WORLDLY WISE: FACES OF THACHER Facing page, clockwise from top left: English teacher Sil Sohn brings to Thacher a lifelong familiarity with international community: She was born in South Korea, lived in Bangladesh, and attended Woodstock School, an international boarding school in the foothills of the Himalayas. Although she calls Massachusetts home, Nan MacMillan ‘13 lived in Vietnam with School Year Abroad for half of her junior year. Eric Shi, who teaches Mandarin Chinese at Thacher, is from northeast China and spent six years in Iowa en route to Ojai. Although she looks forward to settling down in one place (she can’t say which at this point), Jin Ah Jung ‘13 is at home in the world, having lived in Ivory Coast, Senegal, and, currently, Durban, South Africa. Below: (L to R) Henrique Guerra, John Lewis, and Marvin Shagam.
From Casa de Piedra to Rio de Janeiro
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N SEPTEMBER 1986, Henrique Cordeiro Guerra first arrived at Thacher from Rio de Janeiro, to start as a sophomore member of the Class of 1989. A young man from a distant land, for whom English was a second language, and with no family nearby, he began to craft the underpinnings on which his future life’s success would be built. Looking back those 25-plus years, Henrique attributes most of what he has achieved in life to the formation of his educational curiosity and his Thacher associations, particularly with and through Marvin Shagam. After graduating from Thacher and then Georgetown University, where he received a bachelor’s degree in business administration, with a double major in finance and international business, and a minor in economics, Henrique began his business career at Credit Suisse in New York City, where he was immersed in investment banking in emerging markets. He returned to Brazil in 1999 to begin the business career in which he has become an increasingly important and recognized player in a country deemed to be among the four leading future economic world powers—along with Russia, India, and China. In 2003, Henrique helped start Aliansce, a shopping mall company, together with General Growth Properties, Inc. (one of the principal REITs from the U.S.) and a close friend and well-established local developer. Aliansce is currently operating 24 malls while building four more throughout Brazil. My wife, Jane, and I had the pleasure of visiting the flagship mall in Rio while we were staying with Henrique for a week last Thanksgiving. Never have we seen such an upscale, lively, fully rented, sparkling clean mall. He takes great pride in the fact that he is able to bring about change and improvement to the quality of life of those communities surrounding these new malls. While we were with Henrique for the whole Thanksgiving week, so, too, was Marvin Shagam. We were comfortably housed in Henrique’s rooftop condominium, and Marvin was a floor below in Henrique’s mother’s residence. What a Thacher week we had! For me, spending a week with Marvin over 50 years after I first met him (when he arrived at Thacher at the start of my senior year) was an incredible experience, in which Jane shared equally. We will never forget it, nor question his impact on so many Thacher students over all these intervening years. One of those was Henrique! Henrique states that “many friends and teachers were important in
shaping my experience; however, the knowledge, wisdom, and guidance I received from Marvin, who remains a close friend, and who was my advisor, dorm head, and teacher, have been a source of strength for me over all these years. Every year I try to get together with him, either in California or Brazil, but regardless of the place, the moments I cherish most are those when we can have a nice quiet time to talk.” And, because of his deep and strong feelings toward Thacher, Henrique has hosted many of Thacher’s teachers, current and past, for a four- or five-day visit. Marvin supplies the air miles (because of his frequent travels to Brazil and Thailand, he has an ample supply) and Henrique hosts. His guests are put up in hotels; their touring is organized and underwritten by their host; a reception to present them to his friends in Rio is held each time, and, in general, a terrific time is had by all. As Henrique says, “Despite the geographic distance between Ojai and Rio, Thacher still has great influence in my daily life. The opportunity of hosting faculty members during the past few years has allowed me to remain in closer touch with the School. It is an opportunity to give a local’s perspective on various aspects of life in a foreign country.” These ties to Thacher will only strengthen this year as Henrique begins his first term as a new School trustee. As Jane and I reflect back on our week with Henrique and Marvin, it is so clear what the Thacher experience can and does mean for most alumni. It was enlightening to Jane to see why I have such a lifelong depth of attachment to the School—it is embodied in what Marvin gives and what Henrique has gained. We spent a lot of time touring the city, learning about its historic problems with crime, which are now being addressed head-on, as the city works to clean up in anticipation of the World Cup in 2014 and the Summer Olympics in 2016. Henrique is known everywhere we went—in restaurants, his club, hotels—and obviously highly respected. When one looks to Brazil’s future, one can’t help but wonder if we were, for that week, in the presence of a future leader of the country? Henrique didn’t say “no” when we asked him about his desire for public service, nor did he say “yes.” In any case, wherever he goes in life, and whatever he ends up doing, he will always harken back to his days at Thacher where, in the presence of great teachers and friends, he got the ethical and moral underpinnings that serve as his compass in life today.
PORTRAITS BY KAREN BELLONE
By John Lewis CdeP 1959