Dorien Nunez
omniresearch@aol.com
Joerg Helling shares: “I would have liked to attend the 45th reunion this year and now I am hoping for a reunion to take place next year. So far, COVID-19 has not affected my family or me personally, but my travel agency, in business for 35 years, is nearly devastated – business is down to almost nothing. Fortunately, my two other businesses, a small real estate company and a recycling company, continue to thrive. However, COVID-19 has some positive side effects; I have more time for my favorite pasttime, sailing on Lake Constance. So far, I have been on the water every weekend. I hope that the pandemic will disappear soon and wish that everyone stays healthy.”
Donn Taylor writes: “I have competed over the last five years in an annual race series by The Running Zone Foundation in Brevard County, Fla. It is comprised of seven races; three 5k races, three 2-milers, and one 3k race. Regrettably, I had to forego this year’s races amid COVID-19 concerns. No, I have not been touched by the virus, just trying to avoid it. I plan to get back on track in the 2021-22 series. Stay safe, everyone.”
A note from Sonny Cave: “On a personal level, my family is very in tune with what’s going on with COVID-19 across the globe. We make it a priority to read information from a variety of sources and from medical experts, especially since I am married to a medical doctor. We make sure that we practice social distancing, and I have personally taken an interest in reading the scientific journals around the usage of masks. There is an overwhelming amount of data and support that shows if everyone wears masks, it can significantly reduce the transmission rate of COVID-19. My two daughters, who are both in grad school pursuing their master’s degrees, have also been impacted by this pandemic, with one of them having to return home from her studies in Edinburgh, Scotland, to conclude her dissertation online. I am glad to be able to spend more time with her. As an avid paddle boarder, I’ve also enjoyed spending more time on the Salt River, where I am able to paddle board for some great exercise, and see bald eagles and wild horses. I love to be in tune with nature and was raised spending my summers in Colorado. In my paddle board photo taken near Durango, Colo., I am wearing a pink mask made at ON Semiconductor’s Cebu manufacturing site in the Philippines.”
Nora Tracy Phillips
noratphil@aol.com
Jon Sweet
Jsweet1000@gmail.com
Bryan Bell shares that he has been teaching in the architecture department at North Carolina State. One of his classes has been on local modern architecture. His students have contributed to a new book by Bryan’s wife, Victoria Ballard Bell, entitled Triangle Modern Architecture (www.oroeditions.com/product/triangle-modern-architecture/).
Sarah Bankson Newton
sarah.b.newton@gmail.com
We are deeply saddened by the sudden and unexpected death of our beloved formmate, George Schwab, on May 2. George was a joyful presence in all of our lives, and a form agent for the ages. He just loved connecting with people. George’s wife, Monique, his sons, Henry and Ethan, and his sister, Tatine ’81, are in our thoughts.
We’ve had two successful weeknight ’79 Zoom gatherings, and one featured Judy Jordan and her new venture, Geodesy Wine. It has been wonderful to (virtually) see everyone during the pandemic. We will schedule another one after reaching out to our formmates who are outside the U.S. to find a good time that is compatible with their time zones. I actually ran into Linda Love Mesler on a Nantucket bike path in July – she was visiting the island with friends and I was walking with a business school classmate – all socially distanced, of course.
Sonny Cave ’75 aboard his trusty paddle board.
Donn Taylor ’75 completing the Ghostly Gecko 5K in Melbourne, Fla.
Thor Thors ’78 (l.) with Jon Sweet ’78 en route to Fishers Island by way of a precautionary COVID-19 test in New Haven, Conn.
Alexandra Strawbridge Maurer
mainestraw@gmail.com
Jonathan Gal checks in with this news: “I was inspired by the volume of formnotes from the Form of 1982 in the latest Alumni Horae. So, I decided to write one myself. My father passed away in April 2017. He was a great man who did not have the privilege of an SPS education, but he was able to rise up in the world of high technology and finance anyway. A combination of military training, an MIT engineering degree, and a Harvard Business School M.B.A. provided him with the foundation of a successful career. With the grim reaper so near at hand, I decided to lose some unwanted pounds and get back into shape, lest the reaper set his sights on me as his next target. Since then, I have lost 25 pounds, and my cardiovascular metrics are much improved. I live in Provo, Utah, with ready access to the Wasatch Range of the Rocky Mountains. I hike, backpack, and backcountry ski as much as I can. These are pleasant forms of exercise and they are highly beneficial to health. Regular exercise in the mountains over an extended period of time can work wonders. After two and a half years of regular hiking and backcountry skiing in the mountains, I can now hike 15,000 vertical feet and 50 miles distance in a week. Still, my goals for the future are even bigger. My four children are all excelling in school. The pandemic has brought us closer together and online classes make our days much more efficient as there is no shuttling of children. I feel pretty safe from COVID-19 here in Utah County. Both the infection rate and the mortality rate are several times lower here than the national averages.”
Caroline LaVoie
caroline_lavoie@yahoo.com
Tim Paydos writes: “It has been a crazy 2020 here in the ol’ Paydos homestead. Like everyone else, we had to shelter in isolation once COVID-19 shifted from a Black Swan way out on the horizon to being the real deal. My two daughters came home from college for spring break and did not go back for the rest of spring. While we were happy to have the nest full once again, the walls of the house felt like they were slowly closing in. They are now back on campus and quarantining before the fall semester begins. In the meantime, work has been nuts as well. I was recently appointed the global general manager for the IBM Government industry, which puts us right in the maelstrom of COVID-19 response. We started by helping government agencies maintain business continuity as they moved to an all-remote workforce – hard to do when 80 percent of the government’s unemployment systems are old-school blinking green screen COBOL systems. More recently, we have gotten into contact tracing, return to workplace systems, and re-imagining the business of government. Stressful, but fun stuff. Look forward to seeing everyone at the next reunion.”
Gordon Bellamy shares these updates from Los Angeles: “I just won the Games for Change Vanguard Award for my contributions to the game industry. I’m also going to be on Netflix in a documentary called High Score, which debuts August 19, and I’m currently on Disney+ on episode six of The World According to Jeff Goldblum. Loving life with my husband, Joe, who just started a role at the Los Angeles LGBT Center. I’m teaching games and advising varsity esports at USC School of Cinematic Arts and leading the Gay Gaming Professionals nonprofit. I talk with Hugo Restall, Walt Zink ’90, and Matthew Bell ’89 the most. Oh, and Grinnell Morris, my old boy, made some great new content (www.youtube.com/watch?v=8egGoGBpn5Q).”
Andrea Greer
andigreer@gmail.com
John Roberts sent news of his life and family, and shared very simply, “I hope every alum reads Notes on a Silencing.”
I agree, and know that many in our form have. Formnotes are not the place for a discussion, but please know if you want to reach out to anyone to talk about the book or issues it raises, you can reach out to me in confidence. I’m home pretty much all the time during all of this, fundraising for two great organizations, including Project Row Houses, which is worth a Google if you are interested in the intersection of art, community, and justice.
It makes me happy that Bailey Whiteman has continued to share her beautiful voice with the world. She reports: “After eight years serving as music director at the Washington Ethical Society, a progressive humanistic religious congregation in our nation’s capital, I stepped away from ‘parish ministry’ at the end of September 2019 in order to discern where my call might be leading me. I loved working within a congregational setting but now feel a need to serve Unitarian Universalism as a faith movement, so I’m shifting to UU/music consulting with a focus on relationships, systems, and creative change, with an anti-racist/anti-oppressive/multicultural awareness, while helping Unitarian Universalism build the faith it has professed to be but has not yet been. Along with my husband of 20 years (!) and our two kids (ages 13 and 10), we’re staying home in Takoma Park, Md., trying not to bug each other too much, and spending a lot of time reading, watching movies, and dealing with clutter. I’m obsessed with Nicola Yoon’s The Sun is Also a Star and her husband David Yoon’s Frankly in Love. I would happily trade book lists with anyone else who loves contemporary YA fiction. I hope others are staying safe and healthy and finding joy wherever possible.”
Catherine Burnett does amazing work as the chief impact officer for the Phillips Foundation. Barron’s highlighted their collaborative philanthropic guarantee pool (www.barrons.com/amp/articles/future-returns-using-foundation-guarantees-to-unlock-capital-01591728993) as a unique solution to rebuilding communities and small businesses through more racially equitable access to capital. Catherine is focused on helping regionally focused funders launch geographically targeted pools, and would be delighted to chat with anyone interested in replicating the model.
After 3,400 vertical feet of hiking, Jonathan Gal ’84 made it to a 10,000-foot ridgeline of the Timpanogos Massif in Utah.
Jessica Rogers Mellon ’89 with her husband, Charlie Mellon, Nick Morton ’89, Marie Schley ’90, and children in New Jersey at Christmas 2019, when people could stand close together.