Mary L Kish, 8/12/2008 · 0 comments
Christie, Tom, and Megan Gera.
Jonathan D. Schulz ’00 and Alexandra George Schulz ’00 were married May 21, 2005, and are
expecting their first child in January 2009. Jonathan is a Territory Manager for Biomet 3i, and
Alex is Vice President of the Louise Philips Forbes Team of Halstead Property. They live in
Montclair, NJ.
(not pictured) Jessica Weisel ’03 and Gabriel Weissman ’03 were married in July 2007. She is a Marketing Manager with Dunkin' Donuts and he is a Senior Public Relations Manager for Comcast. They reside in Philadelphia.
Jennifer Schildt ‘04 and Ryan Mancini ’04 didn’t have romance in mind when they matriculated into their communication programs in August 2000, but eventually—it happened!
According to Jen, when she chose the CMD program, “I really was interested in the fact that it is a broad program yet still provides specialized skills. I was exposed to a great variety of classes that left me open to imagining what career I could pursue. I especially enjoyed the focus on communication and from there, I went to marketing in the medical marketing field and publishing industry.”
Ryan reportedly doesn’t quite remember what attracted him to his communication major, though Jen laughs when she says, “I think he signed up for this major to meet his wife—me!”
Though they knew each other from freshman year, they didn’t interact much until an extensive semester-long group project they worked on together in a CMD class, after which they started to date. Post graduation in 2004 they continued dating for three years.
“We went to Ithaca for the weekend,” remembers Jen, “and he proposed to me by the pond at the Chapel. It was wonderful because in between classes we used to eat our lunches there and feed the ducks. It was a great bookend— we met and fell in love in Ithaca—and we started the next chapter of our lives in Ithaca.”
Jen and Ryan were married in Bethlehem, PA on May 3, 2008. The wedding party included Ryan’s sister, Caitlin ’08, another CMD alum. They reside in Pennsylvania where Ryan is an Associate Product Manager for surgical instruments with Aesculap, Inc., and Jen works for Rodale as an Associate Consumer Marketing Manager.
The Mancini’s plan to continue coming back to Ithaca once or twice a year. “We had such a good time at IC, inside and outside the classroom, and on and off campus. The college and the town as a whole mean a lot to us and it still feels like our home away from home.”
The pond behind Muller Chapel is a special place for Christie and Tom Gera too. They were married there on August 31, 2002. Christie Davis ’00, originally from Oklahoma, transferred into the program and in another similarity with the Mancini’s, she and Tom ’02 became well acquainted during a CMD group project.
Christie, now a Senior Technical Writer at Telcordia Technologies, works at home. “I have telecommuted for five years,” she reports. “I go into the office five to six times a year for various meetings, but for the most part, I'm home all day, every day.”
With the arrival of the Gera’s first child, Megan, in November 2007, Christie is particularly grateful for the work arrangement, though she candidly admits, “I never imagined how difficult it would be to find a balance between work and family.”
Since graduating from the communication management program, Tom has worked for the Secondary School Admissions Test Board. He started in customer relations, and has since held several positions, currently working in performance improvement. Always a man of few words, Tom explains, “I look around for things that need to be fixed and fix them.”
The Gera household is completed by two dogs. Addie joined the family the day after the Geras moved into their Quakertown, PA home; her name salutes a design process well known to all CMD students: analyze, design, develop, implement, and evaluate. Their second beagle, Jack, is just simply named after Jack Daniels.
“Basically, we're pretty quiet these days,” says Christie. “Life revolves around Megan, and that’s as it should be.”
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