Richard A. Kerr, Ph.D. ’77 Mike Squatrito ’87Ryan ’95 and Christine Dyer ’93Nancy Jamison, M.M.A. ’05Lauren Elizabeth Wallat ’28 Class Acts Profiles
 |
Doris Jannke ’65
Looking for a career that offered her flexibility to be there for her five- and six-year-old sons, Doris Jannke, a sociology graduate and former teacher, considered accepting a retail sales position or heeding a friend’s advice to join Mary Kay.
While she had no formal training in cosmetics application, Jannke liked the idea of a nontraditional schedule and was attracted to the income potential of the direct-selling organization.
Like all of the company’s independent beauty consultants, she began with a starter kit and a home party. That was 1974. In her first year, she earned the first of many pink Cadillacs (and has driven one ever since). Nine years later, she became an independent national sales director, one of only 200 women who achieve this level of success worldwide.
In 33 years, Jannke has enjoyed an enviable career with the cosmetics giant. Her $16 million organization includes 4,000 domestic and international consultants on whose sales she earns commissions. Jannke credits her meteoric rise to the top to consistency, focus, and a positive attitude: “It’s important to have a vision of what you want and have a passion for that vision. If you focus on one thing, 90 percent of your goal will come to pass.”
Her optimistic outlook is shaped by Mary Kay’s “go-give” philosophy—the concept of giving in order to help others and not expecting anything in return. Jannke delights in sharing this ideal, especially with her family. Her influence has inspired her sons to be successful in life, and now that her sons have families of their own, she relishes the opportunity to motivate her grandchildren similarly.
In reflecting upon her go-give way of life, Jannke describes the impact of her 33-year tenure with Mary Kay: “I have lived a life of abundance and balance. I have enriched other women’s lives and taught others to have financial freedom. As a result, my life has been richly blessed.”
—Maria V. Caliri ’86, M.B.A.,’92
 |
Richard A. Kerr, Ph.D. ’77
Even before completing his doctoral work at URI’s Graduate School of Oceanography, Richard Kerr sensed that an academic career in chemical oceanography was not the right path for him.
His interest in science was wide-ranging—at various times during high school and college he had aspired to be an astronomer, a chemist, and a meteorologist. He wanted to pursue his broad range of interests.
While working on his Ph D., Kerr took some undergraduate courses in journalism and, to his surprise, sold his first article, “The Best Grape-Nut Pudding in Southern Rhode Island,” to the Providence-Journal Sunday Magazine (after science, his passions are food and cooking).
The publication of his first article convinced him that he could combine science and journalism. A chance encounter with a colleague brought him to Science magazine, where he is now a senior writer covering earth and planetary sciences.
Science is one of the world’s leading peer-reviewed interdisciplinary journals for scientific news, commentary, and research. Kerr’s nearly 30 years there have been, he reflects, ”the perfect job.” Kerr finds news and feature material for the journal “by scanning the scholarly literature, reading mountains of press releases, and attending conferences.”
One might think he would invoke his doctorate when dealing with sources, but Kerr generally downplays his scientific background to encourage interviewees to explain their research in laymen’s terms. When he does invoke his GSO affiliation, he notes that it carries considerable weight and usually gets his phone calls returned.
This past October Kerr received the Geological Society of America’s Public Service Award for individuals who have significantly enhanced public understanding of the earth sciences. “Dick’s articles in Science are a delight to read,” his nominator wrote. “They are always interesting, novel, and timely, whether breaking ground on an emerging geoscience topic or providing in-depth comprehensive analysis of a topic over time.”
And it all began with a recipe for Grape-Nut pudding.
—Alan Axelrod
 |
Mike Squatrito ’87
By day, Mike Squatrito works for the Raytheon Company as a systems engineer for Project Athena, a homeland defense surveillance system; by night, he creates his own world of fantasy and adventure.
As a student working towards degrees in computer science and mathematics in the late ’80s, Squatrito first began formulating a fantasy-fiction series similar to The Lord of the Rings that he would call The Overlords series. It wasn’t until this past May, however, that his dream was finally realized when his first book, Legend of the Treasure, was published.
This November, Squatrito returned to URI to share his experience in novel writing, publishing, and marketing with Gail Alofsin’s Dynamics of Marketing Communications class, offering advice on how to handle the whole process.
Squatrito advised students to “do something to move your business forward every day,” which he does himself. If he is not writing or editing the second book of the series, he is out promoting the first by lecturing at schools or doing other “outside-the-box” events, like a book-signing he held at the annual Taste of Rhode Island festival in Newport.
He frequently visits middle and high schools to talk to students about his book. “I like meeting people, engaging people,” Squatrito said. He even eats lunch with small groups of the students he visits. Meeting people and networking is also an important part of marketing since “you don’t know who that right person might be to help you get to the next level.”
All the promotion and networking seems to have paid off, as over 240 copies of his self-published novel have been sold since May, including five copies in Scotland. As Squatrito told the students, it is important to set goals for yourself. “About 93 percent of all authors sell less than 1,000 books in the first year. I want to be one of those seven percent that sell over 1,000 copies.”
Though he hopes to become successful as an author, Squatrito says he has no intention of leaving his day job. Doing both allows him to satisfy both the logical and the creative sides of his brain, he says.
More information about the series can be found at www.the-overlords.com.
—James Acone ’08
 |
Ryan ’95 and Christine Dyer ’93
Prescription drugs sold through a chain pharmacy offer uniform top quality, but what about patients with special needs—a smoker whose nicotine gum loosens his fillings or a child who can’t swallow pills?
A compounding pharmacist, partnering with the physician and patient, can find the best way to help the medicine go down. “We can put medicine in a gummy bear for a child who can’t swallow pills yet,” said Ryan Dyer ’95. “And we can make a nicotine lollipop for a smoker who can’t chew gum.”
Ryan and his wife, Christine ’93, opened Bayview Pharmacy, South County’s first compounding pharmacy, last December at Crossing at the Tower just four miles from the Kingston Campus.
Bayview’s state-of-the-art laboratory includes an ointment mill for creating medicated topical creams and gels and a computerized mortar and pestle. At the flavor station, children and their parents can choose among 100 flavors from apple to vanilla. In the separate clean room, IV products and eye medications are created in a sterile environment.
The new pharmacy can supply medicine for both sensitive people and their pets.
To become a compounding pharmacist, Ryan took courses from the Professional Compounding Centers of America as well as classes in veterinary medicine, hormone therapies, and pain management.
Despite the special equipment and training, Bayview’s focus is on customer service. “After graduation, Ryan worked for four different Wal-Mart stores in two years,” said Christine. “As soon as you got to know the customers, you were moved,” Ryan added.
So at age 25, they bought an old gas station in Pittsfield, Maine, and converted it into an independent pharmacy. After seven successful years, they sold it to another independent pharmacist and returned to Rhode Island.
“In Maine, we were too busy to focus on compounding,” Ryan said. “In Rhode Island, we decided compounding was the way to differentiate ourselves.”
They hope to provide a teaching site for URI pharmacy students. “We’re a pharmacy as it was way back when but with the newest equipment,” Ryan said. “One of us will always be there. If we need to meet with a customer for half an hour, we’ll do that.”
— Liz Boardman
 |
Nancy Jamison, M.M.A. ’05
By all accounts, Nancy Jamison had it all. Growing up in a military family, she traveled extensively, studied in France, and enjoyed a succesful career in the financial industry.
As a senior vice president at Visa International, Jamison managed various large-scale international development projects. Yet, something was missing: “My job had nothing to do with ocean conservation.”
A San Francisco resident, Jamison held more than a passing interest in the quality of the bay and oceans, and that interest became a passion when she learned to scuba dive a little more than a decade ago.
“I hoped I could use my business background in the field of conservation, so I retired from Visa and applied to graduate schools offering marine policy studies to gain the necessary credentials. After interviewing with Professor Rick Burroughs, I chose URI. He recognized that my business experience would be an asset to my studies.”
Jamison excelled in the program, and at Burroughs’ urging, she applied for a prestigious John A. Knauss Marine Policy Fellowship. She was among an elite group of 40 nationally chosen to go to Washington, D.C., to work on ocean and coastal issues for a year.
Placed at the U.S. State Department’s Office of Marine Conservation, Jamison found herself serving as a U.S. delegate in international treaty negotiations and as head of the U.S. delegation negotiating fisheries resolutions at the United Nations.
“Other nations still look to the United States for our leadership, but without heavy handed-demands. We have a delicate balance of protecting U.S. interests while playing fairly in the international arena.
“What was amazing about this opportunity was working with a disparate group of people in the U.N. setting to gain agreement on specific language related to various ocean issues. I was able to use my URI education and consensus-building skills from the start.”
Since completing the fellowship program, Jamison has taken time off from developing marine policy to get married. In the future, she plans to continue working as a marine conservation consultant for nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations.
—Maria V. Caliri, ’86, M.B.A. ’92
 |
Lauren Elizabeth Wallat ’28
What is your favorite activity?
Trying on hats! This one is actually my dad’s, but it suits me just fine.
So your dad is a URI alum?
Of course! My dad is Geoff Wallat ’89, and he took this picture.
Do you plan to follow in his footsteps at URI?
Well, I’d certainly like to attend, but I haven’t decided yet if I should enroll in the College of the Environment & Life Sciences as he did or try my own thing, perhaps Textiles, Fashion Merchandising & Design—I’d like to do more with hats!
