Anne Kakela

Anne Kakela rowed the eight at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, sitting in the bow. Kakela rowed at the World Championships in 1993-95, winning five medals in the four and eight. She won a gold in the eight in 1995, and silvers in the four and eight in both 1993 and 1994.

Kakela rowed in college at Dartmouth. After the Olympics she worked as a teaching assistant and research project coordinator at the University of Colorado for a year. She then worked for Nokia Internet Communications and Andersen Consulting (later Accenture) for four years.

In 2003 Kakela became coach of the masters women’s program at Lake Union Crew in Seattle, Washington. In 2004 she became an assistant women’s coach at Oregon State University, where her husband, Fred Honebein, also a 1996 rowing Olympian, was the head men’s coach.

In 2006 Honebein was named head coach at the University of Pennsylvania. Kakela and Honebein also started Empacher North America. Empacher makes high-end racing shells and is based out of Steamboat Springs, Colorado.