HSA 65th Anniversary Book

fy
18
FEBRUARY 1, 2017 –
JANUARY 31, 2018
Burke-McCoy Hall gets a facelift
St. briefly (and unofficially) became The Harvard Shop’s fourth location before the Smith Center store finally
closed its doors in March. Even with the new property secure, The Harvard Shop fretted about the loss of its
most profitable location. They need not have worried; 34 JFK St. became The Harvard Shop’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 a 50% increase in web sales, which accounted for a full one-fifth of The Harvard Shop’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 The Harvard Shop’s book and
made its core products available on Amazon.
Though it was still self-publishing, Let’s Go got a new partner for the 2017 series: PlacePass, a Cambridge-based
travel startup co-founded by a former RW. 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.
PRESIDENT
Angelina
Massa
OFFICES
67 Mt. Auburn St.
52 JFK St.
65 Mt. Auburn St.
69 Mt. Auburn St.
34 JFK St.
HARVARD
STUDENT
AGENCIES
HSA turned 60 years old, but it didn’t look a day over 25: Burke-McCoy Hall underwent its first major
renovation. A giant HSA logo welcomed visitors to the new open-concept third floor, and new furniture,
computers, and carpeting were all installed. More than 250 guests attended the 60th-anniversary celebration,
which included a “60 Years in 60 Minutes” panel discussion and, of course, a sick rager at the Harvard Club
of Boston. But the year ended on a sad note: Ellen Hoffman, MBA ’76, a member of the Board of Directors
since 1982 and leader of the Board’s Nominating Committee, announced her retirement.
Highlights and hijinks: when the soccer team A.S. Roma came to town in July, they trusted Cleaners
with precious cargo — their uniforms, which managers hand-washed and folded themselves to make sure
nothing went wrong. CCFE invited four startups with Harvard student founders to participate in a Startup
Masterclass with expert judges. To appease the thirsty, uncaffeinated masses, Dorm Essentials began
offering a door-to-door coffee delivery service. Marketing held a “Free Stuff” event in The Harvard Shop’s
new Garage location, attracting scads of Boston-area vendors and even more students. Finally, a The Officethemed
promo video for HSA’s Visitas event was almost too good, as prefrosh packed every floor; to avoid
fire-code violations, prospective HSAers had to wait in a line that stretched around the corner.
Tutoring continued its astonishing growth, breaking $500,000 in revenue. The agency introduced a
Leadership Seminar for summer-school students and added a fifth Summer Business Academy, topping
150 enrollees. Demand was so high that Tutoring also debuted Weekend Business Academies, two-day
business workshops taught by Harvard students at high schools around the country.
Survivors of the programming bootcamp from January 2017 inaugurated a new agency: DEV, a software
engineering and design agency that built web and mobile products for clients. Its first projects included a
physical-therapy-management tool for a startup, a content-management tool for Let’s Go, and two mobile
apps. HSA also created two new internal agencies: HSA Strategy, an internal consulting agency, and a
centralized Internal Marketing team to standardize the company’s branding.
The Harvard Shop in FY18 established new all-time daily, monthly, and yearly ($4 million!) sales records.
Despite heavy rain and unusually cold temperatures, the agency also broke its Class Day and commencement
sales records. Boston Apparel Company was re-absorbed into the broader agency, but GroupGear kept
humming along, bedecking attendees of the Harvard Alumni Association’s annual reunions.
For the first time in years, Let’s Go hired a full-time Marketing Director and more than one editorial staffer.
To regain the institutional memory that had been lost when Publishing Directors had ceased to be Let’s
Go veterans, they also conscripted two Let’s Go alums to advise the new team. Editor-in-Chief Kristine
Guillaume ’20 had her RWs write every word of Let’s Go: Europe from scratch, and Creative Director Austin
Eder ’20 gave the inside of the book a complete visual makeover. The new font and the two-column page
layout were easier on the eyes, but what really made the 2018 book pop was the conversion from black and
white to full color printing. To signal the change to readers, the blues and oranges of the Grand Canal in
Venice exploded off the first full-color front cover in almost a decade.
TITLES
• Let’s Go: Europe
AGENCIES
• The Unofficial Guide Presents:
Surviving Your Freshman
Year at Harvard
• Navigating Summer
Opportunities
• HSA Cleaners
• Let’s Go
• Harvard Distribution
• Cronin Center for Enterprise
• The Harvard Shop
• HSA Marketing
• HSA Dorm Essentials
• Harvard Bartending Course
and Bar Services
• HSA Tutoring
• HSA Translation
• Mt. Auburn Productions
• HSA Research
• GroupGear
• DEV
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HSA 65th Anniversary History Book 105