Author: Bradley Reichard

Four Brothers of Upsilon chapter made their way to Philadelphia this past August for the Fraternity’s 2002 Convocation. The four Brothers who attended, President, Jake Loughridge, Vice President, Mark Goldsmith, past rush chairman, Kasper Szuba, and the designated Alumni representative, Scott Scheffler, all participated in the events and activities of the four day long Convocation. The delegates all worked hard and helped pass new by-laws and constitutional changes and attended specialized sessions that met on topics such as campus image, audit and budget, and scholarship. During the awards ceremonies the chapter received two awards, one for efficiency and one for scholarship. The award for efficiency is based upon reports that the chapter officers turn in to the International organization. However, the Brothers were most pleased with their award for scholarship, which distinguished them as one of the Top Ten Chapters based on GPA. The Brothers of Upsilon maintained an average GPA of 3.12 over the last biennium. The Alumni also took home the Louis Foley Alumni Newsletter Award for their excellent production of the Pioneer over this last year. In addition to the many meetings and awards, the Brothers also found time to hang out with Alumnus, Bill Meyer, and many other great Brothers from the University of Colorado, the University of Texas, the University of Oregon, and Temple University in Philadelphia. Although the Convocation was tiresome and intense, all of the Brothers had a great time and are looking forward to the 2004 Convocation in Chicago.

As many of you know, one of our very own is running for the United States House of Representatives. Fellow alumni Stu Johnson (former Sage, Upsilon Class of 1993) is waging a strong campaign for the 36th Congressional District of California. Many Sigma Pi alumni from the Upsilon Chapter have played an integral part in Stu’s campaign and are a major reason for his recent surge.

Having already personally visited over 8,000 homes in the 36th District, Stu and his army of volunteers have gotten his message of strengthening national defense, reforming education and simplifying taxes out to tens of thousands of voters. The campaign has raised over $100,000 in large part due to the aid of Sigma Pi alumni. Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Dennis Hastert attended a recent fundraiser for Stu and dozens of members of Congress and numerous community leaders have endorsed Stu. Despite all of this, Stu is challenging a wealthy incumbent, Jane Harman, who can use taxpayer money to send mailings to over 300,000 households in the district. As such, Stu needs our help.

If you are interested in helping out with the campaign, contributing financially or just giving our brother some words of encouragement, please contact Stu at campaign headquarters at 310-545-4259 or email him at stu@stujohnson.org. With the momentum and excitement generated by Stu’s campaign – combined with help from fraternity brothers like you – soon we’ll have a Sigma Pi Upsilon alumnus in one of the highest political offices in the United States.

Another year has come and gone and another crop of Sigma Pi Brothers leaves the Manor on a journey to bigger and better things. While not everyone can be accounted for, here is an idea of what our most recent alums are doing these days.

Where to start? Well, there are certainly enough guys who didn’t feel that 4 (or 5 or 6…) years of school were enough to satisfy their educational needs. Many moved on to graduate school. Brian Cameron is applying to Dental School as we speak. Sam Ghattas and J.C. Ortiz just completed the MCAT (again) and are hoping for admittance into “non-Mexican” medical schools. Speaking of, Luigi DiStefano just moved out to St. Louis to attend the Washington University Medical School…a top 5 medical institution. Phil Farias is attending UCLA’s fine School of Engineering while Mark Schroeckenstein recently started Physical Therapy School at Chapman University. Adam Hunt and Dustin Beckley just began their quest to relieve the worldwide shortage of lawyers at their respective Law Schools. At Notre Dame, Dustin looks forward to studying corporate law “to avoid the plethora of large and pasty women.” I wish him the best.

And then there are those who jumped right into the real world. Wayne Wilson took an investment-banking job with Credit Suisse First Boston in New York. I’ve been told he has a day off coming up in 2005. Another hard-working go-getter is Brad Layous. Brad entered the Management-Training Program with SBC Communications in San Francisco as a stepping-stone to starting his own company. The future CEO of Layous International isn’t quite sure what his company is going to do just yet, but assures us that “its gonna be sweet.” Thanks Brad. You’ll be happy to know that Ryan Henneberg took a job with a British accounting firm in Pasadena. But don’t invite him over for your Memorial Day or Labor Day BBQ because this firm doesn’t recognize American holidays. Ryan, however, assures us that Boxing Day will be “off the hook” this year. And Pablo Rivas and Scott Mosier haven’t done a very good job of fixing Wall Street since joining UBS Paine Webber as stockbrokers.

Doug Newman is working on software development for Citibank while his roommate Matt Sambol pursues his civil engineering interest. No word on the doings of Rex Ray Roberts, III though. Hopefully he found a job requiring him to wear a non-matching Hawaiian shirt and board-shorts ensemble. He wouldn’t have it any other way. Andy Haleen took a position at Morgan Stanley managing high net worth individuals’ portfolios. That’s too bad, I contend. Andy seems to be a hit with the crowd at truck stops (don’t ask).

There are many others out there who are currently looking for their dream job. A.J. Espinoza wants to get into the entertainment industry and recently moved out to the Valley. I hear they make a lot of films out in the Valley. Nick North will soon be creating code for software companies but is currently living the good life down in San Diego. Josh Brooks is also living the good life as he prepares for his eighth year of undergraduate study. And you thought Dan Romero’s record would never be broken.

This past year has brought about many exciting changes to members of our fraternity. With these changes come new opportunities. This new crop of alums is looking to stay involved in the fraternity. So even though our post-college experience will be spread out across the country in many different fields, we’ll always have one constant: Sigma Pi.

Sigma Pi launches further into the next century with another HQ productions, this time a snazzy, updated website.

Herman Quispe has led the upgrading of the Upsilon Alumni Association website into a fully functional, database-driven monster. This is a big step forward from the quill and parchment era of Rick Savage and Tom Miller!

The impetus came from the round mound of rebound himself, Dan Romero, who complained about how you can’t find good calamari here in America and the perfunctory functionality of sigmapiucla.com, compared with his revenue-generating monster, DROM.net. (Dan says the IPO has been delayed but will be ready to roll out when the market ‘bounces back.’)

Herman claims that the site gets about 100 hits a week, mainly from Dave Ganio trying to find the personals section to date current Sigma Kappa pledges.

Brothers have easy access to the site and can upload announcements about themselves, dates of parties and weddings and divorces, and submit stories about road trips. The files are forwarded to Herman, who corrects Bill Kealey’s spelling errors, and then quickly posted to the website, usually in the many free hours that Herman has every day trying to hoodwink investors into investing into his New Argentina Stock Growth Fund and Jason Won’s Turn-Your-Dollars-Into-Korean-Won Ponzi Fund.

Also, brothers do not need to know HTML code, like any of them know what it stands for anyways, and can simply type away.

The library function is expanded and features hilarious rush brochures as far back as the 1950s, provided courtesy of Larry Ballard – the man responsible for making Jim Ballard the man he is, officer.

A goal is to encourage alumni to use the website, rather than produce a paper Pioneer for mailing, which eats up a big chuck of cash, $800 per issues (or, for Gabor Fabian, that’s 90 12-ers of Meister Chou:). With a master list of emails, all information can be sent electronically and very cheaply.

That means more money for scholarships and SUVs for injured, underproductive Bruin football players.

Herman also can use the database as the mailing list, and he can sort alumni by address, zip code, years incarcerated, years at UCLA, etc. He promises not to sell the email list to Tim Howell and Todd Canavan’s new internet company: www.PornForADateWithYourSisterOr50CentsWhicheverIsCheaper.now.

Mike Liskey married former El Toro HS swimming star Robyn Lowe in May in Capistrano Valley. David Finkel and Rob Ward were in the groom’s party.

Dr. Lance Fuchs, director of proctology at the Rosenrosenrosen Institute, and his wife Samee live in San Diego with their baby (see photo!)

Rob Ward and his wife Mirja, a former sweetheart, are the proud parents of a baby boy, Benjamin, born in April.

Keith Griffin and his wife Nancy, a former sweetheart, are the proud parents of a baby, Benjamin Ryan, born on Feb. 23.

Rich Weiderkehr plays the guitar in a band, Almost Sane, which had its first gig in Hawthorne in May. He lives in Torrance with Dave Ganio.

Ed Rhee graduated with his MBA from Loyola Marymount. His wife Marcie is expecting their first child, Paul Sung Lee Rhee, in June. Ed traveled to Prague for work over the summer and kept a bar open until 5:00 a.m. for the Kings-Lakers Western Conference Championship.

Brian Goldman is the manager for Pseudopod, which completed a tour of the Western states and signed a recording contract.

Seth Bluman works in the Dodger ticket office. He comped box seats for Jay Ross, Won Park and Larry Furst for a Giants-Dodgers game on Sept. 16.

Sean Topp recently purchased a condominium in Redondo Beach and works for a law firm in Century City. He was distraught that Los Alamitos tied Hart in their season opener.

Derrick Hindery lives in Venice with his wife Vania, who recently completed a specialized law program at the University of Washington. Derrick found his dream job with Amazon Watch and helped to organize a protest in August at the Westwood offices of Occidental Petroleum, which is wants to develop an oil pipeline in Ecuador through pristine rainforest and the historical homeland of the O’wa native people.

Jay Ross completed a three-day hike through Yosemite National Park, surmounting four 9,000-foot ridges in three days, in the Ten Lakes area of Tuolomne Meadows.

Judge James Ross, a 1946 Bruin football standout under Bert LaBrusschere, sold the rights to a film about his great grandfather, Jesse James.

Tom Miller of the Housing Board is an expectant grandfather, along with his wife Marianne, courtesy of his son, former Bruin soccer star Ty Miller.

Mal Chang works in Chicago for United Airlines. He has season tickets and hopes to attend more games at the Rose Bowl, especially on Jan. 1 against the Miami Hurrigangstas.

Herman Quispe attended the Bruce Springsteen concert at the Forum in September. He ran into Jim Ballard, Rob Ward and Steve Lantz, up from San Diego. None remembered meeting Herman the next day.

Gabor Fabian is an accountant for Mace Rich and moved to Redondo Beach. He was engaged in September to the lovely Lilia Leon, whom he met either while working at the Cooperage or at a house party.

Abel “El Guapo” Somilleda recently moved back to the Southland from Denver and is engaged to the delightful and intelligent Liza Brown, formerly of Connecticut. His father sells cheese in Ciudad de Mexico.

Bill Kealey lives in Santa Monica and works for Countrywide in Rosemead.

Before the recent Convocation in Philadelphia and in the latest issue of the Emerald there were mailings and articles about the Educational Foundation and the new Sigma Pi Fund.

I’m sure many of you were confused about who, why and what was the fund raising arm of our fraternity. What it all amounted to was a conflict between the Educational Foundation and the Grand Council. Without going into all the details the dust has largely settled since the Convocation. This has resulted in new board members, a new President and soon a new Executive Director of the Educational Foundation.

There is already talk of merging the two funds but that remains to be seen. There is one thing that remains unchanged and still in place which should cause no confusion. That is the Upsilon Scholarship Reserve Fund. This fund administered by the Educational Foundation has been awarding $500. scholarships each year since 1995. The fund now totals over $15,000. which insures a scholarship in perpetuity (That’s a long time!).

This is where I’m going to make you Upsilon Alums “An Offer You Can’t Refuse”. With the addition of just another $5,000. we can offer a second scholarship based on need. The present scholarship is based on excellence. Here’s the offer: Up to a total of $2,500. I will match your contributions until Founder’s Day in February. If you accept my offer it will provide the $5,000. we need to offer the second scholarship.

The contributions are fully tax deductible. The checks you send to me at 240 Vaquero Road, Arcadia, CA 91007-6150 should be made out to the Sigma Pi Educational Foundation. Any amount will be gratefully received. By sending the checks through me they will be matched in like amounts and forwarded to the credit of the Upsilon Scholarship Reserve Fund. I hope you will respond generously to this offer so that we can offer the second scholarship before I croak or retire whichever comes first. This is a project we’d dearly love to get completed.

Thank you, brothers, in advance for your generosity in contributing to something that will outlast us all.

Fraternally yours, Joe Marsalek