Distinguished Brooksian for 2024, Henry Lee '64, exemplifies a legacy of environmental stewardship and public service. Lee joined Brooks as a second former and was an active participant in school life, including playing football and baseball, and serving as a house and chapel prefect. Notably, he is the son of Henry Lee '44, a Distinguished Brooksian in 2009, marking a unique, two-generation honor in the school's history.

After graduating from Brooks, the younger Lee continued his academic journey at Harvard University, earning a Bachelor of Arts (cum laude) in 1968 and a Master’s in Public Administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government in 1974.

Before joining Harvard Kennedy School in 1979, he spent nine years in Massachusetts state government as Director of the State's Energy Office and Special Assistant to the Governor for Environmental Policy. At Harvard, Lee serves as the Jassim M. Jaidah Family Director of the Environment and Natural Resources Program within the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and is a Senior Lecturer in Public Policy. His extensive research and publications focus on energy and transportation issues, U.S. climate policy and public infrastructure projects in developing countries.

Lee's contributions extend through numerous advisory roles, including work with the Harvard Presidential Committee on Sustainability, the Massachusetts Audubon Society, and the National Renewable Energy Labs. His insights have informed policy discussions and paved the way for actionable solutions to pressing environmental challenges. In honoring him with the Distinguished Brooksian Award, we celebrate Lee's remarkable achievements and dedication to creating a sustainable and equitable world for future generations.

Distinguished Brooksian for 2024, Peter Nadosy '64, exemplifies resilience and dedication to education and philanthropy. Born in Hungary, Nadosy fled to Austria and then to the United States at age 12, following the Hungarian uprising against the Communist government. Settling on Long Island, New York, he attended Southampton Junior High to become fluent in English before a family recommendation led him to Brooks School. Frank Ashburn's support ensured Nadosy's tuition could be covered by financial aid.

At Brooks, Nadosy was deeply involved, playing tennis and soccer, serving as a School Prefect, and participating in the Honor Council, Student Council, and language clubs. His passion for history and languages led him to Harvard University for a degree in romance languages, followed by an MBA from Columbia University. After 27 years at Morgan Stanley, where he became vice chairman, Nadosy co-founded a firm advising families and foundations on investments.

Beyond finance, he has served on numerous boards, including the Ford Foundation, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, and Central European University. Nadosy is a life trustee of Amherst College and has chaired Harvard University's Endowment. His leadership in impact investing and his role in establishing the Central European University highlight his commitment to social change.

As a Trustee Emeritus for Brooks, he has been a significant donor, particularly supporting financial aid programs. His dedication to helping others access education reflects his own experience, making Nadosy a deserving recipient of the Distinguished Brooksian Award.

Distinguished Brooksian of 2023, Michael B. Keating '58, P'97, epitomizes a legacy of legal prowess and educational dedication. Having served as a trustee at Brooks School from 1976 to 2005, with an additional year as trustee emeritus, Keating's commitment to the institution's mission of excellence is unwavering. His illustrious career in law, marked by distinguished roles such as chairman of Foley Hoag's Litigation Department, underscores his expertise in navigating complex legal landscapes. Renowned for his advocacy in major corporate litigations and pro bono endeavors dating back to the 1970s, Keating's impact extends far beyond the courtroom, resonating in his philanthropic endeavors and educational leadership.

As a luminary in the legal arena, his tenure as president of the Boston Bar Association and chairman of the Massachusetts Court Management Advisory Board exemplifies Keating's dedication to advancing justice and legal education. His commitment to public service, evidenced by accolades such as the Gold Medal Award from the Massachusetts Bar Association, speaks volumes about his enduring impact on society. Keating's influence extends to academia, where he serves as an instructor of Civil Trial Practice at Northeastern Law School, shaping the next generation of legal minds with his wealth of experience and expertise.

Beyond his professional achievements, Keating's steadfast devotion to Brooks School mirrors his unwavering commitment to excellence. From his formative years as a student, where he excelled in athletics and academic pursuits, to his tenure as a trustee and reunion committee chair, his bond with Brooks is deeply rooted. Keating's contributions to the school's capital campaign and dedication to raising funds for financial aid underscore his belief in the transformative power of education. His distinguished career and unwavering commitment to Brooks School exemplify the values of integrity, excellence, and service that define the Brooksian spirit.

Steven Gorham joined Brooks’ board of trustees in 2008 and assumed the presidency in the summer of 2016, just a few months after the school’s successful, $60 million capital campaign publicly was announced. As he turned board leadership over to John Barker ’87, P’21, P’23 in 2022, Gorham remained passionate about raising capital for financial aid.

“I was sixth of seven kids and the first one to go to private school. I was fortunate to get in and to get financial aid,” said Gorham, who had also served on Brooks’ alumni board, reunion committees and fundraising committees. “For me, Brooks had been very transformative for my trajectory. My path would have been far different if I had not been able to attend. I’ve always felt blessed and I’ve always wanted to stay very connected to the school after graduation.”

The North Andover native was a day student who played baseball, basketball and football, in addition to participating in the Young Republicans, the Shield and the Eagle. He subsequently received a bachelor’s degree from the University of New Hampshire and an MBA from Boston College. Gorham’s career-long tenure at Massachusetts Financial Services began in 1989 as a teleservices representative. He now is an equity portfolio manager at MFS, managing the value and global balanced portfolios for MFS’ mutual funds, variable annuities and institutional investment products. He’s responsible for final buy and sell decisions, portfolio construction, and risk and cash management. He also participates in the research process and strategy discussions.

Upon receiving a bachelor’s degree from Rollins College in 1976, the Honorable Richard V. Spencer joined the United States Marine Corps and served as an H-46 (Phrog) pilot until 1981. After leaving active duty, Spencer worked on Wall Street for 16 years with responsibilities centered on investment banking services. He was president of Crossroads Investment Management, LLC, before serving Intercontinental Exchange, Inc., as vice chairman and chief financial officer and Fall Creek Management, LLC, as managing director.

Notably, Spencer was sworn in as the 76th secretary of the Navy on August 3, 2017, serving in that office until November 24, 2019. When pressured by the White House administration to overturn the results of a specific court-martial proceeding, Spencer refused and subsequently resigned. “Richard became very prominent in the news when he took a principled stand against the White House,” classmates wrote when nominating Spencer for this award. “In a resignation letter to Donald Trump, Richard stressed his belief in the importance of ‘good order and discipline,’ which he no doubt learned at Brooks.”

In addition to volunteering his time to Brooks through a variety of roles, Spencer has served on multiple corporate boards. His charitable activities include board service on the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation, the Community Foundation of Jackson Hole, Veterans Campaign/Center for Second Service and Honoring Our Vets. He also served on the Defense Business Board and the Chief of Naval Operations Executive Panel.

Esmond Bradley Martin (1941-2018) was a well-known, widely-respected researcher and conservationist who actively fought to protect numerous animal species, most notably elephants and rhinos. He authored a substantial number of groundbreaking investigative reports on rhino and ivory smuggling and trade from African nations into countries including China, Vietnam, Laos, and even the United States. These reports were instrumental in curbing illegal wildlife trafficking and made him a hero in the conservation world. 

Tony Milbank '59 (seen in above photo on right with Head of School John Packard) was able to be on campus during his 60th reunion to accept the Distinguished Brooksian award on behalf of Martin, his former classmate and roommate. 

Dr. Eric Genden ’83 is the 2018 Distinguished Brooksian for his extraordinary and historic contributions to the field of medical practice, medical teaching and research.

With his practice rooted in dedication to and empathy for others, Genden is the personification of many of our core values and our mission at Brooks, most notably empathy, integrity, passion, moral awareness and social responsibility.

As a student, he was a member of crew, played hockey, and was quarterback for a football team, which went 17 games without a loss. In 1981-82, the team earned an undefeated season and a league championship.

After college he pursued a career in medicine, which includes a long list of notable academic appointments. In 1998, he joined Mount Sinai Medical Center and in 2004, assumed operations and billing of the department. He became the Chairman of the department of otolaryngology - head and neck surgery a year later. Within 12 years, he has grown the group — which expanded to include New York Eye and Ear Infirmary, Beth Israel Hospital, and St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Medical Center, in addition to the department’s existing programs at The Mount Sinai Medical Center, Elmhurst Medical Center, and Veterans Hospital in the Bronx — from 13 physicians and surgeons to 87 surgeons and 341 faculty, making it the largest in the country.

Throughout his career, he has sought to help others. On any given day, he might be performing surgery, teaching other doctors, or removing cancers.

Currently, Genden is the Isadore Freisner Endowed Professor and Chairman of the Department of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He has authored and edited six textbooks on the subjects of head and neck cancer, microvascular reconstruction, and robotic head and neck surgery, and has been lauded with several awards in his field, including the honor of being the first surgeon to perform a jaw transplant in the United States.

William N. Booth ’67 is the 2017 Distinguished Brooksian for his extraordinary service and devotion to Brooks School.

From the time he studied at Brooks through decades after his graduation, Booth has been actively involved in life on campus. As a student he played soccer and squash, captaining the latter during his sixth form year. He was President of the Phillips Brooks Society and the Young Republicans. He served as Treasurer of the Ski Club, sang in the Choir, served as a House Prefect, Fifth Form Prefect, Chapel Prefect, and was a member of the Madrigal Society and Gregorian Society.

After Brooks, Booth went on to Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., then moved quickly into the world of finance and investing by enrolling in State Street Bank and Trust Company’s trust management training program in 1971. After his time at State Street, he worked for David L. Babson and the College Retirement Equities Fund for shorter periods of time before landing at Wellington Management Company in the early 1980s as an analyst and investor. At Wellington, Booth’s career took off and his work both domestically and internationally earned him a position as senior vice president and partner of the company. He finished more than 30 years of work at Wellington in Hong Kong when he was tasked with opening the firm’s office there. He continues to put his expertise to work by serving on a number of boards, and is an integral member of the school’s Investment Committee.

For the past 12 years Booth has served on Brooks School’s Board of Trustees, and was President of the Board from 2006 to 2016. In this role, he led and stewarded the school with great vision and care. His first few years at the helm saw him play an integral role in selecting John Packard as Head of School, and his support led the way to creating Brooks’ science center in 2008. His leadership and steady hand also allowed us to build the first new dormitory at Brooks in 30 years: Chace House. The Campaign for Brooks too, has been driven in large part by Booth’s belief that Brooks deserves the highest levels of support, which he helped provide with a $5 million gift.

Booth’s ten consecutive years of service as President of the Board of Trustees have been equaled by just two others, and exceeded only by Endicott Peabody who served as the school’s first board president from 1927 to 1944. His financial support of the school through the years has had very few equals, and perhaps more importantly, has raised the bar and inspired others to make their own extraordinary gifts to Brooks. Booth has led from the front in this regard and the school has had no more important benefactor in its 90 years of life.

Back in 1966 when Frank Ashburn was writing Tod Sedgwick’s college recommendation, he noted the sixth-former’s “extraordinary range of interests” and described him as a “stimulating individualist, caring little for the many shrines his contemporaries tend so devotedly.” Now, 50 years later, it turns out FDA was spot on.

Sedgwick enjoyed a successful career path through journalism, publishing, entrepreneurship and non-profit leadership. His genuine interest in global affairs and other cultures and languages, and even his piano acumen, all contributed to his productive five-year post as the U.S. Ambassador to Slovakia. Now a Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress, Sedgwick draws upon his world perspective to address today’s political challenges, develop real-world strategic policy solutions and educate the next generation of leaders.

Sedgwick majored in Ottoman history at Harvard. That knowledge, coupled with his love of travel to foreign lands, helped Sedgwick to hone his writing skills. While working for a small publication, Sedgwick seized an opportunity to purchase the company and he was quickly on his way toward an influential career in the publishing industry. He oversaw dozens of insider newsletters specializing in the energy, defense and environment markets. During his appointment as Ambassador, Sedgwick promoted active citizenship to stem a tide of political corruption. He spearheaded efforts toward transparent governance for Slovakia and targeted the judicial system for improvements. Sedgwick retains an active tenure with various non-profit groups including the Civil War Preservation Trust and the Shakespeare Theater Company. His contributions to our country and our world are countless.

Frederick Henry Prince ’65 is the 2015 Distinguished Brooksian for his lifetime of philanthropy, which exemplifies the nobility of character and usefulness to humanity embodied in the spirit of the school.

Trevor Potter was hand-picked by founding headmaster Frank Ashburn to serve a two-year school prefect term during the transition to new headmaster Peter Aitken. Mr. Ashburn had watched Trevor evolve from a boy with a habit of fighting every question asked of him to a young adult with an impressive maturity. Upon graduating from Brooks, he went on to receive degrees from both Harvard College and the University of Virginia School of Law. A distinguished career of practicing and teaching law, political appointments and campaign work has landed Trevor in his current position as a member of Caplin & Drysdale's Washington, D.C., office, where he leads the firm's political law practice.

Goelet was the scion of a family that came to America in 1678 and has long been active in New York City’s cultural life.

In his own words, Goelet was a man particularly “apt at relaxation,” although former headmaster Frank D. Ashburn seemed to believe otherwise. In 1945, upon recommending Goelet to Harvard College, Ashburn wrote that Goelet “has consistently been the best student in his class. I rate him one of the ablest students that we have yet had here.”

Goelet subsequently graduated from Harvard in 1947. A brief tour in the Army and a short stint in law school rounded out his education. He later became the chairman of Goelet Corporations, a private company that oversaw his family’s interests and investments in the mining, oil and gas business.

But his heart always returned to music philanthropy. In fact, he commissioned more symphonic and operatic works than any other American citizen during his lifetime. He subsidized or contributed toward the staging of seventeen productions at the Metropolitan Opera, including three world premieres.

His most significant contribution was the commissioning of new music, starting in 1967 with a series of works to celebrate the New York Philharmonic’s 125th anniversary. A decade later, Goelet commissioned a series of concertos for the Philharmonic’s first-desk players, and to celebrate the Philharmonic’s 150th anniversary in 1992, he paid for another thirty-six works.

When the Rockefeller Foundation created New World Records in 1975 to celebrate American music, Goelet was invited on the board and became its vice chairman. At the conclusion of the bicentennial, he underwrote New World Records on his own. In 2005, New World Records released The Vision of Francis Goelet – a collection of works by Copland, Sessions, Perle, and Rands, as a tribute to Goelet and his extraordinary legacy of his commissions.

Goelet also established a music fund here at Brooks back in the 1950s. In a note to Ashburn with a check to purchase phonograph records for the school, he wrote: “I always appreciated the opportunity to hear good music at Brooks and am sure that learning to know it at school age is…the best and easiest.”

Besides his support of classical music, Goelet was a protectionist. He founded the International Atlantic Salmon Foundation, a conservation organization, in 1969. The foundation later forged ties with similar groups in Britain, Iceland and other European countries.

Goelet lost his battle with cancer 13 years ago at the age of 72.

Louis Morris Starr Beal '45 found his way to Brooks School on the heels of his elder brother. Their father, William DeFord Beal, was a St. Mark’s man, but strayed over to Brooks when it came time for his sons’ secondary education. Louis loved being at Brooks. He was very fond of the first Mrs. Ashburn and, having come from Boston, appreciated her urban loftiness. He played soccer and joined the Chapel Fellowship and the Art Association. Louis credits Director of Art Alicia Waterston with recognizing and encouraging his love of design. He received College Certification from Brooks in 1944, as a number of his courageous brothers did during those years in order to join the service of choice prior to being drafted. He promptly enlisted in the Marine Corps and remained for two years – often corresponding with FDA – until receiving an honorary discharge for illness.

Upon his return, Louis attended Harvard University for two years, studying architecture, and then with the guidance of his father and FDA, transferred to the Rhode Island School of Design. He discovered that he was truly interested in the way people live and work in spaces, not the architecture itself. After graduating with honors in 1952, Louis studied architecture with Walter Gropius at Harvard University. From Boston, he called on his friends, the Saltonstalls, to introduce him to furniture designer Frances Knoll. He moved to New York and joined the Knoll Planning Unit, the first contemporary commercial interior design service available in the United States.

In 1985, he left ISD to become an independent consultant, limiting his work to one or two select projects at a time. His greatest joy stemmed from working on interiors for fine architects. In 1990, Louis was elected to the Interior Design Hall of Fame for outstanding contributions to the industry. Two years later, he was appointed to the International Interior Design Association’s College of Fellows. He is also a Rhode Island School of Design Life Trustee and has been published numerous times.

Always dedicated to the interior design profession and intent on offering his services in payment for some of the rewards he has reaped, Louis is active in the American Society of Interior Designers, having served as director for both the national organization and New York Metropolitan chapter. He is a devoted Vestryman of St. Thomas Church, a member of the Episcopal Diocese of New York. He recently served as their Chairman of the Building Preservation Committee and enjoyed being the client, for a change, in the building of the Choir School. Much of the thoughtful refurbishment of this grand church that towers over 5th Avenue was overseen by Louis.

When Henry Lee '44 got tired of looking at a dilapidated public garden, he and some neighbors thought they might take it upon themselves to do something about it: Ask the city of Boston to fix a fence, or plant some fresh flowers where dead blooms sat.

This small idea became a big project, enjoyed by more than Lee and his neighbors. Thanks to Lee’s efforts, the Boston Public Garden, once a rundown parcel at risk of being forever in the shadows of skyscrapers, is now a treasure for millions in the heart of the city.

Lee was instrumental in saving this jewel in landscape architect Frederick Law Olmstead’s Emerald Necklace in Boston. And today, the Friends of the Public Garden has grown to some 2,500 members, serving as a shining example of a successful partnership between public and private interests.

While at Brooks, Lee lettered in several sports, while also serving as editor of both The Shield and The Bishop. After earning a history degree at Harvard, Lee earned a master’s degree in history at Stanford.

Although he was unable to fulfill hopes of fighting in World War II due to illness after Brooks, he did go on to work for the Foreign Service. Lee eventually returned to the classroom, teaching at the Dexter School for the next 16 years beofre taking the helm of the Carroll School for two years.

Two of his four children with wife, Joan Metcalf, attended Brooks: Henry III ’64 and Tom ’76.

Lawrence W. and Grace Z. Becker arrived at Brooks in 1986, and stayed on campus until 2008.

Larry Becker was schooled in a small farming community in upstate New York. Yet he went on to attend Amherst College in the late-1950s. His collegiate success led to a master's degree at Harvard University a year later.

He arrived on the campus of Hotchkiss in the fall of 1964. The pace at which Mr. Becker was appointed to and succeeded in various high level administrative positions is nothing short of breath taking: director of college placement, dean of the senior class, dean of admissions and college placement, dean of the faculty and assistant headmaster.

During this time, Larry Becker managed to co-author a series of three math text books and developed a reputation outside of Hotchkiss, which led to his appointment as Brooks' third headmaster in 1986. Grace Becker was involved in a number of facets of the school, many of which were unscripted and personal.

"The vision and leadership that would have and did account for it have been evident throughout his more than two decades of inspired guidance here at Brooks. Mr. Becker has overseen the school’s growth both in size and prestige," longtime math teacher Dusty Richard said. "What has been so remarkable about his leadership has been his ability to steer this institution in new and exciting directions and yet ensure that Brooks has retained all of those important and treasured qualities that have distinguished it from its sister schools for generations."

Charles Jencks ’57 is nothing short of an icon. He is an architect and an artist, designer of a dizzying array of structures, intricate landscapes, sculptures and gardens. His distinctive designs incorporate complex characteristics such as "folds, fractals and solitons," and his renown Garden of Cosmic Speculation, on the Scottish border, is a singular testament to his artistic vision.

But beyond his own artistic endeavors, Jencks is known worldwide as the conscience of architecture. He is a preeminent critical voice in the field, author of dozens of books, hundreds of journal and magazine articles and innumerable lectures at universities and museums throughout the world.

Jencks approaches architecture from many angles; his current passions center on the world around him, and for years he has advocated for a more biological and organic world view by his peers. He was "green" long before it was chic, and one need only view his extraordinary living designs to understand his deep connection to the Earth.

Jencks arrived at Brooks in 1952 as a promising second former from Westport, Conn. By the time he graduated in 1957, everyone, including Headmaster Frank D. Ashburn, could see his potential. In typical, succinct Ashburn fashion, he wrote in Jencks' college recommendation, "A good bet. Jencks is a highly intelligent boy, sensitive to good things and with a wider than ordinary cultural background. He is coming along nicely."

Jencks earned a B.A. in English Literature in 1961 from Harvard College, and then a second B.A. and a master's in architecture from the Graduate School of Design by 1965. Still intellectually curious, he moved to London on a Fulbright Scholarship and earned his Ph.D. in Architectural History from London University in 1970.

Not long after that he completed his most enduring written work, The Language of Post-Modern Architecture, first published in 1977 and now enjoying its seventh edition, having been translated into 10 languages. It is read by virtually every student of architecture in the world.

Jencks made his mark by turning his laser-sharp focus on his peers. Using his fluency in architectural history as a context, he has pondered publicly the meaning and value of today's architecture. He has challenged the elite post-modernists to consider honestly their own philosophies and inspirations: Is architecture art? To what extent should it impose itself on our lifestyles? And what is the central motivation of today's architect?

Jencks has brought the deeper meaning of architecture into the public forum. He has worked tirelessly to popularize post-modernism. In an era where "chaos theory" and increasingly complex ideas are routinely referenced in architecture, Jencks fights for clarity, and through his passion has opened the doors to understanding and excitement for many a layperson.

Jencks has also made his mark through his wonderful work supporting cancer patients, in memory of his late wife, Chinese-landscape scholar Maggie Keswick. Through the organization they conceived of while Maggie struggled with, and ultimately succumbed to, her own cancer diagnosis, they have built numerous wonderful Maggie's Cancer Caring Centres, with plans to build many more around the UK. As with all things, Jencks continually demonstrates devotion and passion in this project for the benefit of others.

• John McK Camp II '64 has garnered a lifetime of achievements in the academic disciplines of classics and archaeology. As professor of classics at Randolph Macon College in Ashland, Virginia, Camp has become a leading international authority on the teaching and research of the history of Ancient Greece.
  
  In 1966, Camp served as an excavator at the Athenian Agora in Greece. He later earned promotions to assistant director and, in 1994, director of this famed archaeological site. The Agora (or "marketplace”) was the center of economic, social and intellectual life in ancient Athens. It was also at this site that Athenians first realized the concept of democracy that has served, in part, as inspiration for the American form of government. Under Camp's able leadership, archaeologists and their teams have uncovered the senate building, vice president's office, archives, mint and law courts at the Agora.
  
  During summers, Camp leads Randolph Macon College students to the Agora excavation where they learn first-hand about the techniques of archaeological work and the classical world. He has also undertaken Brooks students as summer interns in recent years.

Kinetic sculptor Tim Prentice ’49 remains hungry to push his own boundaries in kinetic art.

"It’s always the next one that’s my favorite piece,” Prentice said. “With art, you can change anything immediately with your own hands. Right now, we’re doing some experimental pieces, some that really bombed. But that’s what research and development is all about. Otherwise, you’d just be sticking with what you know and not creating anything new.”

Prentice credits time spent outside the Brooks classroom for expanding his interest in art. Though there wasn’t an art department when he was a student, Brooks parent and faculty emerita Alicia Waterston P’56 would take interested students to various local galleries. He vividly recalls a 1940s trip to Phillip Academy’s Addison Gallery in Andover, where an Alexander Calder mobile greeted patrons in the lobby.

Prentice received undergraduate and master’s degrees in architecture from Yale University before founding his award-winning firm of Prentice and Chan in 1965. He watched other young architects push conventional boundaries while finding their own innovative styles, but never felt the same intense connection to his field.

Greatly inspired by artisans Alexander Calder and George Rickey, he believed there was room for more innovation in the field of kinetic art. Thus, Prentice established his kinetic sculpture studio in West Cornwall in 1975.

Prentice and his small team of artisans primarily create substantial public art pieces commissioned for new airports, buildings, and the like. They also create sculptures and installations for galleries, colleges, corporate centers and private homes around the country. He served as an artist-in-residence at the Groton and Hotchkiss Schools.

Since receiving the Distinguished Brooksian Award, Prentice has donated, four-piece kinetic mobile high above the Science Center’s atrium. He also installed wire arachnids and oversized wooden instruments for his indoor/outdoor exhibit, “Making the Air Visible.”

Samuel Parkman Peabody graduated from Brooks in 1944, followed by Harvard University in 1950 and Columbia University in 1954.

Peabody became the director of Broad Jump in 1977, an organization for Harlem children in grades 2 through 9 working below grade-level. A year later, he helped found Prep for Prep, which identifies academically gifted children from disadvantaged New York City schools and prepares them over a 14-month period to enter independent schools in and around Manhattan, with full scholarships. Prep for Prep flourishes today, having placed nearly 1,000 educationally deprived students in excellent schools and continuing to do tremendous good work.

After retiring from Prep or Prep in 1985, Sam became chairman of the Citizen's Committee for Children, a group devoted to researching and lobbying for children's issues. He still serves on several other non-profit boards, all related to New York City's children.

"Through Sam's efforts, untold numbers of children gained opportunities of which they and their families had never dreamed," Hal Baker ’38 said. "The young man whose own adolescence was challenging and who was so unsure of his future has had a tremendous impact on the futures of thousands, and continues to give to those in need. I think he would agree that he has, by now, grown up into an extraordinary and selfless man."

Barry Bowen '63 a diamond in the rough, self-made, nationalistic, an educator, a conservationist, and a man of high standards and great loyalties. The former Belizean senator is also a premiere businessman in the Central American country.

Bowen is the president and chairman of the board of Bowen & Bowen, Ltd., a Belize beverage distributor of Coca Cola. The privately-held company operates several subsidiaries, including the brewing company of Belikin beer, an estate agency for Ford and Kia motor vehicles, and a farming/manufacturing company that make organically-grown coffee.

In 1996, Bowen launched Belize Aquaculture Ltd., a sustainable shrimp farm that has little effect on the environment. The company's annual production tops 300 harvests and 18 million pounds of whole shrimp.

"In agriculture, he has found ways to grow coffee at low altitudes," said former faculty member Morgan Smith. "He has introduced soybeans, coffee and sugar cane into a country that has never produced these crops. He is an agriculturalist. He is also an aquiculturalist, and has engineered some huge shrimp farms in southern Belize. These farms have no effluence to contaminate the waters, but have been able to produce huge, very rapidly growing shrimp. I gather that there is no other shrimp farm as successful as this anywhere on earth.

Needless to say, he has an employer of choice and I believe is the single largest employer in Belize. He has set up villages for his workers and has demanded that they live at his standards of cleanliness in return for which he provides good housing and good education. He has established two schools on his properties which have sent children off to many schools including New England boarding schools. He has worked closely with Mass Audobon and the National Geographic Society. His Eco-tourism camp at Chan Chich Lodge is a model for other such camps and has been visited by birders from all over the globe."

Dr. Edward F. MacNichol, Jr. graduated from Brooks in 1936. He received an A.B. in Physics from Princeton in 1941, and quickly got a job developing radar air tracking equipment during World War II in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's radiation laboratory.

MacNichol's continued his studies at the University of Pennsylvania from 1946 to 1948, subsequently receiving his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University in 1952. He stayed at Johns Hopkins for the following 13 years, no longer a student but rather a teacher.

MacNichol directed the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke and was acting director of the National Eye Institute in Washington, D.C., from 1968 to 1972. But his career in biophysics began by gathering data and designed instruments for his mentor H. Keffer Hartline's model of a primitive vision system, for which Hartline received a Nobel Prize.

In the 1970s and 1980s, MacNichol directed the Marine Biological Laboratory's year-round Laboratory of Sensory Physiology. He built the world's best photon-counting microspectrophotometer and pioneered work on the biochemistry of color vision.

In 1986, he became a professor of physiology at Boston University Medical School, retiring at the tender age of 86. MacNichol passed away in 2004.

Steve Forbes is president and chief executive officer of Forbes and editor-in-chief of Forbes magazine. He is also chairman of the company's American Heritage division, publisher of American Heritage magazine and two quarterlies, American Legacy and American Heritage of Invention & Technology.

He was born on July 18, 1947, in Morristown, New Jersey. He graduated cum laude in 1966 from Brooks, continuing on to receive a B.A. in history from Princeton in 1970. At Princeton, he was the founding editor of Business Today, which became the country's largest magazine published by students for students, with a circulation of 200,000. The magazine continues to be published today by Princeton undergraduates.

Since Forbes assumed his current position in 1990, the Forbes company has launched a variety of new publications and businesses. In 1997, Forbes entered the new media arena with the launch of Forbes.com. The site now attracts more than seven million unique visitors a month and has become the leading destination site for business decision-makers and investors.

The company's flagship publication, Forbes, is the nation's leading business magazine with a circulation topping 900,000. Forbes and Forbes Global together reach a worldwide audience of nearly five million readers.

He is the author of A New Birth of Freedom (Regnery, 1999), a book of bold ideas for the new millennium. He also writes editorials for each issue of Forbes under the heading of "Fact and Comment." A widely respected economic prognosticator, he is the only writer to have won the highly prestigious Crystal Owl Award four times. The prize was formerly given by U.S. Steel Corporation to the financial journalist whose economic forecasts for the coming year proved most accurate.

In both 1996 and 2000, Forbes campaigned vigorously for the Republican nomination for the Presidency of the United States. Key to his platform were a flat tax, medical savings accounts, a new Social Security system for working Americans, parental choice of schools for their children, term limits and a strong national defense. He continues to energetically promote this agenda.

From 1996 to 1999, Forbes was honorary chairman of Americans for Hope, Growth and Opportunity, a grassroots issues advocacy organization founded to advance pro-growth, pro-freedom and pro-family issues. From December 1993 until June 1996, he served as chairman of the Board of Directors of Empower America, a political reform organization founded by Jack Kemp, Bill Bennett and Jeane Kirkpatrick.

President Reagan named Forbes chairman of the bi-partisan Board for International Broadcasting (BIB) in 1985. In this position, he oversaw the operation of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. Broadcasting behind the Iron Curtain, Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty were praised by Poland's Lech Walesa as being critical to the struggle against communism. Forbes was reappointed to his post by President George H. W. Bush and served until 1993.

He currently serves on the boards of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation, the Heritage Foundation and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. He is on the Board of Overseers of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and sits on the Board of Visitors for the School of Public Policy of Pepperdine University.

A well-known photographer, art collector, philanthropist and community activist, Henry M. Buhl ’48 maintains a constant, enduring effect on the Brooks.

Buhl was born in Detroit, Michigan. Arriving in the second form, he was a quiet achiever. Sports were his main interest then, and he excelled at hockey, crew, squash and football. During his sixth form, while serving as the ice hockey captain, he saw a problem: the school's ice rink in sad disrepair. And Buhl was determined to fix it. His youthful negotiations garnered the school a refurbished rink, the 1947-1948 hockey squad enjoyed the fruits of his labor, and a passion for helping and improving his school was born.

After graduating from Trinity College, he worked as an analyst on Wall Street and mutual fund manager in Geneva. Buhl changed careers in the early 1980s, opening a photography studio in New York City with a few contemporaries.

He began collecting works by emerging downtown artists; his collection of hand images have been displayed in major art museums in the U.S., Spain, Germany and Russia. Buhl previously chaired the Photography Committee of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, as well as directed his own foundation that awards two-year grants for excellence in photography.

Buhl retired as a photographer in the early 1990s, donating his equipment to schools and colleges. At this juncture, he decided to created the Association of Community Employment Programs for the Homeless, a nonprofit that New York City's homeless men and women to re-enter the workforce to achieve long-term economic self-sufficiency.

Buhl remains active in every stage of Brooks' development. He has been a faithful phonathon volunteer, hosted countless alumni gatherings in New York, been a steadfast board member and an invaluable trustee. His concern has touched on every aspect of the school, from the Master Plan to the community service van. And he has shown a special interest in the faculty, which has touched them deeply.

William Ferris '60 remains a well-known leader in Southern studies, African-American music and folklore. He is still active in the classroom, currently a a professor of history and adjunct professor in folklore at UNC-Chapel Hill. He also serves as the associate director of the Center for the Study of the American South.

Ferris previously worked as the chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, as well as the founding director of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi.

Ferris is the author and editor of 10 books, in addition to making 15 documentary films. He co-edited Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, a Pulitzer Prize nominee that touched on all aspect of Southern culture. The major reference work links popular, folk and academic cultures.

Although born in Boston in 1919, Wells Stabler ’37 spent his early childhood in South America. He returned to New England for his educational years at Fay School and then Brooks, where he entered the second form in 1932.

At Brooks, he was the baseball manager, on the editorial board of The Bishop, a school prefect, winner of the Russell Prize, and graduated in 1937 cum laude. Four years later, he graduated from Harvard, also cum laude, and entered a career of 37 years in the Department of State and Foreign Service.

His first post in 1944 was as Vice Consul in Jerusalem, and in 1948 he was designated the first U.S. Representative to Jordan. Later Stabler moved on to Washington, serving as political advisor to the United States Representative to the United Nations Trusteeship Council and as officer in charge of Egypt and Anglo-Egyptian Sudan affairs.

Following this with a position of acting deputy director of near Eastern affairs, he worked closely with Secretary of State Dean Acheson on the Egyptian situation. From 1953 to 1957, Stabler served as a political officer in the Embassy in Rome. After a stint in Washington, he was assigned in 1960 to the Embassy in Paris, in charge of Internal Political Affairs.

Following another assignment in the State Department, Stabler returned to Rome in 1969 as deputy chief of mission, with the personal rank of minister, accorded to him by President Nixon. In 1974, as principle deputy assistant secretary of state for European affairs, Stabler played a major role in supporting Secretary of State Kissinger on the Cyprus problem. In 1975, President Ford appointed him ambassador to Spain, and he served there as that country moved from dictatorship to democracy. He was promoted to the rank of career minister, then the highest rank in the foreign service.

Stabler retired from the foreign service at the end of 1978. For the next six years, he was a full-time consultant to the German Marshall Fund. This American organization was created by a German gift to commemorate the aid Germany received from the U.S. Marshall Plan. His work involved establishing a fellows program for candidates from Germany, Spain and France to study in the United States. He also was associated with the Phillips Art Collection in Washington.

Stabler was awarded the Wilbur Carr Medal for Distinguished Service by Secretary of State Cyrus Vance. The King of Spain conferred on him the Grand Cross of the Order of Isabel La Catica. He is also a grand officer of the Order of Merit of Italy, a grand officer of the Order of the Star of Jordan, a grand officer of the Order of Merit of the Sovereign Order of Malta, a grand officer of the Order of Saint Agatha of San Marino, an officer of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem and, finally, an officer of the Order of Merit of Ecuador.

In all of this, Stabler was ably assisted by his wife, Emily, whom he married in 1953. They have four children and eleven grandchildren.

Dr. Huntington Sheldon '47, who has been known all of his life to his friends as Skip, arrived at Brooks in the Second Form in the fall of 1942. He was a scholar and an athlete, playing No. 2 on the squash team and goalie on the hockey team, as well as serving as literary editor of The Bishop. He did not give any indication of his interest in science and medicine which was to develop later in his academic career.

He graduated from Brooks in 1947 and went on to McGill University, where he played rugby, hockey and squash, leaving with a B.A. in 1951. Embracing a scientific career, he attended the School of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University and received his M.D. in 1956. He later received a fellowship in the Royal College of Physicians of Canada.

While he was a medical student, he became interested in electron microscopy, and after training in pathology at Johns Hopkins and at the famed Karolinska Institute in Sweden, he became recognized as an expert in that field. Joining the medical faculty at McGill as assistant professor of Pathology in 1959, Sheldon soon became a full professor. He assumed the title Strathcona Professor of Pathology in 1980.

Sheldon's career embraced apogees in two fields of academia: excellence in research, excellence in teaching. His contributions to medical science are included in over 80 publications. He produced the first descriptions of the ultrastructure of cartilage, studied crystal-collagen relationships in bone and made original contributions to our understanding of rickets. Sheldon also provided the first descriptions of the ultrastructure of fat cells and studied the biology of the secretory mechanism of the silk worm. He exploited and expanded the then novel methods of electron microscopy and autoradiography.

Sheldon's work was not limited to research. He is described in a citation by which McGill awarded him an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws in 1996, as “perhaps the most exciting teacher of his generation,” for ten years he ran an autopsy conference which was “standing room only.” As a pathologist, Sheldon was asked to spend two months each year in the department of medicine because his teaching of disease processes was so stimulating. Sheldon also taught cell biology for two years at Harvard Medical School. He has published a textbook of pathology for health professionals which in 1996 appeared in its twelfth edition.

Sheldon has been a longtime active and generous philanthropist. Following his interest in classical music, he was responsible for obtaining a French baroque organ for McGill and is an active member of the Faculty Advisory Committee of the faculty of music, which was instrumental in the planning for a new music building. Sheldon also arranged for the establishment of the Sheldon Biotechnology Center for work in molecular biology. In addition he is a member of the Board of Trustees of Johns Hopkins and serves on its Faculty Advisory Committee.

He is a first class competitive sailor and has participated successfully in offshore races, including the Bermuda Race, the Fastnet races in the Caribbean and off the East Coast, and also Sweden and the Baltic region. Sheldon is also an active cross country skier and has been a successful orienteering competitor. From 1972 to 1977, he was team leader of the Canadian national cross country ski team, which participated in the World Championships in 1973 and the Olympics in 1974.

Sheldon retired from McGill in 1985 and set up residence in Shelburne, Vermont, where he has raised a championship flock of Suffolk and Dorset sheep. In 1989, he was named a "Master Shepherd" by the State of Vermont. He lives there with his wife Del, and two daughters. He has two daughters by a prior marriage.

The Honorable Thomas C. Platt was born May 29, 1925, in New York, New York. He grew up in New York and on Long Island and matriculated at Brooks in 1937.

At Brooks, he played on the football team, was school prefect, and chancellor of the school court. Platt graduated from Brooks magna cum laude in 1943 and entered Yale University. His college years were interrupted by two years in the Navy where he served as the executive officer on a PT boat. He was en route to Japan shortly before the first atomic bomb was dropped.

Platt returned to Yale in September, 1946, graduating the following spring. He entered Yale Law School that fall and earned his LL.B. in 1950. While in law school, Platt married Ann Byrd Symington. They have four children, two of whom, Charles C., and Thomas C. III, graduated from Brooks in 1971 and 1973 respectively.

Early in his professional career, Platt worked at the distinguished law firm of Root, Ballantine, Harlan, Bushby and Palmer. He also served three years as a federal prosecutor from 1950 to 1953. He left in 1953 to return temporarily to the Bleakly Platt law firm in New York City.

In 1974, President Nixon appointed Platt to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York; a lifetime appointment. In 1988, he became chief judge of that court and served in that capacity until 1995.

Platt presided over many high-profile cases. In a ruling that addressed a still highly controversial and topical issue, he excluded the media from a civil rape case during the testimony involving the singer Connie Francis. He held the air traffic controllers in contempt when they went on strike in 1980. And in a case alleging the Sam Goody record store chain of distributing pirated music, Platt had the distinct, if not unique pleasure of ordering Billy Joel to cease and desist from chewing gum in his courtroom.

Although a Republican appointee, Platt has not been partisan in his rulings. He has dealt sternly with large corporations that have broken the law. He sent highly placed Beech Nut Foods executives to jail for selling colored water as fruit juice, and affirmed a jury award holding Pan Am Airlines legally responsible for the Lockerbie disaster.

Platt is a firm but temperate jurist. Tongue planted firmly in cheek, he has been heard to describe his own decision making style, "maybe in error, but never in doubt." Maybe so, but Platt also harbors a reputation for resolving cases wisely and efficiently, and for his civility towards all who appear before him. He is particularly respected for taking a great interest in the education of young law clerks who work for him, and young lawyers who appear before him. His courtroom remains what a courtroom has always been intended: a hallowed hall of justice.

When called upon to comment about his philosophy or career, Platt consistently credits Brooks as one of his most important influences. In 1968, the Board of Trustees of Brooks appointed him president of the Alumni Association and a member of the Board. Two years later he was elected president of the Board of Trustees, a position he held until his appointment to the bench.

St. Valentine's is a very special day for William Kellog ’35. He was born on that day in 1917; was commissioned a second lieutenant and married on that day in 1942; retired on that day in 1987. And on that day in 1995, he was chosen as a Distinguished Brooksian.

Long before becoming a world-famous scientist, Kellog distinguished himself at Brooks as the most homesick new boy to arrive in September of 1930. However, he soon recovered and became an excellent student with great curiosity and interest in all school activities.

Inspired in the sciences by Waldo Holcombe and Oscar Root, Kellog's friends called him "Uncle Buck," because of his passion for the wonders of outer space. One of Kellog's early goals was to walk on the moon. Though he did not quite get to the moon, Kellog has been dubbed "the father of the first meteorological satellite" (TIROS 1) launched on April 1,1960, atop a Thor booster rocket. His wife's nickname is Thor.

After Brooks, Kellog earned a B.A. with honors from Yale where he majored in physics, stroked the lightweight crew, and was tapped for Skull and Bones. He then returned to Brooks for a year dedicated to teaching science while his mentor Mr. Holcombe was on sabbatical.

In 1940, he began graduate studies in physics at Berkeley where he met Betty Thorsen, his future wife. A year later, Kellog joined the Army Air Corps as a cadet in meteorology and pilot training. After the war he won a Ph.D. in geophysics at UCLA with his thesis on the atmosphere at the fringe of space.

Kellog's career soon went into high gear. As a scientist and department head at the Rand Corporation for 17 years, he conceived and helped to develop the TIROS 1 weather satellite, perfected a scheme for predicting radioactive fallout, and wrote a book with his protege Carl Sagan on the atomospheres of Mars and Venus. He became associate director and then senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Colorado in 1964. There he researched global warming, air pollution, and interactions between science and society. He was noted for the diversity of his research and for his fervent recognition of the role of science in the affairs of mankind.

Kellog was active in several professional organizations, serving as president for many, like the American Meteorology Society, the American Geophysical Union and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has served as advisor to the secretary general of the World Meteorological Organization in Geneva, and as director of research of the Naval Environment Prediction Research Facility in Monterey.

Kellog did not always have his head in the clouds. His feet were planted on the ground when it came to his love of the earth at his beloved ranch in the mountains of Colorado. He shared this beautiful place with his wife Thor, his 5 children, 6 grandchildren, and many friends.

Charles Henry Wheelright Foster, the second of three brothers to attend Brooks, entered school in 1939 with the Class of 1945. Early on, Foster happily fell under the spell of science department chairman Oscar Root whose teaching not only enabled him to expand an interest in nature, but prepared him for a life which has helped to benefit mankind.

A scholar, an athlete, and a school prefect, Foster graduated from Brooks cum laude starring in football, basketball, baseball and competitive squash. A champion at Brooks, he went on to play three years of varsity squash at Harvard, win the National Intercollegiate championship, and, in his senior year, to captain an undefeated team. His coach, Harvard's legendary Jack Barnaby, says Foster, who played number one, "was the greatest captain I ever had."

At Harvard, at his father's request, Foster majored in English. But upon graduation in 1951, he started all over again in a field that he really loved – natural resources. He received first a bachelor's degree in forestry and later a master's in wildlife management from the University of Michigan. Thirteen years later, he was awarded a Ph.D in geography by Johns Hopkins.

Foster's professional career began in 1953 when he was appointed executive secretary of Wildlife Conservation Incorporated. But in 1959, he began what was to become a distinguished career in public service, serving for seven years as commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Natural Resources and later, for five years, in the Governor's cabinet as secretary of the Executive Office of Environmental Affairs.

During that time, he played a major role in the establishment of the National Seashore at Cape Cod; led the way to the passage of a pioneering bill to protect the Commonwealth's coastal wetlands; and was instrumental with an important reorganization of State Government.

He was also selected as the first "professional" president of The Nature Conservancy. An early interest in regionalism led him to establish the New England Natural Resource Center. And from 1976 to 1981, Foster was dean of Yale University's prestigious School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. Foster also served Brooks as a Trustee for ten years.

Recently, Foster has returned to active, academic life and writing. He has taught environmental policy at Tufts University, Brown University and Harvard College. He is the author of numerous books which deal with regional and environmental topics including a new history of the Appalachian Trail and one on the reintroduction of salmon into the Connecticut River.

Henry Lyman '33 was a writer, a notable fisherman, conservationist, a quail and grouse hunter, and almost universally known as Wunk.

Lyman graduated cum laude from Harvard College in 1937. He was in the U.S. Naval Reserve during the World War II, with active duty on destroyers from 1940 through 1946, and again in 1952 to 1953, retiring with the rank of Commander.

Lyman incorporated Harvard Magazine, before becoming president and publisher of Salt Water Sportsman in 1947. He was heavily involved with fish ever since, writing about them and fishing for them. He served on a sizable variety of marine fisheries panels or advisory groups at the state, interstate, federal, and international levels.

Lyman is author or co-author of nine books on various aspects of marine angling, as well as articles on marine fisheries for a variety of periodicals and angling anthologies. He is founder, former chairman of the board, and a life trustee of the New England Aquarium in Boston.

For several decades, Lyman served as director and executive committee member of the Atlantic Salmon Federation in Bowdoinham, Maine and St. Andrews, N.B., Canada. He also was the director and executive committee member of the environmental lobby of Massachusetts and director and former chairman of the board of the National Coalition for Marine Conservation, Savanna, Georgia.

Lyman's many awards include Maryland governor's "Admiral of the Chesapeake Bay" and, in 1992, the Massachusetts David L. Belding Award presented to him by Governor Weld to honor the state's leading marine resource conservationist.

Dr. Charles Peirson Lyman '32 of Brookline was in the first graduating class at Brooks. He subsequently graduated from Harvard College in 1936, receiving a master's degree in 1939 and a doctorate in 1942.

A major in the US Army Air Corps, Lyman was stationed in the Pacific during World War II. He researched methods of of preventing altitude sickness and trained aviators to use oxygen equipment.

Lyman went on to be a well-renowned biology professor and conservationist, dedicating his professional career to the labs and classrooms at Harvard. He was a biology professor at Harvard College, as well as an associate professor of anatomy at Harvard Medical School. He also served as a visiting professor at Cornell University.

Lyman was also the curator of mammals at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College, as well as the curator of the Warren Anatomical Museum at the Harvard Medical School. He founded Harvard's Concord Field Station, and in 1991 a professorship in Harvard's department of biology was named in his honor.

Through a grant from the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Health, Lyman studied hibernation and reactions to the environmental extremes in mammals and birds. His work contributed to both the advancement of cardiac and brain surgery, as well as the physiological regulation of astronauts in space.

Also the manager of the Pakeen Farm in Canton, Lyman was a committed conservationist who served with the Trustees of Reservations and the Society for Promotion and Agriculture. He donated many acres for preserved open space before passing away in 2000.

Brooks' first headmaster, Frank David Ashburn, was also the first recipient of the Distinguished Brooksian Award. In the forefront of American education for nearly 50 years and founder of Brooks School, he set standards of excellence in the classroom and on the playing fields.

Widely traveled as a child, Ashburn focused on a role of leadership and school work at Groton School, where he was a senior prefect and baseball captain. At Yale University, he furthered his academic and leadership qualities by editing The Yale Daily News, being tapped for Yale's most prestigious Senior Society and graduating a Rhodes Scholar. He subsequently received honorary degrees from Trinity College and Yale University.

Although Ashburn was attending law school when approached by Rev. Endicott Peabody of Groton to establish a new secondary school, he chartered a course at Brooks that remained on the same reach for forty-six years.

Ashburn's philosophy was encapsulated in one of his headmaster's letters: "We want the student to be free from apron strings, to learn to stand on his own feet, receiving the judgment of his peers, to have him meet triumph and disaster and treat those two imposters just the same. We want him to develop a sense of loyalty and an awareness of the beauty and terror of the world --to learn the meaning of hard work and unprejudiced judgment, to develop a sound, informed mind in a healthy body, to acquire the sense that to whom much is given, of him much is expected."

His concern for the "late bloomer" or the individual off to a bad start is legendary. Many Brooksians turned themselves around on the shores of Lake Cochichewick.

Ashburn wrote about his schoolmaster beliefs in the books A Parent’s Guide to Independent Schools and Peabody of Groton. He also published a volume of verse, Moods and Persons.

He contributed heavily to the American educational effort, being chairman of the College Entrance Examination Board, president of The Headmasters Association, chairman of The National Council of Independent Schools, president of the New England Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools, trustee of several schools, and chairman of the Yale University Council and the North Andover School Committee.

Watch Acting Head of School Nina Freeman recognize Izzie on October 30, 2024:

Watch Head of School John Packard recognize Williams on June 11, 2022:

Watch Daisy receive his award on June 11, 2022 and hear his remarks:

Watch Petzold receive her award on June 11, 2022 and hear her remarks:

Through his position as a private-equity consultant, Jim O'Connor promotes economic growth and foreign direct investment into Afghanistan, and advances climate-change mitigation with a variety of governments, banks and private financial institutions. 

Jeffrey Volk has built an exciting career that combines his expertise and knowledge of digital media, marketing, sport and entrepreneurship.

Currently Senior Vice President and Head of Business & Revenue for the Americas at the sports digital and broadcast media company Deltatre (part of the Bruin Sports Capital group, whose clients include FIFA, the English Premier League and BBC, among others), Volk first showed his entrepreneurial acumen at Brooks. 

Volk co-founded the golf team and the debate team, as well as established the independent study, “The Art of Business Writing,” before he went on to the University of Pennsylvania, from which he graduated in 1997. 

Following positions at Ketchum and SapientRazorfish, Volk became the Director & GM, Advanced Media of the United States Tennis Association (USTA) in 2002.

During his five-year tenure at USTA, Volk enrolled in New York University’s Leonard N. Stern School of Business. He received his MBA in Digital Media & Entrepreneurship/Entrepreneurial Studies from NYU in 2008 — while working in his next position: President, Digital Media for Athletes’ Performance.

In 2010, Volk advanced in to a role as Senior Vice President/Vice President of Business Development for MLB Advanced Media, where he remained until January of 2018, when he became Senior Vice President and Head of Business & Revenue, Americas, for Deltatre.

Along the way he co-founded NYVC Sports and SFVC Sports and accomplished impressive fundraising through the NYC Triathlon, Pan Mass Challenge and the Northeast AIDS Ride (NYC to Boston), to name a few.

A fellow member of his class nominated Volk, noting, "Since his time at Brooks, Jeff has used his empathy, confidence and creativity to make good things better. He has brought forth programs, created businesses and established communities within and without existing organizations. Jeff is engaged in the relationships he fosters and has completed many a successful negotiation because of his commitment to these relationships. Among the many examples of this was when he negotiated a partnership between MLBAM’s live streaming and the PGA tour around a picnic table at the Masters in Augusta, Georgia. Another example is when he connected the Special Spectators non-profit organization with various sports organizations so that seriously ill children and their families could be granted VIP, all-access game day experiences at sporting events across the country. Jeff is committed to the projects he takes on and has emerged as a strong leader."

For his "sustained commitment to helping others, in addition to his contributions to the world of sports media,” Head of School John Packard said during Alumni Weekend 2018, “It is my honor to present Jeffrey Volk with the 2018 Alumni Shield award.”

For the past fifteen years, William "Mac" MacVittie has devoted himself to the United States Air Force as a captain flying missions in the Middle East. He has led a life of exemplary service and set a high standard for others to follow.

MacVittie sent his application to the Air Force on September 12, 2001 knowing full well that he would be entering the military in a time of war. His courage to serve our country in its time of need will forever resonate and inspire our fellow classmates from Brooks.

Since commissioning in the United States Air Force, he has flown over 120 combat missions in support of American and coalition troops during three deployments to conflicts in the Middle East. Additionally, MacVittie has piloted numerous medical evacuations and humanitarian missions. Part of this aid has included delivering food, water and clothing to the people in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan.

During his time in the Air Force, MacVittie has also shouldered the tremendous responsibility of evacuating wounded soldiers out of combat zones and in cases and flown missions of “dignified transfer” to bring soldiers who have lost their lives home to the U.S.

In 2016 he was promoted to the rank of Major and, at the same time, was selected to return to the United States Air Force Academy in the summer of 2017, where for the next three years he will be responsible for a squadron of 100 cadets and teaching them basic military training, leadership and character development.

After graduating from Babson College and earning an MBA from Bentley University, Cohen spent several years in the corporate world and as an entrepreneur. In 2008, he fused his passion for sports philanthropy and founded the non-profit Playing it Forward. The company provides new and used sports equipment from manufacturers, schools, sports clubs, and community groups that are then donated to disadvantaged children across the globe. Playing it Forward has provided equipment to 30,000 kids in 20 countries. Through this experience, Cohen learned first-hand how powerful and valuable therapeutic sports can be for vulnerable youth.

In 2011, after spending two years here at Brooks in our advancement office, David became executive director of the Doc Wayne Foundation, an organization in need of strong leadership whose philosophy aligned with Cohen’s. Doc Wayne counselors connect with youth using its sports-based therapeutic curriculum called, Do the Good. They aim to fuse sport and therapy to heal and strengthen at-risk youth.

Under Cohen's leadership, Doc Wayne was named the 2015 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Sports Award winner as an influential leader and model for others making communities healthier through sport. In 2014, he was selected as a Social Innovator by Root Cause's Social Innovation Forum. The organization was also selected as the 2014 Innovator of the Year for the Providers' Council. In 2015, Cohen was selected as a Carmax Community Hero, and in 2012 he was named New England Community MVP by MLS W.O.R.K.S., Major League Soccer’s community outreach initiative.

The Alumni Shield award, which recognizes an alumna or alumnus who graduated from Brooks less than 25 years ago and has made significant contributions in the field of his or her endeavor, went this year to Cristina Antelo ’95, a political advocate and strategic communications professional at the Podesta Group.

Ariane is a physician and a research scientist in the field of clinical preventive services. Of particular interest to her is the study of patterns, causes and effects of health and disease conditions in children from high-risk families.

Ann Lee Grimstad is an educator, researcher and student of the world. She is a humanities teacher at Oakwood School in Los Angeles and, at the time of this award, is a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research fellow studying African history.

Amy Harmon’s resume of development projects, including upscale residential and mixed-use complexes, is designed to advance the city of Denver. Her properties support the goal of improving downtown living, working and visiting, and reinforce Denver initiatives such as sustainable development and promoting bike- and pedestrian-friendly lifestyles.

While here at Brooks, Harmon was a three-sport athlete, participating in field hockey, ice hockey and crew. She served as both a school prefect and chapel prefect, and was involved in many activities from the Lawrence Project to the Exchange Program. Harmon capped off her outstanding Brooks career by receiving the Allen Ashburn Prize.

Harmon moved on to the University of Texas in Austin, where she was accepted into the Plan II Honors Program, a notably selective interdisciplinary program offering exposure to both arts and business. She earned a bachelor’s degree in humanities with concentrations in art history, business and political science in 1995.

After working in New York for a few years, Harmon moved home to Denver and embarked on a real estate development partnership with her stepfather, Steve Owen. Then three years ago, she founded her own development firm, Urban Market Partners, with the goal of combining her interests in real estate, art and community building.

Harmon’s contributions to Denver go beyond real estate and development. She is actively involved with a number of community organizations including the Ballpark Neighborhood Association, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Community Coordinating District and the City Parks Alliance based in Washington, D.C. She is the former President and ongoing Board Member of the Metro Denver Executive Club 60th Anniversary and is currently serving as Interim Director of the Denver Biennial of the Americas.

Folwell Dunbar '84, Alumni Speaker at Alumni Weekend 2009 from Emily Young on Vimeo.

Folwell Dunbar '84 grew up wrestling alligators in the bayous of Slidell, Louisiana.

He was perhaps the smallest player on the Brooks football field, yet one of the most feared hitters that backed down to no one despite his size or strength. Despite having dyslexia, Dunbar ended up a Latin and history scholar at Brooks and perhaps one of the few, if not only, unicycle riding jugglers in the history of the school.

Dunbar committed more than two years of his life to the Peace Corps after graduating from Duke University, helping poor families in the rural areas of Ecuador to make a better life for themselves by teaching them to build fish farms and other agricultural skills.

He subsequently returned to New Orleans and joined the faculty at Louise S. McGehee School. Dunbar was involved in all facets of school life, all the while pursuing his masters at Tulane and juggling on Decatur Street.

Dunbar moved to North Carolina in 1996 to work at Cary Academy, which opened the following year with a mission committed to integrating the best of traditional education with new and emerging technologies. But after two years in North Carolina, Dunbar was drawn back to the New Orleans, where he set out on his quest for comprehensive whole-school reform.

Dunbar is currently responsible for overseeing the curriculum of the entire Charter School System in Louisiana, a state that has more charter schools than any other state in the country. The charter school system in New Orleans is at the core of a new educational landscape post-Katrina – a radical experiment in reform. More than half of the city’s public-school students are now being educated in charter schools.

Dunbar is also an artist who uses many mediums and all his senses to create simple and intricate works of art. He is a caring person who through his book, A Color Inside, effectively teaches equality and learning to accept others for who they are on the inside, and not what they look like on the outside.

CFA Douglas Burden '83 is a vice president at Fiduciary Trust Company in Boston. Prior to joining the company in 1997, he was a member of the U.S. Olympic Rowing Team from 1988 to 1996 and was employed by the Student Loan Marketing Association from 1991 to 1993.

“Here, indeed, is a quiet, unassuming gentleman who has his priorities well balanced," former advisor Jake Dunnell said. "One could diminish the world’s supply of superlatives when talking about Doug.”

Burden’s significant life accomplishments undoubtedly are rooted in the people and the values that are hallmarks of Brooks School: perseverance, dedication and humility. While he was at Brooks, Dusty Richard and David Swift became key mentors as they encouraged Burden's talent for athletics.

With their support, he discovered his passion for rowing, quickly earned a seat in the first boat in both his fifth and sixth form years and never looked back. He went on to join Princeton University’s prestigious crew, serving as captain in 1988.

After receiving his B.A. from Princeton University, Burden received his M.B.A. from IESE in Barcelona, Spain.

With his quiet, lead-by-example style, Burden earned a stellar reputation in the rowing community. He spent eight years on the U.S. national team and won two world championships, one in which he helped power his team to a Gold Medal world record time.

In the 1988 Seoul Olympics, Burden won a bronze medal in rowing and four years later in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, he won a silver medal. After a hiatus from the sport, he earned a seat in the men’s eight for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics where his boat finished fifth.

Burden is one of only a handful of U.S. rowers to win medals twice in Olympic rowing. He was inducted into the National Rowing Hall of Fame in 1998.

Burden still rows twice a week, coaches his daughter’s soccer team and chairs the fundraising committee for Roxbury Youthworks Ride for Kids, an organization that helps at-risk children.

• Peter Dunn '82 is currently the executive vice chair and the executive medical director for the operating rooms at Mass. General Hospital. He is the youngest person to have achieved the latter position, and only the second anesthesiologist to ever have held this position. He also is an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School.Dunn graduated from the George Washington University School of Medicine in 1990. He was selected for a fellowship in surgical research at Children’s National Medical Center. After furthering his research at the National Institutes of Health, he completed his residency in anesthesiology at Massachusetts General Hospital.
  
  Dunn was the first ever to serve in the roles of chief resident of anesthesiology and clinical fellow in critical care at Mass. General Hospital, simultaneously. And after only three years on the staff at Mass General, Dunn was appointed the first ever clinical director for the department of anesthesia and critical care, where he oversaw all clinical operations in one of the largest academic anesthesiology departments in the nation.
  
  "Peter reminds me a lot of Nick Evangelos in his manner: quiet, humble, honest, straightforward, warm, expecting a lot from himself and those he works with and always with a ready grin and a good sense of humor,” said former teacher Maureen Perkins.
  
  Dunn and his wife, Deirdre, also a graduate of the class of 1982, are the first alumni married couple to have a child attend Brooks.

Michael Weatherly ’86 is a working actor, currently on the prime-time television show, NCIS.

After studying at the American University of Paris, Weatherly entered the professional world of acting. Michael’s single-focus, tenacity and hard work finally paid off with several successful projects, after years of student films, off-Broadway plays and pounding the pavement.

His first notable job came in 1991, when he played Theo Huxtable's roomate on an episode of The Cosby Show. But more recently, he has maintained including recurring television roles in the series Dark Angel and NCIS.

"He arrived at Brooks with no clear path in mind," former Head of School Lawrence Becker said. "An engaging personality with a bright and creative mind, he struggled initially with academics and searched for his place in athletics. It is difficult to quantify the effect that Brooks has had on Michael’s professional evolution, but it is undeniable that his success stems from values instilled at Brooks: perseverance, dedication, and commitment to one’s craft. He still possesses the same good humor, intelligence and grace that he exhibited while at Brooks."

Samuel Meacham '85 has taken the road less traveled.

Growing up in Austin, Texas, Meacham developed a vivid imagination, a strong sense of curiosity, a love of adventure and a deep appreciation for the outdoors. On the recommendation of longtime teacher Mark Shovan, Meacham took a year in-between graduating from Brooks and enrolling at the University of Vermont to spend a semester with NOLS in Kenya.

Since then, Meacham has traveled the globe. He's sailed down the coast of Mexico, worked as a ranch hand in Costa Rica, gone to the Yucatan to become certified as a diving instructor. Meacham learned about the Ox Bel Ha cave system while in the Yucatan, igniting a love for large-scale cave exploration.

At the time of his award, Meacham was working with the Grupo de Exploracion Ox Bel Ha, an international team of divers, to map the world's longest underground river, and unravel the mysteries of the fragile ecosystem that is in danger of being destroyed before it is fully understood. Meacham is fully committed to the preservation, conservation and the raising of public awareness of these unique and beautiful cave systems.

Meacham is also the founder and director of CINDAQ (Centro de Investigacion del Sistema Acuifero de Quintana Roo) a non-profit organization dedicated to the exploration and protection of freshwater resources in the Yucatan.

"Sam has truly followed his passions to a career that has had an enormous impact on the planet he loves so much," classmate Craig Ziady '85 said. "Today Sam has new experiences each day, from finding archeological and paleontological sites in which discoveries could be made that would rewrite the history books, to working to educate officials in Mexico about the importance of protecting the freshwater resource found in the caves.

Sam has committed his life to exploring this cave system and the freshwater source within it. Armed with surveying equipment, a hard hat and gas tanks, and led by a flashlight, Sam is tackling the important issue of dwindling freshwater reserves head on and opening the eyes of untold numbers of people to the importance of protecting our freshwater reserves for future generations."

Joel Bishoff '79 is best known for directing more than 15 productions of I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change… around the world.

While at Brooks, Bishoff directed several theatrical productions, most notably his senior project, Dracula. He wrote, directed and acted in plays featuring both students and faculty. He also maintained an excellent academic record, participated in sports and was senior prefect.

Bishoff graduated from Tufts University in 1983. He subsequently received his M.F.A. from Columbia University in 1986. He currently is a member of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers.

His directing credits include Over the River and Through the Woods, The Kiss at City Hall, a Japanese-language production of Annie in in Japan, The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife and Ken Hill’s Phantom of the Opera. Bishoff also did the musical staging for the national tour of The Sound of Music starring Marie Osmond as well as the New York City Opera production starring Debby Boone.

Molly Bingham '86 is a photojournalist and documentary director originally from Kentucky. Her father, a local newspaper editor, also attended Brooks.

After graduating from Harvard College in 1990, Bingham began working as a photojournalist in earnest in 1994, traveling to Rwanda in the wake of the genocide. She spent a good amount of her energies for the following four years focused on the regional fallout of that event.

Back in the U.S., Bingham worked as the official photographer to the Office of the Vice President of the United States from 1998 through 2001.

At the time of her award, Bingham had completed two special projects for Human Rights Watch: one on Burundi and another on small arms trafficking in Central Africa. More recently, she served as director of a documentary, Meeting Resistance, about the Iraqi insurgency.

"When she was in Kabul, she sent me some writing excellently revealing a chaotic world," said Bingham's former teacher, William Dunnell. "She generously allowed me to give a copy to the postmaster in my minute town, whose son was a marine in Kabul. What Molly wrote brought her the missing nearness and clarity of view, and she was so pleased. I wish that Molly could have seen the happiness and understanding that her work wrought.

Creating a revelation for others is a great accomplishment for any person, especially for one who has an innate uncertainty. Her success results from overcoming herself and believing that she can bring understanding and intimacy to disparate parts of the world family. Her photography finds both entities and continues the outward look that she brought with her to Brooks near twenty years ago. She was good and compassionate then and remains so to this day. We need only to look upon her work to know."

William Perocchi '85 is currently the CEO of the Pebble Beach consortium. Before he was asked to join Californian group, he had retired from his position with Doubletree Inns to spend more time with his children and wife.

"Many people who have attained this level of accomplishment forget those they have left behind," longtime Brooks administrator, coach and teacher Bill Poirot said. "Not only have Bill's core values not been affected by his extraordinary success, they are encouraging him to return to and support those organizations that molded him.

I first met Bill in September 1972, when he arrived at Brooks for early football, a scholarship kid from Lawrence. His uncle Steve was the head football coach and was the force behind bringing Bill to Brooks. After practice I introduced myself and told him that I was his advisor. I gave him a brief description of the role I played and he seemed surprised that a faculty member would spend time with him. Coming from Lawrence High School, he was not used to individual attention.

I let him settle in before arranging a meeting with him. We talked about how he was doing and he said that it was difficult. I tried to give him some pointers and let it go until the first set of grades came out. Not surprisingly, his grades were rather poor. I asked him how much time he was spending on his homework and he said that it was difficult to study at home so I told him he could stay later at school. He said that he had no way to get home and I said I would arrange something. I also asked him if he was getting extra help from his teachers and he said no. I informed him that they would all be willing to help and that he should not be reluctant to go to them. I went on to say that he had a great opportunity at Brooks and that he should take advantage of all the resources at his disposal.

After this talk, things began to improve slowly and by the end of the year, his grades were respectable. Over the course of the next two years there was continued improvement and by his senior year, he had grades that were good enough to get him accepted to the University of New Hampshire, where he thrived. From this point on, the work ethic which had its birth at Brooks took him to heights that were unimaginable for someone from the projects of Lawrence. His is the prototype rags-to-riches story.

Bill is an excellent candidate for the Alumni Shield Award for all he has achieved, but more importantly because he has not forgotten his roots. Someone who has reached the corporate heights he has could easily have put his past behind him and lived the rest of his life in the "fast lane." This is not Bill's modus operandi.

He returned to this area last summer after many years out of contact and asked if I could put him in contact with someone in the Brooks development office because he wanted to do something to repay Brooks for all it had done for him. He has done the same thing at the Lawrence Boys & Girls Club, where he spent a great deal of time when he was young. He is genuinely interested in being involved in these organizations on an ongoing basis with the ultimate goal of supporting those who helped him."

Currently the director of of Global Medical Affairs and Education at Monogram Biosciences in San Francisco, Charles Walworth '78 was managing patients with HIV and other infectious diseases at Pacific Oaks Medical Group in Newport Beach, California, at the time of his award.

Walworth received his B.S. in 1982, followed by a master's degree in physiology in 1984 and his M.D. in 1988, all from Georgetown University. This was followed by a year of residency at University of Rochester/Strong Memorial Hospital in the department of surgery, and three years at Georgetown University Hospital in the department of medicine.

Walworth served as a medical stall fellow in infectious diseases at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health Bethesda, Maryland, from 1993 to 1996. He has worked around the globe, as a consultant and instructor in Health Care in Guatemala and as a medical volunteer in Thailand.

Walworth served as a researcher at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., studying bone regeneration and at the department of neurology. He has also served as a researcher at Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Mass. General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, doing in situ hybridization studies with laboratory animals.

The recipient of the Outstanding Resident Physician Award at Georgetown's department of internal medicine in 1993, Walworth also won the Distinguished Service Award from the College of Arts and Sciences at Georgetown University in 1992. He also was awarded a summer research fellowship at Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Mass. General Hospital in 1984.

"I first met Chuck in 1974," former biology teacher Nick Evangelos said. "He was a scholarship day student from Lawrence, Mass. After he survived my beagle Biology course, he decided he wanted more Biology, so he signed up for my A.P. Bio course a few years later. Little did he realize what he was getting himself in for.

One of the highlights of my course was that students got a chance to attend operations with local doctors who were also Brooks parents. One of those doctors was Dr. Rudolph Muto, father of Brooks graduates Mike and Mark Muto. Dr. Muto was a thoracic surgeon who operates at Lawrence General Hospital. I remember the day that Chuck and Dan Juba (who is now a doctor) returned to school after attending chest surgery with Dr. Muto.

This experience was to have very lasting effects. When they arrived in my classroom they both enthusiastically announced that they were going to become doctors. Now I thought they were just kidding, and that their enthusiasm was mainly due to the fact that Dr. Muto treated them to a lunch at Bishop's Restaurant, but such was not the case. They were truly turned on and interested in going on to a medical career."

Trevor Potter is a partner at Wiley, Rein & Fielding in Washington, D.C., working for the law firm both before and after his five-year service as commissioner and chairman of the Federal Election Commission.

President George H. W. Bush appointed Potter to the Federal Election Commission in 1991, where he served as vice chairman in 1993 and chairman from 1994 to 1996. Potter's previously worked for the government in the early 1980s as a department of justice official and as assistant general counsel to the Federal Communications Commission.

Potter found himself back in the classroom during the mid-1990s. He taught a course on campaign finance law at the University Of Virginia School Of Law during the 1996-1997 academic year, as well as a few seminars in comparative election law and political science at Oxford University in the fall of 1995.

Potter is an editor and author of various publications on election law and campaign finance questions, in addition to appearing as an election law expert on radio and television.

He served as an official observer in foreign elections, chairing the United States Delegation in the Trilateral Conference on Election Law in 1994. He also chaired the Conference on Election Law and Lobbying Regulation held by Glasser LegalWorks in 1996, and a year later co-chaired the Conference on Campaign Finance Reform, sponsored by the White House Weekly.

Potter is currently a member of the council of the ABA Administration Law and Regulatory Practice Section, liaison to the ABA Standing Committee on Election Law, and has chaired the Election Law Committee of the ABA's Section on Administrative Law.

After graduating from Brooks, Potter received degrees from both Harvard College and the University Of Virginia School Of Law.