SCHOLARSHIP UPDATE
ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT
Submitted by Rick Blankley ’65
For Gene Carlo ’73, the key to success is to work hard and surround yourself with good people. It happened for him in both high school and college, and he devoted his 36-year career as a teacher and administrator to making it happen for others.
Gene Carlo ’73
The Class of ’65 Scholarship recipient for 2023-24 is sophomore Jenna Bankowski ’26 of Woodstock, CT. She wanted a small college close to home and was enraptured by the campus. She is studying psychology and works two campus jobs, to sustain her college expenses. When asked about her future goals after graduating, she shares, “My dream is to become a social worker or counselor so I can help people and children. I would like to work for the state of Connecticut.” Her favorite activities outside the classroom are attending football and basketball games and being in the herd of the fans rooting on the Bison. To her scholarship donors she states, “I would like to thank the Class of ’65 for your generous donations to the scholarship that I have been awarded. I really struggle with paying for college, working two jobs, and can tell you that you have helped me a great deal. I am an average student, so I appreciate that this scholarship does not require having straight A’s. I appreciate everyone from the Class of ’65 who is supporting my educational journey.” As class scribe, I can reply to Jenna that we are proud to have her as our class recipient scholar as she fits right into the Class of ’65 academic posture because we didn’t have any straight “A” performers either. Jenna’s professors have made it quite clear that she is a very good student.
As a student at Grafton High School in the late 1960s, Carlo was a standout athlete. Captain of both the football and track teams, he held the record as one of the leading scorers in yardage in Worcester County at that time. “I was blessed,” he admits. “God gave me a little bit of size and a little bit of speed, and I put it to good use.” He also credits his coaches for his achievements and a “great” high school for preparing him academically. A senior with an athletic scholarship to Syracuse University, Carlo was all set. But fate had other plans. One of his uncles, who had played high school football with Mike Vendetti, the Nichols football and track coach, had encouraged him to “take a peek” at Nichols. In yet another twist, Carlo discovered that his advanced accounting teacher was a Nichols graduate who raved about the school. So, he took a peek.
TIME RUNS OUT FOR THE SHADOWHAWK
“When I visited, it was one of these things that I could feel myself going to school there,” he says. “The amount of people that knew everyone, teachers knew students, students knew teachers. I fell in love with it.” As a student, Carlo felt that same level of camaraderie, from peers to professors, throughout campus, “Right up to Herbie, the cop,” he adds, referring to Herb Durfee, the college’s storied head of security from 1961 to 1984. He thrived under Coach Vendetti, again becoming captain of both the football and track teams, as well as a conference all-star and a small college All American, and eventually earning a spot in the Nichols Athletic Hall of Fame.
Continued from the last Golden Bison Bulletin. Submitted by Dan Stewart ’69
The clock was running, a race against time for the whole Shadow Hawk dream. I turned to the notorious “box,” the one you need to get outside of sometimes. Selling a million-dollar Super Terrain Vehicle (STV) with no prototype to stroke, smell and maybe even drive, dictated that this wasn’t typical sales; I saw it as a distribution question. While still looking for individual buyers, I needed distribution. I needed a sales and dealer network and needed it right away. The ugly financial realities of the ’08 crash still gripped the economy. Considering the compressed timeline, it became apparent that I needed a force multiplier, boots on the ground. Pursuit of individual customers couldn’t be the main effort. Sales network? The sticky wicket was that there was no money to pay a sales force. I needed a sales force, and it needed to be as instant as a just-add-water packet of oatmeal. I decided to focus on existing organizations that were in the mega money product business. With the gusto of a man staring at a finite business life, I created a target list of business segments that were not intimidated by multi-million-dollar, big-ticket items.
Carlo also found his calling. In 1971, he was selected to participate in a new education program at Nichols that prepared students to teach in secondary schools. At first, he was skeptical, but after a turn as a substitute teacher and coach at Oxford High School, he was hooked. “I thought, ‘I can see myself doing this,’” he recalls. Following graduation, Carlo was given the opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a new school, Assabet Valley Regional Technical High School, located in Marlborough, Mass., and serving seven towns. “It was a dream come true,” he says. He was the first (and only) business education teacher, as well as the department head, and football coach, track coach, class advisor. “I jumped in with two feet right away,” he remembers. “And, as the school grew, I grew.” He became the director of finance and ultimately was appointed by the school district as superintendent and director. The position allowed him to take on other leadership and advocacy roles to enhance public education, such as president of both the Worcester County Superintendents and Massachusetts Vocational Schools and serving on statewide policy-making boards, such as the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents.
My segment target list included manufacturers and sellers of yachts, private jets, and exotic automobiles. Of course, money talks and I needed a compensation plan conversation that allowed the seller to make enough money to catch their attention and would get me to Shadow Hawk details that were steak and sizzle simultaneously. With the $1-3 million price range, it was possible to carve out some attractive plans that included the business along with the individual sales associate. More than that was needed of course. I needed retail floor presence; I needed to get the STV story told. The answer was a kiosk. I turned to my experience at Kiosk Information Systems where I had been Director of International Sales. I secured an interactive kiosk running a motion activated loop on a big monitor. It had “wings” and a parasol top and guaranteed round the clock retail floor presence. The fixture was free.
When he retired from Assabet Valley in 2008, he continued to use his background in finance, by helping schools who were struggling during the Global Financial Crisis, and by teaching graduate-level courses at Fitchburg State University for 10 years. Carlo is grateful for his Nichols education. “Academics are academics. Some people fall in love with them,” he states. “To me, it was just a process. I did what I had to do and got decent grades. But then when I got out of Nichols, I realized how much I really knew when it came time to put it to good use to teach. I wouldn’t change a thing.” Over the years, Carlo has returned to campus to speak with aspiring teachers and has even hired Nichols graduates.
This is about where the Shadow Hawk story stands. Time did run out. I said goodbye to Shadow Hawk and James Engineering. The Shadow Hawk Facebook is as I left it. I’m happy to answer any questions. And bet I can talk them into building a Shadow Hawk for you, even now. Pictures of Shadow Hawk Vehicles can still be found on Facebook.
When his daughter, Christie, was looking at colleges, he encouraged her to “take a peek” at Nichols. An outstanding athlete like her father, 4
