CLASS NOTES

ALUMNI

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1960s

Frank A. Sternad, PharmD ’65, is retired and well after losing his home in the 2017 Sonoma County wildfires. He has now moved into a new home and is continuously busy shooting photography and researching and writing about pharmacy history.

1970s

John Bruce, PharmD ’70, celebrated 50 years of being a pharmacist in 2020. He owned an independent community pharmacy for 43 years and currently serves as president and CEO of Western States Pharmacy Coalition. Norman A. Maehara, PharmD ’74, retired from the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in November 2018.

Ron T. Taniguchi, PharmD ’76, is retired and recently attended his fifth consecutive United States Pharmacopeial Convention Meeting. Lawrence J. Cohen, PharmD ’78, retired in January 2021 from the University of North Texas Health Science Center—where he was a professor of pharmacotherapy and coordinator of interprofessional education—after more than 40 years in pharmacy and medical education, research and practice. He continues to serve as a behavioral health and mental health policy consultant/adviser. Jerry E. Hammer, PharmD ’78, is a pharmacy manager at Vons Pharmacy. Rita Shane, PharmD ’78, chief pharmacy officer at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, was recently featured in a Los Angeles Times video discussing the COVID-19 vaccine rollout and how her hospital can store the vaccine in its ultra-cold freezers. Ettie Rosenberg, PharmD ’79, is a professor of pharmacy practice and assistant dean of student affairs at West Coast University School of Pharmacy.

1980s

Amy Gutierrez, PharmD ’83, is vice president/chief pharmacy officer at UCHealth in Denver. In this newly created position, she is responsible for coordinating pharmacy services across the health system, which includes 12 hospitals, multiple clinics and a robust clinical pharmacy program.

1990s

Lawrence C. Louie, PharmD ’91, is president of United Pharmacists of Southern California.

2000s

Jose Castro, PharmD ’01, MHA, is a certified HIV pharmacist and serves as pharmacy operations

manager at Keck Medical Center of USC. He completed his Master of Health Administration at USC in 2018.

Linh Lee Youn, PharmD ’01, is leading the COVID-19 vaccination rollout at Ralphs Pharmacy locations throughout California as director of pharmacy. Hooman Milani, PharmD ’02, MBA, is manager of pharmacy clinical operations at Kaiser Permanente West Los Angeles Medical Center. He received his MBA from the USC Marshall School of Business in 2006. David Truong, PharmD ’07, MS Regulatory Science ’07, and Judy Truong, PharmD ’12, welcomed their daughter, Evelynn, in November 2020.

2010s

Clare Elser, DRSc ’12, is principal quality product leader at Genentech. Samuel Lee, PharmD ’12, owns and manages four independent pharmacies. Shawn Feldman, PharmD ’17, MS Healthcare Decision Analysis ’17, is U.S. marketing senior product manager at Amgen. Sai Upadhyayula, PharmD ’17, JD, graduated from UC Irvine School of Law in 2020. He passed the California Bar Exam in October 2020 and began his legal career at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati as an associate in its life sciences technology transactions group based in San Diego. Katherine Shi, MS Regulatory Science ’18, is manager of regulatory strategy at Sarepta Therapeutics. Eleanor Crecilius, MS Healthcare Decision Analysis ’19, is a business analyst at Deloitte Consulting. Adam Roeder, MS Healthcare Decision Analysis ’19, is senior associate of contracting at Amgen. Negin Sazgar, PharmD ’19, has been serving as lead on-site pharmacist at the Dodger Stadium COVID-19 mass vaccine point-ofdispensing center, one of the largest in the country. She completed the USC PGY1 CommunityBased Practice Residency in 2020 and was a recipient of the American Pharmacists Association (APhA) Foundation’s 2020 Practitioner Innovation in Pharmaceutical Care Incentive Grant.

2020s

Kristen Cruz, MS Healthcare Decision Analysis ’20, is a medical affairs operations analyst at Edwards Lifesciences. Jingxiang He, MS Healthcare Decision Analysis ’20, is a management consulting analyst at Deloitte Consulting. Grace Kim, MS Regulatory Science ’20, is associate director for research teams, trial operations, at Children’s Oncology Group, the world’s largest organization devoted exclusively to childhood and adolescent cancer research.

Godfred Marfo, PharmD ’20, is a global health economics and reimbursement specialist at Edwards Lifesciences.

IN MEMORIAM

George Sanders, BS ’50, passed away October 28, 2020. He was 96. After earning a Bronze Star for service at the Battle of the Bulge during World War II, Sanders earned his pharmacy degree at USC, then operated the Colonial Pharmacy in Arcadia, Calif., for 45 years. A proud Trojan, he’d held season tickets for USC football since the 1950s.

James Barton Jr., BS ’52, died December 14, 2020. He was 90. After graduating from USC, he worked at El Tejon Drugs in Bakersfield, Calif., later purchasing the practice with two partners. He served as president of the Kern Pharmacy Association, and as treasurer and member of the executive board of the California Pharmacists Association, and was awarded the Bowl of Hygeia from APhA to honor his service to the field. Gene Leonard Grobman, PharmD ’56, died on December 13, 2016.

Curtis Lee Ferguson, PharmD ’64, died on August 15, 2020. He owned and operated Aloha Drugs, a local pharmacy in Hawthorne, Calif. He was the director of outpatient pharmacy services at St. Mary Medical Center and served as a teaching assistant to John Biles, who led the USC School of Pharmacy as dean from 1968 to 1995. Jerry Lee Garich, PharmD ’73, passed away on October 28, 2020. In his many years devoted to his profession, Garich was director of pharmacy at Queen’s Medical Center in Honolulu and helped establish the pharmacy department at Loma Linda University Medical Center in Murrieta, Calif.