Class Notes

Irving Goldstein succumbed to COVID-19 in May, after a short illness. “I can see from his papers that he supported and valued his WPI education,” writes his daughter, Leslie. In his 41-year career with Raytheon Co., he designed everything from microwave equipment to missiles—including the Sparrow, Hawk, and Patriot missile systems—and emerging technologies such as infrared sensors, lasers, and aerospace technology for NASA. Irving retired from Raytheon in 1988. His pursuits ranged from antique clock repair to sculpture. He also enjoyed sharing his knowledge of art as a docent at the Worcester Art Museum.

Edward Olson’s wife, Margaret, shares the news of his passing in July 2020. After graduation he served as an instructor at WPI for a year before being drafted for U.S. Army service at the White Sands Proving Ground in New Mexico. He received a PhD in astronomy from Indiana University in 1961, and taught at Smith College, RPI, and then the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign from 1966 until his retirement in 1994. In addition to Margaret, he leaves two sons, seven grandchildren, three step-grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.

Walter Lueft’s daughter, Diane Shingledecker, shares the news of his passing on July 1, 2020.

Donald Lathrop wrote a commentary for his local paper, the Pittsfield, Mass., Berkshire Eagle, on the topic of prejudice, which he points out, is not innate at birth. Relating his own experiences with the Never Again campaign, which brought speakers from Japan to the U.S. and Canada to share stories of A-Bomb survivors in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and with the Berkshire chapter of the NAACP, he opines, “If it can be taught and learned, then it can be unlearned.” A portion of Don’s story appeared as a Letter to the Editor in the Fall 2020 issue of the WPI Journal.

Mike Mullo’s wife, Betsy, writes to tell us that he is giving to the Class of 1958 Scholarship Fund. “He is so very proud of WPI,” she writes, “and appreciates the fact that he, too, received a scholarship, which resulted in his many lifelong successes. While he has retired from business and no longer can indulge in his hobbies of worldwide travels and marathon running, he is still enjoying WPI friendships. Mike sends his best to the Class of 1958.”

Anan Panananda passed away peacefully in August 2020, Charn Panananda informs us, adding, “He always said to me that WPI was his favorite during his undergraduate life.”

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Richard Healing writes, “After serving as director, Safety and Survivability, Department of the Navy, and a presidential appointment as board member, National Transportation Safety Board, I was appointed commissioner, National Commission on Military Aviation Safety (NCMAS) in 2018, where I serve as vice chairman. The NCMAS is charged with determining the causes and underlying issues related to an increase in military aviation non-combat crashes since 2012 and will report its findings to the Congress and the White House on 1 December 2020.”

John Gilbert shares this capsule of his life: “Two weeks after graduation from high school, I enlisted in the USAF. I was sent to Syracuse University to study Russian language and some history and culture. From Syracuse I went to Japan for two years to listen to the Russian Air Force radio in the Far East. From there I went to WPI to study mechanical engineering with the Class of ’66. I then worked for Pratt & Whitney in Connecticut. Late in my career at P&W, I was asked to start a group to dig into the business of counterfeit manufacture of spare parts being sold as Pratt & Whitney parts. It brought me into cooperative actions with inspectors general, FBI agents, Customs, and other US agencies, as well as folks from similar operations around the globe. It also brought me to court trials to testify about their processes as well as to talk about what these parts did in the engine, plus some comments about what would occur if these counterfeit parts failed. All very interesting for a guy who left the farm, graduated from a country high school, and didn’t know what was next.”

Cary Palulis enjoyed a summer outing with classmates Bob Pleines, Dave Hopkinson, and John Foley, which included a boat trip and dinner. The four have been Phi Kappa Theta brothers since 1964. “Perfect day all around,” Cary says.

Bob Anschutz notes the 50th anniversary of the Class’s graduation. “Based on a recent email, classes ending in 1 or 6 will celebrate in 2021. I assume this means that the Class of 1970 missed its chance due to COVID. Maybe we can do it in 2030. (Of course, there may be a reduction in attendance with a nominal age of 80.)

News of the passing of David Farr (MS CE) in September 2020 was shared by his son, Stephen Farr ’88.

James Kaufman is now president emeritus at the Laboratory Safety Institute (LSI) in Natick, Mass. He is the founder of the nonprofit educational organization for safety in science, industry, and education. He tells us that over the past 45 years, LSI has educated more than 100,000 scientists and science educators in 30 countries and 130 different types of labs, and that over six million free copies of LSI’s publication “Laboratory Safety Guidelines” in 21 languages have been given away. “As part of stepping down as president, I have reduced my work hours from 65 to 40 per week!” he adds. With Barbara, his wife of 43 years, Jim established a national award with LSI and the American Chemical Society Division of Chemical Health and Safety for the Principal Investigator with the best lab safety program in her/his research group.

Robert Trotter writes “I finally retired and moved from Michigan to the Asheville, N.C., area after working 45 years as a fuel injector engineer for American Bosch, Ford, Stanadyne, and then on a urea injector for Tenneco. My job included not only design & development but also application, supplier development, quality, and manufacturing tasks. I interacted with and traveled to many major global engine manufacturers and component suppliers. I also became a lifetime member of the Society of Automotive Engineers. Still doing some consulting, but catching up on many incomplete projects and spending a lot of time enjoying the scenery and climate of my new location—along with hiking, and driving my sports car to events in NC and surrounding states. My wife and I love to travel, and we have much to do on our bucket list.”

George Goff writes, “I recently retired after 41 years in the Defense Department; the last 32 on the Naval Base in Newport, R.I. I worked at several Commands on the Base, including the Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NFEC), as a small projects manager. I live in North Kingstown with my wife. We have two daughters and three grandsons.”

Paula Curry was named to the 2021 list of Best lawyers in America. She is a partner in the real estate department of Sherin and Lodgen, based in Boston.

Genworth Financial appointed Brian Haendiges as executive vice president and chief risk officer. He was previously president and owner of HAE Consulting. Prior to that, he spent nine years at MassMutual, rising to the role of senior vice president of U.S. pricing and product management.

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Scott Burton joined Hunt Energy in Dallas as the new chief executive officer of its solar technology company, Hunt Perovskite Technologies. He previously served as CEO of Reel Solar, CEO of Parity Solar, COO of Solibro GmbH, and headed up technology acquisitions for Hanergy Group. His work in solar panel manufacturing includes development, financing, and construction of over 100 photovoltaic projects in China, USA, Germany and Italy. “The development of solar perovskite technology is really the only area of photovoltaics that is truly exciting right now, and HPT is leading the way,” he stated in a company press release.

Cynthia Kosciuczyk writes regularly for Bizcatalyst360, an online life, culture, and biz new media digest. Her recent columns have focused on how the COVID pandemic has changed our relationship to technology, looking at positive developments such as advances in telecare and the expansion of telecommuting. She adds, “I also write poetry and have one in the 2019 San Diego Poetry Annual.”

Mitra Morgan shares the sad news of the death of her cousin Mercedeh Mirkazemi Ward in July 2020, from cancer. Mercedeh leaves her husband, Bruce, and their children, Kyle and Ari. WPI highlighted her unique career in the toy industry developing toy lines for girls in Transformations (now WPI Journal) in 2009.

Patrick Boyle holds the post of vice president of sales and channel development at Andros (formerly CredSimple), helping healthcare organizations build and manage provider data networks.

Marie Hutchinson is a senior manager at Collins Aerospace. She and her husband and two daughters reside in Granby, Conn. “I get together with my Phi Sigma Sigma sisters frequently,” she writes.

John Lombardi set up a laboratory in his Tahoe home garage and developed a candidate sprayable waterborne COVID adsorbent face mask coating. He says, “Over a thousand DIY fabric masks have since been treated with the coating I donated to Northern Nevada communities. A significant number of coated masks have since been worn for over a month by medical staff at Renown Hospital in Reno, without incident. One of the hospital medical directors acknowledged my efforts, and a proposal to NSF has since been submitted to further characterize this material.” John is CEO of Ventana Research Corp., based in Tucson, Ariz.

Erik Ellis is vice president at BrightNight, in Phoenix, Ariz. His expertise includes technology assessment and valuation of energy storage, electric vehicles, diesel gensets, fuel cells, and solar applications, as well as strategic planning for wind-solar power project development.

Tim St. Germain (’93 MS Environmental Engineering) was promoted to environmental and facility services business line leader at Fuss & O’Neill in Manchester, Conn. As a senior vice president and shareholder of the company, Tim oversees the Compliance, Industrial Plant, Facility, and Remediation Practices, serving clients in site development in the industrial, manufacturing, municipal, and educational sectors. With his more than 26 years of experience, he has overseen major brownfields investigation, cleanup, and repurposing projects. His expertise includes environmental compliance, industrial wastewater treatment systems design, and improvements to community water supply systems.

Robert Vary is senior vice president of sales and relationship management at Duke Energy in Charlotte, N.C.

Venkatesh Gopalakrishnan joined Motorola Solutions as director of product management.

Jason Anderson is chief technology officer at BioCentric in Kansas City, Mo.

Jeff Mullen joined Dalton Electric Heating Company as a technical services manager. Located in Ipswich, Mass., Dalton is a worldwide manufacturer of industrial heaters for use in aerospace, automotive, composites, and plastics industries. “In this role am responsible for managing innovation in support of sales and market growth while maintaining focus on manufacturing process improvement and overall quality,” he writes. Prior to that, Jeff spent 20 years as a manufacturing engineer in the medical device industry at Boston Scientific, Dentsply Sirona, and Repligen, specializing in lean manufacturing projects.

Lisa Cigal Schletzbaum was recently promoted to assistant state traffic engineer at the MassDOT. She worked her first 12 years with two private transportation engineering consultants, and the past 13 in the MassDOT Headquarters office in Boston. She reports that during the COVID-19 pandemic months she has been working from home with her husband, Roy (’95), and their two high school–age sons.

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Ernest Ansah serves as senior director of quality at Emulate Inc.

Felix Diaz holds the post of procurement director at Ferrero.

Richard Heidebrecht is vice president of research and development at Glycologix, an emerging glycobiologics company developing novel biomimetic proteoglycan materials with the potential to provide therapeutic solutions to the repair of dermis, cartilage, and other connective tissues damaged by disease and aging. Before that, he was a visiting scholar at Harvard School of Public Health.

Bruce Cox is a senior operations research analyst at The Perduco Group.

Anuja Gokhale (’05 MBA) serves as Director of Engineering at Eze Software, a business unit of SS&C Technologies, where she oversees the creation of investment management software.

Bernard Gagnon has joined Clinton Savings Bank as senior vice president/commercial relationship manager of the commercial lending team. He was previously with Country Bank as first vice president and east region team leader, commercial lending division. A board member and chair of the finance committee for WICN Public Radio in Worcester, he resides in Auburn with his wife and daughter.

Raj Basu (MS PH, ‘10 PhD PH) is a professor of physics at the U.S. Naval Academy. His research areas include interactions between soft matter and nanomaterials, and various phenomena in liquid crystals. His resume lists many awards and diverse research grants. In 2020 he was selected as one of the “Early Career Stars of the Decade” in the research area of Liquid Crystal Science and Technology, with work published in the research journal Crystal.

Allison Smyth won the 2019 Stock Eliminator World Championship in the NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series, making history as the first-ever female Stock Eliminator Champion. Her husband, Doug, is a former NHRA World Champion. Together they became the first husband and wife NHRA champions.

Janelle Drake writes, “I’ve been working on a project at Setra Systems to help schools and businesses provide clean isolation rooms in the continuing COVID environment. It’s great being able to help the community in positive ways. You can learn more in Setra’s LinkedIn posts.”

Linnea Paton joined ConEdison, NYC’s largest utility, as a specialist in its Energy Efficiency and Demand Management Strategy and Planning department. She looks forward to connecting with alumni on working on sustainability and energy efficiency solutions.

Jon Anderson is a senior systems integration engineer for the Vehicle Hardware Platform at Toyota Research Institute. He’s also founder of Aeroquatic, a mechanical design consulting firm. Check out his underwater photography at jonandersonphoto.com.

Victoria Brown is a senior product manager at Körber Supply Chain.

From Tewksbury, Mass., Samantha Kuhlwein (’14 MS Physics) writes, “Hello, class! Mark and I have been back in Mass. now for almost two years and are excited to be close to so many fellow alums. I hope everyone is staying safe during the pandemic, and can’t wait to be able to return to in-person alumni events in the future. Stay well and hope to see everyone again soon!”

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Evan Doyle is Senior Customer Solutions Manager at Amazon Web Services (AWS) in Exeter, N.H.

Brianna Acheampong (MS) is now Project Engineer II at POWER Engineers. Her expertise includes leading and managing electric distribution system and design projects, ensuring compliance with NEC and NESC code, power quality analysis, fault current analysis, and distributed energy resource analysis for the utility industry.

Jinqiang Ning is now a Reliability Engineer at Apple. With a PhD in mechanical engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology, he has a strong research background in analytical modeling of precision machining and metal additive manufacturing.

Linh Hoang is now a software engineer at NVIDIA. He received a master’s degree in computer science from Georgia Institute of Technology in 2020.

Tianyi Xu works for Apple as a silicon validation hardware engineer.

Holly Nguyen shares this update. “In May 2019, after five years at WPI and armed with a BS and MS in Computer Science, I embarked on the journey to find my first full-time job. I knew I wanted to find a company that would allow me to use and develop my technical skills while also contributing to an industry that truly makes people’s lives better. While there were other opportunities, Olympus provided the perfect platform to combine these passions. Beginning as a software engineer, I focused on exploring innovative, AI-enabled solutions for the Surgical Integration business. I was motivated by the idea that these solutions had the potential to make a positive impact in improving workflow efficiency, reducing clinician frustration, and enabling a more automatic process to capture medical videos, images, and data. Surrounded by a hard-working, values-centric community, I am excited to play a role in a company that makes significant, daily contributions to the medical industry. As I move forward in my career, I hope to be a role model for aspiring computer scientists or software engineers. We may not all fit the mold at first glance, but perseverance, a willingness to learn, and a dedication to making people’s lives better will inevitably provide value in evolving STEM fields.”

Ayushka Shrestha is now Program Quality lead at Raytheon in Tewksbury, Mass.

Ryan Breuer writes, “Over the course of D-Term 2020, as well as the month of May, I volunteered with the Worcester Face Shield Project, a collaborative effort between multiple makerspaces and artisan groups in Worcester, including Technocopia, Worcester Center for Crafts, and New Street Glassworks. The aim was to manufacture and donate free PPE for frontline medical personnel in Worcester and surrounding areas. We manufactured two types of face shields: one with 3D printed frames and acrylic transparency shields, the other with thermoformed polycarbonate shields and foam elastic bands.” The group’s work was featured on Boston 25 News and in the Worcester Telegram & Gazette. More info can be found at technocopia.org. Ryan is employed as a project engineer at G&F Precision Molding in Fiskdale, Mass.

Win Priem, dedicated supporter of the university, passed away August 7, 2020. A Worcester native, he had a long and distinguished career in executive recruiting at the world’s largest executive placement firm, Korn Ferry. He went on to hold several key leadership positions, including president of the North American Region, chief operating officer, and president and chief executive officer. He retired from the firm as vice chairman in December 2003, when it had grown to 2,200 employees at 40 locations in 17 countries.

While achieving professional success, Priem never forgot his alma mater, where he earned his B.S. in mechanical engineering and was a member of Phi Gamma Delta Fraternity, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and the Sailing Club. In 1991, he was elected to the WPI Board of Trustees. He gave generously of his time and talent to help guide his alma mater at the highest level until 2009, when he became trustee emeritus.

He also gave generously to inspire WPI’s youngest alumni to adopt the habit of giving back to their alma mater. He focused his efforts on WPI’s Senior Class Gift, a tradition that dates back to 1910 and that has given the university campus and community scholarships and program support, created by fundraising from each graduating class.

In 2019 the Priems made their challenge permanent by establishing the Susan S. and Windle B. Priem ’59 Endowment. To achieve the matching funds, the graduating class needed to reach 40 percent participation and raise $15,000. This generous gift and the inspiration it provides to students and young alumni, is a profound legacy Priem has created at WPI. The WPI Alumni Association awarded him the 1989 Robert H. Goddard Award for Outstanding Professional Achievement and the 2009 Herbert F. Taylor Award for Distinguished Service to the university.

G. Albert Anderson ’51 ME, ALPHA TAU OMEGA, Winchendon, Mass.

Andrew Andersen ’51 EE, PHI KAPPA THETA, Media, Penn.

Irving Orrell ’51 EE, ‘58 MS EE, SIGMA ALPHA EPSILON, Whitinsville, Mass.

Paul Snyder ’53 CHE, SIGMA ALPHA EPSILON, Allentown, Penn.

F. Farnsworth ’59 CHE, ‘61 MS CHE, SIGMA PHI EPSILON, San Antonio, Texas

Walter Gasek ’59 ME, PHI KAPPA THETA, Northborough, Mass.

Franklin Salek ’59 CE, PHI KAPPA THETA, Egg Harbor City, N.J.

William Cannon ’60 CHE, PHI GAMMA DELTA. Stowe, Vt.

Robert Kasprow ’60 ME, PHI KAPPA THETA, Wethersfield, Conn.

Anan Panananda ’60 CE, Bangkok

Louis Rossi ’61 CH, ’63 MS CH, LAMBDA CHI ALPHA, Hardwick, N.J.

Robert Plum ’66 CE, ALPHA EPSILON PI, Bellevue, Wash.

David Farr ’68 MS CE, Brooksville, Fla.

Martyn Strong ’71 EE, North Chelmsford, Mass.

James Briggs ’74 CE, Westville, N.J.

Thomas Bower ’75 CE, TAU KAPPA EPSILON, Ellicott City, Md.

Thomas McLaughlin ’79 MNS, Plantsville, Conn.

Paul Zeolla ’79 MNS, Dedham, Mass.

John Thomas ’88 MS MG, Medfield, Mass.

John Roach ’02 EE, Spring, Texas

Bryan Ferguson ’09 ECE, Charlton, Mass.

Wallace Krumpholz ’13 MS SE, Walpole, Mass.

The WPI community also notes the passing of these friends of the university: Norman Brust and Patrick Morrison. Tom Newman ’64, former Alumni Association treasurer and co-chair of the Alden Society with his wife, Bonnie, passed away while this issue of the WPI Journal was being put together. An extended obituary of Tom will appear in the next issue. Complete obituaries can usually be found online by searching legacy.com or newspaper websites. WPI Journal will assist classmates in locating additional information. Contact wpijournal@wpi.edu.