Photo by Juan Montes
Evan Phillippe (B.A., ’04) is the executive director of the nonprofit Pacific Pinball Museum in Alameda. He earned his SF State degree in Industrial Arts.
The Pacific Pinball Museum, founded in 2002, is home to over 1,400 pinball machines from the 1940s to present, as well as rare bagatelles. For the price of admission, people of all ages can play all day long and leave their quarters at home. The museum also features murals, vintage jukeboxes, rotating exhibits and a league.
“It is a simple game,” Phillippe said while speaking at the Golden State Pinball Festival in May. “Whether it’s a new or old game, you’re just trying to keep the ball from draining.”
Learn more about the Pacific Pinball Museum at pacificpinball.org.
Photos by Joshua Whiteman
The Music Man
When André “3000” Benjamin released an album by surprise, he was not the only multi-hyphenate involved. Nate Mercereau is a member of the nine-time Grammy winner’s ensemble on the album, “New Blue Sun,” and on tour. “New Blue Sun” is nominated for the 2025 Album of the Year Grammy Award.
Mercereau (B.Music, ’10) uses an electric guitar, a guitar synthesizer and a Midi-guitar. “He hardly ever sounds like he’s playing guitar, but he’s an awesome guitarist,” Benjamin told National Public Radio. “He’s kind of like a magician in a way.”
Mercereau’s magic is not just on guitar. He plays up to a dozen instruments on songs he has co-written for Lizzo, Shawn Mendes and Leon Bridges. Drums, piano, violin, French horn, glockenspiel, you name it.
Mercereau’s own recordings are exploratory: “music with a sense of discovery” and “a searching quality,” he says. One of his albums is a “duet” pairing his guitar with the wind-blown hum of the Golden Gate Bridge. On his latest release, “Excellent Traveler,” every sound is created by his guitars (except for a trio with Benjamin and Carlos Niño), largely sampled from Mercereau’s daily travels and world tours.
At SF State, Mercereau played in six student ensembles while performing every Bay Area gig he could. Joining the SFSU Gospel Choir band opened Mercereau to a different way to play. No longer did it have to be an academic, conceptual exercise.
“It was like, ‘Let’s get to the stuff. Let’s deliver this music. Let’s really play,’” Mercereau says, noting the mentorship of student bandleader Mike Blankenship. After graduation, they both joined Sheila E.’s band for five years of touring worldwide.
Mercereau is still absorbing lessons from Professor Hafez Modirzadeh, though some took years to decipher.
“I find through the years an influence in the small things that he did say to me, or even just a look in his eyes when he would walk by,” Mercereau says. “I wasn’t ready for it, but it was something that stuck with me. And now I think about those things a lot more.”
Mercereau thinks about Modirzadeh when sharing the stage with Benjamin. Their performance is a practice of “deep listening”: being present, open, emotional and thoughtful with each other.
“Each of us is bringing our whole lives to the moment of creation together,” Mercereau says. “I’m very into being here on the Earth, and I’m very into getting involved in things and feeling how it feels to be alive. To move through life with that level of awareness, it feels really powerful.”
Bruce Borowsky’s (M.A., ’89) documentaries “Frozen Dead Guy Days” and “The Sink: The Rest[aurant] is History” screened at the 2024 Boulder International Film Festival. His most recent award came from South Africa’s International Tourism Film Festival.
Wes Kenney (M.M., ’92) has retired as a professor at Colorado State University and as music director of the Denver Young Artist Orchestra. He continues as music director of the Fort Collins Symphony.
Tanya Rao (B.A., ’13) is owner and roaster of Kaveri Coffee, based in the Bay Area. It is a third-generation family business specializing in high-quality Indian coffee.
Making a World of Difference
Caryn R. McClelland spent 33 years as a diplomat in the United States Foreign Service, a path she’s unknowingly been preparing for since childhood. Her parents’ wanderlust had the family moving every few years to cities in New Jersey, Maine, Michigan and California, eventually to San Francisco. With each move she’d reinvent herself. For some, that might grow tiresome, but she thrived — and developed resilience and adaptability that helped her climb the ranks of the U.S. Foreign Service.
McClelland (M.A., ’90) is now ambassador to the nation of Brunei Darussalam. The U.S. Senate confirmed her appointment in 2021. She joined the program in the early 1990s while completing her M.A. in International Relations from SF State. Since joining the Foreign Service, she’s had posts in Vietnam, Latvia, Indonesia, Azerbaijan, Malaysia, Turkmenistan and other nations.
McClelland learned about the Foreign Service from a family friend who thought she’d be a good fit. At the time, McClelland had just graduated from UCLA and was unsure of what to do next. “I thought this was a great opportunity and a way to represent my country, but also experience life overseas,” she says. She began studying International Relations at SF State soon afterward, building a solid foundation for the work she’d be doing abroad, and passed the Foreign Service exam shortly before earning her degree.
Looking back on her decades-long career, she believes she’s made differences large and small. “There are things that we do every day as diplomats that have a long-term impact on individual lives and countries. In Vietnam it was dioxin remediation at Agent Orange sites,” she adds.
And then there are major multinational projects, such as getting an oil pipeline built from former Soviet nations to international markets. She authored a pipeline strategy in 1995. The main pipeline project, which required the coordination of many agencies within the U.S. government, international lenders and commercial entities, took about 10 years to complete. “It required bringing everybody together,” she says. “But when the tap on that pipeline opened, it changed the trajectory of those countries that it went through.”
The work is rewarding but also challenging — which she relishes. One of the most important lessons she’s learned is that “no” is not the end of the conversation. “The people who are most effective in this job are the ones who are constantly willing to reinvent themselves,” she says, “and reinvent the way they think about things to get to ‘yes.’”
Jon Funabiki (B.A., ’72) produced the documentary “Ten Times Better.” It premiered at the Lincoln Center and won an audience award at the Berkshire International Film Festival. Funabiki is an SF State professor emeritus of Journalism.
Vincent Rios (B.A., ’75; M.A., ’79) founded the Sergeant Vincent Rios A-1-5 Jr. ROTC Scholarship at Diamond Hills-Jarvis High School in Fort Worth, Texas. This year the inaugural recipient was selected, and she was honored at the senior robing ceremony.
Greg Brennan (B.A., ’77) was named to the summer 2024 roster of European League of Football officials. Brennan, a starting offensive lineman for the Gators’ last winning football team in 1973, has officiated college and high school football since the mid-1990s.
Melissa Miller (B.A., ’80) has completed a memoir about her childhood. After her father joined the U.S. Foreign Service, she lived in New Delhi, Istanbul, Bangkok, Virginia and, now, Pleasant Hill.
Susannah Israel (B.A., ’87; MFA, ’00) created the “Asphalt and Honey Project,” a large installation of 23 terracotta figures and mixed media about life in postindustrial Oakland.
Allen Schauffler (M.A., ’88) was inducted into the Silver Circle of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, Northwest region. He retired in 2023 after a 35-year career in broadcast news and video production.
Samuel Herzberg (B.A., ’89) won a Sustainability Award from Sustainable San Mateo County. He has dedicated 33 years of public service to the county’s Parks, Public Works and Planning departments.
Arnie Lopez (B.S., ’93) was promoted to chief customer officer at New Relic. He has over 25 years’ experience in Silicon Valley with Cisco, Proofpoint, Informatica, Webex and McAfee.
Sandie Trombert (B.A., ’94) is chief marketing officer of Zeam Media. She has worked on campaigns for Netflix, MAX and CNN.
Fredericka (Ricka) L. White (B.A., ’96; MSW, ’99) is a Social Work lecturer at SF State and executive director/clinical director of Elpida Residential Programs.
Michael Loleng (B.A., ’97) won a U.S. Professional Tennis Association (USPTA) Star Award recognizing his dedication to its NorCal Division.
Kevin Painchaud (B.A., ’97) is a photojournalist for the team at Lookout Santa Cruz that won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in Breaking News Reporting. He also won Photo of the Year from the California Newspapers Publishers Association.
Sharon Gorman (M.S., ’98; DPTSc, ’09) was named chair of the Physical Therapy Department at Samuel Merritt University, where she has taught since 2004.
Paul S. Flores’ (MFA, ’00) “We Still Be: Poems and Performances” (El Martillo Press) won an American Book Award, presented by the Before Columbus Foundation.
Andrea M. Parks (B.A., ’00) is a board member for the GO2 for Lung Cancer Foundation. In June, she participated in the foundation’s event honoring actor Tony Goldwyn.
LeRoid David (B.A., ’02) was a panelist at the 2024 San Diego Comic-Con International. The panel, “American Komikeros,” paid tribute to the first wave of influential comic book artists arriving from the Philippines in the early 1970s.
Tseh-sien Kelly Vaughn (M.A., ’02) is interim dean of the School of Education at Notre Dame de Namur University, where she has taught since 2008. Vaughn is active in statewide teacher education initiatives.
Mona Tawakali (B.A., ’05) is chief strategy officer for Recruitics. She was featured by RecruitmentMarketing.com among eight women to watch in talent acquisition.
Jerome Dees Jr. (B.A., ’06) is director of sales and business development for Tacolicious. He also hosts a podcast, speaks at conferences and serves on the board of the College of Adaptive Arts.
Vidyut Latay (B.A., ’08) won an International Achievers’ Award from the Indian Achievers’ Forum. Her latest documentary, “Alien,” explores the experiences of high-skilled U.S. immigrants.
Kanika B. Khurana (B.A., ’10) is principal of Kanika Design, a full-service interior design firm serving the greater Bay Area.
Sarah Garrett (B.A., ’12) has joined O’Hagan Meyer in Portland, Oregon, as an associate attorney. Her practice focuses on labor and employment law.
Shirin Makaremi (B.A., ’15) curated “When Unearthed Sights Collide” for the San Francisco Arts Commission. The exhibition featured works by Shirin Khalatbari (MFA, ’19) and Sun Park (MFA, ’23).
Sochie Graham (B.A., ’16) has joined the Sacramento office of Ogletree Deakins as an associate attorney. She represents employers in labor and employment matters.
Cameron Freeman (B.A., ’20) won a Graduate Student Leadership Award from University of San Francisco, where he completed a Juris Doctor degree with an emphasis on sports and entertainment law.
Kacie Ring (M.S., ’20) won awards at the Grad Slam competitions at University of California and UC Santa Barbara.