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Watch now: “When NYC called, I was moved to answer,” with Dr. Mark Cramolini

Posted April 2nd, 2022 by yale74webmaster
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Mark Cramolini (’74 DC), a critical care specialist, volunteered to fight the first wave of COVID-19 at a Bronx hospital.

Mark’s home base is East TN Children’s Hospital in Knoxville, TN. But in April 2020, when the first wave of COVID-19 struck New York City, he volunteered his skills in critical care medicine at the overwhelmed Jack D. Weiler Hospital in the Bronx.

As a warm-up to this ’74 lunchtime talk, Mark encourages you to watch the short video Life and Death in the ‘Hot Zone’ from the New York Times, which captures the chaotic scene at the hospital. (In the video, an emergency room doctor says “Get them upstairs!” — referring to the makeshift Intensive Care Unit where Mark worked for 10 days.)

Recorded on Zoom February 8, 2022. Hosted by Alec Haverstick. Runtime: 60 minutes. Chapter breaks appear below.

Chapter breaks in this video:

0:00 – Introduction
12:05 – Into the COVID zone
23:47– Plight of the patients
43:40 – My medical teammates
51:45 – My take-aways

Nurturing home-grown innovation in West Harlem

Posted March 30th, 2022 by yale74webmaster

Working in and with the Harlem community, Greg Ho (’74 TC) promotes new ventures to create local jobs in life sciences and ed-tech

Greg Ho, West Harlem Innovation Network

Greg spent 16 years as a top manager at McKinsey & Company and is co-founder of Spring Mountain Capital in New York City, a private investment firm that invests in tech and healthcare companies.

Now he has channeled his energy into West Harlem Innovation Network, an initiative to “build companies that bring revolutionary technologies to the Harlem community and, in turn, create hundreds, if not thousands, of jobs for Harlemites.”

In this ’74 lunchtime talk, Greg explains how this effort to give back to the community came about, and how it incorporates different strands of his business and personal life experience.

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Into the COVID zone: Dr. Mark Cramolini

Posted March 30th, 2022 by yale74webmaster
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Mark Cramolini M.D. Yale Class of 1974

“When NYC called, I was moved to answer,” says Dr. Mark Cramolini (’74 DC), a critical care specialist based in Knoxville TN. The time was April 2020, when the terrifying first wave of COVID-19 struck New York City. Mark volunteered to help at the overwhelmed Jack D. Weiler Hospital in the Bronx.

The chaotic scene at the hospital was captured in a New York Times short video, Life and Death in the ‘Hot Zone.’ Mark spoke about his experience at our ’74 lunchtime talk on February 8, 2022.

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Watch now: “Othello on Wall Street: How Fate Led Me to Lehman Brothers,” with Alec Haverstick

Posted January 20th, 2022 by yale74webmaster
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Alec Haverstick
Alec Haverstick

Alec Haverstick (’74 SY), speaking to classmates on January 11, 2022, tells his inside story of a career on Wall Street, especially his fateful employment at Lehman Brothers in the years before the firm collapsed in 2008. He recalls personal milestones – hirings, firings, family life – within a cautionary tale about the motives that drive Wall Street firms. An American Studies major who loves to read, Alec compares Lehman chief executive Richard Fuld to Shakespeare’s tragic Othello, COO Joe Gregory to Iago and the firm itself to Desdemona.

Runtime: 75 minutes. See Alec’s profile in the Class Directory. Links to related books and a movie appear below.

Chapter breaks in this video:

Runtime: 75 minutes
4:00 – Investment Banker, What’s That?
12:30 – Sell Your Mom for a Nickel
16:19 – “Dick Fuld Wants to See You”
28:00 – Don’t Let Goldman Beat Us
38:00 – Goldman Envy
41:15 – Beginning of the End
58:42 – Q & A

Related reading and viewing mentioned in this talk:

Greed and Glory on Wall Street, The Fall of the House of Lehman, by Ken Auletta

Liar’s Poker, by Michael Lewis, who rose from callow trainee to bond salesman at Salomon Brothers, raking in millions for the firm and cashing in on a modern-day gold rush.

The Wolf of Wall Street, feature film directed by Martin Scorsese, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, Margot Robbie.

Chuck Martin revisits how Albert Camus visualized ‘The Plague’ in Algeria

Posted January 8th, 2022 by yale74webmaster
Charles Martin photo
Charles Martin photo

Writer-photographer Chuck Martin (’74 SM) writes: “The new year brings me the good fortune of once again seeing Revista Parêntese, in Porto Alegre, Brazil, publish an essay and photos of mine. It is a reading of the narrow way in which La Peste, the fiction of Albert Camus, visualizes a plague located in Algeria.” The essay is here (in Portuguese) and Chuck’s photos are here.

Philip Halperin recalls his “working adventure” in Russia

Posted December 9th, 2021 by yale74webmaster
Philip Halperin

When the Russian economy crashed in the late 1990s, Philip Halperin [’74 ES] decided to shake up his risk management career by taking a job with a major Russian bank. He expected to stay 3 years, but ended up staying 14. As featured speaker at our December class lunch, Phil shared stories of his life as a Western expat during a “working adventure” in Moscow.

Under the Burkha with Carolyn Grillo

Posted November 3rd, 2021 by yale74webmaster

Carolyn Grillo (’74 JE) was guest speaker at our virtual lunch meetup Nov 2, 2021. She spoke about the summer she spent in Afghanistan between our junior and senior years – what she observed then, and what we are seeing now. She calls her talk, “My Shoes! My Shoes! The Invisible Women of Kabul.”

Watch now [login required].

“Rock & Revolution” – Radical notes from the soundtrack of our college years

Posted May 20th, 2021 by yale74webmaster

The Class of 1974 was pleased to sponsor “Rock & Revolution” on May 20, 2021, an online event for classmates everywhere, to explore the soundtrack of our college years. How did our music express the politics of those days, and how is it relevant now? Our speaker (and deejay) was Dr. Angharad Davis, who teaches “Music and Revolution” in Yale’s Department of Music. 

Watch and listen to the “Rock & Revolution” playlist we created as part of this event.

In the video clip below, Dr. Davis unveils the songs that present-day Yalies consider to be “songs of revolution.”

What do today’s Yale students consider songs of revolution?

Here is Dr. Davis’s full presentation [pdf]:

Rock-and-Revolution-final-presentation-slidesDownload