Bob N. Maki, E’60, of Gardner, Massachusetts, is a part-time conservation agent for the towns of Winchendon and Templeton. He retired from the Army Corps of Engineers in 1994. He dedicated his third novel, Scent of Death, “to all veterans who ever found themselves in harm’s way.”

Joe Scarpato, LA’62, of Marlborough, Massachusetts, writes, “After forty-plus years, it’s almost like being back at Northeastern. With two years as Northeastern News feature editor and ‘All Hail’ columnist under my belt, I thought my job was done. Au contraire! I’m now involved with the class of 1962 reunion committee, writing ‘Aw Hell’ [sic] columns for the class newsletter. In addition, my fiancée and I recently developed the first class website for Northeastern alumni, at http://www.neualumni.org/1962. To top it off, my Husky Hi-Liter/WNEU history has come back to haunt me: I’m now on the committee for the WNEU reunion to be held June 11 to 13 in North Conway, New Hampshire. It’s great to be back!”

William D. Vierstra, E’62, of Fort Mill, South Carolina, writes, “Retired in 1996 after a thirty-four-year career as a professional engineer with B. F. Goodrich and Continental Tire, primarily designing retail store facilities all around the country. Liz and I now live near Charlotte, North Carolina, and are enjoying attending Carolina Panther and Duke Blue Devil games and traveling back to Kent, Ohio, to visit our son and three grandsons. I would be pleased to receive e-mail from my civil engineering classmates, varsity basketball teammates, and NEZ fraternity brothers.” His e-mail address is vierstra@comporium.net.

Solomon H. Katz, LA’63, of Philadelphia, is a professor of anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. “Last year, I completed work as editor in chief on a new three- volume Encyclopedia of Food and Culture, published by Scribner’s (Gale Group),” he writes. “I am delighted to report that the encyclopedia was selected in January for four major 2003 awards, including the Choice Award, for outstanding academic title; the ALA Outstanding Reference Source; the Booklist Editor’s Choice Reference Sources; and the Dartmouth Medal, for outstanding reference title. The Dartmouth Medal, to be presented in June, is, according to my publisher, ‘considered the ultimate award in the reference-publishing world, the reference equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize.’” Friends may e-mail Katz at skatz2001@aol.com.

Edward J. Ryan Jr., BA’63, writes to let friends know that he and his wife have relocated to Dover, Delaware. Ryan has a private practice in family and business mediation. His e-mail address is edryan1@aol.com.

Joseph M. Wells, E’63, ME’65, of Mashpee, Massachusetts, has retired from the U.S. Army Research Laboratory in Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, and started his own engineering consulting firm, JMW Associates. He has recently given invited talks at Cornell University, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, MIT, and UMass­ Dartmouth. This spring, Wells travels to the South Pacific for six weeks, for both business and vacation. While there, he will participate in the International Ballistics Symposium in Adelaide, Australia, and present invited talks at the University of Sydney and to defense laboratories in Melbourne, Australia, and Auckland, New Zealand. E-mail him at jmwconsultant@comcast.net.

Bob May, BA’64, and his wife, Michele, live in Rockwall, Texas, twenty-five miles east of Dallas. “We have three children and six grandchildren (two kids and four grandkids in Texas; our oldest daughter, her husband, and two grandkids in Stoughton, Massachusetts),” writes May. “I retired from the corporate world in 2000 at the age of fifty-nine. I worked thirty-one years for American Optical in Southbridge, Massachusetts, in various middle- and top-management positions in inventory and production control, marketing, and sales. We now have our own home-based business with Excel Communications, powered by VarTec Telecom, the largest privately held company in the Dallas metroplex. As independent representatives/national training directors, we help others start, own, and operate their own businesses in the half-a-trillion-dollar local and long-distance phone market, here and in Canada and Europe. We will soon begin an Internet business focused on providing solutions that help individuals and families regain their freedom (financial, time-related, spiritual). Michele and I are very active in our Christian faith. She went to Mexico in February on a mission project for our church. I have been an active member of Rotary International this past year, and I am a passionate Red Sox fan. The Lord blessed me in 2002; as president and founder of Baseball Fans Unite International, a nonprofit organization, I had the opportunity to participate with other fans to help settle the baseball strike (the first time in baseball labor history there was not a work stoppage). How much of a factor was the fans’ anger? I do not know, but we were heard: I was on CNN three times, ESPN once, and twice I opened the Fox News broadcast in Dallas. It was a lot of fun. After the settlement, we closed the nonprofit down.” May says he’s tentatively planning to be at the fortieth reunion in October.

David B. Church, E’65, of McMurray, Pennsylvania, retired in March from PPG Industries after thirty-eight years with the company. He was vice president of chlor-alkali and derivatives.

Robert Bruce MacDonald, E’65, writes, “I’m retired and living in New Port Richey, Florida, enjoying the sunshine and playing golf almost every day. My two daughters are grown and educated, although not at NU (Maryland and BU; Union and University of Wisconsin). Miss the hockey games at the old Boston Arena (Matthews) but not the cold. Just discovered the games on the Internet, so I’ll be with you in spirit. Hello to all the old ‘hockey pucks’ from the ’60s.”

Gerard F. Conklin, E’67, of North Springfield, Vermont, has been named Vermont Engineer of the Year for 2004. Honorees are judged on their public stature; educational, professional, and engineering achievements; continuing competence; and involvement in professional and technical society activities. Conklin is president and chief executive officer of Dufresne-Henry. He has headed the engineering, planning, landscape architecture, and environmental sciences firm since 1985. In the 1970s, Conklin managed a nationwide evaluation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s sewer-system infiltration and inflow program. He was also involved in the EPA’s first value engineering study and authored an EPA handbook on sewer-system evaluation and rehabilitation. As president and CEO of Dufresne-Henry, Conklin is responsible for the operation of the 300-person company and its seventeen offices. The Engineer of the Year awards, which were bestowed at a banquet in Montpelier on February 27, concluded a week of activities and festivities in celebration of Vermont’s National Engineers’ Week.

Melvin Y. Ellis, LA’67, retired on January 2 from the U.S. Geological Survey, in Reston, Virginia. Highlights of his career include spending fifty-four weeks at the original Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station for the National Mapping Program. In 1984, Ellis developed the Earth Science Corps, a nationwide volunteer program. Just before retiring, he wrote a history of colonial, territorial, and state boundaries of the United States since 1514, which is slated to become part of the interactive National Atlas website. Now Ellis plans to volunteer as co-manager of trail maintenance in the north-central district of Shenandoah National Park. He and his wife, Loreen, own homes in Fairfax and Madison counties in Virginia.

Jack Derby, MBA’69, of Webster, Massachusetts, is the director of the Connecticut Small Business Development Subcenter at Quinebaug Valley Community College, where he also teaches microeconomics. Derby previously taught at Becker College, in Worcester, and at Nichols College, in Dudley. He founded a management, marketing, and technical company in 1985 and has conducted business in Germany, Japan, England, Switzerland, Canada, and Wales.

Bernard Hemel, E’69, of Colchester, Connecticut, writes, “After graduating from Northeastern, I went to work for my co-op company, Raytheon, until 1971. In June of that year, I went to work for the Navy at the Underwater Systems Center in New London, Connecticut. In June 1995, I took an early retirement from the federal government for personal reasons. Meanwhile, the lab had changed its name to the Naval Underwater Warfare Center, New London Detachment, and was closed in 1996 and decommissioned in 1997. It is now Fort Trumbull State Park, and most of the lab buildings have been demolished. Since retiring from the government, I have started two small companies, one a computer-service company, which I closed in July 1998, and the other a small research-and-development and special-purpose computer manufacturing company. Also, I built and have lived in an Earth-Sheltered House for nearly twenty years.”