About the Authors

Stephen J. Oddo

..was born in Guadalajara, Mexico, the youngest of five siblings, and currently resides in San Diego. Avalanche: Lessons of Love, which he co-wrote with his sister, Kris Ochoa-Keane, is his first published work. The book was a labor of love fifteen years in the making.

Steve grew up in San Diego. He attended University of San Diego High School where he lettered in multiple sports and was president of the Associated Student Body. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree at Santa Clara University, with a major in English and a minor in Spanish. He also earned his Masters of Science degree in Journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, before working for several years as a newspaper reporter. Steve later served as Press Secretary to U.S. Representative, Robert T. Matsui (D-Cal).

Steve earned his law degree from the University of San Diego School of Law. During law school, he served as intern for the Honorable Eugene Lynch, U.S. District Judge in the Northern District of California. For the past eleven years, Steve has worked as an attorney specializing in securities class actions, most recently with the law firm of Robbins Umeda LLP.

Kris Ochoa-Keane

…was born in Washington D.C., the first of five siblings. Kris is mother of six, step-mother of three and grandmother of eight and currently resides in San Diego. Avalanche: Lessons of Love, which she co-wrote with her brother, Stephen J. Oddo, is her first published work. The book was a labor of love fifteen years in the making.

After spending three years in Guadalajara, Mexico, where her father taught political science at a local university, the family settled in San Diego, where Kris graduated from Our Lady of Peace Academy. After attending the University of San Diego, Kris worked as a flight attendant for Western Airlines.

During a summer in Guadalajara, Kris met her husband-to-be, Mexican businessman Alfonso Ochoa, whom she married on November 11, 1973. Kris and Alfonso immediately started a family in Guadalajara, and welcomed sons Alfonso Jr., Carleric, Christofer, Jonathan and Nicholas, before finally adding daughter Annette to the mix. In addition to raising her children, Kris devoted herself to charity work, including the Organization for Infantile Nutrition (ONI), which fed 5,000 babies from very poor families four formula bottles a day in the perimeters of Guadalajara.

Alfonso was killed on March 12, 1991, in an avalanche while heli-skiing in British Columbia, Canada. Kris and her children relocated to San Diego, where the children finished their schooling. She met Dick Keane at a high school football game and after a brief courtship, married him in December 1996. After several wonderful years together, Dick died in October 2002 after suffering a stroke and battling pancreatic cancer.
Since 1997, Kris has worked as a bilingual Spanish interpreter, and currently operates V & K Interpreting in San Diego. She was also actively involved with her daughter Annette in National Charity League, a mother-daughter national philanthropic organization.

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