CLASS OF 1978 | 2015 | ISSUE 2
Ken writes:
Elizabeth Bachman continues her work as a presentation skills trainer (“The Starmaker for Speakers”)—along with her role as an international opera director, in which she has worked with the likes of Luciano Pavarotti. In the summers she runs TOP Opera, an operatic training program in the Austrian Alps.
Nancy Chen has made the move to Colorado (Fort Collins) from New York’s Long Island. She’s enjoying her active outdoor life there, and continues her leadership coaching and seminar business. She will be an empty-nester this fall, when daughter Isabelle begins at Seattle University, where she plans to pursue women’s studies. Her daughter, Ariane, will be a senior at Chapman University (Orange, Calif.); Nancy is looking forward to visiting her in New Zealand next semester while she studies environmental sciences abroad.
Gary Friedmann lives in Bar Harbor, where, as vice chair of the town council, he has been moving the town toward a sustainable future. Bar Harbor has just approved the first municipally-approved solar farm in Maine as an energy source for its operations, and additionally allows its residents to buy into a photovoltaic array to power their own homes.
Andy Futterman and wife Amy Wolfson are moving from Worcester, Mass., “after 25 wonderful years as professors in the psychology department at Holy Cross,” to Loyola University in Baltimore, Md. She will serve as their vice president of academic affairs; Andy will continue as a psychology professor there. He reports that they are quite excited about the move and look forward, as longtime St. Louis Cardinals fans along with their son, Noah, to rooting for the Orioles against both the Red Sox and Yankees.
Tim Hollister’s book for parents of teenage drivers, Not So Fast, will be published in Spanish this September (Chicago Review Press) in an effort to reach the large Spanish-speaking populations of 10 states now licensing undocumented residents. In October, his book, His Father Still: A Parenting Memoir, will be published by Argo Navis; it is “the story of parenting my son before and after his fatal crash, and how I learned much more about him, and rebuilt our parent-child relationship, after his passing.”
Lucy Mize reports that “my son Thaddeus Brown ’17 is halfway through his Wesleyan experience and enjoying every minute of it, including being on the crew team.” Lucy has recently returned to the States after 20 years abroad, to take on her new job as health team leader for the Asia Bureau of USAID. The new position nonetheless involves extensive travel from the U.S.; she will next be sailing from Fiji to Papua New Guinea on the USNS Mercy, serving as a trainer for the Defense Department in development issues.
Ruth Pachman writes: “I had a great experience serving as chair of the Wesleyan Fund for three years—it got me back to campus a lot and gave me the chance to connect with students, faculty, administrators, and alums from many classes while raising money for financial aid. I’ve also been involved with Union Settlement, a vital nonprofit for East Harlem, and just transitioned into the role of board chair. My day job continues to be as a managing director at Kekst, where I focus on strategic and crisis communications and corporate governance. Don Fallati ’76 and I are now empty-nesters, with our son Mark having finished his first year at Swarthmore where he plays on the tennis team. We now eagerly follow college tennis stats at two schools!”
Racheal Pine’s two “amazing daughters” have done some amazing traveling this past year: one studied abroad in Mongolia this past spring, while the other journeyed throughout Southeast Asia during a gap year (“…to be that age again!”).
Robert Poss reports that his two primary pursuits, experimental music and location sound, have been going well in recent months. In December he performed on electric guitar in Paris and London, and also spent time in Miami working at Art Basel on a documentary film about the Dutch artist Theo Jansen. In June he performed his original score with the Alexandra Beller/Dances company, at La MaMa theater in New York City (“The New York Times called my music “meditative,” a rather far cry from my wall of noisy guitars group, Band Of Susans, it would seem.”)
Lynn Thomas reports continued success in her consulting business, which focuses on “increasing company profits through client and employee retention, loyalty, engagement, and delight!”—and has just published her book, Wow! Your Way to Profits. She continues to love Boston, along with her new home (“my 14-year-old daughter, my 25-year-old nephew and our 18-month-old pooch Bentley are all settling in well”)—and is always eager to connect with Wes alums.