Through the Years

Joy Baker BS’49 MS’76 MEd’77, a retired elementary-school teacher, runs the cross-age tutoring program for Springdale (Utah) Elementary School students, training older students to tutor younger children in reading. Baker established the program about eight years ago, and it has proven highly effective at the school. As a young second-grade teacher with 40 students in her classroom, Baker established her first cross-age tutoring program after becoming concerned about giving the one-to-one help that learning to read requires, building a program with a colleague’s sixth-grade class. Following Baker’s retirement, Springdale school administrators recruited her to help them set up their expanded reading program.

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Richard M. Wirick BS’58 was recently named “Mr. Downtown” by Utah’s Vest Pocket Business Coalition in recognition of his decades of outstanding efforts to protect downtown Salt Lake City. Wirick has owned the Oxford Shop men’s shoe store for more than 56 years, during which time he has been active with civic organizations including the Downtown Alliance and Salt Lake Convention & Visitors Bureau. He is currently involved with the Downtown Rising project. At a February 2009 meeting of the current and five previous mayors of Salt Lake City, the mayors expressed warm commendations in a note to Wirick. Current Mayor Ralph Becker JD’77 MS’82 wrote: “Thank you, Richard, for being the soul of our community.” Former mayor Ted Wilson BS’64 noted: “You are the best merchant—no one is more supportive of downtown—in our city.”

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Norman Fawson BS’62 MD’66 delivered between 3,500 and 4,000 babies during a career that spanned nearly 40 years. One of those deliveries came in 1975 when he oversaw the birth of Curtis Carter MD’03. With Fawson’s retirement last year, Carter took over for him at St. George Clinic, which Fawson had been affiliated with since 1969. Fawson notes that he and Carter’s parents were good friends but the possibility that their son would one day replace him in his practice never occurred to him. But when it came time to select the doctor to take over for him, Fawson says that Carter fit the qualifications perfectly. Having served an LDS Church mission to Guatemala, Carter has hired a Hispanic assistant at the clinic and is actively seeking Spanish-speaking patients in his new practice. Although officially “retired,” Fawson now works at the St. George Doctors’ Volunteer Clinic, teaches violin and viola for the school district, and cares for his apple orchard.

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William Marling BS’73 MA’74, professor of American literature, modernism, popular culture, and globalization at Case Western University, recently served as the inaugural Edward Said Chair of American Studies at the American University of Beirut. In his position in Lebanon, Marling taught courses on globalization and the detective novel. This was Marling’s sixth overseas teaching position. Past posts have sent him to Spain, Austria, France, and Japan. While at the U of U, Marling was the editor of The Daily Utah Chronicle and two-time winner of the William Randolph Hearst Prize for Investigative Reporting. After leaving the U, he worked for Fortune and Money magazines before becoming an English professor. He has now authored five books.

George Petrie MEd’75, men’s basketball coach at Pennsylvania’s Gettysburg College for 20 years, recently broke the “all-time games coached” record at the college. After receiving his master’s degree at the U, where he was a graduate assistant for the basketball team for two years, he joined Bucknell University. There he developed his skills as a coach and recruiter for 14 years before moving to Gettysburg, where he also coaches golf. A native of Springfield, Pa., Petrie has been inducted into both the Springfield High School Hall of Fame as a three-sport letter winner and the Hall of Fame at Lebanon Valley College, where he captained the basketball team twice and helped lead the Flying Dutchmen to the Middle Atlantic Conference championship during his junior year.

Maria Pallavicini PhD’77 is dean of the School of Natural Sciences, as well as vice provost for health sciences, at the University of California at Merced. In her latter role, Pallavicini is working to open a medical school at the university. Before arriving at UC Merced in 2002, she was a faculty member at UC San Francisco. In 2004 she led the task force that created the UC Merced medical school plan. Pallavicini says the key to a successful medical school is cross-pollination of research between disciplines on campus. She herself is still involved as a professor and researcher, most recently teaching a graduate course on “cancer genetics and tumor biology.”

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Robin Arnold-Williams MSW’80 DSW’92 has been appointed the new director of Washington State Governor Chris Gregoire’s Executive Policy Office. The office is responsible for developing the governor’s policy agenda, which involves working closely with state agencies, legislators, local government, and stakeholders. Previously as secretary of the state’s Department of Social and Health Services, Arnold-Williams led Washington’s largest state agency—with nearly 20,000 employees and a $9 billion budget—for almost four years. Prior to that she spent eight years as executive director of the Utah State Department of Human Services, where she worked for 24 years in all.

Paul Hudak PhD’82 has been named the ninth master of Yale University’s Saybrook College. His term will last five years. Hudak, a computer science professor specializing in programming language and computer music, joined Yale as an assistant professor in 1982. Best known for his role in designing the programming language Haskell, Hudak later created a language for composing music in Haskell called Haskore. He also helped develop the Computing and the Arts major at Yale, which combines computing with art, history of art, music, or theater studies.

Thad R. Wilson MS’81, Ph.D., FNP-BC, associate professor and associate dean at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Nursing, has been elected as the 2009-2010 president of the American College of Nurse Practitioners, a national nonprofit association that provides advocacy, continuing education, and research support for its members. Wilson has been a certified family nurse practitioner since 1985 and has served on the faculty at UMKC since 1995. He has been funded by the CDC, American Nurses Foundation, and other organizations to conduct research on immunizations and school-based immunization programs. Findings from his research have been published in several peer-reviewed journals and presented both regionally and nationally.

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Gary Gilbert BS’91 has been named the Amp Line business unit manager at Paul Reed Smith Guitars, Ltd., a leading manufacturer of high-end electric guitars based in Stevensville, Md. Gilbert joined PRS Guitars in 1998. He has played guitar since age 6 and in his work has enjoyed combining his additional music training received in the U of U’s jazz guitar program, his engineering skills from the U of U, and his MBA from Johns Hopkins University. Gary resides near Baltimore, Md., with his wife, Robin Katzke Gilbert BFA’91.

Pepe Lee Chang BS’95 PhD’07 is currently assistant professor of business ethics with the University of Texas at San Antonio. After receiving her bachelor’s degree in marketing from the U, Chang put her degree to work in a variety of jobs, including with Gramercy Pictures, at a radio station, and in recording artist management. After beginning graduate school in philosophy, she “accidentally” became half of a Utah “electronic indie hip-hop” duo, Furthermore, which released two CDs and toured for a year. After her short-lived music career, Chang returned to the U and finished her doctorate. She joined the ATSA faculty in fall 2007.

Teri Bates BS’96 BS’97 MSW’98, co-creator of the Tooele County (Utah) Drug Court program and one of its therapy providers, has seen the program’s success rate soar well above the national average in its five-year history: Nearly 85 percent of Tooele County Drug Court participants graduate from the program versus 46 percent from drug courts nationally. The program runs in phases and requires serious commitment on the part of participants. Phase one lasts for three months and involves coming to treatment twice a week, attending five AA meetings, appearing at court weekly, undergoing drug tests four times a week, and maintaining employment. The next three phases are slightly less intensive and extend over longer time periods; but a slipup along the way could mean jail time, community service, or other penalties.

Rick Rambo BS’97, JD, RN, has been named vice president, clinical services, for Omniflight Helicopters, Inc., a leading national provider of air medical services. Rambo brings more than 20 years of health care industry experience to his new position. Most recently, he was campus chief nursing officer/director of nursing for Tempe St. Luke’s Hospital in Tempe, Ariz., where he oversaw all clinical operations for the 108-bed for-profit hospital. Previously, he spent four years as a registered nurse in staff and leadership roles for St. Mark’s Hospital and served in various nursing roles at MSN Healthcare Staffing and with University of Utah Health Sciences, all in Salt Lake City.

Drew Hansen BS’98 is currently practicing law as the youngest equity partner at the firm Arent Fox in Los Angeles. He was recently profiled in The Daily Journal, the legal newspaper for the state of California, in the feature “20 Under 40” (highlighting the state’s top 20 attorneys under age 40). At the U, Hansen played on the men’s basketball team for four years and was an Academic All-American before graduating with degrees in political science and economics. He went on to graduate from Stanford Law School in 2001. Four years out of Stanford, he co-founded his own business litigation firm, Hansen & Taylor.

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Jannicke Swing BFA’07, co-founder of the nonprofit organization Heal the Snow, recently helped outfit “the Shred Wagen,” a solar- and wind-powered hostel-on-wheels built with 90 percent recycled materials to carry ski racers competing on the U.S. Freeskiing Tour. Winged with used solar panels and a wind generator, the Shred Wagen sleeps eight people in bunk beds and features a bathroom with a full shower and hot water. Jannicke sewed curtains and mattress covers out of fabric purchased at thrift stores and papered the walls with pages from an Encyclopedia Britannica from the late 1960s. The Dodge Ram that pulls the trailer runs on biodiesel and natural gas. While the rig’s primary purpose is to educate people about clean fuels and energy independence, housing for competitors soon emerged as an offshoot.

We want to hear from you! Please submit entries to: Marcia Dibble. To read more alumni news, check out the “Honor Roll” column in the Alumni Association’s online newsletter, U-News & Views.

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