The Pre-Made Podcast

When I started the Amherst College part of this podcast, I wanted to capture the stories of my 1994 classmates who’ve navigated big pivots in their lives. Few stories embody that better than David Young. He joined me from Mozambique, where he and his husband make their home. David’s career has taken him from Amherst’s ROTC program to the Air Force JAG Corps, then into a remarkable 20-year run with...

Since our freshman year in Morrow (“Psycho Ward”), Zack Henry has built a life that’s taken him across the globe. He’s lived on four continents, worked on six, and led projects ranging from energy dialogues in Saudi Arabia to business development in New York and São Paulo. But at the heart of his story is something simpler and deeper: a belief in what he calls “the hidden pass.” Borrowed from socc...

Thirty years ago, a Boston Globe classified ad launched Jessica Smith into a career at Harvard, where she built bespoke instruments and launched them on NASA’s converted U-2 aircraft, flying at 70,000 feet to read the chemistry of our stratosphere. In this conversation, she traces the improbable path from Amherst’s machine shop to equipping these delicate high fliers for experiments over the Arcti...

Erin Cowhey is an Amherst College classmate and architect whose profession is awfully interesting its own right, but it interests me more than ever now that my daughter works as an interior designer. Erin runs her own firm in Brooklyn but wasn't always destined for the field. She enrolled at Amherst with every intention to go pre-med before pivoting to architecture. In this episode, she talks abou...

Brian Clark transferred into our Amherst Class of 1994 having emerged from a childhood marked by instability and deep family pain. Today he serves as Director of Partnerships in Technology at the Spiritual Life Center in Hartford, where he helps others find healing through faith, psychology, and honest self-examination. Brian talks about growing up in a home dominated by an abusive father, the mom...

On September 17, a 19th century warehouse located in Red Hook, Brooklyn, went up in flames, resulting in a five-alarm response that was unable to spare Justin Neely's art studio home of over 12 years. He's facing the loss of every painting he has ever made, photographs that chronicle his life, computer equipment, and a treasured collection of sports jerseys. In this episode, Justin demonstrates re...

Jason Spero is going through a lot of change. His father recently passed away following a years-long battle with Alzheimer's. His youngest child is in the back half of her high school years, and after nearly two decades helping to build Google’s mobile advertising business, he is stepping away from a big job to chart a new path, one shaped by family, community, and the lessons of mortality and los...

I published this episode about getting into college with my friend and former Amherst College Associate Dean of Admissions Will Dix (Amherst '77) a few years ago, but it has aged well. As teens and their parents explore and apply to colleges, I wanted to share it once again. It covers most of the major considerations: how to select colleges for application, the importance and pitfalls of campus to...

It's time to catch up with my Amherst College birthday twin, Evan Wollen. While many of us left Amherst still unsure of what was next, Evan’s path was shaped by a love of history and a calling to service. He went on to spend more than 22 years in the U.S. Army, leading combat units in Iraq, teaching history at West Point, and running the ROTC program at Claremont McKenna. One of the most powerful...

What do 1990s college radio, Richard Scarry's picture books, and complex spine surgery have in common? They’re all part of JC Leveque's journey. Today he’s the Section Head of Neurosurgery at Virginia Mason in Seattle, but his path included years on the road with his Amherst-born band Rosemary Caine, the decision to, as he put it, “step off the bus” before med school, and a career built around mak...

When you think of Amherst football in the early ’90s, you probably remember linebacker Jordan Hayslip, a four-year starter and anchor of the defense. But Jordan was much more than a gifted athlete. An English and Fine Arts double major, today he describes himself as a teacher, coach, and maker. I call him a Renaissance man who has woven together art, athletics, and community in ways that feel deep...

My favorite podcast episodes of all-time tend to feature friends, family, teammates, classmates, and others who love each other. Their warmth comes through every time. Every episode I publish is precious to me, but I love this one in particular because of the deep affection and respect that emerges between a beloved teacher and one of his former students. Classmate Ben Batory sits down with Amhers...

Alisa Pincus is in the 22nd year of a five-year plan to live in Sydney, Australia. After starting her legal career in New York, a blind date changed her trajectory, leading her to Australia, a global role with Nielsen, and extensive travel across the Asia Pacific region. In this episode, Alisa reflects on the ways being an expat has shaped her perspective on America, Australia, and herself. She al...

Curiosity and challenge have propelled Abbie Raikes ever since she left the stage at Amherst College in 1994 with her diploma in hand and launched her career in public service just five days later. Abbie describes the moves she’s made, from Nebraska to Paris and back again, as a series of deliberate choices to get closer to big, tough, important problems. She’s now tackling early childhood develop...

Pete Lalor, a bariatric surgeon and medical director in Ohio, launched from Amherst College to Ireland to the hockey rinks of Holland—but today we find him leading a surgical weight loss program. A former student-athlete, Pete shares how his performance mentality evolved from athletics into medicine, and why he remains a student of psychology even decades after majoring in it at Amherst. Pete open...

Jane Rohde Bowers grew up both overseas and in the Pioneer Valley, with parents who graduated from Amherst College and Mount Holyoke. She also had a front-row seat to international public health via her father’s career. A self-described “beach gal” who dreamed of marine biology, she instead found herself pulled into anthropology at Amherst and later, public health herself. Today, Jane is a Health...

Adam Bonin’s voice, passion for politics, and Philadelphia sports devotion certainly will sound familiar to his Amherst classmates, but his post-college path has been anything but predictable. Adam takes us through his early certainty that law was his calling, the disillusionment he experienced practicing corporate law, and the path he carved into political law and election work. We hear how a car...

When I think of people who’ve allowed life’s serendipities to shape their course, Toby King comes immediately to mind. In this episode, he walks me through a zigzagging journey that began with a keg behind the geology building before his freshman year at Amherst College even started and took him to UNC Asheville, where he's Associate Professor and Chair of Music and, starting this fall, the chair...

Early on in this project, a close friend told me that he hoped I'd interview Ana-Claire Meyer. Now I know why. Take a listen, and you will, too. AC's professional and personal journeys are marked by curiosity, humility, and an eagerness to tackle big problems. After graduating from Amherst College, she held a variety of different jobs, but HIV test counseling piqued her interest enough to propel h...

Maki Uchiyama grew up as an only child in upstate New York, where her family’s Japanese restaurant functioned as both a business and a fourth member of the household. The experience left her with a certain set of skills—versatility, the ability to multitask, customer diplomacy, and, of course, how to cook. After graduating from Amherst College in 1994 with a degree in political science, Maki joine...

Sean Gibbon lives a dual life. He has one foot planted firmly on the squash court, where he teaches the game, and the other in the imaginative realm of fiction writing. In this episode, we explore Sean’s journey from Amherst to professional squash coach, or what he playfully refers to as a talking ball machine. By that, he means the way he coaches towards experiencing the game fully versus prepari...

It's time to catch up with Dr. Bob “Buck” Tashjian, a leading orthopedic surgeon and researcher specializing in shoulder and elbow surgery at the University of Utah. Buck’s journey to medicine was anything but linear. Despite achieving academic and athletic excellence at Amherst College, he faced a major setback when he was initially rejected from all the medical schools he applied to. What follow...

Ed Castillo’s post-Amherst path might be one of the most uniquely purposeful stories you’ll hear from our classmates. In this episode, we follow his journey from a philosophy major at Amherst to advertising Chief Strategy Officer - and registering and acting as a foreign agent. He may not drive an Aston Martin and pack a Walther PPK, but the man loves words and has a very spicey take on reading th...

Nate Smith's post-Amherst journey literally reads like an epic. At the age of 26, he got in his car after work one day at the school where he had been teaching and kept on driving, never to return to the job. Instead, he embarked on a life-changing, sometimes harrowing road trip all the way from Maryland to Central America, living out of his car and taking odd jobs to survive. His journey reached...

Brian Schactman in many ways has become the voice of Connecticut. As a co-host of a morning radio talk show, he travels the state to meet residents of interest and explore the topics that animate the 169 towns and cities that call Connecticut home. Having listened to his stuff, I can tell you that he's awfully good at what he does. Thankfully, streaming makes it possible for anyone to listen to hi...