Recraft a Company to Create a Lifestyle Brand: David Pun ’99
Everyone has a favorite pair of jeans. Whether it’s a worn pair that has seen better days or a designer pair that fits just right, jeans are a personal wardrobe staple. David Pun’s jeans are works of art. He is the enthusiastic chairman and CEO of Evisu, a Japanese lifestyle fashion brand best known for producing jeans with high-quality craftsmanship, vintage buttons and hand-painted details.Six years ago, David was working for a private equity firm and Evisu was one of the portfolio companies. According to David, Evisu was “grossly...
read moreHeaded for Mars, On Schedule
Ryan Sebastian ’06 and Harry O’Hanley ’06 of SpaceX are designing and executing breakthrough aeronautics. Ryan Sebastian and Harry O’Hanley, graduates in the Class of 2006 who were also Class IV roommates in Goodwin, are among the designers, engineers and fabrication specialists working on breakthrough aeronautics at the massive SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California. Ryan and Harry are immersed — for many intense hours every day — in the design and operations of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. Reaching beyond what many...
read moreThe Power of a Posse: Lamont Gordon ’87
Growing up in Washington, D.C., son of a single father, Lamont Gordon ’87 attended seven different schools through eighth grade. Most of his family didn’t graduate from high school; no one had gone to college. When he discovered Milton through a summer enrichment program, boarding school was an unknown concept. Buoyed by an admission brochure and encouragement from his father, Lamont applied and earned a full scholarship. Move-in day was the first time he set foot on Milton’s campus. “Milton was a great opportunity for me, but it was...
read moreMentors: Honest Talk About Teaching
You won’t catch Lydia Thorp walking. If she runs she can get where she needs to be on campus, just barely. Lydia has taught Spanish at Milton since 2010, and she lives in Millet House. Twice each week she also attends classes taught by new Milton faculty members. She sits alongside students taking Spanish III with José Benítez-Meléndez; and she leans on the art tables with students in the Drawing course that Jenny Hughes teaches. Each week Lydia also meets with José and with Jenny separately, so they can talk about what she observed....
read moreEngineering Solutions for a Species in Peril
“Engineering is the future, and young people are primed to learn about it,” says Phoebe Ryles, Milton’s Lower School woodworking teacher. “To design and construct, children have to think through steps and decide what should come next. You just need the right project to launch 8-year-olds into this work.” Inspired by a program on cutting-edge engineering curriculum developed by the Museum of Science, Phoebe leveraged the Grade 3 Monarch butterfly unit. Phoebe charged her students with researching, designing, building and installing a...
read moreThe Moonshot Evangelist: Claire Johnson ’90 Is Steering Google’s Self-Driving Car
On May 28, at the Code Conference in Palos Verdes, California, Google co-founder Sergey Brin revealed a surprise. The tech world already knew that Google has been developing self-driving cars that use laser scanners, cameras, and radars to map nearby terrain, track cars and pedestrians, and even identify construction zones. The vehicles avoid swerving cyclists, stop at traffic lights, and move around Google’s Mountain View neighborhood as naturally as a human-driven SUV. The computer-controlled cars have already logged more than 700,000...
read moreNew Americans Will Power Chicago’s Future, Tonantzin Carmona ’08
In midmorning, the light reflecting off North LaSalle Street’s towering buildings pours into Tonantzin Carmona’s small office in Chicago’s City Hall. Poised and welcoming, Tonantzin clears the Starbucks cup to one side and ignores the steady ping of incoming emails. She looks every bit her age — 24 years. Last April, Mayor Rahm Emanuel named Tonantzin director of his Office of New Americans. While rancorous debate about immigrants surges across the United States, Mayor Emanuel has declared that Chicago “will be the most...
read moreLanding the Viewer Inside the Story, Llewellyn Smith ’72
“I’m attracted to the consequences of big ideas shaping people’s lives,” says Llew Smith, summing up what drives his filmmaking. His film legacy over nearly 35 years shows a diligent historian, a fearless visual artist, a sensitive and ambitious chronicler of identity and experience in the United States. Llew is alternately, or sometimes simultaneously, a writer, director, producer, series editor and “especially rainmaker, if you know what I mean.” Llew “backed into filmmaking,” by seizing a number of serendipitous...
read moreAt the Console, Nick Makes Productions Sing
At the Console, Nick Makes Productions Sing: Ambitious performances push Milton’s sound guru. Nick Mehlman ’16 folds his long body into a seat behind an analog sound board and puts on a headset. It’s Wednesday night at the dress rehearsal of For Colored Girls. In the black box studio down the hall, a student band is warming up. For the first time in a Milton production, the musicians are not seated in the orchestra pit; in King Theatre, the play’s staging and set extends to the far corners of the room, bisecting the audience. How can...
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