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Alumni and Friends: La Follette Notes: Fall 2007

News from Alumni and Friends

1950s

Upon retiring in 2002 after stints as a city manager in Texas and town manager for Breckenridge, Colorado, as a division and department head with the city and county of Denver, and as an academician at Texas Christian University and University of Colorado, John P. Hall headed for his family’s 1861 ranch. “However, they found me,” says the 1958 public policy grad. “I’m now leading a restoration project for Evergreen’s downtown similar to our accomplishment in Breckenridge.” He is also coordinating a trail project through Evergreen with the county’s open space agency. As a consultant to the Denver Mountain Parks Foundation, Hall is working on the preservation of Denver’s mountain parks and, through the Mountain Area Land Trust, working to keep open space from development. “There is life after retirement, even time for fly fishing,” he notes, “at least that’s what my Day Timer says!”

1970s

Neal P. Cohen, 1974 Ph.D. in economics, retired from full-time employment after 26 years overseas with the U.S. Agency for International Development and moved to Gainesville, Florida, to be near his grandchildren. “The high points were successful economic policy reform in Nepal and South Africa,” he says. “I now consult about one-third time on economic development issues with recent consultancies in Zambia, South Africa, Kenya, Azerbaijan and Afghanistan.”

Edward F. Potter, 1974, is serving his second term as trustee in the village of Mount Pleasant, west of Racine, Wisconsin. He also is chair of the village plan commission and a member of the personnel committee, was treasurer of the village community development authority, and was chair of the village board finance, legal and license committee. A certified local government property assessor since 2004, he is licensed by the Wisconsin State Department of Regulation and Licensing as a real estate appraiser. He is self-employed as a residential and commercial fee appraiser and as a contract assessor for the village of Sturtevant and the town of Yorkville in Racine County.

Doug Zwank, 1977, served as mayor of Middleton, Wisconsin, from 2003 until 2007. In 2005 Money magazine named Middleton the seventh best city in the United States. In 2007 Money named Middleton the No. 1. city with fewer than 50,000 people in the United States. “I would like to thank the La Follette center for the great education that prepared me for politics,” Zwank says. “I am now retired from politics and enjoying my free time.”

1980s

James Alm, 1980 Ph.D. in economics, has been appointed dean of the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University. He is also editor of the journal Public Finance Review.

Jeff Martinka, 1983, is the new executive director of the West 7th Community Center in St. Paul, Minnesota. Martinka is responsible for sustaining the strong base of community programs at the center, while creating new earned income and partnership opportunities. Established 35 years ago as an nonprofit organization in the settlement house tradition, West 7th provides a range of senior, family and youth programming, operating with a paid staff of 26, supported by hundreds of community volunteers. Martinka served previously in management and development positions at nonprofits in the Twin Cities and Milwaukee, following work in state and local government. Martinka is on the Board of MACC Alliance of Connected Communities of Minneapolis and is the marketing chair for Global Citizens Network of St. Paul.

1990s

Allison McEwen Vaillancourt, 1990, is associate vice president for human resources at the University of Arizona. She began her elected term in July as president of the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources, an organization with members from more than 1,600 colleges and universities in the United States and abroad. “Other good news includes being a co-investigator on a National Science Foundation ADVANCE grant designed to increase the number of women in higher education practicing in the areas of science, technology, engineering and math,” she reports.

Sarah Archibald, 1998, completed her Ph.D. in May from the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where she is teaching a course on financing elementary and secondary education in fall 2007 and spring 2008. She continues her work as an associate researcher
with the Consortium for Policy Research in Education at UW-Madison.

Robert Zeinemann, 1996, and his wife, Rachael Wyman, are the proud parents of a boy named Asa, born October 12, 2006. Zeinemann and his family just moved to the Seattle area for Wyman’s work, and he is studying for the Washington bar exam – and watching after Asa. He published an article in the spring 2007 The Urban Lawyer, a scholarly journal put out by the American Bar Association. Titled “Overlooked Linkages Between Municipal Incorporation and Annexations Laws: An In-Depth Look at Wisconsin’s Experience,” the article, is “over 60 pages long and has 372 footnotes (law journals are insane about footnoting everything),” Zeinemann says. “I consider it one of my greatest achievements.”

Michael Derr, 1992, and the Cooperative Educational Service Agency 6 based in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, secured a $1 million U.S. Department of Education grant. It is the second federal grant the agency received to provide professional development activities for history teachers in eastern Wisconsin. Derr continues his role as lead project coordinator for the initiative. He has been a grants specialist with the agency for eight years and has secured more than $9 million in federal and state grant awards for school districts and educational institutions in the Fox Valley Region.

Victoria Flood, 1994, has worked in the Research and Evaluation unit of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in Chicago for more than six years. “I mostly work on surveys and grant evaluations; and I am the one who teaches ELCA staff about how to effectively create, use and measure outcomes,” she says. She and her husband, Rod Boriack, live in the northwest suburbs of Chicago.

2000s

WenChuen Lin, 2003, is a financial analyst for General Electric, her employer for the last two and a half years. She is heading to Singapore for a new assignment with CNBC.

Tori Key is pursuing a career in federal government consulting. Her first client project is with the Federal Aviation Administration. After graduating in 2005, she spent two years in the government of the District of Columbia’s Capital City Fellows Program. She worked in the Department of Transportation, the Mayor’s Policy Office
and the Office of the Chief Financial Officer.

Upon completing a one-year international development fellowship with Catholic Relief Services in Nicaragua in May 2007, Bill Schmitt, 2005, moved to Sudan to accept the position of area coordinator for CRS’s emergency relief operations in the northern corridor of West Darfur. In collaboration with United Nations agencies and other international non-governmental organizations, CRS manages a multifaceted intervention comprised of food security, shelter, water and sanitation, education, health and nutrition, and agricultural recovery programs that benefit more than 125,000 Darfurians, many of them living in internally displaced persons camps.

Jamie Aulik, 2006, was elected Manitowoc County clerk in a special election in April. At age 27, he is the youngest of Wisconsin’s 72 county clerk by 11 years. While roles vary, county clerks are generally responsible for administering elections; budgeting; issuing marriage licenses, dog licenses, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources licenses and work permits. County clerks may process passport applications and maintain county records. They also serve their county boards by announcing ordinances, recording votes and taking minutes.

Liz Krueger, 2004, and her family have relocated to Haleiwa, Hawaii, where she is honing her policy skills with Isaiah, 2 1/2, and Josie, 9 months.

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