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EQV Fraternity 1954 - 1968

Biographies
Bios 1961-1962

Since AXP or EQV
or
Bios by them that are living it

Table of Contents

Steve Buttner (’61)
see obit here and comments here.

EQV was for me, as I’m sure it was for many of you, a highly significant aspect of my Wesleyan experience – perhaps even more so than the classroom. A number of themes in my life I can identify as being nurtured, if not initiated, as a result of my EQV experience. One of these is the appreciation of culture and the life of the mind which seemed more valued in our fraternity than in others. Another is valuing diversity in the fullest sense of that word, as I recall our evolving a culture where our mutual respect prompted us to vote into membership individuals we might not have preferred, but whom we supported because others we respected sponsored them. That theme for me expressed itself during the civil rights movement of the ‘60’s, in employment with the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights during the late ‘70’s, in corporate life where I was hired to develop an EEO compliance program for a nation-wide insurance company, and up to the present where I am a founding Board member of the West Hartford Initiative for Racial and Ethnic Diversity. Fortunately, my obsession with poker during the college years did not become a life theme.

After graduating from Wesleyan in ’61, with the motivation of continuing what I’d come to enjoy doing, I went on to graduate school for the next decade, earning Master’s Degrees at the University of Wisconsin and an ABD at Columbia, all in Russian studies. I transferred to Columbia to specialize in the medieval period, and taught at Queen’s College in the City of New York’s system while pursuing my PhD. Although I loved the teaching, it became increasingly obvious that I’d made an inappropriate career choice, as medieval studies and sitting by myself for long periods in dusty libraries hardly met the test of relevance (this was the late ‘60’s), nor squared with my more action-oriented personality. So, in order to gain some transferable skills, I sought out a job in student affairs administration, and coincidently ended up back at Wesleyan as Dean of Freshman in 1970. I served as the Dean for the Class of 1974 for its entire four years, “graduating” with them to take the job with the State Commission on Human Rights, which led to entering corporate life in the late ‘70’s. While it was readily apparent that corporate life was not the best fit in the world, I did have some success developing EEO programs and moved to the training department to run the race and gender awareness programs we had generated. I survived corporate life until 1982, when I left to begin my consulting practice. I have been self-employed ever since, which clearly has been the most suitable career choice for this independent soul.

My consulting has focused on different things over the years, lots of organization development, executive outplacement for about five years, and primarily during the last decade focused on leadership assessment and coaching. My work remains fascinating and challenging to me, and I believe adds value to others, so as a result I am in no rush to retire, although I have not worked a full twelve months for a number of years. Fortunately, I’m in a situation where I can cut back rather than cut it out.

Having flexibility allows me time for other interests. Chief among these is family. Wife Jeri and I bought a 1912 house in West Hartford, Connecticut, in 1995 which she (the artist) is restoring to Arts & Crafts glory. The house has allowed us to share a growing interest in Arts & Crafts and Mission decoration, and our trips often include visits to architectural gems from the period. My two children live near enough that I see them regularly – Jessica is a bilingual social worker in Boston and Judson an architect in New York City – and they still seem to enjoy time with their old man. One interest we share is hiking, and last year we purchased a place in the Adirondacks (our favorite Eastern mountains) in furtherance of that interest. I have also hiked in recent years in Alaska, twice in Utah and several times in the Grand Canyon. I made pottery for a number of years, and may return to it when my schedule is a little bit more regular, and even sang in a community chorus for a time (not loudly, you’ll be glad to hear). And I remain involved in activities in my community.

So, life is rich and I feel very fortunate and grateful that is the case. Jeri and I both enjoy good health, which seems to make everything else possible. Now, if we can only get this crazy Country back on track…

Robert Patricelli (’61)

Bob Patricelli is currently founder, chairman and CEO of two privately owned companies, Evolution Benefits and Women’s Health USA, and is engaged in a wide variety of charitable and nonprofit activities in Connecticut.

After Wesleyan and Harvard Law School (’65), Bob started his career in Washington in 1965 as a White House Fellow, then served as counsel to a U.S. Senate Subcommittee, as Deputy Under Secretary of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, and as Administrator of Urban Mass Transportation in the federal Department of Transportation. He also served as Vice President of the Greater Hartford Process from 1971-75, a business-funded community development corporation.

He returned home to Connecticut in 1977 and joined Connecticut General Life Insurance Company, where he rose to become head of successor-company CIGNA’s health care and affiliated businesses. He left CIGNA in 1987 to found Value Health, which became a New York Stock Exchange company serving over 70 million people nationwide. Value Health was sold to Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corporation in 1997.

Bob and his wife founded the Robert and Margaret Patricelli Family Foundation in 1997, and have focused their funding activity on supporting a broad range of programs aimed at helping people in the disadvantaged neighborhoods of Hartford. Bob also serves as chairman of the Neighborhood Development Committee and board member of the MetroHartford Alliance, a board member of the Bushnell and of the Connecticut Center for Science and Education, lead director of Curagen Corporation, and a trustee of Northeast Utilities. Bob is also a former chair of the Connecticut Business and Industry Association.

Bob retired from the Wesleyan board after 12 years of service in June of 2005. His two children both attended Wesleyan—Tom (‘88) and Alison (’90). Bob and Margaret were married in 1987 and have three wonderful grandchildren through daughter Alison.

Dan Aronson ´62

Like many of us in those days, I went directly to grad school, and did a Ph.D. in Anthropology at the U of Chicago. I’d been part of the South Asia enthusiasm at Wesleyan, but my Ph.D. field work was in Nigeria, and I’ve been trying to understand and contribute to African social change and development ever since. I taught at McGill University in Montreal from 1968 to 1993, with breaks for a post-doc year in Nigeria, a contract with USAID’s West Africa office in Abidjan from ‘76-’78 (after a worse drought than the one that’s on now), and a couple of sabbaticals. I started occasionally consulting on the social impacts of African development projects from ’79, and then in 1993 I took a job at the World Bank in Washington, participating in the emergence of a “social development” department and its establishment as part of core World Bank concerns with poverty alleviation. I’ve worked on public and private sector projects in 32 African countries, and in the Middle East, south and southeast Asia, and Andean South America. I retired obligatorily in 2003, but went back to work the next day as a most-time consultant doing the same things as before. I’m still at it. I remember a classmate at Wes describing a summer he’d spent in Nigeria, and having no concept of what he experienced. Now I pretty much know every corner of Africa – it’s been a trip (actually about 80 or 90).

I married Theresa Lopez in 63, and we split 35 years later. Our first son, David, was born in 64. (He was in the Wes class of ’86, and I have wondered if we hold the record for shortest interval between father and son graduation dates.) Jennifer followed in 69, and Josh in 74. They are respectively a writer/editor at the U.S. Institute for Peace, a bond trader now daily negotiating the prices of kid-compliance at home, and a lawyer. So far I’ve got five grandkids, whose minds I am diligently trying to warp so they’ll get those quintessential Wes capacities for using the language well and questioning authority. It’s hard to get kids to venture outside the box now that six-year-olds build resumés, but I had EQV to help give me skills for discerning honesty and demanding fairness.

Diversions? Grandkids, and a passion for travel to places I’ve worked but not had time to explore adequately. That’s made for great long vacations in Morocco, Turkey, and Kenya. Ask me about how to get to the middle of the wildebeest migration in Kenya’s Maasai Mara, nature’s greatest show.

Most telling moment at EQV (it was 1960 or 61): a small crowd in the living room around the famous Bob Stone, AXP ´15, as he ranted about people wanting/liking/needing to be in groups composed only of people like themselves. I looked at Mo (for Mohammed) Torres, he at me, both of us at our other EQV brothers, and we all knew we were in a different era. Now another 45 years has passed. Questions?

Peter Buffum (’62)

A good wife, good health, two grown kids, thirty years of criminal justice consulting and teaching, ten years of real estate sales with my wife.

This week I parked my car in neutral, left the emergency brake off, and went to work. Ten minutes later, responding to imperceptible forces, the car slowly gathered speed, sped downhill, crossed a major street, and struck a passing dump truck, totaling the well-insured car, but causing no damage to the truck.

Had it not been for the truck, the car would have continued on across a busy sidewalk, careened through pedestrians, and landed in the front window of a fashionable antiques store.

Like novelist Richard Ford, I continue to be amazed by the ironies that life deals us, and I am grateful that I, unlike Ford's protagonists, have been on the fortunate side of most such life altering events.

Now if I hadn't joined EQV...


 

Steve Butts (’62)

BIOGRAPHY

Or rather, a timeline of points high and low in the life of

Stephen Butts, EQV 1958 - 1962

(Fall 2005)

Spring, 1962    Graduation, Wes U. [Damn, as I write that it sure seems a long time ago.

Summer 1962        Living in Greenwich Village, NYC and singing with The Highwaymen. A truly fabulous time, in all senses of the word, and it grows more so with the years. We all were part of a time and movement that had an incalculable effect on the culture of the U.S. ever since. For me, a time to learn what “professional” really meant and to be one, and, that in whatever form, music would be a part of my life forever.

Fall, 1964 – 1975       Graduate school, Columbia U. (it doesn’t matter in what; I never used a bit of it). What possessed me to give up music for this I to this day do not know. The money ran out after three years and I signed on first as a research assistant to a professor, then as a statistical and computer consultant to the Bureau of Applied Social Research, which was not only a whole lot more fun doing than what I was studying but turned out to lay the basis for my future career. Met and lived with Susan Pharr, fellow grad student in Japanese Politics. She finished first and got a job at the University of Wisconsin, and I went with her.

1975 – 1989                Worked fulltime as a planner/analyst/what-have-you in the Budget Office of UW-Madison and s-l-o-w-l-y on my degree. Susan left Wisconsin and me for the brighter lights of Cambridge and a tenured professorship at Harvard; I finally out of sheer exasperation finished my own degree, put paid to that part of my life, and took up playing the recorder. Met Marian Rothstein, a scholar of French renaissance literature and my way-in-the-future wife, who got a job teaching at . . .

1989 – 1995                . . . Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa (pop. circa 6,000, two gas stations, one diner and one movie theatre permanently playing “Police Academy 5”), and I again followed, becoming Director of Planning & Analysis there. After two years Marian left Iowa (but NOT me this time) for a job teaching in Kenosha, WI. I consoled myself by attempting to play the baroque oboe, having run out of amusing things to do on the recorder. It took three more years, but I found a job relatively near to her (a mere 140 miles away) at Lawrence University. Figuring that this was about as good as it gets, we bought a house and got married, I for the very first time at age 58. One should never hurry these things, eh?

1996 - fall 2004    Spent nine good years at Lawrence U. as Director of Institutional Research and parlayed my minimal musical skills into a part time job with the grand title of Lecturer in Early Wind Performance in the LU Conservatory of Music. Shoulda tried this earlier: had a ball teaching crackerjack music undergrads how to play Bach, et al, and even got to conduct my own little baroque orchestra.

                                    Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the redoubtable Highwaymen were continuing to recapitulate our youth by gathering a couple of times a year to play and sing, which activity has continued and in fact multiplied into a twilight semi-career of a dozen or more appearances a year with an income stream rivaling that of a kid’s summer lemonade stand, but much more fun.

2004 - ?????      New president arrives at Lawrence, and utterly unimpressed with me, my wit, my wisdom and the horse they all rode in on, immediately fires me. “Free at last, free at last, great God Almighty, free at last . . .” I resolved to contribute the national economic malaise by being listed as unemployed for the year, but on June 30 of this year I officially declared myself to be retired, in which status I now cheerfully reside and heartily recommend.

 

Bruce Corwin (’62)

Having graduated from Wesleyan, I joined the Coro Foundations Fellows Program in Public Affairs from which I graduated in following year. I then joined the family company, Metropolitan Theatres Corporation, eventually becoming its Chairman and CEO which now has 125 screens in California and Colorado.

But that’s the most obvious story. More important, I married Toni Cooper in 1968 and, with her, produced two sons, David and Daniel. They, in turn, have rewarded us with three grandchildren.

Toni and I have been active in both our civic and religious communities, both together and separately, in organizations ranging from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, the American Jewish Committee, and the Beverly Hills Education Foundation to the Los Angeles Children’s Museum (which we helped establish) and the Los Angeles Fire Commission.

I’m on a number of entertainment-related company boards of directors and have been active in the theatre-owner industry associations. I was a manager and coach in the Beverly Hills Little League, and a founding member of two film festivals, one in Santa Barbara and the other in Palm Springs. Throughout, I have remained active in the Coro Foundation (where I’ve been a board member for more than 25 years and was president of its National Board of Governors) and in Wesleyan (a member of the Board of Trustees).

Henry Ernstthal (’62) see obit here

Henry Ernstthal is a speaker and consultant on such diverse topics as association governance and corporate structure, strategic planning, board orientation, committee and board productivity, forecasting and the future, the impact of the new technology, ethics and ethical behavior, contemporary legal issues, and managing for consensus. He was the only full time faculty of the Master of Association Management (MAM) degree program at The George Washington University in Washington, DC from 1989 to 1995.

Before joining the faculty at The George Washington University, Ernstthal was the executive director of the Society of Nuclear Medicine, an 11,000 member international medical and scientific society for ten years. Prior to that he was executive director of the California Dental Association.

Ernstthal is the author of both the third and fourth editions of Principles of Association Management, the primary text in the field. He has written dozens of articles in the field and has spoken to thousands of association executives and volunteer leaders.

Ernstthal received his BA. degree from Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT and his Juris Doctor from Stanford Law School.

Ernstthal is a past President of the New York Society of Association Executives and a past Vice Chairman of the Board of the American Society of Association Executives. He has received the Association Executive of the Year Award from the NYSAE, his CAE (Certified Association Executive) from ASAE in 1981, and is a Fellow of the American Society of Association Executives.

David Fisher (’62) see obit

Post Wesleyan Bio

1962-1964:

Sang and recorded with The Highwaymen.

1965-1966:

Recorded solo LP and two singles with Columbia Records - no known sales.
Entertained at the Gaslight Cafe in Greenwich Village.

1967-1997:

Moved to Los Angeles. Assistant to Don Costa who produced The Highwaymen recordings for ten years while also working as a studio singer and writing songs.

For the next twenty years worked primarily at Universal Studios and Fox as a composer, arranger, associate producer, music supervisor, music editor and songwriter. Had a son, Casey who is a senior at Loyola Marymount in Los Angeles and a daughter, Charlotte, who is a freshman at Cornell College in Mt. Vernon, Iowa.

1998 – 2010:

Lives in Rye, New York with wife, Elaine Haagen , no longer commutes to Southern California, and is more and more a full time member of The Highwaymen.

[Note: Dave Fisher died in 2010. See references on In Memoriam page

H. Eugene Stanley (‘62)

Gene Stanley was born in Oklahoma City on 28 March 1941. He obtained his B.A. in physics at Wesleyan in 1962, performed biological physics research with Max Delbruck in 1963 (on a Fulbright in Germany), and was awarded the Ph.D. in physics at Harvard in 1967. Stanley was a Miller Fellow at Berkeley, before becoming Asst. Prof. Physics at MIT in 1969.

He was promoted to Assoc. Prof. in 1971 and to Herman von Helmholtz Associate Professor in 1973, in recognition of his interdepartmental teaching and research with the Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology. In 1976 Stanley joined Boston Univ. as Prof. Physics, and as Assoc. Prof. Physiology (in the School of Medicine). In 1978 and 1979, he was promoted to Professor of Physiology and Univ. Professor, respectively.

Stanley has served as thesis advisor to 77 Ph.D. candidates at MIT and Boston Univ., and has worked with 98 postdoctoral level research associates. Stanley is known for his commitment to international education and cooperation. For example, he co-founded a series of NATO Advanced Study Institutes in interdisciplinary physics in Carg\`ese, co-directed the 1996 Enrico Fermi School of Physics on Complex Systems, and chaired the 1998 Gordon Conference on Water. In 1986 he chaired the triennial IUPAP International Conference on Statistical Mechanics STATPHYS16. Stanley pressed for the reform of medical education through the introduction of concepts and techniques of the physical sciences. He created new courses in human anatomy and physiology that allow physics and engineering to play roles parallel to that currently played by biochemistry.

Stanley works in collaboration with students and colleagues attempting to understand puzzles of possible interest to biological physics, including the structure and dynamics of liquid water, Albatross behavior, membrane-active antibiotics, cooperative phenomena in hemoglobin, quantifying correlations among constituents of the Alzheimer brain, fluctuations in noncoding and coding DNA sequences, heartbeat intervals and lung inflation, and gastrointestinal physiology (resolving the paradox of why the stomach does not digest itself). Four of his papers have been among the most-cited publication in the year that they were published, one is a Science Citation Classic, and two were reproduced in The Physical Review, The First Hundred Years: A Selection of Seminal Papers and Commentaries.

In recognition of his work, Stanley has received the 2004 Boltzmann Medal in Statistical Physics, an international prize awarded every 3 years by the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics. Also in

2004 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, and he received the Nicholson Medal of the American Physical Society in part for his activities in trying to understand why there are so few women in physics.

Additionally, he received the 2001 ``Distinguished Teaching Scholar''

Director's Award from the National Science Foundation, a Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship, the 1989 BP Venture Research Award, the 1997 Floyd K. Richtmyer Memorial Lectureship Award, and the 2001 Memory Ride Prize, the 2004 Teresiana Medal in Complex Systems Research, and the 1992 Massachusetts Professor of the Year (awarded by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education). His classic book Introduction to Phase Transitions and Critical Phenomena won the Choice Award for Outstanding Academic Book of 1971. He was elected APS Fellow, AAAS Fellow, Honorary Member of the Hungarian Physical Society, and Honorary Prof. at Eotvos Lorand Univ. (Budapest). He received five Doctorates Honoris Causa, from Bar-Ilan University, Eotvos Lorand University (Budapest). Univ. of Li\'ege, Univ of Dortmund, and Univ of Wroclaw.

Stanley delivered the Thirtieth Saha Memorial Lecture, the Fourth Bose Memorial Lecture, 1992; the E\"otv\"os Lecture, and was selected as an APS Centennial Lecturer. He has served as Joliot-Curie Professor in Paris, twice as Japan Society for Promotion of Science Visiting Professor, and as a member of the NAS Committee on Non-Linear Science.

Stanley served on the International Jury for the 500,000 euro L'Oreal-UNESCO Prizes for Women in Science.

Stanley believes that education and coaching of the next generation requires that this generation create opportunities for appropriate utilization of talent of physicists of all ages. This in turn requires active work on behalf of professional organizations, not only to lobby for increasing funding but also to distribute information about employment opportunities in a fashion that scientists of all ages can feel productively engaged. Sometimes overlooked is outreach to young audiences in the schools and undergraduate colleges, and equally important effective communication with science writers who are our only direct link to the public that is asked to support our research with their taxes.