The intriguing lives of Gordon’s younger alumni
12 STILLPOINT | SPRING 2014
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The intriguing lives of Gordon’s younger alumni
13 STILLPOINT | SPRING 2014
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They were born between 1964 and 1992—between the Beatles’ first
They were born between 1964 and 1992—between the Beatles’ first appearance on appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show and Bill Clinton’s first presidential campaign. the Ed Sullivan Show and Bill Clinton’s first Presidential campaign. We connected We connected with them through Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter—social media with them through Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter—social media channels that that they somehow survived childhood without. Their church backgrounds? they somehow survived childhood without. Their church backgrounds?—Baptist, Mainline, megachurch, house church, and lots in between. Some are “secondmegachurch, mainline, house church, and lots in between. Some are “secondgeneration Gordon” and others never heard of the place until it was mentioned generation Gordon” and others never heard of the place until it was mentioned by by a youth pastor, friend, or friend-of-a-friend. Some knew their career trajectory a youth pastor, friend, or friend-of-friend. Some knew their career trajectory from from the day they arrived on campus. Others changed majors (or post-graduation Day One. Others changed majors, or post-graduation jobs, several times before jobs) several times before finding their nexus of “deep gladness and the world’s finding the nexus of “deep gladness and the world’s deep need,” as Frederick deep need,” as Frederick Buechner has phrased it. Buechner has phrased it. The women and men whose stories appear here are just a tiny sample, a fraction The women and men whose stories appear here are just a tiny sample, a fraction of one percent of all Gordon alumni under 50. There are nearly 200 other alumni of one percent of all Gordon alumni under 50. There are nearly 200 other alumni in that cohort for each person in these pages—all with compelling stories and in that cohort for each person in these pages—all with compelling stories and journeys. Some day, tell us yours. journeys. Some day, tell us yours.
SPRING 2014 | STILLPOINT 14
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Rebecca Lindland ’90
Market analyst • Saudi Arabia Cause: Animal welfare
Since graduating from Gordon as a double major in business and accounting, Rebecca Lindland has carved out a career as a leading market analyst. At IHS Automotive she analyzed brands, models and trends and consumer preferences from a base in the BostonNew York corridor. Now she leads the Transportation Studies and Big Data Initiative at KAPSARC, based in Riyadh, consulting with consumer insight companies and auto firms on a global basis. She continues to serve on two National Research Council committees assessing fuel economy standards, and market issues around electric vehicles. The common threads: savvy understanding of industry trends and consumer behavior, plus an unusual ability to express complex ideas concisely and memorably, in Forbes magazine and elsewhere. She’s interviewed often by Bloomberg, CNBC and other media outlets. “I have never interviewed Rebecca without her giving me a quote that blows my doors off,” one reporter says. rebecca.lindland@gmail.com
15 STILLPOINT | SPRING 2014
Malcolm Foster ’88
Associated Press journalist • Thailand Recently read: Every Good Endeavor (Tim Keller), Unbroken (Laura Hillenbrand)
Malcolm Foster will never forget the flash on the TV screen warning that a major earthquake was about to strike. It was Friday afternoon, March 11, 2011; he was in the AP’s 7th floor bureau in downtown Tokyo. Seconds later, the walls began to creak and groan as the building shook, the blinds rattling loudly against the windows. His colleagues dove under their desks as Malcolm struggled to type a news alert as his keyboard rocked back and forth. After the shaking died down two minutes later, the newsroom sprang into action, and over the next hours and days they pursued a nightmarish, surreal chain of events: A tsunami, triggered by the magnitude 9.0 quake—the strongest
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reduction in staff—not to mention coping with a multi-faceted disaster—took time away from his family even as his two boys were quickly growing up. After four years, it became clear his family “We are not left alone. God is needed a change. Malcolm now works more regular hours as an editor on the working in our world, even amid AP Asia desk in Bangkok, where he tragedy. There’s redemption and helps spearhead AP’s regional coverage transformation going on, often from India to China, and Australia to in ways we cannot see.” North Korea. MALCOLM FOSTER ’88
ever recorded in Japan—smashed into the northeast coast. Entire towns were swept away, killing about 19,000 people. Then explosions and radiation leaks at the damaged Fukushima Dai-ichi plant added the specter of a full-blown nuclear disaster. Sensing the enormity of what was unfolding, Malcolm early on blurted out what he calls an “arrow” prayer for clear thinking. “God was with me every step of the way,” he says. “I felt his calming presence. But directing coverage of this huge story for weeks on end was the biggest challenge of my career.” Being Tokyo bureau chief from 2009 to 2013 was Malcolm’s dream job; it was exciting and fulfilling to lead a team of reporters, using the Japanese he learned as a missionary kid. He wrote about political turnover, diplomatic tension with China and radiation polluting the ocean. But his most memorable stories were about the sadness and resilience of ordinary people who lost much in the 2011 disaster—homes, livelihoods, loved ones. Over time, the dream job proved extremely stressful, grueling and all-consuming. The unpredictable daily agenda, long hours,
It’s still a highly challenging work life. With the spread of the Internet, smartphones and social media, news organizations including the AP have gone through major changes. But the underlying principles of good journalism haven’t changed, he says. People more than ever crave reliable, fair, illuminating and engaging news coverage, in images and words, to help them understand our interconnected world. As a Christian in the media, Malcolm believes that journalism plays important roles that carry spiritual significance: telling the truth, promoting global understanding, shedding light in dark places and holding people in authority accountable. “I believe God is concerned about those things,” he says. A lot of news tends to be bad news, and at times he wrestles with why God allows suffering that can be overwhelming. But the Christian message gives him hope. “We are not left alone. God is working in our world, even amid tragedy. There’s redemption and transformation going on, often in ways we cannot see,” he says. “As followers of Jesus, we are called to be agents of healing and justice, and I think one of the roles of journalism is to help us identify with and aid those in need.” Working in the high-pressure world of journalism has also forced Malcolm to confront the difficulties of juggling the demands of his job and raising a family. That’s especially true when both parents work, as was the case during their time in Tokyo, when his wife, Mio (Ohta) ’89, taught at an international school. “We are called to do excellent work and use our gifts to contribute to society, yet it is easy to let our jobs take over our lives, and the other parts of our lives can suffer,” he says. Finding the right balance remains an ongoing challenge, he says. “I’d love to hear what other Gordon grads have to say about this.” Since moving to Bangkok, the Fosters have been volunteering every three weeks or so at Sparrow Home, a home for about 15 kids whose parents are in prison. Many of them just want to be picked up and held. Activities together include drawing pictures, blowing bubbles, building block towers and running around in the small park next door. “Sometimes the people you’re trying to encourage end up encouraging you in a big way,” says Mio. mjfhokkaido@gmail.com |
@mjfosterap
SPRING 2014 | STILLPOINT 16
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Tim Hohman ’07
Alzheimer’s researcher • Nashville Drummer in his church’s praise band
It’s rare to choose a vocation in high school and make it stick, rarer still for the vocation to center on a disease of the elderly. But that’s Tim Hohman’s story. Volunteering in a veterans’ home during high school sparked his interest in Alzheimer’s disease; he arrived at Gordon set on a research career focused on the disorder; and now, at Vanderbilt University’s Memory & Alzheimer’s Center and the Center for Human Genetics Research, he is trying to pinpoint neurological mechanisms that appear to protect some individuals against the ravages of the disease. “In the past,” he explains, “researchers were looking for which markers say who will get Alzheimer’s. I’m trying to figure out who can actually endure it without manifesting symptoms.” That sounds counterintuitive; how can someone have Alzheimer’s and not manifest symptoms? Decades ago, evidence obtained in autopsies established that the brains of people who suffered from Alzheimer’s are riddled with tangles of the tau protein and fibrous plaques of the beta-amyloid protein. But more recently, researchers discovered the same is true of the brains of some individuals who never exhibited Alzheimer’s symptoms. In other words, after they die, neurological evidence proves they had the disease—but something blocked its effects. Tim’s goal is to find out “how we can regulate the innate systems that seem to be operating in asymptomatic individuals.” He thinks neuroinflammatory genes may modify the association between the presence of Alzheimer’s pathology and the manifestation of
clinical symptoms. By modulating the body’s inflammatory response, these genes may change the downstream effects of plaques and tangles, ultimately preventing clinical symptoms. Figure out how that works automatically in some individuals, and you’re on the road to figuring out how to make it happen for others. A related, complementary study that made headlines in March examined brains post-mortem; by contrast, in Tim’s post-doctoral research at Vanderbilt, he uses neuroimaging to measure the pathology—the state of the brain— in living patients suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. “We look at genotypes derived from DNA which may nor may not have a mechanism that is localized in brain tissue,” he says. Preparing for this work took Tim first to Washington, D.C., where he earned a master’s degree in cognitive psychology and a Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience from American University. He interned at the National Institute on Aging, learning to model change in memory, and found computational research a good fit, with its ample theoretical component and its emphasis on programming. Tim is married to Laura (Schweiger) Hohman ’06, a doctoral candidate in history at Catholic University in D.C., who teaches at two colleges in the Nashville area while writing her doctoral dissertation on early medieval sermons and religious culture, which she hopes to defend in the coming year. Together they lead a small group of folks from their church, and he leads another for men. A rescue greyhound rounds out their household. timothy.j.hohman@vanderbilt.edu
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Hillary Scholten ’04 and Jesse Holcomb ’03
Lawyer and researcher • D.C. Favorite camping spot: Shenandoah National Park
As an attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice, Hillary Scholten reviews appeals for the Board of Immigration Appeals. Before law school, she worked for an extended period as a Board of Immigration Appeals accredited representative, representing low-income immigrants. Her husband, Jesse Holcomb, studies and writes about the information revolution and its impact on the U.S. news media. For the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ), he’s authored studies on the changing news ecosystem, nonprofit news, the use of social media in journalism, and media coverage of religion; he is one of the producers of PEJ’s annual State of the News Media report. Before joining the Pew staff in 2007, Jesse was a staff writer at the Public Interest Network and editorial assistant at Sojourners magazine. The couple live in Alexandria, Virginia, with their two young sons.
Jane Eisenhauer ’09
Systems engineer • Boston First outdoor rock-climbing: in Utah
As a systems engineer in Raytheon’s integrated defense systems division, Jane Eisenhauer works with radar systems that identify and track incoming targets (such as missiles). Before live tests of these radar systems, she conducts pre-mission simulations and analyzes and identifies the causes of anomalous behavior. She’s also pursuing a master’s degree at Northeastern University in electrical and computer engineering leadership. She still plays field hockey (as she did at Gordon), and fits in yoga and broomball regularly, too. Jane writes of her work, “I love my job at Raytheon. As a systems engineer, I get to design and study complex systems. This requires critical thinking, logical analysis, functional decomposition, and clearly presenting my ideas to engineering and program leadership. These are all skills that I developed and matured while at Gordon.” jane.eisenhauer@gmail.com
SPRING 2014 | STILLPOINT 18
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Anne Taylor ’10
Lifestyle blogger • Denver Favorite author: Shauna Niequist (Cold Tangerines)
A history buff, Anne Taylor is preparing for doctoral studies, and speaks with enthusiasm about her current research projects on the Salem Witch Trials; women in academia and in church leadership; and a comparison of the Adams presidency with the FDR and Clinton administrations (both of which had intellectuallyinvolved First Ladies). She is also the author of Anne the Adventurer, a popular blog about everyday living. She’s active in the blogosphere, and has been featured at (in)courage, Darling Magazine, Creature Comforts, Dream Green DIY and many other blogs. “My studies and blogging go together,” she says. “I love people and I love stories, and I love equipping people with the resources they need to share their passions and stories with others. Academia and, in the future, teaching, will allow me to continue to help people learn about and share stories, just as much as my blog/writing career does.” www.annetheadventurer.com
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William Park ’95
Financial services • South Korea Recent favorite book: How Will You Measure Your Life? (Clayton Christensen)
Bill Park has been with State Street Bank and Trust Company for 18 years. He started in its Boston office, and in 2005 became Korea branch manager; at 33, he was the youngest country manager in the firm’s history. Now a senior managing director, he has grown the size and scope of the office, helping Korea to become one of the most important markets for State Street. As Asia-Pacific chair of State Street’s Global Giving Campaign, Bill has led his Seoul office to partner with Yeomyung School, an alternative middle and high school that helps North Korean teenage refugees adjust to life in South Korea, resume their studies, and prepare for university. “I’ve had the great fortune of being an entrepreneur while working in a large global company,” he says. “Developing others to become better leaders is one of the most rewarding aspects of my career.” billypark71@gmail.com
Sradda Thapa ’08
Communications and research • Afghanistan Most influential Gordon professors: Dr. John Mason and Dr. Ruth Melkonian-Hoover
Sradda Thapa was a world traveler before she even got to Gordon; besides her home country, Nepal, she had lived in Hong Kong, India, and Australia. Senior year she interned in Washington, D.C., and after graduation worked with Search for Common Ground, which seeks to build sustainable peace. As a youth advisor to the Women’s Refugee Commission, she addressed the United Nations General Assembly on the impact of conflict on youths’ access to quality education. In June 2009 Sradda joined The Carter Center to observe Nepal’s constitution-drafting and peace process. In 2012 she moved to Afghanistan, where she is with a communications firm in Kabul that works with government and international agencies. In one project, she analyzes data and reports on a nationwide multi-year project on counter narcotics. Her time at Gordon, she says, “equipped me with the perspective and shaped the priorities which have eased the many changes and transitions I find joy in.” sradda.thapa@gmail.com
C. Sean Lovell ’07
Statistician • Thailand Favorite instrument: Flute
Sean Lovell and his wife, Duyen, began their overseas adventure on day one: their wedding day in Vietnam. After time at USC, where Sean earned a master’s degree in economics, and three years in New York, where he worked for the United Nations, they moved to Bangkok. Sean is in the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific statistics division, population and social statistics section. “It is technically challenging, so it is always interesting. But in a larger sense, it is very rewarding to be part of an effort to improve our understanding of living standards in a region where so many countries are undergoing rapid change,” he says. Sean and Duyen have two young daughters, Madeline and Olivia. lovells@un.org
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Jim Belcher ’87
President-elect, Providence Christian College • California Recent great read: Visions of Vocation (Steven Garber)
Back in the States since 2012, Jim is concluding his faculty post this spring at Knox Theological Seminary in Florida, and, this summer, will assume the presidency of Providence Christian College in Pasadena, California. He reports that though some memories of the pilgrimage year have faded, he and his family “will never see the world or God the same way again; we have been changed. . . . Our pilgrimage taught us that the last chapter of our adventure has not been written for any of us, that ‘the best is yet to come,’ as Casper ten Boom would say.” Jimbelcher.net/speaking |
@jimbelcher
Church planter. Lead pastor. Author. Pilgrim. Professor. Through all these phases of his career, Jim Belcher has been passionate about ecclesiology—the theological study of the nature and function of the Church. Early in his ministry he struggled with the tensions between traditional evangelicalism and postmodern “emerging” understandings of the Church. He sympathized with many of the critiques of evangelicalism, yet had what he calls “Calvinist misgivings” about the emergent movement’s core and direction. He founded Redeemer Presbyterian Church in California in 2000 as a response to his dissatisfaction. Then in 2009, toward the end of his 10-year pastorate there, he published his first book, Deep Church: A Third Way Beyond Emerging and Traditional (IVP). In it he casts a vision for a concept he borrowed from C. S. Lewis. It resonated with many thoughtful readers: among other accolades, Deep Church won Christianity Today’s 2010 Best Book Award, and Leadership Journal’s 2010 Best Book Award in the category of “The Leader’s Outer Life.” Three years later, Jim’s second book, Deep Faith: A Pilgrimage into the Beauty, Goodness and Heart of Christianity (IVP, 2012) made both of these lists again, but with a key difference: Leadership Journal honored the book as the “best of the best” about “The Leader’s Inner Life.” A lot happened in the four years in between. After an extraordinarily busy decade—starting and leading a new church, having four children, writing Deep Church, fixing up an old house—the pastor was tired. Not surprisingly, so was his wife, Michelle. Realizing the need for a spiritual rest, Jim left Redeemer Presbyterian and the family set off on a yearlong pilgrimage through Europe, pursuing heroes of the faith including C. S. Lewis, Vincent Van Gogh, Corrie Ten Boom and Maria Von Trapp. “I wanted to take a year to walk in their steps,” he says, “to read their books again and marinate in their lives—go deeper into their stories and learn from them all over again.” Jim and Michelle also wanted their children to have the opportunity to “go deep” into the lives of these men and women. His Pilgrimage volume reports and reflects on that experience.
Caspian ’01 and ’03
Rock musicians • Greater Boston Most offbeat media coverage: Guitarworld feature on five ways to sleep in a van
The musicians of Caspian have spent over 10 years cranking symphonies through blaring amplifiers. Since their first show at the Pickled Onion in Beverly the year two of them graduated from Gordon, the post-rock band has been not-so-quietly turning the heads of listeners all over the world. In February they played their 600th show, in Dunkirk, France. The Beverly-based outfit’s sound has evolved over the course of two EPs, a live concert recording and three full-length albums. 2012’s evocative and mature Waking Season won national praise in publications including Rolling Stone, Spin and Alternative Press (as well as humble STILLPOINT). Caspian’s members are Philip Jamieson ’01, Calvin Joss ’03, Erin Burke-Moran ’03, and Joe Vickers, who spent two years at Gordon. In 2013, founding member Chris Friedrich, who also spent time at Gordon, passed away. Several months later, the band released Hymn for the Greatest Generation, an EP of new and remixed songs dedicated to Friedrich’s memory. www.caspianmusic.net
SPRING 2014 | STILLPOINT 22
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Peter Murphy Lewis ’02
Tourism entrepreneur • Chile Closest companion: 1st Nikon DSLR
It’s bold to let customers pay what they want—but it’s working for Peter Murphy Lewis and his business partner in Tours4Tips. com. Backpackers rarely stiff him after walking tours of Valparaiso and Santiago that feature street art, old trolleys, and alfajor cookies baked by his “adopted father.” Peter (at left in photo) and his partner also lead award-winning bike trips. With a master’s in politics from a Chilean university, he appears on Chilean TV discussing U.S. politics or cultural influences—gun rights, the Tea Party—but has largely shelved his academic aspirations. Ten years in Chile have changed him. “On a daily basis, Chilean culture and values have made me question my own culture and values,” he says. “In the U.S. we try to live every moment by taking pictures of ourselves so we can remember it. Living in Chile has taught me a lot about just being present. But I still carry two cellphones.” www.labicicletaverde.com | www.tours4tips.com
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M. Eric Mollenhauer ’93
Investment management • Boston Favorite leisure activity: Watching his kids’ athletics
After graduation, Eric Mollenhauer went to work for Fidelity Asset Management, and the fit was right. Twenty-one years later and now a chartered financial analyst, he manages retail, institutional and collaterized loan obligation portfolios in the firm’s Boston office, with a focus on the leveraged loan market. “The markets continually present new challenges,” he says. “You get a scorecard every day as to how you are doing versus your competition.” One of his earlier roles at Fidelity was research analysis of industries including entertainment and leisure, gaming and lodging, homebuilding, and printing and publishing. From 2003 to 2006 he was the Director of High-Yield Research, overseeing Fidelity’s high-yield research professionals and resources and managing a number of high-yield bond portfolios. Eric and his wife, Beth (Baril) ’94, have five children ranging from ages 8 to 19. Beth directs Teachers Training Teachers, a training program for Haitian teachers.
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Melissa Florer-Bixler ’02
Mennonite pastor • North Carolina Dream: To help develop a L’Arche community in North Carolina’s “Triangle region”
“I love preaching,” says Melissa Florer-Bixler (at center in photo). As a Mennonite, she understands the work of interpretation as an act of the church community discerning the Holy Spirit; her role is to make way for the gospel using the gifts she’s been given. “It’s a vulnerable exercise,” she says, “and a sacred duty.” Her wide-ranging preaching reflects passion for the Word, the world, and the Kingdom. In “Why We Sing, A Sermon on Psalm 96,” she invites the congregation to consider the eschatological implications of worship:
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Photo Cat Allen
If we sing like singing is something our own little insular group does when it’s not busy doing real work, then no one is going to want to be a part of what we do here. People are busy! We’ve all got our idols to worship, whether that’s money, prestige, relationships, sex or politics. Psalm 96 reminds us that our singing isn’t one of these idols but says something about these gods: “For great is the Lord and most worthy of praise; he is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the nations are idols, but the Lord made the heavens.” Singing to the God Who Rules Everything will blow the doors right off the church. Melissa characterizes her growing family with her husband, Jacob, as a “blend of chaos and light.” Two of their children were born while she was in grad school, and the baby arrived just this spring. “We’re tired all the time,” she says. “But there’s also toddler wrestling, pancake parties, and introducing the whole world to these little ones. We work to find the holiness of everyday things,
and we’re learning to see parenting, partnership, vacuuming, and family meals as the crucible for our discipleship.” Growing up, Melissa never had a female pastor. She’s thought a lot about what it means to be a woman in ministry. During grad school at Princeton she wrote this memo to herself: “Remember that you bring something amazing to the table. All those maternal references in Augustine? You get that. Discipline, discipleship, love, fear, commitment, ceaseless devotion, gut wrenching selflessness, care for the helpless, the recognition of our helplessness. What is motherhood apart from these things? These are also the defining characteristics of the Christian life.” As she works with youth, college students and young adults in her church, she loves knowing that girls in her congregation get to see someone proclaiming the Word who looks like them—and like their mothers, grandmothers and sisters. “That,” she says, “feels like a little piece of the Kingdom of God.” melissa.florerbixler@gmail.com
SPRING 2014 | STILLPOINT 24
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Photo Andy Brophy
“Walk with the dreamers, the believers, the courageous, the cheerful, the planners, the doers, the successful people with their heads in the clouds and their feet on the ground.” FREDA OBENG-AMPOFO ’08
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Scotland Huber ’09
Communications specialist and photographer • Boston Blogs at Sound of Boston
He’s interested in urban development, social media, nonprofit management, new technologies, and making health care accessible. That all comes together for Scotland Huber at the Codman Square Health Center in Dorchester—Boston’s largest neighborhood and also one of its most diverse. He uses his creatively restless mind to leverage communications and marketing tools and connect the Health Center’s services with those in the community who need them. Scotland also runs Give and Take Pictures, a six-year-old photography business that specializes in weddings. He keeps his camera lens—and his heart—wide open whether traveling to Ethiopia, to the Pacific Coast and back, or to and from work each day. @scotlandhuber | www.scotlandhuber.com | www.giveandtakepictures.com
Freda Obeng-Ampofo ’08
Diplomatic press officer • Ghana Sport of choice: Marathons “Walk with the dreamers, the believers, the courageous, the cheerful, the planners, the doers, the successful people with their heads in the clouds and their feet on the ground. Let their spirit ignite a fire within you to leave this world better than when you found it.”
Freda Obeng-Ampofo is equally fluent in English and in Twi— the principal native language of the Akan lands in Ghana. Both languages are absolutely necessary for her work as press and information officer for the Delegation of the European Union to Ghana. She began her job in 2013 after more than three years working in Washington, D.C., on a career trajectory that involved international business, trade and project management with organizations including the American World Services Corporation, and Futures Group International under the USAID Health Policy Initiative (HPI/HPP). “The timing for my work with the delegation couldn’t have been more perfect,” she says. “Ghana had had a peaceful 2012 election; however, the opposition contested the election, citing issues such as double-counting and voting without biometric verification. It was exciting for me, in my new role, to be following the development of the case until the announcement of the verdict, when the incumbent was reinstated.” She was hired when the verdict was still pending, and most development partners had suspended funding (or were thinking about it). The E.U. delegation was in the midst of talks on how to proceed with their work in Ghana. Meeting with high-level executives and change makers was a great opportunity for Freda to get reoriented to Ghana after spending her high school and college years in the United States.
A typical day for Freda at the E.U. office in Accra includes accompanying the E.U. ambassador to meetings with diplomatic and media personnel, coordinating visits to the delegation (by other E.U. delegations, or by students, for instance), following up on developments in economic partnership agreements, and preparing weekly news reviews to keep local, regional and international partners informed about Ghana. In addition, Freda does social media consulting, and has been freelancing at a public relations agency, scoping out potential clients among mining and energy firms. She is involved with the Ahaspora Network, a group of Ghanaian professionals who have worked or studied abroad, are now back home, and want to give back to Ghana through a mentoring program for high school students. “Aha in Akan means ‘here,’ spora is from diaspora; so Ahaspora means the Ghanaian diaspora here in Ghana,” she explains. When she’s not running marathons—sometimes to raise funds for cancer research and treatment—another leisure-time project is her new blogsite, www.fabfitfine.com, on which she writes on “healthy eating habits (using our own foods and Ghanaian recipes), staying fit and rocking our natural hair.” freda.obengampofo@gmail.com |
@fabfitfine and @garisellers
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“Each day is an opportunity to convey the gospel that allows people to ‘breathe Christ’ in all they do.” THEO NICOLAKIS ’93 3
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Melissa Barrow Kircher ’05 and Jake Kircher ’04
Co-authors • Connecticut Recently read: Deep & Wide: Creating Churches Unchurched People Love to Attend (Andy Stanley)
“Marriage can be messy, and marriage while serving in ministry is extra messy,” admit Melissa and Jake Kircher, who ought to know: they’ve been married eight years, have two children, and Jake has been a youth pastor ever since graduating from Gordon. Their 2013 book, 99 Thoughts on Marriage and Ministry: Prioritizing the “HolyMess” of Matrimony (Group Publishing), draws on their own experience. They blog about relationships and marriage in Relevant Magazine online, and at www.holymessofmarriage.com. Melissa also has written a young adult novel, The War Inside, the first in a trilogy. Jake serves at Grace Community Church in New Canaan, Connecticut, and is deeply involved in supporting and advocating for youth pastors (many of whom, he says, are in their 20s and bivocational: in other words, likely to be overworked, underpaid, and at risk of burning out). @marriageismessy | www.mkircher.com
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Chris Westrate ’98
Educator • Greater Boston On book list: Dylan’s Visions of Sin (Christopher Ricks)
Even the best-prepared homeschooling parent may need to delegate certain subjects to great teachers outside the home (say, chemistry, or British lit). New Hope Tutorials on Boston’s North Shore provides a la carte courses to supplement families’ homeschooling. Chris Westrate began teaching there during his master’s program in English lit, and now as director he sets vision, trains fellow educators, fundraises, and still teaches a few English courses. “Directing New Hope is always rewarding because in a really small NPO you’re doing so much work on behalf of and with wonderful people,” he says. “Our families understand that there’s no bifurcation between what you learn academically and what we usually call ‘real life.’ Education is an organic enterprise.” That’s Monday to Friday; on Sundays he serves as an ordained deacon at Boston’s Holy Trinity Orthodox Cathedral. He and his wife, Lisa (Hall) ’98, a social worker, met during their Gordon orientation; they have two young children. chris.westrate@newhopetutorials.org | www.newhopetutorials.org
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Theo Nicolakis ’93
Chief information officer • New York City Question he’s most often asked: “Have you abandoned the Red Sox and become a Yankees fan?” Answer: “O ye of little faith.”
As the chief information officer for the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, Theo Nicolakis is responsible for technology and digital communications for the entire Archdiocese. Projects and events have involved U.S. presidents, the Congress and Senate, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, and the Pope. He’s built strategic partnerships with Facebook and Google, managed global communications for over 500 local communities, and helped lead projects including the first Orthodox Christian Bibles for children, for youth, and for the military. “Having the ability to marry my love for Christian ministry and evangelism and my passion for technology and media as a career is one of the biggest blessings in my life,” he says. “Just about every day is looking at the multifaceted challenges of ministry and figuring out ways to apply technology solutions to those challenges. Each day is an opportunity to convey the gospel that allows people to ‘breathe Christ’ in all they do.” Theo’s expansive view extends to his leisure pursuits. An avid home theater buff and audiophile, he also loves comic-book, fantasy, and sci-fi genres—and enjoys weaving themes from these genres into his many lectures and retreats for youth, teens, and parents. He writes audio and home theater articles and reviews for www.audioholics.com. His heroes? “Hands down: my parents, my wife, and my kids.” Biggest influence on his approach to ministry? Father Andrew Demotses, pastor emeritus of St. Vasilios Greek Orthodox Church in Peabody, Massachusetts. Two of his favorite places, in fact, are churches: Demetrios in Thessaloniki, Greece, and the Church of the Prophet Elias (Elijah) on Mount Athos. His favorite quote (from St. Ignatius of Antioch’s Letter to Polycarp 3) is nearly 2000 years old: “Stand firm, like an anvil being smitten with a hammer. It is the mark of a great athlete to be bruised, yet still conquer.” When asked about a memorable work moment, he recalls setting up a live webcast of church services for a shut-in “who, when the service came on his screen, embraced me and his priests, wept, and became speechless. Glory be to God in all things.” theo@goarch.org
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“Our mantra around here is that culture is upstream of politics, so if you want to affect the political landscape and morals of a country you have to actively be involved in promoting the common good in culture.” MOLLY CONNOLLY ’13
Molly Connolly ’13
Creative consultant • D.C. On the side: Folk-rock violinist and keyboardist (with The Lighthouse and the Whaler)
“Our mantra around here,” says Molly Connolly, “is that culture is upstream of politics, so if you want to affect the political landscape and morals of a country you have to actively be involved in promoting the common good in culture.” “Here” is the Clapham Group, a Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm that promotes the good, true, and beautiful through culture, community, and compassion. Her job with Clapham followed an internship last summer with Wedgwood Circle, a related D.C.-based nonprofit. Molly’s projects involve, most fundamentally, “working across ideological and party lines to pursue the common good.” So far, she’s worked to get faith communities more involved with the Humane Society’s vision of sustainable agriculture; been involved in supporting the efforts of the College Board; and organized roundtable discussions at which political and policy leaders tackle issues like foster care, juvenile justice, and career and technical education. molly@claphamgroup.com
Gina Kulig Bradley ’01
Financial services • Boston Loves to sing
A political science major at Gordon, Gina Bradley earned a law degree and then embarked on a career in the finance industry. She currently is chief operating officer, general counsel, and a principal of The Colony Group, a Boston-based wealth-management firm, where she provides operational and financial management services, as well as legal counsel that focuses on corporate, employment, and securities-related matters. “I work behind the scenes,” she says, “to ensure that The Colony Group’s operations, technology, and client service exceed our clients’ expectations and are worthy of the trust they’ve placed in us.” Always striving for a healthy balance between work and home, Gina most enjoys being with her husband and three little ones, and also is involved in her local church in Needham, Massachusetts. “And in the odd quiet moment,” she says, “I relish being caught up in a great novel.” gbradley@thecolonygroup.com
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50 UNDER 50
Zach Capalbo ’12
Software engineer • Greater Boston Incessant banjo player
During his first year at Gordon, Zach Capalbo collaborated with philosophy professor Brian Glenney to create a prototype of the Kromophone, a sensorysubstitution device that translates color into sound. With another Gordon student, they tested it by wandering blindfolded through Harvard Square, becoming increasingly excited about the device’s potential to unlock the mysteries of the visual world for the blind. A secondary goal, Zach says, was “to allow users a pleasing experience of visual artwork while blindfolded.” He and Dr. Glenney coauthored a scholarly paper about the device, and in the fall of his sophomore year Zach travelled to Tokyo and presented the paper at the Asia-Pacific Computing and Philosophy Conference. His years at Gordon as a physics and computer science double-major were full. During a summer research stint, he worked on hardware and software control for a three-axis micro-engraver, and researched applications for microfluidics. The project that consumed his life senior year was exploration, with Dr. David Lee (physics), of the intersection of fluid dynamics and nonlinear acoustics, which Zach says “reaches into the boundaries between thermodynamics and chemistry.” It’s a field of research, he says, with many tantalizing gaps left to be filled—with possible practical applications for the biochemical and biomedical fields, next-generation user interfaces, and oil and gas exploration. Zach clearly dwells in what programmer Ellen Ullman has described as that “mysterious space between human thoughts and what a machine can understand, between human desires and how machines might satisfy them.” He’s carried that orientation into his current work with Thermo Fisher Scientific, a leading technology company near Boston that serves pharmaceutical and biotech companies, hospitals and clinical diagnostic labs, universities, research institutions and government agencies. His group at Thermo Fisher makes handheld X-ray fluorescence spectrometers—devices that look like guns. “When you point them at something and pull the trigger,” he explains, “it tells you the elemental composition (for instance, 75% iron, 10% copper, 5% nickel, and so on). I work on the algorithm software, turning the physics equations and principles that our scientists come up with into something that someone can use on the device.” Zach is no cloistered lab whiz; he’s eager to involve others in his explorations. In his spare time he continues to refine the Kromophone, “an open-source project,” he says, “which means that you’re free to download the source code, make changes, and copy it for your friends as you see fit.” zach.capalbo@gordon.edu | www.kromophone.com
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Anthony Falcetta ’92
Artist • Greater Boston Recent favorite color: Cobalt turquoise
Anthony Falcetta’s lush, gestural work springs from a dialogue between the observable, external world and the fragments he carries from his own internal landscape: memory, emotion, curiosity and a willingness to get lost from time to time. For a long time,” he says, “I’ve had this idea of a painting as its own landscape, with a geography, a logic and a history of its own. My project as a painter is to simultaneously build the piece and help it find its balance. Sometimes I think about what I do as ‘terraforming’—very literally creating a topography or territory inside the bounds of the painting.” Tidal marshes and coastlines, the structures and textures of New England’s faded industrial towns—they all provide inspiration. Just as important is his evident passion for the process itself— paint and pigment, exploring and improvising, the push/pull between painterly image and physical object. It produces work that one viewer described as “mature and solid. No gimmicks, no bells and whistles, no trendy hype affiliation, no shock or ‘transgressive’ value, no political grandstanding.” Anthony arrived at Gordon in 1988 as an English major. He traces his “conversion” to a survey course, Arts in Concert. Bruce Herman brought in several large canvases. It was Anthony’s first
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time seeing serious art outside a museum; to him they seemed to “breathe and move and throw off sparks.” Gordon did not offer an art major at the time, but Anthony minored in it. After college he spent five years trying various creative pursuits, married the love of his life (Jennie-Rebecca Stine ’92), and then studied painting at Massachusetts College of Art. In 2001 he began “painting with intent,” and since then has only paused long enough to be an at-home parent to Nico, now five-and-a-half. He paints at a studio in Beverly, Massachusetts, and had a solo show last summer at a gallery there. His paintings were recently included in a Barrington Gallery exhibition of art by Gordon faculty and alumni, and his work has been exhibited in gallery shows in Boston and beyond. Art is “kind of a choose-your-own-adventure story,” he says, “and the everyday world doesn’t actually care much whether an individual artist keeps at it or not—but I can’t imagine not making these strange things which get at the stuff of existence and the richness of my surroundings. It has to be (and so often has been) its own reward; anything more is gravy, or grace.” www.anthonyfalcetta.com www.facebook.com/PainterlyAbstraction
50 UNDER 50
Brandi Anderson Bates ’92
Full-time mother • Romania Recently started a children’s library-in-a-box
Dana and Brandi Bates’ foundational work with youth in Lupeni, Romania, is well known to the Gordon community. Less well known: the ongoing story of their family (pictured here in one of the famous wooden churches in the Murameres region of Transylvania). Having kids in their late 30s changed life for both of them, and Brandi shifted from full-time ministry to being a full-time mother, a calling she adores. “Creating a vibrant homelife takes time in a place that has so much, but also lacks so much,” she says. She keeps a children’s ballet class going, and has run VBS programs and other activities. In their firstborn’s early years she created a mother-to-mother support group within the community (something previously unheard of) that concentrates on natural parenting and on breastfeeding support (in a town where breastfeeding is rare). The group is thriving, and bearing much fruit for young families who are trying to make healthy and countercultural choices, empowered by mutual support. danabrandi@new-horizons.ro
Irene Idicheria ’08
Elementary music teacher • Greater Boston Favorite music: Vaughan Williams’ Dona Nobis Pacem, and anything by Patty Griffin
In her first year as a music teacher at Guilmette Elementary School in Lawrence, Massachusetts, Irene Idicheria was nominated for the “Rising Star Teacher of the Year” award. In 2013, her talent and dedication to Lawrence students was recognized with the Sontag Award in Urban Education, which recognizes outstanding teaching. As part of the award, Irene will lead classes at the LPS Acceleration Academy, which provides more small-group support for students. She shares her passion for music beyond the Lawrence city line; she teaches at the Boston Conservatory, and is on the Boston Children’s Chorus staff. At Gordon, Irene was most often found in the corridors of Phillips, between rehearsals and independent practice times. Now, she travels widely, and the greater Boston community is glad that her talents go with her. irene.idicheria@gmail.com
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“We know that therapy works for a lot of people, but we don’t really understand how or why it works.” OLIVER LINDHIEM ’02
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Robin Smalt ’08
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Dan Castelline ’11
Education management • Nashville
Menswear entrepreneur • Greater Boston
Wants to visit all 196 countries in the world
Favorite place in New England: Concord, Massachusetts
Born into a family of teachers, a young Robin was once quoted as saying she would “never, ever, not in a million years” work in education. After graduating from Gordon, though, Robin could no longer ignore the civil rights issue of inequitable public education. She paid her Gordon education forward by joining Teach for America’s Charter Corps in Nashville, teaching elementary school for three years and earning a master’s in instructional leadership. While her school’s curriculum focused on reading and math, Robin was struck by the absence of other critical life skills in her students. So she joined EverFi, an education technology company that develops web-based programs to help teachers teach skills such as personal finance, entrepreneurship, STEM, civics, and health and wellness. In her free time, Robin can be found cooking organic vegetables, scrutinizing the New York Times “Most Emailed” articles, and traveling (30 countries down, 166 to go).
Dan Castelline (on left in photo) founded Concord Button Downs, fittingly, in the back of a New England pub. The shirt company, which involves several other Gordon alumni as fellow partners, blog editors, and other roles, has a passionate vision for providing goods made in the United States. The shirts themselves might sound familiar to the Gordon community, named after key places and people in New England: among them, the Hawthorne, the Emerson and the seasonal Estabrook (a holiday plaid). Dan says, “For many reasons Concord Button Downs has been a wonderful experience pairing my interest in textiles with my love for small business. The opportunities provided because of this brand have truly been extraordinary.”
robin.smalt@gmail.com
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Mark Teiwes ’03
Multimedia photographer • Greater Boston Favorite artwork: Ellsworth Kelly’s The Chicago Panels
In 2011 Mark Teiwes and his wife, Becky, walked the 500-mile Way of St. James across Spain to the trail’s destination point, the city of Santiago de Compostela. Mark photographed the stark northern-Spanish landscape, and the couple blogged about their adventures along the way. Then they extended the adventure with nine months in South America, volunteering at the Bolivian orphanage Niños con Valor and documenting the student protest movement in Santiago, Chile. (In photo, Mark is at a salt lake that straddles those countries’ border.) In the U.S., he has freelanced for clients including the Kenyan Red Cross, Catholic Charities of Baton Rouge, New Horizons Foundation (Romania), and The Salem News. He currently works as a videographer and photographer at Lesley University. Mark and Becky live in Cambridge, and are expecting their first child in April. www.markteiwes.com | markbecky4.blogspot.com
dan@concordbuttondowns.com | www.concordbuttondowns.com
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Oliver Lindhiem ’02
Psychologist • Pittsburgh Next family vacation destination: South Africa
Clinical psychologist Oliver Lindhiem spends a lot of his time with his wife, Elspeth, and their children, Caleb and Ingrid, but that hasn’t stopped him from pursuing a plethora of research projects in his post as assistant professor in the psychiatry department at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. He did his doctoral research on attachment in foster infants, and is now working on research funded through a Career Development Award from the National Institute of Mental Health. His project is focused around “cognitive-behavioral skill acquisition and utilization.” Oliver explains it this way: “As a field, we know that therapy works for a lot of people, but we don’t really understand how or why it works. The angle I’m taking is to study what people actually learn while they are in therapy, and what skills they apply to their day to day lives. In other words, I’m studying what ‘sticks.’” He hopes this also will shed light on “why not everyone benefits from therapy, and how we can make therapies even better.” Oliver’s real passions, however, are statistics and methodology, so he has several side projects going, about decision support systems and Bayesian diagnostic tools in the mental health field. What drew him to psychology? In large part, Gordon. “Gordon has an outstanding psychology department!” he says. lindhiemoj@upmc.edu SPRING 2014 | STILLPOINT 34
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“We’re seeing this hunger among readers for long stories that really dig into something to find answers rather than just sticking to the surface.” THOMAS LAKE ’01
Thomas Lake ’01
Sportswriter • Georgia Cause of his Gordon probation: A prank war between Lewis Three West and Wilson Two North over “The Pineapple” If you could unbreak the bones and erase the scars, recall the bullets and sever the chains, recap the bottles and catch all the smoke, if you could swim 16 years up the river of time and find a town called Stevenson, you just might see something glorious. —Sports Illustrated December 8, 2008
The opening sentence of Tom Lake’s first Sports Illustrated feature, “2 on 5,” took a long time to get right—the swirl of small moments calling toward the grand story ahead, the rhythm carrying echoes of something ancient. “I was only able to write it after studying the style of Ecclesiastes 12, my favorite chapter in the Bible, for several hours,” Tom says. This carefully crafted passage displays Tom’s greatest strengths as a storyteller: evocative detail, heroic scope, and most notably, that attunement to deeper narratives, like those found in Scripture. His pieces catalog miracles of humanity, trials and sacrifices and mercies that transform stories about sports into stories about people. Tom’s career began with rejection and resilience. He moved to Jesup, Georgia to cover six beats and type obituary copy for a small community paper. Never without ambition, one day Tom cut out a story from the front page of the Savannah Morning News, edited it, put on a suit and walked his revisions down to the Morning News editor’s office. The impromptu meeting
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didn’t go well. He relocated to the North Shore, where he filed correspondent pieces at the Salem News for $45 per story (one week, he submitted 17). Eventually, his diligence and talent began to reap rewards. He got a reporting job with the Florida TimesUnion, and then with one of the Southeast’s finest papers, the St. Petersburg Times (now the Tampa Bay Times), where his crime journalism gained national recognition. In 2008 Sports Illustrated ran “2 on 5,” his very first magazine piece. SI hired him as a senior writer in 2010. In the decade after Tom’s graduation from Gordon, digital platforms and user-generated content utterly transformed the news industry. Yet long-form journalism—like the substantial pieces he crafts for SI—is experiencing a renaissance. “We’re seeing this hunger among readers for long stories that really dig into something to find answers rather than just sticking to the surface—and they’re reading them on their iPhones,” he says. Over the past five years Tom has used long-form sports writing to explore urgent, fascinating topics in American culture— including a recent profile on that most divisive of professional athletes, Tim Tebow. Now, at the top of his game and among the best in his field, Tom is after a new story: He’s writing a novel. thomasglake@netscape.net | byliner.com/thomas-lake
50 UNDER 50
Tim Willeford ’96
Communications director • Hartford Wedding venue: India
As the communications director for Aetna’s Innovation, Technology & Service Operations (ITSO) division, Tim Willeford is involved with telling stories across the Aetna Corporation, from the Aetna Innovation Labs, to Aetna’s story around Big Data, to technology innovation in health care, call centers, and communications for the 20,000+ employees of ITSO, the largest division in the company. In 2008, Tim received IBM’s highest honor, the Chairman’s Award, for leading Project Big Green energy and environmental campaign communications. twilleford@yahoo.com
Chuck Bartholomew ’01
Emily Fisher ’05
Videogame designer • Texas
Adolescent health specialist • Nashville
At Gordon, was the drummer for a band called Schroeder
Favorite BBQ in Nashville: Edley’s
Most of Chuck Bartholomew’s days at Gearbox Software involve some aspect of character design, a process he says starts with “envisioning the play style of a character, and what that character can do in the game. From there, I work with a variety of artists and programmers to create all the pieces required to make the character ‘playable.’” Game design is a highly competitive field, and Chuck spent the majority of his career as a software quality assurance engineer for companies including Zynga and McAfee. But in his spare time he was playing, understanding, designing, and creating video games. At Southern Methodist University’s Guildhall, a top game-development program, he built up a body of work. Then he spent another year contacting game studios and attending industry events to meet the right people. “Now I look forward to work every single day,” he says. “I call it ‘living the dream.’”
Emily Fisher set off for Norway as a Fulbright Scholar after graduating from Gordon, but her international interests have extended far beyond her year in that prestigious program. She is a member of the International Union for Health Promotion and Education (IUHPE), and recently became its global chair. She also is editor-in-chief of the monthly ISECN Newsletter, Health Promotion Connection. Emily is studying adolescent health and health promotion at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College of Education and Human Development. “I’m excited about continuing my studies through the Community Research and Action program. This interdisciplinary program gives me the opportunity to study and practice new research methods for better understanding adolescent development in the context of their everyday lives,” she says. emily.a.fisher@vanderbilt.edu
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Sarah Herman Heltzel ’01
Opera singer • New York City A favorite NYC spot: Alice’s Teacup, for high tea
Photo Shannon Langman
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50 UNDER 50
Sarah Heltzel grew up in a house full of music: Cole Porter, Cat Stevens, The Police, hymns, classical music. In high school she began performing in musicals and theater, discovering she was a natural performer who needed refinement and coaching. That’s where Gordon came in: Tom and Susan Brooks, music professors during Sarah’s college years, got her started on the path to a career in performance. Like all opera singers in the United States, Sarah is a freelancer. Her life is itinerant: travel for auditions, months away for performances in far-flung locations. In March she sang the role of Jo in Mark Adamo’s 1998 opera Little Women with Opera on the James in Virginia—a role she has been anticipating for 10 years. “It’s a challenging score, but a very accessible story that so many of us grew up with. Jo struggles with her coming of age— something we can all relate to,” she says. “A lot of us grew up with thinking we can do anything, go anywhere, but as adults we realize that there is significant sacrifice in the making of art. But the joy for me in opera is in collaborating with others who love music and drama, and in offering our art in public performance,” Sarah says. “When you have truly given yourself, and the audience is perfectly still, applauding, or weeping, you know you’ve created a theatrical moment that will never come again. It has power to change people.” Sarah opened the 2013–14 season with Wagner’s Ring Cycle at Seattle Opera, the company with which she apprenticed after
graduate school. In recent seasons she has performed roles such as Carmen, Komponist, Azucena, and Suzuki with numerous regional companies, sung recitals, worked with composers to create new opera, taught in New York City Opera’s outreach program, and appeared with 1976 Gordon graduate Karin Coonrod’s New York theater company Compagnia de’ Colombari. She is a mezzo-soprano—a dark-hued voice type that sits slightly lower than soprano. Mezzo roles encompass some of the richest characters in opera; she often plays the witch, maid, seductress, or “trouser role”—a young male character, an acting challenge she loves. Last season she took on Romeo in Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi, a setting of Romeo and Juliet, with Houston’s Opera in the Heights; reviewers wrote of her “star performance,” “rich, powerhouse voice” and “perfect balance of power and subtlety.” Sarah and her husband, Peter, a published author, minister, and seminary professor, live in Harlem, not far from the conservatory where she did her graduate work. She says she arrived as well prepared as any of her classmates—thanks to the Gordon Music Department. She remembers being inspired by Gordon’s “Salt and Light Campaign” underway during her time at the College. “There was a focus on being excellent at what you do because it honors God, and shares with the rest of the world the beauty and power of his truth.” She says it inspired her to “be worthy to a wider world.” www.sarahheltzel.com
Michael Messenger ’90
Nonprofit senior leader • Canada Quirky job responsibility: Yearly “polar bear dip”
Michael Messenger is executive vice president and chief operating officer of World Vision Canada, one of the nation’s largest charities. The Christian agency works for children’s wellbeing worldwide through emergency relief, long-term development and advocacy. After Gordon, Michael worked five years in its Toronto and Geneva offices, then left for law school and nine years of legal practice. He rejoined World Vision in 2007 and has been executive VP since 2010. He regularly travels to see the agency’s work around the world, most recently to the Philippines in the immediate aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan. (In photo, he visits in the Philippines with a World Vision staffer and a sponsored child, Rona.) “I’m so grateful that my job brings together my faith, my passion for justice— nurtured during my time at Gordon—and my skills as a leader,” Michael says. He, his wife, Yvonne, and their two teenagers live near Toronto, where he’s involved in his church and serves on community boards (“an occupational hazard of being a recovering lawyer”). He’s training for his first (fund-raising) marathon and this winter led the World Vision team into Lake Ontario for his fifth (fund-raising) New Year’s Day “polar bear dip.” He reports it gets no easier with practice. michael_messenger@worldvision.ca
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Ashley Herron Shultz ’09 and Nick Shultz ’09
Nonprofit founders • Greater Boston Recent vacation: Belgium
Ashley and Nick Shultz, already busy with demanding marketing and financial advising 9-to-5s and Ashley’s Harvard M.B.A. program, have also turned their energies to supporting the fight against breast cancer. Ashley founded the Miss Pink Pageant, in which the entrants are women who are fighting or who have survived breast cancer; Nick is deeply involved too. The pageant hit its fifth anniversary this year and has become an iconic event in New England. “It is a struggle for women, in general, to feel beautiful,” Ashley says. “Never mind undergoing breast cancer. It is important to raise awareness and help women understand what true beauty is, especially in the eyes of God.” The 501(c)3 nonprofit also sponsors fitness events and community education, provides financial help to families, and partners with medical organizations making strides in finding a cure. www.misspinkpageant.com
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Samuel Tsoi ’07
Advocate for immigrants • Boston Big fan of noodle soup and basketball
Samuel Tsoi’s parents left mainland China for Hong Kong to seek a better life. When he was young, the family immigrated to the United States. Now Sam’s professional life focuses on helping new refugees and immigrants as they transition to life in the U.S. While continuing his education as a Fellow at Boston University’s Institute for Nonprofit Management and Leadership, he coordinates early education initiatives at the Massachusetts Office for Refugees and Immigrants, and provides support to the Inter-agency Human Trafficking Taskforce. “These two public issues—education and immigration—are critical to America’s future,” he says. He’s also a freelance journalist, covering China and issues facing Asian Americans and migrant communities. Sam and his wife, Amanda (Hartman) ’06, a high school biology teacher, are new parents, and members of the Boston Chinese Evangelical Church. worldview@gmail.com |
@samueltsoi
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Iana Mason Ostrowski ’97
Delia Kim ’96
Homeschooler of 6 • Greater Boston
Youth program founder • New York City
Memorable vacations: Cross-country in a beat-up RV
Loves Korean food, and exploring outdoors
Although she says she’s never used her Gordon studies “officially,” Iana Ostrowski’s psychology major has served her well every day for 24 years. She is the mother of nine children, and has homeschooled six of them. “I have observed, researched and counseled with nine very different children in all of Piaget’s different stages of development over the past 24 years. I might qualify for an honorary degree in conflict resolution after the thousands in which I have intervened!” she says. Her pupils at home in Essex, Massachusetts, are down to the youngest four now; two sons are at Gordon, and her oldest is married with kids. It was at Gordon, she says, that she began to work out her salvation, and “became passionate about the integration of faith and learning—a major impetus in my desire to homeschool.”
Except for her student years at Gordon College as a social work/ biblical studies double major, Delia Kim (at right in photo) has spent her life in the New York City borough of Queens. After earning her master’s degree in social work from Hunter College, she worked with youth in low-income Queens neighborhoods, which convinced her that—as she puts it—“the best way of empowering communities is by empowering youth.” In 2011 she founded Young Governors, a program that hires and trains Queens teenagers as community organizers. “They learn communication, conflict resolution, and action planning,” she explains. “They work in teams that identify and address issues in their own communities, and develop and implement projects. Every day I am inspired by these young leaders who are breaking the negative stereotypes of teenagers and reinvesting in their communities.”
iana.ostrowski@comcast.net
www.younggovernors.org | www.facebook.com/young.governors
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Gabe Davis ’00
Commercial filmmaker • Greater Boston Top 3 films: The Life Aquatic, Annie Hall, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Gabe Davis puts things in motion. Since launching Grain Digital, a media production and brand films agency, in 2012, Gabe has helped a wide range of businesses, institutions and nonprofits communicate their message through a combination of video, animation and brand imaging. Recent clients have included Timberland, Red Bull, MIT and Boston Children’s Hospital. Grain Digital was featured in the December 2013 issue of Northshore magazine, in which the article “What’s the Story?” showcased the Newburyport agency’s unique approach to its work, and commitment to finding the narrative in each company’s project. “We see video as the most dynamic component of advertising, and feel fortunate to be a part of the energy that goes into these campaigns,” Gabe says, “and we are excited to see these campaigns in action supporting the marketing for a diverse client list that includes a New York City hotel, a kids’ shoe company and a nanotechnology center.” www.graindigital.com
Lisa Edmondson Buettner ’87
Management consultant • Greater Boston Loves to travel: 34 nations so far
Lisa Buettner helps some of the world’s major companies develop their senior leaders’ skills. For instance, she helped sales leaders at Hewlett Packard develop strategic acumen and rise from selling products to selling “solutions.” She helped global directors at Cinépolis, the world’s fourth-largest cinema firm, more effectively lead the firm’s multinational growth. “Being able to contribute not only to a company’s success, but to an individual’s professional success, is very rewarding,” she says. Lisa followed her Gordon business major with a master’s in organizational development, and worked for a management consulting firm before founding Anchor Consulting in 1994. Her work for HP and Xerox has netted national awards. Family ties to Gordon are strong: Lisa and her husband, Cedric ’87, have endowed a scholarship for a business student at Gordon, and their son Jake is a sophomore; daughter Michelle is in high school. lbuettner@verizon.net
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50 UNDER 50
Anna Boorse Doubeni ’90
Medical educator • Philadelphia Niche interest: Preventive medicine in global settings
Perhaps you took the same Gordon sociology course Anna Doubeni did—or was it anthropology? Perhaps you read the same article about an aid agency digging a well in the center of a village in sub-Saharan Africa to provide clean water, only to return a year later to find women still walking a mile to draw water from a river. In days packed with focused work, that walk was their chance to socialize. They were loath to give it up.
family medicine residencies, the overarching goal is to help get another started, and equip them all to better train new doctors. She delivers continuing education lectures for physicians, and works with residency faculty about how to teach and evaluate their students. In Guatemala, Penn’s partnership with a small hospital in the Lake Atitlan region offers Penn family medicine residents an opportunity to both learn and teach with an emphasis on capacity building and partnership development.
“Why didn’t they sit down with the people and get that figured out? That way they could have put the well a mile away,” says Anna (at right in photo). “From then on, my interest was in understanding communities, and why communities do what they do—particularly public health things—so when you’re doing a public health intervention, it’s culturally relevant, not just the best-engineered.”
“For a low-income country, one of the challenges in health care is that people who are able to pursue medical education will often leave to pursue that in another country. Studies show that if they leave, there’s a higher chance of them not coming back. So there’s an enormous brain drain,” she explains. Penn’s programs are designed to “help those countries develop their own physicians, within their countries.”
An M.D. and an associate professor of Clinical Family Medicine and Community Health at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, she also works with the American Academy of Family Physicians’ Foundation medical faculty development program in Haiti, and Penn’s global health fellowship in Guatemala. In Haiti, where there are only two
Anna and her husband Chyke, who also teaches at Perelman, live in Philadelphia. At Gordon she sang in the Women’s Choir, but these days her vocal performances are limited to the choir of their tiny church and, as she puts it, in the car. Their three children range in age from 9 to 21. anna.doubeni@uphs.upenn.edu
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STARTERS
NEWS
FEATURES
ARTICLES
ALUMNI
Nathan Uebelhoer ’92
Dermatologist • San Diego Laser surgeries performed since 1997: 10,000
Nathan Uebelhoer had been serving the U.S. Navy Medical Corps for nearly a decade when U.S. forces entered Afghanistan in 2001. Stateside military hospitals began receiving a steady stream of wounded soldiers, transferred from field hospitals for treatment of serious burns and scars from crude but enormously destructive improvised explosive devices (IEDs). When the U.S. entered Iraq two years later, soldiers from that conflict joined the stream. “God put me right in the middle of one of the largest of these hospitals, the Naval Medical Center in San Diego, California,” he says. “And then he put a laser in my hands that has helped improve the quality of life for hundreds of wounded warriors.” That laser technology, fractional photothermolysis, was new when Nathan encountered it in 2004 during a medical fellowship in Boston to learn techniques for post-cancer facial reconstruction, augmentation and laser surgery. It was designed for cosmetic procedures, but he recognized its applicability to restorative work as well. Later, as the head of the dermatologic surgery division at the Naval Medical Center San Diego (NMCSD) he used fractional photothermolysis to repair damage done by IEDs and on the battlefield. Four years later, ablative fractional photothermolysis was developed, which utilizes a different, very specific portion of the light spectrum, and softens burn scars. Advanced technologies and his surgical training have enabled Nathan to make a profound impact on a range of patients. In addition to treating U.S. military personnel, he has done medical work in two Asian nations, and four in South America—where, with no access to lasers, he used his surgical skills to remove
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malignant and disfiguring skin cancers from people who otherwise had little chance of seeing a dermatologic surgeon. He served with a Marine Corps helicopter detachment flying food and clean water to starving Haitians after three flooding storms hit that nation. He collaborates with military and civilian colleagues to “push the envelope of scar revision treatment,” and has lectured throughout the world about advances in the field. In 2011 he co-directed the NMCSD Scar Symposium, the first military multi-disciplinary symposium on blast- and burn-scar treatment with fractional ablative lasers. Now retired from the Navy, Nathan continues his scar research out of San Diego, and routinely travels to Aroostock County, Maine, seeing patients who would otherwise have no local access to specialized care for anything from rashes to skin cancer. He lives in El Cajon, California, with his wife, Cynthia (Bauman) ’93, and their two young daughters; they are members of Shadow Mountain Community Church in San Diego. Nathan notes that that wounded soldiers receive whatever care is necessary without having to get prior approval from private insurers. He hopes that insurers will begin to cover the laser technique that he and his colleagues pioneered, so that the treatment can be more widely available for civilians. “There are millions of Americans with burns that restrict their movement,” he says, “and the vast majority of them would benefit from this treatment.” n.uebelhoer@gmail.com
50 UNDER 50
Bryn Gillette ’01
NPO founder and painter • Connecticut
“I am meeting with people who are in a dark time in their lives and are having a hard time seeing a way out. My role is about providing some light.” JOCELYN ST. CYR ’06
An earlier vocation: “Skate church” pastor
Bryn Gillette describes his artistic process as “painting prayers”: his own and those of the communities to which he belongs. Those include his family—his wife, Kirsten (Anderson) ’01, and their three kids; their church, where he paints onstage alongside preachers and teachers; his students and colleagues at a prep school north of New York City; and 200 orphans cared for in Haiti as adopted children by Bryn’s friend Daniel Jean. Bryn co-founded TeamOne:27 (named for James 1:27), which supports Jean’s work by raising funds and sending donated items to Haiti in vehicles that can anchor entrepreneurial businesses. His recent series of 12 large-scale paintings, “Beyond the Ruins,” is intended as a catalyst for conversation about how to restore that nation’s national infrastructure in what he calls “the seven spheres of influence.” The series is on exhibit in Danbury, Connecticut, through early June and begins a U.S. tour this summer. artbybryn.com | beyondtheruins.com | Teamone27.org
Jocelyn St. Cyr ’06
Mental health therapist • Greater Boston Loves photography
As a case manager, Jocelyn St. Cyr, M.S.W., helps clients obtain housing, childcare, government benefits, food, and health insurance. As a domestic violence coordinator she runs a confidential support group, serves on a team handling high-risk dangerous cases, coordinates an advocate program, and connects professionals who work at low cost or pro bono with women facing domestic violence crises. As a private practice clinician Jocelyn works with survivors of child abuse, sexual assault, and domestic violence. Most of her clients have histories of extensive trauma; she is passionate about how best to help clients who so often feel stuck. “In all of these roles,” she says, “I am meeting with people who are in a dark time in their lives and are having a hard time seeing a way out. My role is about providing some light.” jocelynstcyr.com
SPRING 2014 | STILLPOINT 44