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Distinguished Alumni
The unique history of Cheshire Academy can be told through the experiences—and successes—of its alumni. Over the span of its rich 225-year history, students at Cheshire Academy have been involved in the school’s commitments to diversity, inclusion, and access, trailblazing in the national co-education movement, and the supporting of an environment that develops the entrepreneurial spirit.
As proven by the alumni on these pages, there are many different paths to success that first started at the Academy: being a member of the first returning female class in 1969-1970; finding academic support in an era of racism; seeking asylum and taking a political stand against a regime in one’s home country; finding a passion for helping others; and developing a new view of the world.
While these five alumni have since gone on to work in different professions, they all have one thing in common: their time at Cheshire Academy has played a pivotal role in their lives in providing them the resources to help them thrive in their careers of choice.
Suzanne Austin ’70
Careers Without Borders
Growing up in Connecticut, Suzanne Austin thirsted for adventure. She started off close to home — 45 minutes, to be exact. That’s the distance between her hometown of Madison and Cheshire Academy, where she was in the first class that re-introduced girls as day students. At the time, Austin was a senior in high school, so she only spent a year at Cheshire. It was a year that made a difference, however.
“It was a great year,” Austin recalled. “We had classes on Saturdays, so I spent a lot of time there. I liked the campus. I appreciated the quality of the faculty. I was challenged to work very, very hard. It was a great launching pad.”
Austin’s next stop was Manhattan, where she started college at New York University. Then wanderlust struck and she spent time traveling, first in Puerto Rico and then in Mexico. She fell in love with Latin America, returning to the States to eventually earn a doctorate in history from Duke University.
She is the author of two books, “A Pest in the Land: New World Epidemics in a Global Perspective,” and “Native Society and Disease in Colonial Ecuador.”
Today, Austin is senior vice provost and senior international officer at the University of Alabama Birmingham (UAB). In that role, she oversees all things international — partnerships, faculty, and students. “We draw students from 100 different countries,” she said. UAB also has partnerships with 77 institutions in 34 countries.
Though Birmingham is her home base, you are just as likely to find Austin at an airport, suitcase and passport in hand. “I’m just back from India,” she said, a country where UAB works with six institutions. “And my husband is the provost at the University of North Dakota, so the weekend usually finds one of us on an airplane.”
Robert "Bobby" Dawson ’73
Full Circle
Robert “Bobby” Dawson’s journey to Cheshire Academy started in the fourth grade when the schools in his hometown of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, were desegregated. “My parents decided it was a good idea to send me to the former all-white school. None of the black kids in my class passed,” he recalled.
Dawson ended up at a private day school where he remembers the headmaster telling his mother, “If you are looking for a quality education, it’s not going to happen in the South.” So, when it came time for high school, Dawson’s parents enrolled him at a boarding school in Pennsylvania. He was the only African-American student there. He was miserable. Dawson visited other schools in his quest to transfer and vividly recalls his trip to Cheshire. “I was walking out of the gym and spotted this group of [boys] coming out of the other door — four or five older guys, with Afros and everything,” he said with a laugh. “That sealed the deal.”
Still, Dawson worried what the climate would be like when he got to campus. “Cheshire had a very active Afro-American Society,” he recounted. “I went to their first meeting and asked, ‘What do I do if I run into racism on campus?’” The upperclassmen were very clear: “‘It’s not going to happen,’ they told me.”
Finally, Dawson was able to settle into school. “I was impressed by the academics — the seriousness of the community, the discipline of the students,” he explained. “In English, we used a book called ‘Drill for Skill’ that changed my life in terms of writing.” An avid athlete, Dawson relished playing sports, including football, basketball, and soccer. He was also president of the senior class.
Today, he runs the eponymous Robert Dawson Plumbing and Construction, a commercial operation in Chapel Hill. He still thinks fondly of Cheshire and wants to encourage fellow graduates to come back to visit. “Cheshire is where we cemented our goals and ideas about life,” he concluded. “When you return and walk down by the pond, you experience those good thoughts again.”
Babak "Bobby" Zahabizadeh ’80
Stand and Deliver
Babak “Bobby” Zahabizadeh had a tougher adjustment to Cheshire Academy than most. His parents sent him to high school in the United States to escape turmoil in his native Iran. There was just one problem: He didn’t speak English.
“It took me three months to understand the language and six months to have a meaningful conversation,” Zahabizadeh recalled. In those early days, he remembers school work taking all night. “I would go back to my room, pull out my dictionary, and look up every word.” Math was his one refuge. “Even when I couldn’t understand the language, numbers are universal.”
In 1979, when Zahabizadeh was a senior, a militant student group in Iran stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran, taking 52 American diplomats hostage. The repercussions trickled down to Zahabizadeh when he received a deportation order from the U.S. government. Panicked, he called his father in Iran, who, in turn, called Headmaster Dr. Ernest Beaulac. “Help my son,” his father pleaded.
Zahabizadeh found an attorney who was willing to take his case; she told him his best bet was to apply for asylum. First, though, he had to take a political stand. “Dr. Beaulac arranged for me to talk to the local Lion’s Club, where I spoke out against the Khomeini regime,” he said. The event was covered in a local newspaper with a photograph of Zahabizadeh, cementing his asylum claim.
As a political refugee, Zahabizadeh stayed in America for college, heading to the University of Southern California. Throughout college, he worked part-time for a courier service; he eventually parleyed that into his own business, Messengers & Distribution, Inc. (MDI). Today, MDI is the go-to partner for the entertainment industry, offering courier, freight, warehousing, and staffing solutions within greater Los Angeles.
As a business owner, you can find Zahabizadeh in the office at almost any hour. The one exception is Sunday morning at dawn, when he has a standing date with his surfboard. “I’m at the beach before sunrise, rain or shine, year round. That is ‘Bobby time’ — no cell phone, no laptop — just my board and me. I live for that.”
Angela Zikherman Maresca ’93
Opening Doors
Angela Zikherman Maresca is a self-made entrepreneur and published author. A top seller for Isagenix, a multi-level marketing company that makes dietary supplements and personal care products, she manages a team of 30,000 that stretches across the country. Her odyssey from stay-at-home mom to network marketer extraordinaire is one of the stories chronicled in the 2017 Amazon best-selling book “Mom and Dadpreneurs.”
Entrepreneurial drive is definitely in Maresca’s DNA. Her parents emigrated from Russia in 1974, looking for a better life and greater opportunity. They opened a bookstore on Brighton Beach in New York City, where Maresca went to the local public schools. Once she reached middle school, however, “I wasn’t doing well. I wasn’t on the right path,” she recalled. Her parents sent her to Cheshire Academy, where she thrived. “There I was, this kid from an impoverished neighborhood in Brooklyn, who now got to play volleyball and softball and work on the yearbook committee.” She also found a passion for helping others. “I was a peer counselor and was on the drug and alcohol team.”
Maresca earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in psychology and became a case worker with Child Protective Services in New York City before staying home to raise her daughters, now 13 and 7. The adjustment was hard, particularly with a husband who was a cross-country truck driver, gone for long periods of time. “I ate my emotions,” she recalled. Unhappy with her weight gain, Maresca was intrigued by a Facebook post she saw on Isagenix and decided to give it a try.
Two months later and 28 pounds lighter, Maresca started the New Life New Me Corporation. Within two years, she moved out of the city into the suburbs of New Jersey, where she and her husband bought their first house. “I pinch myself because this really is a blessing. I’m that peer counselor again. I get paid for my efforts to help people change their lives. I bring it all back to Cheshire Academy,” she concluded. “That’s where I learned to be strong and independent and to go against the grain. It opened up a lot of doors.”
Jackie Bonneau ’04
Turning Point
Jackie Bonneau remembers the day her life changed. “I was in eighthgrade, standing at my kitchen counter, and I opened a letter from Cheshire Academy about the Town Scholar program,” she recounted. A highly competitive program, the Town Scholarship offers a full, four-year scholarship to Cheshire Academy to a resident of Cheshire. “I had always wanted to go to an independent school, but knew it wasn’t going to be a possibility for my family. I thought it was a miracle that this thing existed. I thought, ‘This is my chance.’”
Bonneau won the scholarship. She arrived at Cheshire Academy, where she reveled in the small classes, personal attention, and academic rigor. “I felt like I had found my people. I fit in better than I ever had. In middle school, I always raised my hand to answer questions in class, which doesn’t make you the most popular kid.” Bonneau also enjoyed meeting students from around the world. “The town of Cheshire is not very diverse. The diversity of Cheshire Academy opened up my view of the world. I was grateful to have that experience before college and my career,” she reflected.
After Cheshire, Bonneau attended Georgetown University and then went on to earn a law degree from Columbia University in 2011. She spent two years clerking for the Hon. Janet Bond Arterton of the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut in Hartford, and is now an associate at Patterson Belknap in New York City. There, she practices employment law, white collar criminal defense, and general commercial litigation. “I love being a lawyer. I enjoy the collaborative aspect of working with clients and the intellectual challenge of learning something new every day,” she said.
“I attribute a lot of my success academically and professionally to Cheshire Academy,” she concluded. “Cheshire gave me a great foundation to succeed and the confidence to go after what I wanted. I learned it was OK to raise my hand and speak up. I’m glad I was encouraged to always do my best, and I am so grateful for the opportunity to attend Cheshire.”
