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CLASS NOTES
Jim Shaw
Michael Kempster is "now south of Boston with wife, three kids and dog, just like I'm supposed to be. Would love to hear from any and all. KempsterMD@aol.com." Dave Gelfand holds the Ashton Phelps Chair of Constitutional Law at Tulane Law School in New Orleans. His latest book, Suing and Defending Cities for Federal Constitutional Violations: A Treatise for City Attorneys and Public Interest Litigators, was published by Lexis Publishing Co. in June 2001. The second edition of State and Local Taxation and Finance in a Nutshell was published by the West Group in December 2000. Dave's co-author is Joel Mintz '70. Dave taught at the University of Amsterdam this summer. His daughter, Katie, begins at Sarah Lawrence in the fall. Josh Rubenstein, northeast regional director of Amnesty International, wrote with Vladimir Naumov the book Stalin's Secret Pogrom. I looked up The New York Times review (May 30, 2001), which noted that the "enlightening volume" is "the latest installment in the remarkable Annals of Communism series being published by Yale University Press." Look for more in an upcoming issue of CCT. Robert Tang is "the proud father of two sons at Columbia College at the same time, Eric '02 and Brian '03. If I am lucky, my baby daughter, Emily, will apply for Early Decision and get accepted for the class of '06. She will then complete all the Tang Children attending Columbia in my own nuclear family. Also, my younger brother, Gabriel Tang, is '80 (five-in-the-hand suite, and a proverbial ‘full house'). "Just like others have once mentioned about their gratitude for Columbia in shaping their career, I too am forever appreciative of Columbia and really benefited from the classes taught by some of our famous teachers: Profs. Malcolm Bean, Alan Westin, Charles Frankel, Peter Pouncey, Warner Schilling, Edward Taylor, Harvey Mansfield (even Ronald Breslow in organic chemistry, when I ventured as a pre-med, too), etc., and I am forever grateful to them. They were my sponsors and references for Oxford, where I went for my law degrees. I lived in London as an investment banker at Schroders in the 1970s; then in the 1980s in Dallas, Taiwan and Japan as a manufacturer (in my father-in-law's company until I arranged the merger of his company into The Stanley Works to form Stanley Hand Tool Group). Finally, in the past decade I started National Development and Research (NDR) as my boutique business advisory and project development and financing company for technology companies." What prompted Bob's letter was that last winter he met Mel Kusin at a Dallas luncheon and Bob said, "That must be a rare-name coincidence because I have a Columbia classmate named Mike Kusin." And Mel said, "That's my son." Ron Bass writes canonical fiction and poetry. He wrote [in March] that "among the pieces currently in process is my Columbia '68 short story, Origins of the Counter Enlightenment, the opening paragraphs of which I've sent. During the past several months I've done readings and performances at 5C Cultural Center, the Baggot Inn and The Living Room. In live performances I share the stage with my alter ego: Yogi Baksheesh, Spiritual Advisor to the Exceptionally Evolved. In my day job I continue to be vice president of the Financial Institutions Group of ORC Macro. In my spare time I work out at Dolphin Fitness on East 3rd Street and on the quarter-mile track in East River Park. It's really quite amazing how much the Lower East Side of Manhattan these days resembles Thornton Wilder's Our Town." As for myself, your correspondent, I expect that I am not exceptionally evolved. Thirtieth reunion was a blast, but that's for next column. I had a 30th anniversary of my own, as I've been class correspondent since graduation, beginning with a newsletter just for our class even before CCT started its Class Notes section. Keep your correspondence coming.
Paul S. Appelbaum Business, academia, the arts — we are thriving in all of these areas, as you'll see from this issue's notes. To get things started, Kenneth Abramowitz reports that he just retired as a health care analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein to join The Carlyle Group's health care buyout team for private equities as a managing director. Bill Geissler, living in Maplewood, N.J., manages sales of Sun Microsystems' software products for Sun Partners. He's been able to take his wife, Ann Marie, who teaches and manages fund-raising at their son's school, and his son Christopher, now 9, on many of his bicoastal and European trips. Christopher, with a little help from Dad, won his Cub Scout pack's Pinewood Derby meet, with a Star Wars' themed entry. Having put in my time as a Pinewood Derby dad, I can tell you that's no easy feat. Steve Bellovin, long-time AT&T researcher on computer networks, security and the problems that come from mixing the two, has just been elected to the National Academy of Engineering. In the course of his notable career, he helped to create netnews, "which has been exceeded as a consumer of computer disk space and communications bandwidth only by the World Wide Web." Steve's other professional activities include a healthy dose of public policy-related work, especially on cryptography and privacy issues. He and wife, Diane Finger (Barnard '72, but they met in grad school), have two kids who keep things lively for them. Moving to academia, we note that George Klosko, professor of government and foreign affairs at Virginia, delivered the 25th Frank M. Covey Lectures in Political Analysis at Loyola of Chicago in March. His topic was "Jacobins and Utopians." While down at Penn this May for our son Binyamin's graduation, I had the pleasure of seeing David Stern, professor of post-biblical and medieval Hebrew literature and director of the Jewish Studies Program. David gave visiting parents, grads and alumni a fascinating tour of the Judaica treasures, including manuscripts and early books, at Penn's Center for Advanced Judaic Studies. And in the arts, composer Joel Feigin's works have recently been performed in settings ranging from Carnegie Hall to Niznij-Novgorod, Russia to Leuven, Belgium. Joel is associate professor of composition in the department of music at UC-Santa Barbara. Jazz pianist/composer Armen Donelian recently performed in the New School University's Jazz Faculty Series, playing works from his new Sunnyside Records release, Grand Ideas, Vol. 2 - Mystic Heights. Original Compositions for Solo Piano.
Barry Etra Sorry 'bout the dearth of news in the last CCT; am about to make up for it. Now, in order of appearance: Jersey Joe Seldner co-produced 61*, the HBO movie about Maris and Mantle that was well reviewed and received numerous Emmy nominations. He's always looking for good ideas for the "big or small screen;" contact him at joeseld@earthlink.net (say it ain't so, Joe!). He is raising two kids, Dan (17) and Laura (14), when he's not writing and working on projects. In the helping hand department, Michael Robinson is looking for Alan Johnson's whereabouts; call him at (508) 889-2506 or e-mail him at DrMRob@aol.com. Al Swain has been living in Huntsville, Ala., since 1980. He's been married since '77, has two kids and a general law practice. We had some general discussion about the lack of good pizza "below the Washington Tunnel," and what Huntsville, Ala., is not on the way to, as well as life with teenagers. Robert Pruznick sent in "news from the over-50 crowd" (speak for yourself, Robert); he has been engaged in community building social work for the past 25 years, the last 20 of which he has been executive director of The Arc (Warren County chapter), which advocates and provides services to those with mental retardation and other developmental disabilities. He's keeping busy as president of his school board (two teenage kids — big theme this issue); interviewing for the Alumni Representative Committee; and organizing the annual Beta fishing trip for the last 15 years, with the help of classmates Judge Robert Sacavage and developer Robert O'Neill. His 50th birthday present from his wife was a membership at the Columbia Club. Erik Bergman has switched streams, from 16 years in TV (most recently as TV editor at USA Today) to high-tech public relations, as senior editor for Waggener Edstrom Strategic Communications. Michael Shapiro was named musical director and conductor of the Chappaqua Orchestra in June. Michael is a long-time resident of Chappaqua (the more famous ones are more recent), and has performed internationally as a conductor and pianist for over 20 years. He also has excellent publicity. Next time we "speak," we'll all be middle-aged. HOOO-hah. Over (literally) and out (figuratively).
Fred Bremer "Harvard's Endowed but Columbia's Got the Girls!" screamed the front-page headline in a recent New York Observer. That was enough to get me to plunk down a buck. The story went on to tell of "hormones running wild in Morningside Heights" as movie stars Julia Stiles (Save the Last Dance, Hamlet) and Anna Paquin (The Piano, X-Men) tried to blend in as members of the Class of 2004 — sitting in the next seat during CC, studying in the library, etc. And you think you had trouble concentrating on The Iliad! Among the e-mails and notes coming in was one from Garrett Johnson that started in a familiar way: "I'm not sure, lo these many years, if I have ever written with an update on myself." It continued in a still-typical fashion, saying that he is married (to Charmaine) and has a daughter (Kelsey). But then it started to shift off course a little: he has been a lawyer in solo practice "with an emphasis on entertainment law and representation of individuals and entities before the IRS." He also operates a jazz and gospel artist management company and recently became a partner in a new record label (Allen & Allen Music Group). So if you want to record your protest of high taxes, you know whom to call! James Kort and his wife, Ina, live in Vernon, Conn., and report that they are rapidly becoming "empty nesters." Rachel is a junior at Dartmouth, Eric is a freshman at Pomona, and Naomi is a junior at Loomis Chaffee. That means James and Ina are only a year away from the road to (their) freedom! And it sounds like Miles Stern has found his freedom. I'm happy to report that he has "bought the farm." No, not that farm — a real farm outside Sacramento, Calif., where he lives with his wife and two daughters. Miles is a lawyer with a practice in "dependency law" (like in Judging Amy). He reports his girls ride around singing "New York, New York," but he sings "Home on the Range." To each his or her own. Bill Sitterly has relocated from Thailand to the greater Philadelphia area, a euphemism for Montgomeryville, Pa. (I hope he's not on another farm — we can only take so much in one column!) Robert Levitz has been at Hartford (Conn.) Hospital since 1978, and is now the assistant director of infectious diseases. Robert is married to Ita Segal '78E and has two sons, Eric (13) and David (10). Classmates have continued to "spill the ink" in many different ways. Last column mentioned two academic texts penned by classmates. This time I received a note from Asher Miller, saying, "Our class has yet another author — me!" This New York and Long Island-based tax attorney recently published New York Estate Planning, Wills, and Trust Library: Forms & Practice Manual. It hasn't reached the top 10 of The New York Times best-seller's list — yet! A better shot may come from Robert Katz. By day he is an associate professor of clinical anesthesiology at SUNY Stony Brook as well as chief of the division of general anesthesiology. But by night he has been crafting his first novel, a "science fiction/adventure/romance" novel titled Edward Maret. Recently published by Willowgate Press, it has been favorably reviewed by Publishers Weekly and Science Fiction Chronicle. He also reports, "My daughter, Erica, just completed her freshman year at Columbia, after graduating as valedictorian of Port Jefferson High School. She's a much better student than I ever was!" There you have it: farms, families, fiction and a lot more. Your classmates would appreciate it if you take a moment to send in an update on the latest chapter in your life adventure!
Randy Nichols Albert Mrozik was appointed chief municipal prosecutor in the city of Newark, N.J. in June. He had held the position in an acting capacity since April. His new position must be keeping him busier than in the past, as I don't get nearly as much e-mail from him now! Robert Schneider has been on campus a lot since becoming a board member of the Society of Columbia Graduates in 1998. His son, John, participated in the Columbia Summer Program for High School students again this summer, taking courses in C++ and Graphics in C computer work. His older son, James, has just completed another successful year at Penn. Jason A. Turner was asked by New York's Mayor Giuliani to run the welfare, Medicaid, and job training system for the city as Commissioner of the Human Resources Administration. For most of his career, Jason has worked for Republicans in appointed positions in the area of welfare reform. During the first Bush administration, he ran the federal welfare program at the Department of Health & Human Services. Then he moved to Wisconsin, where he helped devise the welfare reforms of then-Governor Thompson. He met his wife in Wisconsin, and they now have four children. He commutes weekly between Milwaukee and New York. Jason writes, "As a conservative Republican working on welfare in a liberal city, every reform is hard-won, but by the end of Giuliani's tenure this year, the city will operate 28 job centers and have placed the job-training system entirely on a market-based performance basis."
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