HSA 65th Anniversary Book

fy
86
FEBRUARY 1, 1985–
JANUARY 31, 1986
New technologies take hold
PRESIDENT
Andrea
Silbert
OFFICE
Thayer Hall B
LET’S GO TITLES
LET’S GO TITLES
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 wordprocessed
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.
WHERE THEY ARE NOW...
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.”
• 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
50
• Linen
• Publishing
• Catering
• Travel
• Direct Sales
• Harvard Student Resources
• Union
• Harvard Distribution
Services
• Advertising
• Sales Group
• Text Processing
HSA 65th Anniversary History Book 51