February 2008

1977
Bonnie Steuart Taylor
9823 Fosbak Drive
Vienna, VA 22182
bonstay@hotmail.com


The holidays brought some welcome alumni news: I was especially thrilled to hear from Susan Nye after too many years!
“In 1984 I moved to Switzerland for an 8 week internship to finish up the final credits on an MBA. Some how or other, I forgot to come back until 2000. After Europe, I lived in California for a few years and then finally made it back to New England in 2003. I spent most of that time working for HP. I had some wonderful experiences overseas. I led a sales team in Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa after the Berlin wall fell and after apartheid. Living in the shadow of the Alps, I managed to progress from being a pretty mediocre skier to a pretty good skier. I rode my bicycle all over the French-speaking part of Switzerland and took a few bike trips into France and Italy as well. I also spent a little time at HP’s Headquarters during a few of the Carly Fiorina years.
I now live in New Hampshire and adore it. After living thousands of miles from my family for almost 20 years, I am now within an hour and a half of all my family. I am still an avid skier and have taken up kayaking as well. I’ve also discovered that I have a bit of a green thumb. When I was overseas, I always lived in apartments; I’m now enjoying an enormous garden surrounding my little house.
I have two businesses, a sales and marketing consultancy and a cooking business. On the sales and marketing side, I work with clients to improve the effectiveness of their sales and marketing teams by building and managing client relationships. For my cooking business, I have turned a hobby and passion into a small business. I teach classes and cater dinners and parties. I also write a weekly column for a few of our local newspapers. I write about food, entertaining, growing up in New England, what ever strikes my fancy and include a recipe. I also send the column out as a newsletter to family and friends across the country and around the world. You can visit my website, www.susannye.com. If you want to learn more about my consulting business, I have another website www.kssconsulting.com.
My family, businesses, sports and gardening keep me pretty busy, but I also make time for mentoring MBA’s and am on the Board of the New Hampshire Women’s Business Center, a nonprofit organization which supports entrepreneurs.”
Wow, Susan - love your newsletter! Thanks a bunch for writing and catching us up! Please come to Reunion….
Paul Schwartz sent holiday greetings and a link to his photo blog at:
http://paulschwartz.1000words.kodak.com/default.asp?item=703742
He’s got some fabulous shots on there, though I particularly enjoyed his self- portrait holding a college photo of himself ! Paul is the Imaging Professor at RIT and a Grandfathered Kodaker’ following his many years there. Come to Reunion, Paul – you can be the designated photoblogger!

Also heard from Sam Trudel, writing that, “the mood caught me to pass on some news in my life:

I owned a printing business for almost ten years in Middlebury and decided to sell it two years ago. That mid-life crises didn't turn out to be a crises for me, but a chance to start a new career. I had been on the board of a wonderful social services agency in Middlebury and decided to work there when I sold the business. After two years, with both my kids out on their own, I actually took the GRE and applied to graduate school for social work at the University of Vermont.

I am now a full-time MSW graduate student and have survived my first semester. It’s been an intense and very challenging experience, writing lengthy research papers and enduring graduate level statistics! I’m reading all the time and enjoying learning a great deal of new information. I’m interning at a nationally recognized geriatric services center in Middlebury and love being a student again. In May I will be studying international social work in Finland.

I will admit, I am a much better student now than I was 30 years ago...maybe something to do with making such a big commitment, actually paying for it myself, and not having so many "distractions." I'll graduate in ‘08 and start a new career in either geriatric or adolescent mental health social work. I figured I had one more big opportunity to reinvent myself, and it’s been an amazing journey so far. I did get a chance to get back to SLU and had a great time singing with the Laurentian Singers in a phenomenal reunion concert last year during the Sesquicentennial Celebration.”
Thanks so much for the update, Sam. Why not pop down from Vermont for Reunion?!
Joe Nunez sent his holiday greetings from Baghdad: “I retired from the Army as a colonel with 30 years of service on June 1, 2007. My last assignment was as a professor at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, PA. Just before I retired, I was recruited by LMI to lead a team of strategic logisticians in Iraq. The inserted picture is our St. Lawrence crew at Phoenix Base, headquarters for Multi-National Security Transition Command – Iraq.”
Congrats on your retirement, Joe – hope it means you’ll have time to join us at Reunion!