There is a mental health crisis in America, according to Gil Knight, retired investment banker who is board president and a director of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, Montgomery County Maryland. In his testimony to that state’s continuity of care advisory panel last October, Gil argued that the “refusal to take medication among the mentally ill is quite common” and must be addressed. Having had firsthand experience with mental illness in his own family, Gil became an advocate for “assisted outpatient treatment” (AOT) in Maryland, one of the few states, he says, where AOT is not required. People afflicted with severe mental disease can be hospitalized only five days after an arrest, he said. After that they are out on their own, when they often refuse the required medications and treatment becoming a danger to themselves and to others. Gil worked in advertising in New York City after Dartmouth, while studying for an M.B.A. in finance at Baruch College. He launched an investment banking career in Philadelphia and then Bethesda, Maryland, where he now lives with Deborah, his wife of 27 years. Gil has three children.


Michael Rie is another classmate speaking out on public health policy. In a New York Times op-ed piece Michael with two other colleagues called on the Obama administration and Congress to protect patients from vital drug shortages that are “inflicting suffering on patients and, in some cases, causing needless deaths.” They blame a 1987 law that they say permits giant purchasing organizations to accept fees from select suppliers in return for the purchasing organizations awarding those suppliers exclusive contracts. The result is fewer suppliers of generic drugs. Michael is associate professor of anesthesiology at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine. 


If you are looking for David Schwartz, you are likely to find him on patrol off the Florida west coast, where he serves as volunteer vice commander of the coast guard artillery. David moved to Fort Myers, Florida, after retiring as head of cardiothoracic imaging at Jackson Memorial in Miami. Previously David was chief of radiology for 17 years at Worcester (Massachusetts) Hahnemann Hospital. A graduate of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, David is married to Nancy, a computer systems analyst, and has two sons, Eric ’91 and Daniel, both radiologists, and five grandchildren.


Whom did you root for in the Super Bowl? For Jeremy “Troll” Subin, son of Bill Subin, it was a tough call. Having trained quarterback Russell Wilson and 21 Seahawks at his Yard fitness center in Hermosa Beach, California, the junior Subin was “especially glad for Wilson,” he told the Press of Atlantic City. But he felt bad for Wes Welker, the Broncos wide receiver, whom he helped recover from a torn ligament in 2010. 


I am sorry to report the death of Steve Kardon of Scarsdale, New York, January 12. An obituary article will follow in the online edition of this magazine.


—Harry Zlokower, 60 Madison Ave., Suite 1010, New York City, NY 10010; (212) 447-9292; harry@zlokower.com