brilliant! Alumnus Traces His Path to Environmental Business Work
G
REGORY ZUBOFF ’08 was the keynote speaker at a special luncheon in May honoring senior recipients of Global & Environmental Studies Certificates.
The Norton Family Center for the Common Good selected four students for the inaugural Norton Fellowship Program this summer, an experiential learning program focused on community outreach, action, and engagement. Rising senior Emily Favreau is exploring ways to bridge pre-teen and teenage volunteers at a children's hospital. Sisters Elizabeth and Erika Herman, both rising seniors, are designing and building percussion instruments from natural or reclaimed materials for a nature conservancy. Rising junior Anna Turner is helping underserved students in grades four through six to explore creative writing.
Greg talked about his path to a career in environmental business and emphasized that persistence and patience helped him break into the field. An associate at Wind Sail Capital Group, a Boston-based firm that invests in companies that advance energy innovation and sustainability, Greg said he always had been interested in science. After taking advanced biology courses at Loomis, he thought he might pursue a career in medical research. He switched directions, however, after an internship at Harvard Medical School during his senior year, when he decided that lab research, while valuable and interesting, was not for him.
Junior Brian Lew placed second at the 2016 Connecticut Science & Engineering Fair for his research, titled “Investigating the cardiac effect of toxicity by microwaved plastic products using Daphnia magna.”
At Boston College, Greg studied business and soon gravitated toward courses related to environmental and climate change-related work. He worked part time during college at a solar energy firm and, upon graduation, was offered a position at a startup company in solar development. When that opportunity fell through, he took a job at a bank in New York. After one year at the bank, he devoted himself to pursuing environmental work. He made cold calls, networked, and followed leads.
At the Harvard Economics Tournament in April, Loomis's team won two out of three round-robin matches against 47 teams from the United States and abroad and qualified for the 16-team elimination round.
“In that process I heard a lot of no’s,” he said. “I heard a lot of maybes. But eventually it worked out.” Greg advised his listeners not to be afraid to reach out to contacts and school connections as they pursue their dream careers, and not to be discouraged by “no” and “maybe” and “not now” because those connections still are valuable. Thirty-two seniors were awarded Global & Environmental Studies Certificates during the luncheon, organized by the Alvord Center for Global & Environmental Studies. Each successfully completed the requirements for the certificate, which include completion of at least five Loomis Chaffee courses with the global studies designation; language study through the fourth-year level; participation in an off-campus program; involvement in Loomis extracurricular activities with international, multicultural, or environmental focuses; participation in the Global & Environmental Studies Seminar; and presentation of a final paper or project. In addition to the senior recipients, approximately 90 juniors, sophomores, and freshmen are working toward the certificates by the time they graduate.
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Junior Lily Liu was recognized in The New York Times’ Third Annual Student Editorial Contest. Lily’s article, “Are Microaggressions Really Micro?” was among 44 entries chosen out of 6,300 submissions from students around the world. The math team took second place overall at the regional Math Majors of America Tournament for High Schools at Yale University on April 2. Senior Chang Vivatsethachai won an individual first place award, and junior James Koh and sophomore Zeno Schwebel were on the winning “mixer” team with students from other schools. Sixteen students competed for Loomis at the tournament.
Students wrote, directed, and performed in 10 one-act plays during the FramedIn Theater Festival in the Norris Ely Orchard Theater in May. The festival, produced entirely by Loomis students, required that each play meet certain parameters, including focusing either literally or figuratively on the theme of “media,” confining all action to a six-cubic-foot framed-out set, running approximately 10 minutes, and using predetermined opening and closing lines. Student environmental program leaders set up facilities for the school community to donate usable clothing, bedding, and small housewares as well as unused grocery and health and beauty aids before leaving for the summer — an effort to keep these items out of the waste stream and help local service organizations. Student leaders from Loomis and four other independent schools met on the Island on April 6 for a community service “hackathon,” sponsored by the Norton Center. With mentors from service organizations providing guidance, the students discussed their schools’ community service programs, brainstormed unconventional solutions to problems, and proposed initiatives for positive change — all aimed at continuing to engage students in their service learning programs. Junior Claudia Liu’s still-life painting “Breakfast in Kyoto” won a National Silver Medal in the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, a competition for teens in grades seven through 12. Twelve students joined volunteers from the Windsor community on a Saturday in April for a service project with Feeding Children Everywhere. The group packed 12,000 meals for several local food banks and social service programs. A campus book drive for the Good Shepherd School in Uganda yielded 346 books, donated by students, faculty, and staff. Read more about these brilliant accomplishments. www.loomischaffee.org/magazine