Mar/Apr 2014

Dave Tufaro e-writes: “I have now been in Baltimore since 1973, following graduate school and taking my first permanent job here. I have three daughters: Theresa, age 33, who lives in NYC and works for Scholastic handling their marketing in Latin America; Jennifer, age 30, who works with me in the development business; and Christina, 26, who lives in DC and works for Total Wine, the Walmart of wine sales in the US. We were just in NYC this past weekend to watch Theresa run the NY Marathon (3 hrs, 20 min).

“My development company, Terra Nova Ventures, LLC, is focused on major historic rehabilitation projects in Baltimore. We are a very small operation in people terms—just three of us, a woman who worked with me for a long time in various business iterations, and my daughter, Jennifer. We are just completing an historic adaptive reuse project, of a group of former cotton mill buildings in the middle of Baltimore into a large mixed-use project of apartments, offices, and restaurants. It is called Mill No. 1 (www.millno1.com). It is located just three miles from my house, so it makes life much more pleasant than when I was developing projects throughout the mid-Atlantic region. It has been fun working with my daughter. She just had a baby six months ago (our first grandchild), and is able to bring her to work, which is a real treat for me. Things got hectic while she was on maternity leave. We are going to do a similar historic rehab on the next former cotton mill upstream from Mill No. 1 (currently a porn distribution warehouse, which makes for intriguing due diligence).

“I really enjoy what I do and the people I work with, including our team of many consultants for these projects—architects, historic, construction, and financial consultants—and the work is very challenging and rewarding. So I have no immediate plans to retire.

“I named my company, Terra Nova Ventures, after my father’s home town in Italy, Terra Nova di Polino, located in the province of Potenza in southern Italy. My wife, Sharon, and I went to visit Terra Nova for the first time last year. It was wonderful. A typical small hill town, off the beaten track. Although we have no close relatives in the town today (but Tufaro is the most common family name in the town of 1,500 people), we were well received in our two-day stay.

“I do stay in touch with a couple of classmates in Baltimore, Bill Caltrider and Woody Collins. And my wife is friends with Dave Hutcheon’s wife. Dave is a highly regarded doctor at Hopkins. I am planning to attend our 45th reunion in May 2014.” (Scribe’s note: Good idea!)

A short note from Jonathan Mills: “After two final years teaching at Fairfield Country Day, I am happily retired on Lemon Bay and in the Thousand Islands with Mary Jo.”

Eric Johnson passed away in September in Pelican Bay, Florida. Woody Collins wrote: “Eric was one of our roommates (Bill Scranton, Walt Cummings, Dick Ebersol). Extremely talented with a quick wit and a smile. We spent many a night carousing and generally having a good time, sometimes too good. Eric went to work at P&G where he polished his brand management skills. He was recruited by Heinz to run their juice business. He went on to start his own business in Latin America, importing fruit juices. Eric struggled with cancer for 16 months, although talking to him you would never know. Very brave and a loving husband and father. I will miss him.” Eric leaves his wife, Paula, and a son and daughter.

Richard Funke has passed away. From the Chicago Tribune: “Dick Funke, dog lover, recreational pilot, do-it-yourself man (stubborn but always right), impatient driver, and despiser of anything eggplant, passed away on November 11.… [He] obtained his MBA at the University of Chicago. He was both practical and idealistic which was reflected in his leadership of his municipal bond company.… His insatiable curiosity for new challenges led him to great heights and while he was often a bit of a challenge himself, he was deeply loved by all who knew him.… Known for occasionally dancing like an Egyptian, impersonating a wide-mouthed frog, or giving out casual ‘pinchadoodies,’ he was a man that lived and preached his own motto: ‘Some people get the joke and some people just don’t.’… ‘Suck it up,’ he would always say. Understand that there is so much life to live and Dick did a wonderful job of living it right up to the end. He never gave up, and he certainly inspired his friends and family to do the same.” Dick leaves six children and two grandchildren.

Rives Chalmers passed away on November 16. After Yale, where he was a member of the track team, he received his MD from Emory and then joined the air force as a flight surgeon. After the air force, he practiced orthopedics for 31 years at Los Gatos (California) Community Hospital. In 1998, he was named chief of staff, and in 2012 he was elected president of the Santa Clara Medical Association. He participated in many missionary trips to Mexico as the team doctor to support building houses for the poor. He was a passionate aviator, he owned 31 motorcycles during his lifetime, he completed two marathons, and conquered four mountains in the Death Ride bike race in Lake Tahoe, California, at age 62. He is survived by his wife, Ann Jernigan Chalmers, three children, and two grandchildren (from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution obituary).

“Who we are won’t mean a lot a hundred years from now; it’s what we leave behind.”—Mike Turner (New York Times, 7/30/07).