(Top) Maria Ravera; (Bottom) Linda Bremer-Villegas
Maria Ravera (GMBA, 2003) has been named by the Newspaper Association of America as the 2006 Circulation Sales Executive of the Year for newspapers with a circulation of 150,000 or more. Ms. Ravera has been working with the Sacramento Bee sinc 1995. She wrote her master's thesis on the federal "Do Not Call" law that went into effect the year she graduated with her master's degree.
Linda Bremer-Villegas (MBA, 19984) serves as a cabinet member to Washington State Governor Christine Gregoire. As Director of General Administration, Ms. Bremer explores consolidation of services and helps to reduce government costs by finding greater efficiencies. Prior to her appointment in March, she served as the Director of the Division of Information Technology Services at the Washington State Liquor Control Board.
Keri Jean Simmons (MS, Instructional Technology 2002) owns her own technology consulting Company, Simmons Consulting. The San Diego-based company provides instructional design, technical documentation, and computer and skills training for corporate and personal training. Ms. Simmons clients include Kaiser Permanente, UCSD ConfirmNet, Charco Construction and Cunningham BMW.
Maryam Davodi-Far (Master of Health Care Administration, 1998) is a recipient of the 10 News Leadership Award from KGTV-Channel 10, the ABC television affiliate for San Diego. She was recognized for her role as founder and executive director of the Cancer Coping Center
Vaishali Dwarka (MBA, 2005) is currently working on a federally-funded project through The Office of Refugee Resettlement to assist the children of 33,285 refugees who have arrived in California in the last 5 years. Ms. Dwarka's duties include supervising the grant process and administering the grant to ensure that the money is used to promote grade level progress towards meeting grade level academic standards and graduation requirements, narrow the achievement gap, and enhance the self- sufficiency efforts of refugee families through collaboration with County Refugee Coordinators, Voluntary Agencies and Mutual Assistance Associations.
Linda Melemed (MBA, 1991) was recently promoted to Chief Financial Officer of Reno Contracting, Inc. The company, which was awarded the Association of General Contractors' "General Contractor of the Year" award for 2005, is currently setting record sales for 2006. Ms. Melemed has also been named President of the San Diego chapter of Construction Financial Management Association for 2005-2006, and was recently certified as a Certified Construction Industry Financial Professional.
Yvonne Coover-Stone (MBA, 1996) started her own personal chef business, Custom Cuisine, 9 years ago. A registered nurse who also completed training at the Personal Chefs Institute, Ms. Coover-Stone helps clients with varied dietary needs, providing healthful and delicious meals for busy professionals, retirees and others who wish to take a break from cooking every now and then. For more information, visit her web site: www.ccuisine.com
Kathleen Alexander (MS Computer Science, 2004/MS Technology Management, 2005) has been nominated for a corporate leadership award from the Lockheed Martin Corporation. She supervises 42 engineers as Lockheed Martin's Future Combat Systems Level 1 Fusion Systems (FCS) Engineering Integration and Test Manager. FCS, the largest Army program in existence, aims to deliver networked manned and unmanned ground and air vehicles, sensors and munitions and provide the soldiers with the capability to track and target remotely, share information and save human lives. Ms. Alexander is also responsible for Joint Expeditionary Forces (JEFX06) software demonstrations and advanced technologies development.
Kelli Williamson (BBA, 1988 / MBA, 1991) is the human resources manager for the Otay Water District, where she has developed and maintained the District's bi-annual classification and compensation program, provided ongoing job and compensation analyses, and been responsible for the District's labor relations, including coordinating, and participating in collective bargaining and responding to grievances. Ms. Williamson is past President of the San Diego Chapter of the San Diego International Personnel Management Association and currently serves as Secretary for the Western Region International Public Management Association for Human Resources.
Jayne Jones (BBA, 1978 / MBA, 1980) owns Visions Human Resources, a San Diego-based independent human resources services company providing high-tech companies with their human resources needs on a contingency basis. Ms. Jones started the company approximately 13 years ago. Her company's focus is mainly to provide staffing for high-tech companies, as well as training, job fairs, and resumes/portfolios. For more information, visit the following web site: www.visions-hrs.com
Wanda Abdel (MS, Software Engineering, 1988) is director of purchasing and fulfillment at the Ken Blanchard Companies, a global leader in providing sustainable leadership, team, and organizational training and development solutions.
Margaret McCarthy (MBA, 1977) is a business owner and founder of a national non profit cancer advocacy organization, The Lung Cancer Alliance. She has written several books -- the latest one receiving two major awards. Ms. McCarthy has been named by Ladies Home Journal as one of the "women in medicine to watch."
