Class Notes
1950-1959
Raymond Morton (BBA ’54)
Morton passed away in February 2024, at the age of 92 in Tampa, Florida.
Jerald Hage (BBA ’55)
Hage published a new book, Saving Societies From Within, which offers a new paradigm of coordination with System Coordinated Inter-Organizational Networks (SCIONs) that is quicker and more effective than market coordination. The book contributes to business education because it shows how SCIONs create organizational adaptiveness and institutional innovation.
Jack William Porter (BBA ’59)
Porter passed away on December 8, 2023, at the age of 86. He enjoyed his time as a drum major at UW–Madison and went on to hold many leadership positions in his long-time community of Issaquah, Washington, including terms as chamber of commerce president and Kiwanis president. In addition to expanding the town’s Salmon Days parade, Porter was also a church board member, business owner, CIA agent, pianist, singer, husband, father, and grandfather.
1960-1969
In Memoriam
James E. Kroening (BBA ’62)
Kroening passed away on May 10, 2023. As a vice president at U.S. Bank in Seattle, he helped large businesses in trouble get back on their feet and was known for his unique form of humor.
Martin Feldman (BBA ’64)
Feldman has returned after a visit last year to Barcelona! His next adventure is a cruise to Gibraltar, France, and Italy. He also plans to visit Maine to celebrate his brother-in-law’s 70th birthday and spend Thanksgiving in Charleston, South Carolina. When he’s not traveling, he stays busy with his community’s musical show.
Steve Cain (BBA ’68)
Cain will soon be celebrating his ninth anniversary of managing the Midwest office of Fairfield Capital Group, LLC, a firm which consults with middle-market businesses interested in raising capital for equipment leasing purposes.
Micca Hutchins (BA ’68, MBA ’00)
Hutchins has been importing affordable, exceptional wine from France to Wisconsin for 10 years as part of her business: Micca’s Small French Vineyard Collection. Her personal motto: Life is too short to drink anything but exceptional wine.
James E. Kroening (BBA ’62)
Kroening passed away on May 10, 2023. As a vice president at U.S. Bank in Seattle, he helped large businesses in trouble get back on their feet and was known for his unique form of humor.
Martin Feldman (BBA ’64)
Feldman has returned after a visit last year to Barcelona! His next adventure is a cruise to Gibraltar, France, and Italy. He also plans to visit Maine to celebrate his brother-in-law’s 70th birthday and spend Thanksgiving in Charleston, South Carolina. When he’s not traveling, he stays busy with his community’s musical show.
Steve Cain (BBA ’68)
Cain will soon be celebrating his ninth anniversary of managing the Midwest office of Fairfield Capital Group, LLC, a firm which consults with middle-market businesses interested in raising capital for equipment leasing purposes.
Micca Hutchins (BA ’68, MBA ’00)
Hutchins has been importing affordable, exceptional wine from France to Wisconsin for 10 years as part of her business: Micca’s Small French Vineyard Collection. Her personal motto: Life is too short to drink anything but exceptional wine.
1970-1979
Michael McMillen (BBA ’72, JD ’76)
McMillen published six books on the history of equipment finance in 2023 and is publishing two in 2024. He was also appointed to the adjunct faculty of Columbia Law School and is celebrating his 19th year teaching as an adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. He continues in his day job as a partner at the international law firm of Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle LLP in New York City.
Bill Rauwerdink (BBA ’72)
Rauwerdink is happy to announce that his fund started 2024 with a great investment. The company he invested in specializes in directional genomic hybridization, which is a method that enables direct visualization of chromosomal changes in single cells.
Stephen Bye (BBA ’73, MBA ’74)
Bye published his fourth novel, The Developer: Phase III (Avenue into the Abyss), in February 2024. In this third novel of a trilogy, real estate developer Alexander (Xander) Kellogg is confronted with his murder conspiracy trial and a series of complications that threaten his legacy as an office building tycoon.
Jayne Neuendorf (BBA ’76)
Neuendorf has been recognized on Forbes’ Top Women Wealth Advisors Best-In-State list for 2024.
David LeMahieu (BBA ’77)
LeMahieu spent over 30 years in real estate brokerage and new home construction and finished his working career in sales management. As he enjoys retirement, he splits time between the Kettle Moraine area of Wisconsin and Rouen, France.
1980-1989
Steve Albert (BBA ’80, JD ’86)
Albert recently co-authored an article with professors affiliated with the National Science Foundation. Their study applied natural language sentiment analysis and transformer models to evaluate the effectiveness of 10 nationally ranked hospitals’ social media messaging during COVID-19. Albert’s article appeared in the Journal of Enterprise Information Management.
David Jewell (BBA ’80)
Jewell rode his bicycle from Vancouver, Canada, to the Mexican border in August and September 2023 to raise money for multiple sclerosis (MS) and Type 1 diabetes research. The journey covered over 2,000 miles and elevation gains of over 100,000 feet. His team raised just over $47,000 for the MS Society and $22,000 for Type 1 diabetes research at the Children’s Hospital of Orange County.
Mark Gerszewski (MS ’81)
Gerszewski is the owner of Bay Systems, Inc., a small information technology consulting firm in Sarasota, Florida. Since 1992, the firm’s teams have worked on a range of health care development projects and the staff have been major contributors to large-scale projects. The state of Florida immunization registry and tracking system, Florida Shots, is one of its main projects. The firm also helped develop and support a quality assurance in IV pharmacy preparations.
Jon Schmieden (BBA ’81, MBA ’84)
Schmieden is celebrating 12 years of retirement from Alcon Laboratories. During his retirement, he’s traveled to all parts of the globe—including a visit to his seventh continent, Antarctica. When he’s not traveling internationally, Schmieden splits time between Texas, Wisconsin, and Florida, where he enjoys lobster fishing.
Randall Page (MS ’82)
Page has joined Conspectus, Inc., the nation’s largest independent specification consulting firm as senior specifier. Since 1992, the company has provided industry-leading consulting services on thousands of projects for many of the country’s most prestigious design firms. Page’s love for spec writing emerged in the mid-2000s while he was a senior architect at Mead & Hunt. Since 2010, he’s served the Portland, Oregon, chapter of Construction Specifications Institute as board director and treasurer.
Terri Lynn Yanke (BBA ’83)
Yanke has joined Rouse, a local, family-owned property management organization with 28 different properties across the Milwaukee and Madison areas. Its portfolio covers student, luxury, and senior housing. She is the marketing strategist for Rouse and the property manager for Irish Fields, the company’s newest development in Fitchburg, Wisconsin.
Karl Kramer (BBA ’85)
Kramer came out of retirement almost two years ago and started over in a new industry. He says the journey into electrification for student transportation has been absolutely fantastic for a medley of reasons, including student health, clean air, reduced costs, and efficiency.
Brett Hawkins (BBA ’86, MBA ’88)
Hawkins has been working in entertainment technology for two decades in the Los Angeles area. He recently launched Monad.Social, a music-focused creator platform that helps artists monetize their fan bases through virtual venues. It leverages technologies like Web3, AI, and augmented/extended reality to create interactive virtual experiences.
Stephen Wagner (MS ’86)
Wagner recently released the second edition of his textbook, Fundamentals of Medical Practice Management.
Mike Mistele (BBA ’87, MBA ’89)
Mistele joined Impact Networking in September 2023 as director of strategic planning for the managed marketing division. He leads the agency’s strategy group by overseeing the development of insights and strategic thinking for clients and mentoring a team of outstanding young strategists.
Chuck Olsen (BA ’87, MBA ’00)
Olsen leads efforts for the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development to create nontraditional registered apprenticeships for employers in high demand sectors, such as information technology, health care, human resources, and more. Olsen is excited to announce that UW Health is one of the program’s best new sponsors! This is Olsen’s third career after 20 years with the U.S. Army and 20 years as a director with the Boucher Group and Ford Motor Company.
Terence T. Ow (BS ’88, MS ’90, MBA ’92, MS ’94, PhD ’00)
Ow was recently recognized as a Top 50 Undergraduate Business Professor by Poets&Quants. He is also one of few alumni who has earned five degrees at UW–Madison. His daughter, Grace Ow (BBA ’24), is a current Business Badger studying information systems and operations and technology management.
Steve Teitelbaum (BA ’89, MBA ’93)
Teitelbaum was promoted to principal business consultant at Adobe Workfront.
1990-1999
Bruce Donald Campbell (MS ’90)
Campbell is kicking off his fifth year of state government advisory roles, where he makes interactive visual analytics tools available to state residents. He says it feels useful and meaningful to apply a career’s worth of insight and experience to state government objectives that pursue improved health care and broadband experiences for people in Rhode Island and California.
Charles Liedtke (MBA ’90, PhD ’97)
Liedtke presented his latest research paper, Advances in Horizontal Interaction, at the annual Minnesota Quality Conference in Minneapolis in October 2023. Liedtke is also the owner of the management consultancy Strategic Improvement Systems, LLC.
Kevin Schlinkmann (BBA ’90)
Schlinkmann sold his company, Witmer Furniture, in December 2021 to the private equity firm Wisconsin River Partners. He kept the role of president, and in December 2023, was named chief executive officer. He continues to run overall operations and manage the company’s aggressive expansion plan, which includes facility expansion as well as acquisitions of complementary companies.
Carrie Thome (BBA ’91, MS ’96)
Thome is excited to report that NVNG Investment Advisors announced the final closing of its Fund I with commitments of $50 million, making it the largest Wisconsin-based fund of funds. NVNG set out to grow the venture ecosystem in Wisconsin by leveraging its vast network of venture funds. NVNG’s approach combines a network of best-in-class national venture funds with investments in Wisconsin funds and startups.
George Hofheimer (BBA ’92, MBA ’03)
Hofheimer completed a self-supported, cross-country bike ride with his wife, which raised $30,000 and awareness for financial barriers to medical care in the U.S. He also published his first book, Banking on a Human Scale, which documents a strategic path forward for smaller, community-based financial institutions. Finally, Hofheimer celebrated the three-year anniversary of his consulting business, which advises ambitious credit unions across the world.
Bob Paulsen (BBA ’93)
Paulsen recently sold his business, PlayerLync, to Intertek, the leader in quality assurance services with 44,000 employees in 100 countries. Paulsen has now shifted his efforts to find a cure for CMT, a degenerative neuromuscular disease affecting 250,000 people in the U.S. and 3 million people worldwide, including his son. Through a global collaboration, Paulsen hopes to help deliver a cure within the next three to five years.
Marjorie (Greiner) Olsen (BS ’96, MBA ’01)
Olsen is now a grants and contracts accountant at the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs (RSP) at UW–Madison, where she manages over 100 RSP post-grant research accounts. Additionally, she and Chuck Olsen (BA ’87, MBA ’00) just celebrated their 22nd wedding anniversary—having met 25 years ago in Marketing 700.
Mike Ryan (BBA ’98, MAcc ’00)
Ryan has acquired majority ownership in Keith McMillen Instruments (KMI), a Berkeley, California-based technology firm. KMI pioneers hardware and software for musicians that seamlessly blend traditional instruments with computers. With a commitment to nuanced musicality, KMI’s products redefine how musicians interact with technology.
2000-2009
Ryohei Ando (BBA ’00)
Ando spent two years with UW–Madison from 1998 to 2000.
Steve Shepherd (BBA ’00)
Shepherd was named 2023 Broker of the Year by the Minnesota Commercial Association of Real Estate for his outstanding contribution to the profession, civic and community involvement, professional conduct, and production in the state’s industry. Shepherd leads the Minneapolis suburban office brokerage practice at Newmark, a position he has held since December 2017.
Judy Jandro (BBA ’01)
Jandro recently started a new job at United Properties as the vice president of capital markets. She is responsible for sourcing and closing equity for real estate developments and investments. Since 1916, United Properties has continued to grow as an investor and developer of commercial property, senior housing, and residential land.
Michael Pottern (BBA ’01)
Pottern recently opened the Denver Zen Den, which is the first sober psychedelic clinic in Denver. It uses vibrational frequencies, virtual reality, and light to reset the nervous system and simulate mind-expanding experiences without using actual psychedelics. These are ideal for parents, professionals, and anyone seeking to build deeper personal connections and empathy with themselves and others.
Stephanie (Reed) de Groot (BBA ’02, MAcc ’03)
De Groot was promoted to Wisconsin assurance practice leader at BDO in January 2024. In this role, she oversees the assurance practice for the Madison and Milwaukee offices.
Jason Lobel (BBA ’02)
Lobel launched GenomicMD, Inc. in January 2024, a clinical-grade genomics platform that predicts an individual’s genomic risk for common diseases, like cancer and diabetes. The company’s innovative flagship product, the Lifetime Genomic Risk Assessment, was launched in a multi-year partnership with Endeavor Health in Chicago.
Amy Lee (BBA ’03, MBA ’16)
Lee recently joined Stryker in a new role as a director of upstream marketing in the Medical Business unit. This leadership role drives collaboration across independent product portfolios to solve customer problems on the health care continuum. This follows 10 years at Delve, a product design and innovation consultancy, where she was vice president of the strategy practice area.
John Ikeda (MBA ’04)
Ikeda recently became chief mission officer with Water Environment Federation (WEF), where he leads technical programs. WEF is a not-for-profit technical and educational organization with more than 30,000 individual members. It also has 75 affiliated member associations representing water quality professionals around the world.
Lance Mikus (MBA ’04)
Mikus joined StatLab Medical Products as vice president of marketing and product management in January 2024. StatLab has been helping anatomic pathology laboratories provide the best possible patient care since 1976. Mikus is also pleased to share that he built and operated a small e-commerce business, PlugShields.com, in 2023. He will continue to oversee the company as president.
Neal Spinler (MBA ’06)
Spinler just started a new position as executive director for BRAVO Youth Orchestras. BRAVO offers music education to underserved youth in Portland, Oregon, and provides free instruction and instruments. BRAVO is currently celebrating 10 years of life-changing arts engagement.
Jonathan Nass (BBA ’07)
Nass joined Huntington National Bank in October 2023 as senior vice president of corporate treasury.
Krystle Felcaro Heaps (BBA ’08)
Felcaro Heaps completed her master’s in sports administration from Northwestern University in March 2023. She also had the honor of representing the entire School of Professional Studies as student speaker during the June 2023 convocation. She is excited to see what the next chapter brings as she continues working at Northwestern and finally gets to enjoy traveling with her kiddo and husband.
2010-2019
Sandy Walter (MBA ’11)
Walter was promoted to co-head of equity capital markets (ECM) at Baird in Milwaukee, and currently partners with Peter Kies (BBA ’87, MS ’89) to lead the business. Walter will perform his leadership role while continuing to actively manage his ECM coverage in the consumer, distribution, and real estate sectors.
Chad Beier (MBA ’12)
Beier co-founded Wisconsin Agility, a boutique advising and training organization, with UW-La Crosse alum Jeff Bubolz. Both from Wisconsin, they are charging forward to help companies across the state (and beyond) increase their organizational agility.
Maxwell Bracey (BBA ’12)
Bracey established the nonprofit DiverSeaFy in 2020, which aims to diversify scuba diving and advocate for marine conservation. Since its inception, DiverSeaFy has graduated 22 students of color from its program. In addition, Bracey recently secured a $30,000 grant from the California Coastal Commission for inclusion and coastal access.
Drew Vernon (MBA ’12)
Vernon started Tonies for Teachers, a passion project designed to share the educational benefits of Tonies—screen-free storytelling devices—in classrooms across the country. This program has grown to include libraries, children’s museums, daycares, and hospitals, and is now known as Tonies Education. As a result of this growth, Vernon has recently transitioned away from his role as marketing director to lead the company’s Education initiative full time.
Matt Billings (MBA ’13)
Billings and his family recently relocated to the Madison area after almost eight years in Seattle. He is now leading multiple data center projects as part of Microsoft’s Cloud and AI team and remains actively involved in supporting the Wisconsin School of Business through an alumni advisory board.
Prince Amoako (MBA ’14)
Amoako started a new role as head of operations with PendoTECH, a Mettler Toledo unit. He is excited to lead a team of talented manufacturing and supply chain professionals and continue to advance innovation in pharmaceutical, biopharma, and bioprocess applications. Prior to this, Amoako spent over nine years with Bristol-Myers Squibb.
Jennifer Hoege (MBA ’14)
Hoege is building the first Vistage Small Business Peer Advisory Group in the Madison area for leaders of organizations worth $1 million or more. Vistage is the world’s largest CEO coaching and peer advisory organization for leaders of small and midsize businesses.
Vanessa Mariscal (BBA ’16)
Mariscal and Jake Berger (BBA ’15) were married in Chicago on December 9, 2023. They first crossed paths in the same section of Accounting 100 and remember seeing each other often in Grainger Hall. On their wedding day, they were surrounded by Business Badgers, including both their best man and maid of honor! The couple now lives in San Francisco.
Mark Elsdon (MBA ’17)
Elsdon recently completed his second book, Gone for Good? Negotiating the Coming Wave of Church Property Transition. It addresses the massive change coming to communities throughout the U.S. as an estimated 100,000 church buildings and billions of dollars of church-owned property will be sold or repurposed by 2030.
Scott Maurer (MBA ’17)
Maurer has been with Prime Video for the past two years, where he focuses on sports. During his tenure with Amazon, he’s built the Thursday Night Football discovery experience within the company’s app, has been promoted, and is now responsible for all sports discovery. He lives in Bellevue, Wisconsin, with a couple of amazing doodles, one incredible wife, a precocious 2-year-old, and another family member on the way!
2020-2023
Keegan Nesvacil (MBA ’20)
Nesvacil is the co-founder and vice president of Woodland Tools Co., which provided the Badger football team with sledgehammers—for ceremonial and training purposes—in September 2023. He is thrilled to play a part in the team’s celebratory moments.
Daniel Adix (BBA ’21)
Adix recently founded a startup to combat the effects of drinking. His company, LiQure, has a patent-pending formula which combines vitamins, electrolytes, and herbs into a tasty, convenient gummy. The company’s mission is to incorporate wellness into the social lives of adults. LiQure is currently expanding across retail and bar locations in Wisconsin and Illinois as the premier and novel solution within the booming alcohol-aid industry.
Bridget (Wilcox) Jobe (MBA ’21)
Jobe left American Family Insurance in November 2023 and looks forward to what comes next. She also got married in July 2023 while on vacation. She says the wedding was spontaneous and perfect.
Maggie Sullivan (BBA ’21)
“I am excited to share that I have started my new role as Senior Operations Associate at Vensana Capital! I am thrilled to be a part of the Vensana team and to continue to learn and grow.”
Cassie Lebl (BBA ’23)
Lebl began her first full-time position in August 2023. Working in 3 World Trade Center, Lebl holds a media planning role for Nestlé at one of the largest global ad agencies. She often runs into fellow Wisconsin graduates in New York and loves watching Badger games with them.