1992

1992

For the next few columns I’m featuring classmates who work in leadership positions at nonprofit organizations or who have founded nonprofits.

Matt Caldwell (our March Madness bracketologist) serves as the Austin (Texas) Aviation Career Education (ACE) Academy director for the Organization of Black Aerospace Professionals (OBAP). He runs a summer program for high schoolers based at Signature Flight Support, at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport. ACE Academies serve 1,100 U.S. students annually and provide exposure to commercial and military aviation, air traffic control procedures, aerospace technologies and introductions to aviation careers. Sponsored by OBAP and Phoenix Arising Aviation Academy, the program exposes Austinarea students to the basics of aerodynamics, aviation weather and the U.S. airspace system.

Katherine Aires Byrnes wrote: “I became the executive director of Skin of Steel in 2017. We were founded in 2010 by Susan Steel, who was a melanoma war rio r until her de ath in2016.Weare a nonprofit based in the Chicago area dedicated to melanoma awareness and research, particularly focused on creating a national collaborative melanoma tissue bank repository of frozen primary tumor samples to look at DNA and RNA for improvements in personalized treatments. I also sit on the Melanoma Tissue Bank Consortium board (based in San Francisco) as well as the Melanoma Action Coalition (based in New Jersey). We also have a junior auxiliary to get high school kids engaged in sun safety awareness, early detection and prevention of melanoma. I’m excited to combine my love of photography and use a UV-converted camera to show people the effects of the sun’s UV damage on our skin and how sunscreen blocks UV rays.”

Scott Bienenfeld wrote: “I am on the board of Road Recovery (roadrecovery.org). We are a nonprofit that utilizes the power of music, the arts and celebrities in recovery as tools to engage ‘at-risk’ youth and young adults facing addiction and other adversities. The founders are Gene Bowen and Jack Bookbinder, who I have known and worked with for more than 10 years. Road Recovery has existed for 20 years. I am the medical director for the Recovery Spot in New York City (recoveryspotny.com), an innovative addiction treatment program owned and operated by physicians—we work closely with Road Recovery, and it operates out of our facility two evenings per week.”

Speaking of donating your time to a good cause, here’s a message from our vice president of community, Elissa Aten: “Our annual Engage ’92 event returns this spring, in conjunction with Dartmouth’s annual Alumni Day of Service occurring on May 5. This year we want to celebrate all the wonderful volunteer work that our classmates are doing year-round. Tell us about the fun, interesting and possibly unique ways you are impacting your community! During the months of April and May, please share your service activities from throughout the past year. Just post a brief description of your work to our Facebook page or email us at dartmouth92news@gmail.com by May 31, and we’ll honor all our ’92 volunteers with a gift from our class. Photos are encouraged! Additionally, if you’d like to join a Dartmouth Day of Service project in your area, or even plan a project, visit www.alumni.dartmouth.edu/serve... alumni-day-service.”

With a very heavy heart I report the loss of our classmate Guillermo Heredia on January 17. If you would like to share a remembrance of Guillermo, please email me, and I will include it in our class website’s “In Memoriam” section (1992.dartmouth.org/memoriam). Photos are welcome, and there is no word limit.

—Kelly Shriver Kolln, 3900 Cottage Grove Ave. SE, Cedar Rapids, IA 52403; (920) 306-2192; dartmouth92news@gmail.com