Introducing the 2002 Alumni Trustee Candidates

Vote, Bobcat, Vote!

Each year the Bates College Board of Trustees elects two Alumni Trustees to serve five-year terms on the Board of Overseers. This slate of four candidates, presented by the Alumni Council of the Alumni Association, is your opportunity to nominate two candidates for election as Alumni Trustees.

We hope you will help shape the leadership of Bates. Alumni choose one quarter of the Board of Trustees, which provides policy leadership and careful fiduciary responsibility for the College. The board will have especially important roles in the next few years, with the transition to a new president, major improvements to the endowment and facilities, and preparation for the College’s sesquicentennial in 2005.

Additional ballots have been sent to those households where more than one Bates alum resides. If you have any questions about the process, please contact the Alumni Relations Office at 207-786-6127 or alumni@bates.edu.

Michael W. Bonney ’80

An economics major, Mike was a founding member of the Rugby Club and co-captain for two years. He was also vice president of the Representative Assembly, a Ladd intern, and played JV and intramural basketball. After graduation, Mike managed a drug store in Bangor for a couple of years. In 1984, he joined Stuart Pharmaceuticals, a division of ICI Ltd. Mike rose through a series of sales and marketing positions over the next eight years. He then led the effort to create the pharmaceuticals operating system when ICI split off the bioscience businesses and created Zeneca. When he left Zeneca after nearly 12 years, he held the position of national business director responsible for U.S. revenue and four pharmaceutical sales forces. He joined Biogen in 1995 as vice president of sales to create the sales and marketing functions and launch that company’s first proprietary product, AVONEX ® for the treatment of multiple sclerosis. He quickly became vice president of sales and marketing and helped lead Biogen’s transformation from a top-tier biotech research company to an international operating company.

In January 2002, he joined Cubist Pharmaceuticals as president and chief operating officer. In addition to traveling extensively with his family, Mike serves on the board of the Greater Boston YMCA and helps coach a soccer team of 12-year-old girls.

Since graduation, Mike has been active in Alumni-in-Admissions in Minnesota and Pennsylvania, has hosted a Ladd intern, served as chair of his 20th Reunion Gift Committee, is a member of the Boston Bates Council, and serves on the Leadership Gifts Committee for the College. He is a member of the College Key. He and Alison (Grott ’80) have two daughters, Erin and Devon, and a son, Garret.

In addition to being the place where I met my soul mate, Alison, and my dearest friends in the world, Bates has been a constant in my life for as long as I can remember. Bates prepared me to be able to see issues from a variety of perspectives and to work with many constituencies to achieve common goals. The College has changed a great deal from my days as a student, but its values of modesty, active participation in the community, respect for individuals, and egalitarian tradition endure, based on the high- quality administration, faculty, and students that it has been able to attract. These values are becoming increasingly important as the world becomes a smaller and smaller place and people of very different backgrounds interact more and more frequently. The financial underpinnings of the College must be strengthened so that it remains an attractive place to learn, to experiment, to work, to grow, and to live. The opportunity to work closely with the College community to ensure that these values, so uniquely apparent at Bates, continue to be available to future generations of students would be an honor. I believe that I can continue the Bonney family tradition and make a significant contribution to the continued success of Bates College.

Henry J. Keigwin ’59

A biology major at Bates with a minor in chemistry, Jack Keigwin was a member of the state champion football and track teams, a laboratory assistant, and proctor of Smith Hall. After graduating with honors, he joined a major chemical company as a technical representative. Jack soon realized that corporate America was not his calling, and he elected to earn his M.B.A., which he did with distinction from Harvard University. He teamed with a fellow entrepreneur in a start-up packaging company, became president, and grew the business rapidly. After this business was sold, Jack sought new challenges abroad, starting a yacht manufacturing enterprise in Hamburg, Germany. This business was also subsequently sold, and upon his return to America he purchased a dormant family construction business. Jack and his wife, Beverly, have built this business into one of the larger and more successful real estate development companies in southern New England.

In 1996, Jack Keigwin was named Entrepreneur of the Year by USA Today and the NASDAQ Exchange. He also serves as the Executive-in-Residence and Distinguished Professor at Bryant College. He has been a member and treasurer of the Rhode Island Board of Governors for several years and is on the board of a number of other civic and charitable organizations.

Jack is co-president of his Bates class and has been co-chair of Reunion Social and Gift committees. The Keigwins have been active philanthropically at Bates, funding the Keigwin Amphitheater, the restoration of Lake Andrews and the Burgoyne Lakeside Walk. Jack and Beverly reside in South Dartmouth, Mass., and Amelia Island, Fla. Their son, Scott, and daughter-in-law, Jane Miniutti, are 1986 Bates graduates.

We, as alumni of Bates College, have been fortunate to attend a school where the institutional values of integrity, humility, achievement, and service have had such a profound influence on most of our lives. My own experience at Bates prepared me especially well for life’s promises and obligations.

For this, I believe my gratitude deserves more than expressions of thanks. Indeed, it demands a personal commitment from me to try in any way I am able to insure that Bates College can and will continue to be that special place we know, not only as alumni, but for those students to come. I, like so many of you, have done so with financial support. However, personal service to the College can be ever more valuable. I think that I can be especially helpful in the areas of strategic planning, financial oversight, and in the formulation of a campus master plan. As your alumni representative, I would be committed to that special obligation of assuring that Bates continues to inspire and excel for every constituency of the college, past, present, and future.

Gretchen Shorter Davis ’61

A sociology major at Bates, Gretchen participated in many activities, served as a proctor, and was elected president of the Women’s Student Government. She has been a member of the Bates Key, now College Key, since graduation.

Her husband, Jerry ’61, and she have lived in many locations in the country and actively participated in many alumni activities over the years. They were co-presidents of the Fairfield County Bates Club, where she developed the Welcome Luncheons for entering Bates students, held at their home each June. She has served as co-chair of several Reunions, including her 40th this past June. She has been secretary of her class for many years and served on the Alumni Council. Most recently she was chosen for the Maine Bates Council, an advisory group for the Development Office.

Her career was in elementary teaching (New Jersey, Virginia, and Connecticut). While working in Connecticut, she earned her master’s degree at Fairfield University. She was active in the Weston Teachers’ Association and was elected to the board of the Teachers Association. She was also the team leader of her grade for several years. Since retiring to Maine, she has been a volunteer with the Southern Maine Agency on Aging. She and Jerry love traveling and especially enjoy the Elderhostel programs – they have participated in 18 programs worldwide – and also attend many of the concerts, plays, and social events taking place on the Bates campus.

Bates has always been important in my life. Just recently I talked with a high school senior who had applied Early Decision to Bates. She gave me many reasons why she had selected Bates: academic programs, friendliness of students on campus, professors willing to go the extra mile. I realized that her enthusiasm for all Bates has to offer mirrored my own feelings upon entering Bates. This learning environment must be maintained, so that Bates continues to be an academic leader for future generations.

My strengths for the board lie in my organizational abilities and in my years of Bates networking – many of my oldest friends are from my Bates years. Because I am retired in Portland, I have the extra time to serve Bates even more. While on the Alumni Council from 1988 to 1991, we worked with the alumni magazine staff to make the content more broadly reflective of alumni interests. The magazine has seen many improvements over the years, and there are many parallel issues where Bates can become stronger and more vibrant with interest and involvement from alumni.

If elected, I look forward to expanding my opportunity to serve all Bates alumni. With a new president coming, it will be important to establish a strong link with alumni. My fondest wish is to serve my alma mater, and to be committed to preserve its historic strengths as well as its future as one of America’s very strongest colleges. You should know that my young friend was admitted to Bates. I want her to be as fulfilled with her four years at Bates as I was with mine.

William A. Young III ’64

A native of Philadelphia, Pa., Bill Young was an economics major at Bates. During his four years at Bates, Bill served as class vice president for three years and engaged in many College activities, including Roger Bill intramural football and basketball teams, disk jockey on WRJR FM, and the Bates Christian Association. Following his graduation, Bill attended Columbia University Graduate School of Business where he earned an M.B.A. in finance in 1966.

Young began his professional career as a financial analyst with General Foods Corp. in 1966. Two years later he and Dave Boone ’62 started Boone, Young & Associates Inc. (BYA), a management-consulting firm. In 1973, Bill went to Washington, D.C., to serve as a senior staff member at the Office of Management and Budget in the Executive Office of the President. He held his OMB position for two years before joining BDM Corp., where he rose to the position of vice president and general manager of the Civil Systems Group and the Corporate Business Development Group. He resigned from BDM in 1987 to pursue several entrepreneurial opportunities. In 1991 he became vice president for development at Concurrent Technologies Corp. From 1994 to 1998, Young was the managing director of the Electronic Commerce Resource Center for the mid-Atlantic states. Following an entrepreneurial venture from 1998 to 2000, Young joined the EDS Corp. as director of e-government in the Government Global Industry Group. Bill has been active in his community in Northern Virginia, where he has served on numerous church boards. He is chair of the Diversity Advisory Committee to the president and administration of George Mason University and is active in the Kairos Prison Ministry.

In Bates affairs, Bill has served in many capacities including Alumni-in-Admissions, where he was very active in recruiting minority students to Bates. He has served as member and chair of several Reunion Gift Committees, participated in numerous Bates Fund phonathons, and has been a class agent. He is president of the Class of 1964 and a member of the College Key. Bill is married to Linda Hetrick and has four grown children and one granddaughter. His son, Howard, is a member of the Bates Class of 1991.

Bates was an exceptionally unique experience for me. It offered opportunity: opportunity for intellectual and social growth, opportunity to explore and create, and opportunity to experience diversity and develop a foundation that would last a lifetime in every possible endeavor. Bates taught me how to learn and to think independently. Much has changed since the early 1960s. There have been dramatic and tragic events in the past 40 years that have reshaped the world and how we relate to it. One such event, the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, will challenge us as a world community.

Bates has grown, diversified, and incorporated the new technologies. It is, and will continue to be, a growing, changing community of learning. But at its base it must and will continue to provide a foundation for independent discovery, learning, and critical thinking. I would like to be part of this continuing growth process.