Sherry Rosso, B.A. ’90, moved west shortly after graduating from Buffalo State. For the past 30 years, she has been happily mar-ried to Marc Rosso, living in the San Francisco Bay Area. They have two sons, one in college and one a graduating high school senior. Her career began in the art field, working to relocate the Castellani Art Museum to the main Niagara University campus, before she moved to California. Since then, she has been a corporate paralegal, a public librarian, and now an educator, teaching public secondary college prep English 1 & 2 for the Dublin Unified School District. Before teaching, she spent many years giving back to her community through school and government volunteering, building an elementary school garden, and serving on her city’s Library Advisory Committee, redesigning the city’s new library building and establishing a story walk. She is a writer and member of SCBWI Northern California. She enjoys being a teacher and mentoring future writers. She values the education she received at Buffalo State and has fond memories from that time.
Schuyler A. Banks, B.S. ’92, is an assistant professor in SUNY Erie’s business administration program who is helping shape Erie County’s next generation of business professionals with the kind of long-term commitment to student excellence and community that changes lives. As a Buffalo State alumnus, he also brings common ground and an example of where a SUNY education can take you. His degree in business studies laid the foundation for a fruitful career.
Claudine Ewing, B.A. ’92, has been named lead anchor for WGRZ-TV’s 5:30 p.m. news-cast, Channel 2 News at 5:30.
Venessa Garcia, B.A, ’92, is an associate professor of criminal justice at New Jersey City University, specializing in women and criminal justice as well as crime and the media. After presenting her research at the 2022 NGO CSW 66 Forum, the civil society forum of the UN Commission on the Status of Women, she published her work in the International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice. Garcia has published several peer-reviewed research articles and books in her field.
John Olszowka, M.A. ’92, was recently appointed associate vice president of strategic initiatives at Mercyhurst University.
Gretchen Pepper, B.S. ’95, has been living in Vermont for the last 25 years with her family. After graduation, she worked as a graphic designer for several years. After moving to Vermont, she fell in love with the outdoors and ended up taking her career in a different direction. She went back to school and took classes in greenhouse management and landscape design, and many years ago, started her own business called Gardens by Gretchen. Pepper now designs, maintains, and cares for residential and commercial gardens. She said her time at Buffalo State gave her the experience and courage to head out on her own and find a truly rewarding, fulfilling job.
William Asklar, B.S. ’93, had a few teaching jobs before moving to Ithaca, New York, in 1998. He has been teaching English at Ithaca High School ever since.
Craig Howard, B.A. ’94, notes that after a number of emails in the summer of 2021 with his former advisor at Buffalo State, Professor Emeritus George Hole, he made the hard decision to change his family’s lives. A year later, in July 2022, his family moved to Tokyo, where he took a position as an associate professor of education at International Christian University. He now teaches the design of online learning in English for graduate students and in Japanese for undergraduates. His children are close to their grandparents and are being educated bilingually in Japanese and English. He is at the forefront of leading Japan’s only bilingual university to compete with the world’s larger institutions in online education. Howard said that 29 years after he graduated from Buffalo State, a conversation with a faculty member helped him make the most of his life and take big strides that he would have otherwise been too afraid to take.
Christine Marrano, M.S. ’98, has been named chief human resources officer at Goldberg Segalla. Her duties entail enterprise wide HR operations, including talent and total rewards management, employee engagement and retention, payroll, DEI, learning and development, and regulatory oversight. Before working at Evergreen Health, she was with M&T Securities Inc. for eight years, during which time she obtained her master of science in adult education with a concentration in human resource management from Buffalo State. She is also very involved in the Buffalo community, serving on the agency board of directors for Crisis Services and as an advisory board member for the West Seneca Central Schools Finance Academy. She also recently joined the Westminster Economic Development Initiative as a business mentor. Since 2009, she has been a wish grantor for the Make-a-Wish Foundation of Western New York. Marrano is a graduate of the State University of New York at Fredonia, obtaining her bachelor of science in business administration. She also holds professional certifications from Leadership Buffalo, the Buffalo Niagara Partnership Diversity and Inclusion Academy, and the Society of Human Resource Management Certification (SHRM-CP) and is a certified leadership facilitator with the Development Dimensions Institute and a certified facilitator with the Crisis Prevention Institute.
Scott A. Zeplowitz, B.S. ’98, has been named to the 2023 Chairman’s Council of New York Life. He is a financial professional with ROI Financial Group, which is associated with New York Life’s Buffalo-Erie General Office. His commitment and outstanding performance were recognized with multiple accolades, including a nomination for the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors 2014 Rookie of the Year award. He earned the prestigious title of New Org Agent of the Year for the Buffalo-Erie General Office of New York Life (NYL) in both 2014 and 2016, as well as Buffalo-Erie Office Established Agent of the Year for 2023. His journey of success continues with his contributions as an NYL Executive Council member since 2015. His unwavering commitment to his clients’ financial well-being was acknowledged through the NYL Long-Term Care Award, a distinction he consistently received for the Buffalo-Erie General Office from 2017 to 2019. His achievements further extend to his membership in the esteemed Million Dollar Round Table since 2020. His academic foundation includes a bachelor of arts in business from Buffalo State. He finds balance in family life, residing in Buffalo with his wife, Allison, and their two sons.
Daniel Meyer, B.A. ’99, was recently appointed to the board of directors of Plants for a Purpose, a newly founded nonprofit organization in Western New York that offers free yard work services to the elderly, people with disabilities, and anyone facing a major life crisis.