Page 16 - Alumni Horae: Vol. 94, No. 2 Winter 2014

16
noting that not everyone is a natural born schmoozer who
can work the room at a cocktail party. “Paulies are willing
to give a little extra when it comes to fellow members of
the community, and the easiest way to gain access to that
shared sense of support is to show up.”
Andy Bay ’95 showed up after returning to the States
in 2010. Bay, who graduated from college in 1999, spent
the majority of his professional life across the Atlantic
until he returned to the U.S. “I needed to find ways to
jump-start both my social and professional network in
New York,” he says. Bay began by attending SPS social
events and alumni meetings and reaching out to estab-
lished alumni, networking his way through various gigs
before landing a position at Turner Construction.
“People are busy,” Bay says. “You have to be extremely
attentive to your audience when you contact someone
who doesn’t know you and may have no connection to
you other than having attended the same high school.
I’ve met or reconnected with great people in a variety of
industries. Some have offered advice. Some have opened
their Rolodex. Others have become good friends. All have
been fun to spend time with.”
In so many instances, reaching out to an older, more
established alumnus or alumna can be the difference
between landing a dream job and canvassing for a living.
The summer before her Sixth Form year, Julia Davis-
Porada ’13, a four-year member of the SPS Ballet Com-
pany, worked as an intern for Gaynor Minden, a New
York-based dance apparel company. The 20-year-old
business serves several hundred dance specialty stores
nationwide and nearly every major professional ballet
company in the world.
After returning to St. Paul’s in the fall of 2012, Davis-
Porada applied her newly acquired expertise to an
Independent Study Project dubbed “Making a More
Ergonomically Sound Pointe Shoe.” The project was a
continuation of what she’d worked on in faculty member
Terry Wardrop ’73’s Engineering Design class. When it
came time to enlist help from a few experts, Wardrop
made some calls on Davis-Porada’s behalf, including
one to his formmate Charles Cole, founder of Five Ten,
a California-based company that designs mountain
climbing shoes and other gear. Wardrop made another
call to Trustee Laurel Abbruzzese ’86, assistant professor
Higgins followed Reid’s instructions and was one of three
people who received a call for a follow-up interview.
Later, the Seaboard Corporation offered Higgins the job.
Former Alumni Association President Laura Hildesley
Bartsch ’86 describes “the shared experience of such an
extraordinary school” as one of the keys to all alumni-
led efforts and connections. Bartsch spent 17 years with
the SPS Alumni Association, first as form agent and form
director and later as part of the SPS Alumni Association
Executive Committee, eventually serving as president of
the Alumni Association from 2010 to 2012.
“I have spoken to alumni from every decade from the
1930s on, and even if some of the details of their exper-
ience differ, the core experience remains the same,”
Bartsch says. “People are really generous with their time
and with their support for each other, and generally will-
ing to go out of their way to help other alumni out.”
Bartsch, for her part, reconnected with a formmate in
2006 during their 25th reunion, which proved to be a ben-
eficial business opportunity. A casual greeting soon turned
into a conversation about environmental stewardship,
which ultimately led to a strategic marketing/consulting
partnership called Millville Partners, specializing in clean
and sustainable energy. The business grew over six years
before Bartsch took a job at Advanced Energy Economy,
a national association of business leaders working to make
energy “secure, clean, and affordable.”
Luck, happenstance, and good fortune determine a lot,
but “the more you give, the more you get,” Bartsch says,
He remembers
“a lot of little things,”
like helping Berkeley senior
Sandy McNaughton ’11 connect
with friends to discuss finance,
and assisting new San Francisco
transplant Alison Twiss ’95 in
finding an apartment.
“