More responses from some of our classmates who are in the health and science field. Next up I’ll be covering classmates working in the arts community or doing art as avocations or collecting art—please send your news!


From John Richards: “My life has been pretty boring since moving to Longview, Washington, in 1977 (after a residency at Stanford and graduating from Dartmouth Medical School in 1974) so I have never responded to the mailings from the class. There is not much exciting about having a great wife of 38 years, three amazing kids (all of whom went to the University of Washington—saving me a small fortune in tuition), two remarkable in-laws and three exceptional grandchildren. But I have found this lifestyle ideal, allowing me to pursue professional and personal goals without social chaos. After 37 years of practicing internal medicine I still enjoy going to work half time in my solo practice after 27 years of belonging to an expanding group that eventually was purchased by a large conglomerate. I can report no stunning breakthroughs and you won’t find me competing for a Nobel Prize, but I have found caring for the same people for decades to be both emotionally and intellectually satisfying. My career started with a focus on intensive, hospital-based medicine and has evolved into outpatient preventive and palliative care. I hope to stay with the program as long as my energy and intellect remain. With the emphasis on technology and finances in medicine, I strive to add some judgment and common sense to the system. I am sure that Jack Sanstead knows what I am talking about.”


From George Benz: “My connection to the health-science industry was 26 years on the commercial planning side of what ended up as GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals. I was never anything but a small cog in the big corporate machinery, but it was an interesting experience and paid the bills comfortably. I worked with mostly well-intentioned, capable people working collaboratively to launch and support pharmaceuticals that had a positive impact on patients’ lives. I managed to survive half a dozen rounds of corporate downsizing and mergers of equals in reaction to blockbuster drugs stumbling toward the patent cliff. I helped to launch a few bright staff up the corporate ladder. Heading toward 60 it became increasingly difficult to balance my personal interests against a 45- to 50-hour professional work week, it was getting harder to do the 28-mile round trip bike commute to work that I looked forward to three times a week, winter weather had long since stopped being fun and frustration at corporate politics started to outweigh the satisfaction I took from my work. Something had to give, so I had no hesitation in choosing fun when the opportunity to voluntarily retire with enhanced benefits came up. Since then I have done a little consulting, spend the worst of winter on semi-tropical Singer Island, try to cycle 100 miles a week (recently completed a Century), keep my hand in birding and Irish set dancing. Life is good. I hoped we would get to travel more, but my wife’s free time is constrained by her commitments as a much-in-demand clinical psychologist.”


Keep me posted!


—Bill Price, 12 Lummi Key, Bellevue, WA 98006; bill@drivasolutions.com