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a radical D’Army Bailey got booted from one university for leading civil rights protests.

And then Clark came calling. also inside // David Angel maps the future // Green is the new Navy //Class Notes returns!

fall 2010

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cover story

got booted from one university for leading civil rights protests.

And then Clark came calling.

D’Army BAiley ’65

By jim keogh photogrAphy By steve jones

Apostrophe in his nAme.

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That came later. In the summer between eleventh and twelfth grade he decided the way most folks pronounced his birth name of “Darmy” was too pedestrian — Didn’t they realize there was supposed to be a slight pause between the “D” and the “A”?

— and that the collection of letters by which he’d be known throughout his life needed something to distinguish itself. So he adopted the apostrophe.

The sideways wink of punctuation may have set him apart early in life, but D’Army Bailey wouldn’t need it to get noticed later on. His name found its way into newspaper headlines and police reports, into movie credits and legal decisions, and onto the cover page of a thick FBI file that labeled him a “subversive.”

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14 D’Army Bailey at the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis. Behind him is the bus on which Rosa Parks refused to relinquish her seat in 1955, sparking the Montgomery, Ala. bus boycott, a key event in the civil rights movement.

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D’Army BAiley wAs not Born with An

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a radical

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t’s post-ceremony on Commencement Day

2010, and D’Army Bailey is a couple of hours removed from receiving an honorary degree.

The retired judge strides across the quad toward a waiting photographer, his charcoal-gray pinstriped jacket slung casually over his shoulder,

revealing a blazing white shirt with pink patterned tie — his ensemble is surprisingly unwrinkled and crisply creased, despite the steamy temperatures. The crowd has dissolved into small groups of family and friends trading hugs, but mothers and grandfathers and uncles peel away to stop the distinguished man who passes by. They offer their congratulations for the honor he’s just received and for the life he’s led. He treats each interruption with grace, thanking each wellwisher with a handshake and a wide smile.

“I remember walking these same paths more than 40 years ago, engaged in conversations with other students,” he reflects. “The students who brought me to Clark meant well, but they thought that the important gesture of bringing me up here was their way of showing empathy.

My job was to take them a stage further. Yes, they made a gesture, but now they had to do more.

Otherwise, I would not have felt true to my own beliefs. I felt I was put here for a reason: carry the message up north.”

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hen he embarked on his college career in the fall of 1959, Bailey carried nothing more than a suitcase, a box of his mother’s fried chicken, and a stern warning from his parents not to get off the train in any of the small towns along the route from

Bailey brought James Meredith (r.), the first African-American student to attend the University of Mississippi, to speak at Clark in 1964.

If you had taken the white kids at Clark and put them

in Baton Rouge, they would have been in the front lines, perhaps not as ready for the vehemence of the southern reaction, but with the same spirit. his hometown of Memphis to Southern University. “There’s no sense looking for trouble,” his mother cautioned.

There hadn’t been much trouble in Memphis.

Like most other southern cities, Memphis was segregated by race in just about every essential area — from schools to buses, housing to restaurants — but the black neighborhoods were tightly knit enclaves with their own social and commercial structures. In the nurturing neighborhoods of his youth, children “were able to endure and grow and not feel emotionally distressed or debilitated from an apartheid system.”

Bailey kept himself informed about the racial struggles occurring throughout the South by sitting in the local pharmacy and reading black newspapers and magazines, which taught him about Emmett Till, the black teenager who was lynched for allegedly whistling at a white woman.

On the small black-and-white television in his house he watched the reports detailing the courtordered integration of Central High School in 1957, the National Guard escorting nine AfricanAmerican children through the angry taunting mobs to reach the doorway.

“As a young black kid, seeing this, you instantly

realize you are no longer a kid. You’re an adult, in an adult world, facing adult issues and adult biases and prejudices and adult oppression,” he says. “You also see that these kids at Central High School summoned up the courage of adults.”

His father, a huge baseball fan, had brought D’Army and his brother Walter to St. Louis to see the Dodgers’ Jackie Robinson and Roy Campanella play against the Cardinals. AfricanAmericans also were making inroads in other sports like boxing.

Young D’Army was no athlete, but he was a gifted wordsmith who wrote a column for his

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The civil rights movement followed him two years later to Clark University, where students raised scholarship money to bring him to campus after he was expelled from Southern for his “inability to adjust,” a gentle euphemism for “making trouble.” In Worcester, Clark’s newest undergraduate, class of ’65, found a different kind of racism — less overtly hostile, quietly institutional, but no less insidious. He took to the streets here, too, enlisting University students to protest the hiring practices of some of the city’s best known companies while forging connections with everyone from Malcolm X to Abbie Hoffman.

The civil rights movement ensured that D’Army Bailey would make a permanent impression no matter how his name was spelled. In retrospect, inserting that apostrophe was simply the first subversive act of many.

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he civil rights movement found Bailey at Southern University in Louisiana, the largest all-black university in the country, where he discovered a streak of discontent among his fellow students that turned him from dispassionate observer to hesitant participant, and finally to a key leader of protests that spilled off the campus and onto the streets of Baton Rouge.

w

x to clark when malcolmcame hat happens when you dial MalcolM X’s phone nuMber? he picks up.

That was the shocking truth for D’Army Bailey, when in the

him, but Malcolm was so self-confident in his beliefs. He

spring of 1963 he called the Black Muslim leader with an offer

wasn’t mad, wasn’t hostile, he was just firm with what he

to speak at Clark. No secretaries, no middlemen, just Malcolm

was saying. He could smile sitting at that table.” to shrink the room — there were students and members

means necessary” philosophy toward achieving racial equality

of the public, a strong representation of black audience

had unsettled much of America, white and black. But Bailey

members who’d traveled from as far as New Haven, Black

embraced the notion of bringing a healthy dose of controversy

Muslims selling copies of the newspaper Muhammad Speaks,

to campus and shaking up the status quo in the process.

and security guards and police officers patrolling in response “It was an electric atmosphere,” Bailey remembers. “Malcolm

Movement board of advisers objected, with the chairman

was energized by this young, receptive audience. It doesn’t

threatening to resign if Bailey didn’t

mean that they believed what he

cancel the speech. The board insisted

believed in, but they were fascinated to

that rather than give Malcolm X his

have this man here to talk to us … and

own forum, he instead debate a civil

he wore them out. He was incisive, he

rights leader proposing peaceful resis-

was unforgiving, he didn’t back down.”

tance.

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N.C., where they refused to leave after they were denied service. This action of quiet rebellion ignited similar student movements across the country, including in Baton Rouge, just beyond the gates of Southern University.

Bailey traces his personal evolution from student to student-activist to a time when he saw his campus leave behind its reputation as “a safe, paternal plantation.” It had become a place where the students decried not just racial injustice, but also their betrayal by the school administration who, under pressure from the state of Louisiana, brought police onto campus and expelled protest leaders — anything to quell Southern’s increasingly stormy seas.

By December of his junior year, Bailey was restless and impatient with the sluggish progress of the movement. “It reminds me of a quote:

Clearly. In his closing statements, as

Malcolm was intrigued by the sug-

Bailey records them in his memoir “The

gestion, though he insisted he would

Education of a Black Radical”, Malcolm

only participate if his opponent was

X threw down the gauntlet:

Martin Luther King.

high school and college newspapers.

“I always felt that you had to take advantage of every opportunity to propagandize, to communicate, to carry forth the message. My Remington typewriter was my basketball — it was a powerful weapon, more powerful than being able to dribble. I still can’t dribble a basketball, but I could get on my typewriter and I could write and express ideas and get those into the black newspapers.”

At Southern, Bailey was studious and resolute about getting himself a good education. He also was elected president of his freshman class, wrote his column, played ping-pong in the student union and flirted with pretty girls. Life was good.

Then, on Feb. 8, 1960, four black college students sat down at the whites-only lunch counter of a Woolworth’s store in Greensboro,

to threats of violent retaliation against the Muslims.

speaking on campus. Members of the Worcester Student

“The time is up for the oppressor,

King’s people declined the offer, but

the end of time has come for whitism

Malcolm agreed to speak anyway.

and colonialism. The white man is on

Bailey calmed the board by pledging to

the way out. … We have reached the

bring in a more palatable speaker at a

stage where we no longer think you are

later date.

capable of treating us right. You do not

During a recent interview on the Clark campus, Bailey pointed to two trees where he’d hung a banner announcing

have it in your hearts. We are turning to God.” Malcolm later attended a reception in

Malcolm X’s impending arrival. One night the banner was torn

a student lounge, where he quietly answered the students’

down. Bailey got a tip that some students had removed it and

questions. In this intimate setting, Bailey was struck by the

carried it to their apartment. He and some friends confronted

man’s controlled demeanor so soon after issuing his fiery

the students, advising them to turn over the banner or there

pronouncements from the Atwood Hall stage.

would be trouble. It was returned, and re-hung.

On April 11, Bailey ushered Malcolm X to appointments with

The evening concluded at Bailey’s apartment, where he and Malcolm X chatted about the day’s events.

the Worcester Telegram editorial board and a radio interview.

“At about midnight, he charged me $75 for his expenses

“He savored the experience,” Bailey recalls. “He was like a

and I paid him,” Bailey recalls. “And then he disappeared into

cat preying on a mouse. The editors thought they could trap

the night and back out of Worcester.”

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Not everyone was enamored with the idea of Malcolm X

The Honorable D’Army Bailey, photographed at the National Civil Rights Museum.

The crush of people in Atwood Hall that evening seemed

This was no minor request. Malcolm X and his “by any

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on the other end of the line.

one of several acting roles on his resume. Director Milos Forman had advised Bailey to conduct the courtroom just as he would in real life. So when actor Woody Harrelson, playing the eccentric pornographer, was wheeled onto the set wearing a military helmet, Bailey objected.

“I said, ‘You’re going to have to take that off your head. You can’t wear any hats or helmets in a

Would you ask a mother whose baby was caught in a raging fire to gradually remove her child from the flames? Radical action is about agitation, agitation,agitation, which is required to bring about change.

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to the Baton Rouge jail to protest the arrests of Southern students at downtown whites-only lunch counters. They were greeted by the city’s police force, armed with tear gas canisters and snarling German shepherds straining at their leashes.

In his memoir “The Education of a Black Radical: A Southern Civil Rights Activist’s Journey, 19591964,” Bailey describes the ensuing confrontation:

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“We shall overcome. I fought an overwhelming desire to hit them, slap them, or scream them into realizing we were all the same.

We shall overcome. I fought a deep, gut-wrenching need to run.

Deep in my heart … I breathed deeply.

I do believe … We will stand peacefully. We will stand here peacefully until they let us go forward.

We shall …

They began shooting tear gas. When I turned, the group behind us had already started running.”

Some of the students were arrested during the melee, and were later expelled by Southern University President Felton G. Clark. An enraged Bailey and other student leaders organized a boy-

vast discretion: Failure to adjust.

Bailey writes in his memoir: “Perfect. I hadn’t broken any university law, but I hadn’t adjusted to the system. Evidently, the unwritten laws — the ones they don’t mention at freshman orientation — said my thinking was supposed to adjust to the university, along with my politics and my outlook on the world. Since I remained an individual, mine didn’t. As a result, the system threw me out in an act of self-preservation.”

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ailey is accustomed to having his photo taken. His posture, his facial expressions, his lack of inhibition in the middle of a crowd all speak to an instinctual comfort around a camera.

When asked to pass through Clark’s gates during a photo session and pose on Main Street, he does so gladly, leaning casually on an iron railing as hip-hop music booms from passing cars.

He tells the story about the time he played a judge in the film “The People Vs. Larry Flynt,”

courtroom.’ Harrelson turned his head and started pulling on the helmet strap, but he couldn’t get it loose. So then he finally looked around at the crew with this sheepish expression on his face and said, ‘Props!’”

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ailey’s personal situation was hardly unique in 1962. Student leaders were routinely being expelled from southern black colleges at the urging of white legislators intent on squashing the protests. At Clark University, a group of sympathetic students launched a scholarship fund campaign, holding car washes, bake sales and other benefit events to raise $2,500 — with a matching sum from Clark — to bring one of these ousted students to campus.

Initially, a student from Jackson State University was offered the scholarship, but he opted to join the military and recommended that his friend D’Army instead be the beneficiary. When he learned of the offer, Bailey was unsure how to respond. The Northeast was like a foreign country to the life-long southerner, and he couldn’t even pronounce the name of the city he’d be heading to (“I thought it was ‘Wor-kester,’” he laughs).

Clark University was an even bigger mystery.

He’d never heard of it.

“The catalog did nothing to allay my fears,” Bailey recalls. “How could it? It wasn’t written for me. It was full of pictures of smiling white kids lounging under trees, playing in the snow, and holding beakers and test tubes.”

Despite his reservations, he filled out the required paperwork and sent it off. Within days, the exiled D’Army Bailey was officially a Clarkie.

Upon his arrival in September of 1962, the locals regarded him as something of an oddity, an exotic creature to be scrutinized. A story in the Worcester Evening Gazette began: “D’Army Bailey, 20, should be able to get an A on any examination which asks: How to stage a sit-in demonstration, form a picket line, set up a mass rally — or how to get expelled from college for doing so.”

Still, the University was welcoming, and the weather was less harsh than Bailey had anticipated (he’d bought cleats at an Army surplus store to help negotiate the snow and ice). His first semester coincided with the momentous event of a black man, James Meredith, enrolling at all-white University of Mississippi, which set off riots on that campus. Clark students soon sought out Bailey for his insights on all things racial, southern, and the intersection of the two. (Agreement was hardly universal. When Bailey helped arrange a student bus trip to a University of Massachusetts-Amherst rally in support of Meredith, other students lay down in front of the bus in protest.)

Bailey was happy to answer the questions, but he grew impatient. He felt the students’ compassion veered perilously toward condescension.

“They wanted to hear about all the bigots in the South so they could congratulate themselves on being different,” he says.

“I went along with it all, and I was friendly because they were friendly. Consequently, for a long time, I never felt like me. I was a composite, a representative, a living newsreel — not a person. To these students — most of them from upper-middle-class white communities — I was ‘Negro America,’ a curiosity, and therefore

conveniently interesting.”

Yes, the events occurring in the South were important, but what of the racism in Clark’s own back yard of Worcester? Bailey looked around his new city and saw old ways: blacks were largely relegated to service jobs and manual labor; few were elevated to management positions.

Bailey knew that for Clark students to really appreciate the churn of the civil rights movement, they could no longer take notes on the sidelines. They had to join the fray.

He formed the Worcester Student Movement and brought James Meredith and Malcolm X (see sidebar) onto the Clark campus to speak. He led student pickets of two venerable Worcester companies — Denholm & McKay, the city’s oldest department store, and Wyman-Gordon Company, a manufacturing giant and defense contractor — to demand that they hire and promote more blacks to managerial positions. When the owner of Wyman-Gordon spoke at a Worcester Area Council of Churches gathering, they picketed that, too. Among those joining the Clark contingent was Worcester’s Abbie Hoffman, whose anti-government activism with the Yippie movement of the late ’60s — not to mention his wild mane of hair, his American flag shirt, and an aggressive media savvy — would turn him into a counter-culture icon.

“If you had taken the white kids at Clark and put them in Baton Rouge, they would have been in the front lines, perhaps not as ready for the vehemence of the southern reaction, but with the same spirit,” Bailey says. “We all were one in having within us a deep anger at injustice.”

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he photo shoot completed, Bailey makes

his way back across campus to Harrington House where his family is waiting. The subject of his FBI file is brought up, and it’s clearly a topic he relishes.

The file was launched during his freshman year at Southern and was added to during his time

at Clark and right up through 1973 after he’d gone on to a law career. He learned of the file’s existence a couple of years later from his nephew who worked in Washington, D.C. “I wrote to the FBI under the Freedom of Information Act in about 1976 or ’77; it took a year to get the file. There were two volumes, each over an inch thick. … They actually began an investigation on me when Lyndon Johnson came to Worcester to speak. I did a radio interview with Huey Newton and the entire transcript was in my files.

“They had two labels for me. The first was ‘D’Army Bailey: Subversive.’ Later they changed it to ‘D’Army Bailey: Black Nationalist Militant.’ ” Even after graduating from Clark, D’Army Bailey never stopped agitating. He earned his law degree at Yale, practiced law in San Francisco and was elected to the City Council in 1971. He was later recalled in a special election after pushing hard — too hard, his detractors argued — for affirmative action policies because of the low level of employment for blacks in Berkeley.

Bailey returned to Memphis to practice law and eventually served 19 years as an elected judge on the Tennessee trial court bench. For nine years he spearheaded the successful effort to transform the Lorraine Motel in Memphis — the site of Martin Luther King’s assassination — into the National Civil Rights Museum.

He now practices law in Memphis for Wilkes and McHugh, a private firm that specializes in civil litigation against nursing homes accused of negligent care. Ending his career on the bench, he says, wasn’t an option.

“The notion of being a permanent civil servant going into retirement didn’t suit me well,” Bailey says. “I wanted something a little more challenging.”

To this day he’ll gladly answer to any of the labels he was tagged with during the years he fought for racial justice all the way from Baton Rouge to Worcester. Radical. Subversive.

Rabble-rouser. They all fit.

D’Army is just fine, too, so long as it’s pronounced correctly.

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cott of classes that forced the school to shut its doors ahead of the scheduled Christmas break.

When he returned after the holidays, Bailey was summoned to the dean of students’ office. He was handed a letter informing him he’d been expelled under a vague statute that was normally cited for the expulsion of homosexuals, but which in its three simple words gave the administration

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Would you ask a mother whose baby was caught in a raging fire to gradually remove her child from the flames? Radical action is about agitation, agitation, agitation, which is required to bring about change.”

So Bailey agitated — at sit-ins and rallies, and in meetings with stubborn school administrators.

On Dec. 15, 1961, he helped lead 2,000 students

Assistant Secretary of the Navy Jackalyne Pfannenstiel ’69 sails into uncharted energy waters

greening the fleet by anne gibson, Ph.D. ’95

A

PhotograPhy by kathleen Dooher

swath of green grass greets me as I emerge from the Washington, D.C. Metro. Thanks to a local friend who had clarified the difference between the Pentagon City Metro stop (a shopping mall) and the Pentagon stop, I’ve managed to arrive at my destination on time and

without getting lost.

I follow several people proceeding in the direction of the nation’s

defense headquarters, to where an awning extends from a kiosk, and join the “official business” line. In just a few minutes I enter the approximately 12-by-12-foot kiosk for the required security check. Presenting two IDs, I explain that I have an appointment with Jackalyne Pfannenstiel ’69, the Navy’s recently appointed Assistant Secretary for Energy, Installations and Environment. I empty the metallic objects on my person into a tray, and submit it, my

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I had been instructed, after clearing security, to phone Pfannenstiel’s office for an escort. Presently, a young man dressed in the Navy’s khaki uniform appears and introduces himself as Lieutenant Commander Jessie Santiago, USN. Entering the Pentagon, he escorts me past the random screening area to another checkpoint where, after being directed to stare into an electronic device, I receive an identity badge.

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not need to remove my shoes.)

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shoulder bag, and myself for screening. (Unlike at the airport, I do

“ The more people know and are able to deal with energy on a rational basis of tradeoffs, I think [the dialogue] becomes, not always easier, but perhaps less emotional. We’ve not, as a society, done a very good job educating people about energy.”

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florist, hair salon, jewelry shop, athletic facility and cafeteria. Men and women in both civilian and military attire move purposefully, but not hurriedly, through corridors whose floors are polished to mirror-like perfection.

The corridor leading to Pfannenstiel’s office, lined with portraits, photographs, and murals of combat scenes, impresses with its Spartan elegance. The office, carpeted in navy blue, is spacious and quiet. In addition to the desk and conference table, there is a small seating area with a chair, sofa and coffee table where we sit to talk.

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Green is the new Navy A slim, petite woman who speaks with quiet authority, Pfannenstiel was appointed to her post by President Barack Obama on March 5, 2010. She is one of four assistant secretaries, each with a different area of responsibility in this civilian “secretariat” of the Navy headed

by Secretary Raymond Mabus. In concert with the Obama administration’s emphasis on

first tasks after taking office was to co-host, with U.S. Department of Agriculture Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan, the first of several energy forums on biofuel production.

According to Pfannenstiel, the Navy/USDA partnership will “enable us to reduce our petroleum consumption and increase our alternative energy opportunities. The Navy and Marine Corps’ operational capabilities will benefit from a more secure energy future.”

Pfannenstiel’s first Earth Day in office coincided with a test flight at the Naval Air Station in Patuxent, Md., of the F/A 18 Super Hornet fighter jet, dubbed the “Green Hornet.”

The jet flew on a 50-50 mix of conventional jet fuel and biofuel derived from camelina, a nonfood member of the mustard family that can be grown in all 50 states and rotated with food crops.

In May, Pfannenstiel headed to the island of Guam, where a new base is being planned for 8,000 Marines and their families being relocated from Okinawa, Japan. The relocation is contentious: it is estimated that the new

installation will increase the island’s population by as much as 20-percent. Residents are voicing concerns about the new base’s impact on island infrastructure and resources, and Democratic Rep. Hank Johnson made headlines by complaining that the influx of population would cause the island to “tip over and capsize.” It’s one of Pfannenstiel’s many responsibilities to navigate these tricky political waters and arrive at a sustainable solution.

Pfannenstiel estimates that she spends 2025 percent of her time traveling to the Navy and Marine bases that she now oversees, assessing energy initiatives, housing, training and recreational facilities. Of Mabus’ five energy goals, the one she finds most challenging is the requirement that half of the Navy’s approximately 100 domestic and international bases be “zero net energy” by 2020.

“Half of the bases will have to generate as much energy as they consume,” she explains. “I personally think that’s the most interesting of the goals, because it’s going to require a great deal of creativity. ... It will be some mix of reducing energy load and producing on-site alternative energy. Every single installation we have will be some unique combination of the two. I love the idea of each base looking at its own situation and trying to develop the resources it needs to become net zero.”

Pfannenstiel is quick to point out that the drive to be green is already underway at a number of installations.

“I’ve been out at a few of the bases and they’re doing amazingly creative things,” she notes. “Part of my job is to help them get what they need, whether it’s knowledge, or metering capabilities or money, whatever they need to do it.”

Pfannenstiel’s personal goal as assistant secretary is to encourage a culture of energy awareness, and she’s confident that Navy and Marine personnel are ready to jump on board.

“It’s partly our responsibility as policy makers, as leaders, to get the word out,” she says, “and that’s what I feel I have the opportunity to do. What I’m finding in the military, certainly the sailors and Marines that I’ve been working with, is that these people are really dedicated to doing the right thing. There’s this passion for

wanting to get it right. They all understand the need for energy security and independence, so they want to find the right pathways. And to the extent I can help them do that, we’ve got great opportunities to make a difference.”

In April 2008, Pfannenstiel returned to Clark to deliver a lecture on campus sustainability as part of Clark’s Difficult Dialogues project.

Asked today what skills she’s used to negotiate difficult dialogues throughout her career, her answer dovetails neatly with her philosophy that awareness is a crucial element for effective action.

“Knowledge is quite powerful,” she reflects.

“The more people know and are able to deal with energy on a rational basis of tradeoffs, I think [the dialogue] becomes, not always easier, but perhaps less emotional. We’ve not, as a society, done a very good job educating people about energy.”

NAVY ENERGY TARGETS // By 2020, half of the Navy’s total energy consumption, ashore and afloat, will come from alternative sources. // By 2020, the Navy will make half of its installations net-zero energy consumers, using solar, wind, ocean, and geothermal power generated on base. // By 2016, the Navy will sail the Great Green Fleet, a carrier strike group composed of nuclear ships, hybrid electric ships running on biofuel, and aircraft flying on biofuel. // By 2015, the Navy will cut in half the amount of petroleum used in its commercial vehicle fleet through phased adoption of hybrid, electric, and flex fuel vehicles. // The Navy and Marine Corps will change the way contracts are awarded to hold industry contractually accountable for meeting energy efficiency targets.

Source: www.navy.mil/navydata/people/secnav/Mabus/Message/Energy%20Message%20ALNAV.pdf

Teaming with Schwarzenegger Pfannenstiel attributes much of her success to being in the right place at the right time.

When she graduated from Clark in 1969 as an economics major, she had no idea that energy would become her passion and career focus. Her first job was as a statistician with the Connecticut Department of Welfare. But then came the 1973 OPEC oil embargo, which woke economists to the fact that energy was a very scarce, costly resource. Pfannenstiel says she “stumbled” onto an opening at the Connecticut Utilities Commission helping to price energy.

“That was my first introduction to energy, and I was just hooked,” she recalls. “There were so many aspects of it — pricing and conservation, different resources and resource capabilities, structural and regulatory issues, ownership.”

Two and a half years and a master’s degree later, she was a relatively experienced public utilities executive and the embodiment of her favorite quote by Louis Pasteur: “Chance favors the prepared mind.”

Word of her expertise reached the West Coast, and Pfannenstiel was recruited by the California Public Utilities Commission as a senior economist. From there she moved to Pacific Gas and

Electric Company in San Francisco. When she retired 20 years later, it was as the company’s vice president for corporate planning.

In 2004 Pfannenstiel was called out of retirement by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who appointed her to a five-year term with the California Energy Commission, which she eventually chaired. One of the initiatives she promoted in that capacity was a plan to include solar energy panels in new-home construction by getting major developers to invest in the technology and applying the economies of scale to keep the price of materials and labor affordable.

The diversity of the Schwarzenegger administration was a bonus.

“His administration was exciting,” she says.

“He was somebody who absolutely seemed to have no issue of gender or political party or age. So it was a very good administration in which to work.”

At the close of her term in 2009, Pfannenstiel again attempted to retire. Although a self-described “energy wonk” who couldn’t “understand why everybody else isn’t just fascinated by energy,” she had been harboring a desire to do something different, perhaps study

photography, teach history, or open a bookstore.

“I was very happy being retired. But Ray Mabus had just come in, and he was looking for someone to help him with an energy program,” she says. “The word went to the White House and they interviewed somebody who, for various reasons, ended up not being able to take the position. She recommended me, so the White House called me completely out of the blue last August. I went from being totally relaxed, on vacation, to getting wound up and finding myself here.”

Coming of age in the Age of Aquarius Pfannenstiel attended Clark during the social and political turmoil of the 1960s and she noticed a big change on campus over the course of her undergraduate career.

“My first two years at Clark were more of a traditional college experience,” she muses.

“More fraternity parties, pranks, much more what people would think of in the 1950s. The last two years were marked by Vietnam and

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energy security, Mabus announced in October 2009 five “targets” for drastically reducing the Navy and Marine Corp’s energy consumption (see sidebar), including a greater reliance on alternative sources to create a “Great Green Fleet” of nuclear- and biofuel-powered ships and airplanes.

As a leading expert in energy policy, Pfannenstiel is the point person in the mission to “green the Navy.”

She’s certainly qualified. With her 30-plus years experience in energy policy, and special interest in alternative energy, Pfannenstiel believes that the goals set out by Mabus, while clearly ambitious, are attainable. One of her

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he interior entrance area consists of a massive staircase flanked by two enormous quilted U.S. “flags,” one whose design, Santiago explains, was composed of small photos of victims killed in the 9/11 attacks, which included a lethal strike on the Pentagon itself.

Welcoming and engaging, Santiago plies me with interesting facts about the Pentagon, which is essentially a small city equipped with office space for approximately 23,000 military and civilian personnel. In addition to offices, the Pentagon houses a number of services catering to the men and women who spend a significant chunk of their lives there, including a pharmacy,

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NAVY BY THE NUMBERS Navy and Marine Corps

4.4 million acres 72,500 buildings 286 ships in battle fleet 3,800 aircraft 50,000 non-combat vehicles The federal government accounts for 2 percent of the nation’s energy use, with the Dept. of Defense consuming 90 percent of that. The Navy consumes about a third of all military-related energy.

Source: Remarks by Navy Secretary Raymond Mabus at Center for Naval Analysis Earth Day Luncheon, April 29, 2010

well as you can.’’

Thinking back to her time at Clark, Pfannenstiel elaborates on the benefits of attending a coed institution.

“I think one of the things I got most out of Clark was that it’s a coed world out there. My classes were men and women. The discussion groups we got into, the competition in classes — you had to deal with the fact that it was coed.

So when I got out in the world, I think I had less difficulty dealing with male colleagues and developing good relationships.”

Pfannenstiel is quick to point out that she didn’t discover her interest in energy until after college. Now, with two grown sons (one still in college), she understands the pressure on students to choose a career early. But she urges current Clarkies to resist that pressure and to enjoy their college years.

“It’s the best four years ever, because you are surrounded by interesting people, wonderfully stimulating things to think of and work on, and it’s all about you. I have dozens of wonderful memories, and some of my best friends today are Clark friends,” she says.

“Jobs will come. If you don’t know [what

you’re going to do] on graduation day, it’s okay.

It will happen. Just accept the fact that you’ll get a job some day. You’ll be a better person for it, too.”

YZ When it comes time to leave, I am escorted from Pfannenstiel’s office by Sgt. Lauren Ferrell of the United States Marine Corps. With her working uniform and boots, tightly restrained hair and thick mascara, her demeanor is at once feminine and fierce. As we chat, I ask why she had joined the Marine Corps. She explains that she had wanted to serve her country, and that the Marines had made it possible for her to earn a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and an M.B.A. She says she had been wounded in Iraq and that her husband had served six tours in the Middle East.

I am taken aback by this revelation, and experience a rush of humility. I don’t remember exiting the building. I just remember shaking her hand, and thanking her for her service, inspired by another woman who, like her boss, had found a place to follow her passion.

fall 2010

protests and civil rights. It was a much more intense experience.”

That was also the decade of “women’s lib.”

Pfannenstiel believes she was one of the first women to graduate from Clark with a major in economics. Another is her longtime friend and classmate Mary Ellen Krober.

“When Jackie and I switched our majors to economics our junior year in 1967, the Economics Department welcomed us without reservation,” Krober recalls. “Right away, our Price Theory professor, Dr. Herrington Bryce, asked us to help him with a study he was finishing about the net wages earned by migrant farm workers who traveled throughout the northeast U.S. picking various crops, and we were acknowledged in the finished version of the paper. Heady stuff for undergraduates who were only very recently declared economics majors.”

Pfannenstiel’s career is marked by a couple of significant “firsts” — first woman VP at Pacific Gas and Electric and first woman chair of the California Energy Commission. She is only the second woman appointed to the Navy position she now holds.

Asked if she considers herself a feminist, Pfannenstiel acknowledges that the word means different things to different people, but her answer is unequivocal.

“I always did, and still do. Throughout my career there have been times when I’ve been held back by being a woman, and there are times when I’ve been given a break by being a woman. I think the world has gotten a lot better for women moving up the professional ladder, and I certainly see it around here — women who are just as ambitious and prepared as any of their counterparts.”

Nonetheless, like many married women with children who also pursued a career outside the home, Pfannenstiel struggled with the conflicting demands of career and family. In a 1995 interview for a San Francisco Chronicle article titled “The Bay Area’s Most Powerful Corporate Women,” she said, ‘‘Every single day it’s a choice. We’ve been very fortunate in having a live-in baby-sitter. That’s given me a lot more flexibility than a lot of women have. But kids need a lot of parental time and help and involvement. You balance as

33 clark alumni magazine

fall 2010

(CloCkwise from left) Jackalyne Pfannenstiel ’69 outside the Pentagon. this photo of her grandparents, who met while both served in the Navy during world war i, adorns Pfannenstiel’s office. the Assistant secretary of the Navy wades through the day’s paperwork.

AdvAncing clArk

By Angela Bazydlo

Clark alum is powering his corner of the world... one cow at a time

fall 2010

W

clark alumni magazine

58

hen he talks about what defines success, Fayaz Taher, M.A.

IDSC ’09, doesn’t speak in the first person, or mention personal goals or aspirations. He talks about teamwork.

“Being successful isn’t about myself, but about other people,” he says.

“When I am able to help people working with me become successful, I believe I am successful.”

That’s not a bad philosophy, especially when you’re 25 years old and own a lengthier resume and more management titles than most people do at mid-life.

Without a doubt, there are clear advantages to being the son of renowned industrialist and philanthropist Engr. M. Abu Taher, who leads Fortuna Bangladesh, a collection of companies involving fast food, leather tanning, leather manufacturing, agricultural products, insurance, financial leasing and information technology. At age 17, when his peers were finishing up their homework or playing cricket, Fayaz was helping the family establish Fortuna Fried Chicken, a fast food chain that competes with Kentucky Fried Chicken in Bangladesh. The company is going strong, and expects to open four more locations this year and another 10 restaurants in 2011.

In 2005, while an undergraduate at Babson College, Taher launched Infrablue Technology with his brother Fazle and cousin Asif, working with the major telecom operators in Bangladesh. He served as co-founder and chief marketing officer of its U.S. subsidiary, ibtgames.com, which won $25,000 in a Facebook grant-funding competition, along with mentorship and support to develop applications.

In 2008, when cricket fans enjoyed the Twenty20 World Cup, Taher and his team created “Twenty20 Cricket,” a popular online cricket application that let users worldwide act as virtual team managers to compete against other cricket fanatics. They later introduced a series of successful games such as Street Football, Winning Eleven and Casino Empire. ibtgames.com has since taken a break from social gaming to concentrate on innovative projects like Socialbuy.com, a group-buying site for tickets, high-end luxury services and products. The company now employs 12 people and offers a range of software solutions and web development services.

Last September, Taher was named CEO of the shoe and bag manufacturing/retail division of Fortuna Bangladesh, with over 600 employees. By the end of this year, Fortuna Bangladesh expects to employ almost three times that number of employees, and Taher anticipates he’ll be managing 1,400 of them, if not more.

One would say Taher has some big shoes — or at least many shoes — to

fill. This fall, he will be managing two new shoe-material factories, namely, the Fortuna Last factory (a joint venture with Chinese partners — the first one of its kind in Bangladesh — that will produce the mold for a shoe called a “last”), and Fortuna Outsole Factory (a venture with a Spanish company to manufacture outsoles).

Taher’s resume shows he’s up to the task. He has experience working with large management teams, understands cost control and what it’s like to raise capital. He’s familiar with labor management and social compliance and does not shy away from taking the reins when necessary, troubleshooting issues in order to meet deadlines.

Taher is clearly excited about recent changes in how the family operates its factories.

In the past, the factories often suffered a shortage of electricity and voltage fluctuations that would result in lost production time and increased maintenance costs. Taher’s family relied on a generator 50 percent of the time to keep the factories running.

His father struck on a novel solution. He sold his garments factory and started a cattle farm and a bio-gas plant. The plant is powered by cow dung, which creates methane and generates 20 kilowatts an hour. “We are saving a lot of money, up to $150 to $200 a day. Not only that, after the cow dung dries up we can process and make organic fertilizer, which will further increase our benefits,” Taher says.

The shoe factory runs on bio-gas afterhours and at lunchtime. At Taher’s suggestion, the building uses natural light whenever possible during the day; it also is equipped with natural exhausts on the roof that remove hot air.

“We are trying to be environmentally conscious as much as possible where [we weren’t] before,” Taher says. “This is because of my Clark education and experience. We are trying to make an eco-friendly project to be part of the green revolution and we have plans to sell our products in the U.S. through online stores, which we hope will be attractive for consumers.”

Taher, who is married to Jeniffer Emling ’09/M.P.A. ’10, welcomes Clark alumni to visit Bangladesh to learn about his business. After all, he notes, his country of 150 million people needs considerable help with development, and Bangladesh is an emerging market with plenty of opportunities.

“We are open to new partnerships and ventures,” he offers, “so if you think you have got the next big idea or you are looking to expand your business with ethical companies, feel free to reach out.”

Fayaz Taher can be reached at Fayaz@fortunabd.com.

Steinbrecher Clarkies span three generations

I

t's natural for mothers and fathers who have had a positive college experience to play up their alma mater to their own children. Some parents go for the hard sell, while others favor a low-key approach: lay the seed, and, with luck, interest will blossom.

Stephen Steinbrecher ’55 took the latter approach with his daughter Marcy (Steinbrecher) Puklin ’80. The digits following her name indicate that he was successful.

When it was time for Marcy’s daughter, Rachel, to choose a college, there was only one apparent certainty: Rachel did not want to attend Clark.

It’s not that she had anything in particular against the school. She simply wondered if her higher-education destiny lay elsewhere.

Rather than dismiss the idea out of hand, she decided to tour the school one more time, and asked her grandparents, Stephen and Phyllis, to accompany her. As he did with Marcy, Stephen adopted a no-pressure stance.

“When Rachel decided to have one last look at Clark, she asked if we would take her rather than her mom and dad,” Stephen recalls. “She’d clearly thought it through. We’d walk with her, and talk … or not talk. It was a fun day. I was very proud that Rachel decided to have one last look at Clark.”

Just as with her mom, something clicked for Rachel. Today, she speaks of the “awesome” academic programs and caring professors that made the difference for her.

At the May 23 commencement, when Rachel Puklin was handed her diploma for earning a bachelor’s degree in psychology, the Steinbrecher clan could officially boast three generations of Clarkies. (Marcy is also married to a Clark grad, Alan Puklin ’81.)

The Steinbrechers have seen Clark University at different stages of its evolution, especially with the physical look of the place. New buildings and new programs mean Rachel was offered opportunities that never existed for her grandfather.

But the critical elements of a Clark education span the decades, Stephen Steinbrecher insists.

“One of the ingredients that gets overlooked is if you wish to give of yourself, create, or do something, then the faculty and administration will support you 100 percent,” he says. “They won’t say, ‘You can’t go that way.’”

Marcy notes the famous poster depicting Clark students as multi-colored peas in a pod says it all.

“That’s exactly the Clark experience,” she says. “Everybody gets out of Clark what they put into it, and then some. This is not the place for the passive student; it’s a participatory experience.”

“There’s a uniqueness about Clark,” Rachel adds. “There’s never a dull moment; something will shock you. That’s what makes it interesting.”

Rachel, now a fifth-year student in elementary education, began student teaching this fall. She’s unsure if teaching will be her career path, but she is certain that she wants to work with children in some capacity.

An active alumnus, Stephen served three terms as a Clark trustee from 1981-1995. He received Clark’s highest alumni award, the Distinguished Service Award, in 1998.

In 2005, Stephen and his wife Phyllis (who died in 2009 after a long battle with breast cancer) created the Steinbrecher Fellowship Program with a generous gift that established a permanent endowment in memory of their son David C. Steinbrecher ’81. The fellowships allow Clark undergraduates to pursue original ideas, creative research, public service or enrichment projects. The awards, given to 8-10 students each year, range from $500 to $2,500.

This year’s fellowships funded a wide range of projects, from archaeological research on the southern coast of Turkey to a study of the effects of climate change on grizzly bear food sources in Wyoming.

Marcy ran into several fellowship recipients during Reunion Weekend.

“It’s amazing what these students are doing,” she says.

And who knows? If the stars align as they did for the Steinbrecher family, perhaps the children of those students, and even their grandchildren, may one day be in line for a fellowship.