CLASSNOTES
ALUMNI SNAPSHOT
New Trajectory: From Island Time to Brunswick Time By Mike Kennedy ’99
T
HINK JEEP Wrangler
his parents and began knocking on
with the top down —
doors in New York City looking for a
suntanned dude driving
job at an art gallery. He’d majored in
on the beach with the
fine arts, with a concentration in art
music blasting. Brian Shepard ’97 was on island time. He’d spent the summer of 2001 on Nantucket teaching windsurfing, newly minted Amherst College
history, at Amherst. After six months, he finally landed a gig at MTV Networks as a sales assistant and moved to his own apartment on the Upper East Side.
diploma in hand, and planned to
the ladder during his two-plus
close out the season on the water
year tenure at MTV — ultimately
before hunkering down for the
working on sales plans — but art
winter.
remained his passion.
Life was as good as a morning swim in the Atlantic.
“I was burning the candle at both full day at work and then come
Shepard was on his way to
home and paint long into the
breakfast when the first plane struck
night.” Not until he returned
the North Tower at 8:46 a.m. He
to Brunswick to watch a
stood in frantic fear as he watched
lacrosse game, in the
the remaining attacks unfold on
spring of 2005, did he
television, his thoughts firmly fixed
consider the prospect of
on his family and friends back home
teaching.
in New York. He boarded an overcrowded ferry
03
01 Brian is all snuggles with his daughter, Lulu.
Doug Burdett, a
02 Classmates Ned Adams and Tony Calabrese have remained close friends of Brian’s.
mentor of Shepard’s
the next day and arrived in Rye that
during his days as a
night, waiting anxiously for news
student, proposed the idea.
about his cousin Teddy Maloney,
02
ends,” Shepard said. “I’d spend a
But then came 9/11. work, stopping in at a local deli for
01
He began to climb his way up
Two weeks later, he’d interviewed
of LINK,
a 32-year-old broker at Cantor
and been offered a position at his
a summer program for
Fitzgerald, who hadn’t been heard
alma mater.
talented, underprivileged students
from since the attacks.
It’s now been more than a decade
03 Brian celebrates his graduation in the spring of 1997 with former headmaster Duncan Edwards.
in the surrounding area.
Teddy’s reassuring call never came.
— and Shepard is entrenched as a
And Shepard was changed forever.
Brunswick faculty member, teaching
faculty housing in Glenville with their
Shepard and his wife, Denise, live in
“My life’s trajectory changed
computer graphics and ceramics,
two daughters, Isla (3) and Lulu (1).
completely after that day,” Shepard
coaching hockey and tennis, and
recalled. “I wanted to be closer to
working in the college office under
my family and to support them in
the continuing guidance of Burdett
any way I could.
(“Doug” still doesn’t quite roll off
and the values we hold most
grounded and aware of the people
the tongue, however).
important,” Shepard said. “It sounds
around you.
“I also realized I needed to begin taking more ownership of my life.” Shepard moved (back) in with
He’s also manning the charge of Peer Leadership and is the director
Words came easy when asked to
“As an alumnus, I feel I’m well suited to transfer that message to
pinpoint why Brunswick. “I believe in the School’s message
simple — but ‘With all thy getting, get understanding.’
our boys. I’ve lived Brunswick and beyond Brunswick — and I can pass along the importance of remaining
“I hope to be here for a long time.”
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