HSA 65th Anniversary Book

fy
05
FEBRUARY 1, 2004 –
JANUARY 31, 2005
PRESIDENT
Ryan
Geraghty
OFFICES
67 Mt. Auburn St.
17 Holyoke St.
52 JFK St.
HARVARD
STUDENT
AGENCIES
An HSA legend retires
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 single-touch digital
ordering system that was light-years
ahead of even most major retailers. The
overflowing filing cabinets and carboncopy
lease agreements for purchasing
laundry plans and microfridges were
replaced with new online services and
personalized accounts.
Members of the Board of Directors at Brad Howe’s farewell dinner.
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% year-overyear
growth of Custom Orders. The Harvard Shop 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.
WHERE THEY ARE NOW...
Jesse Andrews | ’04
JOBS AT HSA: Researcher-Writer, Let’s Go: Germany, FY02; Editor, Let’s Go: Germany, FY03; Personnel Manager, Let’s Go
Publications, FY04; Editor, Let’s Go: Vietnam, FY05.
WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN UP TO SINCE GRADUATION? “I spent most of my 20s writing unpublishable novels and playing in bands with
no fans. In 2012, I finally got a book published and have been working ever since as a novelist and screenwriter. I’ve had two New York Times
bestsellers (Me and Earl and the Dying Girl; The Haters) and written movies that have won the Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize
(Me and Earl and the Dying Girl) and been nominated for an Academy Award (Pixar’s Luca). Currently I’m working on my fourth book
and writing my second movie for Pixar.”
HOW HAS LET’S GO HELPED YOU IN YOUR CAREER? “I wouldn’t have my career without Let’s Go. Speaking practically, Let’s Go
taught me the editorial skills I used to support myself as a textbook and magazine editor in the years before my writing career took off.
Speaking spiritually, Let’s Go ushered me toward a life in which I might actually have things to write about — it gave me the confidence
and taste for adventure I needed to go out into the strange enormous world, and engage it.”
LET’S GO TITLES
• Europe
• Britain & Ireland
• France
• Italy
• USA
• Greece
AGENCIES
• California
• Pacific Northwest
Adventure Guide
• Spain & Portugal
• New York City
• London
• Germany
• Austria
& Switzerland
• Paris
• Ireland
• Southeast Asia
• Eastern Europe
• Central America
• Peru
• Ecuador
• Australia
• New Zealand
Adventure Guide
• China
• Western Europe
• Hawaii
• Chile
• Costa Rica
• Thailand
• Vietnam
• Roadtripping US
OTHER TITLES
• The Unofficial Guide to
Life at Harvard
• The Unofficial Guide
to Prefrosh Weekend
• The Harvard Guide to
Summer Opportunities
• The Unofficial Guide to
Life in Cambridge
WHAT ARE SOME OF YOUR BEST MEMORIES FROM LET’S GO? “This is hard to convey but one of my dearest memories is my very
first encounter with Let’s Go, the information session I went to as a first-year — sitting near the back of the Science Center auditorium,
listening to the stories of these witty savvy globe-trotting elders who were so unlike me (and yet whose company I had the chance to join),
I had a spooky arm-hair-raising feeling of encountering this threshold to somewhere unknown and life-changing, which turned out to be
absolutely true.”
• HSA Cleaners
• Let’s Go Publications
• Harvard Student Resources
• Harvard Distribution
Services
• Let’s Go Ad Sales
• Unofficial Publications
• Center for Enterprise
• HSA Rentals
• The Harvard Shop
• HSA Storage
82 HSA 65th Anniversary History Book 83