Dale Parker Riehl

FAVORITE MEMORIES OF WILLIAMS

My favorite memory of Prof Bob Gaudino, the most amazing mind and best teacher I’ve ever experienced in life, isn’t mine. Instead, it’s the memory related by my good friend and classmate James Mathieu. James was a WCFM DJ whose weekday show ended at midnight. During his walk back to Tyler House, he was frequently tempted to stroll by “guru-ji’s” but was always afraid to, for fear that he’d peer through the living room window and find Prof Gaudino levitating as he prepared for the next day of class! Of course, my truly favorite memory was the year treasure trove provided by Williams-in-India.

WILLIAMS CLUBS / ACTIVITIES

Gargoyle; Williams-in-India; WMS-WCFM, chief engineer, producer, DJ, news-reader; Band; Record photographer

CURRENT INTERESTS, PASSIONS, AND ORGANIZATIONS

Greatest passion is traveling with my wife of 44 years—and seeing her each day. Slightly intruding on that passion: my apparent devotion to Williams as I continue on into my sixth year as Williams Club director, and to our one-year-old Maine Coon cat, whom we find fascinating. Chaya is our first pet, named after Pansy Chaya Ghosh, the wonderful (but sadly departed) host for my Calcutta stay. My current Wms work follows more than a decade on the Williams Club board of governors and two terms as a Gaudino Fund trustee—12+ yrs.

LIFE SINCE GRADUATION

Over the years since Williams, I’ve learned that I get bored too quickly, with perhaps too great a need to try something new, or a compulsion to come up with new ways to do things. This frequent lack of sustained effort hasn’t always served me well, but, well, that’s simply been the case.

My illustrations: I created a NYC representative office for program development and marketing for the Miami PBS station, and was responsible for creating the first commercial-TV series for cable (Warner/QUBE) by a public TV station, the Weekly Business Report. As an advisor to the Japanese ad agency Dentsu, I inaugurated the annual Newport Jazz specials for public TV. I conceived of and produced the only US-based longitudinal documentary series, Married in America, by feature director Michael Apted, famous for the Up series and many other shows and films.

During my TV/media-consulting and producing years, I was responsible for bringing Captain Kangaroo from CBS to PBS, and for making the institutional marriage that brought the famed all-female Takarazuka troupe from Japan to Radio City. Then there was the pleasure of consulting for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which charged me with bringing them innovative ways to relate to television. My work gave them a way to produce scripts for the Hallmark Hall of Fame, pioneer a health-care category for the Peabody Awards, and engage an entire TV network in a week-long consideration of dying.

There were the years working with my wife Cathy’s inspired business, the City Quilter. This retail shop for quilters became the best known destination quilt shop in the world. I so enjoyed our impact on literally thousands who learned to quilt in our classroom. My two accomplishments there: convincing Cathy to deploy her amazing skills to develop New York–themed fabrics. Then for Grand Central Terminal’s centenary, we produced four GCT fabrics and launched a Grand Central quilt competition in association with the industry’s largest circulation magazine. And we established the first quilt art gallery in Manhattan. All the quilt industry work was fun and rewarding, and gave me many opportunities to be something of a P.T. Barnum of the quilt world.

After we closed the City Quilter, I became director of the Williams Club in NYC, where I have two genuine pleasures: first, I get to act as a Williams impresario, coming up with ways to serve the Williams community by leveraging the fabulous talent and background of Williams alumni and faculty. Second, what a delight to speak daily with exceptionally smart and exceptionally nice individuals. Mixed in with Ephs are alums of schools like Bowdoin, Middlebury, Wellesley . . . but naturally there is a very special and instantaneous connection with fellow Ephs.

Of course, I have the initiatives yet to be acted on: NIMBY TV and As Others See Us, a Bob Gaudino-inspired concept.