Posted on Apr 17, 2006

“The Athenian Acropolis: Photographs by William James Stillman, An Exhibition in Memory of Professor Christina Elliott Sorum (1944-2005)” will open Thursday in the Nott Memorial at Union College.

The exhibit will feature photographic reproductions of Stillman's photographs of the Athenian Acropolis from the college's collection. It will also include a selection of original photography albums, letters and other printed works by Stillman. The exhibit will be on display through June 11.

An opening reception will take place from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday, with a lecture at 6:30 p.m. by Andrew Szegedy-Maszak. Szegedy-Maszak is the author of numerous books and articles on classical archaeology and photography.

Stillman was born in Schenectady in 1828 and graduated from Union College in 1848.

Sorum was an award-winning teacher, author and scholar who worked more than two decades at Union.

The Nott Memorial is open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays through Sundays. Call 388-6004 for information.

Posted on Apr 17, 2006

As students at Union College, Edward and Raymond Joseph ate dinner early. They were at the University Club during the afternoon for plates of turkey, meatloaf and chicken, mashed potatoes and peas and carrots. Then, they went to work. The brothers donned white jackets and served club patrons – young men working at the General Electric Co. – their suppers.

Older brother Alfred kitchen worked in the kitchen, scraping plates and washing Scrapbook dishes. The Josephs were working their way through Union during the spring of 1956. They didn't have much money, and hustled to pay for tuition, room and board as they studied for college degrees.

The brothers were motivated. They had moved to America from Lebanon in 1948, with the rest of their family, and didn't speak English until 1949. 

The Josephs graduated from Cortland High School. Al, with financial help from several hometown businessmen, began his career at Union in 1952. His brothers followed. 

All three received some scholarship help from Union, and worked summer jobs to save for college expenses. They stayed busy when school was in session, working hours outside class to earn money. 

“We got our meals for nothing,” Raymond Joseph said of his University Club days. “And we got about $10 a week for extra expenses.” 

Ray and Ed were both engineering majors. Ray stayed with the family of Jonathan Pearson, Union's director of admissions. To earn his keep inside the Nott Street home, Ray watched the Pearson children while Jonathan and his wife, Eleanor, were out. 

Ed worked at the University Club, but occasionally had tasks on the club's Front Street grounds instead of white jacket duties. 

Al Joseph lived at the home of professor Frederick Bronner, and worked around the house in exchange for his room. A physics major, he tutored other students in physics and mathematics. 

“I don't have anyone in physics right now,” he told Schenectady Gazette reporter David Vrooman in March 1956. “But spring exams will be approaching soon.”

HELP AVAILABLE 
Raymond Joseph said he and his brothers picked up math and science easily. Liberal arts courses were a bit more difficult, but Joseph said help was always available from many college professors. 

“They'd give us their home phone numbers and say, ‘If you run into problems, call us,' ” said Joseph, who now lives in Virginia Beach. “That's what I remember most about the school. The professors gave you their time.”

The students were not all study and work. On Saturdays, they'd drive to other college campuses such as Skidmore in Saratoga Springs to socialize.

CAREER ACCOMPLISHMENTS
But they were serious about their educations. Alfred Joseph, class of 1956, continued his studies at Case Institute of Technology, where he received a doctorate in physics. He worked at General Electric and Rockwell International; he also founded Vitesse Semiconductor Group. Alfred currently lives in Palm Springs, Calif.

Raymond Joseph received his bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering in 1957. He spent his career with the General Electric Co., retiring as manager of engineering of advanced planning in Portsmouth, Va. He also served as president of the Portsmouth Chamber of Commerce.

Edward Joseph graduated in 1959 with a bachelor of science and electrical engineering degree. He received his master's degree in the same field from Syracuse University.
Edward also worked at General Electric and later became president of Breatech, a speech document reading company. He retired in 2003, and lives in Fallbrook, Calif.

Life is good for all three. “We're all, you could say, millionaires,” Raymond Joseph said.

Posted on Apr 17, 2006

For about a decade, Union College has had a sleepy venture fund of $500,000, but not many people, including Union alumni, knew much about it.

That's about to change.

“The goal is to get bigger,” said Les Trachtmann, chairman of the Eliphalet Nott Society, which operates the Vash Venture Fund. “Things are beginning to accelerate. We are vetting more opportunities than ever and the members are generating investment opportunities every month.”

The Vash fund was formed by the late Arthur Vash, a member of Union's class of 1951. Vash was president of two companies: Epco Packaging Products Inc. and Phillips Screw Co. After retiring, he started a venture fund, Gryphon Ventures in 1985 with $33 million.

The Vash fund received a $200,000 pledge from its namesake in the early 1990s. His estate provided the funds in 1998, three years after Vash died.

The fund is managed by the Eliphalet Nott Society, an organization formed in 1992 and named after Union's fourth president who led the college from 1804 to 1866. He was the long­est-serving Union president. Its goal is to foster an entrepreneurial spirit among students, faculty and alumni.

The 21 members of the society, most of whom are alumni, include presidents and CEOs of companies who have agreed to lend professional and financial support to Union.

Members pledge to donate 2 percent of their holdings in member-owned companies or investments after what they call a “liquidity event”–when stocks are sold or a company is acquired or goes public, for example. Members of the fund can also donate directly to the fund as a charitable gift to the college, or pledge the interest from one of their investments. They can also make individual investments.

The fund is now worth $500,000, the largest it has been. The immediate goal is to increase the fund's size to $2 million. By 2010, investors expect the fund to be valued at $10 million–both in available funds and money already invested in companies.

Union owns any investments made; the society acts as investment manager.

The fund has made four investments to date. The investments are between $25,000 and $50,000, small by venture capital standards.

“We invest at a time when angels would be investing, Trachtmann said.

The Vash fund invested $50,000 in Cyclics Corp. of Schenectady six months ago, not so much because the resin maker needed the money, but because the Union alumni wanted to support fellow former students who founded the company, Trachtmann said.

John Ciovacco, 41, one of the Cyclics' founders, is now a member of the Eliphalet Nott Society and an investor in the fund.

Investments made easy
Union is not the first college to have a venture fund or invest in companies. In 1968, Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa, invested $300,000 in alumnus Robert Noyce's startup in Silicon Valley–Intel.

Mark Heesen, president of the National Venture Capital Association in Arlington, Va., said more schools–the University of Michigan, the University of Maryland and Cornell among them–are engaging in this type of investment.

Trachtmann, chairman of the Eliphalet Nott Society for the past year, is president of Active Endpoints Inc., a software company based in Shelton, Conn. When Trachtmann, a 1977 Union grad, joined the society, it had just eight members.

“I got excited about it when someone showed me what it was,” said Trachtmann.

Union has increased its emphasis on entrepreneurship by weaving the subject into its courses and hiring local businessman Harry Apkarian as its first Entrepreneur in Residence.

Bill Schwarz, Union's director of communications and public affairs, said the Vash fund is a great way for the alumni to give back.

“They want to see the college do well and the endowment grow and they want to get students involved in this opportunity,” he said.

Ciovacco said the fund works because it's simple for alumni to give.

“If you care about the institution, as I do, it's a pretty easy thing–it doesn't hit you in the pocketbook that day. It feels good. I think it's a good idea for the college to put something like that together, because it gives them a chance to benefit from some of the students they've released into the world.”

Trachtmann calls the fund a “lightning rod for alumni that are entrepreneurial-thinking.”

Filling a gap
Not all the society members went to Union. Two members aren't alumni: Walt Robb, owner of the Albany River Rats hockey team, former GE Global Research director and an investor in a number of local companies; and Chris Myers, owner of the Parker Inn in Schenectady.

Robb said he likes where the fund fits in the Capital Region.

“The good thing about this one is that it is a very early investor, so it fills the gap that is not filled by [local venture funds] FA Tech Ventures or High Peaks,” Robb said. “It is more aimed at the early angel investor, of which we don't have enough.”

Robb hopes it encourages “young entrepreneurs who have a good idea and are willing to make the effort to take the risk to start a company that will hopefully stay here in Schenectady County.”

Myers said he has “adopted Union College as my college.”

He said investing in the fund has helped him network with Union alumni and he believes it will draw more business to his inn.

Union student Mani Ulloa, 20, who has liked finance since he was a kid, said the fund is giving him a chance to get some hands-on experience. He and three other sophomores will look over business plans and presentations sent to the fund.

“We'll be playing a fairly important role, performing research, due diligence and helping provide recommendations on investments, said Ulloa, an economics major.

“It's an exciting world out there,” he said.

Brian Selchick, a 21-year-old Union student, likes the idea that Union alumni who have made it in business will be coming back to the campus more often.

Selchick, who runs his own online auction company, Albany-based eWired Auctions, hopes the fund will help him personally.

“I think we could be a candidate for the Vash fund,” he said. “As a [future] Union alum, this a value-added [aspect] of the Vash fund: immediate access to top-notch venture-capital investors who are willing to take a serious look at your business plan.”

Ciovacco likes the entrepreneurial focus on Union's campus these days. During his time at Union in the 1980s, Ciovacco said, the focus was on getting a job at a big engineering firm. Starting companies wasn't the focus.

“The shift is a very welcome one, as far as I'm concerned,” he said. “I'd like to go there again someday. I'd rather go to the Union College of today than the college I went to and graduated from in 1987.”

Posted on Apr 14, 2006

James W. Taylor ‘66, whose passion for collecting classic automobiles was chronicled last summer in Accolades, one of the College's publications highlighting alumni, has parked some of the finest cars in his fleet in the Saratoga Automobile Museum.

The exhibit, “Driving Passion…The Jim Taylor Collection,'' opened April 1 and runs through June.

On display is a garage full of vintage cars, including: a 1952 Allard J2 Roadster, a 1960 Jaguar XK 150 Fixed Head Coupe, a 1976 Aston Martin Vantage Coupe, 1972 Maserati Ghibli SS Spyder and a 1969 Ford Mustang BOSS 429 Coupe.

Taylor is president and CEO of the Gloversville, N.Y.-based Taylor Made Group, one of the boating industry's largest manufacturers and suppliers. In the fall of 2004, he was appointed to the College's board of trustees.

Jim and his brother, John W. Taylor '74, donated $1.5 million to the College to help renovate North Colonnade into a music facility, which will be called the Taylor Music  Building.

The Saratoga Automobile Museum is open Tuesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information on Taylor's exhibit go t http://www.saratogaautomuseum.com/.

Posted on Apr 14, 2006

This was the day Cosmopolitan, which Hearst claims is the largest women's magazine in the world, was launching its own satellite radio channel, and I was lunching with the woman behind it.

Is Cosmo editor Kate White the smartest dame in the business? I used to think in terms of Tina Brown, Oprah, Martha Stewart, Mary Berner, Martha Nelson, Cathie Black and Bonnie Fuller, headliners like that.

Kate White? Wasn't she just the nice girl next door who happened to be around when they had an opening? Competent editor, affable, hard-working? Turns out White's a hot ticket. When we met at Circo in Manhattan, former Hearst magnifico Frank Bennack and his successor, Victor Ganzi, greeted her from a neighboring table, and Sirio Maccioni, who owns the joint, came by to say hello, showing off his infant grandson.

“Kate, I'm traveling in the right circles,” I conceded.

It's been nearly eight years since White took over as editor in chief of Cosmopolitan, succeeding Bonnie Fuller, who'd been there for a cup of coffee, and the legendary Helen Gurley Brown, who'd revived the struggling book and been there forever.

And what has White accomplished? She increased circulation by half a million copies per month (on newsstands alone, a telling stat, she's selling 2 million); launched a newly created spin-off, Cosmo Style magazine; started this new Cosmo Radio-they have their own channel on Sirius Satellite Radio; published hot sellers like Cosmo Kama Sutra through Cosmo Books; and, she adds proudly, “we have a huge Web site.”

Oh, yes, the energetic White is also a frequent guest on NBC's Today, has done a regular turn on CBS This Morning as its Cosmopolitan adviser and has turned herself into a best-selling novelist and nonfiction author at the same time.

On June 6 Warner Books will release, with considerable promo, her latest book, How to Set His Thighs on Fire: 86 Lessons on Love, Life and (Especially) Sex, a confection spoofing how women's mags carry on. And she pokes fun at herself with references to this book as “an early embarrassment bonus” while she slaves away at what will be her fifth novel in a murder-mystery series.

It was Helen Gurley Brown's moviemaker husband, David Brown, who used to write those nifty cover lines for Helen's Cosmo, but White tells me she does today's cover lines herself, along with executive editor Michele Promaulayko. “We must spend at least 10 hours a month doing them, and the most awful of them break us up, lines like, 'Don't you want to just bitch-slap him?' Those magazine cover lines-cunning, funny, surreal-may be absurd. But there's a craft to writing them, and they do sell magazines.”

And with a perverse delight, White said, “A woman came up to me the other day and said, 'Your cover lines are wonderful, and I know who does them: David Brown!' He used to, I said, but we do them now. 'Uh uh,' the woman insisted, 'it's still David Brown.' “

White always could write. She got into the business by winning Glamour magazine's Top Ten College Women Contest, earning herself an entry-level editorial-assistant gig, later being promoted to feature writer and columnist. Jobs at other national mags followed, then the editorship of Child and later Working Woman and McCall's. Four years as editor of Hearst's Redbook led to her taking over at Cosmo, its larger, more powerful sister pub.

I asked about the new Sirius radio deal. How do they fill all that time? “From 7 A.M. to 11 A.M. we have one anchor team, then from 7 P.M. to 11 at night another anchor setup, and it's music the rest of the time.”

Reflecting on her predecessors at Cosmo, White says, “I like Bonnie (now at American Media), and I worry about her.” And then, with a grin, she tells me about what she calls “a Helen moment.”

“Two years ago, there was a book party for me at Borders, and when Helen arrived, I told her, 'Your new book is here, too. I saw it downstairs when I came in. You ought to go down and sign a few of them.' Before I knew it, there in the midst of my book party, a little table had been set up with stacks of her book, and Helen was sitting there, signing away.”

Kate has two kids, a son (the hot tennis player in the family) about to enter college and a younger daughter. Her husband's a busy actor who also anchors a Sunday-morning business news show. Kate used to play tennis, but she's sitting out for the moment. “When I took on the editorship, I just decided to concentrate on the magazine and not to have hobbies-but I'm a great cook.”

These days, though, she seems to be gradually moving away from her strict ban on hobbies: “Bird watching; the children got me into it.”