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Cristy Payne Christie (FIN '93) knew a finance degree would be useful, but she never dreamed she would use her Virginia Tech background to tease a good living from her two-acre yard in Pickaway, W.Va.
Christie and her husband, Harvey, have created a thriving business, Diversified Nature Associates (DNA), growing and selling herbal and fruit products nationally under the esteemed Greenbrier Resort label. They have similar licensing agreements with a California winery and several eateries. They also supply the five-star Greenbrier kitchens with all the resort's jams, jellies, and some of their fresh herbs and herbal vinegars.
The Christies employ four workers, but are heavily involved in all aspects of the business - everything from planting and jam making to production planning and marketing. They use their rural community creatively; Future Farmers of America students supply them with extra herbs in exchange for plants and training, and handicapped workers at a sheltered workshop pack DNA's largest orders.
"We have job satisfaction and we get to spend a lot of time with each other," says Christie, who gave up a bookkeeping job in Richmond to move to eastern West Virginia. "My office is where I want it to be." The arrangement is especially convenient with the addition of their son, Gabriel, born April 4.
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Guynn heads Atlanta Fed
Jack Guynn (IE '64) was named president and CEO of the Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank. As first vice president and chief operating officer of the Atlanta Fed for 11 years, Guynn oversaw the operations of the Atlanta headquarters and the 825 Southeastern financial institutions it supervises.
He has been a leading force behind the bank's $225-million project to replace each Fed bank's data-processing center with three regional sites. By 1997, the new centers are expected to require one-third fewer workers than the older facilities.
Since joining the Atlanta Fed in 1964, Guynn has served as manager of the bank's New Orleans branch and helped open the Miami office in the early 1970s. He is known as a technology guy (member of the Virginia Tech Engineering Hall of Fame) with expertise in check processing.
In addition to his Virginia Tech degree, Guynn holds a master's degree in industrial management from Georgia Tech and has completed Harvard Business School's Program for Management Development.
Guynn, a Staunton, Va., native, has been active in community affairs in Atlanta, New Orleans, and Miami, where he served on the regional boards of Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts.
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Gutnick's work fit for a king
Fred Gutnick (IAED '75), president of Executive Woodsmiths company, recently completed a woodworker's dream project. He supplied ornamental moldings, custom woodwork, and paneling for the king of Thailand's new palace.
The job involved five 10,000-mile trips to Bang Pa-In, Thailand, where Gutnick oversaw installation of a 20-ft. arch for a banquet hall, decorative cornice brackets for a reception hall, and other woodwork elements of the $750,000 contract. About 20 employees labored for more than five months cutting and assembling the panels and moldings.
Gutnick's company was brought into the job when the general contractor in charge of supplies saw his ad in an interior design magazine last year.
In all, Gutnick's company provided about 100,000 ft. of crown moldings and 20,000 sq. ft. of mahogany lumber. "It's about five times larger than my biggest job to date," he says.
Gutnick worked for three years as a shop teacher in Fairfax, Va., before converting his bedroom into a carpentry shop and going into business full time. He has built the 10-year-old Executive Woodsmiths into a $1.5-million-a-year enterprise.
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Willard to officiate in Olympics
When she heard the 1996 Summer Olympics would be in Atlanta, B.J. (Betty Jo) Willard (EDPE '77, M.S.) decided she would be there - as more than a spectator, if possible. The Christiansburg, Va., resident two years ago began seeking a spot as an official for the games' volleyball competition - a position no woman has ever filled.
After earning certification as one of 200 U.S. Volleyball Association officials, Willard made it through cuts at the U.S. Open Tournament in 1994 and 1995. In August, she passed her final hurdle when she successfully served as line judge for men's matches at the Centennial Cup in Atlanta.
"The Centennial Cup was a sort of dress rehearsal for the Olympics," she says.
Line judges make the tough calls on whether balls are in or out. They also call touches at the net. The job demands close concentration and a high level of self confidence. Despite what she describes as several close calls at the Centennial Cup matches, none of Willard's decisions were contested.
Willard will be one of the first seven women in Olympic history to serve as line judges. Each country can send two referees, who make calls on fouls, illegal procedures, and other aspects of the game. The host country sends all 24 of the line judges to work both men's and women's matches.
Willard, who has been officiating at high school and college volleyball matches since her Tech graduation, played volleyball at the university when it was still a club sport. She works as an internal consultant in charge of restructuring for Carilion Health Systems in Roanoke.
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Bryant pens HBO feature film
Clifton Bryant (COMM '83), who developed an interest in filmmaking at Tech, is finding success as a screenwriter in New York. HBO began shooting "Fabulous People," Bryant's comedy about the Manhattan nightclub scene, in the spring. They will air the 90-minute film in September.
HBO sought out Bryant after seeing a treatment he had written for a cartoon based on Manhattan nightclubs. Bryant says drawing on his personal experiences as an avid nightclub patron has made writing what he calls a "fake documentary" surprisingly easy.
This is the second program by Bryant to be produced and aired on cable television. In spring 1994, the "Tale of the Bookish Baby-sitter" ran on the Nickelodeon network. The program Bryant and partner Alice Elliott wrote was an episode in an on-going series of ghost stories for children ages 9-12 called "Are You Afraid of the Dark?"
Bryant says he's already getting calls about possible future screenwriting projects. For now, he continues in his day job in production at William Morrow publishers.
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Moore wins national architecture award
Charles M. Moore (ARCH '81), a partner in the Falls Church firm of Moore-Poe Architects, has won a Southern Home Award from Southern Living magazine.
Moore designed a guest home that was one of six entries chosen from more than 250 contestants in the magazine's annual awards program. He turned a garage into a combination pool house and guest house.
"The structure was designed to be sympathetic to the traditional aesthetic of the main house while also being crisp and modern," Moore says.
Moore is chairman of the Historic Architectural Review Board and past president of the Falls Church Village Preservation and Improvement Society. Moore and his partner, Matthew Poe (ARCH '80) founded the firm in 1991. His recent projects include residential and renovation projects around Washington, D.C., as well as commercial and institutional projects along the East Coast and as far west as Indianapolis.
Extending Extension to Poland
Truda Roper (FCD '84), 4-H Extension agent from Campbell County, Va., spent the late summer and fall initiating a 4-H program in Poland and setting up linkages between Polish and American elementary schools. She accomplished this on a six-month project as Extension advisor in Zielona Gora province, Poland.
Roper trained Polish Extension agents in personal development, group facilitation, and management skills. She and a partner Extension agent from Pennsylvania also trained and advised local government officials about strategic planning.
In addition to creating linkages between elementary schools, Roper also assisted in planning a two-way exchange between the Loudoun County 4-H and the Zielona Gora 4-H. She helped initiate the 4-H program in Zielona Gora province and trained volunteer leaders.
Roper, her husband, and two children lived on the outskirts of 100,000-population Sulechow, where Roper cooked up creative recipes for cabbage, the only vegetable consistently available.
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Alumna keeps Tanya Tucker on track
Suzanne Crowley (COMM '89) has done research for David Letterman, set up USO gigs for singer Ricky Skaggs, and now coordinates all bookings and contracts for country star Tanya Tucker. In fact, Crowley has dealt with celebrities since she graduated from Virginia Tech seven years ago.
Crowley, Tucker's director of artistic relations, says luck has been on her side since her student days when she made a cold call to the David Letterman Show about an internship. She landed a position researching Letterman's guests. This helped her get another job lining up entertainment for the USO. It also didn't hurt that Tech alumna Amy Adler (COMM '86) was doing the hiring.
Working with so many country musicians, Crowley developed a yen for the friendlier, more laid-back pace of Nashville and started sending resumes to the management offices of major artists.
Tanya Tucker is very down-to-earth, generous, and hard-working, Crowley says. "Celebrities are just like anyone else; they just have tighter schedules," she says. "It takes more thought to organize their lives."
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Alumna finds fortune on game show
With nearly $12,000 already won, only two blanks left, and an answer she knew, Wheel of Fortune contestant JoAnn Lowrie (MKTG, PSYC '87) choose to spin again, risking everything if the wheel landed on bankrupt. Luckily, she solved her puzzle and won another $1,000 in the November show.
"You're either one of the bravest people I've ever met or one of the wackiest," show host Pat Sajak said, as Lowrie collapsed in relief over the wheel.
Lowrie, who lives in Plainfield, N.J., was one of 75 contestants selected from a field of 46,000 New Jersey residents in 1991. She first passed a five-minute written test, solving 16 word puzzles. Next came several hours of live auditions testing personality, poise, and ability to cope with stress. "They do everything in their power to upset you so they'll know you won't fall apart when you get in front of the camera," Lowrie says.
Then came the long-awaited call in October 1995, summoning her to California. Lowrie noted the wheel of fortune is smaller and heavier than it appears on television. "They kept yelling for the woman in blue (me) to please spin without grimacing," she says.
Lowrie recently quit her job as a sales support representative for a book dealer to study for a teaching certificate through New Jersey's alternate-route teaching certificate program.
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Unlikely alliance finds common ground for grizzlies
When Dan Johnson (FOR M.S. '91) first heard the endangered grizzly bear was likely to be reintroduced into Idaho, the timber industry representative had a quick answer, "We don't want the damn bear."
But later, when Johnson (who works for the Resource Organization on Timber Supply) met with a representative of Defenders of Wildlife, they worked out a plan: if the bear comes to central Idaho anyway, the timber industry should have a say in how it is managed.
Seth Diamond (FIW M.S. '89), manager of wildlife programs for the Intermountain Forest Industry Association, a timber group that on other issues frequently clashes with environmentalists, joined his fellow alumnus, other representatives from the timber industry, and environmentalists groups to devise a plan to restore the grizzly to Idaho's huge Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness.
Their proposal, which could soon be endorsed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, would give local residents unprecedented authority to manage any bears that move outside the designated recovery zone into national forest lands open to logging and other uses.
"We see the opportunity to create a new model for endangered species conflicts throughout the country," Diamond said in an Oct. 29 Washington Post article.