Tech Times2

Spring 2009

The magazine ofThe Brooklyn Tech Alumni Foundation

Reach with me...

SuSta

ining ExcEl l EncE21/21

Brooklyn Tech Alumni Foundation, Inc.29 Fort Greene Place • Brooklyn, NY 11217www.bthsalumni.org Non-Profit Org.

U.S. PostagePAID

Brooklyn, NYPermit No. 1778

Spring 2009

The magazine of The Brooklyn Tech Alumni Foundation

Tech Times2

Contents

Brooklyn Tech Alumni Foundation, Inc.29 Fort Greene Place Brooklyn, NY 11217

www.bthsalumni.org

10The Teacher

Principal’s Letter 2From the Alumni Foundation3Inside Tech 425 Years of Supporting Tech24Donors’ Honor Roll 26

16 22The Innovation Challenge

18In BusinessTwo entrepreneurial Technites started an organization and launched a new alumni-student tradition.

The Tech effect: A syndrome in which successful professionals

experience an irresistible urge to shift careers and come to Brooklyn Tech.

Two prominent Brooklyn Tech alumni explore, in separate interviews, how to drive change in business, science edu-cation and research.

The climb to their sport’s pinnacle started at Tech. But the highest accolade of all

seemed just beyond reach.

Not much has changed in 43 years:hamlet still dies.

6Olympian Feat

13Tech Effect

he mission of Brooklyn Technical High School has always been to inspire and challenge its students to maximize their tal-ents for the benefit of society by educating them in pre-engineering, the technologies, the sciences, mathematics and the humani-ties. The goal is to prepare our students for matriculation to the most competitive col-leges and universities and to then become academic, business and community leaders for the 21st century.

In March 2006, I was given the amazing opportunity to lead this vital mission by returning as principal to Brooklyn Tech, where I had previously served as chair-man of the math department. Did I want to accept this enormous challenge at the largest physical high school in the United States? I had been serving as the found-ing principal at the High School for Math, Science & Engineering, a small school that my team and I had built from the ground up; we were three months short of our first graduation. How could I leave? But this was Tech, a school I have loved since my first day there as a teacher years earlier. As many Technites can empathize, this is where I belong.

One of the factors that influenced my decision to return was the realization that I would be supported by the foremost high school alumni organization in the nation. With the assistance of the 40,000 member-strong Brooklyn Tech Alumni Foundation, we are working hard to reconnect our past with our present with the common goal of driving the future.

In response to a changing global economy, and by using the pioneering educational re-search “Breaking Ranks” as a framework, we have completed a review and first phase of

a revision of the majors system. Major pro-grams have expanded in some areas, declined in others. Iconic courses like Foundry and IP have yielded over time to new course se-quences such as the Project Lead The Way’s Design and Drafting for Production, Digital Electronics, and Computer Integrated Man-ufacturing courses. Aerospace Engineering and College Prep (now called “International Arts & Sciences”) have returned anew, and our Architecture and Gateway to Medicine majors have been updated. (See our school website, www.bths.edu, in the guidance sec-tion, for a complete view of our new course sequences.)

Developing partner-ships with the US Na-val Academy, Florida Tech and NASA for the Aerospace Program; and CUNY, Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, and Sherman-Fairch-ild for the Gateway to Medicine Program have provided our students with enriched experiences that would otherwise not be possible. Brooklyn Tech offers demon-strable evidence of the power of the public-private partnership.

We are also working hard to take maxi-mum advantage of the unmatched gener-osity, energy and commitment that your Alumni Foundation provides. With its unprecedented support, we have improved our facilities to support these and other in-novative instructional initiatives: The In-structional Teacher Technology Center is state-of-the-art and surpasses professional

training environments found in most university settings. The Con Edison En-vironmental Science Lab, the DeMatteis Architecture & Design Studio, our Digital Animation laboratory and the Ike Heller Center for Computer Integrated Manu-facturing and Robotics provide exemplary learning environments for our students.

In life, you will meet many people who know many things but few who have learned to think, problem solve and in-

novate. Our students learn to ask good ques-tions, are given the 21st century tools and skills to investigate potential solutions, and develop their ability to effec-tively communicate their findings to others. We face the profound chal-lenge of preparing stu-dents not only to excel in higher academics but to enter a workforce to pursue careers which may not yet even exist!

Technites have re-ceived numerous distinctions through the years for their remarkable achievements. We are equally proud of our current stu-dents and their ability to carry forth, sus-tain and extend this legacy of excellence. Our students will be the innovators who will, as their predecessors have done before them, change the world.

Please “Reach With Me,” as we encour-age and enable the Technites of tomorrow. Thank you for engaging in, and caring about, Brooklyn Technical High School.

ThePrincipal’s DeskFrom

AsherRandy

Telcome to the first issue of Tech

Times, or T2, the new annual publication of the Brooklyn Tech Alumni Foundation. There are as many reasons and ways to remain connected to Brooklyn Tech as there are alumni. This magazine is one more. With so many exciting developments taking place at Tech, and so much important work yet to be done, your Alumni Founda-tion is expanding the frequency and forms of its communications to you – the most loyal, accomplished and dedicated public high school alumni group anywhere. Increasingly, those messages will be on-line – as in our website, www.bthsalumni.org and our new e-newsletter, Technite Online.

(If you didn’t receive the inaugural issue last month, please email info@bthsalum.org to be added to the mailing list). Online updates are the fastest and most direct way to get Tech news to you. But yet there is something to be said for the presence and substance of a printed volume. Hence this magazine. In our news-letters and other communications, we’ll up-date you on the latest from Brooklyn Tech

and your Alumni Foundation. We’ll do that here, too, but our primary goal is broader. This magazine will aim to bring you a closer, deeper, more personal glimpse into what is happening inside Brooklyn Tech, and in the lives of both those who have gone forth from it to excel, and the teachers who helped shape them. We’ll offer a rare chance to sit back and reflect with respected thought leaders who may have been your classmates, as they share their views on important issues of the day. In these pages, too, you’ll find reminiscences – some bittersweet, some humorous, some in-sightful – that may strike a chord with your own Tech memories.

Above all, Tech Times hopes to remind you that you have always been, and continue to be, part of an extraordinary community of strivers, thinkers and achievers. That community thrives today in the very building that shaped our lives. Brooklyn Tech, its students and teachers, are reaching new heights of excellence in countless ways. It is an exciting time. For a quarter of a centu-ry your Alumni Foundation, thanks to your generosity, has supported Tech’s educational mission. Together we have made possible a wide range of educational opportunities, teacher development programs, and facility and curriculum enhancements that could never be possible otherwise. Celebrating our 25th anniversary as an organization, we look with optimism to the days ahead. Yes, these are challenging times, but Sustaining Excellence: The 21/21 Cam-paign For Brooklyn Tech, launched at our Gala last fall, is off to an energetic start to-ward its goal of raising $21 million for Tech’s 21st century. But in this environment, everyone needs to step forward. More than ever, your support will help ensure that today’s young Technites enjoy the same richness of educational expe-rience that you did. Please demonstrate the manual dexterity you perfected at Brooklyn Tech by removing the pre-addressed enve-lope enclosed within these pages – and your generosity by returning it with a donation.

AlumniFoundationThe

From

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MichaelWeiss ’57

Achilles Perry ’58

Mathew Mandery ’61

chairman President chief executive Officer

2 3

ith neighbors like acclaimed filmmaker Spike Lee, whose 40 Acres and a Mule production company is across the street, some Tech

students dream, just as he once did, of making movies. Now, thanks to a new digital animation lab funded in part by the Alumni Foundation, they can. Room 1N4 houses 34 large-screen Macintosh computers built to utilize the most sophisticated animation software. The lab opened last September for seniors in the Media Communications major under the supervision of instructors Stephanie Czerniewski and Patricia DePinto to apply what they have learned from previous design, photography and film/video courses to create texture and depth in short animation films. They expect to enter their works in local and national competitions.

Animation meets education in new digital animation lab

A “Shrek” for tech

Heller Center advances computer integrated manufacturing, robotics

2.0MAchine ShoP

he first stage of the Ike Heller ’43 Center for Computer Integrated Manufacturing and Robot-ics opens this spring as a state-of-the-art facility for student learning, professional development and career preparation. The center will provide students and faculty with a high tech, high school learning environ-ment at university and industry standards. There, students in engineering design, computer integrated manufacturing and robotics will soon be converting computer-assisted designs into three-dimensional plastic or metal prototypes. They will also get to design and manufacture parts for actual clients like the U.S. Navy. Under teacher supervision, they will experience a hands-on, real-world opportunity to learn by doing as the center becomes a viable school-based enterprise servicing the larger community. The center occupies a former machine shop where generations of Technites grew proficient with lathes – many vintage models of which were relocated to other shops to accommodate the room’s new 21st century use. Mr. Heller, recognizing that the U.S. requires more design and manufacturing expertise, has funded the center with an initial donation of $500,000. Mr. Heller, a co-founder of the Remco toy company, is Chairman of the Board of Heller Industrial Parks, Inc., and founder of I. Heller Construction Co., Inc.

T

Wrooklyn Tech students may not always admire the “antique”

aspects of their aging school building, but visiting alumni often regard these imperfections with nostalgic amusement. Alumni in that camp are advised to return soon for a final glimpse of early 20th century artifacts such as porcelain urinals, water-damaged ceilings and analog clocks that are accurate only twice a day. Ma-jor infrastructure improvements are in progress at Tech. The building is wrapped in scaffolding, with a $20 million renovation underway to replace the roof and re-point the building thanks to Department of Education funding. The original student bathrooms will be totally renovated; new fire alarm, public ad-dress, bell and clock systems will be installed and the auditorium and stage are undergoing restoration. Enhancements to the learning environment are also proceed-ing thanks to the New York City Council and alumni generosity. In addition to the programs featured on these pages, plans are moving ahead to create a state-of-the-art DNA/Genetics lab and

to upgrade nearly 20 additional classrooms with interactive whiteboards and other 21st century instructional technology tools.

4 5

ncoming freshmen who aspire to careers in medicine should proceed directly to Tech’s newly expanded Gateway to Medicine program and apply for the school’s only four-year course major. Tech has long offered this statewide effort, funded through the New York State Science and Technology Entry Program (STEP) and administered by the Gateway Institute for Pre-College Education at City College, to expose students from underrepresented minority groups to careers in science and medicine. New support from Tech, the Alumni Foundation and the Sherman-Fairchild Foundation has enabled the program to increase its rigor, learning opportunities and enrollment. The program’s new coordinator, Dr. Philip Jeffery, is a graduate of Harvard Medical School and former Chief of Trau-ma Radiology at NYU Medical Center who brings real-world perspective to the initiative. Enhancements include a medical research library, student research center, advanced anatomy lab and planned programs hosted by Mount Sinai School of Medicine and the NYU Courant Institute of Mathematics. An integrated bio-chemistry curriculum is being developed and piloted at Tech for replication by other Gateway to Medicine programs. The program will double in size to meet growing demand. It already includes 136 freshmen among the 317 current participants.

RazE Theroofthe

wILLSeeYou now…

DocToR(fuTure)

Gateway to Medicine expands early pre-med opportunitiesBI

it ’s happening at fort greeneplace29

$20 million rehabmodernizes Tech

Tech Times2

hree remarkable fencers – a brother, a sister and a close friend – graced Tech’s classrooms and gyms as elite teenage stars for much of the ’90s, and then dominated their sport in the years that followed. From 2001 on, not a year passed without at least one of them claiming a national champi-onship. Between them, Keeth Smart ’96, Erinn Smart ’97 and Ivan Lee ’99 would capture twelve national titles and establish themselves as three of the greatest U.S. ath-letes in the sport’s history. But as the 2008 Beijing Olympics ap-proached, uncertainty hovered above all they had achieved. Woven into their shared decade of triumph were less glossy threads of story line: a tantalizing run at Olympic triumph in 2004 that crumbled in a crush-ing, inexplicable last-second collapse; an extended sabbatical by the Smart siblings to absorb the heartbreak of that defeat and the untimely death of their father and guid-ing spirit, Thomas; and, inevitably, age and career crossroads creeping up on them all. With such profound distractions, could this trio summon the magic one more time? Could they at last lift the U.S. team onto the Olympic medal platform, in a sport long ruled by disciplined, well-funded European teams? And then, just weeks before the sym-bolic flame would be lit in Beijing, stun-ning new setbacks: Having just nudged out Ivan for the national championship and a spot on the Olympic team, Keeth Smart, U.S. fencing’s best hope for a medal, is sud-

denly stricken with a rare and potentially life-threatening illness. As he struggles to re-cover, his mother slips away, losing her long battle with cancer. It began to look like an unsatisfying fi-nal chapter would be written for the three brilliant fencers from Brooklyn.

Athletic superstardom was the last thing on Thomas Smart’s mind in 1991 when he spotted the article about a brand new fenc-ing program for youngsters. The brainchild of African-American Olympic medalist Pe-ter Westbrook, it promised to loosen the sport from its upper-crust moorings and open it to inner-city kids. For the young participants, the program offered excitement and challenge. For their parents, dreams of a future bonus: how many urban, minor-ity fencing stars came over the transom in college scholar-ship offices? Erinn went first. Ten years old, riding the D train from Flatbush on Saturdays to the Manhat-tan program, she quickly grew so addicted to the thrusts and parries that she shut down a promising junior tennis career. Brother Keeth, two years older, held back at first. There were trumpet lessons on Saturday mornings and besides, twelve is not an age for being different. Everyone else on the block shot hoops in the schoolyard; why buck that by walking around with a

sword in a bag? But Erinn’s enthusiasm was contagious, and Keeth was a “Star Wars” fanatic. Those celluloid light-saber duel scenes; his sister’s new favorite sport: one and the same, he thought. An awesome opportunity to be a cool preteen. “Dad was thinking, ‘college opportu-nity’ and I was thinking ‘Luke Skywalker,’” Keeth recalls. His reaction to the first lesson, Keeth remembers, “was instantaneous. I fell in love with it.”

The next thing Keeth Smart fell in love with, two years later, was Brooklyn Tech: “I knew right away when I visited.” Erinn followed, a year later: “I wanted to be a doctor, Keeth liked it there, and my father was already on the PTA board.”

Around then, Audrey Smart told a co-worker about her chil-dren’s new ath-

letic pastime. Cynthia Lee’s son Ivan, three years Keeth’s junior, eagerly bought the whole Smart package: fencing, Brooklyn Tech, and eventually a bond with them of near-familial depth. It soon became apparent that the three had chosen the right sport. The Westbrook center’s grueling evening and weekend ses-sions were honing them into serious con-tenders on the national, then internation-

They wore Tech’s colors as star athletes.Then they aimed for olympic glory.

“You have unfinished business,” Ivan reminded Keeth.

he sport is physically demanding, yet exquisitely precise. Energy and agility are prerequisites, but victory ultimately resides in the brain. It has been likened to high-speed chess on human legs, even labeled “scientific.” Fencing is the perfect sport for a Technite.T

(Left) Keeth, Erinn and Ivan celebrate at Tech’s 85th

Anniversary Gala; Ivan strikes a champion’s pose; Keeth

competes in the 2008 Beijing Olympics; and (right) clinches

the medal.

BlueAnd

…& wHITe

6 7

father’s death.” Keeth did not. Ivan, undeterred, chipped away at his friend each Saturday morning. There’s unfinished business, he would press. You want to go out a winner. Then he’d silently underscore the message by whipping his buddy in a practice match.

Ask him today, and Keeth says he en-joyed his inevitable comeback because he relaxed: nearly two years away from the sport had shown him that life could exist nicely enough without it. But there was nothing laid back about his fencing, Ivan recalls: “I noticed a dif-ferent level of intensity in him. He was the one up there when the Russians beat us, and he wasn’t forgetting it.” It was like starting over. The rustiness was a given, but the fencing federation had altered the sport’s rules drastically during Keeth’s absence. It was like a baseball play-er returning after a long layoff to discover the strike zone had changed. With Ivan still racking up national ti-tles, Keeth was shaping up at journeymen’s tournaments. But he was soon punishing everyone in sight, poised for the big run as 2008 unfolded. Erinn already had clinched her spot on the women’s Olympic team; now the match for the final position on the men’s team came down to Ivan Lee vs. Keeth Smart. The victor, by a nose, was Keeth. There would be two, not three, Brooklyn Tech alums wearing the U.S. colors at the Beijing games. The Lee-vs.-Smart qualifier had taken place in Algeria. Somewhere on the trip, Keeth ate something that didn’t sit well. It was April – less than four months before the Beijing opening ceremony. Like most people, Keeth had never heard of idiopathic thrombocytopenic

purpura, or ITP. A rare blood disorder, it causes platelet counts to plummet and normal clotting to go awry. In rare cases it can be life-threatening. Now Keeth Smart lay in a hospital bed afflicted by it, hearing doctors say he might never fence again. Keeth figured he’d better win this com-petition quickly and decisively if he wanted to see Beijing. Ask an expert when you have a problem, he thought. That would be his mother, Audrey “Liz” Smart, who had been battling cancer since 2000. “Pray, and stay around people who are positive,” she advised. The advice worked for Keeth, to doc-tors’ amazement. But not for Mrs. Smart. In May, with Keeth once again rattling his saber, Liz Smart succumbed. Now the Smart siblings had two parents’ memories to honor with an Olympic medal.

The crucial women’s match came up the evening before Keeth’s, with Erinn slated to close for her team. The coaches implored Keeth to stay away and conserve energy for his own contest. He ignored them. Fencing is a cerebral sport, and strange things can happen. Even the best athletes occasionally freeze in the heat of a match, their brain-to-body impulses inexplicably short circuited. They stand motionless, a deer caught in the headlights. Erinn had built a virtually insurmountable lead over her opponent as the final moments arrived, and the crowd prepared to erupt in pande-monium over a first-ever team medal for the USA women. And then it happened. A deer in the headlights — with its feet stuck in quick-sand, thought the mortified team captain. One point shy of victory, Erinn Smart stood motionless on the strip, allowing her opponent to score touches at will.

Sitting several rows back in the audience, Keeth Smart recognized the peril instantly. “No one should experience what I went through in 2004,” he thought, “And defi-nitely not my sister.” Keeth Smart rose to his feet and shouted out, “Erinn, relax!” Observers who saw it are certain that his, and

only his, was the voice Erinn heard. She responded. One imperfect thrust landed on her opponent, and Erinn had given the United States a silver medal.

The next day was Keeth’s turn. No one needed remind him again of 2004’s an-guish, but fate did. With the silver medal on the line, his opponent was the same Russian who had overtaken him in Athens. The contest’s climactic moments were a mirror opposite of 2004. This time, the Russians gained a 40-35 advantage, and hope seemed lost. This time, Keeth Smart roared back and tied the score at 44-44. Then the Russian scored a seemingly win-ning touch – but committed an apparent technical violation. The referees did not react at first. Erinn, sitting in the audience, did. She leapt to her feet and shouted out the foul. A referee overturned the point. Moments later, Keeth scored the winning touch that delivered another silver medal, exorcised the ghost of Athens, and paid the ultimate tribute to Thomas and Audrey Smart. Witnesses say that every last member of the team burst into tears.

Back in New York City, Ivan Lee leapt to his feet in exultation. “The unfinished business is finished,” he said. The New York Times labeled it “the greatest Olympics for American fencing,” and called Keeth “the leader of this genera-tion” in the sport. A web site that tracks African-American athletes named him and Erinn “the single most inspirational story and model for Black Americans in sports in the 21st century so far.” And at Brooklyn Tech, fencing coach Bert Yaged motivates his young athletes just as he has for several years: “I tell them, ‘there are three Olympic athletes from the school you are now in.’”

All three say they have retired from the sport for good. But you can still find them in full fencing dress every Saturday morning, on West 28th Street, three volunteer coach-es at the very same child fencing program that launched them. Ride up the creaking elevator and there they are, transfixing a stu-dio full of eager young boys and girls sitting where they once did, showing them how to thrust, parry, dream and win. n

al, competitive circuit. But Tech was their school. Each of the trio in turn plunged en-thusiastically into its routines and rhythms, despite significant differences between the sport on the New York City scholastic level and the national circuit. Keeth, running up the stairs and doing laps in Tech’s cafeteria to warm up, fenced with the school team until senior year, when he elected to focus exclusively on the wider competitive arena. Erinn led and captained Brooklyn Tech’s fencing team even as she competed internationally. Near the end of his freshman year, Ivan approached the coach and requested a tryout. Bert Yaged squared off the skinny young kid against two of his best starters, and Ivan beat them both. He, too, became team captain, following Erinn’s model of competing simul-taneously on the outside – a feat even more impressive because the two systems required him to use different types of sword. “We knew they were great,” says Yaged. “I was just happy to have them jump on board with me.”

Anyone who has played or watched sports knows that they build character as well as ath-leticism. As Tech captain, Ivan recalls, “I learned

to be a leader and put my teammates first. That groomed me for college and beyond.” School tradition was set aside in Ivan’s senior year when he became the first fencer to be named athlete of the year. Keeth by now had moved on to a colle-giate fencing career at St. John’s University – fu-eled by the athletic scholarship his father once dreamed of, and armed with his own lesson from Tech: “On the national team, some ath-letes had troubles in going to different countries and experiencing new things. But at Tech I had always experienced people from different cul-tures, so I was open to new situations.” Erinn’s Tech career was frequently punc-tuated by globe-hopping journeys to compete internationally. She grew adept at imploring teachers for extensions on tests and project deadlines. “I still have the hammer I made on the lathe,” she says today with visible pride. “I loved the hands-on stuff.” Following Keeth’s footsteps had worked just fine for Ivan so far, so he ex-tended the streak and joined his buddy at St. John’s. Erinn was now fencing at Bar-nard College, and between the three of them, they rocked the U.S. fencing world with unmatched skill, agility and strength. The era of Smart-Smart-Lee dominance

in the sport was under way, individual and collegiate titles falling on them like raindrops. The Smart siblings, with their chronological edge on Ivan, were chosen for the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, where they made cameo appearances. In 2001, Ivan was named U.S. Olym-pic Committee Male Athlete of the Year, winning one of his five national champi-onships by edging out Keeth for the crown by two points. On the medal podium he leaned down to his friend and whispered, “This is it. This is as good as it gets.” Keeth’s response: “Dude, this is noth-ing. Wait till you get to the Olympics.” Hopes were high for the U.S. fencing team, stocked with stars like Erinn, Ivan and recently number one world-ranked Keeth, for the 2004 Games in Athens. But not that high. As usual, the Europeans were expected to prevail. But the men’s team, rallied by Keeth’s crisp performances, scampered into the med-al round. With a shot at the bronze, Keeth was assigned the match closer’s role – oppo-site an overpowering Russian, the reigning world champion. The determined kid from Brooklyn built a commanding 40-35 lead. And that was as good as it got. The Russian recovered and rampaged, scor-ing 10 of the last 14 points, or touches, to win by the slenderest margin and send the Americans home shocked, devastated and empty-handed. Keeth retreated into a cold shell. Hanging up his sword, he stopped fencing. Teammates reminded him that he had al-most singlehandedly propelled them into medal contention, but he flagellated him-self for the climactic defeat. “I was completely done with the sport. I wanted nothing to do with it,” he says. Even Ivan and Erinn took time off. The following year, Thomas Smart died unexpectedly of a heart attack. Keeth and Erinn fell into deeper despair; Erinn, too, now thought, “I’ll never fence again.” But the three fencers had never fully left the Westbrook center from which they had sprouted, volunteering there on Saturday mornings in the good years – and now these bad ones – to coach the next generation. Be-fore long, something stirred Ivan and Erinn to lift their swords competitively again, Er-inn finding it “therapeutic to deal with my

IVaN LEE: National Champion 2001, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2008

First fencer of African-American descent to win a world championshipNow a New York City police officer

ERINN SMaRT: National Champion 1998, 2002, 2004, 2007, 2008

Now a financial adviser at Lord, Abbett & Co.

KEETH SMaRT: National Champion 2002, 2004

First American to gain the sport’s number one world rankingNow an M.B.A. student, Columbia University

8 9

Back home in New York, Erinn and Keeth return to the facility where their parents first introduced them to fencing, and proudly display the silver they mined in Beijing.

After 43 years and 6,425

students, she is a certified classic. Alice Kaufman

never wanted to be anywhere else.

ONE For The

BOOKS

1!

The Teacher never stops working at it. Four decades after last occupying a Brooklyn Tech seat, a visiting alum stops by with an idea: to sit in on The Teacher’s Advanced Placement English class. Jane Austen is to be the day’s topic. Request granted, but with a mock-serious glare that may be for real: “What do you mean, you haven’t read Pride and Prejudice? It is a superbly crafted novel. You must read it.” The students file in, enabling the visitor to stop feeling 17 again and slide gratefully off the hook. The class settles and The Teacher states her ground rules: “Remember that as an A.P. class, you are not just reading for fun. It’s not just about what is happening, it’s how it’s happening.”

For the next 44 minutes, a kind of interactive montage unfolds in nonlinear but logical manner, skillfully orches-trated to alight on character development, narrative devices, and, for those attentive enough, insight into their own teenage world of tangled relationships and emotions. By the time the bell rings, this roomful of Tech’s brightest English students has indeed learned a lesson. Most of them also leave believing that one of the novel’s central characters will die in the pages ahead. This is not at all true. The Teacher, setting up a point she plans to drive home later that week, has deliberately hoodwinked them into thinking it for now. The Teacher never stops playing the angles. “It is hard,” she explains, “even for senior A.P. students, to understand the craft of a novel – that nothing happens by accident.”

abcd

10 11

At Brooklyn Tech, Alice Kaufman is The Teacher. She first walked into the building on a spring day in 1966 as Alice Brady, a randomly-assigned student teacher from St. John’s University already certain of her life calling – courtesy of a father who loved literature and a favorite aunt whom she was occasionally allowed to watch teaching elementary school, in a three-room school-house in rural Pennsylvania. No other adult who was inside Tech that 1966 day is still there. But she has been a constant, except for a seven-year leave to raise the three daughters she had with her husband, retired history teacher Paul Kaufman. “I never wanted to be anywhere else,” she explains. She has worked with nine principals and eight department chairs. The current principal, Randy Asher, says of her: “Sage, historian, mother, friend, colleague and

wizard – she is the quintessential educator and has helped shape the lives of Technites for decades. Professionalism personified.”

She has taught, by her best estimate, 6,425 students. Some went on to become prize-winning journalists and authors; doctors and teachers; one an assistant principal at Tech (Charles Pomaro ’72); one, Lou “The Hulk” Ferrigno ’69, a famous actor (“A nice young man; very quiet and unassuming.”) Some have impressed her with their preco-cious intelligence; others have performed feats that resulted in extensive detention. She has coached the debate team, and seen its graduates go on to positions of leadership in various professions. She rode the dizzying waves of the 1960s and 1970s, honing her teaching skills in exciting and

turbulent times that were “challenging,” but that made classics like Julius Caesar in-stantly relevant.

With all the change she has witnessed over four decades, the students, fundamen-tally, have not, she says. “The pleasure of teaching Tech stu-dents is that they think school is something important. They really are as good as ever. In some ways, better. They may face more pressures, different problems, than kids did years back, but now as then, many are from working class backgrounds, and aspiring to be successful. They are strivers who have aspirations to achieve something.” But, the visiting alum suggests, things must have changed. Surely the legend-arily rigorous and achievement-oriented atmosphere and curriculum of the storied 1940s, 1950s and 1960s eras could not be matched by the modern day? The Teacher’s retort is instant: “Things haven’t changed. Hamlet still dies.”

In recent decades, she has noted with interest students becoming more college and career-focused than the young rebels of yore. She does not believe these medical and professional school-bound youngsters have disengaged – or could disengage – from English class: “Wherever they go to school, they have to know how to read with understanding and write with clarity.” Nor have they have grown literature-averse: “I don’t know if it is a function of my experience or the kids, but I see more enthusiasm.” And so in 2009 she guides them through the classics: Antigone, Hamlet, Crime and Punishment, Jude The Obscure, A Doll’s House. The same books ending the same way, the same student profile, the same build-ing – for all these years? How does this still work? Every so often, it so happens, a student will make her day. He or she will offer an observation that she hasn’t considered be-

fore. When that occurs, “It isn’t surprising, but it is exciting. As long as the students are different, the book is different.” One of those students, prize-winning journalist and author Cora Daniels ’89, recalls, “I was a painfully shy student who never raised my hand and whose lips were glued shut in class, when I was lucky to get Mrs. Kaufman for English. Her constant encouragement and faith in my talent gave me a confidence that I still rely on today. Thanks to her, the quietest girl in class grew up to have a whole lot to say.”

It is late in the day, many hours after the Jane Austen class, when the visiting alum passes the programming office, where The Teacher now works for several periods dai-ly. This day is approaching 11 hours old but she is there, a student struggling with a literary criticism assignment sitting at her elbow and soaking up every word of advice. The student is not one of hers – she is sim-ply another young person who heard that this was a good place to come for help. “I get a lot of that,” The Teacher ex-plains with a shrug. “Their friends are in my class.” But after 11 hours and 43 years, hasn’t she earned the right to put on her coat and head home? Another shrug. “The work has to get done. It’s how I was raised.” “Where else,” The Teacher asks, “could I get paid to read novels and poetry, and discuss them with intelligent people?” n

of the classroom

10 books everyone should read* 1984 – Orwell Fahrenheit 451 – Bradbury Lord of the Flies – Golding Julius Caesar – Shakespeare Macbeth– Shakespeare Hamlet – Shakespeare Crime and Punishment – Dostoevsky Catch 22 – Heller Pride and Prejudice – Austen Cry, The Beloved Country – Paton*According to Alice Kaufman

12 13

A high-flying career in finance eventually led Philadelphia-born, Stanford and Harvard Busi-ness School-degreed Roxane Previty to a quiet office. Her job: to sit in it alone every day, ana-lyzing corporate financial reports as eager inves-tors awaited her word on whether to buy or sell. “There has to be more to life,” she told herself. Ms. Previty took some time off to reflect, and became a Brooklyn Tech math teacher in Spring 2008 via a city program created to attract pro-fessionals like her to teaching in New York City public schools. THE prEviTy FiLE:

Life before Brooklyn Tech: Corporate finance of-ficer and equities analyst.Résumé-topper: Chief Financial Officer of Mon-ster, Inc., the prominent Internet employment ad-vertising site.How it happened: After “questioning the value of the work I was doing,” she enrolled in the New York City Teaching Fellows program that turns mid-career professionals into new teachers. Principal Randy Asher plucked her résumé from the pile and, she says, “I ran over for the interview.”Biggest surprise: Completing her graduate stud-ies in education at night while preparing the next day’s Tech classes. Greatest satisfaction: Every time she sees a stu-dent “get” what she is teaching.Biggest surprise: “How much the kids at Brooklyn Tech actually like math.”Goal: “I’m not on a mission to save the world here. I’m doing this because I like it, and I hope eventu-ally I will have something to offer. It’s a long road to become a teacher. I feel very humble.”Personal observation: “I want to have every stu-dent excited about going further. The ultimate de-feat of any teacher is to convince someone not to study something.”

Roxane Previty

MacRae Maxfield In two decades-plus as an industrial chemist, MacRae Maxfield averaged one patent a year and authored 31 academic articles. His résumé bursts with such phrases as “geometric optics for LED devices” and “high-strength plastics nanotechnology,” usually preceded by the words “developed” or “invented.” After working with major corporations and an academic team that would eventually win a Nobel Prize; inventing technologies for recharge-able batteries, high-end flat screen TV and avionics displays; and developing commercial uses for high-temperature superconductors and high-strength polymers, Dr. Maxfield searched for something really interesting to do. He now teaches chemistry at Tech.

THE MaxFiELd FiLE:

Life before Brooklyn Tech: Marines, Johns Hop-kins University, University of Pennsylvania, Allied Signal, Honeywell, CorningRésumé-topper: Developed technology for the rechargeable lithium-ion batteries that drive to-day’s portable, personal electronic devices. How it happened: Asked to relocate in a corpo-rate reorganization, he declined and reflected on his affinity for training researchers. He became a teacher, coming to Tech in 2006 because “I want-ed to use more of my advanced background.”Biggest surprise: “The amount of work. Like ev-eryone in the private sector, I had the illusion that teachers worked intensely until 3 p.m. and then had the day free. Here, there is no moment of put-ting your feet up. These kids give you a millisecond to figure out what to do.”Greatest satisfaction: “You get student feedback many, many times a day; it is very gratifying and enjoyable.”Goal: “No kids falling between the cracks. I would like to see 100% of them come out with everything I can provide.”Personal observation: “More students should consider a career in industrial science – making things. They should consider the opportunities opening up in fields like alternative energy sources and alternative transportation.”

The oldest functioning technology in Brooklyn Tech is a 1932 vintage lathe bearing fingerprints of five generations of Technites. The newest is a pair of three-axis computer-controlled milling machines. Keeping them and thousands of other machines, tools and parts running smoothly in Tech’s 14 labs and more than 20 shops is the job of Estuardo Rodas, whose official title of “ma-chinist” does not begin to describe his role. He is Tech’s unofficial Dean of Machines, and also helps plan such projects as the Ike Heller Computer Integrated Manufacturing and Robotics Center, and coaches the student robotics team. Mr. Rodas came to Tech in 2007, many years after observing, as a teenager, how math and science were taught in his Brooklyn high school and thinking, “There must be a better way.”

THE rOdaS FiLE:

Life before Brooklyn Tech: Conceived and fab-ricated sophisticated devices for scientists and engineers at Columbia University, Carnegie Mellon, and elsewhere.How it happened: Father-in-law and alum Jean Miele ’57, “has not stopped talking about Brook-lyn Tech from the day I met him, and always said I would love it here…I finally listened to him.” Résumé-topper: Contributed to the prototype for the soil-probing component of NASA’s Mars Ex-plorer space vehicle. He now takes students to see it in the Museum of Natural History.Greatest satisfaction: “The involvement with kids. I work with a very motivated and talented group of students.”Noteworthy achievement: Leading the robotics team to citywide honors and the nationals in his first year as coach.Biggest surprise: “Adjusting to the mentality of a community of 16- and 17-year-olds.”Goal: Getting the credentials to become a certified teacher.Personal observation “Tech is a place of boundless opportunities. I don’t know any other high school that has this much infrastructure, space and talent.”

estuardo Rodas

Physics teaching is being reinvented at Brook-lyn Tech under the supervision of Assistant Prin-cipal Randell Barclay, who turned to education seven years ago after multiple careers at promi-nent global corporations. In 2001, Mr. Barclay was directing forestry investments for one of those companies. Watch-ing young seedlings grow and yield return on in-vestment, he thought replicating the experience with human beings might be more meaningful. He considered teaching college until a profes-sor told him, “We can find lots of you to teach finance. You can bring real value in the public schools as a science educator.”

THE BarCLay FiLE:

Life before Brooklyn Tech:, NYU, London Univer-sity and Columbia; finance, engineering and bank-ing positions at General Electric, UBS, Exxon and Chemical Bank. Résumé-topper: Developed a timber investment business for GE.How it happened: Mr. Barclay traded his forestry job for the Columbia Teachers College Master’s program. Then came teaching jobs in The Bronx, at CCNY High School for Math, Science and Engi-neering, and finally an administrative role at Tech to modernize the physics and engineering, career and technical education curricula. Biggest surprise: Scale. “We have 1,200 students taking physics. Everything about Tech is bigger.” Noteworthy achievement: With Alumni Founda-tion and Department of Education funding, revolu-tionizing physics lab by equipping everyone with a laptop to take measurements – a technique found to improve learning dramatically. Goal: “Getting each and every student to succeed, not just the top students.”Personal observation: “We are trying different techniques to improve student – and teacher – performance. The kids are as good as they were 20 years ago. We just have to approach them in the ways they think today.”

Randell Barclayn Brooklyn Tech’s early days, many of the most

popular teachers were second-career educators who brought a wealth of insight from years in business or industry into the classroom. Those days are back. In today’s rapidly-changing technology environment, educators who have suc-ceeded in the professions to which their young stu-dents aspire are more valuable than ever. Since Randy Asher became principal, nearly 40% of his new hires have come from other careers, mostly in math and the sciences. “Tech is very fortunate to have attracted these talent-ed professionals from successful careers in business and the sciences,” he says. “They bring invaluable experience and insights from industry to the classroom as they join and further enhance our outstanding faculty.” “And,” he adds, “they model a career path. That is very powerful.” Many of them were identified, courted and pre-pared for their new roles by Principal Asher for months or years before they arrived. And while each life story is personally unique, they are all now at Tech for the same reason: they want to leave more impact on the world than they could in any other profession. Before each of the four individuals featured on these pages ever stood up in front of students, they stood out in another career. What they learned the hard way, over many years, is part of their lesson plan every day.

Tech attracts a new generation of talented, successful businesspeople and scientists to its faculty

I

14 15

ne of the nation’s most senior Fortune 500 company CEOs developed his leadership skills as Captain of the SOS at Brooklyn Tech. Herbert Henkel ’66 is widely credited with converting the Ingersoll Rand Company from an old-economy industrial stalwart into a modern, technology-focused organization. As honoree at the recent Brooklyn Technical High School 85th Anniversary Gala, Mr. Henkel spoke about one of his great passions – Tech, its teachers and its students. Around that time, he sat down with T2 to discuss another of his passions – innovation.

Q. You’ve often said that generating a great new idea or product is the easy part of inno-vation in business. What’s the hard part?A. Most companies come at it from a product-centric approach. But it’s not really about saying, “Wow, isn’t this a great idea? Now let’s go figure out how we can use it.” It is much more about going to your markets and seeing what kinds of problems people are having, and what you can do to meet those problems. The next stage is to take the good ideas and narrow them down, prioritize, because R&D resources are finite. You have to be ruth-less and know how early on to kill something -- every dollar spent on a project that you will eventually stop is a dollar not spent on one that will succeed. You have to pull together the capabilities of the whole organization in this, from the salespeople who have customer inti-macy to those who will do the manufacturing. It has to meet the customer’s requirements, and it has to come out at a price point that makes it an attractive proposition. If we can’t do that, we probably shouldn’t be doing it. Toll gates and check points all along the way.

Q. And that’s just for the domestic market. A. Globally, you may need multiple an-swers to the same problem. You cannot just export the U.S. solution. We have put together innovation teams on a regional basis because of this. We have hundreds of them. When a group in the U.S. comes up with an idea, we have them meet with teams from different parts of the world and ask, “So, what do you think?” Q. What role does senior leadership play in the innovation process? A. How do you take an organization that focuses on what it makes today, and turn the focus into what it will be making three, five, ten years from now? Most [major] ideas do not come from tinkering with the adjacent spaces and tweaking or changing a product to the next size up. Twenty years ago, AT&T just wanted to be your telephone. Today, they also like the idea of using that phone not only for

communication, for talk, but also for en-tertainment. And it’s not a far stretch to also use it for security. We own Schlage Locks, a leader. The business is keys turning a mechanical lock. But it is turning into one of biometrics – with electronic access controls. The group that makes the key cannot do the biomet-rics, and generally vice versa. How do you transition from one skill set to the next generation of security? That’s the leadership challenge. It isn’t simple. And while you can do hand reading, facial recognition, retina scanning, what level of customer participa-tion will you get? Some people are not com-fortable with you involving their eyes; some are uncomfortable about their fingerprints. So you have to deal with what the customer group is. And someone in the company has to say, “What is going to work?” Someone has to say, “What would it cost to build it, compared to how much we think the customer is able to pay for it?”

Q. What happens to innovation in a down economy like today’s?A. Customers are even more dependent on their suppliers to come up with more cost-effective, better quality solutions. The challenge is to meet those needs while ad-dressing your reductions in volume and the resulting pressure on the cost base. If you have to reduce your overhead structure, how much will that affect your innovation, your engineering, your marketing?

Q. So what does a company do?A. We saw the same thing after September 11, the same issues. I remember telling our shareholders, we were going to continue to accelerate R&D in 2002, and spend an ad-ditional $100 million in what could have been profit, on R&D. But we would be see-ing $300 million in revenue over the follow-ing two years, as a result. That is a very, very big return. You have to explain yourself, get your board comfortable with balancing the near term with the long-term prospects.

Q. That means you focus for now on inno-vations more likely to pay off sooner rather than far down the road?A. Exactly.

Q. It sounds like innovation is a power-ful force to be managed, but one that can transform companies and markets. A. With temperature-controlled product transportation [refrigerated trucked goods] around the world, when we had a means of keeping food at a particular temperature, we extended its shelf life. Then we found you could also enhance the quality, and by exposure to different types of technologies, also improve the safety, so people didn’t have to worry about if their spinach had e-coli on it. We have gone from tempera-ture control to shelf-life extension, to food quality and safety. That, to me, is the kind of ongoing evolution that I think good, in-novative companies accomplish.

Q. What’s ahead for Ingersoll Rand? You have shed and acquired many businesses in recent years. Will that continue?A. I think we have the core businesses we want to be in. I think you’ll see us broaden-ing the solution base, both geographically as well as technology-wise.

Q. Are there countries where you see oppor-tunity to grow?A. In the U.S., about half of all the food items we consume are temperature-con-trolled at some point in their cycle. In In-dia and China, it is less than one percent.

Q. And the long-term future is still some-thing to look forward to?A. I think the long term continues to be one of providing innovation to improve the quality of life for consumers as well as com-panies, and doing that on a global basis. There have been cycles; there always will be cycles. The job of management is to lead through them and not lose sight of the future goal. We may see failures of banks, of compa-nies, but what will come of that is newer and stronger enterprises to build upon. n

OGood ideas aren’t enough.Smart organizations manage and test themto identify the true winners.

Herbert L. Henkel ’66will be the class of 2009’s

commencement Day speaker

Talking with….the innovation driver

Herb Henkel

16 17

They Mean

Two students thought Tech could incubate young entrepreneurs.

So they wrote a plan…

Kyle Wong (left) and Awad Sayeed, Class of 2008, launched a student club, several

businesses and a new Tech institution

n barely more than one hyperactive year, the two suit-clad young men riding to the top at Brooklyn Tech (opposite page) formed and franchised a student entrepre-neurship organization, launched and grew two businesses while acquiring a third and attracted venture capital for their burgeoning empire – earning awards and media at-tention along the way. What really makes this pair unusual is that they achieved all that while still students at Brooklyn Tech. Meet entrepreneurs extraordinaire Awad Sayeed and Kyle Wong – founders of the Young Entrepreneur Associa-tion (YEA), one of Tech’s newest and most succesful student organizations and now expanding to other high schools; co-creators (with the Alumni Foundation) of Brooklyn Tech Career Day; young operators of an Internet college admis-sions business and a T-shirt and apparel line that sparked a Tech fashion fad; and Class of 2008 graduates. “These,” says YEA faculty adviser Isaiah Pratt, “are kids acting like adults. What they have done is very profound.”

Behind many a successful business partnership lies an unlikely story, and Awad’s and Kyle’s starts on the floor of the Brooklyn Tech gym. 2006 was a challenging year for the junior varsity basket-ball team, but it brought sophomore teammates Awad Sayeed and Kyle Wong together in friendship. Two realizations hit them early on: no dazzling careers in the NBA awaited, and they had more in common than a love of sports. As Awad put it, “If you’re not going to be the next Michael Jordan, you look for something where you can be the next Jordan.” That turned out to be entrepreneurship. Both young men had grown up with business and selling in the fam-ily backdrop; each had sold Pokemon cards and house-hold knickknacks as a child. Soon this growing friendship solidified around a goal: to try their hands at business, and engage fellow students along the way. After scheming up – and re-jecting – a string of ideas that were, well, sophomoric – hey, let’s start an international online candy store! – they reached higher. Noticing the plaques of successful corporate execu-

IBuSineSS

18 19

and Kyle Wong production. “They really believed that if they had a vision, they could make it happen,” says Dr. Mandery. “And in fact it did. You don’t see that level of leadership and commitment in young people too often. Career Day could not have hap-pened without YEA.” Before senior year ended, the two young men would absorb another stu-dent’s fashion design line and launch a school apparel busi-ness, win a citywide Junior Achievement top prize, and get written up glowingly in the Daily News. But for now, the senior sprint of college essays, applications and campus visits was accelerating. Observing uncertainty, stress, and competiveness engulf everyone they knew, they thought, There has to be a busi-ness opportunity in this. There now is. Founded and run by Awad and Kyle last year, MyCollegeStat is an interactive, visitor-driven web site that gathers and shares certain school and ap-plicant data that are critical to the college-bound set. With seed money raised and pro-toypes developed, a full-time programmer in the employ of Messrs. Sayeed and Wong is now busily building the site. MyCollegeStat will soon be helping high school students identify potential college matches, and predicting their chances for admission.

Awad (Baruch College) and Kyle (Stanford Univer-sity) found their colleges without waiting for MyCol-

legeStat. They remain a team, collaborating bi-coastally on their widening ventures, supporting and advising YEA at Tech while guiding chapter launches at other high schools. Last semester they sponsored and funded an entrepreneurship competition at Tech’s YEA; proceeds

from the event flowed to an organization that sup-ports entrepreneurship in developing countries. Looking back on their Brooklyn Tech days, both young men deservedly take satisfaction in what they created. Says Kyle, “Our

goal was not to turn all our members into entrepreneurs, but to spark entrepreneurial thinking, which improves critical thinking, problem solving, creativity and organi-zational skills.”

Today’s challenging economic climate is no rea-son to slack off or rethink career options, they each in-sist emphatically. Asked to what extent it has led him to reconsider his passion for business, Kyle says it simply hasn’t. “Once you step out into the real world,” he adds, “you realize it is tougher. But Tech prepared us for it.” Awad elaborates: “Now is the best time to start a business. Less to lose, more to gain, less competition.” Less to lose. More to gain. It’s been the guiding spirit of entrepreneurship for generations before them, and these two Brooklyn Tech stars are carrying the flame for a new generation. n

“Now is the best time to start a business. Less to lose, more to gain,

less competition.”

Passing the torch (above): Before grad-uating, YEA’s founders made sure a

team was ready to carry on their work. (Right): Career Day is now an annual

event. (Far right): T-shirts became a hot fashion when YEA’s founders applied

the rules of supply and demand.

tives hanging in the first floor Alumni Hall of Fame, they thought, Tech somehow incubates business leaders just by teaching science and technology. What might happen if stu-dents could actually learn about business, too? They devised an experiment to find out: Let’s form a club for students to discover how it feels to start and run a business. Then they got to work. “Most kids have their plans written down on a pad somewhere,” recalls Marc Williams, coordinator of student activities at Tech. “These two came in with spreadsheets.”

Twenty students turned out for the first YEA meeting. The boys were juiced. Half that showed for the second. Spirits sank. Like seasoned professionals, they dug deeper into their creative well. Inspiration struck. Investing $500 of their own money, they conceived a fashion-forward, Brooklyn Tech-branded T-shirt emblazoned with the slogan, “YEA baby!” They made a hundred for five dollars each. Hauling the lot into school, they sold them to 100 of their friends for $10 apiece – and persuaded them all to wear the shirt to school on the same day. When the kids obliged, a fashion fad was born – fueled by a carefully crafted shortage. Many of the 4,300 Technites not wearing a YEA shirt that day wished they were. But the shrewd entrepreneurs informed inquiring customers that supply was exhausted, and they sat back to watch buzz – and demand – build. Before long, word got out that a new shipment was coming – for limited sale only at the next YEA meeting. That day, the meeting room was packed to standing capacity. YEA was off and running. But it wasn’t about filling the seats, Kyle and Awad knew; it was about filling them with energetic and com-mitted people. To weed out shirkers and the non-serious, the club’s leaders required potential new members to sub-mit a résumé, application and cover letter. Soon, with a solid cadre of future entrepreneurs on board, a string of YEA activities to teach and experience entrepreneurship ensued. Among them: a successful student-faculty basketball game to benefit autism.

This felt like a good start, but as senior year approached Awad and Kyle were now wondering what they – and their classmates – would do with the lifetimes that lay

ahead. Sure, everyone was pouring energy into college applications, but what was the ultimate goal? Getting a head start now on exploring career opportunities might be a useful project. Tech’s future entrepreneurs needed mentoring, advice and connections. Awad approached Mathew Mandery, Chief Executive Officer of the Brooklyn Tech Alumni Foundation and former Tech principal. Could the Alumni Foundation, with all its successful members, somehow help? “I didn’t even know what I was asking for,” Awad now admits. Dr. Mandery committed the Alumni Foundation’s

support, believing the new club embodied Tech’s

entrepreneurial spirit. Homecoming 2007 would become

YEA’s coming-out event: its members created and staffed an exhibit booth to meet and network with alumni. The alums responded enthusiastically. Not a bad start, Awad and Kyle thought. Where does this go now?

Career Day at Brooklyn Tech was their answer. With school administrators and the Alumni Foundation, they spent summer 2007 developing detailed plans for a first-ever event where alumni would share career insights with students. Career Day is a serious undertaking. It spills over five floors of the building, as more than a hundred alumni gather on a winter Saturday to tell several hundred students about their professions, jobs and industries. Modeled after a college fair, it offers students one-on-one access to alums. Planning and preparing for the event occupies countless man-hours of Alumni Foundation and school personnel time. But from the start, Career Day was an Awad Sayeed

20 21

Q. You possess quite the curriculum vi-tae. After Brooklyn Tech: stops at Cornell, Harvard, and MIT. You somehow skipped Stanford and Princeton?A. Well, I lectured there.

Q. Is it true that you built the first telescope you ever saw, and you made it at Tech?A. Actually, I made it at home in Far Rock-away in my attic, over the summer. All my friends were going to the beach, but I was up there in 95, 98 degree heat, grinding and polishing the mirror. I did not fit in with the kids in the neighborhood. [Chuckles.] I brought it to Tech, on top of a car, to com-pete in a hobby show. It was the one time in four years someone drove me in, and the only time I was late.

Q. Was it worth the effort?A. I won first prize. Ten dollars.

Q. Did your road to a science career start in high school, or later?A. Definitely at Tech. When I took the en-trance exam, I had no idea what I wanted to

do. I liked science, but I didn’t think

in terms of a profession. I remember my first day very clearly: All these bright kids who were

interested in science, whereas in Far Rockaway I was

the oddball! Here at Tech, I was odd in the sense that I didn’t know as much as many of the other kids. They were way ahead of me. [Laughs.] They were so bright, and I loved it.

Q. Was your Tech life entirely studying and riding trains to and from Rockaway?A. I tried out for the golf team, but they played way out in Dyker Heights. I got home after my bedtime, so that ended golf for me. But I was a good ping pong player, number one on the team; I even earned a “T.” That was my athletic career at Tech.

Q. What Tech memories stand out?A. I had some very good math teachers. And

I was in love with an English teacher, Sylvia Feldschuh. Thirty-one years later, I tracked her down and she became a good friend of our family until her death. And while there were so many bright students, I do remem-ber in physics – this is probably a bad thing to say – before every test, many kids walked into the room trying to get a seat near me. Looking over a shoulder was alas not un-heard of.

Q. Anything you would change if you could?A. I did something I feel as guilty about to-day as I did 63 years ago. We had a physics teacher who was bald. Several of my friends and I decided we’d get him a bottle of hair tonic as a Christmas present. We thought that was very funny. He unwrapped it in class and when he saw what it was, he was devastated. That image of his face is with me today. It was funny for us, but not for him.

Q. Did Tech prepare you well for the rigors of an Ivy League college?A. At Cornell’s freshman orientation, the dean said to us, “Those of you who went to public high schools, if you work really hard, will catch up to your private school classmates in two years.” That made me bristle. I thought I’d had a much better education in Brooklyn Tech than anyone in private school. I took Cornell’s science courses, and largely coasted. I spent too much time playing ping pong.

Q. And it was physics from the start for you? A. I took math, physics, and chemistry. But I soon decided chemistry was not for me. I could not stand the smells. And to gradu-ate as a physics major, you had to take a very time-consuming lab course that I pre-ferred to avoid. So I graduated as a math major. But I applied to graduate school in physics.

Q. In addition to your work in physics, you were an outspoken and effective advocate for reforming science education in elementary and high school. Where did that originate?A. My daughter came home from high school back in the early 1980s with a chem-istry book two inches thick, filled with complicated, advanced concepts. There was no way she could understand them. The only way she, and the other students, could pass was to memorize and of course immediately forget. They couldn’t possi-bly come away with any understanding. I

said to myself, “This is crazy.” Around that time, I was offered the directorship of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astro-physics, and I thought, “Maybe I can do something in that position to improve sci-ence curricula.”

Q. And you certainly did. But just what isn’t right with science education?A. There are many parts. At the teacher level – elementary school teachers didn’t learn science in school; they learned peda-gogy. It is a vicious cycle: they can’t teach what they didn’t learn.

Q. What else is wrong? A. Much more. Teachers get paid relatively little. And the school boards don’t know much about science. It’s very hard to im-prove any big system with so many inde-pendent parts.

Q. What is a better way to approach sci-ence teaching?A. Most kids go through the school system and don’t know the difference between how nature behaves, and the models we develop to “explain” or predict such behavior. If I let go of an object, it drops to the floor; I ask students why it drops and they all say, “because of gravity.” And I say, “Wrong. It drops because it drops. That’s just the way nature behaves. Gravity is a construct of the human mind.” I like to teach by using ex-amples like that. By the way, I think the last couple of years have seen impressive advances at Brooklyn Tech – innovative, good curri-cula and superb equipment, more modern than much at Harvard.

Q. Do you worry that America’s days of dom-inance in innovation and technology could be waning? A. Americans don’t have a monopoly on brains; there are smart people in other countries. We must move fast and smart; other countries are fast catching up and may otherwise soon surpass us.

Q. Speaking of innovation, you have dedi-cated a significant portion of your career to testing Einstein’s great theory of general rela-tivity. To put it naively, why? Do you think he might be wrong?A. The theory of general relativity is an incredibly innovative, basic and beautiful theory that has withstood all tests so far. Is

rwin Shapiro ’47 is a supernova in the constellation of American astrophysicists. His research utilized radio and radar to explore from the farthest reaches of the universe to the inner depths of the earth. As head of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics for 21 years, he pursued another passion: improving science education in U.S. schools. That effort won acclaim, but he is perhaps best known for conceiving and conducting extensive tests of Einstein’s theory of general relativity, in the process discovering an effect now known to physicists everywhere as the Shapiro Time Delay. Every so often, he boards an Amtrak train in Boston to visit Brooklyn Tech. On the most recent occasion, he sat down with T2 to reminisce and reflect.

Continued on page 28

I

“wehave fundamental puzzles that no oneunderstands.we must probe deeper.”

Talking with….the Star Physicist

Irwin Shapiro

22 23

1998First $10 million campaign is launched with a $1 million gift

from Leonard Riggio ’58, Chairman of Barnes & Noble.

1998Birth of CARETECH, the initiative made possible by the campaign, to ensure

Brooklyn Tech’s position of preeminence by supporting professional, curriculum and program development, and the creation of partnerships with the wider community.

1999Start of a still-evolving partnership between Brooklyn Tech

and Con Edison, which has since grown to include internships, creation of an environmental sciences lab, and more.

2000The Charles B. Wang ’62 Athletic Field is dedicated,

giving Brooklyn Tech its first “home field.”

2007$10 million campaign concludes successfully with dedication of the state-of-the-art

Denise Sobel and Norm Keller ’54 Instructional Technology Teacher Center.

2008Sustaining Excellence: The 21/21 Campaign For Brooklyn Tech, to raise $21 million for Brooklyn

Tech’s 21st century, is launched at the 85th Anniversary Gala at the New York Hilton.

...

MileStoneS

ten high points of the first 25 years of accomplishment:

he Brooklyn Tech Alumni Foundation, for a quarter century, has brought Tech graduates together to enhance and support excellence at the school that shaped their lives. Its first grant enabled the teachers to buy curtains for their lunch room; one of its most recent is now creating a sophisticated Computer Integrated Manufacturing lab unlike anything in a New York City public high school. From simple beginnings to a robust program of curriculum and facilities enhancement, teacher

development and student enrichment beyond the classroom, your Alumni Foundation is making a difference. Amazingly, it is led today by the same three Tech alumni – two of whom are double alums

(they returned and served as top administrators) – who founded the organization in 1984.

T

1984Brooklyn Tech Alumni Foundation is born; first homecoming takes place.

1986First appeal to alumni raises $4,987 to support school programs.

1989More than 1,200 alumni join in letter-writing campaign to protest proposed city budget cuts to education. It is the first time Brooklyn Tech alumni unite as a community to rally behind their alma mater.

1997The first floor takes a central role in honoring Tech’s heritage and alumni, with creation of an Alumni Hall of Fame and restoration of the historic lobby mural, The History of Mankind by Maxwell Starr, funded by the Alumni Foundation.

24 25

1,000,000+Isaac Heller ’43*Norman K. Keller ’54*Leonard Riggio ’58*Leandro Rizzuto ’56*Charles B. Wang ’62

250,000-999,999James Fantaci ’64*Erik Klokholm ’40*Floyd Warkol ’65*

100,000-249,999Anonymous*John A. Catsimatidis ’66*Con Edison*Charles A. DeBenedittis ’48*Jeffrey M. Haitkin ’62*Herbert L. Henkel ’66*Victor Insetta ’57*Alfred Lerner ’51Richard MackSteven C. MackMichael F. Parlamis ’58*Achilles Perry ’58*Frederick C. Meyer ’40*Josh S. Weston ’46*

50,000-99,999Martin V. Alonzo ’48*Anthony J. Armini ’55Andy Frankl ’67*Joseph J. Jacobs ’34Rande H. Lazar ’69William Mack ’57Michael Minikes ’61Carmine A. Morano ’72*Robert C. Ochs ’59Louis H. Siracusano, Sr. ’60*

25,000-49,999David Abraham ’48Willard N. Archie ’61Dorcey ChernickJack Feinstein ’60*Howard Fluhr ’59*Ingersoll Rand*Joseph J. Kaminski ’56Stuart Kessler ’47*Erik Lattey Memorial Scholarship*Betty J. Mayer*Arnold J. Melloy ’40Murray Neidorf ’45*William Sheluck, Jr. ’58John C. Siltanen ’31Ralph H. Stahl Memorial Scholarship*Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett, LLP*Ralph Stahl ’45 Memorial Fund*Thomas J. Volpe ’53*Michael A. Weiss ’57*

10,000-24,999Frederick F. Ajootian ’41American Express Foundation*Joseph Angelone ’63*Emmanuel BeckerBDO Seldman, LLPBT Alex BrownBTHS Parents AssociationLeRoy N. Callender ’50

Charles B. Wang Foundation, Inc.Chase Manhattan BankJoseph M. Colucci ’54*Computer Associates International, Inc.Con Edison-BrooklynCowles Media FoundationWilliam A. Davis, Jr. ’59*John di Domenico ’69*Murray Dropkin ’62*The Durst Organization*GameStop Corporation*Jeffrey L. Goldberg ’69*Goldman Sachs*Domingo Gonzalez ’72*George Graf ’70Fred M. Grafton ’44*Heritage Mechanical Services, Inc.*Eric Kaltman ’60*Steven H. Kaplan ’63Elizabeth Korevaar*Richard E. LaMotta ’60Franklin F. Lee ’77*Michael Levine ’61Larry Lynnworth ’54*Mancini-Duffy*Sidney A. Mayer ’46MBS Textbook Exchange*Merrill Lynch & Co FoundationAlan S. Natter ’69Bert Reitman ’63*Daniel K. Roberts ’43John B. Rofrano ’61*William J. Rouhana, Jr. ’69Edward P. Salzano ’64*The Segal Company*SIACLawrence Sirovich ’51*Ronald P. Stanton ’46Joseph N. Sweeney ’48Michael Tannenbaum ’58T.E.C. Systems, Inc.*Ellen Mazur ThomsomThe New York Community TrustWesley E Truesdell ’46Armand Valenzi ’44Louis Walkover ’37Randi Zinn*

5,000-9,999Air ProductsDonald Bady ’48J. Randell Barclay* Anthony Bartolomeo ’70*Douglas Besharov ’62*Syd BlattBurson-MarstellerCary Kane, LLP*Wilton Cedeno ’82*Cellini Fine JewelryNicholas Y. L. Chu ’77*Chicago Bridge & Iron CompanyJohn V. Cioffi ’67Peter J. Cobos ’72*Brian Cosgrove*C. R. Bard Foundation*Credit Suisse Securities*Kenneth D’Alessandro ’66*Kenneth D. Daly ’84*Thomas C. DeCanio ’63Julia C. de la Garza-Jordan ’86*Frederick DeMatteis ’40

Deutsche Bank*Robert C. Di Chiara ’63Edward Diamond ’63James DimonDuggal Color Projects, Inc.Eastern Metalworks, Inc.*Len Edelstein ’55*El Paso Energy FoundationDomenick J. Esposito ’65Murray Farash ’52Al FerraraKeith Forman ’76*Gateway Institute for Pre-College Education*Bernard R. Gifford ’61*Robert Gresl ’46*Haights Cross Operating Company*William L. HainesSteven A. Hallem ’72William H. Henry ’57The Jay Chiat Foundation, Inc.Allan C. Johnson ’28John Wiley & Sons, Inc.*Laura Berdon FoundationLes Kalmus ’56*Marvin J. Levine ’65*Johnny Liu ’98Thomas LowryLucent TechnologiesMathew M. Mandery ’61*Marathon Bank*Susan Mayham ’76*Stephen MazurEdward D. Miller ’56Michael D. Nadler ’52*Morgan Stanley & Company*National Grid*NHL FoundationLee H. Pomeroy ’50Polytechnic University*Lee James Principe ’56*Robinson, Silverman, Pearce, Aronsohn & Berman, LLPRandi RossignolEdward R. Rothenberg ’61*Seth Ruzi ’76Anthony P. Schirripa ’67Maj. Ernest R. Schultz ’25Irwin Smiley ’46Ned Steele ’68*Textron Charitable TrustJohn ThonetGeorge L. Van Amson ’70*David W. Wallace ’42Steven Wishnia ’66*

1,000-4,999Elkan Abramowitz ’57Allan Abramson ’58Ron Adler ’68Louis G. Adolfsen ’67Kenneth S. Albano ’68John P. Albert ’90*John AldermanAllied Signal Found, Inc.James Amrhein ’41Richard P. Anastasio ’61John H. Andren, Jr. ’56Hermann F. Anton ’49Joel Aragona ’62

Mark Arzoomanian ’83William Assiff ’52*Atlantic Bank of New YorkAndrew W. Au ’66Joseph F. Azara, Jr. ’64Salvatore J. Azzaro ’43David Bady ’36Rudolph Bahr, Jr. ’41Jack S. Bakunin ’60Anthony R. Baldomir ’58*Anthony J. Balsamo ’56Baltimore Community Foundation*Joseph P. Barbieri ’41Kenneth E. Batcher ’53*John L. BattaglinoRobert B. Bell ’57*Belmet Products, Inc.Robert W. Berger ’88Klaus Bergman ’49David Berman ’58Leonard BernerDavid J. Bershad ’57Michael E. BillettHarry H. Birkenruth ’49Roger S. Blaho ’53Stephen Blanchette, Jr. ’82Robert Borowski ’73Anthony Borra ’58BP Amoco Foundation, Inc.Ronald E. Brandt ’65Thomas Breglia ’76James E. Brennan ’71and Allyson BrennerBruce A. Brice ’65Brooklyn College Auxiliary Ent.Alan I. Brooks ’61Lawrence D. Brown ’51Philip E. BruggeKatrina Burton-Nicholas ’95Herbert I. Butler ’32BWD Group, LLC*Barry A. Callender ’75Victor J. Caroddo ’52Carter-WallaceAlexander N. Casella ’53Dominic N. Castellano ’45Joseph A. Cavallo ’58Vincent Cavaseno ’65William H. Chamberlain ’50Keith K. Chan ’75Virginia-Marie M. Chan ’87Barton A. Chase III ’72William Cheung*Virgil V. Chiavetta ’35Allan Chong ’72Warren Christie ’62John W. Chromy ’48Joseph B. Ciccone ’58*Robert J. Ciemian ’59Frank A. Cipriani ’51Cirocco & Ozzimo, Inc.Citicorp FoundationJose R. Claxton ’82*Robert T. Cole ’50*Marc F. Colman ’67Louis R. Comunelli ’60Deirdre D. Cooke ’80Zeke Cooper ’40Milton Cooper ’46Joseph P. Crosson ’67Stephen P. Cuff ’49

Thomas E. Cuhaj ’74George S. Cuhaj ’77Joseph Cuzzocrea,, Sr.Gen. James E. Dalton ’49Clifford J. Daly ’53Vincent R. Damiano ’55William J. D’Antonio ’53Victor J. Dasaro DVM ’72Robert Davey ’58Gordon Davidson ’51Horace H. Davis ’84*Sheldon W. Dean, Jr. ’53Nicholas J. DeCapua ’60Michael DeFazio ’63Thomas V. Deffina ’59Bern E. Deichmann ’54*Al D’Elia ’67Vincent DeLuca ’63Daniel DeMatteoRobert Dendy ’56Joseph DeRienzo ’39*Joseph D’Esposito*Robert H. Digby ’61Arthur M. Dinitz ’51Alan B. Dolmatch ’52Robert J. Domanoski ’47*Robert W. Donohue ’60Peter Dornau ’57*Irwin Dorros ’46Jonathan Dubin ’74Sal Dunn ’58Kenneth A. East ’61Melvin Elfin ’47Paul Ellingsen ’66Robert Ennis ’59Barry D. Epstein ’58*Jeff Erdel ’63Ethicon , Inc.Asher Etkin ’60Raoul G. Farrell ’69*Arthur A. Feder ’45Richard S. Feinstein ’68Benjamin E. Feller ’64Stanley M. Ferber ’58*Eugene L. Fieldhammer ’42Joel M. Fields ’60John P. Fillo ’69FioriFirst New York PartnersClifford H. Fisher ’59Seth Flash ’95*Alan Flash ’71*Joseph L. Flood ’44Zachary C. Fluhr ’59R. Richard FontaineRichard Foxen ’45Arnold W. Frank ’47Henry H. Frank ’45Frederick A. Frenzel, Jr. ’71*Barbara FriedmanKarl E. Fritsch ’52*David L. Fung ’81Richard Gaccione ’64Col. John A. Garstka ’48David Gerson ’71Marvin C. Gersten ’56Peter GethersNorbert F. Giesse ’83Gillette*Paul J. Glasgow ’44*Herbert A. Granath ’48

Fred A. Grauman ’47Kenneth GreenbergKenneth D. Greene ’58Michael Greenstein ’65*Kenneth A. Griffin ’51Louis Gross ’48Warren Gutheil ’61David S. Hacker ’43Marshall Haimson ’73Mark Hauerstock ’65Robert J. Heilen ’53Hellenic American Bankers Association, Inc.Robert V. Henning ’34Gordon H. Hensley ’47*Eliot Hess ’64Steven Heymsfield ’62*Gerard Hirschhorn ’46*Lester A. Hoel ’52Bruce L. Hollander ’56Honeywell International FoundationK. Steven S. Horlitz ’64Martin R. Horn ’46Derrick A. Hostler ’81Joy H. Hsiao ’87John J. Huson ’52Robert M. Ianniello ’72Raoul D. Ilaw ’74Carmine R. Inserra ’70Israeloff, Trattner & Co.*J.P. Morgan Chase FoundationFrederic H. Jacobs ’65Arnold Jaffe ’47*Zbigniew R. Jankowski ’68*Jack C. Jawitz ’68Jewish Communal FundMike L. Johnson ’66Michelle Y. Johnson-Lewis ’79Raymond P. Jones ’74*Bradford R. Jones ’75Walter G. Jung ’51Gerard Justvig ’75J. Alan KahnPeter Kakoyiannis ’65Danos Homer Kallas ’35C. Kyrie Kallas ’37Irwin KallmanJohn D. KaltmanLauren KaltmanRichard KaltmanMartin Kaltman ’32Sheldon Katz ’52Mark L. Kay ’67Stephen J. Keane ’47Mary Ellen KeatingRobert F. Kelly ’61M. Robert Kestenbaum ’51Arthur H. Kettenbeil ’67Carl H. Kiesewetter ’55David Kliot ’52Mitchell KlipperJohn Klvac ’60*Jodi KoelschJoseph J. Kohn ’50Penelope Kokkinides ’87Peter J. Kolesar ’54William K. Kramer ’48Bert Krauss ’50Noel N. KriftcherIra S. Krolick ’81Robert Kupiec ’72

Edward T. LaGrassa ’65*Abraham L. Landis ’47Langenscheidt Publishing Group*Donald Lanier ’55Parkin Lee ’70*Chester Lee ’66*Gerald A. Lessells ’44Oscar A. Levi ’44Jonathan V. Levin ’44Stephen A. Levine ’59*Sidney Levitsky ’53Isaac A. Lewin ’70George T. Lewis, Jr. ’45Robert B. Liebowitz ’84Raymond M. Loew ’58LogiconEugene E. Lopata ’44Glenn Y. Louie*Derek I. Lowenstein ’60Edward R. Lubitz ’66Jerome D. Luntz ’41Allan W. Lyons ’49John M. Lyons ’66*M. Shanken Communications, Inc.Michael J. Macaluso ’66*James H. M. Malley ’58Evelyn MaloneyPatrick MaloneyRobert W. Mann ’42Robert Marchisotto ’47Stanley D. Margolin ’49Peter F. Margulen ’54The Marketplace RealtyAngel Martin ’51Leonard Matin ’46Marvin I. Mazur ’47Marc B. Mazur ’77Donald C. McCann ’57James J. McCarthy ’83Donald P. McConnell ’67Ira Meislik ’61Marvin L. Meistrich ’58*Edward M. Messina ’52Jean G. Miele, Jr. ’55*Zdzislaw Mikolajczyk ’57*Joseph B. Milgram, Jr. ’40Millennium Capital Markets, LLCIrene MillerEugene Miritello ’42Thomas J. Mitchell ’57Mobil Foundation, Inc.Joseph D. Monticciolo ’55Francis C. Moon ’57Kay Moore-Benjamin ’80Joseph M. Moran ’57George W. Moran ’61Motorola FoundationDaniel K. Moy ’69*Saul Muchnick ’49Andrew G. Mueller ’59Charles F. Muller, Jr. ’53Gretchen Mullins-Kim ’84John R. Murphy ’61*Lorraine C. NankoLeon Nash ’91Elby M. Nash ’65Hans R. Naumann ’54NBC Studios, Inc.Edwin Neff, Jr. ’60Bruce N. Newrock ’59King Ng ’78

This list reflects total lifetime giving through March 1, 2009 above $1,000. Many thanks to all the contributors who have not yet reached that level but whose contributions are making a difference at Brooklyn Tech. * Includes 2008 Contribu-tions to Sustaining Excel-lence: The 21/21 Campaign For Brooklyn Tech

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26 27

Physicist Continued from page 23

it true absolutely? Doubtless no. Why do I say that? It is inconsistent, or so it seems, with quantum mechanics, which has been extraordinarily successful in explaining the world of atoms and sub atoms. So we have a theory of the behavior of matter in the large, and in the small, and we don’t know how to bridge the two. Most physicists be-lieve there’s got to be some new theory de-veloped which will encompass both. String theory is favored by many.

Q. Or maybe Einstein is right, and physicists just don’t yet understand why he is right. A. At the end of the 19th century a large group of physicists, who should have known better, thought that everything knowable was already known; it was just a matter of cleaning up. They totally ignored observations that were inconsistent with

all then-known theories. People now are a little smarter; no one goes around saying that. We have no idea what really lies be-yond. In astrophysics, we have some fun-damental puzzles that no one understands; no one even claims to understand them, like so-called dark matter and dark energy, which account apparently for something like 95 percent of the universe’s mass-en-ergy allotment. We haven’t got a clue as to what’s going on. So we know there’s much more to learn. Will our learning it, and our develop-ment of [new] models, cause general rela-tivity to be supplanted? Nobody can say yes or no, but we must do experiments to see how nature behaves, and not assume that it behaves according to a particular theory, no matter how beautiful. We must probe deeper. n

Board of Directors

Michael A. Weiss ’57Chairman of the Board

Achilles Perry ’58President

Jack Feinstein ’60Vice President

Jeffrey Haitkin ’62Treasurer

John Albert ’90Secretary

Edgar Bello ’90Lary Cary ’70

Wilton Cedeno ’82Horace Davis ’84

Ben Feller ’64Steven Hallem ’72

Miguel Herrera ’85Norman Keller ’54

Peter Kneissl ’75Edward LaGrassa ’65

Peter Lopes ’56John Lyons ’66

Susan Mayham ’76Leonard Riggio ’58

Ned Steele ’68

George Cuhaj ’77Alumni Historian

Lionel Marks ’49General Counsel

Staff

Mathew M. Mandery ’61CEO

Linda R. SadaDirector of Alumni Operations

Ina CloonenAdministrative Manager

Liliya Magalnik ’01Executive Assistant to CEO

Suzanne HausmanOffice and Graphic Design Support

Tech Times Staff

Editor in Chief: Ned Steele ’68

Graphic Design: Robert Horansky

Editorial Direction: Mathew M. Mandery ’61

Alumni Outreach: Linda R. Sada

Photography: Ron Glassman (pages 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15) Robert Horansky (pages Cover, 1, 5, 18, 20, 21, 22, 26) Serge Timacheff (pages 7, 8)Walter Karling (pages 2, 3, 4, 16, 17, 21, 24, 25) Pamela Gillin (pages 7, 25)

Writers: Ned SteeleMike Frankel

Tech TimesVol. 1 No.1© 2009 Brooklyn Tech Alumni Foundation, Inc.

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Hau Yee Ng-Lo ’80Richard NicotraNils O. Nilsen ’69*Linda Noonan*Northrop GrummanAnthony P. Nuciforo ’74NYC Technical CollegeDiiana Oliver-SteinbergRonald I. Olson ’58D. Robert Oppenheimer, Jr. ’57Opus Northwest, LLCCarl W. Ordemann ’69Jason Orefice ’87Floyd R. Orr ’55Elaine OsterweilStanley H. Pantowich*Dennis A. Paoletti ’62*John Papamarcos ’37Fred Parise ’70Robert J. Paterna ’72Robert J. Pavan ’47Walton D. Pearson ’79Ernest E. Pearson, Jr. ’40Frank L. Peishel ’46Arno A. Penzias ’51James G. PepperStuart K. Pertz ’53Claude W. Peters ’36Arthur N. Peterson ’62Pfizer, Inc.Alex PicozziStuart Pivar ’47Joseph F. Plummer ’56James P. Popino ’52Charles W. Potter ’37Valentine P. Povinelli, Jr. ’59William PrenskyRoxane M. Previty*Steven Protass ’63The Prudential FoundationPSEG

Bertram Quelch ’45Bruce RatnerRaytheon CoArthur P. Rea ’60William ReillyRaymond Reilly ’58*Carl M. Renda ’72Monroe Richman ’45Ridgewood Savings Bank*Joseph Riggio ’57Bernice RighthandFrank RitotaLouis K. Robbins ’30Max RobertsAl Roffman ’44Edward Rogas, Jr. ’58Stanley Rogovin ’58Lori Roland-Plonski*Stephen J. Roppolo ’66Lester A. Rubenfeld ’58Lawrence G. Rubin ’43Karl M. Sandbo ’42Alfredo Sardinas ’72R.A. Satin ’49Saunder Schaevitz ’47Erwin L. Schaub ’46Roger E. Schechter ’70Norman A. Schefer ’43Ronald H. Schmahl ’60Robert U. Schoenfelder ’44Stuart Schube ’58Richard Schwartz ’53*Glenn C. Seale ’64Joel Seidner ’65*Mark Seratoff ’68Rodney L. Shannon ’87Leonard Shapiro ’48Steven A. Shaya ’65Steven Shearing ’52Stephen L. Shupack ’65Alvin J. Siegartel ’58

Alan M. Silberstein ’65*Alvin M. Silver ’49Leon C. Silverman ’57Sunil G. Singh ’89Charles J. Sisti ’49L. Remsen Skidmore, Jr. ’37Miles A. Slater ’60Walter J. Smith ’49George W. Smith ’47Majorie SmithRoger S. So ’69Barry Sohnen ’70Chester P. Soling ’49Richard E. Sorensen ’60George H. Spencer ’45Joel M. Spiro ’55St.John’s UniversityRuth E. Staehle ’45Donald J. Stahl ’58Mitchell Stashower ’83*Ivan D. Steen ’54Jeffrey Stein ’63Joel J. Sterling ’44Norman S. Stern ’62Raymond C. Stewart ’71William J. Stolze ’42George C. Stoutenburgh, Sr. ’51Irving Streimer ’45George Suffal ’53*SUNY FarmingdaleMichael V. Swabowicz, Jr. ’86John C. Sweeney ’71Giovanni Tafa ’76*TAG Associates, LLCPhilip G. Taylor ’56Tellef Peter Tellefsen ’41Manette H. Thomas*Theodore Thomte ’52Mark D. ToddMarie J. ToulantisJudy Tran

Barbara L. TrommerCmdr. Peter A. Tufo ’45Michael A. Turin ’52Richard W. Turnbull ’69*United Defense FMC FoundationUnited Way of New York CityVanguard ConstructionLeonard J. VerebayFrank S. Vigilante ’48Robert VillencyFrank S. Viola ’82*Salvatore J. Vitale, Jr. ’56Leslie D. Wade ’87Ralph B. Wagner ’51Charles H. Waide ’44Bert W. Wasserman ’50David Weild III ’48Robert E. Wentsch ’43Kenneth B. Wiberg ’45Elizabeth M. Wieckowski ’79Damon S. Williams ’64Kurt R. Willinger ’54Scott Winston*Adolph H. Wold ’38Stanley Wolpert ’45Wolters Kluwer Law and Business/ Aspen Publishers*Fred H. Woodruff ’54Richard F. Worsena ’58William C. Wurst ’67*George A. Yabroudy ’48David L. Yang ’84Yoswein NYDon ZachariaLloyd Zeitman ’69Norman Zelvin ’47Erwin Zeuschner ’53Albert H. Ziegler ’75Allen V. Zollo ’76

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