Through the Years

’50s

Charles Beyer-Machule MD’56, retired surgeon and Harvard professor, was born and raised in Germany, where he served in the German Air Force Auxiliary for one year when he was 16 and the whole class was transferred to an antiaircraft battery. At age 17, he was drafted into the Labor Service; he was still 17 when the war ended in 1945, which he spent in a field hospital. A U.S. program made it possible for him to come to America for college, and he was sent to the University of Utah because he asked to go to a place where he could ski. He later served in the U.S. military, first as a flight surgeon in the Air Force and then as a specialist in the U.S. Navy, where he retired as a captain and consultant to the Surgeon General of the Navy after 21 years of distinguished service. Beyer-Machule says, “Being an immigrant, I always felt that this contribution to the country of my choice was necessary and essential.” An internationally renowned occuloplastic surgeon, Beyer-Machule was a clinical associate professor at Harvard Medical School and an honorary professor at Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich, Germany. Cofounder of the American Society of Ophthalmic Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Beyer-Machule has an annual symposium on the topic, held at the University of Munich, named in his honor. He now spends half a year in the U.S. and the other half in Germany.

Michael Rochester PhD’59 is University Research Professor Emeritus at Memorial University of Newfoundland. After 40 years of teaching and research in physics and earth sciences departments at three Canadian universities, he is still active in research (mathematical geophysics) and is spending three months this fall at the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory, at the invitation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He will offer a series of lectures on the theory of changes in the Earth’s rotation with special attention to the effects of the Earth’s liquid core. Rochester says: “I have warm memories of my student days at the U, which were the beginning of 50 years of friendship with another University of Utah alumnus, Douglas Henderson [PhD’61], professor of Chemistry at BYU.” Married in 1958, Rochester and his wife have three children and two grandchildren, and are actively involved in the work of the Baha’i community in Canada.

’60s

Kay Atkinson King BA’64 (Anthropology, magna cum laude) is senior policy advisor, U.S. House Committee on International Relations. A native of Salt Lake City, King previously served as chief of staff to Congressman Richard N. Swett (NH) during his two terms in the House (1991-1995), and was a professional staff member of the Subcommittee on Employment and Housing and staff director of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus. King received her M.A. and Ph.D. in linguistics at UCLA, and is the Hinckley Fellow on the University of Utah campus this winter.

Ed Catmull BS’69 PhD’74, co-founder of Pixar Animation Studios and the new president of Disney Feature Animation (Disney acquired Pixar in January), received the 2006 John von Neumann Medal from the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.) for his contributions to special effects in live-action and animated motion pictures. With more than 365,000 members in 150-plus countries, the IEEE is the world’s leading professional association for the advancement of technology. In 1974, while studying physics and computer science at the U, Catmull’s pioneering animation of a human hand was incorporated into the first movie to use 3-D computer graphics. His research led to four computer-graphics discoveries: Z-buffering, texture mapping, subdivision surface, and rendering of bicubic patches. With Pixar, he has helped produce seven films, from Toy Story to the studio’s latest, Cars. Catmull has won four Academy Awards for his technical feats.

’70s

Eugene Spiering BS’78 is vice president of exploration for Quaterra Resource Group Inc. (TSX VENTURE:QTA), based in Vancouver, B.C., which has base and precious metals projects in the U.S. and Mexico. Spiering has more than 28 years of experience in the mining exploration industry. He previously held the position of vice president, exploration at Rio Narcea Mines Ltd., where he managed a team that discovered two gold deposits and completed the final definition of one nickel deposit in Spain. Prior to his tenure at Rio Narcea, Spiering was senior geologist with Energy Fuels Nuclear, Inc.

’80s

Aniema Aniema Udofa BS’81 (Accounting) and her husband, Aniema Smith Udofa BS’81 (Architecture), both natives of Nigeria, moved to Salt Lake City as teenagers. Upon graduation from the U, they relocated to the East, where Smith Udofa started a contracting and engineering firm, System “42” Inc., which he still operates, and Aniema Aniema Udofa joined the Edward C. Mazique Parent Child Center, where she worked for nearly 20 years as director of finance and personnel before retiring in 2005. In 2002, she founded Women United for Economic Empowerment, Inc. (WUEE), a nonprofit organization that provides micro-loans and grants to women in Nigeria in an effort to reduce or eradicate poverty, empower women, strengthen families, and promote civil society. WUEE also conducts HIV/AIDS awareness education in rural and urban communities to help stem the tide of the spread of this deadly disease in the Akwa Ibom State of Nigeria.

Kevin Stall BS’80 BS’85 (with an M.A. in teaching from Alaska Pacific University) has joined the United Kingdom’s Valuation Office Agency as its e-learning instructional designer. Stall lost his first wife, Deanna Larue Stall BS’81 (Management, cum laude) BS’82 (Finance, cum laude) MBA’83, to multiple sclerosis in 2000 after 24 years of marriage. Shortly thereafter, Stall left Alaska (where the couple had lived since 1985) and his position designing e-learning with Air Traffic Control to pursue a master of information technology degree at Edith Cowan University in Australia. He moved to the U.K. three years ago after marrying Denise Bartlett. Before joining the VOA, Stall was an instructional designer with the U.K.’s Cranfield University, working at the Royal Military College of Science.

Akhlesh Lakhtakia MS’81 PhD’83, Distinguished Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics at Pennsylvania State University, has been recognized as one of 15 nanotechnology innovators in the “Nano 50” awards from Nanotech Briefs, a monthly digital publication from the publishers of NASA Tech Briefs. The “Nano 50” annually recognizes the top 50 technologies, products, and innovators worldwide that have significantly impacted, or are expected to impact, the state of the art in nanotechnology. This is the second year in a row that Lakhtakia has been named to the list. He was honored in 2005 for his work in sculptured thin films.

Bret C. Dandoy BA’87 worked for Lehman Brothers for 11 years in New York, Tokyo, and Hong Kong, then briefly ran the Japan office of Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette (DLJ) before joining Deutsche Bank Japan in 2000. He is currently the chief administrative officer of Deutsche Securities Inc. Dandoy and his family live in downtown Tokyo, where his three teenage girls attend international schools. They are fluent in English and Japanese and are working on French. As a family the Dandoys travel the world, having recently visited New Zealand, Nepal, Morocco, Cambodia, most of Continental Europe, and Russia. Bret spent this past December in Chile, Brazil, and central Antarctica fulfilling a lifelong goal to visit all seven continents.

Alexandra Kaul BA’87 MBA’88 currently works in worldwide marketing and communications for Calderys, a major global supplier of refractory solutions created by last year’s merging of Plibrico (Germany) and Lafarge Refractories. Still based in Germany, Kaul previously spent several years there in auditing with the former Arthur Andersen, then joined Lucas (now TRW) Aftermarket Operations, the aftermarket division of one of the world’s foremost automotive suppliers. The former president and current treasurer of the Utah Europe Association, a chapter of the International Resource Network of the U’s International Center, Kaul recently became a mother at the age of 40.

’90s

Surya Mantha PhD’92 is senior vice president-Interactive Services for Sify Limited, India’s premier Internet, network, and e-commerce services company. Before joining Sify, Surya spent several years at RealNetworks in Seattle, Wash., in several marketing and management roles. Prior to Real, Surya was at PRTM, a leading management-consulting firm for technology-based businesses, where he was a principal in the Communications Group.

David Sumner BA’92, assistant professor of English and director of writing at Linfield College in McMinnville, Ore., will spend spring and summer 2007 teaching in Germany under the Fulbright Junior Faculty Lectureship program. Sumner, who also holds a doctorate from the University of Oregon, will teach two courses at the University of Bayreuth in Bayreuth, Germany. Sumner’s specialty is American nature writing and Western American literature. He has published numerous articles including interviews with American nature writers such as Barry Lopez and Terry Tempest Williams BS’79 MS’84.

Loic Monguillon MS’96 (Civil and Environmental Engineering) has had the opportunity to live and work in locales such as Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Paris, and Los Angeles, where he participated in designing the extension of Eurodisney with the Disney planning department (“my favorite” project, he says). He notes: “Having spent a whole academic year in the U.S. tremendously helped me to get jobs where a good command in English was a must. Most of the time, my year at the U of U was the only thing that I was questioned about during my job interviews!” With Air France since March 2000, in its Paris hub, Monguillon was transferred to Amsterdam in March 2005 for a two-year manager exchange program as a result of the airline’s 2004 merger with the Dutch national airline KLM. He is now engaged to a “wonderful French girl,” Clarisse (shown here with Loic in a typical Dutch environment—a tulip field), and recalls “unforgettable, fantastic memories of Salt Lake City and Utah, where I regularly go back to for my own special ‘pilgrimage.’ ”

’00s

Craig Arnold PhD’01 (Poetry), currently completing a Rome Prize fellowship at the American Academy in Rome, has had a passage from his poem “Couple from Hell” selected for Best American Poetry 2006. Originally published in Barrow Street (www.barrowstreet.org), the passage will mark Arnold’s third appearance in the series. He also recently received the Bess Hokin Prize from Poetry magazine for his poem “Incubus,” which appeared in the May 2005 issue (www.poetrymagazine.org/about/prizes.html). Arnold is assistant professor of poetry in the MFA program at the University of Wyoming and serves as adjunct thesis faculty for the Texas State University MFA program.

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