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CLASS NOTES
COLUMBIA COLLEGE TODAY
COLUMBIA COLLEGE TODAY
CLASS NOTES
With my local draft board breathing
down my neck I joined the U.S.
Public Health Service, was trained
in epidemiology and assigned
to the New York City Health
Department as a venereal disease
investigator (no kidding) working
in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section
of Brooklyn. While interesting, that
assignment was not the career I
envisioned, and so less than a year
later I transferred to the Surgeon
General’s office in Washington,
where I began my lifelong career in
public policy.
“Three months after arriving
in Washington, I was sent up to
the Senate Commerce Committee
to help with a set of hearings the
committee was planning on research
since the passage of the 1965
cigarette labeling act. During the
next three years, I worked with the
committee in developing the act
that banned cigarette advertising,
produced several anti-smoking
commercials for the Public Health
Service, dealt with broadcast
network standards and practices,
wrote speeches, publicized new
research and did battle with the
Tobacco Institute.
“Following the 1970 election,
I was hired by the Senate Commerce
Committee, where I initially
staffed the consumer subcommittee
through which much of the
landmark consumer legislation
of the 1970s passed. Contrary to
today’s Congress, even with a
Republican in the White House
and a Democratic Congress, the
presence of old bulls who had been
elected during the Depression,
WWII or the Korean War created an
environment where partisan rancor
was minimized in favor of a collective,
conscientious effort to solve
problems.
“In 1977 I became staff director
of what was then the Senate Committee
on Commerce, Science and
Transportation and, a year later,
chief of staff of the Senate Appropriations
Committee, when the
Appropriations Committee Chairman
died and the seniority system
worked its will, resulting in my
boss, Sen. Warren Magnuson (D-
Wash.), becoming chairman of the
Appropriations Committee. Before
I left the Hill, I assisted Sen. Ted
Kennedy (D-Mass.) in reorganizing
the Judiciary Committee when he
became chairman in 1979.
“With a decade of senate staff
experience behind me and the
Senate turning over to a Republican
majority, I did what any selfrespecting
Hill staffer does: I went
downtown to K Street. At different
times during the next 30-plus years
I have run government affairs and
communications for four major trade
associations in the grocery products,
cable television, airlines and telecom
industries, and worked as a public
policy or public relations consultant
to a number of companies and trade
associations, which I still do.
“There was also a two-year
respite from Washington when we
moved to the Chicago area in the
late ’80s; I ran a division of Telaction,
a wholly owned J.C. Penney
development company that built a
pre-Internet interactive cable programming
network. Unfortunately,
we folded after spending more than
$100 million.
“I have worked on a wide array
of issues with legislators and
public figures whose contributions
stretch from WWI to the present
day. I have worked with people
who developed the strategy to pass
the Civil Rights and Voting Rights
Acts, with people who serve on the
Supreme Court and with people
who played cards with President
Roosevelt during the depths of
WWII. I have been more than an
eyewitness to history, and I consider
myself to be very fortunate.
“There are also a number of
alumni with whom I had some
great working experiences. Among
them are Richard Merrill ’59, former
chief counsel of the FDA (and brother
of Stephen Merrill, with whom I
also worked); David Heymsfeld ’59,
former staff director of the House
Committee on Transportation
and Infrastructure; Hon. Nicholas
Garaufis ’69, former chief counsel
of the FAA (before being confirmed
as a U.S. District Court Judge for
the Eastern District of New York);
David Cavicke ’84, former chief of
staff, House Committee on Energy
and Commerce; and Margaret Kim
’91, who was a colleague at the Air
Transport Association.”
You can reach Ed at edmerlis@
edmerlis.com.
Chris Morren reports, “I am
an internist, now semi-retired,
with a lot of the daily stress gone.
I trained in the Bronx and would
see Noah Robbins at Montefiore
Medical Center. Al Steere taught
me lots about Lyme Disease. I stay
in touch with Joe Beckman, Bill
Wertheim and Fred Colligno. Pete
Manley worked at my hospital
in administration (Lawrence and
Memorial Hospital, New London,
Conn.) for a few years but has left.
I plan to see LeRoy Euvrard in
France in November. Sadly, my
brother George ’60 died in September
2011. This has left a big hole in
our family. My wife, Edie ’74 Nursing,
is an advance practice R.N.
working in Connecticut; daughter
Cindy (26) is married, lives in
Exeter, R.I., and is working on her
R.N.; and son James (28) lives in
Brooklyn and is an arborist for the
NYC Department of Parks and
Recreation, working on projects in
Manhattan.”
You can reach Chris at morren
christopher@gmail.com.
James Murdaugh writes: “I’m
still happy with the practice of law
in Houston. And it’s still fun — the
most important thing. A couple of
anniversaries: my partner, Gary
Smith, and I celebrated our 16th
anniversary this summer, and Gary
celebrated his 30th anniversary at
the Shepherd School of Music at
Rice, where he is associate dean. As
I write [in early June], we’re about
to leave for Nantucket, driving up
with Golden Retrievers Bob and
Leo. We were recently at brunch
with Ben Cohen and his wife,
Helen, and they are both as super
as ever. Regrettably I missed Steve
Eric Marcus ’65 has been reappointed to a second,
five-year term as director of Columbia’s Center for
Psychoanalytic Training and Research.
Weinstein ’66 when he came to
town in June for a medical lecture,
but I visited with Dave Blanchard
’67 when he was in town for a
wedding in May.
“In addition to the law practice,
I stay busy at my church, Christ
Church Cathedral (Episcopal),
where I recently completed a term
as Senior Warden of the Vestry and
am on the search committee for a
new dean. Finally, our artistically
inclined classmates may want to
know about the new James Turrell
Skyspace adjacent to the Shepherd
School on the Rice campus. Gary
and I were lucky enough to go
to the dedication and dinner. It’s
pretty amazing; Google will tell
you all about it!”
You can reach Jim at jmurdaugh
@smithmur.com.
Richard Newman ’68L submitted
the following: “After graduating
from the Law School, I took
a job with a law firm in Chicago.
With 1968 being the height of the
Vietnam War and my being both
too physically fit to be classified 4F
and too young to avoid the draft
by entering the Peace Corps (I
would have been several months
shy of the magic age of 26 when
my stint was up), I managed to get
into an Army Reserve unit and was
able to avoid being drafted.
“I met my wife, Dr. Lilian Spigelman,
on a blind date in September
1973 and we’ve been married 38
years. We have one son, Jonathan,
who is in his last year as a cardiology
fellow at NewYork-Presbyterian
Hospital/Columbia University
Medical Center.
“I lived in the Chicago area for
44 years (36 in the same house in
Oak Park, Ill., home of Frank Lloyd
Wright and Ernest Hemingway). I
changed law firm jobs and areas of
specialty three times before spending
17 years in the law department
of Continental Illinois National
Bank, where I rose to assistant
general counsel before the bank
failed (the largest bank failure in
American history at the time) and
was taken over by Bank of America.
In 1991 the bank fired all its
in-house lawyers with two weeks’
notice. I was one of the fortunate
ones; I accepted an offer to join the
Chicago office of Mayer Brown &
Platt (n/k/a Mayer Brown) as a
partner in its finance practice. I left
Mayer Brown in 1995 to become
e.v.p. and general counsel of a
small, privately owned Chicago
bank, Amalgamated Bank and
Trust Company of Chicago. Left
that position after a year and spent
the next five as a partner in Neal,
Gerber & Eisenberg; returned to
Mayer Brown in 2000; and retired
from Mayer Brown in 2010.
“In March 2011, my wife and I
became grandparents when our
grandson, Cassius, was born. To
be closer (but not too close) to our
new extended family, we moved
from Oak Park to Doylestown, Pa.
“In September 2011, a former colleague
from Mayer Brown’s New
York office, who had moved to
the New York office of DLA Piper,
persuaded me to come out of retirement
and accept a role as part-time
special counsel. I now commute to
the law firm’s office on Avenue of
the Americas twice a week. I’m very
much enjoying retirement.”
Richard can be reached at rmn5@
columbia.edu. I find it interesting
that his definition of “retirement”
includes working two days a week
and commuting from Doylestown to
NYC. I guess that other classmates
approaching retirement, or living it,
may also have great stories to tell,
and I invite you to share them.
James Niss also chipped in: “I
retired as a lawyer two years ago,
after working six years as Judge
Jed S. Rakoff’s special master in the
Ephedra multidistrict litigation. I
still live in the Riverside Drive apartment
I rented in 1965 when I started
graduate school in French literature
at Columbia. I teach English to immigrants
two hours a day as a volunteer
at a public school for adults
in Harlem, a half-hour walk through
Morningside Park, which nowadays
is safe, clean and pleasant with its
waterfall and pond inhabited by
turtles and waterbirds.”
You can reach Jim at james.niss@
verizon.net.
Finally, the sad news that David
Wallace died on March 2, 2012. A
full obituary will appear in a future
issue.
66
Columbia College Today
Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
cct@columbia.edu
[Editor’s note: This column marks
Stuart Berkman’s last in his 23 years
of service as a class correspondent.
CCT thanks him for his dedication
and now seeks a new correspondent
for the class. If you are interested
in writing this quarterly column of
classmate news and views, please
contact Alexis Tonti ’11 Arts, managing
editor: alt2129@columbia.edu
or 212-851-7485. In the meantime,
please send updates to CCT at the
postal or email address at the top of
the column, or via CCT’s easy-to-use
webform: college.columbia.edu/
cct/submit_class_note.]
Rich Forzani sent the following
update earlier this year: “I abandoned
my retirement last year to
become a consultant for Intel, and
then to assume a sales/marketing
role for a human capital management
software firm. My wife, Kathy,
is overjoyed to have me out of the
house again. However, my advice
to all of you contemplating retirement
is this: It’s pretty enjoyable.
Never underestimate the pleasure
of having nothing to do.
“My youngest son, Richard,
graduated magna cum laude from
Rutgers in May (also Phi Beta
Kappa) and is attending the University
of Richmond School of Law
this fall as one of 11 incoming John
Marshall Scholars, the law school’s
highest merit award. His academic
accomplishments are surely hereditary,
although possibly not from
my DNA. I don’t know if the world
needs another lawyer, but if it does,
let it be him. Kathy and I are also
first-time grandparents, so we had
a busy and enjoyable spring and
summer.
“We recently enjoyed a dinner
with Celeste and Tom Chorba, and
had the pleasure there of seeing
John Wellington ’57 and his wife,
as well as Kathy Donelli. Kathy, as
you may know, recently lost her
husband, Dick ’59, ’63 Dental, who
was one of our freshman football
coaches and a good friend to many
’66ers. I lunched recently with Rich
Beggs, who is wrapping up his stint
as CEO of Daiwa Securities after a
long and successful career. Most enjoyably
for me, Rich picked up the
tab. We also have spent time with
Barbara and Harvey Kurzweil,
both at their home in Nantucket
and here in New Jersey. Harvey was
kind enough to counsel Richard on
his choice of law as a career.
“We live in North Jersey, visit our
grandson in Los Angeles whenever
possible and are anticipating a
move to the Jersey Shore in a couple
of years. May this note find all of
you well and productively dissipative.”
You can contact Rich at rforzani1
@optonline.net.
Here is what we heard from
Rudy von Bernuth a few months
ago: “I have been working for
Save the Children for more than 20
years, following a 20-year career
with CARE. At this moment, I have
been given a bit of an Indian summer
in my professional life. Since
April 2011, I have been in charge
of a big merger process among
all 29 Save the Children members
worldwide, leading the process by
which all Save the Children Member
programs in 60 countries and
seven regions are transitioning to
one unified management structure
within Save the Children International,
with an aggregate value of
about $1.3 billion. In this role I coordinate
all aspects of the transition
process, and I manage the Save the
Children International program
operations that result from it. My
wife, Betty, and I have moved to
London and live in a lovely flat
five minutes from Victoria Station
and 10 minutes from Westminster
Abbey. Most mornings, I walk to
work from the flat. The walk goes
directly by Buckingham Palace,
then along The Mall to Trafalgar
Square, where my office is adjacent
to the National Gallery.”
Rudy’s email is rudy.vonbernuth
@savethechildren.org.
Surprise! An actual handwritten
letter was received earlier this year
from Joe Albeck. I think this is the
first time in more than a decade
that news has been submitted in
this atavistic way. What a delight
to see something in personal penmanship!
At any rate, Joe writes
from Waban, Mass.: “Things are
good for my wife, Isabelle, and
myself. Our three grown kids all
live near Route 128. My son, David,
was married in 2011 to a lovely
woman with two talented teenagers
from a prior marriage. Then
David and his wife, Smaranda,
welcomed Henry Daniel Albeck
on May 15, 2012. Our daughter
Margot had her second child, Julia
Martine, on June 20. Our other
daughter, Simone, is single and
works in the mental health field.
“I work four days a week in my
psychiatry practice, and Isabelle
retired from teaching high school
French a few years ago; we are
mostly healthy and happy. On a
recent visit to Sacramento, Calif.,
I met with Mike Leibowitz, our
dear friend, who reminded me of
our CC ’66 bonds.” Joe’s email, for
those who prefer cyber epistles, is
jhalbeck@massmed.org.
67
Albert Zonana
425 Arundel Rd.
Goleta, CA 93117
az164@columbia.edu
News about the 45th Alumni Reunion
Weekend of the Cleverest
Class, held May 31–June 3, poured
in.
Marty Nussbaum writes, “I was
surprised to see that many members
of our class seemed to have aged,
unlike me. (Actually, Dean Ringel
must have a picture in the attic
because he’s aged not at all.) Most
of us were accompanied by spouses
or significant others who were far
more attractive than we deserved.
While a relatively small proportion
of the class was in attendance, the
aggregate weight of the attendees
offset the number of participants,
so that the aggregate avoirdupois
probably equaled the total poundage
of the class in 1967.”
Mark Minton reports, “Reunion
was memorable. Probably the high
points were Saturday’s class luncheon
in Kent Hall (C.V. Starr East
Asian Library), where we were addressed
by Dean James J. Valentini
and had an exchange with a panel
of College students, assembled and
introduced by Roger Lehecka, and
the final class dinner on Saturday,
which was held in a beautiful,
floor-to-ceiling-windowed dining
area in the new Northwest Corner
Building on campus. True to our
reputation for cleverness (or more
accurately, feistiness), our dinner
speaker, former New York City
schools chancellor Joel I. Klein, set
off a lively discussion — almost a
debate — about American education.
[Editor’s note: See feature in
this issue about Klein.]
“The lectures during Dean’s
Day and the other social events
also were memorable. Everyone
who attended very much enjoyed
our kickoff event on Thursday
evening, an opening reception
hosted by Robert Rosenberg and
his wife, Pamela, in their beautiful
townhouse on East 61st Street.
“On a more personal note, Marty
Andrucki, Chris Hartzell, Leigh
Dolin, Dean Ringel and I — all
Spectator board members of 1967 —
got together for a reunion dinner on
Friday.”
And about that dinner, Leigh
wrote: “I thought I’d give you my
version. Hartzell and I ran into each
other at a Friday afternoon lecture
and, at his suggestion, headed to
the Spectator office to see if we could
check out what our favorite newspaper
looks like in 2012. The office
now is on Broadway near 112th and
initially we couldn’t get in but then
we followed two students through
the otherwise locked door; they
turned out to be the editor-in-chief
and the sports editor. We had the
grand tour, and Chris and I did our
best old-guy routines (‘Back in our
day, we used linotype machines,’
etc.). Dinner was at an Italian
restaurant north of 120th and over
very good food and perhaps too
many carafes of house wine, Mark,
Chris, Marty, Dean and I discussed
the problems of the world, including
abortion, political correctness,
the existence of God, the importance
of faith, Syria, Iran, Obama,
health care, poetry, Lyndon Johnson
and, of course, Spectator. We would
have followed up with a series of
editorials but unfortunately we no
longer have a newspaper in which
to publish them.”
Gordon Klein also attended
reunion; he writes, “My old roommate,
Bob Rudy, appeared for the
first time since I have been going [to
the reunions]. He has retired from
the Hennepin County Attorney’s
Office and now travels and cruises.
Ken Haydock was there trying to
recall Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.
He carried a big sign throughout
reunion that said ‘Recall Walker.’
Some of us thought he had changed
his name.
“I have retired from being a pediatric
gastroenterologist and have
taken a position as clinical professor
of orthopaedic surgery, still at the
University of Texas, where I lecture,
write, consult and do research.”
Marty Andrucki reports, “I
reconnected with Larry Besserman
during the Chelsea art gallery crawl
on Friday night and again at lunch
in Kent Hall on Saturday. He is now
professor emeritus at The Hebrew
University of Jerusalem and also
teaches summer school at Columbia.
Had a good time schmoozing
with Dick Jupa and Ken Haydock
at the Core Curriculum open house
[in Hamilton Hall] on Saturday.
The latter was wearing a ‘Recall
Walker’ plaque around his neck
and, I swear, for a long moment I
thought it meant he was an official
of the reunion tasked with walking
around and helping alums recall the
good old days.”
The apparently ageless Dean
Ringel writes, “What follows are
some random observations. I am
out of practice as a journalist, and
lawyer-like pablum has replaced
whatever freedom of expression I
once could muster. But I will give
it a try.
“Pamela and Bob Rosenberg’s
East Side townhouse was what we
all thought/hoped we might one
day inhabit. Few of us have realized
that vision but it was fun to
FALL 2012
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FALL 2012
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