60 | LEHIGH ALUMNI BULLETIN | CLASS NOTES spring. He later texted me a photograph of his new grandbaby, Finn Alexander Fowler, born on Oct. 4. Ken Colangelo started a new position as chief executive officer at Bantr. Bantr is a social network connecting diverse television fans with similar viewing habits, in order to have meaningful discussions about their favorite shows. Bantr is registered as a public benefit corporation and has built a platform to promote personal growth and prosocial behavior. Ken shared that he is excited about this new opportunity. Our classmates and I would love to hear about your adventures. As always, I look forward to hearing from you and sharing your stories! ’80 Gary Chan, (847) 902-8881 (C); gkchan80@alum.lehigh.edu Ken Alley sold a controlling interest in his company in December 2020 at the height of COVID and ran the company for another 20 months for his buyer. Ken is now enjoying some more free time, but he has not retired! In August, he joined Dave Beard, Rick Rogers, Ray Trevisan, Finn Wentworth and their wives for a bike, hike and raft trip through the Bow River Valley in Alberta, Canada. Great times and friends formed at Lehigh are friends for life! Melissa Buckmaster retired in July 2022 from Peraton, where she managed systems engineering efforts for an intelligence community customer. Melissa and her husband, Mitch, moved from northern Virginia, where they lived for over 30 years, to a Del Webb 55-plus community in Wilmington, N.C. Within two weeks, they ran into Mary (Weis) Archer and her husband, George Archer ’78, who have lived in the same community for a couple of years. Mary and George were both Lehigh Gryphons, and Mary and Melissa lived across the hall from each other in Dravo during their freshman year. Talk about a small world! All four of them are enjoying very active retirements only a few miles from the North Carolina beaches and half a mile from the beautiful Cape Fear River. Lastly, it has been an honor and privilege to have been your class correspondent for the past nine years. I enjoyed getting all your updates that shared the changes in your lives and your plans for the future. It is time to allow another individual to have the opportunity to experience the fulfillment that I had the pleasure of over these many years. Please welcome Mark Hembarsky to the role. He can be reached at mhembarsky1980@gmail.com. Enjoy, Mark!” I wish the best to all of you. ’8-O! GO! GO! Editor’s note: Our many thanks to Gary for his near decade of service as the class correspondent. His dedication to Lehigh has shone brightly in that time, as he has also served as a LUAA Board member and president, a trustee to the university, member of the Parents’ Council and several other roles. We will miss his wit and school spirit in this space. Thank you, Gary, for everything. ’81 Tom Wocklish, twocklish@alum. lehigh.edu Bruce Brierly is happy to report that he recently celebrated 41 years as a mechanical engineer at Mack Trucks in Hagerstown, Md., now part of the Volvo Group. “I have spent all but nine of those years working with heavy-duty truck electronic control systems,” he said. “Pretty amazing seeing as I nearly failed Control Theory my senior year!” Terri and Bruce were married 37 years ago. The family consists of three adult children, three grandchildren, with another grandson on the way. Bruce interviewed two dozen Lehigh engineering students for summer jobs last year. The three who came to work for Mack this summer just returned to campus. Although they are now the Lehigh Mountain Hawks, or some silly thing, Bruce believes Lehigh is still producing outstanding engineers! It is his hope they will come back to work for Mack full time. He’s looking forward to interviewing at Lehigh again. John Grib, Ken Sormani and Mark Bailey ’83 got together in early November to run a 5K in Washington, D.C. It’s the first time the three Pi Lambda Phi brothers ran a race together since the 1983 New York City Marathon. Ken lives in Washington, D.C. Mark lives in Vienna, Va. John and Gail Thalhamer Grib reside in Malvern, Pa. John and Gail celebrated their 36th wedding anniversary in October. ’82 John P. Belardo, 152 Berkeley Circle, Basking Ridge, NJ 07920. (973) 425-8755 (B); jbelardo@ mdmc-law.com. On Facebook, like “Lehigh University Class of 1982.” James “Jim” St. John is married to Joyce (Pandelidis) St. John. Their oldest son, Matthew, graduated from Lehigh with a B.A. ’08 and M.S. ’09. Jim was in Sigma Nu, which is, unfortunately, no longer at the entrance gate to the Hill but stood where the new three residence dormitories have been erected. Both Joyce and Jim graduated as chemical engineers and went to work for General Foods (now Kraft) in Dover, Del. After a few years, they took jobs in GF’s Cranbury R&D center in Central Jersey. They started to have children and later took jobs with the Hershey Company in Hershey, Pa. Jim started in research and development, while Joyce was the process engineer for Reese’s. After their third child was born, Joyce stopped working for a while. She has since worked in various capacities for the Hershey Company, the Hershey Trust Company and the Milton Hershey School. Joyce also volunteers for the Hershey Foundation. Jim has held various positions, including VP of chocolate product development. He is now Hershey’s senior fellow and works part time. His favorite project was the development of the Yuengling-Hershey Chocolate Porter beer. Joyce is retired, and Jim is not far off. They will mark their 40th anniversary in May. They have three children. Matthew is 36 and is now an orthopedic surgeon and engaged to Eleanor Pope, a fourth-year med student (will she hyphenate her last name, Pope-St. John?). Their daughter, Christina, 35, has a bachelor of architecture from Cornell and a master’s degree from Columbia. She is married to Fletcher Ladd (Amherst). They live in Scarsdale, N.Y., and have three children. Christina works for a real estate development company, while Fletcher works in banking. Their youngest, Nick, 30, is also a Cornell graduate with an ops research degree. He worked for Amazon and an autonomous vehicle startup company. He quit last year to travel in the Rockies and in South America. Jim caught up with Nick for three weeks of hiking in Patagonia. Joyce and Jim enjoy cycling. They recently purchased a small RV for some cycling adventures. Jim recently met up with Matt McDonough and Russ Geise ’83 (Sigma Nu) for a bike ride around the Trexlertown/ Allentown area. They finished the ride on the Velodrome. Last summer, Jim caught up with Russ and Pete Constable ’83 for some hiking and biking in the Adirondacks and in northern Pennsylvania. Thomas Hammond (Sigma Chi) continues to run his very successful political consulting company out of Falls Church, Va. All of Tom’s incumbent clients succeeded in their reelection bids. Tom directed the campaign of Congressman Jim Jordan of Ohio’s 4th Congressional District and is
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