Around the pOnD
Around the pOnD
ernest O. Kwarteng ’98 Joins Board of trustees ErNEsT kwarTENg arriVEd aT TafT
in 1997 from Gaborone, Botswana, for a postgraduate year. He joined Taft as part of a long-standing tradition spanning more than two decades that allows students from Maru-a-Pula School to spend one year at Taft prior to college. He played on Taft’s varsity soccer team and ran track, where his 4x1 relay team set the school record at the time. After Taft, Kwarteng graduated cum laude with honors in economics from Hamilton College and then joined the Goldman Sachs Private Wealth Management Group as an analyst. After two years in Goldman’s San Francisco office, Kwarteng spent two years with the firm’s Corporate Treasury Group in New York City. In 2006, he enrolled at Harvard Business School to pursue an MBA degree with a
focus on finance and economic development studies, with particular interest in real estate development in Africa. After Harvard, Kwarteng joined Lehman Brothers Real Estate Investment Banking Group in 2008 and transitioned to Barclays, where he is currently focused on advisory and capital raising for public real estate companies. A strong believer in education’s ability to transform the lives of individuals and communities, Kwarteng serves on the board of American Friends of Maru-a-Pula (AFMAP), a nonprofit organization focused on fundraising for numerous developments at Maru-a-Pula, including scholarships for students from low-income homes. Kwarteng lives in New York City with his wife, Sheri, and daughter, Vivienne. j
m four aTHLETic TEaMs welcomed
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saMBa, the fall dance showcase featured a range of performances by members of each of Taft’s dance classes. The 10 pieces presented represented the culmination of a semester’s work in the dance studio.
cOlE JOHnSOn ’16 crossed continents, connected cultures, and tested his 16-year-old mettle by summiting mount Kilimanjaro in July. Johnson challenged friends and family to help him raise $19,341—one dollar for each foot he would climb to reach the mountain’s peak. He exceeded that goal, raising $20,348 to benefit the Provo children’s Home, a residential facility for orphans and other at-risk children in the Turks and caicos.
area youth to campus for a series of sports clinics throughout the fall. Members of the varsity golf, volleyball, soccer, and football teams hosted Police activity League of waterbury program participants; golf team members also worked with Pal Special Olympians. The clinics were part of Taft’s Service through sports initiative, funded in part by the center for global Leadership and Service’s Edward E. ford foundation grant, and coordinated by faculty member ginger O’Shea.
c ENgiNEEr aNd forMEr Nasa astronaut Michael Massimino spoke to Taft students at a Morning Meeting in November about his experiences in space. massimino, now a professor of professional practice in the mechanical engineering department at columbia university, participated in two space shuttle missions to service the Hubble Space Telescope. He was the first person to tweet from space, and has logged a total of 571 hours, 47 minutes in space and more than 30 hours of spacewalking.
Taft Bulletin / wInter 2015
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