![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/Images\/Bates_Magazine\/spring07\/main\/BBBN_017.jpg\")
<\/p>\nA few years ago, a group of Boston-area alums sent a message to Bates. It was a sober version of the Smothers Brothers\u2019 old \u201cMom always liked you best\u201d routine: Mother Bates, these alums felt, wasn\u2019t that proud of alums who had pursued business careers and, by implication, wealth.<\/p>\n
The message was delivered during an April 2003 lunch meeting at the Downtown Harvard Club attended by eight alumni volunteers, including trustee Joel Goober \u201970. Then with State Street Global Advisors and now an investment advisor for wealthy families and endowments, Goober was the alum elder that day.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was somewhat taken aback,\u201d he says of his fellow alums\u2019 comments. \u201cBut it was a sentiment all around the table. They felt Bates didn\u2019t foster or esteem their careers in business as the College did careers in the professions or teaching.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Peter Mertz \u201903 chats with fellow alums at the Jan. 18 Boston Bates Business Network gathering. Mertz works at ORA Clinical Research and Development, a firm founded by Dr. Mark Abelson P\u201997 that employs nearly a dozen Bates alums<\/strong>. Photograph by Paige Brown ’96.<\/strong><\/p>\n The working lunch was convened by Marianne Nolan Cowan \u201992 of the College\u2019s alumni office in response to alumni interest in a Boston-area business networking program, a so-called Boston Bates Business Network. \u201cWe talked about what a new program might look like,\u201d she recalls. \u201cBut there was also a fair amount of conversation about how Bates was anti-business.\u201d<\/p>\n Whether that\u2019s true or not \u2014 the topic is not new at Bates \u2014 those alumni volunteers soon realized that any new programming couldn\u2019t be built around bitterness. \u201cIt was a funny catalyst, but that\u2019s what galvanized some of us to get involved,\u201d says longtime Bates volunteer Jennifer Guckel Porter \u201988, CEO of Galileo Health Partners, a provider of personal health- and wellness-assessment tools and services. \u201cWe realized that nonaction on our part would allow this other, negative force to go forward. So we united and worked hard to make it be different.\u201d<\/p>\n With momentum building, the College\u2019s alumni office devised ways to support what the Boston alums wanted: a regular chance to build networking relationships. \u201cIt\u2019s important in any field,\u201d Porter noted. \u201cBut people jump around a lot in the business world, and the ability to move is fueled by having relationships.\u201d<\/p>\n Staffers, meanwhile, guided the volunteers on organizational and logistical issues, and expressed their hope that events not devolve into thinly disguised trade shows or job fairs. The overall College sentiment, however, was expressed by one senior staffer\u2019s words, recorded in a memo: \u201cThey need to be clear about the objective…but our business folks seem to have good instincts and values…. Go to it!\u201d<\/p>\n Today, the runaway success of the Boston Bates Business Network may make the issue of Bates\u2019 relationship with business alums seem moot. Since its initial reception in September 2003, the Boston group has offered 17 programs. New attendees show up all the time, with 40 percent of each audience in 2006 attending their first network event. Assisted by Alumni and Parent Programs staff, volunteers have created similar networks in New York City, Washington, D.C., Chicago, and Portland, Maine. In the Bates tradition, of course, all alumni and parents in each region are invited to attend events.<\/p>\n The Boston steering committee is savvy about programming, perhaps because they tend to understand the need to deliver strong content to their \u201ccustomers.\u201d Rather than simple receptions, \u201cwe learned that we have to have a speaker and a topic,\u201d says the Boston Network\u2019s steering committee chair, David Greaves \u201980, who heads up national accounts for InterSystems, a Cambridge, Mass., software company. \u201cWe also learned that people will come to events that are germane to their work, and they will come to an event that is simply interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n So some programs have been field-specific, like \u201cThe Private Equity Industry: Why This Is a Growing Asset Class and How You Can Participate,\u201d with Trustee Michael Chu \u201980. Others broach general-interest topics that you might find in a lifestyle magazine, like the dazzling 2005 panel discussion \u201cFrom Research Bench to Patient Bedside: Today\u2019s Hot Topics in Healthcare.\u201d The event featured host Mike Bonney \u201980 and David Barlow \u201979, both CEOs of pharmaceutical companies, plus former American Medical Association president Robert McAfee \u201956, Bates bio professor Pamela Baker \u201970, and Bill Carlezon \u201986, director of the Behavioral Genetics Laboratory at Harvard\u2019s McLean Hospital.<\/p>\n Students are invited, too, with the idea of helping them network with alums. At the same time, students see the real-world Bates culture at work. \u201cPeople are genuinely interested in each other, how they are doing, and what they are doing,\u201d says Vaibhav Bajpai \u201907. Indeed, for participants the events are like a cup of cocoa on a cold afternoon. \u201cThe business world can be a cold and competitive place,\u201d says Porter, the first Boston steering committee chair and now a Bates trustee. \u201cThe network gives people the ability to connect with people who share Bates values, and to also bring those people into business relationships.\u201d<\/p>\n A typically busy guy, Greaves got involved with the Boston network when, of the thousands of proposals for his time, an invitation to the first network event caught his attention. \u201cI said, \u2018That\u2019s interesting.\u2019 It was very evident that it made sense.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAt these events, I get connected with different people in different lines of work, at different points in their life,\u201d Greaves adds. \u201cIn my work life, I don\u2019t necessarily cross all those intersections as frequently as I do through the Boston Bates Business Network. At one event, I talked to somebody who sold a business and somebody buying one, someone who got engaged, and someone expecting, someone who lost a job and some who just got one.\u201d<\/p>\n Then there\u2019s another business concept at work, the notion of adding value. \u201cIf we can help others finds jobs, change careers, and capitalize on their education, alums will feel a Bates degree has more value,\u201d says steering committee member and trustee Bruce Stangle \u201970, chairman and cofounder of Analysis Group, a economic consulting firm. \u201cAnd prospective students will see that the investment in a Bates education is worthwhile. If that happens, then we are helping the College.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s important,\u201d agrees Porter. \u201cI want people to enjoy seeing friends and making new networking relationships. But I also want them to sense a connection back to Bates, to feel that Bates is giving value to them, still.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The rousingly successful Bates Business Network helps alums and College alike.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":221,"featured_media":0,"parent":786,"menu_order":8,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_dimp_site_id":"","_dimp_override_contact":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"class_list":["post-808","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=808"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/808\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12230,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/808\/revisions\/12230"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}