Please drop me an e-mail with your news! Enjoy the summer! Kimi: 212-517-6776; Gate79@aol.com
1 980 Scott Williams Apt 1010 5325 Westbard Avenue Bethesda, MD 20816-4422 Jeff and Robin ’82 Palmer share greetings, reporting a busy year of business and family travel, ranging from Hamilton to Cambodia. Jeff continues his work with ExxonMobil while Robin still works with dyslexic students. Daughter Carolyn travels around the world as an occupational therapist while son Ben has worked as a coach for Crossfit in Kuwait and Kazakhstan before departing for Asia. Pretty cool fam. In March, Ulrich Klemm was awarded the 2016 Luther S Beers Distinguished Service Award by the Cumberland-Perry Association for Retarded Citizens recognizing him for his monthly guitar performances at an adult daycare center. For nearly 2 decades Ulrich has volunteered time with persons with developmental and intellectual disabilities in PA. Thanks for making our world a little bit better, Ulrich. Coleman Brown would be proud. Had a great conversation with Sally Smith Roberts whose son Aaron is looking to relocate to DC. She and Ken send their best to all. Speaking of DC, Sandy Mullins is spending more time in the nation’s capital now that her son Scott (awesome name) is attending American U. Son Sean just graduated from Rhode Island School of Design and is establishing himself down in New Orleans. After serving as CEO of a $8 million credit union in West Orange, NJ, Sandy has joined the management team at Novartis Federal Credit Union while she continues to champion financial literacy initiatives. She also serves on the board of the NJ Credit Union Foundation. Bruce Knecht has published a real pageturner about Larry Ellison and his $200 million effort to win the 2013 America’s Cup. The Comeback is a gripping read about “the kind of superhuman personal efforts (and ethical lapses) that sometimes develop when people have nothing to lose.” Marcy Wydman, Vicki Weisman, and Susan Waivada were spotted in Hamilton at N13 (thanks for the biz, guys…); in town for the Aretha Franklin concert and a Colgate fix. Marcy’s son Jesse will enroll at BYU this fall. Welcome to Utah, Jess! Finally, by the time this column reaches you, both of my daughters will have completed their Colgate careers. Katie ’15 will start as a Peace Corps volunteer in Fiji in Aug while Lacey ’16 will be teaching French in Zermatt, Switzerland, this fall for the Swiss semester program. And we thought going to Poolville was a hike. Scott: colgate1980classnotes@gmail.com
1 981 Nancy Horwitz 77 Islington Road Auburndale, MA 02466-1009 Greetings, Class of 1981. By the time you read this column, our 35th Reunion will have come and gone and we will still be reveling in the warmth and fun of that special weekend — or maybe still recovering! Our fall issue will 60
scene: Summer 2016
include news from reunion. Over the past few months, I have heard from several of our classmates. Mike Sokol has been incredibly busy of late, engaged in playwriting, teaching, local politics, and working with Citigroup. Over the last 18 months or so, he’s written 9 plays of which 4 have been staged in NYC and in NJ. Several of these plays can be found on YouTube. In addition, he has been teaching graduate students at NYU the fine art of PR writing. He writes: “I always remembered my conversation with Doc Reading when he said I would make a good professor, but recommended not to pursue a PhD because there were no openings. I do find myself channeling the good doctor from time to time while resisting all the politically incorrect parts of his rhetoric.” Mike is also in the final year of his 2nd term on the local school board in Holmdel, NJ. And as if that’s not enough, he’s doing executive and employee communications these days at Citigroup. He writes: “It’s been a fun, if not demanding gig.” Way to go, Mike! Also demonstrating that there is still plenty of gas in the tank of the members of the Class of ’81 is Fred Gumbinner. Fred recently finished 3rd in the nation in both the 55 and over division and the 50 and over division in Platform (Paddle) Tennis Nationals. In both instances, he was the closest to beating the #1 team. He’s still in the Washington, DC, area (Fairfax County, VA) doing micro private equity transactions, raising capital for early stage companies, helping investors and HNWs get into exceptional deals, and playing a bunch of golf and platform tennis. He writes that he’s “always happy to try to get on the course or on the courts with any Colgate alumni who might be living in or visiting the area.” Fred’s 2 daughters are doing great: Katrina (turning 25) graduated the U of MI Honors College with numerous awards and is working as an analyst in the Washington, DC, area, and Karin is pursuing a digital cinema major at DePaul U in Chicago. Melanie (Naumann) Stensrud wrote that she and her husband, Mike, are happily situated in Charlotte, NC, which is an easy drive up to northern VA where both of their kids live. Their daughter Meg is getting married in June, so Melanie won’t be able to make it to our reunion. Debbie (Little) Chiumento has moved to Boston and now works at Ernst & Young as a business development exec, associate dir in the banking and capital markets practice. She wrote: “I feel a bit like I am living in Back to the Future because I am working long hours and have taken an apt in the city, just like my 1st job in banking in Chicago after graduating from Colgate. Luckily, I also have a house on the Cape to retreat to. I have caught up with Kathy Grady Skelly and Mara Francesca Sheehan-O’Brien and would love to see more!” Also in MA is Nancy Coughlin Weida, who is content on Cape Cod. She and her husband, Rich, relocated there permanently when Nancy retired from Bucknell U after 25 years of being a professor. She enjoys getting together periodically with her MA Colgate classmates Carol Spiak Vari, Elizabeth Stahl, and me. I’m channeling my energy these days training to do my 6th Pan Mass Challenge Bike event to raise money for cancer research and treatment. After a brief stint directing career services at Wellesley College, I returned to my consulting/ coaching business and am working to develop and deliver programs to aid students making the transition from college to work to facilitate a smooth start — like the first 90 days for new graduates. It’s not been that long since we were making that transition, has it? Looking forward to seeing (or having seen) many of you at reunion in June! Nancy: 617-558-9781; nhorwitz@nlhcoaching.com
1982 Margie Jiampietro Palladino 37 Boulder Road Wellesley, MA 02481-1502 Don your Fair Isle sweater, short shorts, and Farrah Fawcett feathery flip, and mark your calendars for our 35th! Reunion is set for the 1st weekend of June 2017 (Thur, June 1–Sun, June 4). Don’t miss this once-in-a-five-year opportunity to enjoy a weekend of fun and memories under the tents on Whitnall Field. To get us ready, here’s news that spans our last 6 reunions. Trendsetters that they are, Brian Mich and his wife, Bridget, moved 1 year after our 5th Reunion (28 years ago for those of us who rely on a calculator these days to do simple math) to the now very hip Carroll Gardens section of Brooklyn. Brian has 2 sons: Dylan (Villanova ’14), an investment banking analyst in Chicago; and Matt, a junior at Fordham. Brian’s career has spanned all our reunions. After graduating from Colgate, Brian went to law school at Villanova, and 2 years before our 5th Reunion, became a prosecutor focusing on organized crime and white collar crime in Brooklyn and Queens. Brian left the Queens DA’s office 2 years after our 20th Reunion to work for Paul Volcker, overseeing a special committee created by the UN to investigate the Oil-for-Food Programme in Iraq. Brian says the project was a “wonderful job that gave me the opportunity to work and develop friendships with attorneys and investigators from all over the world.” Brian started his current job the year of our 25th Reunion. He is a managing dir in the global forensics practice at BDO USA. Brian, a passionate music devotee, and Bridget go to the New Orleans Jazz Fest every year with fellow Theta Chi brother John O’Dwyer ’81, and they hung out with Betsy Lawrence at Jazz Fest several years ago. He has seen Mike Golabek and Lauren Potter D’Onofrio over the years and Kwok Eng, Tim Clyne, and Andres Fernandez recently. He will likely see Michael and Cindy Russo Dougherty, who just relocated to hipster Brooklyn. Since Brian has been very busy with his career and family the past 34 years and has not been back to Colgate in a long time, he has resolved to be at our 35th Reunion in 2017. Brian says: “One of my goals is to be better about maintaining my Colgate connections, and I look forward to getting together with Colgate friends during the upcoming years.” Speaking of Colgate friends, my friend Kim Amato Liu and I spent a fun few days in Boston. Kim, a fellow entrepreneur at heart, founded and operates a specialty toy store, Twirl Toy Shop in Pennington, NJ. If you are like I am and not in tune with the latest toys and gizmos, feel free to contact Kim. She has a wealth of knowledge about children’s presents for all ages. While Kim was here in Wellesley we reminisced about all the good times we had together between our 5th and 10th reunions when she lived here. Kim and her husband, John, moved to the Princeton, NJ, area shortly after their daughter was born — 1 year after our 10th Reunion. Now, their daughter is graduating from Princeton and heading to Harvard for her master’s. Despite this daunting fact that reminds us how the years have quickly passed, Kim and I don’t feel a day older than when we were at our last reunion! So, everyone, let’s make plans to attend our 35th Reunion and celebrate our last 35 years of friendships together. On a closing note, I want to send our collec-
tive thoughts and sympathy to Megan Heffron Fraser, who lost her dear husband, Jay Fraser. Megan writes: “Jay was a wonderful husband who was taken too soon, but I was lucky to have had him for the 20 years we were together.” Megan continues to be the optimistic, incredible woman that we knew in college. According to her good friend Betsy Lawrence: “She is one of the strongest and most positive people I know.” Megan is VP, communications and marketing, at Valley Health Systems in Ridgewood, NJ, and terrific mom to Christian and Callie Trautwein and Maggie Fraser. Margie: 781-235-9386; mjpalladino@comcast.net
19 83 Gwen Tutun 24 Fairfield Ave Westport, CT 06880 Gwen: 203-856-2922 (C); gwentutun@gmail.com
19 84 Diane Munzer Fisher 4356 Stilson Circle Norcross, GA 30092-1648 While I typically don’t write this quarterly column based only on my personal interactions with classmates, this column will be just that. My husband and I spent most of Nov traveling throughout the northeast. We sandwiched our travels between our daughter’s family weekend at Wesleyan and our family Thanksgiving celebration in NJ. I was looking forward to seeing Sally Moran Davidson, mother of a Wesleyan sr. Unfortunately, her younger daughter was ill and so she was not able to make it to campus. I was, however, able to visit with Heather Lubking Brown in her new home in Easton, CT. Heather continues to make a difference in the lives of her students as a teacher and administrator. I also had a delightful dinner with Kevin McDonough and his family at their home in Holden, MA. Kevin is also impacting students through his commitment to literacy and the love of reading as library volunteer extraordinaire. In NJ, I had dinner with Susan Steinberg and Norman Murphy ’83 and Tom and Kathy Houston Porcelli. It had been years since we had all been together, but didn’t seem that way. Made it down briefly to DC where Joel Bernstein ’85 hosted a lovely dinner with Ron ’83 and Jennifer Wilson Sinek. I was glad to finally meet Joel’s fiancée, Quinn. There were lots of Colgate folks whom we weren’t able to meet up with along the way. Hoping that we’ll be able to remedy that on our next trip north. Of course, if anyone is in Atlanta (or passing through for business), please let me know. There’s a significant Colgate contingent here in GA. I was happy to attend the Colgate/GA Tech basketball game with Laura Kurlander just before Christmas. Laura’s son Noah is a first-year at Tech and was playing in the pep band. Please send along your news so my next column will be more than a Diane Fisher travelogue. Diane: 770-209-9341; diane_fisher@post.harvard.edu
19 85 Michael Yardley Greetings, classmates. I hope everyone’s enjoying the summer, ideally with some well-earned vacation time. At our age, even just a couple weeks away from the daily grind seems to help