Class Note 1995
Anitra (Auster) Birnbaum and her husband, Julius, welcomed their third child in February. Samantha Louise joins older brothers Aaron and Jeremy and, according to Anitra, is the easiest of the three and “a real sweetie.” The Birnbaums make their home just outside of Baltimore, where Anitra currently has her hands full as a busy stay-at-home mom.
Alexander (Sandy) Paul joined the commercial real estate firm Newmark Grubb Knight Frank in 2015, after 13 years at Delta Associates. As managing director, Sandy has led his team in creating a national conference series called BenchMarks that brings together public servants and the development community to discuss key areas of cooperation and how to tackle major policy challenges, including transportation infrastructure and affordable housing. Last November Sandy moderated a panel discussion including the Washington, D.C., mayor, Muriel Bowser, for an audience of 700. In May Sandy delivered the keynote address that served as a catalyst for a panel discussion featuring San Francisco and Oakland, California, mayors Edwin Lee and Libby Schaaf. Sandy and his wife, Leslie, live in Arlington, Virginia, with their two wonderful kids, Emma and Daniel.
In May Sandy and Leslie connected with Brian Greenberg and his wife, Christina, for breakfast in San Francisco. Sandy also serves as vice president of communications for our class and enjoyed seeing the robust turnout at our 95th day of the year mini-reunions in April. If you would like to volunteer to help re-engage fellow ’95s with our class activities and project, please contact Sandy at sandy.paul@gmail.com.
Jaha Cummings writes: “Last year I cofounded a consultancy, Guardian Today LLC, that provides domestic and international law enforcement agencies with training and technical assistance in changing their organizational culture to that of community-oriented policing. We provide training from the police academy-level to executive leadership in diversity professionalism, the competency of understanding and responding with sensitivity to diverse populations served by the department, including a range of diversity from race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, age, physical abilities, religious beliefs and veteran status. We have particular expertise in assisting agencies build community trust in communities that they serve. We do so by facilitating dialogue between the community and law enforcement agencies, and having them jointly perform a community needs assessment to identify root issues that negatively affect the community and identify courses of action that will address these issues. This collaborative approach restores cohesiveness within the community and with law enforcement as a part of the community. This spring we also created a professional journal, The Guardian Today: The Journal of Best Practices in Community Policing and Corrections. In addition to this work with law enforcement agencies and communities, we also train juvenile and adult corrections agencies in our nationally recognized holistic cognitive behavior therapy-based recidivism reduction system and school districts in creating optimum learning conditions for poor and caste minority students.”
Alexander O. Smith writes: “I’ve been living with my wife, Yukiyo, and two children in lovely seaside Kamakura, Japan, since moving here from Vermont, where we helped my parents prepare to put their family inn (highlandlodge.com) on the market. My daughter, Kiya (12), and son, Yakumo (10), have been enjoying attending the local elementary school and brushing up their Japanese and Kiya is off to international school in Yokohama next fall to keep her English up to speed.
“Work-wise, I continue my 18-year career localizing Japanese video games (kajiyaproductions.com) and translating novels (32 and counting), with some script writing for games and publishing (bentobooks.com) on the side!” Alex gave a talk on his work at Dartmouth this past April.
—Natalie Herring, 1911 Rex Ave., #41, Joplin, MO 64801; (417) 553-7419; 1995dcn@gmail.com; Kaja (Schuppert) Fickes, 2 Bishops Lane, Hingham, MA 02043; kaja.k.fickes.95@dartmouth.edu
