Milestones

Kevin Hall '08

has been honored by the Santa Barbara Independent in its 2020 Best of Santa Barbara issue. His real estate firm was named the “Best Real Estate Team”in Santa Barbara.

Sofia LeBlanc '20

has been named the newest digital strategist at Witmark. She will work on strategic planning projects and public relations programs.

Preston Maag '19

has produced a new film titled “10 Miles Out” celebrating backpacking in the Los Padres National Forest. It premiered at the Nature Track Film Festival. Maag works in Southern California as a social media producer and as a sales specialist at REI. He received his degree in Film and Media Studies.

Vianna Mabanag '20

has been appointed a media assistant at Witmark. She will be developing digital strategies and original social media content.

Gabe Vincent '18

the star standout for UCSB basketball was a backup reserve for the Miami Heat in their recent NBA championship series against the Los Angeles Lakers. He is only the second UCSB player to play in the championship series. Brian Shaw made the finals with the Orlando Magic in 1994-95 and then played on three Lakers championship teams. Vincent is the ninth all time scoring leader for UCSB.

Kelly Edyburn '16

has been appointed assistant professor at the School of Psychology at Loyola Chicago. She worked as an intern at the Travis County Juvenile Probation Dept. in Austin, Texas and later did postdoc research at the Children’s Equity Project at Arizona State University. The program she joins is based on the scientist-practitioner model and emphasizes social justice and ethics.

John Hinderaker '91

John Hinderaker, ’91, has been confirmed by the U.S. Senate as the U.S. District Judge of Arizona. He is one of 94 federal district judges in the U.S. He was nominated by President Trump in December 2019 and confirmed in September 2020. He previously served on the Pima County Superior Court in Arizona from 2018-2020. He received his law degree from the University of Arizona.

Stanley Moss '72

Stanley Moss, ’72, has published a new work of fiction, Arborea. According to Amazon, this work of fiction describes the collision of a wealthy couple on retreat at an ultra modern resort in the California redwoods, and a band of eco warriors engaged in a stealth operation. The storm of the century hits in this comedy of errors. Moss is a former member of the board of directors of the Alumni Association and past president of the New York alumni chapter.

Steve Ortiz '04

has been honored by Hospice of Santa Barbara with its Philanthropy Award for his work during the COVID-19 crisis at the United Way of Santa Barbara. Ortiz serves as the President and CEO of the Santa Barbara United Way office. The award honors Ortiz’ work with other area foundations and non-profits in providing child care assistance to front line medical providers and support for quarantine, contact tracing and isolation efforts.

Laura Palmer '93

Laura Palmer '93 leads the global go-to-market strategy for Unity’s Enterprise Digital Twin business. Over the last 4 years, Laura quadrupled revenues and played a pivotal role in Unity’s successful IPO in September 2020. Before Unity, Laura held multiple executive positions at Google Enterprise (now Google Cloud Platform, or GCP). She was responsible for Google’s largest revenue-generating region covering the financial services, gaming, media & entertainment, and retail verticals and played a significant role in scaling GCP’s revenue to over $1 billion.

Nancy Seymour '52

Nancy Seymour, ’52, has assisted her husband Bert, in publishing an autobiography of his 29 years in the Ventura County Sheriff’s office. The book is titled, "Cow County Lawman."

David Tappeiner '97

has opened a law practice in Santa Barbara with longtime friend Mark DePaco. Tappeiner received his law degree from the University of Denver College of Law and practiced in Colorado from 2000-2006, before returning to Santa Barbara. He was previously a partner in the Santa Barbara law firm of Fell, Marking, Abkin, Montgomery, Granet and Raney.

Anabel Ford '76

Anabel Ford, ’74 MA ’76, has received a $289,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to continue her decades-long research at the Belizean Mayan site El Pilar. Her work is focused on how the Mayan built dense villages in the middle of tropical rain forests. Her work has shown that the Mayans were skilled managers of the forests in which they lived. That stewardship was detailed in Ford’s co-authored work, “The Maya Forest Garden: Eight Millenia of Sustainable Cultivation of the Tropical Woodlands.” Ford is an adjunct faculty member in the UCSB Anthropology Dept.

Shawn Landres '95

is serving as the chair of the Santa Monica City Planning Commission. He is also a leader on the Los Angeles County Innovation Commission, which helps plan and coordinate local government efforts in land use planning. Landres is a senior fellow at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs and volunteers as a mentor to graduate students in the area of public policy and planning.

Pearl and Aron Mizrahi '04

welcomed their little Gaucho Lilah into this world on Aug. 14.

Peggy O’Toole Lamb '72

Peggy O’Toole Lamb, ’72 and MA ’87, has published “Darling Love: Letters from World War II.” It contains the letters sent from her uncle, Lt. Frank Frost from the World War II front to his wife, Catherine. The letters were censored during the war, locked away in a metal box, and only discovered in 2015. It is Lamb’s second book of nonfiction centered on letters. Her first was “Then I Won’t Seem So Far Away,” letters from an American traveling in Europe during the 1970s.

Petra Persolja '18

led a children’s concert at the UCSB Summer Music Festival. The event was virtual and featured Persolja’s piano virtuosos.

Susie Willett '88

Susie Willett, ’88, has been named director of development at the Santa Barbara Dream Foundation. For the past six years she has been the director and senior director of donor and corporate relations. She also worked with Visit Santa Barbara in their sales and marketing department.

Mike Magpayo '01

has been named the interim head coach of the UC Riverside men’s basketball team. Prior to that appointment in July he was the associate head basketball coach at UCR. His career has involved basketball positions at Columbia University, Campbell University, USF and finally UCR. He is the founder and president of the Asian Coaches Association and for seven years had a successful real estate business. He is the first NCAA Division 1 head coach of full Asian heritage.

Dave Forman '66

Dave Forman, ’66, has published a new book, “Fearless Talent Choices That Can Make or Break Your Business.” According to Amazon, the book is for “business leaders who want to capitalize on their most valuable asset—their talent—to drive business results.” The book identifies six major directional choices that can make or break your business. Forman has published several books on leadership, including his first one “Fearless HR.” He is a former member of the Board of Directors of the UCSB Alumni Association.

Victor Geraci '97

has published “Wine By Design: Santa Barbara’s Quest for Terroir.” Geraci’s doctoral thesis produced the book “Salud! The Rise of Santa Barbara’s Wine Industry.” After receiving his degree he worked as a wine expert for the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley. He is almost finished with a new book on John DeLuca and the California Wine Institute’s late 20th Century fight against neo-Prohibitionism. In 2017 he published “Making Slow Food Fast in California Cuisine.”

Stephanie Harris-Uyidi '97

is featured as The Posh Pescatarian on Emirates Airlines channels and has been featured in Cuisine Noir magazine. The Pescatarian diet is more of a lifestyle which eliminates pork, beef and chicken consumption. Pescatarians choose seafood as their primary source of protein. The diet is featured on Uyidi’s website and her YouTube Channel.

Diana Mittelberger '81

Diana Mittelberger, ’81, has retired after 37 years at AT&T. She continues to teach technical writing and career development at DeVry University. She has worked in marketing, information services and customer care at ATT.

Don Lake '65

Don Lake,’65, has just released his new book “One Lap Around San Diego Bay.” It features 100 different attractions around the San Diego region. He was a member of the first engineering class at UCSB and had a career in micro-electronics. He has published a number of travel and history books and took many of the photos for his most recent book.

Patty Flores '20

launched a new tech company called Festively. During the holidays the company opened an online marketplace featuring holiday gifts from more than 100 different women and minority owned businesses in Southern California.