CLASS OF 1982 | 2023 | SUMMER ISSUE
It’s really true that my memories of Reunion last year are fresh, but that’s probably because time flies by so quickly and May 2022 seems barely yesterday. I had a chance to see Michael Roth when he visited here at Stanford, and Wesleyan held a reception for him at the faculty club (hosted by Bill Greene ’86, P’20 and his wife Kera Greene). Michael joked that he was in town to discuss Stanford’s purchase of Wesleyan. In truth they have a plan for Wesleyan’s future and continued success and that was great to hear.
Ah, the marking of time: Kweku Forstall has good news to share. Grandparent news! “My wife Adrienne and I welcomed our first grandbaby into the world recently. Her name is Nora Marion Rash, born in Wilmington, North Carolina, to our youngest daughter Cailey Rash and her husband Caleb Rash.”
Ken Kaufman writes (after reading the last class notes) that he is suffering the ravaged of this passage of time, too, with health and life updates: “Lavinia Ross isn’t the only one. The only difference is that my cardiac incident waited till August. I even managed to shut down the D.C. Red Line for half an hour. In other news, I’m closing in on 15 years at the IRS and starting to cast an eye toward retirement.”
Mark Sirota writes that Anthony Pahigian came up from D.C. with his wife Gordana, and he met them, and some of their friends, at the Guggenheim in New York. “I can’t remember the name of the artist we went to see, but we had bagels for lunch.” My memory is like that too. No photos from Mark, but those sometimes help.
Steve Maizes (my second cousin, something I knew without the help of AncestryDNA or 23andMe) has career and class news: he recently joined CrossCountry Mortgage as the in-house lender for The Agency, the real estate brokerage in LA, which is notable because our classmate, Paul Lester, is partner there. “Excited to be working with Paul.”
Ginny Pye encouraged me to share my news, too, so I will relate a couple of things. I’ve had a chance to see Matt Solo a couple of times, and the last time I spoke with him, he was filling sandbags to help prevent his home from sliding off the hill into the valley. It still stands. Matt continues to work in television in LA. I also ran into my old friend Joe Barrett at the reunion. Our reconnection turned into a lovely working relationship. Because of my work in addictions, Joe invited me to join the board of Key Recovery and Life Skills Center, a nonprofit and the first residential drug and alcohol treatment center for substance use disorder in the Puget Sound region. (They have an innovative recycling center, too, Seadrunar, that partly funds their work.) It’s been really important work professionalizing the services they provide there under Joe’s leadership. Joe has just agreed to take over as the permanent CEO and he’s amazing! It is really meaningful work that they do, providing care to people and families in great need, and especially meaningful to be working with Joe, his partner Monica Ramsey, and an incredible board. What an enriching opportunity.
Laura and I continue to hope that you share your updates with us. With Class Notes now online, too, we can more easily keep people updated. Connections are so important, so please keep in touch.
Warmly,
Michael and Laura