1954

This month's column could aptly be entitled "Round the Girdled Earth They Roam" since much of the news concerns the peregrinations of our classmates. From Agra to Danderyd and from Goree to Avellaneda '54's are on the move. Don't go dashing for your atlases. Explanations follow forthwith.

Vic Mahler recently returned to New York from a leisurely eighteen-month jaunt through Europe, the Middle East, and Asia where he visited with local architects, observed their works and discussed their problems. He also scrutinized the architecture of yesteryear. Though he wouldn't want to duplicate the Taj Mahal, which he viewed in Agra, India, Vic says that this, as well as the modern edifices he examined on his journeys, will help to give perspective to his architectural career at home.

After six years in Europe, Tom Myers has returned to the States. Helping him to close up their home in Danderyd, Sweden were wife, Birgit, and sons, Pete, age 9, Tommy, age 7, and Jimmy, age 5. The Myers family is now living in New Canaan, Conn. Tom is a product manager in Jello division of General Foods in White Plains, N. Y. Sounds like pretty shaky business.

A $10,560 Ford International Program grant has been awarded to George Brooks, who is an assistant professor of history at Indiana University. George is to spend a year in research on a project entitled "Trade on the Windward Coast of West Africa in the 19th Century: The role of the African merchants on the Island of Goree." During the course of his studies, George and his wife Mary plan to live in Goree. George earned M.A. and Ph.D. degrees at Boston University. Before appointment to his present position at Indiana, he studied for three years in England, France, and West Africa, including, you guessed it, Goree.

As vice president in charge of the Housing Division of the International Basic Economy Corp., Rod Rockefeller has done a lot of traveling to Latin America. Now he will be spending even more time south of the border. Rod has just been appointed to an additional post at IBEC as V.P. in charge of the Food Division. In this new position he will be responsible for supervising the operation of some fifty supermarkets in Venezuela, Peru and Argentina. The housewives of Buenos Aires and neighboring Avellaneda will soon be shouting "Rod's Marts, si; A & P, no!"

Rod and Barbara again graciously hosted our fourth annual post-Labor Day Class picnic at Pocantico Hills, N. Y. Each year this affair seems to get bigger and better. The activities included football, Softball, horseshoes, frisbee, jai-alai, fishing, boating, and pony rides. Among those taking part with their families in this year's physical fitness program were John Cunningham, Don Brief, Jim. Grady, Tony Kane, Glenn Wesselmann. Lo-Yi Chan, Bill Cohn, Art Rauch, John Heston, Ed Winnick, Dick Rubin, Tom Kelsey, Bob Adnopoz, Kent Klineman, Don Berlin, Bill White, Dick Grassey, Dave Mandelbaum, Vic Mahler, Dick Steinberg, Tom Myers, and Bud Addis.

Not all of our roaming has been done overseas. Tom Corcoran has shifted operations from Aspen, Colo., to Waterville, N. H., where he now heads a syndicate which plans to develop a major new ski area on Mt. Tecumseh in Waterville Valley. When completed in 1966. this area will afford the highest elevation for a chair lift in the East and, with a 2,000 foot vertical drop, it should be on a par with Cannon Mountain. On opening date, Tom hopes to have four lifts in operation, carrying a total of 2,500 to 3,000 skiers uphill per hour. This multimillion dollar development project, despite published reports to the contrary, is not being backed by the Kennedy clan. Says Tom, "We're good friends of the family, that's all."

Jack Merritt has completed his two-year hitch with the USAF in which he was stationed at the School of Aerospace Medicine in San Antonio, Texas. He has moved to Boston, where he has been appointed director of the blood bank of the Boston City Hospital and will join the faculty of the Tufts Medical School. From north of Boston comes word that Bill Bonneville has been named controller of the Nashua (N. H.) Corporation. Bill, a graduate of both Thayer and Harvard Business School, joined Nashua as budget director and became assistant treasurer before his recent promotion.

Another traveler on the road to the upper levels of corporationville is Bruce Classon. He has just been elected vice president of James D. Talcott, Inc., an industrial financing concern of nationwide scope. Formerly assistant vice president, Bruce will continue as senior account exec, in Talcott's factoring department. A graduate of Harvard Business School, Bruce is a member of the New York Institute of Credit, the New York Credit and Financial Management Association and the Capital Credit Club.

One of our brightest lights, Ken Patterson, has been named sales manager for specialized lighting in the Lighting Products Division of the Corning Glass Works. Ken holds an M.B.A. degree from the University of Michigan. Clark Davis has just undertaken a new position with the Ohio Chemical Co. in Madison, Wis., where he will serve as marketing product manager for anesthesia equipment, from Springfield. Mass., comes word that Paul Mackey is the new assistant manager in the group life and health administration department of the Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. Paul has been with the company for six years and since 1962 has been an electronics analyst assistant.

Some of us blaze new trails in our travels. Pete Gunas is one such innovator. Pete recently set up, in Manchester, Conn., a training center designed specifically to prepare college bound high school students who take the Scholastic Aptitude Test administered by the Educational Testing Service of Princeton, N. J. High school students, preferably sophomores, receive a thirty-lesson program in math and verbal sections which is paced according to each student's ability. After completing the program, each student is given a test by the center and uses the corrected test as a basis for further study. Pete points out that this is not a cram course but a long-range training program. He has established similar centers in Kansas City, Mo., Oklahoma City, Okla., and Providence, R. I.

Myles Jacobs has been moving along in the professional world. He was just made partner in the Joliet, Ill., law firm of Robson, Masters, Ryan, Brummund & Belom. In his spare time Myles teaches a course in real estate law at Joliet Jr. College and partakes in the Dartmouth Alumni Club of Joliet with a membership of four. Although the membership is small, I hope they all reside outside .the wall, Myles. From Arcadia, Calif., we hear that Chuck Tannenbaum has assumed a new position as clinical instructor in ophthalmology at the California College of Medicine. In addition to his private practice. Chuck is a consultant at the City of Hope Medical Center and junior attending surgeon at Los Angeles County General Hospital.

It's journey's end for this column. I've got to dash off to the library now to find the Island of Goree. My atlas doesn't show it.

Leaping from a helicopter hovering sometwenty feet above the tumbling waters ofthe Atlantic Ocean, and swimming upwind of the chopper's rotor wash, maynot conform to the usual way of answering a patient's call for help, but forCaptain (Doctor) Richard A. Davison '53it's part of the day's work, and one ofthe things that makes his job "somethingmore than a doctor's." Captain Davisonis medical operations officer for ProjectGemini with the medical support divisionof the directorate of range bioastronautics support at Cape Kennedy Air ForceStation, Florida.

Secretary, 331 Madison Ave. New York, N. Y. 10017

Treasurer, 40 Wall St., New York, N. Y. 10005