Technite Diamond Club
Welcome to the Technite Diamond Club page!
Brooklyn Tech's newest established affinity group, the Technite Diamond Club, celebrates all graduates of 50 years ago or more and our longstanding bond with our beloved alma mater. Any alumni graduating in 1975 or earlier are members of our Diamond Club. Our group will be celebrated and recognized each year during Homecoming, making it convenient for you and your family to visit Tech any year of your choosing.
Celebrating 50 Years!
At Homecoming 2025, the class of 1975 celebrates its 50th anniversary. In recognition of this milestone, we will be welcoming ’75 alumni as the newest Technite Diamond Club cohort.
Club Reps
Tomas Hernandez '73 Co-chair, Diamond Club Steering Committee
Michael Weiss '57 Co-chair, Diamond Club Steering Committee
Mathew Mandery '61 Diamond Club Steering Committee
Achilles Perry '58 Diamond Club Steering Committee
Jim DiBenedetto '71 Diamond Club Steering Committee
Martin H. Garrell '56 Diamond Club Steering Committee
Al D'Elia '67 Diamond Club Steering Committee
Tony Schirripa '67 Diamond Club Steering Committee
Technite Diamond Club Reception
Immediately following Homecoming 2025, please join us for a special Diamond Club reception at Fancy Free Restaurant and Bar, just down the block from Tech. It will be an opportunity to network, reconnect, and continue conversations begun at Homecoming.
Saturday, April 26, 2025, 3 – 5 p.m. (EDT)
Fancy Free Brooklyn, 71 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn NY 11217 (Just a 3 minute walk up the street from Tech)
$45 per person (includes one free drink and canapés)
Diamond Club Newsletter
Our latest Diamond Club Newsletter, with information and news about fellow alumni, can be read, downloaded, and printed out at your convenience.
Where are they now?
Read about career changes, achievements, awards, and family news of fellow Diamond Club members. If you would like to share your most recent achievements and milestones with your Tech family, submit an alum note.
- All Notes
- Technite Diamond Club
Class of 1965
Ta M. Li
April 21, 2025
After retiring in 2017, I have spent my time mostly as a volunteer at the Denver Art Museum. Working as a Visitor Ambassador welcoming guests to the Museum. Here we not only greet visitors but attend the Docent Lectures on the Special Exhibits and Shows that inform visitors of the finer points of the exhibits. Over the years, special exhibits included “Becoming Van Gogh,” “Monet Water lilies,” Kent Monkman’s “History is Painted by the Victors,” to name a few. Appreciation of the fine arts has been a win-win, influenced by my education at BTHS.
Class of 1965
Ronald B. Alexander
March 20, 2025
After Tech, I attended Columbia College, Columbia Law School, and NYU Law School. I practiced tax law and then became a corporate CFO in the tech industry. Along the way, I got an MA in US History. My avocational interest is US constitutional history. I am a docent at the US Supreme Court, where I welcome visitors, give Courtroom lectures, and tours of the building. My favorite rooms, besides the Courtroom itself, are the East and West Conference Rooms with portraits of the past Chief Justices, which affords me the opportunity to talk about the history of the Court in the context of the history of the United States.
Class of 1965
FASCE Marvin J. Levine P. E.
March 5, 2025
I graduated from Tech in the College Prep course, with a 79.6 weighted average, putting me in the bottom half of my graduating class.
When I was ten, my parents moved from an apartment in Brownsville, Brooklyn to a two-family house in Canarsie. The neighborhood was old and much of the area was swamp/marsh land. The builder was constructing hundreds of new homes, and I was fascinated with the process of construction. At 10 years old I wanted to be a builder. When I was got to Tech in 1961, I was just turning 14 and the courses available were perfect for me to begin my journey. I chose CP as I was unsure whether to select the Architectural or Structural major. I was good at math and impressed by Dr. Barnett Rich, my first math teacher. Unfortunately, I was not as good in shop or technical drawing.
I tried out for JV football freshman year and didn’t make it. Determined, I went on to football camp that summer for my sophomore year and again didn’t make the team. My junior year I made the team and got a chance to play quite a bit. My senior year I was a co-captain.
I went on to Northeastern University and played on the freshman football team. I spent the next few years in Northeastern’s Co-op plan, combining real-world work experience and academics as part of the five-year degree requirement. While still an undergrad, I worked for a surveyor, sanitary engineer, highway engineer, and finally for Turner Construction, a building contractor. I graduated in 1970 with a degree in Civil Engineering.
I have spent my career in the building construction industry working on projects all across the country. The last 28 years I have had my own firm. In 2009, at age 62, I went to law school at night and graduated in 2014 at 67. I am now semi-retired.
What I learned from my years at Tech was you must work hard in order to succeed in life; things do not come easy.
Class of 1959
Kenneth Kanev
October 9, 2024
Nice to read about my fellow alums although none are personally known to me. Where are my boys?
My 50-year BTHS graduation reunion (now 15 years ago, wow!!) was almost a bust because none of my (few) old pals showed. A few I vaguely remembered. (“Hey, Kanev! I sat behind you in Mrs. Irenas’ French class!”) That April day I took the same BMT crossing the East River, walking the few blocks down DeKalb Ave with Fort Greene Park on my left. Entering the building and walking around alone, I notied the little things — the 1930s ceramic tile, oak display cabinets, lighting fixtures. To the gym (much smaller than I remembered), not sure the climbing ropes remained (lawsuit potential, no doubt), recalling the mandatory side horse routine. Down to the basement, the chlorine still wafting from the pool where I practiced daily with swim team. (I was not a very good competitive swimmer, close to the bottom of the squad which won the City title in ’58 and was runner up in ’59, anchored by the amazing Abrahmson brothers).
Vignettes Dredged Up from the Past
At orientation, I recall being warned never, NEVER enter Fort Greene Park “unless you are a member of the football team.” (The whole area at the time was seriously sketchy unlike today’s gentrified version.) Then there was 9th grade IP (industrial processes — Bessemer converters, arc welders) taught by one W.J. Lincoln, am ex-military martinet who scared the crap out of me (us?). WJL, to save himself time, had us correct our own quiz answers, with odd and even rows exchanging. Need I say more? And then there was the best, Mr. Wolfson, who taught a free-flowing, wide-ranging history in senior year.
I parted company with engineering in my second year at Syracuse U., and transferred into NYU Business (Econ.), and then entered law school at Washington and Lee in southwest Virginia. Fifteen months lawyering in New York City (Legal Aid Society in Harlem) was enough and I headed to Seattle where I put in a quick 45+ years doing criminal defense and plaintiff injury cases, and where I continue to live.
I’ve been blessed with a great family.
Class of 1947
Irwin Shapiro
May 30, 2024
Yale University Press published a book by Irwin Shapiro, entitled, The Unity of Science: Exploring Our Universe, from the Big Bang to the Twenty-First Century (October 31, 2023), based on a Harvard University undergraduate course for nonscientists that Prof. Shapiro invented and has taught each spring for the past 15 years. The book provides a broad and entertaining survey of major scientific discoveries that have changed our views of nature and, in turn, spawned further questions. Irwin is now 94 and still going strong.
Class of 1965
Ron Brandt
May 21, 2024
I earned a Master’s degree in Jewish History from Touro University. I am a lifelong student.
Class of June,1950
Charles McCarthy
May 10, 2024
I was a Structural Major. I worked as a draftsman after graduation and enlisted in the Army in 1952. I enrolled at Cooper Union (night school) and graduated with an ME degree in 1963. My career in sales engineering and marketing started and was both rewarding and fascinating. In all 35 years, I never had two days alike. BTHS laid the groundwork and I took every advantage that it gave me. Are there any 1950 grads out there other than me? If so I would love to hear from them.
Class of 1951
Nathan Streitman, Ret. AIA, AICP
January 4, 2024
Before retirement, I worked as an architect and city planner for many major rapid transit station projects and modernizations for Port Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH), Los Angeles Metro Red Line, and the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA). For the Greater London Council (GLC), I worked on road improvements for four major squares, and for the City of Orange, NJ, I worked on master planning. All of this began after a great start from Brooklyn Tech’s super-advanced Architecture Program. Now enjoying my 90s along with my beautiful wife, Ellen.
Class of 1948
Jack Kinstlinger
December 1, 2023
I’m forever grateful to Tech for the wonderful education I received and the many friends I made there. Among my friends at Tech is Joseph Weber who became my roommate in our freshman year at RPI and with whom I Zoom every Friday morning.
Following graduation at Tech I went on to RPI and MIT for my Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Civil Engineering, respectively. After completing Naval Officer Candidate School, I earned a commission as a lieutenant in the Civil Engineer Corps of the U.S. Navy. During the next three years, I was stationed at several overseas bases, overseeing the construction of military facilities. I then spent 11 years with Tippetts, Abbett, McCarthy, Stratton at the firm’s New York headquarters and as manager of the company’s New England office. During that time I rose to the position of associate and directed many engineering and planning projects, including the Fall River Area and Southeastern Massachusetts Regional Transportation and Arterial Studies, planning for seaports at Barbers Point, Oahu, Gulfport, MS and the Port of Philadelphia and urban renewal studies in Binghamton, NY, Flatlands, Brooklyn, and Alexandria, VA.
I later served as Deputy Secretary for Planning for the Pennsylvania Department of Highways, which in 1970 became the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation. In this position I was responsible for all long-range planning, capital programming, budgetary and intergovernmental coordination for transportation improvements. In 1975, I was appointed Executive Director for the Colorado State Department of Highways. As director, I was responsible for the on-time and on-budget completion of the $120 million second bore of the Eisenhower Tunnel, the award-winning Vail Pass section of I-70 through the Rockies, as well as the planning and start of construction of the $500 million Glenwood Canyon section of I-70 and of the C470 Beltway around southwest Denver. Beginning in 1984, I served in several capacities at KCI Technologies, including president, CEO, and chairman of the board. KCI is an employee-owned engineering consulting firm headquartered in Sparks, Maryland, with offices throughout the U.S. I helped found the company in 1988. Currently, I serves as chairman emeritus for KCI. I also have served as vice chairman of the American Road and Transportation Builders Association and director of the Maryland Association of Non Profit Organizations and Health Care for the Homeless.
Currently, I reside in a retirement community in Towson, Maryland. My wonderful wife Marilyn died in 2020. My two sons and 4 grandchildren thankfully all reside close by in the Baltimore area.
Class of 1963
John V. Mustaro
December 1, 2023
I graduated from Tech in the Electrical Program, then went on to Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute. However this is not about me but a classmate I never met. William Henry Bauer graduated with us and also went to Brooklyn Poly (Chemical Engineering). After graduation he was drafted into the Armed Services and was killed on May 1, 1969 in Tay Ninh, Vietnam.
I looked up his picture in the ’63 BluePrint and even though he was a complete stranger, my heart ached. He was just a kid like the rest of us.