Class of 1982 | 2014 | Issue 1
Thanks to all of you who sent updates—they’re always eagerly anticipated and appreciated!
First things first: Somewhere in the cutting and pasting of e-mails, I managed to bungle Susan Budlong Cole’s name in my last class notes. (So sorry, Susan!) Susan is on her second retirement, having ended a 25-year career providing treatment for those with drug and alcohol addictions back in 2004, and now has wrapped up a seven-year career in financial planning and research. “I continue with my volunteer teaching at York Correctional Institution with Wally Lamb and the Inmate Writers’ Group.”
Anne Heller Anderson has settled in northern California. “I have not been back to Wesleyan since 1980, when I transferred to UC, Berkeley. But I am excited to say I will be back on campus again… with my daughter, Brooke, for the Sons and Daughters Program for high school juniors,” she writes. “I can’t wait to see the Usdan Campus Center, the organic farm, and Foss 6, my freshman dorm. Hope to see some of our 1982 classmates and their sons or daughters at the program!”
Lots of exciting career moves to report: Kweku Forstall in January becomes the Atlanta civic site director for the Annie E. Casey Foundation.
Steven Maizes writes: “I am helping to open the new Los Angeles office for Guaranteed Rate mortgage, one of the largest mortgage bankers in the country. I have helped a lot of Wesleyan alumni get loans over the years in California, and we can now do loans in all 50 states.”
Joseph Dow is the senior compliance manager for the Boston Public Schools’ Office of English Language Learners. He has two sons, Aaron and Noah, ages 10 and 13. Joseph says that since leaving Wesleyan, he keeps in touch with his “classmate/former roommate and best friend, Douglas Borton, now the internationally famous writer, Michael Prescott.”
Carson Milgroom has been leading an “ordinary life on the plateau, happy and healthy, blessed” in Newton, Mass. He’s married and has two sons, 11 and 14, who are home-schooled. “I’m still playing hardcore amateur baseball around Boston,” he writes, “Just spent a week down in Fort Myers in a tournament my team won. Got to play at JetBlue Stadium/Fenway South.” Carson adds that he’s best reached at milgroom@gmail.com, and promises to send “another update in 20 years.”
Carl Schwaber writes that since 2009, he’s been living in Los Angeles and working as an actor. “Most recently, I booked and shot a co-star role on the TV series, Criminal Minds. I play a pimp who poses as a butcher in the episode that aired on Nov. 27, 2013, on CBS. More at carlschwaber.com
Congratulations to Jeff Phelon, who writes that he recently married JoAnn Sidor in Manchester, Conn.
“My brother, Pete Phelon ’85, was the best man. Paul and Fran Carroll Strumph from the Class of 1982 were also there to celebrate!” he says.
Wesleyan continues to beckon successive generations of Cardinals whose parents are alums.
“We (Robert Smythe and Susan Dinsmore Smythe) had a great time visiting campus with son Harry (hopes to be Wes ’18),” Susan writes, “Got to wander all around memory lane, including into the ’92 Theater, where I was happy to see posters on display of shows we were involved in along with Brian Snedeker. We were lucky enough to stay with Di Longley and Chris Diamond ’85, and also got to catch up with John Giammatteo ’81 and his lovely wife, daughter, and baby son! ”
Susan adds: “Robert continues teaching at Temple University and acting in Philadelphia and beyond. I continue to work as a project manager in facilities at Swarthmore College, and am finishing up eight years in local government.”
Alex Thomson says he, Kevin Foley, and John McIntyre ’86, “all enjoyed rowing together at The Head of the Charles this year in the Senior Masters Eights category.”
Julie Kraushaar Zurcher writes that she and her family now live in California, after returning from six years in Basel, Switzerland. “Am enjoying the convenience and customer-oriented aspects of life in America, and have re-connected with Michael Ostacher, who does return my e-mail but is busily living the Silicon Valley life, so I haven’t seen him recently. (But I still love ya, Mike!)” She is also good friends with Heyward Robinson ’80, who would have graduated with the Wes class of 1980 had he not decamped to Duke after two years.
Empty nester Dave Hessekiel makes a standing offer: “Classmates: Consider this an invitation to come on by for a visit to Rye!” Dave and wife Andi “miss our girls (Kira graduated from Tufts in May and is teaching English in France; Sophie is a sophomore at Vassar)” but they’re also enjoying their newfound freedom. Dave was on tour in Beijing, Seoul, and Ljubljana, Slovenia, for the book Good Works! which he co-authored last year.
Naomi Fuchs says she is enjoying life in Sebastopol, Calif., with her husband of 30 years, David Willson. “We have three grown children and two grandchildren with another on the way. I found my dream job as the CEO of Santa Rosa Community Health Centers, a community clinic providing primary care, mental health, and obstetrics to 40,000 low-income, underserved people in the greater Santa Rosa area.”
Peter Brooks is living in West Windsor, N.J., with his wife, two poodles, and the youngest of his four children. He has been CEO of a technology services company owned by Geisinger Health System in Pennsylvania for the last 10 years, after stints at two engineering software firms and three years running his own software company in Cambridge, Mass. His two middle children are in college, and the oldest graduated and is living and working in Brooklyn. He writes that he “still loves music and plays the cello often.”
Greg Ward is a board certified physician specializing in rehabilitation and pain management, and is founder of the Louisiana Institute of Physical Medicine in Baton Rouge. He forwarded a bio stating that he is the proud father of two daughters and is an avid fisherman.
Bill Anschell, who lives in Seattle, recently served on a National Endowment for the Arts music panel. In 2013, he released his first CD of original electronica. He says that over the years, he’s had many of his compositions placed in TV and film by LoveCat Music, which is owned by Randy Frisch ’84.
Anne Hietbrink writes: “I’ve been out of touch with most of my Wesleyan connections for a while. I am living part-time on Lopez Island in Washington State and part-time near Monterey in California with my long-time partner and now spouse (yay!), Beth Shirk, and our two dogs. I am drawing, writing, and exploring pottery after a career working with outliers of various descriptions. I am an enthusiastic cyclist, fascinated by the physics and the fun of those wheels going round. I am curious about my beloveds from the Wesleyan years.”
Stephanie Griffith
stephaniedgriffith@gmail.com