Alumni Council
Sarah Cahill is the Executive Director of the Rhode Island Afterschool Plus Alliance, a statewide advocacy organization whose mission is to affect public policy to expand and support high-quality afterschool and summer programming in Rhode Island so that Rhode Island’s children are prepared to lead productive lives. She has been involved with youth development for over 15 years through coaching, experiential education on boats, and non-profit work. Sarah received her B.A. from Middlebury College, her Master’s degree from the University of Rhode Island, and a Business Management Certificate from Bryant University in Rhode Island. She is an alum from S92. Her favorite W-M memory is the unbelievable teamwork and bonding that developed from the offshore trip!
Email address: sarah.cahill@afterschoolri.org
Sarah Corman is an alum from S03. She graduated from Tufts and received her masters degree in Oceanography from URI. She is currently persuing a PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Brown. Her favorite W-M memory is "touring the West Coast in a guano-covered minivan with my classmates and our adopted pet (RIP carrotman) while eating far too many cookies and listening to Glenn sing along with Prince.'
Email address: Sarah.Corman@gmail.com
Danielle DeLuca Pytelle received her BA from Tufts and her MD from Michcigan State. Currently, she is a plastic surgeon living in Mount Kisco, New York. She met her husband, Rob, before the Port Huron to Mackinac sailboat race. They have two children, Emily is six and Robert is 3 months old. In her spare (?) time, she does silversmithing and creates handmade, one-of-a-kind pieces. Her favorite Williams-Mystic memory is "moonbathing" with Meriwether Bruce during the Nantucket field seminar, taking advantage of a beautiful Indian summer night.
Jean Gillett Gresham, S84 and Alumni Council President 2009-Present, graduated from Smith College and received her MAT (Masters in Education) from Sacred Heart University. After graduating she worked in Advertising/Promotions/Marketing for companies including Kraft Foods and Disneyland. She is currently a 5th Grade teacher in North Branford, CT. She lives in Guilford, CT with her husband and 2 children. Her favorite W-M memory is "after the midnight watch, as we relaxed on the bowsprit netting on Westward under the light of a full moon and clear sky, we watched as dolphins played in our bow wake inches below us. Their bodies were completely lit up with phosporesence and we were silently mesmerized. It was awesome."
Email:jean@gresham.com
Catharine Guiher is a life-long New Yorker currently residing in Brooklyn. She graduated from the Nightingale-Bamford School and Vassar College as a Drama major. She has worked primarily in not-for-profit theatre, including 17 years at the Roundabout Theatre Company and currently at Second Stage Theatre. She has been a member of the Association of Theatrical Press Agents and Managers union since 2000. In 2005-2006, she spent a little over a year sailing around the world on the tall ship, Picton Castle. Besides her passion for the theatre and all things maritime, she is a competitive volleyball player and animal lover. She is a S80 alum and avid supporter of the Williams-Mystic Program.
Meredith Mendelson, F'99 and Alumni Council President 2006-2009, went to Bates College and sailed on Ocean Classroom's Harvey Gamage in high school, where Rich King was her teacher! Luckily, he told her about Williams-Mystic. After traveling about for a while with Maya Whitmont, S98, she went to law school at the University of Maine and is currently working for the Gulf of Maine Research Institute in Portland, ME on fisheries issues (along with co-worker Jonathan Labaree, honorary member of S84!). Favorite W-M memories (she couldn't pick just one!): playing pranks on Johnston House, hanging out in the playroom or at the gazebo in Stonington with my Albion House family; being hove-to in the fog on midwatch, talking about life with John Jensen; walking the Seaport grounds at night barefoot; making hot dogs on the boiler on Sabino and roasting peaches on the forge with Bill Scheer.
Tracey Mohr, class of S05, is originally from Falmouth, Maine. Tracey graduated from Connecticut College in 2006, and is currently working on doctorate degree in Clinical Psychology and specialty in Health Psychology. She lives in Newton, MA with her husband Jim and duck-tolling retriever Wade. Her favorite W-M memory is randomly stopping at the Tillamont Cheese factory on the PNW field trip and any time Jim Carlton does the barnacle dance. Email: Tracey_Mohr@mspp.edu
Maggie O’Grady is an alum from F'02, and graduated from Wellesley College in 2004 with a major in history. This past June, she graduated from Harvard Law School. Her favorite W-M memory is reading Moby
Dick on the Morgan by moonlight. Email:maggie.elise.ogrady@gmail.com.
Mary Richardson, S90, has had a long and winding liberal arts career
through the non-profit landscape, working with lawyers, welfare moms,
dancers, environmental educators and chimps among others. Her current gig is at Bowdoin College where she's putting her oral history skills (honed via her W-M history project) to work collecting alumni stories (and gifts) in Gift Planning Office. Mary majored in Human Geography at Williams (1991), went on to the University of Washington for graduate work in geography and later earned a J.D. and an LLM in International and Comparative Law at Duke. She lives up the street from the Maine Maritime Museum in Bath in an old sea captain's house. Her favorite W-M memory is breaking a ratline on my first climb
on the Morgan and midnight M&M-fueled labs with Jim. Email:msrichardson@alumni.williams.edu
Christopher Riely, S99, is a native New Englander who has returned to familiar coordinates after stints living and working in other parts of the country, including the Ozarks and the Pacific Northwest. He lives in an urban neighborhood of Providence and works for the City as a watershed forest manager of the lands from which most Rhode Islanders get their drinking water. A graduate of Tufts University and the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, Christopher is also a current MBA candidate at the University of Rhode Island. His most vivid Williams-Mystic semester memories are from nighttime-at-sea experiences during the offshore voyage amongst the Virgin Islands, from struggling to change sails in stormy weather and watching dawn appear while out of sight of land to keeping anchor watch in a placid island cove. Email: christopher.riely@gmail.com
Chris Sinton, S86, graduated from Middlebury College, and then went on to get his MS and PhD in Oceanography (Marine Geology) from Oregon State University. His experience at Williams-Mystic had a profound effect on his post-college career, having sent him on a path to a PhD in Marine Geology. "The program is the definition of 'learning by doing' and this makes it unique and effective." One of his favorite experiences during his semester – and his life - was relaxing on the bowsprit of the schooner Westward with his friends, watching porpoises race through the wake of the ship. He is currently an assistant professor of Environmental Studies at the University of Redlands in Southern California as well as the CEO of a small start-up company involved in engineered ceramic technologies. He is the past recipient of a National Science Foundation post-doctoral fellowship (University of Rhode Island) and a Fulbright Fellowship (Argentina).
Jay Starr, F03, was hatched in the green fields of Upstate NY, far from the ocean but close to the famous fly fishing West Canada Creek. She came to Williams Mystic from Smith College where she earned her degree in Technical Theater and Theatrical Design with a focus on Social Action Theater. Williams Mystic and S.E.A. helped her to land jobs working on the Amara Zee doing circus based social action theater on a boat and as an educator and deckhand on the Amistad. Jay now uses her W-M inter-disciplinary skills to run two education programs. The first, with the American Red Cross, seeks to develop a humanitarian perspective among youth through the classroom study of the laws of war which she most loves teaching with Navy ROTC students who appreciate salty references. The Revolution Cafe, an education non-profit Jay started, teaches youth life and business skills through the operation of a community coffee house where they get to learn about, among other things, the role that oceans have played in the global economy. Quite to her surprise, Jay LOVED the WM policy class (her journal entry from the first day of class reads "this class is going to be awesome awesome awesome - go figure!") and she is now in the process of applying for graduate and law programs focused on international humanitarian law, peace building and conflict studies. Her end goal is to fix the world.
Alumni Council Ex-Oficio
Ellen Huebsch Anderson, S81, graduated from Colby College where she was an American Studies major, with English concentration. She has two ocean crossings under her belt, both Atlantic, both in her early twenties: one returning from Europe on a modern sailboat and one going to Europe on the original Pride of Baltimore. After 11 years at Williams-Mystic, where she was the admissions person and the alumni person, she began working in Advancement at Connecticut College where she stayed for 5 years. After stints at Wheaton College, UCONN Avery Point, and Ocean Classroom, she is back at Connecticut College as the director of Annual Giving Programs. Her life partner is Gary Anderson, who has taught carving to many W-M students over the years. They have three children, Dylan, Elizabeth, and Ben, ages 19, 18, and 9. She lives in Pawcatuck, part of Stonington, CT and the family gets out onto the water as often as they possibly can.
Svea Herbst Bayliss, is a graduate of Mount Holyoke and received her masters at Columbia University. Svea served as President of Williams Mystic Alumni Council from 2002 to 2006. Since leaving the Connecticut shore she has worked as a journalist at the international news agency Reuters. At postings in Frankfurt, New York and Boston she has written about Germany's central bank, the Bundesbank, the foreign exchange markets and the asset management industry with a focus on hedge funds.
Margie Butler, S89 is a graduate of Middlebury College and received her MFA from Art Institute of Boston. She knew she wanted to do the Williams-Mystic program from the first moment she heard about how students could study all things maritime and live adjacent to the Mystic Seaport. More than any experience in her college career this semester bonded her to a great group of people, a topic and a place close to her heart. Since college she pursued a marketing consulting career in New York, then switched gears to take an arts revitalization job in New Bedford and return to school for a masters in fine arts. Currently she lives in Providence, RI where she runs BuyArtProvidence.com and continues to consult on brand strategy for corporations and nonprofit organizations. Websites:
http://whatido.weebly.com/index.html
www.margiebutlerart.com
www.BuyArtProvicence.com
Susan Funk began her affiliation with the Museum in September 1977 as a student in the Williams Mystic Program, arriving with no idea of how transformational the experience would be—nor that almost 30 years later her daughter Arianna would follow as a member of the class of F’04 . Every aspect of the program was amazing. So much so, that Susan later returned as a squad Interpreter and over the years has held a variety of positions including alumni fund and recruiting for the Williams Mystic Program as well as posts in the Education and Interpretation Department. Now the Museum’s Executive Vice President, Susan is responsible for overseeing the departments that plan, market and deliver Museum programs, including Exhibitions, Education, Interpretation, Maritime Studies, Shipyard, Curatorial, and HR. A member of numerous professional organizations, Susan currently serves as Vice President of the New England Museum Association board and as Treasurer of the board at Pine Point School, a local independent school for grades K-9. She is an active peer reviewer in the museum field, having completed two AAM MAP reviews for Connecticut institutions and serving as a field reviewer and member of the review panel for IMLS grant proposals, including the General Operating Support and National Leadership Grant programs. She has presented at NERC, AASLH, Outdoor History Museum Forum and NEMA annual conferences.
Derek Langhauser attended WM in the fall of 1982. He is a founding member and former chair of the Council. Derek is a lawyer in Maine who helped create the Moot Court, and he returns each semester to judge the Court and lecture about the case to save Portsmouth Naval Shipyard.
Hal Sprague was part of the first class, F77. He graduated from Williams College, and went on to get an MS from University of Michigan and a law degree at University of Colorado. For 23 years Hal worked as an environmental lawyer. Since April 2008, he has been a Senior Policy Associate at the Center for Neighborhood Technology, Chicago, IL, promoting sustainable urban storm water management practices. His favorite WM memories are terrific classmates, program faculty and staff, Seaport staff, History, Literature and Uses of the Sea classes, boat building class, rowing in the morning on the Mystic River, biking to the apple cider mill, and our cruise on the Westward out to Georges Bank.
