'82 News and Views

JULY 2014 ’82 NEWS AND VIEWS Gregory B. Maffei Life Spent Abroad:Israel The College’s Board of Trust- ees announced the election of Gregory B. Maffei as a charter trustee. He joined June 8, serving with fellow ‘82s Emily Bakemeier, Gail Koziara Bou- dreaux, and Jim Coulter. Greg is President and CEO of Liberty Media/Liberty Interac- tive, where he leads the team transforming it to compete in the digital/mobile age. Liberty Media owns media, commu- Shani, Nadav and Jay Shofet with Shani’s boyfriend in the Negev Desert. nications, and entertainment businesses, including Sirius XM and the Atlanta Braves, and in- Jay Shofet, a government major from A few days after graduation, Jay re- terests in Charter Communica- Dutchess County, New York, has turned to Israel for a year of volunteer tions and Live Nation Entertain- been living in Israel since 1986 -- a work, “teaching gym in a backwater el- ment. Liberty Interactive owns direct result of his Dartmouth experi- ementary school.” That year, Jay met digital commerce businesses, ence. his future wife, Barbara Hurwitz an ’82 including TripAdvisor, QVC, Cornell graduate from New York. They Provide Commerce, Backcoun- As Jay relates, “Rabbi Michael Paley were married in New York in 1985 try.com, Bodybuilding.com, of Dartmouth Hillel convinced me to and, a year later, after Jay “completed CommerceHub, and Evite, and spend the summer of 1981 in Israel, my MA degree and the Mets won the interests in Expedia and HSN. Greg also serves as chairman getting Dartmouth credit for summer World Series, we ‘made Aliyah’” – the of the board of Live Nation En- courses at Hebrew University in Je- Hebrew term for ascending to the land tertainment, Sirius XM, Starz rusalem. Those six weeks changed of Israel. and TripAdvisor, and as a direc- my life; by the time I came back I was tor of Charter Communications smitten by Israel and by the fact that it Jay’s career highlights include a stint in and Zillow. was somehow mine too, just like the Boston as an Israeli immigration official, America I loved. and his recent tenure as Executive Di- In addition to a BA from Dart- rector of the Green Environment Fund, mouth, Greg holds an MBA Jay was never very religious, but felt working on environmental justice and from Harvard Business School, a strong sense of Jewish identity. In sustainability throughout Israeli soci- where he was a Baker Scholar. Greg, his wife, Sharon, and their Israel, he experienced Judaism as “a ety. In his career and politics, Jay has four children live in Cherry Hills national civilization” – which he em- worked toward strengthening ties be- Village, Colo. braced because of “how exotic and adventurous and raw it all was.” Continued on pg. 3 ’82s Celebrate Basic at 5 • 2 0 Last year, a number of VIPs in industry and government runs summer and after-school programs. launched a movement promoting the idea that “everyone should learn to code.” They were a little late to that party ... Rich reports that highlights of the festivities included the Dartmouth Professors John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz debut of a documentary film about the birth of BASIC, fol- had the idea first, and made it a reality 50 years ago. lowed by a panel discussion that included Professor Kurtz and several of the students who helped build the DTSS, One of the shared experiences that many of us ’82s including Stephen Garland ‘63, who became Dartmouth’s remember (not necessarily fondly!) from freshman year first full-time professor of Computer Science. Also pres- was working through a few short computer programs ent, and interviewed in the documentary footage as that were assigned in our math classes. The programs well, was Professor Bob Norman, who was one of Rich were all written in the BASIC language and run on the Schwartz’s advisors from freshman year right through Dartmouth Time Sharing System (DTSS) that Professors graduation. Rich says the day evoked “a lot of interest- Kemeny and Kurtz invented and built, along with a dedi- ing memories of the long days and nights spent inventing, cated crew of undergraduate assistants. On April 30th, building and testing programs, reminding us that the sto- Dartmouth celebrated the 50th anniversary of the very ries we hear about ‘hack-a-thons’ at Silicon Valley startups first BASIC programming running on DTSS. ’82s Richard these days are really nothing new.” The day also featured Schwartz and Bruce Perry joined about 200-300 other presentations by Dartmouth students on present-day alumni for the festivities. Rich is a software architect at computing, and another panel discussion featuring futur- Hewlett-Packard, and has lived in Nashua, N.H., since ists from Google, Intel and MIT. leaving Hanover in 1983. Bruce lives in Brookline, Mass., and works in IT for the BELL Foundation, a non-profit that Two of the points that came up again and again were Professor Kemeny’s relentless focus on simplicity, and his lack of interest in protecting the intellectual property that BASIC and DTSS represented. These two factors led to the spread of BASIC far beyond Dartmouth as a learning and business programming language that far exceeded the expectations of its inventors, and also led to its even- tual corruption into hundreds of incompatible dialects. Dartmouth moved on from BASIC years ago, but of course today’s students are all computer literate far beyond the level of most of us ‘82s were. Many undergradu- ates are doing innovative work in more modern programming languages. Compared to the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, however, fewer students today are required to do programming for their coursework. Somewhere along the line, Professors Kemeny’s and Kurtz’s goal of expos- ing every undergraduate to the fundamentals of solving problems through writing their own computer programs fell out of favor. As Rich explains: “When the College’s time sharing system was replaced by PCs and Macs, no new introductory programming curriculum was cre- ated to replace the old BASIC assignments for freshman math classes. With that idea finally starting to gain some real traction on a national scale after Dartmouth has long since given up on it, I found the 50th anniversary celebra- Professors Kurtz and Kemeny. tion a little bittersweet.” Mini-Reunion on Broadway • 3 Andrea Borden and Kathy Boak Dubishar. Kathy trav- eled from DC, as did Robin Shaffert. Sally Adnopoz Gen- dler drove up from Philly, and caught a second show that evening. Jason Klein, Mike Berg and Von Chaney also made the trip. Tee Lotson and Nicole Stent were the only real New Yorkers. On June 22, several ‘82s attended the Broadway pro- It was a great opportunity to catch up with classmates, duction of Violet, with musical direction by Mike Rafter. see a wonderful production, and hear about Mike’s The photo is from onstage so all who attended can amazing musical journey. He has attended 10 Tony boast that they’ve been, literally and figuratively, “on Award ceremonies, toured and performed with musi- Broadway.” cal legends, and directed music for film and Broadway. Some might remember him playing the piano at the Top Attendees came from all over, including Chris Perrson of the Hop. He was able to turn his passion into a suc- and Jim Froelich, both doctors, who were in town for cessful career by (and pay attention here, kids) follow- the weekend from Michigan. They had attended med ing the advice of his Mother. That’s right: Mother knows school with Ann Neumeyer, who made the trip from Mas- best! OK, that might be a simplification, but it was part sachusetts, as did Heather Hazle Lambert. Ann lives in of the story. the same town as Donna Fagerstrom’s sister. Donna hosted several North Mass Madames for the weekend Violet is in a limited run on Broadway until August 16th. including Cathy Judd Stein, Carol Davis, Philippa Guth- Mike’s next production will be a revival of The Unsinkable rie, and Kate McKee Fox. Other theater-goers included Molly Brown. Perhaps, another opportunity for a mini. Jay Shofet In Tel Aviv-Jaffa Jerusalem.” Continued from pg. 1 A dual citizen of the United States and Israel, Jay has been tween Israel and Jewish communities across the world, and active in politics since arriving in Israel. “advancing rights and equality within Israel’s civil society.” Jay is passionate about his adopted hometown, Tel Aviv- Divorced after 20 years of marriage, Jay describes his two Jaffa, which he describes as “a sort of South Beach meets grown children as a source of constant joy and pride. His Brooklyn on the Mediterranean. Incredible cultural diversity. daughter, Shani, 24, is finishing her BA in social work at He- Throbbing night life, funky neighborhoods, stately boulevards, brew University. Jay’s son Nadav, 20, is a second lieutenant in progressive city government. Really fantastic restaurants the Intelligence Corps, making him the first officer in his family. and street food. A boom in world-class architecture. It’s eminently walkable and somehow the heat and humidity feel Jay’s own military service was as a warden in detention cen- sensuous, not oppressive.” Jay describes the city’s vibe as ters for Palestinian security prisoners accused or convicted “a non-stop release valve from the pressure cooker of life” of terror activity against Israel. In Israel, the personal is political. in Israel. (At press time, Jay was posting on Facebook about Jay says his service “only reinforced my long-held conviction the onslaught of Hamas rockets from Gaza and Israel’s re- is that the only real solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – sponse).

Load more