Notes from the Class of 1989

Former CU football head coach Jon Embree (Comm’89) was selected as tight ends coach by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He was the Buffs’ head coach from 2011-12 and most recently served as the tight ends coach for the Cleveland Browns.

The tragic death of hockey player Derek Boogaard further raised awareness about violence and concussions in professional sports. Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter John Branch’s (Mktg; MJour’96) book, Boy on Ice, gives a behind-the-scenes look at the player’s life and early death.

In December, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, which has been traveling to Pluto for nearly nine years, came out of hibernation and made contact with Earth from 2.9 billion miles away. Alan Stern (PhDAstro) of Southwest Research Institute’s Boulder unit serves as the New Horizons mission’s principal investigator. Read more about Alan in this issue.

Joshua Colwell (PhDAstro) wants to know how the Solar System formed. And after several small experiments aboard NASA’s zero-gravity “vomit comet,” he landed a grant to study early planet formation as part of NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initative. His thermos-sized experiment will live aboard a satellite for a year or more in low-Earth orbit. Joshua, a physics professor at the University of Central Florida, has explored how dust collides and forms bigger chunks in the protoplanetary disks where planets form around newborn stars.

Nissan hired David Englen (DistSt) as regional vice president of its Mountain Region. David is responsible for regional sales and marketing, incentive spending, distribution, dealer network development, financial controls and dealer and customer satisfaction. He has 25 years of experience from his previous employer, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles.

SoulCycle, a chain of indoor cycling gyms co-founded by Elizabeth Cutler (DistSt), offers its customers a popular 45-minute cycling class that incorporates weights. Since opening in 2006, the New York-based company has grown to 46 locations and employs 1,500 people. It has filed for a $100 million initial public offering (IPO). Elizabeth is married and has two daughters.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis appointed Patrice Kunesh (Law) co-director of the Center for Indian Country Development (CICD). The CICD launched in mid-2015 and collaborates with key stakeholders committed to American Indian economic development. Patrice has dedicated more than two decades to improving the lives of American tribal communities. She previously served as deputy undersecretary of rural development at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Nancy Shanks (Comm; MJour’92) retired as spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Transportation in the spring. A California native, Nancy’s family moved to Durango in the 1980s. She began her CDOT career in the Denver office in 1997. In 2003 she returned to the Western Slope, becoming the first communications manager to be a resident in the region.

Diane “Betsy” Ulrich (IntlAf), an Illinois orthodontist, is serving as president of the Illinois Society of Orthodontists for the 2016-17 term. She lives in Atlanta, Ill.

Last fall, the Insured Retirement Institute announced that Robert DeChellis (Fin), the president and CEO of Allianz Life Financial Services, LLC, has been elected chairman of the IRI Board of Directors. Robert lives in Minnesota.

Bill Winter (Psych, PolSci), an attorney practicing in Edina, Minn., is the volunteer president of the Hopkins Youth Hockey Association, which helps kids reach their potential on and off the ice. Bill was quoted in a recent article about the group in Minnesota Hockey Journal. Bill played varsity ice hockey for CU from 1985 to 1989 and writes that he “loved every minute of it.” His oldest daughter, Stephanie, will be a Buff journalism student in the fall. Bill lives in Minnetonka, Minn.

Donn Calkins (Hist; MA’91; Law’96) retired from his law career in 2012 and is now pursuing a PhD in biomedical science, with a focus on virology, at The Ohio State University. The Greeley, Colo., native lives in Columbus, Ohio.

Larry Drees (PolSci; MBA’06; MS’09), retired from CU Boulder in February. He served as director of the Buff OneCard Program and assistant director of housing information technology. In June, he was elected president of the Alumni Association’s Directors Club. He will continue to serve the campus and the community as a mentor, volunteering on various boards and promoting CU as an active alumnus and advocate.

Heather Gates (Acct) was named national managing director for the Emerging Growth Company practice for Deloitte, an audit and tax advising service company. Heather is the first woman in the position.

In June, specialty pharmaceutical company Aytu BioScience named Gregory A. Gould (Fin) chief financial officer.

On May 6, actor and director Scott Takeda (Jour) was the keynote speaker for CU Boulder’s Asian graduation celebration. Scott has been in movies and television shows including Gone Girl, Grey’s Anatomy and Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. The Colorado native lives in Denver.

Michelle Ator (PolSci) of Friday, Eldredge & Clark, LLP in Little Rock, Ark., has become a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers. She is the fourth woman in Arkansas to achieve this accomplishment since the organization’s inception in 1950. The September induction ceremony took place during the ACTL Annual Meeting in Montreal, Quebec.

Marti Nault Schuham (Engl) climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in early September. She and husband Rick live in Illinois.

On July 14, 2015, all eyes were on Pluto. Alan Stern’s (PhDAstro) new book, co-authored with David Grinspoon, is Chasing New Horizons: Inside the Epic First Mission to Pluto. It tells the story of the men and women behind the mission that sent the NASA spacecraft New Horizons screaming past Pluto at more than 32,000 miles per hour. Alan, who led the mission, lives in Colorado with his wife, Carole. They have two daughters and a son.