HSA 65th Anniversary Book

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FEBRUARY 1, 1984 –
JANUARY 31, 1985
OFFICE
85
PRESIDENT
Louis
Morsberger
Thayer Hall B
Let’s Go hits 10 titles
with Let’s Go: Mexico
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 earlyrising
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 totally-fromscratch
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 sevenpage
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.
WHERE THEY ARE NOW...
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.
CAN YOU DESCRIBE WHAT YOU DO NOW? “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 [’89, MBA ’94] 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 [’86, MBA ’90], 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.”
LET’S GO TITLES
• Europe
• Britain & Ireland
• France
AGENCIES
• Italy
• USA
• Greece
• Israel & Egypt
• California & the Pacific
Northwest
• Spain, Portugal & Morocco
• Mexico
OTHER TITLES
• The Unofficial Guide to Life
at Harvard
• The Official Harvard Student
Agencies Bartending Course
• Linen
• Publishing
• Catering
• Travel
• Direct Sales
• Harvard Student Resources
• Union
• Harvard Distribution
Services
• Advertising
• Sales Group
48 HSA 65th Anniversary History Book 49