Bill Hammond retired at the end of 2022 from a corporate transactional law practice after 32 years. Prior to his law career, he worked in international banking before “burning out with the Latin American foreign debt refinancing saga.” He spent the first six months of his retirement helping to care for his 7-year-old grandson in Lake Tahoe. “Great fun and medicine”, he says, “although I never learned how to play Minecraft to my grandson’s great disappointment.” He and Lynette have been married for 36 years, and when Lynette retires from her position as the Senior Director, Multiple Pathways, Office of Postsecondary Readiness with the New York City Department of Education, they plan to live in the Carson Valley (NV) area to be near their daughter and her family.
David Pudlin is still working full time and running the law firm that he and some friends established thirty years ago, although he reports that he spends the majority of his time managing the firm rather than practicing law. David and his wife, who was his Penn Law School classmate, will be celebrating their 50 th anniversary later this year, and have four grandchildren (all under 5), who live very close to them. Their daughter, Julia, graduated from Yale and also was in Pierson College, and they are all looking forward to going back to New Haven in 2026 for their respective reunions (her 20 th and our 55 th reunion).
Susan Yecies donated her collection of 45 rpm single recordings to the Archive of Contemporary Music, who, Susan reports, presently hold more than 3 million recordings and “have a great Board of Advisors.” Susan invites classmates who love music, support not-forprofits and have collections you would like to see preserved to contact her for more information (smyecies@aol.com).
Dave Ross recently retired from the position of Chief Scientist at Alitheon, Inc. a company he co-founded five years ago. Their technology enables users to identify a single object out of millions of essentially identical objects and is used primarily to prevent counterfeiting. Dave has dedicated his retirement to, currently, three things. First, he competes as a physique athlete, earning second-place finishes in two recent “Masters over 60 Physique” competitions. In addition to the time spent training, he has taken up airsoft and has been playing both indoors and outdoors (“think paintball with more realistic weaponry that shoots plastic BBs”). Finally, he and Heidi, his wife of 40 years, have been traveling, including trips to El Salvador in July, to the Mayan ruins in October and a wedding anniversary trip to New Orleans later in the fall. He reports that his health remains good and that he remains (after 1-1/2 years) cancer free from his adenocarcinoma: “My wind isn’t what it used to be so no more marathons, but I still can do things like play airsoft and lift weights.”
Earlier this summer Tim Powell and Ellen joined a group of a dozen people on a ten-day sailing trip through the Dalmation Islands of Croatia. The trip was organized by Marc Bailin ’73 and his partner Nancy Holson. Also on board was Chip Spear ’74 and his partner Andrea Abbott. They cruised and lived on a 30-meter (105-foot) two-masted gulet, a type of schooner, traversing the deep blue Adriatic. They flew into Dubrovnik, departed from Trogir a week later, and in between visited the islands of Mljet, Korcula, Hvar, Vis, and Brac — whose quarries are said to have provided the stone used to build the US White House. Tim notes that “the gorgeous island scenery is complemented by the ruggedly handsome architecture. It is astonishing to think that such beauty lay in ruins only three decades ago during Croatia’s war for independence and offers hope for other European treasures currently being ravaged. The Croatians have proved resilient — consistent with a recent history characterizing them as ‘of sweet disposition, industrious, and intelligent.’ It was all really special – and went flawlessly thanks to Nancy and Ellen’s careful planning.”
Unfortunately, Carl Bates died following a long battle with cancer on December 12, 2022, in Palm Springs, California. After Yale, where Carl earned All-Ivy honors in lacrosse and graduated with a B.A. in Art History, Carl worked variously as a visual artist, musician, carpenter, builder, and stone masonry contractor. He was a long-time member of an artists’ and architects’ community on Prickly Mountain in Warren, Vermont, where, to quote his obituary, “they embarked on innovative experiments in sustainable architecture, green technology, community planning, and what would come to be called the Design-Build movement.” On Prickly Mountain, Carl built his own house entirely from stone and also drove a snowplow, an experience he chronicled in an unpublished novel, The Plowman Chronicles. Carl spent many winters in Costa Rica and, in his later years, in Palm Springs, where he continued his painting and visual art work and enjoyed biking, hiking, birdwatching and golfing. Carl’s work was shown in numerous exhibitions, including in New York, Washington, D.C., the Segunda Exposicion de la Nueva Pintura de Costa Rica at the Museo Nacional in San Jose, Costa Rica, and in a solo exhibition in 2019 at the Madsonian Museum in Waitsfield, Vermont. Most recently, his work was included in a group show, Depicting Duchamp: Portraits of Marcel Duchamp and/or Rrose Sélavy, at the Francis Nauman Gallery in New York in 2020 (which exhibition also included a work by his daughter, the artist Larissa Bates). We send our condolences to his wife, Lourie, and to his two children, three stepchildren and seven grandchildren.
Bill Porter reports that contributions from ‘71 classmates to the Calvin Hill Day Care Center in the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2023, exceeded all previous years’ records. Spurred on by Freada and Mitch Kapor’s generous matching gift challenge, 43 classmates made donations totaling $31,175 this year (more than in any previous year in both categories). Adding amounts from a foundation matching grant and the Kapors’ challenge gift, the total giving by classmates this year was $76,175. Thanks again to Freada and Mitch for their gift and to the many classmates who responded to their challenge.
Vera Wells represented the Class at the June 3, 2023, unveiling of a portrait of Elga Wasserman. The portrait now hangs in the Bass Library and commemorates Wasserman’s role as an “ally, advocate and champion” for Yale’s first women undergraduates. Others participating in the unveiling ceremony included President Salovey, our honorary classmate Sam Chauncey (who was Wasserman’s partner in the coeducation effort), Eve Hart Rice ’73, and Wasserman’s daughter, Diana Wasserman ’77 M.D.
“Draft Night Lottery Recollections” continue to roll in from classmates. If you have recollections that you would like to share of that night, or observations of the impact that the lottery had on our lives over the ensuing years, it is not too late to send them to me, and I will forward them on to Michael Goodman and Jay Gitlin. They will compile the submissions and post them to our Class Website later this year.
Stay well and send news.
Cheers,
AMK
7-16-23