CLUBS & MEMBERS: GROUND BREAKERS

Edited by Louis Marroquin.

ALL TOGETHER NOW
Talk about a sweet deal. When Krispy Kreme Doughnut Corp. set out to find a new home in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, company CEO Scott Livengood wanted the venture to be more than just a site for corporate quarters. The result is Unity Place, a unique urban development that joins Krispy Kreme with the North Carolina School of the Arts (NCSA), the city of Winston-Salem, and three Piedmont Club members. Club members Livengood, NCSA chancellor Wade Hobgood, and Mayor Allen Joines were key players in the vision of Unity Place, an $87 million multidestination. The project will include Krispy Kreme’s corporate offices, a performing arts complex, multiplex theater, and upscale retail, office, and residential space. Phase one of the development is set to open in the spring of 2005. "My favorite part is that it is a unique mixed-use project that incorporates living, working, and entertainment all in one site," Joines says. "It also will reuse an older commercial area that could have become a blighted area." Krispy Kreme’s 100,000-square-foot office complex, constructed in the guise of a neoclassical school-like brick structure, will symbolize the company’s commitment to learning. Livengood, a lifelong Winston-Salem resident, wanted Krispy Kreme’s move to a new neighborhood "to be very special for the entire community — and accomplish it in a way that would be symbolic of the city’s commitment to progress," he told a crowd gathered on the day of the Unity Place announcement. Says Hobgood, "The idea of combining corporate living with other partners as part of a private, nonprofit development is sure to catch on. We are coming together for a common purpose — never was there a sense of greed by any of the players." Certainly Unity Place has remained true to its name. — Helen Bond
Photography by Black Horse Studio.

SPIRIT LEADERS
Auctioneers Dick and Sharon Friel, members of Seattle’s Columbia Tower Club, are giving charity auctions an energy boost by keeping the first commandment of these time-honored events: Thou shalt not bore! The Friel gospel has helped more than 2,500 charities raise more than $250 million for hospitals, schools, and other charitable causes, including the Washington Wines Festival benefiting the Yakima Valley Farm Worker’s Clinic and held annually at the Columbia Tower Club. "With only 25 percent of those attending a charity auction actually buying, you have to keep the other 75 percent entertained," Dick Friel explains. "From the moment those ballroom doors swing open, guests have to be wowed." By day, Friel is senior vice president of sales and marketing for Aviation Partners Inc. By night, he and Sharon don their finest party clothes and become what they call "auctiontainers." Says Friel, whose work on behalf of charity has been a lifelong passion: "It’s a hobby gone berserk." At a Friel-guided auction, guests enjoy a Las Vegas-style show with concert quality sound, one-of-a-kind gifts, artists painting the auctions in progress, skilled photographers creating an atmosphere of glamour with each camera flash, and a variety of exciting surprises. With the Friels’ help, the grande dame of charity events is feeling more energetic than ever. — Kristine Christlieb
Photography by Team Photographic.

PERSONALLY PICKED
It wasn’t easy for David Bejarano to give up his position as San Diego’s first Latino chief of police. But when one is handpicked by the president of the United States to serve as U.S. Marshal for the southern district of California, it would be even more difficult not to accept. "I am honored and humbled and really never expected to reach this level in my career," says Bejarano, a member of the University Club Atop Symphony Towers in San Diego. The veteran of nearly 25 years in law enforcement says he was inspired in this arena at an early age. "Growing up on the lower income south side of El Paso, Texas," he says, "I saw a great deal of police and fire department activity and knew I wanted to work in some aspect of this field one day." He attributes his success to creating a "road map" for his life early and referring to it frequently, but keeping the emphasis on doing a good job each day. Bejarano spends at least three or four nights a week speaking to community groups and often tells his audience, "Moving forward is something that comes naturally if you work hard at the steps along the way." — Debra Coudert Sweeney
Photography by Tim Mantoani.

EYES OF TEXAS ARE UPON THEM
Four key members of the University of Texas at Austin athletic department have much more in common than belonging to The University of Texas Club in Austin. They all — head coaches Mack Brown, Jody Conradt, and Rick Barnes, and men’s athletics director DeLoss Dodds — agree on the meaning of success and how to achieve it.

"I think the overriding trait shared by all three coaches is they really care about [their players], and they’re great teachers," says Dodds, athletics director since 1981. "I think those two things allow them to be tremendously successful."

Brown says he and his football coaching staff are in the entertainment business on game days and in the business of education the other six days of the week. "That is a key ingredient to the development of all of the student-athletes in our program," explains Brown, whose teams have won at least nine games and played in a bowl game each of his five seasons in Austin. "Our No. 1 goal for our team is to play up to our level of ability and expectations. If we do that, we’ve had a successful season."

Fielding another national title contender this year, Brown has high expectations, as does Conradt for her women’s basketball team, a national semifinalist in the NCAA Tournament last year. Although, the member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame will be focused on different results than most fans when the season begins in November. "To attain championships and a certain number of wins is not the best measure of success, year in and year out," says Conradt, who has won a national championship and more than 700 games during her 27 seasons at UT. "Those are the ‘measuring sticks’ by which the outside world judges your program. That said, our Longhorns team this season does have the potential to win championships; yet, as a coach, you are never disappointed if your team plays to the best of its ability."

The men’s basketball team reached the Final Four last season (for the first time since 1947), and to Barnes the reason was a simple one. "There are two things that go hand-in-hand: hard work and player development," explains Barnes, who has guided the Longhorns to the NCAA basketball playoffs each of his five seasons. "I’ve always said this program is about the players. You put the players first and everything else falls into place in every way." — Steve Wilson

KEEP IT PERSONAL
As an executive career consultant, John Schreitmueller believes in keeping things personal. Large firms often enlist group seminars to allow employees a forum to discuss issues such as changes in employment situations, relocation, difficult reporting relationships, and facing a climate of downsizing, re-engineering, and cost-cutting initiatives. "But that doesn’t work for a half-million-dollar-a-year executive," says Schreitmueller, a member of Buckhead Club in Atlanta with more than 15 years consultant experience. So he recently founded Resolute Consulting Group to personally address the career transition, work/life, and leadership consulting needs of "significantly compensated professionals, executives, and leaders." Says Schreitmueller, whose background includes roles as partner and senior vice president at an executive search firm and a consulting firm, "These executives want very intense interaction with an individual who is qualified, as opposed to an outplacement office or to be handed off to a bunch of second stringers. That doesn’t meet their needs." The Atlanta-based company has clients in major markets including Boston, New York, Washington, D.C., Dallas, London, and Zurich, but considers other sites as well. "This [service] gives a person an opportunity to sit with the door closed and share with another senior executive who has been pretty much where they have been," says Schreitmueller, who, in his quest to keep things personal, facilitates all the sessions himself. — Louis Marroquin
Photography by Emmett Martin.

PIPE UP
When Raymond Lavine and his wife, Barbara Hammerman, began searching for a home in tune with their love of music, they never imagined how grand it could get. The acoustically perfect music room in their new home came with a theater pipe organ around which the house was designed. With more than 3,700 pipes up to 17 feet long, the "Fox Special" is one of five manufactured by Wurlitzer Organ Company in the 1920s, and is one of the largest home theater pipe organ installations in the nation. The couple enjoys hosting musicians, including world-renowned organists, in their "Wurlitzer Room," whose acoustics enhance the organ’s sound like the movie palaces of the past. "We feel like stewards of this wonderful organ and house," says Lavine, a member of Seattle’s Columbia Tower Club. No matter that the Lavines don’t play, a Uniflex software program records and replays the organ’s tunes. Its collection includes hundreds of songs, from 17th century classics to Broadway hits. "When people hear it, they clap, dance, get tears in their eyes," Lavine says. "The response brings joy because music touches our emotions." — Mary Sue Lawrence
Photography by Thomas Barwick.

AN ACTIVE MIND
As a renowned expert on Alzheimer’s disease, Dr. Sam Gandy is driven by an intense curiosity, a "competitive personality," and a personal connection to the disease that plagues about 4 million Americans. His grandmother "was senile and institutionalized for the last 15 years of her life," says Gandy, a member of the Pyramid Club in Philadelphia. As director of Philadelphia’s Farber Institute for Neurosciences at Thomas Jefferson University, Gandy works to unlock the mystery of the mind-robbing disease. The multidisciplinary facility was founded in 2001 with the generous $10 million donation of fellow Pyramid Club member Jack Farber, through the Farber Family Foundation. Gandy says "enormous" progress over the last two decades holds promise for understanding the cause of Alzheimer’s disease, marked by the abnormal build up of plaque, called amyloid, which muffles nerve signals and causes brain cells to rust. "For the first time in the history of medicine, we are able to form models of the disease based on hard facts," he says. As the population ages, Alzheimer rates increase, but Gandy believes the disease isn’t an inevitable act of aging. "The single, available thing that people can do is to keep their minds active," he says. "Many studies show that keeping your brain mentally active can stave off the disease." — Helen Bond
Photography by Anthony B. Wood.

LEARN TO LISTEN
As a premier educator and leader in the field of counseling, Michael Altekruse has earned no shortage of personal accolades and awards. Now, U.S. News & World Report has given him another reason to be proud. For the sixth straight year, the magazine has ranked the Altekruse-led Department of Counseling, Development, and Higher Education at the University of North Texas in Denton as one of the top 20 counselor education programs in the nation. Altekruse, chair of the department since 1995 and a member of Oakmont Country Club in Corinth, Texas, credits the No. 18 ranking in the magazine’s annual "Best Graduate Schools" issue to the number of highly recognized leaders and authors on his 13-member faculty and the nationwide success of the program’s doctoral students. But certainly much of the credit belongs to Altekruse, whose innovations have included pioneering accreditation work and starting UNT’s first fully Web-based course, a class on ethics that also is offered on CD-ROM. "You can sit home and drink a beer and take my course," Altekruse says, laughing. The program, which has 330 master’s degree and 50 doctoral students, also received a perfect accreditation score last year from the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs. His formula for success, he says, is simple. "I listen to people. That’s part of my training." — Janet Mefferd
Photography by Lisa Means.

YOUNG GUN
Wyoming’s long winters were good to 14-year-old Clint Bowles. Faced with lengthy spells of cold weather, Clint and his father, Jim, would take to their garage to play a little tennis. Thanks to those wintry diversions, Clint now plays on better courts and enjoys his ranking by the U.S. Tennis Association as one of the top junior singles and doubles tennis players in the nation. "He’s a very good athlete," says Jim, a former Division I college tennis player and high school tennis coach. "Whatever he gets interested in, he just enjoys practicing that task until he becomes proficient in it." Two years ago, Jim moved his family to sunny Florida, where they joined Hunter’s Green Country Club in Tampa, and enrolled Clint at Saddlebrook Preparatory School, a school for young athletes. Soon thereafter, Clint beat the top-ranked juniors player of the previous year at the National 14 and Under Clay Court Championships in Fort Lauderdale and went on to attain the No. 1 juniors ranking in Florida and the No. 7 ranking nationally. Now playing only national-level tournaments, Clint will move up to the 16-year-old division in November. Someday, he says, he hopes to turn professional. But the real question is: How does he stack up against his dad on the court? "As of about six months ago, he started beating me on a regular basis," Jim says. "That was the happiest day of my life." — Janet Mefferd
Photography by Christopher Stickney.

FOLLOW THE LEADER
As the first woman elected as House Democratic Leader, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi has broken through a political barrier. But Pelosi, a member of the San Francisco Tennis Club, puts the emphasis more on "leader" than on "woman." Says Pelosi, "I didn’t ask anyone to vote for me because I’m a woman. And I hope no one voted against me because I’m a woman. I ran on my credentials, my experience, and my leadership ability." That experience includes serving for 15 years in the House of Representatives, representing California’s 8th Congressional District (which includes most of San Francisco). She also served as House Democratic Whip for one year, working on the party’s legislative strategy. In her first year as the highest-ranking woman in the 214-year history of the U.S. Congress, Pelosi has made the "safety and soundness" of the American people her top priorities — sometimes ruffling Republican feathers with her opinions and passion. "My priorities as House Democratic Leader are keeping our homeland safe from the threat of terrorism and making our economy prosperous." But ultimately, she says, there are three major issues facing Congress: "Our children, our children, our children," she enthuses. "We have an obligation to all of our children and grandchildren to make the world a better place." As a mother of five and grandmother of five more, Pelosi clearly has a vested interest in making her time in office count. — Louis Marroquin
Photography by AP Photo/Susan Walsh.

MISSION TO WRITE
Rummaging through a closet at his Aunt Mame’s apartment when he was 13, Tom Foley unburied a portal to the past and a goal for his future. There in a shoebox was a collection of letters, newspaper clippings, and journals that had once belonged to Father Francis M. Craft, a missionary priest who lived among the Sioux Indians in the late 19th century, fought in the battle of Wounded Knee, and died in the arms of Foley’s father, one of Craft’s parishioners. "I was too young when I got these papers to know what to do with them, except that I was fascinated by them and I kept them," says Foley, now 71, a member of Ravinia Club & Spa in Atlanta. Fifty-eight years after his discovery and 12 years in the writing, Foley has published a biography, Father Francis M. Craft, Missionary to the Sioux, based on years of research. As Foley describes him, Craft was "hero and villain, soldier and statesman, doctor, journalist, priest and prophet, a visionary and an eccentric crank, and an eastern white man who became an Indian chief." Foley says he always knew his youthful discovery would one day become a book. "It was such a fortuitous thing that I ended up with his papers," he says. "I was the only guy in the world to have them. It would boggle my mind sometimes." — Louis Marroquin
Photography by Emmett Martin.

STEPS OF PROGRESS
Dr. John Stehlin has always been a man ahead of his time. As the founder of the Stehlin Foundation for Cancer Research in Houston, the surgical oncologist pioneered the concept of treating the patient rather than the cancer alone. "There is an enormous difference, and it’s something we’re really proud of," says Stehlin, a member at the University Club of Houston. The Foundation relies on "tri-partnership," a joining of the patient, doctor, and research scientist in the shared fight against cancer. Though small with limited financial resources, the Foundation continues to lead the way in cancer research, including recent clinical trials that indicate great promise in treating pancreatic cancer. The organization also was among the first to advocate breast-conserving treatment nearly 30 years ago, and is credited with improving treatment for advanced melanomas of the extremities. "I’m excited about the potential of developing an immune mechanism that causes the cancer to fight itself," Stehlin says. "There are so many areas where we’re getting closer. We’re making progress that I didn’t know I would live to see." — Mary Sue Lawrence
Photography by Pam Francis.

DOWN TO BUSINESS
"The time had come," Kathy April-Barr says about becoming the first female president in 15 years of the Chicago chapter of the National Black MBA Association. April-Barr beat out a male opponent in the first contested election in 13 years for the nonprofit organization, which is dedicated to educational and economic growth for the African-American community. After heading almost every committee of the chapter (at 850-plus members, it’s the second largest in the country), she says she "finally got the hardest job in the organization, but that’s the one I wanted." April-Barr, a 13-year professional recruiter and a member of the Plaza Club in Chicago, balances her new post with her work for a diversity consulting firm named The Stump. She credits her mom with pushing her into business courses in high school and college. "But once I got into it, the more I knew, the more I wanted to know." That tenacious quality serves her well; six months into her two-year term as president, she says the Chicago chapter has already become more visible, with better name recognition and more media attention. "This association is pregnant with possibilities," April-Barr says. "There are so many ways in which we can move from mediocrity to excellence. I’m excited to be the chapter’s new navigator." — Mary Sue Lawrence
Photography by Rich Foreman.

ReMember
As reported in the July/August 2002 issue of Private Clubs, Rena Pederson’s book What’s Next? helped women discover their "next step" by looking to the lives of successful women — famous and not-so-famous — who redefined themselves in midlife. The member of Aspen Glen Club in Carbondale, Colorado, took her own next step by engaging another group of women in a conversation on the nature of faith. The result is the book What’s Missing? designed to help readers discover the role and importance of faith in their lives. Pederson interviewed a variety of women, including first lady Laura Bush and journalist Diane Sawyer, who reveal how faith in its many forms helped them withstand life’s pitfalls and emerge happier, healthier, and stronger. When she’s not writing books, Pederson is editor at large at the Dallas Morning News. She has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and currently serves on the Pulitzer Prize board of directors. Pederson’s journalism also has been published in many magazines and newspapers, and Texas Monthly once named her among the "Most Powerful Women in Texas." Visit www.renapederson.com for more information. — Patricia Baldwin
Photography by Steven G. Smith.

MAGIC MOMENTS

RECOGNITION
Robert H. Dedman, the late founder of ClubCorp, has been named a 2003 Ambassador of Golf by Northern Ohio Golf Charities. The award is presented each year to a person or persons "who have fostered the ideals of the game on an international level and whose concern for others extends beyond the golf course."

CHARITIES
For the second year, Tampa Palms Golf & Country Club in Tampa, Florida, presented a breast cancer golf tournament. This year’s event raised more than $16,000, bringing the two-year total to almost $27,000 to benefit the American Cancer Society. The event drew 124 golfers and strong support from community businesses and employee partners.

GOLF
Sean Wilson of Lakeway Golf Club in Austin, Texas, has been named "Central Texas Golf Course Superintendent of the Year." He received the honor at the annual North/South matches. Wilson oversees the maintenance of the Live Oak Course (site for the recent PGA Champions Tour qualifying) and the Yaupon Course. He also recently completed the five-year golf course superintendent certification program. … Randy Reznicek, a member of Shadowridge Country Club in Vista, California, made an impact when he played in the 2003 U.S. Senior Open. He shot his first ever hole-in-one. Reznicek, a former pro who regained his amateur status, used a 7-iron to ace the 172-yard 12th hole during the first round of competition. ... Eric Alpenfels, director of golf and instruction at Pinehurst, was selected by Golf Magazine as one of the Top 100 Teachers in America.

RESORTS
The Holly, the elegant 77-room, eight-suite inn at Pinehurst in the Village of Pinehurst, has earned its first Four Diamond rating from AAA. In addition, The Carolina has earned a Four Diamond rating for the 21st year. The hotel has the longest accommodations winning record in the awards program’s history.

ON LOCATION
Two Associate Clubs have been the sites for the shooting of film and television productions recently. Las Colinas Country Club in Irving, Texas, was the site for location shooting for Birdie and Bogey, an independent film starring Mike Norris, Janine Turner, and Sheree Wilson, and produced by Walker, Texas Ranger star Chuck Norris, a member at Braemar Country Club in Tarzana, California. Birdie & Bogey is the story of a pro golfer, his 12-year-old daughter Birdie, and their bond through the love of golf. Treesdale Golf & Country Club near Pittsburgh served as the backdrop in scenes shot for the popular soap opera The Young & the Restless.