Alumni News
Compiled by Paula Wagner Apfelbach '83

60s

Susan Schuckit Naimon Winebrenner '60 is the author of Teaching Gifted Kids in the Regular Classroom and Teaching Kids with Learning Difficulties in the Regular Classroom (both published by Free Spirit). The Brooklyn, Michigan, resident is also the president of the Education Consulting Service, a speakers' bureau that provides professional development for school staffs in the area of mixed-ability classes.

At an award ceremony in June, USDA Secretary Ann Veneman honored Gary Beecher '61, MS'63, PhD'66 and his colleagues with the 2001 Secretary's Honor Award for their leadership in developing useful data on phytonutrients. Beecher works at the Agriculture Research Service's Food Composition Laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland.

UW Dean of the College of Engineering Paul Peercy MS'63, PhD'66 and Max Lagally MS'65, PhD'68, the Erwin W. Mueller Professor and Bascom Professor of Surface Science, were among those elected to the National Academy of Engineering in February, making a total of twenty UW faculty members who have received this honor. Peercy became the engineering dean in 1999 after serving as president of SEMI/ SEMATECH, a nonprofit consortium that steers technical issues for the semiconductor industry. Lagally joined the UW faculty in 1970 and has conducted groundbreaking research in both new and established areas of surface science.

We received a bio from Glenn Jacobson '64, the founder, president, and CEO of the Holland, Ohio-based Unique Systems, Incorporated (USI). Prior to forming USI in 1990, he had crafted a thirty-five-year career in the computer services business. Recently, Jacobson has been an international speaker on the subject of Linux as a desktop operating system - a USI specialty.

Bettina Brown Irvine '65 is the new president of the Alpha-1 Association (www.alpha1.org), a national patient advocacy organization for this adult-onset, genetic disease. She had previously served as vice president and director. In April, Irvine also received the Newsmaker of the Year Award at the association's tenth-anniversary conference, where she was praised for putting Alpha-1 on the national "media map." She lives in Cos Cob, Connecticut.

Franklin Cheng PhD'66 has written Matrix Analysis of Structural Dynamics: Applications and Earthquake Engineering (Marcel Dekker). He is the Curators' Professor Emeritus of Civil Engineering at the University of Missouri-Rolla.

Here's a work that we alumnae may look forward to reading: Heart to Heart: Deepening Women's Friendships at Midlife (Berkley Books), the fifth book by Patricia Gottlieb Shapiro '66. The Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, author writes that "it's the first book to explore why friends are important to women at midlife, [and to examine] the powerful nature of the bond, and its roots and challenges."

In the early seventies, Richard Swanson MA'66 wrote the first draft of a novel - a thriller - based on the 1970 bombing of the UW's Sterling Hall. The manuscript then sat in his attic until the Gulf War spurred Swanson to recraft the book as Events of the Day: A Tragedy of the American Sixties (iUniverse.com). The Madison author is also a poet, playwright, and retired Madison Area Technical College writing instructor.

Congratulations to Aquine Jackson '69, PhD'80 and Karen Dickson Jackson '70, who received the Milwaukee Times Black Excellence Award in the category of Families in Education Making a Difference. Aquine is the director of student services for the Milwaukee Public Schools, while Karen is that school district's director of human resources.

Alumni News: 40s-50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s

Return to On Wisconsin main page