JOHN R DINKELSPIEL
From Amherst I went to work tor the Secretary of Defense, working in the military assistance business for 4 years. Deciding that the civil service was not my future, I enrolled in the Government Department at Harvard, where in due course, I received an MA and a PhD. I spent 6 months in Venezuela writing my dissertation on regional economic development. Along the way I married Stephanie Bunzl, a Mt. Holyoke graduate, and we had a son, Karl.
Earl Latham hired me for my first teaching job at Amherst, where I stayed for 4 years before moving to the Boston area and a 3-year stint as head of interdisciplinary studies at Babson College. Finally deciding that academia was not my cup of tea either, I joined the administration of Frank Sargeant, Governor of Massachusetts. I spent 4 years as an Undersecretary of Economic Affairs before moving into the consulting business at Harbridge House, a mid-sized Boston firm. I eventually came to work in the firm's executive education and organizational development business and became a partner in the firm. By this time, I had gotten divorced (with 2 children) and remarried Barbara Burgess, a lawyer and lobbyist for John Hancock Insurance Co.
We settled in the Back Bay of Boston tor 18 years, during which time I moved to a huge Paris-based consulting organization, Cap Gemini. After 5 years of intensive travel and consulting for major corporations, I called it quits and retired in 1997. In 1996 we had moved to a gorgeous ocean· and marsh-facing lot on Seabrook Island outside Charleston, SC. I have since become deeply involved in the arts in the area, as well as currently being president of our local Habitat for Humanity Chapter. Barbara and I are active in a wide variety of local organizations, and I can truly say I have never found life so fulfilling or enjoyable.
John Dinkelspiel
January 23, 2006