Brown Club of Oregon

The goal of the Brown Club of Oregon is to provide a community for local Brown University graduates and other lifelong learners to interact. This goal is realized through various cultural, educational, and recruitment activities sponsored by members of the Chapter. It allows Brown alumni to maintain some connection to their alma mater despite residing 3000 miles away.

To further this mission, the Brown Club of Oregon has a diverse group of active members, including these Board Members:

Kelley Stember, Co-Chair

Lisa Jog, Co-Chair

Andrew DuBrock ’91, Secretary

Katherine Melchior Ray, Treasurer & BASC Chair

Emeritus Board Members

Marlowe Kulley ’03, Chair & WebMaster Emeritus
Marlowe has been working in the field of sustainability advising and energy efficiency program design for over five years. She and her husband are active gardeners, bee and chicken keepers.

Gayle Shanley ’04, Treasurer Emeritus
A native of New Hampshire, Gayle spent her first year after graduating from Brown in New York working as a lighting designer and electrician in off-Broadway theaters all over the city. She then packed all her belongings into a cargo van, drove across the country in three days, and arrived in Portland in 2005. While continuing to dabble in the world of theater, Gayle plunged herself into the vibrant and supportive homeschooling community here. She taught all kinds of math and drama classes at Village Home, Saturday Academy, Alliance Charter Academy, and Flowerpower as well as working as a private math tutor. She and her husband Rick have since moved back to new Hampshire.

Olivia Maristela Rebanal ’97, BASC Chair Emeritus
Olivia grew up in the SF Bay Area and was traumatized by her first blizzard in Providence. She stuck out the four years and grew to love the Northeast. She moved to Boston after graduation and then to New York to work, to complete at Master’s in Public Administration/Finance at NYU, to get married, and to start a family. Olivia and her family lived in Atlanta for a year before moving to Portland in 2003, where their second daughter was born. Olivia works for a NY-based nonprofit organization managing small business lending programs in several low-income communities throughout the west coast. She co-founded urbanMamas.com in her spare time.

Sage Cohen ’91 – Chair Emeritus
Sage is founder and principal of the marketing communications firm Sage Communications. She is the author of Writing the Life Poetic, forthcoming from Writer’s Digest Books, and the poetry collection Like the Heart, the World. Sage serves as managing editor and columnist for Writers on the Rise and on the editorial collective for VoiceCatcher. She and her husband Jonathan are expecting their first son.

Sam Blackman ’98 – Chair Emeritus
Sam has been involved with the Brown Club of Oregon since returning to the state at the turn of the millennium. Initially the Club’s Communications Director, after a couple years at Chair Emeritus Greg Fowler’s insistence Sam became Chair. In 2007, he was honored and privileged to find a talented replacement in Chair Sage Cohen. In other slices of life, Sam is an engineer working for a startup company named Elemental Technologies; enjoys volunteering for progressive political organizations like the Oregon League of Conservation Voters, Stand for Children, and the 13 Enviros; and with his wife Adriane is looking forward to the impending birth of their first child.

Greg Fowler ’68 – Chair Emeritus
Greg is a clinical associate professor in the Department of Public Health and Preventive Medicine at Oregon Health and Sciences University, and a Ph.D. graduate in biosciences from Brown in 1968. Greg Fowler believes that an informed and engaged public should be part of the conversation about the ethical and social implications of genetic technologies. Toward that end, he explores the broad spectrum of social issues raised by mapping the human genetic code through his own non-profit organization, Geneforum.org, a Portland-based civic organization that promotes democratic process in public policy development about genetic technology. Building on Oregon’s history as a vanguard of public involvement in health policy issues, Geneforum is committed to the premise that citizens can educate the experts about the values that bind a community together and create a common basis for problem-solving.

Debi Coleman ’74 – Treasurer Emeritus
Ms. Coleman is General Partner of SmartForest Ventures and was Chairperson/CEO of Merix Corporation, a leading manufacturer of complex electronic components, from 1994-2001. Ms. Coleman is well known for her roles in the early success of Apple Computer, where she was CFO, VP Operations and CIO. When she was named CFO for Apple, she was the youngest CFO in the Fortune 500. Ms. Coleman is on the boards of directors of Reply!; Anita Borg Institute for Women in Technology; Oregon Ballet Theater; Synopsys; and Brown University’s Emeriti Directors.

David Maslen ’84, Secretary Emeritus
I am the class of ’83 but graduated in ’84. I was conceived near the Brown campus but born in Portland. I applied to camp Bruno only because a great high school soccer player, Alan Schauffler, went there. Boy did I luck out. After college I worked at Roger Williams hospital in a vascular lab. Later I moved to Germany and labored in the shipyards of Hamburg. Eventually I graduated from medical school there. I have hitchhiked across North Africa and the United States, lived behind the Iron Curtain, and spent a little time in jail after protesting the Trojan nuclear power plant. Now I have settled down. I have a wonderful wife Colleen, three beautiful sons Jimmy, Arlo and Paul, and a great job in internal medicine. As a friend once said, “My life is finally boring, and I love it.”