1980
Is it easier to roam the girdled earth as we get older and the world gets smaller? Maybe not, but it seems easy lately to pen this column as I keep running into classmates. Kirk Wickman and I were connected by mutual friends at Morgan Stanley, where Kirk is general counsel of the global wealth management group and looks after some 80 lawyers. Kirk may also hold the distinction of having our oldest class child: His 26- year-old son is now finishing at that Ivy League school in Boston where the faculty forced the defenestration of a president whose foot was in his mouth as he fell. In his spare time until recently Kirk also served as pastor of a4oo-strong church congregation. That might actually have been easier than managing 80 lawyers.
He wasn't exactly preaching, but my neighbor Hans Morris was at the podium at Citigroup this spring, hosting a distinguished panel of alumni on the subject of business ethics. Hans and his wife, Kate, recently gave a major gift to fund an ethics program at the College. Several weeks later Hans was quoted in The Wall StreetJournal explaining why Citigroup had helped to underwrite a Tuck program targeted at professional women seeking to return to the business world.
I spent time in March with Ralph Manuel'58 at the home of his classmate Bob Downey in Keystone. Bob annually hosts a Dartmouth ski weekend that is a great enduring spectacle of Dartmouth camaraderie. I must say that I took some pleasure in calling him "Ralph" rather than "Dean Manuel." It was also nice that his memory was selective, as he apparently recalled me as a decent fellow and forgot about certain transgressions in which my fraternity might have been implicated. Or maybe the Dartmouth camaraderie effected a sort of statute of limitations.
In June I became senior associate general counsel of Franklin Templeton Investments. I am based in New York but spend quality time in our San Mateo, California, headquarters. Thus I was inspired to look up Cami Crone and Amy Ladd, as both are ensconced on that lovely peninsula. Cami and husband Brent Bilger live in Los Altos Hills, near Golden Gate University in San Jose, where Cami is professor of international business and marketing. Cami taught graduate students in Beijing in December and was astonished to see Starbucks in the Forbidden City; apparently quite a new cultural revolution is brewing over there. Brent runs his own "smart house" business (which does not refer to tutoring their two children for the SATs), specializing in home entertainment systems.
Amy has an academic orthopedic practice at Stanford, specializing in hand surgery. Her husband is a golf pro. I forgot to ask if he offered in marriage an injured hand that she had repaired, but doesn't that sound romantic? Amy wonders whether, in direct contrast to Kirk Wickman, she has the youngest child (6 years old) among our classmates. She just returned from Paris, where she presented a medical paper in French. I doubt that either Jerry Bird or myself, who along with Amy were in LSA Bourges in fall 1978, could have pulled that off even if we knew anything about hand surgery.
Stacy Phillips' father, Gerald Phillips'47, kindly reported the publication of her book, Dvorce: Its All About Control. Stacy, a matrimonial attorney in L.A., conducted a series of book signings and appeared on several television shows to promote the book. It seems to me that it can't get much better professionally than to author the insiders guide to divorce and to appear on television while living in Beverly Hills and practicing in the City of Angels.
On a sad final note, news just arrived of the very premature death of Craig Thorn, who lost a prolonged battle against cancer. Our deep sympathies are with his family and friends.
1111 Park Ave., #2A, New York, NY10128; pelmlinger@aol.com; 111 ArborPlace, Bryn Mawr, PA 19010; (610) 581-8889;ffesnak @yahoo.com
