Class Notes

Erin Valentine, EMBA08, was promoted to vice president of business development at McCarthy Building Companies in 2020. She is a member of the leadership team that guides strategic business operations across the company’s 28-state central region. Valentine was recognized as a 40 Under 40 business leader by the St. Louis Business Journal and as a Top Young Professional by Engineering News-Record Midwest.

Ivo Rozendaal, GA08, was recently appointed to lead the SmithGroup’s newest workplace studio, operating out of its Madison and Milwaukee offices. In this role, Rozendaal collaborates with experts across the firm’s nationally recognized workplace practice to create high-performing office spaces that improve productivity and enhance employees’ physical and emotional health and well-being.

Melissa Reinckens, LW08, was promoted to partner at DLA Piper, based in the firm’s San Diego office. She advises clients on intellectual property litigation matters involving false advertising, trademarks, trade dress, copyrights and patents.

Joe Shumow, LW07, commented on a range of commercial real estate matters as a guest on the radio show “Development Matters,” which airs from Madison, Wis. Shumow is a tax credit attorney with Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren s.c.

John S.K. (“Keoni”) Kauwe III, GM07, who at age 40 was promoted to president of Brigham Young University-Hawaii, is the youngest president in the university’s history and one of the youngest college or university presidents in the Church Education System. Previously, Kauwe was dean of graduate studies at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.

Chihmao Hsieh, GB07, is a research professor at SUNY Korea — a partnership between Stony Brook University, SUNY-The State University of New York and the South Korean government — and founding director of its Center for Global Entrepreneurship. For 2020-21, he is serving as a guest columnist for Maeil Business Newspaper, Korea’s most widely circulated financial daily. In 2019, Hsieh gave talks at the United Nations Secretariat and at the Asian Development Bank in Manila.

Lauren Herring, EMBA07, published Take Control of Your Job Search! 10 Emotions You Must Master to Land the Job (Simply Good Press, 2020). The owner of IMPACT Group, a global career development company, Herring is donating $100,000 in career coaching to job seekers in underserved communities to help improve the social justice narrative in the United States. 

Justin Wilke, EN06, SI07, with his wife, Holly, and their three children, Logan, Claire and Lauren, welcomed another child, Alice, to the world, March 19, 2020. Alice’s birth was an extra-special present for Holly, who has the same birthday as Alice. 

Sukanya Pyne, PT06, is the founder and president of ReJenga, a nonprofit organization that helps improve the rehabilitation of disabled people in the developing world by promoting sustainable rehab clinics in rural villages. She recently traveled to Panskura and Kolkata, India, where she will help create a rehab setting.

Catherine Kelly, LA06, is an assistant professor of justice and rule of law at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, a center in the U.S. Department of Defense located on the National Defense University campus. She became a first-time author with the recent publication of Party Proliferation and Political Contestation in Africa: Senegal in Comparative Perspective (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020). Kelly was accepted into the Council on Foreign Relations as a term member.