Thomas Cargile Earley – 50th Reunion Essay

Thomas Cargile Earley

2331 Creek Drive

Alexandria, Virginia 22308

tearley@agralytica.com

703-981-6004

Spouse(s): Jane Campana Earley (1977)

Child(ren): Caitlin Earley (1981); Nicholas Earley (1983)

Education: London School of Economics & Political Science, MSc. (1974)

National Service: LTJG, US Navy, 70-72

Career: Principal in an agricultural economics consulting firm, originally Abel, Daft & Earley and ultimately Agralytica. Senior Staff Economist at the President’s Council of Economic Advisers (79-80).

Avocations: Men’s Group of 25+ years; hiking & trail maintenance; cycling; photography; wine; Board of US Department of Commerce Federal Credit Union

College: Branford

I grew up in nearby Milford, so I was at least familiar with the Yale Bowl, but we moved to the Boston suburbs in 1962. When it came time to apply to colleges, I had a string of 800 test scores, so I applied to Harvard, Yale and Lehigh, with the latter being my safety school, chosen solely on the basis that a Milford friend’s older brother went there. How times changed, with our kids applying to a dozen when their turn came. Maybe it’s up to 20 or more these days. My teachers were shocked when I chose Yale over Harvard, but it seemed to me that Yale was where one would actually interact with senior faculty, and it was both familiar territory and farther from home.

I was a grateful beneficiary not only of the evolving admissions policy of diversifying the student body with more public-school students, but of a National Merit Scholarship and bursary jobs that made going to Yale financially feasible.

Like many others, I went from being one of the top students in high school to being in the middle of the pack, with so many brilliant guys demonstrating what it really meant to arrive at Yale with superior talents and experience.

What has Yale meant to me? I have been forever appreciative of the broad-based education, the direct contact with engaging professors, and the focus on writing well that I experienced there. Russian studies and the polysci and econ major at Yale got me to the navy’s Officer Candidate School as an intelligence officer, leading to some interesting years in the military. More importantly, Yale prepared me for a productive and meaningful life, and gave me some lifelong friends and, at every reunion, new interesting acquaintances with classmates I never even knew at Yale.

I have been lucky in other ways as well, with a long and interesting marriage to Jane, two healthy and smart kids who value education (even though one of them rejected Yale twice). I also developed a group of close male friends that has been meeting regularly for over 25 years, and both Jane and I have had stable employment in fields we’ve enjoyed. While I am supposedly the private sector person, Jane is the real entrepreneur, moving fluidly among stints in her own consulting firm, as head of an international NGO, and at three government agencies. Although I’ve had to dodge a couple of medical bullets here and there, we’ve both avoided the major illnesses that might have made our lives very different.

Yale today puzzles me with its failure to support the rough and tumble of intellectual and political debate. It feels like the university has lost its bearings in some way as college education has become more of a consumer good than an investment in intellectual capacity. But I treasure what it did for me in decades past and how that experience is still helping as I transition to the post-career phase of life.