Portland State Magazine Spring 2019

31 RICHARD DEVLIN ’76, a former Oregon state senator, is now vice chair of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, which plans to develop a new Columbia Basin Fish andWildlife Program and a new Power Plan this year. JEAN ROSENBAUM MS ’76 is founder and executive director of GiftedWishes in Portland, a nonprofit that grants the wishes of patients who are in hospice. WAYNE SCHERTLER ’89 was hired as chief operating officer for the Larkin Hoffman law firm in Minneapolis earlier this year. He has over 25 years of law firm management experience. MARY BOKOVOY ’95 recently joined the Hasson Company Realtors in Hood River as a home stager. She is also owner of Hood River reDesign, an interior design company. JOHN BROWN ’98 appeared in the ensemble for a production of the musical Fiorello playing at 42nd Street Moon in San Francisco during February and March. He has been performing with companies around the Bay Area since 2001 and when not singing, he is a clinical psychologist. LEE HEDGMON ’03 helped start the Portland SheBrew festival in 2017. A former women’s studies instructor at PSU, she is now a distiller and brewer at McMenamins’ Cornelius Pass Roadhouse in Hillsboro. JESSICA (TYNER) MEHTA ’05, MS ’07 is the visiting poet at Chemeketa Community College for the 2018–19 academic year. A member of the Cherokee Nation, Mehta has written numerous books, leads writing workshops, and is a poetry editor for journals and a local press. She also teaches yoga. KEVIN BYRNE MBA ’10 is raising money to assist the National Multiple Sclerosis Society through his book series, Never Stop Never Quit . Byrne, who was diagnosed with MS while a commander in the U.S. Army, has raised more than $700,000 for the society. LISA NICO ’10 joined KPNX 12 News in Phoenix, Arizona, as a reporter in February. She began her reporting career at KVAL in Eugene. As a communication major, Nico underwent major hip surgery and remembers PSU fondly for the accommodations she received from faculty and students. ADAM KLEFFNER ’12 was hired in February by the Dallas Cowboys as an assistant offensive line coach. He most recently coached at the University of Missouri and Portland State. HAIDN FOSTER ’15 , a second-year medical student at University of Cincinnati, recently launched the online publication Pride in Practice to offer best practices information in LGBT health care to medical students, residents, physicians and other health care workers. FOR MORE ALUMNI NEWS follow us @PSU_Alums onTwitter and PortlandStateAlumni on Facebook. Have news you would like to share? Email alum@pdx.edu or mail your information to Portland State University, Office of Alumni Relations, PO Box 751, Portland OR 97207-0751.To submit your own alumni news online, go to pdx.edu/alumni/contact .  MARY BOKOVOY RICHARD DEVLIN ALUMNI IN THE NEWS JOHN BROWN JESSICA MEHTA LISA NICO publication in 2020 and her story collection, Cowboys and Angels , will come out in 2021. The Jaffe award puts an emphasis on providing emerging women writers time to write. It is helping Bieker and her husband with child care costs for their two young children as she completes her books from their Portland home. “There are a lot of rejections that come with being a writer,” she says. “I’m so grateful for this award. It makes me feel like I’m on the right track.” —w ritten by Kelli Fields, a Portland freelance writer.