Elyse Allan ’79, the president and CEO of GE Canada, is said to be “superb at crafting strategies for complex issues that defy linear solutions, ‘and at gently but firmly persuading others to follow her lead,’ ” according to a recent profile in Chatelaine.com. As someone who oversees nearly 300,000 employees and a $5-billion business, she’s also described as one of the most powerful woman in Canada. To be a successful executive, Allan said she has found that problem-solving and good communication go hand-in-hand. “People want to know where you want to lead them,” she said, “so being able to articulate a sense of vision is very important.”…

Oncologist Dr. Benjamin Marchello ’69 was named one of the “Most Inspiring People of 2012” by Magic City Magazine of Billings, Montana. The senior partner at Billings’ St. Vincent Frontier Cancer Center, Marchello has “touched the lives of hundreds of cancer patients” and is known for his research with the Montana Cancer Consortium and his excellent bedside manner. He told the magazine that while seeing patients toward the end of their lives can be difficult, seeing them surrounded by loved ones still moves him. “You are born and you die—those things are all certain,” the Billings native said. “All the stuff in the middle is different for everyone. Some of the most thankful people I know are those I didn’t make live a day longer, but I cared about them.”…

Michelle Valensi Stacy ’77, the president since 2008 of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters’ Keurig unit, makers of single-serve coffee brewing machines, reflected on her career in The New York Times’ “The Boss” interview in November. Stacy described how during a 23-year career with the Gillette Co., and later buy cialis with Procter & Gamble, she twice stepped back from demanding, high-profile positions to take jobs with less stress and travel in order to help care for her two children and a mother with Alzheimer’s. “Looking back at my career I realize that the two times I took myself out of the corporate race really enabled me to become a better leader,” said Stacy, who is married to Leland “Bud” Stacy III ’76. “It allowed me the freedom to focus on the people and team side of leadership.”…

“The current housing crisis has led millions of lower- and middle-income families—including many Hispanics—into foreclosure,” Bruce Gago ’05, who is of Argentinian and Columbian descent, told Hispanic Executive magazine in January. “This motivated me to create Bay Realty Capital, a for-profit investment firm, to purchase distressed homes and convert them into affordable rental housing, which would meet an important market need.” The first in his family to go to college, Gago graduated cum laude from Dartmouth and last June earned an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School before starting his company.…

David Martosko ’91 must have been amused during the final presidential debate last fall, when President Barack Obama made reference to soldiers fighting with “horses and bayonets” to mock Mitt Romney’s perceived lack of military expertise. Martosko is executive editor of The Daily Caller, which in 2011 published Alex Quade’s story, “The Horse Soldiers of 9/11.” The award-winning video documentary is about the first U.S. soldiers who entered Afghanistan—on horseback—after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In late 2012 Martosko won an Edward R. Murrow Award for journalism for his editing work on Quade’s story.…

After the December opening of the film The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, there was an uptick in media requests for Matthew Dickerson ’85. The Middlebury College computer science professor is one of the foremost J.R.R. Tolkien scholars and has published several books on the author and The Hobbit, including most recently A Hobbit Journey: Discovering the Enchantment of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth. In December he wrote an article for The Huffington Post titled, “Seeing Christ in the Hobbit?” Dickerson wrote that Tolkien, a devout Catholic, “considered his books to be deeply theistic, and he thought fantasy literature must convey religious truth. He was surprised that theistic aspects of his writing did not receive more notice, and he once commented that of the various biographical aspects of his life, his Christian faith was the only significant fact in understanding his works.”…

Thanks to an endowment from P. Andrews “Andy” McLane ’69, Tu’73, and his wife, Linda Harper McLane, students attending school in New Hampshire can now enjoy free admission to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, reports The Telegraph of Nashua, New Hampshire. More than 1,000 students from the state visited in the first four months of the McLane Family New Hampshire Student Membership Program that was launched in September. The timing of the gift coincides well with the New Hampshire-related exhibit, Art of the White Mountains, which is on display through July 7.…

Alexi Pappas ’12 concluded her Dartmouth track-and-field career with a third-place finish in the 3,000-meter steeplechase at the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships last June. Five months later the University of Oregon graduate student added an NCAA Cross Country team title to her stellar running resume. Thanks to some remaining NCAA athletic eligibility, the All-America runner was able to join the Ducks’ nationally ranked track-and-field program last fall. At the NCAA Cross Country Championships in November, Pappas was the team’s second-highest finisher, taking eighth place and helping lead Oregon to the overall team title. “I feel very thrilled about the season,” the Alameda, California, native told the Contra Costa Times in December. “It was a very cool thing that I could not only contribute to the team, but see the team grow together.”…

A history major at Dartmouth, Ellen McDevitt ’11 was interested in working in “backcountry hospitality” after graduation. She now works for the nonprofit Maine Huts & Trails as a “hut master” in the Carrabassett Valley. McDevitt’s Stratton Brook Hut, near Sugarloaf Mountain, is one of four huts spread along 80 miles of groomed cross-country ski trails in Franklin County. It takes four to five hours to ski between huts, which offer lodging and meals to skiers, and her hut can be reached only on foot or ski. “It’s not a Nordic center; it’s a backcountry adventure,” McDevitt told the Kennebec Journal in December.…

Three-time Emmy-nominated actress Connie Britton ’89, who starred as Tami Taylor for five seasons on the critically acclaimed television show Friday Night Lights and did a one-season turn on FX’s frightening drama American Horror Story, is starring on ABC’s musical drama Nashville as Rayna James, the “reigning queen of country,” as Rolling Stone describes her character. Britton told the magazine in October that she performed in musical theater and took singing lessons as a child, but the prospect of singing on the show was still daunting. “In retrospect, maybe seeing if I could develop my voice on network television might have been setting the stakes a little bit high for me [laughs], because it certainly has been, ‘Okay! Here we go! Jump into the pool!’ ” …

Among the artworks made by Adam Blue ’93 for his fall exhibit “Adam Blue’s AstroExplorer” were drawings of a fictional constellation he called The Dude Abides and a reworked zodiac, in which the Cancer sign was renamed Predator Drones. His mastery of the astrological style is uncanny, reported the Valley News, quoting Blue’s description of Drones: Those born under this sign “are deadly deliberate, though not always fully informed or accurate.”…

Roy Rowan ’41 and his wife, Helen, were featured in a recent AARP The Magazine editor’s column with the headline, “Roy + Helen = Lasting Love.” The couple, who married in May 1952, met when she was a photo researcher at Life and he was a war correspondent for the magazine. Rowan told the magazine the key to their successful marriage is continuing to do interesting things. He still writes. She paints. “Our postretirement careers helped to feed our passion for each other—and for life,” said Rowan. “Helen and I subscribe to the view expressed by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas: ‘Do not go gentle into that good night…Rage, rage against the dying of the light.’ ”…

Filmmaker Matthew Heineman ’05 tackles healthcare in his latest documentary, Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare, which opened on October 5. “Like a doctor’s carefully structured analysis of a patient’s condition, the film breaks down its massive subject into manageable, clear, but not simplified parts,” according to Variety.…

Connecticut Magazine tagged corporate lawyer Anthony Webb ’03 as one of the best and brightest in its annual “40 Under 40” list for 2013. “He’s someone who since 2007 has helped 1,000 disadvantaged youth nationwide through a program he created called Boys Speak Out,” reported the magazine. Webb, who is pursuing his M.B.A. at Yale, also organized a “business students for a day” event at the college for Metropolitan Business Academy students and has inspired similar programs elsewhere.…

Andrew Shue ’89 was featured with his Melrose Place castmates on the cover of the special reunion issue of Entertainment Weekly in October. Shue talked about some of the perks that came with his job on the popular television show, which ran from 1992 to 1999. “I got to meet Yitzhak Rabin [at a private event hosted by David Geffen],” said the former Dartmouth soccer player, who played Billy Campbell. “I was the only TV person among film actors like Clint Eastwood, Warren Beatty, Barbra Streisand, Richard Dreyfuss. Security comes over and says, ‘Mr. Rabin would like to meet you.’ I go over, and Yitzhak says, ‘I remember you on TV, but I don’t remember this.’ I had a goatee, and he was touching my chin! I remember Dreyfuss looking at Streisand like, ‘Who is this guy?’ Ah, the power of TV.”…

Boloco frequently rewards its customers with free burritos. But it took its largesse one step further on the eatery’s 15th anniversary, staging “15 Free Burrito Days” at its 22 locations.  “The reason we do it is because we think Boloco is the place you can visit often enough that, over time, we can make up for the things we give away and have a good business because of it,” Boloco CEO John Pepper ’91, Tu’97, told Forbes in November. A 2011 study by the Tuck School of Business confirmed this, showing that Boloco’s comparable sales increased 20 percent in the days after a free promotion, thereby enabling the promotion to pay for itself in about 15 days.…

Actor and model Josh Pence ’04, who most recently appeared in The Dark Knight Rises, wrote about his relief trip to Haiti last summer for The Huffington Post. Traveling with volunteers from Mercy Corps, Pence met many of the beneficiaries of that nongovernmental organizations’ (NGOs) micro-insurance effort. He wrote last August that even though some question the effectiveness of NGOs, “when you stand face-to-face with a person who is shedding tears of gratitude for the support they have received and witness their progress, it is clear that help is not in vain.”