I want to start by thanking Michael Hauser for producing this website. For reasons I’ll explain later, I never got involved with social media (except for LinkedIn). This website is wonderful. Thank you, Michael.

After graduating from LHS, I went to Rutgers (Cook College, now known as the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences), where I happened to get a degree in biology while I was majoring in fraternity (and meeting my wife, Nancy).

When I was a sophomore, a friend of a friend got into the Navy flight program. I thought that only academy grads got to go to flight school. I applied to the program, was accepted, and immediately upon graduation went to Pensacola to earn my commission in a program (AOCS) then run by the United States Marine Corps. After commissioning, I went to flight school and flew helicopters in the fleet.

Nancy and I lived together on Guam, where I was stationed for three years. I went to sea three times. By the time I was 26, I was an aircraft commander, functional check pilot, and was qualified to sign for weapons (I know, 26?!, I’m still shaking my head).

While on Guam, the Soviet Union imploded, and I volunteered for recruiting duty to get back to a major city in the States, figuring the Navy would downsize (it did). I asked for Los Angeles, San Diego, Dallas, Atlanta, and Miami. I was given orders to New Jersey. I flew in the back of a cargo plane all the way from Guam to Washington DC to argue with the guy who gave me my orders (after five years of not experiencing a winter, I did not want to go back). He apologized, but said, “You’re from New Jersey, you don’t think anybody who’s not from New Jersey is asking to go there, do you?

On my way to New Jersey, I phoned my new boss to say hello. She said, “I’m so glad you called, I have something for you to think about. We need a new minority officer recruiter, it’s not a job for everybody, let me know if you want it.” No better way to get off on the right foot than to take a problem off your boss’s hand, so I immediately told her that I would take the job. It was a most consequential decision.

When I arrived at Navy Recruiting District, New Jersey, I introduced myself around and met a fellow aviator named Tony Cato. He asked me what my new job was, and I told him “minority officer recruiter”. He responded, “I guess you were the best they could do.” Tony is Black; he was there temporarily finishing his MBA at Rutgers. I responded, “Thanks a lot, Tony.” He apologized, then asked, “Would you like my help?” I gratefully accepted.

We spent a lot of time in the car going to different meetings. We talked about our lives. Tony grew up in the projects in Baltimore, went to the Naval Academy, and was a helicopter pilot. As we became friends, he also told me about ways he had been discriminated against. My initial reaction was, “Oh, come on, Tony, it was a one-time thing – they didn’t mean it that way – are you sure you’re not misunderstanding the situation?”

One day, we were discussing what we liked to do in the car when we were bored. These were the days of AM/FM/cassette. Tony told me he had speeches of Martin Luther King on cassette tapes in the trunk of his car, and especially if he was feeling a little down, he would pop in a tape.

It struck me at that moment that I had missed an awful lot in life. Not only that, my blind spots were so privileged that I thought I could deny a guy I deeply respected his own personal experiences. It was a humbling revelation.

I left the Navy and went into publishing. I sold ad space for Aviation Week, then Fortune magazine. Nancy and I commuted to New York, and we bought our first house in New Brunswick. I left corporate America in 1993 and started my own company. I sold ad space for other publications, then started my own website, leveraging what I learned from my minority officer recruiting experience called “DiversityInc”. Heard of DEI? Your classmate invented it in 1997.

We started collecting data to determine a “Top 50“ list. It caught on with corporate America, and we were successful. I published a monthly magazine for almost 10 years – but I knew the magazine industry was over when I bought my first iPhone. I successfully converted my business to a data collection and benchmarking company. My unique data made me a popular guy with people who wanted a competitive advantage in talent. I met with hundreds of CEOs and was an advisor to four military service chiefs (required a TS/SCI clearance which, in combination with the death threats from being a diversity leader, caused me to eschew social media).

Over time, we moved to Bridgewater, Hopewell, then to Princeton where we lived for 15 years. Nancy and I adopted two girls from China. Nancy is adopted, and three of my brother-in-laws are adopted. As our youngest pointed out to me when she was about five, “Daddy, you’re the only one around here who’s not adopted.” Having a biracial family was also eye-opening, but Princeton was a great environment for all of us.

In 2013, I had a stroke. I had no pre-existing conditions. I was flying myself to business meetings, and my bag was packed ready for me to fly myself to St. Louis. It was almost two months in the hospital before I saw my suitcase again. I am partially paralyzed on my left side because the hospital that treated me was malfeasant. It took me a few years to crawl out of the wreckage, mentally.

Here’s the public service portion of this column – review stroke symptoms. If you or someone near you is having trouble speaking, can’t lift their arms evenly, having problems walking or with their vision, call 911. Also, do a web search for “stroke hospital“ or “trauma center“. Make sure the ambulance takes you (or the person you’re caring for) to a hospital with one or both of those qualifications. The hospital I went to was a low-quality community hospital that had no business operating an emergency room. Bad hospitals get away with taking your insurance money and having an “emergency room” despite not having a staffed MRI machine or an on-staff neurologist or cardiologist because there are no laws protecting us from people who have no business running a hospital. I won’t name the hospital because it was ten years ago and the management is different.

Nancy and I have devoted our philanthropy to helping under-resourced young people find a path to higher education. We’ve helped educate literally thousands of people. I was a trustee of one historically Black college and two universities, including my alma mater. I was also named a distinguished alumnus of Rutgers— without a doubt, the worst student ever to be in the Hall of Distinguished Alumni.

We moved to Palm Beach about 10 years ago because the stroke left me incapable of living in cold weather. We sold our Palm Beach house last year, rented a condo, and bought a house in Santa Barbara, California. We also still have a house in Sea Girt and see Vinny (LHS77) and Suzanne Tufariello who also have a house there. Vinny and I had not seen each other in decades, but he’s still the great guy we knew at LHS.

As you might imagine, my business was destroyed by the current administration’s anti-DEI activism— we lost 90% of our sales. Fortunately, artificial intelligence has given me the ability to crunch data in ways that were basically impossible just two years ago. We have mathematically proven the synergistic effect of inclusion initiatives— that benefit every single person in a corporation effectively managed. I am hoping for a business comeback. We’ll see.

On a personal note, my family is doing well; my girls are successful young women – our oldest is going to earn the first post graduate degree in our family’s history from NYU. Our youngest is a junior at USC in LA. I’m most proud of their kind and generous nature. They are truly nice people to be around. Nancy and I have been together for over 40 years.

On another personal note, our classmate, Ken Gillberg, came out of the closet to me when we were both in college. He called me and said, “I don’t know how you’re going to take this, but…” Because we were close friends, I already kinda knew, but orientation wasn’t something that people talked about openly in 1979. Except for Nancy, Ken is my closest friend, he’s kind, caring, generous and more courageous than most people. His mom is alive and well, lives close to us and we all go out to dinner when Ken’s in town. It’s weird in a wonderful way to see her – she really hasn’t changed and is as smart as ever.

Plus, Ken nominated me to write this Spotlight; I will get even with him.

For more information on signs and symptoms of strokes, visit Signs and Symptoms of Stroke | Stroke | CDC

For amore information the Rutgers Future Scholars program, visit Home – Rutgers Future Scholars Program