7 minute read
Alumni Spotlight
Victor Arcelus ’89, Dean of Students at Connecticut College, has been leading the COVID-19 response team this year. He and his team have been praised for the college’s success in keeping students on campus and case counts relatively low.
He established a robust testing program where all students and staff have been tested twice weekly since the September re-opening. As a result, over 50,000 tests have been done through Broad Institute’s lab, with a positivity rate that is often below 1%.
“It just became part of everybody’s week to go down to the testing center twice a week,” said Victor Arcelus, the dean of students at Connecticut College. “Knowing what the positivity rate was on our campus at any given time, it enabled us to hold in-person classes, it enabled us to have student clubs.”
A specialist in holistic learning, Arcelus oversees residential life, student engagement and leadership development, health and counseling services, campus safety, sexual violence prevention, student wellness, new student orientation, and the College’s student conduct process.
With a doctorate in higher education from Pennsylvania State, he has also worked in student life at Gettysburg College and
Bucknell University. He is passionate about fostering collaboration between academic and student affairs departments to create learning-centered campuses.
“Quite frankly, I could not be where I am today without my Green Vale education,” Victor concludes.
Victor J. Arcelus ’89, College Dean Cat Colella-Graham ’85, Employee Experience Expert
This fall,Cat Colella-Graham ’85 was named one of the Top Women in PR 2020 by PR News. She is the Founder and Chief Employee Experience Officer of Cheer Partners, an award-winning employee experience agency that helps companies cultivate a more connected and engaged workforce. Cheer clients include Johnson & Johnson, Juniper Networks, and Aetna health insurance.
A leading authority on the future of work, Colella-Graham’s expertise was highly sought as workplaces scattered into employees’ homes when the pandemic struck. A regular contributor to Forbes Magazine, Colella-Graham has long been a believer in flexible and remote work arrangements and their impact on organizational efficacy. She is also the co-founder of the Diversity Marketing Consortium, frequently guest lectures at Georgetown and NYU, and is a volunteer TED translator. After Green Vale, Colella-Graham attended Aiglon College (a secondary school) in Switzerland, Boston College, and Cornell graduate school. “My years at Green Vale remain vivid memories: from getting our boarding school accep tances to the holistic approach to learning in the outdoor amphitheater, hands-on art, and sports. With Green Vale as my home for 10 years, I was well prepared, resilient and able to accept the future fearlessly. A special thanks to Mr. Zaloom who inspired curiosity as a way of life in me.”
Will Ahmed ’05 is the founder and CEO of WHOOP, a membership service that uses a wrist band to collect physiological data related to strain, sleep, and recovery in the user’s body. More than a standard fitness tracker, the WHOOP Strap is useful for comprehensive insight into daily activity and health, with personalized guidance for training and sleep. WHOOP calculates post-exercise recovery based on four key physiological markers: heart rate variability, resting heart rate, sleep, and respiratory rate. These metrics are calibrated to each user’s baseline, which means recovery is personalized each day.
Recently, the brand’s profile skyrocketed when two PGA golfers, Nick Watney and Scott Stallings, detected coronavirus indicators and sought testing based solely on data from their WHOOP devices. The PGA Tour then provided WHOOP bands for all golfers and caddies. Subsequent partnerships include Major League Baseball, the NFL Players Association, the University of Tennessee’s 600 athletes, as well as fashion mogul Tory Burch who provided straps to 700 employees as a pandemic wellness initiative.
The origins of WHOOP are tied to Ahmed’s experience as a college squash player and double-major. He excelled at fitness, but often overtrained and faced burnout. His research into better understanding his body, including an original paper on his findings, became the business plan for WHOOP. The Boston-based company has raised $200 million from top investors including NFL quarter backs Patrick Mahones and Eli Manning for a valuation of over $1 billion.
After Green Vale, Ahmed attended St. Paul’s School and Harvard, where he captained the varsity squash team and was named a 2011 Harvard College Scholar for finishing in the top 10% of his class. He has also been named to the 2020 Fortune 40 Under 40 Healthcare list, Boston Business Journal’s 40 Under 40, and Forbes 30 Under 30.
In 2018, as part of comments to commemorate Green Vale’s 95th Anniversary, Ahmed recalled: “It was an incredibly rigorous education in the best way. Things stay with you from Green Vale for the rest of your life.”
William L. F. Ahmed ’05, Tech & Healthcare Entrepreneur
PGA golfer Rory McIlroy wears his WHOOP strap on tour.
Until recently, Malcolm Boyd ’87 served as Chief People Officer at the Memphis Zoo. Responsible for culture and commu nication, he led the launch of a new mission, vision, and values bearing in mind the needs of 300 employees, 4,500 animals, and 10,000 daily visitors. When COVID hit, the zoo closed for six weeks. They had to lay off half the staff and quickly establish protocols to care for the animals and grounds.
In order to reopen, Boyd devised employee training that included CDC and Health Department guidelines as well as how to respond to visitors who questioned or violated the new guidelines. “It was A LOT of work and sleepless nights, but it was all critical for the Zoo’s survival,” says Boyd. He has since taken a job as HR Business Partner with Spartan Nash, a grocery distributor and retailer throughout the midwest. Other stops in a long HR career have included Amazon, Advance Auto Parts, and Home Depot. After Green Vale, Boyd attended Pomfret School and Cornell University. “Great times at Green Vale,” says Boyd. “I still speak regularly to Brendan Higgins and Paul Lui. They are going to give me a bunch of grief for this.”
A brand new restaurant opening successfully during COVID? Not impossible. Chef Hunter Wells ’04 opened Hunter Restaurant in East Norwich, NY in November 2020 to great acclaim. In a stunning space designed by Bentel & Bentel of Locust Valley, Wells has created a French-inspired upscale bistro that focuses on classics prepared with French technique and Mediterranean flavors. Hunter Wells ’04, Chef & Restaurateur The COVID environment meant building in safety measures throughout the restaurant, including acrylic table barriers, an outdoor heated tent, MERV filters in the ventilation system, and cross-training of staff to do multiple jobs assuming there would be absences due to quarantines. It’s exactly what diners of the COVID era are looking for: comfortable cuisine, presen ted thoughtfully, in a safe environment. After all, it’s a restaurant with a mission: “To serve and delight guests, by respecting yet transforming high quality ingredients into classic dishes, with integrity.” Hunter is a graduate of the French Culinary Institute in New York City. After Green Vale, Hunter attended Friends Academy and University of South Carolina.
Malcolm D. Boyd ’87, Human Resources Executive
