CLASS OF 1972 | 2017 | ISSUE 1

NEWSMAKERS | 1970s NEWSMAKER LEON VINCI ’72 Leon Vinci ’72 is now a national technical advisor on climate change for the National Environmental Health Association, a membership organization for practitioners and others working in environmental health. He has worked in the public health arena for the past 40 years, specializing in environmental and health policy. After a career in management of environmental and public health agencies, he serves as the CEO and president of Health Promotion Consultants, an environmental health consulting firm which he founded. He lectures frequently on environmental and public health topics and is an adjunct professor at Drexel University. A biology major at Wesleyan, he earned his MPH from Yale School of Medicine, and his doctorate in health policy from the Medical University of South Carolina.

We’ve got Reunion coming up, and it’s going to be great! If anyone needs any last-minute urging to attend, despite lingering doubts, read the following excerpts from the superb missive sent out by Andy Feinstein to some of you:

“Money: My experience has been that the development office people are substantially less aggressive than, say, timeshare salesmen in Mexico, or panhandlers in the NYC subway. Personally, I contribute to Wesleyan because I think keeping liberal arts education alive is vital to a civilized society. I wish I could give more. Yet, your coming to Reunion does not force you to contribute.

“Shame: Some folks avoid reunions because they fear invidious comparisons with more successful classmates. I have not found that to be true at all. There is a whole lot more conversation about family and sports than about career and income. Besides, many of our class members are post-retirement. (Not me.) Still, careers and success are just no longer relevant.

“Regrets: Some of us regret things we did on campus in the late ’60s and early ’70s, and don’t want to come back to campus to be reminded of it. In the first place, I will put my regrets up against anyone’s. Returning to campus is like PTSD therapy. One needs to confront the trauma to overcome it.

“Spouse: For years, you have been working assiduously to keep your spouse ignorant of your sordid college years. Coming to Reunion is just too risky. I understand the feeling. The fact is that we are all too old to remember what any of us did 45 years ago. So you have nothing to worry about.”

Ron Ashkenas is now semi-retired, which means that he’s busier than ever. He has a few clients with whom he is still working, and has added a number of pro-bono nonprofits to the roster. “It seems that when you say that you’ll work for free, there’s an unlimited amount of opportunity,” Ron observes. He has also agreed to write a leadership handbook for the Harvard Business Press, which adds to the busyness, but it’s all good.

Paul Vidich’s career as spy novelist continues apace. The sequel to An Honorable Man, titled The Good Assassin, is scheduled to be published this April. Here’s a blurb to whet your appetite: “The Good Assassin opens up Hemingway’s Cuba. Possessing Alan Furst’s attention for period detail and the deft character touches of John Le Carré, Vidich has quickly carved out a place for himself among the very first rank of espionage writers. It’s a masterful effort and the author’s best work to date.”—Michael Harvey, New York Times bestselling author.

Dave Hagerty retired after 35 years at his former leadership development consulting company, Blessing White, and is now doing executive coaching in the Harvard Business School Advanced Management program. He and wife Louise have sold their house in the South End of Boston and moved to Great Barrington in the Berkshires.

Bob “Whizzer” White does not limit his considerable gratitude and generosity to Wesleyan. Here is a wonderful piece documenting his continued support for National Medical Fellowships, which gave him grants enabling him to earn his medical degree: nmfonline.org/letter-nmf-alumni-robert-m-white-md.

Ted Mason is still working at Kenyon College in Ohio, as a professor of English, and also associate provost for diversity, equity, and inclusion. “As you can imagine,” he writes, “it’s a pretty busy time for those of us working in this field.”

Bonnie Blair’s son, Ross, has just completed a master’s in cybersecurity, likely affording better job security these days than becoming a lawyer. She went to Iceland for the week of the Presidential Inauguration “in hopes of seeing the Northern Lights, and in certainty of being far away from the Inauguration.”

Since retiring from CBS in 2013, Randall Pinkston worked as a freelancer, most frequently for Al Jazeera America. He also worked for The Carnegie Center for Ethics in International Affairs, CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, and the University of Mississippi Meek School of Journalism and New Media. He is scheduled to teach one class at SUNY Stony Brook. Randall also had a cameo in Sully, his first movie. He had lots of fun being directed by Mr. Eastwood. Randall is still married, grandfather of two girls and a boy, and living in New Jersey, but spending lots of time in Mississippi visiting family and working. His youngest daughter, Ada ’05, is a performance artist and teacher in Baltimore. Check out her productions  at LabBodies.com.

Jerry Ryan retired with his wife to Simpsonville, S.C. He is playing lots of golf and doing volunteer work. They cheered the Cubs on to a World Series Championship.

Seth A. Davis | sethdavis@post.harvard.edu
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