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What I’m doing now is
sitting in my corner cubicle at work, staring out the
windows at a number of large, white puffy clouds. It’s
Friday afternoon before the long Memorial Day weekend, and
I’m looking forward to this evening’s baseball game in which
the St. Louis Cardinals take on the Kansas City Royals. Oh,
yes, I live in St. Louis. I’ve been here for almost 26
years. For just over 20 of those years, I’ve worked for the
pharmaceutical industry, starting in the Corporate Research
unit of Monsanto, best known (now) for Round-Up herbicide
and genetically modified seeds. Corporate Research was in
the ‘pharma’ part of the company, so I actually began my
career working on a molecule that is important in asthma.
Through a series of mergers and acquisitions, I find myself
today working for Pfizer, the largest pharmaceutical company
on the planet, and soon to become even larger when it
gobbles up Wyeth Pharmaceuticals later this year.
Through my years at the assorted companies here in the
western suburbs of St. Louis, I’ve moved from doing actual
hands-on research in the labs to sitting in front of a
computer all day, researching what other people, and
companies, do. I’m what is known as an information
scientist, tracking down, via the computer, all kinds of
information using the resources the company has purchased
for internal use as well as sources publicly available on
the Web. This work keeps my brain active because, with
budget cuts, I have to be a little creative sometimes in
finding the information that my customers need/want. My
biggest regret, at work, is that the company has, to date,
failed to appreciate what an ‘uncommon woman’ it has at its
beck and call.
I
moved to the mid-west and St. Louis to be a post-doc at
Washington University after I had completed my PhD work in
Biochemistry at the University of New Hampshire in 1983.
Prior to my doctoral work, I labored as a lab tech at the
Boston University Medical Center, a position I found right
out of Mount Holyoke. In fact, I started work the day after
we graduated. No rest for the weary, I guess!
Life in St. Louis is pretty good, except for the summer heat
and humidity. I typically go to about 10-12 baseball games
each season. I’m a big Cardinals fan, but the Red Sox are
still the best. When the Red Sox played in the World Series
here several years ago against the Cards, I rooted for the
Sox, but also wanted the Cards to put up a better fight than
they did. I also enjoy the theater, and have season tickets
to a repertory theatre as well as another theatre group that
brings Broadway touring casts to the city.
To keep in shape, I ride my bicycle along a bike path near
my house each morning before work during the summer months.
The path circles around a small lake and through wooded
areas. I typically see several deer on my travels.
However, I really don’t have to venture out of my yard to
see deer. They frequently shuffle into my subdivision from
their homes in the nearby woods, to munch on my flowers and
the vegetables in my garden. I’ve been veggie gardening
since our MHC days, and I’ve grown many a tasty tomato over
the years, if I do say so!
I
enjoy adventurous vacations: I’ve taken a train ride across
Canada from coast to coast, ending up in Vancouver where I
visited with a classmate, Kitty Lord. During a trip to
England, I sampled train travel along several routes out of
London, returning each night to the city. I’ve kayaked in
Hawaii, Alaska, Ixtapa, Mexico, and the island of Dominica,
as well as Missouri and Maine. Snorkeling is another
activity I’ve tried at various vacation locations. A hot air
balloon ride over the St. Louis suburbs was one more
thrilling adventure that I’ve completed, as was a helicopter
flight to a glacier. Flying high in the sky strapped onto a
parasail gliding over the water is yet an additional fun
sport I’ve pursued on several occasions during my travels.
I have cruised through the Panama Canal, and around the
Hawaiian Islands as well as the British Isles. This fall I’m
looking forward to cruising to Norway, Iceland, and
Greenland en route to New York from London.
For the past five years, it has been my privilege to serve
as your class treasurer, and, assuming that the incoming
slate of class officers is approved during our reunion, I
look forward to serving for another five years. |
