1963

You say real men don't eat quiche? Better check out Bob Silverman's Winter Construction Company, which is among a select group of businesses honored by the National Business Committee for the Arts, Inc. Winter funds music and dance in its home city of Atlanta and in eight other southeastern states and created "Hard Hats for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra," entitling donors to specifically designed, regulation hard hats with the Atlanta Symphony logo. Their dance funding includes the Ruth Mitchell Dance Company and the Atlanta Ballet. Atlanta has been good to Bob, who purchased the bankrupt construction company in 1978, after working for IBM in New York and as head of a construction company in Schenectady, N.Y., his home city. Says Bob, "Winter has a significant vested interest in seeing Atlanta grow for the construction of new offices, headquarters, recreational facilities, hotels, and highrises are the staples of our long-term business." Indeed, Winter has become a successful construction company building throughout the Southeast.

Bob and Carol, whom he met three years ago in Phoenix, were at the Harvard game where they met Bob's son, Scott, a sophomore at MIT, and Mike and JeannePrince, who drove down from Lyme, N.H., where Mike runs the computer operations for Burlington Coat Factory. Bob's daughters, Stacy, 18, and Shana, 14, who live in Schenectady, were at the game. Bob saw Bill Messerly, a residential developer, at the Dartmouth Club of Georgia, and Roy Benson, former executive director of the Atlanta Track Club, who is opening an executive fitness center with world-class runner and sports personality Craig Virgin.

Bob is particularly proud of the relationship he has developed with the American Institute of Architects which has also recognized his involvement in the arts, professional affairs, and social concerns. He chairs a task force charged with creating a national center for research in architecture, design, construction engineering, and construction at Georgia Institute of Technology.

The Bob Silverman story is inspiring to those of us who start new careers in midcourse, and here's another: Clark Griffith, in his third year at William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, Minn., plans to practice law locally after graduation. A history major at Dartmouth, Clark is president of the student bar association at William Mitchell, the largest law school in the state, whose alumni include Warren E. Burger, chief justice of the U.S., and Douglas Amdahl, chief justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court.

Duane Cox checked in recently to AD house scribe Jeff Lapic with the news that he too left the security and success of IBM (Silverman is also an ex-IBMer) to concentrate on painting, at which wife Dee says he has great talent. She is an artist and past art dealer. Duane and Dee live in Los Angeles and are ministers in the Church of Religious Science at the Lakewood Church in Long Beach.

Also on the AD sheet is the report that Wally Eldridge is still with Bethlehem Steel, as counsel to the coal division. Wally hops to properties in three states, buying, selling, and leasing coal properties. After recovering from a heart attack in 1984, Wally shifted from gliding to the "quieter" sport of sailing.

Former Bethlehem Steel executive TomMcLaughlin may be switching careers. He's completing a course in voice-over technique at the Weist-Barron School in New York and Philadelphia. Son Jim is a sophomore at Penn State.

Tom Brownell is directing a new B.S. degree technical communication program at Ferris State College in Big Rapids, Mich. Tom also edits an antique truck club newsletter and would love to hear from any old truck buffs. Tom Washing moved to Boulder, Colo., to become a partner in the venture capital firm of Hill and Kirby. He was doing the same thing for about six years in Rochester, N.Y. Mike Moriarty has joined a respected talent pool, including Ralph Bellamy, Polly Bergen, Cliff Robertson, E.G. Marshall, and Eva Marie Saint, to encourage travel to Greece in TV commercials, according to The New York Times. The hook is none of the endorsers are Greek; the reward a week's trip to guess where.

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