The Pride is off and running! (Literally.) Teams have enjoyed some great success up to this point, and we hope to see as many alumni as possible at our home contests during Reunion & Homecoming Weekend on October 24 and 25.
Meanwhile, check out Eric Radbourne ’15, who has led the varsity soccer team in goal this season and other Pride Athletes of the Week.
In alumni athletic news, Calvin Heurtelou ’12 is off to a great start playing football for The University of Miami, starting all four games this season and registering six tackles. Ben Whitcomb ’12 (Fairfield University men’s soccer) was named ECAC Co-Rookie of the Week. Evan Byers ’11 was named Patriot League Defensive Player of the Week for his outstanding play for the Bucknell Bison football team.
After a rigorous national search that began in January 2014, the Trinity-Pawling Board of Trustees has announced that William W. Taylor will become the seventh Headmaster of Trinity-Pawling School, effective July 1, 2015.
“This unanimous appointment was the result of united and enthusiastic support from the Search Committee,” says Board President Elizabeth P. Allen. “In Bill, we see a leader of deep understanding, creativity, and vision who will build upon the remarkable progress sustained for our School by Arch Smith. We look forward to an exciting future as we advance the mission and uphold the young men of Trinity-Pawling.”
A nationally known and highly regarded educational leader, Taylor is no stranger to Trinity-Pawling School. He began his career at T-P in 1988, as a teacher, coach and dorm master. Since 2001, he has served St. George’s Independent School in Memphis, TN, first as Associate Head and then, as of 2006, as President. During his tenure with St. George’s, he was responsible for expanding upon a thriving lower school to create a comprehensive pre-K through high school program that today serves 1,200 students on three campuses.
During the 2014-15 school year, we celebrate 25 years of extraordinary progress and leadership at Trinity-Pawling. As Headmaster Arch Smith and his wife, Gay, prepare to retire, we honor them for their devotion and service to our School.
Make plans to reconnect with fellow alumni at these events around the country:
October 22 – Pittsburgh
December 2 – New York City
December 4 – Washington, D.C.
December 9 – Boston
February 3 – Philadelphia
February 23 – Atlanta
February 24 – Dallas
February 26 – San Francisco
March 11 – Miami
March 12 – Jupiter, Florida
March 31 – New Jersey
April 14 – Chicago
May 1 – Farewell gala on campus
For more information, contact Beth Bryant at 845-855-4833 or bbryant@trinitypawling.org
Hundreds of alumni will soon be celebrating with classmates and cheering the Pride to victory on October 24 and 25. It’s not too late to register to come back to the Hill and join in. The event is open to all classes! Highlights include open classes and Alumni Chapel; athletic contests and Hall of Fame inductions; and a Saturday night Oktoberfest Celebration in Gamage Gardens.
View of the full schedule or contact Beth Bryant with questions at 845-855-4833.
October 24-25, 2014
At Trinity-Pawling, we learned that brothers can change your life. Now our brotherhood is on the move. We’re coming together in record numbers to declare the value of a Trinity-Pawling education and to pass that experience on to others. Alumni participation has increased by 122% in the last 24 months. With our support, Trinity-Pawling continues to change lives dramatically.
Every gift has impact. You can direct your gift to the area of Trinity-Pawling that was most influential for you. Uphold the TPS brotherhood, and make your gift today. Thank you.
Trinity-Pawling now has an official “homebase” for networking on LinkedIn. Connect to the Trinity-Pawling Alumni page, then join the Trinity-Pawling Connection private group. You’ll be able to comment on discussions, start topics of your own, share expertise, and post openings on the job board.
The Trinity-Pawling Alumni app is another great networking tool. Download the app to see a live map of alumni in your area (and around the world), sync your LinkedIn profile, and grow your professional network.
For more information, or to volunteer with our growing network, contact Allison Baker at 845-855-4881 or allisonbaker@trinitypawling.org
As a sophomore, Ryan Olstein ’11 was already taking both Spanish and French when he decided to join Trinity-Pawling’s inaugural Chinese language program in 2008. Inspired by his mother, a student of languages herself and a seasoned traveller, Ryan wanted to equip himself for similar adventures. At Trinity-Pawling, he gained not only classroom experience but also the chance to immerse himself in Chinese culture through T-P’s exchange program with St. Paul’s School for Boys in Hong Kong.
“That experience showed me that Chinese was something I was passionate about,” Olstein says. Now a senior at the College of William & Mary, Olstein grabbed the chance to increase his language skills this past summer during an internship with Jing A, a Beijing brewing company.
Jing A is part of the local craft beer movement that is just beginning to take off in China. During the work week, Olstein supported the marketing and sales side of the business, then helped with outreach events on the weekend. “It was definitely a ‘learning on the fly’ experience,” he says. “I was pretty much on my own, and I had to figure out how to handle daily life, plus adjust to their culture and try to assimilate. It was a challenge, but I loved it.”
Olstein hopes to land a full-time job in Hong Kong or Beijing upon graduation. Meanwhile, he attributes much of his success back to “Ms. Rydberg; she always challenged us at T-P to use only Chinese in the classroom. It was a great learning experience.”
Harrison Bramhall ’10 has been driven by a restless, creative spirit for most of his life. In fact, the recent Wheaton College alumnus (class of 2014) can recall telling his father from an early age that he wanted to be an entrepreneur when he grew up. Bramhall’s father, in turn, issued advice that has always stuck: “find a fundamental problem, and fix it.”
As a junior Economics major at Wheaton, that’s just what Bramhall and his friend Nishon Radhakrishnan (Wheaton class of 2015) set out to do. Having tossed around several business ideas while studying for a challenging computer science course, the two finally landed on a concept for stylish, yet affordable, sunglasses. “We’d each had the experience of purchasing sunglasses in the $150 range and then inadvertently losing or destroying them,” explains Bramhall.
Launched in June of 2013, Tints Sunglasses combine 100 percent bamboo sides with plastic or acetate lenses and retail for just $24.99 per pair. Radhakrishnan, now in his senior year at Wheaton, handles all sales, while Bramhall, who spends his days working as a commercial real estate analyst for STAG Industrial, focuses on company direction and marketing.
The knack for balancing a demanding full-time job with a fledgling entrepreneurial venture is something Bramhall says he owes to his four years at Trinity-Pawling. “What I found was a community of guys who wanted to do the right thing, plus a lot of structure, which was something I really needed,” he says. “Even now, when I am feeling my best and most productive, it’s because I am on a good schedule; that’s all stuff I got at T-P.”
Jeff Axelrod ’77 has never forgotten Trinity-Pawling’s influence on his life or the sacrifices his parents made to get him there. He honored both recently, when he and wife, Ellen, established the Axelrod Scholarship to help make Trinity-Pawling financially feasible for talented, dedicated students whose families need an extra boost.
“My wife and I are both big supporters of all the school stands for,” explains Axelrod. “T-P was one of the best things that ever happened to me, and this is our way of passing along that experience to other young men.”
Axelrod recalls his middle and early high school years in Long Beach, Long Island as a period when he “wasn’t performing anywhere near potential.” A round of campus visits and admission interviews soon led the Axelrods to Trinity-Pawling—“far and away our favorite place”—and to a total turnaround for Jeff, who completed grades 10-12 there.
“It gave me the direction and mentoring I was sorely lacking,” he says. Several faculty members in particular were instrumental in pushing him toward greater things, including Arch Smith, who had just begun his own T-P career; Ned Reade, whom Jeff describes as “terrific;” and Miles Hubbard: “ . . . a force—someone who was perfectly willing to get in your face and tell you that you weren’t getting things done.”
Now a Managing Director at Brean Capital LLC, Axelrod attended Hobart College before transferring and completing his degree at the University of Wisconsin (Madison), where he majored in Economics and Journalism, subjects that prepared him for a long and successful career in the mortgage finance industry. Proud of the contributions he’s made in his career field, Jeff notes that he owes it all to the evolution that was set in motion when he joined the Trinity-Pawling family.
Over the last fifteen years, David Von Ancken ’83 has written, produced or directed television shows ranging from HBO’s critically-acclaimed prison drama Oz to Gossip Girl and CSI:NY to AMC’s Hell on Wheels and most recently Salem on WGN America. In his former life, Von Ancken was a successful New York consultant who spent all his free time “in the public library reading room writing plays and reading stuff.” Eventually one of his short films caught the eye of an agent, a manager, and a producer in California who gave him his first television directing job. “I came out here with a carry-on,” he says from L.A., where he now lives, “and didn’t go home for a year.”
Von Ancken may not have been able to predict his career path when he was in high school, but looking back, he can clearly see some of its roots at Trinity-Pawling. “In the photography club I discovered the whole notion of expressing yourself with a camera,” he remembers. “And Livingston Cole, who ran the outing club, was a great influence on me in terms of getting out and seeing the world.” For someone who, as he puts it, didn’t necessarily come from “the culture of making your way in the world through pure creativity,” those experiences were key and continue to propel him forward. Von Ancken is currently in Morocco, shooting his latest television project for Spike TV, a series called “Tut” that fictionalizes the last two years of King Tut’s reign starring Ben Kingsley. He’s the director and executive producer of the project, which is set to air in the summer of 2015.