UPCOMING EVENTS
Spring Benefit Auction - May 9th
Get your tickets! The hippest, most fun evening of our spring season – our 3rd Annual Auction & Benefit -- is coming up on Thursday, May 9th at Berg’n (899 Bergen St., Brooklyn). There will be a full open bar, great food from Smorgasburg vendors, and henna artists, raffles, and a photobooth!
We need your help! Please donate to and/or sponsor the auction, which will take place online and at the event. A live auction will be hosted by Frank Dwyer, veteran auctioneer and Tech social studies teacher. We gladly accept donations of vacation home stays, restaurant and spa certificates, sports, theater and concert tickets, spirits and wine, unique experiences, and much more. Here are ideas for what to donate. Make your donation easily online and we’ll follow up with you. For more information, including an introduction letter for merchants and printable donation forms, please visit this link. Email benefit@bths.edu with any questions. Thank you for your support! We can’t do this without you!
LI Chapter Day at Belmont on June 22nd
Join the LI Chapter for their annual day at Belmont! Ticket cost includes track and clubhouse admission, race day program, buffet lunch in the elegant Garden Terrace room, Special Events, and your very own host and guest announcer - Frank Dwyer. To register visit this page.
Frank Dwyer, our special guest announcer, has called his fair share of horse races. In fact, before his second career as an Advanced Placement social studies teacher at Tech, Frank was a professional announcer. Read about him here.
Yankees vs Tampa - July 18th
Join the New York Yankees and your fellow Brooklyn Technical High School Alumni for a fun filled outing at Yankee Stadium on Thursday, July 18th as the Yankees take on the Tampa Bay Rays.The first 250 people that purchase through this offer will receive a New York Yankees Hat with the Brooklyn Tech Logo! A portion of each ticket purchased supports the Brooklyn Tech Alumni Foundation!
Ticket Only Options:
Enjoy All Inclusive Hot Dogs, Hamburgers, Salad, Draft Beer, Poland Spring Water and Pepsi Products from 5:00pm - 6:30pm in the Toyota Terrace prior to the game before heading to your field level in section 133!
RECENT EVENTS
Class of 2023 Packs the House!
Students accepted to the Brooklyn Tech Class of 2023, together with their families, packed the auditorium to the 3rd balcony on Wednesday, April 3rd. Offer letters went out to 1825 students for a projected class of 1600 students.
Homecoming
Thank you to all alumni and faculty who returned to Tech for Homecoming 2019! It was great to see everyone. Here are photo galleries from the events on Friday and Saturday.
9TH Annual Ruby Reception
One hundred of the top female Tech students were honored at the Ninth Annual Ruby Reception, sponsored by the Brooklyn Tech Alumni Foundation and Susan Mayham '76, on Saturday, March 30TH in the Brooklyn Tech library.
Specialized High Schools Principals Forum
The Brooklyn Tech Alumni Foundation (BTAF) hosted the 2019 Specialized High Schools Principals Forum for 6th and 7th grade students and their families. There were over 1,000 registrants for the April 1st event moderated by Elizabeth Sciabarra, BTAF executive director. The purpose of the panel, repeat of last year’s successful BTAF event, was to help families become better informed about the similarities and differences between the eight schools that currently require the specialized high schools admissions test (SHSAT), and what it takes to prepare for the schools and the exam.
LATEST NEWS
Larry Cary ’70: New York Times Letter to the Editor
“To blame the test for segregation in the specialized schools, while looking the other way at the city’s taking away the tools that allowed high-potential black and Latino students to compete on an equal footing, is a cop-out,” writes Larry Cary, president of the Brooklyn Tech Alumni Foundation, in The New York Times (3/29/19).
Dr. Tetteh ‘90 to Receive SUNY Plattsburgh Honorary Doctorate
Congrats to Dr. Hassan Tetteh ‘90, Chief Medical Informatics Officer of the U.S. Navy! He will receive an honorary doctorate from SUNY Plattsburgh at commencement on May 18. After overcoming his own near-death experience from bacterial meningitis, Dr. Tetteh went on to become a board-certified heart and lung transplant surgeon, best-selling author, and popular speaker who inspires people to focus on the heart of all that really matters in life. His life-changing perspective came from growing up as a kid on the streets of Brooklyn to serving as a combat surgeon in the desert of Afghanistan, from his time as a visiting scholar in the Congressional Budget Office to his success as an 18-time marathon finisher on two continents.
World-Class Sabre Fencer Ivan Lee ’99 to Coach at LIU
World-class sabre fencer Ivan Lee ’99 has been named Head Coach for Women’s Fencing at LIU Brooklyn! Ivan was the recipient of the Brooklyn Tech Alumni Foundation’s🏅2017 MVP Alumni Award. ⚔️
Ivan was a member of the 2001 U.S. Junior World Sabre team, anchoring the team to its first men's world title at the 2001 Junior World Championships in Gdansk, Poland, and becoming the 1st man of African American descent to win a world fencing championship. He was a member of the 2004 U.S. Olympic Team in Athens, placing 12th in the individual competition and 4th in the team competition, missing the bronze medal by one point. Ivan was inducted into the USA Fencing Hall of Fame in 2014. He still holds more world championship medals (4) than any American male fencer and remains the only American male fencer ever to win a Junior Olympic Championship, a National Championship, an NCAA Championship, a World Championship, a Pan American Championship and to make an Olympic Team.
Lee began fencing in 1994 at the Peter Westbrook Foundation. He currently serves as a volunteer instructor for the club's Saturday morning classes. He also has been serving as the Commissioner of Fencing for the NYC Public School Athletic League.
Brooklyn Tech has sustained the legacy of excellence in Fencing, winning the last two NYC PSAL Boys Fencing Championships (2017-2018 and 2018-2019). 🏆🏆
Tavonia Evans ’92 Launches Cryptocurrency $GUAP
Tech entrepreneur and mother of eight, Tavonia Evans ‘92 is launching Atlanta-based cryptocurrency $GUAP. Here’s her OZY Rising Star interview.
Steve Uhrik ’73 Is the Man Behind Retrofret Vintage Guitars
Steve Uhrik '73, the man behind legendary Retrofret Vintage Guitars (87 Luquer St., Brooklyn), says he first learned to build guitars in shop class at Tech. “I went to Brooklyn Tech and that kind of turned everything around,” he said. “Every kind of machine was available. We could cast stuff at that time. “I’d zip through the assigned projects and then I’d say, ‘I just want to make this bridge for this guitar that I’m working on,’” he continued. “I knew I was interested in old technology and music, I just didn’t know how to put it together — and I put it together at Tech.”
Randolph B. Houston, Jr. Named President, Penn State Alumni Assoc.
At the 2019 Penn State Alumni Council Recognition Dinner on Friday, April 12th in State College, PA, Randolph B. Houston, Jr. ‘87 /Penn State ’91 became the 1st African-American male president and incoming 81st president of the Penn State Alumni Association, the world’s largest dues-paying association of its kind. Randy, also known as Huey, was co-founder 30 years ago of a program at Penn State dedicated to the recruitment and retention of students of color. He is senior counsel, business and legal affairs, at Complex Networks.
Dr. Seth Offenbach ’00 Publishes Book
Dr. Seth Offenbach ’00, a historian of modern conservatism and U.S. foreign policy, is the author of the book, The Conservative Movement and the Vietnam War: The Other Side of Vietnam, out this month from the Routledge Taylor Francis Group. Seth received his PhD from Stonybrook University in 2010, and his bachelor’s from McGill University in Montreal. He is on the faculty of CUNY Bronx Community College.
Ken Daly ’84 and Lance Becca ’84 Return to Tech for Distinguished Alumni Lecture Series
Ken Daly ’84, COO for the U.S. Electricity Businesses, National Grid, and Lance Becca ‘84, general manager, Con Edison, returned to Tech on Thursday, April 11th to deliver a special presentation on how National Grid answered the call to bring Power to Puerto Rico, in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. They described the 200-person response effort which took place over 154 days, from November 7, 2017 to April 9, 2018. During this time, 29 National Grid trucks were transported by barge to Puerto Rico; National Gird materials including cross arms, wire, insulators, and connectors and other hardware were airlifted to the island; and a total of 83,616 employee hours went towards the recovery effort.
Benjamin Spiegel ’17 Mentors for Samsung Solve for Tomorrow National Competition
Benjamin Spiegel '17 is shown here (left) with his $100K 2019 Sanmsung Solve for Tomorrow National Grand Prize-winning team from Deep Creek Middle School, VA. Ben, a 2016 SFT National Winner on the Tech team, was chosen to be an Alumni Mentor for this year’s SFT Pitch Event. He also presented at the SFT STEM Fair, on April 2nd at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, on Artificial Intelligence, which he is studying at Brown University '21.
The Tech team, which created a pedestrian-safety app prototype, won $125K worth of Samsung technology for Brooklyn Tech. The Deep Creek team created an app and website for schools to match students with donated eye glasses and free nearby eye exams.
Ange Louis ’19 Selected for Intel ISEF 2019 Competition; Tech Earns 10 Medals at 2019 NYCSEF
Ten Brooklyn Tech Weston Research Scholars medaled at the 2019 New York City Science & Engineering Fair Awards (NYCSEF) Ceremony, Monday, March 25th. Ange Lewis ‘19, who won a 🥇1st Place Award, was selected for Team NYC, which now goes on in May to compete at the 2019 Intel International Science & Engineering Fair/ Intel ISEF (Phoenix, AZ), the world’s largest and most prestigious pre-college STEM competition. Nobah Islam and Ritesh Pandohie also earned NYCSEF 1st Place Awards🥇🥇; Romy Aran, Harpreet Kaur and Charles Phu took 2nd Place🥈🥈🥈; and Samia Alam, Valentina Guo, Heeyun Kim, and Lamiya Rahma won 3rd Place Awards.🥉🥉 🥉🥉 (📷: Dr. Mathew Mandery ’61, Brooklyn Tech Alumni Foundation Chief Education Officer with Ange Louis at NYCSEF)
Tech NSBE: 2019 National & Regional Jr. Chapter of the Year
Congrats to Brooklyn Tech NSBE for being honored as both National and Regional NSBE Jr.Chapter of the Year at NSBE’s Annual Convention, Mar. 27-31 at the Cobo Center, Detroit, MI. The convention also provided a wonderful opportunity for Tech NSBE alums to reconnect.
A Banner Season for Tech Robotics – 2019 Engineering Award at NYC Competition
Tech Robotics, FIRST Robotics Competition Team 334, the TechKnights, won the 2019 Excellence in Engineering Award at the FIRST New York City Competition, April 6-7, at The Armory. Earlier this season, the TechKnights won the Judges Award at NY Tech Valley FIRST at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Special shoutouts to Class of 2019 members: Senthia Ahmed (Mechanical Lead), Joseph Babbitt (Captain), Nikolas Burzynski (Driver), Patrick Fan (Programming Lead) Brian Ly (Head Scout), Jedidiah Pienkny (Mechanical), Nimra Shakoor (Mechanical), Saikanam Siam (Autonomous Programmer), and Ivy Young (Mechanical).
Mr. Timothy Ree Named National Academy for Teachers / Bread Loaf School of English Scholar at Middlebury
Congrats to Tech English teacher, Mr. Timothy Ree! He has been named one of three 2019 The Academy for Teachers / Bread Loaf School of English Scholars at Middlebury College, Vermont. The award is for full tuition to the six-week summer program. At Tech, Timothy Ree teaches literature and writing. He holds a BA in English from Wheaton College (IL) and an MDiv from Yale University. His poems have appeared in The Cortland Review, Saint Katherine Review, and Peregrine (Amherst Writers & Artists). He has received grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Cave Canem, and Poets House.
This is the second year in a row that a Brooklyn Tech English teacher has been named one of the program’s three annual scholars. Last year, the award went to Ms. Monica Rowley.
Tech Repeats as NYC Mock Trial Champion
Brooklyn Tech Mock Trial won on Thursday, April 11th the2019 New York City Mock Trial Championship! The repeating City Champs head to Albany, May 19-21, for the 2019 New York State Finals, co-sponsored by the New York State Bar Association. Trials will take place at the James T. Foley United States Courthouse. Last year, Tech was the runner-up team in the New York State tournament. Thousands of students participate each year in the Mock Trial Program. Objectives of the tournament are to: teach students ethics, civility and professionalism; further students’ understanding of the law, court procedures and the legal system; improve proficiency in basic life skills, such as listening, speaking, reading and reasoning; promote better communication and cooperation among the school community, teachers and students and members of the legal profession, and heighten appreciation for academic studies and stimulate interest in law-related careers.
Key Club Sweeps 2019 New York Regionals
BTHS Key Club —with well over 500 members -- is the world’s largest! The club won an impressive 17 awards at the 2019 New York District Key Club Leadership Training Conference, Albany, Mar. 29th-31, marking the end to a great service year. Onward to Internationals in July! The awards: 1st Place, Platinum Division (highest tier) Single Service Award (Save the Environment); Distinguished Key Clubbers: Tenzin Dolkar '22, Jason Gao '22, Chengtao Zheng '22, Suzana Morshed '22, Qian Ting Chen '20 (Biological Sciences), Simrun Kothari '21; Distinguished Freshman Member: Irene Liu ’22; Distinguished Sophomore Member: Ellen Seto ’21; Distinguished Junior Member: Ricky Ke '20 (Social Sciences); Distinguished Bulletin Editor: Mariae-Julia Robis '19 (Gateway to Medicine); Distinguished Treasurer: Abigail Isakov '20 (Social Sciences); Distinguished Vice President: Ayan Rahman '20 (Chemistry); Distinguished President: Chijun April Su '19 (Law & Society); Perfect Paperwork Award; Membership Increase Award; District Treasurer's Award.
Tech Taqwa Takes 1st Place at 2019 MIST NY Regionals
Tech's Muslim Interscholastic Tournament (MIST) team, Tech Taqwa, won 1st Place out of over 40 schools at the 2019 MIST New York Regionals on Saturday April 6th, MIST offers a broad array of competitions, from extemporaneous speaking to spoken word to debate. Shoutout to senior Hajra Shaukat (Law and Society) for winning 🥇1st Place Overall Competitor #MVP. (📷: Ayman Siam) In total, Brooklyn Tech won 18 individual and team awards!
Karina Popovich ’19 Wins Amazon Future Engineer Scholarship
Karina Popovich ‘19 (Robotics & Mechatronics) is one of 100 recipients nationwide of the inaugural $40,000 Amazon Future Engineer college scholarship. The award comes with a guaranteed paid internship at Amazon headquarters in Seattle and a housing stipend. Winners receive $10K per year for four years to study Computer Science. Read more about Karina and a program she created called Connect With Tech.
Brooklyn Tech is a Top 8 U.S. Debate Team!
The Brooklyn Tech Debate team represented New York City at the National Association of Urban Debate Leagues National Championship Tournament at Georgetown University, with the team of Jeremy Santora and Samantha Rich making it into the Elite 8 and Samantha earning a Top 20 Speaker Award. The Tech squad will next compete at the Tournament of Champions at the University of Kentucky, the most prestigious debate tournament in the country.
Tech Stunt Continues Winning Streak
The reigning 3x PSAL City Champions, the Tech Stunt team continued its 45-match winning streak April 6th against The Scholars Academy (19-1) and New Dorp (13-7). #RollTech
Warren Adler '45
Warren Adler ‘45, a prolific novelist who launched a long and lucrative Hollywood career with his classic story, “The War of the Roses”— the tale of a hollowed-out marriage that became a runaway movie hit in 1989 — has died at age 91 of complications from liver cancer. Warren last visited Tech in February 2017. He was the author of 50 novels, and he sold the rights to several for film, TV and stage adaptations. They included “Random Hearts,” which was turned into a 1999 movie directed by Sydney Pollack and starring Harrison Ford and Kristin Scott Thomas; and “The Sunset Gang,” which was adapted into a PBS American Playhouse production in 1991, with Jerry Stiller, Uta Hagen, Harold Gould and Doris Roberts in the cast. “The Sunset Gang” was later adapted into an off-Broadway musical. Perhaps no other work had quite the cultural impact as “The War of the Roses,” a dark and even macabre take on divorce. The 1989 movie grossed almost $87 million at the box office and has been optioned for a Broadway production, in addition to ongoing international theater productions. Variety notes that the success of the book and the movie was ironic, given that Adler and his wife, Sonia Kline, were married for 68 years. See his LA Times obituary here.
(Photo: Warren Adler, 2nd from left, is pictured at Brooklyn Tech in February 2017 with Principal David Newman; Dr. Mathew Mandery, Chief Education Officer, Brooklyn Tech Alumni Foundation; Ned Steele, member of the Brooklyn Tech Alumni Foundation Board of Directors; and Ms. Elizabeth Sciabarra, Executive Director of the Brooklyn Tech Alumni Foundation.)
Doug Terry ’54
Doug Terry '54, a NYC track & field legend, passed away on March 29th at the age of 82. From ‘65-‘74, Terry was head coach of the famed track team at the old Boys High School — before Boys High and Girls High merged in 1975 — that won many NYC Public Schools Athletic League and Eastern States Championship titles, both indoors and outdoors, as well as victories at the prestigious Penn Relays in Philadelphia. In 1974, he became the first African-American Head Coach of Track & Field for Brown University, Providence, RI.
Co-Captain of Track and Cross Country, Terry was an Honor Roll student-athlete at Tech, where he competed as a sprinter and was part of Tech’s quartet that won the championship distance medley relay at the 1954 Penn Relays. He also led Tech to numerous other championships. He earned a degree in education from St. John’s University, Queens and a master’s from New York University, then began teaching at Boys High School in 1964. He started coaching the following year.
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