Fall 2023 AlumNotes

Florida Tech September 27, 2023

1970s

Charles “Chuck” Moore ’72 A.S., ’73, ’74, is a retired U.S. Navy, Air Florida, Alaskan bush, and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Services pilot. Today, he flies personal airplanes and helicopters.

Richard Wilke ’76 is retiring after working 43 years at the Brookhaven National Laboratory.

1980s

Brian Usiak ’81 A.S. welcomed his granddaughter, Anika Hawk, who will hopefully be a Panther someday, in January.

David Binder ’82 A.S. was appointed assistant commissioner of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and serves as Florida’s homeland security advisor. He and his wife, Valerie, reside in Tallahassee, Florida.

Richard “Rick” Roy ’83 has accepted a new position as a scientific account manager at Genedata. This summer, he and his wife, Deb, will celebrate their 35th wedding anniversary.

Marc Jaime ’85 is a handling, mechanical and structures engineering manager for TOSC, where he has hired multiple Florida Tech graduates and currently employs six recent grads in his group. Jaime’s family is full of Panthers, including his wife, Lynn Jaime, who is the associate director of Florida Tech’s All Faiths Center, and his two children Paul Jaime ’22 and Allyn Jaime ’23.

Vikram “Vik” Verma ’87 was appointed chairman of the board of directors for SecureAuth, a leader in next-generation authentication and access management.

James “Jim” Chilton ’88 M.S. was awarded the 2023 Kurt W. Debus award from the National Space Club, Florida Committee (NSCFL). Chilton is the senior vice president of space and launch at Boeing’s defense, space and security division.

Edward Thomas Jr. ’89, Ph.D., was appointed dean of the College of Sciences and Mathematics at Auburn University. He is the first dean of the college who also holds a doctorate from Auburn University.

1990s

Sharon Evans ’90 M.S., ’92 Psy.D., welcomed another beautiful grandchild, Yair Yehuda.

Thomas “Tom” Garthwaite ’92 M.S. was selected as president of Winter Haven and Winter Haven Women’s hospitals.

Jeffrey Novak ’95 is a registered architect and senior design project manager based in Irvine, California, with The Austin Company and is working on two new, high-profile projects for L3Harris Technologies Inc.

Richard Burnett ’97, ’99 M.S., accepted a new position as principal engineer at ARM.

Deborah (Baugh) McLemore ’97 M.S. is approaching 30 years with the U.S. Army and Department of Defense as a logistician and program manager.

Donald “Jay” Stinson ’97 M.S. is a business consultant with Schneider Electric’s North American digital grid group.

Henry Castellanos ’98 A.S., ’00, received the Grand Champion Award at Jets Over Kentucky, the world’s largest jet event.

Lisa Spadafina ’98 has been named the top official for Miami-Dade County’s Department of Environmental Resource Management (DERM).

Kristin White ’99, ’04, was selected as deputy regional director of operations for the Bureau of Reclamation California-Great Basin Region.

2000s

Theon Danet ’00 MBA has been appointed acting deputy director and chief operating officer of the Defense Commissary Agency.

Serena Thomas ’01 is a field sales leader at USHealth Advisors, where she has worked for seven years.

Russell Deatherage ’02, ’17 MBA, began working as an IT manager at Northrop Grumman Corp., supporting multiple programs and initiatives in the BWI area within Maryland.

Bryan Jones ’03 M.S. was promoted to construction president of Hourigan Group, a Richmond, Virginia-based construction and development firm.

Michael “Mike” Sears ’03 M.S. started a new position as director of foreign military sales for Honeywell Aerospace, defense and space.

James “Wes” McDaniel Jr. ’04 MBA, ’10 MBA, is the director of customer experience for Greystar.

Col. Ronnie D. Anderson Jr. ’05 M.S. became the 14th commander of the Joint Munitions Command in June. Anderson has served in the military for the past 31 years.

Rachel Simpson ’09 M.S. became quality assurance associate director at BioAgilytix in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina.

2010s

Muzammil Arshad ’10 M.S., ’18 Ph.D., was promoted to associate professor at Texas A&M University in June. He also authored a textbook on fluid mechanics and power using the latest pedagogical trends for student success and learning.

Gabrielle Delellis ’10 moved back to Brevard County and accepted a position as a clinical staff pharmacist at Palm Bay Hospital.

Chandel Adam ’11 joined TaylorMade Golf as a safety and sustainability program manager. Previously, she completed two environmental-based master’s degrees and worked as a consultant, as well as within the industry.

Cecilia Dockery ’11 accepted a new position as assistant director of programs for Clery Center.

Jason Doran ’11 MBA is the director of account management for Ontic, a software company based in Austin, Texas.

Gaël Le Bris ’11 MSA was promoted to vice president of aviation planning with WSP, one of the world’s leading engineering professional services firms. Le Bris and Loup-Giang Nguyen ’19 MSA are among the lead authors of “ACRP Research Report 243: Urban Air Mobility: An Airport Perspective.” The research effort was conducted for the Transportation Research Board, a division of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine based in Washington, D.C.

Marcia Bryant ’13 MBA is the director of case management at Encompass Health in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma.

Akshay Hiremath ’13 M.S. is working as a power and performance engineer at Intel. He is currently working on building and powering the world’s best high-performance CPUs and next-generation CPUs.

Omar Galil ’14, ’17 M.S., welcomed a baby and was promoted to senior consultant with Deloitte.

Jashelle Ojeda ’14 works for Sargent and Lundy as a nuclear I&C engineer after serving eight years in the U.S. Navy.

Robert Collins ’15 MBA accepted a position with Arizona State University as a project manager overseeing programs and projects for the enterprise technology group.

Emily (Sybo) Glatz ’15 was promoted to talent acquisition specialist II at Ansys and is now responsible for recruitment in North America for all the mechanical and fluids product teams.

Sherisse Pierre ’15, ’17 M.S., (left) flew with Caribbean Airlines’ first ATR all-female crew.

Tyler Seidman ’15 will soon finish his psychiatry residency at the University of Central Florida-Gainesville and has accepted a position at Viera VA Clinic in Melbourne. In 2021, Seidman married Heather Lemieux ’15 after they met their freshman year at Florida Tech’s Roberts Hall.

Eliot Joyner ’16 A.A., ’16, began working for Lockheed Martin Corp. as a senior program security officer focusing on advising for cutting-edge technologies that protect the United States.

Monica Stillson ’16 accepted a position at EY as a senior analyst in its financial services organization.

Marilyn Zajac ’16 became the south region energy advisor at FirstService Energy, based out of Miami.

Diego D’Ignazi de Domenico ’17 started a new role as an R&D senior solution engineer at Alascom in Milan.

Jennifer “Jenni” Holman ’17 M.S. accepted a position as human resources generalist with Avalon International Aluminum LLC.

Gary Holmes Jr. ’17, ’19 MBA, was promoted to principal system test engineer on the E-2 program at Northrop Grumman Corp.

Katie Manrique ’17, ’18 M.S. presented her research on acute kidney injury post-lung transplantation at the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation annual conference in April.

Anton Medvedev ’17 was hired as a senior software engineer at Bluevine, a Silicon Valley-based financial technology startup aiming to help provide funding and financial services to businesses all around the United States.

Kartikeya Sharma ’17, ’19 M.S., is a lead cybersecurity consultant at Ernst & Young.

Paul Bersoux ’18 is celebrating 10 years with L3Harris Technologies Inc. and received a promotion to deputy operations manager.

Steven Farris ’18 MBA was promoted to manager of programs at Northrop Grumman Corp. in January.

Nilbah Kajave ’18 M.S., ’21 Ph.D., was promoted to product development lead scientist with Humabiologics Inc.

Klara Scripter ’18 is a high school biology teacher at Pineapple Cove Classical Academy, a charter school in Palm Bay, Florida. Four of her graduating students this year were accepted to Florida Tech and received generous scholarships.

Ashwin Somalinga Suresh ’18 M.S. accepted the position of molecular scientist II with Southwest Labs, conducting sophisticated human molecular diagnostics for intricate infectious diseases within a clinical laboratory setting.

Amy Taylor ’18 MBA was promoted to senior marketing manager at Marriott International, where she oversees marketing strategy for two resorts in the southeast.

Reed Antonich ’19 accepted a role with Sierra Space to help fly its Dream Chaser spaceplane when launches begin in 2024.

Luis Freile Montalvo ’19 started a new position as a first officer with SkyWest Airlines based out of Chicago.

Shaula Rey ’19 received Lockheed Martin Corp.’s Evening of Excellence Award for her work in digital transformation, one of the highest recognitions in the organization (only 0.0008% of the employee population receives it).

Kaitlin Spiros ’19 MBA is a contracts manager between Northrop Grumman Corp. and the U.S. Department of Defense.

Gleneshia Waul ’19 accepted a new position as a life solutions specialist with USAA. She also recently got engaged and finished building a custom home in Tampa, Florida.

2020s

Sgt. Susan “Dawn” Heyse ’20 M.A. and her husband, Kenneth Bouchard, are proud to announce that their son Brendan has been accepted to study biomedical engineering at Florida Tech.

Logan Smith ’20 M.S. joined the Department of Veterans Affairs as a senior IT specialist.

Fahad Alsuliman ’21 M.S. was appointed senior manager in technical delivery at Thiqah.

Zachary Behlok ’21 A.S., ’22 A.A., ’22, published his latest book, Questioning Death and Other Essays, which is a collection of 11 previously unpublished critical and creative essays that he wrote during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic between 2020 and 2021.

Michael Burn ’21 MBA is a program manager with Tomahawk Robotics.

Michael P. Carroll ’21 started a new position as a plant operator with H2O Innovation in Gulfport, Mississippi.

Robert “Sean” Catron ’21 accepted an RF engineering role with Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control.

Romana Rouf Chowdhury ’21 MBA was reelected as the chairman of Bank Asia Securities Ltd. She is the managing director of Sea Natural Food Ltd., Sea Fishers Ltd. and Sea Resources Group.

Joel Colby ’21 M.S. leveraged his Florida Tech degree to score a principal manufacturing engineer position at Northrop Grumman Corp. in Melbourne.

Steven Pazienza ’21 was promoted to systems engineer II at Raytheon Technologies.

Jennifer Turner ’21 MBA is an F-35 Tech Refresh 3 production test director.

Shiyue “Katie” Yu ’21 is an associate product manager at Supermicro.

Abdulrahman Alghamdi ’22 M.S. accepted a position as lab operations engineering specialist at Eurofins Lancaster Laboratories Co. in the global vaccine and biological commercialization department.

Ammar Yasir Aljohani ’22 accepted a position as a site engineer with Saudi Bell Group, one of the largest companies specializing in X-rays at land ports, airports and ports.

Chase Bubak ’22 works as a dragon technician for SpaceX in Cape Canaveral, Florida, where he is helping prepare the next crewed capsule to deliver astronauts to the International Space Station.

Shane Cupid ’22 MBA joined STEMBoard as a data analyst.

Ramone Hemphill Sr. ’22 MBA, founder of The 99th Squadron Inc., received the Brigadier General Charles E. McGee Aviation Inspiration Award.

Paige Herr ’22 began a new summer internship at MCI-Norfolk, the largest medium-security prison in Massachusetts. She is also the diversity, equity and inclusion advisor for Alpha Phi’s Boston University chapter.

Robert Irvine ’22 A.A., ’22 A.S., ’22, moved to Houston in April to begin working for NASA as a contractor. He has been trained on how to do mission control for the first of three Mars analog missions at Johnson Space Center for a crew of four in a 3D-printed simulated Mars habitat and environment.

Sierra Kucinski ’22 M.A. is a board-certified behavior analyst (BCBA). As such, she creates programming to address skill deficits and increase overall independence within tasks for children ages 2 to 18 with autism.

Jonathan Shimer ’22 was recruited by Charles Stark Draper Laboratories in Cape Canaveral, Florida, as a mechanical engineer upon graduation.

Kristian Stameski ’22 accepted a new position as a flight test engineer with Northrop Grumman Corp. in Melbourne.

Sarah Alamri ’23 M.S. graduated in the spring, earning her master’s degree in biochemistry after facing many personal obstacles that tested her resilience, perseverance and dedication.