Class Notes

November/December 2003

by Tony Lee

Our 40th Reunion on June 3 through 6, 2004 is just around the corner. I encourage all of you to mark it on your calendars — in ink — for Thursday through Sunday.

Chris Getman and his Reunion Committee are designing a terrific weekend of interesting seminars, activities and entertainment. Seminars will include a blend of Yale-sponsored and 1964-sponsored speakers. To get the latest news, please visit our web site under Class News for a 40th Reunion Update.

We will be printing a 40th Reunion Class Book consisting of biographical data and personal essays. You have already received a letter from Bill Galvin and Dennis DeSilvey requesting this information and I hope you will respond promptly. Active participation in this book, which everyone will receive hopefully by April 1, will help make our gathering more interesting. Photographs drive up the cost of a class book tremendously so we've opted to print color photos in a new, permanent Photo Gallery section of our web site. Please visit the gallery and submit your own pictures following the directions therein.

Financial donations are an important part of our reunion effort. We WILL achieve new records of 70% participation and a class gift in excess of $13 million. Terry Holcombe, Len Baker, and George Humphrey are working with major donors, and our Alumni Fund Chairman, Ward Wickwire, and class agents will be contacting everyone in the class. I encourage you to dig deep and to give quickly (to avoid a phone call).

A big turnout at our 40th is crucial to its overall success. Our goal is to attract 270 classmates and 170 spouses/friends/children to make ours the biggest 40th Reunion ever. We will maintain a list of attendees on the 40th Reunion Update on our web site, so you can call old friends and roommates not on the list to encourage them to attend.

Reunions are expensive, particularly for those who have to travel a long distance. We're saving $30,000 by not having photos in the Class Book, and will use those savings plus a large contribution from our Class Treasury to keep the cost down. I hope you will attend, make a significant donation, write an essay for the Class Book, submit pictures for the Photo Gallery, and will call 3 other classmates and encourage them to do likewise.

Our annual winter hockey game (vs. Brown), Class Council meeting, Reunion Committee Planning session and dinner will be held on Saturday, February 7. We will also hear from our 2 summer fellows, who are architectural students and visited Arctic and tropical locations to study unique building adaptations for those extreme environments. Attendance is mandatory for everyone in New England who experienced mold from our unusual wet and humid summer and ice dams and frost heaves from our unusual cold and snowy weather last winter.

Peter Hutchings writes from New York: "I am enjoying retirement and Martha is enjoying her foundation work. One of my sons is a math professor at Berkeley and the other's double career in classical music and computers continues to progress. By attending the class hockey event last winter, I learned a lot about our class support for Gus Speth's forestry and environmental studies program. It's very impressive and worth all our support."

John Boardman sent an update from the March notes: "I will probably return to the State Dept. in late summer, and then head out to Hanoi in '04 for one last stint as Deputy Chief of Mission. My wife Chat is looking forward to returning to her home town. For me it will be interesting to work again in a very different Vietnam from the country at war I knew in 1965 and 1966."

Michael Nagel is currently living in St. Petersburg, Russia where he's working as a senior financial advisor on an EU project entitled "Promotion of Innovative Technology Centers in the Baltic Region, Russian Federation."

John Meigs sent an update: "My second wife left me in 2000 but after being in the dumps for a while, I was smiled upon by the gods and glommed onto Carolyn Adams, an individual wonderful beyond description. We were married in August, 2002 with my 3 children and her 3 step-daughters in attendance. Hannah and Bob Kaiser, Jethro Lieberman and Jo Shifrin, and Joann and Angus Macbeth also attended. I am continuing my lawyering with Saul Ewing LLP and Carolyn is a project manager for CIGNA. In July, Carolyn and I went to the foothills of the Big Horns in Wyoming to be present when Waldo "Spike" Forbes married Jo Scott. Lou Licht and his wife Pam were there. It was joyous and magnificent swing dancing in the windy twilight under the big peaks."

From Russell Sunshine: "Our UNDP Invest-in-Peace Project in Sri Lanka continues to prosper. Our mission is to help secure Sri Lanka's post-civil war peace and sustain the country's recovery by stimulating private direct investment. Outside the island, we carried the "Rediscover Sri Lanka" message to Tokyo in June and will soon be mounting forums in Delhi and Kyoto/Osaka in the fall. In Colombo, we're championing broad regulatory reforms to make Sri Lanka's investment climate more competitive, and the Prime Minister seems ready to take on these formidable challenges. Around the island, we're nurturing the revitalization of local Chambers of Commerce and the local construction industry in conflict-affected areas, stimulating reconciliation from the ground up. In all, a challenging but encouraging period to be working in this fascinating country."