The Loves: Dartmouth's Corporate Couple

Both grew up on the South Side of Chicago, studied at two of the best high schools in the nation, and attended Dartmouth in the '7os. Both went on to earn MBAs, he from Northwestern, she from Harvard. Both now work for the investment firm Kidder, Peabody, Gary '76 in institutional sales, Pamela '79 in public finance. Married in 1984 (Dartmouth alumni made up the eight-member bridal party), they live in a fashionable three-bedroom apartment just off Central Park West in New York City, with a glittering view of Lincoln Center from their balcony.

At first glance, the Loves appear to be the ultimate corporate couple.

"You hear about the stress associated with having a twocareer family in a high-powered industry," says Pamela Joyner Love. "But I tell people that it was industry that brought us together."

They have plenty in common, of course, including their commitment to Dartmouth. Last year they returned to campus to inaugurate two annual prizes they established in the Program in African and Afro-American Studies: one for the most outstanding research paper by a Dartmouth undergraduate on any aspect of the black experience; the other for outstanding achievement in African and AfroAmerican studies by a member of the graduating class.

On the other hand, there are differences. Pamela danced and acted in high school and college, and she now supports organizations such as the Harlem School of the Arts and the Aaron Davis Hall at City College in New York; Gary was an accomplished athlete, playing basketball, baseball, soccer, and running in track and cross-country, and he now supports athletics at Kenwood and Percy Julian high schools in Chicago.

Born and raised within two miles of each other, Gary and Pamela never met while growing up in Chicago. Pamela attended the Lab School, an innovative private school associated with the University of Chicago. She had always intended to go east to college, having visited New York with her family and fallen in love with its wealth of culture and art. She was determined to experience as much of it as possible.

Gary, on the other hand, attended Kenwood High, a public school in Hyde Park near the Lab School, sure from the start that he would pursue a career in finance. He too intended to go east, but he planned to return to Chicago after college and "become a Chicagoan." While both were interested in Ivy League schools, they chose Dartmouth for different reasons.

"I was recruited by one of the best spokesmen Dartmouth ever had," recalls Gary: President John Kemeny, who came to his high school and spoke during the presentation of a Dartmouth Book Award.

Pamela, on the other hand; was used to the "extraordinarily liberal environment" of the Lab School. She felt that Dartmouth, more than any other college, would allow her the flexibility to devise her own schedules on and off campus. She eventually took a five-semester leave to dance with the Joel Hall Company in Chicago, and spent much of her senior year studying in Nigeria.

After Dartmouth, Gary returned to Chicago with the intent to stay. But his first job, with Salomon Brothers, sent him back east for training in New York. He never left. He later became a senior vice president at Dean Witter Reynolds before joining Kidder, Peabody as a share-holding vice president and manager overseeing the firm's corporate contact group.

In 1979, while still at Salomon Brothers, Gary received a call from a stranger who was about to graduate from Dartmouth. The stranger, Pamela Joyner, was considering a career in the Foreign Service, but she had been offered an internship at the investment firm of Lehman Brothers. "I wasn't even certain what an investment banker did," Pamela recalls. So she phoned Gary, who was a friend of a friend.

He encouraged her to take the internship—advice he would momentarily regret. "The worst thing you can do is call a money-market salesman before noon' says Pamela, noting that this is the most hectic time of the day in the business. "I'd be on the phone at eight, nine in the morning, asking Gary the difference between an asset and a liability."

Gary offered to tutor Pamela over dinner, and the lessons led to love. Pamela is now an associate at Kidder, Peabody helping public authorities create bond issues and other financial instruments.

Finances aren't their only topic of conversation, of course. Dartmouth is another. Both agree that last year's shanty incident resulted in the College's unjustified image as a racist school. "Percentage-wise, Dartmouth has the largest number of black alumni in the Ivy League," says Gary. "Dartmouth has striven over the last few years to build a diverse community." Pamela observes: "The entire country has gotten more conservative, and these issues are not peculiar to Dartmouth."

The Loves say they have established the prizes at the College to "expand the horizons" of minority students. "When I grew up on the South Side of Chicago," says Gary, "I knew poor black people, but at the same time, I don't think they thought of themselves as poor. When you're poor, and you know that education is a viable tool in pushing ahead, and you have goals, standards, and discipline, and you believe you can achieve, it's very different from being poor and thinking you are locked in."

These days, the couple's thoughts are on a challenge of a more personal nature: a baby who was born in March. They have hired help for the newborn, and "we'll just split the responsibilities fifty-fifty," says Pamela. "I think being in a highly challenging, professional environment gives me something that in turn I can give to my child."

Gary agrees. "I'm very fortunate that I'm married to someone who understands my business. When I have concerns about business, or when I have achieved at my job, Pamela knows exactly what I'm talking about. As far as the pressure of a dual career and family goes, I think we have those problems solved, on both sides of the fence."

Rex Roberts is senior editor of Columbia magazine. He visitedthe Loves at their Manhattan apartment last winter.