Class Notes

Mark your calendars now for Homecoming, November 2, 1996.
A good time will be had by all!

  • 1926

    Thomas G. Beebe (BS Business Administration), aged 94, wrote to Insight in November to tell us that he was recovering from cancer surgery. He retired in 1974 after 48 years with the New York Daily News where he had worked in the advertising department. Mr. Beebe lives in Worcester, Massachusetts.

  • 1955

    Sheldon F. Good (BS Marketing), chairman of Sheldon F. Good & Company, has been named World President Elect of FIABCI the International Real Estate Federation, comprised of 108 national real estate associations from 52 countries throughout the world. He will be installed as World President at the FIABCI World Congress in May 1996 in Tokyo, Japan.

  • 1957

    Earl C. (Cliff) Johnson, Jr. (BS Business Administration), who retired three years ago from Peoples Energy Corporation in Chicago, has moved to the Chapel Hill, North Carolina area for milder winters and a longer golf season.

  • 1959

    Gant Redmon (BS/LLB Commerce & Law), managing partner of Redmon, Boykin & Braswell, Alexandria, Virginia, was honored on November 18 by the Alexandria Chamber of Commerce as their Business Leader of the Year. He served as chair of the Alexandria Chamber in 1989 and continues to be active in the organization.

  • 1962

    Richard C. Slater (BS Management) has been promoted to senior executive vice president and chief lending officer at the Glenview State Bank. He has been with Glenview for 3 1/2 years. Previously, he was a senior vice president in commercial banking at the 1st National Bank of Des Plaines. Mr. Slater lives in Barrington, Illinois.

  • 1965

    Mahmoud Bazaraa (PhD Business Administration) made a return visit to the UI campus last fall, his first since graduating. Dr. Bazaraa, who specialized in marketing, joined the Faculty of Commerce at Cairo University in 1973 and became Dean in September

  • 1966

    J. Michael Martin (BS Accountancy), partner in the Champaign office of McGladrey & Pullen, was elected to the national board of directors of the firm in September 1995.

  • 1967

    Jay Jewett (BS Accountancy), is area manager in Central America for Bristol Meyers Squibb. His home base is Panama.

  • 1969

    Richard D. Schonhoff (BS Finance) was named president, chief executive officer, and director of Northern Trust Bank/O'Hare, as of November 1995. Mr. Schonhoff, who earned an MBA from DePaul, joined the bank in 1969. He has held many positions at the bank, most recently that of head of mortgage banking, and served as senior credit officer for the Personal Financial Services Business Unit. Mr. Schonhoff is active in professional and community organizations, including the college Business Advisory Council, the University Alumni Association, and the Evans Scholars Alumni Association. He and his wife Lorraine live in Darien, Illinois, with their two sons and a daughter.

  • 1972

    Melanie (Sayles) Hummer (MAS, BS Accountancy, 1971) passed the last level of the chartered financial analyst examinations in 1995. Also a certified financial planner and a CPA, she is a portfolio manager at Wayne Hummer & Co., a Chicago investment company. She and her husband William have two children, a son Grant, aged 9, and daughter Merritt, aged 7. Jesus Magaña (MBA) is vice chancellor of the Universidad Panamericana, Mexico.

  • 1974

    Benjamin J. Allen (PhD, MA '73 Economics) has become the dean of the College of Business at Iowa State University. Before joining Iowa State in 1979, he taught at Washington State University and served in the US Department of Transportation as a Brookings Economics Policy Fellow. Allen returned to the UIUC as the Visiting McKinley Professor of Economics and Public Utilities. He has also held the Oren Harris Chair in Transportation at the University of Arkansas.

    James L. Polak, Sr. (MBA) has joined PPG Industries as director of production and distribution.

  • 1977

    Duane E. Lee (BS Finance) joined Cannon Financial Institute, Inc., Athens, Georgia, as executive vice president. He is a specialist in trust operations, custody, investments, and employee benefits.

  • 1979

    George E. Havel (BS Accountancy), midwest financial controller of Citicorp North America, completed the requirements for the designation Real Property Administrator (RPA) of the Building Operations Managers Association in November 1995. He maintains contact with his alma mater through the college's Office of Real Estate Research events.

  • 1981

    Robert B. Allen (BS Business Administration) is the General Manager of the Orland Square Shopping Center. He recently earned the professional designation of Certified Shopping Center Manager from the International Council of Shopping Centers.

  • 1982

    Stephen R. Capellin (BS Accountancy) is chief financial officer of Champaign Asphalt Co. He and his wife Alison B. (Meyer) Cappellin (BS 1985 Business Administration) live in Champaign with their two children Stephen Anthony, born May 6, 1992, and Catherine Brooks, born December 18, 1994. Alumni relatives include grandfather, William J. Meyer `51, uncles Steven E. Meyer `80 and Charles M. Cappellin, BA `80, MA `82, and various other great uncles and cousins.

    Douglas J. Weinberg (MBA) moved with his family from Wisconsin to New York last summer to accept the position of director of corporate development for New York State Electric and Gas in Binghamton. He has been traveling a great deal searching for opportunities in mergers and acquisitions.

  • 1983

    James M. Personius (BS Business Administration) was named an associate partner at Andersen Consulting last November. He is in the Financial Services Industry practice, specializing in insurance. He also holds an MBA in Finance from the University of Michigan. Mr. Personius lives in Chicago with his wife Hanna.

    Jeff Suchomel (MBA, BS Accountancy 1980) was recently promoted to the position of director of recruiting for the Michigan region of Deloitte & Touche. Jeff, who lives in Rochester Hills, Michigan, reports that his two sons Matthew (age 3) and Mitchell (born April 13, 1995) are definitely future Illini!

  • 1984

    Lisa Hultquist Blaze (BS Finance), who is a vice president in the Chicago firm of Diversified Investment Advisors, gave birth on May 18, 1995, to a daughter named Alexandra Kathryn. Lisa, husband Jon Blaze, and Alexandra live in Chicago.

    Brian Gilbert (BS Accountancy) has been elected a partner in the law firm of Gould & Ratner, effective January 1. Brian is in the Corporate/Commercial Group and his practice focuses on business transactions and business counseling. Brian, his wife Elyse, and their 2 1/2 year old daughter Kaila live in Chicago.

    David J. Gilmartin (BS Finance) was recently elected to the Commerce Alumni Board. He has also made a recent job change. In June 1995 he left private law practice (Gardner, Carton & Douglas) and joined CNA Insurance Companies in the in-house legal department as a director and counsel. David reports that he keeps in regular contact with several old friends from his days in Commerce.

    John Piland (BS Business Administration), Champaign County States Attorney, was recently appointed to the 13-member Illinois Truth in Sentencing Commission.

  • 1985

    Andy Aylesworth (BS Business Administration), who earned a PhD in marketing from Indiana University, joined the marketing faculty at Bentley College, Waltham, Massachusetts, in the fall of 1994 as an assistant professor. He was named Marketing Faculty of the Year after his first year at Bentley. He and wife Jenny currently reside in Belmont, Massachusetts.

    Shelley R. Z. Barnett (MAS, BS Finance 1980, JD 1985) relocated her office in September to 188 West Randolph, Suite 918, Chicago. She remains Of Counsel to Jeffrey A. Goldberg, in Elgin, Illinois. Ms. Barnett practices mainly in civil litigation and real estate, including condominium and homeowners association law.

    Gregory E. Spitzer (BS Finance) became a partner in the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis in October 1985. He lives in Westchester, Illinois.

    Kenneth E. Johnson (MBA) has been working since last August as a contributing editor of Network 2d, the newsletter of the American Bar Association, Law Practice Management Section, Computer and Technology Division Interest Groups. Mr. Johnson, who lives in Oak Park, is training and support manager at the law firm of Mayer, Brown & Platt in Chicago. For Network 2d, Mr. Johnson will write on technology issues facing law firms. He frequently writes about computers and technology and is also a contributing editor of DOS World Magazine, Law Office Computing, WordPerfect for the Law Office, the Small Business Journal, and the Journal of the Chicago Computer Society.

    Dave Whetstone (BS Accountancy) was promoted in August 1995 to director, new products and services, for AirTouch Cellular in Los Angeles. His focus is to develop new technologies to enhance the functions of cellular communications and services for AirTouch customers.

  • 1986

    Gretchen Caspary (MBA) is a doctoral candidate in Northwestern University's Human Development and Social Policy Program and a fellow in the Northwestern/University of Chicago National Science Foundation Urban Poverty Study. She plans a dissertation on urban poverty and corporate policy.

    Harry E. Fisher (MBA) was elected chair of the Department of International Business at Teikyo Marycrest University in Davenport, Iowa. He joined the department nine years ago.

  • 1987

    Nelson H. Salita (MS Economics) is an associate professor of finance at the University of the Philippines, where he has also served as director of the MBA Program. Professor Salita is a financial consultant and conducts executive training programs in banks around Southeast Asia.

  • 1988

    Susan Dobson (BS Accountancy) received her MBA from the University of Missouri-St. Louis in May 1995. In July she joined Mitchell Humphrey & Co. in St. Louis, a developer of business/accounting software, as a consultant. She lives in Florissant.

    Jeffrey H. Heisler (BS Economics) is vice president, customer service and quality, for Australia-New Zealand Direct Line, an ocean shipper of containerized cargo. He has responsibility for overseeing all North American customer services, logistics, and documentation on both import and export cargoes. He is also responsible for the company's worldwide quality initiative. This includes receiving a site visit in the 1995 Malcom Baldrige National Quality Award competition and being voted Best in Class for service companies in the Eureka Award, the California state award based on the Baldrige criteria. Mr. Heisler lives in Long Beach, California.

    Kelly Littlejohn (BS Accountancy) is working in Itasca as a presales consultant for Coda, Inc., a financial software provider. She joined the company in January 1993 as an implementor of their AS 400 Financial System. After implementing Coda's product for a summer in Spain and Turkey, she joined the sales side of the organization to reduce her travel. She now supports the central region sales team as a product representative. Ms. Littlejohn notes that although she has left "the true world of accounting," she could never have been hired into Coda without her accountancy background and CPA.

    Johannson Yap (MBA) is vice president, acquisitions, for First Industrial Realty Trust, the largest self-advised, publicly traded industrial real estate investment trust in the nation. He lives and works in Chicago.

  • 1989

    Robert J. Vacko (BS Accountancy) and Laura Pirtle Vacko (BS Accountancy) had a daughter, Kylie Elizabeth, on February 3, 1996. Congratulations! Rob is controller at Portman Holdings, a commercial real estate company in Atlanta, Georgia. The family reside in Alpharetta, Georgia.

  • 1990

    Seung Pil Chang (MBA) joined the Samsung Economic Research Institute in September. His research will deal with the automobile industry. Samsung has announced that it will enter the automotive business before 1998. Mr. Chang invites any alumni that would like to exchange information about the automobile industry to Fax him at 82-2-728-8152.

    Kathryn Chang Hymson (BS Finance) had a busy and change-filled 1995. She was married in June in Naperville and then transferred in November from the Merchant Banking Group of Paribas Chicago to the American Division in Banque Paribas' headquarters in Paris for a 2-3 year assignment.

  • 1991

    Li Chiao (MBA) was appointed assistant vice president of the investment banking firm of CS First Boston in Hong Kong in August 1995.

    Robert Marinellie (MS Finance, BS Accountancy 1989) was promoted in September to plastics controller of the Champaign facility of White Cap, Inc., a plastic and metal closures firm, to facilitate plant accounting, purchasing, and strategic planning for the plastics division. He relocated to Champaign from Carol Stream, Illinois. His wife, who holds BA and MA degrees from UIUC, works in Danville School District 118 and is pursuing her PhD.

    Rabinder K. Nandola (MAS, BS Accountancy 1989) is an intermediate tax accountant with Transamerican Commercial Finance Corp. in Rolling Meadows. He lives in Schaumburg.

    E. Gordon Rice (BS Finance) received an MBA from Governor's State University in 1994. He has worked for Harris Bank since 1991. In April 1995 he was promoted to branch manager/loan officer of the Orland Park branch. Currently, he is taking courses to prepare for the CPA exam. He became engaged to Colleen Stocko in August.

  • 1992

    T. Markus Funk (BS Business Administration, BA Germanic Languages and Literature 1991) recently received a JD degree from the Northwestern University School of Law and has embarked upon a two-year clerkship in the US District Court of St. Louis for Judge Catherine D. Perry. Mr. Funk has recently published articles in Northwestern's Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology; Howard Law Journal, Reason Magazine, Might Magazine, and the Journal of Firearms and Public Policy.

    Charles E. Heath (BS Finance) is a doctoral candidate in Marketing at the University of Kentucky.

    Yvonne Kabeya (MSBA Economics) is a business analyst with the Zambia Privatization Agency, Lusaka, Zambia, working for the divestiture of state-owned companies.

  • 1993

    Jeff Boschert (MBA) has been promoted from lieutenant, junior grade, to lieutenant in the US Navy. In addition, he received his "Wings of Gold," and was designated a Naval Aviator. He will be serving as an aircraft carrier pilot flying the S-3B Viking.

    Guy C. Fabe (MS Accountancy) was promoted in September to senior in the tax department of Arthur Andersen, Cleveland, Ohio, after two years with the firm. He says, "my degree from U of I has provided me with the tools to excel in the public accounting profession." He also asks about his classmates in the Tax Program 1992-93.

  • 1994

    Richard H. Frank (BS Marketing) has joined Comcast Corporation, the third-largest cable operator in the country, as chairman and chief executive of Comcast Content and Communications, a new programming division. His role will be to expand the company's programming and communications business. Mr. Frank was previously chairman of Walt Disney Television & Telecommunication and before that president of Walt Disney Studios.

    Scott Gray (MBA, BS Business Administration 1992), operations services coordinator, Ford Motor Credit, went to work for Ford in Minnesota upon completion of the MBA program and was transferred to Maryland in summer 1995.

    IN MEMORIAM

    Andrew Barr, chief accountant of the Securities and Exchange Commission when he retired in 1972, died at his Urbana home on November 28, 1995, at the age of 94. He earned a bachelor's (1923, with honors) and master's (1924) in accountancy at the University of Illinois, and was a member of Beta Alpha Psi. In 1990, in recognition of his high achievements, the university awarded him an honorary doctor of laws degree. During his long career, Mr. Barr received many honors and awards, including the President's Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service (1960), the highest honor the government bestows on a career employee, and the National Civil Service League's Career Service Award (1950). But Mr. Barr counted his honorary UI degree among his proudest achievements.
    Andy Barr (center) at College reception in recognition of his honorary degree in 1990.
    After teaching at Yale University for twelve years, Mr. Barr joined the SEC, in 1938. His first assignment was the high-profile McKesson & Robbins fraud case. The work he did there led to changes in how audits of public corporations were handled. During his long career at the SEC, from 1928-1972 (except for the five years he served in the Army), Mr. Barr helped shape the SEC into an influential government agency. As chief accountant of the agency from 1956 until 1972 "he was kind of the conscience of the country," according to Vernon Zimmerman, dean emeritus of the UI College of Commerce and director of the Center for International Accounting.

    During World War II, from 1941-46, Andy Barr, was chief of intelligence for the First Army's Third Armored Division. For his war service he was awarded the Legion of Merit, the Bronze Star with one cluster, and several French medals. Thanks to his efforts, the Third Armored Division's veterans' organization placed its personal papers and memorabilia in the UI Archives. Barr also gave his extensive collection of histories of World War II Divisions to the library.

    Mr. Barr was an officer of several national accounting organizations and received many professional honors including being named to the Accounting Hall of Fame in 1963. He founded the Association of Government Accountants and served as president from 1953-54. From that organization he won the Distinguished Leadership Award and the Robert W. King Memorial Award.

    An Urbana native, Barr's family owned A. Barr Brickworks, which supplied the bricks used in Altgeld Hall and Lincoln Hall at the UI.

    A loyal alumnus of the University of Illinois, Mr. Barr was a generous contributor to the College of Commerce and the University Library. In 1971 he established a scholarship for female medical students in honor of his mother, who graduated from the UI in 1895 as a pre-med student. He is survived by one brother, John Barr, and was preceded in death by his parents and two sisters.

    Carl George Dohme, class of 1933, died on September 13, 1995, at the age of 84. Mr. Dohme was a co-founder of Hillcrest Lumber Co. of Champaign. During World War II he served as a commander of the 69th Ordinance Battalion Company with the 10th Army during the Invasion of Okinawa. He attained the rank of colonel in the Army.

    Although Mr. Dohme lost both his parents by the time he was in high school, both he and his sister worked their way through the University of Illinois, despite the Depression. When Mr. Dohme graduated in 1933 he was one of only three graduates of the college who got a job with W.K. Kellogg.

    A native of Champaign, Mr. Dohme lettered in basketball, football, and track at Central High School. He was an eagle scout, a Mason, and an elder and trustee of the First Presbyterian Church of Champaign. He belonged to Kappa Sigma Fraternity, the Kiwanis Club, the Chamber of Commerce, the State Board of Lumber Dealers, the Farm Bureau, and served as president of the Champaign Country Club. He was also a director of the board of First Federal Bank Champaign.

    Mr. Dohme is survived by his wife, Nolda McCamly Dohme, one daughter, Adlon Dohme Jorgensen Rector, four grandchildren, six great-grandchildren, and one sister. He was preceded in death by one daughter, Beth Dohme Wallin, and one sister.

    A loyal Illini, Mr. Dohme was a member of the University of Illinois Foundation and the Alumni Association. He was an avid patron of the arts and supported the Rare Book Room at the UI Library. His hobbies included traveling and gardening.

    Margaret Stewart Dunn, who earned a BS in accountancy from the University of Illinois in 1946, died a year ago, on January 17, 1994, in Williamsburg, Virginia. Her accomplishments at Illinois are impressive. She graduated Bronze Tablet, was a member of Beta Gamma Sigma, Phi Kappa Phi, and Phi Chi Theta. She served as president of her junior class, president of Mortar Board, president of the Woman's Group System, and was the first woman elected president of the Student Senate. After graduating, she continued to break new ground. She was one of the first two women to teach accounting at the University of Illinois. She served as a supervising accountant at the University of Illinois Business Office until 1954, at which time she married William F. Dunn (BS Management 1947).
    In 1972, after raising her family, Mrs. Dunn reentered the work force as an auditor in the Inspector General's Office of Health and Human Services. She retired in 1984. In 1982 she received a Special Achievement Award from the office.

    She is survived by her husband, one son, one grandson, a brother, and a nephew.

    William G. Campbell (PhD Accountancy 1951), died on December 30, 1995, at the age of 64. He was a New York investment adviser and founding partner, chairman, and chief executive of the Manhattan firm of Campbell, Cowperthwait & Company. Mr. Campbell, whose career as an investment counselor spanned nearly four decades, also earned an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania. At the time of his death, he was president of the Clinton Hall Endowment Association, a support organization of the Mercantile Library of New York, he was a trustee of the library, a member of the Presidents Council of the University of Illinois, and a board member of the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts in Philadelphia.

    A native of Peoria, Illinois, Mr. Campbell was preceded in death by his wife Marilyn. He is survived by three daughters, Alice and Clara Campbell and Jocelyn C. Palmer, a son, Gordon Campbell, three sisters, and a brother.

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