Alumni Magazine - Fall 2008 - (Page 7) FEEDBACK est gifts of $25, followed by bumps to $50, then $100 and so on. It was important to me then, and it is now, that I was in the game, no matter how modest. I liked to get the little card acknowledging the gift, with the notice in the corner indicating the number of consecutive years. I appreciated the sense of belonging, even with scant knowledge and awareness of how the funds were used or what the true impact of the aggregated small gifts could be. Over the years, I found that the annual gift to Roll Call had become a habit. It was similar to the reaction of seeing the little box of weekly envelopes from the church sitting on my desk with my financial papers. The annual habit and the weekly habit. If I plot the curve of my 38 years of support to Roll Call, there are some interesting points of inflection along the way. My brother Paul, the youngest of the nine children, followed me by 16 years and got out in ’86. My own professional career intersected with the Institute twice. The first occurred in 1987 when I negotiated an agreement on behalf of my employer, Emory University, for a collaborative research center with Georgia Tech, the beginnings of the now wildly successful joint department of biomedical engineering. And then when I served as founding president of the Georgia Research Alliance beginning in 1990, I really began to understand the role of private philanthropy on the Institute. Then my own two sons began to move through the continuum of playing touch football in their gold-andwhite jerseys at tailgate parties in the fall to considering where they should attend college themselves. I knew that I wanted Georgia Tech to be there for them and to be better in every way than it was when I attended. And I wanted to invest in Georgia Tech as part of my investment in them. It worked and now Hayes, Mgt 05, and David, Mgt 07, are out in the real world as productive citizens. Roll Call is all about giving Georgia Tech the strategic advantage of having a pool of unrestricted gifts. Bright students can matriculate due to need-based scholarships, including the highly innovative G. Wayne Clough Georgia Tech Promise Program. Entire research teams can be recruited from top institutions by the war chest provided to the president. A bold new initiative like Technology Square can be developed by having one of the most envied unrestrictedfund balances in American public higher education. All of this is possible on the backs of seemingly insignificant $25 contributions right out of school that grow over time with greater knowledge and increasing engagement and become a habit. We are all extraordinarily grateful for those generous alumni who have their names on buildings, chairs and endowed scholarships. But the sum of all of the small, annual gifts that grow in size over time is truly what sets Georgia Tech apart. GT Still Lost Reading the story about David Perry’s lost ring (GEORGIA TECH ALUMNI MAGAZINE, Summer 2008) reminded me of my class ring’s efforts over many years to escape to the place where lost things go. During the Korean War in 1951, I wore a new pair of combat boots down to a river to walk around in the water to break them in. The cold, muddy water served as a lubricant, and as a result, the ring slipped off into 8 to 10 inches of opaque water. Unsuccessful at finding it myself, when a little Korean boy appeared, I offered him $2 GI to find the ring. As this was a large sum to him, he enthusiastically found it in about 10 minutes. In 1958 while crossing the Atlantic on the Isle de France, I was swimming laps in the large indoor swimming pool when my class ring and wedding ring slipped off. Using Fred Lanoue’s hand bubble over one eye, I located and retrieved both rings from about a 6-foot depth. Traveling in the Libyan desert in 1966, I put my two rings in the button-down pocket of my cotton shirt while working on a Land Rover engine. As the cool night approached, I changed into a woolen shirt and threw the cotton shirt containing the rings into a tent. Despite an intensive search the next day, I could not find them, and we had to ease on down the road. Several months later, my wife and I drove to the lost ring site. I found the exact location and raked the heavy, dense sand. The large area resem- bled a well-manicured golf course sand trap before I gave up. Three strikes are out, and my class ring finally disappeared with its companion forever. Al McCarthy, IE 50 Humble, Texas Best Ever Thanks for the best ever edition of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE (Summer 2008). I have read every word of every article. This is the first time I have ever done that for any publication. Every article was so interesting and so well written that I couldn’t put it down. Keep up the good work, and go Jackets! Bob Eskew, IE 49, MS IE 55 Austell, Ga. In Appreciation Thank you for all of your hard work on the ALUMNI MAGAZINE. You have little idea how rewarding it is for us grads far from Atlanta to be able to keep up with Tech happenings via the ALUMNI MAGAZINE, Tech Topics and BUZZwords. You really do make a difference. Cecil H. Jackson Jr., IM 71 Tampa, Fla. Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine • Fall 2008 7
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