A RETURN HOME Melissa Tuthill Forger ’92 comes back to Thayer to tackle new challenges as Director of Development
A
P R O F I L E B Y T H AY E R E N G L I S H T E A C H E R D A N L E V I N S O N
As someone who “hired” her as my Tiger’s
Melissa was thinking about her next career
daughter Taylor, 8) can grow up on Thayer’s
Eye newspaper Editor-in-Chief, it certainly
direction after seven-and-a-half years as
back fields as well.
doesn’t surprise me that Melissa Tuthill
Director of Development at the Spaulding
Forger ’92 has taken to her many career
Rehabilitation Hospital and Partners
It hasn’t surprised her that the job has
roles with such passion and professionalism.
Continuing Care Network when Mark
already been a great fit for her, her family
Speaking for all of my colleagues who knew
Gutierrez called. Thayer’s then Director
and career. She can trace her life’s work
her when she was a Thayer student, I am
of Development told her of his retirement
with nonprofit institutions back to her
thrilled to have her back. But how did she
plans and asked if she’d have any interest in
first community service opportunity as
come full circle from her days as a student
his job. She knew it wasn’t an opportunity
a Thayer student, when English teacher
to the new Director of Development?
likely to come again soon. Mark had been
Jim King connected her to a local Head
at Thayer for 17 years, and she expected the
Start program. She was already thinking
For Melissa, accepting a job atThayer
next person with that job to love the place
of some kind of service career when she
Academy was like coming home. She is the
and want to stay too. How could I say no?
majored in psychology at the University
youngest of four sisters who all graduated
she thought
of Vermont, and right out of school she
from TA (Whitney ’85, Kelley ’88, Tracey
18
got one of those incredibly tough jobs that
’90), and she says she truly grew up here,
And why shouldn’t Thayer feel like home?
she loved at Bridge Over Troubled Waters,
playing on the fields, waiting for her sisters’
In addition to her alumnae status along
an organization for runaway teens with a
games to end. And still today: “My TA
with her sisters, her parents have also had
shelter in the South End.
friends are some of my closest friends. And
a Thayer history, having been active on
now one of the best parts of my day is
the Board of Directors and other school
Melissa says that at just 25 or 26 years of
walking into Cahall Dining Hall and seeing
committees. Melissa even met her husband,
age herself she felt like she’d raised kids
many of my old teachers - Jake Diamond,
Glenn, through a Thayer connection: he is
and sent them off to college when she
Don Donovan, Jim King - and being able
the brother of fellow Thayer alumnus Lisa
helped some of those adolescents find a life
to sit down with them as peers and catch
Forger Rooney ’88, P’17! And now, her
direction. “I learned an awful lot about the
up.”
three children (sons Cam, 3, Finn, 5, and
world and the needs in it,” she remembers.
Thayer Magazine Winter/Spring 2014-15