Academy awards, Academy connections

Congrats again to our Academy Award nominees, alumni Christopher Boyes and Steve Okazaki.  And to the many other alumni who worked behind the scenes (or on the scenes themselves) of the films that were mentioned among this year’s nominations. People like alumnus David Gropman, the production designer for “Doubt,” and alumna Susan Alegria, the assistant art director for “Milk,” a film that was brought to the big screen with help from alumnus Cleve Jones (portrayed in the film by Emile Hirsch). Jones, who was mentioned in Sean Penn’s acceptance speech, shared his views on related issues on The Rachel Maddow Show the next day.

Finally made it to the new California Academy of Sciences last weekend. After being dazzled by the manta rays gliding across the lagoon, I was blown away by the number of connections SF State has to this amazing place. Their senior scientist and chair of aquatic biology, John E. McCosker, teaches at SF State, as does Frank Almeda, chairman and senior curator in botany. Alumnus Robert Drewes heads their department of herpetology and alumnus Robert Van Syoc is a marine biologist with the Academy (check out a recent interview with the man they call “Barnacle Bob”). My niece, 3, and nephew, 5, had the opportunity to touch a real sea sponge at the Academy’s touch pool. No square pants but they still thought it was pretty cool.

SF State coffee break

Alumnus Po Bronson got philisophical with me this morning over coffee, or rather on my coffee.  The bestselling author provided Starbuck’s  ”The Way I See It #26.” His words of wisdom emblazoned on my latte today:

Failure’s hard, but success is far more dangerous. If you’re successful at the wrong thing, the mix of praise and money and opportunity can lock you in forever.

Bronson would know. He gave up a lucrative career as a bond trader to follow his passion for writing, at SF State, where his bestselling novel “Bombardiers” began life as a writing assignment for class.

Speaking of Starbucks and successful careers—the company’s new senior vp and CIO is Stephen Gillett, who earned his EMBA from SF State in 2007. Read more about his efforts to help Starbucks regain its steam here:  http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/010709-starbucks-next-generation-cio-young-fast.html