Class of 1987
What We’ve Been Up To…
(Biographies)
Vikki Haag Day
After Whitman I got my MA in Communications (history of journalism)at the University of Washington and promptly applied that degree not at all to acareer in higher education administration. I am currently the director of the undergraduate program of the Business School at the University ofWashington.Essentially anything that touches an undergraduate in the school comes under my responsibilities: admission, graduation,advising, curriculum, interaction with faculty,special program, student activities and the like.
My husband Russ and I live in Shoreline WA with our two daughters, Lillie (9, 3rd grade) and Brenna (7, 1st grade).I've lived in the Puget Sound area since graduation from Whitman and we've been in our currentlocationsince 1998. Wealso spend time at our home on Camano Island where we go to unwind, explore the beach, boat, crab and clam. Of course there is a lot of property upkeepsprinkled in there as well. I'm still very active with the alumnae side of Kappa Kappa Gamma as a regional officer. We do a bit of travel, mainly exploring the US to visit my husband's extended family; the highlight of the last year's travel was a trip to Disneyland that we managed to keep secret from the girls until we were at the gate in the airport!
I actually ended up working withtwo other Whitman grads in the UW Business School, including Jane George Falvy who was my roommate first semester ofour freshman year.
Val Hunting
I’ve been having a great time! After Whitman I decided to get out of the US for a bit and go to graduate school in New Zealand thinking it would be a fun place to live. It was, and after graduating from the University of Auckland with a Masters in Music Composition I returned to the US to live in D.C. for 3 short years. From there I managed to convince NZ Immigration to grant me permanent residence (without the need to pay some total stranger to marry me), and returned to NZ in 93 where I have lived in Auckland ever since. Through a series of completely unplanned events and taking on project work that nobody else wanted, I became a “consultant”. This experience has given me the freedom to be self employed for the last 6 years. My specialty is business consulting, selling and implementing EMS applications across NZ corporate, manufacturing and government sectors (“geek”). Not wanting to waste all that fine classical music training though, I also picked up a bass guitar and formed a heavy rock band. Although we have been described as “a group of ferocious, apocalyptic post-metal heads” we like to think of ourselves as “Math Metal” or “Calculator Rock”. It’s great fun and as a result my life is divided between the geek work that I do during the day and my rock n’ roll ice maiden alter ego.
The band had a promising start, catching the ear of NZ’s top producer which resulted in a well produced debut album for no money (I think we paid for the album in red wine and Thai takeaways). This led to a licensing deal with an independent label distributed through EMI. We were firmly on the path to southern hemisphere domination until our singer, a brilliant but unstable fellow, decided that no self respecting front man should be without a good drug habit. The other band members are more protein shake people, and this was clearly never going to work so we fired him. In spite of this, the record did very well selling out of the initial pressing with no backing from our now defunct label. Since then we have struggled to replace our singer but have nearly completed the second album which is due out later this year. Our producer is now based in LA so we’ll push for a slot on the soundtrack of the next B grade Ben Affleck movie. My professional life continues to evolve through the usual series of unplanned events. I have recently received an offer from a consulting firm in Sydney which will mean a move for me this year. I am not married but have a partner of 8 years, Harvey, who is lead guitarist in legendary local metal band, Subtract. He sold me my first Warwick bass guitar and a life-long love affair began with both. We have no children, just pets and guitars.
Looking forward to catching up with everyone at the reunion it should be a blast.
Bob Land
How my life has changed since Whitman. Hard to believe.
After leaving Wally World with my Econ degree, I worked in various jobs and realized how much I loved working directly with people. I seemed to excel as a bellman at a local hotel. After talking with a family friend who was a therapist, I decided that I wanted to be a therapist… so… back to school….
Six years later, I was a master’s level therapist, then I decided to get a doctorate… 5 years later, I had a doctorate. So here I am, many years past Whitman in a career that I love that had nothing to do with what I studied at Whitman.
Right now I am working as a psychologist near San Jose, California. I have a growing private practice specializing in boys and their families, but see many adults as well. I love the work, and just love running my own business (but am still not used to the ups and downs).
In 1994, I married a wonderful gal I met through another friend. We have had a blast. Mary is a wonderful woman who is so supportive of me! Her PR and Advertising background have really helped me a lot. We are a great team.
So we live in Los Gatos, California, and spend time with friends. We really like to travel, and I have built my hobby of SCUBA diving into a real passion. I love the water. We like to do so many things, it’s hard to capture it all here… so we will have to catch up more at the Reunion!
I am really looking forward to reconnecting with everyone! Send in your bio and let me and all of us know what you have been up to.
Beth M. McHugh
19 years of my life condensed into four paragraphs…..
During spring break of my senior year at Whitman College, I took a vacation to New York City with my parents. While on an escalator in the MoMA, I happened to run into Vincent Castor (’85) who was attending the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre. He arranged an appointment for me to meet with the “powers that be” there and as luck would have it, they accepted me into the program. I moved to New York in the fall of 1987, studied at the Playhouse for a year and then worked for a PBS producer (while studying privately with one of the Playhouse teachers) for another year before deciding that Manhattan was a great place to visit, but I didn’t want to live there!
I moved back to the west coast in the fall of 1989 and lived in Seattle, working as a group sales coordinator for Society Expeditions, an adventure cruise line, until late 1991 when the company was on the verge of bankruptcy and I got tired of racing to the bank every Friday to cash my check for fear it would bounce! Having built up some good connections in the travel industry in South America, I took a month off and traveled with one of my co-workers through Chile from Santiago all the way to Torres del Paine National Park in Patagonia. That was the beginning of my love affair with international travel! After I returned from Chile, I sold the house in Seattle and moved back to my home town of Sequim, WA.
It happened that my brother had just decided to open his own real estate brokerage in Sequim, so I got my license and went straight to work for him. When I first started, I promised him five years. It’s been fifteen – hard to believe! While the business is not what I would have chosen for myself, it has given me a lot of freedom to pursue my other interests. In the years since that first trip to Chile, I have traveled to Ireland, England, Scotland, France, China, Tibet, Argentina, Uraguay, Chile (again…how I love Chile!), and Egypt. I have done A LOT of community theatre on the Olympic Peninsula and I have pursued my interest in writing.
I met my partner, Terry Selby, in Sequim while he was doing some remodel work for my parents. We have been together for nearly four years, now. He is a contractor and owner of KC Construction. We are just completing construction on our dream home, a sprawling farmhouse on 10 acres just outside of Sequim. We have no children, with the exception of two very spoiled dogs… a 3 year old standard poodle named Beamer, and (the most recent addition to the family), a three month old Australian shepherd puppy named Ko-Dee!
Looking forward to seeing old friends in Walla Walla in September!
Amy (Hogland) Sassara
Where do you work, and what do you do? HR Director for the Vashon Island (WA) School District
How long have you lived where you live? We’ve been on Vashon 8 years this August,Where have you been living? Kirkland for 5 years then Seattle until I moved to Vashon
Marital status & spouse’s name, if applicable. I’ve been married for 11 years to Rick Sassara. One of our school board members, after an extended contract meeting in my office, made the rather cryptic comment “I’m sending Rick a medal.” when I inquired what for he responded “He’ll know”. Most patient man on earth!
Number of children, names, ages. Katy, age 6 and for the past year we have had a “borrowed” daughter Danielle, now 18.
Did you go to graduate school? Where? Degree obtained? Nope, but I’m not at all sure that I’m done.
Have you visited or lived in any interesting places around the world? Has anything interesting happened to you that you would like to share?
Sarah Thomsen
After Whitman I spent a year at home in California applying to the Peace Corps and working on my people skills (at Bobby McGee’s restaurant!). I then spent 1988-1990 as an English teacher in Abeche, Chad, very close to where the Sudanese refugees are right now. Those were definitely the toughest years of my life but they also helped me confirm my decision to work in international development. I then spent a year teaching English in Hamburg, Germany while I applied to graduate school. I went to the University of Michigan from 1991-93 and ended up with two degrees (just because I couldn’t be normal and get one): an MA in Middle Eastern/North African Studies and an MPH in Population Planning and International Health.
By this time I had met my husband to be, a Swede. I dragged him off to spend the next two years in Niger (West Africa) where I worked for Care International on a family planning project. He eventually got me to Sweden where I had to learn the language in a year so I could find a job. One thing led to another and before I knew it I had acquired a PhD in Public Health Sciences from Karolinska institutet and a baby girl named Fredrika (within two months of each other). She is now 5 years old and about to start kindergarten. She is completely bilingual!
We eventually moved to Carborro, North Carolina so I could work for Family Health International but moved back here two years ago. I still work for FHI as a Senior Research Associate doing HIV/AIDS and reproductive health research (behavioral, not clinical) in Africa, but now I work from my home in Stockholm and telecommute. I travel several times a year to Africa. I’m now separated from my husband.
The best thing that has happened to me in the last few years is that I finally realized my dream of having my own jazz quartet. I sing (what else?), and I have a bassist, pianist, and saxophonist. I also jam with some old friends in North Carolina when I’m back there for work trips. They are putting out an album next year on which I will have one song: Sunday Kind of Love. They are called The Bradshaw Quartet and the album will be called B’Nice.