Princeton Class of 1961

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Betsy and I spent a fun-filled 4 days at Yellowstone National Park in mid-February. We snowmobiled about 150 miles in 2 days, saw wolves, bison, elk, coyotes, and so forth. The only difficulty was that all the snow Yellowstone gets in December and January came to the east coast in February! The roads at Yellowstone normally have 5 to 7 feet of packed snow (packed down by snow-cats, snowmobiles, etc.). They had about 12 inches! The roads were bare in spots, and that makes for interesting snow-mobiling! We left Baltimore after the 42 inch snowstorm!

We were based at Yellowstone's northern end, Mammoth Hot Springs Lodge, and snowmobiled to Old Faithful, stayed overnight, and then continued around past Yellowstone Lake to the "Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone" to see the huge waterfalls. We continued around and back to Mammoth. 90 miles in one day..

Photos show bison, a couple of us and other sights. Quite an adventure --first time I've ever driven a snowmobile. The snowmobiles are "environmentally sane", in that they have 4 cycle engines, are well muffled, and one is not allowed go off the road in the park. As a result, the animals just ignore the snowmobiles; one group of bison were on the road as we went by (slowly). Our guide said that if anyone was tempted to pat a bison on the butt, don't!!! [grin!]

Best regards, Art Smith (4/5/10)

PS: Betsy and I are doing the Midnight Sun Half and Full Marathon in Alaska in June to raise funds for blood cancer research. To learn more about it, and make a donation, go to http://pages.teamintraining.org/md/anchor10/SamsTeam

I wish that Jaye and I could join you all for the Florida dinner on April 12th, but I will be in Mongolia, the way it looks now. Please give my best to everyone.

During my all too brief Christmas vacation in Florida, Jaye and I had a great evening with Cookie Krongard and his friend, Sheryl Pearlman, at Sheryl's beautiful home in Palm Beach. Wally Philips was also most helpful to my lawyer daughter Janet, who has been an Assistant District Attorney for the City of Philadelphia for the past five years. Of course, we are very proud of what she has accomplished as an ADA. Wally’s resume on Google is quite impressive, by the way. A real crime fighter!

You can put Jaye and me down as intending to come to our 50th.

This is from a recent summer fishing trip to the Russian border region in east, central Mongolia. The river in the background is the Onon, in the heart of Ghenghis Khan territory. It's a truly spectacular place.
As a wonderful recognition of Jaye's and my service to Mongolia while I worked at Khan Bank (2003 - 2007), the bank named six of their annual scholarships "The Jaye and Ben Turnbull Scholarships." We have been awarding some extra cash to the students receiving these scholarships. This picture is from one of the award ceremonies.

The past 12 months have been rather wild for the Mongolian banking system and for me. The global financial storm has hit Mongolia hard, exposing structural fault lines in the banks that were papered over during the good times of easy money and high commodity prices. Right now we are experiencing a little calm but the weakness in several other banks is intense. The World Bank and IMF are attempting to formulate a stabilization and restructure plan in concert with the Government of Mongolia, which should be put forward in a month or so. My new bank, State Bank, should be one important element.

I am attaching a couple of recent interviews I gave to the Mongolian press that gives some detail about what I have been doing. [Click here for interview of 12-11-09 and here for 2-10-10.]

Best regards,

Ben Turnbull
2/23/10

VJ Menna writes: "Lorraine and I attended Mike Iseman's son Tom's wedding this past weekend [8/1/09] where we met John Cogswell who is a good friend of Mike and Joan. John performed the ceremony and did a great job."

Mike fills us in on the details: "Besides the Mennas and Hagstroms, Tom '91 was the groom and Matt '93 was the best man. Tom had lots of his classmates here from across the country---do these guys travel or what?

Tom's bride, Alexandra Becker, is from the Rhineland. She attended the U. of Colorado and is a vice-president at G. K. Baum. (Tom, like his Dad, was wise enough to marry a woman who is smarter than he). The Beckers are a wonderful family with whom we are blessed to share these kids. Tom just moved from The Nature Conservancy to the Western Governors Association where he heads water-policy issues.

By the way, John Cogswell (Yale ’61, and George Brakeley's St. Andrew's classmate and lifelong friend) did a phenomenal job---he is one of a kind, in the very best way!

VJ & Lorraine Menna, Ann & John Cogswell, Norma & Jon Hagstrom

At the risk of info overload: Cookie Krongard, Mike Conway '60 and I just visited Gordy Batcheller '60 in his Franklin, West Virginia "redoubt". A very-mini reunion."

Iseman, Col.Batcheller '60 (USMC Ret.), & Krongard (dressed in his Deliverance best),
considering this barn as a possible headquarters for the next Mini-Reunion

David Hulett's reply to the class secretary on April 24, 2009: Yes I am still at it. I have a small consulting firm that specializes in project cost, schedule risk analysis, and project scheduling. I’ve been working on some gas projects for Petronas, so I have spent a lot of time in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (picture at right was taken from my hotel room). On those jobs I’ve traveled to Borneo, Myanmar, New Delhi and Turkmenistan as well. In Myanmar they don't take credit cards and cell phone connection did not happen. Internet access was so limited I could not get any pages on Yahoo beyond the first page. The people were friendly and honest. Went to a temple and saw many monks. Great Thai food.

Turkmenistan is an ex-Soviet state with a police mentality and suspicion, at least at the official level, of foreigners. Again, no credit cards (bring dollars) cell phones or internet. When we went from Asgabat to Turkmenbashi the police took our passports, and wrote down the names and numbers so they knew where we were. Beautiful new federal buildings in Asgabat financed by revenues from the gas deposits in the Caspian Sea. Many beautiful Russian women. India was crowded and New Delhi bustled with people and all sorts of vehicular transportation. There's a lot of poverty with tent cities and children sharing play space with wild boars rooting around for food. Of course great Indian food. On the way to Turkmenistan we stopped off at Istanbul and visited the mosques, cisterns, and the grand bazaar.

I just got back from Rio where I was a speaker at a conference on oil and gas project risk management, and having talks with Petrobras customers. I have a book on Project Schedule Risk Analysis coming out this summer.

I live in the Brentwood area of Los Angeles with my wife Judie and our dog Truffle (a teacup French poodle). My children are in Phoenix, Chapel Hill, and Durham, and altogether I have 4 grandchildren.

[David has a new book out.]