Sightings | Alumni Profile

Class Notes

Tom DeLong T'43, F'47 and his wife, Ann, owners of DeLong Christmas Tree Farm in Sinking Springs, P., are tagging their Christmas trees in preparation for the holiday season. Along with selling trees to people in their community, the DeLong's also provide trees towering 15 to 20 feet high for special holiday gardens and buildings around Philadelphia, including the famous Longwood Gardens. The farm was started in 1941 by Tom DeLong's parents.

Lisa Blumenthal Rattray F '80, former assistant to the director at the Duke University Wetland Center, recently relocated to Rhode Island with her husband, Jim Rattray, former communications director at the Nicholas School. In her new position, Rattray will be working as the Northeast recruitment specialist for the Nicholas School. She can be reached at lblu@duke.edu.

McChesney Goodall MF '84, in addition to owning his own consulting business, also works part-time for the Albemarle County (Va.) Department of Planning and Community Development. As the Acquisition of Conservation Easements (ACE) coordinator, he buys easements on critical farmland and open space threatened by development.

David Newman MS/Ph.D. '86 and his wife are the proud parents of two beautiful girls, Katie (4) and Jenny (3). He was promoted to professor last year and continues to teach and perform research on forest Resource Economics and Policy at The University of Georgia's School of Forest Resources.

Richard Norton MEM '87 received his J.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) School of Law in 1998 and recently completed his doctorate at UNC with the Department of City and Regional Planning. He began as an assistant professor with the Urban and Regional Planning Program at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor this fall. Norton and his wife, Trish, are celebrating their 10th wedding anniversary this fall with sons, Jake (5) and Will (2).

Eric Howard MEM '89 lives and works in South Portland, Maine, where he is the executive director of the Maine Wood Products Association (MWPA) and the executive administrator of the Academy of Board Certified Environmental Professionals. At MWPA, he directs a program that provides marketing, management and manufacturing assistance to more than 200 firms. For the academy, he oversees their professional certification program, which allows qualified individuals to use the "CEP" credential. He and his wife moved from Washington, D.C., to Maine in 1995 and have three children.

Matthew Smidt MEM '89 recently accepted a position as assistant professor/extension specialist in forest operations at Auburn University. He will be working with logging contractors and the forest industry on training and educational programs and on research and extension programs that affect the logging industry. Just before moving to Alabama, Matthew and his wife, Kristi, had a baby girl, Cecilia.

James A. Spangler MEM '89 would like to announce his engagement to Karen Ann Gellner of Silver Spring, MD. They will be married in Duke Chapel in April 2002.

Mark Dreyfors MEM '90, founder and manager of Forests of the World, has recently opened a specialty store in Carrboro, N.C., which markets arts and crafts from trees around the world in areas where biodiversity is threatened by development.

Wallace J. Nichols MEM '92 has been invited to the Advisory Board of the American Museum of Natural History's Ocean Hall. Nichols is director of Wildcoast, an international conservation team, and a research associate at the California Academy of Science. He lives in Davenport, Calif.

Cynthia Gill MEM '93 married Colin Haller in 1995. They have one son, Darby Haller, born in April 1999, and a daughter, Una Haller, born in February 2001.

Kim J. Brown MS '94, is working as a post-doc at Columbia's Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory. Brown recently accepted a tenure-track position as Ecosystem Ecologist in the Environmental and Plant Biology department at Ohio University. She will relocate with her fiancé, Brian Witte, and her trusty yellow lab, Hannah.

Stephen Lindeman MEM/MF '94 has been working for The Nature Conservancy since August 1999 as operations manager of the Clinch Valley Forest Bank. This conservation program is designed to work in partnership with private landowners in southwest Virginia and northeast Tennessee to promote working forests while protecting water quality and biodiversity.

Laura Taylor MEM '94 has taken a position with the Gulf of Maine Aquarium in Portland, Maine, as collaborative fisheries research manager. She will be working with fishermen and scientists to develop and implement research projects, helping to bridge the gap between scientists and the fishing community.

Hayes Hargrove BA '95 is now a professional actor working in commercials, TV and film. He performs sketch comedy and improv regularly at the Groundings theater in Los Angeles, Calif.

Virginia Barker MEM '96 has recently been promoted to management section supervisor within the Brevard County (Florida) Natural Resources Management Office. She also is this year's recipient of the Florida Shore and Beach Preservation Association's Government Service Award.

Terrence Hines MEM '96 is living with Chad Daugherty in London and is working as a public sector consultant.

Heather Brunelle MEM '97 has been working for Ecology & Environment Inc. in Portland, OR., for the past three years. Her work has included permitting, risk assessment and other site investigation-related tasks and has been a constant learning experience. She is enjoying Stumptown and the Northwest in general, and she plans to stay for the long term.

Lydia Breunig MEM '97 is pursuing her doctoral degree in geography (human environment interactions) at the University of Arizona in Tucson. She will be performing research on community based conservation in Mexico. Breunig was married to Brian Stark in January.

Matthew B. Malten MEM '98 was selected as a fellow to the Political Economy Research Center's Kinship Conservation Institute (KCI) in Bozeman, Mont. As one of the first 15 KCI Fellows, he will study "free market environmentalism" to learn how to implement innovative, market-based solutions to environmental challenges. In addition, Malten, an environmental specialist with Wisconsin Energy Corp., will develop a risk management tool to assist the company in assessing greenhouse gas emission reduction projects that address global climate change.

Jeff McCreary MEM '98 is employed at Ducks Unlimited's Intermountain Wetlands Conservation Initiative in Idaho, Utah and Nevada. He writes grants for large-scale wetland conservation projects including protection, restoration and enhancement.

Carl Gouldman MEM '00 wants friends to know that Liz gave birth to Hadley's new little brother, Sawyer, on Feb. 26. He and his family are doing well in Charleston, S.C.

Heather Jacobs MEM '00 is working in the Peace Corps in El Salvador and is heavily involved in post-earthquake relief efforts.

Jorge Rivera Ph.D. '01 won the "Best Paper" Award from the Organizations and the Natural Environment division of the Academy of Management. His paper, based on his dissertation, involved evaluating business response to Costa Rica's innovative system of environmental evaluation of hotels. Jorge has just started a tenure track position as assistant professor at the School of Public Policy at the University of Colorado in Denver.