40 Under 40

Rowan 40 Under 40

For easy reference, here’s the list of Rowan University’s 40 Under 40 featured alumni. You also can view the list by colleges/schools using the menu options or the first hashtag after each profile.

1999-2002
Greg Casterioto ’99
David A. Wilson ’99
Freddy Araujo ’00
Catherine Ni ’00
John Sadak ’00, M’03
Jay Gould ’01
Shaun T ’01
Chad Mire ’02
Anthony Mongeluzo ’02
Michael John Trotta ’02, M’08

2003-2006
Kevin Basden ’03
Trymaine Lee ’03
Brian Seaman ’03
Christopher Lukach ’04
Leigh Paynter Martinez ’04
Gerard Ohen ’05
Devi Parikh ’05
Amanda C. Shoffel ’05
Caitlin Terry ’05
Walt Walker ’05, M’06
Ashley Abdullah ’06
Jonathan Barnes ’06

2007-2010
Adrienne Giordano O’Hara ’07
Jason Snyder ’07
Adam Chazen ’08
Briana Feola ’08
Stephen Gill ’08
Brian Murphy ’08
Rebekah Marine ’09
Michael Martirone ’09
David Lester ’10

2011-2015
Linette Rivera Rodriguez ’11
Randel Swanson D’11
Jeremy Zee ’11
Catherine Dyciewski Beaudoin ’12
Jolene Hernandez ’12
Jonathan Tevis ’12
Julia England ’13
Nafisa Soeltan ’13, M’15
Melissa Schipke M’14

Who should be in our next 40 Under 40 profiles? Tell us who’s on your list and why he or she should be on ours. With your help, we’ll recognize more of our most promising, creative and inspiring alumni. Nominate a Rowan alum today!

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Aug 25, 2016

Adam Chazen

30 | B.A. Radio, Television & Film ’08
Visual effects associate producer, HBO’s “Game of Thrones”

Those fire-breathing dragons on HBO’s “Game of Thrones”?

“100 percent real,” Adam Chazen says.

Spoken like a man devoted to making the fantastical believable.

From Titanic Studios in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Chazen spends 10-, 12- and 15-hour days bringing the dragons, battle scenes and other computer-generated effects on “Game of Thrones” (GOT) to life. He joined the visual effects team at the critically acclaimed series five years ago in its second season.

Now visual effects associate producer, Chazen has won four Primetime Emmy Awards for outstanding special visual effects. In September, he’s up for his fifth. He marvels at his good fortune to work with colleagues he treasures in an environment that fuels his creativity daily.

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Aug 24, 2016

Catherine Ni

38 | B.S. Mechanical Engineering ’00
Deputy director of International Apache Fire Control Programs, Lockheed Martin Missiles & Fire Control

In short, Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering grad Catherine Ni’s job is
to save the lives of military personnel.

In her current position, Ni serves 15 international customers, focusing on the Modernized Target Acquisition Designation Sight/Pilot Night Vision Sensor and Fire Control Radar.

“What I love the most is working with war-fighters. When I sit down with customers, I sit down with pilots who fly the world’s best attack helicopter,” Ni said. “I know the equipment and the technologies my team is responsible for are saving people’s lives. We’re protecting our soldiers. We’re protecting our allies. This isn’t just the United States that is in the battle. This is a world fight. I feel responsible for that.”

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Aug 24, 2016

Jay Gould

37 | B.A. Law & Justice Studies ’01
Technology entrepreneur/angel investor

At a time when the average person could scarcely grasp what the Internet would become, Jay Gould already was building Internet businesses in his dorm room. A few short years after graduating from Rowan, he pioneered and sold one of the first social networks, RateOrDate, and the first video-sharing site, Music Video Codes.

The Toms River resident has built a reputation as a high-growth technology entrepreneur and angel investor. He sold his most recent company, Yashi, a leading local video advertising platform, for $33 million in 2015. Gould co-founded the company with his wife, Caitlin.

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Aug 24, 2016

Shaun T.

38 | B.A. Health & Exercise Science ’01
Motivational fitness expert & host

It’s INSANITY.

How else do you describe how Shaun T (now Shaun Thompson Blokker) turned the freshman 15—actually, 50—into a phenomenal career as an international fitness expert, motivator and host?

When he hit the Rowan Rec Center to drop some weight, Shaun T found his calling in helping others to get in shape through movement and motivation, dance and fun.

The founder of the successful Hip Hop Abs and INSANITY workouts, Shaun T has sold more than 10 million workout DVDs since 2007. His workouts now stream to a half-million viewers on demand.

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Aug 24, 2016

Christopher Lukach

34 | B.A. Communication with a specialization in public relations ’04
President & Co-owner, Anne Klein Communications Group

At age 24, Chris Lukach joined the ownership team of a national public relations firm specializing in strategic communication, planning and crisis management.

In January, Lukach officially takes sole ownership of Anne Klein Communications Group (AKCG), a company that’s slightly older than he is. Yet, Lukach doesn’t find that clients or peers take him less seriously because of his age.

“The confidence you project overcomes any perceptions you get based on age,” says Lukach. “Early in my career, I was given opportunities to work and learn. I have really great confidence in the counsel that I give.”

And that counsel has led to a very successful career in crisis communication.

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Aug 24, 2016

Leigh Paynter Martinez

34 | B.A. Communication ’04
Television reporter

Her grief immeasurable, Leigh Paynter Martinez did what she does best. She told the story.

“I was grateful for the opportunity,” says Martinez, who landed her ‘dream job’ in May as a general assignment and breaking news reporter at KTVU Fox2 in San Francisco—the top-rated news organization in the nation’s sixth-ranked media market.

“I had so many questions about heroin. My brother never admitted to using it. His death shocked everyone. It was therapeutic to get some of my questions answered and attempt to help someone else who has someone they love suffering from an addiction.”

Martinez’ piece, produced for NBC affiliate KGET 17 News in Bakersfield, Calif., aired in May of 2014—just two months after her only sibling died of an accidental overdose. When he couldn’t get the assistance he needed for his PTSD, Marine Corps Cpl. Jared Paynter turned to drugs to self-medicate.

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Aug 24, 2016

Michael John Trotta

38 | B.M. Music Education ’02, M.M. Choral Conducting ’08
Composer, musician, visiting professor

How do you get to Carnegie Hall?

If you’re Dr. Michael John Trotta, you spend a year composing a feature-length composition commissioned by four choirs from across the country that culminates with a performance at the iconic 125-year-old New York City venue.

Trotta wrote “Seven Last Words” for choirs in Louisville, Ky.; Raleigh, N.C.; Greenville, S.C.; and St. Louis, Mo. Choirs and orchestras in those cities will perform the 40-minute work, ending with a Carnegie Hall performance Trotta conducts next Memorial Day.

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Aug 24, 2016

Rebekah Marine

29 | B.A. Advertising ’09
Bionic model

Sometimes—but not often—Rebekah Marine’s arm clashes with the fashions she models.

“That’s why it’s more of a black/grayish/silver tone. It matches more of what I’m modeling,” says Marine, who has modeled at New York Fashion Week three times, wearing Anna’s Loud, Archana Kochhar, Josefa da Silva, and Antonio Urzi, among others.

“My arm is a fashion accessory.”

Born without a right forearm, Marine was told—repeatedly—that she was not model material because of her limb difference. But in her early 20s, just as she began using a myoelectric prosthesis called the i-limb quantum, she decided to follow her heart and pursue a modeling career.

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Aug 24, 2016

John Sadak

37 | B.A. Radio, Television & Film ’00, M.A. Public Relations ’03
Broadcaster, CBS Sports Network

John Sadak doesn’t just love sports. He lives them.

Sadak has broadcasting in his blood and it really began to boil when he was still at Rowan, calling Profs games and running the sports department for Rowan Radio 89.7 WGLS-FM. “It’s the cornerstone of my career in broadcasting,” Sadak says.

Sadak calls football, basketball and other sports nationally for CBS Sports Network. Additionally, he is the lead announcer for the RailRiders, the New York Yankees’ Triple-A farm club in Scranton, Pa.

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Aug 24, 2016

Chad Mire

39 | B.S. Biology ’02
Assistant professor, Galveston National Laboratory, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Texas Medical Branch

When Dr. Chad Mire dresses for work, it’s in a positive pressure suit—“our space suits,” he says—with a HEPA filter hooked up to an air hose.

Such precautions are critical to Mire: he’s conducted research on Ebola since 2008.

A virology class with Dr. Joanne Scott at Rowan triggered the biology graduate’s interest in viruses. After earning his Ph.D. in molecular sciences at University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis, he’s studied several other Biosafety Level 4 viruses—those for which there are no approved vaccines or therapeutics—in Boston and Texas.

“We know we have things that work against Ebola,” says Mire.

Indeed, a vaccine he helped assess the safety of proved 100-percent effective when administered within 10 days to West Africans exposed to others who had the virus. “That was such a thrilling moment when we learned that.”

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Aug 24, 2016

Ashley Abdullah

30 | B.A. Spanish ’06
Enterprise marketing manager, Univision

Since earning her Spanish degree magna cum laude, Ashley Abdullah’s passion for Hispanic culture has driven her to ever-loftier heights at Univision, a Spanish language media company.

Joining Univision in its Vineland office shortly after graduation, Abdullah swiftly advanced in the company, moving to Miami in 2013. In October 2015, she crossed over from media planning management to creative marketing as enterprise marketing manager for the Enterprise Development Division. The division creates and incubates new businesses, products and services designed to meet the needs of the Hispanic community.

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Aug 24, 2016

Linette Rivera Rodriguez

29 | B.A. Sociology ’11
Sergeant, New Jersey Army National Guard

While terrorism has prompted wariness throughout the world, Sgt. Linette Rivera Rodriguez is courageously charging into new territory.

One of only two female combat engineers in the New Jersey Army National Guard, in November 2015 she was among the first women in the Army to earn the 12B combat arms military occupational specialty.

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Aug 23, 2016

David Lester

28 | B.S. Electrical & Computer Engineering ’10
Show programmer, Walt Disney Imagineering

Once upon a time in a faraway land—actually, it was 2005 in a computer lab in Monroe Township, Middlesex County—David Lester dreamed of becoming a Walt Disney Imagineer.

So he did.

“It’s a dream job in so many ways,” says Lester, a show programmer for Walt Disney Imagineering in Glendale, Calif. “It’s just a magical experience.”

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Aug 23, 2016

Walt Walker

32 | B.S. Civil Engineering ’05, M.S. Environmental Engineering ’06
Project manager, Greeley & Hansen

In a village of about 800 in the Philippines, Walt Walker spent five years helping residents develop a reliable water supply, learn to troubleshoot the system and find ways to generate revenue, including issuing water bills.

“When you leave a community, you have to have the confidence they can sustain the system on their own,” says Walker, who’s been involved through Engineers Without Borders-USA. “You’re basically taking farmers and having them evolve into social entrepreneurs and innovators.”

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Aug 23, 2016