By Gregory A. Weiss
Passed on to us is an e-mail from Terry Young, with an interesting update on the baseball career of his son, Jason. “Jason is not on the big league team as the season begins. He is with Colorado Springs, the Colorado Rockies’ AAA franchise. It appears that he is next in line at the moment for a starting spot with the Rockies. He has been injured during the last two seasons, breaking the #6 and #7 ribs in his back, on the right, the first in August of 2003, and the second warming up at Shea Stadium to pitch against the Mets last May. No history of this having happened in baseball, so it was quite a mystery. He went to all the best docs, and they and the trainers were all over him with fresh and differing opinions. He finally took it on himself, [figured out the problem], and in the off-season he redesigned the mechanics he has been using since age 5. His effort seems to have been successful. The Rockies were pleasantly surprised at spring training but had already determined, more or less, their starting rotation. There was a chance that he might be traded to the Red Sox but that passed when he did well in the spring.”
A note from Charlie Kaufman lets us know that his six-man law firm, Holland Kaufman & Bartels, LLC, is joining the 140-lawyer Connecticut firm of Shipman & Goodwin LLP and becoming the Greenwich office for Shipman.
Van Wolf sends a short note informing us that he has been elected national treasurer of the American Cancer Society. Don Kornblet, who lives in St. Louis, keeps us up-to-date on his latest doings: “Ann and I have gotten more involved in North Carolina in recent years, and have invested in coastal real estate along the Atlantic coast. We’re splitting time between St. Louis and Topsail Island, juggling family and business matters, and keeping quite busy!”
John Harpold “returned to workforce in February — in my neighborhood, with Arlington County’s 17th District Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court Services Unit. Recovered from drug-induced hepatitis (Thanks, Crestor!) and am controlling my diabetes through diet and walking in the city. Sing with Mastersingers USA in Barcelona this July, as does Rob Ulery.”
Several classmates, including Biff Folberth, Kas Kalba, Skip Karetsky, Tom Opladen, Chuck Weller, and Tim Wollaeger, attended a conference at the Yale School of Management in April. Tim was one of the panelists, and moderated the selection of the winner of the best business plan presentation on Saturday afternoon. An interesting note from Kas Kalba gives us a little more detail: “All in all it was a very good conference, not only for the networking and discussing of globalization (the single biggest topic, I would say) but also for meeting the new SOM dean and some classmates I had never met before. I was at the SOM town meeting on Saturday afternoon, so unfortunately missed the best business plans competition. (About 15 years ago, together with ex-WGBH GM Michael Rice, I was involved in the development of a new TV series, Venture Match, which consisted of contestants explaining their new business plans to a panel of VC and marketing experts, with the winner getting cash to implement the plan. If only we had called it The Apprentice!) P.S., Let me know if you’re passing through New Haven, where my wife and I moved about a year ago. It’s been great reconnecting with Yale, going to concerts and lectures, and we’re only a few blocks from the Bowl.”
The May 2 issue of the Wall Street Journal included an interesting article describing how, in response to a recent SEC rule, most mutual funds are naming independent chairmen of their boards of directors. The rule, which is being challenged in litigation, is apparently quite controversial. The views of two classmates are quoted in the article: Leigh Wilson, chairman of the Victory Funds in Cleveland, and Bo Bodurtha, co-chairman of several Merrill Lynch funds (whose photo was featured along with that of Rick Beinecke’s wife, Candace). Speaking of Merrill Lynch, Don Burton is a board member of another group of their funds, which brings him north to the New York area on a quarterly basis.
Included in the March 28 issue of U.S. News & World Report was a two-page “portrait” of Tom Wilner (titled “A Righteous Indignation”). Featuring a large photo of Tom standing in front of the Supreme Court building, it describes Tom’s representation of 16 Kuwaitis imprisoned in Guantanamo and his Supreme Court victory last summer (noted earlier in these pages). We quote from the article: “A history buff, Wilner says America’s unique roots have shaped his view of the case. ‘The U.S. is different from other countries; we are not bound by a shared religion or a common race. We are bound by our principles: democracy, freedom, and the rule of law,’ he says. ‘These values are challenged in times of crisis, and that’s when we must defend them.'”