COA In the Nation’s Capital

Lynn Boulger and I are in Washington, DC on a whirlwind tour of the nation’s capital, meeting and greeting and making friends and getting people excited to make investments in our beloved institution. As you might imagine, DC is a real hotspot for alumni given all the public sector and non-profit work here.

Old Glory on Independence Avenue

Just to give you an idea of the schedule we’ve subjected ourselves to, here was yesterday:

7:00, wake and eat breakfast

9:00, visit Mitch Rales – Seal Harbor resident – at Glenstone, an art/gallery and organization in Potomac, Maryland

11:00, visit Bob Kogod – another Seal Harbor resident and supporter of the College – at his office in Crystal City, a part of the DC-Metro region that he and his colleagues built in the 1980s.

1:00, lunch with the Newlins and Shoreys (COA board members) at the Cosmos Club (this happens to be where The Wilderness Act was signed into law in 1964.

5:00, drinks with Nat Keller, COA alumnus from 2004

7:30, dinner with COA alumna Congresswoman Chellie Pingree at her home on Capitol Hill

11:30, sleep very soundly in room 367 of the Cosmos Club

It sounds like lot of white space — there’s not. Useful? Successful? Most definitely. Highlight? – hearing COA alumni – no matter from 1979 or 2004 – become so excited and enthralled by remembering the past and imagining the future of COA.

Today (Tuesday) and tomorrow will be filled with the same but will also include a large alumni-donor-prospective student event held in the Ansel Adams room at The Wilderness Society. Back in Bar Harbor late Wednesday night.

More pictures after the break