Anthony Yuen (Bosch XXXII) and Vanessa Reeves were married on August 19, 2017 at a ceremony in Sausalito, California. Anthony manages strategic projects for the Vice Chancellor of Undergraduate Education at UC Berkeley, while Vanessa is a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine for Arguello Pet Hospital in San Francisco. Joining the wedding was Anthony’s German cousin, who rocked some traditional lederhosen for the event.
After 12 years of work in Bangladesh, Nepal, Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia, Patrick Wilson (Bosch XIV) has traded the jungles of Southeast Asia for the plains of East Africa. In September Patrick took on his new assignment as the Deputy Mission Director of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Mission to Kenya and East Africa. The second-largest USAID mission in the world, USAID/Kenya & East Africa is responsible for U.S. Government development and humanitarian assistance programming in Kenya, Somalia and across the East Africa region. Patrick would be happy to hear from any Boschies on safari in his new home.
Paul Glader (Bosch XXVIII) will be the Laventhol / Newsday Visiting Professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in Spring of 2018, teaching the capstone course for the Masters of Arts in business journalism.
On October 8, a surprisingly warm and humid day for autumn, Catherine Pfaffenroth (Bosch XXV) and Dave Higgs got married in a small ceremony in Washington, DC.
Clare Waldmann (Bosch XXXI) and Ellen Scholl (Bosch XXXII) met up recently in Cape Town, South Africa, where they enjoyed an evening learning about local cultural perspectives through a comedic lens, including how South Africans perceive Germans and Americans given the current state of the world (hint: not exactly positively). Ellen was in Cape Town to attend a wedding, and Clare was attending the 19th Annual Large Marine Ecosystem and Coastal Partners Meeting organised by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission.
Maribeth Gainard (Bosch XXIV) married Hal Goltz at the Cleveland Museum of Art in October. Fellow Boschie Dia Martin (Bosch XXIV) was in attendance. Maribeth was until October living in France as the Chief Financial Officer of 3SI Holding, a subsidiary of the Otto Group. During her time at 3SI she made frequent trips to Hamburg headquarters and was reminded of the Bosch days! The couple spent time in Germany last summer: taking refresher German courses in Berlin and also attending the Wagner festival in Bayreuth. They are now living in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood.
Dr. Robert J Devine (Bosch III) was promoted to the rank of Knight Grand Cross in the Order of St. Michael of the Wing during the October 2017 investiture weekend in Washington, D.C. The Friday events began with a benefit luncheon with His Royal Highness Dom Duarte Pio of Portugal at the Metropolitan Club, which was followed by a private tour of Anderson House, the opulent headquarters of the Society of the Cincinnati with an evening reception at the Army & Navy Club. On Saturday, the investiture Mass of the American Association of Knights and Dames of the Dynastic Orders of the Royal House of Portugal took place at the Church of St. Thomas the Apostle officiated by His Excellency The Most Reverend Timothy P. Broglio, Archbishop of the Military Vicariate, U.S.A.F. The investiture service was crowned by a gala white tie/mess dress dinner later that evening in the chambers of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces. The Royal Brotherhood of St. Michael in the United States supports the work of the Archdiocese for the Military Services as well as providing charitable and on-site relief work in the African island nation of São Tomé and Príncipe, a former Portuguese territory close to the equator and part of a volcano chain featuring striking rock and coral formations, rainforests and beaches.
Brandon Mendoza (Bosch XXIV) and his wife Sarah of Chicago, IL welcomed their 3rd child to the world on March 30, 2017. Otto is now 8 months old and is on the verge of crawling. Otto and his brothers Matthias (7) and Santos (3) visited Sarah’s uncle over Thanksgiving weekend on the Roecker homestead farm outside of Hartford, Wisconsin. The farm has been active for over 150 years and was founded by their great (Reuben) great (Otto) great (Philipp) great grandfather Wilhelm Roecker, a German immigrant.
Markos Kounalakis (Bosch V) has been given a strong national platform by McClatchy as their foreign affairs columnist. His columns appear weekly across the country and around the world, via the Tribune News Service, commenting on global events and issues.The Kounalakis household is very busy because Markos’ wife, Eleni Kounalakis, is running to be California’s next Lieutenant Governor. Follow her race at EleniForCA.gov. The open primary takes place in June 2018 and the general election is in November. Lots of fun discussions at the dinner table these days. Markos’ boys, Neo (16) and Eon (15), fell in love with saber fencing during their time in Budapest, when Eleni was serving as the U.S. Ambassador, so they spend lots of weekends at fencing tournaments around the USA. Pictured below is a family photo at a recent Sacramento Kings basketball game.
Rebecca Reagan-Thieme (Bosch XX) will be moving back to Berlin after 13 years! Rebecca and her husband will be moving in the February/March time frame, and Rebecca is taking her job with her from California, continuing to work for SAP SuccessFactors. She’s looking forward to connecting with the wide group of RBFAA folks in the Berlin area.
Trooper Sanders (Bosch XIX) has begun a fellowship with the Rockefeller Foundation where he’ll be focusing on technology and jobs.
Julie Smith (Bosch Fellow XIII) recently launched a new program called Across the Pond, in the Field. The new project, partially sponsored by the Bosch Foundation, seeks to bring small groups of Europeans and Americans to 12 cities across the United States over the next three years to discuss issues like trade, alliances, and the transatlantic relationship. The first trip was to Pittsburgh. Here’s a story that appeared in the Washington Post on that trip and the wider project. And here is a link to the project website that includes a short, two-minute video of what transpired in Pittsburgh.
Peter Laufer’s (Bosch V) book “Dreaming in Turtle” is to be published in 2018 by St. Martin’s Press. It is a study of human interaction with turtles across cultures and time, focusing on poaching and smuggling in our current era. The fieldwork — including research into Proganochelys in Stuttgart — was challenging, as this photograph below from Louisiana suggests.
After working on the project for two years, Anna Schmitz (Bosch XXVIII) was successful in bringing the Olympic and Paralympic Games back to the United States! (Read more here.) On September 13, in Lima Peru, the International Olympic Committee voted to award the 2024 Games to Paris and the 2028 Games to Los Angeles. While the campaign is complete, Anna and her team have a lot of work ahead of them still. She looks forward to a slightly slower pace for now, and knowing that she will be in Los Angeles for the foreseeable future – Anna hopes that all of the Boschies will let her know when they travel through!
