Rick Arpin, '95 BSBA Accounting, has joined the board of directors for Junior Achievement of Southern Nevada. He is currently the managing partner of Las Vegas KPMG. The Junior Achievement board of directors is responsible for providing executive counsel, fund development, and supporting JA’s in-school programs, which focus on entrepreneurship, personal financial literacy and workforce readiness using experiential learning to inspire students to dream big and fulfill their true potential.      

Jamie Ibanez, '18 BA Criminal Justice, has been promoted to assistant security supervisor of the D and Golden Gate casinos.

Laurens Vosloo, '02 BSBA Accounting and Management, has been named by the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians as CEO. He originally joined San Manuel in 2014 as chief financial officer (CFO) for San Manuel Casino. In his new role, he will be responsible for all day-to-day leadership and operations of San Manuel Tribal Government Operations, San Manuel Casino, and other entities. Most recently he had served as enterprise-wide CFO for San Manuel Tribal Government Operations and San Manuel Casino.          

Jeremy Burr, '09 BSBA Finance and International Business, and Stephanie Beadle Burr, '08 BA Economics, had a baby girl in 2019. Jeremy works in EY's turnaround and restructuring practice. The family lives in Escondido, California.

Sam Mateo, ’16 M.Ed., authored her first book, The Coding Workbook, the first offline workbook for kids to learn web development. She used the skills gained during her curriculum design and instruction master's program to create The Coding Workbook curriculum. The workbook is perfect for at-home learning or classrooms unequipped with adequate technology to teach a coding class. It’s also an excellent resource for educators who need lesson plan support for web design. Packed with exercises, illustrations, and progress quizzes, this workbook makes coding accessible to anyone with a pencil. 

Steven Passmore, '03 MS Kinesiology, is a chiropractor and associate professor in the department of kinesiology & recreation management at Canada's University of Manitoba. In May, he was named Researcher of the Year by the Canadian Chiropractic Association. In 2019, he was appointed by the Canadian government's Health Canada to a three-year term on the Canadian Pain Task Force External Advisory Panel. He holds adjunct appointments in the College of Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Manitoba, and the research department at New York Chiropractic College. His sub-specialization in kinesiology is human perceptual learning and motor control. He explores performance-based outcome measures related to chronic spine pain conditions. His research looks at quantifying human movement to assess pain based on how an individual is able to move. He also has aided the Mount Carmel Clinic, a publicly subsidized clinic with a chiropractic program for people in poverty, through research and data collection since 2011, examining how patients with musculoskeletal pain respond to non-pharmacologic intervention. His hobbies include cold-climate viticulture, collecting fine art, and film making. He lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Maricar "Rica" Magana Andrade, '07 JD, and her husband, Giovanni Andrade, '07 JD,  established their own law firm, Andrade Law, right after graduation. Their practice has been devoted to divorce, custody, child support, and paternity matters. Three years after receiving her law degree, she co-founded a nonprofit organization in Southern Nevada called Bamboo Bridges. Its mission is to offer culturally relevant services to the Asian Pacific American community, with focus areas on offering domestic violence/sexual assault advocacy services, holding an annual high school leadership symposium, and coalition building. She is an avid dancer who started training seriously two years ago. Hip hop is her favorite genre and Millennium Dance Complex Las Vegas has become her second home. She successfully auditioned for Under the Radar Dance Crew and — to her surprise — was selected. The couple has three children, including Samuel Andrade, who is a sophomore psychology major at UNLV. The family lives in Henderson.

Danielle Brose Della Valle, '08, is a functional nutritional therapy practitioner. The founder & CEO of Your Wellness Academy, she also is the author of Happy Weight: Unlocking Body Confidence Through Bioindividual Nutrition and Mindfulness. She lives in Vancouver, Washington.

T. Blake Gross, '05 JD, opened a sole practice, the Law Office of Blake Gross, in April. He lives and works in Ashland, Wisconsin, on the south shore of Lake Superior.  

Diane Simonson Dukes, '90 BS Hotel Administration, recently was awarded the Best Meeting Professional for 2020 and was inducted into the Hall of Fame by Minnesota Meetings & Events. Last year, she was promoted to vice president of meetings & events within the non-profit association where she has worked for 15 years.  In 2019, she and her husband celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary back where it all started — Las Vegas!  Her passions are travel and American history, and she says she often is lucky enough to combine both interests. She has visited all 50 states (some many times) and now is working on seeing all the national parks and presidential libraries. She has seen nine out of 14 libraries and visited almost 40 national parks. She tries to plan her vacations around which park or library she wants to see next. The couple lives in Lakeville, Minnesota.

Phil Thompson, '02 BS Architecture, recently was recruited to take over as the architectural manager for the western region of American Homes 4 Rent / AMH Development. In this role, he is responsible for management of resources and schedules for the design, development, and maintenance of documents related to AH4R's architectural projects within AMH Development’s ground-up, build-to-rent single family residential communities. He oversees projects in Seattle; Boise, Idaho; Salt Lake City; Denver; Phoenix; San Antonio; and Las Vegas. He has more than 25 years’ experience in architecture & development, capital markets & banking, and strategic project, personnel, & organizational management. Before his private sector career, he served seven years in the U.S. Navy submarine service and was honorably discharged with a service-connected disability after serving aboard two different Los Angeles-class nuclear attack submarines and with the deep submergence unit rescue team. He also volunteers with a number of community organizations.  

Matthew O'Brien, '15 MA English - Creative Writing, and former adjunct professor at UNLV (2012-16), has a book due out in October with Las Vegas-based Central Recovery Press. Dark Days, Bright Nights: Surviving the Las Vegas Storm Drains is an oral account from people who lived in the city’s underground flood channels and got out and turned around their lives. These redemption stories cast light on a rarely seen side of Las Vegas and offer a portrait of homelessness and recovery in America. (The book was edited by his classmate, Dan Hernandez, '15 MA English.) He also is the author of two other books, Beneath the Neon (Huntington Press 2007) and My Week at the Blue Angel (Huntington Press 2010). Additionally, he is the founder of Shine a Light, a program that provides housing, counseling, and other services to the people in the drains. Part of the proceeds from Dark Days, Bright Nights will benefit Shine a Light. From 2017 until this July he was a teacher and tutor with Escuela Americana. His hobbies include reading, working out, hiking, traveling, and urban exploring. He lives in San Salvador, El Salvador.