1951

Increasingly, it seems, members of our class are going as volunteers to help folks in the former U.S.S.R. and affiliated bloc countries find their way in the new, non-Communist world. Don and Carol Cox recently went from Hollis, N.H., to spend eight weeks in southern Russia and the former Soviet Republic of Kazakstan, where Don tried to help two companies improve in their new economic environment and Carol gave tutoring in English.

In Almaty, Kazakstan, the electronic instruments company DASU that Don visited was relatively prosperous due to the new necessity that individual homes and businesses have meters to monitor the consumption of energy from central heating plants (under the old Communist system it came free, right along with tyranny). But the quality and quantity of DASU's materials supply was woefully inadequate. Don put the firm in touch with some American companies which might help correct that.

While the Coxes were so involved, BillBeasley was on a similar mission in the former Soviet bloc nation of Romania. Bill went from his retirement home in Hanover to spend two months in Targu Mures, a city of about 100,000, helping an old-line socialist bureau try to become a free-market economy firm.

The company, AESCULAP, had been essentially a government agency which was monopoly supplier of pharmaceuticals to state-owned stores within its assigned region. "They essentially just filled orders" for a limited list of items, says Bill. "I suggested that they needed to hire and train salesmen, and expand their product line because for the first time they would be facing competition from any other firm that wanted to come into the region."

Don made the trip as a volunteer for the International Executive Service Corps, and Bill was sponsored by the Citizens for Democracy Corps. We noted earlier that Whitey Hand had made a similar mission to aid agricultural efforts in Kazakstan. Anybody else been doing this kind of thing?

Jim Rogers writes to say, 1 am now retired after serving 32 years as a general jurisdiction trial court judge in Minnesota (Minneapolis area)...l have been doing some mediation and arbitration work. With work around the house and my Christmas tree farm I keep quite busy." He's also been chair of the American Bar Association Traffic Court Committee for eight years and is on the governing boards of the Minnesota and Hennepin County bar associations.

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