Tomorrow's Leaders - Wilmington Montessori School Alumni News - Summer 2016

ALUMNI HOMECOMING GRADUATES
Summer 2016
Tomorrow’s Leaders
Wilmington Montessori School
A MESSAGE FROM Head of School Lisa A. Lalama
Alumni News
Cover
Lisas letter
Welcome to our first Wilmington Montessori School alumni newsletter. We know that you will enjoy reading
about fellow alumni and hope that you will reach out to us and share what you have been up to since you
were last at our school. WMS is such a special place, one that people continue to connect to and revisit long
after they have moved on to other schools. Whether you began your journey at the Little Red School House or
at 1400 Harvey Road, you are part of what makes WMS such a great place.
During the past 15 years, I’ve had the opportunity to watch WMS grow to reflect our changing world. We
have expanded our offerings to include technology, Maker (STEAM) Studios and have more fully integrated the
arts into our students’ daily learning. We have the same beautiful 25-acre campus, although now we have a
labyrinth in the woods where children or adults can enjoy a quiet meditative walk. We also have vegetable
gardens as part of the 9-12 outdoor classroom with the Food Bank of Delaware as a recipient of our home-grown produce. Just this
spring, WMS was designated as a 2016 U.S. Department of Education Green Ribbon School in recognition of our hard work to create
an eco-friendly and sustainable environment.
Each year, our sixth-graders travel to New York City to participate in the Global Citizenship Action Project (GCAP), which is
sponsored by the American Montessori Society. They tour the United Nations, learn about non-governmental organizations (NGOs)
and visit missions to the U.N. from countries such as Egypt, Turkey, Vietnam, Argentina and Saudi Arabia. They work to support the
efforts of NGOs such as Save the Rain, Room to Read, and Vision for and from Children. In other words, our graduates leave WMS
with the experience of making a real impact on the world stage — they know they can and will make a difference.
For the past three years, we have had the pleasure of hearing from WMS alumni as speakers at our graduation. They have
spoken about their transition from WMS to middle and high school and ultimately to college. They have shared their fears and
dreams, and have offered assurances about the many remarkable possibilities that are available to our students. Our alumni continue
to see us as a part of their childhood and as a school that has helped them to become who they are. You will meet two of these
exceptional alumni in this newsletter.
Two years ago, we had the tremendous pleasure of celebrating our 50th year as Wilmington Montessori School. As the
school prepared for this event, we reached out to you, our friends and members of the WMS community. We were nothing short
of astounded at how many of you turned out to share in this celebration. We
reconnected, caught up on your lives since you have moved on from WMS, and
welcomed you back into the fold.
We look forward to keeping in touch with you through this newsletter.
If you have news to share, a story to tell or a memory you’d like us to hear about,
please contact us at alumni@wmsde.org. It is because of you that we are the
finest Montessori school in Delaware and continue to look to our future.
Stay in touch,
Meet two of our
exceptional alumni as they
share their journey with us
as graduates and lifelong
representatives of WMS.
Alumni and parents
returned to the WMS
campus to enjoy a fun day
of activities at our first
Homecoming event.
See where some of our
2010 graduates will
be attending college
next year!

Alumni Stories
Alexandra Looney, WMS ’04, Designs Practical Art that Empowers Women
by Elizabeth Hanson
GIVE BACK TO WMS…
Your support makes
a difference!
Gifts to the Annual Fund help create the special WMS
experiences that you remember. Donations support our
classrooms filled with Montessori materials, help
maintain our beautiful campus with its creek and trails,
support our Montessori-trained teachers and arts
programs, and allow us to offer financial aid so more
students can benefit from a WMS education. Help us
keep those traditions alive while we continue to create
new learning opportunities for children. Every gift helps
us keep WMS thriving for generations to come.
Visit www.wmsde.org/annualfund to make your
tax-deductible gift to keep WMS strong.
Your support of WMS makes a difference!
Allie Looney and her team bested 31 other
competing groups to win the University of
Pennsylvania’s 2016 iDesign prize.
Photo courtesy of PennDesign.
On June 10, Alexandra “Allie”
Looney, WMS ’04, addressed the
Wilmington Montessori School
class of 2016. She advised the
sixth-graders to “find what
moves you, find your passion,
gain insight into yourself and go
after it.”
These impressionable young
people should heed her advice.
This year, Allie graduated from
the University of Pennsylvania with a master’s degree in Integrated Product
Design and a $50,000 prize for the culmination of her capstone project.
Her team designed a dual-purpose nursing and pumping bra that automates
breast compression to increase breast pumping efficiency and milk output
for working mothers.
“I worked with two other Integrated Product Design students, Clementine
Gilbert and Adriana Vazquez,” Allie said. “Our fourth member, Sujay Suresh,
is an electrical engineering graduate student at Penn. We interviewed
hundreds of working mothers and found that most of them were using their
hands when pumping, so if we could automate this process for mothers with
an automatic compression bra, it would make the pumping experience a
lot easier.”
They named the bra Lilu, a mash-up of “lily” and “lule,” which means flower in
Albanian — a nod to the floral appearance of their product. The prestigious,
annual iDesign competition at Penn promotes the design of physical objects
that solve real-world problems by offering both financial support and
mentorship to turn the winning concept into a reality.
Allie has her work cut out for her this summer, incorporating and working
toward getting her product to
market. While getting her undergraduate
fine arts degree from
Temple University’s Tyler School
of Art and her graduate degree
at Penn, the work she has done in
past summers is also exciting and
innovative.
“Art was my favorite
class at Wilmington
Montessori.”
Through a friend from Temple who now works at Crayola, she was given a
summer toy design internship at their corporate headquarters in Easton,
Pennsylvania. She explained that the experience was extremely valuable. “I
worked in the Creations/Outdoor/Model Magic lines, and it was
exciting to see the direction in which the company is going,” Allie
said. “It was also special to help develop some of the fun products
that will be coming out during the 2016 holiday season.” During
her internship, she also learned about manufacturing, mentoring
and the importance of working on a team.
Allie entered Temple in the metals/jewelry/CAD-CAM major, not
really sure what she wanted to pursue. “I gained the foundation
here, learned what it truly meant to be an artist,” she explained.
“I realized what I wanted to do when I first saw the metals department’s
3D printers and computer modeling classes. In high school,
I modeled my own toys out of Sculpey Clay, but I always wanted
to know how they were really made. When I saw the 3D printers, it
just clicked. I decided that was what I wanted to do.”
Her two years at Penn gave her the business background she
needed, a worldwide network of contacts and the confidence to
realize she could be an entrepreneur. But, as she remembers, that
confidence and self-awareness was instilled much earlier through
her WMS education.
Explaining that everyone calls teachers by their first names at
WMS, Allie recalls, “My first through third-grade teachers, Thelma
Dooley and Debby Morrison, showed us how to really look at the
world around us. They would take the class on field trips to the
stream in the woods, where we’d observe the minnows, turtles
and frogs, and take samples of the water. It was a great way to
learn about our local environment and our potential to impact it.”
As a young girl, Allie also loved to play the piano. She still fondly
remembers her WMS music teacher Kelly Rhodunda. “She was a
great music teacher. She knew I loved playing piano and during
some of the shows she let me play her accompaniments
as well.”
Her art teacher Laurie Muhlbauer was also an
incredible influence.
“Art was my favorite
class at Wilmington
Montessori,” Allie said.
“Laurie is a great art
teacher, and she pushed me to create
things I didn’t think I could. One of the
hardest projects I had was making a
Allie’s Moonlight Nightlight
toy design
clay sculpture of the Eiffel Tower, which
my parents still have in their cabinet.
I remember happily staying in the art
room to work on projects over recess
some days. Overall, I can’t say enough
about the friendships and nurturing I
experienced at WMS, which taught me to
confidently follow my passions today.”
Allie, whose father is an architect and
mother is a biologist, has two younger
sisters who also attended WMS. Allie
Allie Looney as a WMS
sixth-grader in 2004
attended public middle and high schools, and she feels all these
experiences helped shape her path.
“It was a big adjustment, but navigating the transition helped me
realize that not everyone is insulated or privileged,” Allie said.
“I met some really good friends. I felt first-hand the effects of
schools that did not have sufficient resources and realized the
state of our community. Learning about these problems makes
me want to give back even more.”
To win the 2016 iDesign prize, Allie’s team bested 31 other
competing groups who pitched their products to a jury of
leading designers, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. Allie
is very proud of the steps her group is taking with their new
product, Lilu.
“What we are doing is very women-centric,” Allie explained. “We
want women to have equal opportunities. It is unbelievable that
there has been more technological development in cow milk
production products than in products to help breastfeeding
mothers because the cow milking industry is more profitable.
There’s already been a great deal of change and innovation in
breastfeeding products in the past few years, and we want to be
part of that.”
Allie also has not ruled out going back into the world of toy design
at some point in her life. “I loved the Crayola environment and the
fact that their products are widely used and enjoyed by children,”
she said. “The best part about product and toy design is that you
can make something that makes someone else happy. If what I
make can empower others to think creatively and to be themselves,
then I feel fulfilled.”

Bradford Wason, WMS ’96, Successfully Living “Montessori Teal”
main article
Allie Last year, Bradford “Brad” Wason
traveled 2,700 miles to Las Vegas
for his dream job as a manager at
Zappos. When the company adopted
a new business model that eliminated
all managers, Brad’s strategic
thinking and creative problem-solving
skills, at the core of his Wilmington
Montessori School education, helped
him restructure his position there
and ultimately led him to an even
more desirable position back home in
Wilmington.
“Zappos hired me as a visual design manager, and in order to
continue working for this company, I had to take the essence and
break it apart into multiple roles,” said the 1996 WMS graduate
who was born and raised in Wilmington. “I had to use my skill set
to problem-solve within multiple circles that impact the business.”
Just a month ago, a “too good to pass up” opportunity
materialized with Capital One back in Wilmington, and
Wason jumped at the chance.
“I was able to translate my success with change management,
creative advocacy and design thinking into a great new opportunity
as senior creative director for Capital One,” Brad explained.
“It combines a lot of what I really enjoyed about Zappos while
allowing me to leverage my background working within financial
services marketing.”
Brad learned to problem-solve and think outside the box early
on. After WMS, he attended Springer Middle School and
Brandywine High School, traditional schools often with 300
students per grade-level.
“It was certainly a big adjustment figuring out how the work was
divided in this new environment,” he
said, “but my ability to manage multiple
assignments served me well.”
Brad’s mother Arlene has been a
teacher at WMS for the past 27
years, and his younger sister Leslie is
also a WMS alum.
“Montessori is my
foundation block.”
Brad got his associate degree in graphic design from Delaware
College of Art and Design (DCAD) and his Bachelor of Science in
Interactive Multimedia from Wilmington University.
“No one calls it interactive media anymore,” Brad chuckled, “but I
was able to gain the theory behind design and art at DCAD and the
technical background — at the time the emerging digital platform
— at Wilmington University, which set me up for success.”
Wason found success beginning with his first paying job at the
age of 17 for Time Warner. He went on to become founder and
creative director for 23rd and 5th, a boutique branding agency
which he sold to DMG Marketing in 2012. He served as creative
director for three more years at DMG. Brad has also taught as an
adjunct professor at both University of Delaware and Delaware
College of Art and Design.
“I feel that I have a personal mission, whether teaching college or
continuing education, to prepare the student to enter the marketplace,”
he said. “Many instructors get stuck in teaching the technical
skills and abandon teaching people how to think. I teach them
to be analytical, solve problems and then back them into learning
when to use Photoshop or the appropriate tool. When they hit
the marketplace, why they do something will always inform the
what and the how.”
After reading Frederic Laloux’s book Reinventing Organizations
(twice), which depicts the future of the corporate structure
moving from a top-down management structure known as
“orange” to the “teal” version in which self-managed and selforganized
employees achieve the organization’s purpose, Brad
wrote a blog post called “Growing up Teal.”
In the post, he basically credits his formative years at WMS with
perfectly setting him up to succeed in a “teal” environment and
directly correlating to his career success.
“Montessori is my foundation block,”
Brad said. “My time spent managing
assignments and educational progression
within the guardrails of the curriculum
and advice from teachers has
proven extremely valuable to my own
success. While I was learning to read
and using the Stamp Game to understand long division, I would
also be creating strong ties for navigating a self-managed corporate
environment.”
One of Brad’s favorite WMS memories - a trip
to a local archeology site
Brad as a “graduate” of the new employee
orientation program at Zappos
Read Brad’s blog post at www.wmsde.org/teal.
“GROWING UP TEAL”
This is the essence:
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5
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Brad says he was a shy child, terrified of speaking in public and, only after being
nudged into performing in plays at WMS in the sixth grade by his teacher Helen
Gadsby, realized that this was something in which he could excel. “It was a
monumental moment,” he said.
Brad also fondly remembers the hands-on activities and field trips that taught
him more than what he could learn from a textbook. “I can remember piling into
a van and going to a construction site,” he recalls. “From that simple trip, we
learned about archeology, the excavation process and gained unique insight into
the world that could never come from just sitting in a class.”
What do the decades ahead look like for this 32-year-old trendsetter whose
video cover letter asked, “What does your organization need and how can I help
you get there?”
“Ultimately I know that I will not only work as a designer, but also as an advocate
for the purpose of design and creative services,” Brad said. “I want to be involved
in large and interesting business challenges and allocating resources to solve
them. The media may be different, but the core of how I approach it will be the
same, and I know that teaching will always be a part of anything that I do.”
Work with others often and relish in their opinions, ideas, creative thoughts and solutions to problems.
Don’t be afraid to create guardrails or set-up a system of structure for where you need it.
Experiment often and don’t fear your failures.
Forget desks and assigned seats.
Pass along your knowledge freely and readily.
Explore the world in front of you, and never take its wonders for granted.
See challenges as opportunities.
RGB color for inkjet\laser pri

Homecoming
Mark your calendars now for WMS Homecoming
this fall on Saturday, October 1 at 1 p.m.
We look forward to seeing you there!
2016
ALUMNI RETURN TO WMS
FOR HOMECOMING
On October 3, 2015, WMS welcomed more than 150 people to our
first-ever Homecoming event. Alumni and their families joined
current WMS families and staff, as well as past teachers, for a fun
afternoon of catching up, reminiscing and an extended game of
Castle Ball coached by former WMS PE teacher Lisa Mann. WMS
alums mingled with their former classmates and teachers, visited
their former classrooms and shared some laughs looking at old
yearbooks. Despite the rain, quite a few alums made it out to the
playground to visit the yellow turtle and take a ride on the swings.
A great big thank you goes out to our 2015 Homecoming
Committee — Leslie Bastianelli, Becca Gulino, Suzanne Jones,
Donna Irby, Joanie Kalin, Jen Luckangelo, Alexa Pierce-Matlack,
Zehra Wamiq and Susan Thomas — for making this event a huge
success!
If you’re interested in joining the 2016 WMS Homecoming
Committee, email alumni@wmsde.org or call Lori Oberly
at 302-475-0555. We would love to have you!

WMS CLASS OF 2010
This year, the members of the WMS class of 2010 became high
school graduates. WMS alumni attend a variety of fine colleges
and universities, and this class is no exception.
Here are just a few of the colleges they will attend next year:
American University
Bates College
Boston University
Columbia University
Dickinson College
Drexel University
Northeastern University
Temple University
University of Delaware Honors Program
University of Notre Dame
Ursinus College
CONGRATULATIONS TO THE
Class of 2016!
GRADUATES:
Stephanie Anderson
Aniyah Barnett
Charlotte Davey
Kathryn Farabaugh
Marina Gannon
Marissa Lane
Maggie Lober
Finola Mimnagh
Analisa Nichols
Daniel Ropars
Ava Walsh
Aaron Washington
WMS’s newest graduates will be attending a
variety of private and public middle schools,
including the following:
PRIED: Program for Rigor and Innovation in
Education
P.S. DuPont Middle School — Gifted Program
Springer Middle School
Talley Middle School
The Grayson School
The Tatnall School
Ursuline Academy
Wilmington Friends School

1400 Harvey Road, Wilmington, DE 19810
www.wmsde.org
Don’t miss out! Our next
alumni news update will be
sent via email.
Visit www.wmsde.org/alumni
to update your contact
information today.
WELCOME TO THE NEW WMS ALUMNI NEWSLETTER, TOMORROW’S LEADERS!
SEND US YOUR NEWS!
We would love to
include your
accomplishments in an
upcoming newsletter.
Email us at
alumni@wmsde.org
or visit
www.wmsde.org/alumni.
This issue of Tomorrow’s Leaders features photography
by Joanna Breger, Joe Del Tufo and Heather Siple.
Editor: Noel Dietrich
Designer: Holly Feldheim
Writing and reporting: Joan Beatson, Noel Dietrich,
Elizabeth Hanson