DAVID S. WATT, vice president for risk management with Via Health, Inc., died May 20, 2004. He was a member of Psi Upsilon. A health care administrator, he received a master’s degree in business administration from Cornell University. He is survived by his wife, Judith, two daughters and a son.
From Schenectady, N.Y., the one-time Deke, Peter Tobiessen is appearing for the first time in this column! He has been married for 45 years to Joanne who, like Peter, has retired from Union College, where they both worked. She was an administrator and he taught in the biology department for 36-plus years. Their son is a playwright who has written three plays, each of which was produced in different cities around the country, one off Broadway in the Big Apple. John, still an ardent biologist, has written a book well reviewed in nature/ecology/outdoor circles titled The Secret Life of a Lake, The Ecology of Northern Lakes and their Stewardship (Graphite Press, 2012). His goal was to help lake users and lovers and non-scientists to understand how a lake works, stays balanced and how to keep lakes that way. Not just a good wordsmith, he was also part of a group of hands-on history buffs in the Albany area who built from scratch a 52-foot, 29-ton white oak replica of the first covered deck ship built in what we now call Manhattan. Named the Onrust, it was finished in time to join a fleet of 15 historic vessels and countless private and commercial boats that all joined in a 140-mile reenactment of Henry Hudson’s trip up the Hudson River, 400 years after his journey. The Onrust also took part in a renewal enactment of the 400th anniversary of Two Row Wampum Treaty, which was the first treaty between white settlers and America Indians, in this case the Haudenosaunee. Some of the simple, hopeful words of that treaty are: “As long as the grass is green, rivers run down hill and the sun still rises in the East and sets in the West…” There are many interesting pictures and write ups about it on the Web, as there are about Peter’s book.
For 35 years Dick Donat worked for Marshall Field’s, eventually becoming manager of their flagship store in Chicago after being very successful in increasing the income of Marshall Field’s stores in smaller cities. Dick says that when he arrived in Chicago, the flagship store was very conservative, with very little diversity in its staffing and customer base. This he worked hard, and with considerable success, to change. One result was that the store that had made a steady $1,000,000 a year from ’36–’84, started growing its income to $5,500,000 a year over the next eight-and-a-half years. Dick was in Chicago during a period when the downtown business hub went into a terrible decline, eventually reversed as the Millennium Park development brought business back to the downtown area. Dick and his wife, Charlotte (who also worked at Marshall Field’s, where they met), have been married for 35 years and have four children, two from a previous marriage and two from their marriage. They are now very involved taking care of their aging parents and one son who is disabled. They live in the Glencoe suburb of Chicago and Dick is quite interested in studying the history of changes in the Chicago headquarters of Marshall Fields, where he worked for so long.
From Walt Donaghy: “Jim Mattson passed away quietly in his sleep on July 22, 2013. He was with his family (children and grandchildren ) on a family vacation in North Carolina when he died. He will be missed by all of us
“Jim and I were roommates all four years at Wesleyan. We were members of Sigma Nu/Kappa Nu Kappa and lived on the top floor of our fraternity house for our second, third and fourth years. We’ve been friends ever since the fall of 1959, our freshman year, when we were assigned to a double room in Andrus Hall on Foss Hill.
“Jim (‘Matt’) played football (#22, halfback and punter) freshman year through senior year. A few years ago he told me that he held the punting record at Wesleyan until very recently. Of course Wesleyan had to have some serious losing games in those years to establish a punting record! Too many ‘3 and outs.’
“Matt wrote a nice, brief and modest bio for our 50th Reunion Book. He couldn’t make it to our 50th Reunion because his grandson was playing in a very important baseball tournament that weekend. As always, Matt had his priorities right. Family comes first.”
John Driscoll ’62 adds: “A call to our sports information office yields the following: Jim established the record for punting average in a single game against Middlebury in his sophomore year (1960) with an average of 44.5 yards, a record that stood for 37 years , until the ’97 season.
“I remember a tall, rangy and talented teammate who was known for his poise and performance, more than noise and excessive emotion.”
Walter Pilcher has also written a book: The Five Fold Effect: Unlocking Power Leadership for Amazing Results in Your Organization. And in mid-November he appeared on The 700 Club TV show to discuss his book. In the book, he draws on his and others’ church and business experiences to lay out the steps that could help create highly successful leadership teams. Walt’s wife of 49 years was a RN student at the nursing school in Middletown, which is where he met her. (And no, he did not meet her on one of our freshman panty raids on their dorms. So put that thought right out of your heads!) They have three children. After graduation they both attended Regents University in Virginia Beach and later for 12 years they were involved with its board of trustees. He has been retired from “gainful employment” but is active on the Board of Global Awakening. Walt also writes short stories and songs that he sings for groups while accompanying himself on the guitar, which he has learned to play. Recently he and Carol took a river cruise in Europe from Budapest to Amsterdam, which was very relaxing with plenty of good food and local wines.
For 44 years Jerry Berka has practiced law. He has a general practice, so he’s handled a very wide range of cases. At Wes he had started out pre-med but changed his mind along the way and has had no regrets about that. He is quite pleased that one of his daughters, after studying clinical psychology for two years, has switched over to law and is now on her way to becoming a partner in her firm. She has been attached to Family Court, where her psych background is very helpful. He and Mary Ann, his wife of 45 years, have a second daughter who is a veterinarian in California. Mary Ann was a professor at Nassau Community College for 44 years and still works part time. They live in the small village of Brightwaters, a small enclave of Bayshore, N.Y., on Long Island. They have had a house in the Adirondacks on Schroon Lake for 30 years. There was a time when Jerry did a fair amount of mountain climbing, but those days are past. They like to sail and have been “all over the Caribbean” and along the West Coast. And for 40 years he’s owned a motor boat on Long Island Sound. After law school, he entered the USN, one of only 41 law school graduates selected by the USN for JAG that year. Lt. Berka served from ’66–’69. He thinks that his frequent pre-Wes summer jobs on Long Island ferry boats helped his prospects with the USN, as they might have felt that unlike most other law school graduates, he was already somewhat used to “the sea” (if that term can be applied to Long Island Sound). Jerry feels that public service is very important. He has worked long and hard on school building funds projects and served many years on the Bayshore Board of Education, and he was a long time chair of the Student College Aid Fund. Apparently his work was noticed and there is now a Jerry Berka Building at the public school.
If any of you know of anyone who has never appeared in these notes, or of whom you have not heard in many a long year, please contact me and I will try to track him down.
BYRON S. MILLER
5 Clapboard hill rd., westport, ct 06880
tigr10@optonline.net
ADOLPH G. SCHWENK, a retired Lieutenant General in the U.S. Marine Corps, died Mar. 24, 2004. He was 81. A member of Delta Kappa Epsilon, he was the brother of the late Otto G. Schwenk ’30 and of the late Gustav A. Schwenk Jr. ’33; he was also the cousin of the late William C. Schwenk ’39. Among those who survive are his wife, Mary Kaiser Schwenk, and two children.
RICHARD A. MONROE, a real estate broker, died Nov. 29, 2009, at age 68. A U.S. Navy veteran, he was a member of Kappa Nu Kappa, received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Louisville, and then received an MBA from Indiana University. He is survived by his wife, Pauline Roberts Monroe, two sisters, and a large extended family.
STEPHEN M. LEVIN, M.D., 70, who played a leading role in bringing attention to the medical needs of thousands of firefighters, police officers and other rescue workers who breathed in the caustic dust from the collapse of the World Trade Center Towers, and who was co-director of the Irving J. Selikoff Center for Occupational and Environmental Medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, died Feb. 7, 2012.Elected to Phi Beta Kappa, he received his degree with honors and then received his medical degree from New York University. An advocate for workers and a specialist in occupational medicine, his research and advocacy led to the passage of the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, which allocated money to provide medical care to responders. Among those who survive are his wife, Robin Levin; his mother, Sarah Schurr; three sons; his daughter; and his sister.
DENNIS L. KENNEDY, a clinical psychologist, died Feb. 2, 2010. He was 68. A member of Eclectic, he received his doctoral degree from the University of North Carolina. He was the chief psychologist at the Child Guidance Center in Winston–Salem and then shared a private practice, the Carroll–Kennedy Clinic, with his wife until he retired due to illness. Survivors include his wife, Elizabeth Carroll Kennedy, his mother, two children, three grandchildren, and a large extended family.
An investment banker and management consultant, died Jan. 22, 2013. He was 71. A member of Psi Upsilon, he received an MBA from Harvard University. He began his career at Halle & Stieglitz, the Wall Street investment firm founded by his great-grandfather, but his private sector career focus was leadership training. The founder of M.T.D. Associates, Inc., a management and financial consulting firm to large banks and industrial companies, he also dedicated much of his professional life to public service, first working on anti-poverty programs in New York City and then working on U.S. foreign aid and development programs. As a late-blooming artist, he studied abstract painting at The Art Students League of New York, where he was awarded a merit scholarship. He is survived by three children, five grandchildren, and two former wives, Anne Holliss Young and Rosana Pereira Lima.
ALEXANDER “TOM” GALLOWAY, II ’63 died Friday, March 26, 2004, at his home following extended illness. He was 62.
Born in Orange, he lived most of his life in Mountain Lakes before moving to Denville six years ago. He graduated from Hill School, Pottstown, Pa., in 1959, received his bachelor’s degree from Wesleyan University in 1964, where he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon Fraternity and earned his law degree from Albany Law School of Union University in 1967. He began his law career as a principal law clerk in the Office for Local Government of the Executive Department of the State of New York (now the Division of Community Affairs of the Secretary of the State’s office); became associated with the law firm of Sykes, Galloway & Dikeman in New York City in 1967 where he became a partner in 1972; then a partner of Willkie Farr& Gallagher in 1976 when the two law firms merged. For most of that time he specialized in the practice of municipal securities law. In 2000, Mr. Galloway became senior counsel in the Public Finance Department of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, LLP, where he was currently practicing.
He was a former member of the Board of Governors of the Lawyer’s Club in New York City and a former member of the Committee for Continuing Legal Education of the New York State Bar Association. He was past-chairperson of the Executive Committee of the Municipal Law Section of Superintendents and an associate member of the New York State Council of School Superintendents and the New York State Association of School Business Officials.
Mr. Galloway was a frequent speaker and panel member at forums, seminars, and functions sponsored by the New York State Bar Association, the New York State Association of Counties, the New York State Association of Towns, the New York State Conference of Mayors, the New York State Department of Audit and Control, and the New York State Association of County Treasurers.
In addition, Mr. Galloway was a member of the St. Andrews Society of the State of New York, the St. Nicholas Society, and the 1st New York Continental Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution.
He is survived by his wife of 19 years, Rebecca (nee Brice); two sons, Alexander T. Galloway, III of Marietta, Ga., and Gordon S.M. Galloway of Selinsgrove, Pa.; two daughters, Heather G. Hunts of Pagosa Springs, Colo., and Meghan G. Richards of Mechanicsville, Va.; his twin brother, A. Neilson Galloway Jr. of Largo, Fla.; his sister, Jean G. Ward of Sea Girt, and four grandchildren, Samantha and John Hunts, Caitlin Galloway, and Lauren Richards.
