BLAZERS, NOW AND FOREVER Interview with Alex Hemingway ('96)
Alex Hemingway is an entrepreneur and restaurateur, with twenty-two years in the hospitality business. He is the current President of the AISB Alumni Association, a member of the first graduating classes at AISB and a former AISB School Board member. Alex has three children presently attending the school: Christie, Grant and Pierce. What was the AISB Campus like when you first attended? When I first attended, AISB was at our original Csilleberc campus in the Buda Hills. That sprawling campus was more akin to a small college campus in the northeastern United States than to a private international high school in Central Europe. We had a small graduating class of eighteen students and were a very close group of friends. Classes took place in different buildings with the sports facilities spread throughout the area. There were so few of us that everyone had to join every sport and every club; otherwise there wouldn’t be enough to have it. Students were able to drive to school in their own cars and leave campus for lunch. We had the great experience of being semi-independent while still being within an academic institution.
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Do you have a favorite teacher or memory from AISB?
As a third culture kid attending high school at AISB, that period is a very vivid one for me, as it certainly was for anyone attending at that time. The two teachers that I enjoyed the most were a family pair, Tom Cangiano and his wife Linda. Tom taught American History while his wife Linda taught science and oversaw Model United Nations and the Debate Society. They were both intense personalities but very likable and had a great sense of humor. A memorable moment was being on campus the day the pop-up gym burned down, which is the reason we are called the Blazers today. Like all high schoolers, my thinking was dominated by figuring out where I would attend college, trying to do well and spending time with my friends. While it was a great experience, today AISB is a much more developed institution than it was then.
What lessons from AISB were you able to apply to your own life? Foundational education is clearly the greatest benefit that I received at AISB. However, two key lessons came from that time for me: focus and flexibility. The first came from the realization that while I naturally did well in those subjects that I enjoyed, the key to achievement was focusing harder on those I did not. The lesson was that my overall strength was tied to my willingness to shore up those areas I was not
