Economics continues to thrive at Oxy. We consistently are in the top three departments in the College in terms of the number of graduating majors, and our students' ability to land outstanding jobs and get into excellent graduate programs continues to be exceptional. This year, nine of our top ten students are going to graduate school or got high-paying jobs in investment banking or consulting. (The tenth, who had the highest GPA, is working at Don Ho's Grill in Honolulu while she considers what to do for a "real job," as she puts it!)

This year we were also pleased to see the Economics Society, a student group composed mostly of Econ majors, organize a very well-attended discussion on the "new economy." Speakers at this event included two Econ alums, a venture capitalist and an investment banker. Both reported that their Oxy education had helped them tremendously succeed in their jobs. We hope that in the future more alums will come back to campus to share their work experiences with current students.

The departmental faculty currently boasts a healthy combination of old favorites and young whippersnappers. Jim Halstead, Mary Hirschfeld, Robby Moore, Mike Tamada, Jim Whitney and I are still here (as we have been for an average of twenty years each). Luckily for us, we've been invigorated by newcomers like Colleen Callahan (who was an associate professor at Lehigh), Jean Hamilton (who also does research at UCLA), and Giorgio Secondi (who taught at Wellesley before coming to Oxy). This year, Robby Moore will be on sabbatical at Pomona College (his alma mater), and he'll be replaced by Jennifer Olmsted, who's just finishing up a stint doing research at the US Department of Agriculture in Washington, DC.

Actually, I suppose that the biggest news for some of you is that we now offer a second major called "Economics for Business and Management" in addition to our regular economics major. This new major is aimed at students who want the benefits of a liberal arts education while also preparing themselves for a career in management. The new major starts with the basic core economics classes and then adds required classes in accounting, managerial economics, finance, etc., and adds internships with corporations in downtown LA. It also requires a new senior comprehensive that augments the critical thinking and writing skills of the traditional economics comprehensive with oral presentations, teamwork exercises, real world applications, and memo writing.

If you have any questions about this new major, or about any other topic relating to the department, please feel free to contact me at woody@oxy.edu or 323-259-2776. I look forward to hearing from you!

Woody Studenmund

The main rationale that you hear in the financial press, namely that compensation in this form provides better incentives to workers whose interests may not be aligned with those of shareholders, is not easily reconciled with theory or facts. This brief piece will outline what that recent research argues is a more persuasive rationale for the granting of stock options to CEOs and other high level managers. Note at the outset, however, that personnel economists are still puzzled by the more recent practice of giving stock options even to very low-level workers. Indeed, one of the reasons for starting our first newsletter with this topic is that some of you out there in the "real world" might help such economists by letting us know your answer to this puzzle.

In my new "personnel economics" course (Economics 352), I have students speculate about the answers to various issues facing real-world firms. One of these "mini-cases" concerns Cisco Systems, copied immediately below. You might try to jot down your answer to this mini-case question before reading further.

Before looking at the answer to this question, let's start with some basic definitions. As most of you know, stock in a corporation is an ownership claim that entitles the owner to participate in the profits of the corporation in proportion to the number of shares held. You may receive a dividend as payment of these profits, depending on the firm's board of directors' decisions. A stock option looks quite different, but to economists is analytically quite similar to stock. A "call" option is simply the right to purchase stock at some pre-determined exercise price, also known as the "strike" price. An option is "in the money" if the current price is above the exercise price and is "under water" when the current price is below the exercise strike. Without going into too much detail, you can think of shares of stock as analytically identical to stock options with a zero strike price. (Of course, you don't receive dividends on stock options.) With this brief background, let's see what current research has to say about the answer to our mini-case question.

Why aren't options a good way to align the incentives of workers with those of shareholders? In brief, it's the ol' "free rider" effect from your undergraduate classroom days. That is, even CEOs own a very small part of the firm and so their actions have only a very small effect on the stock price. For other managers, the free rider effect is even more severe. And for lower level employees, an individual employee's effort will have virtually no effect on the stock price. For example, if a bank teller at Bank of America does his job a bit better, that really won't have a major impact on the stock price. So, that employee can easily say to himself, "I'll let others work hard to improve the stock price." In addition, the facts tell us that information and technology start up firms are more likely to offer stock options than other kinds of firms, and there is nothing in the incentive story to explain this phenomenon.

What About the Other Rationales Offered?

One often hears top management say that by issuing stock options-especially those that "vest" sometime in the future-they can provide an incentive for employees to stick around. That is, if the worker leaves before the stock options "vest", then the worker will lose the options. The problem with this view, again according to top personnel economists, is that there are better ways to provide for retention. If a typical worker is more risk averse than suppliers of outside capital, then why shouldn't she prefer to get non-vested pay in the form of a bond, rather than risky stock options. In other words, why not just put a T-bill in an escrow account and tell the worker that if she stays until it vests, she will get the bond? Further, it is not always desirable to bind a worker to the firm. If a worker's outside opportunities exceed the worker's value at the current firm, then both the worker and the firm could be made better off by negotiating a separation.

What about the "risk sharing rationale"? This argument says that by providing stock options, the owners of the firm can reduce their risk. If profits turn out to be low, overall compensation to workers will be lower than otherwise, and if profits turn out to be high, the owners share the gains with the workers. There are two problems with this argument/rationale. First, workers already have most of their "human capital" tied up in the future prospects of the firm, while non-labor owners/shareholders do not. Thus, from the point of view of diversification of one's overall assets, it doesn't make sense for workers to invest most of their human capital and financial capital with the same firm. Second, this method of obtaining capital is more costly than it needs to be. Consider the situation where the firm asks its clerical workers to take below market wages in return for stock options. These low-wage workers should charge a higher price than should say, a venture capitalist or debt-based investor. That is, if a worker would accept say, 5,000 stock options in lieu of 20% of market wages, then a venture capitalist, who is in a better position to bear risk, should provide the same amount of capital for less than 5,000 options. The firm could borrow from the venture capitalist and pay the low-wage workers' wages with the proceeds.

The rationale advanced by Edward Lazear, Professor Of Human Resources Management at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, stresses the providing of information via the issuing of stock options to top managers. Without going into too much detail, the basic idea is that outsiders, who might be inclined to invest in an enterprise, would like some assurance that the firm is likely to make a positive profit. When a top manager is willing to take compensation in the form of stock options, it forces the manager to "put her money where her mouth is", in Lazear's view. Such a manager is willing to take lower wages in return for pay that varies with the profitability, and as such, she is betting that the firm's profits will be sufficiently high to make up for any deviation in their fixed pay.

Gathering of this sort of information would seem to be more important in new industries and industries where future profitability is difficult to ascertain. The impression I've gotten of Silicon Valley, where stock options are legendary, seems consistent with this rationale. Also, when a firm is experiencing a period of uncertainty or transition, this rationale would predict that stock options should become more prevalent. An anecdote here is that when Chrysler Corporation was on the verge of bankruptcy, it brought in Lee Iacocca as CEO with a salary of $1 plus variable pay that depended on Chrysler's future profit performance. The fact that Chrysler made this contract so public could be interpreted as a way of advertising Iacocca's confidence in Chrysler to investors.

Of course, nothing in any of these rationales explains why firms would offer stock options to all their employees. Rather that providing readers with some of the explanations currently being discussed, I'll just leave this as one of unanswered research questions in the new field of personnel economics. If you have a view, perhaps you could let us hear it?

* Robby Moore is the Elbridge Amos Stuart Professor of Economics at Occidental College. This piece is based almost entirely on research contained in recent NBER Working Paper No. W7419 by Edward P. Lazear, entitled "Output-based Pay: Incentives or Sorting?"

Jim Halstead completed his 33rd year of teaching with his enthusiasm for the class room only slightly diminished. In addition to environmental economics and the history of economic thought, he continues to teach principles courses on a regular basis, and he works as hard as ever to try to find new and interesting ways to present and to learn material. As Director of Academic Advising, Jim has been active in the implementation of several changes in College procedures. Most prominently, he has helped to fashion and guide the College's transition from a PC based, computer-assisted registration process to a web-based one, and he played an important role in the establishment of a new pilot program, The Living and Learning Community, which will involve about 60 frosh who will be living together and sharing Core courses. Jim will also teach one of the Core courses in this program in the coming fall semester. He still finds time to pursue his comparatively new passion, brewpub touring, and to date he has visited and sampled the wares of some 350 brewpubs across the country. He recently published a commentary on his 10 favorite brewpubs in the Crown City Brewery publication, "Talk of the Crown."

Jean Hamilton returned to Occidental in fall 1999 after a two year postdoctoral fellowship at the UCLA School of Public Health. The aim of the fellowship was to provide quantitatively trained researchers with an understanding of the health and welfare issues faced by mothers and children. Thus, the tables were turned on Prof. Hamilton as she sat through various lectures on topics such as health care financing and children with special health care needs. She also wrote and presented a paper on breastfeeding in the workplace for the National Breastfeeding Policy Conference. In addition, she conducted research on other aspects of breastfeeding and on foster care. Prof. Hamilton's return to Oxy was especially exciting and formidable because she taught in the Core program for the first time. She team-taught a course on the family with Professor Taylor of the Sociology Department. Spring 2000 was just as challenging as she taught another new course, the senior seminar on health economics and policy, and intermediate macroeconomic theory.

For the past three years, Mary Hirschfeld has been serving as department chair. In addition, she has been serving on four major committees (all centered on planning and budget issues for the college). Finally, like all of us in the economics department, she has been handling very large enrollments in all of her courses. Not surprisingly, she has done little research, though she has had time to pet her 3 cats and play with her crazy dog. She has been extensively involved in her church and has been working with the Newman Center here on campus. The big news is that it has become increasingly clear to her that her interest in economics has irretrievably waned. She is hoping to move on to another career at the end of this year. Failing that, she would hope to rearrange her work load at Oxy to minimize time spent teaching straight econ courses. Stay tuned for further developments in next year's newsletter...

Robby Moore has been hard at work developing a new course, "The Economics of Human Resources Management," which is a relatively new sub-field of labor economics. Forty-one students took his course this Spring, which fulfills part of the requirements of the new Economics for Business and Management major. While the course relies heavily on real world mini-cases and formal Harvard Business School case studies of personnel policies in major firms and start-ups, it still falls easily within the broad goals of a liberal arts curriculum with its emphasis on the application of economic analysis and on communicating one's ideas clearly and succinctly. He has also continued his heavy college service, with membership on the Tenure and Promotion Committee and his Chairing of the Search Committee for a New Athletic Director. He also published his eighteenth paper, "Teaching Introductory Economics with a Collaborative Learning Lab Component," in the Journal of Economic Education. Robby will be spending his upcoming sabbatical as a Visiting Professor at Pomona College, and as a chauffeur for his two children, Jeff and Sarah, now ages 15 and 12.

Giorgio Secondi taught principles, analytical foundations, intermediate macroeconomics, and a new class, "Comparative and Transition Economics." This class focuses on comparing the U.S. to other market economies (such as Japan, France, and Germany) and on examining the economics of transition from socialism to capitalism in such countries as Russia, China, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland. On the research front Giorgio worked on a paper that uses the so-called "economics of the family" to explain the unusually high ratio of boys to girls in rural China. Giorgio served as the Faculty Associate in Newcomb and enjoyed spending time with the residents throughout the year (much of that time was spent playing ping pong…). He also helped found and became the advisor to the Occidental Rowing Club. Some twenty students (including a few Econ majors) joined the club and agreed to get up at 4:30 in the morning three times a week so as to be able to drive to Marina del Rey, practice on the water, and be back on campus in time for 8:30 classes. At the end of April our women's eight participated in in its first race, the Norman Miller Cup Regatta in Marina del Rey.

Woody Studenmund recently took over as chair of the department after Mary Hirschfeld finished up an excellent tour of duty. He continues to love teaching econometrics, but he also is having a lot of fun with the weekly Harvard Business School case studies in Managerial Economics. He just published the fourth edition of his econometrics textbook, and he has high hopes that the book will remain the best selling text in the field. He continues to serve as a part-time administrator despite his best efforts to the contrary. He currently is the College's Director of Institutional Planning, chairs the all-College Planning and Budget Committee, and is a member of three other faculty and trustee committees.

Mike Tamada continued as the Director of Institutional Research. Projects included studies of student retention, predicting student GPA's, and measuring departmental workloads (econ faculty workloads were high). Mike usually teaches one class per year, but did no teaching this year. He continues to advise the men's Ultimate Frisbee Club (we now have a women's club too) and was chosen Club Advisor of the Year in 1999.

Jim Whitney, on board since 1982, still experiments some with the technology-assisted learning approaches he began tinkering with in 1993. It's been a long and interesting venture, but its main impact to date is to reinforce the value of personal interaction in the learning process--good news for a liberal arts education. He also continues to pursue research interests in international trade and the economics of professional sports. His daughter, Cami, received her driver's license this year. His wife, Linda, is now also employed at Oxy, in its Center for Teaching and Learning, so with both parents at the College, Cami has already ruled out Oxy as one of the colleges she will consider attending in a couple years. Jim still recommends it as a great choice for everyone else.

Please click on the class year you are interested in or scroll down the page to look at all of them
Note: Names in blue are clickable and linked to e-mail addresses or personal web pages

1946	1950	1955	1957
1958	1961	1962	1963
1964	1966	1967	1968
1970	1971	1973	1976
1977	1979	1980	1981
1982	1983	1984	1985
1986	1987	1988	1989
1990	1991	1992	1994
1995	1996	1997	1998
1999	2000

 
 
 
Class of 1946

Bob Howry is enjoying retirement with wife Mary Lou in Oceanside, CA where they've lived for the past 12 years after deserting the greater Los Angeles and Manhattan Beach scene. After graduating from Oxy Bob went to work for the Bank of America, N.T. & S.A. and 40 yrs. later retired as a V.P. The four Howry offspring have provided 13 grandchildren and 3 great-grandchildren. Both Bob and Mary Lou enjoy volunteer work in Oceanside, including Meals on Wheels together, and Mary Lou at the Tri-City Medical Center, and Bob with the Oceanside Police Dept. as Administrator of its Senior Volunteer Program for 2½ yrs. He says a "Code 3" ride (red lights and siren) with a cop is better than any E-ticket ride.

 
Class of 1950

Turley Mings retired from the San Jose State Economics Department in 1989 following 31 years teaching economics and directing the Center for Economic Education. Since then he has been self-employed with RAREconomics, periodically revising his textbook, The Study of Economics (DPG, McGraw Hill). He also produces videotapes for, e.g., the U.S. West Kayak Surf Team and S.F. Bay Area adventure activities organizations. His office condominium is in San Francisco, and his principal residence is in Truckee.

 
Class of 1955

Bob Carr earned a degree from CLU in 1969 and works as a self-employed broker. He's semi-retired but still working so he won't rust.

After graduating from Oxy, Cathie Young Selleck spent over 35 years in various management and executive positions with IBM. She then became President and CEO of Metaphor, Inc., a software and services company in the Silicon Valley. She currently divides her time among consulting assigments and board memberships, with time out for golf and gardening. She also serves as a Trustee of Occidental College and chairs the Trustee Development Committee. After living in Los Angeles, Denver, Minneapolis, Darien, CT, Dallas and Stamford, CT, she and her husband Bill have finally and happily settled down in Menlo Park, California.

 
Class of 1957

Ronald Oswald retired after working for Kemper Insurance and then 36 years for the Los Angeles Unified School District as an administrator. What he learned at Oxy in general and as a Business major was very useful all of these years. Very high in value was Dr. De Ryke's emphasis on writing skills! He now does interim administrative assignments for the school district and is a part-time adjunct professor at Oxy in the Education Department, when he's not motorhoming!

 
Class of 1958

Lee Helie is still working for a national construction firm. He travels most of the year, sometimes visiting 45 different cities. When he's not at home in Newport Beach or the San Bernardino mountains or Palm Springs he tries to catch up with his chores. He married an Econ major, Betsey Lewis '65, and they have two great kids.

 
Class of 1961

Russ Barber has been teaching accounting and economics at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia for 27 years. For the last 10 years he also has been Associate Dean in the School of Business and Economics. He and his wife Carolyn, and his daughter Beth, live in the Historic District in Macon, just a few blocks from the Mercer campus. Russ is looking forward to retirement in another four years.

 
Class of 1962

Dave Berkus is a venture capitalist - Managing Partner of two firms: Berkus Technology Ventures, LLC and Kodiak Ventures, L.P. With over twenty-six investments in the portfolio, Dave specializes in Internet and software companies in Southern California. A director of eight companies both private and public, Dave was named "Director of the Year" for early stage businesses by the Orange County-based Forum for Corporate Directors in 1999.

Carl Schellenberg retired in September after 30 years with the Federal Aviation Administration. The last position that he occupied was Assistant Administrator and Chief Financial Officer. He is now working as an Independent Aviation Financial Consultant. He and his wife, Laurie, live in Vienna Virginia and recently celebrated the marriage of their daughter, Sarah. This summer they are having a wonderful time hosting two 16 year old girls from Northern Ireland.

 
Class of 1963

After changing majors from economics to political science at the recommendation of Dr. deRycke (if he wanted to graduate on time), Dave Roberson entered the life insurance business. Today, he and his son Jim (USC '93), are the principals of the oldest and most established firm of its type in Orange County (Roberson Consulting, LLC & The Roberson Company, LLC). Executive benefits and insurance consulting & brokerage is their primary business. Their firm recently funded and built an internet business, agentLife.com, a B2B site for life insurance professionals scheduled to go live mid-July. One of their current consulting assigments is guiding a national accounting firm into the executive benefits and life insurance business. With the passage of Financial Services Deregulation last year many financial services organizations are expanding into services outside their traditional core competency. The internet disintermediates knowledge and with deregulation, the times offer new challenges, opportunity and intense competition. Would enjoy discussion with others on financial services issues.

 
Class of 1964

Larry E. Westphal is the J. Archer and Helen C. Turner Professor of Economics at Swarthmore College. Please see his web page for more news about him.

 
Class of 1966

John B. Doolittle married Nora Williams in 1967. They have two children, John W., who is a Lieutenant Navy SEAL (after graduating from the Air Force Academy!) in Virginia Beach, Virgina, and Tori who graduated from UofA and is now an RN in Denver, CO. John W. just got married this past May. John B. joined the Air Force after Oxy and served four years on active duty. He then joined Pacific Bell and just retired from SBC as VP Wireless-Payphone Service Providers (selling wholesale network services to carriers) after almost 30 years. John stayed in the Air Force Reserves and retired as a colonel in 1998. He is National Ski Patrol Director at Homewood ski resort at Lake Tahoe. John and Nora just moved to Bodega Harbour and spend their time between their home in Bodega and their place at Tahoe.

Barbara Miles has survived a major reorganization of the Congressional Research Service (Library of Congress). She is now the head of the Banking, Insurance, Securities, and Macroeconomic Policy Section in CRS.

Stephen Overturf, the Douglas Ferguson chair in International Economics at Whittier College, just had the second edition of his book on monetary union in Europe published. The book is Money and European Union, St. Martin's Press in the US and Macmillan in the UK and Europe, and the first edition was very favorably reviewed by the Journal of Economic Literature, Economic Journal, Library Journal, and The Wall Street Journal among others. It has led to Steve's appearing on the Jim Lehrer News Hour twice, associated with various events in the development of the new euro currency.

 
Class of 1967

Jeff and Elaine Chapman moved in Summer, 1999 to the Phoenix, AZ area. Jeff is now the Director of the School of Public Affairs at ASU and having a wonderful time fighting the PoliSci Department. His research area is still state and local public finance, although he is trying to puzzle out the Arizona system, having given up on California. On a personal note, his prostate cancer surgery seems to have been very successful.

James (Jim) Dunlap fondly remembers the C- on his Economics comps, and the look in Professor Lauder's eyes as he pleaded with Jim to just move on in life and not do anything to embarrass the Department. Offsetting it all was the A- in Dr. D's Accounting class, after which it was all downhill and nothing else seemed to matter. Jim is now serving as a Regional Contracting Officer with the U.S. Agency for International Development in La Paz, Bolivia while not mountain biking or driving to Chile to surf. He is looking forward to his final pre-retirement assignment which will be in Lima, Peru. In Lima, the order will change: surfing or driving to Bolivia to mountain bike. Oxy alums traveling his way are welcome to call in for a chat or a stay. Contact him via the Alumni Office, or stop by the Pub Britannia in the Calacoto barrio of La Paz.

 
Class of 1968

Wally Frank and family now live in Vail, CO -- after a career involving extensive travel which culminated in an eight year stint in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Wally and his Saudi partner consult for companies marketing their products and services in the Kingdom. His son Wally III will be a senior at the Taft School in Connecticut this Fall and is looking at sunny Southern California for college.

Jeanne Ormsby is VP of Finance & Administration at Red Hot & Blue--a chain of Memphis-style barbeque restaurants based in Arlington, Virginia. Her husband recently retired from the biology department of George Mason University. All of their kids are doing well and they have two grandsons nearby to add to the fun.

 
Class of 1970

David Goldsmith has spent nearly 30 years trying to understand the economics of the health care industry. For the past decade or so he has been a venture capitalist investing in early stage health care and health care related investments. David has worked for Robertson Stephens and Company in San Francisco for nearly twenty years watching the firm grow from a small partnership to a major investment bank. David and his wife Diane have a son at Pomona College and a daughter completing high school.

Reed Johnson resigned his professorship in the economics department at the U.S. Naval Academy several years ago for a full-time research position at Research Triangle Institute in North Carolina. Subsequently, he and two of his RTI colleagues founded Triangle Economic Research, a contract research company in Durham, North Carolina. His company specializes in environmental and health valuation, including litigation support in natural resource damage cases and new-product valuation studies for pharmaceutical companies.

Gordon Paine worked as a business office manager for Pacific Telephone Company for two years after graduation and then changed fields to his first love, music. After earning his doctorate in choral conducting and literature in 1977 he became a faculty member at Cal State Fullerton. Chair of the Music Department at that school, he will retire from that position in two years, at which time he will foresake the city and move to Cambria, CA on the central coast with his wife Sherry to enjoy peace, nature, and fewer cars. Gordon is grateful for his education in economics, which has made it possible for him to manage a large department and to retire early!

 
Class of 1971

After a 20-year career with Hewlett-Packard, Seth Fearey is trying his hand at economic development. His goal is to help communities ranging in size from 10,000 to several 100,000 people understand how advanced communications services can increase jobs, wages, and quality of life. The Internet is, of course, the key technology behind all this. Clients range from Ashland, Oregon and Santa Clarita, California to the Greater Washington DC area and California's Central Valley. It's a one-man operation; lots of work and lots of fun (web site: www.connectedcommunities.net). Seth is enjoying working out of his home (thanks to his cable modem) a few minutes walk from Stanford U.

Since graduating from Oxy, John Garner has been in the field of employee benefits (except for one year during which he was business manager of two minor league baseball teams.) He has been an employee benefits consultant since 1977 and has had his own firm since 1987. Garner Consulting has 12 employees and serves clients nationwide, advising them on their life, health and disability benefits. John is author of the Health Insurance Answer Book and is President of the Los Angeles Chapter of the International Society of Certified Employee Benefit Specialists. John is also on the Board of Directors of Occidental Business Associates.

Dudley Tower has recently completed his Ph.D. in Human and Organizational Systems and is working on the application of complexity theory to organizations. He is living with his wife, Chris, in Evergreen Colorado located in the mountains outside Denver.

 
Class of 1973

Ten years ago Jim Garrett followed his job to Marietta, GA. where he lives with his wife, Edi, and three dogs, Chloe, Maggie, & Oscar.

Miki (Beaver) Moreno and husband John Davis live behind the Orange Curtain. Miki teaches intermediate students with moderate to severe developmental disabilities in the Montebello USD. Their oldest, Phaedra, graduated from UC Santa Cruz and lives there still, their youngest, Evan, attends Pomona.

Steve Silver is a lawyer/lobbyist in Arlington, VA. He specializes in western resource, communication, and other "fight with the government" issues. His most difficult assignment was to lobby fellow Oxy '73 alum Dennis Patrick when he was Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. Dennis did not like the political world and hated to meet with people like me. I never took it personally. That was 10 years ago. Hey Dennis, where are you now?

For the last 10 years Don van Deventer has been president and chief executive officer of Kamakura Corporation, a risk management information and software company based in Honolulu. Don founded the company in Japan in 1990 and relocated to Honolulu at the end of 1997 to internationalize the company. Kamakura now has offices in New York, Los Angeles, Honolulu, Tokyo and Singapore. Its clients include all five of the five largest banks in the world. Prior to founding Kamakura, Don was senior vice president in the investment banking division of Lehman Brothers in Tokyo and treasurer of First Interstate Bancorp in Los Angeles. His two books Financial Risk Analytics (with Kenji Imai) and Financial Risk Management in Banking (with Dennis Uyemura) are standard references in risk management.

 
Class of 1976

Though Richard P.F. Holt graduated in philosophy, he did his graduate work in economics and is now associate professor of economics at Southern Oregon University in Ashland, Oregon. He recently published Economics and its Discontents: Twentieth Century Economists (Edward Elgar, 1998) and is about to finish an edited volume for Routledge Press titled A New Guide to Post Keynesian Economics (edited with Steven Pressman). The New Guide book will be replacing Alfred Eichner's 1979 classic, A Guide to Post Keynesian Economics. He just started working on a new project with David Colander (Middlebury College) and J.Barkley Rosser, Jr. (James Madison University), on evaluating the contribution that evolutionary theory has made to economics.

 
Class of 1977

Tom Ratkovich lives in Denver with his wife, Allison, and two children, Stephen (9) and Jessica (8). He is the president/CEO of ASTECH InterMedia, a strategic marketing consultancy specializing in the media industry.

 
Class of 1979

Gail (Schulman) Ginell is a freelance accountant. She received her M.B.A. from UCLA in 1983 and her C.P.A. in 1985. After three years working for the accounting firm Deloitte Haskins & Sells (now Deloitte & Touche), she left to do freelance work. She is also the alumni editor for the Class Notes section of the Occidental Magazine and has been her own class secretary since graduation. Her husband, Cary, is a music consultant. She is the mother to Brian, age 7, and Adam, age 5, and very involved with their school and sport activities, including serving on the elementary school site council. The Ginells live in Thousand Oaks, Calif. The entire family enjoys seeing concerts and plays at the Civic Arts Plaza in town. Gail is also on the board of directors for her temple and serves on several temple committees.

 
Class of 1980

Steve Case lives in New Canaan, CT and has 3 kids--Eveline (13), Kim (11) and Sebastian (8). A divorced dad, he spends time nurturing kids, redoing an 1840 house and working. After several different investment related jobs in the New York City area where he has lived since graduating from Tuck in '83, he settled at AXA Financial, a large French owned insurance, investment management and brokerage holding company. He is involved with the investment of money underlying insurance products during his working life.

 
Class of 1981

Brad Weber currently lives in Los Angeles and is Chief Operating Office of Interactive Telecom Network (ITN), an internet service provider in Sherman Oaks. He is enjoying the fast pace of change and rapid growth in the internet business. Also, looking forward to spending the summer vacation with fellow Oxy Econ Alum Louis Hook. They are going to go camping with their boys.

 
Class of 1982

Kathy Kiel lives in the Boston area and is on the faculty at the College of the Holy Cross where she teaches economics. She got her degree from U.C. San Diego and misses southern California very much. She and her husband Jeff have one son who keeps them very busy, as well as entertained.

Harvey Lum moved to Mountain View, CA and is working as the Managing Director of Strategic Lending Alliances for Silicon Valley Bank. Additionally, after searching many years for the right mate, he also got married on 10/30/99.

 
Class of 1983

Julie (Cheng) Chow worked as a lending officer for Security Pacific National Bank and Mitsui Bank for several years and has since been a full-time homeschool mother of three.

Brennan Kane is living in Chicago, working for Information Resources, Inc., a mktg research firm in the Consumer Product Goods industry.

 
Class of 1984

Bruce Hansen moved to Madison, Wisconsin, two years ago to take a position as Professor of Economics at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He does research in Econometrics, is Co-Editor of one of the major Econometrics journals, and enjoys teaching the subject to both undergraduates and PhD students. Bruce and his wife Korinna have two children, Zoe (3 years) and Nicholas (2), which keeps everyone very busy.

Asad Jumabhoy left Oxy in 1984 and went on to MIT where he did his Masters in Management at Sloan. Fast forward some 15 years and he lives in Singapore with his wife and 3 children. He was involved in an MBO of a European company which operates in some 30 countries and he is responsible for Asia Pacific operations. He is grateful for the liberal arts education he received at Oxy.

Glenn Mar worked in the IT department of Pacific Bell for 13 years, which included a consulting stint in Europe and an MBA from St. Mary's. Since then, he has re-met and married Julie Minoff ('86), done Y2K consulting, and joined an advertising technology firm (Mediaplex). He and Julie live in his hometown of Palo Alto.

Brent Reinke lives in Thousand Oaks with his wife Jean and their two daughters Kelly (age 6) and Kathryn (age 4). Brent is a corporate partner with the Los Angeles law firm of Clark & Trevithick where he heads up the firm's technology practice. He currently is the managing director of Clark & Trevithick's Westlake Village office.

 
Class of 1985

Michael Cornelison is working in Los Angeles as an Account Manager for BP-Amoco. He is married to Cathy (Smith) from Oxy class of '89 and is enjoying his two daughters Ashley (age 4) and Sarah (age 2). He is living in Torrance and enjoys visits with his college roommate Doug Teetsel, who is also married with two children.

Marion (Wong) Fong lives in San Marino with her husband Nelson and two children. She is a Partner in the Real Estate Advisory Services Group of Ernst & Young.

Sharon Lord Gaber lives in Lincoln, Nebraska. She is an Associate Professor of Community & Regional Planning at the University of Nebraska. She and her husband John (who is also a professor at the University of Nebraska) have three kids (two girls and a boy).

 
Class of 1986

John Hall is currently a Senior Consultant for Kaiser Permanente in Redwood City, California. He and his wife Michelle reside in Redwood Shores, California.

Gordon Hanson lives in Ann Arbor, MI, where he is an Associate Professor of Economics and International Business at the University of Michigan. He and his wife (Caty McGuckin, Oxy '87) have two daughters, Thea who is age three and Carly who is age six months.

 
Class of 1987

Kata Ólafsdóttir now lives in Reykjavik, Iceland where she works for the National Economic Institute. Her title is Head of Forecasting which means she is in charge of the official macroeconomic forecast for the Icelandic economy.

Gary Skraba is living in Pasadena and working with a start-up dot-com fulfillment company, Sameday.com, in market research. Not much news otherwise (it's been a quiet 13+ years).

After spending close to ten years in Japan studying and then working for Toyota Motor Corporation, Art Smalley has returned to the U.S. and temporarily settled in the midwest. Upon returning, Art initially spent a couple years living in Grand Haven, Michigan acting as a manufacturing director at Donnelly Corporation, a tier one automotive supplier. Starting in 1999, however, Art joined the consulting firm of McKinsey and company as a leader in the Cleveland office of the McKinsey Manufacturing Practice. Art hopes to transfer to the LA office of McKinsey at the end of this year and return "home" after a 15 year absence.

Anne (Arnold) Welsh completed her Ph.D. in Economics at Claremont in 1996, emphasizing corporate governance and industrial organization. After a few semesters of instructing micro at Pomona College, she made the private sector jump and took an Economic Consulting job at KPMG. She is currently Senior Manager of KPMG's Economic Consulting practice in Southern California. She and husband Tom have a daughter (6) and a son (2).

 
Class of 1988

Gloria P. Buita (Freeman) lives in Broadbeach, Australia, and is the Credit Manager at ANA Hotel Gold Coast. She gave birth to her first child, a girl, Audrey Grace, on April 13, 2000. She plays golf once a week at Robina Woods and had a hole-in-one last year (March 6, 1999).

After working for eight years as an economist, Tom Kosakowski became an attorney in Los Angeles. He became interested in law after working for two expert witness consulting firms, providing damage analyses for litigation. Currently, he is with Hawkins, Schnabel, Lindahl & Beck, where he represents a variety of clients involved in litigation and entertainment negotiations. Tom lives in Altadena with his wife, Alisa Fishbach (1987).

Donald Maguire graduated in 1995 from the University of Houston with a Master of Science in Accountancy. In 1997 he received his CPA license and has been working in public accounting since graduation. He is currently working at Gomez and Company, a public accounting firm. In addition to taxes and auditing, his firm does a lot of business consulting work. The majority of the firm's consulting clients are women and minority owned firms. He finds the consulting work to be both a refreshing change of pace and very personally rewarding. In this job he finds that he thinks a lot about what he learned at Oxy about our society and inequality. Not only is he very pleased to be in a position to be making a very practical positive contribution, but his firm is now the top contender to receive an award from the State of Texas for doing so. After serving as Treasurer for two and a half years, in May he took office as the president of The College of Business Administration Alumni at the University of Houston. It is a big responsibility, but he is really enjoying it.

 
Class of 1989

Nichole Becker currently analyzes eCommerce activity and online buying behavior as a Senior Research Analyst for BizRate.com (Marina Del Rey, CA). She is responsible for the design and implementation of all quantitative methods used in BizRate.com's research activities. Outside of the office, Nichole enjoys backpacking, photography, and her two cats. She looks forward to beginning the fully employed MBA program at UCLA's Anderson School this September.

After graduating from Oxy, Bill Harris tried his economic knowledge in the banking industry. He lasted all of two years before deciding he had had enough of silk nooses and wool pants. He then took a sabbatical from responsibility, first spending time with his cousin who was in the Peace Corps in Mali, then giving it a go at a restaurant in Seattle. After several years of restauranteuring, Bill decided the risk/return ratio was way out of balance, and, again, decided to get back into mainstream corporate America. He entered UCLA MBA program in the class of 1999 and while there was lured to the Internet. Bill now spends his days working at a B2B Internet start-up in the foodservice space. Bill was married in 1997 to Cristina and they spend their time bicycling and backpacking. Bill has also made it to at least one Ultimate re-union event.

Barbara Perry is continuing her never-ending education in computer networking and has been working in that field for the American Red Cross in Costa Mesa, CA for the last four years. She finds that even though the pay may not be great, it's gratifying to work for a non-profit, service-oriented organization.

 
Class of 1990

Benson Choy has left the world of business and is now an Actor in L.A.

Susan Fitzgerald has lived in New York for the past six years, following stints in Italy and Washington D.C. after graduation. She currently works as a Vice President/Senior Credit Officer for Moody's Investors Service, analyzing the credit quality of debt issued by higher education and other not-for-profit institutions. She just celebrated her fifth wedding anniversary with Paul Dickson, an emerging markets portfolio manager, by renewing wedding vows at the Excalibur Casino in Las Vegas, where they were originally married.

After graduating from Oxy, Jim Kee joined Deloitte Consulting, where he toiled for 7 years (not including the two year vacation at Stanford's GSB) doing operations and strategic consulting. In 1999, Jim left Deloitte to join Kozmo.com, an innovative rapid-delivery service: "From the Internet to your door in under an hour!" Since 1995, when he has not been travelling on business, he has been building his home in the foothills of Monrovia, Ca. Jim and his wife Debbie celebrated their 10-year anniversary on July 28, 2000 by playing hockey together (they have been playing roller hockey since 1993). Their motto: "The couple that scores together, stays together!" Jim has had several occasions to apply his Economics training, most recently helping Kozmo create a model to forecast orders.

Kevin Vegas just returned to California after a campaign of seven years in Las Vegas for Grainger Industrial Supply (GIS). Kevin now heads up GIS's operation in Long Beach and resides in Alhambra. The years in Las Vegas included the completion of his masters degree in Organizational Management (1997), a rugby tour of New Zealand and Australia, and more music concerts than any one person should be allowed to attend. Kevin will surely be found playing rugby with the Olde Boys this fall, and time permitting, mentoring the college side play as well. Kevin is also looking forward to being more informed and involved with the "new" Occidental College.

 
Class of 1991

Amanda Diamond is the Managing Director of The Colony Theatre Company, a 25 year-old producing organization which has just moved into a new facility in Burbank. She received her MBA from UCLA in 1996 and is engaged to be married to Douglas Bashaw of Ventura, CA.

Ali Handal has just released her debut CD "Dirty Little Secret" on her record label, Dessert First Records. The music is funkysexygtrgrrlaltrock: a cross between the funkiness of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the lyrical introspection of Ani diFranco, and the guitar playing of Jimi Hendrix. In addition to singing, Ali played all the guitars on the CD and wrote the songs. As GuitarOne magazine (August, 2000) put it: "Ali swings her axe with the big boys!" Ali's CD release party at the House of Blues was a huge success (they were turning people away at the door!), and she is currently putting together her live band in order to tour colleges and festivals in Southern California. To learn more about Ali and hear the music, visit www.alihandal.com, e-mail her, or call: 213-538-5395.

Kurt Johnson has just changed jobs again. His fifth job and sixth company since graduating from Cornell business school is with IndyMac Bank in Pasadena as VP of Mergers and Acquisitions.

David Montesano returned from Trinity College, Dublin where he was a Rotary Scholar, studying Economics and Geography. He now works in Seattle as Brand Strategist for an interactive design firm. Aside from work, David's favorite activity is signing up volunteers for the Gore 2000 campaign and working on films using a Super 8 camera. He has no pets and is a member of the Seattle Cacophony Society (a socially disruptive, roaming band of pranksters).

 
Class of 1992

Robert A. Baraga is a Financial Consultant with the Private Client Group of Salomon Smith Barney in Downtown Los Angeles. He specializes in providing strategic financial planning for corporate executives, high net worth individuals and privately held companies. He educates his clients through financial planning workshops for corporate client relationships, and individual meetings. His clients have complex needs related to wealth management, 401k-investment advice, estate planning, and executive financial services (i.e. restricted stock and employee stock option planning.) Prior to joining Salomon Smith Barney in 1998, Robert was a Senior Manager with May Department Stores with more than 6 years of experience in the areas of accounting, strategic planning, financial planning, expense reduction, and product presentation. He originally joined May in 1992 as a financial analyst in the merchandise information systems department, and transferred to the strategic planning group in 1993. In 1995, he was promoted to Manager of the Credit department where he accumulated extensive experience in credit management, bankruptcy, and financial projection. He and his wife live in the Pasadena area with their baby girl. They keep in touch with fellow alumni in and out of the area.

Darrell Spence is an Economist at the Capital Group Companies in Los Angeles. He and his fiance, Sarah, will be getting married in August.

Eric Werner lives in Washington D.C, and works as an attorney for the Securities and Exchange Commission.

 
Class of 1994

After leaving Oxy in '92 for greener pastures, Bill Hoyt graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University with a degree in Economics and Business Management. He has put his knowledge of economic theory to use in measuring the movements of the supply and demand curves of illegal goods as well as the external costs and benefits of the booming Silicon Valley economy as an Officer with the San Jose Police Department. Bill, who is still single, was forced to sell his soul recently just to buy a small "fixer-upper" house in the Bay Area where the average home price is just over a half-million dollars. Bill looks forward to hearing from old Oxy friends by email.

 
Class of 1995

Helen Hsin completed her MBA, with an emphasis in accounting, from the University of Hawaii at Manoa in December 2000. She is currently a part-time real estate salesperson, so if anyone is interested in owning some Hawaiian real estate... Helen also recently became engaged to Kirk Nakamoto, a good childhood friend of Kevin Lee (Oxy Class of 1995). The wedding is planned for 2001.

 
Class of 1996

Kyle Patino now lives in Kansas City, Missouri where he is an investment banker for the regional firm, George K. Baum & Company. In addition, he is eating a lot of BBQ.

After a brief stint in Cambridge, MA, Duke Sherman moved to New York City where he has been working for Ruder Finn I-Relations as a technology and brand consultant. He intends to return to CA in the near future to better appreciate nature.

 
Class of 1997

Yady Garnett is working at the ITS dept at Oxy. She is currently working on obtaining her MBA with an emphasis in International Business online from the University of Phoenix. On her free time, she hangs out with her one and a half year old daughter.

Kevin Holliday works in the Santa Monica office of Oracle Corporation (formally Treasury Services) as a Senior Product Analyst on Oracle's financial services applications. He recently purchased a condo on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood. Kevin has also been mulling over applying to Los Angeles area business schools.

Danny Klink received his Master's in Accounting from USC in 1998 and is preparing to become a Senior Accountant in the Assurance and Advisory (Audit) practice of Deloitte & Touche in Los Angeles.

Christina Ronac and Melissa Ronac are currently living together in Pasadena. They recently bought a town home. Christina has been working at Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown for the last year in the financial sponsors group. The group specializes in leverage buyouts and other forms of transactions that require bank debt or high yield bonds. She is currently studying for the GMAT.

Claudia (Inman) Wilderman is still working at Deloitte Consulting in LA but is spending most of her time in San Fran. Her youngest sister, Cynthia, is an entering Oxy freshman. Does anyone have Celena Smith's contact information?

 
Class of 1998

In 1999 Pieternel Barel completed her year with the California Executive Fellowship, a program administered by the Office of the Governor and the Center for California Studies. She continues to live in Sacramento and work for the State as a Program Specialist on state-sponsored health insurance programs for low-income children, pregnant women, and individuals with high risk health conditions.

Keegan McNamara is preparing for a move to San Diego. He plans to open a home office and tele-commute for the West L.A. consulting firm for which he has worked since graduation.

 
Class of 1999

Cesar E. Alvarez has successfully completed his first year at Norwest Financial as a credit manager. Due to his success at Norwest, he will soon be promoted to branch assistant manager. His goal is to become a branch manager and therefore manage a $4 to $5 million branch by the summer of next year.

Shaun Beaudette moved back home to beautiful Santa Barbara and is currently working at a business software company called QAD, inc. He is in the Information Systems department and works as a System Administrator. He enjoys his tech-related duties but plans on entering a field where he can better utilize his Economics knowledge he obtained at Occidental. He is going to be an Uncle for the first time shortly and is greatly looking forward to that experience.

After a summer of traveling in England and Amsterdam, Matt Beving returned to living in LA. He's living with a couple of high school friends in Westwood. Matt currently works for PA Consulting (formerly PHB-Hagler Bailly) in downtown Los Angeles. He does environmental and energy consulting and hopes an MBA is in his future.

Matt Crawford works for the City of Los Angeles Community Development Department doing Federal Block Grant analysis.

Brendon Friesen has been living in Eagle Rock with Michael Hellerslien for the past year. He continued playing rugby with the Oxy Olde Boys Rugby Club until he sustained a major injury towards the end of the season. Despite the steel screws, pins and plates in his lower leg, he is now doing fine but is dissapointed with the fact that he doesn't set off metal detectors. However, after utilizing the cost/benefit analysis he learned in Econ. 101 he has decided to leave the sport for good. He says, "It just hurt too darn much". Brendon has also been working as a case assistant at the law offices of Crosby, Heafey, Roach & May located in downtown Los Angeles. He is currently visiting his family in Switzerland and will be attending the Ohio State University College of Law in the Fall.

Lisa Han is currently working at KPMG Peat Marwick as a Consultant in Orange County.

Michael Hellerslien is working for Toyota, everyday. He is helping Toyota to understand the competitive climate of the automotive finance and insurance market, which includes understanding the challenges presented as a result of e-commerce. Michael has written a business plan, which is sure to be funded. To the best of his knowledge, Michael has not sired any children.

Allison Hooper just finished her first year of law school at the University of Southern California Law School. She spent her summer working as a Law Clerk for the United States Attorney's Office-Tax Division and is considering entering the MBT program at USC.

Damian Lau worked in Los Angeles for 3 months at a start-up internet company called PeopleSupport.com and with great timing got out of there as the ship began to sink. Now he's working in Inside Sales at a eCRM software company in Seattle called Primus. He's had a chance to travel for 2 months to Asia and will be going to Europe for a few weeks later this summer. Enjoying life to the fullest.

Ed Saavedra has recently graduated from the University of Southern California with a Masters in Accounting and will begin working as an auditor for Deloitte & Touche (Orange County Office) in the fall.

Talia Starkey earned her Masters in Journalism at Columbia University, in New York. She won an Overseas Press Club award for an article she wrote about her host family from her Oxy-abroad semester in Costa Rica. She moved back to California and will look for a job in L.A. this fall.

Tadashi Takazawa has successfully passed his first kidney stone and is currently on sabbatical from his tenured internship. He plans to spend his time discussing the spill over effect of the tobacco trial verdict on the Yellow Peeps market.

 
Class of 2000

Danny Carmona is in Houston, Texas, training for Teach for America. He'll be there for five weeks during the Summer, group teaching a second grade, special education class at Red Elementary.

Eli Engle has moved to Long Beach, CA with Sean Miller '00 and is currently working for Tax and Financial Group in Newport Beach, CA.

BJ Grant has moved to New York where he is a foot soldier in the investment banking group at Morgan Stanley. Although only having recently begun his position, he has decided that you just can't beat college.

Jennifer Kwok is working as an Editorial Assistant at a publishing company called Renaissance Media located at 5858 Wilshire Blvd in Los Angeles.

After having a very short summer break Matt Larson began work as a Merchandise Executive Trainee at Robinsons-May. Matt had wished to travel to Europe originally, but those plans fell through as he began work in North Hollywood in late June. He is currently living in Hermosa Beach and will most likely be moving to the Hollywood area as he is predicting that the long commute is going to tire him out soon and force him to move closer to his work.

Charlotte Rich is relaxing and enjoying beautiful Hawaii while waiting tables in Honolulu.

Robin Strauss is still living in the Los Angeles area where she is working as an Internet Specialist for the law firm of Keats, McFarland & Wilson, LLP.

Ha Thai is currently living in San Francisco where she is working as an Account Coordinator at Ketchum Public Relations. She is also trying (but not very diligently) to study for the GMATS.

Stephen Vitalich is currently living in West L.A. with his sister, Kristin, and commuting daily to USC. There, he is pursuing a masters degree at the Leventhal School of Accounting.