Podcasts about ted wells

0:45 – Franchise tag window opens today6:50 – Bengals aim for long-term deals with Chase, Higgins, Hendrickson14:50 – Micah Parsons confident a deal will be done17:35 – Is Trevor Lawrence still on the trade block?26:15 – Netflix wants Sunday afternoon NFL package32:50 – Richie Incognito's problem should be with Ted Wells, not the media who reported on the scandal

This week's podcast review is The Metal Detective a mesmerizing cyberpunk noir murder mystery that seamlessly blends elements of Blade Runner with the intricate storytelling of an Agatha Christie novel. If you would like your podcast reviewed - or would like to guest on my show please get in touch. Reviewed by Kev - Tea in the Sahara  teainthesahara.com Instagram - tea_in_the_sahara Credits: The Metal Detective is based on the original motion picture screenplay, written by Andrew Hilton. Audio-drama adaptation written by Forest Robin Directed by Forest Robin Original music composed by Witewolf Produced by James Walker and Forest Robin Co-produced by Charles Hewitt and Nancy Lanham Starring: Chelsea Spirito as Detective Jack Irons Kiara McCarthy as Rachel Curry, Jamie Fishback as Detective Schumann Deborah Robin as Helen Irons / Various, Craig Sherman as Mr. Arthur Brandi Nicole as Scarlett Drummond, Michal Connor as Detective Matthew Grimes Chris Levine as Richard Knowles, Elizabeth Eden as Amanda Jeremy Cohenour as Duffy Barnes, Ted Wells as Senator Wallace / Various Tonnacus McClain as Steven Crow Nico Hewitt as Lucas Teller, Tabitha Walker as Jill Teller, Charles Hewitt as Erik Cromwell, Deanna Anthony as News Anchor Lauren Bookman Additional voices performed by: Bryan Carroll, Erik Walker, Logan Brown, Andrew Hilton, Edward Audi, Ripley Hilton Nancy Lanham, Edison and Beckham Walker, Sylvie and Oriana Robin, Anthony Walker James Walker and Forest Robin, Associate Producer Jamie Fishback Sound Design by Nico Hewitt Sound Engineering and Dolby Atmos mixing by Charles Hewitt Recording Engineer Denis Cecan, Recording Assistant Rachel Montrenes Recorded at OPUS Recording Studio, Sound Services provided by Mirror Studios Final audio mastering and immersive sound certification provided by IAX Artificial Intelligence voice auditions and performances and bookings provided by Replica Studios and Eleven Labs Sound Effects and Licensed Music from Artlist.io  

In January 2015, Tom Brady and the New England Patriots became the center of another cheating scandal. It was alleged that the footballs used in the AFC Championship Game against the Indianapolis Colts had been underinflated. After a thorough, four-month investigation, Ted Wells released a 243-page report on his findings. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

词汇提示1.ballet 芭蕾舞2.tap 踢踏舞3.toddler 学步的儿童4.tenor 男高音5.octaves 八度音阶6.half-brothers 同母异父的兄弟7.stardom 明星地位8.nanny 保姆9.governess 家庭女教师10.tragedy 悲剧11.tumor 肿瘤12.Dame 女爵士原文Julie AndrewsJulie Andrews, born Julia Elizabeth Wells, was born on October 1, 1935.She lived in a small town called Walton-on-the-Thames in England, which is south of London.Her father Ted Wells was a teacher, and mother Barbara was a pianist and piano teacher.She also played piano for her sister's dancing school.Julie learned ballet and tap as a toddler from her Aunt Joan Morris.When Julie was four, her parents divorced and Barbara married Ted Andrews (a performer during the war and an excellent tenor).At seven years of age, Julie had an unbelievable range of four octaves.She soon changed her last name to "Andrews," the last name of her stepfather.As she grew older, Julie became one of England's most popular performers.In early childhood, Julie loved to play with her two younger half-brothers, but soon went on to stardom.At age twelve, Julie was cast in a London play and stopped the show with her remarkable talent.She starred in many different BBC productions during the forties.Later, she starred in many Broadway plays such as The Boyfriend, My Fair Lady, and Camelot.It was the latter play that Walt Disney made a special trip to New York to see, and he decided then and there that Julie was perfect for the role of Mary Poppins in the film of the same name.Mary Poppins was the high-spirited, magical nanny of Jane and Michael Banks, two small British children.Julie also starred in many other films, such as The Americanization of Emily, Hawaii, Thoroughly Modern Millie,and my personal favorite, The Sound of MusicIn this production she plays Maria, the lively governess of Austrian Naval Captain Georg von Trapp's seven children:Liesl, Fredric, Louisa, Kurt, Brigitta, Marta and Gretl.Another of Julie's talents is writing.Two of her best-known books are The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles, and Mandy.Julie also has five children.A daughter, Emma Kate Walton, from her marriage to Tony Walton;four children from her second marriage to Blake Edwards, two of whom were from Blake's previous marriage,Jennifer and Geoffrey; and two who were adopted from Vietnam, Amy and Joanna.In 1998, tragedy struck Julie.She lost her extraordinary talent for singing due to surgery on her throat in order to remove a benign tumor.A year later, she made an attempt to sing again; however, her voice will never be the same.Julie has recently been on Britain's Royal Honor List and is now a Dame.翻译朱莉·安德鲁斯朱莉·安德鲁斯出生于1935年10月1日，原名朱莉娅·伊丽莎白·威尔斯。她住在英国泰晤士河畔一个叫沃尔顿的小镇，位于伦敦以南。她的父亲泰德·威尔斯是一名教师，母亲芭芭拉是一名钢琴家和钢琴教师。她还为姐姐的舞蹈学校弹钢琴。朱莉还是个蹒跚学步的孩子，就从她的姑姑琼·莫里斯那里学习芭蕾舞和踢踏舞。朱莉四岁时，她的父母离婚了，芭芭拉嫁给了泰德·安德鲁斯（战争期间的一名演员，也是一名优秀的男高音歌唱家）。朱莉七岁时，就有令人难以置信四个八度音阶的音域。她很快把自己的姓改成了“安德鲁斯”，这是继父的姓。随着年龄的增长，朱莉成为英国最受欢迎的演员之一。小时候，朱莉喜欢和两个同母异父的弟弟一起玩，但很快就成为了明星。12岁时，朱莉出演了伦敦的一部戏剧，并停止了具有非凡天赋的演艺。她在四十年代出演了许多不同的BBC节目。后来，她出演了许多百老汇戏剧，如《男朋友》、《窈窕淑女》和《卡梅洛特》。华特·迪士尼专程去纽约看了后一部戏，他当时就觉得朱莉非常适合在同名电影中扮演玛丽·波平斯。玛丽·波平斯（Mary Poppins）是简和迈克尔·班克斯（Michael Banks）这两个英国小孩的意气风发的神奇保姆。朱莉还出演了许多其他电影，如《艾米莉的美国化》、《夏威夷》、《彻底现代化的米莉》和我个人最爱的《音乐之声》在这部影片中，她饰演玛利亚，奥地利海军上校格奥尔格·冯·特拉普的七个孩子的活泼家庭教师：丽莎、弗雷德里克、路易莎、库尔特、布里吉塔、玛塔和格蕾特。朱莉的另一个天赋是写作。她最著名的两本书是《最后一只神奇的瓦多多》和《曼迪》。朱莉还有五个孩子。与托尼·沃尔顿结婚后的女儿艾玛·凯特·沃尔顿；她与布雷克·爱德华兹第二次婚姻中的四个孩子，其中两个来自布雷克的前一次婚姻，詹妮弗和杰弗里；还有两个是从越南收养的，艾米和乔安娜。1998年，悲剧袭击了朱莉。为了切除良性肿瘤，她做了喉部手术，因此失去了唱歌的天赋。一年后，她再次尝试唱歌；然而，她的声音永远不会一样了。朱莉最近被列入英国皇家荣誉名单，现在是一位女爵士。

Have you ever been handed a feature to build rather than a problem to solve?Have you ever built a feature touted as the next big thing only to find out that it was never used or needed?On this episode, Senior Scrum Master Ted Wells joins Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Agile Coach Om Patel as they talk about building the wrong thing.0:00 Topic Intro0:35 Product-Led and Sales-Led Organizations4:14 Visionary-Led Organizations6:59 Working Backwards11:03 Arguing Against16:10 Order-Taker or Waiter Product People20:43 The Need for Refactoring26:28 The Challenge with Technical POs34:30 Measuring "Failure"43:29 One Week Sprints52:05 Incentives and Illusory Progress56:37 Wrap-Up= = = = = = = = = = = =Watch it on YouTube...and subscribe to our YouTube Channel!= = = = = = = = = = = =Apple Podcasts:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596Google Podcasts:https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5idXp6c3Byb3V0LmNvbS8xNzgxMzE5LnJzcwSpotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3Amazon Music:https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/ee3506fc-38f2-46d1-a301-79681c55ed82/Agile-PodcastStitcher:https://www.stitcher.com/show/agile-podcast-2= = = = = = = = = = = = AA78 - Building the Wrong Thing, with Senior Scrum Master Ted Wells

In this episode Skip & Big Jim sit down with Garret Walker (owner of Quack Rack) and Ted Wells (outdoor photographer and social media guru). We learn how Garret went against the grain to build and grow Quack Rack into an iconic industry brand. We'll also hear about how this dynamic duo likes to travel to 'fowl, and had a legendary run-in with Coors Light. Crack a cold one and settle in for the show!

Jeff and Andy are joined by outdoor photographer Ted Wells. The guys discuss the past waterfowl season in Montana, Ted's photos on the cover of the Wildfowl magazine, his hunting trips for the upcoming waterfowl season, and how he maintains peak physical performance during hunting season.

Modern-day Renaissance woman Yolanda Rabun ’90 is joined in conversation with Holly Tente ’23.  Their inspirational conversation covers a lot of ground.  With their shared passion for social justice, they speak about how Holy Cross inspires them to work hard and make change in their own communities. Interview originally recorded on February 24, 2021. Due to the ongoing effects of the pandemic, all interviews in season 2 are recorded remotely. --- Yolanda: ... always pursue excellence in the sense that you are not afraid to try something new and you are not afraid to push the envelope to really be your authentic self and deliver all that you possibly can. Not only for yourself, but also for the school, because now you're helping the community. And that's what this is all about. That's what I think Holy Cross is all about. It's about preparing us to go out in the world to help each other become the best that we can be. Maura: Welcome to Mission-Driven, where we speak with alumni who are leveraging their Holy Cross education to make a meaningful difference in the world around them. I'm your host Maura Sweeney from the class of 2007, director of Alumni Career Development at Holy Cross. I am delighted to welcome you to today's show. In this episode, we hear from Yolanda Rabun from the class of 1990, a modern day Renaissance woman. Yolanda is a person of many talents: lawyer, executive, speaker, wife, mom, actor, recording artist, producer, and many more to come. She currently works as senior corporate counsel for IBM and credits Holy Cross for sparking her interest in computers and coding. She is also an executive sponsor for Black Girls Code, where she works to inspire the future generation of leaders. Maura: She's joined in conversation by Holly Tente from the class of 2023. Their conversation is nothing short of inspirational and offers a good boost to help you get out of bed each morning. They speak about pushing the envelope and pursuing opportunities that will cause you to change and grow into the person that you are meant to become. They share advice for how to hold onto your dreams and persevere during hard times. With their shared passion for social justice, they speak about how Holy Cross inspires them to work hard and make change in their own communities. Yolanda's personal journey offers a wonderful example of the difference that you can make when you don't wait for things to happen to you. Instead, happen upon things. Holly: Hello, everyone. Welcome to Mission-Driven. My name is Holly Tente and I'm joined by Yolanda Rabun. Yolanda, how are you doing? Yolanda: I am fantastic Holly. It's so good to talk to you. Holly: It's great to talk to you too. Oh my gosh. I don't know about you, but this week has been quite the week. It's been incredibly busy and I think that I'm really starting to suffer from not having a spring break soon. My goodness. Have you been finding that too with your work? Yolanda: I have been finding that this week has been a challenge, but I think it might be because we are close to spring, and not far enough away from winter to appreciate either of the two, because they're both great seasons to be in. I think our entire lives are run in seasons and each one has its purpose and we're probably both in the middle trying to get from one to the next and as a result, it just presents challenges. So the good news is we just have to get through them, figure them out. Holly: Exactly. How would you say that you stay motivated as we go through this transition? Yolanda: Part of my motivation is being alive. I think in the times that we live in having such a high number of people who have left this earth you are constantly reminded of the preciousness of life and that's my motivation. It is that I need to take advantage of every single moment that I have been blessed to live and not squander it on wishing for what is completely out of my control. And or hoping for something that is just not mine or ready for me to have. Holly: Yes. I've been trying to live through that as well, especially I'm one of those students that's been remote for a very long time now. And I've found that with the lack of a social life, I've definitely been feeling kind of down at certain points, especially during a dreary month like February. So I really appreciate those words, Yolanda and speaking of Holy Cross, have you found that your motivation and your own mission has been influenced by what Holy Cross taught you? Yolanda: Oh, yes. When I came to Holy Cross, I was 17 years old and I was in a moment of figuring out who Yolanda is, but also extremely excited about who Yolanda could become and extremely excited about just doing something different and new, because I was from Atlanta and I've never been to Massachusetts and I've never been a wealth of snow that was pretty calm or even been in a colder climate. I had never been in an atmosphere where everything was hilly and that you would get your exercise just walking from one side of the campus to the other, all these things were new. And so I think I was intrigued by the newness of what was before me, but also slightly curious and maybe even potentially afraid of what I didn't know. Holly: Right. Well, I definitely can feel that, I'm just a sophomore right now and I very clearly remember what it was like when I did arrive on the hill. Thankfully it was under more normal circumstances, but that experience was definitely a very different one for me, even though I am from a similar climate. There were a lot of new things that I had to take on very quickly and I think... Yolanda: So that is Holy Cross, right? If you think about what is Holy Cross, you have along with your classmates experienced an amazing opportunity to embrace change and it didn't have to do with your age or your culture or your background. It had to do with a life circumstance. And I can't say that in any generation you just can't wait for that big thing to happen. But when it does, what a beautiful time I feel it is for you to be in school where you can learn how people adapt and learn how people do not adapt and figure out new ways to make it work for you. And in a sense it's global, right? Because it is an opportunity not only for Holy Cross to really step up to its mission of teaching and allowing you to learn in the most diverse environment you can learn in. Yolanda: But what an experience it is to be able to almost be in a safe place. And I feel like my experience at Holy Cross was exactly that. I didn't have that monumental life circumstance, maybe the World Series was won in Boston when I was there and that was a pretty big deal. But for all intents and purposes, I just remember being in a space where I was given an opportunity to figure out how to grow up and I felt safe in the sense that Holy Cross gave me an amazing teaching environment and also an amazing group of people that were diverse, that I can learn from and then all these other great things that I can get involved in that. Yolanda: I think that's probably why I got so involved at Holy Cross because I was learning, I came in being a cheerleader because I had been a cheerleader all my life following the purposes. So I knew what that was. And I went in to do what I normally do. And the story is that when I auditioned, I didn't make it. And so that was a huge first life lesson for me to not make that squad, but also to ask the question, why? To learn from that experience to really understand how to be patient in a moment where I knew what I knew and then I didn't. Holly: I remember when you shared the cheerleading story, I was at your event that was hosted by Women in Business recently. And I was just so taken aback because the lesson that you drew from it was that it's important to be kind and patient, but also to respect others and to not become arrogant, I think was what lesson you were trying to have us draw from that. And as someone who I believe is as accomplished as you are Yolanda, I'm sure... Not, I'm sure, but I think that hearing that from you was just really amazing because I think that it's a lesson that we all overlook because we're all working towards something bigger than ourselves. And I think that it's important to stay humble and, yeah. So I really appreciate you sharing that. And I think that we can talk about that lesson as we get into your career a little later, but before we move on, I'd really love to hear about what else you were involved in during your time on the hill. Yolanda: Okay. So when I was at Holy Cross, I was a cheerleader. I was an RA as well as a head RA and I was a senior interviewer. I was in a group called SPUD. I'm not sure if it's there anymore. Holly: SPUD is still very much alive, still very much going. Yolanda: Yeah. I loved SPUD and then I was... I'm going to say this and it may sound crazy, but I was a part of work study. And the reason why I look at it as something being involved in is because my work study job and I had several of them, but the one that I loved the most was, I was a clerk for the audio visual department. And it was there that I actually found my love for computers and my love for coding. And it is eventually what led me to the realization that IBM is where I was supposed to be. So I think I hold that job near and dear to me. And then I am a member of the Honors Program. So I graduated with honors from Holy Cross having been a student in the Honors Program and writing a thesis for my graduation. Holly: Right. And what was that thesis on? I think if I remember correctly, it was quite a unique thesis. Yolanda: So my thesis was on Black women in the 19th century and the politics of race, sex, and class. And my approach in doing the thesis was to come from a political science perspective, that was my major. But also I had the benefit and the joy of having B. E. McCarthy is one of my advisers. And so from an English perspective and also he was in charge of the African-American history program that we had at the time. I kind of had him as one of my advisors. I loved that project because it was really mission-driven to who I became and what my purpose was on the campus. And it was, I felt congruent with Holy Cross's purpose, right? Because Holy Cross said that it was in the pursuit of excellence in teaching and learning and in research. And so part of becoming Yolanda was researching who Yolanda is, and I was and still am an African-American woman. And I wanted to know more about me. Yolanda: I didn't learn a lot in high school from that perspective because I went to a school of the performing arts. And so I was heavily in my arts when I was in high school. So when I came to college, it was a perfect time to find out my own history and to figure out how to insert my history in every single class I could possibly insert it in to understand how I fit in. And so when it came down to doing the thesis or what topic I would pick, I thought there's some Black girl magic before it was even created in the U.S. later. There's some Black girl magic in knowing these women who came before me who studied politics, who had to deal with the issues of race, sex and class. And so I chose that topic. And then with my background in the performing arts, I not only wrote the thesis, but I also wrote a play from the thesis that was presented as a part of my presentation. Holly: Do you remember any of the students that acted in that play? Are you friends with any of them now, still? Who was in it? Yolanda: I do remember some of the folks as a matter of fact, they're dearest friends of mine now, Jacqueline Abercrombie, Lorraine Lane, Tonya Baskin. I had members from the football team who were in my play. And I had friends who were in the audio visual department who helped me because a part of it was a multimedia presentation. Not only was there acting, and I sang throughout it but I also narrated it. I also had film, so we had film going on and so some of my actors were actually recorded as a part of the presentation. I think we introduced multimedia entertainment way ahead of it's time. Holly: You should have trademarked it. It sounds like you were so ahead. I'm from Rhode Island and I've been to shows that the Gamm and Trinity Rep, and they've just started to really make their shows like that and use film and overlay slides and stuff. Wow. And you were doing that in 1990. Yolanda: So three years ago we introduced audio visual. And part of that was the beauty of Holy Cross, because I dreamed that big. And instead of saying to me, no, no, no, we only do it this way, or we've never done it that way. They said, what do you have? And that's probably why I'm near and dear to Holy Cross as I am, because it was at a time when I was growing up, when I was finding myself that I was not given limitations. And I think any institution that has any value to who it is and what its purpose is to any individual in this world, it is to make sure that they don't squander away creativity or prohibit really things to unfold as the universe designed them to unfold. Holly: I think as a current student, I can speak to that and I think Holy Cross has maintained that mission that you just outlined. I'm studying history, obviously it's my major, but I'm doing a CIS minor in film right now. And I've found that even though I'm one of about five people that do the film studies minor every year at the school, there are so many different resources. And if there's something that Holy Cross cannot provide for me directly, there are so many places that they put me in the direction of. And I know I got in touch with Connor who put me in touch with you, and here we are right now. Yolanda: No, really, because we talk all the time and I love that. And you just reminded me that when I was preparing for my thesis, I asked Holy Cross to help me really just find other sources of information outside of what was in the library to understand about Yolanda, Black Yolanda, Black history. And Holy Cross sent me to a retreat that I will never forget for as long as I live, because at that retreat I met Betty Shabazz, who is Malcolm X's wife. I met her in person. I met Sonia Sanchez who is a poet. And that was really important because a part of my poem or presentation was in the form of a poem. Although it was written in script form, it had verse in it. And so Sonia Sanchez being close to her, listening to her speak and her feel moments, I thought I had won the lottery to be honest. Yolanda: And I got the privilege of talking about me and teaching other people about me. And it was because Holy Cross gave me that opportunity. So I always encourage other students of color, especially. And I think I had some influence perhaps on the classes that came behind me to always pursue excellence in the sense that you are not afraid to try something new and you are not afraid to push the envelope to really be your authentic self and deliver all that you possibly can, not only for yourself, but also for the school, because now you're helping the community. And that's what this is all about. That's what I think Holy Cross is all about. It's about preparing us to go out in the world to help each other become the best that we can be. Holly: Well, that was really amazing to hear. And I think that you truly did have an effect on classes to come, especially with building a legacy. And I think even speaking for myself, one of the reasons we got in touch was because Conner class of '92 put me in touch with you, because we were putting together a little event called The Good Trouble Series, which has now kind of taken off at the college. And if you haven't seen The Good Trouble Series, it was an initiative started by myself and another student in the history department and is currently being co-organized by members of SGA and then the two current chairs of the BSU, Jordyn Shubrick and Meah Austin. And we really wanted to have an event which focused around Holy Cross' racial history. And we wanted to do this through as early as the school's history dates back. And that's why we had professor Doughton as our keynote speaker to talk about our native American history, in addition to our racial, Black history specifically. Holly: And then we were able to have Art Martin and Ted Wells come on and talk about forming the BSU. And then we had Yolanda as well, and she was talking about her experience in the late 80s, early 90s. And it was just a really amazing event. And I think that if not for so many strong voices on our campus, we wouldn't have gotten to the place that we are today. And I think that it speaks volumes to Holy Cross, that we're able to come together. And obviously many institutions right now are having conversations about anti-racism and improving climate so that everyone feels welcomed. But I think that we're able to have opportunities on campus where we have those conversations, but we're able to have initiatives that actually accomplish something. And I know I'm incredibly grateful for that. Yolanda: Well, that's what I love about you, Holly. And also the class that you're in, which is why I want to encourage you when you go through a February that appears to be dreary or any other days that are going to come your way, that you stay focused on what the bigger purpose is. And I think when you do that, then you will lend yourself even more freely to social justice, to racial justice, to just justice in general. I know that it was an honor to be a part of that program. And I remember gravitating to you afterwards and saying, I like you, you should stay connected, but you said the same thing. Right? Holly: I did. It was definitely mutual. I've really enjoyed this connection and what we've been able to chat about. And you're a very good friend of mine now. That's what I'll say. So obviously we've talked a lot about Holy Cross and your experience on campus and the lessons you learned. I have a question for you just about IBM and where you are now. So how would you say the principles that you developed at college helps you when you enter the workforce and how you got to where you are now? Yolanda: So, Holy Cross for me was a learning field to understand different personalities, from men, women, northerners, southerners, just every walk of life diversity wise. And I take all of those experiences with me to work every day. And I literally, when I see a person respond a certain way, I'll go, Oh, that was Tom back in the day. I'll put in my brain, really who that personality reminds me of and how I responded at Holy Cross or how someone else responded and notably if I liked their response or not, or what I would do differently. And then I navigate through the issue, or maybe even the joy of the moment. So I feel like Holy Cross gave me an opportunity to study people. And it sounds perhaps a little bit facetious to say so, because obviously you can do that anywhere. But the uniqueness of Holy Cross is the diversity of people that were on the campus. And I always employ new students and anyone who will hear me that as you enter college, take advantage of really what is before you, which is this beautiful microcosm of people that are not necessarily like you. Yolanda: And even if they are like you, find out what's different, find the difference, find the variety and then learn from it. Because when you do that, you not only will take that skillset with you to adjust through college, but you take it with you into life. And if it doesn't apply to you, you may apply to someone you know. So I've often found myself even in the company at IBM seeing a scenario and knowing I had never experienced that personally, but I've seen it. So let me tell you what I've learned from where I've seen that and how you might address that situation. And it doesn't even have to be with race or deal with sex as far as male, female. You could just be a simple someone raising their voice and you don't like how that scenario turned out, but I've seen exactly that somewhere before. Let me tell you what I saw and what you could think about, that's what I learned from Holy Cross. And that's what I take with me from Holy Cross. And I value it. Holly: I definitely understand what you mean on the diversity of just anyone and everyone. I've met all sorts of people in my time at Holy Cross. And perhaps I met people like them even before I was at the college. And it's really interesting when you're moving forward in life and you're chatting with these people in the future. And you're like, Oh, this is someone that I knew from my monster rock class or something. I think it was a different curriculum when you were a freshmen, but it's just, I totally understand what you mean in that sense. And I think with IBM, my next question for you would be about 2021 and what projects you're working on and what you have coming down the line right now. Is there something that you're especially excited for? Yolanda: The project that I'm working on at IBM, I am actually serving as an executive sponsor for Black Girls Code, which is a non-profit organization that was dedicated to advancing opportunities and experiences for young Black women in the area of coding, whether it is in websites or mobile applications and what have you. And right now we're working on a project where we're introducing the opportunity for young girls to go through design thinking exercises, to come up with a problem that might address issues related to climate control and also racial justice issues. And so I'm pretty excited about that, especially because last year in 2020, I got involved in an open source project and actually contributed to an open source project on an application called Five Fifths Voter, that was designed to bring information to anyone who might've been disenfranchised ever, understand better their rights to vote and where to vote and why that vote is so important. Yolanda: So for me, that's a social justice issue that affects not just people of color, but the elderly, the poor. And again, if you think about it, that goes right back to what we are about at Holy Cross, which is helping our society connect to each other so that we are dealing with some of the, I don't know, inhumane conditions that we've created for ourselves that don't necessarily have to exist. So at IBM, as much as I'm involved in the law and quantum computing and artificial intelligence and many transactions with large universities. And I manage a team as a matter of fact, at IBM, who is responsible for all the contracts that come out of our research division. I think what gets me excited is that opportunity to give back to the community and give back through the auspices of the talent we have at IBM and the ability hopefully to train our future bosses in tech to come and join us. Holly: I mean, that's all you can really ask for. And it sounds like the initiative that you're forming, even though it's IBM, it's still sounds grassroots. And it sounds like it has really amazing core values, which I think is all you can ask for when you start a movement like that. And I think what I would wonder, and perhaps people listening are wondering about how perhaps when you don't have a platform where you're running a project, can you get involved with an idea, how do you get started in making change? Yolanda: I think the best way to get started is to apply yourself to the opportunities that you have. And what do I mean by that? I mean, when you come to college, you have an opportunity to pick courses and in different areas that you might want to study in, pick them with some sense of passion, that the subject matter intrigues you and then do the work, do it well, because what happens is when you are focusing on you and doing the work, those opportunities, those ideas, they come to you. Remember I said earlier that it was doing work study, that I started getting introduced to coding and computers, and that got me excited. It was a work study job. And yet this thing that came out of that exposure got me excited. So that over the course of time I have taken that thing that gets me excited and applied it. Yolanda: And the joke in IBM for me is that I have been involved with Black Girls Code for some time now, but it was probably about five years before I was in a position to say, let's do this. And in a sense that not only did I say let's do it, I said, I'll drive. I've been around long enough to know a little bit about that organization to know about IBM. And so how can I help us both meet our goals? I think that's strategic thinking. And I think that strategic thinking comes from my experience at Holy Cross of not only getting the opportunity to study in different areas, but then taking that information, that data and applying it to a larger cause and getting it done that's, I feel something I learned at Holy Cross and I've taken with me in life. Holly: I don't know anyone else listening is feeling this way, but I feel like I'm just getting the best, I don't know, pump up but it's midweek right now when we're filming this but I have just had the most slow, crazy day coming into this. And every time Yolanda and I chat, when we're not being recorded, I guess, I think that I always leave a conversation with Yolanda feeling as though I've learned a valuable lesson. And I truly mean that. And I hope that people listening right now feel the same way, because there's so much in terms of advice. There's so much in terms of just general enthusiastic language that Yolanda is putting out there for everyone right now. And I know personally, when you really do try to tap into your passions, good things happen. Holly: And I know personally, this past semester I was actually doing New York Semester Program, obviously remotely due to COVID, but I was a sophomore during the program. I was the first ever they accepted into the program and I was able to produce a documentary on reconstruction and I met Yolanda right as I was working on the doc. And I don't know, it's just, if you really want to achieve what you desire in the future, and if you really want to better the lives of others, it's possible. And if you have a home sense of justice like Yolanda does. And like, I think I have then you can really achieve anything. Yolanda: I 100% agree with that. And I think that the lesson is when you come into Holy Cross or while you're at Holy Cross, that you never lose sight that you are in a learning environment and that you never, if you can get a sense of entitlement, that someone owes you something, because I don't know that that is true, that the college owes you anything except the environment, the positive environment to learn, the positive environment to teach others about who you are and the positive environment to research and find out more than you've ever known before. Yolanda: If you go with that mindset that you want to grow, that you're not waiting, this is what I always tell people, that you're not waiting for things to happen to you. You're happening on things. When you go with that particular mindset, you're always going to win. I came into Holy Cross looking for Yolanda and I left Holy Cross knowing Yolanda better than I knew before. And I left Holy Cross with a community of Black friends, I had never known before who taught me about Yolanda. And I left with a community of friends that taught me how to navigate the world. And that is priceless. Holly: I think that you're completely right Yolanda. I would love to talk about theater in a moment, but before we move on, what advice would you have specifically for students that are currently attending Holy Cross? So for all students, regardless of class year, I mean, if you have a specific message for seniors versus freshmen versus sophomores or juniors, then definitely go right ahead. But I know at least for myself, it's been really difficult getting through these past couple of weeks and we're tired. And I think that it's starting to show. Yolanda: I think I would say to you to hold on to your dreams and what I mean by that is in the process of your uncertainty, whether it's a new freshmen and you don't know what's ahead of you or a senior, and you don't know what's ahead of you that you remember what sparked you to come to Holy Cross in the first place and what sparked your interest while you were at Holy Cross. So that even if in your now you're not living that dream, that you don't let it go. And rest assured that the seasons will change in life, but your dream will not. If it's a seed that's been planted in your soul, it's not going to leave you. What you must remember to do is to not leave it. And the way you basically do that is hold on to it and make plans on how you could possibly get back to that thing that you love. Yolanda: I left Holy Cross to go to law school because I was going to be a lawyer. And while I was at Holy Cross, I was also extremely active in the performing arts because I had done theater. And as you know, in my thesis we created this entire play with music and dance. And when I left Holy Cross, I went to become a lawyer and said, I shall put those things behind me. I am now going to be the lawyer that I am. And what I learned in my first year of law school is that when I abandoned part of me, when I let go of part of those dreams that were part of who I am, I lost part of me. And that's something I hope for no one. If there's a life lesson that I had it is, always bring your entire self to the table. And if your entire self doesn't fit at the table, ask for another chair, so that you can at least have a place holder for it until it's time for you to use your gifts. Holly: That's so great. And I definitely have had to pull up chairs a couple of times in my life. Yolanda: It's okay. It's actually okay. I think some people feel that the table has been set and that it cannot be changed. And I challenge this generation to believe that you actually can bring the chair to the table. You don't have to ask someone to bring it. You don't have to be upset because the table wasn't set the way you thought it should be set. Go get the chair and make space for your life. You asked the question, what would I want to really impart with a Holy Cross student, no matter where you are in your career at Holy Cross, I would tell you to become a life cheerleader. And what that means I believe is learn how to not only cheer others on to be the best that they can be, but cheer yourself as well. And the cheer to the extent that your life is valuable. Every moment, every mistake, every triumph, your life is valuable and never stop praising, never stop praising about who you are and who you can become. Holly: And that's how I get out of bed tomorrow morning. So thank you Yolanda. Oh my goodness, I don't know if anyone else needed that, but I needed that in that moment. So thank you very much. So obviously I can knock it into every single production that you've done, Yolanda. I know that you've also done some amazing commercials too, but that's for another day. I think I'm going to move on to my closing question, which has to do with musicals and if you need a moment to think about it, that's all right. My final question for you Yolanda is, you've often been described as a modern day Renaissance woman, and it's clear through our conversation and through your life, you've just built so many different legacies that continue to grow and continue to flourish. Holly: So I recently got into Hamilton after not wanting to get into Hamilton, because I didn't know if it would... it was the mainstream hype. I just didn't know if it would be worth it, but I did. And I do think it's great. The song, "Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story" is one that I think about a lot in my own life. And I'd asked you, how would you like people to remember Yolanda Rabun? Yolanda: In all of the thinking, I don't know if I've ever thought about that. What will people say at my funeral? I think I would like for people to know that Yolanda Rabun believed in love and in life and in the idea that anything can happen, if you let it. I think that our opportunity to excel is limitless. And I want people to know if they ever met me, if they ever heard my voice, if they ever even heard of me that they might be inspired to know that they can be anything they put their minds to, they can be anything that they believe that they can be. Yolanda: I believe that we all have a fingerprint that has been given uniquely to us. No one else has it. And that if we truly believe that and lived out our purpose, lived out our calling that this world will be a different world. I read something the other day that said, you don't have to explain to anyone or help them understand your calling because it wasn't a conference call. And that hit me because I feel if people understood that each of us has a purpose and we followed through with that purpose, our world will be a different place, it would be. Holly: And I think that I thought about this question and thank you very much. Obviously you're going to be around for a very long time after this. But that was really wonderful, thank you. Yolanda: No, I didn't feel my demise, that's okay. I didn't feel like, Oh gosh, I'm leaving us. I didn't feel that. But I think I hadn't thought about it because it's one of those things where I'm still in it, but life is just not, life is not promised. Time is not going to stand still because you say so. It's a wheel in constant motion rolling us along, telling us where to be, when to be, why to be. And we have to be episode careful to appreciate that if we manage time and stop letting it manage us, and we take advantage of today and live our lives today, as opposed to allowing other people to live through us or tell us how we're supposed to live or who we're supposed to be. If we stopped doing that. Oh gosh, okay, I get excited because we will be open now when a group of people. Yolanda: And I have to tell you when I was at Holy Cross, I felt that. I felt that moment a number of times when I was in the flow of life and I felt freedom to create, freedom to learn. I remember when I got that first A what it felt like. And I remember saying do that again. That's a freedom. That's a flow of just living life and knowing that what we can accomplish as students at Holy Cross is limitless if we apply ourselves, and we just do the work. Holly: Now for some speed round questions just before we close out. Yolanda, what was your favorite class at Holy Cross? Yolanda: History of sex. Holly: What is your favorite color and why? Yolanda: Purple, because it stands for royalty. And also because it was the school color. Holly: I love purple too. And who was your favorite professor during your time at Holy Cross? Yolanda: E. McCarthy for sure. Holly: What's the best restaurant in Worcester in your opinion? Yolanda: Sole Proprietor Holly: What is your go-to hype up song? Yolanda: Be Optimistic by Sounds of Blackness. Holly: This far in life, what has been your greatest achievement? Yolanda: My children. So I have two boys and I had them both naturally, which meant no drugs and that was huge. That was an achievement. Afterwards I asked myself, what have I done? Not picking the epidural and everything else, but believe it or not, my concept was that my four mothers did it without an epidural, so I will do, and I survived. So that was a huge achievement. Holly: Wow. So second to last question. What were your new year's resolutions or what was your new year's resolution? Yolanda: So I don't do new year's resolutions and that's just because I feel that whatever I'm going to decide for my intention for the year is not going to be subject to frivolity of what everything, the world says we should do. But what I do do, and I did do in 2021 is I designated it as my year of promise. As I have in past years, I allow words to come to me and feed me about how I feel my life is going to flow. And 2021, the word promise came. And as a result of that, much of my focus is around that concept. Holly: Well, wow. And now for the very last question of the chat, what have you learned today from this podcast? Yolanda: I have learned that I love Holy Cross way more than I talk about it. Holly: We'll put it in an ad for the school. Yolanda: No, it really is true. I believe that the pandemic has been a blessing to me because as much as I love Holy Cross and influenced by it, I don't think I've talked about it a lot. And what this allowed me to do is to reconnect and remember, and reflect more on how much of an influence Holy Cross has been in my today. And I love that and I love that I love Holy Cross. Holly: And I mean, so far I'm loving it too. And I think I'll continue to after this, we'll see. It's all good. It's all been really good so far. Well, I think that that is everything I had to ask you tonight. Yolanda, thank you so much for joining me on Mission-Driven. Yolanda: Thank you. Holly: Thank you very much for letting me host as well, Maura. This has been so much fun. Yolanda: Yeah, this has been great. Thank you for having me and take care and I can't wait to finish watching your journey. Holly: And I cannot wait to continue to see how yours unfolds and I can't wait to chat even more about the future. Yolanda: You got it. We're connected. Maura: That's our show. I hope you enjoy hearing about just one of the many ways that Holy Cross alumni have been inspired by the mission to be people for and with others. A special thanks to today's guests and everyone at Holy Cross, who has contributed to making this podcast a reality. If you or someone you know would like to be featured on this podcast, then please send us an email at alumnicareers@holycross.edu. If you like what you hear, then please leave us a review. This podcast is brought to you by the office of Alumni Relations at the College of the Holy Cross. You can subscribe for future episodes wherever you find your podcast. I'm your host Maura Sweeney and this is Mission-Driven. In the words of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, “Now go forth and set the world on fire.” Theme music composed by Scott Holmes, courtesy of freemusicarchive.org.

In this episode, Jordyn Shubrick '22 interviews Ambassador Harry Thomas '78. In their conversation, they talk about Harry's career, reflecting on some of the most memorable moments from his days serving as the US Ambassador. Their conversation showcases the enduring impact that friendships forged at Holy Cross can have on the world. Interview originally recorded on December 16, 2020.  Due to the ongoing effects of the pandemic, all interviews in season 2 are recorded remotely. --- Harry: And when you look at it representing your country, are you going to do the right thing? Easy to do the wrong thing, but are you going to do the right thing? Are you going to tell the truth? Are you going to represent our values of democracy, of free markets? Of very important freedom of speech and freedom of religion. The other thing that Jesuits I think are best at teaching us is to question authority. Don't take things for granted. Maura: Welcome to mission-driven, where we speak with alumni who are leveraging their Holy Cross education to make a meaningful difference in the world around them. I'm your host Maura Sweeney from the class of 2007, director of alumni career development at Holy Cross. I am delighted to welcome you to today's show. In this episode, we hear from Harry Thomas from the class of 1978. A member of the Holy Cross board of trustees, Harry served a long and successful career in the foreign service working in US embassies around the world before advancing through the ranks of the state department to serve as US ambassador to Bangladesh, the Philippines and Zimbabwe. A native of Harlem, Harry made his way to Holy Cross in search of a close knit community. Little did he know that his friendships from Holy Cross would continue to make an impact around the globe through his work in the foreign service. Despite all of his accomplishments, Harry is most proud of delivering the commencement address at Holy Cross in 2016. He's joined by Jordyn Shubrick from the class of 2022. In their conversation, they speak about their shared experiences as throwers on the Holy Cross track team. They also talk about Harry's career, reflecting on some of the most memorable moments from his days serving as the US ambassador. Their conversation showcases the enduring impact that friendships forged at Holy Cross can have on the world. Jordyn: Hello and welcome everyone. My name is Jordyn Shubrick, currently a junior at the college. And today I'm here with Mr. Harry Thomas class of 78. How are you, Harry? Harry: Hey, how are you Jordan? So good to see you. Jordyn: Yes. Nice seeing you too, along here on Zoom, but that's the price we pay for being in a virtual space, but all good things. Harry: Yes it is. Jordyn: Yeah. So just to kick things off, I love to hear the stories of why people chose Holy Cross. So why did you choose College of the Holy Cross? Harry: Well, I went to a large high school, 6,000 boys and two girls in New York city. And I did not thrive there. I thought it was too large so I was looking for a small college. And I visited Holy Cross during a Black Student Union weekend, met a lot of great people and felt that the environment would be perfect for me. And then I had to convince my parents. Jordyn: And how was that process of convincing your parents to go to Worcester, Massachusetts? Harry: Not easy. In fact, my father said, you know how it was, my father said, "No, you're not going. Too expensive." And that was it. And a couple of weeks later he said, "Yes, you can go." And it took many years before I found out that my mother had told him that he should let me go and they agreed. And it wasn't an easy decision because it cost them their life savings. Jordyn: Right. No, definitely. I think especially with Holy Cross being such a Jesuit school and all the values, but that price point is a lot. It is, it very much is, but I think it's so important to hear the stories of why people chose Holy Cross, because there's so many different unique experiences. But with that said, I know your time at Holy Cross you were an athlete. How was that being a student athlete on the Hill? Harry: Well, yes. I was on the track team. I threw the shot put in 35 pound weight, not as well as you, but I did have a few personal bests at Brown. It was good. A lot of people were into sports. We were very good in track and field and a lot of other sports. I also had a job working in Hogan and I look back on it and having so much time devoted to academics, athletics and working helped me focus. You couldn't afford to be too far behind. You had to keep up or you'll never catch up. And I definitely did not want to visit Father Fahey who was the Dean at that time and have to go home to my parents. That was a non-starter. Jordyn: Right, definitely. So I know you talked about having a job, but being an athlete and a student. How were you able to balance your time given that there is so much to do as a college student? You're growing into your own person, but... Harry: It was difficult. It really took, I would say into my third, fourth semesters to really learn how to do it, because as much as you say that you are disciplined, you're free for the first time. And you're interested in going to a lot of parties, hanging out with your friends and also keeping up with athletics, but also I had to work. And I had to because even though my parents paid, that meant they weren't giving me any spending money. So I wasn't on athletic scholarships so I had to work. So it was a lot and I was tired often and I did not initially utilize the weekends to study. I later learned that Saturday and Sunday mornings were a really good time to study, to write your papers and catch up, but I did not know that at the beginning. And it took time. Jordyn: Right. Definitely a big learning curve I would say. Everyone's faced with when they hit the Hill, then you got to learn how to navigate through that new space. But as you're talking, I wonder what was your biggest driver to push you both academically while you were on the Hill? Harry: Well fear. Fear of my parents, very honest. That I had to show them my transcript or whatever, I guess, report card every semester. There was no PII in those days, even if there were, I was going to have to show it to them. And they both were college graduates. In fact, my mother had a master's. So yes, my mother had a master's from NYU in social work. She had gone to Allen, HBCU undergraduate. My father went to Morris Brown after getting out of World War II. So that was extremely important in our family. And I had many members of my family I've come from a large family. My mother's one of eight, my daddy one of 10 and many in going to college and university, even grand uncles. My father's elder sister graduated from Claflin University in 1939 and a great uncle who graduated from Allen in 1916. Harry: So I was not the first. You couldn't pull a, this is so hard. So they're like, no, we did this. So that was extremely important. Luckily, even though I wasn't so fond of my high school. It was one of the three top academic high schools in New York city. So in terms of science, it was an engineering school. So sciences and math, I was really prepared. Even though I did well on the English part of the SAT and all that, in terms of learning how to write and write clearly and concisely and orally communicate, I really improved those skills through the rigors of the courses I took at the Cross. Jordyn: Right. Yeah, definitely. Holy Cross is reflection time, write papers, you have to be able to definitely be able to convey your ideas on both paper and as you speak. But as I'm starting to listen to you more and more, were there any mentors that helped you throughout your time at Holy Cross? I know you say your parents were a big influence as well. Is there any people that come to mind? Harry: So many. As they say, it takes a village and when I would go home, neighbors would give you $5, $10, a dollar and just encourage you. And that made you feel very good. Before we started at Holy Cross, Stan Grayson who is class of '72 had a bunch of us to his apartment in Manhattan. An apartment in Manhattan, I was impressed with that. How do I get one of these? But even from there on Stan was one of my closest friends and he was the groomsman in my wedding. Was able to assist me whenever I needed. There wasn't instant communications in those days. You had to call somebody which you had to pay for or writing letters as we did. But this, all we do so it was okay. But also, I remember Clarence Thomas coming to campus and talking to the Black Student Union about how we should perform. Ted Wells... Harry: So you never felt alone. Father Brooks took a great interest in all of us. Father Honore, who was the only black Jesuit, had us down every Friday to Loyola where the Jesuits lived and remember the drinking age was 18. So he taught us how to eat properly with all those forks and knives, the finger bowl, you're laughing, but those things were hard. We didn't know. But he also gave us wines, bourbon just to know. He wanted us to graduate. And there was another priest who's late now also in Campion house who would have us over. And I remember when we were about to graduate, he gave us a line book. All of this was education. There were all kinds of people there to encourage you on campus and so many programs. And we thought that in those days, just men who were graduates that those guys did it, so we could do it. We just had to figure out how they did it. Harry: They were impressive. And Eddie Jenkins also was great football player, was somebody who would come back and talk to us. And just those, whether they were formal or informal, gave you beliefs that you could do it. Of course, we were trying to change the world also. We were very activist as students are today and protest marches and things like that coming out of the civil rights move, we thought that was part of it. So yeah, and that was another great reason I chose Holy Cross because my high school was too large to have mentors and a lot of close friends. So I was able to get that at the Cross. Jordyn: Yeah, the community. Community is what it is, and I definitely think that's a very important part. And as I hear you speak, you speak about the people in part in the community which is great to hear. Switching gears a little bit, what did you major in when you were at Holy Cross? Harry: Political science. Jordyn: Oh, very nice. How was that? I'm a sociology major, so I don't take too many political science classes. Harry: I had a few Sociology courses with Dr. Imse, who's a great teacher. But political science was something I thought I wanted to go to law school and I thought that was the major that would help prepare my analytical thinking. But by the time I was a senior, I decided that I had no interest in the law. And I remember Stan Grayson telling me that the people who do best are those who love the law and I reflected, "Well, no, I don't love the law. And so let me change up." Jordyn: Right. Yeah, of course. Any favorite professors you had that sticks out in your mind? Harry: Oh yeah. Tony Kuzniewski who is later also Father Kuzniewski. He was a chaplain for athletic teams for years. But in those days he was a seminarian and he looked younger than anybody on campus. He's always mistaken for a student and I look, years later, he was prematurely gray. It was like, the hair was white, but I just remembered him looking younger than me when I was at junior or senior. But he was really good. We took a course on immigration and I was praising the Statue of Liberty and he said, "Don't you dare praise the Statue of Liberty. My ancestors were not wretched refuse." I was like, "Ooh, there are many ways to look at this." So it was one of the life lessons. You have to look at things very differently in terms of what you look. Harry: The other great professor for me was Blaise Nagy, who was in Latin and Latin literature. I took Latin for two semesters and Latin lit. I took him four times so maybe he was my favorite. He was young also. So when you're young, you want young people and he had long blonde hair and he was handsome and we used to call him Blaz Nagy, because we thought that sounded cool. And I think he retired a few years ago, but man, he was great. He was demanding, but he also explained things. If you messed up he would embarrass you in public. Has happened to some people. But I'm from New York, we can take that. We're just used to go on back at somebody. You want to go back and Blaz, but yeah, he was fantastic. Harry: And as I said, Dr. Imse, he wasn't sociology was philosophy. His course was depth. Now think about it. First thing he said is a person only dies once, but an athlete dies many times. I never forget that. An athlete dies when you pour in a meat, when you fail in a game, after you are no longer an athlete and what are you going to do with that? So those were shocking thoughts when you're 18 or 19. I wanted to go to, which I never was good enough to go to, I wanted to go to the Penn relays. You have dreams of the Olympics, no matter how unrealistic they are, but those are the dreams, right? I wasn't that good, but those things, his message on depth has helped me in so many parts of my career. Harry: You're going to fail, you're going to go up against road blocks and how do you restart? How do you get back up? And how do you get back up with thought because in my day it was like, just brush it off and get up and go. And we know mentally, we didn't even talk about mental health. That was seen as weakling, but we know that is something that's needed now. And thank goodness that we had Dr. Imse who... He was the first professor that was telling us to reflect, take time on these things. So that was important. Very important. Jordyn: Yeah, definitely. Sounds like he pushed you a lot, challenged you in different ways. I think reflecting does something, really makes you look at yourself in a different way, but also who you are becoming. And that, it sounds like what Dr. Imse and your other professors helped you do. Helped you grow throughout your years at Holy Cross. And I know you touched upon it a little bit, but as you think about your career as an ambassador, what are some of the life lessons you learned at Holy Cross that were able to transfer over in your career? Harry: Well, first of all, I wish I had taken languages wth Fr. Honore because I wouldn't have had to work so hard once I joined the foreign service, so trust me, but Honore, we only had ABCDF in those days and Honore was, a 90 was a C. Nah, not for me. So I wish I had more courage. But I think the Jesuit values is something I take very seriously and honor duty, honor country, which is West point's motto, that's important to me. We were known as the Catholic West point believe it or not. When you look at it, representing your country, are you going to do the right thing? easy to do the wrong thing, but are you going to do the right thing? Are you going to tell the truth? Are you going to represent our values of democracy, of free markets? Of very important freedom of speech and freedom of religion. The other thing that Jesuits, I think were best at teaching us is to question authority. Don't take things for granted. Harry: There were conservative and liberal Jesuits and some of the conservative ones, I really didn't like. Their opinion was different than mine, but they taught me to look at somebody else's opinion who differs with you and listen to them. Don't just try to get to change their mind because that's not going to work more often than not, but listen and try to understand where they're coming from. And instead of just jumping in and say, "Hey, you should do ABC and D." And that was part of reflection, you had to reflect and do that. But I take that the ethics and honesty, which I credit my parents for also, but from the Jesuits. They were tough. A lot of these guys were World War II veterans, like father Brooks and others. Harry: So that was extremely important. Father Markey was there. He was a Dean of men, you didn't want to see him. He was one of our greatest basketball players. But yeah, I can't undervalue the importance of ethics and honor and doing the right thing, that my parents and the Jesuits and the professors put into me. And we were honest, there were no locks on the doors in our day and no locks on anywhere. And sometimes your friends might come and take a bite of your sandwich or beer, but we just trusted people. And there was that value of trusting people and opening your eyes. Jordyn: Right. Yeah, no, definitely. And I think you hit on it perfectly, trust. I think that's so big, we talk about it nowadays. Just being able to trust in the community you're with, I think it's so important. But this question popped into my head, but the black student union. Some of the values and different things. Talk a little bit about how that was for you being on campus and like you said, you have Eddie Jenkins and Stan Grayson, you have all these wonderful people, part of the Black Student Union, and now you're being able to add to this legacy. How did you see yourself in the black student union at your time on the Hill? Harry: Well, we were young and we were advocates. We argued among ourselves a lot about different strategies, protest marches, which we did. Remember we didn't have presidents and vice, we were ministers. We were like black panthers, we were in college and that was pretend if I look back at it. But we took ourselves and those things very seriously. So we were advocating for things like more black professors, more courses that we could relate to, even food in Kimball, which I think was bad for everybody in those days. Except once a month, somebody gets steak and then once a Sunday steak and eggs, but on track team before meets you got steak. I don't think they will feed your steaks now, they look at nutrition, but everyone gets a good meal. But we really took ourselves seriously. And so many of us were involved through the Black Student Union with other things as big brothers, big sisters. And those programs that you saw are a lot of BSU members in. Several on the radio and those things, that was really important. I wish that I had joined more organizations, that I learned more things because Holy Cross offers a lot of organizations. Harry: And then one of the things I would encourage current students to do is don't listen to the thought police, follow whatever you want to do, especially things that you have never done before. My close friend, Dr. Keith Crawley from my class at position, was the first black guy I ever saw the golf club. We're like, "Oh, we don't do that." My game would have been a lot better now. But really there were clubs on economics and trade and business. I wish I had done that. One of the things I'd love to see, and at Yale where I am a senior fellow, each college has its own endowment and the students with fund managers manage it. So they learned at young age, not everybody's going to go to Wall Street, but they learn a lot of finance and nowadays with FinTech and other things being an opportunity, Holy Cross is much smaller than Yale, but some way for... We need financial literacy in minority communities first, but also about businesses. My father was a small business person and I had to work in his store all weekends and all this stuff. So I definitely want to go into business. Harry: I don't want to be a small business person, but I wish I had learned more about economics and trade, international trade those things and that was open to me, but I chose not to do it. So I encourage people to try something different. Jordyn: Yeah, definitely. I think I'm experiencing that now. Junior year you're halfway through and you're like, where's the time going? It's going by so fast. So definitely trying new things is definitely how you're going to grow, right? In those uncomfortable situations, that's when you grow the most and I think that's so important. And as we think about the Holy Cross' mission, men and women form with others, how did you see that not only at your time at Holy Cross, but throughout your career? Because I think it's such an impactful statement that it really just can carry someone throughout their challenging moments, but also in those great moments. So how did you see that mission go along with you as you grew up? Harry: Well, one of the things I learned from Father Brooks and others was don't brag when you do charity. Do it because it's the right thing or because you want to do it, but just don't tell people I'm good at this, I'm doing it. It's like me saying, I'm a good father. Well, I'm supposed to be, right? What, I want to metal for that? I signed up for this. So it's the same thing. But let me tell you Jordyn, when I was ambassador to Bangladesh and their was I visited a school for boys who had been trafficked to the middle East to be camel jockeys. And they've been rescued and brought home. Their parents didn't want them because they had been raped and these boys were five, 10 years old. And it was embarrassment to the family. There was an American woman that had an orphanage that I visited for these boys and they were overcrowded, no latrine. Harry: And I asked my classmates many of whom I met when I lived in Clark. These were all whites and dear friends of mine for funds. And they gave funds for school rooms and bathrooms. In fact, there wasn't enough initial money for the bathroom and my friend Nina Riccio on her mother built a latrine. And when I visited, they named it after her. So she still has the pictures, I think. And when I went to the Philippines, there was a place called smokey mountain where kids climb up a hill that produces gas from the refuse to get their food. The stench is unbelievable. And we work with them to have a field of dreams and baseball, softball for girls and provide tutoring. But again, I asked my friends from Holy Cross, the send baseball equipment and they did, bats, balls, gloves. Harry: And even though one of the owners of the San Francisco Giants lived in the Philippines, our outreach to him did not succeed, but my classmate who lives in San Francisco Lori Stasukelis got with the San Francisco Giants and they sent out equipment and we brought Ken Griffey Jr. there of course too to tease them. But now I moved to Zimbabwe and a Zimbabwean playwright wanted books. He wanted books on black literature, black plays. He envisioned building in a park right across my office, a theater in the park where he was using trailers. And I said, "This thing looks terrible, but let's try." And reached out to my friends most of whom this time were African-American and family and they gave the books. They gave hundreds of books that he started a library with the train playwrights. When my wife was trying to work with kids who live... There are kids will live in game parks without much clothing. Again, it was our friends from Holy Cross and along with my family who shipped clothing for these kids. So I know in so many ways I could always reach out to my school mates from Holy Cross to help people that they've never met and never will meet. Jordyn: Right. Wow. That's just amazing to hear that story. I think this is great to have this opportunity to get to know you better, but also hearing about how Holy Cross has evolved over the years, but that foundation of community and helping people will always be there. Always. Yeah, I think that's great. So as we're continue to talk about your amazing career, what is one of the most memorable moments you can think about? And I know there's a lot, because you did great things, a lot of different things. So if you could pinpoint one or a couple, I would love to hear about that. Harry: Well, I'll try to give you three briefly. One was working at the White House on 9-11. Maybe I shouldn't even be here today if that plane going into the White Houses as planned and surviving that and then going with Secretary Powell to Kabul, Afghanistan within five months and seeing that embassy maintained, reopened, and being scared on the helicopter ride from Bagram Airport to Kabul, but seeing the embassy had been maintained and Powell wanting to give people rewards and the Afghans said, "Okay, but there are no women deserving." And he goes, "Okay, that's cool. No women, no rewards." They produced all the women who had worked, so don't compromise on things like that. And that was secretary Powell, but I worked for Dr. Rice in the White House. Wonderful person. In the Philippines, our United States Agency for International Development, which is our lead humanitarian agency, their director came to me and said that there were over 4,000 women dying each year from bleeding in the uterus after they give birth. Harry: In America and the developed world they get a drip that prevents the bleeding and costs a dollar a day, but people couldn't afford it. They had a dollar, they spent it on the other things. And we know what happens to boys and girls who lose their mothers at a young age, their lives are wrecked. And most of these would not be first time parents. So we work with an American pharmaceutical company and the Philippine government and we came up with a shot, a syringe that could go in the fatty part of anybody's body, woman after she gave birth, they chose to use midwives. And now we're saving several thousand people's lives each year. A fun thing was in June, 2012 we brought the president of Philippines to meet president Obama. And the night before, we were very worried about China and the Philippines going to war. Harry: And we did something that you don't see a lot. But we were in the Mandarin Oriental hotel in DC for a meeting and we cleared out the kitchen and we met with the president of the Philippines and some of his cabinet in this kitchen. And when I was there in the kitchen, I learned that the New York Football Giants who were world champions were coming to the White House that day. And they were like, "Oh wow, that's sweet." So, went upstairs and there were two of my Filipino American friends waiting for me and we have a drink and we spied Linda Johnson Rice of the then Ebony magazine, the publisher. And one of the women with me Lloyda Lewis, her husband Reginald Lewis was the first African American billionaire. Harry: And he had been in the magazine but she had never met him. Today if you go to the African-American history museum, you will see her name right next to Oprah as a largest donor. You go to Baltimore and you see the Reginald Lewis museum African-American history that she built. So I went over to Ms. Johnson rice and said, "Hi, my name is Harry Thomas. I'm the US ambassador to Philippines." And she just goes, "That's nice." Put her book up in front of her face and totally diss me. So what could I do, but slink away. And so the next day when we were doing the pre-brief with President Obama, he said, "Harry, why are you smiling so much?" I go, "Because Mr. President, the Giants are coming." And he says, "You want to them?" And I said, "Yes, sir." He says, "Okay, after the meeting, you can meet them." Harry: Now I didn't care what they said in the meeting. I wanted to meet my Giants. And after the meeting, he said, "Come on." And he grabbed my hand. I had to run out of the oval because you can't bring electronic equipment. I had my iPad in there, so I had to run and get that and he took me out, grabbed my hand, President of the United States and took me out to the garden and were next to Attorney General Holder and General Odierno and put me in the front row. So another life lesson, somebody disses you, but the person next to you, the most powerful man in the world had time to be kind to you. So we always have time to be kind to people. Jordyn: Wow. What a remarkable... That's amazing. President Obama. Had you met him before? Was that your first time? Harry: No, I had read him several times before, but it's always intimidating when you meet any president. You're never quite calm. I remember when I worked for president Bush, you'd go into the oval office, my feet always felt they were burning. No matter how many times I went in and after 9-11, because I was working on South Asia, I was in there a lot. And Dr. Rice would always leave you in there alone, brief the president United States one-on-one. And that would be a little nervous. So I can't tell you especially the first time you going there, you're not paying attention. You're like, "I'm from Queens and I'm here. I was born in Harlem, I'm here and I'm not cooking and cleaning." So it was always special. So I truly feel blessed. Jordyn: Yeah. That's amazing. I mean, I get nervous track meets you get in the circle, you just get stomach drops, but being in the White House, I don't know how that feeling feels, but I'm assuming it's a little bit of the same. Harry: Yeah. You know the anxiety before meet even when you wake up, even when you try to go to sleep early, you wake up that day, you have anxiety, even though you're trying to pump yourself up and be calm. It doesn't matter how many practice, that first throw relaxes you, kind of, right? Jordyn: Right, exactly. Harry: When the meet's over is when you're like, "Ah, yeah. It's Miller time." So that's the same thing and that never has you just got to do it a little better as you get along, but that anxiety. When you talk to Ken Griffey Jr. And others they said big moments, they always had anxiety. They had to hold themselves back from swinging at a pitch quick because they were so anxious and amped up. And I was like, "Wow, that happened to Ken Griffey?" I couldn't compare myself but I was like, man. Jordyn: Yes, of course. That is great. Great to hear that story. So thank you for sharing that. I think you touched on it before, you said you wish you took languages at Holy Cross. So how are you able to get over those challenges? Because they say it's not easy to learn a language past a certain age, it's better to learn them be the young. So how were you able to learn three, right? Three languages. Harry: Yeah. Again, fear. Fear of failure. In the foreign service, you have to pass these exams to keep your job. And again, I wasn't going home. But of course, when you're taking a language, especially the first one was Spanish, you really have to know English. The 14 tenses, all of that helps you, small classes... Every time I took a language, Hindi, Bengali, I studied a little Tagalog. They give you a book like you have when you were in kindergarten and with a pencil and you're starting over like a kindergartener only lower really, and so you had little books, but that's where you have to start and you quickly learn. The nouns are easy, so that's what people concentrate on. But you learn to concentrate on the verbs. But you're right about age. It's hard to have a natural accent once you get past 12 and in another language, unless you're a singer or you have good ear. So that's why you can hear a lot of singers or even rappers do songs in foreign languages. Harry: They may not have the exact, they'll have a Spanish accent, they may not have a Peruvian accent or Uruguayan accent because all Spanish, just like Americans have different accents in English, right? But they can be understood. It's like this, Jordyn, if I parachute in your hometown of Springfield, spend a weekend going around talking to people, how much do I know about Springfield? I don't know jack, right? Jordyn: Right. Harry: So in my job, I really had to live in a country and learn and be able to tell people in the United States what was going on. So if I didn't speak their language, understand their culture, how was I going to do it? So, and I speak your language in Springfield, but I don't know your culture. I know New York, but Springfield a couple of hundred miles away I just don't. So imagine that when you go to a foreign country. So you've got to know their language, it's disrespect if you're unwilling to learn somebody's language, you're living in their nation. Jordyn: Yeah, wow. Harry: And culture is so different. I saw Maura had up her Christmas lights, I'm sure y'all do also. My wife's family starts celebrating Christmas September 1st. In the Philippines that's when they do it, September 1st, they start playing Christmas music. That's okay. That's just their culture. Jordyn: Right. Harry: It's cool. When I lived in Arizona and I was at Arizona State, I told the young women that, and they were like, "That's weird." I said, "It's 95 degrees and y'all are wearing boots." They go, "This is the only time we can wear boots." Well, I don't care not a big deal, but it's okay. That's what you got to do, right? Jordyn: Right. Yeah. Harry: So you have to learn what drives people and understand that you don't speak their language, you'll fail. Jordyn: Yeah. And I'm quite sure you know just learning different cultures that was probably a great experience in itself. Learning the language, but also being around the people. I would love to hear a little bit more about how you really immerse yourself in different cultures and what you got out of that. Because of course I feel like right now my view is probably a little bit one dimensional as that like you said, Springfield, Massachusetts now Holy Cross. I really haven't immersed myself in a different culture, but you've been able to do that in so many different places across the globe. Harry: Well, I was no different than you when I was your age so don't be hard on yourself. Worcester was a culture shock, Holy Cross was a culture shock, trust me. But in the State Department we have these books called culture shock and they try to teach you before you go to a country, right? Many countries you can only eat with your right hand, many countries you have to take your shoes off, different gestures. If you call somebody the way we wave at somebody like that with our hand up, that's an insult. You have to learn to call people like this. Putting your feet up can be an insults in other cultures. So those are relatively easy, it shouldn't be difficult to learn. But what they eat and what they think, eating foods that I had never eaten before or thought about initially, it doesn't bother me now, but initially that could be a challenge. And drinking water from some places that you thought weren't so clean, but I did it, but that was a challenge. And it can be very hard for women. Places where they don't want to see women in pants or short shorts or going past religious houses on Fridays and things like that, days of prayer. Harry: So you have to learn these things and also protect yourself, but understand people. So yeah, every place I go, I served, there things were very different than the United States, which is why I'm so happy I'm home from the holidays now especially, but there was always some Americans saying that was weird. And I'm like, "What do you expect? Why would you expect Zimbabwe to be like Springfield? Duh. And why did you come if you did? And why are you complaining?" That wasn't most people. When I was a junior officer, we had to visit people in jail, Americans in jail, mostly for drugs, and it was never pleasant going to jail. And one day after they threw five nuns out the building and burned one. So, in Lima, it was dangerous, but we had to learn that culture of that jail to get through those guards and everything else. So, you're constantly learning and it's easy because if you respect people as especially now, your generation wants to learn from others, everybody's equal, everybody's woke. Well, that means listening to them, right? Jordyn: Right. Harry: We had a Black Student Union, but Holy Cross by many schools has a Caribbean Students Union, African Students Union, there's Asian students and Latin X students. And they're not all the same. I have a student at Yale who was from Puerto Rico and she didn't have other students who were Puerto Ricans from Puerto Rico. It was very different. And she had never seen a Puerto Rican professor at Yale who was from Puerto Rico. So she didn't feel aligned. This year we brought some speakers to Yale, a woman, Maria Russell was a Time Magazine person of the year, lived on the same floor with Michelle Obama at Princeton and yeah, a friend of mine and she, human rights activists, but they asked us to bring her there because they said everybody you're bringing from Asia is from Japan, China, Korea. That's not all Asia. So you have to understand that. And although there's an African Students Union at Holy Cross, I hope they're United to say that Africans from 54 Sub-Saharan countries, are the same, that's folly. Harry: And I can tell you having worked in the Foreign Service and now living in Florida, Cubans, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Ecuadorians, Colombians are very different and they... I just got an email from a friend of mine from Bangladesh who lives in New York. And she's been shocked by some of the racism she's experienced this year after immigrating from Bangladesh. But she says, "Why do people lump us with blacks? We're not black. We weren't brought here as slaves. We came here for a better life. Y'all were brought here. People need to apologize, but we have our own identity." And you look at that. Ooh, but she's right. Jordyn: She is. Harry: She's right. So it's a challenge for people. People don't like strangers, no matter who they are, they don't like new people moving in their community no matter who they are. Jordyn: Yeah. And I think with everything going on in the world right now, what we saw in the summer, the racial injustices, I think what we're starting to also see and what's coming to the conversation is how diverse people are in different... You may identify as one way, but your culture might say something else. So it's important to see everyone and like you said, listen and hear their stories and their experiences because it could be completely different from yours. Harry: And you're right. This has been such a difficult year. Not just the Black Lives Matter protest, but COVID-19. And you combine that, I think we, as a people, not only the United States, but the globe are under more stress than we realize. And we don't have a tradition of mental health days or meditation. We have a tradition of prayer and we really need to increase that. But I think a lot of people are stressed and I know that... I was joking with my cousin and if my daughter was home... At 16... During COVID, it'd be war. I know that a rebellious teenager? Oh Lord, I'm glad I don't have to do that. But imagine there are places where... You are one of four, right? So some school districts in places only give two laptops out or three. What happens if your parents can't afford it? What happens if everybody doesn't have their own room and the parent's teleworking too? Harry: So not only a lot of kids, unfortunately losing critical year of school and that really hurts minorities. But they don't have the tools to catch up and those kids are under stress. We know in poor communities where there is gunfire, drugs, kids are under stress. But imagine now all of these kids throughout America under stress and Christmas season is coming. And so many people have lost their jobs and they're not going to be able to give Christmas presents or give what they wanted and when that happens, men feel that they're not living up to what was expected and we see domestic violence go up. And so he's under stress and his family that he's abusing are under stress. There's no excuse for ever touching a woman. No excuse and don't tell me, but this is what happens. And we're seeing that. And then the third world where abuse of women is rampant, I'm sure it's worse. I don't have the statistics, but it's just common sense. Jordyn: Yeah. I mean, like you said, combining a pandemic with everything that is going on, it's just... When you look at it, it's a lot and- Harry: And we had the election. Jordyn: Yes. Harry: And I'm happy to say that the side I supported won, I have no problem in saying that. But a lot of people who supported president Trump are angry believing they were cheated, believing he was the winner. And we saw some of these people, the proud boys, marching in black churches and burning down, taking down Black Lives Matter flag in DC and burning them. Now I give them no sympathy, but we know their stressed too. And that can lead down unfortunate situations. So that's another reason why prayer helps. Meditation, prayer does help. Jordyn: Yes. I'd definitely say throughout these times, I think prayer has helped me channel those feelings of frustration and sadness. Prayer has helped me leverage that time to find time to be a better daughter, a better friend, a better sister being in the home environment. And I can say I'm grateful to have a great place to come home to, but also figuring out how I can use this time not to be all upset and worried about the problem. It's like, okay, let's see what we can use this time to do. Harry: No, I applaud you for that. I know as much as I was just talking about my daughter, I know it would have been hell on me if I were at home with the rents when I was junior. That was such a funny year, not the anxiety of senior year where you're worried grad school and getting a job. And so I like to keep you and others grounded, but I know I would have been suffering. And my parents have been looking at me as ungrateful. So I applaud you for doing your best. Jordyn: I appreciate that. Means a lot. Switching gears, I actually was doing some research and I listened to your commencement address in 2016. Very well done, very well said, but out of curiosity say your older self were to say to maybe you were a junior in college, you're going to be giving a commencement address, what would you say? Harry: I didn't know. Let me tell you what happened. My wife and I went to a dinner in New York, a Holy Cross fundraiser. We just happened to be in New York and we went and Father Boroughs came and got us and said he wanted to talk to us. And he said, "Hey, didn't you get a letter to open?" I said, "I get a lot of letters." And Holy Cross I said, "No I didn't open this letter." And he says, "Well, we want you to be a commencement speaker. I was like, "What?" Really, I was shocked. So then I talked to Father Boroughs about what the subject. Just like you looked at me, I looked at others. I mean, governor Cuomo, my God, the late governor Cuomo gave to me the best of the commencement addresses I've seen all across and what an orator. Harry: And so I said, "What can I talk about?" Obviously service. Father Boroughs said, "What about a gift?" "What gift?" "The gift of a Holy Cross education." I said, "Okay, let me start working on that." So I had five months, I had to go back to Zimbabwe. I was ambassador of Zimbabwe and I had a day job. And we have speech writers, but I couldn't employ them for that. It would have been an ethical violation. So I did what I did so many times, I turn into my family and my Holy Cross friends. So Steve Scott, who best man in my wedding and best man in his, from Boston, turned to Steve and he gave me some language. My sister and daughter did, my wife said, "That's not a good speech. You're not writing a good speech, you can do better." Harry: And so I kept refining it and it, and I remembered that before I was sworn in as ambassador to Bangladesh, that I was coming from visiting friends in Maine, July 4th, in 2003. And I stopped at Holy Cross campus. It was empty. And I was on the side of the Hill between Hogan and Healey. And I sat there and I wrote my speech and I was just calm, and I just got back in the car. So I thought I had the speech almost done, but it didn't quite work. So the morning of the speech I put on my Holy Cross shirt and I went to a Dunkin Donuts and I didn't want to go on campus and I rewrote it. And that's what happened. I had told them earlier, thank God I didn't, you don't want to share your speech, but Father Boroughs wanted to see it. I know he was nervous, I guess, what would I say, but I told him I wanted to do a selfie and only because he asked for the speech because otherwise I wouldn't have told them, but I'm glad I did because they had a camera behind and they sent me that photo, which is one of my favorite photos of all time to be doing a selfie at Holy Cross. Harry: But I will tell you, I have been blessed with many honors, many incredible honors in the Foreign Service and the other aspects of my life but the honor of my life was being invited to be the commencement speaker at Holy Cross, the honor of my life. Jordyn: Beautiful. We talked about nerves, I could only imagine the nerves of giving a commencement address, but also the honor that comes with it. It's amazing Harry: Every time before I speak and I don't always give a good speech, I do pray. Even as I'm walking down, I'm praying. God has been busy a few times, but most times he's been there. But yeah, it was. The speech at your Alma Mater. I hope you get that opportunity. I really do. I've spoken in other colleges, I did a commencement address at Loyola, it was exciting, my whole family came for the weekend. Everybody's in a different hotel rooms and stuff, at your Alma Mater is something. Jordyn: Yeah. It's something special. And I know you said it's a gift. You talked about the gift in your speech. You said every once in a while peek inside, take it out, use it to better the globe. So how will you continue to use your gift that Holy Cross gave you? Harry: Well, luckily I still work with some Holy Cross brothers. I work with Ron Lawson who works with Care for the Homeless. I'm a member of his board. We had a board meeting last night actually. And I've learned a lot about the homeless. So many of the homeless in New York are women who are employed. Some of the mental challenges they have, but I'm proud of Ron's work and the Care for the Homeless work they do. Similarly, I'm chair of the board of Winter4Kids, Schone Malliet, another Holy Cross alum, Marine aviator, who said the reason he does things like this is nobody ever told him no. So giving kids opportunities that I didn't have, to use winter sports. And I knew how to toboggan and throw, we had a lot of snowball fights at Holy Cross between the dorms, the elevators and everything. We were crazy toboganning, Oh my God. Harry: But I didn't know how to ski, sleigh, and I had opportunities to learn. I had no interest and giving kids at a young age the opportunity to learn winter sports, as you know, you're an athlete, it's important to be outside, learn how to be, even in winter sports there are teams, individual and team. Learn that these are great athletes. And besides I got to meet Lindsey Lohan because of Schone last year. But work with those two organizations. Friday, my wife and I are going to be helping to feed the homeless down here in Tampa. When we were in DC, we went to Gonzaga High School, which is a feeder high school for Holy Cross, a Jesuit High School. They had feeding programs for the homeless that Holy Cross alumni association would run and Gonzaga's colors are purple and white. So it felt like we were right back home. And I was always meeting people there that I didn't know, they were just Holy Cross alum trying to give back, really, really good people. And you can't neglect your family, you got to give back time and effort to your family. So I still try. I still try. Jordyn: Right. Yeah, definitely. I think that's great. Great note to end on. I think this podcast has been great. Harry, I'm so happy that we had this time. I got to know you a little bit more and hear a little bit more of your story, which is always great. But truly, truly want to say thank for your time and thank you for sharing your gift. I'll say that too. Harry: Well, thank you and Maura for this. Thanks for the gift of Holy Cross. Thank you for having me. Jordyn: Yes, of course. Thank you. Harry: AMDG. Maura: That's our show. I hope you enjoy hearing about just one of the many ways that Holy Cross alumni have been inspired by the mission to be people for and with others. A special thanks to today's guests and everyone at Holy Cross who has contributed to making this podcast a reality. If you or someone you know would like to be featured on this podcast, then please send us an email at alumnicareers@holycross.edu. If you like what you hear, then please leave us a review. This podcast is brought to you by the office of alumni relations at the College of the Holy Cross. You can subscribe for future episodes wherever you find your podcast. I'm your host Maura Sweeney and this is Mission-Driven. In the words of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, "Now go forth and set the world on fire." Theme music composed by Scott Holmes, courtesy of freemusicarchive.org.

In this episode, Meah Austin '22 interviews Danita Beck-Wickwire '94 about her time on campus and her journey after Holy Cross.  Their conversation highlights the many ways that you can engage your passions throughout your life, be it through service, hobbies or professional work. Interview originally recorded on September 4, 2020.  Due to the ongoing effects of the pandemic, all interviews in season 2 are recorded remotely. --- Danita: It's always nice to know that what you are doing will change someone's life for the better, that you will affect change in individuals and communities and make this world a better place. Maura: Welcome to Mission Driven, where we speak with alumni who are leveraging their Holy Cross education to make a meaningful difference in the world around them. I'm your host, Maura Sweeney from the class of 2007, director of alumni career development at Holy Cross. I'm delighted to welcome you to today's show. In this episode, we hear from Danita Beck-Wickwire from the class of 1994. A native of Memphis, Tennessee, Danita currently makes Baltimore her home, having also spent time in Worcester, Chicago, Mississippi, Europe and Boston. Her professional journey reflects who she is. An artist, philanthropist and volunteer at heart, her career path shows what it means to follow your heart and your passions. Maura: Beginning her career as a teacher in the inner city in Chicago, she devoted the rest of her career to supporting education and the arts through fundraising and philanthropy. She is joined by Meah Austin from the class of 2022. They first met in Meah's first semester on campus at the BSU's 50th anniversary celebration in 2018. They have kept in touch over the years and formed a wonderful mentoring relationship. Their conversation showcases the many ways that Holy Cross and its community can remain alive and active throughout your life. Meah: Hello, everyone, my name is Meah Austin, class of 2022 and I am here with The Danita Wickwire, class of '94. Fun fact before we get started, Danita is one of the first alumni I met at Holy Cross and I can tell you all that knowing her these past few years have been phenomenal. She certainly has acted as a mentor to me. Danita would you like to further introduce yourself? Danita: Yes and I'm also going to introduce you as well. Meah, thank you for joining me for this conversation and thank you for following up with me. Meah and I met at the BSU 50th anniversary celebration in November, 2018 and I met a number of students that weekend and saw old classmates and friends and made a lot of new friends. I was really impressed with Meah because she sent me an email within a week of meeting and she always stayed in touch, and I remained in touch with her, and I was delighted to have the opportunity to see a young woman following in my footsteps as a student at Holy Cross. It's not an easy school, it's rigorous, and it strives for excellence. Danita: So I wanted to be there for you and I'm honored to have had the opportunity to have mentored you in the last two years, and to continue to do so, as long as we were together, Meah. So thank you for the introduction and for joining me today. Meah: Thank you. Don't make me tear up. So, to start us off, Danita, how did you end up in Worcester, Massachusetts being that you're from Tennessee? Danita: The journey to Worcester, Massachusetts, it's funny, when I was 10 years old, I decided that I wanted to go to college in Massachusetts. Now, how in the world would a 10-year old in Memphis, Tennessee take Massachusetts? Well, my elementary school was on a college campus at the Memphis State University at the time, campus school. There were faculty families from around the world, around the nation. Everyone was college bound because we were already on a college campus. Just looking at colleges and hearing the stories of some of my classmates and their families, I realized there were many good schools in Massachusetts. Danita: When I was 10, I didn't pick the one but I selected Massachusetts. I remained interested in college, college bound over the next few years from the age of 10 to 18. I did look around the nation. I looked around the world as well but in my junior and senior year, somehow I returned to Massachusetts, when I considered my final college applications. I added the College of the Holy Cross to that combination, because I was interested in the rigor of a Jesuit education and I was really excited by the mission of the College of the Holy Cross, combining service and the rigorous education focusing on excellence, that resonated with me. I really wanted to consider being part of that community. Danita: I enrolled in Holy Cross to get a solid, strong liberal arts education and I left Holy Cross as a woman for others, which is the case with our mission at Holy Cross. We are men and women for others. Meah: That's awesome. I can certainly agree, the Holy Cross education just fosters your values you come in with and just really creates them and promotes them into being formed with others. So that's amazing, now that we understand why you chose Massachusetts, why the small Jesuit Liberal Arts College, why Holy Cross? Danita: Okay, I can break that into parts. First of all small, I was interested in being in a small community where I can be a person, and not just a number, and that rang throughout the entire Holy Cross experience. I will answer your other questions, but I want to tell the story first of how I selected my major. I learned at the end of my sophomore year that there was a difference between deciding your major and declaring your major. When my class Dean, Vicki Swigert called me on a Tuesday morning, and she said, "Danita, you have not declared your major." I said, "Yes, I have. I've declared that it's going to be art." Danita: "It's not going to be history. It's going to be art," because I was interested in a dual major at one time and fascinated between art and history for my first year and a half. She said to me, "No, Danita, you need to declare your major, you need to come down to the registrar's office and fill out the paperwork to declare your major. When you get out of your design class this morning, come downstairs. The paperwork, we'll be waiting for you." I realized, "Okay, I need to declare my major." I also realized that my class dean knew that I had not declared my major. Danita: She knew my phone number, and was willing to make the call and she knew my schedule for the day. She knew that I was heading to design class and that I had nothing on my schedule after design class. I was a person she knew and she was a person I knew and not just the number. That is part of how a small community is really beneficial for many students as they pursue their college coursework. Now, the Jesuit tradition and the liberal arts tradition, as I just stated, I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to study. I was interested in many areas. I've always studied art. I've always enjoyed writing. In high school, I ... I was a triple major actually, now that I think about it. Danita: Yeah, you could do that in high school, but I took math courses all the way through. I was a social studies major. I took art courses. So I had a variety of interests and I knew that studying at a liberal arts college such as Holy Cross, I could pursue many of those interests. I could take the courses in the core curriculum, and with the liberal arts degree, learning how to think, learning how to solve problems, learning how to communicate verbally and in a written form, would position me to go into any career field. I might need additional training, additional coursework but I knew that I could do anything with a liberal arts degree and that I wouldn't be stuck in one track that I selected as an 18 year old without necessarily knowing the world or myself that well. Danita: So liberal arts appealed to me in that way and the Jesuit tradition, being a woman for others, that had already been critical in my life. I spent most of my summers engaged in volunteer work. I was a volunteer at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis for a number of years and through that experience, I became a point of light for those who are familiar with President George H.W. Bush and his inaugural address. He spoke of a thousand points of light and the United States recommitting itself to service in some way, similar to what President Kennedy called for with the creation of the Peace Corps in 1960, 1961, I should say. He spoke of a thousand points of light and it was beautiful to hear him speak of it. Danita: From that language, came up Point of Light Initiative. In our local newspaper, The Memphis Commercial Appeal, picked up on the concept of a thousand points of light and they decided to look for 1000 volunteers in the Memphis community, and in my work at St. Jude, I was nominated to be one of those 1000 points of light, and I was one of Memphis's thousand points of light. I had the opportunity to hear President Bush speak to the other 999 and myself the day before Thanksgiving, my senior year. Our points of light initiative in Memphis was considered one of the 1000 across the nation. Danita: So I am one one thousandth of a point of light and I am honored and compelled to continue to let my light shine, so that it may be a beacon to others, so I can help them to find their way in this world, and that is part of my commitment in connection to the Jesuit mission of the College of the Holy Cross. Meah: That's amazing. I mean, that's so exciting to have that experience and always be able to look back on that experience and realize that that was a pivotal moment that really led to your values and continuing to do the work that you did. So I can truly admire that. Also, touching upon the liberal arts piece, I certainly agree with that. Now, being a current student, I looked through the course catalog every semester, and I'm like, "How do I only take four classes with all these amazing courses that touch upon so many different areas." Meah: So I think that just shows like how Holy Cross is so interdisciplinary and really can make the students, regardless if you're a history, major, art major, psychology major, you're all learning so many different things that are really going to promote your professional life and even what you do in the world in your community. So I truly respect that and I think that's awesome. So now, to just dive a little bit deeper, how was your transition your first year? It must have certainly been something so different being raised in Memphis. You're getting cultural changes and not to mention all the winter snow that you find on the hill. Danita: So the transition was interesting. I had certain expectations of college. My older sister traveled from Memphis to New York to attend New York University three years before I enrolled in college. So I was prepared for certain aspects of college, particularly college in the northeast. I was prepared for the colder climate. I was prepared to start again, so to speak, going to a school where no one from my high school and in that city, no one from ... Excuse me, in that year, no one from Memphis was at Holy Cross. So I was prepared to start over and find my way, all over again, as I had done in other schools. Danita: I was also prepared to meet new people, have new experience and interact with individuals from all over the nation and all over the world. It was exciting. I was thrilled and I was looking forward to making that transition to New England. I must admit, I was very fortunate my freshman year. We did not see a big snowstorm first semester. Meah: That's surprising. Danita: I was done in the next few years, and we saw really big snowstorms but in that first year, when I was making my transition into living in Massachusetts, I didn't have to deal with a blizzard before Christmas, which was wonderful. Not everything was wonderful and perfect in that first semester, I must admit. The transition was ... Despite my expectations, and what I hoped for, the transition was a little more challenging. To be frank, I wanted to transfer. I was looking at other institutions but my parents, especially my father, made me stay at Holy Cross. They did not force me to stay but they let me know that if I left Holy Cross, I would not be able to enroll in a similar institution at home or at another community, I would have to return to Memphis. Danita: Even though I did not have friends from home at Holy Cross, all of my friends who were interested in going away to college had gone away to college. There were so many of us in New England. It was like part of Memphis had been transplanted to New England, to Boston, to Hartford and other communities around that region. I thought about what Holy Cross had to offer and there were some moments, some sparks especially with my wonderful roommate Colleen Keys. I realized it was a caring place, I realized I had not found ... from my place in the circle yet, and I believe in the power of yet, so I did stay. Danita: I gave it a second chance. Over time, I developed connections. I deepened relationships with some of the people I knew and some of those people are my closest friends today. The people I speak to on a regular basis. Angela Preston, Matt Dudley, Maury Bonner, Meghan Cecil, those were the individuals with whom I connected then and if you look at the last 10 texts that I sent out or the last 10 phone calls that I've made, those four people are among that list. Meah: That's amazing. So I can really attest to that, Holy Cross, it's something about the people there, something about the people that are really making a home. So just to dive a little deeper, if that was your transition, it was a little rough, what kind of involvement did you have during your time at Holy Cross that perhaps alleviated the homesickness, the desire to maybe transfer, what really made that difference? Danita: I really immersed myself into my art classes. I took drawing my freshman year. I was very fortunate, I had signed up for an art history course and the course was at 8 AM, 9 AM, some really ugly hour in the morning for me. I realized I wanted to make art and not study art at that point in my life. I met with Susan Schmidt, who had an opening in her Introduction to Design Class. This was in 1990, when you did not have the opportunity of looking on your computer, see an opening in a class and selecting that class and enrolling right away. You needed to ... and I lived in Clark on the fourth floor, at the beginning. Danita: You needed to go all the way down to Fenwick and up to the fourth floor at Fenwick to meet with the professor, to confirm that there was still the opening, that you could get into it and then, go down to the registrar's office to enroll. So I raced to Susan Schmidt's office as soon as I could and I asked her about the opening, and she told me that it had already been filled. She asked me if I had any art experience and if I had a portfolio, which I did. So I needed to race down the stairs, up the hill, up to the fourth floor of Clark. Meah: My goodness. Danita: With the portfolio and race back down to Susan's office, which I did and I was happy to do it. She looked at my work and she told me that I would need to take design later but I could skip Introduction to Design because I had a substantial portfolio that demonstrated my understanding of the basic elements of design in artwork. I enrolled in a drawing course and really enjoyed exploring the creativity and getting to know my fellow students. That was my first true area of engagement and interacting with classmates, friends, new friends on the hall in Clark Three because I moved to Clark Three when I moved out of my triple. Danita: That was really critical in my ... finding my way at Holy Cross because there were some great women on that Hall including my roommate, Colleen Keyes and Rachel Pierre and Gina Wilson, they were both juniors and lived around the hall from us. I still remember that night I came back in January of 1991, I didn't want to be there but as soon as I opened the door on the hallway, Rachel, Gina and Colleen raced down the hall, "She's back. Oh my gosh. She's back. We didn't think she was going to make it." They raced down the hall and grabbed my bags and escorted me back in and that was the first time that I really felt welcomed and missed and appreciated and loved at Holy Cross. Danita: I continue to feel that especially on Clark Three because Rachel Pierre was actually the SAA, the student alcohol advisor, which is one of the reasons why she was a junior living in Clark instead of one of the upper class dorms. She looked out for me, she and Gina looked out for me a lot. Rachel did my hair. Rachel and I took classes together later and she would grab me out of my dorm to make sure I studied and I remember my first history exam, she was not in my history class but one of her closest friends was, she'd walked into my room and she said, "What are you working on babe?" Because she called everyone, babe and I told her ... and she said, "I think Sayeeda is taking that same exam tomorrow, you guys should study together." Danita: She called Sayeda, confirmed that she was taking the exam tomorrow, and sent me down to Sayeeda's room for a study group. Otherwise, I would have been studying alone, I might have fallen asleep but I think I did better on that exam and in that class because of Rachel and Rachel always had cookies, and she fed me. Gina and Rachel both took me wherever they were going, whatever they were doing. Rachel was an RA and I went on trips with her hall to Boston and Gina's capstone project at the end of her senior year, which was my sophomore year was a historical play on the role of black women in the world. Danita: I was in an ensemble piece in the play about African women and I was in a critical role at the end of the performance, I was cast as Oprah Winfrey. Meah: My goodness. Danita: That's a huge role and one of the funny parts is we went through dress rehearsals in a casual manner, to the extent that there were many nights that I rushed from one performance as an African woman, not wearing shoes to the Oprah role. I just put on the clothes. The night of the performance, I walked out on stage with no shoes on, as I had done so many times during rehearsal, and I was about three minutes into the piece before I realized, "Oh my gosh, I'm on stage with no shoes on," but everyone thought it was intentional and part of the performance, so I just carried on from there. That was my first real performance, acting performance ever and that led to other acting performances later in my college life. Danita: So I did find my way, there were a few others who helped too on Clark three. I ran track for a little while and Egetta Schumski lived a couple of doors down as well. She had a roommate, Kristal Rice made sure that I made it to track practice and that I made it from the field house all the way back to Clark because I was pretty tired as a new runner. Egetta taught me how to run. She taught me how to breathe. She taught me what to wear. She really prepared me for a track experience and although I didn't stay with the team, I continued and continued to be a runner to this day. Thanks to the Egetta who is now Wellness Coach Alfonso. Danita: Kristal Rice, I think before I joined the track team, I tried to join the rugby team. Krystal was on the rugby team. She saw that I'd signed up for it. She was happy that I was interested but she pulled me aside and discouraged me from pursuing rugby any further. I thought, "Well, I think I can keep up. I think I can run and take a few hits and maybe catch the ball and possibly kick it. I think I can do this." She said, "No, that's not it. I don't think you can drink enough to join the rugby team." I trusted her good judgment and she probably really saved me from getting injured and becoming ill playing rugby. Danita: So Krystal, if you're out there. Thank you. Thank you very much. Those were simple basic forms of engagement, but in my sophomore year, that was when I truly explored leadership opportunities at the college. I moved to Wheeler and join the Wheeler House Council. I ran for an SGA position. I was the black student representative for SGA. I ... what else did I do that year? As a member of the House Council in Wheeler. There's the basic house council meetings and social events but we had a dynamic head RA, Rick Swanson. He was also committed to the Jesuit ideas and he was a fan of Bobby Kennedy. Danita: He created a thing called the dream of the month so that we would focus on some dreams, some aspect of giving back to the community, and he created and we created with him, an event called The Five Winter. It was a big party with food and music on the Wheeler Beach that raised money for the homeless in Worcester and that tradition continued for a number of years. Those were the types of things and the involvement that we had in Wheeler, which is amazing and phenomenal. Moving on in my next years, I used those two experiences, the SGA experience and being on House Council, as stepping stones. Danita: In my junior year, I became an RA in Wheeler. In my junior year, I was selected for the SGA cabinet. I was a subcommittee co-chair for the Tampa Center Board of Directors, CCBMD. I wrote for the newspaper. I was not a member of the staff, but I submitted regular editorials and what else did I do? I had a work study position in the art gallery. So senior year, I was a head RA in Clark and it was a funny thing about my Holy Cross experience, I only lived in two dorms. I started at Clark. I lived in Wheeler for two years and then, I moved back to Clark Three as the head RA and my head RA room was two doors down from the room I had freshman year. Danita: It's funny I remember my stereo could not pick up the exact same radio stations. Two doors down as I could in my old room. It was the weirdest thing but I found good music anyway. As a head RA in Clark we called the dorm, "the Clark Rock Café, No drugs, No nuclear weapons," and we created T-shirts Elliot Visconsi and I designed the short together. I hand drew the globe in Clark Rock Cafe and he had a computer and designed the rest in a graphic design format. We realized we needed more than T-shirts, so we created an event called the Clark Rock Cafe. It was an opportunity for so many of the campus bands to play on campus, instead of having them playing in the pubs and bars and parties off campus. Danita: I did drink and go off campus but I knew not everyone liked to do that. I didn't like to do that all the time and I really valued this event which was held three times as an opportunity for students to do something fun and interesting with the bands and inside the dorm without having to take the risks of going off campus. We served mocktails. We had the coolest bands on campus. We had Spindrift. We had Barfly. We had ... I should know all of them. We had the Sea Monkeys. We had Foot Bob. We had Prodigal and a number of other bands I might be forgetting and they don't know my address now so they won't come to get me. Danita: We had great bands and great fun. There was actually an alumni band that came back and performed for one of the Clark Rock Cafes. It was a fun experience, in my opinion. We had crowds in the door for ... both for two of them, one didn't do as well but for the first one and the last one, they were very successful and I'm really proud that that was one of my hallmarks on campus as a Head RA. Another area where I felt the dorm could be effective was, in the relationship between faculty and students. Students frequently spent time with faculty in certain areas on campus, in the classroom, in their offices, in formal events. Danita: We rarely had the faculty come to our doors to see where we lived and how we lived. So, we created Clark Tail Parties and invited the faculty to come to the social room where we once again served mocktails and hors d'oeuvres and students had an opportunity to interact with faculty in a casual fashion. I still remember some students asking, "Well, who's going to be there? I'm not doing well in such and such class. Can you make sure so and so come so I can choose with them?" They were great. They were effective. They were fun. The faculty seem to have fun and so did many of the students who were there. Danita: I still remember we made Wassail, Wassail for the Christmas Clark Tail Party and we had the social room and we had the study room and we had something on the pot. Something on the stove, cooking and bubbling and making Wassail for the first time. That was fun, but it worked out. So that was a really important event in Clark and I really love being head RA. Clark was great. I still have dear, dear friends who were part of my Clark RA team and my Clark House Council, I'm thinking of Shane McLaughlin and Killian MacCarthy and Isa Squicciarini and Chael Christopher and Pete Cronin, and a number of others who were part of that Clark experience. Danita: Cary Anderson was the Associate Dean for Student, like assistant dean or associate, one of those but he also lived in Clark, and he was one of my favorite Residence Life staff members and we're still not super close. We don't talk every day, but we're still in close contact. He sent me a few photos a couple of months ago, with pieces of art in his newish place in Philadelphia. So we're connected and it was great to be in the same building with Cary, but he said we were loud. My dorm room was right above his. So sometimes we were loud. Sorry, Cary. So I had a lot of wonderful opportunities to develop additional skills, make friends and prepare for many aspects of a career, whatever that might be. Danita: I learned in my years at Holy Cross that you can select any major at Holy Cross and through your extracurricular activities and through your summer internships, you will be well versed and well prepared to enter into a variety of career fields. You might need additional training, yes, but you will know how to think, how to represent your ideas and how to solve problems. I also learned that and some of those leadership opportunities, you could make many wonderful, phenomenal, lifelong friends and I can't believe I'm forgetting one of my experiences. Also, in my junior year, I was invited to an invitation only production called Crusadist. Danita: Crusadist was a comedy performance show that took a satirical look at life at Holy Cross. I'd read about Crusadist my freshman year and people said, "Don't see the show until you're a junior because you won't understand the jokes. You won't know Holy Cross moment up until your junior year to get the jokes." So I didn't see the show freshman year, sophomore year, but junior year I was selected to be in the show and there are only two juniors in the show. If you're selected as a junior, that means you will be the producer of the show in your senior year. So my senior year, I was the producer of Crusadist and with my co-producer Mark Diaz, selected the cast, with the cast created the scripts. Danita: We were engaged in all forms of production, selecting the venue which was the crossroads pizza seller, creating the schedule for the event publicity creating the video, editing the videos that we use in the show and selecting the nonprofit to which we would donate the proceeds from the show. Crusadist was a big part of my life as the producer and it's really funny to say that people who were part of the show are still my closest friends today. Some of them, I did not know before the show but we were joined at the hip for weeks straight and we never fully disconnected. Meah: That's amazing. So really Holy Cross like, it wasn't just the academics that really formed your experience. It's clear, your story really shows that it was everything from your ... being in Wheeler to being in work study ... working in the art gallery as a work study, all the way to being in a comedy club, kind of thing. So that's really awesome, how so many different things pulled together to form your Holy Cross experience. What did you do after Holy Cross? Danita: After Holy Cross that wonderful head RA I had in Wheeler, Rick Swanson, he was an assistant director, initially a teacher then an assistant director in a program in Chicago called Inner-City Teaching Corps. It was a volunteer ... is, I should say. It's still around. A volunteer teaching program similar to Teach for America but the focus of ICTC, as we still call it, was on parochial schools on the south side and the West Side of Chicago only. It was founded by a Jesuit school graduate, Pat Ryan, who wanted to recruit other young people who were interested in making a difference in communities through teaching. Danita: So he looked to Jesuit schools, he looked at Ivy League schools to create the first corps of Inner-City Teaching Corps. Rick Swanson recruited me for the program. I realized in my life that education had made such a difference for me. I was college bound already. I found my success. I felt that I was destined to do so but I realized that so many others were being left behind. They did not have access to quality education and education is necessary to uplift communities. As a black woman, I realized that it was critical, especially to uplift the black community and that was very important to me. Danita: So I accepted the position in Inner-City Teaching Corps. I moved to Chicago three weeks after graduation. I taught summer school, part time ... yeah, part time summer school, I co-taught with another teacher in a parochial school on the south side of Chicago. At this time, 26 years ago, I was a full time fifth grade teacher at the Academy of St. Benedict, the African Laflin campus on the south side of Chicago. I had 21 boys and 10 girls in my classroom. Meah: So you had to have some patience in your early post grad years. Danita: My gosh, a great deal of patience. I still remember all the kids' names. I still wonder about those kids. I love those kids. They were an active group. They like to talk a lot. That was the most trouble my kids ever got into. They talk a lot but they were wonderful kids, they all have good hearts. I remember, the day I had laryngitis, I didn't realize I had no voice until 10 minutes before the students arrived. So I found things for the students to do that they could do without my talking to them. The day that I had laryngitis, they were so quiet. They whisper because they knew I could not speak to them. That was 26 years ago and I still remember that's what my students did. Meah: That is super thoughtful for fifth graders. So I can see that your heart was really in teaching and I can really admire that about you, especially with them being fifth graders. That's hard in yourself but you really made it work. So why teaching, what made you ... I know you touched upon a little bit with the Holy Cross network connection but what really led you to teaching? Danita: It was that desire to uplift the community, uplift all communities for we all rise together. The rising tide elevates all boats and I realized that there were communities who were being left behind. I had the great fortune of attending some of the best schools in my community from the campus school on a college campus to the number one college prep school in Memphis, White Station High and then going on to Holy Cross but I knew that there were so many others who wanted a better education, who wanted a better life that is made possible through education and other avenues. I wanted to be a part of that solution for them. Danita: I wanted to do something different, which was to go into the inner city where there were so many needs to reach out to those individuals because they had been left behind. They were still being left behind and that's why I wanted to be part of the Inner-City Teaching Corps in particular. It is now called the Accelerate Institute, but that's why I want to be part of ICTC at that time, in my life. Meah: That like touches me. I was going to be a teacher now. Danita: You would be a great teacher. Meah: What did you say? Danita: You would be a great teacher, Meah. Meah: I don't know my nephew would say otherwise. Danita: That's just one kid. That's just one. Meah: So how long were you a teacher for and what was kind of your next stepping stone? Danita: The program was a one or two year program and the organization was still in its developmental stages. I was a member of the third corps group for ICTC, now called the Accelerate Institute and a very large organization, larger, I should say, now, 26 years later. As volunteer corps members, we were encouraged to participate in many aspects of the organization. Some of us were encouraged to participate in recruiting trips. I traveled to New Orleans as part of my experience to introduce the program to Xavier University and Loyola University in New Orleans. We were also encouraged and given opportunities to participate in special events, and fundraising. Danita: I realized that fundraising ... this thing called fundraising or development really appealed to me, the work resonated with me. I have done something similar in public relations as an intern and it all came together and started to make sense. I also realized that as a teacher, I could affect the lives of the 31 or however, many students I had in my classroom. I further accepted the reality that as a philanthropy professional is one who raised the money to support other teachers, I could, in my work, impact the lives of a great deal more students, in a school, in a community, in our society. Danita: That was the first step that started to lead me to a career in this thing called philanthropy, is what I call it development and I didn't even really know the name of it at the time. The first step was in Chicago. I moved back to Memphis after my year of teaching and I began working with a group of artists. We decided to coordinate an exhibition for black history month at the Memphis International Airport because the airport was celebrating the opening of a new wing and a new non-stop flight from Memphis to Amsterdam. It was the perfect time to have an exhibition. I drafted the letters to the airport authority, on behalf of this organization of artist. Danita: I didn't realize it at the time but I was becoming sick with Mononucleosis. I was sick and in bed and out of touch for a number of weeks. At that time, the organization dissolved and there were no longer artists or resources. As I was recovering from mono, I had to curate a show. I had to find artists and I had to secure the resources necessary to produce an art exhibition. I was able to make connections to the corporate community in Memphis and secure corporate sponsorships for this exhibition which I didn't what at the time but I quickly learned that corporate support is a big part of philanthropy and a few months later ... the show was a success, by the way. Danita: A few months later when I saw a job for development at the Memphis College of Art, I applied. They recognized my name from the publicity the show had received. They also recognized my name because several of the artists were either faculty students or alumni of the college. So, I had inadvertently promoted myself as a philanthropy professional as well as promoting myself as an artist in the art exhibition. I accepted the position at the Memphis College of Art in 1996 and that was the beginning of my career in philanthropy and development in nonprofit management. I'm still working on this field today and enjoying it tremendously. It's an important area. It's been life changing for me to be able to work in this field. Meah: That's awesome. So, I really admire ... I know I keep saying admire but it's just like, "Wow, I didn't know about Danita. Yeah, I didn't know that about Danita. Wow, she has so much we got to talk about." I love how you're able to take your major, your passion, what really drives you and connect that with the profession. So, it seems like obviously with you being an art major, that art goes beyond just a common area requirement at Holy Cross and even the major requirements and personally my stick figure drawings. So, what place does art has in your life? Danita: First of all, Meah, we are going to work on those stick figure drawings. Meah: We'll do a Zoom session together, an art Zoom session. Danita: No, we should do that. That would be fun. Second of all, do not embarrassed by stick figure drawings because they are an expression of your creativity and your being and people say stick figures are embarrassing. Some of my drawings are pretty basic so however you express yourself, but yes, art has been an important part of my life. I have a personal goal as an artist, exploring ... building upon Georgia O'Keeffe's thoughts, how important it is to feel space in a beautiful and thoughtful way and to encourage others to do so as a means of self-expression and communication and connection. I started making art when I was in elementary school. At that time, we had art classes twice a week. Danita: I began drawing on my own, on the weekends and my art teacher thought I should take private lessons, which I started to do when I was in fourth grade. I created my first oil painting when I was 10 and I continue to take art courses in school and out of school and to make art on my own for a number of years and I am still making art today. I have masters of fine art from the University of Mississippi, where I work ... did painting and print making and discovered photography and digital video. I also spent two intersessions in Europe during my three years in graduate school. I studied in Sicily, water color in Sicily and I studied water color in London and while I was in London, I took a track to Paris to work in photography for a few days. Danita: Art has always been central to my life for my personal expression and I've also been an art instructor off and on throughout the years. Yes, Meah, I can teach you to appreciate and enhance your stick figures. Meah: Yes. What years were you in graduate school? Danita: 2006 through 2009. Meah: Okay, that's awesome, it also is exciting. Just to loop back around, when did you ... what happened after a month as working in your art center in Memphis, what was your next step? Danita: After a number of years of working in philanthropy at the Memphis College of Art, I returned to Massachusetts, and at the corps, the invitation for me to return to Massachusetts in any way, shape or form, interestingly enough, came from the College of the Holy Cross. In 1997, I was invited to participate in an exhibition called Self Images, 8 to 80 and it featured the self-portraits of women and girls in the Memphis community, the youngest one was five years old, I think and the oldest one was 82. The day that the exhibition opened, Tina Chen, who at that time worked in the office of the Center for Interdisciplinary and Special Studies, contacted me to let me know that one of the paintings she had in her office was going to be moved. Danita: I had left a painting with Tina, when I graduated and I had also sold a painting to the college the day I graduated. So College of the Holy Cross was my first art collector, ever as a professional artist. In that conversation with Tina, I approved the moving of the painting. We spoke and she asked me what I was doing. I told her about the exhibition and she told me the college was preparing for the 25th anniversary of coeducation or women coming to Holy Cross. She wanted to talk to the planning committee about this exhibition and the possibilities of bringing the show to Worcester in the spring. Danita: She contacted me a few weeks later to let me know that the college wanted to bring selections of the exhibition and they wanted me to have my own exhibition with the cantor gallery, in the spring of 1998. So I was back at Holy Cross that spring with so many of my friends and during our time on campus, three of us who were not in Boston, decided to move to Boston and that was my friend Melissa Jean-Charles and my other friend, Ekwi Nwabuzor both from the class of '96. We turned to each other and we, "Are you thinking what I'm thinking it was that type of moment," and we all clicked and decided we wanted to move to Boston. Danita: We did some apartment hunting, and in the end, we moved into a house that had once been the home for the band Naked Thru Utah. They were originally Spindrift on campus, they became Naked Thru Utah. One of the band members was an artist and painted a mural of Utah in the living room, and that remained there while we were there and probably several occupants later because it's pretty cool. When the band disbanded, one of the band members, Shane McLaughlin live there with another friend Chael Christopher, and they let us know that they were ... they and another roommate were moving out of the house. Danita: We just needed rooms for three, so we moved into the house. The move was beautiful. It was just well choreographed, even without being choreographed. I showed up from Memphis with my moving van and my parents. Shane and Chael and Melissa and Ekwi were all there to help unload the van and put everything in the house and then, Shane and Chael put all their stuff in the van with my dad and drove to their new place in Somerville. They hung out with my dad and drink a couple of beers and then, eventually my dad came back to the house that I was moving into where my mom was waiting for him. "Everett, where were you? Oh, I was just hanging out with the guys." Danita: My dad like my Holy Cross friends and they liked my dad, my mom too. So it worked out beautifully and I've another Holy Cross friend who was like a son to my father too, Kona Khasu and Mark LaFlamme. My dad considered them his sons but that's the beauty of those relationships. You develop and that's how I moved back to Boston and it all began with a phone call from Tina Chen. Meah: Wow. So that's a lot. That's like exciting. So you're really given ... Holy Cross never forgets the students and I think that's awesome, because you know what I mean, it could be years after you've already started your early profession, and you get a phone call from someone from Holy Cross and now you're in Boston. I think that's so exciting. So what did you do while you were in Boston? Danita: While in Boston, I work for an organization called the Boston Private Industry Council and it's a nonprofit, nearly 50 years old and it connects individuals in the community to jobs and experiences in the mainstream economy. It is the convener of the public private partnership in the community. It connects the corporate sector, the big corporations in Boston with at least one school in the community. So to some degree, it was a bit of corporate relations once again, for me and a little bit of education. I had the privilege of working at Charlestown High School and working through that partnership, stewarding that relationship with Liberty Mutual, with Bain, with Thomson Financial Services. Danita: Bringing in additional partners to work with the students in the school and otherwise support the school in its various needs, as public schools tend to have. In my work with the Boston Private Industry Council and at Charlestown High, I had the privilege of meeting a young man named Janniver Castro, a bright young man. I encouraged him to consider Holy Cross, which he did. He applied and he was accepted and he graduated in 2004. It was amazing to have the opportunity to send someone to Holy Cross, so soon after I had graduated from Holy Cross and oddly enough, he had the same class dean. He had Dean Swigert as well. Meah: I think it's funny because I'm still at Holy Cross and I'm quick to tell like some of my high school friends and even my younger sister, I'm like, make sure you find Holy Cross. She's literally going into her sophomore year. I'm like, don't forget, because Holy Cross is the place. So what came after your experience in Boston? I feel like we're just walking through all the amazing experiences you had so I must ask. Danita: Sure. Sure. Eventually, I did return to Memphis after a number of years in Boston. I returned to Memphis and around that same time, my father was diagnosed with cancer. So, it was really important for me to be at home, but it also seemed like it was time for me to be at home, like fate had a hand in my returning to Memphis because around the time that I was visiting Memphis, visiting my parents, I discovered an opening at an organization called the Urban Art Commission, also a nonprofit organization and the mission of the Urban Art Commission is the proliferation of public art and design throughout the Memphis and Shelby County community. Danita: There was a need for someone who had an education, background and arts background and a fundraising background to once again, oversee securing grants and support for some of the projects that would be created by the artists in the community. I interviewed for the position. I accepted the position and worked with that organization, supporting artists and as they filled the space in a beautiful way throughout the Memphis community. It was a dynamic and exciting position and I must admit, working with so many artists in their installations and pursuing large pieces of art, I mean, huge pieces. Danita: That inspired me to want to make my own large pieces and installations and that was part of the impetus for me to return to graduate school, at that time in my life, after being out of college for so many years, I realized a tremendous desire to immerse myself in a creative community, creating art and solving problems visually for three years in a row. So that's when I made the leap and did go to graduate school at the University of Mississippi. Meah: That's so exciting. I know I keep asking what's next but I just feel like everything just stems from your like, one, your passion with art, your passion with Holy Cross, your connections with Holy Cross. It's kind of phenomenal when you really think about it and I'm sorry about your father as well, I should mention that. Danita: Thank you. Meah: After your time in Memphis and Mississippi, what came next after that? Danita: Before I get to what came next, I need to take a step back. One of the first large installations that I remember, that was finalized and unveiled during my time with the Urban Art Commission was created by an artist named Vito Acconci. The late Vito Acconci, studied at the College of the Holy Cross in the 60s and I believe he wasn't an art major, because there wasn't an art major at the time but he created his own special studies. So he was technically the first art major at the College of the Holy Cross and I had the opportunity of meeting him in Memphis during my work with the Urban Art Commission. Holy Cross is out wherever you go. Meah: Yeah. Holy Cross is spread over ... all over the world map, it seems like to me and not only the US map but everywhere. Danita: It is true. That is true. To respond to your question, what was next? What was next after graduate school, I knew that I wanted to return to work in nonprofit management and philanthropy. Philanthropy and service were still critical to my life. Interestingly enough, while I was in graduate school, I was approached by the director of the Holy Cross fund at that time, Gary Carskaddan and invited to become my class's co-chair. It was the perfect time to do so because I was in graduate school, I was busy but it was nice to have an opportunity to serve my college in a different way, especially while I was on another campus and feeling connected to the academic experience. Danita: Even though it wasn't a Holy Cross, I was on a college campus and I became my class's co-chair in 2006, with Amanda Robichaud at the time. It helped me to reconsider and hone my skills in philanthropy and consider my next direction for after graduate school. I decided not to become a teacher. The masters of fine art, the MFA is the terminal degree in the art field and with that degree, you could become a college professor. I considered it but again, education is important, realizing that securing the resources for education can really change more lives than being in the classroom. For me, that was powerful and effective. Danita: So I decided to return to work in philanthropy. I considered returning to the Massachusetts area. I thought about Chicago, other cities and I decided to move to Baltimore. Baltimore might seem a little farfetched after my experiences in Memphis, in Massachusetts, in Chicago. How did I select Baltimore? Well, in Memphis, I met a young man and a wonderful young man, I should say, named Emerson Wickwire. He was kind and interesting and a graduate of a Jesuit school, Boston College. He was in a fellowship program at Johns Hopkins University. It was a one year fellowship that turned into a two year fellowship. While he was in his fellowship program, and I was in graduate school, we would travel together. Danita: We would see one another at least once a month, but if one of us had a conference or another event, the other one would go along and we would spend time together traveling in that way. I had traveled to Holy Cross for the class co-chairs and correspondents meeting in November of 2008 and Emerson came with me and on the lawn of the Jesuit residence, overlooking Wheeler, oddly enough, he asked me to marry him. Meah: My god. That's like a movie scene. Danita: It was like a movie scene indeed. It was a complete surprise, poor Emerson had ... he had this ring burning a hole in his pocket and he was nervous and he was anxious. We were on the Holy Cross campus together for the first time and I had so many stories to tell him. I would not stop telling stories long enough for him to pop the question, so to speak. Eventually, I took a breath and he was able to ask me to marry him and I said, yes. We attended the class co-chair's dinner that night and I introduced him to people as my fiance. I still remember Gary Carskaddan was so cute. He said, "Wait a minute. Danita, we spoke this morning, you said your boyfriend was coming with you." Danita: "So what has happened in the last few hours," and shared the ring, told him the story and that was how and when and where our engagement began and our beautiful journey as man and wife, all started at Holy Cross and that is how I decided to move to Baltimore, where I still live. Meah: First of all, that's awesome. I feel like that's like a movie scene, like you guys could be in some like scene or something but that timeframe, obviously, was during the recession. So how did you connect with people, navigate life, build a new community in Baltimore being that it was really ... never been a place you then been at prior to that experience? Danita: That is true, Baltimore was a completely new city, a new environment. Emerson had been here for two years. At that time, he had a cousin who lived here and he made some friends, made some connections at Johns Hopkins but he was largely focused on his academic career. So you will see this, Meah. When you're in graduate school, you will not make as many friends as you do when you're an undergraduate because you're focused so much more on your studies. So that being said, I didn't make as many friends in graduate school. He had a small and growing network as well, but I was able to tap into the Holy Cross network when I moved here. Gary Carskaddan, introduced me to a woman at Loyola University who introduced me to a number of people, who introduced me to others. Danita: Julia Galleazi-Lapan lived here. She worked at Loyola, and later worked at Johns Hopkins. She introduced me to a number of people and Baltimore is a charm city, people are very friendly here. Philanthropy is also known for attracting people who have a sense of kindness and a sense of giving and a desire to help others. So, as I met more and more people who worked in philanthropy, they were willing to introduce me to even more people in philanthropy. I was able to create and build a network quickly based upon a foundation of a Holy Cross Network and a few connections. Danita: My first position was with an organization called CCS Fundraising. Oddly enough, the individual with whom I spoke first was in the CCS office in New York but it was Sean O'Connor, who was a '92 graduate of College of the Holy Cross. That helped to confirm my first position where I worked for five years and I've been with Johns Hopkins University for the last five years. I enjoyed my work in consulting. I enjoyed working to advance a number of different missions, but focusing on one mission was critical to me. That was something that I wanted to do and I knew I wanted to, once again, focus on higher education fundraising, especially for a larger institution. Danita: The mission of Johns Hopkins truly resonated with me, educating others and cultivating lifelong learning, supporting original research and the service aspect, sharing that knowledge with the world. That spoke to me in so many ways and I wanted to be a part of advancing that mission. Meah: That's awesome. So, just a little bit more in speaking about the mission, so how does the Johns Hopkins mission, even in your previous roles, align with your own personal missions and what you see in a profession, what you really ... what motivates you to go to work, what motivates you to really dive deeper and do what you're supposed to for Johns Hopkins and the other organizations you work for in the past? Danita: I've always had the fortune of ... good fortune, I should say, of working for many education organizations and arts organizations. Education is critical to the work of the Jesuits. That's part of the appeal of the Jesuits for me and promoting and advancing education, ensuring that education is accessible to more in the community or a better education is accessible to individuals and groups in the community, that has always been important to me and that's what gets me out of bed in the morning. To be able to support a mission. To be able to do great work, the small work that helps to bring forth the resources necessary, so that others can have access to high quality educational experiences both the traditional classroom learning and the experiential learning. That can help connect what someone's going to do when they finish high school, college, graduate school, to what they are doing in the classroom. Danita: Education has always been key for me and my family, and the Jesuits, and the work that I do, and I think now, specifically in my work at Johns Hopkins of the recent Bloomberg gift, the 1.8 million dollars for undergraduate aid was a phenomenal gift. We don't think about it as just a number. That's part of the beauty of working in philanthropy for an extended period. Danita: You don't think about the money, you think about what the resources can do. How they can affect others. With that gift, Johns Hopkins education is now within reach for so many families who couldn't have thought of sending their children to Johns Hopkins University. They're going to receive a tremendous education and the additional support that they need to stay in school and pursue their dreams as students and after they graduate, and having played a small role in the work to secure that gift is truly meaningful and heartwarming for me. It's always nice to know that what you are doing, will change someone's life for the better, that you will affect change in individuals and communities and make this world a better place. Meah: I love that. I love how you don't look at it as a simple dollar sign but instead what that dollar sign can do for students in Johns Hopkins, pursuing Johns Hopkins and even their life outside of Johns Hopkins, so that's awesome. Everyone listening can assume you've been really in touch with the Holy Cross community during your time at Holy Cross, shortly after your time at Holy Cross and even to the present day, so what do you do with Holy Cross currently? Danita: Well, Meah, I have the wonderful opportunity of now, spending time with students such as you, an informal mentoring and engagement. I'm also a member of the college's board of advisors. I am still my class's fundraising co-chair. I have a new co-chair now. He's been my partner in this work for the last three years, Matt Dudley, who was actually one of the first people I met, freshman year. I'm also a member of the Bishop Healy Committee. Additionally, I find myself working on a few independent grassroots projects and I really appreciate it that the staff at Holy Cross supports and partners with me and some of these efforts. In the spring, when the ALANA, an international student baccalaureate was zoom bombed by a horrible sign of hatred and fear. I was crushed, to know what happened. Danita: To see what happened and I moved quickly to work with other alumni to create messages for those students who had that horrible experience in their penultimate day as Holy Cross students, their last night on campus, that was their experience after being sent home for remote learning due to the pandemic. I knew they needed something, some outreach, some message they could keep with them. So 50 other alumni partnered with me to create brief messages of support, that were curated into one virtual hug, so to speak and sent to all of the 2020 ALANA and international graduates in June. Then, I count my blessings that so many alumni were willing to come forth and partner with me in that project. Danita: I also count my blessings that members of the staff and administration were supportive and allowed me to pursue that project. It was completely a grassroots effort and not from any organized group, just people who care and that's another part of the beauty of the Holy Cross community, people who care. Meah: I agree. Just the little things, the thoughtfulness, recognizing someone ... Yeah, I mean, these times are hard, what can we do as Holy Cross alumni speaking from your perspective, so you know better the situation. So that virtual hug must have been awesome and very touching in a sense. Danita: It was. It was an interesting final production, it was long, it's about 30 minutes long and no one complained that it was too long fortunately. It might have felt long, but in the message that I drafted to be sent to the graduates now, I encouraged them to play part of it, whenever they wanted to hear a few words of encouragement, if ever they felt down or lonely just to play a couple of videos for five minutes or whatever their favorites might be. Meah: Right and I remember when we first met BSU 50 and shortly after, getting into each other's email inboxes, you often had a lot of motivational and small things to send off to like a few people. So I know those little things, put a smile on people's faces and I personally got to experience that from you early on in our mentor-mentee relationship, so I appreciate that. Danita: You're welcome. You're welcome. It's a privilege and an honor to pass it on. When I was a student, there were alumni who came back for us, who spent time with us who spoke to us. I remember an alum, I think her name was Michelle. She came back to my dorm with me to see my artwork and I was so flattered that someone wanted to come to my messy dorm room in Clark to see my artwork. Ted Wells came back and spoke to us our freshman year, and told us of his experience. He encouraged us to give back as a means of staying in touch with the next generation of inspiring and influencing the next generation, and making a real difference at the college. Danita: If there were aspects of the college that we wanted to touch, we would need to be engaged and stay engaged in some way and not just criticize from a distance and hope that someone would hear our thoughts. Meah: Right, right. As our time comes to an end, I think it's really worth noting that through these unprecedented times, the Holy Cross alumni, specifically the Holy Cross BSU alumni have been really supportive of myself and even current students. So, I just want to thank you, Danita and the rest of the alum for really building these connections during these six months and continuing to build these connections as our lives are drastically different. So on behalf of students, again, thank you. I enjoyed a lot of happy hour, being able to laugh and talk with you guys, share our experiences and really get to connect deeper. Meah: I don't know if you want to touch upon that a little bit but I know I'm certainly grateful for those experiences. Danita: Meah, you are certainly welcome, you and the other students. It's really something that has been created for all of us to keep us connected. So thank you for participating and bringing other students to the conversations that we have every other week. This pandemic has been a very difficult time for so many, the social distance as it was called and it was social distance for a while, that we needed to find new ways to connect and interact. Now, that we've done so through Zoom and other means, it's physical distance but we are connected and having those conversations every two weeks were something to look for. A means of connecting and interacting and embracing normal, so to speak. Danita: The normal that we once knew and developing new relationships, because the alums who participate go as far back as the early 70s, up to the class of 2019. So we didn't all know one another before we started having these conversations together every other week and then, the side conversations that come out of that. In particular, having black alumni and students come together in late May and June, when we began to realize the unrest in the communities and the racial reckoning, that is again, at the forefront of so many conversations. It has been critical to have so many generations together to talk about what has happened in the past, what worked in the past. Danita: What patterns they have seen? What patterns we have seen, and how to determine the path forward so that this moment can be a movement, so that our actions will not just be transactional but transformational. That's been a core point of the conversations because it's time for change in our communities. In changing our community, we will change the larger community as a whole. Everyone needs to survive and succeed, for all of us to truly know joy and happiness in our worlds. Meah: I couldn't agree more. So Danita, what exactly is next for you? Danita: Meah, what's next? I'm actually moving in a new direction and my efforts to affect change in individual lives and communities. To be perfectly frank, in October, due to the challenges faced by Johns Hopkins University, the fiscal challenges presented by students not returning this fall, some really difficult cuts were made and my position was one of 114 positions to be eliminated. My last day was in November, which was hard and difficult, but I had already started to think about, to your point, what's next and an area that I had not explored fully but an area of interest for me was the climate and conservation. A couple of years ago, after Hurricane Michael was so devastating in many communities across the south, I was just stunned into a need to do something, to do something more than what I had done. Danita: Recycling wasn't enough. I began observing, and then my family started to observe Meatless Mondays as a way to reduce our carbon footprint by eating less meat on Mondays and at some times in the year, we just go completely plant based on Mondays. Even with that, I realized that my personal efforts were not enough. It's kind of like being a teacher versus raising money for the teachers to do their work to be effective in the classroom. In a similar way, wanting to contribute to the efforts in support of saving our climate and greater conservation. I wanted an opportunity to link my personal concern with the concern and commitment of others, and the actions of a respected and effective organization. Danita: Fortunately for me, I knew someone who was working in such an organization, the National Audubon Society and that was Sean O'Connor, who was the chief development officer as well as a graduate of a class in '92, I mentioned him earlier with CCS. We had started some preliminary casual conversations, even before I had lost ... before my position was eliminated at Johns Hopkins and I looked at Audubon, and the position as a dynamic opportunity to join a well-respected organization with expertise, credibility and a vast network of influencers and activists. Starting in four weeks, I will be the vice president of principal giving for National Audubon Society. Danita: I'm very excited to join the team. I get to work with the leadership and the development team and others in the organization to confirm transformational support that will facilitate increased and sustained change for the climate for conservation, for the birds and their habitats. For those of us who share the greater habitat of the birds, we human beings, Audubon is about the birds but I understand and believe and many o

Christian Haynes ’20 joins us again to speak with Ron Lawson ‘75 about the transformational power of both a Holy Cross education, and the Holy Cross alumni network. Interview originally recorded on Martin Luther King Jr. Day on January 20, 2020. --- Transcript Ron Lawson: Holy Cross instills in you that notion of perseverance and what I realized when I graduated here... that I already had the suit of armor necessary to succeed in life and that played itself out at Carnegie Mellon because when I graduated from Carnegie Mellon, I knew it was the Holy Cross experience that got me to that point. Maura Sweeney: Welcome to Mission-Driven, where we speak with alumni who are leveraging their Holy Cross education to make a meaningful difference in the world around them. I'm your host, Maura Sweeney from the class of 2007, director of alumni career development at Holy Cross. I'm delighted to welcome you to today's show. Maura Sweeney: In this episode, we hear from Ron Lawson from the great class of 1975. Ron attended Holy Cross in the early '70s, a time that has been celebrated in the book Fraternity by Diane Brady, which chronicles the lives of an influential cohort of African-American students at Holy Cross. After growing up on Long Island, Ron studied political science at Holy Cross. He still considers those years living on Healy Three among the best in his life. Christian Haynes from the class of 2020 speaks with Ron on Martin Luther King Jr. Day in January 2020. They talk about how his career progressed from Wall Street to being unemployed and homeless, to today working as the COO for Care for the Homeless in New York City. Throughout these changes one thing has remained constant, his dedication to giving back to the Holy Cross community. They discuss Ron's motivations for helping create the ALANA Mentoring Program and the Bishop Healy Emergency Fund, in order to offer students of color the resources and support that he didn't have. A captivating and motivating speaker, Ron shares stories about the life experiences at Holy Cross that teach you how to persevere through hard times and succeed in life. Christian Haynes: Welcome everybody, my name is Christian Haynes, class of 2020, woo woo, that's this year. That's this year. I have here with me, the great Ron Lawson, class of '75. Ron you could introduce yourself, even though I just did. Ron Lawson: Yeah, I'm Ron Lawson. I would say I'm not great but I would say I'm from the great class of '75. Christian Haynes: I like '75, I don't know why. I always told my mum I wanted to be born that year. Ron Lawson: Oh really? Christian Haynes: I'm a more old-school guy. Young but got the old school. What was so great about '75? Ron Lawson: '75 had the unique distinction of being the last all-male class to enter Holy Cross. So my class was all-male when we entered as freshmen in '71. We all lived on the same dorm. The majority of African-Americans on campus, who were all male at the time, it's probably about 80 or 90 of us and most of us lived on Healy Three. So I love the fact that the class of '75 has that distinction as being the last all-male class before that transition took place. It was challenging, both on the part of the women... I don't know how they did it. I don't know how those early classes endured us because a lot of us weren't as considerate and kind as we realized we should have been in retrospect. Christian Haynes: Right. Now did you guys stay together all four years, in the same dorms? Ron Lawson: Yeah, I lived in Healy Three all four years. Christian Haynes: Really? Ron Lawson: Had a couple of different roommates but there was a core group of us that we used to call the fellas. About five or six of us and we all did everything together, everything from going to Kimball, to eating at Hogan, to going to parties at Welsey and Mount Holyoke and Smith and Simmons and Wheelock and Emmanuel. Christian Haynes: The list goes on. The list goes on. Ron Lawson: Yeah, on and on and on. Christian Haynes: That's interesting that you guys stayed in one dorm, all four years. What dorms weren't there that are here now. Ron Lawson: Figge... Christian Haynes: Yeah that's the newest one. Ron Lawson: ...wasn't here. There's a new dorm that just opened a few years ago, the apartments? Christian Haynes: Oh the Edge Apartments, no that's... Ron Lawson: Yeah, Figge and... Christian Haynes: Williams. Ron Lawson: Williams. Figge and Williams. Christian Haynes: Yeah, well I think Williams is... Ron Lawson: Williams is older than Figge and Figge... neither one of those were open. A little sidebar is, Williams was named after Edward Bennett Williams, who was a prominent attorney, a Holy Cross alumni, also the owner of the Baltimore Orioles and I think he may have owned the Washington Redskins also but he was a very prominent D.C. attorney and one of his mentees was Ted Wells who was in the class of '72, who was in school when I was here and Ted followed Edward Bennett Williams' model for success and Ted, in his own right, is a very prominent corporate attorney, got a joint degree from Harvard Law School and Business School. Christian Haynes: Wow. Yeah, earlier we talked about the connections Holy Cross provides to each student. I was told that freshman year... every year but freshman year I didn't believe it until I saw it... especially when I had my experience with you. I would love to get into that a little bit later but first, tell me about, how was it growing up in... correct me if I'm wrong, Winditch? Ron Lawson: Wyandanch. Christian Haynes: Wyandanch, Long Island. Ron Lawson: Wyandanch was a predominantly African-American community in Suffolk County on the South Shore of Long Island and it's where my parents had the foresight to move us, when I was infant, from the South Bronx because my father felt there was too much violence and he wanted a more safe and secure environment for us so he was able to buy a house. As I tell people, my father would constantly tell the story that he couldn't afford this house and it was $10,000 and he couldn't afford it because, even though he served in World War Two in the Philippines, because of Federal law. African-American veterans were not allowed to apply for a G.I. Bill, which provided low-interest loans to secure housing for veterans of World War Two. So he and my mother used to drive out from the Bronx and take these rides through the countryside on Long Island. He said, one day they drove by this house, which was a model home for where we moved in, he and my mother toured it. The real estate agent told him it was $10,000. He and my mother walked back to the car, he told my mother we can't afford it, she started crying and he sat in the car for five minutes trying to calm her and literally got out the car, walked back in the house and gave the real estate agent $10. Christian Haynes: Wow. Ron Lawson: That's how we secured our first home on Long Island and that's where I grew up. Christian Haynes: Wow. Ron Lawson: A very comfortable, lower middle-class environment. As I was telling some people earlier, I didn't realize that I was poor until I came to Holy Cross because all my needs had always been met. So it was a very interesting, holistic upbringing. I went to a really good public school, North Babylon High School. Some of the folks I graduated with... I went to Holy Cross, the other guys, one of my best friends went to Tufts, one guy went to Naval Academy, one guy went to Air Force Academy, so we were going to very good schools as a result of our North Babylon education. Christian Haynes: That's great. How was that culture shock and how... Ron Lawson: It wasn't for me, which I found interesting and unique. Coming to Holy Cross wasn't a culture shock for me. Coming to Holy Cross was by design, not by default. I had done well on the SATs so I was being recruited or getting letters of interest from a lot of schools including West Point, Indianapolis, Syracuse, Bucknell, College of William and Mary. I got a letter from Holy Cross but whereas all these other schools were sending me form letters, I got a personally typed letter that was signed by Gary Reed, who wound up being two years ahead of me, class of '73, wound up going to Harvard Law School and Gary obviously was part of the BSU committee at the time, that was trying to work to increase the number of African-Americans on campus. So when I got a personal letter from Holy Cross, I said well, I want to go see this place. Ron Lawson: Took the bus to Worcester with another friend of mine because he and I were both considering running track. When I got here and got on campus, I knew that was it. It was everything I had envisioned my college experience was to be. Ivy covered walls, small school sitting on a hill, didn't hurt that it was only 45, 50 minutes from Boston, then another 45, 50 minutes from Western Mass, so I knew I could get to Wellesley within an hour and I could get to Mount Holyoke within an hour, so that was very important to me. Ron Lawson: My high school was a very large high school, 2000 students, 90% white, 10% African-American. So when I got to Holy Cross and Holy Cross was 97% white with 3% African-American, it didn't phase me because that had been my whole upbringing. It was very interesting for guys like Ted and Tony Hill, class of '76 because Ted created a funnel effect for Holy Cross students coming from Calvin Coolidge High School in Washington and they followed him to Holy Cross so at one point in time, there were six or seven students from Calvin Coolidge here at Holy Cross. D.C. was totally different. D.C. was totally segregated. The schools were segregated unless you went to a private school, Calvin Coolidge, some of the other schools in the neighborhood were all African-American, so when they got to Holy Cross, they culture shock of having to deal with a majority environment was challenging to a lot of folks and some of the guys I knew dropped out because they couldn't handle it. Christian Haynes: Yeah, that's a good point, they may dropping out. I think as college students, that happens, it doesn't matter your background or anything like that but what made you stay? Now, you said there wasn't as much as a culture shock but I'm assuming that there had to be some kind of trials and tribulations along the way of... Ron Lawson: Oh, yeah, that's life. You're going to always incur trials and tribulations but I knew, at the time I was here, that I was experiencing the best time of my life. I knew I would have other good times ahead but I knew, while I was at Holy Cross, that I was experiencing four of the best years of my life and so I took it all in, I didn't leave anything on the table. I made sure I took advantage of as many opportunities as possible and it ran the gambit. It ran from going to parties in Boston to sitting, being a member of the political science club and having dinner with Archibald Cox, who was the special prosecutor for Richard M. Nixon, to one night having a campus-wide snowball fight with 26,000 people. Christian Haynes: Wow. Ron Lawson: All night long. Hunkering down behind Wheeler, crawling through the snow with a sack full of snowballs, waiting to get somebody upside the head. So no one could have had a better collegiate experience and you can talk to a lot of the folks that were with us, experienced this during the same time and a lot of them would feel the same way. Christian Haynes: Would you say there was a difference between the other African-American men on campus, since you guys had different backgrounds, did you notice certain differences through just the way you guys went about things? Ron Lawson: No, it was pretty much consistent throughout. Some of the same lingo that I used in North Babylon, that the guys from D.C. used, still played the same games growing up Ringolevio, hot peas and butter, all- Christian Haynes: I never heard of that... You from Brooklyn so... Ron Lawson: But a lot of the influences were exactly the same. Christian Haynes: Yeah, that's good. Ron Lawson: The commonality was such that, when our parents met, it was the same thing, they became friends. So no, I didn't see any difference between me and the other guys that I was going to school with. Christian Haynes: That's good. Now when you hear, you mentioned these names many times today in the short time that we've been together today but when you hear the names Stan Grayson, Eddie Jenkins, Clarence Thomas, those names, Ted Wells, what's the first thing that comes to your mind? Ron Lawson: It varies. First of all, the relationship endures and I take that for granted because it's just constant. Here's a perfect example, the Bishop Healy Committee had a farewell lunch in for Dean Millner yesterday, off-campus. Eddie came and we call ourselves the old heads because when we're around you guys there's a 40 year, 45 year gap so we know we're the old heads. So after I went to the bookstore, I was walking down here and I decided to go into the library, just to look to see how things have changed and as I'm leaving, I see a display case and in the display case is a picture of the Holy Cross football team of 1969 and so I look and I see Eddie Jenkins, take a picture and I send it, said that, on campus, in the library at the bookcase, just saw this picture, who's the young man in the second row, third from the left? So it's always those kinds of continuity of relationships and continuation of relationships. Two young men from my church will be entering Holy Cross in September and Stan and I couldn't be happier because we constantly engaged with making sure they were... applications were in, they were getting everything they needed, they were responding in an appropriate time. So now, I see this as an opportunity to have two more mentees on campus that I can help mentor over the next four years. Christian Haynes: That's great. I love this story but when you're mentioning Fraternity, it's like a slight bit but I know you take full pride into that, right? Ron Lawson: Yeah but as I said and as I told Maura and the other folks early on, I was at the tail-end of that experience, all right? Christian Haynes: Yeah. Ron Lawson: That started with these guys making one of the most bold decisions you could make as a person that young. They had decided that there were injustices on campus that affected black students disproportionately and they couldn't achieve the level of resolution that they wanted so they walked out. Went in the Hogan, had a press conference, tore up their ID cards and walked out. Among them was Art Martin, class of '70, who was the first president of the BSU and I can't even imagine the admiration the admiration these other guys must have had for him because he was a senior and he was already accepted into Georgetown Law School and Stan and Eddie and Clarence and Ted, they all told him, you don't have to go, you're already set, don't worry about it. He said, no, if one person is walking out, we're all walking out. Christian Haynes: RIght. Ron Lawson: So he was willing to sacrifice... they were willing to sacrifice their college education, he was willing to sacrifice an opportunity to matriculate Georgetown Law School. So I don't, in any way shape or form, compare with them or compare with that. Where I fall into play is, most of them except for Clarence and Art were all seniors my freshman year and we were all living on Healy Three and Eddie was a big-time football player, went on to win the Superbowl with the Miami Dolphins, Stan was getting ready to go to the University of Michigan Law School and Ted was getting ready to go to Harvard Business and Law School, four year joint degree. My claim to fame was, I showed up on Healy Three with a color TV and so that was my paragraph in the book and it was bittersweet because, I must admit, I liked the attention I got but then I realized the foolhardiness in that because Ted and Stan would kick me out my room every Sunday so they could watch Sunday football games in color and they'd make me go to the library. So... Christian Haynes: At least you got your work done. Ron Lawson: Well I tried to get my work done but I sat there for two or three hours saying, "man they kicked me out of my room, I can't even watch TV on my own TV", but I was a freshman, they were the upper-classmen so you do what you're told. Christian Haynes: Yeah, can't do nothing about it. Ron Lawson: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Christian Haynes: Yeah but I think there was a trickling effect that they had, especially with your class and the classes after that, I think you guys noticed what they did and wanted to pursue what they did, pursue that. Ron Lawson: Oh, definitely. Definitely. Christian Haynes: Pursue that legacy. Ron Lawson: They set the model that we all tried to become and follow suit. That was a blessing and a curse because over time, you would say to yourself, well, I'm not as successful as Ted, I'm not as successful as Stan, I'm just doing this. It took a while to say, I'm successful in my own right but what was always important was, will they be proud of me, will they be proud of my accomplishments. That was very, very important to me and the guys and the women that followed them. When they hear your name, will they speak about you with pride? Christian Haynes: Yeah. Seemed like there was a strong sense of brotherhood on the campus around that time. Ron Lawson: Oh, definitely. Christian Haynes: Yeah and for your class and the classes after, who were the people that you would go to whenever there was something on your mind or something you had to get off your chest or something happened, whether good or bad? Ron Lawson: It was pretty much Ted and Stan, for me. Even when Ted was in law school and business school, as consumed as he was, his Wife Nina, who was successful in her own right, was at Suffolk University and a lot of times, she would help counsel me because I was thinking of applying to law school. Even after school, when I'd had issues or just needed to bounce something off of someone, it would always be Ted or Stan that I would reach out to. Christian Haynes: Do you have any untold stories of Holy Cross, that you can think of? Ron Lawson: No, not... I have some I can't say publicly. Christian Haynes: Oh yeah, that's fine. Or your favorite story. Ron Lawson: Okay, my favorite story really... there's so many favorite stories. My most favorite story would have to be... I owe so much to Holy Cross. I always tell people like you and like Maura, who I think graduated in '07, that you all were going to be successful no matter what you did or no matter where you chose to go to school but you decided to go to Holy Cross so Holy Cross gets to take credit for your success. That's the reality. But going to Holy Cross... when I was here, my freshman year, my roommate was dating a young woman from New York, who was a few years younger than him, in high school and she and a bunch of her girlfriends came up for the weekend and we had one of the vacant suites in Healy Three and they all stayed there. I was dating one of her girlfriends. Then afterwards, my roommate and her broke up and over the years I would say, I wonder what ever happened to her, she was really cute and she had an odd last name, her last name was Clivert. Ron Lawson: So fast forward from the mid '70s to the early '90s, I'm now CFO for Mayor Dinkins in New York and one night I let the whole finance team go home early and I am processing campaign cheques to deposit in the bank the next day. So I see a cheque and it's got the name Nina Clivert on it. Well I know this has to be her so I start research... I try to find her, I get her number, I call, I leave a message. Couple of weeks later, we go out on a blind date. We go out on a couple of other days and to make a long story short, she's been my wife for the last 25 years. So it's because of Holy Cross I found my wife. Christian Haynes: Wow. You ever tell your roommate about that? Ron Lawson: Yeah, no harm, no foul. He broke up with her 1973, she and I got together in 1992. Christian Haynes: He does play a part in it. Ron Lawson: Yeah but- Christian Haynes: He wasn't invited to the wedding? Ron Lawson: Huh? No he wasn't invited to the wedding. He's all the way out in Seattle. Christian Haynes: That's funny. Now, what was next, after you graduated from Holy Cross? Ron Lawson: I didn't know. I didn't know. I was not at the top of my class, by any stretch of the imagination. I wasn't even in the middle of my class, by any stretch of the imagination. I was real close to the bottom of my class, with no stretching the imagination so I came home and I didn't have a lot of options. I didn't have the GPA to go to law school and so I worked for a year in a job that basically paid me a salary and it was something to do. At that time I decided I was going to apply to business school because two of the guys I graduated with, both went to Cornell and they were in the MBA program. So I applied to Cornell. I applied to a few other schools and I had done well on the GMATs so I got a letter from Carnegie Mellon saying that they had a pre-professional... they had a quantitative summer skills institute that I could enroll in for free and depending upon how I did in this summer skills institute, they would determine whether I could matriculate as a master's candidate and whether or not I would receive any sort of scholarship. Ron Lawson: It was scary because at Holy Cross, I was a political science major and one of the things Holy Cross teaches you is how to think, how to process, how to articulate and how to write. So I knew I could get in front of any audience and I could pontificate and I could speak the King's English and I could do well. I stayed as far away from quantitative courses as I possibly could because I was fearful of them. Well now I'm at CMU and I'm going to a quantitative summer skills institute so I'm confronted with my greatest fear. So the summer I was there, I had to take finite math, calculus, statistics, two computer programming courses, fundamental accounting, intermediate accounting, cost accounting and advanced accounting. I did well enough that I was actually tutoring calculus to undergraduate students by the end of the semester and I was offered a seat in the master's class and got a scholarship. So after one year of working after Holy Cross, I then went and got a master's in public management from Carnegie Mellon. Christian Haynes: You went from being at the bottom of the class to getting that offer of scholarship. Ron Lawson: Yeah and that's what I tell people. When anybody comes in my office... I prominently display all my degrees, my Holy Cross degree, my master's degree from Carnegie Mellon and then the first company that hired me after Carnegie Mellon sent me to a post-graduate program in accounting and finance at the Kellogg School, so I had that certificate on my wall also. I always tell people, it's not about me trying to show off or trying to display any arrogance. I am paying testimony to my parents, to my father who died at 57 and mother who died at 47, who I felt worked themselves into an early grave to make sure I could achieve that level of success, so that's in tribute to them. Ron Lawson: But yeah, that's how life is and what Holy Cross also taught me was, never give up. It was instilled in me, early on because there were a lot of challenges here where I could have... half my class, there were 34 black men in my class and half of them either flunked out or left and that 50% drop-out rate was pretty consistent through the early '70s to mid '70s. So I could have easily said, this is too hard, I'm not doing it, I'm going back to North Babylon and go to community college but Holy Cross instills in you that notion of perseverance. What I realized, when I graduated here, that I already had the suit of armor necessary to succeed in life and that played itself out at Carnegie Mellon because when I graduated from Carnegie Mellon, I knew it was the Holy Cross experience that got me to that point. Ron Lawson: Let me tell you a perfect example. Once again, I'm not at the top of my class, I'm struggling because I'm dealing with all these quantitative courses. We would be sitting in economics and economics class was 200/300 people in the auditorium. Now I'm not used to that. I'm used to 20 people in a class, in the basement of Fenwick or O'Kane because we used to have classrooms down there. I wasn't used to the type of economics because we were used to Samuelson, guns and butter. That was economics, I can understand that. I get to Carnegie Mellon and it's all math, it's all quantitative and it's all math. It's partial and differential equations. The professor is at the front on the video screen and he's doing computations and equations and formulas and he is trying to show us how to solve for lambda. I'm like, "what's lambda?", well nobody really knows but we're going to solve for it. Christian Haynes: Right. Ron Lawson: So I am befuddled, I am bemused, I am dismayed and I am flunking everything. Then one day, Holy Cross, being the institution that it is, teaches you perspective, teaches you how to observe. So I'm sitting in class and he puts an equation on the board and I see somebody raise their hand, "Professor Haynes, Professor Haynes", oh and he goes, so, this is how you solve for lambda, you take that purple bag and you have the black video screen and then you add it to the Holy Cross sign. "Professor Haynes, Professor Haynes", "yes Ron?", "so what you're saying, and this is intuitively speaking, is if I have a purple bag with a black sign and the Holy Cross sign, via the combination of those three elements, I will be able to solve for lambda", "that's right Ron", and I looked and I said, all he did was regurgitate what the professor said, he just said it a different way. From that day on, I was a B plus or an A student because all you had to do was regurgitate but I learned that because I learned that at Holy Cross, the perspective. Ron Lawson: Then I also realized my grades weren't good as the rest of the class so I needed to step up and figure out how I was going to gain an advantage. Well, I looked around and I remember when we were interviewed on campus, everybody put on their little suits and ties. I went out and got a $250 navy blue, Pierre Toussaint [intention: Pierre Cardin] double-breasted suit. Clean as the board of health. I would wear that to every job interview and at the end of my first semester, second year, when all the job offers were being made, I think I had seven job offers, which was more than anyone else in my class. Christian Haynes: Wow. Ron Lawson: So it was all those educational... it wasn't even educational experiences from Holy Cross, it was those life experiences from Holy Cross that helped me succeed. Christian Haynes: Right. Now, shortly after you got the scholarship for the master's program, you found out that your father had passed, right? Ron Lawson: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Christian Haynes: At this point, your mother had passed at the age of 17. Ron Lawson: Yes. Christian Haynes: Earlier you mentioned having the degrees in your office as a testimony to them, at that age, how do you get through that? I don't know if you have any siblings or anything like that but how were you able to get through that and how did your work or your work ethic reflect your parents? Ron Lawson: Well I just did. I can't even tell you how I got through it, I just did. I would love to say I had a tremendous support system but I was a moving target. I'm trying to pursue my career or move forward professionally, the way I know my parents would have wanted me to. When my father passed, I must admit, for a minute, I said, well I'm not... it was a three week break between the end of the summer skills institute at Carnegie Mellon and me entering the fall class and I wasn't going to go back. After my mother's death, my father remarried, my step-mother said, that's what he would have wanted you to do so you can't not go back. He only had $3,000 in life insurance, she gave me $300 and so off I was back to Carnegie Mellon. Ron Lawson: I was struggling academically and broke because I had no financial support. If we're having breakfast and you offered me a bowl of Kellogg's cornflakes now, I'd want to fight you because that's all I could afford to eat for two years. Coming from that experience, I realized well, if you can do this, you can do anything. What my parents instilled in me is no giving up, you don't quit. I saw it with my mother and her battle with breast cancer. I saw my father's angst after she passed and how he basically raised me as a single parent until I went off to Holy Cross. So those object lessons stuck with me and I just had the mindset that there was no challenge I couldn't overcome. Christian Haynes: So after Carnegie Mellon, you ended up in Wall Street or was there...? Ron Lawson: Yeah, spent 15 years in financial services with what is now Ernst & Young, Deloitte & Touche, Chase, JPMorgan Chase, Salomon Brothers, I did that for 15 years until I got laid off. That was my great epiphany because... this is what... you may have heard the term, in the past, the go-go '80s, this is during a period of time where everyone's making a ton of money on Wall Street, everyone's living extravagantly, it's all about self, there's nothing about, how do you live your life to benefit others. It's like, how do I get mine? I was caught up, head over heels, in it. Wearing the fine clothing, the expensive clothing, going out to the expensive restaurants, going to the theater two or three times a week. Next thing I know, I have lost my job and in my arrogance I said, well this will only take me a couple or three weeks to get another job because I have a Holy Cross degree, I have a Carnegie Mellon degree and I have a post-graduate certificate from the Kellogg School and I have 15 years of work experience on Wall Street. Didn't happen. Ron Lawson: I realized that, in retrospect, that this was God's way of humbling me because it's very timely that we're having this conversation today on Martin Luther King Day because I was able to come out of losing my job, losing everything I own, being homeless, to in a six month period of time, being the CFO for the Mayor of New York because I had a close network of friends that were very influential and because I met my minister at the time, who was Reverend Doctor Paul Smith and he was a senior pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn Heights. Paul is the person that introduced Martin Luther King to Andrew Young and Paul is a really good friend of Andrew Young and Paul was a key proponent, a key participant in the Civil Rights Movement, he was part of the group that got beaten crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Paul was the one that would call me over... because I lived about two or three miles from the church and I'd walk over because I couldn't afford to take the subway or a cab and we'd sit, we'd talk, we'd pray and he's constantly telling me, hard times don't last always. Tough times don't last, tough people do. Ron Lawson: So that's what got me out of that but once again, it was the Holy... one of the things Holy Cross also teaches you is, you are fortified to accomplish anything and as such, when somebody offers an opportunity to you that you might not necessarily be comfortable with or think you have the background for, you jump at it because you know you'll figure it out and that's what happened to me. My best friend at the time had run both of Harold Washington's mayoral campaigns and was in New York, he was the vice chair of an investment banking firm and Mayor Dinkins asked him to be the treasurer, campaign treasurer for his re-election campaign. Ken and I had dinner one night and Ken asked me if I would serve as the CFO because as Ken... and he was a real funny guy, as Ken put it, he said, "you know in New York state law, a political campaign treasurer can go to prison if there's misappropriations of funds of malfeasance", and he said, "so I need you to set up the financial infrastructure so you can watch my back because I am too pretty to go to prison". So that's how I got there. So I wound up managing an $11,000,000 political campaign, had about 15 staff members. Christian Haynes: So I think that definitely had an effect on what you do now and being the... Ron Lawson: That did, yeah. Christian Haynes: Yeah. Being the COO of Care for the Homeless, which I was a part of for one summer, as an intern. Not only that, I'm thinking about it right now, you taught me a lot but the biggest thing that I took away from you during that summer was the way you treated other homeless people. A lot of people, especially in New York City, homeless people get treated as if they're not a human being, nothing, just on the street but the way you would interact with them, and it's not just giving them money or giving them food, you would actually interact with them and I remember me, you and Nikai was coming from dinner one time and you told us just to go to the office and I just felt like you were going to a business meeting. You made it seem like you were going to a business meeting. Christian Haynes: Then I saw you going... I don't know the guy's name but it was in the corner of the same block that the office is on and you was talking to him, you was talking to him for a good minute and that right there just showed me the type of person you were and I guess it showed me a little bit what you learned yourself when you was homeless yourself for those six months and it was just like... and I'm glad. I'm really glad I had that opportunity and it just opened my eyes to a lot of things. I'm pretty sure that's one of the messages you try to tell people, in a way. Ron Lawson: Yeah. Holy Cross espouses and the model/mantra is, "men and women for others". So I don't want to have this journey and not be of service to others. It's not just selfishness in the sense of, well people helped me and I want to help other people, it's that it's what we're supposed to do. It's how, I think, an individual is supposed to live their life. The road to success is a journey, not a destination. In my view, you are never completely successful until you're put to rest and somebody is eulogizing you and says the world was a better place because you were here, because you lived in it. I take the work I do at Care for the Homeless differently in the sense that I am selfish because those 15 years on Wall Street, I always felt good about making a lot of money but I never felt good about what I was doing for someone else because I didn't care. So having to be humbled was God's way of telling me, you need to start focusing on other folks and not yourself. Ron Lawson: So I have the best experience in the world, I'm helping the folks who are least among us to get back on their feet, to find meaning in their own lives and because I go to work every day, I can honestly say, when I go home and I lay my head on the pillow at night, somebody somewhere is a little better off because I went to work today and I like the way that makes me feel. Christian Haynes: That's great. I remember you telling me that. You think if you didn't have that humbling experience, you would have went from business to non-profit, as you did? Ron Lawson: I don't know. I think I would have gotten to a point where I would have gotten tired of Wall Street and looked for other opportunities but I don't know when and where that would have come. So I think God just accelerated it for me. Christian Haynes: Has it always been instilled in you to give back or to want to give back? Ron Lawson: It has but not as prominent as it became once I started working for the mayor because that was a turning point for me because now I was working for the mayor of New York and no matter what your political persuasions... he was running against Rudy Giuliani and we literally saw it as good guy versus the bad guy, that's how we saw it. It was the very first time that I worked for a purpose and not just a paycheck. My wife will tell you, the night the mayor lost, we were engaged and we were living together at the time, we went to her house after the campaign because we were in the mayor's suite at the Sheraton and we couldn't stay any longer because we could tell he was losing so we went home and I started looking at the returns on the TV and after about three or four minutes I started crying and I couldn't stop crying. Then the TV went black. Never happened before that, never happened after that. So I think it was a sign where I just didn't have the emotional capacity to deal with him losing. So that's some of what I feel at Care for the Homeless, this is not just collecting a salary, there's a purpose behind the paycheck. It's a gratifying experience. Christian Haynes: Yeah. You've done a lot of great things, in my eyes, as an alumnus of the school. One of the things you helped do is created the ALANA Mentor Program. I've benefited form that. I've met a couple of alumnus who I still keep in touch with today, we're great... I actually just had a conversation with one of them. What made you want to create that? Ron Lawson: I want y'all to have what I never had, on a variety of levels. The ALANA Mentoring Program, that's why I was also key in starting the Bishop Healy Emergency Fund because a lot of times we don't have the resources that other folks on campus have and a lot of times the resources we need aren't huge. There's some kids that can't take the GMATs or can't take the LSATs or can't take the MCATs because they can't pay the application fee. Christian Haynes: Right. Ron Lawson: So the ALANA... the Bishop Healy Emergency Fund can do that. Can't get home for a winter break, come from the south and don't have a winter coat. The mentoring program, as I told you, who did I counsel with? Ted and Stan. Ted and Stan. The mentoring program, I thought, was an opportunity to connect more students of color on campus with alumni of color who were in the same fields that the students may have an interest in. I just thought it was a necessary addition to a student's collegiate experience here at Holy Cross. Christian Haynes: You know how it's set up? Ron Lawson: How it's set up? Christian Haynes: Yeah, how people are matched with the alumni. Ron Lawson: Well I know how I started it and... I called Amy Murphy in career development and she told me she thought it was a good idea and she said okay, here are some student's names that said they're interested and here's the list of alumni. I literally sat in my living room for two or three days, looking at alumni careers and their careers and then the students and what their interests were and started matching them. So now, I don't know how it's evolved, I know it has on some level. Christian Haynes: Yeah, similar it's just I thought it was interesting that the names aren't on the list, it's just the occupation and where they're located and the year that they graduated. So for us students it's like, we don't know who's who, we just know a little bit about them and you know the things that they've done on campus, whether that's sports or BSU or anything like that. So I thought that was pretty interesting. Ron Lawson: Yeah, it is. Christian Haynes: The Bishop Healy Fund too, a lot of people have benefited over that. I know somebody who just came home from an immersion trip and told me that it was a life changing trip and it was because of the Bishop Healy Fund so we want to thank you... I think I speak for everybody when we say, we want to thank you and those who have helped you create the Bishop Healy Fund and the ALANA Mentoring Program. Ron Lawson: So I appreciate the thanks but I'll tell you, like I was told by my friends that helped me out of that tough period of time, when you start moving forward in your career, make sure you reach back and make sure you do it for someone else. Christian Haynes: Yeah. Yeah I honestly think that was... the ALANA Mentoring Program, that was the thing that made me want to give back. I haven't graduated yet but I've told myself that, when I get to where I want to be, I want to give back. Ron Lawson: I would challenge you on that and say, don't wait until you get to where you want to be. Start now because you being out of school a year or two, you're going to be far more relatable to a sophomore or junior on campus than I am, 45 years out. So don't think you don't have anything to offer just because you haven't achieved what successes based upon what you define it to be. And, stay connected. I know you and Maura are going to say, oh here he goes again, because I know I'm preaching to the converted but I always like to state, that if you are a graduate of The College of the Holy Cross and you don't take advantage of the alumni network, you have discounted your degree by 25%. Christian Haynes: Yeah I definitely hear that and I will do as you say. Ron Lawson: How did you get your job last summer? Christian Haynes: Last summer or the summer before? Ron Lawson: Last summer. Christian Haynes: Last summer? Same story as the other one anyways. Ron Lawson: No, who'd you work for? Christian Haynes: Huh? Ron Lawson: Who'd you work for? Christian Haynes: Schone Malliet Ron Lawson: And what is he? Christian Haynes: He is an alumnus. Ron Lawson: From what class? '74. Christian Haynes: I thought '76? Ron Lawson: '74. Christian Haynes: Yeah. Ron Lawson: The point I'm making is, your last two summer jobs came because you reached out to the Holy Cross alumni. Christian Haynes: Right. Actually, everybody that I've spoke to to get those two jobs were alumnus or alumni. Ron Lawson: See? Christian Haynes: Interesting. But yeah, like I said before, I didn't know the strength of... the power of the purple. Ron Lawson: Yep. There's nothing like it. Christian Haynes: Yeah until when I needed to start connecting with people because I needed a job for the summer or anything like that. Yeah, what would you say is your mission statement, if you were to have one? If you don't have one, now's your time to create one. Ron Lawson: Personal mission statement? Christian Haynes: However you want to take it. Ron Lawson: To share as much as I can with as many people as I can. I take umbrage and I take it personally whenever I speak to a Holy Cross alumnus who tells me they didn't have the same experience I had. It bothers me when somebody walks away from this hill and says it wasn't four of the best years of their life. I know it can't be the case 100% of the time but I would hope it's the overriding case 98% of the time and those occurrences are few and far between. So I feel it's incumbent upon me to do everything I can to give back to the students who are on campus now so they can walk away saying it was four of the best years of their life. So whereas you have other alum who have interests to serve on the board or serve on the alumni association board, which I have done, I really get excited about connecting personally with students on campus, while they're on campus. Christian Haynes: How would you say the Holy Cross mission statement has effected your work? Ron Lawson: It makes it easy for me to say I come from an institution like this because this institution's motto is, "men and women for others", and that is what this school is known for and how the students live their lives on campus. So it's very interesting and another example of how deep the network runs is, Yankelly Villa, who you may know, was one of the presidential scholars last year. She posted on LinkedIn that she was coming to New York to get a master's degree at the new school and she needed a job, I saw it, she is now my operations assistant. Harry Thomas, class of '78, former ambassador to Bangladesh, Philippines, Zimbabwe, sits on the board of trustees, I asked him to serve on our board, he's on our board, he chairs our benefit committee and as a result of the people he knows, we now have a relationship with Ben Vereen, who's a two time Tony Award winner who is now going to headline a huge gala for us to celebrate our 35th anniversary in the fall. It is so bad that my boss, George Nashak who's a Columbia graduate, calls Care for the Homeless, Holy Cross South. Christian Haynes: In fairness, that's a good thing. Ron Lawson: Yeah, it's a very good thing for us. Christian Haynes: Yeah. All right so, we're going to do a little speed round. Ron Lawson: Okay. Christian Haynes: Just ask you questions and you can answer as fast you can. So if you was to change two things about Holy Cross, what would they be? Ron Lawson: Number of African-American students on campus. Christian Haynes: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Ron Lawson: And... figuring out how to keep it from snowing so much here during the winter. Christian Haynes: Impossible. Ron Lawson: Yeah. Christian Haynes: One year, it didn't snow as much. I didn't like it because you know we still have classes when it snows. Ron Lawson: That's another thing. You don't understand, y'all be shutting down and closing school when it snows, that is like an oxymoron to me. Holy Cross is closed because it's snowed. It didn't close the four years I was here. Christian Haynes: You'd be surprised how dangerous it gets. Ron Lawson: Oh, please. Christian Haynes: There's a lot of black ice... Ron Lawson: I must admit, when my father brought me up, he brought me up, dropped me off and then he came back later in the fall, towards the end of the fall for a football game and he saw the maintenance crew putting up the long, red, metal poles with the diamonds on top on the fire hydrants and he said, "what is that for", I said, "Dad, I don't know", and like six weeks later I called him, I said, "Daddy, you know why they put those things on the fire hydrants?", he said, "no", I said, "because the snow's so deep, they can't find them, that's the only way they can find them". So... I know the first one's far more realistic than the second. Christian Haynes: Yeah. Best place to eat in Worcester, back in the day? Ron Lawson: There was none. Christian Haynes: Really? Nothing? Ron Lawson: No. Christian Haynes: Not Miss Woo's? Ron Lawson: McDonald's. That's pretty much it. Christian Haynes: Wait, Miss Woo's is there. Miss Worcester's Diner. Ron Lawson: I didn't do that. I am not going to eat any place... under a place that is called Pigeon Bridge. Where Miss Woo is, that bridge, they used to call it Pigeon Bridge. Christian Haynes: Oh, did not know that. Ron Lawson: Yeah. Christian Haynes: Makes a lot of sense. Ron Lawson: There you go. Christian Haynes: All right, best place to eat in Worcester now? Ron Lawson: Oh, Sole Proprietor. Christian Haynes: Actually been there, it's pretty good. Ron Lawson: Yeah. Christian Haynes: Would you rather life as a student or life as an alum? Ron Lawson: Life as an alum. Christian Haynes: Ideal vacation spot? Ron Lawson: South Africa. Christian Haynes: Why? Ron Lawson: Because I haven't been. Christian Haynes: Okay. I was going to ask your favorite dorm but you said you spent all four years at Healy. Ron Lawson: Yeah. Christian Haynes: Favorite year? Ron Lawson: Every year. Christian Haynes: No, favorite year. What was that? Ron Lawson: Favorite year? Christian Haynes: Yeah. Ron Lawson: '75. Christian Haynes: Okay. If you were to win the lottery, what is the next thing you're doing? Ron Lawson: How much? Christian Haynes: I don't know, 100 mil. Ron Lawson: 100 mil? Christian Haynes: Yeah. Ron Lawson: Make sure my families and friends are secured. Christian Haynes: I'm one of those friends. Ron Lawson: I'd think about it. Sit down with the school to see what their needs are. Have a conversation with Father Boroughs and Tracy Barlok and make a sensible contribution to the college that's going to help move it forward and move the mission forward and set up a need-blind scholarship program for students coming to campus. Christian Haynes: Favorite song or best song that reflected your time at Holy Cross? Ron Lawson: Theme from Shaft. Christian Haynes: Theme from what? Ron Lawson: Theme from Shaft. Isaac Hayes. That's all that was playing when I got here. Christian Haynes: A book you've read that has changed your perspective on life. Ron Lawson: Fraternity. Christian Haynes: Okay. If given the money needed, what would be the first thing you'd invent? Ron Lawson: A quicker mode of transportation from my house to work in the morning. Christian Haynes: You're on a road trip, who's in the car and what are you guys listening to? Ron Lawson: Nina, my wife, is in the car and we're listening to Stevie Wonder's Inner Visions/Fulfillingness' First Finale and Songs in the Key of Life, in sequence. Christian Haynes: Well, that's all I got. Ron Lawson: All right. Christian Haynes: Always a pleasure. I appreciate you coming down here and taking the time to do this, it was very exciting for me. I hope you had a good time. Ron Lawson: I enjoyed myself and I appreciate you asking. Christian Haynes: Yeah, no doubt. Maura Sweeney: That's our show, I hope you enjoyed hearing about just one of the many ways that Holy Cross alumni have been inspired by the mission to be men and women for, and with, others. A special thanks to today's guest and everyone at Holy Cross who has contributed to making this podcast a reality. If you, or someone you know, would like to be featured on this podcast, please send us an email at alumnicareers@holycross.edu. If you like what you hear, then please leave us a review. This podcast is brought to you by the office of alumni relations at The College of the Holy Cross. You can subscribe for future episodes wherever you find your podcasts. I'm your host Maura Sweeney and this is Mission-Driven. In the words of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, now go forth and set the world on fire. --- Theme music composed by Scott Holmes, courtesy of freemusicarchive.org.

Andy is joined by waterfowl and outdoor photographer, Ted Wells. The guys chat about Ted's travels and memorable hunts from the last waterfowl season, his most unusual setup for getting a photograph, and how he has evolved as a photographer.

What can be said about Theodor 'Ted' Wells, that hasn't already been documented in countless magazine articles and honorary awards? Well, for starters; did you know he's an inductee to the Lowrider Magazine Hall of Fame, or that he prefers burgers over fish sandwiches.  You may have heard of his famous 1962 Impala, also known as 'Super Duce'.  Did you hear the story about the first time he saw a car with hydraulics and how it left a life long impression and how it shaped pretty much the rest of his life. The stories that are guaranteed to tug on your heart, will be the few words he spoke to Jesse Valdez of The Imperials CC or his jokingly relationship with Lil John of the Majestics CC. He also co-founded Professionals car club. Here all these stories and more from a true hydraulic craftsmen. Also, hear his favorite shop chair, that squeaked the interview. You won't hear it from anywhere else besides his shop at his home.  Drifting On Memories  

Tom Curran takes us through the decade in Patriots history, one sound bite at a time.2:14 - Early 2010s: Wes Welker teasing Rex Ryan, Tedy Bruschi going at Ochocinco, Bill Belichick addressing the Aaron Hernandez situation and more.10:29 - 2014 Season: Drafting Jimmy Garoppolo, "On to Cincinnati," the run the Super Bowl 49 and more.17:36 - Deflategate: The Famed "Mona Lisa Vito" presser, Ted Wells on his report, Robert Kraft losing trust in the league and more.32:13 - Mid-to-late 2010s Drama: Jimmy G. traded, Malcolm Butler benched, and Josh McDaniels snubs the Colts.44:00 - Decade closes: Fallout from the Super Bowl 52 loss, Brady angry and unappreciated, Gronk's final seasons and more.

Jeff and Andy are joined by photographer and outdoor marketer, Ted Wells. Ted has made a name for himself in the waterfowl market by taking some of the industry's most breathtaking photographs.

This week I sit down and talk to Ted Wells, an amazing photographer, dad and waterfowl hunter. A resident of Bozeman who left his career to pursue professional photography, Ted's a great guy and this was a really fun interview with a down to earth and real guy doing what many of us dream of doing.

And as a beautiful mashup of my love of flying and my love of museums, naturally I love going to aviation museums.  The designs and shapes of the planes; the ingenuity and technology needed to get a person aloft; and the personality of each plane is unique.  Why are there so many brands of planes?  How has plane design changed over the years?  And what makes one plane different from another?  With all those questions and more, I found myself on a sunny afternoon at the Beechcraft Heritage Museum in Tullahoma, Tennessee.  I’ve been to other general aviation museums around the country, but the Beechcraft Heritage Museum is unique because it is solely focused on one brand of aircraft – Beechcraft.  Started in 1932, the Beechcraft company has been building planes in Wichita, Kansas, and still produces airplanes there today.  So my first question was, why is there a museum dedicated to this specific brand of aircraft at all?  And, secondly, why is the museum located in Tullahoma, Tennessee?  This was just the start of my questions when I sat down with Charles Parish – Executive Vice-President and son of the museum founder – along with Jody Curtis (Direct of Marketing & Membership) and Sherry Roepke (Resident Director).  Some of the stories Charles shared include why the Beechcraft airplane design is unique, how the first plane was designed, and the evolution of the plane’s design since the 1932.  Charles talks about his father acquiring Big Red -- the Beechcraft plane that really started the museum – and shares the backstories of the planes and people that helped kickstart the museum into being and continue to propel it into the future.  Drawn on a napkin by Walter Beech and his chief engineer, Ted Wells, they created the “staggerwing” design iconic to the original Beechcraft airplane.  In most biplane design the upper wings are forward of the lower wings.  The staggerwing design flipped that and put the upper wing behind the lower wing.  This design improved performance, visibility and the stall characteristics of the airplane.  Positioned as the “Cadillac” of aircraft, Beech and Wells also designed the first Beechcraft staggerwing as a “cabin” class airplane.  Before that planes had an open cockpit – the passenger sat in the front and the pilot sat in the rear in the open air.  Cabin class meant the pilot and passengers were inside the aircraft and the pilot moved from the rear to the front of the plane.  Also amazing is the number of “firsts” in this museum.  They have Serial #1 Travel Air (predecessor company Walter Beech was involved in prior to starting the Beechcraft company), Serial #1 Staggerwing, and Serial #1 Mystery Ship.   In addition, to the Beechcraft staggerwing airplanes, you’ll also see Bonanza and Baron branded planes.  Still part of the Beechcraft family, the Bonanza and Baron lines were introduced to target new markets, take advantage of new technologies, and are still manufactured today.  The original staggerwing was a biplane with two sets of wings with a fabric-wood-fabric construction.  The Bonanza is an all metal, single-engine Beechcraft with one set of wings that was first produced in 1947, and the museum has the #9 and #18 planes ever produced.  The Baron is a twin engine Beechcraft.     If you’re driving to Tullahoma and wondering if you’re in the right town, then just look at the utility poles lining the streets – small, painted fighter jet style airplanes are attached to many of the light poles.  Still need more convincing this is a plane-crazy town?  Then check out some of the plane sculptures that by the sidewalks in front of local businesses.  (Living in Tennessee I naturally had to include a picture of the Tennessee Vols plane.) If you’re a museum nerd like me, then you have got to add this museum to your “must-see” list and tell them, “I heard about you on the Made in Museums podcast.” For full show notes with pictures, visit my website Made in Museums.  If you love to document your travels to off-the-beaten-path places, then show me where you're heading or where you've been by sharing your stories with me at Made in Museums on Facebook,  Twitter, and Instagram.  If you want to let me know about a curious museum that you’ve visited, and that I should cover on this show, contact me through social media or just send me an email.

In this episode we're joined by freelance photographer Ted Wells. We talk about how to get started with photography and how to best utilize the camera you already have!

For trial lawyers, judges and experienced attorneys can offer significant advice, especially when interacting with juries. In this report from On The Road, host Laurence Colletti talks to panelists Brad Brian, Ted Wells, James Quinn, and Judge Barbara Lynn about their session on winning commercial litigation cases. Some of the topics they discuss are jury selection, opening statements, and other practical tips for trial lawyers. Brad Brian is a national trial lawyer and co-managing partner of Munger, Tolles & Olson. Barbara M. G. Lynn is the Chief United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas, with chambers in Dallas, Texas. Ted Wells is a partner and co-chair of the litigation department at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. Jim Quinn is an accomplished trial lawyer who served for many years as head of the Litigation Department of the international law firm of Weil, Gotshal & Manges.

Change has arrived and it's time that the art world increases its influence, inspiration, and power. We’re entering a very interesting time in the arts, when increasing numbers of artists will use their talents to push back against a growing climate of racism, inequality, and social conservatism. As Ted Wells says: "Jump off the BLANDwagon."  Dark times can make life beautiful. With the arts, our lives can be transitional during a time full of powerful artistic commentary and vivid artistic and social expression.  Some artists protest the present while shaping and reinventing the future; others artists help us escape our current reality or remind us that beauty and novelty still exist in the world, regardless of how bad we’re currently feeling about it. During the 1960s, artists created work that protested injustice and inspired the counterculture to battle the conservative backlash. And others made art that was so beautiful that it soothed shattered nerves and lifted average people out of the shadows. That was what the world needed then, and it’s what the world needs now. And I feel that’s exactly what is coming in the next few years. The creation of art, by any of us, can be a way of expressing our feelings within a realm of freedom that we might not be experiencing in our job, or among our community, or within our family. In some ways, it can a be way of emerging some part of our soul that would otherwise be trapped because of the way artistic expression can be squelched by society. Be raw, rougher … more honest and expressive … and way more real. Andy Warhol, Green Day, Revolution Radio, Billie Joe Armstrong, Bob Dylan, Rolling Stone Magazine, Dion, Jefferson Airplane, Sly and and Family Stone, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Emory Douglas, Black Panthers, Broadway, Barry Goldwater, Donald Trump, Martin Later King Jr., Robert Kennedy, JFK, John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, George Wallace, Vietnam War, Abraham Lincoln, Walt Whitman, Man Ray, Edward Steichen, Lee Miller, Stuart Davis, Jospeh Cornell, Lucien Carr, William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, John Giorno, Laurie Andersen, Andrea Fraser, Gus Van Sant, Ted Wells  

Woody Guthrie, a talented singer, songwriter and poet, was fearless in expression of his beliefs and spoke up to authority whenever he felt an injustice being committed. When Guthrie recorded "This Land is Your Land," his lyrics posed an important question: In a land of plenty made for all of us, why are people so hungry?  Guthrie so disliked his New York landlord, Fred Trump (Donald Trump's father), that Guthrie wrote a song about Donald's father, Fred, in the early 1950s because Guthrie thought that Trumps' father was one who stirred racial hate and implicit profits from it.   Guthrie made it a point to include the lyrics about hungry, discounted people in “This Land is Your Land.” Our country, which is still admirable in so many ways, has had a long history of mistreating people in a way that comes across quiet and hidden, and repositioned in a way that makes it seem that we are “helping,” but helping is sometimes not the truth. And historically, this leads to one of our most mistreated groups, on their own continent, Native Americans.   I like to think that when Woody Guthrie wrote his song, he was sensitive to the plight of Americans of all races, and was viewing the future of our nation from the middle edges, where the possibilities for positive change can still be seen though the thickening fog. Learn more at http://woodyguthriecenter.org Martin Luther King, Jr., United Nations Human Rights Council, Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, Fort Laramie Treaty, Buffalo Bill Cody, Sitting Bull, Christopher Columbus, Gretchen Goetz, Justin William Moyer, Washington Post, The New York Times, Will Kaufman, Thomas Kaplan, Ted Wells

Less than 24 hours after the sanctions were announced, Boston Globe NFL Columnist Ben Volin and NY Times Magazine Chief National Politics Correspondent, and Tom Brady profile writer, Mark Leibovich join Schrager for all things Deflategate.

Join Daniel Feuerstein and Rick Laughland as they are joined with Spy Gate author Bryan O' Leary as we discuss the possible suspension that Tom Brady will receive with the deflate gate report by Ted Wells already handed in to NFL Commishioner Roger Goodell. Get ready for some interesting talk.

WELLS REPORT: Tom Brady Aware Of "Deflategate" That is the assessment Thursday May 7, 2015 from New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady's agent about a report released by the NFL on the "Deflategate" scandal -- one that many say significantly taints the football superstar's image. Specifically, the report -- prepared by attorney Ted Wells -- found that "it is more probable than not" that Brady was "at least generally aware of the inappropriate activities" of locker room attendant Jim McNally and equipment assistant John Jastremski, who has been with the team since 2001.   Source Article:   http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/07/us/nfl-deflategate-report/index.html     Beat By @ZaneAlexanderNC       Podcast now available on iTunes.   https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/gmiasworlds-podcast/id593120928   http://www.gmiasworld.com    http://www.twitter.com/gmiasworld   http://www.facebook.com/gmiasworld   http://www.twitch.tv/gmiasworld   http://www.Instagram.com/GmiasWorld/   http://gmiasworld.spreadshirt.com   WELLS REPORT: Tom Brady Aware Of "Deflategate" WELLS REPORT: Tom Brady Aware Of "Deflategate" WELLS REPORT: Tom Brady Aware Of "Deflategate"

A room full of heroes -- Dan Hanzus, Marc Sessler, Gregg Rosenthal and Chris Wesseling – discuss Friday's news, including the latest on the Ted Wells report involving Miami Dolphins teammates Jonathan Martin and Richie Incognito. The gang forecasts the free-agency frenzy set to begin March 11, plus potential landing spots for the league's top unsigned wide receivers. Finally, find out if a lucky podcast listener could take down Wesseling in a battle of football minds called “Win Wess' Toaster.”Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A room full of heroes -- Dan Hanzus, Marc Sessler, Gregg Rosenthal and Chris Wesseling – discuss Friday’s news, including the latest on the Ted Wells report involving Miami Dolphins teammates Jonathan Martin and Richie Incognito. The gang forecasts the free-agency frenzy set to begin March 11, plus potential landing spots for the league’s top unsigned wide receivers. Finally, find out if a lucky podcast listener could take down Wesseling in a battle of football minds called “Win Wess’ Toaster.”

Julius Shulman's photos did more than publicize the work of Modernist architects. He showed the world that the best architecture of mid-century America reflected the unique and imagined lifestyle of this place. In Shulman's perceptively sharp photos of architecture, interesting men and beautiful women are caught in the middle of a stimulating conversation over cocktails, or lounging in the garden, or emerging from an evening swim in the pool. Ted Wells notes that Shulman's photographs created the two things architecture needs for immortality: respectability and desirability. The Julius Shulman archive of 260,000 photographs has been acquired by the Getty Research Institute. The exhibit "Julius Shulman: Modernity and the Metropolis," is on display until January 22, 2006 at the Getty Center in Los Angeles. For more information visit www.getty.edu. Photo from the Getty Research Institute: Chuey Residence, Los Angeles, 1956. Richard Neutra, architect. www.tedwells.com

Julius Shulman is a world-renowned architectural photographer whose career spans the history of Modernism in America. The Shulman House and Studio, built in 1947 and designed by architect Raphael Soriano, has been the photographer's home for nearly sixty years. Ted Wells presents the fourth podcast in a series about four architects and four clients who were committed to the ideals of modern living. These clients are true patrons: generous with their praise, evangelical in their fervor to spread the spirit of Modernism, and satisfied that the rest of the world has finally caught up with their foresight. The photos of the clients in this four-part series are by John Ellis. www.tedwells.com

Leland Burns is a professor of Urban Planning at Cambridge and UCLA. His house, by architect Charles Moore, is imaginative, playful, colorful and memorable. It's a "harmonious and fruitful collaboration between architect and client." This is the third in a series, presented by Ted Wells, about four architects and four clients who were committed to the ideals of modern living. These clients are true patrons: generous with their praise, evangelical in their fervor to spread the spirit of Modernism, and satisfied that the rest of the world has finally caught up with their foresight. www.tedwells.com

John P. Clark was a music teacher and his house, by Richard Neutra, centers around the creation, performance and enjoyment of music. When Mr. Clark and his wife DeeVee commissioned the house, they helped create a modern masterpiece. Ted Wells presents the first in a series about four architects and four clients who were committed to the ideals of modern living. These clients are true patrons: generous with their praise, evangelical in their fervor to spread the spirit of Modernism, and satisfied that the rest of the world has finally caught up with their foresight. www.tedwells.com

Over 40 images are in this ENHANCED audio and visual tour to take along for your visit to the exhibit, "Greene & Greene in Long Beach: Furniture for the Homes of Jennie A. Reeve and Adelaide Tichenor." Images of the exhibit have been added to this podcast (November 8, 2005). You may view this Enhanced Podcast in iTunes, Quicktime or on your iPod. Ted Wells shares his insights into the furniture and decorative objects to help you get the most from your visit to this new exhibit at the Long Beach Museum of Art in Long Beach, California. In the early 1900s, the architects Henry and Charles Greene designed some of the world's most beautiful Arts & Crafts houses and some of the most extraordinary furniture ever created. This is the third in a three-part series of podcasts related to the exhibition and the work of the Greenes in Long Beach. www.tedwells.com

The Long Beach Museum of Art presents an exhibition of the work of celebrated Arts & Crafts architects Charles Sumner Greene and Henry Mather Greene. The exhibit "Greene & Greene in Long Beach: Furniture from the Homes of Jennie A. Reeve and Adelaide Tichenor" is the first time these decorative objects have been assembled and marks their return to Long Beach. In this podcast, Ted Wells looks at an extrordinary and progressive woman, Adelaide Tichenor and tells the story of her Japanese-inspired house. This is the second in a series of three podcasts to enhance the experience of visiting the museum exhibition. www.tedwells.com

The Long Beach Museum of Art presents an exhibition of the work of celebrated Arts & Crafts architects Charles Sumner Greene and Henry Mather Greene. The exhibit "Greene & Greene in Long Beach: Furniture from the Homes of Jennie A. Reeve and Adelaide Tichenor" is the first time these decorative objects have been assembled and marks their return to Long Beach. In this podcast, Ted Wells looks at an extrordinary and progressive woman, Jennie Reeve, and the more than 100-year history of her house. This is the first in a series of three podcasts to enhance the experience of visiting the museum exhibition. www.tedwells.com

Welcome to Ted Wells living : simple podcasts. Architecture and design can make your life better ... or worse. Architectural historian and writer Ted Wells explores what we can learn from contemporary and historical architects and designers, and the houses, buildings, gardens and objects they create. Subscribe at iTunes or www.twls.libsyn.com or visit www.tedwells.com. Thanks for listening.