Brandeis Magazine

In January, Michael Bien was honored by the Daily Journal as one of California’s Top Lawyers of the Decade. Blair Eig, MA’77, and wife Kaethe retired from their careers in medicine and education, respectively. However, Blair reports he “failed at retirement,” and is now president and CEO of the Maryland Patient Safety Center. Previously, he was chief medical officer at Holy Cross Hospital in Maryland for 19 years, and Kaethe enjoyed a long career as a teacher and director of early childhood education. They have three children — Sarah, Josh and Steven — and five grandchildren. Blair has appeared in more than 100 community-opera productions in the D.C. area, performing in more than 50 principal roles. Gary Jones is executive director of the Jewish Federation of Western Connecticut. Zeva Oelbaum has received her third National Endowment for the Humanities grant, for a documentary on visionary American performer and inventor Loïe Fuller. Zeva’s first two grants were for “Letters From Baghdad,” a documentary on British explorer and diplomat Gertrude Bell, who was instrumental in creating the modern Middle East after World War I. Sunyeen Pai is a digital initiatives librarian at Kapi‘olani Community College, in Honolulu. She writes, “I attended the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the African and African American studies department in 2019 and really loved seeing campus again. Brandeis taught me so much. Much aloha and mahalo to my professors and classmates.” Ellen Pollock has been the business editor at The New York Times since 2017. Husband Barry Meier’s book “Spooked: The Trump Dossier, Black Cube and the Rise of Private Spies” was published by Harper in May. Their daughter, a Bates College graduate, is working in health care in Boston. Jonathan Wilder is co-chair of the National Standards working group for hospital ethylene oxide sterilizers as well as co-chair of the hospital steam sterilizers working group. “Just trying to keep you all safe in case of surgery,” he writes.