Alumni Connections
Alumni News and Life Events | Marriages, births, and deaths information
1960-69 | 1970-79 | 1980-89 | 1990-99 | 2000-09
1960–69
Lon Fendall (G64) retired in January as director of the George Fox University Center for Peace and Justice and the Center for Global Studies. He and his wife, Raelene (Barnes) (G64), will be raising three of their grandchildren in Newberg. (See related story in Bruin Notes.)
Ron (G65, MDiv75) and Carolyn (G66) Stansell in December retired from their duties at George Fox. He served as professor of religion with a missions emphasis for 25 years, and she worked in Student Financial Services for seven years. She and Ron led students in GFU’s South American Studies program for the last five years. Before joining George Fox in 1985, they had been missionaries in Bolivia with the Northwest Yearly Meeting of Friends Church.
Dee (Reeves) Bright (G67) will be featured in an interview on the nationally televised “Lifestyle Magazine” program on the Trinity Broadcasting Network this year. She discusses her book The Divine Romance — Going to God with the Longings Only He Can Fulfill, published by Revell. A resident of Granite Bay, Calif., Bright has had her own consulting company for more than 20 years and speaks nationally at conferences, retreats and special functions, primarily women’s groups.
1970–79
Gary Macy (G70, MA81) is an instructor at the ROK Air Force Academy in South Korea. The retired United States Air Force chaplain is a member of the department of foreign languages at the academy in Cheongwon-Gun, Chungbuk.
Paul Koch (G79), professor of economics at Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais, Ill., presented a paper, “Animal Spirits in the 21st Century: The Role of Global Asset Bubbles in the Current Financial Crisis,” at the 25th anniversary conference of the Association of Christian Economists, held at Baylor University in April.
1980–89
Brett Barbre (G85), principal of Barbre & Associates, a Yorba Linda, Calif., public affairs company specializing in lobbying, campaigns, media and public relations, has been named to the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California Board of Directors. He was appointed by the Municipal Water District of Orange County, the management and planning agency ensuring water to nearly 2.3 million Orange County residents through 28 city and water agencies. Barbre, a resident of Yorba Linda since 1969, has been active in efforts to build an ocean desalination plant in Dana Point, Calif.
Matt Simonis (G85) in October received a master’s degree in administration, marketing and strategy from Western Governors University. He lives on Camano Island, Wash., and is production manager for DeLaval Manufacturing in Mount Vernon, Wash.
1990–99
Eric Hlad (G90) has been promoted to commander, leading the enforcement division of the Marion County, Oregon, Sheriff’s Department. He joined the department in 1996, most recently working in the judicial security unit after being hired initially as a patrol deputy. He also has worked with the SWAT team and as a survival-skills instructor.
Robert Bonner (MAT93, EdD06) has joined the George Fox faculty as assistant professor of education. He had been an adjunct instructor in the graduate programs of the university’s School of Education and School of Business since 2002. He has 16 years of public school teaching, the last 10 in Forest Grove, Ore.
Rolf Potts (G93) is receiving national and international awards for his newest book, Marco Polo Didn’t Go There. In November in Genoa, Italy, he received the 2009 Chatwin Prize for travel literature at the Premio Chatwin Festival. He was the first American author to receive the prize. In the United States, the book won a Lowell Thomas Award from the Society of American Travel Writers. It was his first Lowell Thomas award for a book but his fifth award from the society. “Rolf Potts’ style is personal and the narrative quality high,” judges wrote. “It’s not for the typical tourist, but rather, for readers seeking adventurous experiences.” Potts, whose home base is in Kansas, donated his prize winnings to the George Fox Alumni Association.
Dina (Kauffman) DeYoung (G95) has established an online tutoring business, Apples of Gold Online Tutoring. Living in Portland, she works with students in first through eighth grades and ESL students of all ages.
Nathan Sundgren (G96) is a physician with the Division of Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas.
Jeffery Atkisson (G98) in December did the theatrical lighting at one of the premier venues in the world: Royal Albert Hall in London. He completely pre-programmed before arriving, his first attempt to virtually program on a monitor. The experience was with the group Sing Live, and he also toured with Kari Jobe and Al Denson on their Christmas tour. He also serves as lighting designer over three venues of the First Baptist Church in Orlando, Fla.
Barbara (Smith) Holmes (G98, MAT05) and Michael Holmes (MAT05) have established a business, Paul & Sabrina’s EV Stuff!, where they design high-powered motor controllers for electric vehicles. He also is adjunct math instructor at South Puget Sound Community College. They live in Olympia, Wash., and are members of Evangelical Environmental Network, a branch of Evangelicals for Social Action.
Joanie Schmidt (G99) is in a clinical pastoral education chaplain residency at Johnson City Medical Center in Tennessee. This follows receipt of a master of divinity degree in Christian care and counseling from Emmanuel School of Religion in Johnson City, Tenn.
2000–09
Norma (Krettler) Alley (G00) was installed as Region Two director for the Oregon Association of Municipal Recorders at its convention in Eugene, Ore., in September. She represents Clackamas, Multnomah, Washington and Yamhill counties. She is Newberg’s city recorder.
Marcia Mattoso (MA00) is executive director of Hope Station in Salem, Ore., a nonprofit organization helping 35 families with food, clothing, eye exams, haircuts, counseling and other services. It was founded last year by Salem First Church of the Nazarene and now has other churches and 10 area businesses involved.
John O’Connor (SPS00) is instructional systems specialist with the U.S. Air Force, at Goodfellow Air Force Base in San Angelo, Texas. This is part of the air education and training command with the main mission of cryptologic and intelligence training. He teaches airmen, soldiers, sailors, Marines and civilians how to be instructors and also edits and creates new curriculum. Last August, he received a master’s degree in instructional and performance technology from Boise State University.
Nicholas Willis (G00) has returned to his alma mater as associate professor of mathematics. He was named Outstanding Mathematics Student the year he graduated. For the last four years, he was assistant professor of mathematics at Whitworth University, Spokane, Wash. After attending George Fox, he earned both a master’s degree (2003) and doctorate (2005) in mathematics from Texas Tech University.
Shelley Yonemura (G00) has been named director of multicultural student programs at George Fox following 12 months in an interim position.
Eleasah Gerdes (G01) is editor of Travel on a Shoestring, a monthly Newberg-based publication. Previously she worked with North Willamette Valley Habitat for Humanity publishing its newsletter, and for the last year was with Kroll Government Services as an investigative analyst.
Carson Kutsch (G01) is a dentist in private practice in Albany, Ore. He received his dental degree in 2005 from Marquette Dental School, Milwaukee, Wis.
Paul Gramenz (G02) is an emergency physician with Salem Emergency Physician Services at Salem Hospital. He and his wife, Jane (Seale) Gramenz (G99, MAT01), moved from Minnesota where he finished his final year of emergency medicine residency at Hennepin County Medical Center, Minneapolis.
Trinity Kay (G02) has been commissioned by ReachGlobal, the missionary arm of the Evangelical Free Church of America, to serve as a long-term missionary/church planter in Rome. She has completed pre-field training and is living in Mount Hermon, Calif., while raising support funds to begin the mission.
Matt McKenzie (G02, MBA07) is president of CUI Inc., a company that designs, manufactures and markets electro-mechanical components for manufacturers. He was profiled in the Jan. 1, 2010 issue of Portland Business Journal, sharing insights on what constitutes a successful business venture. The company has 50 employees in Tualatin, Ore., and sites also in China, Japan and Sweden.
Demetri Tsohantaridis (G02) has opened his own law office in Newberg, covering areas such as family law, estate planning and business. Previously, for two years, he was with the law firm Gunn Cain & Kinney LLP in Newberg.
Gayle Denham (SPS03, MEd07), and her husband Matt Denham (G06) after six years of planning, left Jan. 20 for Rwanda for two years as missionaries with Evangelical Friends Mission. The Northwest Yearly Meeting of Friends representatives will be teaching English to schoolteachers.
Olga Ceballos (G04) had a collection of 16 paintings on display in October at the Canby, Ore., Public Library. She paints with oils and acrylics and describes her paintings as “a celebration of life.”
Brenda Morton (MA03), who completed George Fox’s initial administrative licensure program in 2007, is now an assistant professor of education at George Fox. For the previous two years she was an English teacher and publications advisor at Sherwood High School.
Demetria (Medina) Edwards (G04) received a master of arts in organizational leadership from Regent University in August, and joined the staff of AOET-USA (AIDS Orphan Education Trust) as operations manager in November. Based in Portland, the nonprofit organization is dedicated to supporting AIDS orphans and widows in Uganda.
Jeremey Fleischer (G05) has joined Rockfish Interactive in Rogers, Ark., as an interactive designer, conceptualizing and designing websites and motion graphics for national clients such as Walmart, Listerine and Tyson Foods. The digital marketing agency, which has 70 employees, won Advertising Age magazine’s 2009 national small agency of the year award. He moved from Jacksonville, Ore., where he was with Snapshot Group as art director after freelance work with his own business, JeremeyDesign.
Dwight Friesen (DMin05) authored Thy Kingdom Connected: What the Church Can Learn from Facebook, the Internet and Other Networks, published by Baker Books. He teaches practical theology at Mars Hill Graduate School in Seattle.
Elisabeth (Mehl) Greene (G05) had her composition “Tango” for string quartet performed by the Kronos Quartet in November at the University of Maryland, College Park, where she is pursuing a doctor of music degree.
Patrick McLaughlin (MBA05) has been hired as a sales producer for Wells Fargo Insurance Services NW, Spokane, Wash., in the company’s commercial department. Previously he worked for Pfizer.
Amanda Potter (G05) graduated in January from Dominican University (River Forest, Ill.) with a master’s degree in social work and is studying to be a therapeutic doula (professional birth support) in Seattle.
Gracie (Morell) Safford (G05) is event facilitator for Rock Creek Gardens, in Puyallup, Wash. Her parents created the business, which opened in 2008 as a venue for weddings and other events.
Jeff Barram (G06, MBA08) and Aaron Schmick (G06) have co-founded Spirelike Interactive, a Web, print and marketing strategy agency in Vancouver, Wash. Barram’s specialty is Web development and design, backend coding and marketing management. Schmick concentrates in Web and print design and layout, Web/flash design and marketing strategy.
Mark Campbell (MAT06) is assistant men’s basketball coach at St. Mary’s College, Moraga, Calif. He joined the West Coast Conference Gaels in 2008 as director of operations and then was promoted to assistant this season. He instructs players (particularly guards), recruits and scouts. Previously, he spent one year as an assistant at Pepperdine University after two years as an assistant at Clackamas Community College.
Rick Chromey (DMin07) has released his fourth book, Thriving Youth Ministry in the Smaller Church, through Group/Simply Youth Ministry. He has contracted with Living Word Literary Agency for further releases in the next two years. He is an online/adjunct professor in youth and family ministry for about a dozen colleges and universities and is a motivational speaker, trainer and consultant for churches, schools and businesses.
Sam Craven (G07) has joined the Sandy, Ore., Police Department as a police officer.
Zoriana (Camp) Edwards (SPS07) is women’s community coordinator for the Home For Good Program in Marion County, Ore., through the Oregon Department of Corrections. The program focuses on faith-based reentry. She advocates for women and connects them to various organizations and resources in the county.
Robin Taylor (G07) and her brother, Simon, in October opened Urban Hero, a used-clothing store geared toward teenagers and college students, in Bend, Ore.
Matt Nofziger (G08) is in Suriname, South America with the U.S. Peace Corps. He has a 27-month commitment that began in May 2009. He lives in a village of about 100 on the Suriname River, about 71/2 hours from the capital of Paramaribo. He works with villagers setting up agribusiness, helping establish a food market, a chicken project, and supporting water and latrine projects. He also is teaching English and is working to build a school in the village.
Brian Rurik (G08) received a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Oregon State University in December 2009 and in January began as a design engineer with ESCO Corporation, Portland.
Katelyn Wythe (G08) is a member of the first class of the new daytime program of the Portland Actors Conservatory, which last year earned accreditation by the National Association of Schools of Theatre. The two-year theater training program accepts about half those who apply.
Abby Burgess (G09) is an administrative assistant in the Office of Student Life at George Fox, where she was resident assistant and area coordinator as a student.
Jaclyn Cascio (G09) has enlisted in the U.S. Army and began basic combat training in November at Fort Jackson, S.C. From there, she will be in training to be a combat medic.
Aaron (G09) and Kathryn (Hite) (G09) Dort live in Newberg, where he is a groundskeeper at George Fox and she is a nanny in Newberg.
Shanna (Lesire) Rogness (G09) is a registered nurse at Silverton, Ore., Hospital Family Birth Center.
Kelsey Schmidt (G09) is a certified nursing assistant in the Charles Beals Health Center at Friendsview Retirement Community, Newberg. She interned while completing college and until November interned under the director of clinical services while working toward a nursing home administrator’s license.
Corina Warner (G09) is admission coordinator for North Clackamas Christian School in Oregon City, Ore.
2010 Honored Alumni
Verne Martin (BA ’54)
Heritage Award
Verne Martin has dedicated his life to educating young people. He spent 37 years as a junior high school teacher, coach and athletic director in the Sherwood (1955–65) and Tigard-Tualatin (1965–91) school districts. He was named the Tigard district’s top teacher in 1971 and earned Oregon Teacher of the Year honors the following year. More recently, he taught at the Southwest Indian School in the mid-1990s and joined George Fox University’s School of Education in 2007 to serve as an adjunct supervisor for student teachers in the master of arts in teaching program. Martin has also volunteered his time and talents to numerous church, community and missions organizations, including Sherwood Community Friends Church, Twin Rocks Friends Camp and Conference Center, Union Gospel Mission and the Northwest Yearly Meeting of Friends. His service to Twin Rocks – on which he served on the board of directors for more than 30 years – spans 60 years, and his membership at Sherwood Friends began in 1955.
Dan Nolta (’63 BA)
Outstanding Alumnus Award
Dan Nolta sees himself as a minister wherever he goes – whether that be as the trainer of chaplains all over the world or as the leader of a home Bible study for nearly 40 years. After serving as a pastor at three Friends churches from 1963 to 1984, Nolta spent 20 years as the full-time chaplain coordinator for the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department in Washington. As a chaplain he responded to thousands of crises, and as a volunteer with the American Red Cross he traveled to New York City after the 9/11 disaster. In 2001 he founded a chaplain’s training academy, at which he has trained more than 150 police and fire chaplains to serve in the Northwest. He’s also taken his faith and experience around the world, consulting with and/or training chaplains in South Africa, England, Kenya, Guatemala, the Philippines, Estonia, New Zealand, Burundi, Latvia, Jamaica and Canada. He has served as the interim executive director for the Tacoma-Pierce County Chaplaincy and as the president of the International Conference of Police Chaplains, on which he currently serves as an international liaison.
Courtney (Heck) Rodriguez (BS ’03)
Outstanding Recent Alumna
Courtney Rodriguez is putting her social work degree into practice in Guatemala, where she worked for several years with the Kids Alive International organization. Kids Alive’s primary objective is to rescue at-risk children and provide them with holistic care through homes, care centers and schools. In 2005, the organization gave Rodriguez the go-ahead to develop an independence program that teaches young women important life skills such as budgeting, driving, job maintenance, relationships, sewing and cooking. She has since helped establish two Independent Houses, at which young people are trained in an effort to break the cycle of poverty so prevalent in the country. Her success in Guatemala opened the door for Rodriguez to help missionaries from the Dominican Republic and Lebanon establish the independence program in their countries. She also has taught English at the care center associated with her church, and she and her husband, Tono, assisted in organizing the Luis Palau Festival that visited Guatemala in 2009.
Steve Cadd (BA ’76)
Christian Service Award
Steve Cadd is using the music and drama training he received at George Fox to spread the gospel in the Philippines, the country in which he was raised by missionary parents. In 1995, he began Sword Productions, an evangelistic film and television production company for which he continues to serve as president. The ministry produces movies that share Christ’s love in a way that resonates with specific people groups in their own language. He has produced eight full-length feature films, music videos, television shows and other presentations – all with Christian messages relevant to the culture. He helped make the first evangelistic movie in Tagalog, the national language of the Philippines, and in 2003 made the first Christian movie in Mongolia – a move that led to the formation of production companies in Mongolia, Cambodia and Vietnam and the development of projects slated for Nepal and Indonesia. Ultimately, Sword Productions provides local churches the tools to share biblical truth to their nation, telling their own stories to their people using the local language and culture.
David Rupert (B.Div. ’67, M.Div. ’72)
Seminary Alumnus of the Year
David Rupert has logged nearly five decades in ministry, serving as a pastor and in positions of leadership in churches and organizations all over the nation. Ordained in the Free Methodist Church, he was an assistant pastor in Oregon and New York in the early 1960s before serving as a senior pastor in three churches in Oregon and California between 1967 and 1984. He later served as superintendent of the California Conference of the Free Methodist Church (11 years) and as superintendent of the Gateway Conference in Illinois (six years). All the while, he remained active in community, denominational, school and governmental organizations, including stints on the board of trustees at Western Evangelical Seminary (now George Fox Evangelical Seminary) and Seattle Pacific University. Most recently, Rupert was an adjunct professor at Spring Arbor University in Michigan in the early 2000s and a minister to senior adults at South Church of the Nazarene in Lansing, Mich., from 2002 to 2007. He now lives in Tennessee with his wife of more than 45 years, Lois, and continues to volunteer in his local church.