Harvard Student Agencies — 60th Anniversary Book

HARVARD STUDENT AGENCIES A HISTORY 1957 – 2017 

A HISTORY 

1957 – 2017 

60 TH 

ANNIVERSARY

WE DEDICATE THIS BOOK TO THE MEMORY OF 

Dustin M. Burke 

1927–2016 

without whose compassion, industry, and service 

none of us would have enjoyed the fulfilling 

and foundational experience of a career at HSA. 

“Dusty” Burke grew up during the Great Depression, applying a tenacious work ethic to both 

honing his own skills and serving his community. He was a club champion golfer and president of 

his high-school class. He overcame a fear of heights to serve as a paratrooper in the U.S. Army 

in postwar Japan. He was a star football and hockey player at Harvard who also composed his 

class ode. He led efforts to lift up students as Harvard’s Director of Student Employment and 

a planner of equal-rights educational policy for the Johnson administration. He founded the 

land company Newport Farms and taught leadership skills and human behavior to business 

executives as head of Burke Cleaver Enterprises. He was a loving husband to Shirley Burke 

for 53 years, and he was the wisest teacher and loudest cheerleader to their 15 grandchildren. 

Here at HSA, we are especially grateful to Dusty as our founder and first General Manager. 

It was Dusty who, in 1957, convinced 14 ambitious students who were running small-scale 

businesses out of their dorm rooms to come together under one roof. It was Dusty who secured 

the capital needed to start the corporation that would become the largest student-run company 

in the world. It was Dusty who steered the ship as General Manager for the next 13 years, 

guiding HSA through its turbulent formative years and bequeathing us the stable company it is 

today. Dusty’s legacy will always live on at HSA in our permanent home of Burke-McCoy Hall, in 

the annual Dustin M. Burke Award for Outstanding Leadership, and in the entrepreneurial spirit 

of our students. 

HSA 60th Anniversary History Book 1

FACTS AND FIGURES 

STUDENT WAGES 

PAID TO DATE: 

$51 MILLION 

REVENUE 

EARNED TO DATE: 

$146 MILLION 

STUDENT EMPLOYEES 

AT INCORPORATION: 

14 

STUDENT EMPLOYEES 

IN FY17: 

639 

ALUMS: 

OVER 4,200 

HARVARD STUDENT AGENCIES 

HALL OF FAME 

Since its inception in 1957, Harvard Student Agencies has been an integral part of 

Harvard University, providing a wide range of employment opportunities and business 

experiences for Harvard students. We honor the members of the HSA Hall of Fame for 

their exemplary contributions in support of this organization’s initiatives and mission. 

V. Lee Archer ’65 

James V. Baker ’68, MBA ’70 

Kenneth G. Bartels ’73, MBA ’76 

Wendy F. Bennett ’76 

Catherine V. Blake ’76 

Blair Brown ’62, MArch ’67 

Dustin M. Burke ’52, MBA ’55 

Richard M. Burnes ’63 

Larry W. Cheng ’96 

L. Fred Jewett ’57, MBA ’60 

C. Bruce Johnstone ’62, MBA ’66 

Max L. Kiehne ’68 

C. Kevin Landry ’66 

Thomas H. Lee ’65 

Patrick R. Liles ’60, MBA ’64, DBA ’70 

Robert W. McCoy ’62, MBA ’65 

David A. Mittell ’39 

Joseph O’Donnell ’67, MBA ’71 

HARVARD 

STUDENT 

AGENCIES 

A HISTORY 

1957–2017 

2 

AGENCIES ATTEMPTED: 

77 

AGENCIES STILL 

AROUND TODAY: 

15 

BUILDINGS CALLED HOME: 

17 

CLASS RINGS SOLD: 

5,305 

LET’S GO 

BOOKS PUBLISHED: 

641 EDITIONS OF 

75 DIFFERENT TITLES 

BARTENDERS TRAINED: 

OVER 50,000 

George E. Christodoulo ’71, 

MBA ’75, JD ’75 

William B. Coughlin ’75 

Michael F. Cronin ’75, MBA ’77 

Thomas R. Eisenmann ’79, 

MBA ’83, DBA ’98 

Archie C. Epps, BD ’61 

Paul J. Finnegan ’75, MBA ’82 

John N. Fulham III ’71 

Ralph O. Hellmold ’62 

Bradlee T. Howe ’63, MBA ’69 

Kendall J. Powell ’76 

William L. Richter ’64, MBA ’66 

Harold Rosenwald ’27, LLB ’30 

Michael Ryan ’72 

Arthur I. Segel ’73 

Thomas G. Stemberg ’71, MBA ’73 

William F. Thompson ’50, MBA ’54 

Andrew P. Tobias ’68, MBA ’72 

Stephen M. Waters ’68, MBA ’74 

Researched and written by Matt Heid ’96-’97 (first edition), 

Thayer Christodoulo Meicler ’04, MBA ’09 (second edition), 

Lucy Clark ’08, Irina Gumennik ’07 (third edition), 

Sara Plana ’12, Ethan Waxman ’12 (fourth edition), 

Harrison Choate ’17, and Nathaniel Rakich ’10 (fifth edition) 

Designed by Michelle Lambert 


INTRODUCTION 

Welcome to HSA’s 60th-anniversary celebration! Thank you for joining 

us to celebrate this momentous occasion. 

This book details the rich history of the world’s largest student-run 

corporation, the institution that has touched each and every one of 

our lives. For 60 years, HSA has provided valuable work experience to 

thousands of Harvard students. HSA is where many of us first learned 

to write an invoice and to balance a budget, but more importantly, HSA 

is where we learned what it means to work with people. HSA teaches us 

the invaluable lessons of how to motivate people, how to set and achieve 

goals on a team, how to be effective leaders, and how to hold ourselves 

and others accountable. 

In the five years since the last edition of this history book, HSA has 

embraced its past like never before. A formal HSA Alumni group now 

not only keeps old friends and coworkers bound together but also 

connects our current team with their predecessors, to both their 

personal and professional benefit. I hope all of you who have journeyed 

so far since your days at HSA — and returned to be with us here tonight 

— will stay close, in spirit if not in person, by joining its ranks. 

Thank you to all of the managers, employees, permanent staff, Board 

members, business partners, and friends who have contributed to the 

success of HSA over the past 60 years and who have shaped the history 

recounted in this book. Here’s to another 60 years! 

TABLE OF 

CONTENTS 

7 

25 

41 

IN THE 

BEGINNING: 

1957–1969 

A TIME OF 

TRANSITION: 

1970–1979 

THE THAYER 

YEARS: 

1980–1993 

61 INTO 

MODERNITY: 

1994–2005 

81 RECESSION 

AND REVIVAL: 

2006–2017 

Angelina Massa ’18 

President, FY18 

101 HSA 

TODAY 

4 


IN THE BEGINNING 

A fateful bicycle accident and an illicit black market of beer steins and class rings conspired to 

hatch the world’s largest student-run company in the spring of 1957. John Monro ’35 dispatched 

Dustin M. Burke ’52, MBA ’55, to harness the epidemic of entrepreneurship running amok 

through Harvard’s dormitory walls as a vehicle for financial aid. Gregory Stone ’58 chanced 

into a meeting with legendary attorney Harold Rosenwald ’27, LLB ’30, and with Burke they 

spent the summer working out logistics for an umbrella corporation they called Harvard Student 

Agencies (HSA). In the fall, the intrepid trio, Monro, and three other co-founders incorporated 

and signed the charter that spelled out HSA’s formal structure and altruistic mission. 

1957- 

1969 

In the years immediately thereafter, HSA experienced a period of intense growth and 

entrepreneurial efforts as it pursued greater student wages. Within five years, the number of 

agencies had climbed to 31, and HSA had expanded to two locations. Within six years, gross 

sales grew from $100,000 to more than $1 million, buoyed by the strong Linen and Charter 

Flights agencies. During HSA’s first 10 years, these two agencies together provided more than 

50% of gross sales. This secure financial footing enabled HSA to fund promising new enterprises 

and weather fiscal difficulties (such as the ill-fated, but delicious, Ice Cream agency). With the 

growth of the Information Gathering Service (IGS) in the mid-1960s, the future boded well for a 

continued increase in student earning opportunities. 

The Board of Directors supported and encouraged this initial growth. Warren Berg ’43, first Chairman 

of the Board, did all he could to inspire entrepreneurship among HSA’s student leaders. H. Gardner 

Bradlee ’40, the longtime President of Cambridge Trust Company, and David Mittell ’39 both made 

considerable contributions to the early success of the corporation. Behind the scenes, the secretaries 

were the unsung heroes of HSA, providing organization and sanity amid agency chaos. 

As it prospered, HSA endured considerable scrutiny and criticism from campus organizations 

and the university. The Harvard Crimson regularly attacked, printing scathing critiques of HSA’s 

practices. More than 40 editorials proclaiming the evils of HSA appeared in 1962 alone. The 

university investigated the Charter Flights program in 1965 and kept a close eye on the fledgling 

organization. Luckily, Monro — by this time Dean of Harvard College — steadfastly defended 

his brainchild from internal university criticism, and HSA continued to thrive. 

During the early period, student managers operated with a great deal of autonomy. Responsible 

for their agency’s accounting, many managers had to turn in a detailed financial statement to 

the corporation only once every three months. Some managers worked solely during a brief 

sales season centered on the first three weeks of the academic year. With Burke working parttime 

as General Manager, HSA functioned more as a support system for the managers and 

exercised relatively little administrative control over the agencies. 

Aided by the capital acquired from its first fundraising campaigns, HSA attempted to continue its 

success in the late ’60s. In addition to its traditional entrepreneurial efforts and creation of new 

business endeavors, HSA also devoted considerable energy and capital to developing existing 

agencies. IGS consequently gained a full-time professional manager and acquired larger offices 

in which to expand. Publishing produced seven books between FY68 and FY69, as many as had 

been written in the previous seven years. Immediate results were promising, as gross sales hit 

a record high in FY68. It was not to last, however. In FY69, many agencies both old and new 

encountered financial difficulties. With operations spread between three separate locations, 

problems of communication and administrative control arose. As the 1970s approached, HSA 

struggled with the problems of its rapid expansion. 

6 


58 

OCTOBER 23, 1957 – 

AUGUST 31, 1958 

FY 

AGENCIES 

Linen 

Refrigerator Rental 

Rings 

Refreshment 

Birthday Cake 

Fall Blotter 

Beer Mugs and Banners 

Watson Rink 

Coop Laundry 

Summer Blotter 

Eliot Grill 

Spring Street Stadium 

Summer Refreshment 

Sheraton Hotel 

PRESIDENT 

GREGORY STONE 

OFFICE: 

102 Mt. Auburn St. 

Spring 1957. Harvard tuition had doubled in the previous 10 years, giving rise to concern that the 

increasing costs of higher education would adversely affect the social makeup of those applying 

to Harvard. At the same time, 14 ambitious students were running small-scale businesses out of 

their dorm rooms, selling items as various as beer mugs, class rings, and personalized stationery. 

In utilizing Harvard’s facilities for their assorted business empires, however, these budding tycoons 

placed Harvard’s real-estate-tax exemption in jeopardy. With these two issues in mind, John Monro, 

Dean of Financial Aid, assigned Dusty Burke, Director of Student Employment, to investigate student 

businesses as a possible source of financial aid and to begin developing the idea that would become 

Harvard Student Agencies. 

Later that spring, a meeting with those existing student managers elicited considerable interest in 

the idea of a corporation. Greg Stone, the baron of porcelain steins, took a particular interest in this 

idea and soon became even more intimately involved when one of his friends, riding Stone’s bike, 

collided with a Radcliffe student on Mass. Ave. Despite the lack of injury, Stone’s friend enlisted 

attorney Harold Rosenwald (whose qualifications for this case of bicycular assault included defending 

Alger Hiss from accusations of Soviet espionage in 1948–1951). Stone and Rosenwald soon met and 

discussed opening a student organization. Intrigued, Rosenwald met Burke, and more concrete plans 

for such a corporation emerged. 

An initial capital investment of $7,000 was necessary for rent, legal 

expenses, telephones, and other assorted startup expenses, and the search 

began for one or two large businesses capable of carrying a major share 

of corporate overhead. Early in the summer, the new corporation gained 

the rights to offer Harvard students the weekly linen service traditionally 

provided by the university itself. With the assistance and consent of 

“Skiddy” von Stade ’38, Dean of Freshmen, an offer of clean sheets, towels, 

and pillow cases went out to incoming freshmen through a summer 

mailer. An overwhelming 90% of the incoming class accepted the offer. 

This tremendous response provided the required capital and heralded the 

inception of the mighty Linen agency, the first financial backbone of HSA. 

In the words of Burke, who now split time as Director of Student Employment and General Manager 

of HSA, the original objectives in creating Harvard Student Agencies were: 

• To provide an organization with facilities and some capital through which students of the 

university could be encouraged to develop and to manage small businesses that might 

provide funds that could be applied to the cost of their education. 

• To afford needy students of the university the opportunity to earn substantial amounts of 

money for brief periods of work through the exercise of energy and ingenuity. 

• To encourage students to explore the business community as a potential career choice. 

• To enable students to gain valuable experience and to develop a sense of the excitement 

and responsibility involved in the management of small enterprise. 

To these ends, the university placed existing student enterprises under the aegis of the new 

corporation, with 10% of their annual net income to be contributed to corporate overhead. Despite 

some initial and strenuous objections on behalf of the student managers, it came to pass. 

The circle of 14 budding student businessmen expanded to 125 employees in that first fiscal year. The 

first revenue statement for the umbrella corporation read $101,000. In addition to the powerful Linen 

cartel, the original agencies included refreshment concession to slavering hockey fans and winded 

patrons in the Donald C. Watson Rink; a reservations agency for the tired and huddled masses staying 

at the Sheraton Hotel; the ad-filled blotters, distributed for free in the summer and fall; and the 

delivery of birthday cakes, a service in existence since 1953. HSA also bought 15 refrigerators in hopes 

of renting them to students desiring frosty mugs of beer. When they were quickly snapped up, Burke 

authorized the purchase of as many refrigerators as there were students interested in renting them. 

The sales team came back with a list of hundreds of undergraduates, and the enduring Refrigerator 

Rental agency was born. 

Dusty Burke, Harold Rosenwald, and John Monro. 

The remaining pieces quickly fell into place. In August, the papers were 

filed authorizing a new nonprofit corporation. On September 10 at 8pm, 

the first meeting took place in the student union. On October 23, the 

Commonwealth of Massachusetts gave its seal of approval, and Harvard 

Student Agencies officially came into being. On December 13, the seven 

original incorporators signed the charter: Burke, Monro, Rosenwald, 

Stone, Richard Dale ’52, Theodore H. Elliott Jr. ’58, MBA ’60, and John 

Giannetti ’57, LLB ’60. The first Board of Directors met afterward, with a 

tripartite structure of five students, five alums, and five university officials. 

Warren Berg served as Chairman of the Board, Rosenwald obtained 

nonprofit status for the organization and drew up its corporate bylaws, 

Stone became the first President, and the first offices of HSA opened on 

the third floor of 102 Mt. Auburn St., above a Brattle Sq. liquor store. 

8 


59 

SEPTEMBER 1, 1958 – 

AUGUST 31, 1959 

FY 

PRESIDENT 

THEODORE ELLIOTT JR. 

OFFICE: 

4 Holyoke St. 

60 


AUGUST 31, 1960 

FY 

PRESIDENT 

PHILIPPE CHARAT 

OFFICE: 

4 Holyoke St. 

AGENCIES 

Linen 

Europe by Air 

House Painting 

Fall Concessions 

Student Calendar 


Europe by Car 

Rings 

Refreshment 

Union News Stand 

Moving 

Ice Cream 

Summer Calendar 

Stationery 

Birthday Cake 

Fall Blotter 

Novelties 

Magazine 


Newspaper 

Watson Rink 

Coop Laundry 


Eliot Grill 

Summer Guide 

Sampler 


New England Laundry 

Sheraton Hotel 

At the close of the previous fiscal year, HSA moved to new offices at 4 Holyoke St., beginning a fourdecade 

odyssey through most of the basements in Cambridge. Rented from the Porcellian Club, this former 

basement pool hall proved fertile ground for the entrepreneurial spirit suddenly found coursing within. 

Throughout the year, several students in the college and business school had been operating their 

own charter-flight service to Europe. The university, concerned about the potential abuse of charter 

regulations, requested that HSA supervise the operations. Taking over the Cambridge franchise for 

YTC Universal, HSA formed the Europe by Air agency and recruited G. Oliver Koppell ’62, JD ’65, son 

of the president of YTC and one of the original charter-flight entrepreneurs, to manage it. Utilizing 

several slow, jet-propelled BOAC planes, the agency provided several round-trip summer flights to 

Europe for approximately $200 each as well as seven-week grand tours of Europe for $545 (meals and 

accommodations included). Europe by Air spawned many agency progeny, the first being Europe by 

Car. Catering primarily to charter-flight passengers, Europe by Car allowed travelers to purchase a car 

in Europe, drive it maniacally about, and 

then have it shipped back to the States 

for resale at prices comparable to the 

original purchase price. 

HSA gained the concession rights to Harvard football games in the fall of 1958, and the students of 

HSA began to bombard the fans with hot dogs, drinks, programs, and other food and novelty goodies 

during each Saturday home game. The agency proved to be one of the more logistically challenging, 

as one never knew when rampant hot-dog gorging might occur, when the horrifying Boston weather 

would keep the less stalwart fans at home, or when Harvard might so brutally crush its opponent into 

pulp that there would be an early exodus from the stadium. Needless to say, calculating the correct 

amounts of food and refreshments to prepare was an inexact science at best. 

The Student Calendar, a “weekly schedule of events and information, void of editorial content, 

delivered free to all student rooms and administrative offices in the university,” also made its debut. 

As it generated income to HSA through the sale of advertisements contained within, a coalition of the 

presidents of the Advocate, Crimson, Lampoon, and Yearbook lobbied to have it shut down, complaining 

of lost revenue for their organizations. Other new agencies included the Union News Stand, which 

dished up snacks, drinks, cigarettes, and other good stuff to those needy and anxious first-year 

students in the Freshman Union; the House Painting agency, HSA’s first venture into the area of 

skilled summer employment; and the Sampler, a booklet of money-saving coupons from merchants in 

Harvard Sq. and Boston sold to frugal students. 

AGENCIES 

Linen 

Europe by Air 





Europe by Car 

Rings 

Refreshment 


Moving 

Ice Cream 


Stationery 

Birthday Cake 

Fall Blotter 

Novelties 

Magazine 


Newspaper 

Watson Rink 

Coop Laundry 


Eliot Grill 

Summer Guide 

Sampler 


New England Laundry 

Book Return 

Union Grille 

Tanglewood 

Spring Sampler 

TITLES 

1960 European Guide 

At first HSA favored seasonal 

businesses out of fear that yearround 

managers would fall behind 

in their studies. Intrigued by the 

potential of the ice-cream business 

and with the help of a bank loan, 

HSA decided in the spring of 1959 

to purchase five Ollie Orbit Soft Ice 

Cream trucks (at a cost of $12,500 

each) to create summer employment 

opportunities. During the summers 

of 1959 and 1960, these five trucks 

cruised the streets of Boston’s 

suburbs, supplied on the road by 

first-year manager Peter Sellar ’58 in the “Ollie Orbit Rocket Scooter,” a painted motor scooter with 

sidecar. Unfortunately, the new soft-ice-cream technology proved difficult to maintain, cold and 

rainy weather plagued the operation, and, in order to reach a large enough market for the business 

to be profitable, students had to drive their trucks into neighborhoods where Harvard accents and 

mannerisms were not exactly warmly embraced. HSA was forced to liquidate the entire operation in 

1961 at a loss of $30,000. Despite this disappointing foray into summer jobs, HSA had more success 

with its Tanglewood agency, which ran buses to the popular summer concert venue in Western 

Massachusetts, and boosted overall revenues to $595,000. 

Europe by Air customers in the summer of 1960 received an exciting 

extra bonus that would have far-reaching implications for HSA: the 

1960 European Guide. Compiled by Oliver Koppell as a service for these 

European travelers, this 25-page pamphlet contained eight pages of 

advertisements from Harvard Sq. merchants and YTC Universal, three 

pages of introduction from HSA President Philippe Charat ’60, MBA ’62, 

a three-page “Photographer’s Guide to Europe,” and 11 pages of travel 

information. Useful tips included passport and visa requirements, the 

amount of tobacco (in its various forms) that could be brought dutyfree 

into each European country, four pages of upcoming European 

events, and the fact that “a tweed jacket and flannel or rayon slacks 

make the perfect travel uniform.” HSA produced 4,000 copies. 

10 


61 


AUGUST 31, 1961 

FY 

PRESIDENT 

WILLIAM GROSS 

OFFICE: 

4 Holyoke St. 

62 


AUGUST 31, 1962 

FY 

PRESIDENT 

OLIVER KOPPELL 

OFFICE: 

4 Holyoke St. 

AGENCIES 

Linen 

Let’s Go 

Europe by Air 





Europe by Car 

Rings 

Refreshment 


Moving 


Stationery 

Birthday Cake 

Fall Blotter 

Novelties 

Magazine 


Newspaper 

Watson Rink 

Coop Laundry 


Fall Programs 

Sampler 


Import 

Tanglewood 

TITLES 

Let’s Go: A Student Guide to Europe 

Europe by Air spawned another, much smaller offspring with the inception of the Import agency. Now 

passengers on HSA’s charter flights could buy foreign goods at a reduced price through a distributor, 

earning HSA a tidy commission. 

HAIL TO THE HSA FOODMEN! 

From HSA’s inception through FY965, the courageous employees of the Refreshment agency labored 

to provide the college community with late-night sustenance. Snack-laden red wagons in tow, the 

HSA foodmen trudged through rain, wind, snow, and frigid temperatures to air their plaintive cries 

of “FOOD!” at the base of many a dorm and house, hoping ever so desperately that someone might 

emerge to purchase one of their sodas, doughnuts (5¢), or eight-inch subs (30¢). As if it were not 

already a task of superhuman dimensions, the heroic foodmen also had to fend off rampaging hordes 

of their own classmates. 

In April 1962, 200 freshmen in Holworthy, Thayer, and Stoughton responded to the HSA goody-man’s 

cry with a mob onslaught. Yelling from windows and beaming two blinding spotlights on our hero, the 

slavering rabble descended en masse on his little red cart. Five were later relieved of their bursar’s 

cards. In October 1963, partisans of the Eliot House Grill (a former HSA agency gone awry) harassed 

the noble HSA foodman on his nightly rounds, relieved him of his wares, liberated his wagon, and 

burned Dusty Burke in effigy. Escaping without wounds, the HSA warrior vowed never again to serve 

a house full of such savages. 

The 1960 European Guide acquired the title “Let’s Go,” 

a name coined by Henry G. Koppell, President of 

YTC Universal and father of Oliver Koppell. With the 

assistance of Lois Dean and Gordon Milde ’62, MCP ’66, 

John Marlin ’62, the well-traveled son of a UN officer, 

researched over 20 European countries for the new 

guide, wrote more than 300 pages, and earned $200 

for his efforts. The list of countries was determined by 

where Marlin had traveled and expanded according to 

Dean’s experience. Koppell consolidated their work 

down to 64 pages and coordinated the printing and 

sale of the 6,500 copies produced. It was the first time 

Let’s Go was distributed beyond the Harvard campus, 

but HSA couldn’t afford to ship the books to their distributor, so Koppell piled as many as he could fit 

into the back of his aging Chrysler and set off for New York City. The weight of the books broke the 

car’s struts, and it broke down somewhere in Connecticut. The books, however, eventually made it 

onto the shelves — and sold out every copy. 

AGENCIES 

Linen 

Let’s Go 

Catering 

Europe by Air 





Europe by Car 

Rings 

Refreshment 


Moving 

Typing 


Stationery 

Birthday Cake 

Fall Blotter 

Novelties 

Magazine 


Newspaper 

Watson Rink 

Coop Laundry 


Fall Programs 

Sampler 


Medical School Laundry 

Import 

Tanglewood 

TITLES 


The Carling Brewing Company donated $6,000 to HSA for capital funding and the expansion of the 

HSA idea to other colleges. With the aid of this gift, HSA hired Robert McCoy ’62, MBA ’65, a former 

manager of Europe by Car, as Assistant General Manager. Commencing work on June 1, 1962, McCoy 

provided Dusty Burke with considerable administrative support. 

On the agency front, Catering was 

established and began operations 

late in the summer of 1961. Initially 

founded as a service for Harvard 

faculty parties, the agency quickly 

expanded to include events and 

parties throughout the Cambridge 

and Boston area. Particularly well 

suited to HSA’s mission, the Catering 

agency returned a significant 

portion of its revenue as wages to the 

students it employed as servers and 

bartenders. The Concessions agency 

staged a Salada Tea promotion at one 

Bradlee Howe ’63, MBA ’69, Betsy Slade, and Robert McCoy. 

of the fall football games, dressing 

several students up as butlers and maids and serving tea by the cup to fans. The Linen agency, tired of 

door-to-door linen pickups and dropoffs, established the depot system, depriving countless students 

of hallways filled with the pungent odor of dirty laundry. The Crimson fretted that “undergraduate 

organizations which cannot pay students for participation may in the future have difficulty in attracting 

members among people who could do similar work with HSA for a profit,” despite HSA’s promise to 

“not publish a daily newspaper, a humor magazine, a yearbook, or a literary magazine, as long as the 

existing publications occupy these fields ‘adequately.’” 

The 1962 edition of Let’s Go was “researched” and “written” by a group of Lampooners, although the 

majority of the work occurred back in the basements of Cambridge. Upon discovering that HSA had 

employed a non-Harvard student in the production of the guide, questions arose. Upon discovering 

that HSA had paid $150 to a (gasp) Yalie... Nothing really happened. Phew. Let’s Go produced 7,200 

copies of the guide that declared the Netherlands to be, “by and large, a country of fat, jolly little 

blonde girls.” The creative cartooning of Richard Copaken ’63, JD ’66, including the iconic hot-air 

balloon, appeared on the front cover for the first time. 

This very first, very sage Let’s Go book included a tip on how to travel from Europe to Asia for four cents 

(take the ferry across the Bosphorus strait in Istanbul) and reminded readers, “It is the dream which 

makes traveling fun.” 

12 


FY 

62 CONTINUED 

WHERE THEY ARE NOW... 

OLIVER KOPPELL | ’62, JD ’65 

JOBS AT HSA: Manager, Europe by Air, FY59 – FY60; Manager, Let’s Go, 

FY61; President, FY62. Founded Let’s Go in 1960. 

JOBS SINCE HSA: New York State Assemblyman, 1970–1993; New York 

Attorney General, 1994; New York City Council Member, 2002–2013; 

currently principal attorney at the Law Offices of G. Oliver Koppell and Associates. 

WHAT ROLE DID HSA AND LET’S GO PLAY IN YOUR PROFESSIONAL 

AND PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT? 

“HSA was very central to my Harvard experience. It taught me a great deal about running a 

business, about relating to other people, about taking responsibility. … Let’s Go helped me in 

terms of running an organization and also in terms of introducing new ideas and new things. 

In the course of my political career particularly, I think I innovated quite a bit, and I think the 

fact that I was able to start something like Let’s Go certainly played a role.” 

WHAT WOULD YOU SAY TO STUDENTS CONSIDERING JOINING HSA TODAY? 

“HSA is a wonderful training for anyone who wants to get involved in business. … They’re 

doing something that has both practical and educational value if they get involved in HSA 

businesses, in addition to making friends and having fun.” 

FIFTY-SEVEN YEARS LATER, WHAT DOES LET’S GO MEAN TO YOU? 

“So many people have told me over the years they worked for Let’s Go and it’s been important 

to them; several people have told me it’s what motivated them to become writers, other people 

have told me how much it helped them in terms of their own maturity. … Let’s Go gave them 

opportunities to visit parts of the world that they might not have been able to do if it hadn’t 

been for Let’s Go. So looking at that and thinking about all these literally thousands of people 

who’ve benefited in one way or another — not to speak of the people who’ve benefited by 

reading the book — I’m very proud.” 

WOULD YOU LIKE TO SAY ANYTHING TO ALL THE LET’S GO EMPLOYEES 

WHO CAME AFTER YOU? 

“Thanks! Thanks for keeping that tradition alive, and for working on something that was one 

of my proudest achievements in life.” 

63 


AUGUST 31, 1963 

FY 

AGENCIES 

Linen 

Let’s Go 

Catering 

Information Gathering Service 

Europe by Air 





Europe by Car 

Rings 

Refreshment 


Moving 

Typing 


Stationery 

Birthday Cake 

Fall Blotter 

Novelties 

Magazine 


Newspaper 

Watson Rink 


Fall Programs 

Sampler 

Summer Guide 

Entertainment 


Import 

TITLES 


PRESIDENT 

DOUGLAS HARDING 

OFFICES: 

4 Holyoke St. | 12 Garden St. 

Overcrowded at its 4 Holyoke St. location, HSA doubled its available office space, expanding its territory 

to include offices at 12 Garden St., next to the Sheraton Commander Hotel. Warren Berg advanced the 

idea for Information Gathering Service, an agency that was to use Harvard’s intellectual resources, 

both personal and material, to do research for clients. With the successful completion of an historical 

research project for Plimoth Plantation in Plymouth, MA, the agency was born. Concentrating 

exclusively on research, the agency did not dabble in the dark arts of consulting. 

Europe by Air inaugurated its Christmas charter-flight program, transporting holiday revelers to the 

West Coast, Chicago, and London. The Entertainment agency appeared in its first incarnation, placing 

student entertainers in jobs and retaining a 10% booking fee. A new agency produced an appointment 

calendar, which listed the phone numbers of local women’s colleges. HSA as a whole exceeded $1 

million in gross sales. 

After the disaster that was the 1962 edition, HSA considered folding Let’s Go entirely, but James 

Posner ’65 convinced Dusty Burke to give him a crack at turning it around. The precocious Posner 

hired newlyweds Brigitta Troy ’61 and Joseph Troy, LLB ’63, to research and edit the 1963 edition 

while honeymooning through Europe. Their efforts, BOAC’s sponsorship of the guide, and Richard 

Copaken’s continued outstanding artwork allowed Let’s Go to turn a profit for the first time. All in 

all, a manager, a sales manager, two 

editors, and three part-time ad 

salesmen created the finished product, 

which was assembled on Oliver 

Koppell’s living-room floor. Eleven 

thousand copies were produced of the 

first guide to include maps. 

14 


64 


AUGUST 31, 1964 

FY 

PRESIDENT 

BRADFORD PERRY 

OFFICES: 

4 Holyoke St. | 993A Mass. Ave. 

65 


AUGUST 31, 1965 

FY 

PRESIDENT 

LEE ARCHER 

OFFICES: 


AGENCIES 

Linen 

Let’s Go 

Catering 


Charter Flights 





Europe by Car 

Rings 

Refreshment 


Moving 

Typing 


Stationery 

Birthday Cake 

Fall Blotter 

Novelties 

Magazine 


Newspaper 

Watson Rink 


Fall Programs 

Sampler 

Summer Guide 

Entertainment 

Furniture 

Foodmaking 


Lawn Care 

Import 

Fruit Basket 

Radcliffe Bus 

TITLES 


HSA’s offices at 12 Garden St. were demolished to make way for a parking lot, forcing a move to a new 

haven. HSA found refuge halfway to Central Sq. in the basement of 993A Mass. Ave., beneath the 

offbeat, avant-garde Orson Welles Cinema. 

The number of agencies reached an alltime 

high, and IGS led the pack in growth. 

After little more than a year, the agency had 

contracts worth over $20,000 and employed 

nearly 150 students from the college, business 

school, law school, and Graduate School of 

Arts and Sciences. New agencies on the block 

included Furniture, which resold the furniture 

the university sold to HSA after purchasing 

the Ambassador Hotel; Lawn Care, providing 

green, grassy goodness to its customers; and 

Fruit Basket. Europe by Air changed its name to 

Charter Flights. So many genteel Cantabrigians 

relished the opportunity to have their parties 

catered and bartended by erudite Harvard men 

and women in their sartorial red frocks that the 

Harvard Bartending Course held its first class, 

training the next generation of servers for the 

Catering agency. The venerated course has ever 

since taught pupils how to remain dignified yet 

uncondescending at parties, how to keep guests 

in that happy medium between “sociable” and 

“wrecked,” and how to make numerous drinks 

running the gamut from “scotch, straight up” to 

a “Polynesian Paralysis.” 

Let’s Go became a real book for 1964, 

stepping out of the back pocket and 

into the backpack. Another student 

couple and seven editorial assistants 

spent the summer in Europe updating 

the 1964 edition. As in previous years, 

the book was massaged into editorial 

splendor during the fall and completed 

in December. Each of the 20,000 copies 

printed cost $1.95. 

AGENCIES 

Linen 

Let’s Go 

Catering 







Europe by Car 

Rings 

Refreshment 


Moving 


Stationery 

Birthday Cake 

Fall Blotter 

Novelties 

Magazine 


Newspaper 

Watson Rink 


Sampler 

Addressing and Mimeograph 


Import 

TITLES 

Let’s Go: The Student Guide to Europe 

HSA weathered some unpleasantries in the Charter Flights department, as mechanical difficulties and 

a university investigation filled the Crimson headlines. After celebrating Christmas and New Year’s, 

passengers returning on HSA’s charter flight from San Francisco peered out their windows to see 

smoke billowing from one of the jet engines. Since the fuel leak responsible had occurred shortly 

after takeoff, the plane quickly turned around and landed safely back in San Francisco. The frazzled 

passengers had the luxury of returning to Boston the next day on a four-engine propeller plane. The 

next month, continued complaints by students over high flight prices and never-ending Crimson 

antagonism toward HSA prompted the university to undertake a thorough investigation of the charterflight 

operation. Although there were brief Crimson hopes that the “HSA behemoth” would be dealt a 

crushing blow, the university left the investigation “entirely satisfied with the HSA operation.” 

Other highlights included IGS performing well enough to gain national attention with a September 

article in Business Week, the death of the first version of the Entertainment agency, and the launch of 

HSA’s first fundraising campaign in an attempt to raise $150,000 in capital for new entrepreneurial 

efforts. 

Thirteen traveling editors. Two hundred and forty pages. A cover price of $1.95. A guide to winetasting 

in France. Bizarre abstract art. What a book. Yet the 50,000 copies produced were not all sold. 

So 15,000 libraries across the country received an unsolicited copy — invoice included. Most paid. 

16 


66 


AUGUST 31, 1966 

FY 

PRESIDENT 

CHARLES FILSON 

OFFICES: 


67 


AUGUST 31, 1967 

FY 

PRESIDENT 

FREDERICK GRUBER 

OFFICES: 


AGENCIES 

Linen 

Let’s Go 

Catering 







Europe by Car 

Rings 


Moving 


Stationery 

Birthday Cake 

Fall Blotter 

Novelties 

Magazine 


Newspaper 

Watson Rink 




TITLES 


After eight years of splitting his 

time between the positions of 

Director of Student Employment 

at Harvard and General Manager 

of HSA, Dusty Burke shifted his 

focus and energy exclusively 

to HSA. President Charles 

“Chip” Filson ’66 received a 

Rhodes Scholarship and married 

Mary Ann Ballmer, a former 

Charter Flights employee, the 

following year. Perhaps because 

of his exposure to thousands of 

screaming football fans, Barry 

Williams ’66, JD ’71, MBA ’71, 

manager of the Fall Concessions 

agency, was elected First Marshal for the Class of 1966. 

Now-full-time General Manager Dusty Burke. 

Time magazine declared: “Shorter, hipper, and absolutely fresh is Let’s Go.” You know it. In this edition 

could be found 260 pages of travel hipness, including new sections on “How to Buy Art in Europe” 

and “Hitchhiking in Europe”: “Two girls can get rides safely and easily; so can a single boy. The ideal 

combination, in hitchhiking as in life, is one girl and one boy. So if you are a girl, get another one to go 

with you. If you are a boy, show this to some girl.” 

Burke told the Let’s Go Business Manager, a greenhorn by the name of Andrew Tobias ’68, MBA 

’72, that he had to find a way to make Let’s Go profitable or the travel guide would meet the axe. In 

February, Tobias appeared on the Today show to promote the 50,000 copies that were out and available 

by Christmas. The day after, the office was swamped with 180 orders for books, $2 checks enclosed. 

Dozens of magazines and newspapers, including Newsweek, Esquire, Mademoiselle, Seventeen, the 

London Times, the New York Times, and the Christian Science Monitor, did features, reviews, and excerpts 

on Let’s Go. HSA installed WATS lines to take orders and hired students to staff a direct-call bookstore 

campaign. Sales grew by leaps and bounds. 

AGENCIES 

Linen 

Publishing 

Catering 







Europe by Car 

Rings 


Moving 


Stationery 

Birthday Cake 

Fall Blotter 

Novelties 

Magazine 

Newspaper 

Watson Rink 




Entertainment 

Invention Research Group 

TITLES 


After approaching a small number of alums and foundations, HSA’s first capital campaign raised 

$51,000, was deemed a success, and was discontinued. This extra money allowed considerable 

expansion of several agencies. HSA found itself able to hire John Merrill ’64, MBA ’70, who had 

managed the business as a student, as a full-time manager for IGS. Merrill more than doubled the 

agency’s sales, reaching nearly $100,000 by the end of FY67, and had a retinue capable of translating 

35 different languages. In a fall exhibition game, the Patriots and Baltimore Colts did battle at Harvard 

Stadium, and the Fall Concessions agency was there, helping the exuberant fans consume 15,000 hot 

dogs in two and a half hours. 

With the aid of $2,000 in capital, the Entertainment agency 

blazed back into the spotlight for a brief two-year stint of 

mayhem. Expert in the field of psychedelic lighting, the 

agency pushed the limits of consciousness and reality 

with more than 50 different mind-bending, brain-warping 

effects, including one that projected old-time silent movies 

on weather balloons. With its squad of dancing go-go girls 

and flotilla of musical acts, the agency could rock any party 

to the ground. The agency audaciously auditioned four rock 

bands and 50 wannabe go-go girls in the law school dining 

hall during reading period. The lawyers-to-be did not rock 

out with glee. Clothed as gangsters and armed with plastic 

submachine guns, six agency employees cruised Boston in 

a 1928 Packard promoting the movie The St. Valentine’s Day 

Massacre. Nobody dared mess with the HSA gangstas in the 

Boston ’hood. Despite all the fun and hysteria, not enough 

cash materialized, and the agency disbanded in 1968. 

The sweat and toil of 70 editors and salesmen created a 1967 Let’s Go so excellent that it was pirated by 

the Chou Cheng Publishing House in China and sold on the streets of Taipei for 60¢. Its 322 pages of 

delight included new special sections on pubs and skiing in the French Alps as well as Italian, French, 

and Spanish translations of such useful phrases as “Would you help me with my suntan oil?”, “Can I 

buy you a drink?”, “What is your address?”, “Where can we be alone?”, “Scram, I’m not interested!”, 

“But I’m not like most Americans!”, and “What a drag!” According to the business-reply readerresponse 

cards inserted in the books this year (whose results were used to sell ads), 36% of those who 

used the guide hitchhiked as a means of transportation. 

18 


20 

68 


AUGUST 31, 1968 

FY 

AGENCIES 

Linen 

Publishing 

Catering 







Europe by Car 

Rings 

Computer Programming and 

Information Service 


Moving 


Stationery 

Birthday Cake 

Fall Blotter 

Magazine-Newspaper 

TV Film Projects 

Watson Rink 



Entertainment 

TITLES 


Let’s Go II: The Student Guide 

to Adventure 

How to Earn (a Lot of) Money 

in College 

PRESIDENT 

ANDREW TOBIAS 

OFFICES: 

4 Holyoke St. | 993A Mass. Ave. | 2 Trowbridge St. 

Cumulative student earnings since 1957 exceeded $1 million, and annual administrative expenses 

neared $60,000. Gross sales approached $1.5 million for the year, a record mark that remained unbroken 

for the next 15 years. Aided by the extra capital gained from the fundraising campaign, HSA leased 

office space on the third floor of 2 Trowbridge St. for the growth and expansion of IGS. HSA’s territory 

now included three separate locations scattered about Harvard Sq., a byproduct of its success but also, 

increasingly, a logistical challenge. Headquarters at 

4 Holyoke St. experienced a three-inch flood when 

a member of the Porcellian Club lost his squash ball 

in HSA’s drainage pipe. 

Extension School student Sean Finucane started 

the Computer Programming and Information 

Service, renting three IBM keypunch machines 

and employing students for the stimulating task 

of punching cards. An agency to send students 

on safaris to New Mexico to hunt mountain lions 

was proposed and quickly shot down. The Harvard 

Bartending Course cost $5, Pat Downey screened 

a 10-minute film on the “new morality” to begin 

the TV Film Projects agency, and the Harvard Band 

made fun of HSA during halftime of the Harvard-Lafayette football game. After ridiculing other 

campus organizations, the commentator announced over the PA system: “But we really know who 

runs things around here.” Reverently, the band formed “H$A” and commenced playing “Goldfinger.” 

In an era of social activism and a not-universal appreciation of capitalism, HSA was not exactly 

beloved, so President Andy Tobias whipped up a 32-page pamphlet explaining HSA’s non-evil raison 

d’être and dropped it at every door in the college. 

With the help of a fundraising-induced capital infusion, Let’s Go metamorphosed into the Publishing 

agency, producing not one work of editorial genius, but three. True to old-school form, HSA printed 

65,000 copies of the original Let’s Go, compiled by 20 traveling editors and including a new section 

entitled, “The Traveling Girl.” It was joined by 30,000 copies of the finest piece of literature ever 

produced by the Western world: Let’s Go II: The Student Guide to Adventure. 

Meant to be a guide to the entire world, this first Let’s Go spinoff guide added a 

number of new destinations such as Albania, Cambodia, Central Africa, “Red 

China,” Ethiopia, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Kashmir, Laos, Lebanon, Morocco, 

Poland, and Turkey. “This book is a thousand ideas for adventure in Europe 

and on three other continents,” it proclaimed. More than 20 students roamed 

the earth, recounted tales of their adventures, and passed on the how-to travel 

knowledge they acquired. Features included “Winetasting,” “The Trans-Siberian 

Railway,” “The Amazon Jungle,” “The Monaco Grand Prix,” and “The Modern 

Troubadour: St. singing in Europe on No Dollars a Day.” The Vietnam chapter 

aptly observed that the best way to get to Vietnam was to join the U.S. Army and 

suggested that those weary of the museum circuit “keep away from battles and 

swamps.” Never to be accused of speaking monotonous brochurese, the book 

told it like it was: “Just about no one wants to go to Vietnam these days. Most 

Americans who do travel there go with the army and leave as soon as they can.” 


Publishing’s final piece of 

the triptych was Tobias’s 

brainchild, How to Earn 

(a Lot of) Money in College. 

With the visual aid of 

humorous cartoons by Richard Deutsch, the book detailed the various means 

by which college students could reap small fortunes: financial aid, studentrun 

small businesses, term-time and summer employment, shooting mutant 

butterflies, being morally handicapped, etc. 

ANDY TOBIAS | ’68, MBA ’72 

JOBS AT HSA: Salesperson, Rings and Student Calendar, FY65; Editorial Assistant, Let’s Go: The Student 

Guide to Europe, FY66; Business Manager, Let’s Go, FY66; Manager, Publishing, FY67; President, FY68. 

WHAT WAS YOUR TRAJECTORY AT HSA? 

“Freshman year I sold class rings and ads for the Calendar and worked on laying out that publication. 

… Then they gave me Let’s Go to run that summer — and had misplaced the editors for Ireland, 

Switzerland, and Yugoslavia, so the first thing I had to do was leave the country for the first time in 

my life and update those sections. … Basically, it became my life — WAY more interesting and exciting than my major, 

Slavic Languages and Literatures (which essentially meant reading War and Peace in English, in the Cliff Notes). … I 

loved biking up to 993A Mass. Ave. every day and working crazy hours there — it was my home, really.” 

Photo credit: 

Victor Jeffreys II 

WHAT DID YOU DO AFTER GRADUATION? 

“I worked at National Student Marketing Corp., whose president wanted me to do on 2,000 campuses what we had done 

at Harvard. I explained that after all those years doing it at Harvard, HSA had racked up a $27,000 deficit — which would 

be $54 million over 2,000 campuses. He said we’d do it smarter and hired me anyway. … With six months to go before I 

could exercise my options (the stock had climbed from $6 when it went public in April 1968, and $37 when I joined up, to 

$140), it turned out the ‘creative accounting’ the company was practicing was really ‘fraudulent accounting.’ The president 

of the company went to jail… I went off to Harvard Business School and wrote a book about it.” 

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH YOUR CAREER SINCE? 

“New York magazine hired me to write about money and business when I graduated, and I’ve basically never worked a day 

in my life since. After New York, I had a column in Esquire, then Playboy, then Time, then Parade, and wrote some books 

along the way. In 1999, President Clinton basically installed me for a two-year, $1/year stint as DNC treasurer — which 

wound up lasting until February 25, 2017. I made $18.” 

HOW DID YOU COME TO FOLLOW SUCH AN INTERESTING CAREER PATH? 

“I was very lucky. Nothing was planned. I just fell into things, including that first job at HSA. I wasn’t supposed to have 

one, needed no financial aid; just happened to be riding my bike the week before freshman year started, saw a friend from 

high school, and rode with him to this place he was going (993A Mass. Ave.) for the job that was part of his student-aid 

package — and got conscripted on the spot. And loved it.” 


69 


AUGUST 31, 1969 

FY 

AGENCIES 

Linen 

Publishing 

Catering 





Rings 


Moving 


Stationery 

Birthday Cake 

Fall Blotter 

Magazine-Newspaper 


TITLES 


Let’s Go: The Student Guide 

to America 

College and the Black Student 

The Silent Revolution: Dynamic 

Leadership in Student Council 

PRESIDENT 

RICHARD HOWE 

OFFICES: 


In the euphoria of its 1960s boom, HSA had somehow overextended itself. The number of agencies 

began to dwindle. National Information Services, Inc., and Sean Finucane purchased the Computer 

Programming and Information Service from HSA for $53,032.09. Due to “persistent cash deficits,” 

the Student Calendar agency ceased production at the end of the summer. The spotlight drifted away 

from the Entertainment agency. Europe by Car was abandoned after a few logistical snafus. Yet for the 

second straight fiscal year, HSA finished in the red. A second year of ambitious book-printing caused 

Publishing (now the progenitor of four stately volumes) to lose close to $30,000, while IGS failed to 

meet sales expectations. The runaway growth of these two agencies was beginning to call into question 

whether the “need for increased student wages had exceeded the limits of student management.” A 

time of transition loomed nigh. 

In March 1969, Dusty Burke released a proposal calling for the creation of a new corporation to 

house the ballooning IGS and Publishing agencies. Using full-time professional management of 

these two agencies, this new corporation would address the apparent incompatibility of two of HSA’s 

fundamental goals: the seeming inability to create the scads of student wages desired using solely 

student management. With professional leadership, the two agencies could potentially experience 

dramatic growth, affording countless more job opportunities to students. Sparking debate over what 

constituted the vision of HSA, this proposal, coupled with the gloomy year-end financial report, would 

lead to dramatic upheaval within the organization. 

As the civil-rights movement of the late 1960s swept the nation, HSA undertook several related 

ventures of its own. In the TV Film Projects agency, Pat Downey produced a second film, a 16mm 

color documentary on the difficulties minorities, especially African-Americans, faced in obtaining 

jobs. With the assistance of a $50,000 grant from the Ford Foundation, the film was distributed by a 

firm in Washington, DC, and shown to employers and minorities nationwide. 

Also in 1969, under the authorship of Charles J. Hamilton Jr. ’69, JD ’75, and three 

other students (all black), HSA published College and the Black Student, a 36-page 

book whose purpose was “to inform black people of the expanding opportunities 

available for higher education and to explain how to take advantage of these 

opportunities.” With the sponsorship of AT&T, 150,000 copies were distributed 

throughout the country to predominantly African-American high schools. 

Meanwhile, the student ranks of Publishing swelled 

to nearly 100 for the 10th-anniversary edition of Let’s 

Go. Despite the political and social upheaval being 

experienced across the country and world, this edition 

stated, “Let’s Go is a travel guide, not a sociopolitical 

tract.” The revolution would not be on a budget. 

The 1969 series also saw Let’s Go publish its first book 

about its homeland. Let’s Go: The Student Guide to 

America was a masterpiece, with features on “Driving 

the Alaskan Highway,” “The Great Bike Trek,” 

“Climbing Mt. Whitney,” “Lake Tahoe,” and “Trains 

1969.” The “Moving North with the Harvest” feature explained how to get a job on a combine crew 

in the Great Plains. “The Surf-Guru Preaches!” section was five full pages of Hawaii’s best surf spots. 

To research the “New Orleans or Sink” piece, two students purchased a used 12-foot rubber life raft 

and floated down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers from Cincinnati to New Orleans. For “The Modern 

Wanderer,” it said, “A long hitchhiking journey is romantic travel.” Another section gave tips on how 

to sneak into airport employee restaurants around the country. Finally, “If you want to know where 

the psychedelic scene is at you’d better get psychedelic,” it stated in its coverage of Haight-Ashbury. 

“The core of your visit to the Haight should be experiencing the street scene, easiest to do stoned.” 

Unfortunately for the world, the USA experiment was not to be repeated the next year. 

Publishing Manager Kent Keith ’70 also composed his own book, The Silent Revolution: Dynamic 

Leadership in Student Council. The 64-page book was “an attempt to describe to high school student 

council leaders the personal requirements and techniques for bringing about the constructive changes 

they seek for their schools and student councils.” It came filled with enough inspirational phrases to 

make anybody’s head burst in an orgy of motivation. “Start doing real things now; start being a real 

person now. Don’t get into the habit of waiting for meaning — search it out. If you’re waiting for magic 

to happen, you’ll be waiting forever. Don’t wait. Because the world won’t wait for you. You’re alive 

now. Don’t vegetate. Initiate.” Word up, my man. 

22 


A TIME OF TRANSITION 

In order to survive the turbulent 1970s, HSA was forced to evolve from the organization it had 

been in the 1960s. At the beginning of the decade, HSA was a company in chaos trying to 

respond to the difficult problems occasioned by its recent expansion. After suffering losses in 

FY68 and FY69, the organization attempted to return to a positive net income by reducing its 

operations over the following two years. In FY70, faced with the choice of professionalizing its 

most bloated agencies or maintaining student ownership over a smaller core organization, HSA 

chose to streamline. In FY71, Publishing eliminated all books but Let’s Go: Europe, the struggling 

Information Gathering Service was sold, and HSA left its 993A Mass. Ave. location. The 

corporation still failed to turn a profit, however, and gross sales and student wages plummeted. 

Conditions did not improve in FY72. Charter Flights crumbled before the new student airfares of 

major airlines, illness plagued the General Manager, and the Commission of Inquiry investigated 

HSA’s operations. Gross sales dropped below $1 million, a mark that was not again reached 

until FY81. 

1970- 

1979 

Between FY73 and FY75, General Manager Brad Howe slowly brought HSA back from the 

brink of destruction. Under his guidance, HSA started to operate on a regular annual schedule 

with greater administrative oversight. The seasonal businesses of the 1960s disappeared as 

all agencies developed into year-round operations. HSA began selecting all new managers 

simultaneously in the fall, and their transitions into the office were made smoother with the 

institution of the new fiscal year. Administrative control of the agencies tightened as the 

company moved into a single location in FY74, and President Michael Cronin ’75, MBA ’77, held 

weekly manager meetings for the first time in FY75. Although HSA experienced record losses 

as these changes occurred, the groundwork for future financial success was laid. In FY75, freed 

of its cumbersome Laundry Plant, relieved of its lease obligations at 2 Trowbridge St., and 

supported by a university subsidy, HSA ended the year in the black for only the second time in 

six years. 

This evolution continued in the late ’70s as HSA consistently turned a profit and gradually 

reduced the number of agencies to nine, eliminating some and consolidating others. Indicative 

of HSA’s shift from an entrepreneurial to a more managerial focus, only one new enterprise 

was undertaken between FY74 and FY79. Under the surface, however, big plans were being 

laid at Publishing. The Unofficial Guide joined the HSA family, and the signing of an outside 

publisher made the permanent expansion of Let’s Go a tantalizing possibility. The first regional 

guides appeared toward the end of the decade, kicking off a golden age for the company. After 

beginning the era in a state of tremendous flux, HSA approached the Thayer years stable and 

profitable. 

24 


70 


MAY 31, 1970 

FY 

PRESIDENT 

ROBERT LOCKWOOD 

OFFICES: 


71 

JUNE 1, 1970 – 

MAY 31, 1971 

FY 

PRESIDENT 

CHARLES TALMAGE 

OFFICES: 


AGENCIES 

Linen 

Publishing 

Catering 





Rings 


Moving 

Stationery 

Birthday Cake 

Fall Blotter 

Guide Tours 

TITLES 

Let’s Go: Europe 

Let’s Go: Caribbean 

HSA sat at a crossroads. What was the true embodiment of its mission: a new, professionally run 

corporation that would multiply the number of jobs available to students, or a smaller enterprise 

that was truly student-managed and led? After much infighting and discussion, HSA made several 

important decisions. The proposed new corporation was not to be. Publishing returned to student 

management, pared down its roster of titles, and began the search for a publisher to handle marketing 

and distribution of the guides. The Board of Directors, following the recommendations of its Special 

Review Committee, eliminated the separate position of Chairman of the Board so as to mitigate the 

problems associated with having three separate administrative heads (President, General Manager, 

and Chairman). The President assumed the role of Chairman of the Board. The Board also changed 

the fiscal year to run from June 1 to May 31, rendering FY70 a short nine months long. 

In the midst of these changes and tumult, Dusty Burke announced his pending retirement. After 

leaving his indelible mark on HSA for more than 13 years, Burke officially left his position as General 

Manager on July 1, 1970. 

The only new agency on the block, Guide Tours, trained students as tour guides and organized walking 

tours of Boston for individuals and groups. Altogether, the corporation lost $32,000 on the fiscal year. 

FY70 marked the last year in which the entire Publishing operation, including marketing and 

distribution, remained completely self-contained within Harvard Student Agencies. British West 

Indian Airways, “the unheard-of airline,” sponsored the 200-page Let’s Go: Caribbean, which covered 

more than 30 islands, cays, and rocks. This one-hit wonder included special sections on “Hitchhiking 

Beyond the Twelve Mile Limit,” “Surfing,” and “Rum” and encouraged readers to lose themselves in 

“an unreal fantasy world of escapist, sun-and-sea fun and adventure.” In the meantime, Publishing’s 

mainstay, Let’s Go: Europe, clocked in at 384 pages. Its solid green cover easily wins the award for least 

creative of all time. 

AGENCIES 

Linen 

Publishing 

Catering 




Europe by Car 

Rings 


Moving 

Birthday Cake 

Fall Blotter 

Guide Tours 

TITLES 


Shortly following Dusty Burke’s departure, Andrew Nelson took the helm as General Manager of HSA. 

A former District Traffic Superintendent with the New England Telephone Company and General 

Manager of the Boston Fish Market, he had no previous connection with the university. Unfortunately, 

ill health plagued him throughout his term, forcing him to remain absent for extended periods. The 

parent company of the Orson Welles Cinema, desiring expansion, bought back HSA’s lease at 993A 

Mass. Ave. In June 1971, HSA left its far-flung basement abode, reducing its empire to two offices for 

the first time in four years. 

In the wild world of whirlwind agency happenings: after sustaining several recent fiscal losses, IGS 

was sold to James Leonard, Vice President of the First National Bank of Chicago, for $15,050. After 

having completed nearly 1,500 projects for more than 450 companies while part of HSA, IGS officially 

left the company on January 8, 1971, although the operation remained at its 2 Trowbridge St. location 

until December 31, 1972. Europe by Car reappeared for a brief test drive after a three-year absence. 

Birthday Cake lost $450.19, and the agency axe claimed another victim. 

HSA contracted with E.P. Dutton, a New York City publisher, to publish and distribute the 1971 edition 

of Let’s Go: Europe. One hundred and twelve pages fatter and juicier than the previous year, this 496- 

page tome of joy poeticized on the saunas of Stockholm: “Your physical endurance stretched to its 

sensual limits, you will emerge invigorated, your blood circulating faster, your skin clean, your pores 

open, your body sensitized… Take your girlfriend.” Oh, sweet, sensual Let’s Go. 

26 


72 

JUNE 1, 1971 – 

MAY 31, 1972 

FY 

AGENCIES 

Linen 

Publishing 

Catering 


Custodial 



Europe by Car 

Rings 


Moving 

Fall Blotter 

Guide Tours 

TITLES 


Let’s Go: United States and Canada 

Cheap Eats: Inexpensive Dining 

in Greater Boston 

PRESIDENT 

MICHAEL RYAN 

OFFICES: 

4 Holyoke St. | 2 Trowbridge St. 

What a rough and bruising year for HSA. With General Manager Andrew Nelson forced to take 

extensive medical leaves, President Michael Ryan ’72 bore the weight of leadership for the entire 

company for much of the year. Several major airlines introduced dramatically low student fares to 

Europe, dealing HSA’s Charter Flights agency a crippling blow. Unable to compete with the new rates, 

the agency had no choice but to cancel five of its seven charter flights to Europe and to slowly begin 

the process of changing its business focus. Considering the fact that Charter Flights provided 25% of 

corporate overhead, ’twas a grim scene indeed. 

HSA promoted a benefit showing of the movie Dealing with claims that the proceeds would go toward 

financial aid. The Crimson had a field day when HSA proved unable to provide accurate statistics proving 

its claims. An investigation by the Commission of Inquiry ensued when two professors complained 

about concerns they had regarding HSA’s effects on academic performance, HSA’s monopoly position, 

and HSA’s allocation of financial aid. A general anti-business attitude on campus dampened recruiting. 

On a more positive note, the Harvard Bartending Course flung its doors open to the general public 

for the first time. Now offered twice a month, the course had previously been used solely as a training 

ground for Harvard students dreaming of becoming the brilliant and dashing bartending gurus 

employed by the Catering agency. In its inaugural year, the Custodial agency provided janitorial 

services on a contract basis to firms and individuals. 

Let’s Go: Europe continued its massive weight-gaining campaign, putting on an additional 208 pages 

to reach a buff, muscular 704 pages. Editor Franklin “Pancho” Huddle, AM ’70, PhD ’78, used his 

extensive travel experience in places like Eastern Europe, Iceland, and North Africa to re-add seven 

countries that had been farmed off to the ill-fated Adventure book. Huddle personally wrote or rewrote 

more than two-thirds of the guide, and his 19 Researcher-Writers (RWs) took care of the rest, giving 

it an editorial revamp of a degree not seen since Let’s Go’s founding. Fifty thousand copies were 

produced, with Dutton offering a guaranteed advance on royalties for the first time. 

Let’s Go: United States and Canada reappeared in its second incarnation. Researched in the field by 40 

students and featuring a cover of two very happy people hitchhiking across from a Howard Johnson’s, the 

704-page book dished up gobs of budget glee on all 50 states and Canada as well as “the dope on dope.” 

Sponsored by the Boston Phoenix, HSA also deployed ravenous students into the field 

to grub heartily and to compile the 192-page Cheap Eats: Inexpensive Dining in Greater 

Boston, a guide to over 100 restaurants in the Boston area. 

Courtesy of the College Entrance Examination Board (and $35,000 of its money), 

200,000 additional copies of College and the Black Student came into being for national 

distribution. 


PANCHO HUDDLE | AM ’70, PhD ’78 

JOBS AT HSA: Editor, Let’s Go: Europe, FY72; Researcher-Writer, 

Let’s Go: United States and Canada, FY72. 

WHAT’S THE FUNNIEST STORY FROM YOUR TIME AT LET’S GO? 

“After I worked for Let’s Go, I flew to the Far East. I went to Nepal, then 

I went to Europe. I bought, from a guy who was peeing against a wall next to an American 

Express, a station wagon — a tiny hatchback, an old but serviceable car. It gradually ran down; 

the rear axle broke while changing the tire. … The battery was dead, but the car was very light: 

you could run alongside it, push it along, then jump in! I was finishing up in Paris, flying back 

to the States to be an adviser to Let’s Go: United States. I had two choices: one was to drive 

the car to the airport, or leave it with the motor running and the keys in it. I decided to park 

it near the Sorbonne on a hill. I wrote a note in French: ‘Free car, help yourself!’ Nine months 

later, while advising for Let’s Go, [I received] a letter from the French police: ‘Dear Mr. Huddle, 

your car is accruing storage charges.’ They had towed it. When I came back to France 12 years 

later, I remember thinking, ‘Oh, Christ, I wonder if they’ll catch me [and make me pay].’ But 

they never did.” 

WHERE HAVE YOU WORKED SINCE LET’S GO? 

“I got my doctorate in Central Asian Languages and Literatures. The graduate student union 

struck the university, and I was its leader. My adviser was on the other side of the barricades. 

After that, I wasn’t sticking around Harvard. There were lots of worlds to conquer outside 

academe. I joined the Foreign Service and went from Kathmandu to Thailand to the Philippines 

to Burma to India to Canada… I [was appointed U.S. Ambassador to] Tajikistan right after 9/11; 

I had a reputation for lots of danger posts. In the Philippines there had been a communist 

insurgency, and they killed the guy ahead of me on the list. So I went to Tajikistan to do Secret 

Squirrel–type stuff.” 

CAN YOU DESCRIBE WHAT YOU DO NOW? 

“I train special forces on how to think — not how to fight, how to think. We train in ‘The Box,’ 

a 20-mile-by-20-mile [patch of California desert,] small roads, and training areas. It’s like laser 

tag — they shoot you with electronic guns. I roleplay as an ambassador. I’m teaching them, 

how do you function in an embassy, in a sovereign country, not in a place we occupy — a 

country where you have to play by local rules.” 

CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU ON NOVEMBER 23, 1996, ON ETHIOPIAN 

AIRLINES FLIGHT 961? 

“We were hijacked and ran out of fuel. I thought, it’s been a good ride; I was pleasantly surprised 

I was taking it like a man. … [After we crash-landed in the Indian Ocean,] I literally woke up 

and the plane was floating in the water in front of me. I was in my seat, bobbing up and down 

in the water… [It was] the third-closest call of my adult life.” 

28 


73 

JUNE 1, 1972 – 

MAY 31, 1973 

FY 

AGENCIES 

Linen/Laundry Plant 

Publishing 

Catering 

Travel Services 

Custodial 



Europe by Car 

Rings 


Moving 

Fall Blotter 

Coffee House 

TITLES 


Making It: A Guide to Student 

Finances 

PRESIDENT 

ARTHUR SEGEL 

OFFICES: 

4 Holyoke St. | 2 Trowbridge St. | 8 Holyoke St. 

Plans were laid to sell condoms in the Union News Stand after the Supreme Court overturned a 

Massachusetts law forbidding the sale of contraceptives. At a price of three for 25¢, HSA’s condoms 

cost one-third as much as elsewhere and spared many an amorous freshman the schlep to the nearest 

pharmacy. Concerned by the amount of controversy and attention garnered (including protests and 

articles in the Boston Globe and Wall St. Journal), the Board of Directors decided to nix the venture in 

order to “avoid adverse publicity.” 

Still plagued by medical issues, Andrew Nelson bid farewell to HSA and was replaced by Brad Howe as 

General Manager. Howe, a former Linen and Europe by Air manager, recent Harvard Business School 

graduate, and current Harvard Director of Student Employment, took office on February 22, 1973. As 

Dusty Burke had years before, Howe split his time between HSA and the Student Employment Office. 

In order “to increase operating efficiency and expand or begin new agencies, thereby creating more job 

opportunities,” HSA launched its second fundraising campaign. With a rather specific goal of $96,208, 

the campaign’s objectives included the purchase of three floor waxers and eight vacuums. 

After the university agreed to a 10-year loan of $104,000, HSA severed its 14-year-old relationship 

with the Gordon Linen Company, then purchased mountains of linen, the machinery to clean it, and 

a truck to deliver it. The Laundry Plant officially came into the HSA fold. Located behind Harvard 

Stadium at the corner of Western Ave. and North Harvard St., the plant employed 30 students as 

foremen and machine operators. 

In order to consolidate operations, HSA leased office space adjacent to its traditional headquarters at 4 

Holyoke St. In April 1973, HSA moved those agencies operating at 2 Trowbridge St. and opened shop 

at 8 Holyoke St., the previous location of a barber shop and the Tiger Eye Jewelry Shop. Travel, Europe 

by Car, and Rings moved in the direction of increasing professionalism, all acquiring street-level retail 

space for the first time. 

A whole lotta shakin’ was going on: in the basement of the Hotel Continental, patrons grooved at 

HSA’s Good Life Coffee House on weekend evenings. Catering launched its Wine Appreciation 

Course, teaching the hidden arts of oenology. Charter Flights metamorphosed into Travel Services, 

quickly becoming the largest distributor of ISICs on the East Coast outside New York City. Brahmin 

pearl-clutchers called the police on House Painting employees who were sitting in a circle, half-naked 

and stoned, on the lawn of a client’s house in tony Brookline, the door off its hinges but the paint fresh. 

The beleaguered agency died after painting itself $15,000 in the red. 

Unfortunately, brooding clouds of fiscal troubles darkened the skies. In its worst showing to date, HSA 

lost more than $50,000 on the year. Doubts emerged as to HSA’s ability to survive as a self-sustaining 

enterprise. 


ARTHUR SEGEL | ’73 

JOBS AT HSA: Ad Salesperson, Fall Blotter, FY70; Bartender, Catering, 

FY70 – FY73; Manager, Union News Stand, FY71 – FY72; President, FY73. 

JOBS SINCE HSA: After getting his MBA from Stanford, worked as Deputy 

for Finance and Administration at Massport under Massachusetts Governor 

Michael Dukakis, JD ’60; ended up going into the real-estate business as Vice President at Boston 

Properties and co-founder of TA Associates Realty, a private-equity real-estate firm; began 

teaching at Harvard Business School part-time in 1996, going full-time after selling TA Associates 

Realty in 2001; currently teaches finance and real estate at Harvard Business School and also 

teaches a freshman seminar, “The City of Tomorrow: Constructing and Inhabiting the 21st Century,” 

at Harvard College. 

WHAT ARE SOME FUNNY STORIES FROM YOUR TIME AT HSA? 

“I would often bartend, [even as HSA President,] and one time I did so for [Dean of the Faculty 

of Arts and Sciences] John Dunlop… I was supposed to serve a small dinner, and clean it up, 

for six people. I was serving them, and Dean Dunlop was going on and on about how horrible 

the students were — all rioting in Harvard Sq. and smoking dope. ‘Not like the students in Jack 

Kennedy’s day!’ So I asked Dean Dunlop to come into the kitchen for a moment. I said, ‘Thank 

you so much, but I am leaving right now.’ He said, ‘But we’re in the middle of dinner!’ I replied, 

‘Yes, but I don’t appreciate what you said about my generation.’ 

“The next day he called HSA in a fury and demanded to speak to the President. I took the call; 

he didn’t know I was also the President.” 

WHAT DID HSA DO FOR YOU PERSONALLY AND PROFESSIONALLY? 

“I loved HSA. At a time when business was not very fashionable, I got to be very entrepreneurial 

and try different things. … I learned what failure was — good and bad.” 

In its historic debut, the thumbpick logo dominated the dark-blue cover of Let’s Go: Europe. After 

two years of going large, the guide slimmed down to 672 pages but added coverage of the USSR. 

Production ran two months behind schedule as HSA trusted the Crimson (for the first and last time) 

to typeset the finished text. 

How to Earn (a Lot of) Money in College evolved to become Making It: A Guide to Student Finances, a 

320-page extravaganza of more money-making tips for the college student. One thousand hardcover 

and 20,000 paperback copies became bound reality. 

30 


74 

JUNE 1, 1973 – 

JANUARY 31, 1974 

FY 

PRESIDENT 

PAUL FROHARDT 

OFFICES: 


75 

FEBRUARY 1, 1974 – 


FY 

PRESIDENT 

MICHAEL CRONIN 

OFFICES: 


AGENCIES 


Publishing 

Catering 

Travel 

Custodial 


Europe by Car 

Rings 


Moving 

Instructional Services 

Boston Office Flowers 

Leasing 

TITLES 




In order to achieve a smoother managerial transition and avoid the logistical headaches associated 

with the rapid departure of managers at the end of their terms in May, the Board of Directors voted in 

the spring of 1973 to shift the fiscal year four months. After a short, eight-month FY74, FY75 heralded 

the inception of the current fiscal year, running from February 1 until January 31 of the following year. 

Agency thrills and chills: Boston Office Flowers burst into the ranks of the less colorful and fragrant 

agencies, offering a complete floral service to the Boston and Cambridge business and professional 

community. Purchased from a Harvard Business School student for $2,000, the agency filled many a 

customer’s day with the heady aroma of florid blossoms. The price of the Harvard Bartending Course 

crept up to $15, although the 75–90 people attending each class didn’t seem to mind (or remember). 

Following the success of the Wine Appreciation Course, Instructional Services brought HSA’s two 

courses of educational intoxication under the management of a separate agency. Travel once again 

sent planeloads of elated holiday revelers home on its resurrected Christmas charter flights. Students 

fervently searching for typewriters, TVs, and calculators rejoiced as the Leasing agency appeared on 

the scene, dealing the goods on a term-time rental basis. 

HSA’s second fundraising campaign raised $40,000, allowing the purchase of some equipment and 

partially mitigating operating costs. However, HSA remained saddled with 2 Trowbridge St.’s annual 

rent of $23,000, even as the office sat empty for most of the fiscal year. That sunk cost, moving and 

renovation expenses for 8 Holyoke St., and assorted agency difficulties resulted in a continued deluge 

of red ink. The very viability of HSA came into question as the corporation faced a year-end deficit of 

$68,017, exceeding the record loss from the previous year. 

AGENCIES 


Publishing 

Catering 

Travel 

Custodial 


Rings 




Leasing 

TITLES 


Boston: The Official 

Bicentennial Guidebook 

In four of the previous five years, no profit had been realized. In the previous two years, around 

$120,000 were lost. HSAers openly questioned whether the enterprise should go on, and the Board of 

Directors seriously considered dissolving the corporation. Into these dire straits of doubt strode the 

university, bringer of light and loans. 

As early as February, the Board of Directors had broached the idea of approaching the university for 

fiscal relief. On July 31, General Manager Brad Howe formally asked the university for a loan. On 

August 22, HSA received formal notice from Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Henry Rosovsky, 

PhD ’59, of a two-year, $60,000 subsidy to be granted in exchange for a review of HSA’s annual budget 

and a university-selected Board appointment. 

By this time, HSA had also realized that the difficulties of successfully operating the Laundry Plant far 

outweighed the minimal contribution to corporate overhead it provided. Harvard Vice President for 

Administration Stephen Hall, MDiv ’88, a former Board member whose support and encouragement 

initially made the Laundry Plant a reality, generously agreed to purchase the entire operation back 

from HSA for the original amount of $104,000, $40,000 more than its depreciated value. With the 

Laundry Plant washed up, HSA once again reduced its Linen operations to distribution and delivery. 

At the end of the summer, HSA’s annual $23,000 obligation for its 2 Trowbridge St. location dropped 

to $5,000 when Upper Story Furniture Co., the tenant occupying the bottom two floors of the building, 

finally decided to live up to its name and agreed to lease HSA’s office as warehouse space. This, coupled 

with the university’s assistance, allowed HSA to have a positive net income of nearly $10,000 for the year. 

The cover of Let’s Go: Europe blushed red, page count remained constant, and another voracious horde 

of students devoured Boston for the second edition of Cheap Eats. Perhaps to atone for its typesetting 

fiasco, the Crimson ran a glowing review that declared Let’s Go superior to Frommer’s. 

President Michael Cronin instituted another important reform when he began requiring weekly 

manager meetings, beginning to exercise the greater oversight that came with physical and operational 

consolidation. Custodial swept up and devoured the Moving agency, the Harvard Bartending Course 

had enrollments in excess of 120 aspiring drinkers and drink-makers, and most of the management 

team spent a summer weekend at Howe’s house in Maine. 

“Let’s Go: The Student Guide to Europe” transformed into “Let’s Go: The Budget Guide to Europe” as those 

who had worshipped the early guides entered middle age and Let’s Go increasingly enticed the entire 

budget-conscious universe. 

As patriotic fervor slowly bubbled and frothed within the hearts of America in anticipation of 

the approaching bicentennial, HSA secured its own place in the incipient flag-waving hysteria by 

acquiring the rights to produce Boston: The Official Bicentennial Guidebook. Penned over the summer at 

2 Trowbridge St., this 320-page doctrine for the free and independent contributed mightily to the spirit 

of America and the coffers of HSA, despite the curious fact that the words “Harvard Student Agencies” 

appeared nowhere in the book. 

32 


FY 

75 CONTINUED 


DEVAL PATRICK | ’78, JD ’82 

JOBS AT HSA: Bartender, Catering, starting in FY75; Clerk, HSA Board of 

Directors, elected FY75. 

JOBS SINCE HSA: Worked as an attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund 

and as partner at the law firm Hill & Barlow; appointed U.S. Assistant Attorney 

General for Civil Rights in 1994; worked as general counsel for Texaco and the Coca-Cola Company 

before being elected Governor of Massachusetts in 2006. The first African-American Governor of 

Massachusetts and only the second African-American elected Governor of any state, he served 

two terms. 

WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN UP TO SINCE LEAVING THE GOVERNORSHIP? 

“I’m leading a new fund at Bain Capital where we invest in small- and medium-sized companies 

in North America for both financial return and social and environmental impact.” 

WHAT WAS YOUR ROLE AT HSA? 

“All the cool kids were working for Let’s Go or the Travel agency. I did the bartending. It was 

great money to help pay for school and my incidentals, and it was really great training in dealing 

with lots of different people, different styles... You add to that liquor, and it’s an interesting brew.” 

CAN YOU TELL US SOME STORIES ABOUT WORKING AT HSA? 

“Bartenders will tell you this: people say things to bartenders that they wouldn’t say normally. 

When you’re 18, 19, 20 years old and you’re hearing these stories — some of them very funny, 

some of them very tragic, sometimes compelling, always intimate — you’re learning how to 

manage that, how to keep your professionalism but also be empathetic.” 

HOW HAVE THE SKILLS YOU LEARNED AT HSA HELPED YOU IN YOUR CAREER? 

“I can still mix a great gin and tonic! But I think most importantly… the interaction with a wide 

variety of different kinds of people, with wildly varying states of mind and mood, and keeping 

your composure was pretty useful later on in politics.” 

76 



FY 

AGENCIES 

Linen 

Publishing 

Catering 

Travel 

Custodial 


Rings 




Leasing 

TITLES 


Let’s Go: Britain & Ireland 

The Unofficial Guide to Life at Harvard 



PRESIDENT 

KENDALL POWELL 

OFFICES: 

4 Holyoke St. | 8 Holyoke St. 

Two years after assuming the position of General Manager, Brad Howe announced his pending 

resignation, effective July 1. To replace him, HSA hired Robert Maxcy at the end of May. He promptly 

resigned after seven days of work. After this underwhelming performance, HSA chose Daniel Del 

Vecchio as the next General Manager. A former Director of Program Resources at Boston University 

with a strong accounting and business background, Del Vecchio successfully weathered his first seven 

days in office without incident. 

HSA gave birth to no new agencies, nor did it obliterate any. Instructional Services showed 60 students 

swingin’ steps in its first ballroom-dancing course. 

The first Unofficial Guide to Life at Harvard! No longer did Harvard students languish in ignorance. 

Previously published by the Harvard Graduate Student Council exclusively for graduate students, 

HSA’s 144-page Unofficial Guide provided the entire campus with the unofficial word of truth about the 

strange, wonderful, and frightening reality in which it was enmeshed. Although new to HSA, it was 

The Unofficial Guide’s 24th edition. Meanwhile, another famished mob of students consumed Boston 

for the final time to create the third edition of Cheap Eats. 

Let’s Go: Europe remained much the same, although the cover turned blue again. Over dinner in the 

dining hall one night, Publishing Manager William Slivka ’76, MBA ’78, and President Kendall Powell 

’76 mused about whether a guide to all of Europe was too unwieldly for travelers just going to one 

or two countries. They tapped the previous year’s Editor, Paul K. Rowe ’76, JD ’79, to take on a new 

challenge: Let’s Go’s first guide to a single destination, Let’s Go: Britain & Ireland. Permanent expansion 

of the series had commenced. 

34 


FY 

76 CONTINUED 


KEN POWELL | ’76 

JOBS AT HSA: Laundry Plant worker, Linen/Laundry Plant, FY73 – FY74; 

Manager, Linen/Laundry Plant, FY75; President, FY76. 

JOBS SINCE HSA: After graduating from the Stanford Graduate School of 

Business, joined General Mills in 1979; managed cereal and yogurt brands, 

then spent 12 years working abroad, first in the UK and then in Switzerland; helped launch Cereal 

Partners Worldwide, a joint venture between General Mills and Nestlé, in 1990, which grew into 

a multi-billion-dollar company under his leadership; elected President and COO of General Mills in 

2006; elected CEO in 2007; elected Chairman of the Board in 2008. Stepped down as CEO in June 

2017 but remains Chairman of the Board. 

CAN YOU DESCRIBE YOUR PATH FROM HSA TO GENERAL MILLS? 

“This was one of the things that came out of HSA: I was pretty sure based on that experience 

that I was interested in general management. I didn’t pursue a career in finance or consulting; 

I wanted to run something. I applied to pharmaceutical companies — places I thought I would 

get a career early — but decided to come to General Mills.” 

HOW DID YOU WORK YOUR WAY UP TO CEO? 

“I don’t know why the board gave me the job, to be honest! General Mills had been hugely 

successful in North America, but most of our competitors were pretty global. There was a 

strong desire to expand our businesses internationally. I had that experience through [Cereal 

Partners Worldwide]. Today, a third of our revenue comes from outside the U.S., and half of our 

employees live outside the U.S.” 

WHAT WAS THE HIGHLIGHT OF YOUR TIME AT HSA? 

“The highlight of my experience at HSA was I met my wife there! Her name is Wendy Bennett 

’76; she worked in the Publishing division.” 

WHAT DID YOU TAKE AWAY FROM YOUR EXPERIENCE AT HSA? 

“A couple things: first, I was a biology major and a premed guy, so the first thing about HSA 

was it exposed me to something completely different. It really helped me realize I wanted to 

pursue a career in business. … Another thing about it, thinking back, was meeting people like 

Brad Howe…people who were so committed to the university and trying to get this thing off 

the ground for reasons beyond wanting to run a business. It was inspirational to meet people 

like that. We all want to have careers where we can give back, and they were the first people I 

met who did that in spades.” 

77 



FY 

AGENCIES 

Linen 

Publishing 

Catering 

Travel 

Custodial 


Rings 




Leasing 

TITLES 



On March 8, the first annual Hail 

and Farewell banquet occurred at the 

Signet Society, honoring the outgoing 

management team and welcoming the 

next. Boston Office Flowers withered 

and died. Travel continued its Christmas 

charter-flight program and sent six buses 

to New York City over Thanksgiving for 

homebound lovers of turkey. The Internal 

Revenue Service investigated HSA’s 

nonprofit status — yet again —and left 

it intact. 

PRESIDENT 

STEPHEN POLLACK 

OFFICES: 


General Manager Dan Del Vecchio. 

Let’s Go: Britain & Ireland blew away Dutton’s sales expectations and left them drooling for more. Let’s 

Go: Europe returned to a red cover and a hefty 704 pages. Dutton, thrilled by the ever-increasing success 

of Let’s Go, requested the use of the Let’s Go logo on guides to Asia and Latin America compiled by 

researchers from the Council on International Educational Exchange. The Board of Directors vetoed the 

proposal. With the assistance of a university grant, The Unofficial Guide sped outward from Cambridge 

at the end of the summer, landing in the eager hands of those needy and anxious incoming freshmen. 

36 


78 



FY 

PRESIDENT 

JOHN SIMON JR. 

OFFICES: 


79 



FY 

PRESIDENT 

MICHAEL COHRS 

OFFICES: 


AGENCIES 

Linen 

Publishing 

Catering 

Travel 

Custodial 

Direct Sales 



Student Power 

TITLES 



Let’s Go: France 


The number of agencies reached an all-time low of nine. A major consolidation of business operations 

occurred with the genesis of Direct Sales, which enveloped Refrigerator Rental, Rings, and Leasing. 

All clerical services performed by HSA rallied together beneath the banner of the new Student Power 

agency. The new “super saver” airfares of major airlines grinched Travel’s Christmas charter-flight 

program, stealing that bit of HSA’s business for good. 

The lease for HSA’s Holyoke St. sanctuary was to expire in 1978, prompting a search for a new 

subterranean home. The serene porcelain gleam belied its role as a vomiter of filth. Although normally 

quite placid and tame, the toilets of 4 Holyoke St. could back up and transform without warning into 

a drooling, putrid monster capable of dribbling raw sewage from its maw. The beast emerged in 1967 

when a Porcellian Club squash ball clogged its most vital artery, the drainage pipe. They tried to banish 

the demon in 1973 by installing a stop valve in the sewerage line. They failed. Periodically awakened 

by heavy rain, the monstrosity flared into putrescent action for its most horrific act in August 1977. The 

capacity of its defective drainpipe exceeded by the runoff from a heavy storm, the vile abomination 

disgorged from its craw a sea of sewage so voluminous that the entire basement floor smothered 

beneath two inches of squalor. City health officials ordered an immediate evacuation of the premises 

until the rank terror might be sanitized. 

AGENCIES 

Linen 

Publishing 

Catering 

Travel 

Custodial 

Direct Sales 

Student Office Services 



TITLES 




Let’s Go: Italy 


Agency mania: the new Student Power agency winced under the mighty weight of its name and 

shrieked SOS (Student Office Services) for the year. Instructional Services educated students in the 

delicate intricacies of disco, the subtle refreshment of jazz, and the swingin’ elegance of ballroom 

dancing. The privilege of taking the Harvard Bartending Course exacted $25 and one’s sobriety. The 

blue Linen van barreled around Somerville looking for wine after the Wine Appreciation Course 

unexpectedly ran out partway through. 

In considering new locations, HSA briefly contemplated a move to South House — all the way up in the 

Quad?! — before reaching an agreement with the university to occupy a large portion of the basement 

of Thayer Hall. The initial lease agreement called for payments of $800 per month until the $50,000 

in basement renovations had been paid off, with HSA only responsible afterward for the expenses 

incurred by its occupancy of the space. With a new location secure, HSA prepared to leap into the 

Thayer years. 

Let’s Go: Italy joined the posse to make a gang of four. 

No upstart regional guide challenged the 752-page 

blue goliath of Let’s Go: Europe for pack supremacy, 

however. The Unofficial Guide suffered through 

creativity problems in the cover department. 

Let’s Go: France swore allegiance and swelled Publishing’s ranks. With a back cover devoid of 

advertisement for the first time, the now-orange Let’s Go: Europe ordered readers to “take us along 

[or suffer through an unspeakable agony of longing and desire for the book you left behind].” The 

expanding 156-page Unofficial Guide posed the opening question, “Who flew home to Kansas with 

a tarantula packed in an animal crackers box?” before suggesting that the reader “please send all 

corrections, suggestions, and complaints to the Editor. Roses, the definitive disco section, and poison 

pen letters will also not be refused.” 

THE OENOPHILIST’S LAMENT 

During its eight years of existence (1973–1981), the Wine Appreciation Course influenced countless 

lives. Here, a personal account: “I guess it was my roommate’s fault that I accidentally dropped out 

of Harvard and lived the rest of my life as some fiendish sybarite, sipping and slipping from cellar 

to dank, musty cellar. It was he, after all, who first inserted the HSA brochure into my fall semester 

coursebook, who told me there was a new concentration in ‘wine tasting’ and, most importantly, 

who forked over the 15 bucks I needed to take HSA’s three-night Wine Appreciation Course. How 

could I not believe? The brochure was so convincing, the apparent rewards so unbelievable: Lectures 

by a former member of the Oxford Wine Tasting Team that ‘last until the wine gives out‘; answers 

to valuable questions such as, ‘What does the cork do in the bottle?’; the opportunity to ‘learn not 

to be taken by fancy phrases or pretty pictures‘; and most devastatingly, I could ‘receive an 8 by 

10 inch diploma, together with a wallet-sized Master Oenologist identification card.’ The card, still 

besmirched with the scarlet ‘H,’ ablaze with the mythical ‘HSA,’ curled and sweaty with an oaky, 

buttery bouquet, still hints at who I once was. Better, though, it bellows who I am today, to my 

classmates and to the world: ‘In Vino, Veritas! In Veritas, Vino!’” 

38 


THE THAYER YEARS 

Not much changed during HSA’s years in the basement of Thayer Hall. Over 14 years, only four 

new businesses were begun that did not directly evolve from existing agencies. Instead, HSA 

honed its 10 or so core agencies to managerial perfection. With the addition of the management 

retreat, the annual schedule of events that had emerged during the 1970s was honed to precise 

regularity. 

1980- 

1993 

Women became prominent figures at HSA during the 1980s. Lynne Liakos ’82, MBA ’86, became 

the first woman elected HSA President in FY82, five consecutive female Presidents ruled HSA 

from FY86 through FY90, and Hope Spruance became the first female General Manager. 

Throughout the 1980s, there was increased emphasis on the bottom line, and HSA continued 

to prosper financially. When Spruance departed in 1990, she left the corporation with a surplus 

of $370,000. Spruance exercised considerable control over HSA to achieve this end, however, 

inspiring no small amount of internal student dissent. The push for more student power in 

FY89 was in many ways a backlash against this increasing professional control. Students also 

handled more of the day-to-day tasks of running the business with the appointment of the first 

Vice President in FY92. 

Nonetheless, revenue increased from $925,000 to $2.9 million between FY80 and FY93, led 

primarily by the growth of Publishing. In one of the landmark events of this period, Let’s Go 

signed with St. Martin’s Press in FY82, and Publishing spawned a new ad-sales agency that 

filled the guides with glossy adverts. Readership soared from 200,000 in 1983 to 3.5 million 

in 1993. Accelerated by the computerization of the editing process, by FY93 the series had 

grown from six guides to 17. That year, the Board of Directors voted to create Let’s Go, Inc., a 

wholly owned, for-profit subsidiary of HSA, to house its most profitable division. Yet as HSA 

prepared to leave its basement home in spring 1993, even more dramatic expansion loomed on 

the horizon. 

40 


80 



FY 

PRESIDENT 

DAVID COHEN 

OFFICE: 

Thayer Hall B 

81 



FY 

PRESIDENT 

MARK BATTEY 

OFFICE: 

Thayer Hall B 

AGENCIES 

Linen 

Publishing 

Catering 

Travel 

Custodial 

Direct Sales 

Harvard Student Resources 



TITLES 






After more than 20 years of residence, HSA bid adieu to its headquarters at 4 Holyoke St. and moved its 

entire operation into the basement of Thayer Hall on February 27, 1979. With its prime location in the 

middle of Harvard Yard, HSA was to call this new underground dominion home for the next 14 years. 

Harvard Facilities Maintenance occupied a portion of the basement as well and initially kept HSA 

company. Maura Gorman assumed the new role of Operations Manager, supplementing the existent 

professional staff of General Manager and Business Manager. Student Office Services, the agency 

formerly known as Student Power, changed its name one final time to Harvard Student Resources 

(HSR). The name stuck to the expanding temporary-services agency. With its help, HSA employed 

1,401 students in FY80 — an all-time high. 

AGENCIES 

Linen 

Publishing 

Catering 

Travel 

Custodial 

Direct Sales 


Freshman Union 


Harvard Distribution Services 

TITLES 





Let’s Go: USA 

Let’s Go: Greece, Israel & Egypt 


Harvard Student Resources gave rise to Harvard Distribution Services, which delivered precious 

advertisements to student suites throughout campus. It now cost $30 to become educationally 

inebriated in the Harvard Bartending Course. George Alex ’81 campaigned for Treasurer with the 

slogan, “My name is really short. I can sign checks really fast.” C. Mark Battey ’81 broke a streak of 

five of the last six HSA Presidents attending Harvard Business School by matriculating at — gasp! — 

Stanford. Revenues returned to the $1 million mark. 

THE MASTERS OF MIXOLOGY 

Skilled. Daring. Omnipotent. They are the graduates of the Harvard Bartending Course. They are the 

Masters of Mixology. Privileged few were the early Masters, for until 1971 naught but the students 

of Harvard could achieve salvation from cocktails shoddy and poor and earn the right to enter the 

hallowed ranks of HSA Catering employees. 1971: the course opened to the general public, the dawn 

of a new era of Masters. The masses poured in. Ninety to 120 at a time paid homage to the great god 

of intoxication. In lab sessions with real liquor they did revel. Inebriated, the new Masters departed. 

1986: the arrival of the demon of liquor liability, artificial booze, a sober generation of Masters. Today, 

over 50,000 roam the earth. Join us if you dare. 

The gang of four consolidated its hold on editorial brilliance, 

led by the turquoise Let’s Go: Europe, declared for the first time 

by the Boston Globe to be “the Bible of the budget traveler.” 

The Unofficial Guide featured numerous archaic engravings as 

illustrations, including a depiction of surgery by saw and axe. 

An early Master. 

A ’70s Master. 

And then there were six. The sun-soaked threesome of Let’s Go: Greece, Israel & Egypt joined the 

third incarnation of Let’s Go: USA in expanding the series. In Let’s Go’s final year with Dutton, Let’s 

Go: Europe came sheathed in a heinous blue and brown color combo. The Unofficial Guide featured 

photographs from the 1920 Harvard class album. 

42 


82 



FY 

AGENCIES 

Linen 

Publishing 

Catering 

Travel 

Custodial 

Direct Sales 


Freshman Union 



Advertising 

TITLES 








PRESIDENT 

LYNNE LIAKOS 

OFFICE: 

Thayer Hall B 

HSA elected its first female President. Lynne Liakos, the 25th President of HSA, gained considerable 

recognition for her accomplishments, was featured as one of the “Top 10 College Women” in Glamour, 

and appeared on Good Morning America. 

This is the year Facilities Maintenance vacated its portion of the Thayer cellar, allowing HSA to spread 

out and to inhabit the entire basement. This is the first year of computerization at HSA. This is the year 

current assets first exceeded current liabilities. This is the year Distribution offered a courier service. 

This is the year the Advertising agency was formed to produce eye-catching and mouthwatering ads 

for HSA and outside clients. This is FY82. Turn it up to 11! 

HSA, desiring more aggressive expansion of the 

Let’s Go series, left E.P. Dutton and signed on 

with St. Martin’s Press. As an immediate result, 

the hitchhiking thumb logo migrated into the 

“o” of “Let’s Go” and no longer dominated the 

cover. Let’s Go: Europe turned orange and got 

96 pages fatter, reaching a corpulent 830 pages. 

The Unofficial Guide quoted Mark Twain in its 

Unofficial Welcome: “I never let my schooling 

interfere with my education.” 


Photo credit: 

Brigitte Lacombe 

PICO IYER | AM ’80 

JOBS AT HSA: Researcher-Writer, Let’s Go: Europe, FY82 and FY83. 

WHAT DO YOU DO FOR A CAREER? 

“I’m a full-time writer, as I have been since 1986, trying to support my loved 

ones by my pen alone. Although most of my writing, and my interest, is 

in cultural life and the inner world, the fact that I began by writing about 

travels (everywhere from North Korea to Paraguay and Ethiopia to Tibet) means that I am often 

taken to be a travel writer, and the training for that, my only real qualification, I owe entirely 

to Let’s Go.” 

WHAT ARE SOME OF YOUR FONDEST MEMORIES OF LET’S GO? 

“I got to be in Rome the night Italy won the World Cup and found myself up all night as the 

streets filled with people ’til they became impassable, and I felt myself caught up in a kind of 

Carnival that was impromptu, extravagant, and had the excitement of something that might 

never get repeated; I got to taste the Camargue and the sunlit towns of the French Riviera, 

places that gleam in the imagination but that I haven’t had the chance to revisit in the past 35 

years; I met a stranger in a castle town in France, staying in some broken hostel, and, though 

we were both straight males, we spent a rapturous 36 hours together walking up and down the 

narrow streets and talking about D.H. Lawrence and much else… 

“Most radiant of all, though, was the month I spent in Greece, in often deserted areas, waking 

up at first light every morning in a simple hotel, traveling by bus along the coast to some quiet 

town, all whitewashed churches and donkey paths, and then devouring Maugham’s Of Human 

Bondage as I took a simple lunch — Greek salad and Coke — in the sun. I brought my girlfriend 

over at the end of my trip to share some days in a tiny hotel next to the harbor in Ithaca; I spent 

three days in a remote cove in Kefalonia, sleeping in a taverna overlooking the blue-green 

waters; I grew a beard, as almost never before or since, and felt cleaned out and lifted up by 

the simple, almost monastic routine I got to observe in those largely unvisited areas where, for 

days on end, I’d never meet another soul and could give myself up to the elemental intensity of 

rock, sun, and water.” 

WHERE HAVE YOU WORKED SINCE? 

“I think my first summer at Let’s Go helped me, in a small way, get a job at Time, by suggesting 

to the person who interviewed me that I could complete sentences and meet deadlines, and 

so I joined the magazine, as a writer in New York City, almost as soon as my second Let’s Go 

summer was over (and corrected my Let’s Go proofs at a Time magazine desk). 

“I worked for four years at Time as a writer on world affairs and as a critic (of books, plays, and 

TV) and then moved to Japan to write books, though continuing to write essays for the back 

page of Time, and to contribute constantly, as I still do, 31 years on, to the New York Times, 

Harper’s, The New York Review of Books, Granta, Vanity Fair, and many, many others. 

“My first three books actually were released as travel books, and I worked for 27 years as a 

Contributing Editor to Condé Nast Traveler, while also regularly writing on travel for National 

Geographic, Travel & Leisure, National Geographic Traveler, the Financial Times, and dozens of others.” 

HOW HAS LET’S GO HELPED YOU IN YOUR CAREER? 

“I often volunteer, unsolicited, that Let’s Go has really allowed me to do just about everything 

that I’ve done in my life so far. …As soon as I joined Time, I realized what a great training it 

had been in learning to write quickly, to gather information and to process it and never to 

forget about the reader at the other end, in search of practical information (something I’d never 

considered when I was in grad school). 

“My third year at Time, when I was 28, I took a six-month leave of absence in order to spend 

three months traveling, at high speed, across 10 countries in Asia and then four months writing 

up my travels into what would become my first book, Video Night in Kathmandu. I’m sure I could 

never have conceived of such a plan, let alone begun to execute it, without Let’s Go.” 

44 


83 



FY 

PRESIDENT 

MICHAEL O’BRIEN 

OFFICE: 

Thayer Hall B 

84 



FY 

PRESIDENT 

HERMINIO LLEVAT 

OFFICE: 

Thayer Hall B 

AGENCIES 

Linen 

Publishing 

Catering 

Travel 

Custodial 

Direct Sales 


Union Services 



Advertising 

Sales Group 

TITLES 








In commemoration of its 25th anniversary, HSA celebrated with symposia, 

tours, tailgates, and a roast-beef dinner at the Hyatt Regency. Nearly 150 

past and present members of HSA turned out for the merriment. 

The first-ever HSA history book began, “Walk into the offices of Harvard 

Student Agencies, Inc., in the basement of Thayer Hall and you’ll be 

struck by a weird melange of the corporate and the bohemian. The whirr 

of air-conditioning, the bright wall-to-wall carpeting, the rows of IBM 

Selectrics ranged on new office furniture — none of these would turn 

heads at IBM or General Mills. But the sooty brick walls, the dripping 

pipes, and the occasional thump and drone of a rock band practicing in 

one of the dorm rooms upstairs make it clear that you’re not exactly in 

the warm belly of the Fortune 500. For every employee with a suit and 

new shoes, there are others groggily stumbling about in misbuttoned 

flannel shirts, or panting in running clothes. The effect is an atmosphere 

somewhere between a New York highrise and a cave dwelling.” 

AGENCIES 

Linen 

Publishing 

Catering 

Travel 

Direct Sales 


Union 


Advertising 

Sales Group 

TITLES 






Let’s Go: Greece 

Let’s Go: Israel & Egypt 

Let’s Go: California & the Pacific 

Northwest 

Let’s Go: Spain, Portugal & Morocco 


After nearly eight years, Dan Del Vecchio left the entrepreneurs 

of HSA to become one himself. The General Manager departed in 

May 1983 to start his own business. Though the Crimson groused 

that it had come at the cost of decreased student entrepreneurship, 

Del Vecchio brought stability and prudence to HSA and its 

operations, steering the corporation to a profit in every year of his 

tenure. Over the summer, HSA selected Hope Spruance to succeed 

him. A former manager of a multi-million-dollar student center at 

Cornell, she took office in September. With but one course to its 

name, Instructional Services got the old heave-ho. The Harvard 

Bartending Course subsequently found a new home in HSR. 

Hope Spruance. 

The 25th-anniversary celebration. 

Michael O’Brien ’83, Brad Howe, Jim Uehlinger ’83, and Andy Tobias. 

Responsible for the sale of advertisements in The Unofficial Guide and the 

Let’s Go series, Sales Group surfaced as its own agency after having been 

a part of Publishing for 22 years. 

Publishing Manager Linda Haverty, AM ’82, PhD ’89, masterminded Let’s Go’s expansion to 

nine titles. The new kids rumbled into town with attitude: Let’s Go: Spain, Portugal & Morocco and 

Let’s Go: California & the Pacific Northwest strutted their stuff before 888-page big daddy Europe while 

Let’s Go: Greece, Israel & Egypt was hacked into two quivering pieces. Let’s Go was pulled into the world 

of international espionage for a few swelteringly suave summer days when an RW was arrested in 

Morocco on suspicion of being a spy. Meanwhile, the gargantuan can of Budweiser Light that graced 

the back cover of The Unofficial Guide implored, “Bring out your best, Harvard.” 

Let’s Go: Europe retained the exact same cover (front and back) as the previous year and warned its 

readers, “If Let’s Go is your ‘bible,’ don’t be a fundamentalist in interpreting it.” Let’s Go: USA sold 

around 30,000 copies, while overall sales topped 200,000 and raked in $2.7 million—but HSA only 

netted about $165,000 from that. The Unofficial Guide cracked the 200-page mark for the first time, 

sported the red-blue-brown cover synergy of death, and was also made available in a Graduate 

School Edition. 

46 


85 



FY 

AGENCIES 

Linen 

Publishing 

Catering 

Travel 

Direct Sales 


Union 


Advertising 

Sales Group 

TITLES 









Northwest 


Let’s Go: Mexico 


The Official Harvard Student 

Agencies Bartending Course 

PRESIDENT 

LOUIS MORSBERGER 

OFFICE: 

Thayer Hall B 

In her first full year at HSA, Hope 

Spruance inaugurated the annual 

retreat for the new management 

teams. Held at the transition of the 

fiscal year, the event allowed for 

team bonding and education. Travel 

introduced its new line of Let’s 

Go luggage to would-be travelers 

hankering for a super fly pack. 

Catering started a new celebrations 

service, delivering balloons and care 

packages. The Distribution delivery 

crew consisted of four early-rising 

senior athletes who delighted in 

speeding around campus at 5am in 

the HSA van launching bundles of 

the Harvard Independent through the 

placid morning air. Each time, the 

faculty and administrators would 

complain to HSA; each time, the quartet were discharged from their duties; each time, they were hired 

back as the only students willing to wake up so early. 

Begun the previous year, the Let’s Go: Mexico project reached its climax by becoming the 10th member 

of the Let’s Go family. The team’s first foray into budget travel outside the U.S. and Europe, the totallyfrom-scratch 

book sold more copies than any previous Let’s Go first edition. Serieswide, Let’s Go 

employed 36 editorial and research staffers, chosen from an applicant pool of over 100 who had each 

filled out a seven-page job application. RWs undertook itineraries of eight to 11 weeks and, for the first 

time, were paid with daily stipends that varied by the destination. 

Having graduated more than 25,000 Masters of Mixology, HSA released 

the first edition of The Official Harvard Student Agencies Bartending Course. 

For those whose “Golden Dreams were frightening nightmares” and whose 

“kegs produced enough foam to surf in,” salvation was at hand. The meaty 

312-page Unofficial Guide let fly an opening salvo of “Let the wild rumpus 

begin.” There were no casualties reported in the ensuing bedlam, though 

Cambridge resident Joe Carson received more than 300 phone calls for the 

erroneously listed Ching Hua Chinese Restaurant. 


ANDREA SILBERT | ’86, MBA ’92, MPA ’92 

JOBS AT HSA: Associate, Advertising, FY84; Manager, Catering, FY85; 

President, FY86. 

JOBS SINCE HSA: Left her first job as a financial analyst at Morgan Stanley to 

write case studies at INCAE, a business school in Costa Rica; after graduate 

school, moved to Brazil to work for a nonprofit helping girls living on the streets start their 

own businesses; returned to Boston and became Economic Development Director for Nuestra 

Comunidad Development Corporation; in 1995, founded the Center for Women and Enterprise 

(CWE), whose mission is “to empower women to become economically self-sufficient and 

prosperous through entrepreneurship”; during her nine years as CEO, boosted the CWE from a 

$350,000 budget to the largest entrepreneurial training center in New England; ran for Lieutenant 

Governor of Massachusetts in 2006. 


“I’ve been working in philanthropy since 2007. I am President of the Eos Foundation, a 

charitable foundation run by a wealthy family; I help manage their charitable giving. We focus 

on making investments to fight hunger, poverty, and promote education in Massachusetts.” 

WHAT ROLE DID HSA PLAY IN YOUR COLLEGE EXPERIENCE? 

“I was a recovering premed, so I was searching for a new career. And I needed a summer job, 

and I fell on HSA. My parents are both doctors, so when I became disillusioned with premed, 

I was a lost soul. I found HSA and realized, hey, business is fun! … Because I had a great 

experience at HSA, [when I graduated I decided] I wanted to go into business.” 

WHO WERE SOME OF YOUR STANDOUT EMPLOYEES AT HSA? 

[Laughs] “I laugh because some of the people I worked with are incredibly wealthy right now. 

Whitney Tilson worked at Let’s Go as a sales rep. He sold so much ad space, he was going to get 

oodles of money. I remember the adults at HSA saying, ‘Oh no, he’s making too much money!’ 

… A close friend of mine is Jonathan Grayer, who ran Kaplan. … He would come into my office 

to shoot the breeze — and always put his feet up! I had to tell him, ‘I’m the President!’” 

HOW HAVE THE SKILLS YOU LEARNED AT HSA HELPED YOU IN YOUR PROFESSIONAL CAREER? 

“HSA makes you a problem solver. It made me not afraid to take risks. I knew I could figure 

stuff out. I knew I would screw up along the way, because everyone does, but you right the ship. 

It made me be able to think on my feet. Running Catering was an amazing job; it involved lots 

of people running really important events. Stuff goes wrong, but you fix it. That’s the greatest 

skill you can have — fixing stuff on the fly. [Another valuable lesson was learning] to talk to 

your peers, your classmates, while you’re their boss. It was an incredible experience to have at 

a young age.” 

48 


86 



FY 

AGENCIES 

Linen 

Publishing 

Catering 

Travel 

Direct Sales 


Union 


Advertising 

Sales Group 

Text Processing 

TITLES 









Northwest 




PRESIDENT 

ANDREA SILBERT 

OFFICE: 

Thayer Hall B 

The Text Processing agency was birthed to handle the modern marvels of data processing, word 

processing, résumés, typesetting, and other fun. To get more people involved in all the fun, HSA 

created the position of Personnel Manager. Long live the fun. 

Forty-five RWs earned an average of $26 per day and sent back a cumulative 30,000 

pages of manuscript. Six Editors and 14 Assistant Editors sculpted them into 10 

beautiful books. Typewriters were out and computers were in as Publishing Manager 

Robert Brennan, EdM ’85, EdD ’89, imported state-of-the-art technology to take over 

production chores once reserved for skilled professionals. Now typeset directly from 

word-processed computer discs, the books that had previously taken weeks to set 

and print could now be pumped out in just a few days. As a result, printers churned 

out 440,000 paperbacks put on sale in dozens of countries within three months of the 

time the last RW sent his manuscript from a foreign post office. The Let’s Go squad 

was presenting information at least six months fresher than the speediest competitor. 


JONATHAN GRAYER | ’86, MBA ’90 

JOBS AT HSA: Manager, Harvard Student Resources, FY86. 

JOBS SINCE HSA: Began working at The Washington Post Company in 1990; 

named Marketing Director at Newsweek after only six months; joined Kaplan 

as Regional Operations Director in 1991, rising to President and CEO in 1994 

at the age of 30; in 14 years as CEO, transformed Kaplan from an $80 million 

test-preparation business into a $2.3 billion corporation with 35,000 employees by branching out 

to higher education and professional training; left Kaplan in 2008 and founded Weld North in 2010, 

where, as Chairman and CEO, he invests in and manages technology-driven education companies. 

WHAT ARE YOU MOST PROUD OF IN YOUR CAREER? 

“I’ve gotten very involved in nonprofits, I sit on a cancer-research board [Memorial Sloan 

Kettering Cancer Center], I’ve done other things in underprivileged education. I’m most proud 

of the Kaplan Educational Foundation scholarship [which I founded at Kaplan in 2006] — like 

a Rhodes Scholarship for community-college kids. It helps them spend a year getting ready to 

apply to a four-year school. We’ve had 75 scholars, and over half have gone on to Ivy League 

schools.” 

HOW DID HSA AFFECT YOUR CHOICE OF CAREER? 

“I had come from a medical family and had very little business experience. ... [HSA] provided 

me with a first look at what it would be like to be a manager — and I liked it. It led to me 

applying to Harvard Business School, where I got in two years later. Other than my academic 

credentials, my main asset was the experience I had running HSR. It transformed my outlook 

on what professional opportunities would be best suited for me. … When I graduated [from 

business school], I was at the time looking at two career paths. One was being a manager/ 

running a business, or I could go into the standard financial world. And I ended up choosing 

working at a company and becoming a manager, because I enjoyed being a manager at HSR.” 

WHAT ADVICE DO YOU HAVE FOR CURRENT STUDENTS? 

“There are two important things to get out of HSA. One, it gives you an opportunity to meet 

people outside the classroom and traditional extracurriculars. Those relationships will turn 

out to be very important in the decades to come. I would cultivate them, look out for them, 

and value them. Find managers that you naturally share interests with and become friends 

with them. 

“Two, I would look for experiences to try to replicate what you want to do in your professional 

life. People hiring Harvard talent will be there no matter what. But to find a path, like I did, 

outside those normal avenues can be facilitated by experiences you have in college. Think 

about not how to burnish your résumé or get a job, but rather find…what attracts you outside 

the path normally taken by Harvard students.” 

50 


87 



FY 

PRESIDENT 

LINDA DOYLE 

OFFICE: 

Thayer Hall B 

88 



FY 

PRESIDENT 

DEBRA GRAHAM 

OFFICE: 

Thayer Hall B 

AGENCIES 

Linen 

Publishing 

Catering 

Travel 

Direct Sales 


Union 


Advertising 

Sales Group 


Law School Cafe 

TITLES 









Northwest 




HSA mellowed out high-strung aspiring lawyers with its Law School Cafe agency. So distracted 

were they by the incipient pressures of the rest of their legal lives, however, the patrons neglected 

to purchase enough stress-relieving snack items to sustain the business. Case closed. Due to the 

prohibitive cost of liquor-liability insurance, the Harvard Bartending Course dried up, and only the 

brave did dare pound the colored waters used as liquor substitutes. 

The KOA campground in Baton Rouge was vexing, Let’s Go: Europe burst with 47 maps (a whopping 

increase of one map over the previous year), back covers first asked, “Did you know?”, and The 

Unofficial Guide dished out its inaugural blue coupons in back. 

AGENCIES 

Linen 

Publishing 

Catering 

Travel 

Direct Sales 


Union 


Advertising 

Sales Group 


TITLES 








Let’s Go: California & Hawaii 

Let’s Go: The Pacific Northwest, 

Western Canada & Alaska 




The annual meeting of November 12, 1987, preceded HSA’s 30th-anniversary birthday fest. Held at 

Memorial Hall, the ’50s-themed party drew more than 300 past and present HSAers bedecked in 

period apparel with a DJ, cotton-candy machines, and carnival games. 

The 30th-anniversary celebration. 

The number and type of agencies remained exactly as they had been two years prior. Travel first 

offered spring-break vacations to sun-starved students, the Union agency added a yogurt machine, 

and HSA switched computer systems from Fortune to System 36. Linen topped all other agencies in 

revenue, and Catering sent waitstaff to an 80-guest wedding that, thanks to a tropical storm, had only 

enough food to serve a dozen. 

The series reached 11 volumes as Let’s Go: California & the Pacific Northwest was hacked 

and whacked and split into two bits, Let’s Go: California & Hawaii and Let’s Go: The 

Pacific Northwest, Western Canada & Alaska. On page one of Let’s Go: Europe, Dr. Seuss 

told would-be budgeteers: “From there to here, from here to there, funny things are 

everywhere.” The estimated annual readership for the Let’s Go series reached 1.6 

million, giving HSA leverage in renegotiations with St. Martin’s. 

52 


FY 

88 CONTINUED 


GHEN MAYNARD | ’88 

JOBS AT HSA: Production Manager, Publishing, FY87; Manager, Publishing, 

FY88. 

CURRENTLY: Senior Executive Vice President for Alternative Programs, 

CBS Television Studios. 

WHERE HAVE YOU WORKED SINCE YOU GRADUATED? 

“It was natural for me to go into publishing because of Let’s Go. I started at Houghton Mifflin, 

which was going through the tech revolution; I was in a newly formed group to implement it. 

I became a business analyst after that, but I never had a passion for it. Let’s Go was so much 

about the creative process, working with creative people, making friends; publishing in the real 

world was interesting, but I didn’t love it. Every weekend I would buy Variety. I loved TV and 

movies. I did studies in social psychology [my major in college] about how characters relate to 

other characters. 

“I spent four and a half years in publishing; I had a good job and a good life, but I didn’t have a 

passion for it. My passion was in television. It was very humbling to start there, but I was finally 

doing something I really wanted to do. I started as an assistant at CBS, then a junior executive 

in drama development. I developed a bunch of shows as part of that team. I was number two in 

drama when we developed CSI. On the side, I developed Survivor at a time no one was paying 

attention to shows like that. When I heard a one-liner for it, I thought, ‘Wow, that’s exactly type 

of show we need to do at CBS.’ I was the youngest executive at CBS, and I was a Real World 

viewer. I asked myself, how do we bring these audiences to a big network? 

“…[Eventually,] Survivor became huge, and we took over Big Brother, which started at a different 

department, and made it into the show it is today. I developed The Amazing Race, which comes 

back to Let’s Go. In the first season finale of The Amazing Race, one of the teams buys a Let’s 

Go guide. I made them get permission from St. Martin’s Press for that! So I came full circle. It’s 

funny how things in college help you later in life.” 

HOW HAVE THE LESSONS YOU LEARNED AT LET’S GO HELPED YOU IN YOUR PROFESSIONAL CAREER? 

“The alliance between creativity and business is a thing I experienced at Let’s Go for first time. 

Let’s Go was very creative, but you’re still managing people, processes, and budgets while making 

the creative product good. That’s been my experience in television. It’s a very creative world — I 

love working with producers, storytellers — but you’re still navigating a business. A beautiful 

product doesn’t do you any good if only two people love it and it doesn’t make any money.” 


“Find what you’re passionate about and don’t do something just because your parents tell you to. 

I was passionate about working at Let’s Go…so I went into publishing. It was natural, and my 

parents were proud, but I realized I wasn’t passionate about publishing outside college. Seeking 

that old passion from Let’s Go drove me to go into television. … Go experience something, find 

something that genuinely stimulates you, that you would be exploring in your free time at night 

anyway.” 

89 



FY 

AGENCIES 

Linen 

Publishing 

Catering 

Travel 

Direct Sales 


Union 


Sales Group 

AdVenture Graphics 

TITLES 














PRESIDENT 

VIVIAN HUNT 

OFFICE: 

Thayer Hall B | Canaday Hall G 

Due to failing health, Harold Rosenwald attended his 

last Board meeting on May 12 and formally resigned 

in January 1989 after more than 30 years of dedication 

to HSA. 

Prior to the annual meeting in November, several 

student members advanced a proposed change to 

the corporate bylaws to combat what they called 

“increasing professional control of the student-run 

corporation.” To this end, the original amendment 

called for an increase in the number of student Board 

members from seven to 15. After a special meeting 

of the Board of Directors, a compromise proposal 

calling for 10 student Board members was agreed 

upon and approved at the annual meeting by a vote 

of 66–1 (with one abstention). 

In other news: Advertising and Text Processing 

started fusing into the graphic-design goliath that was 

AdVenture Graphics, Distribution started hanging 

its advertisements in plastic bags from freshmen’s 

doorknobs, and the HSA softball team crushed the 

layabouts of the Harvard Independent 24–4. 

At the end of May, Publishing packed up and moved into the windowless basement of Canaday Hall 

G for the summer. Leased from the Independent, the space housed Let’s Go until the second week of 

September, at which point the entire operation returned to its Thayer abode. The first new cover design 

in seven years banished the hitchhiking thumb logo from the “o,” reducing it to apostrophe status. 

Let’s Go: Europe cracked 900 pages, a pack of reindeer chased one RW up a tree, and The Unofficial 

Guide mentioned that “the wife of Harvard’s first master never served the students beef, and laced the 

pudding with goat’s dung.” 

54 


90 



FY 

AGENCIES 

Linen 

Publishing 

Catering 

Travel 

Direct Sales 


Union 


Sales Group 

AdVenture Graphics 

TITLES 














PRESIDENT 

GINA BERARDI 

OFFICES: 


On March 9, 1989, HSA formally honored Harold Rosenwald at the Hail and Farewell banquet. For 32 

years, Rosenwald was a coach, counselor, advisor, teacher, and friend to HSA and all its members. He 

drafted the original bylaws of the corporation, obtained and regularly defended HSA’s nonprofit status, 

stayed up late nights proofing for libel as Let’s Go deadlines loomed, and acted as HSA’s legal counsel in 

all matters great and small. From his seat at the right hand of the President, his soft-spoken voice often 

strained the hearing of those around him. But they listened, for the value of what they heard was great. 

Rosenwald passed away exactly one year later on March 9, 1990. With the help of a $500 donation, 

HSA created the Rosenwald Award to annually honor one manager “for outstanding ethics, business 

acumen, and concern for the corporation and its members.” 

Publishing whiled away its second summer in the 

dark confines of Canaday Hall G. Same books. 

Same covers. Different summer. 

FREE VERSE IS WORTH WHAT YOU PAY FOR IT: 

An Ode to Harold Rosenwald by Andy Tobias 

Gathered ’round the boardroom table 

Most of us were barely able 

To hear his words. (Huh? Whu’d he say?) 

But if those words were barely audible 

It gave them extra weight. 

Right there, a lesson learned and laudable. 

We craned and stretched to catch the phrases 

As now we strain to phrase the praises 

And the warmth and gratitude we feel. 

His wisdom and his dedication 

Set a tone of inspiration 

(When we could hear him. Huh? Whu’d he say?) 

All but unreal. 

For if attorneys oft are noted 

For greedy eyes or egos bloated, 

Here was one, let it be told, 

Whose quiet honor broke the mold. 

(When we could hear him. Huh? 

Whu’d he say? 

And what a memory! What affection 

He had for those ’neath his direction. 

Well, me, for one, 

Who with his earnings bought an auto 

(Not asking Harold if he ought to). 

Two decades later, he remembered 

Every aspect of that car. 

“A blue Mustang,” he smiled sweetly, 

Wishing even then 

I’d spent the money more discreetly. 

So though I may have missed 

a word or two, 

I wish that I could be right there 

with you, 

Harold, and all the folks from HSA, 

To say — real loud — 

Hip, hip, hooray! 

Ave, atque vale. 

91 



FY 

AGENCIES 

Linen 

Publishing 

Catering 

Travel 

Direct Sales 


Union 


Sales Group 


TITLES 













Let’s Go: New York City 

Let’s Go: London 


PRESIDENT 

DAVID KOPP 

After a seven-year stint as General 

Manager, Hope Spruance announced 

her resignation, effective August 1. 

During her tenure, HSA turned a 

$43,000 deficit and retained earnings 

into a $370,000 surplus while adding 

$1 million to annual gross sales. On 

June 21, HSA selected Michele Ponti 

as Spruance’s successor. 

On the agency front, AdVenture 

Graphics reverted to Text Processing. 

Sales Group ordered hundreds of 

Head of the Charles shotglasses to 

sell before realizing HSA didn’t own 

the trademark. It took two years to 

give them all away. 

OFFICES: 


The FY91 management team. 

The basement of Canaday G welcomed Publishing back for its third summer. 

The hitchhiking thumb logo, already exiled to the land of the apostrophe, now 

had to contend with the warning, “Let’s Go does not recommend hitchhiking 

as a method of travel.” The series took an urban turn on its way to 13 titles, 

adding the first city guides, Let’s Go: New York City and Let’s Go: London. 


DARREN ARONOFSKY | ’91 

JOBS AT HSA: Researcher-Writer, Let’s Go: New York City, FY91; 

Researcher-Writer, Let’s Go: California & Hawaii, FY92. 

CURRENTLY: An Oscar-nominated director and screenwriter, known for 

Pi, Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain, The Wrestler, Black Swan, Noah, 

and Mother! 

WHAT ARE SOME OF YOUR FONDEST MEMORIES OF LET’S GO? 

“The first year I did NYC, which was a blast. Just meant visiting old [haunts] where I grew up 

and doing bar crawls through the East Village. The second summer I did Southwest U.S. Vegas 

was a highlight, with fellow alums Dan Schrecker and Colson Whitehead both doing some 

ghostwriting. We used the salary for gas money.” 

WHAT ADVICE DO YOU HAVE FOR TODAY’S STUDENTS? 

“I’m a huge proponent of traveling while young. It becomes harder to travel the older you become.” 

56 


92 



FY 

PRESIDENT 

ROBERT FROST 

OFFICES: 


93 



FY 

PRESIDENT 

BRIAN GOLER 

OFFICES: 

Thayer Hall B | 1 Story St. 

AGENCIES 

Linen 

Publishing 

Catering 

Travel 

The Campus Store 


Union 


Sales Group 

Type and Graphics 

TITLES 






Let’s Go: Greece & Turkey 





Let’s Go: Spain & Portugal 




Let’s Go: Washington, D.C. 

Let’s Go: Germany, Austria 

& Switzerland 


The position of Personnel Manager 

evolved into that of Vice President, 

and Eve Reiter ’92 became the first to 

hold its title. Under the new General 

Manager, tensions unfortunately 

persisted over HSA’s professional 

vs. student leadership. The bottom 

line remained healthy, however, as 

HSA had one of the most profitable 

years in its history. The continued 

growth of Publishing led HSA to 

seek more spacious real estate and 

reexamine the nonprofit status of 

the enterprise. In November, HSA 

selected the third floor of 1 Story St. 

as its new location for expansion. In 

President Robert Frost ’92, Lisa Bolanz ’91, Tracy Pun ’93, MBA ’97, 

and Jody Dushay ’89, EdM ’91, MD ’99, MMSc ’09. 

January, the Board voted to create Let’s Go, Inc., a wholly owned, for-profit subsidiary of Harvard 

Student Agencies. Officially separated at the beginning of FY93, the new corporation initially housed 

Publishing and Sales Group. 

In the dance of agency nomenclature, Direct Sales transformed into The Campus Store, and Text 

Processing metamorphosed into Type and Graphics. Travel included its first hip, happenin’, four-page 

glossy catalog of travel goodies in Let’s Go: Europe. 

Fifteen bookteams squeezed into the basement of Canaday G for one final subterranean summer 

hurrah. Let’s Go: Washington, D.C. and Let’s Go: Germany, Austria & Switzerland joined the fray as 80 

RWs took the field in total. The New York Times proclaimed Let’s Go: Europe to be “the granddaddy of 

budget guides,” while the new, busy, but still-orange cover announced the book’s status as “The #1 

Bestselling International Guide.” The Unofficial Guide tipped the scales at 340 pages. 

AGENCIES 

Linen 

Publishing 

Catering 

Travel 



Union 


Sales Group 


TITLES 
















Let’s Go: Germany, Austria 

& Switzerland 

Let’s Go: Paris 

Let’s Go: Rome 


Due to approaching Yard renovations, HSA’s days in Thayer 

were numbered. In March, the university announced that HSA 

needed to depart its basement home by June 1993. August 

rolled around, Michele Ponti resigned from her position as 

General Manager, and HSA identified 53A Church St. as a 

prospective new location. In November, HSA hired Richard 

M. Olken ’67 to be the next General Manager. 

An Entrepreneurial Program for the generation of new 

business ideas spawned the unsuccessful Friends of Harvard 

mail-order catalog. For the first time, the presidential election 

for the following fiscal year took place before November. Travel 

acquired its first SABRE systems to become a fully functioning 

travel agency, and Type and Graphics developed a new 

division, Out-House Testing. It tested software, not toilets. 

Newly joined in wholly owned matrimony, Publishing and 

Sales Group eloped from Thayer basement to brighter offices 

at 1 Story St. in April, and Anne Chisholm was hired as the 

new office manager for Let’s Go, Inc. Due to political turmoil 

abroad, several RWs unexpectedly found themselves in Rome 

as plans for Let’s Go: Thailand were scrapped at the last minute. 

On the bright side, the city guides Let’s Go: Rome and Let’s 

Go: Paris expanded the series to 17. For the first time, the 

thumbpick logo appeared at a 45° angle on all front covers, 

turning the potentially libelous hitchhiking symbol into a 

more positive thumbs-up. Back in Cambridge, a new computer 

network bound the office together in a blissful union of email, 

the guides were first typeset in-house, and The Unofficial Guide 

first helped train RWs on a blustery, gray Saturday in April. Readership 

hit 3.5 million, and profits from royalties neared $800,000. 

Richard Olken. 

Anne Chisholm. 

58 


INTO MODERNITY 

Years of physical stability in Thayer Hall had spoiled HSA, which in FY94 again found itself 

crammed into two separate rental properties. In FY96, under the stewardship of now–Board 

member Michael Cronin, HSA kicked off a $3.5 million capital campaign to buy a place of its 

own. A gift from Robert McCoy seeded the purchase of the former Manter Hall School at 67 

Mt. Auburn St. On February 5, 1997, a gleaming, remodeled Burke-McCoy Hall was dedicated 

as HSA’s new permanent home. With four entire floors dedicated to carrying out the business 

of HSA and Let’s Go, managers and editors could stop worrying about cramped quarters and 

expiring lease agreements and could focus on maintaining and passing on their services to 

future generations of HSAers. 

1994- 

2005 

As it leapt into the 21st century, HSA developed many of the characteristics that define the 

company today. The senior executive team and Board of Directors were restructured, the role of 

the professional staff was more clearly defined, and company bylaws were adapted to modern 

needs. HSA said goodbye to several longtime agencies (Catering, Travel, and Union), but modern 

fixtures such as the Center for Enterprise and the retail storefront of HSA Cleaners seamlessly 

stepped in to take their place. Then, in FY02, HSA made a pivotal decision for the future of the 

organization: it purchased a tiny storefront at 52 JFK St. known as The Harvard Shop. 

But nothing transformed HSA as much as the technological revolution. In FY96, 

www.letsgo.com launched, followed quickly by www.hsa.net in FY97. Throughout the following 

decade, both websites were continuously improved and new services were added for customers, 

managers, editors, and anyone anywhere in the world who plugged into the information age. In 

FY01, HSA made the critical move of making all its products and services available for purchase 

online. By FY08, HSA’s business practices had gone from predominantly mail-in to over 

90% online. 

HSA hit record revenue levels in FY01 as agencies like Cleaners and Distribution hummed along 

as profitable campus staples, but no agency could compete with the explosive growth of Let’s 

Go. In FY94, Let’s Go consisted of 20 books, covered four continents, and employed just under 

100 RWs. By the time the series reached its peak in FY03, the agency produced 41 guidebooks, 

covered six continents, shipped off over 200 RWs, hired 100 office staffers, released 20 map 

guides, debuted a pilot television program, and shared its content in print, online, and on the 

Palm platform. But as the travel industry suffered in the wake of September 11 and print media 

bowed under the pressure of the World Wide Web, leaner times were on the horizon. 

60 


94 



FY 

PRESIDENT 

MARTIN ESCOBARI 

OFFICES: 

Thayer Hall B | 53A Church St. | 1 Story St. 

95 



FY 

PRESIDENT 

LUCIENNE LESTER 

OFFICES: 

53A Church St. | 1 Story St. 

AGENCIES 

Linen 

Publishing 

Catering 

Travel 



Union 


Sales Group 


TITLES 





Let’s Go: USA & Canada 




Let’s Go: Alaska & the Pacific 

Northwest 






Let’s Go: Germany & Switzerland 

Let’s Go: Austria 



Let’s Go: Ireland 

Let’s Go: Thailand 


HSA decamped to 53A Church St. 

in May. Around the corner at 1 Story 

St., Publishing and Sales Group were 

joined by Distribution and Type and 

Graphics, which introduced graduation 

announcements to the senior class. 

Anne Chisholm and Cynthia Lingley 

became Assistant General Managers, 

Catering had its inaugural summer 

barbecue season, and the Union store 

was renamed “The Crib.” 

To display its connection to the university 

and bring its mission statement to 

life in pictoral form, HSA designed a 

new shield logo in 1993. Three open books across the top spell out 

“VE RI TAS,” and three quills stand upright in the base. The first 

represents a writer’s implement and the academic pursuits of the students 

of HSA, the second symbolizes the ancient recording instrument 

of accounting and the business aspects of HSA, and the third 

denotes the goods and services provided by HSA to the university, 

the community, and the world. 


Twenty books! Let’s Go: Thailand finally became reality, Let’s 

Go: Ireland quaffed Guinness on its own, and Let’s Go: Austria 

struggled to meet its contracted length of 430 pages. (The final 

version included 108 pages of General Introduction and a 30- 

page appendix that listed a recipe for pig knuckles and how to 

say “liver dumpling broth” in German, Hungarian, and Czech.) 

53A Church St. 

Photographs graced the new neon-yellow covers, and Let’s Go provided its first scholarships to RWs 

on financial aid. No fewer than 361 students applied for the 95 RW positions; the total office staff 

numbered 44. The Unofficial Guide digitized onto CD-ROM with help from a struggling tech company 

called Apple Computer, Inc. The CD, billed as “the first electronic book produced by Harvard students,” 

included QuickTime videos and searchable content. 

AGENCIES 

Linen 

Publishing 

Catering 

Travel 



Union 


Sales Group 


Out-House Testing 

TITLES 





Let’s Go: USA & Canada 



Let’s Go: California 


Northwest 






Let’s Go: Germany 

Let’s Go: Austria & Switzerland 





Let’s Go: Eastern Europe 




Volume I, Number 1 of The Entrepreneur, 

HSA’s alum newsletter, landed 

in mailboxes around the world. Despite 

the existence — finally! — of 

natural light in the new offices, talk 

of a fundraising campaign and permanent 

home surfaced. Out-House 

Testing matured into its own agency 

and disseminated spreadsheet fun 

in a course on Excel. Distribution 

provided a coupon book to the discount-craving 

student masses. HSA 

ran the Currier House Grill and rescued 

many a resident from the agony 

of late-night hunger. 

Generations of students cried out in unison when the university announced it would gut the Freshman 

Union and turn it into the Barker Center. Long buguiled by poor fiscal health, the Union store was finally 

put out of its misery. HSA’s second-oldest agency (1958–1994) closed its doors forever on August 19. 

As Let’s Go began to look less like 

a student rag and more like a fullfledged 

publishing company — 

complete with in-house designers, 

publicists, and legal readers — 

Publishing Director Peter Keith ’94, 

JD ’99, realized his baby needed 

the resources to match. Under 

his reforms, salaries were raised, 

Associate Editors were given more 

prominent roles, and Managing 

Editors acquired specialized roles in 

fields like production and finance. 

More than 100 RWs traveled the 

world, and two employees shaved 

their heads during a summer staff 

meeting. On the shelves, Let’s Go: 

Eastern Europe joined the gang to 

make 21. The Official Harvard Student 

Agencies Bartending Course appeared 

in its second edition for the next 

wave of aspiring mixologists. 


The 1995 Let’s Go staff. 

62 


96 



FY 

PRESIDENT 

LARRY CHENG 

OFFICES: 

53A Church St. | 1 Story St. 

AGENCIES 

Linen 

Publishing 

Catering 

Travel 




Sales Group 

Harvard Graphic Design 


TITLES 










Northwest 







Let’s Go: Switzerland & Austria 




Let’s Go: Southeast Asia 


Let’s Go: Central America 


The Little Instruction Book to 

Life at Harvard 

After a disappointing springbreak 

sales season, Travel joined 

Publishing and Sales Group in Let’s 

Go, Inc. Michael Cronin agreed to 

chair the newly formed fundraising 

committee, a feasibility study was 

undertaken for the incipient $3.5 

million capital campaign, and the 

receipt of an early lead gift from 

Robert McCoy boded well for the 

project’s success. Type and Graphics 

continued its game of musical 

nameplates and became Harvard 

Graphic Design. And the whole 

posse sang karaoke on its way to 

Provincetown. 

Let’s Go continued its global expansion, adding Let’s Go: Central America, expanding Let’s Go: Thailand 

into Let’s Go: Southeast Asia, and commencing work on the two-year project of Let’s Go: India & Nepal. 

A new breed of guides also jumped aboard as Let’s Go’s first series of six Map Guides hit the streets, 

offering coverage of New York City, Boston, San Francisco, London, Paris, and Washington, DC. 

Wizened grandma Let’s Go: Europe boasted 928 pages, went for $18.99, and sold 125,000 copies. In 

total, Let’s Go sold $5 million worth of books on the year. 

A new contract with St. Martin’s Press allowed 

for in-house map revisions and publicity, leading 

to the hire of the first Cartography and Publicity 

Managers. American Express sponsored Let’s 

Go’s internet debut at www.letsgo.com. The new 

website boasted that the approximately 130 RWs 

traveled 5,557 days (or 15 years) in one summer, 

came from 13 different countries, traveled to 70 

different countries, accumulated enough frequentflier 

miles to circumnavigate the world almost four 

times, spoke a total of 24 languages, received seven 

Vice President Robert Giannino ’95, Publishing Director Sean Fitzpatrick ’95, 

and President Larry Cheng ’96. 

marriage proposals, broke only two limbs, and 

got interrogated by the Ukrainian and Egyptian 

secret police. 

Closer to home, The Unofficial Guide peaked 

at 432 pages. Working with Elizabeth “Ibby” 

Nathans, Dean of Freshmen, HSA also produced 

The Little Instruction Book to Life at Harvard, a free 

book of advice from seniors to freshmen about 

how to enjoy Harvard to its fullest. 


LARRY CHENG | ’96 

JOBS AT HSA: Manager, Linen, FY95; President, FY96. 


“When I first graduated in 1996, I worked at a growth-strategy consulting 

firm called Corporate Decisions. After a short stint there, I entered the 

venture-capital industry in 1998 by joining Bessemer Venture Partners, then Battery Ventures, 

then Fidelity Ventures, which we spun out in 2010 to become Volition Capital. All told, I have 

been in the venture-capital/growth-equity-investing world for the last 19 years. I actually first 

learned about the venture-capital industry while I was at HSA from speaking with Andrew 

Tobias and Michael Cronin.” 


“I run a technology growth-equity fund in Boston called Volition Capital. We invest in highgrowth 

principally bootstrapped software and internet companies. … My work life is a mix of 

finding new companies to invest in, working with the companies that I’ve already invested in, 

and helping to lead Volition.” 

WHAT IS YOUR FONDEST MEMORY OF HSA? 

“I greatly appreciate the relationships that started during my HSA years that continue until this 

day. I am still good friends with many of the HSA team members I worked with, including the 

HSA Linen manager who I succeeded. HSA Board members continue to be significant mentors 

in my life on both personal and professional fronts. … You could say my HSA memories are 

still being made.” 

The 1996 Let’s Go staff. 

HOW HAS YOUR HSA CAREER HELPED YOU IN YOUR PROFESSIONAL CAREER? 

“You can study business and finance out of a textbook, but none of it is real until you run a 

business. You feel a financial statement differently when you’ve actually owned every number 

on a P/L by running an agency. You feel strategies differently when you’ve had the experience 

of actually trying to implement some of your own in an actual business. You think about 

products differently when you’ve actually had to sell some to real customers. I’ve often said that 

I majored in HSA during my time at Harvard — it was easily the best education I got during 

my college years.” 

The first Let’s Go website. 

64 


97 



FY 

PRESIDENT 

MATTHEW HEID 

OFFICES: 

53A Church St. | 1 Story St. | 67 Mt. Auburn St. 

AGENCIES 

Linen 

Let’s Go Publications 

Catering 

Let’s Go Travel 




Let’s Go Ad Sales 



TITLES 









Let’s Go: Alaska & the Pacific Northwest 







Let’s Go: Switzerland & Austria 







Let’s Go: India & Nepal 

Let’s Go: Ecuador & the 

Galapagos Islands 


In HSA’s last year at 53A Church St. and 1 Story St., 

planning and renovations for Burke-McCoy Hall 

(see p. 104–105) consumed extraordinary amounts 

of time. The capital campaign proceeded apace, 

sponsoring alum breakfasts, lunches, open houses, 

and a marathon daytrip to New York City in the fall. 

In December, Distribution ran its entire operation 

out of two drawers in a filing cabinet, Let’s Go 

squeezed into the Vice President’s office for a few 

weeks, and HSA finally moved to 67 Mt. Auburn St. 

On January 2, HSA drew the eyeballs of students 

circumnavigating the Holyoke Center by opening a 

retail space at 17 Holyoke St., which housed Linen, 

The Campus Store, and Let’s Go Travel. HSA also 

gained a new address in cyberspace with the launch 

of its very first website. With Out-House Testing’s 

new web-design service, other companies too could 

enjoy the tacky goodness of Web 1.0. President 

Matthew Heid ’96-’97 and Sarah Cannizzo ’98 

compiled the company’s chaotic mass of archives 

into a 50-volume corporate library for posterity — 

a.k.a. you. 

Vice President Adam Rymer ’97, Publishing Director 

Michelle Sullivan ’96, MBA ’03, and Matt Heid. 

Past Presidents and General Managers reunite 

at Hail and Farewell on February 7, 1996. 

The now-three agencies of Let’s Go, Inc., rebranded accordingly 

to Let’s Go Publications, Let’s Go Ad Sales, and Let’s Go Travel. 

On its way to 24 guides, Let’s Go completed Let’s Go: lndia & Nepal 

and tackled South America for the first time, introducing Let’s Go: 

Ecuador & the Galapagos Islands. Visitors to Chicago, Los Angeles, 

Rome, Madrid, New Orleans, and Berlin rejoiced as the next 

installment of Map Guides hit the streets; to handle the load, Map 

Editors hung their hats for the first time. Let’s Go contracted with 

CNN to be the basis for the eight kickoff segments of its “Travel 

Guide” series. RWs gave miniature tours of four cities to CNN 

cameras and filled the clips with signature Let’s Go tips and wisdom. 


NICHOLAS STOLLER | ’98 

JOBS AT HSA: Researcher-Writer, Let’s Go: France, FY97; Researcher-Editor, 

Let’s Go: London, FY98. 

CAN YOU SUMMARIZE YOUR CAREER FOR US? 

“After college, I spent a year doing advertising in New York City. Then I 

moved out to LA — I had always wanted to write for TV, to write and direct movies. I got a 

job on Undeclared, a show that Judd Apatow produced. That led to my screenwriting career 

[which included The Muppets and Captain Underpants], and I ended up directing my first 

movie, Forgetting Sarah Marshall. That led to my directing career doing various movies [such as 

Neighbors and Storks]. I’m currently doing a Netflix show (which I created with my wife), Friends 

from College. I directed all eight episodes in the first season, and we’re currently working on the 

second season.” 

WHAT WAS THE BEST PART ABOUT WORKING FOR LET’S GO? 

“The book was a thing I had used when I traveled… I knew what it was long before I went to 

Harvard, thought it was a cool idea. The summer in London was, in a way, more fun because 

I was with a friend of mine [co-Researcher-Editor David Eilenberg ’97, now President of ITV 

Entertainment], friends would come and stay with us, so it was more social. But France was 

more memorable because I was alone. You really get lost in a country when you’re alone. ...It 

was the ultimate expression of freedom. I learned a lot about the parts of France where people 

don’t go. To be forced to go somewhere people don’t go — at first I was dreading it, but it was 

a great time.” 

WHAT DID YOU LEARN FROM LET’S GO? 

“It made me comfortable being by myself. … This was before being able to text or call people 

with your cell phone, so I was quite isolated. It made me feel very self-sufficient. It helped the 

clarity of my writing; when writing a travel guide, you have to be succinct and clear.” 

The first 

HSA website. 


“It’s very cliché, but I would say do what you love. I found that most people I know, if you just 

work hard at what you want to do, you’ll achieve a version of success that will make you happy, 

even if it’s not what you originally set out to do.” 

66 


98 



FY 

PRESIDENT 

AMIT TIWARI 

OFFICES: 

67 Mt. Auburn St. | 17 Holyoke St. 

99 



FY 

PRESIDENT 

CATHERINE TURCO 

OFFICES: 


AGENCIES 

Linen 


Catering 

Travel 






Computer Services 

The Unofficial Guide 

TITLES 










Northwest 















Let’s Go: Ecuador & the Galapagos 

Islands 

Let’s Go: Australia 

Let’s Go: New Zealand 


The flag of HSA waved gallantly above 

the entrance to Burke-McCoy Hall. The 

Unofficial Guide, Let’s Go Ad Sales, 

Out-House Testing, and Distribution 

inhabited the basement; the second 

floor housed most of the professional 

staff, the President, the Vice President, 

Harvard Graphic Design, HSR, and 

Catering. Let’s Go Publications resided 

on the top two floors. 

The Unofficial Guide departed from Let’s Go to become its own agency, replete with sales force and manager. 

After the 571st toilet joke, Out-House Testing flushed its old name and became Computer Services. The 

Harvard Bartending Course cost $130, Karen Lau ’98 served ably as Vice President, the 40th-anniversary 

history book was written, and the HSA softball team achieved a record number of wins. 

Let’s Go: Australia and Let’s Go: New Zealand put 

another continent in the bag. Two new Map Guides, 

to Amsterdam and Florence, joined the party. It was 

also the 1998 versions that officially dropped “The 

Budget Guide to” from all their titles. 


AGENCIES 

Linen 


Catering 

Travel 







Unofficial Publications 

Center for Enterprise 

TITLES 







Let’s Go: Turkey 




Northwest 















Let’s Go: Ecuador & the 

Galapagos Islands 



Let’s Go: South Africa 


The Unofficial Guide to Life After 

Harvard 

Changes were afoot at HSA! Richard 

Olken left after six years of service, 

and longtime Board member Blair 

Brown ’62, MArch ’67, who since 

the early ’90s had hosted a summer 

retreat for managers at his seaside 

home, graciously stepped in as 

interim General Manager. Student 

and professional Board members 

worked together to alter the corporate 

governing structure of the Board and 

senior executive levels. Their reforms 

added the position of Chairman 

of the Board, formal reporting 

structures, and annual reviews for 

the professional staff. The Center for 

Enterprise emerged as its own agency and began the Business Leadership Program, a one-week training 

program taught by Harvard Business School professors and sponsored by Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, 

Trilogy, and Fidelity. Over 100 eager students were accepted into the program and were provided with 

a three-ring binder full of case studies, Harvard Business Review articles, study questions, company 

literature, and letter-size nametags designed to facilitate the dreaded cold-calling practices of Harvard 

Business School professors. 

After a seven-year marriage, Let’s Go: 

Greece & Turkey divorced into two separate 

guides. Let’s Go continued its continenthopping 

with the addition of Let’s Go: South 

Africa to the ranks, which now numbered 

28. Closer to home, Map Guides to Seattle 

and Prague became available. For the first 

time, RWs lugged around laptops to log 

their discoveries. 

President Catherine Turco ’99, MBA ’03, AM ’09, PhD ’11, Harvard President 

Neil Rudenstine, PhD ’64, and Vice President Jon Sakoda ’99. 

The 1999 Let’s Go Managing Editor team. 

On March 20, 1998, Let’s Go was also absolved from a libel suit filed in 1990 by Itzik Shaari, the owner 

of an Israeli hostel. That year, Let’s Go: Israel & Egypt had warned readers away from his hostel because 

Shaari had been charged with sexual harassment. 

Upon dismissing the litigation, the Massachusetts 

Supreme Judicial Court called the Let’s Go team 

“the modern equivalents of Thomas Paine or John 

Peter Zenger.” It was a victory for Let’s Go’s core 

tenet of honesty. 

68 


00 



FY 

PRESIDENT 

NOBLE HANSEN 

OFFICES: 


01 



FY 

PRESIDENT 

ANDREW MURPHY 

OFFICES: 


AGENCIES 

HSA Cleaners 


Catering 

Travel 









HSA Rentals 

TITLES 








Let’s Go: Israel 

Let’s Go: Middle East 



Northwest 















Let’s Go: Peru & Ecuador 




Let’s Go: China 




The Unofficial Guide to Life 

After Harvard 

HSA closed out the millennium 

in style. Summer rentals of 

microfridges, TVs, and fans were 

strong enough to merit the status 

of an independent agency as 

HSA Rentals spun off from The 

Campus Store. The jobs of the ageold 

Catering agency, supplying 

barbecues and wedding receptions 

since FY62, were subsumed into 

HSR, where Manager of the Year 

Brian Joseph ’01 effectively managed 

a burgeoning bartending business 

while blocking and tackling the 

less exciting basics like collecting 

receivables (finally taking creditcard 

numbers from customers!). HSA also bid bon 

voyage to Travel, 40 years after it first took flight 

as Europe by Air. On the bright side, Distribution 

was restored to its status as a cash cow after 

several subpar years. 

In March, HSA welcomed Bob Rombauer as its 

new General Manager. Rombauer came to HSA 

with 25 years of professional experience in the 

biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and investment 

industries. 

Let’s Go celebrated its 40th anniversary with classic new covers, and the thumbpick was finally 

reawarded a place of prominence. Let’s Go: Israel & Egypt was partitioned into Let’s Go: Israel and Let’s 

Go: Middle East. The company’s sole South American guide hiked the Andes to become Let’s Go: Peru 

& Ecuador, and Let’s Go’s first venture into China guided travelers on a journey from the Forbidden 

City to the Tibetan frontier. Hong Kong and Sydney became the latest cities to fall to Map Guide 

domination. 

Back home in the cozy comfort of Burke-McCoy 

Hall, the first Editor-in-Chief, Ben Harder ’99, 

managed affairs inside the books and inside the 

office, while Publishing Director Ben Wilkinson 

’98 continued to work with the outside world, 

including contract-renewal negotiations with St. 

Martin’s. Ad sales were strong, thanks to a great 

team and a bubbly economy (yes, Let’s Go had 

dot-com advertisers!). And the company saw 

an unprecedented spike in the number of Editor 

applicants — 102, up from 45 the previous year. 


President Noble Hansen ’00 and Vice President Tricia Wencelblat ’00. 

AGENCIES 

HSA Cleaners 










HSA Rentals 

TITLES 












Northwest 















Let’s Go: Peru, Bolivia & Ecuador 





Let’s Go: Boston 

Let’s Go: San Francisco 

Let’s Go: Western Europe 


Entering FY01, prospective customers 

surfing the internet still had to 

pick up a phone or visit in person 

to do business with HSA. That all 

changed when Vice President Brian 

Joseph spearheaded the effort to 

allow customers to access HSA’s 

products and services online. By 

midway through the year, savvy 

parents were already logging on 

and ordering laundry services for 

their helpless progeny from their 

desktops. In a cruel twist of irony, 

the Computer Services agency shut 

down around the same time. 

By at least one measure, FY01 was the 

most successful year in HSA history: 

the organization generated a record 

net income and grossed $5.4 million 

in revenue, an unadjusted sum not 

reached before or since. Michael 

Cronin successfully closed the $3.5 

million capital campaign that he 

had started five years earlier, and, 

together, the Board and members of 

the corporation worked to rewrite 

the corporate bylaws, providing a 

structure for HSA that was more 

consistent with its modern needs. 

FY01 student Board members. 

Bob Rombauer. 

Bob Rombauer, legal counsel George Christodoulo 

’71, MBA ’75, JD ’75 (a Board member since FY79), 

and Publishing Director Kaya Stone ’00 signed 

a new five-year publishing agreement with St. 

Martin’s Press that also returned ownership of 

multimedia rights to Let’s Go. Editor-in-Chief 

Kate McCarthy ’00 led the redesign of Let’s Go’s 

now-seven city guides, which featured a Let’s Go 

novelty: photographs. The team continued to bend 

the internet to its mighty will as guidebook content 

was posted on the web for the first time. 

The 2001 series brought RWs from both coasts 

closer to home with the first editions of Let’s Go: Boston and Let’s Go: San Francisco. As Let’s Go: Europe 

broke 1,000 pages, Peru & Ecuador expanded to include Bolivia. Let’s Go: Western Europe was added 

to its Eastern European counterpart, rounding out the number of fully updated titles to 33. The Map 

Guides added their last siblings, Dublin and Venice. 

70 


72 

02 



FY 

AGENCIES 

HSA Cleaners 








HSA Rentals 

The Harvard Shop 

TITLES 


























Let’s Go: Peru, Ecuador & Bolivia 








Let’s Go: Amsterdam 

Let’s Go: Barcelona 

Let’s Go: Egypt 

Let’s Go: Southwest USA 

Adventure Guide 


The Technology Management 

Program was attempted as a 

new beta-testing agency, and 

the Center for Enterprise trained 

aspiring entrepreneurs in the first 

Entrepreneur Bootcamp, held in 

March. Toward the end of the 

summer, HSA’s web presence went 

gangbusters with the online version of 

The Unofficial Guide, a new recruiting 

website, and an online voting forum 

for student Board elections. 

PRESIDENT 

CINDY RODRIGUEZ 

OFFICES: 

67 Mt. Auburn St. | 17 Holyoke St. | 52 JFK St. 

When Board member Paul Corcoran ’54 announced his retirement in 2001, an uncertain fate awaited 

his labor of love, a retail fixture of the old Harvard Sq.: The Harvard Shop (THS). Upon hearing that 

the store was available for sale, Vice President Brian Clay ’02, MBA ’06, immediately went after it, 

seeing it as a golden opportunity for both HSA’s mission statement and bottom line. Clay worked with 

Michael Cronin on the valuation of the business and George Christodoulo on the legal logistics of an 

acquisition. Ever the gentleman, Corcoran recused himself from Board discussions and eventually 

resigned to avoid any potential conflict of interest. Clay crafted a five-year business plan for THS, 

focusing on modernizing the storefront, business practices, and launching an e-commerce presence. 

The deal finally closed at the end of the summer, and The Harvard Shop officially became HSA’s 

newest agency, replacing The Campus Store. Students were hired to staff the storefront, and inventory 

and sales records were moved to Excel instead of paper. The store at 52 JFK St. mostly remained the 

same, but the groundwork was laid for future bounty. 

The spring of 2001 brought the first Let’s Go roadtrip, driven by three alums 

who toured eastern colleges for two months giving away free Let’s Go guides 

and information. Part of a cross-promotion with Student Universe, the 

roadtrip spread the gospel of Let’s Go with the help of a rented RV named 

“Big Daddy.” Come summer, nearly 200 RWs wandered the globe from Alaska 

to Zimbabwe, some of whom were accompanied by a student film crew that 

produced a Let’s Go TV pilot. New guides included Let’s Go: Amsterdam, Let’s 

Go: Barcelona, and Let’s Go: Egypt, while Let’s Go: Southwest USA became the 

first in a new outdoor adventure series. The nine city 

guides, “pocket-sized and feature-packed,” became 

available on Palm PDAs for the high-tech budget 

traveler. The summer ended on a strong note with a 

deal with Student Universe to revamp the Let’s Go website. 

The 2002 series was dedicated to the memory of RW Haley Surti ’01, who died 

in a bus crash just as she was beginning her route in Peru. The tragedy shook 

the Let’s Go staff to the core and inspired tightened safety precautions such 

as the “no night transportation” rule. 


THE LEGEND OF THE HARVARD SHOP 

The Harvard Shop had a storied legacy in Harvard Sq. well before HSA acquired it in 2001. Paul Corcoran, 

then a member of the HSA Board of Directors, had run the storefront at 52 JFK St. since 1983. Two of 

Corcoran’s classmates, Robert Weiss ’54 and George Abrams ’54, JD ’57, had the idea to sell Harvard 

merchandise and reached out to their retail-savvy friend to ask him if he wanted to run the store. It was 

like asking a mouse if he wanted to run a cheese shop. On its first day open to the public, The Harvard 

Shop brought in $67. By the time Corcoran sold it to HSA, it was making over $600,000 per year. 

With decades of experience in retail and a reputation as “the mayor 

of Harvard Sq.,” Corcoran was able to leverage his connections 

with manufacturers and Harvard administrators in order to grow 

the business. The product lines and revenue grew quickly, as sales 

increased by nearly 20% each month until a small recession hit in 

1989. Partnerships formed with executive-education programs at the 

Kennedy School of Government and the Graduate School of Education, 

which once yielded over $10,000 in two hours when groups from the 

two schools happened to drop in at the same time. Corcoran also 

launched the traditional T-shirt giveaway for incoming freshmen in 

order to introduce undergraduates to the store. 

Requests for custom apparel from within the administration soon 

came pouring in. The athletic department and varsity coaches 

commissioned pewter mugs and team jackets. Dean of Harvard 

College Harry Lewis ’68, AM ’73, PhD ’74, even charged Corcoran 

with creating and sending Harvard gift boxes to important alums and 

friends, including Bill Gates’s first child, Whoopi Goldberg, and Martha 

Stewart. Seeking additional ways to expand, THS opened up a location in Copley Sq. in 1986 as well as 

pushcarts in Boston Common and Salem. Eventually, the new locations closed down, and only 52 JFK 

St. remained. 

Around the turn of the millennium, Corcoran decided it was time for him to step away from the business. 

One deal to sell The Harvard Shop was lined up and nearly closed, but it fell through at the last minute. 

After casually mentioning this to a fellow HSA Board member, Corcoran was soon approached by HSA 

about the possibility of buying the shop. After negotiation and planning, HSA purchased The Harvard 

Shop in the summer of 2001. 

When Corcoran sold THS to HSA, he had two main stipulations: that The Harvard Shop keep its name 

and that HSA retain Doris Jones, who had been an assistant to Corcoran for 21 years and handled 

much of the shop’s accounting. Relocated from the back room of 52 JFK St. to Burke-McCoy Hall, Jones 

brought invaluable experience to HSA, as the new student leadership struggled to understand the 

complicated processes of inventory accounting. Many THS managers have claimed that their antics 

have nearly forced Jones into retirement, but, despite a brief retirement stint, she remains a beloved 

fixture at HSA. Known as the “Accounting Detective,” Jones is famous (or infamous) for her willingness 

to track down any outstanding payments and untangle any financial knot that the managers may or may 

not have created. 


74 

03 



FY 

AGENCIES 

HSA Cleaners 








HSA Rentals 


TITLES 


























Let’s Go: Peru, Ecuador & Bolivia 










Let’s Go: Egypt 

Let’s Go: Southwest USA Adventure Guide 

Let’s Go: Hawaii 

Let’s Go: Chile 

Let’s Go: Costa Rica 



The Guide to Getting In 

PRESIDENT 

BRADLEY OLSON 

OFFICES: 


Unofficial Publications branched 

out with a new book, The Guide to 

Getting In, which St. Martin’s Press 

released nationally to strong sales 

on August 2, 2002. HSR collaborated 

with Unofficial Publications to 

launch a college-admissions course 

to accompany the book. The office 

of the Vice President moved to 17 

Holyoke St., where Rosa Wu ’03 

reigned over the newly renovated 

storefront. Students, alums, staff, 

and friends celebrated HSA’s 45th 

anniversary in October with a 

President Bradley Olson ’03, MBA ’08, and Vice President Rosa Wu. 

tailgate luncheon followed by the 

Harvard-Northeastern football game. By the time Hail and Farewell rolled around, HSA had paid out 

over $2.7 million in student wages, tops in company history. 

In The Harvard Shop’s first full year as an HSA subsidiary, the corporation attempted to bring it into 

the 20th century, let alone the 21st. Inventory was now tracked with Retail Pro software (rather than 

Paul Corcoran’s unfailing memory), checkout procedures were done with a computer and barcode 

scanner (rather than a 1960s cash register), and an e-commerce presence was launched. Corcoran and 

Doris Jones trained the agency’s first student managers, and Jones stayed on at 52 JFK St. to handle the 

bookkeeping. Despite Jones’s “justifiable daily urge to throttle” the two managers, THS posted record 

sales in FY03, a 15% increase over the previous year. 

A wave of backlash against Let’s Go’s success crashed ashore. As critics griped and competitor guides 

began to eat into sales figures, St. Martin’s began to sour on the Let’s Go brand and prescribed a 

massive series relaunch. The books’ tone, format, and covers were revamped in an attempt to 

broaden their consumer base. It marked the birth of series mainstays like Price Diversity, features, 

and the Alternatives to Tourism chapter, offering conscientious travelers ways to study, work, and 

volunteer abroad. Devastatingly, however, the sleek black covers replaced the classic thumbpick with 

a nondescript textual logo. 

The reinvented series debuted 

in November 2002 and included 

four new titles: Let’s Go: Hawaii, 

Let’s Go: Chile, Let’s Go: Costa 

Rica, and Let’s Go: Thailand. 

Let’s Go now sat at a high-water 

mark of 41 guides and more 

than 200 RWs. One hundred 

office staffers crammed the 

basement, third floor, and 

fourth floor of Burke-McCoy 

Hall to the gills. Uncle! 


ADAM GRANT | ’03 

JOBS AT HSA: Senior Advertising Associate, Let’s Go Ad Sales, FY01; Director 

of Advertising Sales, Let’s Go Ad Sales, FY02; Marketing and Publicity 

Manager, Let’s Go Publications, FY03; Clerk, HSA/Let’s Go Board of Directors, 

FY02 – FY03. 

JOBS SINCE HSA: Received his PhD and MS in Organizational Psychology from the University of 

Michigan in 2006; spent two years at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as Assistant 

Professor of Organizational Behavior; moved to the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School in 

2009, first as Associate Professor of Management, now as Professor of Management and Psychology, 

focusing on helping businesspeople find motivation and meaning; became the youngest tenured 

professor in Wharton history at age 28; contributing op-ed writer for the New York Times; author 

of three New York Times bestsellers, Give and Take, Originals, and Option B with Sheryl Sandberg. 

HOW HAS LET’S GO INFLUENCED YOUR CAREER? 

“I have fond memories of my days at Let’s Go, which continue to play an important role in 

shaping my research and teaching. … Looking back [at my undergraduate thesis, which used 

Let’s Go as a case study of what aspects of a company lead to fulfilled and efficient workers], 

one of the punch lines is that Let’s Go would benefit from doing more to connect editors and 

AEs to the travelers who benefit from their work. As it happens, this discovery has been the 

inspiration behind much of my research.” 


ABHISHEK GUPTA | ’04 

JOBS AT HSA: Assistant Manager, Harvard Distribution Services, FY02; 

Manager, Unofficial Publications, FY03; President, FY04. 


“HSA encouraged me to continue pursuing roles that pushed me outside 

my comfort zone. After college, I joined the mergers and acquisitions group at Blackstone for 

two years, which was a great introduction to the business world. I then worked in Boston and 

India for Bain Capital focusing on large-cap buyouts. I made my way back to the States for 

my MBA, which I did at Stanford. After business school, I ran a home healthcare company for 

three years. After selling it, I was tapped to lead the global strategy and planning team at Uber, 

supporting the company as it grew from 3,000 to 16,000 employees.” 

HOW HAVE THE LESSONS YOU LEARNED AT HSA HELPED YOU IN YOUR CAREER? 

“HSA was a valuable laboratory for taking risks — and it showed me it was OK to swing for the 

fences. HSA Storage, for example, didn’t take off, but we received lots of positive feedback and 

we learned a ton, which positioned us better for our next venture. At Uber, I’m always thinking 

through what bets we’re going to make in given year. The confidence to push forward on some of 

those bets came from HSA. Second, learning how to give feedback to your peers… it’s an important 

skill and tool that I’ve carried with me throughout my career. If you can figure out how to give 

tough, critical feedback to your classmate, you’ll have no problem doing it in a work setting.” 


“Don’t miss this opportunity to push yourself to try new things. HSA provides an incredible safety 

net, so take advantage of it while you’re there. Many of us had a fear of failure when I was there, 

but the mistakes or setbacks you face at HSA will pay dividends down the road — I promise.” 


04 



FY 

AGENCIES 

HSA Cleaners 








HSA Rentals 


HSA Storage 

TITLES 








Let’s Go: Alaska Adventure Guide 

Let’s Go: Pacific Northwest 



















Let’s Go: Southwest USA 



Let’s Go: Brazil 

Let’s Go: Japan 

Let’s Go: Puerto Rico 


The Unofficial Guide to Prefrosh 

Weekend 

The new HSA Storage agency 

assisted Harvard students with their 

futons and boxes during the frenzied 

move-out period. Although Harvard 

Graphic Design met an abstract 

end, HSA Water gushed forth from 

HSA Rentals. HSR franchised the 

Bartending Course and laid the 

groundwork for a college-prep course. 

PRESIDENT 

ABHISHEK GUPTA 

OFFICES: 


The FY04 management team at Blair Brown Day, the annual 

summer retreat at Board member Blair Brown’s South Coast home. 

In what would undoubtedly be the 

highlight of his business career, 

Manager of the Year Matthew 

Salzberg ’05, MBA ’10, customized 

HSA Cleaners’s offerings for 

student groups and athletic teams. 

Distribution started a new carepackage 

service, and Unofficial Publications added the prefrosh guide. The Center for Enterprise held 

the Expansion Contest, an early incubator for new ideas for HSA agencies. With Chief Financial Officer 

Lorraine Facella at the helm of the business office, outstanding accounts receivable reached a record low. 

After having modernized The Harvard Shop’s business practices the year prior, HSA turned its attention 

toward modernizing its product offerings. Additions included shotglasses, American Apparel items, 

more fitted styles, and cheer shorts with “Harvard” lettered across the derrière — though the last of 

these was quickly nixed by the Harvard Trademark Office. THS Custom Orders began to grow and 

was established as a formal revenue stream rather than just a side business, expanding its offerings 

and reaching out to more Harvard-affiliated groups. Plans were also laid to begin selling Balfour class 

rings as a part of the One Ring Program, modeled after MIT. THS discussed coordinating ring sales 

with the Coop, but HSA’s legal team eventually advised against it to avoid price-fixing allegations 

down the road. 

With resources spread wafer-thin and Burke- 

McCoy Hall bursting at the seams, it was obvious 

to even the most ambitious student traveloguer 

that Let’s Go was overextended. Caught between 

quantity and quality, Let’s Go made the obvious 

choice. For the first time in the modern era, the 

2004 series rotated out some titles to make room 

for others. Let’s Go conquered Brazil and Japan for 

the first time and added more domestic titles with 

Let’s Go: Puerto Rico, the meiosis of Let’s Go: Alaska 

& the Pacific Northwest, and the conception of a 

new guide to roadtripping across America. Let’s 

Go Ad Sales expanded to online advertising, and 

online content hit the internet in force, revitalizing 

the Let’s Go website. Back on Mt. Auburn St., a century-old pipe burst in May, causing recurrent 

flooding and mold contamination that sealed off the basement until mid-August. Six bookteams and 

18 staffers were forced to seek refuge upstairs, bringing the staff closer together than ever and making 

for a high-energy, fun-filled year. 


IRIN CARMON | ’05 

JOBS AT HSA: Associate Editor, Let’s Go: Italy and Let’s Go: Spain & Portugal, 

FY03; Researcher-Writer, Let’s Go: Amsterdam, FY04. 

JOBS SINCE HSA: Started her career as a freelance writer, including on travel, 

for outlets such as the Boston Globe and Village Voice; got a “Devil Wears 

Prada–esque job” as a media reporter for Women’s Wear Daily (2006–2009); narrowed her focus 

to gender politics, feminism, and the law as a reporter at Jezebel (2009–2011), Salon (2011–2013), 

and MSNBC (2013–2016); author of the acclaimed book Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth 

Bader Ginsburg, which has sold more than 200,000 copies. 

WHAT ARE YOU UP TO THESE DAYS? 

“I’m a contributing writer at the Washington Post Outlook section. I’m also working on my 

second book…tackling head on what men’s role in gender equality should be.” 

WHAT’S THE FUNNIEST STORY FROM YOUR TIME AT LET’S GO? 

“As a Let’s Go researcher, Lonely Planet is always the elephant in the room; everyone you meet 

says, ‘Oh, is it like Lonely Planet?’ By chance, I met the Lonely Planet RW at a hostel in Groningen. 

He told me he just couch-surfed and pocketed his stipend money — he was basically scamming 

the readers. I was like, are you kidding me? The whole point is you stayed in the places you 

reviewed! But few people know what it’s like to do this kind of job, so I gave him my number 

and agreed to get a drink with him and my roommates back in Amsterdam. But a day or two 

later, he called and asked, ‘Can I crash on your couch?’” 

WHAT LESSONS DID YOU LEARN AT LET’S GO THAT YOU’VE CARRIED WITH YOU IN YOUR CAREER? 

“As an editor, it was incredible to figure out what it means to create a book… You think of a 

book as a magical thing that just appears, but we were involved in every part of the process. 

That was exhilarating. It was the first time I saw my name in a book. 

“I’m known among my friends as obsessed with itineraries and travel logistics, so [Let’s Go] 

was a training ground [for that]. There’s a hubris that goes into thinking, as an 18- or 19-yearold, 

you can just show up in a country and tell people what they should do there, but at the 

same time it fosters a fearlessness and an adaptability that is a quality I hope has served me 

well as a journalist. You research the hell out of it and show up and hope for the best.” 


“Be humble; be curious; listen more than you talk. Take very good notes, and learn as many 

languages as you can.” 

76 


78 

05 



FY 

AGENCIES 

HSA Cleaners 







HSA Rentals 


HSA Storage 

TITLES 








Let’s Go: Pacific Northwest 












Let’s Go: Peru 

Let’s Go: Ecuador 


Let’s Go: New Zealand Adventure Guide 




Let’s Go: Chile 



Let’s Go: Vietnam 

Let’s Go: Roadtripping USA 



Weekend 

The Harvard Guide to Summer 

Opportunities 

The Unofficial Guide to Life in Cambridge 

PRESIDENT 

RYAN GERAGHTY 

OFFICES: 


Ladies and gentlemen, FY05 proudly 

presents… HSA’s new and improved 

website! Director of E-Services 

Kristopher Tillery ’06 modernized 

the company’s web presence and 

marketing materials with a beautiful 

redesign, replete with even more 

online services and opportunities 

for e-commerce. HSA Rentals and 

HSA Cleaners moved to a singletouch 

digital ordering system that 

was light-years ahead of even most 

major retailers. The overflowing 

filing cabinets and carbon-copy 

Members of the Board of Directors at Brad Howe’s farewell dinner. 

lease agreements for purchasing 

laundry plans and microfridges were 

replaced with new online services and personalized accounts. 

On April 30, 2004, HSA honored Brad Howe at a farewell dinner. Beginning in 1959, Howe served 

HSA for 45 years in the roles of student manager, General Manager, member of the Board of Directors, 

mentor, and friend. In other exciting agency news, the Harvard Bartending Course explained the 

difference between cabernet and pinot grigio in its new Introduction to Wine Tasting course that 

offered a sampling of over 30 vintages, Unofficial Publications expanded The Unofficial Guide to Tufts 

and MIT and published the first Harvard Guide to Summer Opportunities, and Cleaners carried out 

a suggestion from its quality survey by offering mesh bags for socks and delicates to squelch the 

epidemic of lost unmentionables. 

For the first time, The Harvard Shop broke half a million dollars in revenue thanks to strong sales of its 

stuffed animals, caps, and other sundry new products. One major source of success was the 300% yearover-year 

growth of Custom Orders. THS began the quest for one student-sponsored ring design to rule 

them all with the launch of the One Ring Program in conjunction with the Undergraduate Council. 

After a two-year researching and editing effort, 

Let’s Go: Roadtripping USA hit the shelves. Let’s 

Go: Vietnam was also new to the 2005 series, and 

Peru, Ecuador & Bolivia was divvied up into Let’s 

Go: Peru and Let’s Go: Ecuador. To promote and 

support the Alternatives to Tourism sections of 

the guides, www.beyondtourism.com went live. 

The good: Let’s Go moved out of the basement of 

Burke-McCoy Hall and began working exclusively 

on the sunnier third and fourth floors. The bad: 

this meant another wave of classic Let’s Go titles 

were discontinued, including the handy-dandy 

Map Guides. The ugly: just as HSA did when it expanded too rapidly in the late 1960s, Let’s Go was 

now losing money after an era of huge gains. It was a double whammy: in the wake of September 11, 

people weren’t traveling as much as they used to, and when they did, they were using the internet, not 

travel guides, to plan their trips. Despite 24 years of partnership, St. Martin’s Press — grappling with 

the web-related decline of its own industry — appeared to throw in the towel when it amended the 

publishing agreement to restrict the title line and cut the Let’s Go staff. 


MATT SALZBERG | ’05, MBA ’10 

JOBS AT HSA: Assistant Manager, Harvard Distribution Services, FY03; 

Manager, HSA Cleaners, FY04; Student Board Member, HSA/Let’s Go 

Board of Directors, FY04 – FY05. 

CURRENTLY: CEO of Blue Apron, a $2 billion company that sends meal kits and 

recipes to subscribers, which he founded in 2012. 

WHAT SKILLS DID YOU LEARN AT HSA THAT HAVE HELPED YOU IN YOUR PROFESSIONAL CAREER? 

“HSA taught me about managing a P/L and team, the importance of customer service, and how 

to juggle competing priorities to get things done with limited time — all things very useful in 

my job today.” 


“Try to figure out what your vision for your life is early, so you can focus on getting to where 

you want to go.” 


RECESSION AND REVIVAL 

A perfect storm hit HSA during the late 2000s that posed the company’s biggest challenge since 

the 1970s. The struggles of the publishing industry hit Let’s Go hard, depriving HSA of what had 

for decades been its most reliable moneymaker. Let’s Go switched publishers from St. Martin’s 

Press to Avalon Travel and, in FY14, returned to self-publishing for the first time since the 

1960s. To adapt to this brave new world, Let’s Go reemphasized its student pedigree, developed 

e-books and special-edition PDFs, and branched out into social media and the blogosphere, but a 

dwindling title line kept it from being the jobs and revenue engine it once was. 

2006- 

2017 

The Great Recession was the second shoe to drop. Just when HSA could least afford them, 

financial losses began piling up, forcing the organization to reevaluate and reinvent. From FY07 

to FY11, agencies cut costs, and the number of employees fell to its lowest level in decades. But 

the trying times were also an opportunity to get creative and test new initiatives. Cutting-edge 

agencies, like Mt. Auburn Productions and an outlet for web and app developers, were added to 

the stable thanks to the Harvard College Innovation Challenge (better known as i3); others, like 

HSA Dorm Essentials and the agencies formerly known as HSR, reshuffled into more efficient 

versions of their former selves. Under a new corporate structure, Managing Directors oversaw 

multiple agencies at once, lessening the burden on both senior management and the agency 

managers. 

Throughout this dark period, General Manager Jim McKellar was a shining light, brainstorming 

new business ideas for HSA while preserving its essential agencies and character, placing a 

premium on institutional memory and student-alum connections. In the early 2010s, a new 

HSA Alumni association was founded to bring HSA closer in touch with its impressive history. 

Alums now regularly return to HSA to teach seminars in business education and host student 

managers at their companies for brief summer apprenticeships in their chosen fields. 

HSA Cleaners (whose revenue increased every year from FY11 through FY17) and HSA 

Tutoring (which, by FY17, was 20 times larger than it was in FY11) both came into their 

own during the 2010s, but the most important development of this period was The Harvard 

Shop becoming a force to be reckoned with. Its FY09 expansion to a second storefront in 

the Holyoke Center opened up an endless frontier of possibilities for the flourishing agency. 

Each new year brought a new sales record, from $1 million in FY11 to $3 million in FY16. In 

FY14, a spacious third location opened next door to Burke-McCoy Hall, and in FY17 a new store 

in The Garage replaced the Holyoke Center location. 

Fifty years after its students first went door to door selling Harvard paraphernalia, HSA had 

again found stability and success in the retail racket. As a result, by FY12, HSA had regained its 

financial footing and emerged from the recession stronger than ever. The organization posted 

sizable profits with regularity as it zoomed through the 2010s, once again cresting $5 million in 

gross revenues in FY17. 

80 


06 



FY 

PRESIDENT 

CALEB MERKL 

OFFICES: 


07 



FY 

PRESIDENT 

BRIAN FEINSTEIN 

OFFICES: 


AGENCIES 

HSA Cleaners 







HSA Rentals 


HSA Storage 

HSA Translation 

TITLES 


Let’s Go: Britain 















Bartending 101: The Basics of 

Mixology 


Weekend 


Opportunities 

The Unofficial Guide to Life in Boston 

Wow! Talk about a whirlwind, roller-coaster year. HSA said goodbye to Anne Chisholm, who ended 

her 12-year reign as Assistant General Manager in September. Vice President Nahu Ghebremichael ’06 

headed up a massive project at Cleaners by completely revamping the freshman linen program. The 

old system of outsourcing for a percentage was dropped, and the entire program was brought in house. 

Rentals pioneered a successful grocery-delivery service that brought snacks in bulk to students’ doors 

— only to see its manager and three other students abruptly quit to start a direct competitor. When 

DormAid announced plans to provide laundry- and grocery-delivery services to the same Boston-area 

colleges HSA was planning to expand to, HSA accused the mutinous cabal of breach of contract. 

Simultaneously one of the most exciting and most devastating ventures, HSA’s planned mega-concert 

fell just short of realization. The Board’s approval of $200,000 in funding along with the college’s and 

the Harvard Concert Commission’s cooperation made the idea of a concert at Harvard Stadium seem 

like a possibility. Interest on the part of the preferred performer, the Dave Matthews Band, made the 

project seem even more promising. However, in one quick and painful blow, the effort collapsed: an offer 

popped up in a competing time frame from the difficult-to-top venue of Fenway Park. 

Still, all was not lost for FY06 and bold entrepreneurial projects. Unofficial Publications expanded the 

successful Guide to Summer Opportunities to other New England schools. The Harvard Fun Czar also 

approached HSA about initatives to make Harvard fun again; displaying the keen business acumen typical 

of HSAers, someone suggested alcohol may be a winning solution. HSA thenceforth hosted a series of 

“Pub Nights” in Loker Commons, drawing up to 1,000 revelers per weekend with bunches of kegs, a DJ, 

and endless amounts of Noch’s pizza. After several weeks of successful events, the college agreed that 

alcohol was in fact the solution and plopped down the funds to renovate Loker into a permanent pub. 

The Harvard Shop. 

At THS, the One Ring Program gained momentum 

and saw student interest in rings double from FY05. 

Major changes were made to the stock system, as 

inventory moved to the basement of Burke-McCoy 

Hall to allow for greater storage and fewer stock 

outages in the store. Product offerings included the 

ever-popular Vineyard Vines Harvard tie for the 

first time. 

After only three years of the rebooted Let’s Go, St. Martin’s opted to pull the plug and rebrand Let’s Go 

once again. The covers donned a more youthful, artsy-craftsy collage motif, and the series stabilized to a 

manageable number of guides. A new business model called for only 24 of the most profitable 

guides to be updated going forward — six annually, nine in even years, and nine in odd years. 

RWs avoided unfamiliar territory as Let’s Go did not introduce any new titles for the first time 

in several years. Instead, the company made progress on a new and up-and-coming front. 

Let’s Go unveiled an improved website, complete with RW blogs and forums for travelers 

to connect. One blog, for example, answered the all-important question, “Why you should 

always stop to talk to Czechoslovakian ex-pats permanently residing in Australia but currently 

planning to spend the night curled up on a patch of dirt near a 13th century cathedral.” Perhaps 

most impressively, the staff survived a stampede for Harry Potter at the Harvard Book Store 

and a temperamental server that crashed midway through the summer. 

AGENCIES 

HSA Cleaners 







HSA Rentals 


TITLES 














Let’s Go: Vietnam 




Weekend 


Opportunities 

After years of prosperity from thriving Let’s 

Go sales, HSA found itself in leaner times. In 

what was dubbed a rebuilding year, nearly 

every agency cut unnecessary expenses 

and sought new sources of revenue. HSR 

dished up a new summer course for eager 

high-school students: the first SAT SOS 

Course. Undergrads could be seen sporting 

backpacks with the bright Leadership in Law 

Conference logo, a recurring new sibling to 

the Center for Enterprise’s flagship Business 

Leadership Program. Not content with drycleaning 

and laundry, Cleaners gave seniors 

a cheap alternative to the Coop’s monopoly 

The FY07 management team at Blair Brown Day. 

over cap and gown rentals. The agency also 

swallowed up HSA Storage, which caused some heartburn: the outside company HSA contracted with, 

Collegeboxes, lost some student items and didn’t deliver others on time, sparking a rash of complaints. 

A tech team led by IT Director Patrick Carroll ’08 worked furiously to keep HSA on the cutting edge. 

In just a single year, they revamped The Harvard Shop’s website, brought The Unofficial Guide online, 

and upgraded the IT infrastructure in Lorraine Facella’s well-oiled back-office machine. Despite the 

Cleaners and Rentals storefront’s resemblance to a warehouse, Carroll’s striking new HSA website 

helped push Harvard Summer School sales to record highs. 

By the end of the year, the FY07 team had brought HSA closer to breaking even. With Bob Rombauer’s 

tenure approaching its end, the Board of Directors began its search for a new General Manager and 

introduced a Long-Range Planning Committee to sniff out ways for HSA to return to its days of 

heady profits. 

The Harvard Shop continued its steady growth. Classrooms from Pound Hall to Longwood echoed from 

the sound of metal tapping on tables, thanks to the expansion of class rings to Harvard’s many graduate 

schools. Sales from the One Ring Program hit 500, a significant milestone in only the third year of the 

program. THS struck partnerships with the Square’s omnipresent tour buses, convincing some to pull 

over directly in front of 52 JFK St. in exchange for a tidy commission. Still, one of the greatest successes 

on the year was convincing Doris Jones not to quit despite the team’s endless pranks on her. 

Let’s Go sales continued to decline, spurring St. Martin’s Press to remarket the redone 

guides. However, its mostly ineffective strategies just further soured the relationship 

between Let’s Go and its publisher. On the road, the 71 RWs kept on trucking, producing 

15 more guides to everywhere from Australia to Vietnam. 

82 


08 



FY 

AGENCIES 

HSA Cleaners 







HSA Rentals 


TITLES 


















Weekend 


Opportunities 

PRESIDENT 

WILLIAM HAUSER 

Both the good and the bad came with FY08. The 

beloved Bob Rombauer departed after more 

than eight years of mentorship as General 

Manager, but Jim McKellar began his tenure 

in July. McKellar was the hiring committee’s 

unanimous choice out of over 100 applicants. 

In October, HSA turned 50 years old with a 

celebration attended by alums from across 

the country. The dinner was highlighted by 

a keynote speech from Thomas Stemberg ’71, 

MBA ’73, and capped by a tribute to Michael 

Cronin with the rechristening of the Cronin 

Center for Enterprise (CCFE). 

Facing serious budgetary pressures, HSA 

continued to experiment with new ways to 

generate revenue. Distribution had a banner 

year thanks to several new businesses like 

the shuttle-advertising service. HSR reintroduced 

HSA Translation, the Wine 

Course, and Graphic Design. Cleaners saw 

record profits as Collegeboxes atoned for its 

sins of the previous year by serving 600 happy 

packrats. 

The tradition of catering to the Harvard 

Summer School began in earnest, as Rentals, 

Cleaners, and The Harvard Shop set up shop 

in the Yard on move-in day. The Center for 

Enterprise debuted a condensed version of its 

Business Leadership Program for summerschool 

students, and the SAT SOS Course 

OFFICES: 


Vice President AJ Tennant ’08 at one of the weekly barbecues. 

No managers were harmed in the taking of this photograph. 

Members of the FY08 management team at the 

winter ski retreat in Maine. 

surpassed its budgeted annual revenue in June alone. On one particularly sweltering day, Rentals got 

a call from the dean requesting to rent 800 fans for $15,000; despite possessing a grand total of zero 

fans, HSA took the order and cobbled together the inventory from stores around Boston. 

HSA also laid the foundation for several future new agencies by co-founding the Harvard College 

Innovation Challenge. Better known as i3, this incubator for student startups lassoed budding 

entrepreneurs on campus with the promise of prize money and the support to make their business 

idea a reality — in other words, HSA. Under the feet of noshing freshmen, HSA hired, trained, and 

completed payroll for the first staffers of the Cambridge Queen’s Head pub; unfortunately, a licensing 

issue kept HSA from any long-term involvement with the sudsy social space. Finally, HSA hit upon a 

recurring moneymaker by partnering with the College Events Board to provide shuttles to New Haven 

for the Harvard-Yale Game. Amid a flurry of school spirit (and extensive marketing), HSA sold out all 

32 shuttles. 

The Harvard Shop continued to modernize practices in the storefront and expand the product line. With 

an aggressive Google AdWords campaign and the improvements made to the website the previous fall, 

online sales more than tripled, representing 15% of THS business. The success almost caught the shop 

flat-footed — initially, operations struggled to keep up with demand — but by the end of the year no 

fewer than five associates were specifically designated to fill online orders. Novelty shirts, notebooks, 

backpacks, and keychains were among the new products introduced — low-cost, high-margin items 

all. Despite multiple sewage leaks in its basement stockroom during the fall semester, revenue hit a 

new record high, and the agency shattered its budgeted net income by more than $40,000. 

On May 4, Rombauer received the long-awaited call from St. Martin’s Press 

informing him that Let’s Go’s publishing agreement would not be renewed 

past 2009. The Board’s new Let’s Go Strategy Committee worked all summer 

to chart a course for Let’s Go’s uncertain future. 

With the search for a new publisher underway, Let’s Go staffers worked to 

update 15 guides for the 2008 series, and Let’s Go experimented with more 

direct control over The Unofficial Guide. At the end of the summer, four staffers 

hit the road again to promote Let’s Go, this time at Midwestern universities. 


SILVIA KILLINGSWORTH | ’07 

JOBS AT HSA: Associate Editor, Let’s Go: Spain & Portugal and Let’s Go: 

Mexico, FY06; Editorial Managing Editor, Let’s Go Publications, FY07; 

Editor-in-Chief, Let’s Go Publications, FY08. 

WHAT IS YOUR FONDEST MEMORY OF LET’S GO? 

“I loved reading my RWs’ wonderfully entertaining marginalia, and sharing little gems with 

the other editors. That was the LG special sauce — that smart, irreverent copy that kept you 

company.” 


“I’ve worked at two Condé Nast magazines — Portfolio for one year and The New Yorker for 

seven [including three as Managing Editor] — before moving on to the world of independent 

web publishing. I now run The Awl and The Hairpin.” 

HOW HAVE THE LESSONS YOU LEARNED AT LET’S GO HELPED YOU IN YOUR CAREER? 

“I would say the two most major things I’ve held onto from my Let’s Go days are the importance 

of a calendar and the value of a voice. When it comes to publishing, deadlines and plans are as 

crucial as lively, readable, crystal-clear copy.” 


“You absolutely must do what you love, and, in order to know what that is, you must listen to 

yourself. I never learned I could feel excited to go to a job and look forward to it every day until 

my first summer at Let’s Go, and I have never looked back.” 

84 


09 



FY 

PRESIDENT 

TIMOTHY CREAMER 

OFFICES: 

67 Mt. Auburn St. | 17 Holyoke St. | 52 JFK St. | Holyoke Center Arcade 

10 



FY 

PRESIDENT 

DANIEL LEE 

OFFICES: 


AGENCIES 

HSA Cleaners 





HSA Publications 

Cronin Center for Enterprise 


HSA Dorm Store 

TITLES 















Let’s Go: Buenos Aires 



Weekend 


Opportunities 

The Unofficial Guide to Life 

in Cambridge 


To close the budget gap, President Timothy 

Creamer ’09, MBA ’14, aimed to increase 

HSA’s visibility and improve its sagging 

on-campus reputation. Removing the 

beleaguered microfridge-rental program 

and replacing it with a new product line 

better targeted toward student needs — 

futons, coffee tables, minifridges — HSA 

Rentals regenerated into HSA Dorm Store. 

Vice President Pavlo Kononenko ’09, 

MBA ’13, destroyed a microfridge with a 

baseball bat on YouTube to advertise the 

change. The makeover continued with the 

refurbishment of 17 Holyoke St., where 

HSAers and Let’s Goers at the farewell dinner for 

retiring Board member Blair Brown. 

Cleaners also plotted its conquest of Harvard’s graduate schools. Meanwhile, the CCFE’s first careersin-tech 

conference drew 30 participants. The renamed HSA Publications expanded its reach across the 

river, adapting The Unofficial Guide to Life at Harvard to suit other Boston-area schools. The Unofficial 

Guide also provided inspiration to i3 winner Rover, a mobile app to deliver searchable and GPS-enhanced 

Unofficial Guide content. While these initiatives (and the new Harvard Shop, below) worked PR wonders, 

the financial crisis that struck in the fall sent HSA reeling. 

Under Manager of the Year Daniel Lee ’10, The Harvard Shop got both a new look and a new store. 

The THS logo and branding got a significant makeover, producing the ivy-draped THS emblem 

emblazoned upon storefronts today. But the most pivotal moment of FY09 came with the decision to 

open a second location of The Harvard Shop in the Holyoke Center Arcade. After a radical renovation 

of the space, the store opened for business in July. Though it was the smallest location THS has had, 

it would soon become the highest-grossing one thanks to its strategic placement next to the Harvard 

Information Center. Its instant success pushed The Harvard Shop to a record year: revenues increased 

by 30%, the student staff doubled, and net profits skyrocketed by more than 400%. Overall, THS grew 

faster than any other agency — cementing its central role at HSA. 

After a 28-year relationship, the 2009 series marked the last Let’s Go books published by St. Martin’s 

Press. Like anyone coming off a breakup, Let’s Go experimented. While pulling off the usual nearmiracle 

of updating 14 old guides, the team also wrote the first brand-new title in four years: Let’s 

Go: Buenos Aires. A coven of magical wizards named Lukáš Toth ’09 and C. Alexander 

Tremblay ’10 slew the demon of Adobe FrameMaker, converted the whole series to 

InDesign, and created a new computer program, RIVER, customized to export Let’s Go 

content from its new storage “ocean” in the cloud. Loaded with videos of Europe from 

Let’s Go’s first dedicated video RW, a sparkling new www.letsgo.com went live in May. 

New website, new program, new book — all that was left was a new publisher. Let’s Go 

spent the year exploring and negotiating potential deals. The distribution of a detailed 

publishing proposal in February yielded two interested publishers by the end of the 

summer — one for print rights and one for digital rights. By January, Let’s Go had signed 

two new publishing agreements: one with Avalon Travel to continue printing the books, 

the other with Travel Ad Network (TAN) to manage the website. 

AGENCIES 

HSA Cleaners 







HSA Dorm Store 

Rover 

TITLES 


Let’s Go: Great Britain 

















Let’s Go: Buenos Aires 

Let’s Go: Berlin, Prague & Budapest 

Let’s Go: Costa Rica, Nicaragua 

& Panama 

Let’s Go: Florence 

Let’s Go: Guatemala & Belize 

Let’s Go: London, Oxford, Cambridge 

& Edinburgh 

Let’s Go: Yucatán Peninsula 



Weekend 


Opportunities 


The Unofficial Guide to Life at 

Boston University 

If the late 2000s were one long night, 

FY10 was its darkest hour. The Great 

Recession forced many alreadystrained 

agencies to immediately 

contract — or else go under. Senior 

management went through every 

line of the HSA budget, from 

building contracts to phone lines, 

with a fine-toothed comb. The CCFE 

was among the hardest hit, unable 

to rustle up its usual sponsorship 

contributions from the floundering 

finance industry. (In 2007, Lehman 

Brothers was one of the biggest A day at the beach at the Maine home of Vice President Heather Furman ’11. 

sponsors of the Business Leadership 

Program; not so much in 2009.) HSA Publications and Distribution also struggled as penny-pinching 

clients turned away from print advertising. 

Despite strong term-time laundry plans, HSA Cleaners was hit hard by Harvard’s decision to cut the 

number of summer sessions from two to one, slashing the number of customers for lucrative laundry 

and linen services. On the bright side, the agency gained a new website and, after ill-fatedly bringing 

the freshman-linen program in house the previous year, found a new outsourcing partner that agreed 

to buy up the existing inventory. After pursuing ventures that ultimately proved unfruitful, HSR 

focused on rebuilding its websites and reining in costs. Overall, though, HSA’s cost-cutting could not 

keep up with the plummet in revenue, and the corporation suffered its steepest net losses of the era. To 

add insult to injury, HSA’s websites all mysteriously went down in March, forcing HSA’s tech wizards 

to overhaul the entire back-end architecture. 

There were a few bright spots. Dorm Store squeezed out some extra revenue with Round 2 of the 

Harvard-Yale shuttles and by absorbing Cheapside Foodery to create HSA Market Day, a service 

to deliver preordered food and snacks in bulk to Harvard houses. Distribution signed a deal to 

deliver the Harvard Crimson, and 

Her Campus, an online magazine 

targeted at female college students, 

won the i3 and took up residence 

on the fourth floor of Burke-McCoy 

Hall, newly dubbed the Innovation 

Space; although it didn’t become an 

HSA agency, it remains a thriving 

business today. Another i3 winner 

took flight as Rover made its App 

Store debut with full Unofficial Guide 

content for the iPhone and iPod. Its 

sights set on future development 

projects, Rover officially gained 

agency status this year. 

Furman and managers Austin Chu ’10 and Priya Karve ’12 assist 

excited prefrosh at HSA’s prefrosh-weekend open house. 

86 


FY 

10 CONTINUED 

11 



FY 

PRESIDENT 

MEAGAN HILL 

OFFICES: 


By far the biggest success of the year came from The Harvard Shop, which launched several partnerships 

that would form the bedrock of the agency’s success for years to come. Chief among these was a 

partnership with Unofficial Tours, which agreed to drop tourists off at the shop at the end of its popular 

“Hahvahd” tour — a blockbuster deal that attracted tens of thousands of new customers per year. THS 

also reestablished an existing relationship with the Harvard Kennedy School while launching a new 

one with the Graduate School of Education, for which The Harvard Shop became the official vendor. 

Sure, there were setbacks — the website crash was particularly dire for THS web sales — but nothing 

could stop the THS juggernaut; Lukáš Toth cast his reparo spell and built a new site from the ground 

up in just a few days. Add it all up, and THS officially became HSA’s largest agency in FY10. (Oh, and 

a full year of revenue from the Holyoke Center location certainly didn’t hurt.) 

The 2010 series marked the 

beginning of a new era at Let’s Go. 

In tandem with Avalon and TAN, 

Let’s Go rebranded itself — this 

time voluntarily — as “the student 

travel guide” for the first time since 

the 1970s. After a 41-year hiatus, 

the hot-air balloon soared once 

again to the top of the new, redaccented 

vintage covers. Thanks to 

the new publishers and the magical 

conjurings of Alex Tremblay, full 

book content hit www.letsgo.com 

for the first time ever in June, joining Oliver Koppell speaks at Let’s Go’s 50th-anniversarycelebration in January 2010. 

RW blogs, videos, and a regular 

e-newsletter. Another new partnership, with outside ad-sales agency Edman & Company, spelled the 

end of Let’s Go Ad Sales after several years of bleeding advertisers and money. 

Bittersweetly, a more efficient business model allowed Let’s Go to up its book output 

while also downsizing its office staff, which welcomed the new positions of Directors, 

Research Managers, and Staff Writers (via Let’s Go’s first comp process!) to the fold. 

As a result, the 29 employees and 37 RWs now frolicked exclusively on the third floor. 

A flurry of book-making churned out 25 guides, the most since 2005, including six new 

titles (although an epidemic of swine flu nixed the proposed Let’s Go: Baja California). 

The Unofficial Guide, now once again firmly in Let’s Go’s editorial clutches, was also 

reformatted to resemble a Let’s Go city guide and expanded to Boston University. 

AGENCIES 

HSA Cleaners 







Rover 

HSA Talent 

TITLES 


Let’s Go: Great Britain 








Let’s Go: Berlin, Prague & Budapest 

Let’s Go: London, Oxford, Cambridge 

& Edinburgh 

Let’s Go: Amsterdam & Brussels 

Let’s Go: European Riviera 

Let’s Go: Istanbul, Athens & the Greek 

Islands 

Let’s Go: Madrid & Barcelona 

Let’s Go: Rome, Venice & Florence 



Weekend 

The Unofficial Guide to Student Life 

in Boston 

The Unofficial Guide to Summer at 


The Unofficial Guide for Parents 

Inside Harvard 

In the grip of the recession, HSA aimed simply to 

break even. A push to banish inefficiencies helped 

to hold down net losses, but revenues ($2.8 million) 

and the number of student employees (371) hit their 

lowest levels in decades. The Board of Directors 

dove into the effort to secure HSA’s future with 

five strategic-planning committees that encouraged 

continuity in a time of tumult. 

The agency laboratory popped and sizzled as HSA’s 

chemists of commerce raced to discover a winning 

formula. A two-month internal innovation challenge 

was conducted to identify the best new agency ideas 

from the current managers. HSA showered more 

attention on the impish tykes of Harvard Summer 

School with an expanded Summer Leadership 

Program and their own Unofficial Guide. Rover had to 

hire seven new developers to handle an outpouring 

of outside projects: three apps for Moon travel guides 

and 10 for Rick Steves. HSR added private tutoring to 

its stable of temp jobs to complement the SAT SOS 

Course. HSA Cleaners expanded to Tufts, Boston 

Manager Ethan Waxman ’12 heads up the 

HSA Cleaners tent at freshman move-in. 

College, and Boston University under the name Campus Cleaners. A literal talent agency (yet another 

i3 winner) was formed to promote those Harvard musicians shrewd enough to retain HSA’s services. 

HSA Market Day was upsized but quickly discontinued, plagued by a number of problems, including 

a U-Haul accident. And the most dramatic change was the elimination of HSA Dorm Store, which 

had been marred by inefficient inventory practices and difficult delivery logistics. The agency’s more 

profitable sectors, such as box sales and water coolers, were incorporated into Cleaners, while HSA 

struck a new outside partnership with Student Logistic Services to take over the furniture racket. 

Finally, a rebranding initiative literally made HSA the company we recognize today. HSA worked 

with graphic designers to create fresh new agency and corporate logos, and a new style guide and 

design templates ensured that HSA’s diverse projects would always be unified by a common look. 

Before long, the 17 Holyoke St. storefront and the HSA website were both redesigned in quintessential 

HSA style. 

88 


FY 

11 CONTINUED 

12 



FY 

PRESIDENT 

ETHAN WAXMAN 

OFFICES: 


In The Harvard Shop’s first full 

year of partnership with Unofficial 

Tours, the arrangement brought 

almost 19,000 tourists into the 

stores. The number of managers 

doubled to handle the floods of 

traffic. The team began designing 

their own products, working closely 

with Quality Graphics, and storing 

some of those products off-site. The 

commencement, summer-school, 

and move-in tents logged record 

revenues thanks to an inventory 

tracker developed by Rover. What 

a 12 months it was — the first year 

that the store broke the $1 million 

revenue marker. 

Assistant Manager Colleen Glenn ’11 and Manager Elizabeth Shuman ’12 

tent for The Harvard Shop at prefrosh weekend. 

Don’t judge a book by its cover; judge it by its content architecture. The insides of Let’s Go were 

completely reinvented, with a more modern graphic design, more user-friendly listings, a more 

intuitive organization, and — praise Hermes — photos. The squad also threw the previous manuscripts 

out the window and wrote every word from scratch to maximize wit and irreverence. Despite initial 

staffing hurdles, 23 office staffers and 30 RWs eventually stitched together 16 books, including five 

new titles, between sloshball games and psychotic hostel guests. Campus cartographers wept as Let’s 

Go shipped its map-making services out of house, but the 2011 tomes were the first to be published as 

e-books under a new deal signed with Avalon specifically for the creation, promotion, and distribution 

of e-books. Using Let’s Go editing prowess, HSA also published Inside Harvard, the Crimson Key 

Society’s Harvard history book, which was a smash hit at college events and bookstores around 

the Square. 

AGENCIES 

HSA Cleaners 


Harvard Distribution 



Rover 

HSA Talent 

HSA Marketing 

HSA Dorm Essentials 

HSA Bar Services 

HSA Tutoring 


HSA.tv 

HSA Video 

TITLES 



Let’s Go: Europe Top 10 Cities 

Let’s Go: Budget London 

Let’s Go: Budget Paris 

Let’s Go: Budget Berlin 

Let’s Go: Budget Prague 

Let’s Go: Budget Rome 

Let’s Go: Budget Florence 

Let’s Go: Budget Madrid 

Let’s Go: Budget Barcelona 

Let’s Go: Budget Istanbul 

Let’s Go: Budget Amsterdam 

Let’s Go: Budget Athens 

Best of the Unofficial Guide to Life at 



Weekend 


Opportunities 

Best of the Unofficial Guide to Student 

Life in Boston 

Unofficial Guide to Summer at Harvard 

After years of cuts, expenses were as low 

as they could go, and still the company had 

not turned a profit in recent years. It was 

time to focus on growing revenue. Two ideas 

from FY11’s internal innovation challenge 

moved ahead. President Ethan Waxman 

worked for six months to bring a late-night 

food truck to campus, but after granting 

preliminary approval, the university got 

cold feet. (Two years later, Harvard finally 

invited food trucks to vend in Science Center 

Plaza — without HSA’s involvement. They 

proved wildly popular.) HSA also gained 

a marketing-consulting agency as HSA 

Publications (whose ad-sales-based business 

The HSA Marketing account managers. 

model, it had become apparent, was a relic 

of a bygone era) metamorphosed into HSA Marketing. The agency partnered with Distribution to 

help outside businesses craft holistic packages to best reach Harvard students. The Marketing crew 

dished out the rebranded Best of the Unofficial Guide to Harvard and seven other colleges, redesigned 

its other publications, and won the office award for “Most Patriotic Team” for their all-American 

summer barbecues. 

The trend of modernizing agencies caught on. HSR formally split into three different agencies: HSA 

Bar Services, HSA Tutoring, and HSA Translation. (Profitable temp services such as research and 

serving were folded into Bar Services.) As a result, managers no longer divided their attention between 

the various components of HSR, and the sovereign agencies were free to focus on their own growth. 

The split was instantly successful, especially for the Tutoring agency, the fastest-growing segment of 

the company. Originally just a small slice of HSR, a newly unencumbered Tutoring added courses to 

fill every weekend, began private subject-test tutoring, and quintupled its revenue to $100,000. Rover 

also grew rapidly, branching out from iPhone apps to become a full-service development agency for 

iOS, Android, and the web. HSA Dorm Store rose from the dead as HSA Dorm Essentials, reanimated 

by a new pact that allowed HSA to resume selling dorm furniture but delegated inventory and delivery 

to Student Logistic Services. 

Two entirely new agencies also had their premieres. After a two-year effort, HSA.tv finally brought 

cable TV to Harvard dorms thanks to technology developed by Tivli, a startup founded by two recent 

grads that was now incubating on the fourth floor. The online streaming service took its first paid 

customers in the fall, but Tivli soon became Philo and packed up for more silicon-colored pastures. The 

i3 gave HSA Video its big break, and HSA’s 14th agency began offering video services to local clients. 

Three Hasty Pudding actors crooned, “if you liked it, then you should have put a [One Ring] on it,” in 

one of their first projects, a THS promotional video that went viral across campus. 

The early 2010s were not a pretty time for HSA’s online presence. Its websites had been moved to 

different platforms for three consecutive years, and the company was losing revenue from recurrent 

crashes, the result of its patchwork of websites across four platforms. At last, HSA said enough was 

enough and migrated its more than 10 sites to one third-party gateway without interruption. 

90 


FY 

12 CONTINUED 

13 



FY 

PRESIDENT 

KIRK BENSON 

OFFICES: 


92 

Waxman, Vice President Libby Shuman, and 

Publishing Director Joseph Molimock ’11. 

FY12 also introduced a new position to 

HSA: the Managing Director. Instead of the 

President and Vice President supervising every 

agency themselves, managers now reported 

to a handful of “super-managers” who each 

oversaw their own cluster of agencies, such as 

Cleaners and Dorm Essentials, Marketing and 

Distribution, and the ex-HSR agencies. 

The result of all these changes? Revenue leapt 

forward by more than $1 million over FY11. 

Incredibly, the company had made a profit 

— and a sizable one at that. After years of 

losses, HSA was back in the black. 

Lauren Xie ’13, Gorick Ng ’14, 

Andre Gonzalez ’14, and Ali Evans ’13. 

Doris Jones and seven former THS managers. 

After three years of breakneck growth, The 

Harvard Shop had outgrown the management 

size and structure of a traditional agency. This 

year, THS nearly doubled its corps of managers 

to seven and got its own Managing Director to 

oversee them. After years of volatility, the THS 

website was finally endowed with a clean user 

interface and smoother functionality. A new 

five-year agreement with Trademark Tours 

(formerly Unofficial Tours) was negotiated, 

and the shop broke $1.5 million in sales for 

the first time, turning its highest profit to date. 

The influx of cash funded a much-needed 

facelift of 52 JFK St. The original Harvard 

The renovated Harvard Shop at 52 JFK St. 

Shop closed for a full month in December and 

emerged almost unrecognizable, with new flooring, lighting, signage, and colors. A decadent bash at 

Weld Boathouse toasted both Doris Jones’s retirement and the 10th anniversary of THS joining HSA. 

Let’s Go did something it hadn’t accomplished in years — it came in under budget! 

Seventeen RWs shot reinvigorated copy back to 18 staffers at LGHQ, who assembled it 

into 14 books. Eleven were part of the new line of budget guides — pocket-sized, more 

colorful, and devoted to individual cities. The web also got its own dedicated team of 

RWs who traversed the U.S. and Canada in search of the hottest blog content and the 

most awkwardly hilarious videos. With help from Rover, Let’s Go dipped its toe into the 

world of mobile in the fall with five free city-guide apps for the iPhone or iPod Touch. 

AGENCIES 

HSA Cleaners 

Let’s Go 




Rover 

HSA Talent 

HSA Marketing 


Harvard Bartending Course 

HSA Tutoring 


HSA Video 

HSA Temp Agency 

HSA Design 

TITLES 





Let’s Go: London, Oxford & Cambridge 

Let’s Go: Rome, Venice & Florence 

Let’s Go: Paris, Amsterdam 

& Brussels 

Unofficial Guide to Life at Harvard 

Unofficial Guide to Visitas 


Opportunities 

Unofficial Guide to Student Life 

in Boston 


The Unofficial Parents’ Guide 

to Visitas 


As snow fell on the first days of FY13, HSA 

staffed an ice rink in Science Center Plaza, 

renting skates, selling hot chocolate, and 

hosting events. Rover’s first comp attracted 

60 CS students; they hired “only” 14. The 

weather warmed, spring sprung, and a 

once-again blossoming HSA set out to 

rebuild a company that had suffered years 

of cutbacks. Seventy-seven more students 

were hired than the previous year, for a total 

of almost 500. The reorganization of HSR 

was refined with the return of HSA Temp 

Agency, which buoyed a waterlogged HSA 

Translation. After a successful pilot program in FY12, Cleaners began offering all its customers the 

option to have their laundry delivered right to their door for a nominal fee. By the end of the year, over 

half of laundry-plan-holders were taking advantage of the new delivery service. 

An internal need for a designer revived the long-dormant idea for a design agency. HSA Design shared 

Harvard students’ mad Adobe skills with outside clients for the first time since FY04. Rover released 

new Unofficial Guide apps and reworked the Unofficial Guide website. A new comp process for vetting 

prospective managers attracted scads of wannabe HSAers and kept the outgoing team engaged. After 

years of discussion, five alums finally wrote bylaws and partnered with the Harvard Alumni Association 

to found HSA Alumni, a formal organization of HSA alums. Nine alums were elected to the inaugural 

Graduate Board, and a productive strategy session for Let’s Go revealed the awesome potential of the 

alum network. HSA continues to actively reach out to alums; hopefully they don’t mind. 

A timeless emblem of school tradition, the H sweater returned to THS and quickly became a THS 

signature product. The team also launched the branded Vineyard Vines clothing line, added student 

models to the website (creating quite the buzz on Facebook), and grew THS Custom Orders by over 

30%. Rover refined the THS website to feature all-new product pages and custom sites that made it 

easier than ever for student groups to order custom apparel. 

It was the final year of Let’s Go’s partnerships with Avalon and Travora (formerly TAN). A year-long 

collaboration with Rover yielded 25 free “Explore” iOS apps, which teased fans with walking tours 

of individual cities. Soon, the Explore apps expanded to Android and Nook, but the crème de la crème 

of the app line was the official Let’s Go iOS app, through which globetrotters could 

purchase full guides and interact with them on their phones. Nook users got in on the 

fun with 15 city-specific apps that also featured full book content. Rover followed that 

up with an overhaul of the Let’s Go website, which gained a fresh look, more intuitive 

navigation, and Facebook integration. Visitors to the new site also found PDF copies of 

the print guidebooks on sale for the first time. 

It was a digital-heavy year for Let’s Go as the print series slimmed down to a trim seven 

titles. Only eight RWs ventured forth from Cambridge, but the Let’s Go gospel was still 

spread thanks to the campus teams initiative. Recruits from colleges around Boston and 

the Northeast set up their own local Let’s Go fan clubs whose members got famous 

blogging on www.letsgo.com. 


14 



FY 

AGENCIES 

HSA Cleaners 

Let’s Go 




Rover 

HSA Talent 

HSA Marketing 



HSA Tutoring 


HSA Video 


HSA Design 

TITLES 


Let’s Go: Budget London 

Let’s Go: Budget Paris 

Unofficial Guide to Life at Harvard 



Opportunities 

Unofficial Guide to Student Life 

in Boston 



to Visitas 

PRESIDENT 

PATRICK COATS 

OFFICES: 

67 Mt. Auburn St. | 17 Holyoke St. | 52 JFK St. | 

Holyoke Center Arcade | 65 Mt. Auburn St. 

HSA continued to hum along, 

posting its third straight profit 

and putting the dark days of the 

recession farther in the rearview 

mirror. Revenues once again topped 

$4 million, and the ranks of student 

employees swelled again, to nearly 

600. Success never tasted so good: 

HSA brought liquid-nitrogen ice 

cream to crowds and rave reviews on 

Science Center Plaza. The Harvard 

Bartending Course celebrated its 

50th anniversary with cake and (real!) booze at the Cambridge Queen’s Head, the course’s current 

classroom; the alums who made it back also participated in HSA Alumni’s first alum weekend, 

which included panel discussions and a reception with students. Marketing hosted an advance 

premiere of season three of Game of Thrones, which ended much better for HSA than it did for the 

Starks. HSA Cleaners augmented its delivery offerings to include a full pickup and delivery service; 

thankfully, Cleaners was able to handle the resultant huge spike in demand with a workforce now 100 

students strong. 

It was a decisive year for HSA’s youngest agencies. HSA Talent took its final bow and exited stage left, 

where HSA Temp Agency managed its lingering gigs for one more year. HSA Design hitched up with 

Marketing; their shotgun marriage lasted two more trips around the sun. Rover buckled under the 

weight of costly preexisting contracts and stopped pursuing outside clients. Reduced to an internal 

web and mobile development role, the agency went into hibernation at the end of the year. The winner 

in this game of Survivor: HSA was HSA Video, which had grown from two friends with a camera to 

dozens of student employees. This year alone, they added a live-event service for recording lectures 

and performances, signed a contract with Pfizer, and produced some LOL-worthy Housing Day videos. 

Past and present Harvard Shop honchos at the opening of the new store. 

Rose Wang ’13, Ryley Reynolds ’15, Meagan Hill ’11, MBA ’16, and Caroline Davis ’14. 

The irrepressible Harvard Shop conquered its third domain. On September 

5, the new location opened in a spacious storefront at 65 Mt. Auburn St. 

— right next to Burke-McCoy Hall. The store was designed to evoke an 

idyllic Harvard dorm (the kind no one actually has) and inched the stores 

closer to those ever-so-valuable tour buses. Additionally, THS changed 

its inventory-accounting and sales system to a cloud-based point-of-sale 

system called Vend, making operations more efficient and accurate. 

All the changes paid off, as THS broke $2 million in revenue for the first 

time. With record holiday sales, online revenue grew year over year by 

more than 40%. The Harvard Shop’s own distinct Board of Directors 

became active and welcomed its first unique member. 

With the expiration of its contracts with Avalon and Travora, Let’s Go began FY14 with no guaranteed 

revenue. For the first time since FY 1970, Let’s Go self-published its print guides, and the title line 

consequently shrank to three, including two budget guides and good ol’ Let’s Go: Europe. 

With the support of the Office of Career Services, 

Let’s Go got creative and used funding from 

the David Rockefeller International Experience 

grants to help send its 10 RWs abroad. As the 

office staff shrank to the size of a single pod, 

HSA reintegrated the traditionally separate 

company both physically and operationally into 

the rest of the corporation. Most strikingly, Let’s 

Go’s traditional September-to-September hiring 

schedule was shifted to coincide with HSA’s fiscal 

years, and Publishing Director Michael Goncalves 

’14 served an extended 16-month term. 

94 


15 



FY 

AGENCIES 

HSA Cleaners 

Let’s Go 




HSA Marketing 



HSA Tutoring 


Mt. Auburn Productions 


TITLES 


The Unofficial Guide Presents: 112 

Things to Do Before You Graduate 



Opportunities 

The Unofficial Guide Presents: 82 

Things to Do Before You Graduate 



to Visitas 

Life in Crimson 

PRESIDENT 

RYLEY REYNOLDS 

OFFICES: 

67 Mt. Auburn St. | 17 Holyoke St. | 52 JFK St. | Smith Campus Center | 

65 Mt. Auburn St. 

HSA’s title of coolest place to work on campus was in danger of being usurped. Other campus employers 

and summer internships were draining HSA’s talent pool, so Harvard’s original startup struck back. 

To kick off FY15, HSA raised the company-wide minimum wage to $12 an hour. Over the summer, 

managers took the business world by storm with the first externships, hosted by select HSA alums. 

The students who stayed behind were treated to HSA’s first structured business-education curriculum. 

HSA alums, friends, and other all-stars taught seminars on everything from finance to Excel. 

CCFE’s latest brainchild, Business School Night, helped juniors and seniors connect with representatives 

from top-tier graduate programs in business. Cleaners developed Clothespin, a mobile app on which 

students could schedule laundry pickups and track deliveries. Signups for pickup and delivery 

skyrocketed, and twin sister HSA Dorm Essentials also broke sales records. Interactive videos were the 

main draw of ACT Bootcamp, a new online test-prep course. A new Creative Director coordinated the 

company’s physical and digital branding, including a redesign of the corporation’s motley assortment 

of websites under the same www.hsa.net umbrella. 

The Unofficial Guide got an update for the BuzzFeed generation with a new website and two reimagined 

books: 112 (for Harvard) and 82 (for Boston) Things to Do Before You Graduate. Collected from a survey 

of nearly 1,000 students, the hilarious entries on these bucket-listicles included “Catch the Mather 

Turkey” and “Date Someone.” A new volume also joined the library: Life in Crimson, a 200-page 

coffee-table book of student photographs sold exclusively at The Harvard Shop. Having found that 

HSA always pays its debts, HBO bent the knee again to Marketing with another Game of Thrones 

pre-screening. Under a new marketing initiative, Giftbox, HSA partnered with national and local 

businesses to deliver product samples and coupons to freshmen during move-in week. HSA Video was 

renamed Mt. Auburn Productions and branched out to offer photography services. 

Harvard gave notice that Cleaners and THS would be evicted from the Holyoke Center in March 2016, 

when ground broke on renovations for the new Smith Campus Center. The ghosts of Thayer Hall and 

the Freshman Union nodded gravely as the omnipotent university again cast humble HSAers out of a 

warm and welcoming home. The move set off a scramble at HSA HQ to relocate not one, but two core 

storefronts in the span of 18 months. Their disappearance would mean the disappearance of half a 

million dollars of profit from HSA’s bottom line. 

16 



FY 

AGENCIES 

HSA Cleaners 

Let’s Go 




HSA Marketing 



and Bar Services 

HSA Tutoring 



HSA Research 

GroupGear 

Boston Apparel Company 

TITLES 


The Unofficial Guide Presents: 

Comp Harvard 



Opportunities 


PRESIDENT 

PATRICK SCOTT 

OFFICES: 

67 Mt. Auburn St. | 17 Holyoke St. | 52 JFK St. | Smith Campus Center | 

65 Mt. Auburn St. | 69 Mt. Auburn St. 

A record 112 applications were 

submitted for manager positions. The 

doyens of FY16 ended up hiring 640 

students in total, paying them almost 

exactly $1 million in wages. Revenues 

once again flirted with $5 million. 

Amid one of its most unsettled years, 

Cleaners became a $1 million agency. 

In August, Cleaners bid a fond 

farewell to 17 Holyoke St. and moved 

to 69 Mt. Auburn St. — joining the rest 

of the agencies in Burke-McCoy Hall. 

The block became an impregnable 

bastion of HSA goodness: managers 


could now pop down from their offices for a meeting at Cleaners, then shuttle THS inventory between 

the basement and the newest Harvard Shop — all without walking more than a few feet. 

HSA Temp Agency shed moving from its menu of moving, bartending, and research services. Down 

to just two shticks, it made more sense to rename the agency HSA Research and combine serving jobs 

with the Harvard Bartending Course. HSA Tutoring grew to $250,000, gained a Managing Director, and 

rolled out a fancy custom-built scheduling platform on which tutors, managers, and clients could interact. 

Tutoring’s first Summer Business Academy — two weeks of crash courses on the basics of business and 

entrepreneurship — attracted 70 high-school students and grossed $40,000. 

But wait, there’s more! HSA acquired College Copywriters, a startup that matched college students with 

copywriting jobs, though it did not yet officially gain agency status. Hundreds of students again had 

their Game of Thrones theories confirmed or debunked before the rest of the world, and The Unofficial 

Guide retitled itself yet again. CCFE held the first Law School Night, a sequel to the now-annual Business 

School Night. Thunderstorms pelted the HSA tent at summer-school move-in, and, in another sign of 

the apocalypse, the Crimson wrote a favorable 6,000-word profile on HSA. 

With the goal of expanding its customer base beyond Harvard, THS Custom Orders rebranded as 

GroupGear, a new online platform where groups could create their own pages of custom merchandise 

for members. GroupGear was quickly named one of the 2014 Best Businesses of Cambridge. THS also 

launched a new online-only division, Boston Apparel Company, that sold MIT- and Boston-themed 

merchandise. As revenue climbed to $2.7 million and 100 students staffed the three stores, the Board of 

Directors recommended the addition of THS’s own permanent staffer. After an extensive search process, 

Retail Manager Sarah Miller was hired, bringing years of retail experience to her new domain. 

THS broke $3 million in sales for the first time, accounting for over 60% of HSA’s revenue. The oodles 

of cash were a result of securing lucrative partnerships with international tour groups and the dramatic 

growth of GroupGear (nearly doubling its business from FY14). A majority of houses used GroupGear 

for their Housing Day swag, GroupGear and Boston Apparel Company graduated to become their 

own agencies, and the THS website got yet another update. The company began fulfilling orders via 

Amazon, wooing new customers by combining awesome products with sweet Amazon Prime shipping. 

The success of this groovy year put THS in good stead as it braced for its biggest setback to date. With 

demolition of the Smith Center store imminent, THS raced against the clock to find a replacement. 

For the first time in years, the student travel guide made a profit as Let’s Go: Europe 2014 sold out its 

(admittedly diminished) press run. The strong sales convinced Let’s Go’s now-five office staffers, who 

had considered going all digital, to print a Let’s Go: Europe book for 2015 as well. 

On July 18, 2014, tragedy struck Let’s Go for the second time. RW Haley Rue ’17 drowned in a freak 

accident while hiking in Germany. In the words of her blockmates in a memorial tribute, the vivacious 

and talented member of the Let’s Go family passed away “doing what she loved: traveling and writing.” 

A poignant dedication to Rue filled the first two pages of Let’s Go: Europe 2015. 

Six RWs pounded the pavement for the 56th edition of Let’s Go: Europe, and three more roamed Australia, 

Brazil, and Cuba cranking out special web-only coverage. Let’s Go experimented with new ways of 

funding its errant escapades by having RWs teach workshops (e.g., on college-essay writing) as part of 

their routes. Back in Cambridge, the digital dons of Let’s Go revived the regular e-newsletter and made 

it possible for outside students to blog on a remade www.letsgo.com. 

96 


17 



FY 

AGENCIES 

HSA Cleaners 

Let’s Go 




HSA Marketing 



and Bar Services 

HSA Tutoring 



HSA Research 

GroupGear 

Boston Apparel Company 

TITLES 


The Unofficial Guide Presents: 

Surviving Your Freshman Year 

at Harvard 


Navigating Summer Opportunities 

PRESIDENT 

STEPHEN XI 

After 15 years of incredible service to 

HSA, CFO Lorraine Facella departed 

for a well-earned retirement. New 

Director of Finance Stephanie 

Hordequin took stewardship of the 

business office. A near-record $5.3 

million flowed into HSA’s coffers in 

her first year, and HSA Cleaners and 

HSA Tutoring reached the highest 

revenue numbers in the history of 

their agencies. Cleaners developed 

a new app for its delivery associates, 

minimizing misdeliveries. Tutoring 

went from two Summer Business 

Academies to four and 70 enrollees to 125. It 

doubled its number of outside partnerships, 

coordinated up to 13 workshops in a single 

day, and drafted up a College Essays program. 

Fifty Singaporean high schoolers flocked 

to Tutoring’s first-ever program abroad, the 

Ivy Summit, a series of courses in personal 

enrichment and applying to college. By July, 

the agency had already surpassed the previous 

year’s revenues en route to a $400,000 year. 

OFFICES: 

67 Mt. Auburn St. | 52 JFK St. | Smith Campus Center | 65 Mt. Auburn St. | 

69 Mt. Auburn St. | 34 JFK St. 

More than 160 students registered for CCFE’s 

first annual Interview Bootcamp — practice for 

the rigorous recruiting wringer with feedback from corporate sponsors in finance, consulting, and tech. 

“Giftbox” became “Gifted” as HSA Marketing delivered packaged coupons to every undergrad at the 

college. Beer aficionados could now pair pints and provisions thanks to the Bartending Course’s new 

Beer and Food Tasting Course. HSA spearheaded management of Harvard Skate in Science Center Plaza 

for the fifth straight winter — it was to be the last, however. 

Most exciting of all: with the help of new Board member David Malan ’99, SM ’04, PhD ’07, HSA closed 

on a major new partnership with CS50, Harvard’s introductory computer-science course. The fourth 

floor of Burke-McCoy Hall transformed into a sleek new tech space shared between HSA and hundreds 

of CS50 students attending office hours. The CS50 final project gained an HSA “track,” giving students 

the option to enhance one of the 14 agencies through code (the genesis of both the new Cleaners app and 

the original Rover so many years before). The top students got to take their hacks in a three-week Dev 

Bootcamp with HSA and CS50 over J-term — the gestation of a new agency. 

a 50% increase in web sales, which accounted for a full one-fifth of THS’s total revenue — a longtime 

goal of the staff. New deals were also struck with the Graduate School of Education and businesses in 

the Square. 

GroupGear doubled its management team and acquired the exclusive rights to market and sell Old 

College Ties, a custom knit-tie brand. Sales soared as Boston Apparel Company took a page out of THS’s 

book and made its core products available on Amazon. 

Let’s Go hitched up with an old flame in PlacePass, 

a Cambridge-based travel startup co-founded 

by former RW Emily Simon Bernard ’07. Armed 

with GoPros, this year’s RWs — including a few 

specifically devoted to PlacePass — provided 

written and multimedia content for the PlacePass 

website, a digital marketplace for tours and 

activities. Despite a more-harrowing-than-usual 

editing crunch, Let’s Go: Europe burst off the 

bookshelf with a tweaked cover design and 24 

vibrant pages of color photos. 


After searching every nook, cranny, and corner in Harvard Sq., THS signed a lease for a new location 

in The Garage. With a soft opening on February 5 but a grand opening on April 2, 34 JFK St. briefly 

(and unofficially) became THS’s fourth location before the Smith Center store finally closed its doors in 

March. Even with the new property secure, THS fretted about the loss of its most profitable location. They 

need not have worried; 34 JFK St. became THS’s highest-grossing storefront by the end of the year, and, 

amazingly, the company concluded FY17 with yet another year of growth. A redesigned website yielded 

98 


HSA TODAY 

Since 1957, HSA has experienced astronomical growth, employing thousands of students, 

building dozens of businesses, and cultivating leaders in industry from business to politics to 

the arts. Today, HSA’s 15 agencies do $5 million in business every year and provide jobs to 

600+ students — almost a tenth of the student body. HSAers continue to mix the effective 

management of their stalwart agencies with a healthy dose of the entrepreneurial and creative 

spirit of HSA’s founding fathers. 

Though so many generations of students have come and gone, HSA has remarkably endured 

as a constant presence at Harvard for the past 60 years. We salute the many students, alums, 

Board members, permanent staffers, and friends who have helped us grow from a ragtag team 

of dorm-room visionaries to the world’s largest student-run corporation. 

100 


FY 

18 

CURRENT AGENCIES 

HSA CLEANERS (est. 1957) provides the Harvard community and Greater Boston with highquality 

laundry, dry-cleaning, bulk-wash, and linen-rental services at the most competitive prices in 

all of Harvard Sq. With five physical locations as well as a time-saving pickup and delivery service, 

HSA Cleaners is dedicated to serving local businesses, residents, and the campus community. 

HSA DORM ESSENTIALS (est. 1957) gives Harvard students everything they need to 

live comfortably on campus. HSA Dorm Essentials provides linens, drink delivery, furniture, 

refrigerators, fans, and packing boxes to students as well as to alums and summer-program 

participants. 

LET’S GO (est. 1960) is the only travel guide created exclusively by students for students. Run 

entirely by Harvard students, Let’s Go offers a fresh, young perspective on hundreds of travel 

destinations around the globe and has become one of the most popular hubs of travel information, 

tips, and know-how through its guides, mobile apps, and website. Built around the unique viewpoint 

of energetic, budget-minded explorers, Let’s Go’s firsthand, insider knowledge of the student-travel 

experience entices adventure lovers of all ages. 

HARVARD BARTENDING COURSE & BAR SERVICES (est. 1963) provides TIPS 

certification and mixology training for aspiring bartenders in the Boston area. Popular among both 

students and community members, the one-day course has trained more than 50,000 participants, 

giving graduates the certification and skills to bartend at any restaurant, bar, or club. 

CRONIN CENTER FOR ENTERPRISE (est. 1998) plans and funds cutting-edge educational 

forums and career-development programs to spur undergraduate interest in business and to 

bridge the gap between education and professional careers. The Cronin Center for Enterprise’s 

capstone program, the Business Leadership Program, provides select undergraduates with a unique 

educational experience combining lectures from Harvard Business School professors with corporate 

presentations and networking events. 

THE HARVARD SHOP (est. 2001) offers Harvard merchandise and apparel for students, 

affiliates, and visitors alike at its three Harvard Sq. locations and an online store. The Harvard Shop 

is the exclusive supplier of the One Ring, the only Harvard University class ring officially sponsored 

by students. 

HSA TRANSLATION (est. 2005) provides translations of academic transcripts, medical 

records, academic papers, passports, iOS and Android apps, and websites in over 33 languages. All 

translations are guaranteed USCIS, U.S. State Department, and university acceptance. A member of 

the American Translators Association, HSA Translation offers great value through its high-quality 

and affordable service. 

HSA TUTORING (est. 2006) provides comprehensive SAT and other standardized-test prep as 

well as private in-person and online academic tutoring. In addition to offering tutoring packages and 

the SAT and ACT SOS Courses, HSA Tutoring offers summer programs based on academic tutoring 

and leadership. 

HSA MARKETING (est. 1975) connects outside businesses with the Harvard community as 

well as other Boston campuses. With a broad portfolio of online and print publications such as the 

Unofficial Guide series and The Harvard Guide to Summer Opportunities, HSA Marketing provides 

custom advertising packages to suit businesses’ unique needs. 

HSA RESEARCH (est. 1977) matches Harvard students with remote researchers who need to 

conduct research at libraries and archives in the Harvard network and the Boston area. Student 

researchers retrieve documents and can also read, analyze, and transcribe documents for clients. 

HARVARD DISTRIBUTION (est. 1980) offers campus postering, mailbox stuffing, and 

door-dropping services to connect businesses with students at Harvard and MIT. The Harvard 

Distribution team distributes inside student dormitories, putting advertisers as close to the 

undergraduate community as possible. 

MT. AUBURN PRODUCTIONS (est. 2011) is a student-run video and multimedia production 

company that works with student groups and businesses at Harvard University and throughout 

Greater Boston. It provides a range of services, including commercial advertising and creative 

projects. 

GROUPGEAR (est. 2014) offers custom apparel and accessories to organizations at Harvard and 

around the country. With an expansive catalog as well as collegiate and Greek licensing, GroupGear 

is dedicated to serving small student clubs and national companies alike. Functionalities such as 

online custom stores allow individual group members to buy and pay for products online, saving 

GroupGear customers time and money. 

COLLEGE COPYWRITERS (est. 2015) is an online content marketplace where marketers, 

webmasters, business owners, and website developers can order quality, unique content from 

students attending the nation’s leading colleges and universities. Student writers provide a wide 

variety of content ranging from SEO articles to blog posts. 

DEV (est. 2017) provides comprehensive web and app development and design consulting for a 

variety of businesses. Recent projects include a new web app to streamline the publication process 

for Let’s Go and a mobile physiotherapy app for a growing startup. 

102 


Burke-McCoy Hall 

DUSTY BURKE 

ROBERT McCOY 

The interior of Burke-McCoy Hall as it looked from 1997 to 2017. 

The dedication 

of Burke-McCoy Hall 

on February 5, 1997. 

Manter Hall School occupied the building at 67 Mt. Auburn St. from the day it was built in 1927. Established 

in 1884, the private school helped students prepare for Harvard’s entrance exams during the 1930s and 

offered four- and eight-hour review sessions before every major Harvard midterm and final exam. During 

World War II, the school assisted countless students in gaining an edge on the entrance exam for aviation 

cadets. After the war, Manter Hall School developed into a standard prep school for grades nine through 12, 

catering to students with special educational needs. The top floor was occasionally used as living quarters 

for students. Although enrollment reached a peak of 250 in the late 1940s, by 1993 only 19 students were 

registered. At this time, Robert Hall, the owner of the building and manager of the school for 57 years, turned 

83 and began talking to Harvard Student Agencies. 

After being displaced from its longtime residence in Thayer Hall, HSA faced greatly increased rent, dilution 

across two separate offices far from the center of student activity, the pressures of continued growth 

and expansion, and leases that expired at the end of 1996. Thus began the search for a permanent home. 

Finding no suitable locations on the market, General Manager Richard Olken headed to Cambridge City 

Hall to research the size, status, and ownership of all property in Harvard Sq. Identifying the Manter Hall 

School building as having the most potential, Olken initiated conversation with Hall in the fall of 1993. Not 

interested in selling to the university, Hall was averse to selling to an organization that would not use the 

building for educational purposes. Over the course of several meetings, however, Hall came to understand 

the unique educational opportunities HSA afforded to students and decided to sell the property to HSA in 

the spring of 1994. Hospitalized less than a year later, Hall passed away in the summer of 1995. 

In December 1994, Elsie’s Sandwich Shop shut down. After serving the community for more than 30 years 

from its corner location beneath Manter Hall School, the Harvard Sq. landmark was no more. In 1995, 

HSA selected Solomon and Bauer as architects, sought a new tenant to replace the departed Elsie’s, and 

named the new building Burke-McCoy Hall. Renovations commenced shortly after Manter Hall School 

ceased operations in May 1996. Throughout the process, HSA dealt with the Harvard Sq. Defense Fund, #2 

heating oil, lead paint, asbestos, and brains once housed in the Manter Hall School’s biology lab. Despite all, 

HSA successfully moved into the (mostly) completed building on December 8, 1996. Burke-McCoy Hall was 

dedicated on February 5, 1997, and the dream of a permanent home for HSA was a reality. 

HSA is constantly improving Burke-McCoy Hall — even expanding within it. In 

2009, the fourth floor was converted into the Innovation Space and provided a 

workspace for student startups; currently, HSA shares the floor with the wildly 

popular CS50 course. In 2017, the pods on the fourth floor were blown apart to 

form one large event space. In the spring of 2017, the second and third floors were 

totally redone, lending HSA’s main offices a more open floor plan, new carpeting, 

and several coats of fresh paint. New computers, furniture, and a wood-paneled 

statement wall adorn the new workspace. In August 2015, HSA Cleaners moved 

into the first floor of Burke-McCoy Hall with a new retail location at 69 Mt. Auburn 

St., the storefront formerly occupied by the Tennis and Squash Shop. In late 2017, 

socially conscious burrito joint Zambrero will join two Bank of America ATMs as a 

tenant in the old Elsie’s space. The basement houses the stockroom of The Harvard 

Shop, and enough space exists behind the building to accommodate construction 

of a substantial annex for future expansion. 

The old Manter Hall School is renovated in 1996. 

The interior of Burke-McCoy Hall today. 

Why “Burke-McCoy”? 

In the summer of 1995, Robert 

McCoy pledged a substantial 

lead gift to HSA’s capital 

campaign and requested that 

the renovated building be 

named Burke-McCoy Hall. The 

name honors Dusty Burke, the 

first General Manager of HSA; 

Hester Bell McCoy, who joined 

HSA in 1961 as Corporation 

Secretary; and Robert McCoy 

himself, who served HSA as 

manager of Europe by Car for 

two years, Assistant General 

Manager under Burke, and 

Let’s Go Business Manager 

upon his graduation from 

business school. HSA is proud 

to honor these three individuals 

whose past and continuing 

contributions have helped make 

HSA the dynamic and thriving 

organization it is today. 

104 


106 

HARVARD 

STUDENT 

AGENCIES/ 

LET’S GO 

BOARD OF 

DIRECTORS 

MICHAEL CRONIN | ’75, MBA ’77 

CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD 

A true titan of HSA, Michael Cronin came to Harvard in 1971 from a bluecollar 

neighborhood of Boston in need of an on-campus job to pay his bills. 

He joined HSA his freshman year and has been giving back to the HSA and 

Harvard communities ever since. When asked what he concentrated in at 

Harvard, he responds with, “well, primarily HSA.” During his time as an 

undergraduate, he worked as an employee of the Linen agency, an instructor for the Harvard 

Bartending Course, Linen/Laundry Plant manager in FY74, and finally HSA President in FY75. 

After college, Cronin moved across the river to Harvard Business School, where he received his 

MBA degree. 

Cronin considers his career to have been anchored in his HSA experience. During his time as 

President, he learned a lot about the venture-capital and private-equity industries from HSA 

Board members, so he had a good deal of knowledge when he started out his career. Investing 

in young companies and helping them grow seemed to him like a natural extension of his work 

at HSA. In 1991, he founded his own private-equity firm, Weston Presidio, which has managed 

$3.5 billion in investments over the years. 

Outside Weston Presidio, much of Cronin’s time is spent on nonprofit work. He has served on 

Harvard University’s Board of Overseers, and he currently serves on the boards of the Beth Israel 

Deaconess Medical Center, the Harvard Club of Boston, and, of course, HSA. His philanthropic 

involvement has been long-running, as well: he has served as an overseer, trustee, or director of 

Beth Israel since 1994 and a Board member of HSA since 1989 — including as Chairman of the 

Board since Brad Howe’s retirement in 2004. 

Cronin credits much of his career development and success to the experience and mentorship he 

gained in his time at HSA. As a result, he is passionate about giving back to today’s HSAers and 

has been a valued mentor to countless managers over almost three decades. 

GEORGE CHRISTODOULO | ’71, MBA ’75, JD ’75 

GENERAL COUNSEL 

— Angelina Massa ’18 

A graduate of Harvard College and the Harvard Joint Degree Program in Law 

and Business, George Christodoulo established a career practicing corporate 

law. Having been a partner at Posternak, Blankstein & Lund from 1980 to 1992 

and then a partner at Burns & Levinson from 1992 to 1997, Christodoulo is 

now a partner at Lawson & Weitzen. As an attorney, Christodoulo negotiates 

on behalf of a buyer or seller the terms of a letter of intent and the final documentation. Aside 

from his busy work life and visiting family on the West Coast, Christodoulo spent 10 years on 

the board of Mt. Auburn Hospital and five years as the chairman of its nominating committee, 

during which he oversaw the hospital’s most successful fundraising campaign. 

Christodoulo has served for nearly four decades as an HSA Board member, beginning in 1978. He is 

always cognizant of the fact that decisions made by the Board should be teaching tools for the student 

members to understand the nature of business and the importance of ethics. One of Christodoulo’s 

proudest accomplishments of his HSA tenure was negotiating the purchase of Burke-McCoy Hall. 

Not only that, but Christodoulo also convinced the previous owner of the building to give HSA a 

loan to help finance the purchase, buying time for the company to raise more funds. 

Christodoulo is particularly proud of HSA’s ability to pivot in response to the changing times. 

Although different agencies have risen and fallen throughout the years, HSA as a whole has 

always managed to overcome the challenges it faced. To Christodoulo, HSA is a constant 

reminder of how important it is to mentor the younger generation. He has had many strong 

mentoring relationships with HSA student managers during his time on the Board. Christodoulo 

remembers fondly how one student would always ask him what was the right thing to do rather 

than what was the most financially profitable. That student is now in his 50s, and Christodoulo 

remains his lawyer and close friend to this day. 

— Allison Zhang ’20 

ELLEN HOFFMAN | MBA ’76 

Ellen Hoffman has been a stalwart of HSA ever since she first joined the Board of Directors in 1982, 

meaning she has witnessed more than half of HSA’s history firsthand. After graduating with a degree in 

Mathematics from Wellesley College, Hoffman came to Harvard for her MBA, which she received with 

distinction. For seven years, she worked for the Gillette Company in Boston, developing new products 

and introducing them to the world with print and TV advertising. After two years as Product Marketing 

Manager for Lotus 1-2-3 (IBM’s predecessor to Excel, once the most popular spreadsheet program in the 

world), Hoffman moved to Fidelity Investments, eventually serving as their Senior Vice President for marketing. In 1997, 

she was rewarded with the job of President at Devonshire Custom Publishing, a division of Fidelity. 

Hoffman is now retired from her “day job” but continues to work tirelessly on behalf of good causes like HSA, the 

Peabody Essex Museum (on whose Board of Overseers she has served since 2008), and the HSA-alum-founded Center 

for Women and Enterprise (CWE), where she has been a Director since 2005. The CWE named Hoffman its Advocate 

of the Year in 2012. On the HSA Board, Hoffman has taken on the especially rewarding task of choosing several of her 

peers by leading the Board’s Nominating Committee. She has also taken several students under her wing and shared her 

marketing expertise with the corporation. For example, she played a starring role in the 2010 project to create a unified 

brand for HSA and develop professionally designed logos for each agency. 

PRISCILLA CLAMAN | ’60, EdM ’62 

— Nathaniel Rakich ’10 

A medieval history and literature concentrator, Priscilla Claman set out to become a comparative 

literature professor, but, after only a year, she found what she truly loved was developing new ways 

of teaching. As a teaching assistant in freshman English at Washington University in St. Louis, she 

designed her own class with the goal of lifting all students equally. When the students in all of the 

freshman classes were tested, her “students were consistently the best.” She moved to Cambridge and 

developed curricula for the Technical Education Research Center, where she participated in research on 

careers and career development. Claman applied that knowledge first in corporate training and later in human resources. 

As a human-resources executive, she oversaw over 30 mergers and acquisitions. She started the human-resources 

consulting firm Career Strategies because she loves working in career development and learning how people work best. 

Claman remembers the piles of clutter in the basement of Thayer Hall when she joined the HSA Board of Directors in 

1991. Claman believes that HSA is creating closer ties with the college and loves the greater contributions to students that 

come with the new relationship. She remembers when HSA went through major changes with the decline of Let’s Go 

and during the Great Recession, but she admires how HSA has pivoted from “one major product line” and “adapted, so it 

now consists of many new initiatives and products.” Claman also raves about the experience that HSA gives its students, 

saying that HSA used to have many hourly jobs but now consists of “more flexible, more interesting, and more meaningful 

jobs, particularly for managers.” 

Claman enjoys spending time with her three adult children and their families. She also loves gardening and kayaking on 

Cape Cod three seasons out of the year. She finds herself writing more and more, with over 35 blog posts and short pieces 

published by the Harvard Business School Press. Claman also volunteers for Womenade, a philanthropic giving circle, 

where she serves on the evaluation committee and reviews grant requests. 

— Kelley Babphavong ’20 


SALLY DONAHUE 

After graduating from Cornell with a degree in English Literature in 1975, Sally Donahue fell in love 

with the field of higher education. Donahue worked in the financial aid offices of Harvard Medical 

School and the Kennedy School of Government before moving over to the law school in 1987, where 

she spent 14 years as Director of Financial Aid. She transitioned in 1998 to Director of Career Services, 

matching students’ passions with their legal aspirations. Soon, however, she realized that her heart was 

with undergrads, and she arrived at Harvard College in 2000 as a Senior Admissions Officer and the 

Director of Financial Aid. 

Donahue has been lucky enough to witness an era in which financial aid is constantly changing. The Harvard Financial 

Aid Initiative, which Donahue helped enact in 2004, was developed to make sure all talented students from low- and 

moderate-income backgrounds think of Harvard as a possibility. Donahue was also involved in launching the Affordability 

Initiative in 2007, which extended more aid to students from middle- and upper-middle-income families and created the 

web-based net-price calculator. 

Donahue first served on the HSA Board of Directors from 2003 to 2010, then made her welcome return in 2016. During 

her tenure, Donahue has been especially intrigued to watch Let’s Go transform its publishing model to fit the digital age. 

Donahue also plays an integral role advising HSA Tutoring’s expansion into the area of college-application preparation. 

Overall, Donahue is enthusiastic about HSA’s role as a real-life breeding ground for successful businesspeople, at a time 

when entrepreneurship is so full of possibilities. Donahue even admits that she has seen some applications of prospective 

Harvard students with incredible business acumens and thought, “HSA is calling their name!” 

THOMAS EISENMANN | ’79, MBA ’83, DBA ’98 

— Rameen Rana ’20 

Tom Eisenmann is the Howard H. Stevenson Professor of Business Administration at Harvard 

Business School, Faculty Co-Chair of the HBS Rock Center for Entrepreneurship, Faculty Co-Chair of 

the Harvard MS/MBA Program, and Faculty Chair of the HBS California Research Center. In recent 

years, Eisenmann has served as Chair of Harvard’s MBA Elective Curriculum — the second year of the 

MBA program — and, as course head of The Entrepreneurial Manager, taught all 900 first-year MBA 

students. He was co-creator of the MBA electives Scaling Technology Ventures, Entrepreneurial Sales & 

Marketing, and Product Management 101, in which students specify and supervise development of a software application. 

Eisenmann has spent much of his career at Harvard. After graduating magna cum laude from Harvard College in 1979, he 

went on to obtain an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1983. Eisenmann started his post-MBA career at McKinsey 

& Company, where he eventually was co-head of its media and entertainment practice. He returned to Harvard Business 

School in 1994 for a doctorate in business administration and has been there ever since. 

Eisenmann has been on the HSA Board of Directors for a decade, but his relationship with HSA began before that. 

His daughter was an HSA employee, and his son developed software for the company, which allowed Eisenmann to 

learn about HSA from a parent’s perspective. Eisenmann’s favorite part about being on the Board is seeing the way 

undergraduates think about entrepreneurship and career opportunities. Over the years, he has enjoyed working with the 

team to reposition Let’s Go in an increasingly competitive and digitized market and has been a mentor to numerous HSA 

managers. 

JIM McKELLAR 

— Max Shen ’18 

“Believe it or not, for my entire 30-year career, I’ve worked with students, student groups, and student 

businesses,” says HSA General Manager Jim McKellar. After getting his bachelor’s degree in journalism 

and a master’s degree in higher education (which the budding businessman paid for with proceeds 

from a shrewd real-estate deal), McKellar began his career in student services in 1987 as Director of 

Student Activities at Centenary College in his native Louisiana. After two years, he began to specialize 

in student publications as the first Director of Student Media at Virginia Tech. He then spent seven years 

at the University of Illinois as Publisher and General Manager of Illini Media, the largest student-media operation in the 

U.S. The parallels to HSA are obvious: the nonprofit hired only students (of whom there were 500) and was divided into 

multiple agencies like the newspaper, radio station, and yearbook. 

While at U of I, McKellar received his MBA and made his move toward business, moving to Boston and becoming COO 

of the Blank Center for Entrepreneurship at Babson College. When his “dream job” opened up at HSA in 2007, it was 

an obvious fit for McKellar’s mix of business, publications, and educational experience. He immediately faced the twin 

challenges of the financial crisis and the expiration of the Let’s Go contract, yet he successfully led the company, especially 

The Harvard Shop, back to profitability and secured Let’s Go’s future with a series of new partners. Yet, in characteristic 

fashion, he views his greatest accomplishment not as steering the company through these obstacles, but rather helping 

his students learn how to do so themselves. McKellar’s proudest moments at HSA are watching students enter as 

freshmen, grow up before his eyes, leave as empowered adults, and, eventually, return to HSA as successful professionals 

and friends. 

ROBERT DOYLE 

— Kristine Guillaume ’20 and Nathaniel Rakich ’10 

Bob Doyle has worked at Harvard since 1984. During that time, he has taken on many different roles, 

including Associate Dean of Harvard College and his current job: Associate Dean, Faculty of Arts and 

Sciences. As Associate Dean, he oversees the assistive technology center, the language resource center, 

media and technology services, the media production center, IMS-IT, the Hauser Digital Teaching 

and Learning Studio, and Piano Technical Services. He has also been a freshman advisor since 1988, 

specializing in Eastern European students. In order to better connect with the students he advises, Doyle 

has visited many different Eastern European countries and learned about their various cultures. Doyle has completed 

coursework at nine universities and has earned several degrees, including a doctorate from Boston University. He is 

active with several academic technology associations and is a member of the board of the Association for Educational 

Communication and Technology. 

Outside his work life, Doyle often goes for jogs, having been a runner since high school. His other hobbies include 

photography and visiting art museums. He also serves as a concours judge at British antique-car shows, and he is certified 

by the Jaguar Club of North America and the Rolls-Royce Owner Club. Doyle is also a trustee of the Larz Anderson Auto 

Museum. His interest in vehicles began when he was young, when his father bought an antique car for him as a teenager. 

Doyle has served on the HSA Board of Directors since 2009. His dedication to HSA stems from his passion for working 

with students and being involved as much as possible around campus. His favorite aspect of HSA is the many interesting 

students he is able to get to know and work with. He enjoys supporting HSAers whenever possible by connecting 

the students with the college. Doyle is also proud of his work helping students adjust to college life, especially for 

the international students he advises. Doyle aids the students in not only adjusting to life in college, but also life in a 

different country. 

ROBIN MOUNT | EdM ’79, EdD ’94 

— Albert Zeng ’20 

Robin Mount was a lifespan developmental psychologist before she realized career services share the 

same general idea: growing and changing over time. While working toward her master’s degree at 

the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Mount worked in the infant cognitive development lab 

in William James Hall and as a bartender and caterer for HSA. Mount then worked for a DC-based 

foundation and the National Institutes of Health in mental health and child development before 

returning to Harvard to receive her EdD. She joined the faculty of Wheelock College, teaching human 

growth and development for 18 years and working her way up to Associate Dean for Graduate Programs. Ready for the 

challenge of a larger school, Mount joined Harvard’s Office of Career Services (OCS) as Director of Career Advising for 

the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. In 2008, she was promoted to Director of OCS and now helps connect all of 

Harvard’s students with summer and post-graduate opportunities. Under her leadership, OCS has diversified its career 

offerings and brought powerful electronic career tools to its website. 

Mount has sat on the boards of Hampshire College, Wheelock College, Boston Children’s Museum, Wheelock Family 

Theater, and, since 2009, HSA. She particularly appreciates events like Hail and Farewell where alums share the benefit 

of their experience with the current students. A strong proponent of gaining work experience in college to get a head 

start on one’s career, Mount has helped expand the professional benefit of HSA by inaugurating a résumé review tailored 

specifically to HSAers and helping to set up the HSA externship program. She is proud to have personally assisted several 

graduating Presidents and Vice Presidents with the next steps in their careers. 

— Katie Cronin ’19 and Nathaniel Rakich ’10 

108 


LYNNE LIAKOS O’CONNOR | ’82, MBA ’86 

An experienced leader in both marketing and brand strategy, Lynne Liakos O’Connor credits HSA with 

jump-starting her career. In college, she worked at Let’s Go, serving as Publishing Manager and signing 

Let’s Go’s first contract with St. Martin’s Press, before being elected HSA’s first female President. After 

graduating cum laude in 1982, O’Connor started her consulting career at Procter & Gamble before 

obtaining her MBA at Harvard Business School. Afterward, she worked for multiple top-tier firms, 

including Temple, Barker & Sloane, Lippincott, Vistaprint, and Forrester Research, before earning 

her current position as Associate Vice President at Curriculum Associates, an award-winning EdTech firm dedicated to 

making classrooms better places for teachers and students. There, she oversees customer success programs and builds 

enhanced marketing initiatives to support the next wave of company growth in increased student achievement. 

O’Connor has served on the HSA Board of Directors since 2009, but she has always been proud of the sense of community 

HSA fosters. She notes that interagency work, such as tenting at commencement or freshman move-in, has always 

engendered a special camaraderie among students. As a Board member, O’Connor enjoys working closely with specific 

agencies and hearing managers present their work to the Board. One particularly memorable experience of her term so 

far has been collaborating with HSA Marketing in 2016 to enact new initiatives, including the highly successful Gifted 

campaign. 

Outside her job, O’Connor is a self-proclaimed perpetual home renovator who enjoys caring for her labradoodle and 

traveling with her family to the coast, especially Maine. She spends her spare time advocating for various women’s issues 

and recently served for over a decade as a board member for the Big Sister Association, a nonprofit that fosters strong 

mentoring relationships between women and young girls. 

SCOTT RANDALL | ’84, MBA ’87 

— Cherri Wang ’20 

Scott Randall has been an Alumni Director on the HSA Board of Directors since 2009. He is one of the 

handful of Board members who is also an alum of HSA; during his time at Harvard College, Randall 

spent three years working for HSA, including one as manager of the Linen agency. On the Board, 

Randall particularly enjoys advising HSA Dorm Essentials and HSA Cleaners, the modern incarnation 

of the Linen agency. With years of expertise in technology and e-commerce, Randall also works closely 

with HSA’s new tech initiatives like Dev. 

Randall graduated from Harvard College in 1984 and Harvard Business School in 1987. He started his career in brand 

management and marketing at Procter & Gamble, then founded his first company in 1989: Day Care Sampler, providing 

marketing services for consumer packaged-goods companies. In 1994, Randall pursued his passion for entrepreneurship 

in the technology space by creating NECX Direct, one of the internet’s first online stores, which was sold to Gateway 

for $100 million. After a stint as President of Yahoo! Marketplace and the Internet Shopping Network (a division of the 

Home Shopping Network), he founded FairMarket, an internet auction-software SaaS company, in 1997. FairMarket was 

one of Randall’s most successful ventures, raising $100 million during its initial public offering in 2000; the company 

was subsequently sold to eBay in 2003. Randall then founded and served as CEO of Yokel, a search engine that enables 

shoppers to quickly find what they are looking for at stores closest to them. 

Randall has recently been active with angel investing, private-equity buyouts, consulting, and board work. Randall 

currently is CEO of a food-tech startup and also serves his local community as a member of the Finance Committee in 

Concord, MA. 

PATRICK CHUNG | ’96, MBA ’04, JD ’04 

— Ali Dastjerdi ’19 

Patrick Chung is defined not by his remarkably long list of degrees (Harvard College, Oxford, Harvard 

Business School, Harvard Law School) but by his fascination with people. A self-described “off-thecharts 

extrovert,” he has made a career out of identifying and cultivating nascent potential in people. 

Chung led the consumer and seed investment practices at NEA, the nation’s largest venture-capital 

firm. With NEA’s support, he founded venture capital firm Xfund, which has retained deep ties at 

Harvard and HSA. He has helped create and fund scores of Harvard teams and companies, emphatically 

delivering on Xfund’s goal of creating a trusted resource for those at Harvard who want to embark on the adventure of 

starting their own companies. Xfund’s first office was in Maxwell Dworkin, demonstrating Harvard’s deep connection to 

Xfund and commitment to serving entrepreneurs at Harvard. 

When asked to define what he does, Chung said, “Entrepreneurs are like artists. They have a single-minded vision of 

the world and will go to extreme lengths to see that vision fulfilled. My role is to be their talent agent: my job is to help 

sharpen their vision, evangelize it, and make them the stars they were born to be. My job is to make their visions reality.” 

In addition to his focus on people, Chung constantly looks to the future — a perspective that he has brought to his role 

as an HSA Board member since 2013. This unequivocal desire to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to business will 

define his legacy at HSA: Chung helped to recruit David Malan to the Board and strongly believes that the company’s 

aspiration to remain an incubator of entrepreneurial talent is something that must challenge us every day. 

DAVID J. MALAN | ’99, SM ’04, PhD ’07 

— Bardi Moradi ’18 

There are few students at Harvard who have not heard of David Malan. For the past 10 years, he has 

taught CS50: An Introduction to Computer Science, which is now the most highly enrolled course at 

both Harvard and Yale. Malan himself took this course as a Harvard undergraduate, graduating cum 

laude in 1999 with a degree in Computer Science. Since then, Malan has had a diverse set of experiences 

that sit at the intersection of tech, business, and education. Over the past 20 years, he has worked for 

and founded startups, taught at the secondary-school and college level, conducted research in fields 

such as cybersecurity and digital forensics, and earned a master’s degree and PhD in Computer Science. Malan joined the 

HSA Board of Directors in February 2016. 

In his words, Malan’s involvement with HSA “came 20 years too late.” After hearing from fellow Board member Patrick 

Chung that the fourth floor of Burke-McCoy Hall was available for rent, Malan seized the opportunity to give CS50 

a physical base. The shared space led to further collaboration between CS50 and HSA (which Malan characterizes as 

“similar in spirit”), including selling CS50 mementos and apparel at The Harvard Shop; the “HSA track” for CS50’s final 

project, in which students develop a program for one of HSA’s agencies; social outings for the two organizations; and 

the establishment of the new Dev agency as an “offramp” for veterans of CS50 looking to apply their newfound skills to 

concrete problems. 

On the Board, Malan has particularly enjoyed interacting with student managers, noting that their passion for and 

ownership over their work is unique among on-campus jobs. He also feels that HSA offers unique value to aspiring 

software engineers, as it offers “not only users, but customers.” Malan particularly looks forward to watching Dev grow 

and expand over the next several years. 

KRISTEN DeAMICIS | EdM ’05 

— Casey Durant ’18 

Kristen DeAmicis joined the Board of Directors in 2017 as a perfect fit for HSA’s renewed commitment 

to alum engagement. A native of Cape Cod, DeAmicis earned her bachelor’s degree in English from 

Boston College in 1999, then spent two years as a clerk and researcher at the Chicago Board Options 

Exchange. She returned to Boston in 2003 to become Admissions Coordinator at the Harvard Graduate 

School of Education, embarking on a distinguished career in higher education. She spent three years as 

a Program Coordinator at the Graduate School of Education, specifically coordinating the Technology, 

Innovation, and Education program as well as the Learning and Teaching program. She must have liked what she saw 

enough to try it out herself: in 2005, she graduated from the Graduate School of Education with a master’s degree. 

In 2007, DeAmicis began to specialize in alum engagement, becoming the Graduate School of Education’s Assistant 

Director of Alumni Relations. In 2009, she joined the overall Harvard Alumni Association (HAA) as Assistant Director, 

then Associate Director, of University-Wide Programs. In 2012, she became Deputy Director of University-Wide Alumni 

Engagement, earning a promotion to Director in 2013. Finally, in 2015, she attained her current position: Senior Director 

of College Alumni Programs at the HAA. Under her watch, the HAA’s College Alumni Programs office is responsible 

for events from Harvard-Yale tailgates to the annual reunions. Although relatively new to the HSA family, DeAmicis 

has already strengthened HSA’s relationship with the HAA, lent her expertise to planning this very 60th-anniversary 

celebration, and contributed to HSA’s goal of making sure alums always feel at home coming back to 67 Mt. Auburn St. 

— Nathaniel Rakich ’10 

110 


THE 

HARVARD 

SHOP 

BOARD OF 

DIRECTORS 

JACKIE SHOBACK | MBA ’93 

With her wealth of retail and business experience, Jackie Shoback was a natural 

choice to be an original member of The Harvard Shop Board of Directors in 

2013. Shoback spent three years in investment banking at CitiGroup before 

coming to Harvard for her MBA. She then joined Staples, working in “eight 

or nine different jobs” in operations, marketing, distribution, and general 

management. While at Staples, Shoback worked for and was mentored by 

none other than Tom Stemberg, one of HSA’s and Let’s Go’s most successful alums. Shoback 

was part of the original team that launched and scaled www.staples.com in the U.S. and then 

became the General Manager for www.staples.com internationally. In 2003, Shoback moved to 

Fidelity as a Senior Vice President, again juggling distribution, operations, sales, and generalmanagement 

roles. In 2010, she joined TIAA as Senior Vice President in charge of retail and 

consumer marketing. In 2015, she assumed her current position: Executive Vice President and 

Chief Client Development Officer at Boston Private, always pushing the business to be more 

client-centric. 

Shoback’s favorite part of serving on The Harvard Shop Board is mentoring and getting to know 

its talented student employees. She is particularly proud of helping build THS’s web presence, 

an achievement that was unlocked through mentoring the FY15 THS Web Manager from her 

freshman year all the way through to her career in the present day. In addition to HSA, Shoback 

sits on the board of directors of insurance company CUNA Mutual Group and on an advisory 

board for the Center for Women and Enterprise, founded by another HSA alum, Andrea Silbert. 

Shoback is also a judge for startup accelerator MassChallenge and an independent angel investor. 

— Leo Fondriest ’19 and Nathaniel Rakich ’10 

KRISTIN MUGFORD | ’89, MBA ’93 

The newest member of The Harvard Shop Board of Directors, Kristin Mugford 

is currently the Melvin Tukman Senior Lecturer of Business Administration at 

Harvard Business School. Mugford was raised in Philadelphia and graduated 

magna cum laude from Harvard College with a degree in Economics. In college, 

she was actively involved in Harvard Cheerleading, managing the Eliot Grill, 

and the men’s lightweight crew team as a coxswain. 

Mugford began her career in Disney’s strategic-planning division. Shortly thereafter, she 

returned to Harvard to receive an MBA with high distinction in 1993. Motivated by the intellectual 

challenge of learning a new industry, Mugford transitioned to private equity. Mugford went on 

to work at Bain Capital, one of the world’s leading investment firms. At the age of 32, she served 

as the company’s first female Managing Director and helped start Sankaty Advisors, Bain 

Capital’s successful credit affiliate branch. Retiring from her role as Senior Director, Mugford 

joined the Harvard Business School faculty in 2014. She serves in various volunteer capacities, 

currently as a board member of Fidelity Charitable as well as New Profit. 

Upon Charlie Cardillo’s retirement, HSA quickly pursued Mugford as his replacement due to 

her devotion to student advancement and her trailblazing career in business. As evidenced by 

her current role, Mugford derives great joy from empowering and mentoring the next generation 

of business leaders. In fact, Mugford’s proudest moments of her career are tied to the thank-you 

notes she receives from the various students she interacts with. Mugford’s favorite part of her 

role on the Board is seeing HSA students take on management responsibility and discovering 

their interests. 

— Daniela Veloza ’18 

112

HARVARD 

STUDENT 

AGENCIES, INC. 

CHARTER 

. . .to conduct and supervise 

enterprises for the benefit of 

students of Harvard University 

who are in need of financial 

assistance to defray the 

expenses of their education; 

to provide opportunities for 

such students to be gainfully 

employed; to study, cultivate, 

promote, and encourage new 

business ventures to afford 

additional employment 

opportunities for such students; 

to provide experience for 

its members in the practical 

management and conduct 

of business affairs; to foster, 

encourage, and inculcate in 

its members qualities and habits 

of work, thrift, and self-reliance; 

all in close collaboration with 

said Harvard University without 

profit to any of its members 

or any other person. 

HARVARD 

STUDENT 

AGENCIES 

DECEMBER 13, 1957 

HARVARD STUDENT AGENCIES A HISTORY 1957 – 2017

Harvard Student Agencies — 60th Anniversary Book

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