President’s Message – September, 2022
Time Flies When Your Heart Calls
Dear fellow English High alumni and friends,
For all English High Alumni of “a certain age”, this is a scene you will recall with great fondness.
Those waiting on chapter two this month of Look Who I Met On My Alumni Journey might be disappointed. Instead, I’d like to write about how this 200th Anniversary effort and the renewal of The English High School Association all came about. Folks have asked me, why do you do this work?
I was lucky but,my path from English to Andover to Harvard to Columbia Business School was not a straight line. Many educational routes are not. My pivotal years determined where I’d end up in college. What I did at English High and as a ‘post grad’ at Andover were critical. At both places, I kept my nose clean and did my job, did not want to stand out much, in fact, I was shy. Yes, really! Little did I know then, the sweat and academic efforts at English High would create a deep-rooted passion for future work with the English High School Association, the alumni organization for The English High School
Fast forward to 2002 when I return to Boston area after twenty-odd years in New York. I immediately joined our alumni association which at the time had a barely functioning Board of Directors. I came back home to Boston in time to enjoy all of our ‘sports championships’ in New England but alumni work was not fun. In 2010 I had to decide to leave the EHSA Board or become its President. I’m sure that decision was partially based upon guilt for my inability to be involved with my own 25th EHS reunion in 1982, as I was still living in New York.
Once retired from a career in the mortgage business in 2017, I had more time to devote to English Alumni. With our 200th in mind, the Board decided to invest in ourselves and open an Alumni Office outside of our small office at English High. Hence, renewed English High School Association effort was born. The plan was we would run it as a small start-up operation and build it. We thought if we build it up again, English Alumni would come.
In July of 2018, alone in our new West Roxbury office on start-up day, I wondered what it would take to succeed. I had doubts but committed my time and sweat to: 1. Hire staff, 2. Develop a reliable database, 3. Create a new, first-class EHSA website 4. Acquire office equipment, phone systems, supplies, filing system…you get the idea. I had lots of questions!
How do we do this, where do we start? We needed to regain the trust of all alumni after years of sporadic contact. My mantra from day one was to do the right things and do the right things, right. A staff change (Bill Gallagher now helps steer the ship), and new office change later, we’re off to create a 200th Anniversary Gala all could enjoy and be proud of while raising $3 Million to support English High students’ dreams to become Boston’s future leaders.
We did it by building it one brick at a time, one email at a time, one conversation at a time. Each email we wrote was with some empathy, humor, and welcoming. Grads knew they could stop by anytime. I believe it’s working. It’s working because alums know we care. They know they have access. As Herb Chambers has repeatedly said to John Talbot and me, ‘you guys have enthusiasm and passion for what you do for English.’ I guess it’s passion when you like what you do and it presents new challenges and opportunities each day. By 2022 we vaulted from 474 emails in the database to 4000+ today; from 3500 names and addresses to 9000+ today. That’s what I call building! We still have a long way to go!
Of all my schooling stops, helping English High is my emotional tug. My experience, while not all roses, produced an inner confidence that said, ‘If I got it done at English, the rest would be fine.’ In fact, I would venture many alumni have felt a similar determination to do good and serve mankind by giving back. My giving back has lasted over twenty years and after our 200th Celebration we will continue to fundraise to support our school and alumni.
