Alumni in the News - 2012
Bio Alum Named San Luis Obispo County Undersheriff
(March) Tim Olivas (B.S., Biological Sciences, '89) will join the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office in mid-April as undersheriff, the second in command at the county's largest law enforcement agency. Olivas, 49, will succeed Undersheriff Martin Basti, who is retiring. Sheriff Ian Parkinson described Olivas as a "trustworthy, forward-looking leader."
Olivas, Morro Bay's Police Chief since 2010, said he is looking forward to being involved in upcoming plans and projects at the Sheriff’s Office, including construction of a new women’s jail facility, moving the property and evidence room and improving volunteerism. Olivas, a Cal Poly graduate, started working for Morro Bay police in 1987 but left in 1990 to work for the Department of Fish and Game. He became a captain in the department and supervised game wardens working along California’s coast from the Oregon border to northern San Luis Obispo County. He returned to the Central Coast in 2004 to join the Morro Bay Police Force..
Read about Olivas' appointment as undersheriff in the SLO Tribune
Bio Alumna Brings Community Involvement to Physical Therapy Business
(February) Mary Ann Burke (B.S., Biological Sciences, '86) owns and operates North County Physical Therapy’s locations in Atascadero and Paso Robles. She and her staff are heavily involved in healthy community events.
After graduating from Cal Poly, Burke master’s in physical therapy at University of the Pacific. She returned to the Central Coast and took an open position North County Physical Therapy, going on to become the business owner.
Read the feature on Burke in the Atascadero News
Math Alum Returns to Hometown to Teach
(February) Nicholas Bugayong (B.S., Liberal Studies, '10) now teaches math at Rolling Hills Middle School in Watsonville, a small agricultural town in Santa Cruz County. He's also helped launch Rolling Hills Algebra Academy, which offers a week of intensive study with Bugayong and professors from CSU Monterey Bay at the offices of Granite Rock Co. Bugayong said the academy -- for which students volunteer -- is helping them master algebra.
Read more in the Santa Cruz Sentinel
Education Alum Recalls WWII Days as a Tuskegee Airman
(February) Before he came to Cal Poly, Art Hicks (B.S., Education, 1975) was one of the first African Americans to serve in the U.S. Air Force. He was among the original Tuskegee Airmen during World War II. Born in 1922 in segregated Georgia, Hicks faced institutionalized racism from childhood. “Even as kids, we understood,” he said, “and in case we didn’t, they reminded us by throwing rocks through the window." But in 1940, he applied for a job with the U.S. Air Force. ”My first solo flight was the most exciting thing I have ever done,” he said. “I was about 20 years old in a little yellow plane called a Piper Cub. And to understand where I came from, what I had accomplished, and what hopes I had achieved; oh, it was indescribable.”
Read about Hicks in the Santa Barbara Independent
Bio Alumna Battling Disease at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill
(January) Melinda Beck (M.S., Biological Sciences, '83) earned her bachelor's in zoology from the University of California at Berkeley; after earning her master's degree at Cal Poly, she went on to earn a Ph.D. in medical microbiology and immunology at Ohio State University. Beck and her nine-person research team at UNC at Chapel Hill have discovered that flu vaccinations may not be as effective in people who are overweight. Over the course of a two-year study, Beck's team documented a steep drop in flu-fighting antibodies in overweight college students during the year following a flu shot.
Read more about the study in the Triangle Business Journal
Biology Alum Tackling Coastal Crime Environment as Police Chief
(January) Tim Olivas (B.S., Environmental and Systematic Biology, '89) is now Chief of Police in Morro Bay. In response to funding cuts, Olivas and other Central Coast law enforcement agencies are opting back into San Luis Obispo County's gang and drug task force. “Forming a local unified front is what we need to combat narcotics and gangs in our county, so it’s critically important for us to get involved,” Olivas says. Olivas became the Morro Bay police chief in April, 2010. He
joined the department as a police commander in 2004 after 14 years with the state Department of Fish and Game.
Read about Olivas in the SLO Tribune
Education Alum Heads Coast Union High School
(January) Wade Lawrence (M.A., Educational Leadership and Administration, '11) was named interim principal at Coast Union High School in Cayucos. Lawrence, who has taught for Coast Unified School District since 1993, received his bachelor’s of science degree from U.C. Santa Barbara in 1991.
Read the SLO Tribune story on Lawrence
Chem Alum Turns Attention to Beer in Redondo Beach
(January) During a 1994 trip through the Pacific Northwest, Heather Tomley and Wes Jacobs (B.S., Chemistry, '94) developed an appreciation for beer after visiting several small breweries. Inspired, Tomley bought her future husband a home brewing kit for Christmas. Jacobs quickly went to work using his background as a chemistry major at Cal Poly. Jacobs built a brewing operation in a shed in the backyard of their San Pedro home, and a small private beer garden next to it. Now, nearly 18 years later, the married couple have turned their passion into a profession by opening the Select Beer Store in Redondo Beach.
Read the story in the Contra Costa Times
Bio Alum Chasing, Documenting Phantom Albino Redwoods
(January) Brandon Sims (B.S., Ecology and Systematic Biology, '06) is an expert on enigmatic albino redwood trees, nicknamed “Ghost Tree.” Sims, a botanist with the California Native Plant Society in Sacramento, helps draft the organization’s Rare Plant Index. In an interview with a Central Coast newspaper, Sims said the albino trees are actually parasites, feeding off the roots of a normal host redwood. Sims first saw a wild albino redwood during his time as a student at Cal Poly. As a teacher’s assistant for now-retired biological sciences professor Dr. David Keil, Sims accompanied botany class field excursions to Big Sur, where the class would identify native plant species.
Read more about Sims and albino redwoods