Dave Gerard
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5914 Lovejoy Ct
Springfield,
Virginia 22152
703-451-3945
dgerard@erols.com
www.west-point.org/class/usma/1968
[Photo #1 – “Rand Allen, Fred
Hoblit, Bill McCauley, and Pat Toffler at our last reunion”]
Even as President of the DC Bar, John Cruden is
not the only notable classmate lawyer in the District of Columbia. Last November, Rand Allen, Chair of Wiley Rein & Fielding's Government
Contracts Practice, was recognized by his peers, and singled out by Legal
Times as the "Leading Government Contracts Lawyer" in
the Washington, D.C. area. Rand is the "go-to"
industry counsel for the highest-profile matters, including bid protests,
disputes, commercial litigation, terminations, mergers and acquisitions,
procurement fraud investigations, suspension and debarment, and regulatory
issues. He attributes his determination
in winning to his West Point and Army training and being coached by Bobby
Knight. When I contacted Rand regarding
this selection, he mentioned that he and Leeda
had dinner with Bill & Cindy
McCauley and Brian Copley and
his fiancée, Jan, in January in Ft. Lauderdale. As a step toward retirement, Rand & Leeda purchased a home in
West Palm Beach last year and have used it as an opportunity to connect with
the '68 contingent is south Florida.
While it’s especially great to hear from classmates
and their families, it’s also neat to hear about classmates from “outside”
folks – people we hear from that don’t know that we know who they are talking
about. This fall, a retired Special Ops
guy (he had come up through the ranks in SF, Ranger, and Delta Force units) at
our marina, who had just returned from a “business trip out of country,”
mentioned that his company had recently sent him through one of the best
continuing education seminars that he had ever experienced. It involved a “wild man with a pony tail who
said he’d cut it off – for a price.”
The “wild man” was Bill Jeffries
delivering on one of his personal creativity and business innovation
seminars… Bill reports that his
international work has ebbed since the friends of a few world leaders seem less
than excited about having a former American military professional consult for
them.
Jack & Bobbi Munson checked in to report that Jack is retired – except when he’s working with the Navy PM of UAVs
at PAX River and traveling to spread the UAV gospel. Bobbi is working – except
when she’s tired – and she’s tired of working.
She’s still with the Heinz Family foundation – which had been pretty
quiet since the foundation virtually shut down while Mrs. Heinz helped her
husband campaign for the presidency.
Daughter Megan married Dennis Baker at her grandparents’ Cape Cod
homestead last June and daughter Erin (USAFA 98) is the first female C-130
pilot to go through the USAF Weapons School.
While Fred &
Nancy Hoblit are not retired – they
even changed jobs within SAIC (Fred continues to test – only now, on the Army
Future Combat Systems program – and Nancy has joined a new company SAIC just
bought to ease them into the world of big Highway Helpers) – they are
preparing. Although Nancy’s golf play
was curtailed last year due to a torn knee ligament, she succeeded in winning
one of the two Career Woman events at the Army-Navy Country Club. Fred & Nancy were also part of the
qualifier team for the nation-wide Buick Scramble Tournament., and after
Nancy’s recovery, they won two mixed couple tournaments. Besides golf, they too are praising the
feeling of being grandparents.
Even though they were living in England, the call of
the kitchen remodeling muse was still so strong to Mike & Diana Murphy
that they started via long distance.
After moving back to Peachtree City, GA, Mike bought a golf cart to
ferry four year old grandson, Daniel, around the 80 miles of Peachtree City
golf cart paths since their daughter, Krista, and her husband, Dan, live about
an hour away – by car. Both Krista and
Dan work for GE and have to travel – so, guess who gets to look after
Daniel? Mike also spent the year
looking after the UK, Germany and new operations in Puerto Rico and Mexico for
Goody (makes Sharpie markers, Parker, Waterman and PaperMate pens, and Expo Dry
Erase markers, among other things). The
day before Thanksgiving he was offered and accepted a temporary assignment back
to England beginning in early January working as the European Supply Chain
Director for Sanford Europe – a sister company to Goody. Mike and Diana will be living in the
Brighton area during their stay.
A third of our Savannah, GA Poop School contingent, Dave & Pat Carraway, checked in to report that Dave continues to enjoy
his job at Ft Stewart, where he gets to be with troops in the motor pool, and
Pat enjoys the stress-free positions at the gift shop in the main library and a
“pool guard” job from Memorial to Labor Days.
Stott & Bobbie Carleton’s holiday letter was a lot more subdued this
year. Stott’s retirement lobster
business seems to be doing OK since he snagged over 4 ½ tons of the crayfish on
steroids last year. Since they put the
gear away for the winter, they have snuggled in to enjoy their sons’ families
in the area. Besides celebrating
grandparenthood, they report that Chad is now a deputy sheriff and Todd has
been selected to sail on his company’s new oil tanker.
Besides his PM duties for the USAF at Hanscom AFB, Stan & Donna-Marie Burwell are in the midst of adding a “parent apartment” onto their home since Stan’s step dad died last year and his mother is now living with them.
Tom & Gretchen Jewell experienced another busy year. Gretchen continued to enjoy her masters Degree
program in Art Therapy and Tom traveled to Germany, France, Mexico, the Czech
Republic, Hungary, and the UAE for international programs and engineering
accreditation. Because of the phase-out
of civil engineering, Tom has also taken on teaching freshman engineering and
preceptorial (reading, research, and writing) courses. Besides finally sneaking in an overdue
honeymoon trip to Hawaii, they also welcomed their second grandchild, Allison
Marie Jewell (Jim’s and Holly’s daughter) into the family last June.
Sandy Cohn, one of the major contributors to our class gift
fund, and the CEO and President of H-Quotient, Inc. and Standard Holdings Group,
announced a quarterly H-Quotient stock dividend payable in free-trading shares
of Standard Holdings Group Ltd. If you
had been a stockholder of HQNT back in February, you would have not only helped
the class gift fund grow, but you would have received one share of SNDH for
every 10 shares of HQNT.
[Photo
2 -- “Julie Shahid, Debbie James (Class of 92), Fred Shahid, and Kathleen
Shahid at Uhuru Peak, elevation 5895 meters – the highest point of Mt.
Kilimanjaro”].
Presumably, as a preemptive strike regarding the Lake
Frederick old grad marchback with the new cadets this summer, Fred Shahid reported that he climbed Mt
Kilimanjaro, the highest free standing mountain in the world, with his three
daughters over last Thanksgiving. They took
4 ½ days to get to the top and 1 ½ days to get down, and Fred still isn’t sure
which was the hardest. When asked how
cold it was at the top, Fred responded in true Infantry/Marine Corps fashion by
reporting, “It was cold as heck. We only
stayed up there long enough to get the pictures as proof.” After the climb, Fred and the girls went on
a safari thru the Serengeti. Since
there wasn’t a Ritz Carlton in Africa, Sallie
stayed home and prepared for Fred’s return by planning a trip to Jamaica over
Christmas so Fred could rest up. Fred
felt that he had to take part in these little adventures in preparation for
real retirement in a few years.
[Photo 3 -- “John McDonald and Chuck Vehlow at Chuck
Mahan’s Army Retirement”]
…[Photo 4 -- “Pete Wallace,
Mike Mears, and Rich Witherspoon on the Poop Deck at our 35th”]
SAIC
Sr VP and Director of Business Development John
McDonald took time out of his busy schedule to help Mike Havey maintain his new position as the Director of the Threat
Reduction Support Center for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s Cooperative
Threat Reduction Directorate. The DTRA
CTR and TRSC are helping to make the world a safer place by being an integral
part of dismantling, destroying, securing, and preventing proliferation of WMD
in some very inhospitable places. For
SAIC – and Mike -- to continue that support, he had to re-compete for the job –
and John led the all-important “Red Team” to ensure Mike’s proposal answered
the dreaded RFP. For those of you who
have never had the opportunity to go through a major proposal process (and
they’re all major), it’s an experience that turned Garfield into Bill the Cat
in the comics. During the process, I
used Mike Simonich’s office since he
spends most of his time in Albania these days, and got to meet with Asst VP and
Program Manager Steve Rader and Sr
Policy Analyst Rich Witherspoon. Rich just completed a project for the DoD where
the MAJ and LTC action officers thought they had pulled together an innovative
new concept for soldiers in combat zones called “Rest & Relaxation.” Maybe, in time, they might develop “Sundry
Packs” for the troops.
[Photo 5 -- “Linda & Fred Johnson”]
Fred Johnson checked in with a bad news, worse news, and better
news story. In January, Linda took a spill on the ice that is
known to inhabit Wisconsin during that time of year. It turns out the fall was fortunate, since a rib X-ray caught a
shadow on her lung that was diagnosed as "other than small cell"
cancer – which is reported to be very treatable. . After a meeting with
the Oncologist, the news wasn't as good as hoped for. The cancer had spread and surgery isn't an option. Linda
s an excellent candidate for a clinical drug trial that doesn't have the
traditional chemo side effects. If the
trial doesn't prove effective, they can "fall back" on usual chemo.
When John & Margie Hedley heard of Linda’s plight,
they forwarded the information to Jim Furr for
inclusion in the class prayer chain.
Earlier, they wrote to inform us that they had celebrated their last New Year’s Day
in Tokyo since Raytheon offered John the opportunity to continue his Japanese
and US defense work from their home (that includes a beach, pool, and boat
dock) at Lake Norman, NC. Their
messages regarding their concern for Linda were their last transmissions from
their apartment since they had to break down the computer for the packers and
move into a hotel in Toyko prior to boarding the Freedom Bird 5 days later. After over 11 years in Japan, the Hedleys
will be re-established on the lake by April
for the start of the next chapter in their lives.
[Photo #6 – “John Keane with
Megan & Dutch Hostler at our 35th”]
The position of Class Vice President continues to
carry the curse of no good deed going unpunished. First, it was Fred Johnson. Then, it was John Keane who was supposed to get the DC area classmates
reorganized until he and Anne Marie ran into medical difficulties. Now, current class VP Dutch Hostler thought that he’d have some time on his hands after
leaving IBM to help Paul DeCoursey get the class organized for our class gift,
bring the class closer together with a chat room, and rest up from surgery for
the next Marchback. Now, I’m happy to
announce that Dutch’s hard work in supporting the class has paid off through an
appointment to further represent the class as a member of the AOG Board of
Trustees. But, don’t fret – he promises
to keep nagging us until the class reaches its promised class gift goal. If you think Dutch is overworked, you can
help – GIVE to the class gift fund. Only
you can help Dutch and the Class because YOU’RE ALL WE’VE GOT. 
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Page Last Updated: March 5, 2005