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Alumni Updates

Where your classmates are now

Alumni updates are included in the fall and spring issues of The Briefing. We hope your experience at the Andrew Young School serves you well as you move through your career. Please send us updates on the events in your life; e-mail us when you change jobs, earn a promotion, start a business, write a book, move to a new city or even meet other alumni.

Our Active Alumni

David Bowes (Ph.D. Econ 1999) has just been granted tenure with promotion to the rank of Associate Professor at Southeastern Louisiana University.

Stephen Everhart, pictured, (MA Econ 1995; Ph.D. Econ 2002) has left the Overseas Private Investment Corporation and joined the Finance Faculty at the American University in Cairo (AUC). After tours in Brazil, Mexico, and Venezuela with the World Bank and IFC, he took over as OPIC's Managing Director in 2002. While at OPIC, he led the Agency's efforts in boosting CAFTA-DR exposure and building out the education portfolio. At AUC he will be teaching project finance and risk management.  

For Rebecca Serna (PAUS alumna, M.S. ’07), what was a convenient way to get around her college town has become a part of her everyday life — and her career. Serna was hired as executive director of the Atlanta Bicycle Campaign in September. Read more in this Georgia State University feature.

Michael Arjona has been named Economics Teacher of the Year by the Georgia Council on Economic Education. He received his Master of Arts in Economics from Georgia State University in 2005, earning the Master of Arts in Economics Award that same year. “Michael Arjona has been teaching economics at The Walker School in Cobb County since 2002,” said Shelby Frost, director of the Georgia State Center for Economic Education, “and we are delighted that he is being recognized for the outstanding job he is doing at the high school level.”

Toshihiro Uchida, Ph.D. in Economics alum, recently accepted a position as a researcher on the Climate Policy Project at the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies in Kanagawa, Japan.

Dody Edward, a former master’s student in Economics from Indonesia, is employed with the Ministry of Trade of the Republic of Indonesia. Beginning on January 17, 2007, he was appointed as the chair of Indonesian Trade Promotion for the United States. His office is in Los Angeles, Calif., and he plans to visit Atlanta in the near future.

Ikuho Kochi, economics doctoral student, has accepted an offer for a post-doctoral Research position at Colorado State University in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, which began January 16, 2007. She is now researching the health and economic impact of wildfire and prescribed fires in the U.S.

Asmaa El-Ganainy, economics alumna, has accepted as position at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as Advisor to the Executive Director. She began work in Washington, D.C., on January 16, 2007. She earned her Ph.D. in Economics in Summer 2006, and Dr. James Alm served as
her chair.

Paul Rumler, Economics alum, has been named the director of talent attraction and retention at the Illinois Quad City Chamber of Commerce. A Democratic candidate for the Illinois State Senate in the March 2006 primary election, Rumler received 44 percent of the vote. He graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in economics and political science in 2001. While at AYSPS, he served as the Economics Club President, and received the Wall Street Journal Student Achievement Award in 2002 following graduation.

Heather Hedrick Teilhet, PAUS alum, was featured in "Governor Announces Departure of Press Secretary Hedrick Teilhet; Heather Hedrick Teilhet to Lead WellStar Institute for Better Health," The Weekly: Your Neighborhood Newspaper, November 22, 2006.

We wish success to Nick Ogden: National engineering and project delivery firm O’Brien & Gere has opened an office to serve Savannah and the Georgia Coast. The office will be in partnership with Eco-Sciences of Georgia, Inc., a new firm run by Nick Ogden, who previously served as Chief of the Regulatory Branch of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Savannah District, and as a District Conservationist for the National Resource Conservation Service. Eco-Sciences of Georgia, Inc. is affiliated with Register-Nelson, Inc. an environmental consulting firm specializing in clean water and wetland issues in Metro Atlanta. Ogden served in the United States Army in Vietnam and South Korea; he completed graduate studies in public administration at Georgia State University and is a member of Governor Sonny Perdue’s Environmental Advisory Council. -- from The Creative Coast Initiative, Savannah, Ga.

Thanks to Tommy Clack for decades of public service: Tommy Clack served as keynote speaker for the Veterans Activity Committee breakfast. Clack, a native of Decatur, Ga., graduated with honors from Georgia State University in 1975 with a bachelor’s degree in urban administration/city management. He has been employed in the veterans service arena for more than 36 years, including time in Washington, D.C., and as a staff assistant to the director of the Atlanta Veterans Administration office. For the past 13 years he has been a field manager/veterans service officer based in Conyers with seven counties assigned to his service area. -- from The Moultrie (Ga.) Observer.

Congratulations to Frank Billingsley: Billingsley has been promoted to director of economic development for the city of Orlando, Fla., where he will be responsible for managing all economic development programs and initiatives within the city including the planning, permitting, code enforcement, real estate, and business development divisions, and the Downtown Development Board/Community Redevelopment Agency. Billingsley holds a degree in community development from the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies. -- from The News & Advance, Lynchburg, Va.

Featured alumni...

Links to other alumni stories:

Alumna the first mayor of Sandy Springs

Eva GalambosEva Galambos, a resident of Sandy Springs for nearly half a century, led the move to incorporate Sandy Springs from its beginning. In November, 30 years of effort were rewarded when she was elected the city’s first mayor. Read more in The Briefing.

 


 

MPA internship opens door to planning position

Alumnus Amanda Thompson's timing is impeccable. But that would be expected of a dancer. Four months into an MPA internship with the City of Decatur, Georgia, Thompson (MPA '04) was hired as its planning services officer. Thompson found the highly sought-after Decatur position on the Department of Public Administration and Urban Studies Internship Home Page on WebCT. "It's the best job resource in Atlanta," she says. Read more in The Briefing.


 

Fillion runs new Senate Budget Office

MPA Advisory Board member Kevin Fillion (M.P.A. ’95) heads an influential new Georgia office at an interesting time in state politics. Fillion was named director of the newly created Senate Budget office in October 2003, three months before the Legislative Session. He moved there after serving as director of the state’s Budgetary Responsibility Oversight Committee Research Office. Fillion’s first experience in government, after several years in the private sector, was the required 200 hours he logged in as a Georgia State University M.P.A. intern at BROC. Learn more in The Briefing.

 


 

AYSPS alumnus plans for fast-growing county

An interest in law, management and landscaping landed Jeff Watkins, AICP, in the Urban Studies program at Georgia State University in 1991. Ten years after earning his M.S. in Urban Policy Studies, Watkins in March 2003 became the director of planning for the second-fastest-growing county, Cherokee, in Atlanta, the fastest-growing metro area in the United States. Learn about the challenges in Cherokee in The Briefing.

AYSPS alumnus directs the Governor's Office of Planning and Budget

How many interns eventually lead the organization at which they first earned their stripes? Tim Connell, whose first experience at the state’s Office of Planning and Budget was as a Governor’s Intern in 1976, in July was tapped by Gov. Sonny Perdue to direct this office. Connell earned both his B.S. in History and Political Science and his M.P.A. from Georgia State University. Read his story in The Briefing.