ALUMNI  UPDATE

2001

Athena Bertolino, Environmental Science
Athena has been volunteering in Costa Rica as the student administrator since February 2002. In addition to her office position, she has spent time whitewater rafting, hiking through rainforests and learning how to make tortillas. Athena says that her experiences and new friends have been amazing.

1980’s

Patty Fillerup, Family Studies
Patty recently decided to go back to school for her HR Management certificate at UC Berkeley. She plans to complete the program in Spring 2004 and is currently living and working in San Francisco where she says there is “so much to see and do!”

Curtis Jones, Plant Science
President of Botanical Interests, Inc., a horticultural seed packet company which provides independent garden centers and health food grocery stores with garden seeds.

Elizabeth “Liz” Kaplan, Agriculture
Liz is on the University of Arizona Alumni Board of Directors and is interested in learning how she can get involved with CALS Alumni.

Andrea (Mangione) Standish, Child Development
As a child life specialist, Andrea is a member of a pediatric healthcare team in a children’s hospital and an outpatient dialysis clinic. Her primary role is to help children and families cope positively with the stresses of illness and hospitalization. Her goals are to help children better understand the hospital environment, provide education about illnesses and procedures using special books and dolls and work to promote opportunities for optimal development during hospitalization and outpatient treatments. Andrea says that she is happy to volunteer to represent the UA at numerous college fairs held at local high schools.

Carolyn (Hansen) Bulmahn, Animal Health Science

Elizabeth McCasland, Wildlife Management
Elizabeth moved from Northern California to the “Big Easy” (New Orleans) and says that she must have been crazy to move in August out of the hot, but dry, desert into the muggy deep south. She is enjoying her job with the Environmental Planning and Restoration branch of the Army Corps of Engineers, New Orleans District. Who knew that a desert-educated biologist would have fun with her work in the swamp!

1970’s

Joseph C. Carrasco, Agricultural Economics, 1978
Joseph recently sold his Gilbert, Arizona farms and bought two vineyards in Paso Robles, California with 400 acres of wine grapes, predominantly Cabernet, Sauvignon, Merlot and Syrah. Located halfway between San Francisco and Los Angles on the Pacific Coast, Joseph says that Paso Robles is the fastest growing premium wine region in California. Staying true to his Arizona homeland, Joseph still has farms in Pinal County that growing cotton and wheat.

William N. Dryden, Agricultural Education, 1974
William is the owner of the Black Rock Ranch Wilderness Retreat and the Circle Lazy J Enterprise. He also runs his family’s cattle ranch and is an instructor at the E.A.C. Technical Welding and Machine Shop. The Dryden family has a guest facility on their ranch that consists of five log cabins that can accommodate four to five guests apiece.

Michael W. Cooper, Agriculture and Animal Science, 1970
Michael remained in Tucson after he graduated and worked for the Arizona Feeds in their management trainee program for three years. After leaving Arizona Feeds, Michael started his career working for the Tucson Electric Power Company and remained there for 26 years, with the last nine working in marketing/customer service/sales. He took an early retirement and now does as he pleases, like hunting. Michael has season tickets to the UA football and basketball seasons and he sometimes travels to watch the teams play in other cities. He is also a substitute teacher for the Tucson Unified School District and the Pima County School System, where he teaches adolescents who are incarcerated in the Pima County Juvenile Center or the Pima County Jail. He says that he is not doing work in agriculture like he would have liked to do, but his college degree allowed him to have a career in both the electrical company and now as a substitute teacher.

1960’s

Christine Kelsey, Home Economics Education, 1969
Christine took ten years to get her undergraduate degree as a result of her husband’s many relocations and the time it took to have their three children. After graduating, Christine was the home advisor and 4-H Youth Advisor for San Jose/Santa Clara County, California and she went on to serve for a year with the 4-H staff as a human development specialist. From there Christina went on to get her master’s degree in home economics with a focus on family. Her degree work and internship experience was accepted in California and she became (and still is) a licensed marriage and family therapist. In the 1980’s she worked as a contract negotiator for a Fortune 500 company and continues to commute weekly via plane from her ranch near Monterey to her office in Los Angeles. She says that she has wonderful ornamental and vegetable gardens and that she loves to get dirt under her finger nails or work hard stacking firewood, or doing tractor work. She claims to not feel her age and says that the fact that she finished her first triathlon at the age of 62 and came in third in her age group from among a field of 2,500 entrants, shows she still has plenty of spunk left!

John Duncklee, Range Management, 1956 (BS) and Geography, 1967 (MA)
John has been a writer for 30 “some odd” years and since 1994, nine of his books have been published from a variety of publishers including the U of A Press and Leisure Books in New York. His novels depict the history of the West. He spent time in the cattle and horse business in addition to “professoring” at various institutions, including the UA. He has also designed and build mesquite furniture in Tubac for 18 years.