1970
Jacobus Van Der Maas ’70 has lived in the Netherlands, working in wholesale and banking, since graduating from Puget Sound. He spent 28 years on the board of Rabobank Utrecht and for the past four years has been the CEO. Now retired, he recently moved from Blaricum to Noordwijk, on the Netherlands coast.
1973
André Lassing ’73, MBA’74 lives in the Netherlands and recently moved to the town of Bergen. He reports that he’s “still enjoying life and riding my push bike—some 35 km a day.”
1978
BJ Howerton ’78, MBA’83 says he’s “living large in Albuquerque, N.M. and missing my business fraternity friends.”
1981
Stephen Kern ’81 received the 2023 Emerging and Innovative Practice Award from the American Occupational Therapy Association. Kern is a longtime professor and director of the Master of Science program in occupational therapy at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. He was recognized for his occupational justice-based work, including programs for underserved populations such as Salvation Army homeless shelters, Philadelphia Prevention Point (a harm reduction/needle exchange program serving intravenous drug users and sex industry workers), and the Nationalities Service Center, a refugee resettlement and health services program.
1982
John Dickson ’82 has retired as chief operating officer of Coastal Community Bank, a commercial bank with branches in Snohomish, Island, and King counties in Washington. He had been with the bank since 2010; before that, he was with Frontier Financial Corporation and Frontier Bank. He’s a past chair of the Washington Bankers Association.
1984
Dan Cummings ’84 has joined Fortera Corporation as general counsel and vice president of intellectual property. Fortera produces “low CO2 cement”—cement that’s manufactured in a way that minimizes greenhouse gas emissions. Cummings has a Master of Public Administration and a law degree in addition to his Puget Sound degree, and has 25 years of experience in renewable energy and cleantech.
Jackie Carlson Henrion MBA ’84 recently moved to St. George, Utah, from Sandpoint, Idaho, where she had hosted a weekly radio show called Songs-Voices-Poems on 88.5 KRFY since 2014. A longtime member of the Sandpoint Monday Writers, she recently collected, edited and wrote an introduction for the book Sandpointed, published by Turtle Moon Publishing.
1987
Jennifer Cramer-Miller ’87 has a book due out in August 2023, Incurable Optimist: Living with Illness and Chronic Hope, published by She Writes Press. She lives in Minnesota.
Sarah Ewing Hunt ’87, director of financial services for the Nevada Hospital Association, met up recently with Rochelle Nguyen ’99 at the Nevada legislative building for Nevada Hospital Day. Nguyen is a Nevada state senator representing District 3 (Clark County).
1991
Ann Putnam P’91 has a new novel, I Will Leave You Never, published in May by She Writes Press. Putnam, who taught in the English department at Puget Sound for a number of years, lives in Gig Harbor, Wash.
1998
Jennifer Grafton ’98 has been named executive vice president, general counsel, and secretary of the global supply chain platform E2open. She had been the company’s deputy general counsel for the past two years, dating to its IPO; before that, she spent more than a decade as chief legal officer, chief administrative officer, and corporate secretary at Westmoreland Mining LLC. She splits time between Austin, Texas, and Castle Pines, Colo.
2002
Emese Czonka Parker ’02 went on to get nurse practitioner and Master of Public Health degrees and has written a new book, To Carry Wonder: A Memoir and Guide to Adventures in Pregnancy and Beyond (Larkwell Press, 2023). The book’s goal is to nurture, inspire, and equip pregnant and postpartum women through weekly stories, reflections, artwork, and educational topics; to develop the book, Parker drew from her own personal and clinical experiences with pregnancy. Part of the proceeds will go to International Justice Mission, a global nonprofit working to combat slavery and violence against women and children.
Zachary C. Person ’02 is a photographer based in Puyallup, Wash.; previously, he spent nearly two decades living and working in Oregon. He recently released a book, Nisqually Typologies: One Year at Billy Frank Jr. Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge, which includes 108 images documenting the natural systems that make up the refuge in Olympia, Wash., as those systems adapt to each season.
2005
Michael Allen ’05 was promoted to full professor in the Department of Political Science at Boise State University. He also is lead author of a new book, Beyond the Wire: US Military Deployments and Host Country Public Opinion, published by Oxford University Press. Using surveys in 14 countries and interviews in six, the book examines how U.S. service members overseas can create support for—and opposition to—their presence.
2009
Taylor Ash ’09 and Anna Hansen Sayre ’05 work together at The Trade Desk in New York City. Both IPE majors and Pi Phi alums, they report that “the Logger handshake is a great icebreaker at work events.”
Andrea Gorton ’09 was tenured in March 2023 as a foreign service officer for the U.S. Department of State. She’s currently posted to Tel Aviv, Israel, with her husband, Jacob, and three daughters, Evelia, Malala, and Millicent. Her prior postings include Guangzhou, China; Accra, Ghana; and New Delhi, India.
2010
Joan Ilacqua ’10 was one of five archivists on the plenary panel at the spring 2023 meeting of the New England Archivists in Portsmouth, N.H.
Molly Brown ’15, reference and outreach archivist at Northeastern University, moderated the session, which focused on the past, present, and future of the profession. Ilacqua is executive director of The History Project: Documenting LGBTQ+ Boston.
2013
Robert (Bert) Lechner ’13 has a new book, Interstate (The Roots Grow Into the Earth Book 1), a series of short cosmic horror stories. “It’s been a dream I’ve strived for since graduating from Puget Sound,” he says. “The adventure to get there has included traveling the United States, self-discovery as a late diagnosed person on the autism spectrum, and more. I’m now working as a full-time author, with more books scheduled for release throughout 2023 and beyond.”