  | Selected alumni profiles. | |||||||||||||
Class Acts Profiles
Janice Barnes McCarthy ’86 Got Milk...and Organic Cookies? Homemade cookies fresh from the oven. Mmmmm...the thought conjures up images of melted chocolate chips and just a hint of vanilla flavoring. For Janice McCarthy, baked treats also remind her of celebrating the holidays with her mother and grandmothers. “They taught me to bake,” says McCarthy. “At Christmas, we made all types of cookies from scratch.” McCarthy still has a sweet tooth, yet she appreciates the benefits of healthy eating. She reads newsletters about natural foods and incorporates them into her diet. After taking a whole foods cooking class, McCarthy was inspired to combine her interests in natural foods and baking. She modified her favorite cookie recipes by substituting an unrefined whole foods sugar, rapadura, for refined sugar and perfected recipes for Banana Nutbutter and Chocolate Chip Walnut cookies. Having earned an undergraduate degree in business administration, McCarthy realized that her confectioneries were marketable. “I wanted a home-based cookie business, but Rhode Island state law says that foodstuff must be prepared in state-certified kitchens.” Undeterred, McCarthy researched the possibility of creating dry cookie mixes. She obtained guidance from the Center for Women & Enterprise, and she took a class on developing a business plan at the Small Business Development Center. There, she met David Claire who helped her with a marketing plan. And so McCarthy’s North Kingstown-based business, Blueberry Hill Organics, Inc., was born. “I lined up Kenyon’s Grist Mill as my manufacturer and traveled last summer with sample cookies. I literally drove around to retail outlets before the packaging was complete.” Blueberry Hill Organics Totally Unrefined Cookie Mixes are now available throughout New England at numerous stores, including Whole Foods (various locations), East Side Marketplace (Providence and Newport), and Belmont Fruit and the Alternative Food Coop (Wakefield, R.I.). To find out more about these healthful mixes, suitable for vegetarians and vegans, visit Blueberry Hill Organics online at www.blueberryhillorganics.com -Maria V. Caliri ’86, M.B.A. ’92
Greg Breene ’86 Flower Power and Sugaring Off Remember high school botany class? Maybe you coaxed a few seeds to life, looked over drawings of plant cross sections, and memorized the whereabouts of the stamen and the pistil. Students enrolled in Greg Breene’s horticulture and greenhouse classes at Narragansett High School certainly do their share of textbook study. But most of their learning comes from plunging their arms into potting mix, building greenhouses and stone walls and, yes, memorizing the common and Latin names for the 50 varieties of trees on campus. The greenhouse students have much to show for their efforts come springtime. There are 400 hanging baskets dripping with color and thousands of geraniums, begonias, impatiens, and marigolds. The profits from their spring sale pay for the horticulture program’s annual budget. The rewards for sophomores in Breene’s horticulture class are even tastier. They tap trees, collect sap, and boil it down to make maple syrup in the sugarhouse that students built a couple of years ago. Each year, the students celebrate their efforts with a pancake breakfast, says Breene, who earned a B.S. in Environmental and Life Sciences. “They’re learning life-long skills,” he said. “Nobody comes in and does anything for them.” Breene’s program has not only attracted many students—enrollment has grown from 60 to 140—but also the attention of the Southern Rhode Island Conservation District, which honored him as an educator last fall. Many of Breene’s students are active in Future Farmers of America, which promotes agriculture through public speaking and career development competitions. “It may not be that every student is going into agriculture, but you show them that they each have a niche,” he said. “Not every kid can go on the football field and score a touchdown, but the kids that are active in Future Farmers are also competing. It’s a boost.” -Chris Poon
Debbie Wasil ’89 Inn Style Around-the-clock concierge service, fluffy bathrobes, and feathery pillows are symbols of luxury in the hospitality industry. These amenities leave vacationers wanting more. Often, these services are offered so subtlety that guests rarely think about those who provide them. Debbie Wasil knows first hand all about creating these special experiences. As a student pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Management, Wasil worked as a banquet waitress on weekends at a full-service resort on Cape Cod. After graduation, she retained her position on a part-time basis while working full-time as a headhunter in Boston. Ultimately, Wasil left Boston and permanently joined the staff at the 2,300-acre waterfront facility. “I worked there for 15 years, and in the busy season my average work week was 60 to 70 hours,” says Wasil. “When a friend suggested that I operate my own inn on Nantucket, I laughed. I thought inn keeping was for older people.” That was five years ago. Today, Wasil owns the Martin House Inn and Centerboard Guest House as well as 28 Cliff Road, a rental property, on the island. Instead of laughing, she marvels about life on Nantucket with its 10,000 year-round residents. “My days here are hectic,” she confesses. “I wake up around 5 a.m. and don’t stop working until around 10 p.m. It’s a long day, but the reward is you get to keep the profit.” While her life as an innkeeper is more profitable than working on the Cape, there is a downside. “There are a lot of worries with owning your own business. I used to be able to dial a four-digit extension when something broke. Now I’m it, so when the plumbing goes... “ Despite the occasional glitch, Wasil is planning to purchase more rental homes. “I love not having a boss to answer to and the freedom that goes with that.” —Maria V. Caliri ’86, M.B.A. ’92
Monda Webb ’90 A Peek Into Her Soul Monda Webb was a track and field athlete who sprinted after a broadcast journalism career with the same burst of energy that propelled her 40 feet in a triple jump competition. The 1990 journalism major moved to Washington, D.C., after graduation to work first as a press aide in Sharon Pratt Kelly’s successful mayoral campaign, then as a reporter for a local cable TV station. She had the suits, the polished voice, and the D.C. street smarts to get a story on the air. The problem was, she hated the mad dash of deadlines and the trademark cynicism of off-air reporters. Webb decided she needed a different sort of job. She became a poet. Actually, she kept her day job, first as a corporate trainer, then as a marketing/communications analyst, but in her spare time she began peddling a self-published volume of poetry, A Peek Into My Soul. She spent $3,500 to print 1,000 soft-cover books, eschewing the conventional query letters to and inevitable rejection letters from publishing houses.”I said to myself, ‘If I died tomorrow, what is it that I want to do?’” The answer came immediately: The poems scratched on bits of paper and stuffed into manila envelopes should go public. Webb’s collection of rhyme and free verse chronicles the heartbreaks and celebrations of an African-American woman. She writes of her faith, her stint in Rhode Island, her loves won (and lost), and her great-grandmother, Mama Sirvillar. To learn more about Webb’s poetry, go to www.latebloomer 2000.com. To order a book, email latebloomer2000@hotmail.com or call 301-438-8262. —Chris Poon
Tim Norton, M.A. ’91 The Boys of Summers Past Leave your mitt at home. That’s the mantra of Tim Norton and his teammates on the Providence Grays, a base ball squad that plays by 19th-century rules—including bare-handed catching. Norton founded the team in 1998 after reading about the Old Bethpage Village Restoration’s Old Time Base Ball (19th century spelling) program. Norton researched the original Providence Grays, who won the first World Series in 1884 by defeating the New York Metropolitans. Norton wanted to pay tribute to the Grays, who existed from 1878 through 1885 and had a .612 winning percentage, second only to the Chicago White Sox. They won two pennants and one Series before poor attendance and bickering among team shareholders caused an abrupt end. “It’s not just base ball,” Norton said. “We are actually demonstrating a slice of life from a time gone by. We use hand-made balls and authentic bats. Our manager, Kevin Faria, doesn’t allow brand-name cleats, and there are no Gatorade bottles. We want our fans to experience a genuine 19th century game.” Last summer the Grays played nearly 40 games, and their travels took them to Bethpage and Cooperstown, N.Y., home of baseball’s Hall of Fame. “And we play in Pawtucket’s McCoy Stadium every season,” said Norton “This year we’ll be there on June 23—come and root for us.” The Grays also appear in a local film, By the Sea, which opened in Providence’s Castle Cinema in April as part of the Latin Film Festival. And they have been featured on Public Radio and in The Smithsonian. Norton, an outfielder and underhand pitcher, says new players are always welcome: “The basic requirement is to have that real, old-fashioned love for the game.” If you would like to join the Grays, email Norton at provgrays@yahoo.com. For more information about the Grays, old and new, check their Web site at www.providencegrays.org. —Shane Donaldson ’99
Steve Perry ’92 Social Activist and Author A semester short of graduation with nearly a 4.0 GPA, Steve Perry ran out of money. Raised by a single mother in a public housing project, he saw college as his salvation and was “naive enough to think that all I had to do was be a good student. I felt it was messed up that so many kids would screw around for six years, and I was going to be kicked out because I had been born poor.” Perry’s options weren’t attractive: leave school or accept money from a childhood friend who had become a drug dealer. But his academic excellence and campus involvement inspired President Carothers to find an anonymous donor so Perry could complete his degree. Perry had worked as a resident assistant in Browning Hall; was president of Uhuru Sasa, an African-American student organization; volunteered on Jesse Jackson’s presidential campaign; and interned for Senator Joseph Lieberman. After graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania, Perry threw his hat into the political arena by running for state representative from his hometown of Middletown, Conn. Today Perry remains an activist, heading a chapter of the Connecticut College Awareness and Preparation Program that supports low-income high school students who are the first in their families to attend college. The author of The Window Pain, a novel published by Renegade Books, Perry found URI rewarding but sometimes difficult. “It was challenging being an African-American on a basically white campus,” he said. “I was used to a community with people I knew, and now people were asking me, ‘do you tan? do you comb your hair?’” For Black History Month in February, URI’s chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers invited Perry to lecture about post-September 11 community activism. “All things great and small have the potential to move an entire country,” Perry said. “Everyone has a responsibility to be involved.” —Meaghan Wims ’02 |
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