CLASS OF 2004 | 2023 | FALL ISSUE
Hey Class of 2004:
I continue to appreciate all the great updates you’re sharing! That said, see what your classmates are up to:
At a recent meetup in New York City, Nick Malinowski was finally able to extract a Netflix password from David Fine, who had brushed off previous entreaties with his typical affability. Both received a terse email from Gabe Spitzer ’05 who had noticed the exchange on the back end.
Abraham Lateiner is living in the Boston area where he’s been since graduation. His kids, Estella and Lulu, are 13 and 9, respectively, and he is learning the beauty and challenges of parenting a teenager!
During his 20s and early 30s, he taught middle school, got married, and had kids. He tells us: “Then I left teaching and began to learn about community organizing through Resource Generation, which works with young progressive people with wealth toward redistribution of land, wealth, and power. That led me to racial justice work with white people, and then anti-patriarchy work with men, and today, I primarily work with wealthy white men toward personal transformation in service of collective liberation. Lately, after going through a (mostly amicable) divorce, I’ve been rediscovering who I am. I’ve been hard at work promoting a book by my colleague, Garrett Neiman, entitled Rich White Men: What It Takes to Uproot the Old Boys’ Club and Transform America. But I’m most excited about developing a noncoercive debate space for men, called The Arena. When not doing that kind of work, I’m learning how to baton twirl and love taking myself out to the movies. I’m looking forward to seeing folks at reunion next year!”
Christopher Kaminstein tells us: “Living in New Orleans (I’ve been here since 2008) with my wife, Laura Stein ’03, and our three-year-old daughter, Lia. I run a theater company called Goat in the Road Productions that makes original plays and offers educational programming in schools.”
After six years at Fountain, Mark Schindler left the company in June and is starting his own venture. Mark is working with venture capital–backed start-ups in a fractional capacity to advance their organizational development and internal operations. The new business keeps him on the road to NYC and Chicago, and he enjoys playing the Leo McGarry-like role for founders and leaders of companies that are looking to grow or improve their internal organization. Mark recently reconnected with classmate Chris Mele and fellow lacrosse teammate Pete Salisbury ’03 about his new venture, and he and his daughter spent an afternoon in Middletown in August. (Her first college visit!) It was great being back, seeing the old and new buildings, and running into Coach Raba as well.
Kieran Meadows tells us: “Happy to announce that an independent feature documentary I helped produce (and do some music supervision for), Bad Like Brooklyn Dancehall, was an official selection of the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival. At its world premiere in June, our executive producer, Shaggy, gave an exhilarating performance afterward, alongside dancehall star Ding Dong and dancehall legends Screechy Dan and Red Fox. The doc was also the recipient of the 2023 Better Angels Lavine Fellowship (a component of The Library of Congress Lavine/Ken Burns Prize for Film) and was the winner of the 2022 Gotham Documentary Award from Decentralized Pictures Foundation. As of this writing, we’re looking to get the film on a streaming platform so a wider audience can enjoy it. Fingers crossed that will happen soon.
Meanwhile, I can’t believe I’ve been working at Forbes for over a decade now. You can listen to me host the Forbes Daily Briefing seven days a week, which highlights some of the best reporting and stories from Forbes. Go subscribe to it on any podcast platform feed where it’s available. And as always, I continue to plot out the next steps on my ever-evolving journey that is my music/DJ/sound providing career. (Speaking of which, I’m happy to have connected with a whole next generation of Wes alums in Brooklyn via fellow DJ Everton Laidley ’14.)”
I’d like to close this round of notes with a brief recognition of unexpected loss of a fellow Wes ’04 grad, Amy Posocco. She died on a lake in New Hampshire in July. Meeghan Ward shares some words below about her best friend:
“We very sadly and unexpectedly loss a fellow Wes ‘04 grad, Amy Posocco, last weekend. She died in an accident on a lake in New Hampshire, Friday, [July 7, 2023].
Amy was my best friend at Wesleyan—we captained the basketball team together, were roommates three years, and stayed lifelong friends when we lived in Boston, and as both of us moved abroad over the years. I’m heartbroken, as is the vibrant and diverse community of friends and family she built over the years. She was a proud Wes graduate, and her learning there helped her begin a very impactful career in education, setting up programs in the U.S. and abroad in Abu Dhabi.”
Here’s to keeping Amy in mind.
Thank you for all your updates. Please send any upcoming updates to wes04classnotes@gmail.com.
All best,
Jenina