Posted on May 24, 2006

When he was a student at Williams College in the early 1990s, Bo Peabody founded Tripod, Inc., one of the first Web-based communities and personal publishing companies. In 1998, Peabody sold Tripod to Lycos for a cool $58 million.

Peabody went on to help launch several more companies, pocketing tens of millions of dollars and gaining a reputation as one of the Internet era's innovative entrepreneurs.

But to hear the 33-year-old Peabody tell it, he's no genius. What people don't see beyond the glowing headlines and lucrative bank statements of companies like Tripod, Google and others are the half-baked ideas, failures and creditor calls that preceded the rise.

“These businesses are always on the brink before they are successful,'' Peabody told a captive audience of students, alums and faculty in the F.W. Olin Auditorium Wednesday afternoon.

Peabody shared his entrepreneurial wisdom from his recent book, Lucky or Smart: Secrets to an Entrepreneurial Life. The 58-page “pamphlet'' as Peabody refers to it, played a part in his visit to campus. The tome was included in the syllabus of the class, Entrepreneurship in Medieval Europe. The father of one of the students in the class, Evan Agatston ‘07, had a connection to Peabody through his own business ventures. Agatston's father, Arthur, created the popular South Beach Diet.

Peabody's uncle, Hank Riehl '72, is a Union alum.

“Give me some credit,'' Peabody joked to the students in attendance. “How often do you get a book assigned that's as short as mine?''

Peabody attended a luncheon at Abbe Hall before heading to Olin to speak to an audience filled with members of the College's Entrepreneurship Club. He also took questions as part of a panel that included a trio who successfully launched their own businesses: Les Trachtman '77, Dennis Hoffman '85 and Mike Brody.

Peabody is the co-founder and managing partner of Village Ventures, a network of more than a dozen venture funds with more than $250 million under management. A resident of Williamstown, he also owns a restaurant there and one in North Adams, Mass.

“Entrepreneurs are born, not made,'' he said. “You don't suddenly wake up and say, 'Hey, I want to start a business.'''

Posted on May 22, 2006

Union had one of its largest groups of attendees at ReUnion 2006 this past weekend, rivaled only by the College's Bicentennial celebration. 

More than 60 classes were represented, with the oldest member coming from the Class of 1934 to celebrate his 72^nd anniversary from Union.

The weekend program was packed with presentations, class receptions, footraces and exhibits. 

The event included the annual Relay for Life and culminated in a colorful fireworks display – courtesy of alumnus Steve Ente '75.

ReUnion also featured several award presentations. The winners of this year's Alumni Gold Medals were: Sigmund Giambruno '51; Albert Nahmias '66; and Mark L.Walsh, '76. Head football coach John Audino received the Meritorious Service Award. Major General Robert S. Dickman, '66, was honored with the Eliphalet Nott Medal.

Another highlight from this year's event was the rare public display of some of Audubon's 435 hand-colored engravings, which depict life-sized portrayals of every species of bird in North America. There were only about 200 complete sets distributed, with less than 135 still in existence today. The college has owned a complete set since President Eliphalet Nott paid $1,000 in gold to Audubon himself in 1844.

Posted on May 19, 2006

The annual senior student exhibit: “Lost Luggage” will be at the Mandeville Gallery now through June 11. A closing reception for the artists will be held Saturday, June 10, at 2:30 p.m. in the Nott Memorial.

“We are pleased to be able to share their accomplishments with the community,” said Rachel Seligman, director of Mandeville Gallery.

Contributing visual arts majors are: Nasifa Bishop, Kate Gustafson, Kota Kobayashi, Jeff Meola, Harrison Paras, Jessica Ritchie and Jeff Shrensel.

Each year, the Mandeville Gallery presents a selection of rotating exhibitions of contemporary art, science, and history. Included among these is a group exhibition of the work of our graduating visual art students. The Union College Senior Exhibition creates an opportunity for these art majors, their professors, their families, and their friends, to look back over four years of creative effort at Union College.

This show provides a chance for these artists to exhibit an overview of their accomplishments, and both they and their audience are able to view the work in the context of the group as a whole.

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The Wyckoff Student Gallery on the third floor of the Nott Memorial is simultaneously hosting “Sculpture in Minor – Aaron Agostino, John Erianne and Martin O'Brion Jr. “ through June 11.

Three graduating students with visual arts minors who have focused on sculpture; “a strong show with some impressive work” said Rachel Seligman. There are approximately 16 works in the show (including some photographs.)

Marty O'Brion's work involves creating the expression of emotions through male and female steel figures posed in expressive positions atop mirror glass which reflects and amplifies their forms.

John Erianne's work involves the process of inflating steel – creating delicate, weightless feeling, biomorphic forms which are in fact made of solid, heavy steel.

Aaron Agostino's small steel pieces are lyrical, linear abstractions and his black and white photographs are similarly elegant and abstract.

Gallery hours are Monday to Sunday, daily from 10 – 6 p.m. For additional information, please call our Information Line: 518-388-6004 or Mandeville Gallery Offices: 388-6729.

Posted on May 19, 2006

Various kinds of tourism, such as eco-tourism, heritage tourism and culinary tourism, have emerged in recent years. Each has a focus, such as ecological areas, history, arts or food.

From experience, I can now coin a new category – campus tourism.

Friends from Italy, Marina and Vieri Quilici, visited us in April. Vieri is an architect who teaches at Rome 3 University. We met the Quilicis in the mid-1990s when my wife and I were living at the American Academy in Rome.

Vieri created a plan that linked towns in southeastern Tuscany as the Parco Val'Dorcia, which highlights natural, cultural, artistic and economic features. It has similarities to RiverSpark, a park I helped initiate, made up of seven cities, towns and villages at the confluence of the Hudson and Mohawk rivers.

The Quilicis had graciously given us a tour of the Tuscan Parco and a number of dinners at their home. They also invited us to their second home on the west coast of Italy.

We wanted to return their hospitality. Of course, we took them to the RiverSpark visitor center in Troy; treasures like the Capitol, the Stockade in Schenectady, Lake George; and – given our shared interest in parks – Saratoga State Park, the Adirondack Park and, closer to home, Albany's Washington Park.

But the centerpiece of touring turned out to be college campuses.

Our campus tourism began with the architecture school at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, after I saw that the school was presenting a public lecture as part of its 75th anniversary celebration. Two architecture grads spoke about their work. On the wall were drawings of Rome from students in the RPI's Rome program. Vieri was impressed with the old and new architecture of RPI.

Visits to campuses then flowed naturally to Skidmore in Saratoga Springs, the University at Albany, Union in Schenetady and Bard in Annandale-on-Hudson, Dutchess County. Marina commented on their self-contained nature and was amazed at the facilities for the arts on the campuses. She said museums, art galleries and theaters aren't found at Italian universities. Perhaps it is because Italian universities are woven into cities that have museums and theaters.

Without a seamless physical connection between city and campus, we lose sight of what is offered to the public on campuses and students miss out on what is in the city. I was once told, for example, very few UAlbany fine art students visit the outstanding collection of New York School paintings in the concourse of the Empire State Plaza in Albany.

Overall we have an awesome collection of treasures on the region's campuses. On the scenic Skidmore campus, our guests saw two exhibitions at the contemporary Tang Museum – with its three wings and walkways – designed by New Mexico architect Antoine Predock.

The uptown UAlbany campus, designed by architect Edward Durrell Stone, is itself an object of art. The Stone design is now augmented by interesting new buildings like the Science Library with a view of the Heldebergs, the glass administration building by Gwathmey, Siegel and Associates, and the picturesque high tech complex on Fuller Road.

Union College's campus, designed by French architect Joseph Jacques Ramee, is America's first planned campus. The centerpiece Nott Memorial had a retrospective exhibit of set designs by Charlie Steckler when we visited.

Last on our magical campus tour was Vieri's must see, the Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College, designed by international architect Frank O. Gehry.

My advice for you is to explore the campuses in our backyard. Get campus maps from college Web sites, look for public lectures, exhibits and performances, and make up your own campus tour.

Posted on May 19, 2006

As Alex Baron studies for finals, the junior at the University at Albany thinks about buying cards to hang in the dormitory showers that demonstrate self-exams for testicular and breast cancer.

And even with a busy summer of courses in his path, Baron is already talking about next year's Relay for Life, a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society.

The 20-year-old history major has always been the kind of kid who looked for a cause or an organization to join.

In high school, somewhere in the middle of swimming, golf and soccer seasons, and between practices for mock trial and model Congress, Baron raised money for charity with the Key Club.

But at age 15, doctors told him he had testicular cancer. The kid who always looked for a new cause to join found one that would overtake all the others.

“I understand the importance of getting money for research, of getting money for patient services,” Baron said.

For the last two years, Baron has organized UAlbany's Relay for Life, an overnight walking or running relay. In March, 800 UAlbany students, staff members, friends and family packed the RAC Arena, and collected about $60,000 for the American Cancer Society.

Although towns and cities have held relays for as long as 20 years, colleges have started hosting them as well. They now contribute about one-third of all money raised through the events, said Karen Carpenter-Palumbo, vice president of the American Cancer Society for the Capital Region.

Union College in Schenectady kicked off the first one in the Capital Region in 2003, according to the society. The next year, Union, Siena College and The College of Saint Rose raised $24,700 between their three relays. So far this year, college students in this area have raised $261,000 for the American Cancer Society, including Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute which collected $120,000 in its first relay. The next college-sponsored relay, at Union College, begins May 19.

“Not only have some of their peers been affected by cancer, but all of them have a mother, an aunt or an uncle that has been affected by cancer, and they're activists,” Carpenter-Palumbo said. “They want to do something about it.”

Baron's diagnosis came when he injured his groin after being hit by a soccer ball during a game. He had some lingering pain from the injury, the result of a hematoma, or collection of blood in the body. But tests revealed more than that.

Days later, doctors removed a testicular tumor and said he wouldn't require further treatment. Within a couple months, Baron, who grew up in Rockland County, began collecting pledges for his hometown Relay for Life.

The event made him feel part of a new community, he said. He was a survivor. People were there for him, and now he wanted to do what he could to help others.

“He had a tremendous amount of support from his family, and a tremendous amount of support from his friends, and I think that made him feel very comfortable about the cancer, and it made him feel like he could talk about it,” said his father, Steve Baron, who now helps organize the Relay for Life in Rockland County. “I don't know if it's a kind of therapy for him, but it's very, very important to him to talk about it.”

The next year, Alex Baron became the Rockland relay's youth chair, encouraging other high school kids to get involved.

And not long after he arrived at UAlbany, he asked the American Cancer Society how he could start a relay on campus. He needed a sponsor organization, so even though he was only a freshman at the time, he founded Students of Albany Against Cancer. In addition to holding the relays, the group volunteers with the American Cancer Society and Gilda's Club, a cancer-support organization with an office in Latham.

Before he moves on to get his graduate degree in teaching, Baron wants to make sure he's trained another student to continue the relay efforts. It's the kind of thing that should keep going, he said, because a new crop of participants arriving on campus each year should keep the event from going stale.

As for Baron, there's only one way he'll give up his cause.

“Once we find a cure, that's the only thing I can think of that would stop me in this fight.”

Jennifer Gish can be reached at 454-5089 or by e-mail at jgish@timesunion.com.

Alex Baron

Age: 20

Diagnosis: Testicular cancer at age 15. Celebrated five years without cancer in November.

Successes: Has become an advocate for cancer screenings and raises money for cancer research, treatment and patient services. As a freshman at the University at Albany, he founded Students of Albany Against Cancer. Now a junior, Baron has organized two Relay for Life fundraisers at the school, collecting about $90,000 for the American Cancer Society.

Going the distance

Several Relay for Life events will be held in the Capital Region in the coming months. For more information on these American Cancer Society fundraisers, call (800) ACS-2345 or visit http://www.cancer.org:

Friday and Saturday: Union College (registration begins at 6 p.m.)

Friday and Saturday, June 2 and 3: Shenendehowa Central School District, Clayton A. Bouton Jr./Sr. High School in Voorheesville (registration begins at 2:30 p.m.), Veterans Memorial Stadium at Green Island (registration begins at 6 p.m.)

Friday and Saturday, June 9 and 10: South Colonie Central High School (registration begins at 6 p.m.), Greenwich Central School District, East Side Recreational Field in Saratoga Springs (registration begins at 6 p.m.)

Friday and Saturday, June 16 and 17: Scotia-Glenville High School, Troy High School (registration begins 6 p.m.), Columbia Greene Community College (registration begins at 5 p.m.)