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school news
Calhoun Board Welcomes Five Trustees and Thanks Three for Years of Service At its annual dinner in June, Board Chair Eric Potoker ’85 introduced five new term trustees, who will be joining Calhoun’s Board in the fall of 2016 (see below), and new Parents Association (PA) representative to the Board, Barbara Pyles, who was elected co-president of the PA for 2016–18. Eric also offered deep appreciation to departing trustees Michael Marra, Bernadette Mitchell and Dylan Hixon. Dylan was a three-term trustee who also served during his tenure as treasurer. David Elsberg David is a partner in the New York office of the law firm Quinn, Emanuel, Urquhart & Sullivan, the largest law firm in the world devoted solely to business litigation, where he is co-chair of the firm’s investment fund and fund advisor litigation practice. He is also an adjunct faculty member at Columbia Law School. David graduated summa cum laude from Duke University, with distinction in his major, history, and then went on to Harvard Law School, where he was a member of the Harvard Law Review and graduated magna cum laude. After law school, David clerked for Judge Amalya Kearse on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. A lifelong New Yorker, David grew up in Queens and Long Island, and has lived on the Upper West Side since the mid-1990s. His parents both worked as teachers in New York’s public schools, and his father also became an assistant principal and the president of unions for public school administrators. David and his wife, Natalie, have three children: Ben (entering fourth grade), Laura (entering third grade) and Adrienne, who will be a kindergartener this fall.
Calhoun Chronicle
Karen Greene Karen spent the early part of her career working in entertainment law, specifically for television and film, at Epstein, Levinsohn, Bodine, Hurwitz & Weinstein LLP, and then A&E television. She joined HBO in 2002 to helm the copyright division for the network and HBO’s affiliated channel Cinemax. A native of the Bronx, Karen earned an associate’s degree from Bronx Community College and a bachelor’s degree in political science from Columbia University. She and her husband, Walter, are parents to Montgomery (Monte), a rising fourth grader who has been “a proud Calhoun student” since kindergarten. Karen and Walter are also grandparents and custodians of Ava Moore, a fourth grader at PS 84. Karen’s volunteer commitment to education began with Monte’s early preschool years, when she served on the board of trustees for the Purple Circle Early Childhood Program and was executive director of the school’s fundraising auction in 2011. At Calhoun, Karen was most recently involved as a PA third grade parent rep. Aasem Khalil Aasem is a managing director at Goldman Sachs and the global head of chemicals and agriculture for the investment banking division. Previously, he had been a member of the equity capital markets group, focusing on the origination and execution of equity and equity-linked financings, including initial public offerings, follow-on transactions, block trades and convertibles.
Aasem joined Goldman Sachs in 1996 as an analyst on the mortgage-backed trading desk, shortly after graduating from Kenyon College, where he earned his BA in political science with distinction. While at Kenyon, he also had a concentration in English literature and served as captain of the college’s football and baseball teams. Aasem and his wife, Marcia, live in TriBeCa with their three children, twins Benjamin and Sebastian (entering second grade) and four-year-old Gabriela (“Gigi”). Walter Levitch Walter and his wife, Diana, are, like their daughter, Natalie, Calhoun “lifers.” Natalie—who will be entering tenth grade this fall—came to Calhoun at the age of three, and brought with her two parents who have been generous supporters of the community: Diana has served on the PA and numerous committees, and Walter is currently on Calhoun’s Major Gifts Committee. Walter brings varied and extensive experience to his new role on Calhoun’s Board. Currently enjoying retirement after nine years at Goldman Sachs, he also previously served at Salomon Brothers/ Citibank and TD Securities. The bulk of his professional career was spent structuring, syndicating and trading leveraged loans and private placements of debt. During his more formative years, Walter proudly points out, he held a wide variety of jobs— including dishwasher, busboy, umpire, head waiter at a sorority house, nightclub security guard and store manager. Walter received an MBA degree from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, and his BA in psychology from Indiana University, where he received many honors. He and