MOUNT HOLYOKE ALUMNAE are a modest lot by nature, but when the Quarterly asked them to brag, many revealed talents quite out of the ordinary.
DRAG RACER
René Schmauder ’84 likes to “push the limits of the
performance envelope”—she can “race a Suzuki GSXR drag bike better than practically anyone else.” Launching her 1340cc bike at full throttle from a standing start, Schmauder streaks along at 155 miles per hour, covering a quarter-mile track in 8.9 seconds “all the while looking at the competition in the next lane to see who is going to cross the finish line first.” Competing on an even basis with men—she is one of only ten women among several hundred regular competitors in the AMA/Prostar series— Schmauder finished fifth in the world in the “Super Comp” class last year. Husband Bill got her into drag racing, and their twelve-year-old, Kaliska, expects to start racing her own motorcycle later this year.
STREAMLINER
Top: Courtesy of Angela Justice; opposite: Matt Polito/www.dragbikephotos.com
Jane Zippe Putscher ’87 may be the most efficient person alive. “I am really good at going into a work situation and streamlining the process to eliminate wastes of time and other resources,” she says. If you think she’s exaggerating, consider this: “Two of the three jobs I currently hold used to be full-time for my predecessors, and I work a total of about ten hours a week among the three jobs.” Putscher also has a “ridiculous ability to remember song lyrics.” She still knows every word in Jesus Christ Superstar and The Messiah, and even recalls lyrics from truly obscure works such as the soundtrack to the 1970 film The Strawberry Statement. “I can’t remember what I had for dinner yesterday, but songs I listened to growing up still take up space on my brain’s hard drive. Maybe this will help me on Jeopardy some day,” she says. Putscher attributes this talent to listening to a wide range of music and to performing music for many years. Putscher’s daughter Carrie “has shown a similar talent since she was about two. How many other twelveyear-olds today can identify classics by Jackson Browne, Peter Gabriel, and Phil Collins?”
FINANCIAL PLANNER Eleanor Hotchkiss Blayney ’73 says twenty years of experience as a financial planner have made her “able to understand an individual’s financial picture and money personality in a single meeting.” She says, “Give me your latest tax return, your investment and retirement account statements, a conference room, and an hour or two of your time, and I will know at the end of our meeting what will be necessary in terms of resources, lifestyle changes, and changes of attitude to make you achieve your financial goals.” Blayney attributes this ability not only to experience and training, but also to “being neither a right-brain nor a left-brain thinker” and to being so statistically average that she can relate to a very wide range of clients’ financial experiences. Her prowess has also been noticed by independent sources including Worth magazine, which named her a top U.S. financial planner five times. Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly | Spring 2006
TEA CONNOISSEUR Tea is not just a pleasant beverage to Angela A. Justice ’02, it’s a passion. She can distinguish more than 300 types of teas by sight, smell, and taste, and is probably the youngest person in the U.S. tea trade with extensive knowledge about China teas. Working for Asian-tea importer Teance since graduation, Justice traveled to China last year, scouring small boutique farms in rural areas for their best offerings. Justice had her “aha!” career moment as an MHC sophomore. While thinking about how to turn her economics major into a postgraduation job, she was also cradling a cup of her favorite drink. And suddenly Justice thought, “Someone has to get the tea into people’s cups!”—and her career was born. Justice got a summer job with a tea importer who introduced her to tea professionals. She realized that the field fit her, well, to a T. Justice says her ultimate goal is to identify, blindfolded, each of the estimated 10,000 varieties of Chinese tea. It sounds ambitious, but she’s already well on her way. For regions she’s familiar with, Justice can distinguish the altitude at which tea leaves were grown and season they were harvested.
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