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CLASS NOTES
Joe Cody The first item on the agenda is to offer a hearty thank-you to Stuart Berkman for the efforts he put in during his tenure as class correspondent. We could always count on Stuart for some item of news. Thanks also to Tom Chorba and Rich Forzani, who pinch-hit as co-class correspondents for the most recent issue of CCT. Speaking about Stuart and previous issues, I couldn't agree more with him about the beauty of the campus, which he described in the December issue, on the basis of a recent trip. My wife, Molly, and I visited the campus on a number of occasions, including the 2000 Hamilton Award Dinner under the rotunda at Low Library. The award honored Bill Campbell '62, director of Great Plains Software. Bill was the assistant freshman football coach for the class, so turning out to honor him were a number of the members of that team. Coming in from the West Coast were Neill Brownstein and wife Linda, Fran Furey and wife Jane, and Bob Klingensmith and wife Nancy. At the adjacent table was Bill Corcoran, who'd made the trip from Massachusetts. We sat in front for a wonderful evening of speeches and reminiscences. Dean Austin Quigley's paean to the Columbia Core Curriculum was so inspirational. The evening concluded with a visit from the Emerald Society, the New York Police Department's Bagpipe Band. As organized by Bill Smith '57, the pipers performed a medley of Columbia fight songs. My next correspondence will focus on our 35th reunion ceremonies of last June. I have some hastily gathered info from that get-together, but some news from out in the provinces is most welcome. Any juicy tidbits based on conversations of that weekend are welcome. Call me at (973) 743-7166 or write or e-mail to one of the addresses above. One final request, if you don't mind, Stuart. Whatever did you do to John Burrows that released that torrent of prose in the last few issues? Please let me know so that I can feed it to our other classmates.
Kenneth L. Haydock Your class correspondent has received a veritable flood of informative news items from and about fellow members of The Cleverest Class in the World. Here are both of them: Will Nettleship is a sculptor crafting site-integrated public sculpture, which he has done for arts councils from New York to Ohio and Arizona. Seven functional examples of his work are on exhibit at the Exploratorium in San Francisco. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, a history professor, and has two daughters. Mark Minton claims to be (and we do not for a moment doubt that he is) one of just two career foreign service officers among our classmates, the other being Raymond F. Burghardt Jr., who is U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam. Ray and his wife also have two daughters; they're "working and studying, respectively, in Boston." Don't forget our upcoming reunion May 30–June 2. In the meantime, please report on the events in your life. If there have been none, go out, have a few events, and then report on them. Remember: Only YOU can prevent empty Class Notes columns.
Ken Tomecki M.D. How this column survives, I'll never know, but I do have some news. Bill McDavid is one of four distinguished alumni scheduled to receive the prestigious John Jay Award on March 6 in recognition of professional achievements, in Bill's case in law and banking/investment. Bill is general counsel for JP Morgan Chase & Co. Congrats. Wayne Wild (aka Doc) sent an e-mail (impersonal, but acceptable; I'll accept anything) update, in which he reminded me that after 15 years as an internist/gastroenterologist in Boston, "I decided ... to resurrect my Core Curriculum brain cells. I went back to university (Brandeis) and got a Ph.D. in English and American Literature." His "dissertation was doctor-patient correspondence in the 18th century;" illness in 18th-century literature. "I've remained a British lit fan since my classes with Edward Said and Hugh Emory ... I teach English literature to undergraduates at Berklee College of Music (Boston) ... and am working for Private Healthcare Systems, a medical management organization. I am happy about my resumption of the academic life. My brain cells are functioning again. Regards to all." Congrats and best wishes in your new career. And, remember: Keep in touch; whatever you send will hit the print. Son Peter '98, still in New York but temporarily unemployed (anyone in need of a bright, personable young man, with good credentials and media/advertising skills?), is applying to law school. On the homefront, the lovely Eileen is fine, radiant as ever. Unfortunately, the family dog, Clyde, a 13-year-old fox terrier, died a few months ago; he had a good life. Re: the next column. I need to hear from someone (or two, or three), anyone. A postcard would be nice.
Michael Oberman Sometimes I stumble upon news of our classmates in the course of daily reading. Jerry Avorn was quoted in the December 24, 2001 issue of Time. The article addressed the issue of prescriptions being written for senior citizens, reporting that the Journal of the American Medical Association had concluded that about one-fifth of senior citizens are given medications not appropriate for their age. The article refers to an editorial written by Jerry for the Journal that describes the problem with our medical system as the "triumph of habit over evidence." He makes the point that doctors write prescriptions by habit, rather than by keeping up with the latest drugs. I called Jerry for reassurance that this issue does not (at least for a few years) apply to our classmates. Jerry is an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and chief of the division of pharmacoepidemiology and pharmacoeconomics at Brigham and Women's Hospital. An internist, geriatrician and pharmaco-epidemiologist, his research centers on medication use (analyzing the relationships among the risks, costs and benefits of prescription drugs), with particular reference to elderly patients and chronic disease. Jerry adds: "Most important is the fact that I remain happily married to Karen Tucker, '71 Barnard, whom I met on a Columbia-Barnard ski trip in 1968 when I threw her off a chair lift shortly before The Revolution. We have two sons — Nate, a junior at Connecticut College, and Andrew, a sophomore in high school." Each column generates at least some e-mails, all of which are appreciated. Tom Hazen still enjoys teaching law at the University of North Carolina and publishing in the areas of securities and corporate law. A fourth edition of his treatise on securities law is due out soon (a work I've used many times), while a second edition of his co-authored treatise on corporate law will be published within the next year or so. Tom has been preparing updates of his co-authored books on broker-dealer law and commodities law. He has also written the second edition of a monograph for federal judges on federal securities law and is about to embark on a case book on corporate law and corporate finance. Tom has testified on a number of occasions for the New York district attorney as an expert witness in some high profile broker-dealer boiler room prosecutions. He "hadn't been back to New York for quite a while and this presented a good opportunity to refamiliarize myself with the city." Tom lives in Chapel Hill with his wife, Lisa. Their older son, Elliott, is working toward his master's degree in marine biology at the University of Washington, having completed his undergraduate work at Duke ("which is a tough thing for a UNC professor to live with"). Their younger son, George, is in the fifth grade. Dave Rosedahl is the executive vice president and chief regulatory officer for the Pacific Exchange. Dave reports that the Pacific Exchange recently entered into a joint venture with an electronic communications network to form a new electronic exchange: "Essentially, we're looking to reinvent the securities markets." His son, Dan, lives in Minnesota and his other son, Erik, lives in D.C. Dave and his wife have become more popular on the West Coast than in Minnesota as more people come to visit them — and he welcomes all to do so. Fred Hulser continues to practice law at McConnell Valdes, in San Juan, Puerto Rico, primarily in corporate finance and in mergers and acquisitions. As president of the Columbia Alumni Association in Puerto Rico, Fred hosted a visit to the island by President George Rupp and Dean Austin Quigley. Fred reports that he and his wife, Shay, "have been spending most of our time trying to keep up with kids and grandchildren." He has two children, two stepchildren and — as of December 31, 2001 — two grandchildren. Hilton Obenzinger is associate director of undergraduate research programs at Stanford, where he is in charge of honors writing and works with honors students in all departments who are writing their honors theses, plus other advanced writing. He also teaches American Literature in the English department. On December 3, Hilton joined actor Patrick Stewart "on a grand Moby Dick 150th anniversary celebration co-sponsored by Stanford and the Maritime Museum in SF — lectures onboard three-masted ships and readings from the novel." His friends have set up a Web site (www.obenzinger.com) about his writings, from which I learned that Hilton "is the author of Cannibal Eliot and the Lost Histories of San Francisco (Mercury House, 1993), a novel of invented documents that recounts the history of San Francisco from the Spanish conquest to the 1906 earthquake and fire; New York on Fire (Tilbury House Publishers, 1989), a history of the fires of New York in verse, selected by the Village Voice as one of the best books of the year and nominated by the Bay Area Book Reviewer's Association for its poetry award; and This Passover or The Next I Will Never Be in Jerusalem, winner of the Before Columbus American Book Award." Nick Garaufis happily announces that he is engaged to marry Betsy Seidman this spring. Nick is a United States District Judge in the Eastern District of New York (based in Brooklyn). Betsy, the executive director of a charitable foundation, was a non-lawyer member of the screening panel that evaluated prospective judges for Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY). Nick and Betsy met when the panel interviewed him. What a successful interview: Nick was named to the bench and found his bride. Jonathan Schiller reports that his oldest son, Zachary '01, "traded his sneakers for a word processor and is now at an entry-level position with Adam Sandler in L.A.," while youngest son, Aaron, plans to enter the College in the fall. Jonathan is managing partner of Boies, Schiller Flexner LLP, which now has 120 lawyers in New York; Washington, D.C.; California; and south Florida. Apart from his management responsibilities, he continues "to spend considerable amounts of time engaged in international arbitration in Europe on behalf of U.S. companies." Please send me your news by e-mail, preferably well before we've entered the class of senior citizens.
Peter N. Stevens Longtime Manhattan resident Robert Stolz has been reappointed as a judge of the Criminal Court, City of New York by newly elected Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Dennis Graham, temporarily displaced from his financial district office by the events of September 11, is back in lower Manhattan at the new Deutche Bank headquarters. Dennis is involved in asset management credit. Closer to home, my daughter, Alex, a high school senior, successfully resisted all my efforts to get her to apply to the College and instead preferred the atmosphere at Barnard, which she will attend next year. Go figure. And go figure how I can continue to fill up this space with class notes if none of you guys ever contact me and let me know what you've been up to. Please help me out and, at the same time, don't forget to help out the College Fund (and the Light Blue Football club, too).
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