A belly dancer alumna shook and jiggled her titanium to new heights in July. Mary Pasternack, '72, was a featured performer at the Roswell UFO Encounter '97, a festival that received national media attention including the cover of Time magazine. "I missed Woodstock, so I was definitely going to the UFO Encounter," Pasternack said. Pasternack, who works days as the university's parking coordinator, has been involved in Middle Eastern dance for 20 years. She created a concept for a dance piece, complete with costume, make-up and music, in collaboration with the art, theater arts and music departments at NMSU. "Without that collaboration it never could have happened," Pasternack said. Camille Rendal, '96, a local artist and metalsmith who received a master of fine arts degree from NMSU, designed the costume and did the metal work. The costume is based on traditional Middle Eastern dance costumes but uses titanium and the symbolism of UFO encounters to create a space-age feel. It references space ships, aliens and interstellar communication. The connection with aliens continues in Pasternack's full-body, silver make-up designed by Deb Brunson of NMSU's theater arts department.
Mary Pasternack

Gerald Kottman of NMSU's music department composed Pasternack's music. After listening to Pasternack's favorite tape of Middle Eastern music until it broke, Kottman composed a piece that drove the belly dance in a different style.

"It's much more angular, more muscular," Pasternack said.

Although Pasternack prefers not to choreograph movements in her dances, she did create specific poses for the still moments in the dance. She studied exhibits of petroglyph, Anasazi and children's art at the UFO Museum in Roswell and used the most commonly appearing poses in her dance at the stopping points.

Pasternack viewed the performance as an opportunity to grow as a dancer and an artist, although she still cares very much about traditional Middle Eastern dance.
Jean Renfroe

Magazine president revels in brave new Computerworld

	Heading a weekly news magazine that covers the world of technology can be exhilarating, says Mike Rogers, '73. "When you're sitting in that kind of catbird seat, you're able to look out over all the technological changes in the world and watch how technology is changing people's lives," says Rogers, who was named president of Computerworld in May. "Right before your eyes, you can see it happening." With a paid circulation of 150,000 and a weekly readership of 909,000, Computerworld is the premier publication in its field. Fifty-two versions of Computerworld are published around the world, including one launched in May in Antarctica, "the last continent we didn't have a publication on," Rogers says proudly.
Mike Rogers

His journey to the top spot at the Framingham, Mass., based magazine began at NMSU even before he finished his bachelor's degree in business administration. "I put myself through college working for the Physical Science Laboratory, at night at the White Sands Missile Range. We ran mainframe computer systems."

Although his interest was in marketing, this taste of computers would influence his career in a decidedly high-tech direction. After three years with Farrah Manufacturing Co. in El Paso, the Fort Sumner native went to the University of Denver for a master's degree in marketing and landed a job with the Tallant/Yates advertising agency in Denver.

"Their largest accounts were all high-tech - Hewlett-Packard, Storage Technology and other high-tech and information-based products," he says.

In 1981 he moved to Detroit and joined Campbell-Ewald Advertising, managing the Burroughs and Unisys accounts.

A "sideways turn" in his career, from high-tech accounts to Kmart, Lipton teas and soups, and Eastern Airlines, led him to New York City, where he could service the Eastern account better. When IBM decided to change ad agencies, Campbell-Ewald won the big account and it was back to high-tech for Rogers.

After running the IBM account from 1988 to 1992, Rogers left the agency for International Data Group, a company with 265 publications in 160 countries - including Computerworld. As IDG's liaison with IBM, Microsoft and other big, high-tech companies, he rose to executive vice president, then moved to Computerworld, first as publisher and then in the top spot, as president.

From his catbird seat, Rogers sees a huge potential for the World Wide Web to change people's lives. "With the advent of web technologies, our whole world is going to change," he says. "It's already having a profound impact on the way we do business."
Karl Hil

Saddle up! Horsepower key to alum's business

When Frank Keller, ex-'87, was an NMSU student, he bought a wagon and four Belgian draft horses and earned his way through college by giving hayrides, trick roping exhibitions and chuck wagon barbecues. Keller's knack for earning money and his passion for horses paid off. He is founder, president and chief executive officer of Alpha & Omega Services Inc. Royal Courtesy Mounted Patrol (RCMP), the only professional horseback security patrol firm in North America.

Frank Keller

Keller was a criminal justice major from 1984-87 at NMSU after two years at NMSU's Grants Branch where he also worked at Mount Taylor Game Ranch.

His business career began, modestly, at NMSU. "That's where I started," Keller said in a telephone interview from his office in Southlake, Texas, just outside Dallas. "My hayride service ballooned into doing malls and conventions. We then expanded into catering large groups, the trick roping exhibitions and wagon rides along the Rio Grande."

Keller was earning $200 a day giving horse-drawn wagon hayrides. One Christmas while parading Santa Claus around in his wagon at Las Cruces Mesilla Valley Mall, Keller realized that he probably could expand his business, then known as Western Adventures, into a service that used horses to attract customers and deter criminal activity in mall parking lots.

Keller's corporation had 1996 revenues of more than $2.8 million. Keller and RCMP have been featured in Forbes Magazine, Shopping Centers Today, Horse Illustrated and Equus Magazine.

The business was born when Keller teamed with his parents, John and Nancy Keller, and family friend Bruce Smith, in 1985. John, who passed away suddenly in November 1996, worked for more than 40 years in law enforcement.

RCMP has 150 uniformed riders patrolling parking lots at malls in New Mexico, including Mesilla Valley Mall in Las Cruces, Texas, California, New York, Missouri, Nevada and Illinois. Keller's "troopers," as they are known, are also under contract to patrol concerts - most notably for the rock band Phish. RCMP's past clients have included Woodstock '94 and the 1994 World Cup soccer games held in Dallas.
Dan Trujillo, '92