Inc. Magazine named Christine Do ’80 a top 10 Asian entrepreneur in 2010 and 2011. The Vietnam native and Soft Tech Consulting founder used math to bridge the language gap and make a career in computers.

An Inc. Magazine top 10 Asian entrepreneur in each of the past two years, Christine came to America at 17 as a refugee of the Vietnam War. Today she owns and operates Washington, D.C.-based Soft Tech Consulting, which works with several federal agencies developing, supporting and securing software.

Determining that a math-based discipline would be the best way around her language barrier, Christine came to Oswego after one year of high school in the Finger Lakes town of Phelps.

“At the time, computers were just in their beginning,” Christine recalled. “There weren’t many colleges offering computer science in New York.”

Professor Christine Semeniuke and Dr. Mao, along  with then-department chair Robert Sebesta nurtured Christine’s love of computers that helped her develop a career that began at Unisys.

“Once you have the foundations of computers, you can build on that,” she said.

Christine started Soft Tech in 1996 as a one-woman shop and finally expanded in 2005.

“I feel so honored to be able to help the federal government to do things more efficiently,” she says. “They are passionate about their missions.”

And she is passionate about her work — 16 hours a day, seven days a week as she describes it. “I’m always in front of a monitor,” she says.

A front-runner in her industry, Christine gives equal credit to her team and the place where her professional dreams began.

“It is one of the gems of the [state] university system,” Christine says of Oswego. “And I am proud to have been a part of it.”

The Oswego Alumni Association inducted four former Oswego student athletes and one coach emeritus into the Athletic Hall of Fame Nov. 12 in the Hewitt Union Ballroom. Pictured from left, are: soccer Coach Emeritus Ken Peterson, three-sport star Charles Stanek ’65, lacrosse standout Ken Walker ’80, and wrestler Harold Furrer ’65. The Oswego Alumni Association also recognized field and ice hockey player Diane Gilligan ’85, who was unable to attend the ceremony.

The Rev. John F. Hogan Jr. '80 is the new pastor at St. Mary's Church in Oswego.

Fr. Hall baptized young John and, earlier, married his parents, at St. Mary of the Assumption Church in Oswego. Today, Fr. John is marrying couples and baptizing babies in the same church where he began his own spiritual journey. He assumed the role of pastor at St. Mary’s this past summer.

Fr. John wanted to be a priest from the earliest grades. He studied at Wadhams Hall Seminary College and earned his bachelor’s degree in philosophy at SUNY Oswego.

At Oswego’s Newman Center, he worked on the Student Peer Ministry team, under the Rev. Murray Elwood. He still keeps in touch with some of the volunteers, including Kathy Hassey ’81. “It was good for me to be part of a church with people my own age. We could go out and party at Buckland’s but still come to Mass on the weekends,” he says. “The church was important to them, but they weren’t studying to be a priest.”

After Oswego, he entered Christ the King Seminary and worked for two years as a victim advocate for the U. S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C.

He was ordained in 1988 after earning his master’s in divinity, and served in several parishes. While at St. Charles Borromeo in Westvale, he was lucky enough to reconnect with Fr. Hall, who was retired but volunteered at the parish.

With the pastorship at St. Mary’s, Fr. John has come full circle, serving the people he grew up with, including his parents and brother. Now visitors to the parish rectory are greeted by Fr. John’s 2 1/2-year-old Shetland Sheepdog, Tavis.

Thinking outside the box helped David Troilo ’80 create an interdisciplinary major that combined his interest in psychology with animal behavior and neuroscience. The freedom Oswego gave him to create his own course of study allowed him to go on to graduate study and a successful career in developmental visual neuroscience.

David Troilo ’80, vice president and dean of academic affairs at the SUNY College of Optometry in Manhattan, shares his research on eye development with Oswego students in September.

He hopes to return the favor. On a recent visit to campus, Troilo expressed the desire to work with SUNY Oswego and current students with an interest in healthcare careers to revitalize a “pre-health” course of study that would lead to a degree in optometry.

Now the vice president and dean of academic affairs at SUNY College of Optometry, Troilo returned to his alma mater to give a Science Today lecture in September on the experimental control of eye growth. It was fitting, because as an undergraduate, he had made a connection at a similar type of guest lecture that helped propel his career in academe.

Oswego professors also helped pave the way for his lifelong interest in research, among them Leland Marsh and Peter Weber of biology. Marsh taught the young Troilo that the essence of research is creating new knowledge, while working alongside Weber in the lab gave Troilo the hands-on experience that helped him grow.

Troilo’s love of neuroscience was cemented during his years at Oswego. “It stems from the work I did here,” he says. Two post-doctoral studies — at Oxford and Cornell universities — would help his scholarship mature.

He has become one of the premier researchers in the country on the development of the eye from birth to maturity and the development of refractive state. His work can help the tens of millions of patients with refractive errors like myopia.

Now he has come full circle, with a key academic position at a SUNY school. His goal is to make SUNY Optometry one of the top research institutions in optometry in the world.

He also sees a big potential at Oswego for cross-disciplinary studies. “Smaller schools like Oswego can do that more easily,”
he says. “Take the strengths of different departments and combine them in creative ways.”

— Michele Reed