Alumni Updates

Kathryn Beryl Sutton, BA 1936, MSSW 1949, developed the Dane County Family Court Counseling Center in Madison, Wisconsin, and directed it until her retirement in 1979. She is a charter member of the National Association of Social Workers. Now 91, Kathryn lives in Florida and reports that "life has been a wonderful trip."

Will Hays, MSSW 1999, is the Vice-President of Client Services at Hilltop Community Resources, Inc. in Grand Junction, Colorado. This 500 employee agency provides a wide range of services to the entire Western Slope of Colorado. Will says, "We are always looking for good MSSWs out this way and I would be glad to help UW grads if they want to move to Colorado." See www.htop.org for more information about the agency.

Tamara Grigsby, MSSW 2000, was elected to the Wisconsin State Legislature in 2004. Tamara represents the 18th Assembly District that covers part of the City of Milwaukee. Prior to her election, Tamara worked in child and family services and was an adjunct professor at Carroll College and UW-Milwaukee. Tamara has certainly put her experiences as a graduate student in our Social Policy field unit to good work.

Kim Pavlakos, MSSW 2002, is Director of Social Services at Mercy Retirement and Care Center in Oakland, California. They just completed their annual state survey and had zero deficiencies for the fifth year in a row. Kim also consults with other nursing homes.

Marilyn Sneiderman, MSSW 1990, was the AFL-CIO's Director of the Department of Field Mobilization from 1996-2005. There, she directed a staff of 150 national representatives and 350 community liaisons to mobilize hundreds of thousands of union members to work on organizing political and community based campaigns. In January 2000, Working Mother Magazine named Marilyn one of the twenty-five most influential working mothers in the United States.

Harris Chaiklin, MSSW 1953, Emeritus Professor at the University of Maryland's School of Social Work, has been a social work professional for more than 50 years. Dr. Chaiklin's significant and long-standing contributions to social work education and social practice have resulted in his being included in NASW's listing of "Social Work Pioneers." You can find out more about his career at www.naswfoundation.org/pioneers. He remembers his time at UW Madison fondly. He was a TA for Professors Arthur Miles and Helen Clarke, and managed the Green Lantern, an early Madison eating cooperative.

Steve Steiner, MSSW 1973, has worked at the Northwest Center for Community Mental Health in Reston, Virginia, for the past 20 years. He is now the Mental Health Manager of the center.

Helen Petracchi, MSSW 1983, PhD, 1990, is Director of the Social Work Undergraduate Program at The University of Pittsburgh. She teaches in the School's undergraduate, masters, and doctoral programs. Her scholarly interests lie in improving the delivery of social services to vulnerable populations. Helen's recent work has explored the rapid growth of distance education programs in social work education with the intent of assessing the instructional quality of distance learning technologies.

Eugene Schwartz, MSSW 1948, retired from the University of Missouri-St. Louis in 1981 and spent the following 10 years in the Employee Assistance Program of the U.S. Defense Department. Eugene practiced social work for many years, working in child welfare, delinquency prevention, and as the Director of the Tacom-Pierce County Mental Health Center in the State of Washington. He continues to do volunteer work on issues related to universal health care, abolishing capital punishment, and handgun control.

Bill Heidenreich, MSSW 1996, wrote federal grants that provided $15 million for the Racine Unified School District of Wisconsin over a three-year period. The funding involved students and their families in a wide range of prevention-oriented after-school programs. Five thousand students participated in gang diversion, pregnancy prevention, team building, wellness programs, and AODA services. One of his most rewarding recent experiences involved leading a group of Milwaukee-area Masters in Education students to China, where they taught English in the city of Taiyuan.

Robert Taylor, MSSW 1999, was very active in the Social Work Student Union during his time at the School. He now is the Program Director at Starlight Ministries (www.egc.org/programs/starlight_ministries), which provides a wide range of services to homeless adolescents and adults in the Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts, areas. Robert and his wife, Monica, recently had a daughter, Monica.

David Herrewig, MSSW 1968, recently helped a friend do research on a book about the history of the Miller Brewing Company. This led to his current job as the company's archivist. David has also been involved in community development work in South America and Africa.

Andy Grogan-Kaylor, PhD 2000, is assistant professor at The University of Michigan. His current research focuses on the effects of workplace, neighborhood, and parenting on outcomes for children.

Alums, We'd Like To Hear From You!

We'd like to include more updates about our alumni in future newsletters and on the Web. Please send us information about your career and your life that you would be willing to share with other alums. Send your information, and any questions or suggestions you have about the School, to us at socialwork@uwalumni.com.