business development through 2011, then worked at Sony Pictures on a new cloud-based digital locker platform through 2012. Last year he joined Milyoni, a social video startup company. Tony is a healthcare attorney in the Washington, D.C., office of Morgan Lewis and recently moved to Potomac, Maryland with his wife, Ashley, and daughter Adrienne (4). Vil is a partner at Constitution Capital, a private equity firm focused on middle market buyouts. He lives in Marblehead, Massachusetts, with his wife, Daphne, and daughter Gabriella (3). Tim is an anthropology professor at the University of California, Davis. He lives in Davis, California with his wife, Teresa, and daughter Anna (3). Derek Pollard says hello from Atlanta, where he is a neuroradiologist. He has become an avid triathlete and in November competed in his second full Ironman at Ironman Florida. Otherwise he is busy with sports for his three kids: Forest (9), Lexi (7) and Hayes (5). Donell Thompson lives in Owings Mills, Maryland, with his wife, Elena, and their children Tessa (8) and Ellis (6). Donell teaches and directs service living at Gilman School, a small private day school for boys in Baltimore, Maryland. Bjorn Kilburn writes from Seattle: “It is the best place for raising a family with fantastic activities for kids, lots to do outdoors, fresh mountain air, snow-capped mountains. It is an amazing place.” Bjorn has recently made an exciting career move: “After a bit of self actualization and the somewhat late realization that there is no do-over in life, I decided that I needed to leave HTC to pursue a backlog of dreams I’ve been building up over the last few years. If there is one thing that I know about myself, it is that I am happiest when I am building something so I am now working from home, building prototypes of some new product concepts and hoping that one of them will be compelling enough to start a business around. At the very least I will learn something, and in the best case I’ll build something that changes people’s lives for the better. In the words of Howard Shultz and Robert Frost, here’s to moving Onward and the Road Not Taken.” Sadly, I conclude this column with news of the passing of two of our classmates: Keith Li of Hong Kong and Curtis Jones Jr. of Morgantown, West Virginia. The bells of Baker Tower toll in their memory and they both will be sorely missed. Please visit our class website for more about Keith and Curtis and to share your remembrances. —Kaja (Schuppert) Fickes, 2 Bishops Lane, Hingham, MA, 02043; kaja@alum.dartmouth.org
Jan - Feb 2014
Morgan Drmaj writes: “In August 2012 I married the lovely and wonderful Cher Hawrysh (a fellow Canuck) with a number of family and friends in attendance, including Justin Wells and David Gonzales. About six months later Cher and I moved from Toronto to Los Angeles and we’re now living in the fabulous Hollywood Hills. After completing a stint helping a small Los Angeles business quadruple in size, I took a summer sabbatical. Even though I’m living in Hollywood I’ve left the entertainment business behind and am focusing on entrepreneurship and business consulting—and very psyched about it! Some of my favorite sabbatical activities? A silent meditation retreat, traveling all over the continent and attending Burning Man for the first time.” Kent Dahn hosted Henry Soo Hoo, Tony Choe, Vil Ramos and Tim Weaver and their families at his Hollywood, California, home last summer. “We had a blast swimming, BBQing and sharing old stories of our glory years.” Kent was at Walt Disney Studios in Los Angeles working in marketing and business development through 2011, then worked at Sony Pictures on a new cloud-based digital locker platform through 2012. Last year he joined Milyoni, a social video startup company. Tony is a healthcare attorney in the Washington, D.C., office of Morgan Lewis and recently moved to Potomac, Maryland with his wife, Ashley, and daughter Adrienne (4). Vil is a partner at Constitution Capital, a private equity firm focused on middle market buyouts. He lives in Marblehead, Massachusetts, with his wife, Daphne, and daughter Gabriella (3). Tim is an anthropology professor at the University of California, Davis. He lives in Davis, California with his wife, Teresa, and daughter Anna (3). Derek Pollard says hello from Atlanta, where he is a neuroradiologist. He has become an avid triathlete and in November competed in his second full Ironman at Ironman Florida. Otherwise he is busy with sports for his three kids: Forest (9), Lexi (7) and Hayes (5). Donell Thompson lives in Owings Mills, Maryland, with his wife, Elena, and their children Tessa (8) and Ellis (6). Donell teaches and directs service living at Gilman School, a small private day school for boys in Baltimore, Maryland. Bjorn Kilburn writes from Seattle: “It is the best place for raising a family with fantastic activities for kids, lots to do outdoors, fresh mountain air, snow-capped mountains. It is an amazing place.” Bjorn has recently made an exciting career move: “After a bit of self actualization and the somewhat late realization that there is no do-over in life, I decided that I needed to leave HTC to pursue a backlog of dreams I’ve been building up over the last few years. If there is one thing that I know about myself, it is that I am happiest when I am building something so I am now working from home, building prototypes of some new product concepts and hoping that one of them will be compelling enough to start a business around. At the very least I will learn something, and in the best case I’ll build something that changes people’s lives for the better. In the words of Howard Shultz and Robert Frost, here’s to moving Onward and the Road Not Taken.” Sadly, I conclude this column with news of the passing of two of our classmates: Keith Li of Hong Kong and Curtis Jones Jr. of Morgantown, West Virginia. The bells of Baker Tower toll in their memory and they both will be sorely missed. Please visit our class website for more about Keith and Curtis and to share your remembrances. —Kaja (Schuppert) Fickes, 2 Bishops Lane, Hingham, MA, 02043; kaja@alum.dartmouth.org