1940 Jack Moynahan just turned 94. He lives outside of Chicago and has four children, eight grandchildren, and nine great-grandchildren. He welcomes emails from old classmates at jacklob22@att.net. 1947 Peter Smith is now in his 10th year in the Chicago area, watching his three grandchildren grow. His youngest son is on the East Coast celebrating Villanova’s great year in basketball. Smith travels back to the Jersey Shore during most summers. 1948 Raymond Strakosch enjoyed participating in the Hudson Valley Honor Flight program, which took him to Washington, D.C. in April 2016.
celebrated Irish poet William Butler Yeats. 1954 Thomas Clarke recently retired after 50 years on Wall Street. He lives in Oradell, New Jersey. After five decades, George (Bill) Gibson and Dr. Anthony Gabriele are back in touch by email, catching up on each other’s lives and sharing tales and remembrances of Xavier. George lives in Sedona, Arizona, and Tony lives in Carmichael, California. 1955 Thomas S. Nicholson is doing well and divides his time between Palm Beach, Florida, from November through May and Stratham, New Hampshire, from May through November.
1950
1956
Jim Burns sends the following update from Colorado: “In the year 1969, my employer decided to transfer the engineering department from Holmdel, New Jersey, to Denver, Colorado. This state has been home to our family ever since. Nancy, my wife of 60 years, and I have four daughters, six grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. The first three daughters live close by in Colorado, and the fourth lives in Bergen, Norway. Presently, a few of my activities include exercise at the local YMCA three times per week, yard work, reading, centering prayer, and an occasional vacation outside the United States.”
Dr. Frank Heelan has been elected president of the Edison School Board in Edison, New Jersey, where he cares for the learning needs of 15,600 students. Frank and his wife, Ann, are planning for their 50th anniversary celebration in 2017. They met at City Center and the Carnegie Deli on Cinco de Mayo, 1965. Frank and Ann write that they have been blessed in their “sunset years” with four children and 10 grandchildren living nearby.
Daniel Gorman and his wife, Joan, recently celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary. “I was teaching at Xavier the year we got married, ran an award-winning marketing company for many years, and am now an obsessed golfer and member of the board of a great, Catholic liberal arts college, Christendom,” he writes. “Life has been good.” 1952 In the past year, Frank McGinity published a travel book titled Get Off Your Street and produced two DVDs for several film festivals. One was about Nicolas Den, an Irish pioneer, and the other was about the
1957 Alan Nasser was cited in Congressional Quarterly’s recent research issue on the future of the American middle class. An article he wrote about the subject also appears in the publication. 1959 Dr. John Hackett writes that he and his wife, Carol, spent time with Dan Cronin while visiting San Diego. Robert Keating is Senior Advisor to the President at Pace University. Previously, he served as Vice President for Strategic Initiatives at Pace and head of the New York State Judicial Institute, the first judicial training and research facility in the nation built by and for a state court system. An active member of a number of civic and nonprofit
Paul Gannon '75
Alumni Profile PAUL GANNON ’75 When Paul Gannon retired from The Baupost Group as chief operating officer in July 2014, he envisioned the coming years as ones with a balance of nonprofit service and a healthy dose of freedom and flexibility. Little did he know that the public radio station that once relieved the tedium of his daily commute would become such a meaningful component of his retired life. A graduate of the University of Virginia, Gannon arrived at Baupost—a Boston-based hedge fund focused on investment management for foundations, endowments, and high net worth families—in 1991. “It’s a company with an incredible culture and pursuit of excellence in everything it does,” Gannon said. “And a core aspect of its culture is focused on giving back.” Each year, the company sets aside a percentage of its profits to support charitable organizations and lets a committee of its employees decide where the funds should be directed. “Having spent my formative years at Xavier, where there was always a focus on giving back to those less fortunate, Baupost was a wonderful fit,” he said. In retirement, Gannon knew he wanted to devote meaningful time to the causes most important to him. In addition to his seat on The Baupost Group’s Board of Advisors, he continues to support Xavier and the University of Virginia and serves on the Board of Directors of Opportunity Solutions International, Tenacity, and the Boston Foundation. Just months after his retirement, he became chair of the Board of Overseers for WBUR, Boston’s NPR News station—the one he listened to religiously throughout his 35-year career. Gannon now partners with the CEO of WBUR to ensure it stays relevant to a new generation of audio and digital “listeners,” not to mention develop new revenue streams in an industry historically dependent on membership pledge drives. In April, WBUR raised $1 million in a 26.2-hour marathon sprint that replaced the typical week-long on-air fundraiser, and interactive ads for the station are now grabbing the attention of commuters at bus kiosks throughout Boston. Next up—continuing to develop the station’s multi-platform engagement with its audience by attempting to create a facility akin to WNYC’s Greene Space, the multimedia performance venue on the ground floor of New York Public Radio’s headquarters. “It’s been a lot of fun,” Gannon said of his time as WBUR’s chair. “The extraordinary in-depth journalism of public radio serves such an important function in a democratic society.”
XAVIER MAGAZINE 35