CLASS OF 1981 | 2021–2022 | WINTER ISSUE
Summer greetings! As I started writing this edition of the Class Notes, July 4th fireworks were exploding in the background. And now, I am gazing out upon the rolling hills, fields, and vineyards of Tuscany. It’s been a joy to travel again and spend time with our kids, despite masks, sanitizer, and thermometers. As more and more people get vaccinated world-wide, life is slowly returning to a “new normal.” Fingers crossed we tackle the new variant(s) and this quickly becomes history.
On behalf of my Reunion co-chairs, Delcy Ziac Fox and Nancy Parker Wilson, I’d like to extend a very big and heartfelt thank you to everyone who served on our 40th Reunion Committee. Many hours of meetings resulted in a series of fun, interesting, and informative Zoom events for our virtual rolling reunion. Special thanks to those who chaired sub-groups or were major speakers. Thanks also to Paul DiSanto, and to Mike Schramm and his Wes-based team. All the events were convivial and filled with memories, laughter and many reminiscences.
Delcy Ziac Fox reports that she recently had dinner with former InTown 21 housemate Jim Sullivan ’82. Delcy adds that she’s “thrilled to be retired after 35 years in marketing and communication! I am spending summer on Cape Cod. During the holidays, my family plans to visit our son Liam, who lives in the Netherlands.”
Jeremy Kenner writes from “down under” where, he says, they are “blessed with only semi-corrupt national politicians and fairly competent state leaders . . . and where the occupants of this island are a bit more community-oriented and rule-abiding than the average American.” He continues, “My five sons, all in Melbourne and ranging from 34 to 8, are all coping one way or another and I am still employed by the Australian government as an advisor (ethics) to our version of the NIH. It’s a pretty good job and I was ‘in the room’ (but not at the table) for lots of government policy discussions about COVID for most of 2020.” Jeremy remains in contact with Bob Stern ’80, Suzanne Hinman, and Anji ’82 and Todd Citron ’83 as well as some occasional Facebook interactions.
Congratulations to Sandy and Barb Martin Herzlich, who welcomed their second grandchild, Joanie Jet Herzlich, in November 2020, joining her brother Boston King Herzlich as the children of their oldest son Mark. Sandy pulled the plug on his full-time working career and retired on May 31st, his 63rd birthday, and is now looking forward to spending time coaching high school football.
Lisette Cooper recently sold her company, Athena Capital Advisors, but stayed on with Fiduciary Trust International, overseeing sustainable investing; she also continues to serve on a few nonprofit boards. Congratulations to Lisette for being named to “Worth’s 2021 List of 50 Women Changing The World” for her work in shareholder engagement and impact investing. She has two sons in the Bay Area, one in financial tech and the other in the wine business, and a daughter in Massachusetts working to stop sex trafficking of children. Lisette spends summers in Massachusetts and now winters in Delray Beach. She would love to hear from you at lisette0001@gmail.com
“After 13 years at PlayStation working on the PS3, PS4 and the start of the PS5,” says Ned Lerner, “I founded my fifth startup, Hearo.Live (in 2017). Hearo makes watching Netflix, Disney+, TV or YouTube with your family and friends anywhere easy and fun. Before COVID, it seemed like co-watching might be a strange thing to do, but not anymore. If you try Hearo, let me know what you think!” He balances all that mental energy by training to run the Boston Marathon in October. Good luck, Ned!
Chuck Zabriskie writes that he and wife Nora were delighted to see Greg Andris and his wife Naomi while their daughter toured nearby Rice University. “Rice won the competition,” he added, “so we look forward to seeing them more frequently over the next four years.”
Diane Goldstein Stein has some exciting news: “We now officially have three Wesleyan alumni in our nuclear family, and we’ve been gratefully together for much of the pandemic. Daughter Lisa Stein ’21 produced and had the lead in Missy Mazzoli’s modern opera Song from the Uproar at Wes in late February 2020, before the world shut down, and that was the start of Lisa (singer, cellist, composer) being home with us for the next 15 months.” Lisa finished her final years remotely; produced her first vocal album, Sonic Salve; performed some virtual concerts; and virtually co-led the weekly Wesleyan Nigun Circle (niguncircle.com), which she started freshman year. Son Matthew Stein ’16 (violinist, composer, puzzle designer) joined the family in Allentown, Pennsylvania from San Francisco mid-summer 2020; besides working remotely on his puzzle design business, Enigmida, Matthew performed some virtual concerts with Lisa, and, together, they designed a print-and-play social justice Passover puzzle game (escapetheplagues.com). Diane continues, “Happily, my husband and I got to enjoy Matthew and Lisa jamming together while they were both home. Matthew will return to the Bay Area in August to continue his creative endeavors, Lisa already headed out to her first post-grad job, and soon, my husband and I will have to adjust to being empty nesters once again. My pandemic life has included starting to practice yoga, teaching my religious school via Zoom, and leading a volunteer effort to help the indigenous Maya weavers we met in 2018 and 2020 in Guatemala through MayaWorks. I’ve also enjoyed the rolling ’81 Virtual Reunion events and keeping regularly in touch with Leslie Sundt Stratton.