Patrick Allen ‘97 and Ayliz Allen ‘97, undergraduate students in business and business administration respectively, first met in a marketing class at UCR. As of now, they have been married for 14 years.

“ We sat next to each other in discussion, and we became friends and started dating,” Patrick said. 

“We kept in touch and eventually got married and have two beautiful boys,” Ayliz added.

Though almost 20 years into their marriage, the two were not initially able to be together physically. Each was pursuing a graduate degree, and while Ayliz stayed in Riverside, Patrick had to move to San Diego.

“ Email was pretty new, so we were still writing letters at the beginning,” Ayliz said. “ I went on to a graduate degree and he went on to get his master's in accounting from San Diego State. So we just kept in touch, and then we finally decided to take the next step.”

FEATURED PHOTO. A young Patrick and Ayliz Allen during their undergraduate years at UCR.