alumni at large
sonny omatseye ’79 | colby in the delta
One day at his home in Warri, Nigeria, Sonny Omatseye ’79 was watching CNN via satellite when he recognized a familiar face. On the television was a man he knew well—Professor Sandy Maisel, who had taught him government decades before. Now, his former teacher was being broadcast to all corners of the world, including Nigeria’s rich, but troubled, Delta State, an embattled region of Africa’s most populous country. It isn’t often that Omatseye sees a familiar Colby face, but he says the influence of his Mayflower Hill education has been lasting. After college and a year in England, Omatseye returned to Nigeria to work in his family’s business—a shipping company that services the most important industry in West Africa: oil. The Nigerian Delta exports two billion barrels a day. Today it sees strife and violence, as various groups fight for control of the wealth that comes up out of the ground. This winter multiple kidnappings occurred in the area, and the unrest was blamed for an increase in the worldwide price of oil in February. The region went through some especially hard times during the reign of the dictator Sani Abacha, who executed the writer Ken SaroWiwa in 1995. This dark chapter ended in 1998 with Abacha’s mysterious death. According to Omatseye, things are getting better now. Lisa is a lawyer at CVS Corporation in Rhode Island. Mike and Lisa are empty-nesters now that daughter Alysha is a psychology major at the University of N.C. and son David is at UMass, Amherst, and considering a biochemistry and neuroscience dual major. Mike and Lisa sail out of Wickford, R.I., on the sailboat they fixed up a couple of years ago. Y Brian Hoffmann was named cohead of mergers and acquisitions for the Americas at Clifford Chance. He and his wife, Lynne Murray, recently celebrated their ninth wedding anniversary. Son Dylan is in the third grade, and daughter Caleigh started kindergarten. Brian says that he has seen Rick Nadeau several times in the last year. Y Eugene Crawshaw and family moved from Portland, Ore., to St. Paul, Minn., last August. He said he didn’t actually cry when he 56 COLBY / spring 2006
traded in his Mustang convertible (acquired when they lived in L.A.) for a minivan with heated seats. Eugene’s daughter, Moira, started first grade and, he says, seems to be thriving. Though 3-year-old Ian is more stressed out by the move he enjoys helping Dad remodel their 1901 house, especially anything electrical and/or sharp. Y Highlights of Jane Gair Prairie’s summer were a trip to Acadia and a visit from her sister and nephews from London, England. Her son, Everett, enjoyed spending time with his cousins at her parents’ camp on Mousam Lake. Husband Keith now works for Dell as a “computer warrior,” often traveling to Waterville and the surrounding area. Jane continues to work part time at Mercy Hospital’s eating disorder treatment program in Portland and has become involved at the Allen Avenue
“A lot of things went wrong,” Omatseye said of those times, in an interview in Lagos, where had traveled on business for the day. “But now the government is trying to straighten them out. There is a lot of opportunity. I see a good picture for the country. What I like to say is, ‘Nigeria is still a new place.’” Studying at Colby, in the U.S., helped Omatseye in ways he didn’t foresee when he was on Mayflower Hill. Many of the companies coming in to work the oil fields are American, and it has been easy for him to work with them. “The kind of people I’m dealing with now, in the shipping industry, I relate to them more, though I didn’t think about that at the time. Colby is well known. Sometimes I’m talking to these guys, and I say yes, I went to Colby. And they say, ‘Oh my God, how did you get there?’” When Omatseye “got there” in the 1970s there were only a handful of other Africans on campus and fewer than two dozen African Americans, he said. The whiteness and the cold came as a shock. But in his four years he came to love the College, and he still keeps in touch with people from his class. Still, while at Colby, he had no intention of staying in the U.S. “As soon as I came back to Nigeria, I went straight home and joined the family business. Not like my [African] friends. The majority of them stayed back [in America]. I wanted to come home.” Over the years, even though Colby is several thousand miles west, in some ways it has seemed not so far away. Once, in the mid-1980s, two of Sonny’s classmates showed up on his doorstep in Warri after trekking across the Sahara. There was the Professor Maisel spotting. And Omatseye is in his office every day by 7 a.m.— a relic of his early morning swim class at Colby. He even named the three ships his company owns after the school: Colby Swift, Colby Glory, and Colby Victory. “Colby has a lot to do with everything I do,” he said, “I will never lose my connection with Colby.” —Frank Bures Unitarian Universalist Church. Y I am getting used to having just one child at home now that my oldest is away at college (most weekends). My youngest daughter is enjoying “only child” status, and some evenings my husband and I actually get a taste of what an empty nest might be like when it happens in five years. You can reach me at tckmpowers@adelphia.net or classnews1979@alum.colby.edu If you are passing through Colorado, give me at call at 719-532-9285 or drop a line. —Cheri Bailey Powers
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“Having completed more than 21 years of active military service,” writes John Monroe, “I retired from the United States Navy on October 1, 2005, at the rank of Navy captain. For the past 13 years I was stationed with the Marine Corps at Marine
Corps Base, Camp Pendleton, Calif., where I practiced ophthalmology at the Naval Hospital. During the tour at Camp Pendleton I served as ophthalmology department head and as chief of the surgical division with management responsibility for 10 surgical departments, 35 surgeons, and more than 200 staff members. In addition to managing healthcare for returning wounded marines and sailors, responsibilities included preparation and planning for deployment of a significant number of my staff to both Afghanistan and Iraq.” Y Greg Mills was promoted to vice president of financial systems at HSBC Securities in New York. Y Adrienne Reynolds wrote from Washington state that she has started a new business in long arm quilting. She spent much time last summer at creative technique classes and shows, includ-