Santa Clara Magazine

Andy Zorio '90 and wife Mechelle welcomed their second child, Ethan on June 20, 2011. His older brother, Nicholas, is also very proud.

Susan Zaro MA '90 is working as a sports psychologist in Mountain View, Calif.

Rob Wright '90, along with his wife Cassie, gave birth to their first child on September 29th, 2011. Gavin Michael Wright quickly chose Bronco Red as his favorite color and can be seen wearing Bronco gear in Marin, Calif.

Sara (Pike) Wilczewski '90 and husband Michael welcome their second child, Andrew John, on April 19, 2010, weighing 9.3 pounds. He joins big sister Chiara Elisabeth, 21 months. The family lives in Centennial, Colorado.

Jeff Waters ’90 joined Altera Corporation as senior vice president and general manager of the military, industrial, and computing division. Waters and his team are responsible for systems solution development and marketing for these segments.

Waters was most recently with Texas Instruments/National Semiconductor as vice president, precision signal path division, after returning to the U.S. from a three-year position as regional vice president of National's Japan division where he led sales, marketing, and operations. Additionally, he has held positions in research and development and in management consulting, as well as managing analog and system-on-chip (SOC) product groups.

He holds a bachelor of science in electrical engineering from the University of Notre Dame, a master's in electrical engineering from Santa Clara University, and an MBA from Northwestern University (Kellogg Graduate School of Management).

Alice Marcarelli Valenzuela MBA ’90 was awarded the 2012 Soroptimist Ruby Award in Phoenix, Ariz., for her tireless work on behalf of women in Sonora, Mexico, where she founded a women’s cooperative that operates an electronics recycling business to create employment in the impoverished rural area. The Soroptimists are a worldwide professional women’s service club, and the Ruby Award is the highest honor awarded by the organization. For more information about the electronics recycling initiative, see: http://retroworkswest.weebly.com/retroworks-de-mexico.html.

Eric Steuben ’90, MBA ’95 joined Asante Solutions Inc., a medical device company focused on diabetes care, as vice president of operations. Steuben has broad corporate experience ranging from high-growth startups to world-leading corporations and has specialized insight into the medical device industry. He led the manufacturing, engineering, and operations teams at Align Technology and MicroDental Laboratories. He started his career at Varian Medical, a medical device manufacturer focused on the treatment of cancer.

Kathleen (Mitchell) Simpson ’87, M.A. ’90 married Robert Simpson on October 2, 2010, at St. Augustine Catholic Church in Pleasanton, CA. Kathy and Bob were second-grade friends and classmates in Pleasanton. They currently reside in Brentwood, Calif. SCU alums in attendance were bridesmaid Christine Fierro ’88, Wes Bliven ’88, Brendan Lewis ’88, Michelle Matsumoto ’88, Diane Zilliotto ’88, John Scardamaglia J.D. ’09, and Jim Mitchell ’83.

Shelley (Carriere) Sheridan '94 and her husband Andrew announce the arrival of their son, Parker Edward, on Aug. 13, 2008.  Parker joins brother Trevor, 2.

Alaina Sayers '90 is the new 2nd/3rd grade teacher at St. Mark's Catholic School in Boise, ID.

Narender Oruganti MBA '90 has been appointed to the industry advisory board for Arkeia Software, a leading provider of fast, easy-to-use, and affordable network backup solutions for the Data Protection market. The board is composed of an elite group of storage industry veterans who will provide valuable perspective and counsel to the executive team at Arkeia Software in the areas of business development, market trends, and operations.

Oruganti is an entrepreneur and co-founded Catura Broadband Systems, an Internet based Education Company. Before Catura, he spent almost 20 successful years in marketing, operations and management in leading high- technology companies. Before launching a startup, he was the director of marketing at Veritas' Appliance Software Division. Prior to Veritas, he spent over four years at Network Appliance. Previous experience includes more than 10 years at Hewlett Packard in various roles in marketing, management and operations. Oruganti holds an MBA from Santa Clara University, CA, M.S. in Industrial Engineering & Operations Research from Wayne State University in Detroit, MI and B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Osmania University, Hyderabad, India.

Michael Okada ’90 was named vice president, chief accounting officer, and interim chief financial officer of Cereplast, Inc., a manufacturer of proprietary biobased, sustainable plastics.

Okada joined Cereplast in April 2011 as vice president and corporate controller. Prior, Okada served as vice president of finance and corporate controller for Mindspeed Technologies, Inc., where he was responsible for general and international accounting, SEC reporting, and Sarbanes-Oxley Act compliance.

Okada has more than 20 years of experience in senior executive roles, leading accounting and finance departments for both private and public rapid-growth companies.

Rita Neal J.D. ’90 will take over as county counsel for San Luis Obispo in September. She began her employment with the county office in 1998 as a deputy county counsel. Ten years later, she was promoted to chief deputy county counsel. Later in 2008, Neal was promoted to assistant county counsel.

Before she joined the county counsel’s office, Neal was in private practice in San Luis Obispo, specializing in civil litigation.

Tina (Johnson-Cohen) Murray B.S. '90, M.B.A. '97 and her husband, Kirk, live with their two children in Los Gatos, CA. Tina continues to consult on Agile Software.

Hugh Molotsi M.S. ’90 joins the CSO/CTO advisory board of Qualys Inc., a pioneer and a leading provider of cloud IT security and compliance management solutions. Molotsi, vice president of technology innovation at Intuit, joins information security leaders from eBay, Goldman Sachs, Microsoft, PayPal, and other leading companies to meet quarterly to discuss top priorities and challenges for securing global infrastructures, providing strategic direction for product development at Qualys.

Krista Meade M.A. ’90 writes: "After a successful 15-year career in geriatric social work, I am beginning my third career as a writer/editor. I hope to work for a nonprofit or foundation serving the needs of older adults, women and children, social justice, or the environment."

Matt Mason '90 was named executive director of the non-profit Nebraska Writers Collective, an organization dedicated to putting poets into schools to assist students as well as teachers.

Renee (Machi) Lawson '90 has joined Zynga, the maker of popular social games such as Farmville and Mafia Wars, as Associate General Counsel. She and her husband Kent are among the founding parents of Alta Vista School, a new elementary school in San Francisco focused on math, science, and technology.

Jeffrey Knott MBA '90 was appointed chief financial officer of AmeraMex International, Inc., a provider of heavy equipment to logistics companies, infrastructure construction, commercial farming and mining companies. Prior, Mr. Knott spent five years in real estate development, property management and business development. He brings over 20 years of commercial lending experience to AmeraMex from well-known financial institutions, including Bank of America, American Ag Credit, Equitable Life and Rabo Bank.

Debbie A. Klis '90 has been named to Maryland's Top 100 Women list by The Daily Record. The list recognizes the accomplishments of women who have achieved professional success and making a difference through their leadership, community service, and mentoring.

Ms. Klis, of counsel in Ballard Spahr's Bethesda office, concentrates on transactional matters in an array of business, securities, and tax issues. She is known for her work with investment management companies, including the formation and operation of EB-5 immigration investment funds, hedge funds, private equity funds, SPACs, real estate funds, oil and gas funds, and international master-feeder structures.

Valerie (Menely) Joachim '90 was recently promoted to management analyst with the engineering services group of the City of Portland's Bureau of Environmental Services. She's worked for the City of Portland in the area of sanitary and storm sewer engineering and development since 2000. She and husband Chris celebrated their 5th wedding anniversary in Sept. 2008.

Emanuel “Manny” Hilario ’90 is the chief financial officer for Einstein Noah Restaurant Group. He previously served as the founder and managing director of Koios Path LLC, a management advisory and consulting services company.