Thiravudh “Woody” Khoman        e-mail: thiravud@gmail.com

Civil Engineering

After narrowly escaping from RPI, Woody headed back home to Thailand to pursue a Master’s Degree at the Asian Institute of Technology, where he discovered (gasp, gasp!) that engineering was NOT his bag (sadly, it took another engineering school for him to discover this!)  Still, AIT was a fantastic multicultural environment filled with professors and students from all over the globe.  I mean, where else could one get a former captain in the Israeli paratroopers to be your advisor (shalom!)?  And it’s there that he got his academic groove back (no, he didn’t rediscover the joys of engineering).

After AIT, Woody headed for the East West Center (another multicultural haven) and the University of Hawaii to pursue a Ph.D. (nothing to do with long boards or monster waves).  All went well, until several chapters deep into writing his dissertation, he decided that it was the proverbial “journey and not the destination” that mattered, and that after all, “it was just a piece of paper”.  So he headed back home, but finally got his Ph.D. by marrying one (see below).  (Maybe he should’ve done his dissertation on English Clichés?)

For the next 20 years, Woody was blissfully engaged in the field of Information Technology (a field he enjoyed dabbling in as a sideline but never majored in), first at a financial institution of no small repute and then later at an educational institution of no big repute, before retiring to manage the family “business” (one where the kissing of rings is optional).  All this while, he did freelance writing for a local newspaper as a sideline (a debatable skill he picked up while writing for the Poly).

He still wears his “I’m not unemployed, I’m a consultant” t-shirt (although it’s getting tighter these days) and is focused on making sure his daughters don’t make the same mistakes he did (new/different ones of their own making are OK).

Best regards (especially to those who actually remember me), and sorry if this reads like an obit (for which it can easily be used).  And sorry for all the parenthetical follow ons (I couldn’t resist).

  

Younger daughter Patamon (“Wow” – the one wearing this year’s latest ski fashions) with dad (the one wearing 20 year old winter whatever-he-can-finds) on top of a mountain at Vail, CO this past spring vac ... BEFORE we accidentally skied down a mother-of-all moguls run.  (We weren’t smiling quite so much as we eked our way down.)  Wow, almost 15, is currently a “prep” (i.e. a freshman) at The Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, CT (Woody’s alma mater).  Not many pix of just the two of us, at least ones where you can actually see our eyes ...

Elder daughter Wasamon (“Waew”) and wife Sirilaksana (“Siri”) at the University of Oregon in Eugene, OR.  Waew, 20, is a sophomore at UO’s Lundquist School of Business, but will be transferring to Bentley College in Waltham, MA come Fall 2008.  Incidentally, the entire family spent 2000-2003 in Eugene when Siri taught at the UO as a Fulbright visiting professor (in Economics, please, not Business).  Siri has been teaching Economics at Thammasat University in Bangkok, Thailand since … umm … like forever.