Brandeis Magazine

George Baral writes, “My 3-year-old construction business is starting to show healthy growth. I’ve also added a career: coaching baby boomers on how to develop a business using skills they already have. The main news, though, is that I am engaged to a lovely young Filipina woman with two beautiful daughters, 6 and 10. I will be moving to Davao, on the island of Mindanao, in about a year.” The first volume of W. Bernard Coard’s memoirs, “The Grenada Revolution: What Really Happened,” has been published. The second volume is set to be published in November. Elsa Lichman is studying voice and enjoys spending time in nature observing avian family life. She is the “Nature in the City” columnist for the Waltham News Tribune, and is regularly published in the Natural Living Journal and the Waltham Land Trust Journal. Nadine Payn writes, “Now that I’m retired, I travel as much as possible with my husband, Rob Arndt. Over the past couple of years, we’ve been to Cuba, Russia, France and Switzerland. I volunteer as a docent at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. I’ve been passionate about art history all my life but believed helping others as a psychologist was more important. Now I get to indulge — and get kids and adults excited about great art.” Jonathan Porath has lived in Jerusalem for the past 33 years. He served as a member of the senior staff of the Joint Distribution Committee’s Russian department, and has been to Russia and the former Soviet Union 175 times. He is leading a trip to Moscow and St. Petersburg in August to visit the general sites plus the Jewish community. For more information, contact him at jporath1@gmail.com. Vineeta Rai reports she is leading “a good semiretired life” in New Delhi, India, after a career in government. She is married with two children. She writes, “Sometimes it seems we graduated just the other day, especially when I meet friends from our class who visit here from the U.S. and other parts of the world.” Lois Reckitt, a state representative in Maine, is gearing up for a re-election bid. She serves on two committees: criminal justice and public safety, and judiciary. Lois retired in 2015 after 36 years as the executive director of Family Crisis Services in Cumberland County. David Rosenfield is the incumbent of an endowed chair, the David B. Rosenfield, MD, Chair in Speech and Language in Neurology at the Neurological Institute, Houston Methodist Hospital, and Weill Cornell Medical College, where he is a professor. The chair was established in his honor by the Hoffberger family, the M.R. Bauer Foundation, Drew Ranier and the Stanley H. Appel Department of Neurology, and friends. Bill Schneider wrote “Standoff: How America Became Ungovernable,” which will be published by Simon & Schuster in May. He is semiretired, teaching part time at George Mason University and UCLA. Gila Svirsky and her spouse, Judy Kirshner, have lived in Kenya and Uganda for the past five years. They established the Shalom Scholarship Fund, which enables talented students living in poverty to attend high school. The first 23 students will graduate in a year, and more scholarships await the top students who want to pursue university study or other professional training.