Guardian angel
Walking down a village street in southern Honduras, Bruce Ergood ’52 will hear people yell “Gallinas episcopales,” meaning “Episcopal chicken.” It’s not that they’re hurling insults at him; rather, the villagers associate Ergood with the recent project he’s been working on. With his wife, Jane, Ergood has been constructing chicken coops and distributing chickens to farmers in an effort to alleviate some of the community’s financial — and malnutrition — issues. The endeavor piggybacks on another program the Ergoods started, called Guardianas de Salud (Guardians of Health), which trains villagers to be primary health care workers.


Bruce Ergood ’52 (left) and wife Jane (second from left) in southern Honduras with a Guardiana (middle) and her family as well as another volunteer. 

    Ergood first visited Honduras in the summer of 1990 when hitchhiking through Central America. After having volunteered in Mexico after graduation, spending many years as an Ohio University professor taking students to Belize, and completing two Fulbright professorships in Argentina, Ergood had traveled throughout most of Latin America. But Central America was uncharted territory for him, so he thumbed and bussed his way around.
    He didn’t think much about Honduras again after that visit, until 1998 when Hurricane Mitch struck. Ergood jumped at the chance to help. “It was the worst hurricane that ever hit the country,” he explained. “Everyone in Honduras still refers to time as ‘before Mitch’ and ‘after Mitch.’” The South American Mission Society (SAMS) sent Ergood to assess the damage to various Episcopal congregations. He traveled around Honduras making a number of contacts — and playing music. “I take my clarinet wherever I go,” he said.
    Over the next several years, he and Jane returned to Honduras through SAMS to assist with mission work there. Jane, who has a master’s in nursing from Yale University, coordinated the medical brigades that visited annually. Yet the amount of work required to prepare for the brigades and the infrequency of the visits “didn’t seem right,” Ergood said. With only one doctor available in the area where they work in the province of El Paraiso, and the nearest hospital 40 miles away, the situation seemed dire. 
    A solution came to the Ergoods in 2005 during a summer retreat in Lake George, N.Y., when they attended a lecture by doctors who were training medical workers in northern Honduras. They learned that 80 percent of the ills that people bring to doctors can be treated by those who have basic medical education. Thus, the seed for the Ergoods’ Guardianas de Salud program was planted. 
    Enlisting the help of a few medical trainers, the Ergoods held their first weeklong workshop in Honduras in April 2006. Using a curriculum provided by the World Health Organization, they trained 25 villagers in basic medical care such as treating rashes, giving injections, and childbirth. They provided each Guardiana with a medical kit as well as an informational book called Donde No Hay Doctor (Where There Is No Doctor). “We decided that to qualify for training, you have to be an adult, literate, and plan to live in that community for the foreseeable future,” Ergood explained. The following November, they trained 12 more people from different villages, and today there are about 75 Guardianas.
    The Ergoods recently jump-started the Episcopal Chickens program with the local Episcopal rector. By raising chickens and selling eggs and baked goods like egg bread (a local delicacy), the Guardianas are able to cover their expenses. The profits help them refill their medical kits and offset the travel costs of the bimonthly continuing education classes they attend. Participants also donate a percentage of the profits to a community fund, from which other Guardianas can draw to cover expenses.
    Ergood fondly recalls one woman who baked and sold 83 loaves of egg bread in one day. “She put her arms around me because she felt so great that she had done this on her own,” he said. In addition, the program has increased the consumption of eggs in the villagers’ diets, relieving the malnutrition some suffer. 
    Empowering the people in this way is one of the most valuable benefits, Ergood said. Not only has the program improved the Guardianas’ social status, but it has also strengthened their community ties. Because they rarely meet neighboring villagers, the continuing education classes facilitate connections among the Guardianas. As one farmer told him, “I used to feel like I was an isolated island, but now I know I’m a link in a chain.”
    The Ergoods returned in January 2010 to spend three months there, adding more “links in the chain.”

— Aleta Mayne


Covering animal planet to raise global citizens
Disabilities, global warming, and genocide are not easy subjects to broach with children. But when kids can become enamored with an adorable animal who serves as an ambassador for these weighty topics, it’s a conversation starter. This is the approach that Craig Hatkoff ’76 has taken with the Turtle Pond Collection, nonfiction animal stories that he co-authors with his daughters, Juliana, 15, and Isabella, 11. 


Isabella and Craig Hatkoff ’76 with Winter the dolphin

    “The only job in the world harder than being a parent is being a kid, and we try to touch on issues that are about helping kids navigate a complex and sometimes dark world,” Hatkoff said. Case in point: one of the first two books he and Juliana penned was Ladder 35, Engine 40, about Juliana’s experience coping with her feelings after Sept. 11, 2001.  
    When Isabella turned 6, she asked her dad if she could write a book with him, so they started looking for stories. A newspaper picture of a baby hippo snuggling with a 700-pound tortoise caught her attention, and she said, “Daddy, let’s do our story about Owen and Mzee.” What became a 2006 New York Times number-one bestseller tells the story of how this unlikely pair became friends at an animal sanctuary after Owen, the hippo, was stranded off the shore of Kenya following the 2004 tsunami.
    Owen and Mzee led the parade of animal stories that the Hatkoffs have told, followed by Knut, a polar bear, and Miza, a mountain gorilla. Knut was taken in by a Berlin zookeeper after he was abandoned by his mother. “A baby polar bear in today’s global warming world is a powerful iconic symbol,” Hatkoff said. “We stumbled onto a new genre of children’s books: nonfiction allegory.”
    Looking for Miza was Hatkoff’s project for the Clinton Global Initiative to raise awareness about the plight of mountain gorillas in the Congo. “That was a big one because it’s about endangered species, true tragedy and trauma, and, ultimately, genocide,” he explained. “If kids learn where the Congo is and Rwanda is, you can start talking about things like that at the appropriate time. These are ways for parents, teachers, librarians, and kids to start conversations about difficult topics.”
    The latest member of the Hatkoffs’ menagerie is Winter, a bottlenose dolphin. Reading Winter’s Tail, it’s easy to fall in love with the dolphin who learned to swim with a prosthetic tail after she lost her tail from entanglement in a crab trap. “You couldn’t make up some of these stories,” Hatkoff pointed out. He and his daughters had the opportunity to meet Winter at her new home in Florida’s Clearwater Marine Aquarium, where Isabella promptly decided that she wanted to be a dolphin trainer when she grows up. 
    McKenna, another young girl who was touched by Winter, demonstrates the impact of these stories. She is hearing impaired and initially refused to wear her hearing aids because she was being teased. When visiting the aquarium, “she had this epiphany that if Winter can wear her prosthetic tail, then she was going to wear her hearing aids,” Hatkoff explained.
    With the help of Scholastic, the Turtle Pond Collection has reached children through multimedia outlets including a Nintendo DS game and interactive websites. Scholastic even launched Winter’s Tail with a national webcast in which 500,000 students from 16,000 schools participated. “I think of these books as tools that allow kids and teachers to extend their experience. The real journey begins once you finish reading the book,” Hatkoff said. “It’s about kids becoming global citizens.”
    The family has three new books coming out. Although he couldn’t reveal many details, Hatkoff did say that they will be visiting their fourth continent — Asia — and that it’s about global cooperation. 
    Hatkoff’s personal projects include co-founding the Tribeca Film Festival with his wife, Jane Rosenthal, and Robert De Niro, whom he met through a common friend in the late ’70s. He’s currently working on a book about technology, spirituality, and religion as his next commitment to the Clinton Global Initiative.   
    And at home, the Hatkoff pack includes Ruby the dog, two chinchillas, and a gerbil. “We’ve had a peak of almost thirty pets at one time,” said the self-described animal lover. “Animals have always been a huge part of our lives, so this was all just a natural evolution.” 

— Aleta Mayne


The sweet life
Betsy Sweet ’78 doesn’t believe in coincidences. Knocking over a newspaper rack in a California coffee shop a few years ago, she found the answer she had been looking for on the pages of an open paper. The mother of three and owner of a lobbying firm had been feeling like something was missing. What she believed she needed was to reconnect with her spiritual side, so when the newspaper fell open to an article about the spiritual psychology master’s degree offered by the University of Santa Monica, she thought, “This doesn’t seem random.”
    That she lives in Maine was an obvious obstacle, so Sweet tucked the article away until she could figure out how she could attend the program. When she learned the classes were offered on the weekends and members of her tight-knit community offered to help with child care, the pieces fell into place.


Betsy Sweet ’78 with her three daughters

    So, one weekend a month for two years, she flew to Santa Monica, participated in the intense 6- to 12-hour classes from Friday through Sunday and then returned to Maine to complete her school assignments as well as juggle her other responsibilities. “I could have bought a boat or had an affair, but I decided to go to graduate school across the country,” she joked about what she called her midlife crisis. “But, besides having my kids, it was the best thing I ever did for myself.”  
    Sweet completed her master’s in spiritual psychology last spring and recently opened a healing practice called Sweet Spirit. “I do a combination of Reiki and chakra balancing in conjunction with talk therapy,” she explained. Whether clients seek relief from a physical or psychological ailment, Sweet believes in the mind-body connection and will explore both avenues to help clients heal. “I believe we’re all meant to be happy,” she said. “If we’re not, something’s out of alignment — that could be a physical something, an energetic something, or an emotional something.”
    As if two businesses and three teenage daughters weren’t enough to handle, Sweet also hit the road with her new one-woman stand-up comedy show, “How Sweet It Is.” Saying that she didn’t choose stand-up comedy, “it chose me,” she began the routine as part of her master’s thesis, for which the class was challenged to do something that was a personal stretch. Not believing that she was “that funny,” she hired a comedy coach who lives in Maine and works with The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart. The show was a hit, and she has been performing in community theaters around New England. Most of Sweet’s act is based on adult topics like politics and being a single mom, so upon request of her daughters, she’s currently writing a show for kids to attend with their parents. 
    Whether it’s humor therapy from the stage, spiritual therapy from her Sweet Spirit office, or legal assistance for nonprofits through the halls of the legislature, Sweet enjoys helping people on all levels. She and her colleagues at Moose Ridge Associates advocate for nonprofit social services, including domestic violence victims, those with disabilities, environmental groups, and the cancer society. She prefers the term “advocates” to “lobbyists” because “people have this vision of lobbyists with big cigars and money flying out of their pockets, but my clients don’t have those assets,” she said. 
    In her advocacy career, she has helped pass Maine’s Family Medical Leave Act, which the national act was fashioned after, helped pass the Civil Rights Bill to include gays and lesbians in the Maine Human Rights Act, and helped Maine become one of the first states to have publicly funded elections for its state legislature.
    The contacts she’s made through her political work and involvement in the community have built her client base at Sweet Spirit. All of her business has come through referrals from friends and physicians. “I think it really fills a need. People are trying to figure out how to make more of their own lives and be more content.”
    As for Sweet’s fulfillment? She says, “I’ve always had a happy life, but this has been an extraordinary experience.”

— Aleta Mayne


Holistically hyperactive Renaissance man
When Jeff Bjorck ’83 was a child, his mom taught him to play the piano. He had a knack for memorizing a piece quickly, and relished the freedom that came from not having to look at the music. By age 13, he said, “I realized I can actually improvise and pick music out of the air.” Today, Bjorck takes a staggering number of supposedly discrete involvements — clinical psychologist, professor, researcher, musician, writer, hang-glider pilot — and, fueled by loads of energy and his strong Christian faith, weaves them together into a rich composition.


Jeff Bjorck ’83 (left) on a recent trip to Africa with Lifewater International

    A conversation with Bjorck is one with a Renaissance man seemingly charged up with caffeine, although he can tell you the day he stopped drinking coffee: March 20, 1983, after his adviser, psychology professor Myra Smith, gave him a talking-to.
    “When most people get tired, they slow down. When I get tired, I speed up,” he explained. “As a psychologist looking back on my own behavior, I would diagnose myself with ADHD. I would drive Myra nuts. She said, ‘Jeff, you’ll want to work on this.’ The metaphor I came up with was, I walk through my life with smoking brakes.” He managed to find a pace that suits him to a T.
    The doctoral program where he is a professor, the Graduate School of Psychology at Fuller Seminary in Pasadena, Calif., has integrated theology with psychology since 1965, but addressing spiritual factors is much more recent in mainstream psychology.
    “Until 1994, you couldn’t even talk about religion in a psychological context except in terms of pathology. But people are beginning to understand that faith and spirituality don’t mean what Freud thought, that religion is only a crutch for the psychologically weak,” said Bjorck. Of how his faith intersects with his work, he said, “When I meet a new person, I would never say, ‘Hi, I’m Jeff Bjorck and I’m a Christian.’ I love what St. Francis of Assisi said: ‘Preach the Gospel always, and if necessary, use words.’” In teaching students how to integrate their faith with being a psychologist, he said, “We have to dispel common illusions, like that you’re going to try to convert your clients. We teach our students to be sensitive to the spiritual leanings of all people, including atheists.” Bjorck also has a small private practice, and does extensive research on how faith and religion function as coping strategies and support resources. He and his students recently developed the first adolescent religious coping scale.
    Bjorck’s work with coping mechanisms carries back to his music. He has produced four original piano CDs, and his music has been used in independent films such as a documentary about a boy suffering from epidermolysis bullosa, as well as television shows. This year, the faith-based organization Guideposts added a CD featuring eight of his tracks to their Comfort Kits for Kids, which are given to children in hospitals. Although Bjorck calls himself a ‘hack’ piano player, he said, “I think I communicate emotion that reaches people. When children have heard my music, they will say, ‘Can I have that soft music again?’ Especially when they are sick or anxious, it seems to be calming. I couldn’t be more thrilled that my music will help thousands of little children go to sleep in noisy hospitals, or be a comfort if mommy or daddy has to go home.” They anticipate handing out 500,000 kits nationally in the next five years.
    Bjorck donated most of his royalties to that project, just as he’s given earlier CDs to other charities, including Lifewater International, where he is a board member. Through Lifewater, which trains and equips partners in developing countries to provide sustainable safe water, hygiene education, and sanitation, he has traveled to Haiti, Afghanistan, and sub-Saharan Africa.
    And in a more physical philanthropic vein, his ponytail isn’t just a fashion statement. This summer, for the sixth time, he’ll lop off a foot of hair for an organization that makes wigs for chemotherapy patients. It’s all music to his ears.

— Rebecca Costello



From pigskins to hambones
Rob Stone ’91 makes even the most avid sports fan look ill-informed. As an announcer and reporter for ESPN, Stone is sports savvy on everything from the World Cup to the annual Fourth of July Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest. “About the only sports I haven’t covered,” said Stone, “are the NFL, NBA, and baseball.” Covering more than 70 events a year for the network, he has made a name for himself as an energetic and lively personality.


Rob Stone ’91 (left) with Alexi Lalas, renowned former U.S. soccer player (Photo courtesy of ESPN)

    Stone started working at ESPN as a production assistant soon after graduation. In 1997, he was asked to host the weekly magazine show Worldwide Soccer. Although he has since diversified his coverage for the network, Stone maintains his passion for soccer. As an alumnus of Colgate’s varsity soccer team, Stone’s work covering each of the past three World Cups — and his anticipated coverage of the upcoming World Cup in South Africa — is particularly noteworthy. “Soccer is a sport I grew up with, a sport I love, and a sport I readily identify with Colgate, so to remain involved with it at a very high level is really gratifying,” he said.
    Because he reports on such a wide array of sports, the bulk of Stone’s work is actually in preparation for an event rather than in the actual coverage. “It’s good to be diverse,” said Stone, “but there are weeks where I am doing three different sports in a six-day window. Sometimes I have to ask, ‘Where am I and who am I talking to now?’”
    Stone’s research and preparation skills were put to the test when he prepared for one of his more unexpected roles at ESPN, as the voice of the Professional Bowlers Association. “I knew nothing about the sport,” Stone recalled about when his bosses first approached him with the opportunity. “I had literally two-and-a-half weeks in the midst of soccer and football season, and my wife set to deliver twins, to learn the sport and its history and its players.”
    Stone rose to the challenge and quickly established himself as part of the PBA tour, though not without some controversy. Stone noticed that three strikes in a row were referred to as a “turkey,” but there was no comparable term to denote the more difficult feat of four strikes in a row. He therefore deemed it a “hambone.” Initially, according to Stone, “the bowling purists did not take a strong liking to it,” and he said he was prepared to drop the term out of respect for the sport. But within moments of speaking at an event with his producer about discontinuing it, “fans came into the venue with a ton of ‘hambone’ signs, and people were chanting ‘hambone.’ I just looked at my producer and said, ‘Yeah, that’s not going to die this week.’”
    Stone brings that creativity and enthusiasm to every sport he covers. “If I’m not excited about the game, why should the audience care?” Often, Stone’s attitude manifests itself in interesting and fun segments that inevitably find their way to YouTube, but he also seriously appreciates the sports he covers and the significance they have beyond the playing field. “In 1998, I was at the U.S.-Iran World Cup game. Obviously there were a lot of political ramifications, storylines, and undertones associated with that. That was awesome to be around.”
    Covering so many different events requires a great deal of travel and the management of a difficult schedule, but Stone appreciates the lifestyle. “I don’t understand how my buddies operate in a nine-to-five world, and I’m sure they don’t have a clue how I get by. But I like the variety. I’m really fortunate to be involved in something that I love, which is sports.”

— Jason Kammerdiener ’10


In the know: The art of fly fishing
Evan P. LeBon ’05 is director of operations at Leland Fly Fishing Outfitters in San Francisco. As a search engine optimization consultant, he has been integral in the company’s online strategy and business development. Leland (owned by Joshua L. Frazier ’97) is a full-service fly shop that has provided anglers in the San Francisco Bay area with top-shelf gear and comprehensive education since 1985. LeBon offers the following advice for anyone interested in the timeless and relaxing sport of fly fishing.


 
Why fly fishing? The changes posed to us by the modern world come faster and faster, but fly fishing remains nearly the same as when Izaak Walton wrote about it in his 17th-century work, The Compleat Angler. It’s this consistency that continues to make the sport a magnetic choice for recreation. Catching fish on artificial lures cleverly composed of metal, feathers, fur, and hair is a wonderfully elegant challenge. It’s an accessible sport that can take you to some of the most staggeringly beautiful places on earth, and it can also give your backyard creek an entirely new dimension.
 
1. Learn to fly cast. You’ve probably heard that fly fishing is hard, but that’s not true. If you’ve ever taken a fly rod down the hill to Payne Creek, you know that: a.) there really are trout in that stream; and b.) fly casting is the hard part, and precisely why you have to learn to cast a fly rod before you can catch a fish. Before you start flailing around with rod and line, take a lesson. If you can, make sure your teacher is a Federation of Fly Fishers Certified Casting Instructor.
 
2. Gear up. Heading to the river without the right gear is like walking into Lathrop with books you’d take to Lawrence — you’ll get by, but you won’t impress anyone. There are lots of rods, reels, and fly lines to choose from. Get set up with the right tools at a local fly shop or through an online specialty store. Entry-level outfits may seem like the ticket, but they’re often less responsive and may actually impede fly casting efficiency. That said, the best of the best is overkill, unless you’ve become addicted to angling and its esoterica. Start with an outfit near the top of your budget to maximize your chance for picking up the sport.
 
3. Ask questions. Although one can get far reading about the sport, there’s nothing better than asking a local angler. You’ll learn how particular streams, rivers, bays, estuaries, and saltwater flats fish throughout the year, what flies work and when, techniques and tactics that can improve your day on the water, and other subtle knowledge. Fly fishing is a language, and its dialects are varied and parochial. What works in Hamilton may not work in Clinton, and this is certainly the case from river to river, fish to fish.
 
4. Tie your own flies. To get in tune with the sport, head to the river with flies you’ve constructed on your own. Sure, buying flies saves time and (sometimes) money, but tying your own is rewarding. From books and DVDs, you can learn how to wrap material neatly around a hook shank to resemble the insects and small aquatic prey that fish eat. You’ll also learn about aquatic ecosystems and how the particular fish species you’re after fits into its
environment. As if that weren’t enough, there’s nothing better than the pride-infused smile that comes with catching a big fish on a fly you tied the night before.
 
5. Go fishing! Whether you’d like to pursue small and wily golden trout in California’s high Sierra streams, or cast monster saltwater flies to striped bass and bonefish in the tropics, there’s no better way to improve your ability than to head to the water and wet a fly. To track down good water, consult published guides and fly fishing–oriented river maps; and there are a wealth of blogs, message boards, and websites dedicated to finding fish — just Google it and get out there.
 
What do you know? If you’re an expert in an area of your field or avocation and would like to share your sage advice, e-mail scene@colgate.edu or write to the Colgate Scene, 13 Oak Drive, Hamilton, NY 13346.


Caffeinated compassion
Chalk it up to the gourmet coffee and tea that keep Johny Chaklader ’03 and Michael Tringali ’04 in the grind. In one recent week, the pair had bounced from city to city — catching only a few hours’ sleep in between — to raise awareness about their new enterprise, the Shapna Project. Meaning “dream” in Bangla, Shapna strives to “eradicate poverty one village at a time at home and abroad” using sustainable practices in the sale of tea and coffee. What started as Chaklader’s graduate school assignment has become a new endeavor that, one year in the works, has the potential to change lives.


Michael Tringali ’04 (left) and Johny Chaklader ’03

    The project is an equity-based model that sells tea grown in Bangladesh and coffee grown in Uganda by farmers who have partnered with Shapna in hopes of improving their economic status. In addition to paying fair trade prices, the company reinvests 40 percent of its profits back into projects that promote sustainable community empowerment. “Twenty percent gets reinvested into the villages that are growing the produce, and twenty percent gets reinvested into the communities in which it’s consumed,” Chaklader explained.
    This spring, Chaklader will receive his JD and MBA degrees from Howard University. The Shapna Project began when a class assignment instructed students to design a program that has the potential to fight environmental injustice and poverty in a geographic location of their choice. Bangladesh, where he was born and still has family, was a natural starting point for Chaklader.
    When the assignment was finished and he was ready to take his idea to the streets as CEO of Shapna, Chaklader began to assemble a team, now almost 30 strong, of Colgate and Howard University alumni and students. One of those Colgate alumni was Tringali, who signed on as sales coordinator. The two have been friends since Colgate; Tringali even introduced Chaklader to his fiancée, Bridget Ryan ’05, who is Shapna’s chief knowledge officer.
    The Shapna team first presented the project last May at the State of Environmental Justice in America 2009 Conference in Washington, D.C. At that time, progress had been made on the tea side of the business, with a product that was ready to sell and a village that had agreed to partner. The project caught the attention of a group from Uganda, who invited Chaklader to come to their country to see if it would work there. “We want the Shapna Project to be truly global, so the possibility to test it out on a different population was extremely attractive,” he said. 
    In August 2009, Chaklader traveled to Uganda to meet with community leaders and farmers. Despite the vast differences between the two countries, he witnessed similarities between the farmers in Uganda and Bangladesh. In both countries, many farmers are hamstrung by the estates for which they work and payment comes through an inconsistent ration system. “We learned that the idea of a direct relationship between the amount of work you put in and the amount of reimbursement [you receive] was a foreign concept,” Tringali said. Chaklader chimed in: “So we asked, if the incentives were created to allow these people to move out of this environment into where our project villages are, would they do it? They did. And are these people getting much more as a result of growing the same amount of tea? Yes. And are they a little happier? Yes.”
    Collaboration with local politicians, community leaders, and organizations in both countries has been essential. “You need to have them on board to form a credible relationship with the farmers,” Chaklader explained. Currently, 5,000 farmers in Uganda and 2,000 in Bangladesh partner with Shapna. The fruits of their labor can be found on the shelves of about 60 shops in the Washington, D.C., and New York metropolitan areas.  
    Through conversations with members of the City Market/Onion River Co-op in Vermont, the Shapna team was approached by Peace Corps alumni about partnering with villagers in the Dominican Republic. Tringali traveled there last January to meet coffee growers, and plans are in the works to form a partnership that will benefit both villagers in the Dominican Republic and Vermont farmers through the model’s reinvestment approach. 
    With ambitions of continuing expansion, the Shapna team wants to lead by example: “Hopefully, we can show other companies that there’s a way to run a business in which you can do well and do good at the same time,” said Tringali. 
    Balancing their volunteer roles for Shapna and full-time jobs, it’s not only the caffeine that keeps them going, but also their determination and belief in a project that they hope can make the world a better place.
 
— Aleta Mayne


Allison Taylor on deck
Living with a crew in tight quarters. Night deck watches. Being cut off from the rest of the world for long periods of time. Navigating life at sea takes a certain type of person. Having sailed professionally since 2006, Allison Taylor ’04 has learned that she has the constitution for such a life. “You have to be pretty flexible and have some patience,” she emphasized. “But it’s probably the truest kind of community that exists anymore — united by the bond of the ship and free from the distractions of media and entertainment.”
    Taylor recently returned from a nine-month stint as bosun on the Pride of Baltimore II, a reproduction of an 1812-era Baltimore Clipper privateer that educates the public about the history of Maryland. She was primarily responsible for the rigging, including checking and repairing the sails and lines. She also took shifts as a watch officer, standing vigilant on deck while other crew members ate or slept. “I would be in charge of the navigation, keeping up on the weather, and making sure we didn’t come too close to any vessels,” she explained.
    From astronomy to learning the rigging of different boats from various eras, Taylor’s work requires knowledge of an array of subjects. Sailing on educational boats, she has taught navigation and marine science, and on other boats the focus is history, some of which is learned while aboard. “I knew very little about the War of 1812 [before working on the Pride], but now I know a lot,” she said.
    The Pride departed Baltimore in mid-May, sailed south to Bermuda, then raced 30 other vessels 700 miles to Charleston, S.C., in the American Sail Training Association Tall Ships Challenge, taking first place. She then headed north, going as far as Montreal, Canada, and returned home to the Chesapeake Bay in early September. The public was invited aboard for deck tours, and small groups could sail with the crew in between ports. Taylor explained that when passengers traveled with them, they essentially became crew members. “It’s not a sitting around kind of thing — they stand watch with us in the middle of the night and help us do the sail handling. The boat moves around a bunch, so it can be very intense at times, for them as well as us,” she said, adding that sleeping in those conditions can be challenging. “You try not to fall out of your bunk; it can be exciting!”
    The Pride crew was composed of 12; Taylor and six others shared sleeping quarters. “It’s a lot of people living in a small space, working, sleeping, and eating all together,” she said. “It’s a big family.”
    Green grass, a big bed, and couches are among the “luxuries” she misses, but Taylor appreciates being at sea for a number of reasons, including the time it affords her for hobbies like knitting, reading, and writing letters. When the ship sailed to Canada, her cell phone didn’t work and e-mail was so sporadic that handwritten letters were the only way she could keep in touch with friends and family. “I get to do things that I might not be so inclined to do if I were more connected,” she said.
    One drawback of the job is the toll it takes on her body; she’s currently taking some time off to recover from knee surgery. “It’s a lot of standing,” she said. “I liken it to skiing because you have to keep your balance, and if the boat’s moving, you’re constantly using your legs just to stand up.”
    Despite the hardships, Taylor is one of those unique people who prefers to be sailing the great blue, “working outside with the elements — being closer to nature, the weather, and the seasons, as well as the absolutely incredible entity that is the ocean itself.”

— Aleta Mayne

Road taken



 Barbara West ’89   
Culture Works founding partner, Melbourne, Australia

 Graduating with majors in SOAN and English, I began a PhD program in anthropology, expecting to follow Professor Mary Moran’s path to West Africa. 

A series of events put me on another path. Liberia disintegrated into civil war, and my partner won a Watson Foundation fellowship to spend 1990–1991 in Britain. I took a leave of absence from my program to travel from Land’s End to John o’ Groats. 

I realized that good fieldwork did not require living in a war zone, and I changed my focus to take advantage of the opportunities provided by the end of the Cold War. Four years later, I defended my dissertation on post-socialist Hungarian identity, had my first and, so far, only job interview, and got the job. In 1995, I became an assistant professor of anthropology and international studies at the University of the Pacific (Stockton, Calif.).
 
I was happy at Pacific: had wonderful colleagues, great students, published a book, was promoted to associate professor, and won a few teaching awards. But, 10 years in, I felt like I’d hit a plateau. At the same time, my Australian partner was ready to go home after 10 years in the States. 

We quit our jobs and moved to Melbourne. Today, we run an intercultural consulting business, Culture Works. We travel the country doing intercultural communication training, consulting, and research. In four years, we’ve published two books and the third is in production.

I’ve become a dual Australian-U.S. citizen and had to buy three suits — one of the reasons I got a PhD in the first place was to avoid having to wear a suit! But the freedom is worth it, and I hope never to have that second job interview.



Maroon'd...
in Barcelona, Spain



Jodi Neufeld ’03 lives in Barcelona with her husband, Oscar Gimeno. She is the communications coordinator for the Barcelona Graduate School of Economics, where she never tires of sharing tips with students. Here are her favorites:

Palau de la Música… You may be so engrossed in the modernist details of this grand yet intimate performance hall that you forget to listen to the music.

Camp Nou/FC Barcelona… You don’t have to be a soccer fan to enjoy the spectacle of a Barça match on the team’s home turf. If they win, head to the Rambla de Canaletes to celebrate with the locals.

Grill up some fun… Catalans love to celebrate seasonal foods with a cookout. A few kilometers outside the city, you'll find farmhouses and vineyards offering grilled favorites like calçots: baby onions that are charred outside, gooey and sweet inside. Wash them down with a swig of wine from a porró, the traditional drinking vessel of choice.

Hunt for mushrooms… In the fall or early winter, join an expedition of boletaires (mushroom hunters) and hike the hilly forests north of the city in search of tasty fungal treasures.

Antique cartoons… Head to Petritxol Street in the Gothic neighborhood. Installed in the façades of the street’s buildings is a series of antique auca tiles painted with cartoon drawings and a couplet explaining the street’s history.

Human castles… Part team-building exercise, part extreme sport, the precarious challenge of building a human castle is a sight to see. Exhibitions by municipal teams of castellers are held throughout the year.

Have tips for people who might be maroon’d in your town? Write us at scene@colgate.edu and put Maroon’d in the subject line.

Colgate seen
The spirit of alumni sporting their Colgate gear is seen here, there, and everywhere around the globe. Where was your latest spotting? On a Machu Picchu trek? At a mini-reunion in Pocatello? An election polling site in Houston? We’re collecting photos of Colgate sightings around the world. Send them to scene@colgate.edu.



This photo of Jason Kammerdiener ’10 at the Rano Raraku quarry on Easter Island, Chile, was taken in summer 2009 when he was conducting a survey of the island’s archeological features as part of the Alumni Memorial Scholars program.



Patrick Farrell ’05 is pictured at Machu Picchu, Peru, while on his honeymoon with his wife, Iceseas, in November 2009. The couple completed a seven-day, 42-mile trek and reached 15,300 feet in elevation to get there.