1940
All of a sudden the Class of '40 has achieved 12 per cent representation on the bluechip Board of Overseers of the Amos Tuck School of Business Administration.
Of three new appointments to the 17-man board announced in October by Tuck Dean John W. Hennessey Jr., two were drawn from the class's leadership ranks in the world of Business. They are Dave Dance of Darien, Conn., who is vice chairman and executive of-ficer of General Electric Company, and Bill Mecer Wellesley Hills, president and chief executive officer of New England Telephone and Telegraph both of whom had one year at Tuck.
Interestingly enough, in an age noted for the mobility of top managers in their business affiliations, as well as in their geographical migrations, both have been with their respective firms for about a quarter century, Dave starting in sales and Bill in auditing, and both have risen through the ranks to their present distinguished estate.
Earlier, in his role as GE's "envoy" to Dart-outh, Dave represented his firm in presenting to Dartmouth a handsome land-use map of the East Coast, from Hanover to the tip of Florida, taken from the first Earth Resources Technology Satellite (ERTS 1) from a height of 562 statute miles above the earth.
The map, seven feet high and about two feet wide and framed in walnut, is composed of 40 separate images recorded on a scanner aboard the earth satellite as it whirled above the earth translating the earth's crops, trees and other vegetation in shades of red, suburbs in pinks because of lighter vegetation and the cities and industrial areas as a dark blue-grey. The depiction, showing the coast and its immediate hinterlands in a rare perspective, hangs in the new quarters of the Earth Sciences Department in the Fairchild Physical Sciences Center.
The map was given to Dartmouth by GE, which built the remote sensing device used in ERTS 1, after Prof. Charles Drake saw a print at NASA's Eros Research Center at Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and expressed an interest in it because it illustrated so vividly phenomena of obvious interest to both the Earth Sciences and Geography Departments. Presentation was made during a special housewarming for the new Earth Sciences quarters to which alumni of the old geology department were invited as special guests.
Meanwhile, Bill Mercer, as the other new Tuck Overseer from the ranks of '40, is keeping doubly busy as chairman of the 1974 United Way campaign seeking to raise $16 million for more than 200 social service agencies in the Massachusetts Bay area. In setting the goal, representing a 10 per cent increase over the amount sought last year, Bill accepted a major challenge to close the gap between need and resources in the cause of private charity.
Another '40 helping to lead a United Way campaign is Earle M. Reingold, co-chairman of the United Way campaign for the Greater Concord, N.H., area. As if that were not enough along with running his two furniture stores in Concord and Manchester, Earle is also president of the YMCA board of directors and a director of the Retail Merchants Association of N.H. Obviously a man with a talent for organization, he is a past president of the Dartmouth Alumni Association of the Merrimack Valley, the Concord Lions Club, and Temple Beth Jacob.
As we all know, there is something about the north country air, and, as proof positive comes another bit of intelligence from Concord in the form of a newspaper clipping from Don Rainie carrying the heading, "No kidding - Another Kidder." The story went on to tell how DickKidder celebrated the birth of a new offspring last summer by winning his first round in the State Amateur Golf Championship. Dick and his oldest son Alan, former N.H. State Amateur golf champion, last year took the state father and son tournament for the third time. Now, it would appear he figures it is time to start a new dynasty with a "younger" partner in a few years. From my scant evidence, it would appear that Dick now holds the record for vintage parenthood.
Still catching up, it is good to report that BillReid Jr., of Litchfield, Conn., has moved up to chairman of the board of Torrington Co., manufacturer of needles, bearings, and metal parts, succeeding to the position his dad had held from 1924 until his death in 1950. Reido, who joined the company following graduation from College and prior to World War II Navy duty, has been president of the firm since 1967.
Meanwhile, Hugh Dryfoos, who happily still keeps this column in mind, reports that Thomas George had two exhibitions of his art work showing simultaneously last summer. One, of his abstract paintings and drawings, was held at the Betty Parsons Gallery in New York City, which Hugh visited and reviewed with one word, "excellent," and the other of his gouache paintings at the Jefferson Place Gallery in Washington, D.C., both about equi-distant from his Princeton, N.J., headquarters.
From Howie Wriggin comes word that, if he's on schedule, he's adjusting to reentry to New York City and Columbia University following a sabbatical year in England as a Rhodes Fellow at St. Antony's College, Oxford, where he was doing research on "How Third World Countries Have Tried to Improve Their Bargaining Position to Deal with Goliaths."
He reported that life in England was good despite some difficulties. He said he lived near the college, and grocery stores, traveled mostly by bicycle and managed to survive the winter with the aid of a "lovely coal fire." Indeed, when he wrote back last summer, he deplored the tendency of both the American and British press "to exaggerate grossly the difficulties the other country faces." Based on British newspaper accounts, he added, "From here, life in New York sounds pretty awful, but we expect it to be much as it was before we left last August, when we return in September."
Secretary, 4 Parkhurst Hall Hanover, N.H. 03755
Treasurer, 64 North Main St. Concord, N.H. 03301
