WALT ULIN, A.B. '54, MBA '58 --Once a Club member, Always a Club Member.
Harvard Club Past-President Walt Ulin talks about the times in his life when a Harvard Club membership was most valuable.
WHY JOIN THE HARVARD CLUB ?
You’ve been getting email and snail mailings
for years. You’re aware there’s a local
club, but you’ve never responded to the mailings or attended an event. Why bother to explore membership now? Perhaps my experiences with four different
Harvard Clubs over a half century will prompt you to check out our club in
Sarasota, which services all local Harvard alumni in Sarasota, Manatee, and Charlotte Counties.
In my late twenties, I was recruited by a classmate to interview prospective students for the club on Long Island. I found the schools committee work interesting and satisfying (it was easier for an occasional interviewee actually to be admitted back then). My club contacts also put me in touch with a B-school support group for alums looking to make a job change. In my early thirties, such a change moved me back to my native Boston, where I joined a schools committee covering some suburbs including Newton, Massachusetts. That association enabled me to renew old friendships and make new contacts.
When I turned forty, I moved for a career opportunity to Kansas City where I knew virtually no one. Initially, I joined the club to make social contacts. I continued schools committee work and again became very active as an officer in the club. I was also fortunate during that time to see my son accepted to Harvard. Later, when I engaged in some pre-retirement consulting, one of my Harvard club contacts became a client.
Finally, in my mid-sixties, my wife and I retired to Sarasota, where we quickly joined the club, again to make social contacts. At the first lunch meeting we attended, I found a classmate and a former club colleague. Subsequently, several other classmates discovered us, including some whose wives had friends in common with my wife. We’ve enjoyed the club programs, an expanded social life, as well as Harvard faculty and HAA contacts made as an active board member.
Reasons for joining the Harvard Club of Sarasota are boundless, including: doing something to support Harvard and our extended community of Alumni, developing connections to Cambridge, making potential business contacts, and expanding your social networks - all in addition to the satisfaction of interviewing prospective Harvard undergraduates, supporting local college fairs, mentoring young students in our local community, and learning something new at the monthly luncheons and special events such as onsite tours of companies and local attractions such as IMG Academies, the Mote aquaculture facilities, and Ringling Museum collections and exhibits.
Start by attending our "All Alumni Welcome Back Party" in November. We’d like to meet you, and we invite you to get involved!
-- Walt Ulin B.A. ’54. MBA ‘58