Alumni Association
Distinguished Alumni 2007
Katherine K. Freberg
After graduating from law school in 1990, Ms. Freberg joined the firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Dallas, Texas. In 1992, she then moved to the firm headed by School of Law Board of Visitors member and alumnus Terry M. Giles, where she worked to secure a $12 million judgment against Sunoco to repair defective homes. Katherine K. Freberg leads the Law Offices of Freberg & Associates located in Irvine, California, which she founded in 1995. Ms. Freberg is a celebrated litigation attorney who specializes in advocating on behalf of child sexual abuse victims. In 1997, representing such a victim, Ms. Freberg successfully sued the Roman Catholic Archbishops of Los Angeles and Orange, recovering the largest payment to a single victim of the church, as well as resulting in policy changes at both dioceses that aid and protect victims of abuse. Ms. Freberg has sued various perpetrators and institutions including religious orders, Protestant churches and conferences, the YMCA, health care institutions, and private schools. To date, her firm has recovered $86 million for clients who suffered sexual abuse as minors sold to retirees.
Ms. Freberg has been highly praised and recognized for her skill and advocacy and
was named of one of the top seven finalists for Trial Lawyer of the Year by Trial
Lawyers for Public Justice. She was also named one of the Top 100 Lawyers in California
in 2003, and one of the Top 40 Female Lawyers in California in 2004 by
the Daily Journal.
Ms. Freberg received her bachelor’s degree with honors from Texas Tech University. She graduated magna cum laude from Pepperdine School of Law in 1990, ranked 10th in a class of 217.
Ms. Freberg and her husband Jon A. Gates reside in Lake Forest, California.
Bradley Ogden Hudson
Bradley Ogden Hudson is assistant professor of clinical pediatrics at the Keck USC
School of Medicine, center director of the Mental Health Center at Childrens Hospital
Los Angeles, and inaugural director and principal investigator for the Health Resources
and Services Administration’s (HRSA) Bureau of Health Professions Graduate Psychology
Education Grant. Common to all of these significant responsibilities, Dr. Hudson is
deeply committed to and active in properly educating and mentoring mental health professionals
who focus especially on the needs of children and underserved communities.
Dr. Hudson focuses his work on the development of psychology services, training programs,
and clinical research. He has greatly expanded the resources available to patients
at Childrens Hospital, growing the staff from three to nearly 100, and increasing
the number of psychologists appointed at Keck USC at Childrens Hospital from one to
14. The center provides support to over 30 trainees, 10 interns, and 14 postdoctoral
fellows.
Previously, Dr. Hudson served Childrens Hospital as training director of the psychology
internship, and as staff psychologist and postdoctoral fellow for the divisions of
hematology, oncology, and general pediatrics. He also has held appointments at the
University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, and with the Los Angeles Unified
School District.
Dr. Hudson serves the education profession at large. He is currently secretary and
treasurer of the Southern California Association of Psychology Training Programs,
and sits on the Grants Committee of the South Pasadena Educational Foundation.
Dr. Hudson earned his bachelor’s degree from UC Davis, his teaching credentials from
UC Berkeley, his master’s degrees in school psychology and school counseling from
Loyola Marymount University, and his Psy.D. from Pepperdine University. He also completed
a fellowship in medical education at the Keck USC School of Medicine.
Dr. Hudson lives with his wife Annette in South Pasadena.
Graciela Italiano-Thomas
Prior to joining Thrive by Five in December of 2006, Dr. Italiano-Thomas served from 2004 to 2006 as CEO of Los Angeles Universal Preschool (LAUP), a public benefit corporation dedicated to providing universal preschool access for all 4-year-olds in Los Angeles County. Before joining LAUP she was appointed as CEO of Centro de la Familia de Utah, a nonprofit organization based in Salt Lake City, Utah, which works to strengthen the Hispanic family by promoting self-sufficiency. She has also served as senior consultant to the National Head Start Bureau.Graciela Italiano-Thomas is the president and CEO of Thrive by Five Washington, a public-private partnership located in Seattle, Washington. The company enhances parent education and support, prenatal services, child care, preschool, and other early learning environments throughout the state of Washington.
Among the many honors Dr. Italiano-Thomas has received are the National Education Association’s George I. Sanchez Human and Civil Rights Award for contributions made to the education of Latinos in the United States (2000), and the YWCA of Salt Lake City’s Award for Community Activism and Leadership (2004).
Dr. Italiano-Thomas has served on numerous boards of community organizations and is a member of several professional associations, including the National Education Association and the National Head Start Association. She was named to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s Council of Education Advisors, sits on the Advisory Board of Pre-K Now, and was recently named to the Pew Charitable Trust’s Partnership for America’s Economic Success Advisory Board.
Dr. Italiano-Thomas earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Albion College in Albion, Michigan, and completed her doctor of education from Pepperdine University in 1997. She has served with distinction on the faculties of California Polytechnic University, Pomona, and at Weber State University in Utah.
Dr. Italiano-Thomas resides in Seattle, Washington, with her husband Mr. McKinley Thomas.
Denny Lewis
Mr. Lewis started his four-decade long career in the travel industry in 1965 at United Airlines where he spent twenty-three years in various leadership positions. From 1988 to 1990, Mr. Lewis served as vice president for field service at Carlson Travel Group. Prior to founding World Travel Service, Mr. Lewis held the appointment of senior vice president/general manager at U.S. Travel where he directed 2,200 employees in fifteen operating companies worldwide.Dennis S. Lewis is president and owner of World Travel Service located in Washington, DC. Founded in 1994, World Travel Service is a nationwide travel management service specializing in providing travel products and services to the federal government and to the corporate travel market.
Widely recognized within the travel industry, Mr. Lewis has won numerous awards, the
most recent recognizing his contributions and leadership in the Washington, DC, tourism
market over the past twenty years. He serves on the Airlines Reporting Corporation
Task Force on creation of e-tickets and service fees,
the British/American Business Alliance, and the Dulles Airport Advisory Council. He
is a founding member of the Society of Government Travel Professionals and has chaired
the Washington Convention and Visitors Corporation.
Mr. Lewis serves the wider community as a founding member of the Dayton, Ohio, Air Show; as a board member of the French/American Cultural Foundation; as an active member of the Fairfax, Virginia, Church of Christ; and as a coach for girls’ soccer and basketball leagues in the Great Falls-McLean community.
Mr. Lewis earned his bachelor’s degree from Pepperdine College in 1965 and completed graduate studies at Northern Illinois University in Chicago. He and his wife Keri serve as national cochairs of the Seaver Parents Council and are active in Pepperdine alumni and recruitment activities in the DC area.
Mr. and Mrs. Dennis Lewis live in Great Falls, Virginia.
Robert C. Marshall
Mr. Robert Marshall began his career as an engineer at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory.
As cofounder and COO of Tandem Computers, he grew it into a $2.3 billion company before
its sale to Compaq. He later founded and was CEO of Infogear Technology which was
acquired by Cisco for $300 million. Robert C. Marshall and son James R. Marshall are
the cofounders and managing directors of Selby Venture Partners located in Menlo Park,
California. Robert also serves as chair. Established in 1998, Selby Venture Partners
is a leading venture fund which invests in next-generation technology start-ups,
applications, and services for digital media, the Internet, and communications industries.
Selby has backed many successful startups including 3Ware, Hotrail, and Panopticon.
Mr. Robert Marshall earned his bachelor’s degree in engineering from Heald Engineering
and received his MBA from Pepperdine in 1976.
Robert C. Marshall and his wife of over 50 years, Sarane, reside in Atherton, California.
James R. Marshall
Father and son are active on numerous corporate boards. Mr. Robert Marshall serves on the boards of Bay Microsystems, Onsite Systems, Fabric7 Systems, Sierra Monitor, and Triformix. Mr. James Marshall serves on the boards of Tempo Payments, Intelleflex, Modviz, SkyPilot Networks, and Zenasis. Mr. James Marshall worked for nine years at Silicon Valley Bank where he gained expertise in working with more than 75 early-stage, emerging-growth technology companies. Prior to co-founding Selby with his father, Mr. James Marshall was vice president of the commercial software practice, working with venture-backed software and Internet companies the broader industry through the Silicon Valley Chapter of the Association for Corporate Growth, the VC Angel Roundtable, and the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Santa Clara University.
Mr. James Marshall earned his bachelor’s degree in finance from Santa Clara University and his MBA from Pepperdine in 1993.
James R. Marshall and his wife Kim live in Menlo Park, California.
Hanna Skandera
Previously, Ms. Skandera served as deputy commissioner of education in Florida, functioning as a policy and legislative advisor, media and public spokesperson, and overseer of the Division of Accountability, Research, and Measurement. Prior to that appointment, Ms. Skandera served in the administration of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger as undersecretary for education in the Office of the Secretary for Education. A prolific author, she has written, edited, and coauthored numerous books and papers while a research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.Hanna Skandera is senior policy advisor at the U.S. Department of Education, focusing on a range of issues related to K through 12 and post-secondary education. In this pivotal role, Ms. Skandera is charged with the goal of reauthorizing the Federal No Child Left Behind Act as laid out in President Bush’s 2007 State of the Union Address, as well as other duties.
From 1993 to 1998, Ms. Skandera led the development and expansion of a peer education
program for the Catholic Charities organization. She also served as vice president
of a local Republican Women Federated organization, as board member and board president
of New Creation Home, a teenage mother’s home,
and as member and volunteer of the Palo Alto University Rotary Club and Belle Haven
Elementary School. She has also been the assistant coach for the women’s track and
field and cross country teams at Sonoma State University.
Ms. Skandera earned her bachelor’s degree in business from Sonoma State University and received her master of public policy degree from the Pepperdine School of Public Policy in 2000. While at Pepperdine she cofounded Fireside Chats (public policy discourse) and was a charter member of the Women in Public Policy student organization. She has guest lectured at UC Berkeley, Menlo College, and at Pepperdine, where she has been an adjunct professor.
Ms. Skandera lives in Washington, D.C.