A L U M N I
P R O F I L E
M A G A Z I N E
“ Every individual is gifted with a unique potential that defines a destiny.” — Joseph W. Gauld, Founder of Hyde School
A Message from Hyde’s Founder WHAT FORM WILL HYDE TAKE IN THE NEXT 50 YEARS? The biggest single influence will be the spirit that emanates from Hyde’s alumni and their parents. Why? Because these are the people who formed the foundation of Hyde’s first 50 years. I founded Hyde School as a solution to an American education system that failed to recognize the deeper potential of each individual student. We began with the belief that every person is gifted with a unique potential that defines a destiny. I believed, and continue to believe, that focusing on the development of character leads to deeper and longer-lasting fulfillment in life. The Five Words adorning the school’s shield since our founding in 1966—Courage, Integrity, Leadership, Curiosity, and Concern—have guided our lives. As our work with students and families continued, we added Five Core Principles—Destiny, Humility, Conscience, Truth, and Brother’s Keeper—to solidify Hyde as a home and a united community. The Words and Principles will continue to help us navigate our next 50 years. This magazine is a tribute to and recognition of the success realized in the lives of so many Hyde alumni and parents. Its contents are only a sample of the powerful and inspirational stories to be found within the whole of our Hyde community. Alumni and parents alike form the foundation of our school’s legacy, and so in these pages you will see tributes to both individuals and entire families. We recognize the value inherent in everyone who has crossed paths with Hyde; we believe that everyone who has experienced Hyde should count themselves amongst our alumni. We hope you feel pride in your membership to this community. I know I do. I am honored to know that the value of Hyde’s guiding Words and Principles, the hallmarks of a Hyde education, have impacted so many and will continue to impact the lives and stories of future generations of students and families. With enthusiasm and grace, we look forward to what our future brings. Gratefully,
Joseph W. Gauld, Founder
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50 YEARS OF HYDE HISTORY 1966 1985
Joe Gauld founds Hyde School in Bath, Maine. Hyde School was founded with a focus on the Five Words: Courage, Integrity, Leadership, Curiosity, and Concern.
1966
Hyde is reconstituted with a new leadership and governance structure.
1971
1989
Co-education begins.
Hyde is featured on 60 Minutes.
1970
1980
1990
1974
1988
Hyde’s signature Family Education program begins, helping parents help their kids develop the character they need to discover their unique potential.
The Five Principles— Destiny, Humility, Conscience, Truth, & Brother’s Keeper—are adopted.
1976 The America’s Spirit (performing arts for all) curriculum begins.
Since 1966, Hyde has experienced a rich history filled with numerous milestones.
2006 1993
Hyde successfully completes Hyde@40, our first ever capital campaign.
The first of several Hyde public models is founded in New Haven, CT.
2016 Hyde celebrates its first half-century!
Hyde Leadership Charter School in South Bronx, NY opens as a public K-12 college preparatory school serving 950 students and their families.
50 YEARS
1996 A second boarding campus is established in Woodstock, CT.
2000
2010
2016
1998 The Eustis property, a beautiful 600-acre wilderness campus in the pristine Bigelow Mountains on Flagstaff Lake in Maine opens.
1999 Hyde Leadership Public Charter School in Washington D.C. opens as a pre-K-12 public school
2010 Hyde Leadership Charter School in Brooklyn, NY opens as a public K-5 school serving 375 students and their families.
2002
2014
Laura and Malcolm Gauld publish The Biggest Job We’ll Ever Have— The Hyde School Program for Character-Based Education and Parenting (Scribner).
Maine State Leadership Program is established.
Alumni and Family Profiles Our alumni and families are our legacy out in the world, and they are doing amazing things. In these pages we have compiled the stories of those who have felt the importance of Hyde’s mission and allowed the School’s Words and Principles to guide them as they make myriad contributions to the world around them.
Paul Hurd Paul Hurd ’67 (1948-2013) was, without question, emblematic of all that comprises the Hyde experience. In explaining his significance to those less familiar with either Paul or Hyde, it may be instructive to list a few of the many Hyde “firsts” attributed to him: • Per the concise notation in his student file, Paul was the “1st candidate for admission interviewed at Hyde School.” • Paul scored the first touchdown at a Hyde football game, thereby also scoring the first points in a Hyde athletic conference. • Paul was the first alumnus to teach at Hyde.
HYDE-BATH ’67
While speaking to a group of his fellow Williams College alumni, former President James Garfield described the ideal educational setting as one which included Williams’ founder Mark Hopkins “on one end of a log and a student on the other.” Similarly, the Hyde community would surely agree that the ideal school environment has Paul Hurd seated at a dining room table alongside a student. Paul sat with and talked to any student who did (or, in some cases, did not) want to sit with him. He truly believed that each and every student deserved his commitment, wisdom, and love. Evidence of Paul’s impact overflowed from former students in the wake of his untimely and tragic passing in 2013. A 2005 Woodstock alum remembered Paul as a hero without a cape who “changed the world”, while another named him “the Hyde’s entrepreneurial character requires a pioneering
greatest educator I’ve ever known” and an inspiration. A 1990
spirit, and there is arguably no more pioneering a decision
alum recalled Paul’s reputation as “The Attitude Whisperer”,
for a young man to make than choosing to become the first
a man who believed in his students even when they struggled
enrollee at a brand new school. Paul and his wife Laurie ’75
with their own self-confidence. A 1993 alum recalls an
were champions of this pioneering spirit throughout their
educator who was “tough as they come, yet tender and kind.”
tenure at Hyde, as exemplified by their willingness to serve in leadership capacities on the founding faculties of two other
One alum’s heartfelt reflections seem to sum up the
Hyde School models, one private (Woodstock, CT) and one
collective memories of all those who came into contact
public (New Haven, CT).
with Paul:
Paul touched the lives of almost everyone who passed through
“One of the things that endeared people to Paul was the fact
Hyde—for students, his Government course was a veritable
that he tended to have more confidence in the abilities of
rite of passage during their senior year. Poet Robert Frost
others than they possessed about themselves. His ‘time to
once wrote, “There are two kinds of teachers: the kind that
step it up’ exhortation was rooted in the belief that we were
fill you with so much quail shot that you can’t move, and
all capable of doing more and being better than our past
the kind that just give you a little prod behind and you jump
experiences seemed to suggest. Unlike the vast majority of
to the skies.” This quote nearly encapsulates Paul’s gift as
people who tend only to see the seeds and soil in their lives,
a teacher, but his “prod” was anything but little: he was
Paul was imbued with an ability to envision the gardens those
downright masterful with the Big Prod, helping thousands of
combined elements could become.”
kids and parents “jump to the skies.” Paul was a consummate historian, and so a quote from one of the more obscure United States Presidents feels appropriate.
The Hyde community will continue to feel Paul’s absence, but his legacy lives on in the memories of his former students and colleagues.
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Neil Alexander On August 29, 2005, Neil Alexander’s life as a parent, photographer, and documentary filmmaker would begin to take a turn. Having lived and worked in New Orleans with his wife, Nancy, and their two children, Maya and Calder, for 29 years, they, along with thousands of others, would eventually be forced to leave the city as a result of the destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina. HYDE-BATH ’72
“It was a pivotal time in my life on all fronts—personally and professionally,” he says. “We were the fortunate ones and didn’t lose our home, but the city disintegrated and we lost our school system, our infrastructure.”
OUT OF THE ASHES With the storm approaching the Gulf Coast, Neil decided not to leave his home when most others evacuated the city. Having been a resident there for almost three decades and a documentary filmmaker whose films had recorded the music, food, and faith of the city, he felt compelled to stay behind and bear witness to the events surrounding the storm and its aftermath. That decision would prove pivotal and led to the creation of his 2005 documentary film, Eye of the Storm, Neil’s personal account of Hurricane Katrina.
personal and professional fortune takes him back to his days at Hyde, which impressed in him certain standards that aligned with how he wanted to live his life. “Coming out of that experience [at Hyde] I realized that I was in school for myself, not my parents,” says Neil. “Hyde allowed me the freedom to make decisions that contributed to my growth as a responsible adult capable of doing what I set out to do.”
He began recording the day before the storm ravaged New
In the fall of 2014, Neil and Nancy moved back to their
Orleans. The film premiered at several film festivals and
home in New Orleans. Neil now splits his time between
was showcased in the United States pavilion exhibit at the
Boston and New Orleans. Today, his photographs are
Architecture Biennale 2006 in Venice, Italy.
shown in museum exhibitions, gallery shows, books, and
For nine years, Neil and his family lived in Mattapoisett, Massachusetts, where, despite the circumstances that took them there, their lives flourished.
“
But seen within the arc of his career, Neil’s path to his
publications, and his film work has aired on the BBC, PBS, and the National Geographic Channel. He and Nancy recently opened a guesthouse in New Orleans in their 187-year-old home, which allows them to share the history and culture of their hometown with people from around the world.
Our decision to stay in Massachusetts was not an easy one, but we both believed it was the best thing we could do for our son and his education.
”
For Neil, flourishing meant new opportunities in his work
DEFINING MOMENTS Which Word or Principle has impacted you in your life the most and why? Curiosity. Of course all the Words are important but I’ve always been a listener and observer and a storyteller and it’s brought me in touch with people and places.
architects, designers, builders, and developers. Throughout
As Hyde turns 50 years old, what are your thoughts about where it is today?
his thriving career, he has crafted his award-winning
It’s not just one school in Bath, Maine anymore. That’s the
photographs and films as an invitation to observe people
most amazing thing for someone like me who attended that
and their cultures. Nature and urban environments are
fledgling school in the early days—that a Hyde character
juxtaposed in the compilation of his work, a balance of
education would be in the inner city and there would be
both destruction and promise.
another boarding school in Connecticut. It’s a mark on the
as a commercial photographer working in Boston with
commitment of its leadership to the school.
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“
Coming out of that experience [at Hyde] I realized that I was in school for myself, not my parents. Hyde allowed me the freedom to make decisions that contributed to my growth as a responsible adult capable of doing
”
what I set out to do.
Do you have any advice for current or future Hyde students?
“
You are in school for yourself, no one else. Take advantage of everything Hyde has to offer.
”
What is your favorite Hyde moment? Looking back over 40 years it’s hard to isolate “a favorite moment.” What does impress me as I reflect on my time there were the seminars in Joe Gauld’s office. To think the founder and headmaster of the school would meet with us to talk about character was remarkable. It was in one of those seminars I felt compelled to “come clean” and tell my classmates I’d cheated on a French test. Joe finessed the moment and allowed me the opportunity to recognize I was only cheating myself and that success comes with hard work and integrity and the courage to admit a mistake. Which Hyde teacher(s) impacted you the most personally? Bud Warren. I shared Bud’s interest in history and ships. He was my senior advisor and instrumental in getting me involved in the Percy and Small Shipyard. He took a few of us down there in 1971 to clear the overgrowth that obscured the buildings that now are a feature of the Maine Maritime Museum. Bud allowed me the opportunity to put my interest into action with an internship in the rebuilding of the Isaac H. Evans, a windjammer that sails today out of Rockland. My early interest in photography was nurtured at Hyde when I was given the responsibility to do all of the teacher, senior portraits, class, and team photos for our 1972 yearbook. What was your most meaningful lesson from Hyde?
1972 rolled around, my classmate and lifelong friend, Jeff Jennings, and I loaded up our pickup truck and drove to Portland, Oregon to attend the Museum Art School. We did so with a bold sense of who we were as responsible young men. I have to say it was my Hyde education that gave me the confidence to face the unknown with courage, curiosity, and the determination to get to the far shore.
We all move on from our Hyde experience with our own personal achievements and memories. When the fall of
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Tom Baez
HYDE-BATH ’78
Every day, the Lord’s work for Pastor Tom involves outreach, sometimes to the farthest reaches of North Carolina where he lives today, sometimes to schools, prisons, or the streets. He is part of a diverse team of pastors, all members of Transformation Church, dispatched to round up what he names “broken people,” and deliver the church’s vision: “to be a multi-ethnic, multigenerational, mission-shaped community that loves God completely Upward, ourselves correctly Inward, and our neighbors compassionately Outward.” “Race relations in this country have never been worse than they are now, and each of us seems to be afraid of one another,” he says. “Delivering this message is one way to help people recognize we are one race—the human race—with different ethnicities and backgrounds, and that it’s possible to become the best salad ever made.”
In person, Tom now looks nothing like he did 40 years ago as
many who came in contact with him. He talks about his
a 98-pound Hyde student with a “huge Afro” and an attitude,
smile and “big, beautiful Afro,” and how strongly that was
he says, “straight out of the ghetto” of New York City.
connected to his sense of identity. “When I didn’t show up
Yes, he’s a pastor—a handsome, broad-smiled one with an
for basketball practice one day after spending the day with
athletic build, and yet very unassuming and approachable—
my girlfriend, I was encouraged to cut my hair as a way to
who is fortunate enough to find himself invested in genuine,
show my teammates that being part of a community was
meaningful work. But when he begins talking about the
important to me,” he says. “I couldn’t make the decision at
true meaning of that work his voice transforms into part
first, but eventually I did it to stay on the team. It taught
inspirational speaker, part performer:
me a great lesson—together all of us achieve more, and I am
“I believe God has a plan for me,” he says. “Everything
a leader today because I am part of a team.”
that I’ve done before today prepared me for the person I am today, a person who is helping people and creating unified communities.”
during his four years at Hyde, including the title “Freshman
It’s not that he makes a big deal about his role in his work.
with leadership honors status.
Tom is not that kind of guy. In fact, he seems like a friend to just about everyone who meets him and is a master at finding common ground with most people. Here is a man, once completely clueless about what his teachers and peers at Hyde were saying about personal character, integrity, and leadership more than four decades earlier, whose highly principled message today is hitting a vein of spiritual longing in his listeners.
“
Coming to Hyde as a scholarship student from the inner city and listening to the language used there was completely foreign to me. But what I carry with me is that everyone there considered me a leader in spite of the attitudes I brought with me.
”
Those memories prompt a series of statements that offer a mere glimpse of what Hyde life was like for Tom, who, named “Tommy” by his teachers and peers at the time, considered himself “self-centered” and able to charm
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As one might expect, Tom earned his fair share of success
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of the Year” at the end of his first year there, and graduated
When he left Hyde, Tom “floundered” for two years in college. His disappointment in not playing basketball at a high level and later getting into some mischief eventually led to his dean giving him an ultimatum. “He told me that unless I attended summer school, I wouldn’t be accepted back in the fall,” he says. Unprepared to make that commitment to the school, Tom returned to New York City feeling a combination of aimlessness and hopefulness. “I knew I came from good stock,” he says. “My parents were wonderful people who loved me very much. I knew they did not make a mistake in investing in me, and the effort I put in at Hyde spoke more about who I was as a man.” Tom describes his experiences in life beyond this point as further preparation for the work he does today. He spent the next 26 years “making a name for himself” working mostly as an engineer at KeySpan, now the fifth largest distributor of natural gas in the United States. During that time he met his wife of 24 years, Charmion, who was also working in the city. In 2006, feeling the need for change, Tom and his family moved to North Carolina, where he landed a role in human
“
I knew I came from good stock. My parents were wonderful people who loved me very much. I knew they did not make a mistake in investing in me, and the effort I put in at Hyde spoke more about who I was as
”
a man.
resources as Director of Diversity for Teleflex. “I was there to help people assess themselves as leaders in the company and guided them toward the next level of leadership,” he says. “That work was invaluable to the skills I use today at Transformation Church.” In conversation, Tom is eager to veer from his past career to earnest, disarming discussion about his love of family and the work he does at Transformation Church. Briefly, he turns to his children, Ashley, 25, and Alexander, 22, both on “different journeys in life” and both successes in his eyes. “I give my children the opportunity and space to grow in their own way and at their own pace,” he says. “All I say to them now is to enjoy the journey.” And if that sounds heartening, imagine his message to the people he walks beside.
What is your favorite Hyde moment? There are many. The first year we assembled as a special group of people to carry the America’s Spirit message around
DEFINING MOMENTS
the country was important to me. We had the opportunity to
Which Word or Principle has impacted you in your life the most and why?
influence and encourage people during that time.
Character. The character of a person speaks volumes when it comes to a person’s ability to lead others with genuine humility.
Which Hyde teacher(s) impacted you the most personally? I have to give tremendous homage to Paul Hurd, who looked past my ability to be cute and challenged me. He wasn’t afraid to call me out when I tried to get around being held
As Hyde turns 50 years old, what are your thoughts about where it is today?
accountable. Bob Therrell was another great influence.
It has excelled tremendously and does a great job helping
important to me.
young people grow up. I hoped that what the school stands for would have become more effective on a national stage than it has been.
He told me all of the time that I was enough. That was
What was your most meaningful lesson from Hyde? There were many. The real highlight of my experience at Hyde is not only gaining an understanding of who I am,
Do you have any advice for current or future Hyde students?
but gaining trust in relationships with many people of
Hyde gives you a very important opportunity—that is to
from high school, and many years later they are still my
know your identity. Out of the box you don’t have to be a
dearest friends.
many different ethnicities. It is amazing to have friends
Bill Gates or a Steve Jobs. Who you are is whatever you set your mind to being. Never lose sight of that.
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Ian Bartrum In the competitive orb of academia, a professor’s reputation rests on the credentials he’s earned. He is, after all, the person who shapes the minds of future generations of scholars and professionals. Ian Bartrum has a solid claim on a well-respected reputation in his field, shaping the minds of legal professionals at the University of Las Vegas, and many would say he’s earned it. HYDE-BATH ’91
Today, one might not expect to learn that for some of Ian’s early teenage years, the now 44-yearold tenured associate professor at the William S. Boyd School of Law struggled as a student, eventually dropping out of public school in Montpelier, Vermont and going to work for his grandfather at his paper supply company in New Hampshire.
“I had quite a few rough patches and had to figure out some things,” he says. “But my mother worked hard to locate a school and found Hyde. She said if I could get in, she and my father would pay for it. I was in a fortunate position.”
THE ROAD TO ACADEMIA Ian got in. So, at 16, he found himself somewhat relieved to be at Hyde. Even before landing on the Bath campus, he made the decision to do well academically, thinking he was ready to buckle down and take his education seriously. The school’s message of setting high personal standards and striving for excellence melded well with the course Ian set and strengthened his resolve to work harder.
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Sandwiched in between Ian’s undergraduate work was a year abroad in New Zealand, which, he says, was a key move in getting out-of-class lessons on how to believe in himself. He did well his last two years at Hamilton, earning his bachelor’s in history, with a minor in government in 1995.
TO TEACH IS TO LEARN TWICE
“That’s the most important part of what I developed at Hyde,” he says. “It opened my eyes to what eventually became my career as an academic and teacher of law. I saw that it’s not just about satisfying requirements to get the degree or the A, but about taking it to the highest level and asking yourself what you might be able to contribute to this field.”
Not long after, Ian ventured out to New Mexico to teach skiing lessons and wait tables. Fresh out of college, he spent the year putting out feelers for any potential teaching positions available. When he heard about a new Hyde boarding school opening in Woodstock, Connecticut and the need for teachers there—precisely the work he wanted—he inquired.
DON’T QUIT
No less significant at this same time was Ian’s developing relationship with Maria, his wife of 18 years, who he met in New Mexico at the restaurant where they worked.
For Ian, Hyde didn’t come without its own set of challenges. For the most part, he had considered himself a “pretty good” athlete and was on his way to a Division I hockey career. What he hadn’t considered himself to be was a “pretty good” wrestler. “There was no ice hockey and so instead I was thrown into the wrestling room with Gary Kent and Don MacMillan,” he says. “That was the hardest thing I had to do there. I basically went through wanting to quit almost every day.”
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“I had a roommate who was in over his head in this philosophy class we both took,” he says. “He offered to pay me $200 to write his final paper and I told him I couldn’t do that. I remember the shocked expressions on people’s faces, asking why I wouldn’t take the cash. There was still something left in me.”
“I sent a letter to Ken Grant, letting him know I was interested in teaching, got a call from Paul Hurd to join their team, and Maria and I went to Woodstock to help start the school,” he says.
But Ian didn’t quit then or, as it turns out, ever, as he spent much of the remainder of his educational career pushing his way toward “the thing” in life he really wanted to do—teach.
While Ian remembers the experience of opening the school as “tough,” he appreciates that it was rich in providing him with the learning and proof necessary to solidify his decision to pursue a career in teaching. In 1998, tired of living apart in separate dorms, he and Maria married. They spent two years at Woodstock and another year teaching on the Bath campus.
When he went to Hamilton College after graduating from Hyde in 1991, Ian recalls spending some time floundering without the structure Hyde provided. At 19, he was arguably destined to sow some wild out of his oats anyway, but the Principles he examined closely while at Hyde remained enshrined in his thinking.
Somewhat serendipitously, Ian learned about a new Hyde charter school opening in Washington DC in the fall of 1999, where Maria’s family lives. “Taking the Hyde education beyond the boarding schools was something I believed in and always wanted to do,” he says. “It was time I put my money where my mouth was, so I went.”
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Looking back on what played out as a “true test for everybody” involved with starting the DC school, Ian recalls his lack of preparedness in facing some of the challenges he met there. “It was an incredible learning experience and a huge challenge, but it was another piece that showed me the way toward the path I eventually took—teaching at a higher level as a professor,” he says.
THE TENURE TRACK In 2000, Ian returned to Vermont to attend law school. He admits he was surprised when he was told that not just anyone could be a professor of law. “I didn’t know it, but it really matters where you go to school,” he says. “Probably 80 to 95 percent of the people now hired to teach at law schools in this country graduated from Harvard or Yale. It’s an incredibly hierarchal structure.” Right around the same time, Ian’s father was diagnosed with advanced cancer. Thinking he wanted to be in a school where he could live close to his parents, he invested much of his energy at school, graduating in the top five of his class, along with another Hyde graduate, Steve Hinchman. Two clerkships later, one with the Maine Supreme Court and the other with the Vermont Supreme Court, Ian was hired to teach writing at Vermont Law School. “That was critical, because it got my foot in the academic door,” he says. “It also gave me time to write law review articles, which is the currency of the academic world.” One year later, Ian’s father died. Undeterred, and seeing this as a critical turning point in his life, he applied and was accepted to Yale’s master’s program. While there, he worked with Akhil Amar, a prominent professor of law and political science, who was impressed with Ian’s work and helped him get hired as an academic fellow at Yale. That fellowship led to his first opportunity to teach constitutional law in front of a class at Drake Law School in Des Moines, Iowa. “I was excited about teaching, though not about staying in Des Moines,” he says. “But it was a very rewarding experience for the time I was there,” he says. In 2011, Ian was hired to teach law at UNLV. He currently teaches constitutional law and constitutional theory for first- and second-year law students. Much of his time at work is also taken up with research and writing. Though not one to favor administrative work, he’s found his role on the admissions committee rewarding. “It gives me the chance to look at enrollees’ applications with a ‘Hyde eye’.” he says. “Law school is a lot about the numbers and I like being able to look at the entire individual, the experiences the person has had, and say ‘here are a couple of people who may not have the numbers, but let’s give them a shot at this’.” Throughout the years, Ian and Maria hoped to have children of their own. This past summer, while visiting friends in Maine, the couple received a long-awaited call. “We tried everything that medical science had to offer in order to have
a child,” he says. “A nurse from a hospital in Nevada called and told us she had a baby there who was hoping to be discharged and asked if we could come and pick him up.” Four days and more than 2,400 miles of road travel later, Ian and Maria met their “miracle” son, Evans Ellis Bartrum. “I’ll never forget Don MacMillan saying, ‘Don’t lie; don’t quit,’” he recalls. “Now that I’m raising a child, that might be the simplest and most valuable lesson I can impart on this little guy.” If children truly learn by example, it would seem there is a strong chance that Evans will do far more than satisfy the requirement for that lesson.
DEFINING MOMENTS Which Word or Principle has impacted you in your life the most and why? Integrity. It’s always been that for me. It captures the rest of the Principles in some sense. As Hyde turns 50 years old, what are your thoughts about where it is today? I don’t want to be the old, grumpy guy that complains about how it’s kinder, softer, gentler, but it is, right? I also think we have to be open to the fact that maybe things needed to change some. I still think that Hyde is an incredible philosophy and an incredible gift to parents and kids. I’m hopeful it will keep the national commitment to character education that Joe Gauld had in mind. It’s not just about character education in Maine and Connecticut; it’s about education in America. Do you have any advice for current or future Hyde students? Don’t lie and don’t quit. Be committed to who you are and your potentials. What is your favorite Hyde moment? There have been a lot of good moments. When I was a sophomore, we won the first state lacrosse tournament against Cape Elizabeth. We had a great team. We won in overtime and the whole school was there. That was great fun. Which Hyde teacher(s) impacted you the most personally? There’s a tie: Bud Cox and Paul Hurd. I had them at the same time when I was a student. They were two very different people doing very different things and challenging me in very different ways. I learned a lot from them. What was your most meaningful lesson from Hyde? The internalizing of personal standards is the most important lesson for me; not placing too much stock in grades, or somebody else’s assessment of what you do, but in being responsible to what you know you’re capable of doing. Having the audaciousness to say that maybe you’re the Michael Jordan of something if you work hard enough. Who knows? HYDE SCHOOL ALUMNI PROFILE MAGAZINE
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Jessica Brown When Jessica Brown left Hyde in 1998 and went on to study political science and dance at Columbia University’s Barnard College, she didn’t know anything about climate change. She did know she wanted to help people, and was considering a path in social work or psychology. Jessica soon realized that having a role in creating a healthier planet trumped anything else she had considered. HYDE-BATH ’98
“I wanted to help make people be ‘happier’, but I realized that happiness is so context—specific and in many ways a cultural construct,” the 35-year-old environmental professional says. “But I do know that we all need the Earth to survive; that’s the most important thing; that’s a common thread among all humans.” That realization led Jessica to pursue her first master’s degree in environmental policy at Columbia University.
ONE WOMAN BEHIND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE In 2004, Jessica landed a job with an environmental consulting firm in San Francisco. It was there she began to work on climate change and deforestation issues. Recognizing she couldn’t make the kind of impact she wanted without also understanding the international development issues facing countries who are working to get on low-carbon development pathways, she went back to school at the London School of Economics in 2007 for a second master’s in international development. Jessica stayed in London after graduation, accepting a position as a research fellow with Overseas Development Institute, an international think tank that focuses on climate change and development issues in poor developing countries. Three years later she was offered a job working for the State Department, where she served as lead negotiator in the multilateral climate change negotiations for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. There she represented the United States and created international climate change policy. “It was an incredibly challenging job,” she says. ”I didn’t always agree with the U.S. position and was constantly torn between what I thought was the right way forward and the U.S. position. I couldn’t stray from the U.S. position, because that was my job.” While in London, Jessica met Charlie, whom she later married on a farm in the middle of rural France, where Charlie’s parents live. One year later, the couple welcomed their son Isaiah. During her four months on maternity leave, she landed a position with the Climate Policy Initiative in San Francisco, not far from her family and hometown of Walnut Creek. She says investing in her family is her primary focus now. “I’m thinking about things like where we’re going to live, which school systems will be the best, starting up dancing again after a two-year break, and yoga now,” she quietly laughs. “Right now, those are the most important things for me to focus on.”
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DEFINING MOMENTS Which Word or Principle has impacted you in your life the most and why?
“
Humility and truth. There is so much ego out in the world—everywhere, but especially in Washington, DC! I don’t rest on my laurels and say, ‘look at all of this great stuff I’ve achieved!’ Rather, I humbly accept what I’ve done and I will keep pushing myself to do more, because I know there is more to be done.
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As Hyde turns 50 years old, what are your thoughts about where it is today? I’d like to see Hyde focus on one really solid school, focusing on the roots of the original Bath campus and making that as strong as possible. Do you have any advice for current or future Hyde students? Throw yourself into it as much as possible and realize it’s a short time in your life. Even if it feels hard, put your ego to one side and see “if the shoe fits”. Also, don’t take yourself too seriously. Have fun! Hyde can be a really fun place if you let it. That was something I missed. I took myself too seriously. Recognize what a lucky person you are to experience some of the magical things Hyde has to offer. What is your favorite Hyde moment? Anything to do with the performing arts shows. That was one of the things that attracted me to the school when I came to visit while my brother Jeremy was at Hyde. I remember choreographing some of the larger group numbers for the performances and that was really great. I miss dancing and singing with Lauren Franklin and Jason Warnick!
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Hyde can be a really fun place if you let it. That was something I missed. I took myself too seriously. Recognize what a lucky person you are to experience some of the magical things Hyde has to offer.
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Which Hyde teacher(s) impacted you the most personally? There were so many. Mr. Goldberg was pretty influential. He seemed to have a real sense of what mattered and what didn’t matter. He helped me see through a lot of the issues I was getting hung up on. He also taught me a lot about environmental issues and environmental integrity. Stacey (Goldberg) Brooks was also a huge influence. She taught me to love myself for who I am, and to leave my perfectionist tendencies behind. What was your most meaningful lesson from Hyde? On a personal level, there was a time when I was put on 2-4 at Hyde. There was a rule where you couldn’t have any body piercings and I had a belly button ring. I never took it out. I wasn’t dishonest about it, but I said to myself that I didn’t have an image issue. I’d say to friends, ‘Sure, I have a belly button ring, but I don’t want to take it out.’ I thought I was an exception to the rule because I wasn’t the one struggling with an image identity. Mr. Goldberg found out about it and he said that wasn’t right. The overarching message to me is that I wasn’t different from everyone else. I’m not this special case. I was part of the Hyde community, and I needed to stand among the others.
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Patrick Burns In 1996, Patrick Burns, a somewhat wayward 14-year-old in search of a new high school, got advice and assistance from Educational Consulting Services. Like many kids his age, he had no idea what he wanted to do with his life and did not really care. He had no clue that twenty years later he would be the owner and principal consultant of ECS.
HYDE-WOODSTOCK ’99
“I was adopted at a young age and had a terribly immature understanding of what attachment, love, and family meant,” he says. “I began to get into trouble around ninth grade and my parents, who loved me dearly but didn’t know where to turn, hired the owner of ECS to help us find some solutions.”
MENTORS
founded by his former Hyde coach, Anthony Geraci.
One solution led Patrick to Hyde, where he soon found himself drawn to his athletic coaches, men whom he admired and respected and who helped him better understand what he was going through. “Athletics were a fundamental part of my life at Hyde,” he says. “I was not inclined to talk about myself. These guys were able to draw me out and tell me things that were difficult to hear at the time, but I was willing to listen.”
Unfazed in recalling what was clearly a significant hurdle in his life, he describes his path to sobriety, and his understanding of how the “deep” relationships with mentors throughout his life helped him get there and stay there.
The first two people I contacted when I felt ready to make a change were Rob Summers and Anthony Geraci, two of my former Hyde coaches. My experiences at Hyde enabled me to see that my life could be so much better. I was fortunate to be able to draw that comparison.
Patrick’s research on attachment, adoption, and substance abuse has resulted in publications that appeared in Psychology Today, The Huffington Post, The Portland Oregonian, Tulsa World, and Studies in American Humor. The increase in the number and quality of residential treatment centers and therapeutic boarding schools cropping up around the country, he says, helps him and his colleagues at ECS identify the best possible fit for the children and young adults they serve.
When the soft-spoken Ithaca, New York native describes the events following his brief stay in a rehab facility, it is difficult to imagine anything other than a favorable outcome. Unashamedly open about his mistakes, he turns to the path he chose—as mentor to students and parents who wrestle with some of the issues he once faced.
When asked if he sends some of the students he sees to Hyde, Patrick is quick to answer “yes”. “There is a kind of kid who’s appropriate for Hyde and a kid who isn’t appropriate,” he says. “There was a time, in my opinion, when Hyde was admitting students who were not prepared to be there. As the industry has evolved, Hyde is in a better position to take kids who can and will likely thrive in the environment the school provides.”
After spending two years working at the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, Florida, Patrick found his calling when he got a job at the San Cristobal Ranch Academy in Taos, New Mexico, a residential treatment facility for struggling teenagers
Looking back on his time at Hyde, Patrick recalls a message delivered by Ken Grant, who at the time was HydeWoodstock’s head of school. “He said that he loved working with kids who were defiant, who would give the teacher
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BACK TO SCHOOL In 2006, Patrick returned to Ithaca, New York to complete his undergraduate work at Cornell University, earning his bachelor’s degree in American studies three years later. He spent the next five years as the associate director of student and young alumni programs at Cornell. In 2014, he completed his master’s degree in human development at Cornell and soon after, returned to ECS, this time as a consultant. “I took over the firm from the individual who was, in fact, responsible for placing me at Hyde,” he says. “All of our firm’s consultants are based here in Ithaca, but we work with families across the country.”
Patrick listened—eventually, that is. After graduating from Hyde in 1999, he went to Nazareth College, primarily to play soccer, but fell back into some “old unproductive patterns.” He dropped out, headed to Vail, Colorado, and spent a winter season as a “ski bum.”
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“Having the ability to talk about the things that make you who you are is what has brought the most meaning to my life,” he says. “That is something I discovered at Hyde and continue to practice and refine today.”
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Having the ability to talk about the things that make you who you are is what has brought the most meaning to my life. That is something I discovered at Hyde and continue to practice and
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refine today.
has not changed and in part because many of the school’s faculty from my time remain active today. I have seen some families at Hyde experience greater success than others. I have been surprised that alumni support is not stronger. I think it would be great to see more alumni return for reunions and more alumni, myself included, make financial contributions to the school. Hyde has also changed from when I was there. In my view, the larger international population has its pros and cons, but by and large the core of Hyde seems strong. Do you have any advice for current or future Hyde students?
the middle finger and say whatever was on their minds,” he says. “He felt he had the ability to help those students turn their defiance into something productive and meaningful. Eventually, I realized he was talking about me.” As for life beyond his profession, Patrick spends a good amount of time with close friends and his parents. “I’m not married,” he laughs, “much to my mother’s chagrin, but I hope to get there someday.”
DEFINING MOMENTS Which Word or Principle has impacted you in your life the most and why? Brother’s Keeper. I don’t think it is limited to making sure someone keeps from breaking an ethic. I think it’s this idea that you’re striving for something deeper and more meaningful with the people you care about, whether that’s being pushed to look at some component of your life or pushing someone else to think about an important aspect of his or her life. As Hyde turns 50 years old, what are your thoughts about where it is today? I’ve seen a number of families go through Hyde since I graduated and I try to make it back to campus periodically for reunions. My take is that the core of what makes Hyde unique is still intact. This is in part because the philosophy
Connect with teachers, coaches, or discovery group leaders. Make the most of each relationship while you’re at Hyde and maintain those relationships after Hyde. What is your favorite Hyde moment? Of the many images that pop into my mind, the most enduring is the school meeting. They had greater emotional depth than you would see or experience at any other school. I also loved graduation. Seeing students try to capture what their Hyde experience meant to them and how they might apply what they’ve learned at Hyde in their lives is incredibly moving. That again is a fundamental component of Hyde, understanding who you are and where you fit into the world and developing effective ways to express feelings and emotions. The graduation ceremony is, of course, the culmination of a unique experience, but more importantly, a wonderful occasion to display your ability to capture that unique experience. Which Hyde teacher(s) impacted you the most personally? I have three. Rob Summers, my soccer coach; Anthony Geraci, my hockey coach and geometry teacher; and John Rigney, who has stayed so committed to the school over the years. What was your most meaningful lesson from Hyde? The term “excellence” is often discussed at Hyde and for good reason. While at Hyde I pushed myself in ways that brought out my best self. Therefore, when I took more than a few steps back later on in life, I had irrefutable evidence that I could live a more meaningful life. HYDE SCHOOL ALUMNI PROFILE MAGAZINE
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Lydell Capers The word “character” can mean many things. To Lydell Capers it’s a noun, verb, adjective, and everything in between—all of the parts of speech he employs for character when speaking passionately to students and faculty at the Hyde-Bronx school about what is truly important in life. In fact, some who know him would say Lydell’s middle name is character. “You should never compromise your principles—no matter what,” he says. “Growing up in the inner city, there were a lot of barriers for me—drugs, gangs, economic—and I wanted more, but I needed a way out.”
HYDE-BATH ’97
That “way out” for Lydell came by way of the Boys’ Club of
The experience, Lydell says, in reference to attending
New York. At age 10, having already been involved with the
Hyde, “allowed me to take a hard look at the reality of
group for five years, he was approached by the executive
my previous situation in New York and gain the confidence
director with a proposition, one that the streetwise boy
to see I was capable of earning my way to a life I could be
from Harlem could accept without negative consequences.
proud of.”
“He said he knew the perfect school that would help me rise above my situation at home, that it could be a life-changer, but I’d have to be away from my family, stay out of trouble, and keep my grades up,” he says.
FROM ASPHALT TO PINE TREES
What matters for a young man figuring out what he wants to be when he grows up isn’t influence alone, but how he can meld his current composition with the new lessons he’s trying to absorb. In Lydell’s particular case, principles, grit, and determination were qualities he already possessed, so his experience at Hyde served as reinforcement and support
For the next three years, Lydell successfully met the
for what he was about to pursue in his life, a gift, he says,
conditions presented to him on that fateful day, and in
that “gave me exactly what I needed.”
the summer of 1994 he found himself saying goodbye to his family for the first time in his life and heading to Maine. “It was a complete culture shock when I got to the school,” he says. “I saw an entire group of individuals who didn’t look like me. Coming from New York I was always watching
The fall after his Hyde graduation, Lydell went on to Springfield College, where he majored in sports management
my back, assuming someone was out to get me.”
and recreation. He remained in Springfield after earning
Over the weeks, as Lydell grappled with strange surroundings
Tri-county Youth Program as a treatment program counselor
and separation from his life in New York, a radical change
and, later, as a residential counselor. Five years later, he
in his mindset began to emerge. Feeling more relaxed and
was approached by the then-head of school at Hyde-Bronx,
inspired by the friends and teachers who invested in him, he
Joanne Goubourn.
began to open up about his upbringing.
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EARNING HIS WAY
his Bachelor’s Degree to work with at-risk youth for the
“She asked me if I would consider working at the school as the dean of students,” he says. “I thought that was perfect
I went from having the mentality that I wasn’t going to tell people my business because it was my business, to realizing that having conversations about things like my parents’ drug abuse was helping me understand who I really was and what I wanted for myself.
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because it would allow me to give back to two separate communities that gave so much to me when I was growing up—New York City and Hyde.” Nine years later, Lydell remains at Hyde-Bronx as the dean of students for grades six through eight. “My job is to make sure the character culture is upheld, enforced, and taught to students, faculty members, and parents,” he says. “There’s only one way you know whether or not you’re on the right path—that’s if you’re maintaining the Five Principles and Five Words in your life.”
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He said he knew the perfect school that would help me rise above my situation at home, that it could be a life-changer, but I’d have to be away
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from my family, stay out of trouble, and keep my grades up.
The old adage begins that if you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If Lydell Capers had the chance to reframe that saying’s punchline, it might go something like this: teach a man to live by principles, you feed him for a lifetime.
DEFINING MOMENTS Which Word or Principle has impacted you in your life the most and why? Brother’s Keeper. It’s a two-way street. Malcolm Gauld helped me understand that in life, when you have the chance to help someone out, you’re learning a lesson too. Courage is another one. It’s when you find the courage to do things you wouldn’t normally do that you learn the most about yourself. What is your favorite Hyde moment? As Hyde turns 50 years old, what are your thoughts about where it is today?
My junior year at the state basketball championship with
I tell the new faculty and students that the Hyde concept is
game and seeing how the entire school was unified. There
excellent, but you have to go through it to really understand
was so much support during that time. Even though we
it. I hope Hyde will continue its mission to deliver character
lost, we pulled together, got a lot of support. It felt like we
education and expose people to the concept. There are so
were one.
my team. It wasn’t winning, but more about playing the
many people who lack principles in their lives. I see firsthand how much growth happens in students and families who
Which Hyde teacher(s) impacted you the most personally?
receive a Hyde education.
Stu Goldberg. When I first met him, I felt like he was someone I could relate to. He stayed on those of us who came from the city and wouldn’t allow us to get away with
Do you have any advice for current or future Hyde students?
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Don’t take the people who care about you and the Hyde words and principles for granted. So much of what Hyde is all about applies to the real world.
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having bad attitudes. We felt like these big, bad city kids and the rules didn’t apply to us. He went above and beyond in so many ways, which showed how much he cared. What was your most meaningful lesson from Hyde? It was with Tom Bragg. He wanted to show us that the way we conducted ourselves as individuals and as a team and how we represented the school were more important than winning the game. He was willing to put the game on the line before he would allow us to show disrespect. It made me understand that the character development part of my life was more important than anything else.
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Cara Chard Above New York City’s concrete blocks, flashing lights, and daily sonic assault, where more than eight million people spring into action every day, sits a garden glistening with swathes of tomato plants, wispy stalks of celery, and humming bees. This is one of two rooftop gardens cultivated by City Growers, a non-profit, whose mission is to “connect urban communities with agriculture, food, and environment through farm education and advocacy in order to foster a culture of health and sustainability.” It is also where Cara Chard and her team of educators and farmers have turned on more than 22,000 students to growing and cooking food and—in the process—made them active participants in a growing trend of budding environmental devotees. HYDE-WOODSTOCK ’99
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In 2009, realizing how much she enjoyed interacting with
For some students, it is the first time they are exposed to this,” says Cara who, as the executive director of City Growers, has led the five-year-old non-profit since its inception. “These are not kids with backyards and country houses. They commute underground to school and there isn’t a lot of greenery along the way. The really cool thing about rooftop farming is that it is above it all, and it feels like a secret world.
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To help address what Cara describes as a world plagued with unhealthy relationships with food, where in some areas it
kids in an informal environment, Cara made the switch from the traditional classroom to her first experience as teacher of urban farming at a longstanding urban farm in Red Hook, Brooklyn. In 2012, she was invited to apply to City Growers—at the time, a new nonprofit founded by Brooklyn Grange, a leading for-profit organization specializing in growing organically-cultivated produce on rooftop farms. Her early work there consisted of defining, running, and teaching programs and convincing public and private school administrators to partner with City Growers. “In some cases, it took some work,” she says. “The idea of allowing their students to leave the indoor classroom for part of the day to learn in a completely different setting was not always easy to embrace.”
is a precious and rare resource that only a few can readily
It didn’t take long for school administrators to recognize
obtain while in others it is seen as an over-processed,
the learning opportunities implicit in the rooftop farms.
overconsumed free-for-all, she and her team have pioneered
Within a year, she and her team introduced more than 7,000
myriad hands-on “farming” programs that explore topics
students to the wonders of urban farming. Four years later,
such as composting, beekeeping, and maintaining worm
the organization has grown to two farms—one in Queens
bins. Partnering with schools in New York City, City Growers
and the other in Brooklyn—a board of directors, and a staff
teaches inner-city students both the practical skills
of seven, plus many dedicated interns and volunteers to
necessary to grow one’s own food with an eye on nutrition
support City Growers’ educational programs.
and the theoretical side of urban farming. “We do workshops to explore the origins of food and how it interacts with
While Cara admits she sometimes misses working directly
nature and ecology—showing them firsthand that it doesn’t
with children and teens since taking on the responsibilities
come from a can or a box or a bag, but from the earth,”
of executive director, what is most important to her in all
she says.
areas of her life is being “constantly challenged.” For her, learning how to fund and operate a small business in New
Before getting City Growers off the ground, Cara taught
York has more than adequately filled that expectation.
English to ninth graders at a public school in the Bronx.
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Drawn to the many green spaces sprouting up in the city,
The anxiety Cara says she felt growing up helps to explain
she and her students would venture out of the classroom
the potency with which the 35-year-old pursues her work
into the local community to volunteer at various sites.
today. As a 15-year-old, she admits to having been in and
Simultaneously, Cara began learning about beekeeping on
out of four different high schools before she was accepted
a rooftop in Brooklyn where she lives with her two children
to Hyde. Never really understanding what caused her
and husband. As her experience grew, so too did her interest
restlessness and disinterest in academics, she unexpectedly
in understanding the ways that nature exists in a city and in
began to see a change when her relationships with some of
the emerging field of urban agriculture.
her teachers began to blossom. “I struggled with depression,
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I’ve never been driven by external forces. No matter what I do in the future I want to always make a living thinking about the issues I believe in and grappling with them every day. That’s all I can ask for. I feel really lucky to be doing something that is meaningful to me and also
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really fun.
DEFINING MOMENTS Which Word or Principle has impacted you in your life the most and why? Curiosity. My experience in education and discovering myself as a learner has been incredibly meaningful to me in that it started at Hyde and has continued since then. As Hyde turns 50 years old, what are your thoughts about where it is today? That families are able to work together to get back on track was meaningful to my family, and I’m grateful that’s still happening.
but it was with the help of some wonderful teachers that my sense of curiosity was ignited,” she says. “With that, I began to get my life in order and discovered the student in me... it eventually led me to some really great colleges, and I
Do you have any advice for current or future Hyde students? Just hang in there. If it doesn’t make sense now, it will later. What is your favorite Hyde moment?
learned how to deal with things in a much healthier way.”
My Spanish trip to Guatemala with Mr. Sanchez and fellow
Additionally, Cara says her experiences as an intern for six
experience I had there.
weeks with Save the Children and two trips she took abroad
Hyde classmates was the most amazing and challenging
with a group of her Hyde classmates and teachers contributed
Which Hyde teacher(s) impacted you the most personally?
to her intellectual awakening. “It is why I want to always be a
Mr. Rigney. He was an incredible teacher and a caring person
part of something that can change lives,” she says.
who challenged me. A big reason why I became an English
In almost the same breath, Cara turns her attention back to her work at City Growers and her life with her family, which, she says, is not “incredibly glamorous or exciting,” but is what is most important to her right now. “I’ve never been driven by external forces,” she says. “No matter what I do in the future I want to always make a living thinking about the issues I believe in and grappling with them every day. That’s all I can ask for. I feel really lucky to be doing something that is meaningful to me and also really fun.”
teacher is because of my experience in his English class— having a relationship with literature and getting lost in books. I wanted to have that. What was your most meaningful lesson from Hyde? “The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable” is very true. You have to deal with the hard things first, and the truth is a hard thing to come to grips with. It has to be addressed first before anything good can happen.
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Shannon Curry Many times, our greatest regrets are not tied to the challenges we faced in life, rather the challenges we didn’t face head on. One person who knows this better than most is Shannon Curry, a 36-year-old clinical psychologist and southern California native who, after years of self-doubt, overthinking, and untiring determination started a private practice in 2013, where she now helps people of all paths— families, children, distressed service members, and criminal offenders in the justice system—through their personal labyrinths of challenge. HYDE-BATH ’98 HYDE-WOODSTOCK
THE ROAD TO REGROUP
LIGHT-BULB MOMENT
“I had to regroup a couple of times,” she says. “I thought once I graduated from Hyde that I was set for life. I thought, ‘I got into Georgetown University, and I’m going to be a physician, and everything worked out the way it was supposed to.’”
People who believe in fate would have a field day with what happened next in Shannon’s life. While visiting Mexico with her father, she asked him what he thought she should do with her life. At the time, Shannon doubted she had a calling and agonized over the possibility she might choose a career that anchored her to a desk. Her dad told her, “Just pick something you like. If you love what you do and you work hard at it, opportunities will arise and you’ll make it into something completely your own.”
That, Shannon says, was the “big plan,” but as the saying goes, announcing your plans is a good way to make the powers behind the universe laugh. While her year at Georgetown was anything but funny and was spent feeling “miserable and bored to tears,” it did set her on a rocky and sometimes “messy” path toward answering the one nagging question she was determined to uncover: What do I want to do with my life?
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I was immature and young, and though those things affected my experience at Georgetown, I ultimately felt lonely and realized medicine wasn’t for me. I started traveling a lot on the weekends...my mom was a flight attendant and I could fly for free, so when I was done with classes for the week I would hop on a flight and go somewhere I had never been.
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Shannon moved to the Caribbean for a summer, where she lived on a broken down sailboat near St. Thomas. Sometime during her stay, she made the decision not to return to Georgetown and extended her stay through the fall. Recognizing that she needed to focus on her education, she returned to California and spent the next two years waiting tables and taking classes at the local community college. Call it restlessness, fate, or the roller coaster of chance, whatever the vehicle for change, Shannon rediscovered her love of learning. Though she enjoyed the role of “student,” Shannon felt increasing uncertainty over which course of study to pursue and yearned to experience a sense of “calling” that would direct her life.
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THAT WAS SHANNON’S LIGHT-BULB MOMENT What followed for Shannon included many years of college, graduate school, practicums, and training. She earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Irvine, then went on to earn a master’s and doctorate in clinical psychology from Pepperdine University, where she completed a dissertation on alternative therapies for trauma in Peru. Soon after, she entered an internship program at Tripler Army Medical Center and completed a post-doctoral residency at Hawaii State Hospital, earning an advanced master’s degree in clinical psychopharmacology which served as partial fulfillment of the requirements necessary to practice as a medical psychologist (to provide prescriptions within the Department of Defense and several states in the United States). During her internship at Tripler Army Medical Center, Shannon began her work with military populations and developed a specialization in the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder. In her post-doctoral residency, she began a secondary specialization in forensic psychology and conducted criminal evaluations for the courts. Her father was right: by choosing something she loved, Shannon built a career that today allows her to do all of the things that interest her. “I never would have had these experiences if I had gone straight through school like I thought I was supposed to when I was at Georgetown,” Shannon says. “It was risky to venture off the traditional path, but I’m so grateful that I did. It’s worked out.”
Today, Shannon runs a private practice in Newport Beach, California, where she continues to work with service members and civilians and conducts research on multicultural trauma interventions. “I’m doing research in Mexico with one of my former professors,” she says. “I travel to different countries and write articles about what we find.”
CENTRAL TO WHO I AM They say there is a reason for everything that happens in life and, for Shannon, the fact that Hyde “happened” to her, she says, is primarily what made her who she is today. The term may lack a certain poetry, but “pain in the ass” is how she describes herself as a 13-year-old. She grew up in a “fun and chaotic” family in Orange County with three sisters and parents she describes as “hippies, who were also successful professionals.” When asked how she landed in a school on the opposite coast, she immediately points to Sally Kendrick, a therapist her parents found who recommended Hyde. “My family was going through a tough time and I was very rebellious,” she says. “Sally knew Hyde would be good for all of us and she was right. I’ve remained close to her my whole life.” For Shannon, it was a slow and unpleasant start at Hyde. At 14, never having been away from home, all she could think about was getting back to California. Just before her second year on the Bath campus she was invited by Laura Gauld to work as an intern for the summer program. “I think Laura thought I was on a precipice that could either make or break me, and while I don’t think I was the most stellar intern ever, it was life-changing,” she says. “I felt a purpose and the experience helped me see myself and my relationship to Hyde differently.” From there, things started looking up for her. She liked the feeling of earning rewards from hard work and though she found that many of her teachers were “tough on her,” she believed in their faith in her and was motivated initially by her desire to “make them proud.” After three years on the Bath campus, Shannon opted to be part of the first senior class at Hyde-Woodstock. “I will always remember something that Paul Hurd said to me,” she says. “He asked me if Hyde was going to be something I looked back on as just another experience in my life or if it would become central to who I was. As I get older, I recognize the miracle in this; Hyde is central to who I am today.”
COURAGE TO CHALLENGE Today, when the soft-spoken, energetic Dr. Curry speaks about her approach to psychology, she often refers to what she gained from her education at Hyde. “I think I’m probably a little more involved in therapy than we’re traditionally trained to be,” she says. “I found that sometimes you have to have courage to challenge your clients and to really be genuine with them,
also by inviting their feedback to ensure that the therapeutic relationship is strong. I got that from Hyde.” What “courage” translates to when Shannon meets with clients is going further than the traditional question-and-answer sessions often experienced in therapy today. “I help my clients determine what values are important to them and how that measures up against the way they live their lives,” she says. “Starting my own practice was scary because I wasn’t sure if I would be able to build a client base, but I think what made my practice successful is that I love—love—what I do,” she says. “What I think is most essential about my practice and my relationship with my clients is that they trust me enough to allow me to challenge them and they still come back.”
DEFINING MOMENTS Which Word or Principle has impacted you in your life the most and why? Courage...definitely in my practice. Courage to do something new; courage to start a business and follow a model that isn’t traditional; and courage to stay true to myself. As Hyde turns 50 years old, what are your thoughts about where it is today? I love that it’s still going. I don’t know how it is today because I’m not there. There are faculty there who are so insightful. All the schooling I’ve had in psychology doesn’t hold a candle to what some of my teachers at Hyde understood innately...they were really gifted. Do you have any advice for current or future Hyde students? Try not to take yourself too seriously. What is your favorite Hyde moment? Joking around in the dorm. Specifically, laughing with Carly Bronson. There were all sorts of shenanigans in the dorm... some good pranks. Which Hyde teacher(s) impacted you the most personally? Paul Hurd, Ken Grant, Claire Grant, Laura Gauld, Terry Walsh, Stu Goldberg, Laurie Hurd, and Joe Gauld. What was your most meaningful lesson from Hyde? To allow myself to let go of trying to control everything. Sometimes I need to be hit over the head to recognize that my plans aren’t working out, or that maybe there’s an alternative that’s even better than anything I imagined. When I get to that point where I finally have to let go, things seem to fall into place, and I usually end up kicking myself for all of the time I wasted toiling before I realized what I was doing. Now I love letting go; I’m way less resistant to those moments of truth because I know life is so much easier when I get out of my own way!
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Ben and Bonita Davis
NICK, HYDE-WOODSTOCK ’13 EVAN, HYDE-BATH ’17
Since dropping off their oldest son, Nick, at the Hyde-Woodstock campus six years ago, and their youngest, Evan, at the Hyde-Bath campus three years ago, Ben and Bonita Davis continue to frame a different understanding of how they operate in their lives—as parents, as professionals and, most important to them, as individuals, independent of the roles they fill. A brief visit with them separately reveals some striking similarities in their backgrounds and preferences—from Ben’s days as an industrious boy toiling on his grandparents’ working farm—to Bonita, who, as a twin and one of three children in her family raised on a dairy farm in Minnesota, learned at a young age the meaning of hard work and spent her life devoted to raising her three sons while working part-time.
When the Davis’s speak, they mean every word. The perseverance and sheer determination displayed by the couple as they mull over how they “fumbled” their way through their initial Hyde family seminars may likely be an inspiration to the parents they led while serving as regional leaders for the parent program at the school.
BEN’S HYDE STORY In 2010, when he, in a state of desperation, handed over his firstborn to Hyde School, Ben had hopes for second chances for his family but little expectation for personal growth or changes. But three years later, when Nick strode across the stage a little older, a lot wiser, and full of confidence in who he was and where he was headed, Ben was overwhelmed with a combination of pride and amazement at how far their family had come. As someone who admits he’s not as open with his feelings as he would like to be or who never considered sending his children to boarding school, for Ben, Nick’s graduation proved to be the culmination of some powerful emotions. After all, the fact that Nick was standing there, diploma and honors in hand, was largely due to him and his parents facing some of their biggest challenges together and making it over to the other side. So when Ben found himself standing with his family at Nick’s graduation feeling humbled by the whole of his Hyde experiences, he had to admit that his revised vision for himself and his family, while completely unexpected, was beginning to take root in a way that he could fully embrace. In fact, the Davis’s continued with their Hyde experience after Nick graduated, thanks to Evan, who saw an opportunity for himself at the school and asked to attend as a four-year student. Now, Ben uses words and phrases such as “terrific,” “tremendous growth,” “learning how to be present and a good listener” to describe his Hyde journey. The 49-yearold says that for someone like him, who always identified himself by what role he was filling—father, husband, son, professional—and who is inclined to “jump into solution mode rather than be fully present in a conversation,” he appreciates his newfound awareness of the importance of asking for help and “stepping back” to “really listen to
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what others are saying” to him. “That is how meaningful discussions happen and how relationships deepen,” he says.
A LEGACY OF GIVING BACK For an insight into how Ben thinks about the work he does today as Senior Director of Major Gifts for his alma-mater, Cornell University at the Johnson School of Management, it is helpful to go back to his roots. As a young man fresh out of college, Ben landed a job at the University of New Hampshire’s Cooperative Extension 4-H program. Right around the same time, his grandmother, a leadership volunteer for 4-H, was looking forward to celebrating her 50th year of service. As a way to honor his grandmother’s efforts, he came up with the idea to raise $50,000 for her 50 years of service, an endowment that would fund 4-H training for future leaders in the organization. After a lot of work and pooling of resources—family, friends, and funds—Ben found he was good at fundraising and forming relationships. He met his goal that year, and today the endowment has grown to $100,000. “My grandmother ended up serving 65 years before she died and I’ve been fundraising for 25 years,” he says. “To me, it’s been about serving organizations that mean something to me and make a difference in the lives of others.”
BONITA’S HYDE STORY “I’m not Spanish, but my father really liked the name and gave it to me,” says Bonita. “In fact, I’m Irish and German, and I’m very fair complexioned.” For a self-described introvert, the openly chatty Ithaca, New York transplant, whose description of her role in her immediate family is as the one who “talks the most and has great ideas about how to fix other people,” is an incredibly warm and affable woman. Bonita’s first Hyde experience was Nick’s interview, which, as it happens, was one of the first times she ever found herself speechless. “I was asked a very direct question about myself and didn’t know what to say,” she recalls. “I liked to think of myself as an open person and someone who would ask for help, but found out that was conditional.” That point made, Bonita segues to her sons: Nick, 21, Noah, 19, and Evan, 16, who all benefited from having their
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mother structure her work schedule around being home with them since they were born. But when Nick began to struggle in his hometown school, and she and Ben found a new school in Woodstock, Connecticut that would take him more than a five-hour drive away, Bonita’s understanding of “being there” was suddenly challenged. Even still, six years of Hyde later, with Nick graduated, Noah graduated from Ithaca’s public high school, and Evan scheduled to graduate from Hyde in June 2017, when asked what she enjoys doing with her time outside of her work as a registered dietitiannutritionist and also working in a family support role with the Family Navigator Partnership, she is hard-pressed to steer the conversation away from her sons and toward her own interests.
Which Hyde teacher(s) impacted you the most personally?
But, she firmly states, she is “working on it.”
BONITA’S DEFINING MOMENTS
I’m trying to be more spontaneous in my life and I’m learning about having fun. Growing up, our value came from the work we did, so I can be a really serious person, but I’m making a conscious effort to look at things in a more lighthearted way.
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Knowing it to be true, as they say, is half the battle, and for Bonita, it’s likely she’s well on her way to figuring it out.
BEN’S DEFINING MOMENTS Which Word or Principle has impacted you in your life the most and why? Humility. The ability to step back from myself, let go, and open up is so important. I like to think of myself as a together person and in this process I’ve had to approach my humility and let my guard down. As Hyde turns 50 years old, what are your thoughts about where it is today? I’m very proud of the organization that it is today. I’ve enjoyed learning about Hyde’s history. I appreciate that it’s continuing to learn and continuing to make improvements. I see us being involved with Hyde for a long, long time.
Mark Duethorn. He was our discovery group leader for three years, so we got to know him very well. He challenged me to move beyond my head and stop thinking that my time at Hyde was just about fixing Nick in those early stages. What was your most meaningful lesson from Hyde? I need to open up and to be honest with my feelings and let those I care about into that side of me. Taking that risk is what relationships are all about...not to allow the fear of opening up to hold me back. If I don’t do that, it is robbing the people I care about and myself of what a relationship could be.
Which Word or Principle has impacted you in your life the most and why? The humility piece has tested me. I have always thought of myself as a humble person, but I’ve had a difficult time asking for help in certain situations. As Hyde turns 50 years old, what are your thoughts about where it is today? Hyde is the best kept secret in so many ways. I am forever grateful for being part of the Hyde family. It’s exciting to see how it’s focusing very specifically on leadership and developing the different leadership levels. Do you have any advice for current or future Hyde parents? Never give up, and it’s never too late. Hyde truly is about second and third chances. What is your favorite Hyde moment? I have two. Nick’s graduation—it was a culmination of more than we could ever expect. Also, watching Evan’s tremendous growth as a student and an athlete. I’ve been so proud to watch him run long distances and push himself to his best. The moment I was all in was when they said that Hyde not only welcomes family involvement, but requires it. That was something we were looking for, not just to have our sons go to a different school, but something that would keep us close and connected. Which Hyde teacher(s) impacted you the most personally?
Do you have any advice for current or future Hyde parents?
Pam Hardy. She has been a very impactful and supportive person in my life during both Nick and Evan’s time at Hyde.
Trust in the process and open up. The longer I delayed my learning, the longer it took to see the progress in my son.
What was your most meaningful lesson from Hyde?
What is your favorite Hyde moment? At this point, Nick’s graduation. To have gotten to that point and to see what he accomplished through his senior year, the way he really became his total self...that transformation from junior to senior year was remarkable. He put that all together in his speech and it was powerful.
The idea of allowing my children to own their own struggles and to be able to discover for myself what it means to hold space for someone as opposed to stepping in and fixing it. How do I hold that space for my kids and walk alongside them, but not try to take that emotional pain from them? I still struggle with that. HYDE SCHOOL ALUMNI PROFILE MAGAZINE
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Tony Dawsey Behind every successful music album, hard-working professionals give their all to make that hit happen. Tony Dawsey is one of those professionals. As a mastering engineer since 1982, Tony is the guy who takes the raw music and transfers it to a master device, the primary source from which all copies of the music are produced. Music producers, musicians, engineers, and “record people” hire him to perfect the sound that the masses have grown to expect.
HYDE-BATH ’79
In the world of music, mastering is seen as a critical entryway that occurs between production and actual consumption of the music. Tony spends most of his time in an at-home studio engaged in highly technical tasks that require a keen awareness of how “top-quality” sound is supposed to translate from the music source to the ear.
“Basically, I do the third-stage of recording music,” he says.
STARTING OUT
“I take the track, the song, the file, which comes from the
Though Tony’s path to the music industry evolved somewhat
recording studio, and then goes on to the mixing facility, and I put the final touches on it before it goes into production, to websites, to YouTube, and so on.”
unexpectedly, he believes the signs were always present. He remembers at a very young age, while growing up in Spanish Harlem and listening to “any music” he could get his hands on, there was something present, pulling him in that
GIFTS AND GRAMMYS
direction. “My passion for music only grows over time,” he
Tony spent more than three decades working as a senior
says. “Yes, it’s always been there, but it’s something that
mastering engineer for Masterdisk in New York City before breaking out on his own three years ago, a long stint for someone who initially thought he wanted to be a fashion photographer. He mastered his first multi-platinum album in 1987, only eight years after graduating from Hyde, and as part of a team of collaborators, he has seen his efforts result in multiple Grammy Awards for the artists he represents. When Tony first started out, production masters were produced for cassette and vinyl only. While he still occasionally produces masters for CD duplication, his
As a member of the student troupe cast in the show that toured nationally in venues such as the Kennedy Center for the Arts in Washington DC, he found the song and dance intoxicating, feeling as though it actually beat “in his veins.” “Dave Larsson started me down the road toward being a professional in this arena,” he says. “Many times I would think of him and remember the things he told me—to do it
Today, as one of the most respected and sought-after
“It was a real eye-opener for me,” he says. “I developed confidence, began to see I could make my mark, and I learned professionalism—what it means to give something
Whitney Houston.
your all. I do believe in God and that He makes things
The people I work with come from all over the world. I am truly a blessed man. I work in all genres of music: hip hop, R & B, sometimes jazz, sometimes rock and roll, and right now I’m working on a track from Brazil. Music is a beautiful thing; it’s universal. I wish the world could play music instead of war.
GOODBYES
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performing in Hyde’s original production, America’s Spirit.
right at all times.”
for artists such as Jay-Z, Kid Rock, DMX and, in the past,
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Tony credits much of his love of music to the time he spent
primary source for production is accomplished digitally.
professionals in his industry, his projects include mastering
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I’ve learned to appreciate over time even more and more.”
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possible with all of His blessings.”
And so Tony’s music story goes—what started as a trickle eventually turned into a stream of projects, awards, and a reputation that earned him a solid name in an industry that is nearly impossible to infiltrate, even for the most talented. But for the most part, he sees himself as a “regular guy living a normal life,” whose most meaningful role over the past two and a half decades was as father to his 24-year-old daughter, Kendra.
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It was a real eye-opener for me. I developed confidence, began to see I could make my mark, and I learned professionalism—what it means to give something your all. I do believe in God and that He makes things possible with all of His blessings.
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She recently graduated from Yale University and decided to move out on her own. That experience was one of the most moving for me; it’s hard to let go. I didn’t want to cry in front of her, but I couldn’t help it. I just had a hard time accepting that my little girl had grown up.
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DEFINING MOMENTS Which Word or Principle has impacted you in your life the most and why? Integrity. As human beings and as people here on this planet, our word is everything. How you treat people says a lot about who you are as a person. I live my life with that in mind. I try to treat people the same way that I would expect to be treated. I try to love every day; I try to give. As Hyde turns 50 years old, what are your thoughts about where it is today? That’s pretty amazing...50 years! I guess I tend to forget that. I was there somewhere in the early stages of the school. I go up for a reunion in Bath every so often. The campus looks great. Through Joe Gauld’s vision and leadership, it’s still doing good things. It’s all about commitment and unique potential, so I’m very happy I’ve been part of that. Do you have any advice for current or future Hyde students? You probably won’t realize the impact of Hyde until after
What is your favorite Hyde moment? I tend to miss the sports. I talk with Tom Baez often, and I tell him that I miss playing with him. I miss competing; I miss the basketball; I just miss that part of Hyde. Along with that are the relationships. It’s part of the Hyde experience. Which Hyde teacher(s) impacted you the most personally? I was there for four years, and quite a few of them stick out for different reasons. Bob Bertschy was my favorite basketball coach, and I’ve had many. Paul Hurd really touched my soul, too, and I miss him dearly. Coming up there and talking to him was a special thing. What was your most meaningful lesson from Hyde? Leaving the school and going off into life...you have a different strut. The ways I learned about integrity. Again, your word is everything. That’s all a man has, is his word. You say you’re going to do something, then do it.
you’re gone. The relationships and the bonds you develop are everlasting. You don’t realize that when you’re there, but you do realize it a lot later in life. The relationships are for life.
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Alex DiChiara Relationships. In Alex DiChiara’s memory, that’s where Hyde starts. Two years ago, he decided to rent a car in New Jersey while on a monthly business trip and drive to Maine to see his former schoolmates for a reunion. “I had the greatest time and got a chance to give a couple of guys a bear hug,” he says. “There’s some kind of exchange that went on 40 years ago that is still rich to this day. Though I haven’t done a great job keeping up with Hyde friends, they’re still like tertiary members of my family.”
HYDE-BATH ’73
On that front, Alex points out that he “loved” the structure
For Alex, losing was of little consequence. That epic match
and sense of camaraderie he experienced as a Hyde student
chartered a lifetime course that included a belief in himself
40-plus years ago. “It taught me about challenging myself
which he found there on the mat that day. Suddenly, the
and learning who I was—all good stuff for a teenager,”
character concept he’d been hearing so much about at Hyde
he says. Indeed Alex’s recount of his time at Hyde and the
became real to him.
relationships he made there seem to imbue him with a sense of his own life’s history that, he says, “having had my fair share of sleepless nights, has been a really good run.”
TAKING MAD TO THE MAT Alex’s back story is as a New Jersey-born “typical, rebellious
“It was a life-changing event that I’ve drawn from my entire life,” he says. “My opponent caught me in a move that should have pinned me, but I never gave up and fought back—that’s character. I had never been challenged like that. I came off the mat with a score of 14 to 16, exhausted and beaming with pride as my teammates cheered me on.”
kid,” who hung out with “really smart guys” and held on to some anger after his father died when he was only nine years old. At age 15, he recognized that, while he felt a close attachment to his friends, he needed to reinvent himself, get out of New Jersey, and find a school that could support him in doing that. So he and his mother set off to visit several boarding schools in New England. He picked Hyde.
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several full scholarships to wrestle at some “very good” colleges. Instead he headed out West and attended California State in Sonoma, where he earned a degree in geology. Immediately after, he landed a job in Denver at gave me a key to a truck, a pile of maps, and a couple of
It had a different emphasis than the other schools. In my case, the mandatory sports meant a lot. I was captain of the wrestling team, New England champion, and MVP the two years I attended Hyde, and my team was undefeated during those years.
thousand dollars and told me to go to the northernmost tip of Montana for eight months to find lead and zinc deposits,” he says. The next year, Alex took a job with Teton Exploration in Albuquerque, New Mexico, a subsidiary of United Nuclear that specialized in uranium exploration. Three years later, he went off on his own and entered into a contract with the Department of Energy to explore parts of Nevada for uranium deposits. “I wore cowboy boots and a 9-millimeter
In this particular area of his life, Alex contends that focusing
automatic handgun in a shoulder holster,” he says. “I was
on wrestling made a lot of sense and allowed him to sidestep
alone the entire time, with the exception of a dog and a
some potentially fraught issues. “I was a bitter, angry kid,
warm bottle of rum, which was company enough for me.”
because I felt cheated that my father had died and left me,” he says. “I worked extremely hard not to embarrass myself when I went out on the mat. In the two years I was there, I lost only one regular season match and that turned out to be the most valuable experience I had at Hyde.”
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In 1973, after graduating from Hyde, Alex turned down
Anaconda Copper as an exploration field geologist. “They
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STEERING HIS OWN SUCCESS
HYDE SCHOOL ALUMNI PROFILE MAGAZINE
In 1979, when the uranium industry came to a halt after the Three Mile Island reactor meltdown, Alex lost his job and returned to his roots in New Jersey to help his mother and step-father with the family’s commercial real estate
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It was a life-changing event that I’ve drawn from my entire life. My opponent caught me in a move that should have pinned me, but I never gave up and fought back—that’s character. I had never been challenged like that. I came off the mat with a score of 14 to 16, exhausted and
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beaming with pride as my teammates cheered me on.
business. A year later, he bought an apartment in New York City. For the next 10 years, Alex’s work would require a biweekly commute between New Jersey and Florida, managing the company’s holdings in both states until he set off again for California to start his own commercial brokerage firm in San Francisco, DiChiara & Wright.
LESSONS LIVED AND LEARNED More than 25 years later, Alex remains involved in his family’s business part-time, juggling work at his firm on the West Coast with the work he does with his family holdings back East. When time allows, he and his wife Melina and daughter Olivia take off from their home near San Francisco to spend time at their beach house on the coast of Sicily where Melina was born and raised. Alex firmly believes that his approach to life—personally and professionally—has a lot to do with the short time he spent at Hyde four decades ago.
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As Hyde turns 50 years old, what are your thoughts about where it is today? I don’t really know a lot about what Hyde is up to these days. I have concern for the school from time to time, when I think about their lack of a succession plan.
So much of what I do and how I do it today was shaped during those formative years. I still wear a suit and tie when I go to work, even though most others don’t, and I’m proud of the fact that I never gave up on the mat during that wrestling match I lost as a kid. I’m not a quitter.
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Do you have any advice for current or future Hyde students? Make the right choices about where you go to school, and make the most out of those years and excel. What is your favorite Hyde moment? Beyond the wrestling match, which was my best moment, Sundays. Some of my favorite memories are Sunday evenings sitting behind the dining hall, laughing with friends while we stuffed muffins into our mouths.
DEFINING MOMENTS
Which Hyde teacher(s) impacted you the most personally?
Which Word or Principle has impacted you in your life the most and why?
Ed Legg. He was a thoughtful man, and I had a lot of respect
Integrity is essential. It’s a pillar in my life. I can deal
for him. He had a particular insight that stayed with me.
with a lot of people, but if they don’t have integrity,
What was your most meaningful lesson from Hyde?
there’s nothing.
It goes back to the reunion, relationships, and that wrestling match. I went to school with people who are so important to me after all these years.
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Joanne Wingood Goubourn When Joanne Wingood enrolled as a student at Hyde School in Bath, she never imagined she would work there. That was in 1971 when she was among the first group of girls to attend the once all boys Hyde School, with 16 girls and 150 boys. Forty-four years later, Joanne, now Joanne Wingood Goubourn, is the executive director of the Hyde Foundation and has a litany of other leadership positions she has held during her distinguished, 29-year career at Hyde, including the organization’s first woman to earn Head of School title.
HYDE-BATH ’75
Today, Joanne oversees the network of Hyde’s public and charter schools that provide the organization’s signature character education and ensures that all of the public schools’ students and teachers receive the same education and training she believes contributed to her success.
CHANGING THE FACE OF AMERICAN EDUCATION In the years since Joanne has worked for the Hyde
As Hyde turns 50 years old, what are your thoughts about where it is today?
Foundation, she has focused on establishing more schools
I believe it’s time for a new day, where public and private
and programs in the country that include a prioritized
education come together for the sake of our students. Hyde
character education component. While Hyde’s Maine and
can be a symbol of that unity, a blueprint for education in
Connecticut campuses are high schools, she has introduced
America. What it offers, the impact it has, and its basic
its principles to children as young as five in Hyde charter
philosophy truly provide a better way and serve many well.
schools. To date, she has helped in the startup and growth
My hope is that we continue to do what we do—bring our
of four inner-city schools rooted in character education and,
character development model to the forefront—in a more
over time, witnessed significant leaps in student progress.
intentional and energized way.
One such example exists at the Hyde Leadership Charter School in Bronx, New York, where 94% of its inner-city students graduate and most continue on to college.
Do you have any advice for current or future Hyde students? Work hard and believe in yourself. When I think of the
When asked what drives her passion, Joanne reflects on her own Hyde education
students we work with, I realize that many are faced with
“It all comes back to what Hyde gave me as an adolescent
they are here for a purpose. Finding their way to that
girl growing up who lacked confidence and didn’t believe
purpose and the strength it takes to get there is all that is
I was good enough,” Joanne says. “At Hyde, I realized I
asked of us at Hyde. That’s what a Hyde education is
did have something to offer; I had value. I could make a
all about.
difference. Hyde helped me to answer that question, ‘Who am I?’ and how did I want to impact the world. I wanted and
challenges every day. I want them and all students to know
What is your favorite Hyde moment?
continue to want public school students and their families to
Graduation. Graduating with my brother and standing
experience the kind of education that can change their lives
on the stage while my favorite teacher summed up my
in a positive way.”
four-year Hyde experience made me feel proud of what I accomplished. I started to speak up, and I believed sincerely
DEFINING MOMENTS Which Word or Principle has impacted you in your life the most and why?
that I could take what I learned at Hyde into my life, that everything I learned was truly going to be how I lived the rest of my life. I tested it and it worked.
Courage. I was quiet and often afraid to speak up for fear I
Which Hyde teacher(s) impacted you the most personally?
would say the wrong thing. Once I was at Hyde, everything
Bob Bertschy. Before coming to Hyde, I often felt judged and
I did, in terms of what I had to say, took courage. I started
inferior. I strove for perfection to always do the right thing.
to speak up and I believe that strengthened my academics
With Mr. Bertschy, I felt “good enough,” valued and accepted
enough to be accepted to Wellesley College. I learned about
for who I was and what I was going to do in this world. He
who I was and that gave me the confidence and courage to
believed in me and set high expectations for me. He raised
find my own voice.
difficult questions that required me to think more deeply about my life. I have an everlasting deep love for him.
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Jacki Gran Jacki Gran, a self-described “stress ball,” no longer minds stepping out of her comfort zone. Walking on a treadmill while being interviewed, she delves into the course of events and epiphanies that carried her to her current career as an accomplished mosaic artist and a person who sees the proverbial glass half full. Reflecting on the time she spent with her family at Hyde, Jacki comments, “The kids were asked to work up to their potential, and I wasn’t working up to mine. I wanted to be an artist, and there were people in a workshop asking me why I wasn’t. I recognized that I never allowed myself to try because I didn’t want to fail.”
AN ARTIST IS BORN Even so, Jacki says it was a series of instances that worked
MICHAEL, HYDE-BATH ’03
Do you have any advice for current or future Hyde parents?
together during her family’s time at Hyde that led her. While
Commit 100%. Whatever they [Hyde] told me to do, I did and
reading about things that were meditative for sobriety, she
was not led astray. It was one of the first times in my life
discovered mosaic art. At the same time, she began wearing
that my husband and I committed to something like that. If
a charm of an artist’s palette given to her by a friend.
parents commit, most kids will follow. They follow your bad habits and your good habits. It works if you work it.
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People would see the charm and ask if I was an artist and I began to think ‘I guess I am,’ and then I started to answer ‘Yes, I am an artist.’
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As the momentum built so too did Jacki’s confidence. Soon after, she was propelled toward creating beautifully detailed, vibrant mosaics comprised of minute chips of colored glass. Today, Jacki is president of the Society of American Mosaic Artists and her work has been displayed at museums and galleries around the country, including the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, Washington and the Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum in Mesa, Arizona. Additionally, she has been a featured artist on HGTV.
DEFINING MOMENTS Which Hyde Word or Principle has impacted you in your life the most and why? Truth. I lied to myself and everybody, covered up for my kids, didn’t let them face their responsibilities when they did something wrong. I see how I interact with others now. I can
What is your favorite Hyde moment? The hot seat exercise was a pivotal moment that changed my life. Everyone was asked to name the challenges they saw in the person sitting in the hot seat. Every person there said that one of my challenges was insecurity. That blew my mind. I couldn’t stop thinking about it for two days. I finally pulled out the sheet that described my strengths and said to myself, “I’m going to be her instead.” My happiest moment was at the Hyde graduation when Michael was dancing on the stage, something he said he would never do, and he would rather spend the entire time he was at the school on an island. Which Hyde teacher(s) impacted you the most personally? Laura Gauld. She introduced me to The Biggest Job®, Hyde’s parenting program, which transformed our family. What was your most meaningful lesson from Hyde? The ropes course. I got off that course and decided that, if I could do that, I could do anything. I admitted I had an addiction problem and began the journey of sobriety. I came down a different person than I was when I went up.
be truthful. I can examine when it’s my fault and apologize and make things right. I don’t leave bodies in my wake anymore. As Hyde turns 50 years old, what are your thoughts about where it is today? It seems nicer now, but if it had been any less tough for us, we wouldn’t have gotten what we got out of it.
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Bernard Gran The year is 1960, and a 10-year-old Bernard Gran and his parents have just arrived from Cuba to Miami, Florida to live. Allowed to bring only the clothes on their backs and unable to speak English, Bernard says it was like starting life over again. He remembers the transition as shocking and one of the most difficult things he has ever done. MICHAEL, HYDE-BATH ’03
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There will be other monumental touchstones in Bernard’s life—graduating from medical school when he was 26 and later in his career becoming the assistant chief for the Department of Neuroscience at Baptist Health South Florida—but it was marrying his wife, Jacki, and becoming a father that really touched the deepest chord in him and sent his heart aflutter.
DEFINING MOMENTS The most important thing in my life is family— my wife and my three children. There were times when I didn’t always think things would turn out well, but the fact is, with some guidance and work, they did.
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A FATHER’S HYDE STORY To be sure, Bernard’s love of family was tested when he and Jacki found themselves at Hyde with a son whose life had run amok. And although Bernard says they felt
Which Hyde Word or Principle has impacted you in your life the most and why?
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Integrity. I learned from my father at a very young age that integrity is very important. You have to do the right thing, even if it has a negative consequence. That’s what makes a good human being. When my children were growing up and I would do or say something, it often seemed as though it would bounce off them like water off a duck’s back. Years later, I saw that it stuck.
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“overwhelmed” by the school’s untraditional approach, they decided to listen and do exactly what the faculty advised. “Kids mirror what their parents do and say,” he says,
As Hyde turns 50 years old, what are your thoughts about where it is today?
“and so Jacki and I recognized that if we wanted Michael to
There’s still a need. There are a lot of families out there
make changes in his life, we had to make a few ourselves.” It’s that subtle reminder of their days at Hyde that makes Bernard’s next words about Michael sound like they’re spoken with a smile over the telephone: “To go from being an extremely introverted kid and refusing to participate, to a smiling, engaged Hyde student dancing on a stage and
that need guidance, people who’ve lost their way and can use support. Do you have any advice for current or future Hyde parents? Shut up and listen.
scoring a goal in a soccer game—that really touched me.”
What is your favorite Hyde moment?
Today, Bernard lives with Jacki in Miami, not far from
It was the culmination of a lot of moments. I read in a
Michael when he’s not out traveling somewhere in the world. This year, he and Jacki will celebrate their 36th wedding anniversary, yet another touchstone for which Bernard feels a tremendous amount of joy.
Hyde newsletter that Michael scored a goal in soccer. He was the most non-athletic person you’d have ever met. It was the final minutes of the game, and his teammate kicked the ball across the goal, and Michael then headed it into the goal. Tears came to my eyes. It wasn’t the athletic accomplishment so much as it was that he found the confidence to do it.
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“
Kids mirror what their parents do and say, and so Jacki and I recognized that if we wanted Michael to make changes in his life, we had to make a
”
few ourselves.
Which Hyde teacher(s) impacted you the most personally? Joe Gauld. He let me have it a few times—without malice— at a retreat, and I needed it. I don’t even remember what it was about, but afterward we left campus to go to Freeport. I felt so overwhelmed by what happened at the retreat that I kept driving and ended up in Augusta, which is more than an hour out of the way. What was your most meaningful lesson from Hyde? 9/11. It was my weekend to go to a retreat and it was the first weekend that flights were allowed to take off. There were two people on my plane and three people at the retreat. I recognized my own commitment to participating in the program with my son then. I wasn’t going to miss that retreat for anything.
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Michael Gran If you’re looking for the face of modern art in Miami circa right now, go no further than Michael Gran. Unassumingly articulate, arrestingly accomplished, and firmly grounded in who he is and what kind of person he wants to be, Michael, known as Typoe in the art world, is emerging as one of the most dynamic artists in Miami and is doing his part to make positive change wherever life takes him. HYDE-BATH ’03
That introduction greatly contrasts with how Michael describes himself as a student entering Hyde in 2000. After failing his freshman year at a school in Miami, Michael and his family found their way to a Hyde interview where he got kicked out during his first round, returned after a reprimand from his parents, and then reluctantly entered what he calls his “crash course on how to live.”
DOING THE RIGHT THING
lawyers. There is a creative aspect in everything, and I work
After his graduation, Michael spent a year figuring things
with people who are open to finding that creativity.”
out and went a little crazy. His “aha” moment came at what
DEFINING MOMENTS
he describes as the lowest point in his life. It was then he decided to do “the right thing” for himself and get sober. Ever since he made that decision, his career in art has taken
Which Word or Principle has impacted you in your life the most and why?
off, so much so that he doesn’t know from day to day where he will be or for whom he’ll be working.
EVERY DAY, EVERYTHING ART In the years since Hyde, Michael has been a little busy. He co-owns and is the creative director for Primary Projects, an art gallery located in Miami. The art he creates, which is shown at Spinello Projects, another gallery in town, touches on the everyday world. He sees his work as an expression of what is happening around him and a way to communicate how that will impact the world. His art takes him everywhere because, he says, it is everywhere and in everything we do. Ten years ago, he, along with his business partners at Primary Flight, an organization that promotes the creation of murals on unused spaces in urban areas, were tasked with bringing a visual and interactive creative component to the abandoned warehouse district of Wynwood. Wynwood Walls eventually became the largest display of street art in the world and was voted one of the top coolest neighborhoods in the world by Vogue. He recently designed a line of high-end men’s dress shoes for Del Toro and, in the summer of 2015, partnered with a group of well-known musicians on the Full Flex Express, traveling across Canada on a train to engage the crowds they encountered along the way through art. Much of the spare time Michael can snatch is spent at the gym, sometimes twice a day when he can fit it in.
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Unique potential. It engulfs everything else—all of the other Words or Principles—they could all live under that umbrella. I see my unique potential as having integrity, concern, humility, and all of the other Words or Principles wrapped into that one thing.
”
As Hyde turns 50 years old, what are your thoughts about where it is today? It’s a different time. Now, in 2016, everybody’s got phones and they’re on the Internet. We communicate differently than we did just a few short years ago. The most important thing is to adapt to that and then figure out ways to spread the message. Hyde is a message, and it needs to find the best ways to get that out there to better our world. The world needs something that encourages integrity over getting a math problem right, where it’s more valuable to be a good person. Do you have any advice for current or future Hyde students? Get uncomfortable. If you’re comfortable, you’re probably not doing anything or learning anything. If you want to be awesome, you have to push yourself, push the boundaries
“I am so lucky,” he says. “My job touches on so many things.
and experiment with different things even when you think
I work with developers, musicians, fashion designers, and
you’re not good at it or doing it right.
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“
I am so lucky. My job touches on so many things. I work with developers, musicians, fashion designers, and lawyers. There is a creative aspect in everything, and I work with people who are open to finding that creativity.
”
Then there was Paul Hurd, who didn’t care what I liked. I just had to stay quiet and take it. Sometimes I needed to get hit with the truth and sit with it. He spent his life’s work trying to perfect the Hyde concept and make a difference. They were both amazing, because I needed what they offered me at different times.
What was your most meaningful lesson from Hyde?
“
There wasn’t one lesson. It was the whole experience. It was a long, tedious process that woke me up, where I started out not wanting to do anything or push myself to picking up these tools along the way and finding better ways of doing things.
”
What is your favorite Hyde moment? I was not an athlete, never played sports before Hyde, and worked my way on to the varsity soccer team. During a game, I scored a goal with my head. My Hyde friends still remind me of that. Which Hyde teacher(s) impacted you the most personally? Shalimar Poulin. She knew the Hyde concept, but she also understood me as a creative person. Sometimes, when people spoke to me in an authoritative way, I didn’t respond well. She saw that and knew how to maneuver around it.
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Matt Graham It seems that Matt Graham is downright unstoppable these days—at least on the television production front, which is pretty much what he does with most of his time, whether at work or at play. His impressive collection of past and present projects span across an array of television genres—from a recently wrapped up docu-series for CNN to a cooking competition show for ABC to his most recent project working on a pilot about Alaska for the History Channel.
HYDE-WOODSTOCK ’07
That kind of jumping around from job to job works very well for Matt, who is quick to say he’s at his “happiest” when “staying busy.”And the best kind of busy for him is following his passion—producing social documentaries that investigate all outlets of humanity and our impact on the world.
“Those are the things that matter to me as opposed to
GO WEST
reality-related filmmaking,” he says. “If I’m not working
That advice made sense to Matt, who recognized the
on a new show, then I’m usually busy working on my own short docs.”
importance of breaking out of his “comfort zone” if he was going to make a name for himself in the highly competitive field of television. Given The Vineyard hadn’t been renewed
SOCIAL CHANGE
for a second season, he saw nothing that should hold him
Matt recently spent several weekends in Las Vegas
back from jumping in his car and moving out to LA where he
independently interviewing and gathering information about the large communities of people inhabiting active flood tunnels beneath the city. “Men, women, and children live down there—some have been there for as many as 10 years,” he says. “I knew elsewhere around the world there were people living in these gnarly conditions, but it opened my eyes to a whole new level of depravity happening in these subterranean communities right here in America.”
hoped to find work that would pay a wage. As it turns out, Matt’s choice did pay off. Now, in his fifth year of television production, he is fully engaged in the behind-the-scenes hustle and bustle of creating entertainment for television viewers. His work takes him in all directions of production—shooting music videos in the desert; or, as a field producer, wrangling talent and ensuring that all story elements are covered; or, as a story producer, building out shows using a blue print that he and the
REALITY TV
executive producers develop.
Matt began his career in television in 2011 at the age of 22, soon after graduating from James Madison University. That summer he landed a job with Dupont, as part of a crew that produced safety and training videos for the company’s employees. While the job provided him the opportunity to learn the nuts and bolts of film production, a valuable stepping stone toward a career in making films, it lacked the creative outlet he sought. One year later, Matt took a sharp turn to work with a film crew in Martha’s Vineyard on a reality series titled The Vineyard.
“Right now, as a post producer for this pilot on Alaska, I’m given a ton of footage that is filmed in the field,” he says. “I create segments from the footage that will then get passed along to the editors who put the final touches on the film.” All of Matt’s projects have distinct styles and premises, and all have made their mark in his career portfolio—but none more emphatically than the work he did with CNN as a story producer for a docu-series titled Declassified, an eightpart series covering America’s covert operations conveyed
“
It was kind of a Laguna Beach-esque show, where the premise was to follow this group of goodlooking young people who hung out for the summer. It didn’t last, but it was challenging and rewarding and, at the end of it, everyone on the crew told me that if I was going to take film production seriously, I needed to move out to LA.
”
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through the lenses of government officials and agents involved in various missions of espionage. “I’ve always loved writing and filmmaking, and this experience hit every reason why I’m doing this,” he says.
THE STORE STORY Recalling his days at Hyde, the spirited, fun-loving 27-year-old from Virginia Beach cannot help but steer the conversation
“
Right now, as a post producer for this pilot on Alaska, I’m given a ton of footage that is filmed in the field. I create segments from the footage that will then get passed along to the editors who put the final touches
”
on the film.
to his lighter days at the school when he and his roommate, equipped with a microwave and refrigerator in their dorm room, saw an opportunity they felt compelled to pursue. “We ran this underground store, selling the same things the school store sold for less money from our first-floor dorm window,” he says. “Teachers saw we were making a significant profit and taking away from the school, so they shut us down. That was a fun moment.” For someone who is all about telling the story, that one may just win the Emmy.
DEFINING MOMENTS Which Word or Principle has impacted you in your life the most and why?
“
Curiosity. It’s important to always want to know more, to question one’s place and ask why things are the way they are. I always want to know more. A healthy curiosity keeps life fun and interesting. I love learning and continuing to improve upon myself.
”
yourself. Don’t worry about what everyone else is doing. Go after whatever you want to do and don’t let anyone talk you out of it. It prevents you from living up to your potential. What is your favorite Hyde moment? Running the underground store on the campus. The relationships meant a lot. Playing sports with a team was a great lesson. Which Hyde teacher(s) impacted you the most personally? Mr. Rigney. He was always there when I needed him. That’s another thing that sticks out about Hyde is that the faculty
As Hyde turns 50 years old, what are your thoughts about where it is today?
invested a lot of time in the students—not just academically,
I don’t know where Hyde is today. I’ve heard it’s changed
to grow. I thought it was amazing and Mr. Rigney was a prime
a lot. Everyone seems to be doing their own thing, which is cool.
but beyond that—being there for them and challenging them example. What was your most meaningful lesson from Hyde?
Do you have any advice for current or future Hyde students?
I learned to appreciate where I came from. If there’s one
Not to get caught up in the small stuff. I remember when
out my relationship with my parents. It put things into
I was at Hyde, there were a lot of things I wasn’t happy
perspective and made me realize how much they care about
about. Things change. You move on. Your interests develop.
me and how important they really are. They are the people
No matter what happens, it’s not the end of the world. Be
who will always be there for me. The distance between us
thing I’m really grateful for, it’s that Hyde helped to iron
really helped me understand and appreciate what I have.
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Neil Higgins History, so the saying goes, repeats itself, and in one area of Neil Higgins’ life that is certainly true. Almost three and a half decades after graduating from Hyde, he’s returned to his Hyde roots—this time as a parent involved in the family program with his two sons, Jesse, 17, a senior at the Bath campus, and Isaac, 20, who graduated in 2015. For Neil and his wife, Mary, participating in Hyde’s family program as co-chairs of their region has been a “godsend” relative to getting on the same page and aligning their parenting styles. Though Neil admits there is no tried-and-true formula for parenting without an occasional bump in the road, he sees his role as father much differently today than he did a few years ago.
HYDE-BATH ’82 ISAAC, HYDE-BATH ’15 JESSE, HYDE-BATH ’16
Neil remembers a time when Isaac was having trouble in public school and he believed he had failed as a parent. Moreover, he thought his experience at Hyde as a student should have somehow translated into a more successful outcome for his son. After all, he says, he knew all about the concepts and lessons from having spent two years at Hyde.
“
I didn’t let my kids know about my struggles in life and didn’t recognize how harmful that could be. But there’s an amazing sense of community in a place like Hyde, because people are telling you the truth, the reality about what’s going on with their families, and what you find out is you’re not alone. You’re not hearing parents’ sanitized versions. It’s incredibly freeing.
”
DEFINING COMMUNITY—AN UNEXPECTED LESSON That story of course echoes in many ways the one of Neil as a Hyde student. Uncanny, the similarities between his memories as a “painfully shy and lost kid” from Vienna, Virginia, who lacked that same sense of community when he first set foot on the Bath campus. Finding himself living in a new town in Virginia after his parents’ divorce, Neil, who had stopped attending high school, began to feel a glimmer of hope when his mother showed him a Hyde School catalog. “I remember thinking the photographs looked great,” he says. “The kids in the catalog had energy and looked authentically happy.” It would be inaccurate, though, to cast Neil as someone who immediately overcame his timidity and sense of loss when he first arrived on Hyde’s campus in 1980 as a “sheltered kid from the suburbs.” He is unwavering in his accounts of entering into early situations with peers and teachers that
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“terrified” him, where everyone there knew more about each other than anything he had ever experienced. But his earliest memories of uneasiness quickly fade into a recollection of subsequent events that fundamentally changed his impression of himself and continue to influence him today—both as a parent and in his professional life as an architect. Recalling his senior year at Hyde, involved in America’s Spirit and fully immersed in sports and academics, Neil turned to his English teacher, Larry Pray, who was in the middle of writing a book, Journey of a Diabetic. “I was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes that year and was feeling really lousy about it—physically and emotionally,” he says. “Mr. Pray was also diabetic, and the book was about his experience and growth from having the disease rather than ultra-negative like so many of the other books out there. That put a frame around my own diagnosis and helped me to come to terms with it. I remember he told me the disease would be a great teacher.”
MR. PRAY WAS RIGHT Within a month after his diagnosis, Neil was pretty sure he felt good enough to join a group for a winter camping trip in the mountains of Maine. Tying a vial filled with insulin around his neck to prevent it freezing in the frigid temperatures, he set off on his first adventure since his diagnosis. That night, the temperature dropped to negative 17, and by morning Neil recognized the insulin was too cold to inject. “I had to get help from the other students,” he says. “They had to huddle around me and warm it up so I could take it in. My friend, Steve Barney, held the syringe to warm it while I prepped the injection site. It was a team effort and a challenge to make the whole thing possible. I found out later some of those helping were afraid of needles. It was an incredible piece of knowledge for me because I knew if I could do that and get that support, I was going to be okay after that trip.”
“
Hyde seems more refined, the effective core beliefs are still in place, but the ineffective parts are sifted out. That’s clear from having participated
”
as a parent the past three years.
FULL CIRCLE
DEFINING MOMENTS
Neil says the experience gave him a sense of confidence in knowing he was trusted to be able to figure out what he needed to do to take care of himself. That confidence carried him through years of college—first to George Mason University, where he spent three semesters majoring in pre-engineering and later, after taking a year-long break to figure out what he really wanted to do, to Boston Architectural College, where he worked and studied to earn a five-year bachelor of architecture degree.
Which Word or Principle has impacted you in your life the most and why?
“The school was very easy to get into, but almost impossible to graduate from,” he says. “It’s very intense, very immersive, and you’re always learning and working in your field, which I’m drawn to.” During his education and after graduation in 1994, Neil worked at several architectural firms in Boston and later went off on his own. In 2006, when Mary decided to pursue her Ph.D. in nursing, the family packed their bags and moved to Charlottesville, Virginia, where Neil landed a job with Bushman Dreyfus Architects. For the past three years, he has served as the firm’s co-director. Once again, history repeated itself for Neil when he found himself back at GMU, not as a third-semester student adrift in a pre-engineering program and uncertain about his future, but as architect of several of the school’s academic buildings, learning about what teachers need in order to do their jobs in a learning environment that will have sustainability at the forefront of its design. “You don’t finish your architectural education when you graduate,” he says. “Every project’s different and there’s a lot to synthesize, a lot of self-learning while getting to work with a community of experts. It’s a process I’m passionate about.” Today, Neil is enjoying a “mini-sabbatical” from his work at Bushman Dreyfus while he enjoys pondering his next move in life to Massachusetts, one that he says he looks forward to in knowing it will open new doors for learning.
Curiosity, because it is a compeller for me. I ask myself all of the time, what’s next? What’s next at work? That’s a piece that I’m working on right now. I’m having a little minisabbatical right now, and I get to consider what I’m going to do next. I feel like I’m in a position where I can be curious about doing something different if I want. It’s helped me in myriad ways on many levels. As Hyde turns 50 years old, what are your thoughts about where it is today? Hyde seems more refined, the effective core beliefs are still in place, but the ineffective parts are sifted out. That’s clear from having participated as a parent the past three years. Do you have any advice for current or future Hyde students? For students and parents, your time at Hyde is short. Whether you find it wholly aligns with you or not, it is a unique environment geared toward growth, one that you won’t experience again. Make it work for you. What is your favorite Hyde moment? Risking everything in a cross-country race, pushing myself to the limit, and failing spectacularly. It was the birth of grit and determination in my life. I ran a sub-five-minute mile and we won the MAISAD Class D State Championship shortly after. Which Hyde teacher(s) impacted you the most personally? Larry Pray, Henry Milton, Lili and Stan Brown. What was your most meaningful lesson from Hyde? Being seen isn’t anywhere near as painful as hiding.
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Tripp Holton
HYDE-BATH ’89
“
It’s a familiar scenario for hundreds of thousands of teenage students, but no picnic when it happens. What starts as a joy of learning in the early years turns into something pretty troubling later on down the educational road. That was Tripp Holton’s take on his experience from elementary school to middle school, through his sophomore year of high school. And indeed, things got somewhat unpleasant for him before he entered Hyde in 1988. Growing up in a rural area of New Jersey where there was little to do and few friends who lived close to him, Tripp found himself bored and disillusioned “with school, with life, with himself.”
IN PURSUIT OF MEDICINE I had come to the point where I wasn’t excelling in school. I was a bright kid, but ended up at three different high schools before Hyde. When my college counselor asked me where I wanted to go to college, I named off the top 10 schools in the country. That’s when I found out I had a low GPA.
”
For his part, Tripp credits Hyde with bringing to bear the opportunity to learn in the “best classroom education” he had and to earn his many accomplishments. But it was his father’s run-in with a serious health setback that vaulted him into his pursuit of a medical degree and a career in plastic surgery. “I was a sophomore majoring in East Asian studies at Colby College...when my father required an emergency quadruple bypass, and I remember being jealous of the surgeons who took care of him,” he recalls. “One night, after leaving the
Today, Tripp doesn’t seem at all unsettled by his past. He’s
hospital, I told my mother that I would be a doctor. I think
pensive and a good listener, slow-talking in a Harrison Ford
that, had it been anyone other than my mother, I would have
sort of way, effortlessly turning an ordinary conversation
been laughed at.”
into a profoundly insightful discussion. After almost three decades away from Hyde, the 46-year-old Annapolis resident and director of microvascular plastic surgery at Anne Arundel Medical Center counts himself as one of the fortunate ones.
FROM BEING LED TO LEADING
THE APEX—FOR THE TIME BEING Roughly 16 years later, years of “obstacles to clear,” including four years at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University, Tripp earned his way to practicing medicine. He trained in general surgery at the University
“I came to Hyde almost too late, but I connected with the
of Maryland and while there met a brilliant young plastic
feeling it gave me right away,” he says. “When I got there
and reconstructive surgeon who became his mentor. After
it was like heaven. I was so desperate for change and so
seven years of general surgery training and research he
amazed at all of the things I could do that were fun and had
stayed in Baltimore to train in the University of Maryland/
nothing to do with getting into trouble. I never had that.”
Johns Hopkins Combined Plastic Surgery training program.
As with many students at Hyde, Tripp found that the more he learned about himself, the more there was still left to learn. In a place where peers and teachers called
He was then recruited to stay on at University of Maryland as faculty where he spent five years training medical students, residents, and fellows and conducting research.
into question his integrity, he says he felt relief in being
Recently, Tripp, along with his partner, was recruited to start
surrounded by people who actually cared enough to hold
a division of plastic surgery at Anne Arundel Medical Center
him accountable to the things that threatened to irrevocably
in Annapolis, Maryland, where his wife Mara, an urologist
harm him. Reaching this understanding—which involved
and president of Anne Arundel Urology, also practices. As
countless frank discussions throughout the two years he
one might guess, Tripp’s work in breast reconstruction brings
spent at the Bath campus—produced a welcome stir of
with it a combination of challenge and reward. “It is tedious
hope in him. Hope, he says, that opened the door for
and often back-breaking work, but it’s fascinating and
“opportunities for real leadership” in his life.
worthwhile,” he says. “I often think that my patients are taken aback by my honesty, but in the end I think almost all of them are able to bond with me and trust me in a way that they have not expected.”
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“
It is tedious and often back-breaking work, but it’s fascinating and worthwhile. I often think that my patients are taken aback by my honesty, but in the end I think almost all of them are able to bond with me and
”
trust me in a way that they have not expected.
As Hyde turns 50 years old, what are your thoughts about where it is today? I have always thought that it is this special little gem and that it would probably be lost in translation if it were franchised. I hope that it never goes away. It is a symbol of hope for me. Do you have any advice for current or future Hyde students? If you don’t desperately want to be excellent or better, nothing will work for you. Also, don’t let your past (no matter how seedy) tell you that you are anything but amazing. I only regret the times when I did not aim higher. It is easy to think that everyone around you is better, but
AND THERE’S THE HUMOR OF IT Still, thanks in part to what Tripp describes as an “amazing”
better is not the grades you get or the car you drive or the college you go to. And, if you think you know it all, just have kids.
family and his deep appreciation for Mara’s natural ability to partner in parenting their two children, Plum, 11, and
What is your favorite Hyde moment?
Solomon, 10, his personal life is where he finds much of his
The whole thing.
fulfillment. As he reflects on the importance of family and how he likes to spend his off-work time, an unexpected
Which Hyde teacher(s) impacted you the most personally?
and welcome flicker of humor enters into his words. “I love
Laura Gauld will always be one of my favorite people. I like
hanging out with my kids,” he says. “And we also have two
her husband and father-in-law a lot, but they scare me. She
rescue female pit bulls who we worship and a miniature
made me feel safe and valuable. Bud Cox is the single best
schnauzer—not my best impulse purchase. We live in
teacher I have ever had. Don MacMillan was my one-man-
Annapolis, Maryland. We do not own a boat.”
”scared-straight” program. I needed him.
DEFINING MOMENTS
What was your most meaningful lesson from Hyde? I learned how to hug my father and tell him that I love him,
Which Word or Principle has impacted you in your life the most and why?
“
and I learned how to back the hell down and apologize (even if I am partly right). I learned that succeeding as a person requires a tremendous amount of maintenance and insight.
Hyde made me incredibly aware of the importance of continuous integrity and honesty. I remember learning that if you are absolutely committed to the basics of honesty (not cheating, stealing, or lying) you could always forgive yourself while you improved on the other issues.
”
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Nolan Hood For today’s armed forces, there are many risks. But for Nolan Hood, who serves in the Massachusetts Army National Guard as a full-time Readiness NCO and Platoon Sergeant for Delta Company 1st of the 181st infantry, a heavy weapons company, taking risks is part of his lineage. “The military is kind of a family thing,” he says. “My grandfather, my father, my older brother have all served in one capacity or another, so it’s more or less the family business that I decided to get into.”
HYDE-BATH ’98
To Nolan, the military has been the stuff of what he admires
throughout Farah province.” Again in 2010 through 2011,
most in one’s character and connects deeply with the
he returned to Afghanistan with Alpha Company 1st of the
principles he cultivated while honing his leadership skills as
181st Infantry, this time serving as part of a provincial
a Hyde student from 1994 to 1998. The Army values loyalty,
reconstruction team who worked with local elders and
duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity, and personal
government officials to rebuild the infrastructure of the
courage. The Hyde words and principles were a cornerstone
Uruzgan province.
that made the Army values an easy transition. In fact, for Nolan “it all started at Hyde,” where he remembers “having the best of both worlds” as a day student, focusing on his studies, athletics, and the rigors of Hyde’s full curriculum by day and going home to his family every night. “I was able to get what Hyde had to offer,” he remembers.
“
Laura, and his daughter, Abigail. He spends a good part of his time developing, implementing, and supervising training for manages two full-time soldiers who assist him as well as the
My role in the military is a leadership role and I took a lot of Hyde away with me to the military and implement the Principles in my life today.
”
part-time force for Delta Company 1st of the 181st Infantry. “Primarily, my job deals with personnel and readiness,” he says. “We have to be ready to move within 72 hours to handle a national disaster in the commonwealth or deploy abroad.”
NO GUTS, NO GLORY
THE BEST THING I EVER BUILT
Sharing his experiences with leadership in the military is,
For all that Nolan has accomplished in his military career,
for Nolan, pretty straightforward. There is no inflection of
it is heartening to hear the shift in his tone as he describes
glorified drama; rather, unassuming shades of respect mixed
his family. His brother, William, who graduated from Hyde
with confident understanding and complete acceptance.
in 2004, followed a similar path as his older brother, father,
But the stories he tells flag something other than a typical
and grandfather and serves as an artillery officer in the
day in an average American’s life. He’s served three tours of
California National Guard. He and Laura, who are “truly in
duty since 2006, the first in Kosovo and two in Afghanistan.
love”, expect their second child in October, around the time
In Kosovo, as part of a peacekeeping operation he, as
they will celebrate their sixth anniversary.
patrolled the country as a secondary police force. Between
And then there’s two-year-old Abigail.
2008 and 2009, he and 12 other American soldiers operated
“I tell everybody she is the best thing I ever built,” he says.
as police mentors, living inside an Afghan police compound
“She is the light of my life.”
training the local police officers and “conducting operations
|
Today, Nolan lives in Ludlow, Massachusetts, with his wife,
traditional National Guard soldiers in his unit. In this role, he
a member of Alpha Company 1st of the 104th Infantry,
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“
Primarily, my job deals with personnel and readiness. We have to be ready to move within 72 hours to handle a national disaster in the
”
commonwealth or deploy abroad.
DEFINING MOMENTS
What is your favorite Hyde moment? My graduation, the culmination of four years of ups and
Which Word or Principle has impacted you in your life the most and why?
“
Leadership. The whole idea around leadership is what I’ve experienced in the Army. It’s carried me through very well so far in my life.
”
As Hyde turns 50 years old, what are your thoughts about where it is today? I’m not really sure. I know it’s gone through some interesting changes. I think my family benefited from Hyde as a smaller, more personal program. It seems to be more of a business now, but hopefully is still giving to students and families
downs. Walking away from Hyde, I knew more about my family than I ever had and I knew more about myself. It was a start of a new road. Which Hyde teacher(s) impacted you the most personally? John Romac. He knew where I wanted to go in my life and he gave me guidance to get there. He also knew what I was capable of and wouldn’t let me rest on anything less. What was your most meaningful lesson from Hyde? I was a shy, quiet kid, and a lot of people misunderstood that to be arrogance. I like to think I pulled away from that after Hyde and I’m glad to have come out of it. I’m at a company with 112 to 130 people and having the courage to lead those people is something I gained from my experience at Hyde.
what we all gained. Do you have any advice for current or future Hyde students? Take what you learn there and use it as a solid foundation to build your life. Don’t look back with regret or bitterness.
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Bruce Jennings Bruce Jennings, a tall, silver-haired businessman and father of two, takes altruism and hard work to heart. In fact, he says, finding “ways to work together in the communities where we live for the good of everyone” is vital and something he has done for most of his adult life.
KENDALL, HYDE-BATH ’00 KYLENE, HYDE-BATH ’04
At 66 years old, it is safe to say that Bruce has earned his fair share of professional success. But for him, success in business has little value unless faith and family are intact. “I used to say I wanted to make enough money so I didn’t have to worry about anything and could pay for my kids’ educations,” he says. “That doesn’t mean anything if you neglect those things in life that make you a better person—God and family—that’s what’s important to me.”
THE MEANING OF TRUE SUCCESS
parents in the family business. “I wasn’t much of a student,”
Twenty years ago, one important element in the Jennings
he remembers. “But what I lacked in the classroom, I
family’s world slipped out of sync and was at risk of falling apart. Rewind to 1997, when he and his wife, Laurie, at a loss about what to do to help their eldest daughter, Kendall, who was struggling in public school, sat at their first Hyde interview in Bath. At the time, he says, “having to take a hard look” at himself and his parenting in order to facilitate a transformation in his daughter’s approach to living and learning bore something in between awe and gratitude. “It wasn’t fun and I dreaded doing it, but I was a better person at the end of the day,” he says. “Looking back at my own
made up for in business sense and drive.” Over time, and through some bumpy patches, the business grew, eventually employing 300 people. His friendship with a longtime mentor, Dr. Fred Courtney, a retired businessman and professor at Guilford College, played a significant role in the course of events following his time at the family company and paved the way for his later efforts in supporting educational and community advancement. In the ’90s, Bruce formed a partnership with a family friend,
childhood, how I was raised—the good and the bad—and then
buying land to build hotels. Right around the same time,
making changes was an important takeaway. I had to get out
he built a self-storage facility on the land where his family’s
of my kids’ way.”
construction company once stood. After the death of his partner, Bruce continued in the hotel business with another partner. Today, their holdings include franchises for Comfort
A RETROSPECTIVE Looking back for Bruce means remembering his many mentors and how the lessons he learned from them contributed to his own personal and professional success. He describes the course of events that led him to the present, a place in time for which he seems grateful.
Inn, Best Western, Holiday Inn Express, and Hampton Inn, all located in Virginia and West Virginia. Running parallel with the hotel and self-storage businesses in the ’90s, Bruce, his father, and other investors bought and later sold a small bank in Fairfax for which he also served on the advisory board and later on its board of directors. Today,
“
My parents grew up in Virginia on tobacco farms during the Depression and were not wealthy people. But they taught me the importance of hard work and giving back.
”
Bruce’s parents started their own construction company in Fairfax when he was seven years old. “My mother took care of the books, and my father went out and got the contracts for excavation projects, underground utilities, and site development,” he says. In 1971, graduating from Virginia Commonwealth University with a degree in engineering and further studies in business, he joined his
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he remains involved in the banking industry, and sits on several boards in the area.
WALKING THE TALK Keeping true to his origins, Bruce’s life is teeming with examples of how a strong work ethic and collaboration can deliver both personal success and community progress. The litany of efforts and causes he currently participates in makes his claim of being “semi-retired” seem more like a vision for the future than present fact. Two of his most rewarding ventures have been his involvement on the board of his daughter Kylene’s alma mater, Christopher Newport University, and his recent gift to the school of a fullyendowed professorship, which he named after his parents.
“
Take advantage of what’s offered when you’re there. It may be a hard
”
process, but you’ll be a better person for it.
As Hyde turns 50 years old, what are your thoughts about where it is today? While I haven’t kept up with it for the past few years, it’s been a beacon of character development for a long time. It’s done a great job with that. Do you have any advice for current or future Hyde parents? Take advantage of what’s offered when you’re there. It may be a hard process, but you’ll be a better person for it. What is your favorite Hyde moment? The time my daughters overslept through our family seminar. My wife and I wanted to go and get them, but we were told “The school launched a campaign titled, Defining Significance, sending the message that we should all live a life that holds purpose and meaning,” he says. “My parents and mentor, Fred Courtney, were people who did that. Giving back to something that helped my daughter and is important to the Commonwealth of Virginia is my opportunity to give purpose and meaning to the generous lives that have touched my life.” And so it runs its destined cycle. Purpose and meaning now follow Bruce Jennings wherever he goes.
DEFINING MOMENTS Which Word or Principle has impacted you in your life the most and why?
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to participate on our own without them. It was hard, but in the end, Kendall recognized she needed to stay another year, and that was one thing that set her up for success. Another favorite moment was our interview with John Romac. His input helped to bring clarity to my confusion about what I needed to do. Which Hyde teacher(s) impacted you the most personally? Paul Hurd stands out the most. There are others: John Romac, John Bayreuther, and Tom Bragg. They all delivered the Hyde message in different ways, which is very important. You may not get what’s being said to you the first or second times, but at some point, you’re going to get something meaningful from someone. What was your most meaningful lesson from Hyde? To always be willing to look at yourself. Have some humility and don’t think you are smarter than you are.
Courage. Have the courage to look at yourself and help others, as well.
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Kendall Jennings When Kendall Jennings talks about her career trajectory, she often sounds like she’s checking off the boxes on her daily list of things to do. Maybe that’s because, in a way, she is. “I want to be at the top, the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, and in order to do that, I have to follow a map and earn my stripes,” she says. “If I don’t deliver here, I’m out.” HYDE-BATH ’00
Kendall sees herself as a trailblazer of sorts—one who has defied the odds. As one of IBM’s promising up and coming executives, she is quick to remind herself that the path she’s followed to get where she is today, like many, started off on a bumpy trail that she says she wouldn’t change for anything.
NAVIGATING HER WAY THROUGH HYDE In 1997, at age 15, Kendall found herself at Hyde School. Reflecting on her past, she admits that being away from home and her family in Fairfax, Virginia for the first time in her life was what she needed. “I was a bit of a mess,” she says. “I needed positive outside influences in my life and education.” Hyde was hard for Kendall. Learning challenges and a general disregard for taking responsibility for her actions were met repeatedly with roadblocks. By her senior year, she was floating along, but it was her teacher, Paul Hurd, who got her thinking about more.
“
He saw so much more in me than I saw in myself, and he strongly urged me to stay another year at Hyde so that I could figure out who I really was and what I was capable of.
”
For Kendall, watching her classmates graduate in 1999 and move on to college while she stayed back for another post-graduate year was difficult. But the additional year proved to be what Paul promised, one that showed her the importance of never giving up on herself.
ATTITUDE, EFFORT, AND CHARACTER Soon after Kendall graduated from Mary Washington College, she returned to Hyde to work as an admission coordinator, traveling around the country to meet with educational consultants to “sell” the school that had meant so much to her. Two years later she was asked to help start the HydeBronx school, so she packed her bags for New York and spent the next five months convincing parents who lived in neighborhoods she “had no business being in” to send their children to a new school “that would change their lives.” “I’m a nearly-six-foot blonde, wandering around the South Bronx approaching people who would look at me and say, ‘White girl, what are you doing here?’ It was a challenge.
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I loved it, and although there are some things I would have done differently, it was a special time for me.” Kendall was part of the team that would successfully open the Hyde-Bronx school that fall. She spent the remainder of the year there as the admission director. In 2007, she returned to Fairfax, where she’d landed a job in commercial banking as the director of business development during the financial crisis. “I knew nothing about banking, not even what a CD was,” she says. “Coming from a family of entrepreneurs who had to overcome a lot, I was curious and wanted to learn, and I wanted to know why the markets tanked.” That curiosity drove Kendall to take her GMATs and apply to her dream school. She took the test three times—going through what she names an act of Congress to convince administrators she needed more time to complete it—before she would finally apply and be accepted to the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business. It was there she made the decision to concentrate on corporate finance and investment banking. Life at UVA was “intense” for Kendall, but the maledominated classes, twenty-hour days, and a persistent, nagging feeling that she was often the “dumbest person in the room” only fueled her drive to reach her goals. Yet it was her stint as an intern on Wall Street in sales and trading that would prepare her for the world she was about to enter. “I did three rotations and 95% of the people on the floor were men,” she recalls. “Even then, most of the remaining 5% of women were administrative assistants. There was no room for fear.” Just before graduating from UVA in 2012, Kendall was recruited and hired by IBM. It was there she would meet the woman she refers to as the best manager of her life. “I told her about my aspirations and asked her to help me,” she says. “She showed me what I needed to do to get there.”
“GROWTH AND COMFORT DON’T COEXIST.” Thus far, Kendall’s performance at IBM has landed her four positions in the three-plus years since she started there.
“
I still do Hyde-esque introductions in these business meetings. People ask me why, and I tell them I went to boarding school and that’s just the way it is. Good or bad, no one at those meetings has ever said they don’t
”
remember me.
While she hit it out of the park during her stint in sales as a client executive when she landed a big deal, her time in the spotlight was fleeting. After what felt like a perfunctory pat on the back, she was back in the trenches earning her quota and reminding herself daily of the CEO’s words, “Growth and comfort don’t coexist.” Today, Kendall works as IBM’s Mobility Service Line Leader for Global Technology Services in Australia and New Zealand in Melbourne, Australia. Her on-average twelve-hour days are spent advising the company’s consultants on ways to bring their ideas into the market, or in board meetings with high-powered executives where, as the youngest person who sits in the room, she is determined to stand out. “I still do Hyde-esque introductions in these business meetings,” she says. “People ask me why, and I tell them I went to boarding school and that’s just the way it is. Good or bad, no one at those meetings has ever said they don’t remember me.” Beyond work, Kendall managed to talk her way onto a soccer team comprised of women and men in their early 20’s. Exploring Australia, taking bachata lessons, and attending Hillsong Church are some of her new favorite pastimes. Of all her accomplishments in her 34-plus years of life, she is most proud and “grateful to be a part of” international mission work—a passion that started at Hyde with her exposure to different people and cultures. “When I was a teenager I was given a second chance, and I want to give that chance to others,” says Kendall. “It takes a village as they say, and being involved in missions is a way for me to give back and say thank you. It is when I feel most alive.” Suffice it to say, resting on her laurels is not on Kendall’s list of things to do.
DEFINING MOMENTS Which Word or Principle has impacted you in your life the most and why?
As Hyde turns 50 years old, what are your thoughts about where it is today? It all started with a dream. Joey Gauld, I can’t thank you enough for following your heart. Many people ignore that nagging feeling inside. You faced it head-on and accomplished so much that can’t be measured. You’ve made an impact on people’s lives many times removed—people you don’t know. I want my life to starburst like that. Do you have any advice for current or future Hyde students? Do the thing that scares you the most. That’s how you grow. The difficulty and pain fade but the risks you take change the trajectory of your life. What is your favorite Hyde moment? There are hilarious ones and meaningful ones. Canoeing with my dad. We were so upset with each other that we tipped over the canoe and lost all of our things. Then there’s singing the school song, my favorite. Despite the chaos, I love that we all came together and became a part of something bigger. Which Hyde teacher(s) impacted you the most personally? There are a ton of them: John & Jess Bayreuther, Tom Bragg, Laura Gauld, Todd Clauer, Mike & Lynn Dawes, all had an impact. They all invested in my life. Paul Hurd set me up for taking life on, taking risks. What was your most meaningful lesson from Hyde? It goes back to taking risks and pushing yourself through the next level. I had to do 5:30’s, 2-4, outpost in the mountains of Maine, repeat my senior year, and live in a tent—in Maine!— during my junior year because I wasn’t getting along with my roommate. All those things allowed me to go back and say, “I did that. I made it through that. I’m pretty capable.” I also want to thank my family for taking the first risk and enrolling us in Hyde.
Integrity. No matter how well I think I’m doing in my life, I check in and ask myself if I’m living my life with it. It’s my barometer and something I’ve always struggled with.
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Kylene Jennings If you ask Kylene Jennings who the strong voice in her family of origin is, she is quick to reply that it is her sister, Kendall (’00). “Seriously, though,” Kylene laughs, “she sits at the head of the table opposite my father at my parents’ house...instead of my mother.”
HYDE-BATH ’04
That noted, another perspective is that Kylene has perhaps become a force in her own right, albeit somewhat understated in comparison to her charmingly spirited older sibling. Having carved out a slice of success as a recruiting manager for Link Solutions, it seems reasonable to declare she is a walking testament that dogged determination can be delivered at varying decibels. “I hire people for the Department of Defense and other various government agencies,” she says. “It’s a lot of hours and a lot of work, and the customer doesn’t want to hear ‘no.’”
Without pausing, Kylene turns her attention to her days at Hyde. “That school probably had the greatest long-term impact on me,” she says. “Even though I never felt I was very good at Hyde, it taught me the importance of challenging myself and prepared me for the job I’m doing today.”
FROM THERE TO HERE—HYDE BEGINNINGS Kylene’s Hyde story begins in the summer of 2002. Far away from her bustling hometown of Fairfax, Virginia, her parents had long returned home. Kylene, then 16-years-old, was left alone in a place that was hard-wired for constant engagement.
stint on Seguin Island—some of which were spent alone with nothing but peanut butter sandwiches, water, a little twine, a tarp, and a sleeping bag—Kylene became increasingly more sure of what she wanted for herself and set out to prove to everyone at the school that she was meant to be there, too. “Those experiences showed me I could survive in the toughest conditions,” Kylene says. “I mean, I woke up in the middle of the night on the island in the pouring rain with two slugs on my neck. Those moments stuck with me and helped me get through tough times.”
FORGING AHEAD
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Maine was so cold, so far away, and had nothing going on. There was constant nudging from faculty and students. ‘Take your hands out of your pockets when you introduce yourself; your attitude is off.’ Understanding that mindset was hard for me, and I felt way out of my element.
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For young Kylene, who never saw herself as “someone you would pick out of a crowd,” the school’s approach seemed to be the antithesis of what she wanted or felt she needed, and finding herself picked out of a Hyde crowd multiple times a day was anything but flattering. Looking at the upside 12 years later, Kylene recounts her excitement from learning she could once again play lacrosse, something that was no longer possible back home at the public school she attended. “Sports were something I felt I could contribute to, and I always looked forward to playing,” she says. “Hyde gave me another chance to do that.” If her Hyde experience were an important job interview, which Kylene as a recruiter today could now appreciate, her next two years there would whoosh by in a montage of what looked like fearlessness. As a standout varsity lacrosse and soccer player and most likely one of the few girls at Hyde to spend 16 days, rather than the typical three-day, 2-4
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Ignore for a moment that Kylene’s epiphany came to her on a small Maine island, where many nights she lay sleepless and frigid, questioning her ability to stay in the game for more than two weeks. Fast forward to her college undergraduate years at Christopher Newport University, where she majored in communications and minored in writing, played a solid four years of lacrosse—one as captain of her team—and pushed herself beyond what she wanted to do as a goalkeeper on the soccer team for a season, or her chance encounter with the CEO of 3 Phoenix, who nearly hired her on the spot in a restaurant where she waited tables post-graduation because jobs were scarce in 2008 after the market crashed. “We were just talking and all of a sudden he asked me to come in and interview for a job,” she says. “I did, and I got the job.” The litany of accomplishments goes on through graduate school at Marymount University, where she earned a master’s degree in Human Resources Management in 2011 because she wanted to be able to do her job the “right way,” and into other aspects of her life where opportunities were not wasted—opportunities that allowed her to develop as a leader in school, sports, and work and fueled her drive to advance.
TO SUM THINGS UP Kylene speaks through all of it as though she’s seen her fair share of disappointments, too, but still gained ample compensation from every experience. Her voice, slightly louder and punctuated with enthusiasm, announces her
“
Those experiences showed me I could survive in the toughest conditions. I mean, I woke up in the middle of the night on the island in the pouring rain with two slugs on my neck. Those moments stuck with me and helped
”
me get through tough times.
recent engagement to Matt, a former colleague at 3 Phoenix, who she plans to marry this July. As she recounts how they met, she is reminded of the challenges she encountered while working at that first job, sitting alone at a desk, “knowing nothing,” and yet determined to teach herself how to recruit. “I always go back to that Michael Jordan quote,” she says. “’I failed over and over in my life and that is why I succeed.’ That pretty much sums things up for me.”
DEFINING MOMENTS Which Word or Principle has impacted you in your life the most and why?
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Humility 100 times over, because you always need to be doing more in life in your relationships and professionally. Truth and conscience also speak to me, because when you’re living with those words in your life, you’re living to personal excellence.
”
As Hyde turns 50 years old, what are your thoughts about where it is today? Hyde’s impacted so many lives and I hope they continue to do that in a way that is true to the philosophy. More people should have an opportunity to be a part of something like that. Do you have any advice for current or future Hyde students? Don’t be afraid to fail, to jump, to look stupid. What is your favorite Hyde moment? Living outside under a tarp on Seguin Island taught me so much about what I was made of. Just getting through it gave me confidence to tackle things in my life I feared.
Which Hyde teacher(s) impacted you the most personally? It was definitely Tom Bragg. He opened his life to everybody— his family, his time. He even came to one of my college games. He was always trying to get the best out of me in a way that I understood. I knew he really cared even though he was constantly challenging me. What was your most meaningful lesson from Hyde? There are two. The first is when I was put on 2-4 for participating in Kendall’s college graduation champagne toast. That meant I couldn’t go to the championship game, but I expected Tom Bragg to pull me off so I could play. I saw him in the lunch line and asked him if he was going to pull me off, but he said no, and we lost a somewhat close game. I didn’t think we’d win if I played, but I just wanted to be there for the team and to contribute whatever I could. That was a big lesson to learn as I headed for college. It was not the season we wanted it to be and that happens in life. What are you going to do about it next time? The other was with Melinda Baxter. She challenged me to be the soccer goalkeeper, but I didn’t want to do it, because I didn’t think I was good enough. I ended up doing it for a season. The challenge was worth the dread I had.
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Beth Barclay Livingston “I was a really active kid...played in every sport I could, and I’m still a really active adult,” says Beth Barclay Livingston, 51, sliding a chuckle into her last breath of seemingly endless energy. “Life is a collection of experiences. I’m always game to have new ones.” And so it would seem that when Beth moves, the city of Manhattan moves with her, as she takes on the world with her eyes and arms wide open. She is a licensed master social worker, a “working artist,” a mother of two grown children, an adventurer, a lover of music, flea markets, life, and a former member of the U.S. Adaptive Ski Team. HYDE-BATH ’83
Twenty-six years ago, the tenacious Manhattanite was
Beth stayed at Hyde through her junior year. Her experience
injured in a car accident in Montana, where she lived at
working with other students to “help keep the school
the time, paralyzing her from the waist down. Much like
running” was an important lesson in how to build community.
everything else in her sphere, she faced her challenges
“I ran the dish crew. Every morning I got up for kitchen duty
head on, learning to retool her life, to navigate the harsh
and managed my crew so the breakfast service would go
Montana winters, and to give birth and raise her children
smoothly,” she says.
“from a chair.” Since then, Beth has been on the move using a wheelchair and her arms. “It was a challenge, but the challenge wasn’t optional, so I just slugged it out,” she says.
SLUGGING IT OUT Reinvention and adventure seem to follow Beth, but being “incredibly social” and having an inherent sense of curiosity
“
I get an incredible hall pass. People are so engaging with me and concerned about my wellbeing as a person with a visible disability. The city bus drivers block the traffic on the street when I am transferring from my wheelchair into my car, so I don’t get run over. At the subway, complete strangers carried me up the stairs when the elevator was out. Everywhere, I have a mini standing army of people willing to help me to navigate difficult situations. It’s incredibly comforting and heartwarming.
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help attract such circumstances. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Illustration from Parsons School of Design and a Master’s in Social Work from the University of Montana, both of which she fully leverages to earn her living in the city. In 2002, she was one out of 11 international cross-country skiers to qualify and compete in the winter Paralympic Games held in Salt Lake City. Always eager to turn other people on to the things she enjoys doing, Beth spent 23 years as an adaptive outdoor recreation volunteer in Bozeman, teaching others with a range of disabilities how to alpine and cross-country ski. Last year, she celebrated her 50th birthday by signing on as a crewmember to sail the tall ship, Lord Nelson, from the Bahamas to Bermuda. “It was about the most challenging thing I’ve ever done, being on a crazy-rocking-storm-thrashed
REMEMBERING THE PHIL DONAHUE SHOW
ship and working in 24-hour shifts...but it was thrilling.”
Beth grew up in Princeton, New Jersey, where she says her rebelliousness led her mother to seek a “resource to
IT’S ALL IN A DAY’S ADVENTURE
heal the family.” That resource was found through the
There can be no substitute for hard work. It is what it is. But
Phil Donahue Show’s feature about an “alternative” school
for Beth, it seems, hard work has a different meaning than
in Bath, Maine called Hyde. So, in the summer of 1980,
perhaps its standard definition. Two years ago, she decided
disinterested in changing the course she had set for herself
to make a “life change” and sold her house and all of her
in her mind but fully aware she had few other options left,
possessions in Montana to join her daughter, Lila, who was
Beth set off reluctantly to Hyde.
accepted to Barnard College in NYC. “I wanted to follow
“I thought the school had a lot of insight into the dynamics of the adolescent mind,” she recalls. “The faculty saw through me and I was outsmarted at every turn. Being held accountable turned my life around pretty quickly.”
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one of my kids to their next destination to make up for lost time,” she says. “My son and daughter both spent their high school years away at boarding school. As a mother it broke my heart to let them go.”
“
I wanted to follow one of my kids to their next destination to make up for lost time. My son and daughter both spent their high school years away at
”
boarding school. As a mother it broke my heart to let them go.
As Hyde turns 50 years old, what are your thoughts about where it is today? I’m proud to see Hyde bringing its message and initiatives into other communities and broadening the scope of work. Hyde hasn’t just stayed in its comfort zone and remained local. Hyde continues to spread its wings in an attempt to deliver a unique vision for education. Do you have any advice for current or future Hyde students? Be authentic. Trust your heart and gut. There is no prescribed life. Be open to opportunities however and wherever they manifest.
New York was Beth’s home turf, so, she says, it made a lot of sense to relocate there. Like most, her days are full, as she splits her time between working at two different training institutes for psychotherapists in the city. Every Tuesday, she attends an evening training program focusing on psychoanalytic theory and process. Outside of her work, Beth says she enjoys “the mixed bag of humanity in New York City that is rich with loving and incredibly generous people. It’s been a really nice experience being thrown back into this melting pot,” she says.
DEFINING MOMENTS
What is your favorite Hyde moment? Saving Mr. Langdon from a sinking safety boat as it was crashing against jagged rocks near a remote island in Maine in the middle of a terrible storm in the pitch black of night. Only a few of us were willing to go out in a mini hurricane and dangle off a cliff to help save him. Soon after we rescued him, the boat was crushed and sank. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it! Which Hyde teacher(s) impacted you the most personally? Hugh Riordan. I was in awe of his laser-sharp interrogation skills and his smirky all-knowing poker face. He taught me the importance of thinking three steps ahead of other people.
Which Word or Principle has impacted you in your life the most and why?
What was your most meaningful lesson from Hyde?
Curiosity and concern. Empathy is one of the most essential
and be self-absorbed, we are always members of a broader
human emotions. It creates the kind of life force I like to
community. Just as we have an obligation to our community,
embrace. Having compassion for people; being curious about
we also get a lot of bounty from it in return.
We don’t stand alone. Even though we can get off course
others’ perspectives and lived experiences; keeping an open mind and being receptive to accessing your vulnerability are what define character. It’s what makes you wealthy. Hyde modeled those Principles very well.
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Blake Matheny If you’re not familiar with the world of technology, prepare yourself. One of Blake Matheny’s favorite pastimes since he was six years old has been computers—what’s inside them, how they work, and how he can make them and what goes inside them work better. In fact, when tracing back through the trajectory of the 36-year-old’s industrious career, it seems safe to conclude that Blake has been intent on making a substantial contribution to how the world communicates on the Internet.
HYDE-BATH ’98
But success has many facets, as is evidenced in Blake’s story. Perhaps his proudest achievements are in the work he does outside the office. A successful life, he asserts, isn’t just what you accomplish in your career; it is the creation of what you do with that success and how that creation helps the world thrive.
“Giving back, community service, and volunteering are really important to my wife Katherine and me,” he says. “Raising money and awareness about the programs I believe in is a cornerstone to how I try and live my life.”
“Our work spans a lot of different areas that users don’t see,” he says. “Basically, we’re responsible for making sure Facebook is always available and fast, ensuring we can store data as new people come online in different parts of the world.”
Indeed, Blake loves to talk about the areas of his life that include volunteer work at the Girls and Boys Clubs of America and Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, which he believes have been an essential ingredient to his and Katherine’s day-to-day rewards.
Blake sees all of his work experiences as applicable to his favorite pastimes as a young boy. With a low chuckle, he calls himself a born “nerd,” still marveling in the memories of the hours he invested playing with Legos and watching Nova.
That noted, a subtle transition back to the topic of his career path uncovers what is likely the very thing that prepared him especially well for his dedication to service.
“
I went to Purdue University, but left my senior year to join my first of four start-ups, three of which were eventually acquired. Each of the companies began really small, with just a handful of people who worked as mostly software engineers. But in a start-up, before you know it, there are 10 people, then 20, and then suddenly you’re a manager or a director, and so on. By the time I left the companies, I was in senior leadership roles.
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As it turns out, two of those companies were acquired by mega-industry giants, such as Yahoo, which bought Tumblr, the last start-up Blake helped build, for $1.1 billion in 2013. When that happened, he was Vice President of Engineering and living in New York City where the company was founded. Soon after Tumblr’s acquisition, Blake was invited by a friend to interview with Facebook in California. Three years later, he serves as an engineering director there, leading development of the Linux kernel and related operating system, as well as cluster management and job scheduling. Additionally, Blake is a senior member of the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) and ACM (Association for Computing Machinery), as well as an active participant in the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force).
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“It was all I wanted to do,” he says. “I spent hours on the laptop my dad used to bring home from work and, at that time, a laptop was suitcase size. At some point, I found a computer with two floppy disks and I just really wanted to figure out how to use these fascinating things.” Even so, it was at Hyde that Blake says he fully developed his interest in and appreciation for science and math. As the eldest of three, he arrived at the school after his younger brother, Tyler. Having participated in family weekends, he believed the school’s program could benefit his family, and so he accepted Don MacMillan’s invitation to work as an intern for the summer program and later decided to attend for his senior year. “My dad passed away when I was in high school,” he says. “That was tough for my mom, and I think that Hyde in some ways was an additional parent that she needed. My two brothers and I were all pretty challenging kids.” Eventually, all three of the Mathenys ended up at Hyde: Blake, Tyler, and Wes. In fact, Blake decided to stay on an additional year to work in the technology lab, his first paid position doing the very thing he wanted most to do. “I had great access to computers and software,” he says. “It’s what really got me started in the work I do today.” While many of his memories at Hyde point to the technology work he did and to his science and math classes, where, he says, his teachers Reggie Ruhlin and John Romac “brought out the learner” in him, Blake turns to what are clearly some of his fondest memories there—the time he spent with his brothers. He laughs while recalling a time when both Wes and Tyler were “on 2-4” and he was supervising the group.
“It was hilarious,” he chuckles. “We’re all out on the lawn in the middle of everything and I’m giving orders, and Tyler is shouting at me, ‘Screw you! You can’t tell me what to do; you’re my older brother.’ That was a pretty fun year.” Blake’s perception of the time he spent at Hyde is also framed by what he calls his lesson in integrity, postgraduation. Soon after he returned to the school to work in the technology department, he decided to trade his diploma for a certificate, telling Paul Hurd that he had graduated “dirty,” and that contradicted everything he believed was important to his character.
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Dirty is such funny terminology. I mean, in the adult world the things I did were far from criminal, but that wasn’t the point. What matters is I’ve carried integrity through everything I’ve done, and so giving back my diploma was acknowledgment that living truthfully was important to how I felt about myself as a person, not how others felt about me. I thought about my younger brothers being there and how I needed to do my best for them.
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Blake isn’t the first person to go through Hyde who has said that face-to-face encounters with his own integrity were turning points in his life, and he probably won’t be the last, but he firmly believes that such lessons were key events in placing him where he is today. “I feel really lucky,” he says. “Early in my life I was able to find what I was passionate about and learn some valuable lessons along the way. Most people spend their lives trying to figure out what they’re interested in. I love programming and solving problems, and just knowing that about myself is special. It’s been a lot of fun.”
DEFINING MOMENTS Which Word or Principle has impacted you in your life the most and why? Integrity. It’s really hard for me to imagine living a fulfilling, rich life without it being one of integrity. It’s something that’s helped me a lot in my career, being really transparent and an open leader. I never want people to be surprised and the easiest way to do that is to be honest.
Do you have any advice for current or future Hyde students? Be okay with being yourself. The peer relationships seem so important in high school, and some of those will be important to you through your life, but not nearly as much as you might think at the time. You’re the only person who’s going to be with you for your entire life, so make the best of the opportunity and don’t worry so much about what people think of you. Be yourself. What is your favorite Hyde moment? Singing a solo at an FLC weekend when I wasn’t yet a student. I was coming up just for family weekend for my brother and he was worried that if he told me that I had to sing, I might not come, so I was completely unprepared. Also sports. They’re a really big part of Hyde and just being part of a team is something I’ve carried with me throughout my life. Which Hyde teacher(s) impacted you the most personally? John Romac and Reggie Ruhlin. They both impacted me in different ways. John was our family’s primary point of contact. We had a really close relationship with him and were in close contact with him the whole time we were there. He had this joy for physics and teaching, and those are things I’ve tried to emulate as an adult. Reggie brought this academic passion in math that I’d never seen in a teacher before, and seeing him have that level of interest was inspiring. He brought a sense of curiosity to academics. What was your most meaningful lesson from Hyde? It goes back to integrity. It’s easier to live by the truth. Living a life of integrity is what differentiates me in my life. One thing Katherine said to me is that she wished her family had been able to have what we had growing up because our family seems open and caring with each other.
As Hyde turns 50 years old, what are your thoughts about where it is today? My interactions in the last few years have been random— through the alumni office or phone calls. I’m curious to see how it’s changed. The last time I was on campus was when Wes graduated in 2002. HYDE SCHOOL ALUMNI PROFILE MAGAZINE
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Alicia McFarren Most doctors in hospitals work a specific territory—one unit in the facility and one role in a vast order of caregivers within that unit. Such is the case with Dr. Alicia McFarren. The 35-year-old specialist in pediatric hematology, oncology and stem cell transplant, describes her job as “fulfilling and challenging.” She’s one of a team of health providers who treats children who are very sick with cancer and various blood disorders at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.
HYDE-BATH ’98
“People ask me all the time how I can do what I do, but they don’t know that childhood cancer has a 70 percent cure rate,” she says. “I tell them that most days are good days and the outcomes are generally positive. I can get to the end of the day and feel proud of what happened most of the time.”
A DAY IN THE LIFE During her long shifts, Alicia divides her time between inpatient service, which entails caring for 12 to 20 patients, many of whom have had their immune systems wiped out with chemotherapy and are then hospitalized from one to six months at a time, to outpatient clinic cases, where patients who received bone marrow transplants or who were recently discharged go, and, finally, to conducting research. Currently, a portion of her research involves two clinical trials with pharmaceutical companies as well as the examination of patients’ treatment courses in search of factors that would explain why some survive their treatments and some do not. As patients move through the treatment process, Alicia stays with them, tracking progress, directing the teams she oversees, which consist of nurse practitioners, fellows, and hospitalists, and providing hands-on care. New advances in stem cell treatments encourage her and her team as does the positive interaction that happens when good work leads to great results.
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I really love what I do. I love the people. I love the patients. I love the intellectual part. I’m constantly learning.
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Beyond her triad of responsibilities, an ability to remain unruffled, flexible, and at the forefront of science are a must. “It’s what I like about what I do,” she says. “I don’t have typical days; they’re jumbled all over the place and involve working with and caring for a lot of different people.”
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A self-described overachiever and someone who has gone to great lengths in order to be trained in stem cell therapy, Alicia explains her standard day unlike what one might expect from a trailblazer in the medical field—in a steady cadenced tone, almost as though she were reading off a list. To her, it seems, the value in meeting the challenges she’s faced as a health professional and those she will likely face in the future, has nothing at all to do with inspiring anyone or getting caught up in the theater of life and death decision-making, but in the genuine belief she is part of something that will radically transform the dated way we attack cancer today. “I basically believe that the future of treating cancer is not necessarily with chemotherapy, but by genetically modifying the immune system to help fight the disease, a process called cellular and immunotherapy” she says.
“IT CAME OUT OF NOWHERE” Alicia struggles to answer when asked what drove her to pursue a career in medicine and concludes that it “came out of nowhere.” Neither of her parents were physicians, she explains, nor does she recall anything particularly momentous that occurred to stir her deep fascination with science. She is certain that it started as far back as early childhood. Even as a preschooler she remembers taking a tour of a hospital and being the first to volunteer when the tour guide asked for volunteers to handle equipment in the emergency room. As a teenager at Hyde, Alicia describes herself as a “straight and narrow kid,” who did well in school and followed most of the rules. She laughs as she tells of her introduction to Hyde’s character development program. “My biggest challenge was to learn how to be more rebellious and less like Miss Goody Two Shoes,” she says. “One lesson I’ve carried with me since then is that it doesn’t matter what other people think of me. Know who you are and be true to yourself and it will take you as far as you want to go.” In 2003, a year after completing her undergraduate studies at Cornell University, Alicia began her education in medicine at New York Medical College, located outside of New York City. After earning her medical degree in 2007, she moved
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One lesson I’ve carried with me since then is that it doesn’t matter what other people think of me. Know who you are and be true to yourself and it will take you as far as you want to go.
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and to be outspoken, but Hyde brought that out in me. During senior evaluation, I learned how to stand up for myself and not look back. And in my profession…I take care of very sick kids and I’m also involved in research to try to change the way medicine is done. I need to constantly be leading people as well as creating new ideas and trying to rally people behind me to explore those new ideas. As Hyde turns 50 years old, what are your thoughts about where it is today? Hyde for the next 50 years looks very promising and it’s a unique philosophy that is very important, especially when taking into consideration how kids are learning today.
to Washington DC to complete her pediatric residency at Children’s National Medical Center. In 2010, she was offered a pediatric oncology fellowship at The Children’s Hospital at Montefiore, where she spent three years practicing in her chosen field. She was offered another fellowship at Duke University in 2013 to train for one year in pediatric blood and marrow transplantation.
LIFE IS FULL Now, as a “newbie” immersed in her first “grown-up job” in Los Angeles, Alicia balances a very “heavy clinical load” and her other professional responsibilities with one other very important part of her full life—her family. Yes, amidst acquiring all of her hard-earned expertise, she fell in love and married Will Sofrin in 2013, and this past November they welcomed their first child, Samantha. It is fair to claim that Alicia McFarren is breaking barriers and, yes, even inspiring a few of us. And she’s not done yet.
Do you have any advice for current or future Hyde students? Continue being true to yourself. Continue to challenge yourself. Work as hard as you can. Embrace other people. You never know how people are going to come and go in your life, and so it’s important to respect the people around you and treat them the way you want to be treated. What is your favorite Hyde moment? Graduation is one. There was another time when a bunch of us had just come back from going to temple on Yom Kippur. We were laying out on the grass at the spiritual center. I have photographs of that day and that moment and remember feeling like I was in a strong community of friends who I trusted and loved and in a really wonderful place. Which Hyde teacher(s) impacted you the most personally? Stacey (Goldberg) Brooks. She was my English teacher my junior year. She continually pushed me in my writing and my ideas and challenged me. She took the time to give me personal attention to work on my writing and, with that, and the projects we wrote about, I learned a lot about myself and exploring my own creativity.
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What was your most meaningful lesson from Hyde?
Which Word or Principle has impacted you in your life the most and why?
Again, it goes back to knowing who you are and not letting anyone else’s opinion of you hold you back. Just be yourself; work as hard as you can; and don’t worry about what others think about you.
Leadership. The reasons are twofold. One is that it was something that challenged me in high school—to be a leader
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William Searles Bill Searles loves life and he loves to have fun. “I’m a happy-go-lucky guy,” he says. “Life has been good—I have a good wife, good kids. It takes a lot to get me upset.” That’s the short version of how the jovial 60-year-old landed where he is today, on Amelia Island, living in a golf cart community and doing the things he enjoys most—getting into shape, cycling, and taking hikes with his wife, Ann. HYDE-BATH ’74
Bill was born and raised in Toledo, Ohio, where his family
In 2004, after 26 years of success in the commercial real
owns a commercial real estate business. He was 15 when
estate business, Bill and his family sold a portion of its
his father made the decision to send him and his two other
holdings, which enabled him to “semi-retire” at 49. Soon
siblings to private schools in New England.
after, Bill, his wife, and their two children, Ellen and Charles, moved into the Searles’ 1863 family homestead.
“I was going to private school in Toledo, and school wasn’t my thing, so when my father learned that Hyde was all about character building, we visited and he told me soon after I was going there.” Bill says he loved Hyde, too. “I really liked the fact that I went to class six days a week, that the school was structured, and I was accountable. I needed that.”
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My kids were the sixth generation in the family to live there. But after a while we were ready to move on from Toledo. The kids were in college in South Carolina and we’d done what my parents had hoped we would do—live in the family house.
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At the time, Bill recalls that life for students at Hyde was all about measuring yourself against the Five Words that are the foundation of the school’s character-building
In 2014, Bill and Ann moved permanently to Amelia Island,
program: courage, integrity, leadership, curiosity, and
the northernmost part of Florida’s east coast, where they
concern. Having grown up in the Midwest and raised in a
now spend eight months of the year. The other four months
family where principles were part of everyday conversation,
are spent near Jackson, Michigan, at a cottage on a lake his
the program resonated with him.
parents once owned.
“I was a good person, came from a good family, and Hyde
“It’s been a really good ride,” Bill says. “I mean, what do I
was all about reinforcing that,” he says.
have to complain about?”
A GOOD RIDE
DEFINING MOMENTS
After graduating from Hyde, Bill enrolled at Ashland College
Which Word or Principle has impacted you in your life the most and why?
in Ohio, not far from where he grew up. Three and a half years later, recognizing that his time would be better spent doing something he always wanted to do, he made the tough decision to trade in his books for what would be a long, illustrious career at his family’s business. As it turned out, that decision would garner some winning moves, both for
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is another one. My wife and I are out there trying to help people.
Bill and the business. He humbly admits now that he wasn’t
As Hyde turns 50 years old, what are your thoughts about where it is today?
afraid to roll up his shirt sleeves and do the work necessary
I think it’s great how they’ve expanded, and I really love
to help catapult the business to even greater success.
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I’m always an advocate for telling the truth. Concern
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meeting up with the people there when I get the chance.
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I really liked the fact that I went to class six days a week, that the school
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was structured, and I was accountable. I needed that.
Which Hyde teacher(s) impacted you the most personally? Bud Warren. There were others. He kept me on the straight and narrow. He was concerned about me and my future.
What was your most meaningful lesson from Hyde?
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In life, do everything to your ability and more. Give 100 percent. Leave nothing on the line.
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Do you have any advice for current or future Hyde students? Live by the Five Words. What is your favorite Hyde moment? The teachers could always see when tensions were building at the school. They knew when we needed a break, and they’d get us on a bus and take us skiing or to the beach to have some fun. The winters then were brutal, so we needed that.
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Ali Simard
HYDE-BATH ’89
When you hear the word “activist,” who comes to mind? Civil rights activist Rosa Parks, or political activist and celebrity Jane Fonda? What about environmental activist Ali Simard? No? Well, it may be wise to jot her name down for future reference. Her groundbreaking work in the Los Angeles area as the founder and chair of CLAW, Citizens for Los Angeles Wildlife, a 501c3 nonprofit organization, is doing more than stirring up just a little interest. It’s captured the attention and support of many on the Who’s Who List of Los Angeles, including prominent residents, celebrities, news media, and politicians, such as Congressman Adam Schiff, who, like Ali, passionately believes in the organization’s mission: to promote, educate, and protect the fundamental importance of wildlife, wildlife habitats, and wildlife corridors in Los Angeles.
WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE A resident of Laurel Canyon, located in the Hollywood Hills region of the Santa Monica Mountains, Los Angeles, which has one of the most richly populated biodiversities in the country, Ali has become an expert in protecting the area’s wildlife habitat from proposed developments that would threaten it. “There are ancient migratory pathways many animals, such as cougars, follow here, so when they put fences around one development that was going up 10 years ago, the animals started to burrow under their homes for lack of a place to go,” she says. “What I began to understand is that wildlife are the barometer of the health of our environment, and that’s when I decided to create CLAW.” Armed with information discovered from a scientist that she persuaded to visit her neighborhood and study the area, Ali sued the city of LA and the developer of that project, who settled and agreed to protect the wildlife habitat with a wildlife corridor easement.
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I never sued anybody in my life, but now I’m actively building CLAW, and my two kids are involved. Every week, I go to city hall and am a regular visitor of the mayor’s office and the city counsel offices. I go to hearings, talk to the news media, and do presentations throughout LA, trying to get this city and residents to change policies and behaviors around environment. It’s working; we’ve made several exciting breakthroughs.
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GROWING UP INDEPENDENT In offering her story, Ali turns her attention to her upbringing, which uncovers a large part of the root of her deep-seated motivation. Raised as an only child in New York City by parents who were both leading journalists in the ’70s,
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Ali was allowed to be independent and developed a deep appreciation for observing the world through fully transparent lenses. Growing up, a typical day may have been a trip with her mother to the newsroom while her mother produced the five o’clock news or sitting at the family dinner table fully engaged in conversation about major news stories her parents were about to break to a national audience. “My parents were very good at making me feel like part of a community,” she recalls. “They were incredibly warm, intelligent people, who treated me like a grown-up and constantly discussed the big issues of the day; civil rights, the economy, politics, and so on. But they weren’t hovering over my homework, or waiting with snacks when I got home from school, so I learned to navigate the city early. They were the absolute opposite of what you would call helicopter parents today.” That description largely explains the path Ali took—both with her education and her professional life. She spent her early years in Manhattan at a “progressive” elementary school, where self-teaching was encouraged and grades applied to performance and skills didn’t exist. By the time she entered her first boarding school in 1984, Ali found she lacked the study skills necessary to meet her teachers’ expectations and was not invited to return after her first year. Eager to learn, but lacking the training of a traditional education, her focus drifted from academics to outdoor sports. While she excelled in swimming and skiing, her experience at a smaller boarding school in New Hampshire that offered the sports she excelled in resulted in a similar outcome. “I didn’t have any training in how to be responsible for grades or homework,” she says. “I knew I was smart enough, but by the time I was a teenager I was in a cloud, passing only what came easily, and I didn’t really want to grow up.”
SEEING HERSELF AGAIN Enter Hyde School midyear in 1986, where Ali says it didn’t take her long to recognize that her irresponsibility was holding her back. Feeling socially awkward and disconnected from the sense of community she was raised
in, she made friends with a small, intimate group of “bright kids” and almost immediately found herself drawn to the school’s Principles.
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I found that they worked for who I was as a person. I remember being excited about the fact that I was going to hear from peers about how they saw me and learn about what I thought of myself.
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For Ali, the most alluring part of her experience at Hyde was developing a sense of how to respond to the fear of her perceived personal shortcomings. Rather than rest with mediocrity, she began to see herself as a “good person through and through” and as someone who had “real” skills. Being immersed in a learning environment where self-reflection and peer and teacher evaluations were commonplace fueled her curiosity and eventually led her to singing. “I had been an athlete, but never on a team sport, and that was one of the limitations for me at Hyde,” she says. “To be able to get on a stage and sing a solo and own it was really important for me because the kids who were good at other things had to get up and sing, too. It really leveled the playing field for all of us, and it made me feel like I deserved a seat at the table.” Ali went on to college after graduating from Hyde, earning an English degree at the University of Montana in 1994. After graduation, she and her future husband, Aaron, moved to Sacramento, California, where she worked briefly for a public relations firm and the Mountain Lion Foundation, attending regular hearings in the environmental committee at the State Capitol. After a road trip to Alaska, Ali’s parents invited the couple to return to New York to work at their public relations firm. During their five-year stay in New York, Ali and Aaron were married. In 1997, Ali landed a job on Wall Street at Merrill Lynch in financial public relations, which was supposed to last for six months while her husband went to work as a producer for CNBC. “I stayed there for three years,” she says, “connecting and developing a rapport with the world’s top financial press, many of whom I still work with because our relationships were built on trust.” In 2000, Ali and Aaron moved to California to her parents’ West Coast public relations firm, Stern & Co., where they continue to connect clients with media editors and writers to promote brands today. While she sees all of her previous and current employment experiences as “incredible opportunities” and important precursors to her growth as
a professional, what she says she’s most grateful for is how her past has prepared her for the work she does with CLAW. “Those were all things I was able to cut my teeth on, and they helped me understand that I don’t just have a set of skills or a craft, I am able to speak with a convincing voice.”
DEFINING MOMENTS Which Word or Principle has impacted you in your life the most and why? It’s some combination of integrity, curiosity, and leadership. I spent a lot of my life being afraid of not knowing something right away, like it was some sort of character flaw. Now I’m on the other side of it and can put my ego away and therefore allow myself to be open to learn. That is what success is about. As Hyde turns 50 years old, what are your thoughts about where it is today? Hyde was only one school in Bath when I went there. It’s grown. I have a hard time grappling with it. I don’t know its successes because I’m not out there seeing it. Do you have any advice for current or future Hyde students? Put Principles above personalities. Hyde is a fabric of really important life goals, and if you don’t like the delivery that someone is giving, remember there will be many people who will make the same delivery in more effective ways, so don’t throw the opportunity for learning away. Be true to yourself. Integrity is everything. That is what will carry you through all of the other Principles. What is your favorite Hyde moment? It’s been after Hyde. It’s been a bunch of little moments and connecting with people I knew from Hyde and reflecting on who we are as a result of Hyde. There’s a language we have and an ability to connect without formality. Which Hyde teacher(s) impacted you the most personally? There were several women who served as wonderful mentors to me and were a shoulder for me: Sheryl Page, Laurie Hurd, Laura Gauld, Linda Bertschy. Reaching the successes they helped me get to was really important to me, because I knew I could always get there again. Bud Cox was also important to me. He was a sensational teacher and communicator. I don’t know anyone who was ever in his class who wasn’t completely engaged. What was your most meaningful lesson from Hyde? The harder I work, the luckier I get. It’s my favorite quote to motivate my own kids.
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2016 Hyde Students Every year, Hyde welcomes new students, all with great potential waiting to be discovered. We honor Hyde’s 50th Anniversary and end this tribute to all of the “souls of Hyde” who have passed through its gates with a final perspective from just a few of this year’s soon-to-be leadership graduates.
Lutes Bartlett I was born in Burlington, Vermont and raised in Charlotte, and then Shelburne, Vermont. Growing up, I did not have many friends and experienced a lot of loneliness. I spent a lot of time with my two older brothers, but I was isolated most of the time. My brother, Scotty, flourished at Hyde and graduated in 2012. My mom knew I was struggling with selfconfidence and thought a change would be beneficial, so she suggested I give Hyde a try for one year. I wound up staying for all four years.
HYDE-BATH ’16
Before coming to Hyde, I was never involved in sports. Since becoming a student, I’ve joined three teams and learned to love going to the field and spending time with my team. Team sports, in addition to my lifelong passion for horseback riding, have become an important outlet for me.
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Hyde has helped shape my relationship with my family in several meaningful ways. I have a stronger, more honest relationship with my family, for whom I would do anything. My academic skills and work ethic have also improved; I always put my full effort into my studies, and I value hard work.
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I’ve had my ups and downs at Hyde, but I have been sustained by the relationships forged here with other students and faculty. I believe I will carry these relationships with me for the rest of my life. Hyde has also challenged me to explore outside my comfort zone, gain self-confidence, and become a person I am proud of.
DEFINING MOMENTS Which Hyde Word or Principle has impacted your life the most and why? Courage has impacted me the most significantly. From the day I arrived on campus, I have been challenged to find the courage to step outside my comfort zone, and I feel that this has shaped the person I’ve become. Do you have any advice for future Hyde students? No matter where you go or who you become, there are going to be events and experiences that challenge you. These things are inevitable, so put 100% effort into everything you do and
Which Hyde teacher(s) impacted you the most? Many faculty members have had an impact on my experience. Laura Gauld and Rachel Folan stand out as strong supporters and guides, working with me through my ups and downs and continuing to challenge me throughout my time at Hyde. What has been your most meaningful lesson from Hyde? I learned that I have so much more to offer the world than I ever could have realized.
make the best of every situation.
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Kristopher Carroll I was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. While growing up, I worked very hard for everything I wanted, which meant taking school very seriously and having an extreme love for basketball. I was blessed with the opportunity to transfer to Hyde from my previous prep school. I wanted to get an extra year in order to get the opportunity to play basketball in college. My experience at Hyde has had ups and downs. When I think back to last year, I’ve seen growth in myself as a young man and as a student athlete. HYDE-WOODSTOCK ’16
My favorite things to do include playing basketball, hanging out with friends, and engaging in physical activity. What is most important to me in my life today is my family, basketball, my college career, and life after college.
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I think the lessons I’ve learned at Hyde will carry over to my adult life. This experience has helped me become a more rational person. The experience has taught me the importance of getting out of my comfort zone and to always be open to trying new things. I am also a much better communicator.
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After Hyde, I will definitely go to college. I haven’t made a decision yet about where I will go, but I plan to major in business. My vision for my future is to have a very successful basketball career while also getting a great education and
So far, what is your favorite Hyde moment? The two basketball seasons I’ve played since attending Hyde. I’ve had two completely different teams and coaching staffs, but the lessons I’ve learned have been valuable and I don’t think I would have gotten them at any other school.
eventually earning a degree. God willing, I want to play
Which Hyde teacher impacted you the most?
basketball professionally.
Mr. Cannon, because we have very similar backgrounds with similar interests. Throughout the year, he has kept things very
DEFINING MOMENTS
real with me. He always wants what’s best for me and was
Which Hyde Word or Principle has impacted you in your life the most and why?
hard on me because he knew I was capable of handling a lot.
Courage, because all of my life I didn’t branch out and do different things unless I liked them or I knew I would be able to be good at them. At Hyde, I quickly learned that while there are things I don’t want to do or haven’t tried before, I have to do those things just like everyone else here. Do you have any advice for future Hyde students? Come in with an open mind and be ready to try new things. Come out of your comfort zone. I would also suggest that students try to find lessons in everything that they do at Hyde.
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It’s also a plus that he is a Hyde graduate. What has been your most meaningful lesson from Hyde? To try to always find the positive in anything that goes on in my life and then build on it. I also try not to hold grudges, knowing that in the long run, I will only hurt myself.
Jesse Higgins I was born in Newton-Wesley Hospital in Newton, Massachusetts where my mom worked as a nurse. I lived in Millis, Massachusetts in a small townhouse complex with my mother, father, and brother until I was seven. At that time, we moved to Charlottesville, Virginia. While living in Massachusetts, I grew up surrounded by my large Italian-Catholic family. We spent a lot of weekends together. I remember taking Amtrak into Boston often with my brother, cousins, aunts, and grandparents to visit the Boston Science Museum, see a Celtics game, or the Boston orchestra. When I moved to Charlottesville, I left that big family behind and learned to branch out. I also picked up one of my biggest passions, lacrosse, and made my first best friend while at a lacrosse summer camp. I spent most of my summers either sweating in the southern heat at a lacrosse tournament or cooling off playing pool basketball with my brother at the local swim club.
HYDE-BATH ’16
My dad came to Hyde as a junior in 1981, and I grew up hearing tales of his winter camping trips with Mr. Grant and his efforts on the Hyde cross-country and ski teams. Then, when my brother started to struggle at our public school, he and my parents sought out Hyde in the summer before his senior year. After he spent a year here and I came up for a Family Weekend and a Siblings FLC, my parents pushed me to attend a Summer Challenge. After seeing my brother’s growth and experiencing Summer Challenge, I decided Hyde was where I wanted to spend the rest of my high school career. My experience at Hyde has been so all-encompassing that it is hard to describe it succinctly. When I arrived here two years ago, the words self-growth and introspection were foreign to me. Not only was I not reaching for my unique potential, I cringed if I heard those words, because taking risks was not something that I had been encouraged to do in my public school. Coming into an environment like Hyde where risk was not only encouraged but demanded set me on a path to my better self. The myriad pursuits, such as performing arts, academics, athletics, seminars, etc. kept me engaged. While my journey here has not been free of potholes and detours, the sum of my experience has been an opportunity for a personal metamorphosis that I doubt I will find ever again. One of my favorite things to do at Hyde is the pickup basketball games we play right before in-dorms. Every night, we go down to the gym to play around and get better. It is just one of those positive activities in my life that leaves me feeling better every time. I think family is something that I value greatly—not only my nuclear family but the family that grows out of living in a dorm and going to boarding school. The bonds that I formed from living, working, and playing sports with such a close group are relationships I hope will last my lifetime.
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I hope I can apply some of the self-discipline and principles that I have strived to live by here in my future. If I can, they will lead me to success both in my career and personal life.
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I plan to attend Colby College in Waterville, Maine to study Political Science. My vision for myself is to find success in my career and happiness in my personal life.
DEFINING MOMENTS Which Hyde Word or Principle has impacted you in your life the most and why? Courage. It is part of the behavior I believe you need to have in order to put yourself out there to find success. Do you have any advice for future Hyde students? Find positivity in yourself and your situation. Recognize the opportunity you have and find the courage to reach for your best instead of blaming others and making excuses. Live in Brook House. So far, what is your favorite Hyde moment? Winning the MAISAD championship for lacrosse. Which Hyde teacher impacted you the most? Mr. Grant. Though he and I have never had a particularly close relationship, he has modeled someone who found his calling in life and truly believes in his personal mission. What has been your most meaningful lesson from Hyde? Taking responsibility for myself and my own success. HYDE SCHOOL ALUMNI PROFILE MAGAZINE
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Shemar Jack I was born and raised in Hempstead, New York. Growing up I was fairly adventurous, and I traveled to quite a few places. Hyde-Woodstock was recommended to me because of its athletics program. My experience here at Hyde has been one of great learning. At Hyde, I found out what type of leader I really am. The things I’ve learned here at Hyde have really helped me mold myself into the person I am going to be in the future. The one thing that will help me the most, I believe, is the vocal leadership skills I’ve developed while being here at Hyde. HYDE-BATH ’16
During my free time, I love to either kick back and relax on a lazy day or, if I am feeling good, I like to work out.
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At this point in my life, the most important thing to me is focusing on college next year and trying to plan my freshman year. I am going to play football at Assumption College in Worcester, Massachusetts next year. I also plan on majoring in business management. In the future, I plan on achieving my master’s degree in my field of study.
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DEFINING MOMENTS Which Hyde Word or Principle has impacted you in your life the most and why? It is hard to choose one, but the Principle that has the most impact would have to be Brother’s Keeper. Here at Hyde I’ve grasped the true meaning of this. Do you have any advice for future Hyde students? My advice for future Hyde students is to go with the process and try not to fight it. The process here really works and fighting it will not benefit you. So far, what is your favorite Hyde moment?
What has been your most meaningful lesson from Hyde?
There have been a few great moments for me here at Hyde,
The most meaningful lesson for me was going up to Eustis
but hands down favorite moment was defeating Hebron
(Lennox Lodge) for a week. This gave me a chance to
Academy for the MAISAD Lacrosse Championship.
reflect on what I want to do and where I am heading in the
Which Hyde teacher impacted you the most? Mr. Grant is the teacher who impacted me the most here at Hyde.
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near future.
Qianyan She “Tina” I was born and raised in Guangzhou, China. For me, growing up meant becoming more responsible, not only for myself, but also for the people who love and care about me. Hyde opened me up a lot and inspired me to reach out to others in the bigger community as well as to take the initiative to be a leader in the community. I have been drawing and painting since I was four years old. My art is my favorite thing to do. I also like cleaning and organizing rooms, and so I often help my friends arrange their furniture in their rooms. Participating in the performing arts dress rehearsal also tops out as one of my favorite things I’ve done at Hyde.
HYDE-WOODSTOCK ’16
DEFINING MOMENTS Which Hyde Word or Principle has impacted you in your life the most and why?
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Leadership. Hyde has given new meaning to this word for me, as it asks me to achieve the best in myself.
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Do you have any advice for future Hyde students? This advice is especially for international students: open up more to the opportunities provided, and find courage to face challenges. So far, what is your favorite Hyde moment? Every night, I sit on my bed and talk with my roommate about everything that happened during the day. After a long day, the best thing is having a friend to talk with before going to bed. Which Hyde teacher impacted you the most? Mrs. Felt. She has supported me a lot, not only in my art classes, but also when I needed help. She was the one who always had my back.
The teachers at Hyde are always encouraging and affirming. They help me in ways that build my confidence. Also, discovery group meetings provide more communication for my teachers and me. I plan to study art in college to learn about design. My vision for my future is to create great design, where people will use and live with my designs. This idea is actually inspired by one of the discovery group activities I participated in that asked each of us to predict others’ futures.
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Allegra Weterrings I was born in Santa Monica, California and then moved to Orange County with my family at a very young age. Growing up, I played many sports and fell in love with riding horses. My best friend, who lived right behind me, and I spent lots of time together and with other neighborhood kids. During my junior year, I went to a wilderness program. An educational consultant recommended Hyde and it seemed like the best option for me. I made the final decision to enroll because of the riding team.
HYDE-WOODSTOCK ’16
My experience at Hyde has been filled with ups and downs. No matter what, though, the community has been very supportive and everyone pushes me to try new things and be my best. I enjoy shopping, riding horses, hiking, and reading. Traveling, however, tops the list of my favorite things to do, because I love learning about new cultures and trying new things. What is most important to me in my life today is my health and my future. As I am about to graduate, I have many things to look forward to, and I need to practice a healthy lifestyle in order to achieve my goals.
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The lessons I’ve learned from Hyde will carry over into all aspects of my life. I’ll be prepared for college, but looking further on in life, I’ll have leadership skills and be able to manage people, thanks to my participation in crew and athletics.
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After I graduate from Hyde, I plan on going to college. At the
Do you have any advice for current or future Hyde students? Have an open mind and be willing to try new things. What is your favorite Hyde moment? When I scored my first basket ever in a basketball game, because it was a completely new sport; my team was very supportive of me.
moment, I have not decided where I will go to study, but my top
Which Hyde teacher(s) impacted you the most personally?
choices are American University of Paris, University of Miami,
Mr. Duethorn. He makes his class interesting and I enjoy
and NYU. I plan to study business with an interest in fashion.
learning from him. Outside the classroom, he has been very supportive and is one of the faculty members on campus who
In the future, I plan to live in Paris and work in the fashion
I can trust to provide me with honest feedback.
industry. I want to work at a major fashion brand or own my own designer stores and eventually create my own brand.
What was your most meaningful lesson from Hyde? Every action has a reaction, which can be positive or
DEFINING MOMENTS Which Word or Principle has impacted you in your life the most and why? Courage, because I never thought of myself as a courageous person. Hyde has continuously tested my courage by giving me leadership opportunities and encouraging me to try new sports and take leadership on teams.
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negative. I’ve taken notice of my surroundings and understand that I make decisions for a community rather than just myself. Everything you do at Hyde will directly and indirectly effect someone, so I’ve learned to make positive decisions to benefit those around me and myself.
Board of Governors Nancy Brennan Lund, Board President (Jeffrey ’06 Woodstock)
Dana J. McAvity (Angus ’09 Woodstock)
Ann S. Bell (Samuel ’15 Woodstock)
Malcolm McAvity (Angus ’09 Woodstock)
Jonathan A. Bell ’71 Bath (Samuel ’15 Woodstock)
Thomas J. Moore (Patrick ’03 Bath, Robert ’04 Bath, Joseph ’07 Bath, Carolyn ’14 Bath)
Jeffrey P. Black ’78 Bath Dee Dee Chesley (Nathan ’12 Woodstock) Rick Chesley (Nathan ’12 Woodstock) Alvaro G. de Molina (Rachel ’11 Bath)
James A. Silverman ’87 Bath John C. Stanchina (Joseph ’14 Bath) Lucinda B. Stanchina (Joseph ’14 Bath) Andrew Q. Sylvester ’03 Bath
Jamie I. Delaney (Ryan ’10 Woodstock)
Debbie Werner (Jason ’06 Woodstock)
Malcolm W. Gauld ’72 Bath, Hyde President (Mahalia ’08 Bath, Scout ’10 Bath)
Joseph B. Werner (Jason ’06 Woodstock)
Ritsubun Koda (Taiga ’08 Woodstock, Haruka ’10 Woodstock)
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Board of Governors Emeriti Lennox K. Black (Christopher ’76 Bath, David ’76 Bath, Jeffrey ’78 Bath)
David F. Hinchman (Stephen ’81 Bath, David ’87 Bath, Josephine ’90 Bath)
David E. Boone (Aaron ’98 Bath)
Elizabeth Hinchman (Stephen ’81 Bath, David ’87 Bath, Josephine ’90 Bath)
Kristin J. Day (Colin ’00 Bath, Jessie ’03 Bath) Lloyd R. Day (Colin ’00 Bath, Jessie ’03 Bath) Kenneth P. DeAngelis (Ross ’04 Bath, Simone ’10 Woodstock, Madeline ’10 Woodstock) Lorrie B. DeAngelis (Ross ’04 Bath, Simone ’10 Woodstock, Madeline ’10 Woodstock) Gini Diskin (Brad ’78 Bath) Jack S. Diskin (Brad ’78 Bath) Catherine Falck (Marc ’02 Woodstock, Olivia ’04 Woodstock) Larry W. French (Todd ’89 Bath) James Freston (Cary ’79 Bath, Randall ’83 Bath)
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Anne E. Krebs (Duncan ’97 Woodstock) Robert D. Krebs (Duncan ’97 Woodstock) Armin U. Kuder (Carlyn ’82 Bath, Keith ’85 Bath) Paul MacMahon (Timothy ’95 Bath, Julia ’01 Woodstock) Verna Mayo ’74 Bath Stuart A. Ochiltree (Molly ’95 Bath) Cynthia Raff (David ’81 Bath) Gilbert Raff (David ’81 Bath) Raymond L. Smart (Archibald ’90 Bath)
Marge S. Freston (Cary ’79 Bath, Randall ’83 Bath)
Matthew E. Snyder ’94 Bath
Margo Calvetti Frost ’76 Bath (Mariel ’10 Bath)
G. Clay von Seldeneck (Rodman ’96 Bath, Kevin ’97 Bath)
Spencer Garrett ’81 Bath
Judith M. von Seldeneck (Rodman ’96 Bath, Kevin ’97 Bath)
Joseph W. Gauld, Founder (Malcolm ’72 Bath, Laurie ’75 Bath, Georgia ’82 Bath)
R. Channing Wheeler (Anne ’04 Bath)
James K. Grasty ’73 Bath
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Board of Trustees Emeriti James Abare (David ’83 Bath, Mark ’85 Bath) Robert S. Anderson ’70 Bath M. Gregory Carbone (Nina ’76 Bath) William L. Collins ’73 Bath James Day Harwood Ellis, Jr. Richard Evans, III Bernard Frankel (Matthew ’76 Bath, Andrea ’79 Bath) Joseph W. Gauld, Founder (Malcolm ’72 Bath, Laurie ’75 Bath, Georgia ’82 Bath) Sally T. Haggett William E. Haggett James K. Irving (James ’71 Bath, Robert ’73 Bath) Armin U. Kuder (Carlyn ’82 Bath, Keith ’85 Bath)
George J. Langbehn Philip L. Lee ’74 Bath Cynthia Mentz ’76 Bath Carmel A. Morin Leonard C. Mulligan James M. O’Neill ’73 Bath Cynthia Raff (David ’81 Bath) Gilbert Raff (David ’81 Bath) G. David Schlegel (Scott ’74 Bath, Anne ’75 Bath, Katherine ’79 Bath, Philip ’84 Bath) Chris Smith Donald Spear Peggy Wescott
President and Heads of School Malcolm W. Gauld ’72 Bath President
Laura Gauld ’76 Bath Head of School Hyde-Bath and Executive Director of Hyde Boarding Schools
Bob Felt ’90 Bath Head of School Hyde-Woodstock
Office of Development and Alumni Relations Erin Brown Executive Director of Development
Jason Warnick ’98 Bath Director of Alumni and HAPA Engagement
Peter Morrison Associate Director of Development
Louisa Morris Director of Campaign Operations
Gary Monnier Senior Development Associate
Kate Foye ’95 Bath Special Events Manager
Nicole Missino Director of Annual Giving
Deborah Smith Development Associate
Writing: Rose Mulligan (Benjamin ’99 Bath) | Editing: Ann Peden, Executive Assistant to the President
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Office of Development & Alumni Relations • EMAIL: development@hyde.edu • HYDE.EDU BATH CAMPUS: 616 High Street, Bath, ME 04530 • P: 207.386.5200 • F: 207.386.5201 WOODSTOCK CAMPUS: P.O. Box 237, Woodstock, CT 06281 • P: 860.963.4717 • F: 860.963.4789