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Class of 1977 Indicator Log

(Spring 2017 Submission)
Class Secretary:  Paul Porzio 

March 2, 2017 - Hello again! Hope this log finds you all well. As I write this the batch of us on the class of '77 committee have been attempting to pull together plans for our 40th anniversary reunion weekend. I'm hoping this gets to you at least a few weeks before Friday, June 2nd when the festivities will begin. There will be more details coming in the very near future, but we are trying to pick a place were we can all get together on Friday night for those of you are going to get there early, and a number of events during the day on Saturday, ending up with a Class of '77 cocktail hour prior to the dinner dance that night. We're actually throwing around ideas on how we can possibly teleconference from the cocktail hour for those of you who can't be there in person. We're not sure yet how we'll pull this off but stay tuned for updates. Nonetheless we all hope to see you that weekend. It should be a great time!!

Along with this the committee's been busy putting together ideas and potential plans for a class endowed scholarship. By building an endowed scholarship our class can leave a legacy that will continue to help future students. The Class of 1977 Endowed Scholarship will be awarded to a full-time sophomore or junior from any of the undergraduate schools within the university who demonstrates financial need, academic excellence and community volunteerism. We will be reaching out to you for ideas on this as well.

In the meantime a number of our classmates have been checking in. Recently I got an update from Stephen Craffen who wrote, "I can’t believe 40 years have gone by since we graduated! A lot has happened over the years and I’m sure we can all say that. I left engineering in the 1980’s and founded my own investment advisory firm in 1992 (Oakland, NJ). We are fee only and manage client portfolios and provide financial planning services. I’m also on the national board of the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (www.NAPFA.org) and was recently nominated to be national chair. I’ve been married to Deborah since 1992 after becoming a widower the year before. Deborah also owns her own business, a Retro Fitness franchise (Retro Fitness of Kenvil). We have a 15 year old daughter, Carly who is attending a Catholic high school. No plans on retiring hopefully for many years. We both love owning and running businesses in fact we hope to continue to grow them. I’m still in touch with some friends from Stevens including Michael Germinario (’77) and Vincent Sacco (’76) in fact I see both of them quite often. We use to see Bill Livanos (’77) until he tragically passed away in 2014. Our remembrances of him were in a previous Indicator class log. We plan on attending our 40th reunion this June in fact even my daughter Carly wants to go (not sure why, we’re just a bunch of old people now)".

Sigmund Grudzinski sent in a quick message: "I'm the Test Lead for the Information Directorate, Air Force Research Lab. I'm responsible for both technical and safety reviews. Our daughter is an F-18E Super Hornet avionics technician with the Navy in Japan. This is her 1st duty station. Now we have a reason to visit Japan."

I got some information from Stephen Bauer. He told me he has been married to Lindy Wong, originally from Hong Kong, for 26 years. They have two sons, Andrew and Michael, ages 24 and 22, with the latter in his last year at Rutgers. He's been employed at Citigroup for the past 36 years and looking forward to retirement. We have been living in Hazlet, NJ for the past 20 years.

Richard Krajewski chimed in: "I'm just continuing to take classes, nothing new really to report. It would be great to see everyone at the reunion; I hope I can make it."

Also, I did hear from Peter Attas. He and his wife Terri are doing well in Maryland.

Dennis Steelman dropped us a line: "I retired last year after 38 years with the FAA, just celebrated 10 years of being married to Lou Ann. Getting ready to begin a rehab of a house in Florida (built by my grandfather in '39)".

Susan Barbash said that she and Brian Allen '77 had an exciting January watching their adopted college James Madison University (both their daughters attended) win the FCS Football National Championship in Frisco, TX. She explained "What started as an excuse to visit Alex, turned into regularly following JMU sports." She added, "I loved my time at Stevens; I think I would do it again."

We also heard from Charlie Maguire. "I plan to attend the Alumni Weekend. I live in Florida most of the year and I am retired. I contacted Eran Wajswol. He says he and Debbie also plan to attend the reunion."

Paul Antieri wrote, "Patricia and I are traveling to Vegas to meet Tony and Sandi Kosinski. They are going to Death Valley to vacation and then meet us in Vegas. I plan on playing lots of poker and catching a few shows while staying at the Tropicana Hotel.

So that's the latest for now. We really hope to see many of you at the alumni weekend. Please do try to stay in touch. And if you haven't gotten any information from us by this time, about the alumni weekend or the endowment scholarship, do send us whatever contact information you would like us to have to in order to stay in touch with you. Drop us a line in any of these ways:

Email - Classof1977@alumni.stevens.edu
Facebook - Stevens Institute of Technology: Class of '77
LinkedIn - Stevens Institute of Technology Class of 1977

Take care and thanks,
"Paul Porzio '77