HSA 65th Anniversary Book

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FEBRUARY 1, 2008 –
JANUARY 31, 2009
OFFICES
67 Mt. Auburn St.
17 Holyoke St.
52 JFK St.
09
PRESIDENT
Timothy
Creamer
Holyoke Center Arcade
HARVARD
STUDENT
AGENCIES
LET’S GO TITLES
The Harvard Shop’s second location
portends a profitable future
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 Cleaners also plotted its conquest of Harvard’s graduate
schools. Meanwhile, the CCFE’s first careers-in-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 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
Harvard Shop logo and branding got
a significant makeover, producing the
ivy-draped Harvard Shop 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 The Harvard Shop has had,
it would soon become the highestgrossing
one thanks to its strategic
HSAers and Let’s Goers at the farewell dinner for
retiring Board member Blair Brown.
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, The Harvard Shop 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 near miracle of
updating 14 old guides, the team replaced Let’s Go: Vietnam with the first brand-new title in four years:
Let’s Go: Buenos Aires. A coven of magical wizards, IT Director
Lukáš Toth ’09 and Production Associate Alex Tremblay ’10,
slew the demon of Adobe FrameMaker and converted the entire
series to Adobe InDesign. And, on May 27, a sparkling new
www.letsgo.com went live, loaded with videos of Europe from
Let’s Go’s first dedicated video RW.
New website, new program, new book — all that was left was
a new publisher. A team headed by Publishing Director Inés
Pacheco ’08 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.
WHERE THEY ARE NOW...
Claire Saffitz | ’09
JOBS AT HSA: Researcher-Writer, Let’s Go: Hawaii, FY09.
WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN UP TO SINCE GRADUATION? “I moved to New York and had a few internships, but nothing that felt
like a good fit for me. All I wanted to do during that time was cook, so after a couple of years, I decided to go to culinary school.
… After that, I moved back to New York and got a job testing recipes at Bon Appétit magazine. After five years of working as a
food editor at Bon Appétit, I went freelance in 2018 and wrote my first cookbook, Dessert Person, which was published in 2020.
My second book, What’s for Dessert, is due out this fall.”
• Europe
• Britain
• France
• Italy
• Spain & Portugal
• New York City
• Germany
AGENCIES
• HSA Cleaners
• Let’s Go Publications
• Harvard Student Resources
• Paris
• Australia
• Western Europe
• Hawaii
• Costa Rica
• Thailand
• Roadtripping USA
• Buenos Aires
• Harvard Distribution
Services
• Let’s Go Ad Sales
OTHER TITLES
• The Unofficial Guide to Life
at Harvard
• The Unofficial Guide to
Prefrosh Weekend
• The Harvard Guide to
Summer Opportunities
• HSA Publications
• Cronin Center
for Enterprise
• The Unofficial Guide to Life
in Cambridge
• The Unofficial Guide to Life
in Boston
• The Harvard Shop
• HSA Dorm Store
WHAT ARE SOME OF YOUR FONDEST MEMORIES FROM LET’S GO? “I have so many great memories of traveling for Let’s
Go. I spent a couple of months on Oahu researching for the Hawaii guide. I loved exploring a small island and being able to
experience that contrast between city and nature. Some of my favorite experiences were checking out the shrimp trucks on the
North Shore and visiting the famous surf breaks, trying the pineapple whip at the Dole Plantation, and snorkeling in Hanauma
Bay. One brief stay that stands out was the night I spent at a ‘unique’ B&B on the windward coast run by an older couple. The
interior was filled with nude paintings by one of the owners, and my particular room was circus-themed, featuring floor-toceiling
pictures of clowns and dolls hanging from the ceiling. The couple was lovely, though, and served me fresh papaya in the
morning on their lanai.”
WHAT ADVICE DO YOU HAVE FOR CURRENT STUDENTS? “Try to think openly and expansively about your future. When I
was an undergraduate, I found it very easy to fall into a closed way of thinking about career options — I didn’t even know that
the job I have now existed! There are so many ways to pursue your interests, and don’t stress out about trying to draw a straight
line from your undergraduate education to the career you want. It’s OK to try different things and pivot.”
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