As preparations continue for the official public launch in October 2004 of Exeter's comprehensive campaign, six Exeter alumni/ae are working behind the scenes to get the word out and secure resources that will allow the Academy to flourish for the next several decades. Officially known as campaign vice-chairs, these individuals are responsible for campaign efforts in specific areas of the country or the globe and work closely with Principal Tyler Tingley, Campaign Chair Chuck Harris ’69 and other Exeter alumni/ae and parents who comprise a campaign steering committee. In addition to their extensive work on behalf of Exeter, all have busy family and professional lives, and all, in the true spirit of  non sibi, generously volunteer their time for other important causes. Please allow us to introduce them....

It would be easy to mistake Robert Ho ’73 for a jet setter. In a matter of weeks, he has touched down in British Columbia, New York City, Mexico, Hong Kong, London, oh yes, and Exeter. But for Robert, who is in the ship transportation business, this is par for the course. Due to globalization in the markets, trade and finance, and competitive access spurred by the Internet revolution, it has become vital for Robert to journey to see his clients even more to ensure that all of the many people and pieces of the business are synchronized to deliver what is so key in the shipping world: good, steadfast service.

Similar to other Exonians of his era, Robert describes the Academy of the late 1960s and early 1970s as tumultuous. "There were those who loved it and those who fought the system, sometimes just for the sake of being rebellious or different." However, Robert does recall a cadre of teachers who were inspirational and supportive. One of the many memories he relates is of his first meeting with Ralph Lovshin '39, '76 (Hon.). Robert happened to be running around the track at the Cage, "just kind of fooling around one Sunday afternoon when, next thing I knew, Ralph was running beside me, telling me to kick my legs and stretch them out more. Right then and there he invited me to join the track team, and later became my coach."

Robert, who has been a trustee at the Academy since 2002 and who makes his home in Hong Kong, recently became Exeter's international campaign vice chair. Along with London, Robert will focus much of his energy on the Far East, a territory, he explains, that presents its own unique set of challenges. "The Academy is perceived as being a very rich school already, especially by foreign alumni/ae who note the reserves. People wonder why we are asking for more, so the importance of having a strong endowment has to come out in a very effective way. The other challenge is that many foreign alumni/ae do not get any tax concessions in their respective countries for giving to Exeter, so their philanthropy really has to come from the heart. We will need to think of ways to rally our foreign alumni/ae and parents to be generous, perhaps through the creation of new initiatives."

So, what's Robert's reason for staying connected as a volunteer? "Lots of family members have attended," he says, "and deep down we all really love the school, no matter how difficult it was at times. When I was at Exeter, I could feel my knowledge expanding. It was that stimulating, and it really had everything to do with the quality of teaching—the Harkness environment in the classroom and the interaction in sports. You really felt, and I think my compatriots and I still feel, that these teachers had given their lives to the students. These are the things that make Exeter exceptional; this is why the Academy deserves to be the leader among preparatory schools in the world."

It's easy to see why Steve Mandel '74; P'03, P'07 is so good at what he does; the man knows how to cut to the chase. Questions receive brief, but complete, answers. Nothing flowery. No pretense. Just a straight shot of wisdom and experience.

A second generation Exonian (Steve's father, Stephen Sr., graduated in 1948), Steve was a high honors student at the Academy who went on to major in government at Dartmouth. Harvard Business School came next and then a two-year stint with Mars & Co., a Paris-based management consulting firm. From Mars & Co., Steve made a highly successful transition to the Wall Street offices of Goldman Sachs, one that would later get him noticed by Tiger Management founder and hedge fund guru Julian H. Robertson Jr. Now a Managing Director at Lone Pine Capital, the hedge fund he started in 1997 after departing Tiger, Steve is recognized as one of the leading managers in the field.

Mandel became a trustee of the Academy in 1997 and assumed leadership of the investment committee in 1999, when Tucker Andersen '59 retired from the board. Under Steve's skilled and innovative leadership and at a time when many other independent secondary schools, colleges and universities have seen their endowments decline, Exeter's endowment has continued to post gains.

Beyond his work life and his extensive volunteerism on behalf of Exeter, Steve is also a trustee of The Children's School in Stamford, CT, and a board member of the Lone Pine Foundation, the charity set up by his company to assist children and families in the greater New York City area. Steve and his wife Sue's eldest child, Katie, graduated from Exeter in 2003, and son Tom will begin his lower year this fall.

"I enjoy volunteering for Exeter," says Steve. "The school is a unique place. The Harkness experience, shared by students from every quarter in a residential setting, is something special in secondary education. The faculty and administration are great people and fun to work with. And of course, the students never cease to amaze me."

Despite the fact that he is recovering from a recent hip surgery, Deke Welles '70 is as steady as they come. Having grown up outside Toledo, OH, his Midwestern manners and values are easily detected and make this Chairman Emeritus of Therma-Tru Corporation appear utterly unflappable.

Deke spent the last three years of the 1960s at Exeter and describes the period as one of "upheaval." Vietnam and the Civil Rights movement were coming to a head, and major changes to the school community were afoot. "We were the last all-male graduating class, and I can still recall listening with great jealousy as the trustees announced the school would be going co-ed."

Yet along with the tumult, says Deke, "there were good times, too, and they've generated great memories." Deke remembers his advisor, Fred Tremallo '70 (Hon.); P'74, P'78, with particular fondness. "Fred was an outstanding example of what the Exeter faculty was all about. I always had this sense that he was listening and affirming, but he didn't cut me any slack, either. He provided just the right balance that rambunctious, hormonal teenagers needed."

Deke is also clear on what he gained from his Exeter experience. "Exeter gave me the tools to learn and to be analytical. It also gave me the desire to keep on learning beyond college to this day. For me, I know I learned much more at Exeter than I did at Yale. Exeter was the grounding for everything after, which is why I've stayed so involved."

Welles has been a trustee of the Academy since 1996, when he was appointed to his first five-year term, and currently serves as the head of the alumni/ae affairs and development committee. Most recently he has become a campaign vice-chair, a position, says Deke, which will allow him to participate actively in campaign planning while continuing to maintain oversight of the non-campaign aspects of alumni/ae affairs and development.

Now a consultant and immediate past president of Therma-Tru, the family business he recently sold to Fortune Brands, Deke is staying very busy with his Exeter volunteer work and with several Toledo community organizations, including the Science Museum of Toledo (where he is chair) and the Toledo Community Foundation (where he is a trustee).

Nicie Johnson '84 doesn't mind detours. In fact, she attributes her own business success and personal happiness to walking a few of life's less-worn paths, a concept she remembers hearing about during one of her Exeter assemblies. "Mitch Kapor, the founder of Lotus, had come to address us," recalls Johnson. "And the gist of his talk was that we shouldn't get too focused on things playing out to a certain script, that life is a journey with highways and byways."

Nicie would fall back on Kapor's advice later, after her second year at Yale, as she was coming to terms with the loss of a family member. She decided to take a couple of years off to do some soul searching, and ended up working in Boston as a coffee house barista—"long before Starbuck's popularized the concept," she adds, laughing. In 1988, Nicie transferred to Harvard, where she completed an A.B. in government.

After finishing her M.B.A. at Babson, Nicie worked for a few years at Pequot Capital Management in Westport, CT, before founding her own hedge fund firm, Boston-based Kaintuck Capital Management, in 1999. In addition to hopping trains and planes with some frequency for her job, Nicie serves as an elected member of Exeter's General Alumni/ae Association, as an adjunct member of the Academy's investment committee, as a major gift chair for her 20th reunion and now, as one of the campaign vice-chairs. She is also a board member of the Academy of American Poets.

Of her Exeter campaign involvement, Nicie says, "It's such an honor for me. The thing that strikes me most forcefully about a comprehensive campaign like this is that it is such an opportunity, even for an institution like Exeter, to step back and think long and hard and then respond to changes that have occurred in the school and in the world. In the end it's going to allow us to redouble our commitment to the deeply held values of goodness and knowledge."

Tom Steyer '75 is not a man to mince words, especially when he is talking about Exeter. "There are very few excellent organizations in the world," he says matter of factly. "Exeter happens to be one of them, and it also happens to stand for a lot of things I like." Which may explain why Tom, the Managing Partner of hedge fund Farallon Capital Management, married father of four children and now campaign vice-chair for Exeter, is willing to devote so much of his limited free time to an independent secondary school 3,000 miles away from his home in San Francisco.

"In my opinion, private secondary schools and universities are the institutions that can help redistribute assets and create opportunities for people from all parts of American society," he says. "Exeter is doing this and doing it well, as it has been since its inception." Besides admiring the meritocratic values of his alma mater, Steyer thinks the teachers can't be beat. "I'm extremely impressed with the Academy faculty in general and with Ty Tingley in particular. Exeter has an exceptionally good leader right now."

In addition to his volunteer work on behalf of the Academy, Tom and wife Kat are involved with a handful of Bay area schools and with the church-based community group Good Samaritan. Currently Tom and Kat are also focused on fundraising for Senator John Kerry's presidential campaign.

It's not hard to picture Jim Ottaway '55; P'78 traveling back in time to, say, 16th century Florence. Jim is, after all, a Renaissance man, as equally interested in and committed to international press freedom and higher education as he is to art and archaeology. Luckily for Exeter, he is also passionate about his secondary school alma mater, which, through the years, has reaped the benefits of Jim's astute business mind, quiet wisdom and generosity.

The foundation for his commitment to the Academy, says Jim, stems from his absolute belief in the potential of Exeter graduates to contribute to their communities—and the world. "I volunteer for Exeter, first, because it is the best independent secondary school in America, and I want to help Exeter continue its special contribution to American democracy," says Ottaway, who retired in December 2003 from Dow Jones & Company, where he'd been senior vice president and chairman of its Ottaway Newspapers group.

"I also love the fact that the Academy is still, some 73 years after Harkness was implemented, teaching small classes of young people self-discipline, independent reading and thinking, and the critical and analytical skills that are needed for effective action and leadership in society. We must work hard to preserve this ideal teaching system; technological advances make it more relevant today than ever.

"Finally, I volunteer for Exeter because it must continue raising new endowment and operating budget funds to make improvements called for in its strategic plan for the 21st Century. No great institution can depend on past greatness to remain first in its class."

Jim, who is now serving as one of the Academy's campaign vice chairs, is currently the chairman of the World Press Freedom Committee; a trustee of Bard College and chairman of its Institute for International Liberal Education; a trustee of Storm King Art Center in the Hudson Valley of New York State; and a trustee of the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, Greece (service, says Jim, that is "inspired by four years of Latin at Exeter!"). Ottaway's interest in human rights has also led him to join the boards of Human Rights in China and the International Center for Transitional Justice.

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