• Congratulations to Chris and Keri Salustri. Their daughter, Laurie Marie, was born on July 20, 2004.
• Thanks to everyone who is helping Pi Lam get a new kitchen — I’ll provide a fundraising progress update soon.
• After many years in the Washington, DC area, Chris Garbe has accepted a job in Seattle and will be moving there soon.
• Thanks to Marvin Meistreich ‘62 who checked in with some changes to the family tree. Yes, the online family tree is not 100% perfect and in need of an update. Marvin still keeps in touch with several of his classmates.
• Hadn’t heard from Dan Venditelli in a long time: “By the way.. just to catch you up.. went to art school instead of the whole engineering thing. Of course I’m doing web-apps and graphic design now - it was either that or sidewalk portraits.”
• Several people have contacted me with questions about the message from RPI concerning disciplinary measures against RPI fraternities. I don’t believe that Pi Lambda Phi is one of the fraternities in question. If I find out any more information, I’ll let you know. http://www.rpi.edu/dept/doso/greek/gazette.htm

“Over the past two years, at least six organizations went through the judicial process because of alcohol. Fraternities Tau Kappa Epsilon, Acacia, and Pi Kappa Alpha are currently under suspension for providing alcohol to minors. Meanwhile, other groups like Theta Xi, Alpha Gamma Delta, and Phi Kappa Tau received stiff sanctions due to alcohol-related incidents. As of this writing, one other organization is going through the judicial process because of it.”

According to Jason Haarman: “There were two letters that were sent. One was from the Dean of Greek Affairs and the other was from Eddie Knowles. The first from Mark Smith was to advisors. The second was to all alums is my guess. “

Greek Man of the Year and recent graduate Ryan Wetmore provides the mother lode of information. As for his attempts to lead efforts for social changes, “I’ll drink to that!”: “As a recent graduate and former Greek Senator on the Student Senate, I was in on the conversations discussing this subject. Basically, there has been a spike in the number of alcohol related incidents over the past year and a half…a huge spike. Dean of Students Mark Smith and Director of Greek Life Brian Dominguez are pushing fraternities away from having parties in their houses and trying to prevent the worst alcohol related incident from happening (a student death). With the huge spike in problems lately and an “Alcohol Task Force” actively looking for underage drinking, RPI is a little concerned with student safety and some house Presidents having been enjoying rides to jail. If you’d like a better update I suggest getting in touch with the current Rex, Dan Opp (oppd@rpi.edu), or Pat DiCaprio (dicapp@rpi.edu) who is currently sitting as VP of RUSH in the IFC. The best information can be gained from e-mailing Brian Dominguez directly at dominb@rpi.edu.

Dan Opp, Pat DiCaprio, and I have been helping to lead efforts for social changes in the fraternity system at RPI. NYKT is doing GREAT! I have talked with Brian Dominguez before graduation and as far as he is concerned, “PiLam is of the houses other fraternities should model after.”

• George Ramos will be married on May 29th in Montreal. But all that matters is the bachelor party, which was on May 15th, in Manhattan. Lots of alumni were in attendance, but I will protect the innocent parties. There were also two naughty young ladies in schoolgirl uniforms who had very interesting relationships with fruit.
• Jeff Maistrosky is at the University of Notre Dame pursuing my Master of Science in Accountancy.

• Carl “Tree” Redfield sent in the following update: “I was married (again) on January 3 of 2004 to Elizabeth. We had been an item for the last 10 years so I finally got of the dime and made her number three and hopefully the last. I’ll sign this update as Tree, the name most folks knew me by in the 60’s.”
• Mark Salitas ‘65 does more stuff in a day than I do in a year: “After I graduated from RPI (BAe, 1965) I earned my MS at Penn State and PhD at NYU in Aerospace Engineering. Worked in gas turbine research at Pratt & Whitney for 4 years, then into the solid propellant rocket business for the last 27 years in Utah (Thiokol and TRW). Northrop Grumman recently bought TRW. I plan to semi-retire in about a year. I still play ice hockey every week, with former college and pro players. If it weren’t for RPI and my NYKT brothers, I never would have been introduced to the fun of the game.I lead a Woodwind Quintet (as clarinetist) that plays for weddings etc. I arrangea lot of music for the group despite a lack of formal training in composition; itsthe logical engineering mind that enables me to construct the 5 parts from an orchestral or piano score.I played clarinet in the RPI orchestra and band (concertmaster), and kept it up until my doctoral thesis took all my time. After 12 years of not playing, I got back into it without much trouble. So, I would pass on this bit of experience to any brothers who are into music performance: tell them that even if they stop playing for an extended time later in their life, it’s never too late to get back into it. (I hear a lot of people say “I wish I had never stopped playing.” I tell them to pick it up again.)”