1965
Last month's column ended with the comment that many of us should now be seasoned in our endeavors after ten years of practice. The December issue contained evidence of just how true that is. If you will refer to the article on the Dartmouth Rugby Team, you can find the statement that one of the current team members is the fraternity business manager. Not mentioned is the fact that he happens to be Dan Corbett, Class of '65. Being "seasoned" at rugby must mean helping a team at least ten years younger to a 27-2 season. Commendable, Dan!
Perhaps the handle of "seasoned" was also appropriate cause for the responsibility recently vested in Bruce Wagner. An earlier "leak" from Jim Hamilton (my sole fellow classmate in Cohasset) was confirmed later by a usually unimpeachable source by the name of TedBracken. The news is that Bruce has taken charge of all advertising for the "Re-elect Ford" campaign. Since he will be reporting directly to the campaign director, he will take a one-year leave from Grey Advertising in New York, and move to Washington, D.C. The job strikes me as being one with the ultimate feedback loop for buyer response.
During the phone call confirming this move for Bruce, Ted mentioned also that Brian (alias Wah Wah) Walsh has returned to Hanover to join Creare, Inc., "a highly innovative research and development consulting organization." Brian's major responsibility will be to use his own R&D consulting skills to develop a new product development organization for this adopted organization. Not only will Brian be doing development work for his development consulting firm, but, get this, the objective is to innovate new products "for [their] own account." We'll check in with Brian later to make sure some of the sales revenue comes from an outside source. If we don't, rest assured that Brian's December bride will! Jean McLaughlin Walsh comes by way of Colby Sawyer College, Wheelock College, and U.C. at Santa Barbara.
Don Switzer has broken ten years of silence and announced he is alive and well, married, twinned, and hitting the Dartmouth Club circuit in Nashville along with Rex Roberts. Don is now second vice president and associate general counsel for Life and Casualty Insurance Company after successive promotions since 1969. This bent toward corporate practice follows a stint of trial practice in Mobile for one year. Whereas Don is secretary of the local Dartmouth Club, Rex is president. They both graduated from Vanderbilt Law in 1968 and, to round out the parallels, Rex is assistant vice president and counsel for the Nashville Life and Accident Insurance Company.
Other attorneys working for firms other than law partnerships are Dave Hunter (San Francisco, editor with Bancroft-Whitney Co.), John Heavenrich (Cleveland, corporate attorney with engineering firm of Arthur G. McKee & Company), and Andy Newton (San Francisco, Western Regional Counsel for Honeywell Information Systems).
In private practice one of the biggest events tends to be either becoming a partner or setting up your own firm. Class of '65 has just experienced a relative rash of such momentous occasions. On January 1, 1976 Paul Pringle became a partner in the San Francisco office of Brown, Wood, Ivey, Mitchell and Petty. On the same day, Tom Campbell was admitted to the partnership of Gardner, Carton, and Douglas in Chicago. Richard Behrens got the title on October 1, 1975, with the Hollidaysburg, Pa., law firm of Patterson, Evey, Routch, Black and Behrens. Leonard Flamm set up his own firm with four others in New York (Hockert, Pressman, and Flamm) once he sensed that he knew more than his former bosses. Jeff Davis is a partner with Sullivan, Gregg and Horton in Nashua. Brian Butler is a partner enjoying litigation work in Madison with Stafford, Rosenbaum, Rieses and Hansen. Pete Breitling writes that he is specializing in real estate and corporate finance in Philadelphia as a partner with Obermayer, Rebmann, Maxwell and Hippel.
John Richardson sent me a note saying, "I lawyer for a living practicing mostly criminal and matrimonial law along with anything else that staggers in the door. I practice by myself but for reasons of prestige I call my firm, Richardson, Nobody, Absent, and Gone." John is a member of the North Plainfield, N.J., Town Council and but for 200 votes might have made it to the State Assembly. From the tone of John's comments, he seems to have become not just "seasoned," but rather spicy!
Well, there's a foot of snow in the driveway waiting to get shoveled and rain is on the way. 'Nuff said.
Secretary, 22 Surry Drive Cohasset, Mass. 02025
Treasurer, 45 Ethan Allen Dr. Acton, Mass. 01720
