64 | LEHIGH ALUMNI BULLETIN | CLASS NOTES Ken Fuirst, whether he knew your name or not, then you were, truly, on that vacation. Mentioned classmates responded to my update request. Email me (david@dpolakoff.com) so I may facilitate your 15 words of fame (quasi Andy Warhol). “I’ll talk to you later, just save it for another guy. I’ll talk to you later, don’t want to hear it again tonight. I’ll just see you around.” (The Tubes) ’87 Laura M. D’Orsi, 26 Falcon Ridge Circle, Holmdel, NJ 07733. (732) 241-5229 (H); lauramdorsi@yahoo.com I had a chance to catch up with Tom Cassidy. Tom lives with his wife, Sophie, in Glenn Mills, Pa., and has worked with Bayada as head of procurement, real estate and facilities for many years. He also volunteers extensively with the Alzheimer’s Association. Tom started volunteering with the Alzheimer’s Association in 2009 when his mom was battling vascular dementia. He started doing runs and walks, raising money to cure Alzheimer’s, and has stayed involved. His most recent work is as the chair of the Delaware Valley Board of the Alzheimer’s Association. Tom has also helped to set up an internship with the Lehigh College of Health and the Alzheimer’s Association and Bayada to help those with Alzheimer’s/dementia in the Lehigh Valley. Tom has two daughters, Alexandra Cassidy ’18 and Anna Cassidy; both live in New York City and are busy with their lives there. Tom recently spent time playing golf on Long Island with Doug Holland and his wife, Andrea (Romatini) Holland ’89, who works with Bridal Reflections. Doug recently retired after 35 years with UPS. Doug and Andrea have two kids who are Lehigh alums and great friends with Tom’s kids, Michael Holland ’18 and Gavrielle Holland ’20 ’21G. Tom and his wife aren’t ready to retire yet, but are looking into various options. In May a group of us got together at the Lehigh Lawyers dinner in New York at the Penn Club to honor former U.S. Ambassador to India Richard Verma ’90, who received the Lehigh Lawyer’s Award. Rich is a former Lambda Chi, so many Lambda Chi brothers, including Walt Keiper ’84, Michael Schneider, Karl Pupke, Rob Michaels, Sean Kelly ’88, Dave Warsoff ’86 and Adam Drum ’92, and many other Lehigh alums, including Jill Tirnauer and Lisa Hakim, came out to celebrate his award and connect with Rich. It was a wonderful evening and inspiring to hear Rich speak about his career and how his dad came to America to change his life and the lives of his family. In June, I was fortunate to attend Lisa Hakim’s wedding to Brad Schoenfeld in Allentown, N.J., at the most beautiful venue, the Ashford Estate. Lisa was a stunning bride, and it was an absolutely perfect day. Many Lehigh alums attended, including Kathryn (Reichert) Koenig (who was the matron of honor) and Tom Koenig ’86, Daniela (Boebert) Titterton and Phil Titterton, Andrea (Worth) Robik, Jill Tirnauer and Michael Schneider. A fabulous time was had by all, lots of laughs, Lehigh stories, and Springsteen music played and danced to. Lisa is currently VP, business planning and operations, WABC-TV and “Live with Kelly and Mark.” The upcoming year is going to be a “big” one for many of us. I am sure, like me, many of us were born in 1965, and we will be celebrating a big birthday in 2025. I don’t even want to say what it is because I can’t believe it. Weren’t we just running around to each other’s 40th birthday events? Or 50th? Not sure where the time has gone. Please fill me in on whatever events everyone has planned so I can write about them. This year we have another home Lehigh-Lafayette game, and the next two years are away. This is a great time to get together before all those 60th birthday parties. Hope to see you all at Lehigh-Lafayette or any of the other home games. ’88 Dave Best, dave@bestcollegeconsulting.com ’89 Jocelyn (Gitlin) Deutsch, 9 Vincent Lane, Armonk, NY 10504; jocelyndeutsch@hotmail.com What a reunion! For those of you who missed it, please put the first weekend in June 2029 in your calendar for our 40th. Laura (Marturana) Riddell reached out following the weekend to explain her absence, and she had an excellent excuse! Matt Riddell and Laura had a large gathering of Lehigh alumni of their own—most of whom were a lot younger! Their middle son Evan ’18 ’19G married his long-term girlfriend Victoria (Tori) Connolly ’20. There were no fewer than 25 Lehigh alums there, Matt being the oldest and Tori being the youngest! They had many Lehigh swim teammates in attendance from all different classes. Some other Lehigh sports alums were there, as well as Rob Herb, the current swim team coach. Matt is still working for IBM, and while Laura thought she retired from swim coaching five years ago, she was pulled back in and now coaches on a part-time basis in addition to her new job in tax prep. Congratulations to Christine Burke, who, along with becoming a mom, was honored by winning the 2024 ISE Distinguished Alumni Award and delivered the Spencer C. Schantz Distinguished Public Lecture titled “Resilience, the Art of Surviving and Thriving.” She is an executive director at Morgan Stanley, where she has been a global change leader, talent management officer (twice), chief operations officer (three times), chief of staff, internal entrepreneur and is currently a resilience governance leader. She has held leadership positions across the firm in operations, technology, cyber security and trading. She is also on the Morgan Stanley Technology Philanthropy Steering Committee, having originated the MS cyber-philanthropy initiative. Christine has also been a math teacher in the Bronx; was the founding director of finance, operations, technology and HR in a foundational diverse-by-design charter school network; and is the owner of a global brand unrelated to any of the above. In her time at Morgan Stanley, and prior to that with Coopers & Lybrand Consulting, Christine has worked and, in some cases, lived in over 10 countries. In addition to being a triathlete and having summited Mt. Kilimanjaro, Christine has served on the board of Brooklyn Prospect Charter School and as co-chair for Partnership for Children and is a member of the Lehigh ISE Alumni Advisory Council. Ian Netupsky continues to do amazing things helping the people of Ukraine. Mother for Ukraine Corp. is a registered U.S.-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit and can help you save both on your individual taxes and business taxes! You can check out Ian’s post on our Class of 1989 Facebook page for more details. My beautiful roommate, Julie (Kime) Traina, announced the launch of Midlife Mastery, a virtual workshop featuring tools and strategies to help women navigate the unique challenges of midlife. Midlife Mastery is designed to reach a broad audience with techniques that have been incredibly successful with many of her clients who’d been feeling lost, unappreciated, overwhelmed and unmoored. Julie is a certified life coach, mother of five, and former teacher with a master’s degree in education. Long fascinated with personal
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