Amit Mukherjee ’06, a senior associate at New Enterprise Associates (NEA), was included in Forbes magazine’s prestigious “30 Under 30” list of young movers and shakers in the venture capital category for 2016.
Mukherjee has worked at NEA since 2012, overseeing more than $500 million of invested capital. A leading source for reliable business news and financial information, Forbes is well known for its annual lists and rankings. The “30 Under 30” list prides itself on predicting the brightest and most ambitious young adults to watch in the coming year.
“I had been a finalist for ’30 under 30′ the year before, and was then not selected,” he said. “Winning the award after not being selected the year before was a great lesson that sometimes things go my way and other times they don’t, and my long-term outlook would vary little regardless.”
Napa Valley Register – Jan. 2, 2016: Harker alumnus Will Jarvis MS ’97 is featured in article about Jarvis Estate winery, which he runs with his father in the Napa Valley.
This article originally appeared in the winter 2015 Harker Quarterly.
1992
Joe Rosenthal, executive director of advancement, recently ran into Ravi Kapur and his mother. Ravi shared that he just got married and owns TV stations in San Jose, Chicago and North Dakota. Ravi also offered to serve as an alumni mentor to a current Harker student.
Toku Chen had a baby. Please see the Celebrations section for details.
1995
Lisa Kai Klosterman is an orthodontist living with her family in Austin, Texas. Lisa is one of six Kai children who graduated from Harker. Following Harker, she went on to Exeter for high school, Santa Clara University for undergraduate, University of Pacific Dental School in San Francisco, and the University of Southern California in Los Angeles for orthodontic residency. She is married to Kelby Klosterman, and they have a son, Theodore (Theo), born Oct. 7, 2013, and a daughter, Camille, born Aug. 26 of this year.
1996
Frank Lee got married. Please see the Celebrations section for details.
2002
Samana Khan had a baby! Please see the Celebrations section for details.
Jerry Chi is changing jobs from Google to Supercell, the developer behind the game Clash of Clans. He’ll be doing marketing analysis and strategy work covering the Asian Pacific region. Still based in Tokyo, Jerry will be visiting the San Francisco office every few months.
Sean Gabriel (MS ’98) recently returned to the Bay Area after having spent much of 2015 abroad in Accra, Ghana, working with an organization called MEST, a combination tech entrepreneurship school and startup incubator in the region that has recently expanded into Kenya and Nigeria. During Sean’s stay in Accra, he came on board the incubator team as a tech fellow, mentoring resident startups. Sean has written about the experience at http://meltwater.org/scrum-tips-from-west-african-incubator-mest/.
2003
Peter Noonan got married. Please see the Celebrations section for details.
2004
Alfred See completed his undergraduate studies and medical school at Johns Hopkins, and is currently in neurosurgery residency at Harvard, with four years to go. Alfred is interviewing for fellowship spots in 2019-20. He is in touch with classmates Geetanjali Vajapey, Maggie Chen, Joycelin Tsai and Stephanie Chun. After med school he ran a marathon with Wesley Wu, followed by a cross-country drive. Alfred stopped by the alumni office to visit and says he has fond memories of cross country, his classmates and teachers. Alfred has also stepped up to be an alumni mentor for students interested in neurosurgery, and last fall visited Anita Chetty’s grade 12 Human Anatomy and Physiology class to lead a workshop, using the school’s anatomy table to illustrate two recent stroke cases he had worked on.
Emma Hawley is volunteering at the upper school, leading relaxation sessions as part of Harker’s wellness program. Emma spent a year living at an ashram in India and is now back in the Bay Area and delighted to be sharing her meditative skills. The weekly class is open to all upper school students.
2005
Greg Kastelman has served as director of concert booking and business development for Cadenza Artists. There he is responsible for directing agency-wide booking initiatives, talent scouting, developing strategic partnerships, initiating new programs for revenue generation developing and initiating branding and promotional strategies.
2006
Amanda Polzin got married. Please see the Celebrations section for details.
Steve Boyle designed and directed a show called “Matthew Briar and the Age of Resurrection.” The epic, immersive show played on Oct.16-18 at History San Jose, a park full of historical buildings including an old hotel, bank, firehouse, a gorgeous light tower and old homes. Steve is a graduate of Harker’s Conservatory program and has produced several other productions recently. For this unique experience, he divided the park up into three smaller mini-immersive zones: a 1907 World’s Fair, the 1920s, and a Depression-era camp. The production had a very successful run. A fun side note, shared Steve, is that “Aseem Shukla ’07 was in the show!”
2007
Jake Bongers, a fourth year Ph.D. student at the University of California, Los Angeles, was featured in both a video and local newspaper article discussing his role as the consulting guest curator of an exhibition on mummies now on display at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.
Jason Martin has been playing professional baseball for the past four years. He was just traded to the Joplin Blasters in Missouri, and is working toward a master’s degree in sports psychology at Fresno State. He is also coaching baseball at Clovis West High School. Jason married Nicole Duquette in October 2014.
2008
Troy Townzen got married. Please see the Celebrations section for details.
2009
Gloria Ye has been working at Groupon, where she participated in her first hackathon, winning first place locally and placing second and third globally in two different categories as voted by Groupon’s technical panel. Her picture will be featured at Groupon’s headquarters on the honor wall just outside of the CEO’s ofice, honoring her as one of the company’s most dedicated employees.
After graduating from Harker, Dominique Dabija earned her B.S. in bioengineering and M.S. in engineering from Stanford. She spent the next year doing research on medical devices, traveling throughout Japan and Europe, and working on a scuba diving boat around the Great Barrier Reef and Coral Sea in Australia. She is now attending Vanderbilt Medical School, so let her know if you ever find yourself in Nashville!
In the fall issue of Harker Quarterly, Harker Conservatory graduate DJ Blickenstaff showed off his acting chops in a Subway commercial. Now he’s added another notch to his acting belt: he will be in several episodes of a series called “The Colony,” which will begin airing in January on the USA network. He is playing a character named Vasquez. He also recently filmed another commercial, this one for AT&T.
2010
Andy Fang, co-founder of the Palo Alto-based, on-demand food delivery startup DoorDash, shared the secrets to his success during a seminar hosted by the Asian American Parent Association on Oct. 15. Two days later he spoke at TEDxHarker-School, a student-run, kid-only event.
2011
Harker classmates Rani Mukherjee and Alice Loofbourrow are in school together once again, completing a one-year post-baccalaureate premedical program at Goucher College in preparation for a career in health care.
Some interesting work updates from various alumni: Shreya Nathan is working for an education startup in Buenos Aires until January. Christina Li is working for Scary Little Girls, a feminist matrifocal production/theatre company based in England. Howard Lio is having a great time working for Box in Mountain View. Ari Parige is freelancing as a filmmaker. And Daisy Mohrman had her first performance as a professional dancer with Sean Greene’s Shield Wall in Los Angeles.
The Class of 2011 will have its five-year reunion on Dec. 26! Likely topics include reminiscing about the good old days and talking about transitioning into “real” adulthood. Stay tuned for more information!
2012
Neel Salukhe, who plays football for the University of Washington Huskies, was recently interviewed for the Huskies’ athletic newsletter as well as for an article that appeared in The Seattle Times. Neel is making a name for himself at the university as both a dedicated and talented football player, and a serious and respected student of microbiology.
2013
Vladimir Feinberg has been awarded the B. Wood Legacy Sophomore Prize at Princeton University! He also received the Shapiro Prize for Academic Excellence while at Princeton. He is concentrating in computer science and is pursuing a certificate in statistics and machine learning; he’s also a member of the Princeton Association for Computing Machinery and plays club volleyball. This past summer Vladimir was a software engineering intern at Google.
Mav McNealy continues to make breaking golf news. Back in November the Stanford junior capped a sensational fall season by earning medalist honors for the third time in four events at the Gifford Collegiate Championship.
Back in August, former upper school history teacher Ray Fowler, who retired at the end of last year, met up with Alison Rugar at Cornell. Mr. Fowler was riding his motorcycle coast to coast, and Alison was getting ready to help out with freshmen orientation before returning to her engineering and physics studies. She is on schedule to graduate in 2017.
Upper school math teacher Victor Adler recently visited with some Harker alumni attending Princeton University. Pictured here with him are Joy Li, Vladimir Feinberg and Sonia Hashim, as well as Kiran Vodrahalli ’11, Abhinav Khanna ’12 and Avi Nayak ’14.
2015
At the 62nd National Junior Classical League Convention, held at Trinity University in Texas, Maya Nandakumar received the Jessie Chambers NJCL Scholarship. A current Harker student, Elisabeth Siegel, grade 12, was part of a multischool advanced competitive Certamen team that took third place. The achievement earned them nice mentions in Nuntius Californiensis, the official newsletter of the California Junior Classical League. Congrats to both women!
This article originally appeared in the winter 2015 Harker Quarterly.
1965
We are saddened to announce that retired Harker employee and alumnus Dan Gelineau passed away in his home recently. Memorial services were held in November.
1979
Louis Lai came by for lunch with Harker alumni and advancement staff to talk about old times and current happenings. Louis lives in the East Bay and has fond memories of more than 10 years spent at Harker as both a student and camp counselor.
1984
Karri (Sakai) Baker, Kristin (Marlow) Quintin and Elise (Tremba) Robichaud reconnected during a Halloween party held at the Willow Glen home of current Harker parents Fabio Marino and Robin Feinman-Marino (Sofia Marino, grade 3). A spooktacular time was had by all!
Kristin also reconnected with Matthew Douglas. “While traveling to England on a business trip this past September, we were able to schedule a day to visit in his hometown, Farmham.
His wife and daughter prepared the most lovely lunch and then we all went out sightseeing,” she shared. “Matt and I connected on Facebook through the alumni site. I was excited to reach out to him. After 31 years, we were able to not just chat on Facebook but to have a wonderful face-to-face visit with my husband and his family. Priceless!”
1985
Last year in Harker Quarterly we ran a feature story about Judge John Owens’ appointment to a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, the nation’s largest appeals court, which shapes federal law from districts in California and eight other Western states. On Dec. 2, he returned to Harker’s lower school to visit with the third graders to talk about his life as a judge.
In early December the lower school’s entire grade 3 class enjoyed a very special visit from Harker alumnus John Owens ‘85, who last year made the news when he was appointed to a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.
Sitting cross-legged on the floor in room 110, the third graders, who will soon be studying about the government at the local, state and federal levels, were enthralled by Judge Owen’s informative and entertaining talk about serving on the nation’s largest appeals court, which shapes federal law from districts in California and eight other Western states.
But long before he became a judge, Owens got his start at Harker in 1979, when he transferred from an East Bay public school as a grade 3 student himself. Many of the students at his talk were surprised to learn that his own third grade teacher was none other than Sarah Leonard, the lower school’s primary division head, who began her career at Harker as a lower school teacher.
“To this day I have vivid memories of John as one of my own former students. He is a role model in regards to what can happen when a strong work ethic and a determined, can-do attitude are at play,” recalled Leonard.
Owens noted how lucky they were to be attending the lower school. He then gave them a behind-the-scenes look at being a judge – a job he explained he is able to keep for life, should he so choose.
After his talk, he allowed plenty of time for questions and answers. Students asked such questions as, “What if the government picks a bad jury?” (answer: there might be a new trial) and “What if someone found innocent is actually guilty?” (answer: they cannot be tried again). The kids also had many questions about lie detectors.
“It was awesome! I learned a lot about being a judge and the government and how everything works,” said student Sohum Arora.
His mom, Shubhangi Kapatkar, said she was grateful to Harker for giving the third graders the opportunity to receive a visit from Judge Owens. “Sohum was so excited to tell me all about it, he just kept talking about him until he went to sleep. He seemed to be really pumped up seeing a real judge in his real life. … He never usually tells me about what happens in school, so this was a special day for him.”
Indeed, life for Owens, a former lawyer, has changed significantly ever since President Barack Obama nominated him to a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals. Drawing a map of the states for the students on the whiteboard, Owens explained that judges on the 9th Circuit review the decisions of federal trial courts in Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Washington and certain islands in the Pacific.
Owens has served as a law clerk for Judge J. Clifford Wallace of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the U.S. Supreme Court. Prior to that Owens was a federal prosecutor and served as chief of the criminal division in the San Diego U.S. attorney’s office. At the age of 19, he worked in the publicity department of the Golden State Warriors basketball team. He and his wife, Marjorie, have two daughters and live in San Diego.
While working with Ginsberg in 1998, Owens helped set up a visit to the Supreme Court for a group of grade 8 Harker students who were in Washington, D.C., on their class trip. “Justice Ginsburg addressed the students in the courtroom, and answered their questions. I was very proud of my fellow Harker Eagles that day,” he recalled.
Of his time at Harker, he stressed that the school remains “the most significant professional and personal influence on me.” Harker, he said, provided him with the study skills necessary to succeed in school, and more important, the ethics and values to succeed in life. Owens started out as a Harker student in 1979, graduated from grade 8 in 1985, and worked as a summer camp counselor/coach at the school from 1985 until 1991. Today, he remains active with the school as a member of Harker’s distinguished board of fellows.
When asked to offer parting words of wisdom to the students, Owens stressed how important it is to be kind to others and that reaching goals takes really hard work. “So,” he advised, “work hard at whatever it is you want to do.”
“It was heartwarming to see the connection he was able to make with the children. Almost effortlessly, he was able to establish and maintain a lively but meaningful rapport with them. With the perfect mix of knowledge, humor and crowd management skills, he left the children with a memorable experience that I hope they carry with them for a long time to come,” noted Leonard.
This year marked the first time the annual Harker Golf Classic was presented by the Harker Alumni Association. The successful event took place on April 13 at the renowned Stanford University Golf Course, raising funds for Harker’s General Endowment Fund.
The 2015 Harker Golf Classic brought together Harker alumni, parents, alumni parents and their friends, totaling about 80 golfers. The fundraiser was largely spearheaded by alums Jeremy Pomer ’91 and Jeff Rogers ’84. Former Harker faculty member Howard Saltzman and current lower school math teacher Pat Walsh served as honorary marshals for the day, handing out prize ribbons and libations to golfers.
A variety of special awards and prizes, as well as numerous generous sponsors, helped make the event special. Capping off the occasion was a 19th hole reception on the clubhouse patio for golfers, as well as non-golfers, wishing to join in on the fun.
At the end of the day, the winning foursome was announced: Jen Eng, Raymond Hsieh, Herb Repp and Robert Nakamura.
The Stanford golf course, designed in 1930 by renowned golf course architects William Bell and George C. Thomas, is located in the foothills above the Stanford University campus. In 2009, it was rated the nation’s third-best college course by golf coaches.
“It was a great game of golf and, more important, all the participants left with the wonderful knowledge that they had helped raise funds for Harker’s General Endowment, which will benefit future generations of students,” enthused Karri Baker ’84, director of alumni relations.
Andy Fang ’10, co-founder of the Palo Alto based on-demand food delivery startup DoorDash, was included on Forbes magazine’s prestigious “30 Under 30” list of young movers and shakers in the consumer tech category.
DoorDash (www.doordash.com) hires its own drivers to offer home delivery from restaurants unable to provide such service. In just two years, 22-year-old Fang, a Stanford graduate with a degree in computer science, and business partner Stanley Tang, have raised an impressive $19.7 million in startup funding. DoorDash now serves five major metropolitan areas.
A leading source for reliable business news and financial information, Forbes is well known for its annual lists and rankings. The 30 Under 30 list (http://www.forbes.com/30under30/#/) prides itself on predicting the brightest and most ambitious young adults to watch in the coming year.
The 2015 categories include venture capital, enterprise technology, consumer technology, sports, social entrepreneurs, science, retail, music, media, marketing, manufacturing, law, entertainment, health care, games, food, finance, energy, education and art. More than 600 millennials were featured on the lists, with Silicon Valley at the forefront of startup culture.
Fang, a former Harker Quarterly cover boy (having been featured in a graduation photo in the summer 2010 edition), said he is honored to have been selected. “I’m grateful for my friends and family for helping me get to this point and glad to have the support of the Harker community!”
If any readers know of other Harker alumni to have made the Forbes lists that we may have overlooked, please bring them to our attention by writing News@harker.org.
This article originally appeared in the winter 2013 Harker Quarterly.
This fall, two festive happenings – the Harker Harvest Festival and Homecoming game – brought many alumni back to campus, where they enjoyed seeing old friends and catching up with the Harker community.
On Sept. 27, Harker’s Homecoming game was held on Davis Field, where alumni were warmly welcomed home during a familyfriendly tailgate party held in an end zone. A number of alumni turned out for the party, where they enjoyed dinner, mingled with faculty and staff, and watched the Eagles play.
Then on Oct. 13, alumni came out in recordbreaking numbers for the Harker Harvest Festival, the school’s 63rd annual Family & Alumni Picnic. More than 200 alumni attended the daylong event, held at the middle school. During the picnic there was a special area reserved just for alumni, with a delicious barbecue. This year alumni also were invited to volunteer at the picnic, and many signed up to work shifts at various booths.
This article originally appeared in the winter 2013 Harker Quarterly.
On Nov. 27, the alumni office sponsored two basketball games in which the varsity and junior varsity boys teams challenged alumni and faculty, respectively. Held in the early evening at the middle school campus, the faculty began the games by shooting a technical foul (which they had gained to make up for all the students’ missing homework) and proceeded to beat the junior varsity team. Then, varsity and alumni tipped off at 7 p.m. in front of a crowd of spectators, with varsity emerging victorious.
Although the exciting games were held over break, 14 alumni who were in town got in on the action while nearly 100 spectators cheered from the stands. A good time was had by all at the inaugural event. To mark the occasion, complimentary T-shirts were handed out and alumni sold snacks to benefit the school’s endowment fund.
This article originally appeared in the winter 2013 Harker Quarterly.
Each year “grade 13” parents gather to help the alumni office assemble college care packages for current college freshmen. This year, 28 parents united to send an array of interesting items to the Class of 2013.
Among the products included in this year’s packages were friendly notes and well wishes from advisors, teachers and the class dean, as well as sweet and salty snacks. The packages were designed to give the former students a boost of encouragement just before their finals began, and help them finish out their first semesters away on a bright note.
Also in the packages were custom-designed Goldfish crackers with the message, “You’re always a part of our school,” custom alumni M&Ms and a bookmark printed with the “Top 10 things to do in your college library,” courtesy of Harker’s librarians.
According to MaryEllis Deacon, director of alumni relations, Class of 2013 agents Nikhil Panu, Nicholas Chuang and Kathir Sundaraj were instrumental in helping to get the care packages to the alumni’s university mailboxes.
“We wanted to congratulate the students on completing their first few months of college and let them know that we are thinking of them and wishing them the best while they are away. The care packages were assembled with love,” Deacon said, adding that she hopes the packages help send the message to alumni that they are free to come back and visit the Harker campus at any time. “We would love to see them and hear how they are doing!”