RE LOG Fall 2017

FALL 2017 Ransom Everglades LOG 77 Benjamin Markus reports that, over the July 4 holiday, he and “fellow Ransom Everglades ’04 alum Anthony Traina , along with a couple other members of our ‘Swamp Dawgs’ crew, took a trip to Baxter State Park in northern Maine, where we climbed Mount Katahdin – the very endpoint of the Appalachian Trail. Before heading to Maine, we stopped in Brooklyn for a visit with fellow RE big dogs Travis Tillery ’04 and Fred Spieler ’05 . Photo L-R: Benjamin Markus ’04, Anthony Traina ’04 , Neal George, Waylen Roche. Natalie Skaf recently joined SiriusXM as Director of Business. Prior, she ran the fundraising and operational efforts for a hedge fund in New York City. Vivek Varki is Chief Resident at the University of Central Florida in Ocala, Fla. Vivek did his residency in Internal Medicine at UCF and continues as Chief Operating Officer of Varki CancerCare Center PA in Miami. 2005 Joanna, Sarah and Victoria Bedell were featured in an article in Good Housekeeping this past June. “Meet the Identical Triplets Who Are Taking on the World of Medicine: They’re identical triplets and brand-new ob-gyns — and they’re joining forces with their doctor mom, combining her decades of experience with their latest-thinking smarts,” began the story, which described the girls’ journey from watching their mother, Janet Gersten, deliver babies at eight years old to joining her at the soon-to-open New Age Women’s Health. http://bit.ly/2txCFcR Valerie Gadala Maria married Zubin Alemo this year. The couple resides in New York City. Valerie joined the marketing team at Cornerstone Capital Management after spending time at The Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Alexi (Luger) Laffoon and Coley Laffoon ’92 write, “2016 was another big one for us – we welcomed our second baby girl into the world, Emmylou Polk, now a year old. Along with Zoey Marine (3), and big bro Homer (15), our team of five lives in Los Angeles. Coley and I just celebrated two years of marriage and work together as realtors. We love connecting with West Coast Raiders and L.A. visitors, so get in touch if you want to meet up!” Lara Levi and Anthony Lauria ’03 married at The Temple House on Miami Beach on March 4, 2017, surrounded by family and friends from all over the world. They honeymooned in Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia. Victor Oquendo left South Florida’s WPLG and joined ABC News this past July as a Miami-based correspondent. “I’ve been watching ABC News closely for years,” Oquendo told the Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale. “I’m incredibly excited to be here and report for one of the best news organizations in the world.” Oquendo, who anchored the 4:30 and 5:30 p.m. newscasts, had been with WPLG since 2010, covering some of South Florida’s biggest stories. The Miami native has TV news in his blood. His mother Teresa Rodriguez is the co-host of Univision’s Aquí y Ahora . His late father, Antonio “Tony” Oquendo, was a director of technology at Univision. 2006 Alex Daly appeared at Books & Books in Coral Gables on May 5 to promote her book The Crowdsourceress , which was released in March. She described it as the definitive guide to raising money and awareness for projects online, noting that it is packed with exciting case studies, stories and tips galore. The book also highlights Daly’s entrepreneurial skills, diving into her work as the woman behind the curtain, starting a new kind of career from scratch. She also was featured in a first-person story in the Miami Herald, where she explained that “I never thought I’d be the industry’s ‘Crowdsourceress,’ an expert in the field of crowdfunding. It wasn’t like I had a guidance counselor in college telling me I was perfectly suited to the role of ‘Kickstarter campaign manager.’ And yet, just three years ago, I launched my company Vann Alexandra from my kitchen table in Brooklyn – a creative services agency that helps clients raise money for their creative projects through crowdfunding. Since then, my team and I have managed over 50 crowdfunding campaigns across the design, technology, film, music and publishing categories, raising over $20 million dollars for our clients from close to 100,000 backers worldwide. The road here, like any entrepreneurial journey, was full of bumps and twists and turns. After college, I worked as a fact-checker for New York and WSJ magazines. Then I tried my hand at film and worked as a production manager