Thomas Jordan

Life Since Rollins:

After Rollins, I took the road less traveled and it has made all the difference. I had escaped foreign language classes due to my SAT scores in French. After graduation I found myself in Paris at the Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle. I subsequently matriculated into the Université Paul Sabatier Faculté de Médecine in Toulouse with 2,400 other native French speakers. I was successful in securing a spot in the second year by placing in the top 240. After five years in France and earning my first medical degree (Premier Cycle en Médecine), I transferred to the University of Florida for another three years and received an American M.D. degree in 1981.

While in Toulouse, Charlie Perlo visited and we went to the Côte d’Azur where we stayed at Enis Berker’s family condo in Menton. There I met Enis’s sister, Celia, and a romance bloomed, although it took 18 years for us to commit matrimony.

I continued with a post-doctoral internship in internal medicine and residency in Psychiatry at Brown University, a fellowship in child psychiatry at Harvard and Brown, and a teaching appointment at Brown. I earned a Master of Public Health degree at the University of Michigan. I was Chief of Clinical Affairs for Michigan state psychiatric hospitals for ten years. I then practiced in Florida until 2018 when I moved back to Michigan.

As Ratty said to Mole in The Wind and the Willows “there is nothing – absolutely nothing – half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.” My high school classmate Roland Blake convinced me to join the rowing team my freshman year. While living in Europe, I shipped out on a German freighter, the “M.V. Hahnentor’’ from Rotterdam to Tampa one summer break, the second time that I had sailed across the Atlantic. The first time was aboard the “S.S. Constitution.” After Neil Sullivan gave me his old sunfish sailboat, I sailed the lakes of New Hampshire when I had a farmhouse on the Connecticut River just down the road from Charlie Brown’s Piermont Inn. When Charlie Perlo bought his Pierson Ensign in NYC, we sailed up the Intracoastal Waterway and I would crew with him in Marblehead races. I attended Oswego Maritime Institute, earned my U.S. Merchant Marine Master’s license and owned a charter fishing boat that I captained on weekends on Lake Ontario.

Charlie Perlo

Activities that kept you busy at Rollins: Student Center Board of Directors and Resident Advisor for TKE house.

If you could choose your major today, what would it be? History

Favorite Class: Jack Lane’s 8:00 a.m. History.

Funniest Moment: Asking Carlos Santana for his autograph at the Orlando Sports Stadium for a fraternity treasure hunt!

What went through your mind on your first day as a student? How will the food be?

Partner in crime and your favorite memory together: Delta Chi pledge class.

Your biggest moment of triumph: Being elected President of the Guild Fraternity.

Lesson you learned as a student that you still value today: Doing a little bit every day rather than everything at the last minute...

Person you met at Rollins who you will always respect: Freshman RA Randy Lyon (RIP) in New Hall.

Life Since Rollins: I had a 35-year career in supply chain management in several different industries including aerospace, semiconductor, and medical devices. I retired in 2009 at age 58. I have always done lots of music, sailing, gardening, and maintaining my 1908 Victorian cottage in Beverly, MA.

Neil Sullivan

Activities that kept you busy at Rollins: Science Lab.

Intramural sports.

Amazing friends at Guild Fraternity. Enjoying the music of the era intensely.

Friday/Saturday beach parties at the New Smyrna dunes.

Studying Sunday till Thursday night.

Reading Vonnegut and sci-fi novels in free time.

If you could choose your major today, what would it be? Chemistry

Favorite Class: Inorganic Chemistry

Funniest Moment: Spontaneous panty raid that imploded but harmless to all – I believe in ’70.

What went through your mind on your first day as a student? Sheer panic as I knew no one and had never visited the campus before showing up on that first day of orientation…

Partner in crime and your favorite memory together: Jordo, Perlo and Ziesing - where do I start?

Your biggest moment of triumph: Getting accepted to medical school at USF.

Prank you can’t believe you got away with: Told some Guildo Deadheads that the new Dead album was now out. They enthusiastically raced to the record store to find out I had pulled a prank.

Lesson you learned as a student that you still value today: Never study so hard that you don’t take time simultaneously to enjoy life.

Person you met at Rollins who you will always respect:

James Earhart

Charles Perlo

Patricia Lindsey

Thomas Jordan

Richard Ziesing

Dean Christensen

Life Since Rollins: Attended USF medical school in a difficult three-year program with no summers off. We completed the first two years of study in 12 months - very intense. After that, I completed a three-year residency in family medicine in Michigan. My new wife Joan and I then went to Maysville, NC where I worked in a rural community health clinic. Our final destination was Santa Barbara, California working initially in emergency rooms until I became the medical director and practicing physician for the Santa Barbara neighborhood clinics. 38 years later, I retired from those clinics. However, during Covid I was recruited to work in community clinics in Molokai and Honolulu. Presently, I am looking forward to volunteering in Cambodia for my 11th medical mission with an organization called Cambodian Health Practitioners Association of America.

Neil Sullivan (cont’d)

Married for over 43 years, my wife and I enjoy going to concerts, traveling, engaging in various sports, and having many other hobbies and passions. To this day, I tell everyone that the best four years of my life were spent at Rollins.