Alums Yukio Hatoyama, presumptive prime minister of Japan, and John Roos, U.S. ambassador to Japan, share a Cardinal moment. (Phtotograph by Junko Kimura/Getty Images)
Redesigning Japan’s government and economy probably wasn’t what YUKIO HATOYAMA had in mind when he studied engineering at Stanford. But more than three decades after leaving the Farm, a promise to shrink his country’s bureaucracy and shore up its economy helped Hatoyama lead his Democratic Party to a landslide victory in Sunday’s election, and secure for him the role as Japan’s presumptive next prime minister. Hatoyama earned a master’s in electrical engineering in 1972 and a master’s in operations research a year later. In 1976, he received a doctorate in operations research. On Thursday, Hatoyama met with another alum, JOHN ROOS, U.S. ambassador to Japan, in Tokyo.
JEFF GILBERT, the lead principal at Hillsdale High School in San Mateo, Calif., had his mettle tested when he and two other staff members averted disaster by tackling a former student who showed up at school with 10 pipe bombs, a chain saw and a sword. Two of the bombs went off in an empty hallway before a teacher wrestled him to the floor. Gilbert and a counselor helped restrain the 17-year-old until police arrived. No one was injured. Gilbert, who earned a bachelor’s degree in history from Stanford in 1989 and a master’s from the Stanford Teacher Education Program in 1990, was hailed as a hero by JON WEISMAN, a Los Angeles Times blogger and former freshman dorm mate. Hillsdale High School is one of STEP’s partner schools.
… On a lighter note: Alums DRUE KATAOKA and SVETLOZAR KAZANJIEV tied the knot at MemChu Saturday, following a flurry of feature stories about their gift wish list, dubbed “The World’s First Startup Wedding Registry.” Their venture, the non-nuptial one, is called Aboomba, which is described by the New York Times as “a consumer Web company that is still in stealth mode.” A visit to the Aboomba website last week gave no clues, but directed you straight to the registry. “You know that whole department store imposed wedding registry ritual thing? We thought, like, why not rebel against it,” Kataoka, best known for her Japanese brush paintings, said in a video on the registry site. The couple, who met at Stanford, asked for such gifts as $134 for an upgrade from a first-aid kit to a week’s worth of real health insurance and $385 to feed a lawyer for an hour. Gifts under $100 included Red Bull on tap for a week ($52.41) and pizza for a week ($62.93 for Domino’s and $97.93 for Round Table). At the end of the gift list was a photo of an RSVP card. “Your attendance on August 29th: Priceless!”
