  | Selected alumni profiles. | |||||||||||||
Class Acts Profiles
John Creech '41 Rare Plants and Bonsai In 1941 John Creech, a ROTC graduate with a degree in horticulture, was ordered to the First Infantry Division to fight in the North Africa campaign. While on patrol, Creech was captured. He was sent to Poland to the only POW camp for American ground force officers, where the senior American officer directed him to manage the greenhouse. With scant supplies, Creech grew tomatoes and other staples. As a result, some 1,500 American officers on starvation diets were able to survive from 1943 to 1945. Creech was later decorated by the U.S. Army for maintaining the health and morale of his fellow officers. In 1945 Creech was released by the Russians and taken to the USSR. After the war he resumed his studies, earning an M.S. in Horticulture from the University of Massachusetts and a Ph.D. in Botany from the University of Maryland. After graduate school, Creech joined the U.S. Department of Agriculture and led nine collecting expeditions to Nepal, Japan, Siberia, and Yugoslavia in search of plants with economic, medicinal, and ornamental potential. During his notable 35-year career, he climbed Taiwan's Mt. Morrison, the highest mountain between the Americas and the Himalayas. Although his trip coincided with Typhoon Gilda, he collected rare rhododendrons that occur only above 3,000 meters. Creech later became the third director of the National Arboretum in Washington, D.C., where he negotiated the first gift of bonsai to the country for the bicentennial and oversaw construction of the National Bonsai and Penjing Museum. Without his tenacity, the country's most comprehensive facility devoted to bonsai would not exist. After retiring to North Carolina, he became the first director of the University of North Carolina Arboretum. Creech has received every major American horticultural award, plus the British Gold Veitch Memorial Medal. But his most satisfying reward, he says, is that "I helped to put ornamental horticulture into the mainstream." --Maria Caliri '86, M.B.A. '92
Harold "Cap" Smith '53 A Trailblazer In the '40s Cap Smith played pickup games with his grammar school buddies on Rhode Island State's campus. Little did Cap, so called because he was always the team's captain, know that he would become the first African-American to win a football letter at URI. He would distinguish himself on the Meade Stadium gridiron as a dazzling receiver for Hal Kopp's '50, '51, and '52 teams, establishing credentials worthy of induction into URI's Athletic Hall of Fame. As a three-sport letterman at South Kingstown High, Smith caught the eye of principal James Wright '37, who had played football for Frank Keaney. With Wright's encouragement, Smith enrolled at Rhody in1949 and played freshman ball. Kopp, impressed with Smith's speed and great hands, assigned him to the tight end position, where he became a three-year starter and the team's leading receiver. Despite weighing only 167 pounds, Smith was an effective blocker for players like Pat Abbruzzi '55, Rhody's All-American running back. Smith recalls two memorable games during his senior year when the Rams went 7-1 and tied Maine for the Yankee Conference title. One was the 7-6 win over Brown, only the second time in 38 games that the Rams had beaten the Bears. Smith had a great day with a dozen receptions. Equally memorable was the final game of the season against Connecticut, played before a Homecoming crowd of 8,000 fans. Smith caught two touchdown passes to clinch the conference crown in a thrilling 28-25 victory over the Huskies. Now URI's assistant director of campus life, Smith recalls being well received by the community. "I wanted to carry myself with the grace, dignity, and class of baseball's Jackie Robinson and Yale's great running back Levi Jackson. They were my heroes. I knew that I had a major responsibility. URI was a great place for me and a great experience." --Bill Woodward
George Helsens '56 Man's Best Friend With Americans leading longer and healthier lives, retirees often begin second careers when they discover time spent on the links can be tedious after all. It's common to hear about retired military personnel joining the ranks of educators or lawyers learning the rules of accounting. It is also possible, as in George Helsens' case, for former engineers to become puppy raisers. While this may not be a traditional post-career move, Helsens is among a group of individuals who volunteer to raise puppies--mostly Labrador retrievers--for Guide Dogs of America, an organization dedicated to providing guide dogs for the blind and visually impaired in the United States and Canada. Helsens, who earned an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering, became involved with the guide dogs at his wife's and her granddaughter's urging. While Helsens is a self-described animal lover, this new job was a bit of an adjustment. Training a seven-week old puppy that believes its purpose in life is to eat shoes, chase cats, and eat more shoes is a 24-hour-a-day commitment. "You train the puppy to act only on command," says Helsens. "In addition to the basic sit and stay commands, you also have to train the dog to sit before its bowl and eat only when instructed to do so." Since the people who will eventually be assisted by these dogs need them to navigate through their daily routines, the animals must be highly obedient and totally reliable. Helsens raises the dogs for 18 months before giving them to professional trainers who expose them to a broad range of environments, including construction sites, trains, and shopping malls. Helsens admits that the transition is difficult. "You get attached and you cry. But if your dog succeeds, you go to the graduation ceremony and meet the person he'll assist. That makes it all worthwhile." -- Maria V. Caliri '85, M.B.A. '92
Chieu Nguyen '63, M.S. '65 The One and Only Although conflict in Vietnam had been raging for five years in 1959, most Americans were unfamiliar with the country. The U.S. maintained an advisory role only, and six years would pass before the arrival of the first American combat troops. So it is not surprising that many classmates of URI's first Vietnamese student, Chieu Nguyen, assumed he was Chinese. Chieu, who came to America in 1959 through a USAID program, was unaware that he was a pioneer. "When I arrived the foreign student advisor told me that I was the first and only Vietnamese student," he says. But despite language barriers and cultural differences, Chieu assimilated well. "Listening was difficult, but I read English and my American roommate spoke slowly," recalls Chieu, who speaks fondly of URI, where he earned a Bachelor's and a Master's Degree in Electrical Engineering. "Those were formative years of my life. URI impacted me politically, socially, and spiritually." His URI affiliation was integral to his life long after he had graduated and returned to war-torn Vietnam. In 1979 Chieu, his wife, Huong, and their two small children fled Vietnam in a small boat that took them to an Indonesian refugee camp. During their seven-month interment, Chieu was interviewed by a Los Angeles Times reporter. Chieu's URI roommate Mike Counihan, M.S. '69, and one of their professors read the article and promptly contacted Senator Claiborne Pell, who helped bring the Nguyen family to the United States--a process that could have taken three years. In 1980, Chieu joined GPU, Inc., an international provider of energy-related infrastructure and services. He retired 17 years later. Today Chieu, who also has a Ph.D. in Management/Finance from Rutgers, is a financial consultant with Salomon Smith Barney in New Brunswick, N.J. And what of Mike Counihan? "We're great friends and get together often. Actually, he's one of my clients," says Chieu. --Maria V. Caliri '86, M.B.A. '92
Wendy Miller Diamond '73 Flag Fables Before September 11, Wendy Miller Diamond experienced the normal ups and downs of a small business at her Springfield, Mass., company, Flag Fables, Inc. She supervised 30 employees, kept up with growing product demand, and rolled with the seasons. Then everything changed. "People were lined up in the store the next day," Diamond said of the aftermath of the attacks in New York and Washington that inspired immediate displays of the flag all over the country. "We ran out within two days." "We're not making millions selling American flags," she commented in September. "We're kind of overwhelmed by it. We expected a demand, but never anything like this." "Demand has waned a little," Diamond said about a month after the attacks. "But you don't know when it will end." A textiles major, Diamond also studied business in college. In the early years of her marriage, she had risen to become a district manager for the Weathervane clothing stores. She had intended to get back into business once her three daughters were grown, but she didn't expect to own a small business. Then she bought Flag Fables from a friend in 1987. "We were one of the first in the country in the decorative flag business," she said. "In the early to mid-'90s, you couldn't meet the demand." Catalog sales drive the company's revenue, but Internet sales have increased to about 10 percent of the business. "I'm sure that will keep growing," she said. Withstanding 1990s challenges from K-Mart and Wal-Mart, Flag Fables remains a source for high quality, hand appliqued flags. "The key to our success," says Diamond, "is quality and customer service. It's what I learned at URI and in my earliest years of business." To learn more about Flag Fables, Inc., check www.flagfables.com. --John Pantalone '72
Paul Dellegatto '82 Meteorologist As an undergraduate, Paul Dellegatto knew which way the wind was blowing. Transferring to URI for his junior year, he combined a major in geography and marine affairs with communications courses to prepare himself for a childhood dream of being a television weather forecaster. Today, as the lead forecaster at the Fox affiliate in Tampa, Fla., Dellegatto tells people what they can expect each day. He's been there for over 11 years after working for some private companies, a TV station in Portland, Maine, and another in Winston-Salem, N.C. "When I got the job in Winston-Salem I still had a heavy Boston accent," he recalls. "People were asking, 'Who the heck is this guy?' But I took more speech classes and worked on my accent, and eventually they came around." Predicting the weather in Central Florida is complicated. The area has experienced drought conditions that have caused severe fires for the past two years. "Predicting where the rains will fall is usually the most important part of the job," Dellegatto says. "The Tampa Bay area has frequent violent thunderstorms many of which produce hail and even small tornadoes. We are the lightening capital of the United States." Fox 13 has invested heavily in radar and forecasting technology. "I really consider myself lucky to be doing this," Dellegatto says. "I've been fascinated with the weather probably from the time I was 3 years old. I replaced a legend down here, Ray Leep, who was here for 40 years. He was so popular that the station responded by investing in the most powerful Doppler radar available and lots of other technology." Although he took most of his meteorology courses at a college in Vermont, when Dellegatto transferred he was able to get adminstrators to tailor a meteorology minor just for him. "URI worked with me to put a program together that allowed me to pursue my dream," he says. --John Pantalone '72 |
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