Posted on Mar 3, 2009

William C. Birdsall ’42

William C. Birdsall ’42, of North Syracuse, N.Y., a World War II veteran, high school history teacher and devoted alumnus whose father and daughter also earned Union degrees, died June 28, 2008. He was 88.

Birdsall was born in Schenectady, where his father, William T. Birdsall, Class of 1918, served as chief power engineer at the American Locomotive Co. After the younger Birdsall earned his Union degree, he served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy in World War II in the Mediterranean, France and Hawaii.

After the war, he earned a master’s degree in education and married Geraldine Meroff before settling near Syracuse. Birdsall taught history at several schools, with much of his time spent at Liverpool High School, from which he retired in 1982.

The coupled raised three children: a son, Cary Birdsall, of Talkeetna, Alaska; Christina Birdsall Jones, of Perth, Australia; and Lynne Birdsall ’76, of Concord, N.H. The couple also has four grandchildren.

Birdsall was active at Andrew’s Memorial United Methodist Church as an adult church school teacher, liturgist and Men’s Club chaplain.

He was a blood services worker for the Red Cross. He was a longtime board member of the Jazz Appreciation Society of Syracuse and traveled frequently to jazz festivals around the country.

In a ReUnion questionnaire completed in April 1992, Birdsall wrote of his Union education: “But of equal or greater value was the opening to me of doors of the mind and doors to the arts; not only learning, but [learning] how to find out; to see interrelationships. Without these my life would have been not only different but poorer.”

Birdsall enjoyed Ocean Park, Maine. He went there as a child and continued the tradition with his family.

Contributions may be made to the American Red Cross of Onondaga County or North Area Meals on Wheels, North Syracuse.

Horace S. Van Voast III ’52

Horace S. Van Voast III ’52, of Shellman Bluff, Ga., a former class president, U.S. Navy veteran, Alumni Gold Medal winner and insurance company vice president, died Nov. 12, 2008. He was 81.

“Bo,” as he was called, died at a Savannah, Ga. hospital following unexpected complications related to aplastic anemia. With his wife, Sheila, he moved fromthe Schenectady area to Saratoga Springs in 1996, where the couple lived until moving to Georgia in 2007.

He was born April 22, 1927 in Schenectady. He was the son of Mary L. and Horace S. Van Voast II, Class of 1924, and grandson of John Van Voast, Class of 1887. Bo lived in Schenectady for more than seven decades. He was a graduate of Nott Terrace High School, where he was active in student government and played on the varsity football team.

He had a deep sense of patriotism and proudly served with the U.S. Navy in the Pacific Theater of Operations aboard the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Bon Homme Richard until 1945.

At Union, Bo Van Voast was on the editorial staff of The Concordiensis, was a member of Psi Upsilon fraternity, and served as 1952 class president. He continued a lifelong association with Union College as a devoted fundraiser, became a member of the Union College Garnet Guard Society and head agent of the Annual Fund in 1876. For his service, he was awarded the Union College Alumni Gold Medal in 2002.

Bo enjoyed a 40 year career in the insurance industry, first as an associate of his father’s in the Van Voast Agency in Schenectady, and then continuing until retirement as a vice president with the Lawrence Group in Albany.

While living in Saratoga Springs, he served his community as president of the Birch Run Association, as a volunteer for the Saratoga Springs Public Library, and by delivering meals to needy citizens for the Meals on Wheels organization.

Bo Van Voast also enjoyed kayaking, taking walks and engaging in lively conversation. He was a kind, gentle man who loved life. These qualities, as well as his quiet sense of humor, will be greatly missed by all who knew and loved him.

He is survived by his loving wife, Sheila; his son, Peter S. Van Voast, of Queensbury, N.Y.; his daughters, Margaret W. Van Voast of Falls Church, Va., Amy Raimo of South Glens Falls, N.Y., and Holly Anne Van Voast of Bronx, N.Y., and his grandson, Thomas A. Raimo of South Glens Falls. He was predeceased by his son, David Van Voast.

A memorial service was held at the Memorial Chapel on Dec. 12, 2008.

Donations in Bo Van Voast’s memory may be made to the Union College Annual Fund, 808 Union St., Schenectady, NY 12308-3107.

Kenneth T. Lally

Kenneth T. Lally, of Niskayuna, N.Y., a former General Electric engineer and successful business owner who became a well-known Capital Region philanthropist and gave a $1 million gift to support Schaffer Library renovations, died Nov. 7, 2008. He was 94.

Lally and his wife, Thelma P. Lally, a Niskayuna school teacher who died in 2005, were generous benefactors of several health care and educational institutions in the Capital Region. The couple’s charitable gifts were often made contingent on the success of a campaign goal, which often inspired targeted fundraising efforts and other gifts. To honor their gift to Union, a reading room in the library is named after the couple.

The couple received the Philanthropists of the Year award for their support of charities in the Capital Region from the National Society of Fundraising Executives in 1994. In 1999, they were honored with the Citizen Laureate Award from the University of Albany Foundation.

Lally began a manufacturing engineering career in Schenectady with GE. In 1964, he purchased the historic W. & L.E. Gurley Co., now Gurley Precision Instruments, Inc., in Troy, and took control of its operations. Lally’s efforts saved the company and made it very successful.

He later sold Gurley to Teledyne, Inc. He served as president of Coradian Corporation and also as an officer, director, financier and consultant to various privately owned manufacturing companies.

He was an active member of the Board of Trustees of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute for over 30 years.

He was born on Oct. 20, 1914 in Waterville, N.Y., the son of William and Mae Lally. He was survived by his sister, Mary Lally, of Niskayuna, N.Y. and his brother, Robert Lally, of Binghamton, N.Y., as well as several nieces and nephews.

Posted on Mar 3, 2009

Selling Peak

Craig Theisen ’01 had a steady career in Boston’s insurance industry for six years after graduation. But in March 2007, he quit insurance sales and helped launch Peak Organic, an organic craft beer brewer based in Maine with a limited marketing budget.

“We don’t have a traditional marketing plan. We really believe in word-of-mouth advertising. If you have a good product, it speaks for itself. We do a tremendous amount of events and tastings and we have an interactive Web site where customers submit photos of their ‘peak’ experiences,” Theisen said during a recent visit to campus. “It’s a challenge. That’s what everyone says about being an entrepreneur. But the reward could be great and I love what I do.”

Peak Organic, founded by Theisen’s childhood friend, Jon Cadoux, brews six types of craft beer in Portland, Maine. The company’s roots stretch back to 1998, when Cadoux and a friend began brewing beer at home. Cadoux refined recipes and improved his brews and began to think seriously about creating a USDA certified organic beer and a company driven by sustainable and environmentally conscious business practices.

Theisen, Cadoux and several others have remained friends since childhood summer camp in New Hampshire. As Peak Organic grew, Cadoux began recruiting the group as part owners and sales reps. Today, the team is spread across the eastern seaboard.

“A lot of distributors say we are similar to Sam Adams 20 years ago, hitting the streets and getting people to try our great ales,” Theisen said.

Theisen covers parts of New England and upstate New York and lives in Saugus, Mass. and is pursuing an MBA from Babson College during the evenings.

The Peak line up

• Pale Ale

• Nut Brown Ale

• Amber Ale

• Pomegranate Wheat Ale with Acai

Made with locally grown wheat and organic coriander, pomegranate juice and acai juice.

• Espresso Amber Ale

Brewed with a dark Sumatran blend, which adds a toasty character to sweet malty character.

• Maple Oat Ale

Copper-colored ale with a hint of sweetness from the organic maple syrup.

For more: Click here to read more about Peak Organic.

Posted on Mar 3, 2009

The liberator of La Croix 

Albert S. Callan ’41 was a World War II spy and a born writer. A letter dated Aug. 17, 1944 written from “somewhere in France” candidly reflects Callan’s observations as a 23-year-old U.S. Army intelligence officer traveling in a foreign land.

“This is a hot, quiet Sunday in the heart of France. Yesterday, we moved forward again, thru beautiful farm country, where old chateaus, fine vineyards and beautiful girls were much in evidence,” Callan wrote. “If rumors I heard today are true, in the next few hours we may well break out our maps of Germany! France will be liberated, then across the border into Berlin and then home, I hope.”

The letter is one of many Callan wrote during World War II to family friend, Carrie Mason. The letters were discovered by the Columbia County (N.Y.) Historical Society about two years after Callan’s death in December 2005. Some letters were reprinted in an issue of the Columbia County History & Heritage magazine published in late 2007, soon after Callan’s widow, Virginia, and son, Steven, traveled to France for two ceremonies honoring Callan’s service in World War II.

At one ceremony in the small village of La Croix Sur Meuse, the family saw the unveiling of a plaque celebrating Callan as the “Liberator of a La Croix.” In late 1944, Callan conducted a lone spy mission to determine the German military presence in the village. Callan noted several tanks in the village and called in U.S. soldiers to liberate the town.

“We knew the ceremony being planned in La Croix would be special because Albert and I have remained in contact with three generations of the French family he befriended when he liberated it,” Virginia Callan told the Chatham (N.Y.) Courier in September 2007.

After serving in the war, Callan returned to Columbia County in upstate New York and joined the staff of the Chatham Courier, where, for nearly six decades, he acted as editor and publisher while also writing an unsigned weekly column called “The Man in the Black Hat.” A book of the collected columns is described: “As the stream of small-town life passes, the ‘anonymous’ chronicler (the worst-kept secret in town), records his wry, humorous, and often poignant observations.”

According to classmate Larry Schwartz ’41, Callan was in the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest-living columnist. At Union, Callan was an athlete and scholar, he learned French and German, putting both to use in the U.S. Army, in which he enlisted just before the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Callan stayed closely connected to Union, and was chair of the Class of 1941 65th ReUnion committee. At earlier ReUnions, he won the cup for best ReUnion theme, having hired a group of antique cars, to which he compared his classmates. At another ReUnion, he rounded up a wagon with a team of Clydesdales and barrels, to liken his classmates to vintage wine.

FOR MORE: Click here to read more on Al Callan ’41 and the Class of 1941.

Posted on Mar 3, 2009

HYMAN A. ENZER ’38

Co-editor

Episodes and Fragments: A War and Peacetime Memoir

Outskirts Press, Inc.

Hyman A. Enzer is an emeritus professor of sociology and anthropology at Hostra University and is co-editor of this memoir. Author Kurt Fuchel was one of 10,000 mostly Jewish children transported from Eastern Europe to Britain before the start of the Holocaust. In Episodes and Fragments, Fuchel recounts his years in England following the “Kindertransport.” Fuchel was sent from Vienna to a host family in England in 1939 at age 7. He reunited with his family after World War II and later immigrated to Long Island, where he and Enzer struck up a long friendship.

GARY PREVOST ’69

United States-Cuban Relations: A Critical History

Lexington Books

This book provides a broad analysis of trends and patterns that have marked the long relationship between the two countries. Authors Esteban Morales Dominguez and Gary Prevost argue that U.S. policy toward Cuba is driven largely by developments on the ground in Cuba. From the U.S. intervention at the time of the Cuban Independence War to the most recent revisions of U.S. policy in the wake of the Powell Commission, the authors demonstrate how U.S. policy adjusts to developments and perceived reality in Cuba.

STEPHEN J. CRIMI ’81

Performance in the Garden: A Collection of Talks on Biodynamic French Intensive Horticulture

Logosophia Press

The lectures of Alan Chadwick, a philosopher and horticulturist known for his eloquence, have been collected here by editor Stephen J. Crimi. In the late 1970s, Chadwick lectured on the connection between food and nutrition and the development to an authentic self. He also opposed modern agri-business and food production. Crimi lives in western North Carolina and runs a fiber and produce farm called Philosophy Farm. Crimi also gives classes and talks on biodynamics, Sanskrit, Vedic culture and sacred geometry.

WIL HALLGREN ’81

Broken Film

Outskirts Press, Inc.

Hallgren, an English teacher in New York City and veteran poet, offers a series of poems that “relate to one another in a way similar to a kaleidoscope,” according to the book jacket description. Hallgren earned a master’s degree in fine arts from Brooklyn College and was a founding editor of The National Poetry Magazine of the Lower East Side. In the collection, Hallgren offers a range of tightly edited poems; from a companion poem to singer Lucinda Williams’ “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road” to a description of playing pick-up basketball in Manhattan after a night of drinking. In “Shooting baskets with a hangover,” Hallgren writes: “my body swaying, moving, jars against the stillness/such a morning would claim as due/ a dream lingering misty day/ when eyes would rather dream than see./ And the headache pounds.”

ELISSA D. HECKER ’95

Entertainment Litigation: Know the Issues and Avoid the Courtroom

New York State Bar Association

This easy-to-use guide to entertainment law was edited by two leading legal experts, Elissa D. Hecker and fellow attorney Peter Herbert. Described as a must-read for lawyers and others connected with entertainment law, this handbook explains in simple terms the issues that are fundamental to an artist’s career such as overreaching managers, contracts without stated performance obligations, copyright laws, and protection of the entertainer’s name, likeness, logo and reputation.

SHARON BOHN GMELCH

Former chair of the Department of Anthropology

The Tlingit Encounter with Photography

The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology Publications

Beginning in the mid-19th century, shortly after the invention of photography, the Tlingit of southeastern Alaska encountered early Russians and Americans. Based on extensive archival research, a close examination of hundreds of photographs, and oral-history interviews, Sharon Bohn Gmelch presents valuable insights on the motivations and reactions of Tlingit subjects to being photographed. She shows the ways the Tlingit incorporated photography and came to use it for their own purposes. This is the first book to explore the photographic imagery of the Tlingit during a critical period of change, from the 1860s through the 1920s.

Posted on Mar 2, 2009

In September 2006, after a 12-year hiatus, the so-called Bike Path Killer resurfaced in Buffalo, N.Y. and brutally strangled a 45-year-old mother of four. The re-emergence set off a public outcry and triggered the formation of a joint police task force to find the killer.

As part of that group, New York State Police Intelligence Analyst Betsy (Duchscherer) Schneider ‘93, then just two years removed from a drastic career shift from marketing research to criminal investigations, poured over police investigation files dating back more than two decades. That’s where she and others found Altemio C. Sanchez, a seemingly ordinary family man who had been mistakenly dropped as a suspect in the early 1990s. The Bike Path Killer, also called the Bike Path Rapist, had committed at least 15 rapes and two murders between 1981 and 1994 on wooded paths near Buffalo.

“There was a lot of information in the old files about where [Sanchez] worked, the hours he worked and physical descriptions and places that he had been seen that brought up some more questions,” Schneider said. “He was somebody that I had identified in looking through these files and I brought it to the attention of the lead investigator.”

Schneider earned an MBA from St. Bonaventure University shortly after graduating from Union and worked for nearly a decade as a marketing research analyst. In 2004, as a recently divorced mother of two young boys, Schneider spotted a job posting for a state police analyst and, after five months of training in Albany, was assigned to the FBI-Buffalo Field Intelligence Group.

“I just always loved police work, television mystery shows and crime books,” she said.

The story of the Bike Path Killer investigation, the Jan. 15, 2007 capture of Sanchez and the eventual exoneration of Anthony Capozzi, who was in 1987 wrongly convicted of raping two women, could be the plot of a crime novel. The investigation was covered by America’s Most Wanted, Dateline NBC and followed closely by Buffalo News reporter Michael Beebe.

After the Sept. 29, 2006 murder of Joan Diver, a drop of the killer’s sweat was found in Diver’s car. That sweat yielded a DNA profile similar to a man of Hispanic descent and was also matched to the Bike Path Killer’s genetic profile.

As the task force focused on Sanchez, Schneider and others saw more connections with similar rapes, attributed to Capozzi, in Buffalo’s Delaware Park in the 1980s. At that time, a rape victim identified another man as her attacker after seeing the man at a local mall. The woman recorded the man’s license plate number, which was traced back to Wilfredo Caraballo, who lied to police at the time, saying his car had been at home.

Schneider’s new research identified Caraballo as Sanchez’s uncle and led to a second round of police questioning. The uncle admitted Sanchez had been driving the car at the mall in 1981.

Days later, police found rape investigation kits connected with the Delaware Park attacks and isolated a DNA sample. So, by early January 2007, the only missing piece was a fresh DNA sample from Sanchez, which police obtained by collecting dinnerware Sanchez used at a local restaurant.

“It was a Sunday morning when I got the phone call that the DNA was a match. I just sat there and shook my head. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe we found the Bike Path Rapist,” Schneider said.

Today, Schneider lives with her sons, Gage, 9, and Brock, 7, near Buffalo. She and other task force members have since been honored by the state police, the Buffalo News and the New York State Bar Association for their work in capturing Sanchez and exonerating Capozzi. Sanchez is serving a life sentence at Clinton County Correctional Facility and Capozzi was released in April 2007 after 20 years in prison.

In looking back on the task force work, Schneider cites writing, research and presentation skills learned in graduate school and from Professor Byron Nichols in “Moral Dilemmas of Governing” seminar course.

“I had to present the connection and why he was a suspect of interest. You definitely have to be able to articulate that to a group of investigators. You don’t want to be blabbering on and on. You want to do it concisely and convincingly,” Schneider said.

Schneider is also part of a family with deep Union roots. Her father David Duchscherer ’67 owns an engineering and architecture firm in Amherst, N.Y. and her brother, Eric Duchscherer ’90, is the director of Residence Life at SUNY Potsdam. Schneider’s grandfather Philip Duchscherer ’39, great uncle Henry Duchscherer ’36 and great grandfather Charlie Duchscherer, Class of 1911, were Union men.

“Other law enforcement people have come up to us and said Betsy was pushing them with the evidence they already had,” David Duchscherer said. “Without that, they may have gone in a different direction. She played a key role in capturing this guy.”  

Posted on Mar 2, 2009

After graduation, Tom Flynn ’69 was a young man with a passion for storytelling. Thirty-two years later, as a seasoned journalist, he watched the skyline-defining twin towers tumble to the New York City streets in tatters.

This emotionally grueling experience Tom endured on Sept. 11, 2001 has birthed a gritty and brutal, yet ultimately inspirational, epic poem called Bikeman.

The book was released by Andrews McMeel Publishing in September 2008. In the poem’s opening lines, Tom hops on his bike, following his reporter’s instincts and the sound of a screaming plane into lower Manhattan.

Tom, then a CBS News television writer and producer, became an impromptu correspondent that day and kept detailed reporting notes—notes he would look to when he began writing Bikeman several years later.

“I started re-reading Dante’s Inferno about the same time I was looking over my notes from the day I got through 9/11,” he recalled. “As it turned out, those two—Dante’s Inferno and my notes—ended up being travel logs to hell.

“My notes and this narrative form of poetry kind of worked together, and that’s how it ended up in the format it did,” Tom added.

Ann Flynn ’93 is proud of the 70-page poem her brother wrote and sees his unique personality reflected in it.

“In the poem, Tom says ‘curiosity is my muse,’” she said. “And I can remember him always being like that.

“If we were out to dinner at a restaurant, he would eat the meal and then ask our mother if he could go look around,” Ann continued. “He’d be in the kitchen talking to the chef or behind the bar talking to the bartender. He was always out there, always curious about people’s lives.”

Curiosity, in the case of 9/11, gave Tom memories he didn’t talk much about—even when he was writing Bikeman.

But he did show the poem to other people, like his daughter, Katie. For Katie, who was a senior at Princeton University in 2001, reading Bikeman was illuminating.

“It allowed me to see another side of him, a deeper, perhaps even more truthful side,” she said. “I think his decision [to write] was borne of the fact that this tragedy was a tragedy felt by many, and was perhaps so great a tragedy that he was physically unable to keep it inside. It needed an escape, a manifestation for him to work through it,” Katie said.

In a heart-pummeling and piercing section of Bikeman, Tom describes the people he saw die. They’re people whose memories will always be with him—not just because he bore witness to the ends of their lives.

Bikeman reads:

The fallen tower carries flame-consumed human remains.

They are the ashes of ashes to ashes.

Dust of the good, dust of the evil.

I breathe from a sea of the death air.

Who of them is within me,

baked in my lungs, seared in my mouth,

dredged in my ears and in my eyes?

Those who this morning were breathing,

hearing and seeing now rest in me.

I will carry them forever.

In composing Bikeman, Tom hopes he wrote a poem that speaks to something greater than what he himself endured.

“September 11 was an experience everybody had. It was going on live on TV,” said Tom, who retired in 2004 from CBS News after 30 years, where he spent several years writing for news anchor Dan Rather. “As such, I feel this is everybody’s poem. This is everybody’s story.”

Reflecting on chapters of his own story, Tom, an Albany, N.Y. native and English student during his tenure at Union, said he remembers his former professors fondly.

“There were some wonderful teachers, some of the English teachers were great,” he recalled. “They taught me things that I still have, that I still remember.”

Tom’s father, James Henry Flynn, Class of 1931, worked as commissioner of health in Troy, N.Y.

Looking toward the future, Tom plans to continue doing freelance work for the likes of CBS News, while splitting his time between homes in New York City and Cape Cod. He also wants to continue telling stories.

“I’m writing, but it’s not poetry,” he said with a laugh. “I wrote my wife a poem when we got married 35 years ago, and then I didn’t write another until this one.”

For more: Click here for more on Bikeman and Tom Flynn '69.