President's Letter
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Meet the SPW Board of Directors, 2007-2008

Janis Ahmadjian-Baer (President)
Janis completed two degrees at Stanford in Education Research, M.A. (1975) and Ph.D. (1980), along with a B.A. degree from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (1973). She is also a member of Stanford Associates, an honorary organization established to recognize exceptional long-standing volunteer service and support of Stanford. For the past 21 years, she has been a residential realtor, currently affiliated with Alain Pinel Realtors in Los Altos. For the past 23 years she has lived in Los Altos with her family and her border collie, Katie. Her husband Rick graduated from Stanford with a Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering (1983) and is a Director with Micron Technologies in San Jose. Her daughter, Jenny, graduated from Stanford (Class of 2008) with B.A. degree in Political Science and a History minor. Her younger daughter, Jessy, is a sophomore at Pitzer College, part of the Claremont Consortium in Southern California (Class of 2011). In her free time Janis enjoys gourmet cooking and outdoor sports of all kinds including distance swimming, cycling, cross-country skiing, and hiking.

Dagmara Avanindra (Director)
Dagmara graduated from Stanford with BS and MS in Electrical Engineering in 2000. After gradulation she joined Juniper Networks - a fast growing and exciting networking company as a Signal Integrity Enginer. She currently works at Nvidia, as a Sr Substrate Design Lead. Dagmara very much enjoys dancing - Modern, Lyrical, Jazz, Bollywood. In addition to dancing herself, she also teaches dance and is involved in dance program for Seniors in Indian Community Center. In her free time she enjoys hiking, yoga and reading.

Mary Bobel (Treasurer)
Mary holds a BA-Biology (1970), MA-Education (1971), and MBA (1979)—all from Stanford—and is the director of finance and administration for the Radiology Department in the School of Medicine. Previously she has been the chief financial officer for several technology and education companies. In addition to SPW, Mary is on the Stanford Parents' Committee and has two children, both Stanford grads, ’07 and ’03. Her son, a walk-on on the men’s basketball team in 06-07, worked last year for the men’s basketball program as the video coordinator and is now the Director of Basketball Operations at LSU with former Stanford coach, Trent Johnson. Besides being an enthusiastic basketball fan, Mary is a mentor for the Leukemia Society's Team in Training, which trains cyclists for century bike rides.

Mary Crawford (Vice-President)
Mary graduated from Stanford in 1977 with a BA-Economics with Honors and Distinction. Mary is a Senior Vice President, Senior Portfolio Manager, and the leading member of The Crawford-Hogan Group in Morgan Stanley's Palo Alto office, focusing on financial planning for high net worth Stanford and Silicon Valley families. Mary created and has taught "Values-based Life and Wealth Planning" through Stanford's Continuing Studies program each fall and spring quarter for the past five years. Mary's husband Bruce graduated Co-Terminus in Economics (BA 1976 & MA 1977). Bruce and Mary have recently endowed a Stanford Libraries book fund for the study of South and South-East Asia. In addition to book collecting, Mary and Bruce volunteer annually with Habitat for Humanity's Global Village program and have built homes in South-East Asia for the past seven years. Bruce and Mary's daughter, Diane (UC-Davis-B.A. 2004), is now a McGeorge 2nd year law student and son, Evan (USC-B.S. 2007), lives and works in Los Angeles.

Jeanne Gobalet (Membership & Directory Chair)
Jeanne earned four Stanford degrees, including a B.A. (1966) and Ph.D. (1982). She taught for many years at a community college and then became co-owner of the Bay Area demographic research firm www.Demographers.com that serves a variety of public-sector clients, including many school districts. She lives in Saratoga with her husband and son. She has traveled to all seven continents and enjoys art, travel, and reading.

Marcia Mathog (Communications)
Marcia graduated from St. John's College in Annapolis (Liberal Arts) and completed her MA at Stanford in 1964. She retired, after many years as Principal of Mission San Jose High School in Fremont, and devotes her time to volunteer work.

Mae Tai O'Malley (Associate Director)
Mae received her B.A. in Political Science from Stanford in 1994 and her J.D. from Boalt Hall School of Law at UC Berkeley in 1998. Mae is the founder and managing attorney of Paragon Legal, a legal services firm that provides top-tier contract attorneys to companies and firms. Prior to starting Paragon, Mae worked at Morrison & Foerster, as well as in-house for several technology companies. Mae is a mother of three rambunctious young boys and currently can't remember what her hobbies are.

Buffy Poon (Associate Director)
Buffy majored in Human Biology and graduated in 1994. Since then, she had stints in investment banking, strategy consulting, database application programming, and marketing. Buffy joined eBay in 1998 as a product manager and held various positions before leaving in 2002 to start a family. She most recently worked as a part-time reader for Stanford's undergraduate admissions. She has three young children.

Nancy Reyering (Secretary)
Nancy completed bachelor's degrees at Stanford in Linguistics and in French after enjoying a successful career as an entrepreneur. She currently manages real estate investments in addition to being an active volunteer, sailor, swimmer, and traveler. Nancy lives in Woodside with her husband Marty Walker (PhD, Stanford, '79), dog Blossom, and 5 horses. Their daughter Taress (MA, Sciences-Po Paris/UNC Chapel Hill, '07) is making the most of her return to the west coast, not only as an SPW member, but as a POA with Merrill Lynch in San Jose.

Lily Sarafan (Director)
Lily Sarafan is COO of Home Care Assistance and HCAFranchise, North America's premier provider of non-medical home care. She is also Founder of The Prose Pros, a boutique editing firm, and Co-Founder of At Home Dentistry, a new venture in home-based cosmetic and restorative dentistry. Lily earned an M.S in Management Science and Engineering and B.S. in Science, Technology & Society from Stanford in 2003. Her landmark research on the role of the Internet in Iran under the advisorship of Dr. Robert McGinn has garnered critical acclaim in academia as well as extensive media coverage. An active fundraiser for a number of social and political causes, she sits on committees for Stanford's Reunion Campaign and PARSA Community Foundation. Lily's interests include international travel, historical fiction and all things culinary.

Nita Singh (Director)
Nita graduated from Stanford with a Bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering in 2003. After graduation, Nita joined Intel's Mobility Group where she had an opportunity to manage both domestic and international mobile platform development, evangelism, and business expansion efforts. Currently, Nita works as a Product Manager at Yahoo! where she is responsible for driving online media product initiatives, outbound marketing, and overall strategy. Nita also serves on the Stanford Women's Community Center Advisory Board and in her free time enjoys traveling, exploring new entrepreneurial based projects, and working with causes representing women in technology and upper management.

Caroline Tsay (Director)
Caroline graduated from Stanford with a BS in Computer Science in 2003 and an MS in Management Science & Engineering in 2004. She is currently a Product Manager at Yahoo!. Previously, she was a Senior Consultant for the Supply Chain Management practice at IBM Global Business Services. She is on the Speakers and Panels Committee for Cardinal Young Alumni and in her free time, she enjoys spending time with family and friends and playing tennis with the United States Tennis Association.