Gift advances faculty excellence, honors the department’s 50th anniversary

Daniel Sabbah ’74, ’78 (MS), ’82 (PhD), former chief technology officer and general manager of IBM Cloud and Next Gen Computing, has committed $2 million to establish the 50th Anniversary Distinguished Professorship in Computer Science. This endowed gift will help the Hajim School’s recognize, attract, and advance faculty excellence in teaching and research.

“We are incredibly grateful to Danny for his vision, partnership, and history of generosity,” says Wendi Heinzelman, dean of the . “This gift honors the computer science department’s 50 year legacy of excellence, creates a vital pathway to support our faculty, and aligns with the University’s . Its impact will certainly be felt for generations, building on the department’s strengths in artificial intelligence, systems, theory, and human-computer interaction.”

“My career depended on the skills and knowledge I gained at Rochester and, now, I am in a position where I can help facilitate opportunities for others, especially those who have or will build careers in computer science,” says Sabbah. “I’m honored to play a role in the development of the department and the people within it.”

This is the third endowed gift from Sabbah, a mathematics major who also earned his master’s degree and a PhD in computer science from Rochester. In 2019, he established the Sabbah Family Endowment Award, a bequest that will provide seed funding to faculty conducting the most promising research across the School of Arts & Sciences. In 2015, he created the Endowed Fund for Data Science. Additionally, he has provided vital current-use funding to support the strategic initiatives and immediate needs of the Hajim School.

Adds Michael Scott, the Arthur Gould Yates Professor of Engineering and chair of the computer science department, “Danny’s gift will significantly enhance our already strong undergraduate and graduate programs and will empower our faculty scholars and researchers. Their expertise and dedication have been the driving force behind our department’s 50 years of innovation and achievements.”

Entrepreneur Yohay Wakabayashi ’10, ’11S (MS) shares some of his favorite things to do in one of the world’s top destinations for culture and cuisine.

Tomohiro Ohsumi/AP images for the Ģ����ý (Wakabayashi); courtesy of Maison Rococo (food)

This chemical engineering major and MBA gives her all to her family, workplace, and alma mater

The phrase “family first” means a lot to Abby Zabrodsky ’14, ’19S (MBA). After nine years working at a large consumer products company in Buffalo, NY, she joined Advanced Manufacturing Technology, Inc. as its director of business development. In 1989, Abby’s father, John Zabrodsky ’82 founded the firm, an engineering and manufacturing systems company that employs about 20 people, including Abby’s mother, Kristy, who has been the company’s chief financial officer since 2013.

For Abby, deciding to join the family business was a bit like coming home.

“Being a small company, everyone knows each other really well,” she says, who lives in Buffalo and works a hybrid schedule. “There’s a lot of built-in trust, which is such an asset.” This strong foundation is aided by the fact that Abby and her father operate in a similar way and are both Ģ����ý-educated engineers. Working together with her mother, Abby adds, is an extension of their shared history.

Throughout her career, Abby has been dedicated to helping people and organizations thrive. This is evident in the workplace and as a volunteer leader. Since the Women’s Network launch in 2020, she’s been the cochair of its personal and professional development committee. She’s also a member of the University’s Alumni Board; a mentor within ; a Reunion volunteer; a member of the George Eastman Circle, the University’s leadership annual giving society; a champion for  and a former member of the Young Alumni Council. In 2022, she and her father jointly earned the University’s John N. Wilder Award for their commitment to the University and in 2022, she was given the Department of Chemical Engineering’s Young Alumni Award. Abby is also actively involved in her community, for instance, as the president of the ProZoo Board of the Buffalo Zoo.

Here, Abby talks about her career, University experience, volunteer activities, and what makes her run.

What do you enjoy most about working at Advanced Manufacturing Technology, Inc.?

I’m grateful I can apply my engineering experience and business school knowledge to the family business. I’m early in my career here and, right now, I’m getting up to speed on the business. I consider myself lucky. Not many children get to work—or maybe even want to work—with their parents, but I do. It’s a unique extension of our time together.

Why did you choose Rochester for two degrees?

When I was growing up, my dad talked about Rochester all the time. So, when it came time to look at colleges, it was top of my list. I knew I could get a chemical engineering degree, run varsity track, and join clubs and groups, even be part of a sorority here. The undergraduate experience was more cooperative than competitive. Classes were hard and running was always challenging but those beside you were always cheering you on.

A few years into my engineering career, I decided to get an MBA, to round out my engineering and technical knowledge with deeper business acumen. Deciding on the University’s was another easy choice. Its rigorous yet flexible weekend-based —which wasn’t too far from where I lived and worked in Buffalo—was ideally suited to me. I could continue working, apply what I was learning every day, and even participate in some very distinctive learning experiences, such as weeklong courses in China and Switzerland.

Why sign on as co-chair of the Women’s Network?

When Kathy Waller ’80, ’83S (MBA)—with whom I had worked on the network’s personal and professional networking committee—asked me to step up, I was ecstatic. Being with women who encourage other women, hearing from people who have faced similar life challenges, and building connections—it’s all been so important in my life and career. I’m excited to serve and support the people who benefit from the network’s programs and community.

Tell us more about mentorship and why it is important to you.

My parents have been great mentors for different and similar reasons. My dad is one because we’ve taken similar steps as engineers, runners, and Ģ����ý board members. My mom always worked and took care of my sister and me yet always found time to be on boards that mattered to her. Their example has led me to be an active volunteer and prompted me to do such things as become a mentor within The Meliora Collective’s mentorship program.

What do you do when you aren’t volunteering?

I still run three or four times a week, just not competitively. I spin, too. I love an active lifestyle—it’s my release and what I need to do to reset my mood and clear my head. My husband, Ken Gilbert ’14—whom I met at Rochester—is active, too, and we love to travel together. No matter what, I always have my head in a book—in print or an audio version. I especially like books about sports and overcoming challenges.

We asked three alumni who graduated in different generations to provide their perspectives on optics, education, and the future.

The study of light has a profound impact on everyday life, especially for these three Institute of Optics alumni

Optics is all about light: how it’s propagated, generated, and detected. It’s small, it’s lightweight, and nothing in the world moves faster. It plays a central role in our daily lives, too, without most of us knowing it.

The applications are vast—from entertainment to science to medicine and beyond—and its impact is huge. But meeting the growing demand for optics professionals is a challenge. “Because nearly everything is powered by optics, the field is growing at an incredible rate,” says Tom Brown, director of the University’s Institute of Optics and the Mercer Brugler Distinguished Teaching Professor. “And, right now, there just aren’t enough knowledgeable, skilled, and trained scholars, researchers, engineers, and technicians out there. We—and the world—need more of them.”

A recent gift from Ģ����ý life trustee James C. Wyant ’67 (MS), ’69 (PhD), ’21 (Honorary) and his wife, Tammy Wyant, will help meet this demand. This fall, the couple established a $12 million, 10-year professorship challenge that will help the institute increase its faculty by 50 percent, graduate the next generation of optics professionals, and help the institute grow its preeminent status.

What fascinates you about optics?

CG: It’s everywhere. Many people assume I’m an optician or that I do something related to eye glasses. I want people to know that optics is all this and more. My work actually has to do with the semiconductor industry, a field that has broad applications related to energy, manufacturing, transportation, and medicine. There’s so much potential with optics because, look around, everything is based on light and visuals. The challenge is to maximize practically unlimited potential. Think about it: optics plays a key role in everything from building self-driving cars to studying and understanding diseases to creating clean water systems for developing countries.

BM: Its broad application. When I came to the Institute of Optics in 1967, I was excited to see how optics was at the foundation and the intersection of many fields. As a graduate student, I was part of an ecosystem that inspired us to make a difference, to become entrepreneurs, and to solve real world problems. I was in a very distinctive cohort.

AV: Its potential. When I joined MCC six years ago, the optical technology program had just five students. Today, we have 115. The program is growing but doesn’t graduate enough students to meet the regional and global demand for highly skilled optics technicians. I encourage anyone who is curious about our program to look into it. It attracts all types. For instance, I was at a fundraiser recently and met a DJ who is also an auto mechanic and a woodworker. I told him about this program, he came for a tour, and now he is enrolled as a student.

Favorite optics class?

CG: Optics 101 with Professor Tom Brown. Within a few weeks, I was all in—drawn to the field, the faculty, the institute, my cohort, everything. I also really enjoyed my geometric optics class with Professor Julie Bentley—she’s an icon in the field, a lens design expert, and a role model for all, especially for women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).

BM: Professor Bob Hopkins’ optics design courses 240 and 241. Those classes showed me that what I was learning could immediately relate to something practical. Professor Hopkins became my role model and mentor.

AV: My first introductory optics class with Professor Turan Erdogan. He is the reason I am in this career. He had this remarkable way of distilling complex topics down in a way that I understood and that inspired me.

Pivotal college experience?

CG: There are many, including being a Handler Scholar. I wouldn’t have been able to attend the University without it—I owe so much to the Handler community. I’m also very proud of my involvement with Industrial Associates, an all-day event in the fall and spring that immerses students in research, lectures, and discussions with optics professionals as well as a career fair. It’s all come full circle, too—I got my first internship from an IA event, and today I work for that company, and I attend IA events as a recruiter.

BM: I don’t have just one. The whole experience as a graduate student and then later as an assistant professor and manager of an optical fabrication and testing facility at the institute were important parts of my professional development. Each step in my education and career helped lead to the next one.

AV: I did an honors research project with Dr. Tom Foster at the Medical Center, which showed me how much optics can do to serve the medical industry. I also had two summer internships at Corning. And, my PhD work with Professor Tom Brown was instrumental in laying the foundation for my career. These experiences introduced me to faculty, peers, business professionals, and friends with whom I still interact regularly.

What would surprise people to know about you?

CG: A lot of people tell me I don’t “look North African.” I want to break down stereotypes like this, especially as a woman in science from a developing country. It also surprises people to know I speak four languages. In Tunisia, we all learn Arabic, French, and English. I also taught myself Turkish by watching television.

BM: Many people are surprised by my activity in optics because I have only one eye. I lost my left eye in an accident when I was three years old. More often than not, people assume I had an accident with an optical laser, but that is not the case.

AV: I’ve played the violin since I was 5 years old. I was part of a number of musical groups in college and, up until the pandemic, still played in one of those ensembles. Another thing that surprises people: I have Pi memorized up to 82 digits.

What did you want to be when you grew up?

CG: When I was in middle school, I saw the movie Iron Man. I wanted to have a helmet and a lab just like Tony Stark’s, the lead character. As an optics professional, I’ve gotten pretty close to realizing that dream. A lot of my peers were inspired by that movie, too.

BM: My father was in business, and I knew from a young age that I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I still do. At 77 years old, I continue to work, and I don’t plan to retire. I love what I do.

AV: A kindergarten teacher. Teaching has always interested me, which is why I’m doing what I do today.

Proudest achievement?

CG: Graduating from the Institute of Optics. I made it through the pandemic with a degree in optical engineering from of the best—if not the best—schools in the world for it.

BM: Many people assume my proudest achievement is earning an Academy Certificate from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1999. I received that for developing the optical technology that made special effects possible in such movies as Return of the Jedi and Indiana Jones. Although that was a great honor, I have made the maximum contribution at the intersection between optics and life sciences. For instance, my companies developed the first laser film image recorder for medical imaging, protein and DNA analysis instrumentation, cell and gene therapy products, and blood-testing technology for AIDS and cancer patients.

AV: My family. My husband and three kids inspire me every day. So does my brother, Joe Spilman, who took my lead and graduated from the institute in 2003. Today, he’s the president of Optimax, a local optics company. Professionally, I’m proud of the students at MCC. It’s incredibly rewarding to see them thrive. Many of them have changed their lives through this program.

What motivates you?

CG: I love challenges and being in a fast-paced environment, and I want to be an entrepreneur someday. Today, I get to walk in the footsteps of the institute’s legends, which is incredibly inspiring.

BM: I get excited about solving problems. I often tell people that you go to school to learn how to learn. Once you’ve learned that, there is no science and no challenge beyond your capabilities.

AV: Knowing that the program at MCC can change lives, benefit our community, and affect the industry overall. It’s inspiring to get calls from local businesses and from Google, Microsoft, and Amazon alike—they all want and need our graduates. The Rochester area has been, and continues to be, such a great place for optics.

Economist Svenja Gudell ’03, ’11S (PhD) helps consumers make sense of strange times in both markets.

I researched the US housing market at Zillow for just over 10 years, and since last December I’ve been doing the same for the global labor market at Indeed. We live in incredibly interesting times. It’s fascinating for me to be able to see the data, analyze what’s going on—and because at both Zillow and Indeed, the research is geared to consumers rather than economists—I hope provide some insights that are helpful to people.

Housing is an incredibly fundamental need of all of us, and right now the market is, for lack of a better word, nutty. The major trend which has been persistent for years is that the supply of housing is incredibly tight. There aren’t a whole lot of houses available, particularly at the lower end of the cost spectrum. So the competition among buyers is fierce. Sellers are collecting multiple offers and bidding wars are happening that are leading people to go over budget and wave contingencies that ideally they’d want to keep.

In a housing market as tight as what we have, there are going to be some groups at a great disadvantage. Not everyone can take a Thursday afternoon off, look at a bunch of homes, and then say, “Oh, it’s going $200,000 over asking; sure, we can match that.” That makes it very hard for an average buyer to be competitive.

One reason for the housing shortage is that large demographic shifts are pushing more and more consumers into the housing market. Millennials are becoming homeowners and Gen Z, also an incredibly large generation, is entering the market. Since the end of the Great Recession, partly because of these demographic tailwinds, the bottom end of the market has been appreciating faster than the top end.

At the same time, we’ve underbuilt for years. The Great Recession brought on a lasting labor shortage in construction. A lot of people switched out of housing construction. Builders have had a pretty hard time building more, and it really comes down to the L’s: labor is really expensive, land is really expensive, and lumber is incredibly expensive.

The result is that often the math only makes sense for the luxury side of the market, where builders are able to get the return they want. That’s true in the rental market as well. Most of the multifamily construction has been luxury units. So there’s been a shortage at the bottom end of the rental market, and appreciation has been incredibly high.

Federal housing policies have usually supported the demand side through assistance, but the problem now is supply, and that’s harder to fix. A huge tool in the chest is at the local level, through zoning. We need to use it more often to make it easier to build. And to make it cheaper to build.

The labor market is just as nutty as the housing market. After a few decades in which there weren’t enough jobs, we now have an extreme mismatch between supply and demand in which, if every unemployed person were to take a job, there would still be jobs left unfilled. Labor force participation went way down during the pandemic, and while it has come up quite a bit, it’s still down from what it was. I think this is a time of truly fundamental change. People are evaluating what they want from their jobs and what’s important to them. Sometimes they find that they already are in a great job; but the quit rate is extremely high right now—much higher than it’s ever been in recent history. And the turnover has been particularly at the lower end of the market.

For people like new college graduates who are entering the job and housing markets at the same time, the situation is mixed. There are more remote offerings for entry-level hires from employers in the most expensive markets. But many of those jobs are also hybrid, which means you’re still expected to show up in the office during some part of the week.

Some large companies have been setting up satellite offices, so if you want to work at Facebook, you don’t need to show up in San Francisco or Menlo Park. That approach has a lot of benefits for companies, because they’re going to bring more diversity to their applicant pool if they’re able to hire people from different areas.

I do think that remote work will have some interesting side effects in the housing market. For example, I’m a full-time remote worker. I could move back to Rochester, where my cost of living would surely be lower than it is in Seattle. I have coworkers who’ve made those types of moves. Is this just happening on the periphery? Or is there going to be a larger swath of people who can really drive a new trend? I think it’s too soon to tell.

A noted conductor hopes to improve music education for young people in the Twin Cities, one beer at a time.

When it comes to sharing a love for music, orchestra conductor William Eddins ’83E, ’86E (MM) is putting his money where his mouth is. And he’s hoping beer aficionados in the Twin Cities will put some of their money into an effort to help a community share music.

Eddins, whose résumé as a conductor includes a 10-year position at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as well as guest and visiting roles throughout the United States, is opening a brewery in St. Paul, with some of the proceeds going to provide musical education and instruments for the young people in the area who otherwise would have little access to such resources.

Named MetroNOME (the acronym stands for “nurture outstanding music education”), the brewery is set for a grand opening in June. Established by Eddins and business partner Matt Engstrom, both home brewers, the business includes a tap room and rental space and a digital and audio production facility that will be available for creating content focused on music education.

“We want to make sure that every kid in this area who wants to have music in their lives has the opportunity to do just that,” he says.

As a student at Eastman, Eddins turned to conducting as a sophomore. Until then he had been focused on piano, a solo pursuit he began at age 5. Because 18th- and 19th-century music forms the core of Western orchestral repertoire, that meant there were no keyboard orchestral parts in Brahms or any other classical composer he had studied and appreciated growing up.

He considered conducting just another “tool in my toolkit” for years until “an epiphany moment” in the late 1980s. He was practicing with an orchestra (“who shall remain nameless,” he says), doing readings of mid-century American music, when he found himself not being able to follow the conductor.

“I was so mad,” he recalls. “I was furious. All I wanted to know was where we were, and the conductor was not being a help at all. I said, ‘Nope, Bill, you’re going back into conducting. You’re not going to let your friends and colleagues go through their entire musical careers without seeing at least one clear downbeat.’ That’s an exact quote.”

During the 2021–22 academic year, he is serving as visiting director of orchestras and conductor of the symphony orchestra at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Before that he served as music director of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra from 2005 until 2017, which led to a career highlight at Carnegie Hall in May 2012.

A frequent guest conductor of major orchestras throughout the world, Eddins regularly conducts the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with soloist Wynton Marsalis and has collaborated with notable artists such as Renée Fleming ’83E (MM), Yo-Yo Ma, and Itzhak Perlman. He served as resident conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from 1997 to 2003

“Conducting is about trying to make the many, one,” he says. “You have 80 or 90 or however many people on stage, and we all have to have the same understanding of what is going on at any particular moment. And that’s difficult.”

“My father was a philosopher and he’d say, ‘If you’d like two different opinions, ask a philosopher. And my standard line is, ‘If you’d like five different opinions, ask three musicians.’”

He also credits an Eastman course on ethnomusicology taught by Ellen Koskoff with introducing him to the music of India, China, and the Pacific. “This course changed my life,” he says.

As a child brought up on classical, jazz, and rock, what he heard in the classroom broadened his understanding of how different musical concepts are reflective of the societies they come from—and what that understanding means for human connection on a global scale.

He sees the new socially focused brewery as an extension of his efforts to help create that kind of connection.

“Music teaches all these abstract things—to listen, to play together, to be with other people from other backgrounds,” he says. “It just expands our understanding of who we are as human beings, of who others are in other cultures.”

When will Eddins consider the start-up a success?

“When we have to open up MetroNOME 2 in some other city and start the whole funding process over again there,” he says. “I really hope it comes to that point.”

These farmers and life partners talk about creativity, sustainability, and seasonal wisdom

Emma Rainwater ’11 and Naomi Salama ’08 run Rainwater Farms in Honeoye Falls, N.Y., a small farm where they grow fruits and vegetables and make wood crafts from materials on their land. The couple lives there with their two-year-old daughter, Norah, a flock of chickens, a rooster named Rex, two dogs named Barley and Crook, and an array of deer, rabbits, and other visitors from the neighboring woods.

Seasonal wisdom

During the planting and harvesting season, each day begins with a walk. “A 20-minute walk gives me time to notice the weeds that need tending, bugs that are about to take over a crop, plants that need special attention, and equipment that needs fixing,” says Rainwater, who dedicates 100 percent of her time to the farm. Salama is a house-call veterinarian during the day and a farmer during her off-hours.

Rainwater and Salama believe in seasonal wisdom. This means creating healthy food on healthy soil for a healthy community. It also means being aware of and doing what they can to lessen their ecological impact.

For instance, they use push-behind cultivators and rely on a tractor for moving compost and growing their vegetables in permanent, raised beds. They also use their fields in rotation, allowing beds to go fallow, a practice that restores the beds’ fertility and healthy microbes. The couple has earned Certified Naturally Grown farm status, too, a recognition given by peer farms that endorses their commitment to conscious, sustainable practices.

The early days

Salama grew up with a healthy respect for her mother’s vegetable patch, helping to harvest fresh tomatoes and zucchini by the bushel and distributing the excess throughout the neighborhood.

Rainwater’s father loved gardening—a passion she discovered later as part of Rochester’s Center for Community Engagement. That’s when she became involved with the Westside Farmers Market. She also worked on a farm for two years when she was an AmeriCorps volunteer.

College roots

As a first-year student, Salama founded the Sledgehammers, Rochester’s first women’s rugby team. Rainwater′s close friends joined the team, and she and Salama hung out as friends in Anderson, in the unofficial “rugby suite.” After graduation, they reconnected and started dating.

Although Rainwater’s career took a non-linear path, Salama, an ecology and environmental biology major, stayed true to her course. After Rochester, she earned her veterinary degree from Cornell University, where she and Rainwater lived for a year, homesteading with their first seven laying hens and dreaming of one day starting their own farm. They even got married at the Ithaca Farmers Market in 2015.

In season

In the summer, the farm comes alive with colors, texture, and smells. Heirloom tomatoes adorn vertical trellises and cherry tomatoes grow inside a 70-foot-long row. Kale and other greens, shiitake mushrooms, asparagus, and zucchini—along with flowers and perennial herbs—flourish.

Their tiny orchard also produces apples, cherries, peaches, pears, plums, and pawpaws—a tropical fruit native to the eastern United States and Canada that tastes like mangoes. Twice a week, they sell their produce and crafts at the Westside Farmers Market and the Brighton Farmers Market. They also offer a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program, which provides a weekly bounty to those who sign up for farm shares.

Down season

When the farm is quiet, especially in the winter, Rainwater and Salama play music by the fire, plan for the next season, and spend a lot of time in their converted garage. That’s where Rainwater makes handcrafted cutting boards, wooden butter knives, wooden boxes, and soaps. Salama makes carved spoons and utensil kits, jams, baskets, and leather crafts.

“Diseased ash trees turn into wood objects, dried herbs find their way into our homemade soaps, and soft woods bend into baskets,” says Rainwater. “We try to use everything on the farm, to perpetuate nature’s cycles in ways that can nourish ourselves and others.”

Find this story and more good things for Ģ����ý alumni and friends in the summer issue of Buzz magazine.

These two engineers-turned-entrepreneurs sell cookies to spread joy.

In high school, Yuting Yang ’16 was a Chinese exchange student in Palmer, Alaska, when she met Anna Gaines ’15. The two became fast friends and later attended the Ģ����ý together, both determined to become engineers. After graduation, Gaines went to work for an engineering firm in Philadelphia and Yang for an engineering consulting firm in New York City.

During the pandemic, Yang and Gaines realized that they derive happiness through the simple things in life. That’s when Gaines left her job to return home to Alaska and start a macaron business, GG Macs. Yang later offered to help bring the business to Los Angeles, where she and her husband live.

“Something small and sweet, like a macaron, can make people smile,” says Gaines. “That’s what we want our business to do—to bring joy to people and their communities.”

The Sugar House makes about 700 macarons a day in their L.A.-based commercial kitchen, and their colorful confections are available in both L.A. and Anchorage at farm markets, through catering orders, via DoorDash, and as corporate gifts.

Being engineers is a plus. Gaines and Yang apply their Hajim School know-how to help reduce waste, maximize productivity, track and measure customer feedback, analyze what they bring to market, and improve their processes. “Engineers love to innovate and solve problems,” says Yang. “Entrepreneurs need those skills, too.”

Today, the Sugar House offers a range of flavors, from the traditional vanilla, chocolate, and lemon to seasonal favorites like matcha and chocolate covered strawberry. Gaines and Yang also make trending flavors such as the sweet-and-salty chocolate potato chip macarons. Red bean custard is popular, too, especially in L.A. where many people enjoy Asian-influenced flavors. “My personal favorite is our raspberry macaron,” adds Gaines. “The white chocolate ganache mixed with pureed, fresh raspberries is delicious.”

The business is creating great memories for Gaines and Yang. “I’ll never forget this one little boy who came up to our booth recently,” says Yang. “I watched him dig through his pockets for change. He came up short, but the person behind him gave him what he needed to get the cookie he wanted. Cookies do that—they bring us together.”

     Macaron or macaroon?

Find out more at .
Photo Credit: Brett Loie
Find this story and more good things for Ģ����ý alumni and friends in the summer issue of Buzz magazine.

Find Simon alumna Linh Phillips ’13S (MBA)—the woman behind Sir Rocha Says—on social media, dishing on the best of Rochester’s food scene.

Linh Phillips ’13S (MBA) has long been the food expert in her circle of friends—the one people turned to for brunch recommendations or date night ideas. She always knew which restaurants offered the trendiest and tastiest foods, and how to find Rochester’s hidden gems. So in late 2014, she combined her passion for food with the marketing know-how she gained at the Simon Business School to launch her blog Sir Rocha Says. The goal: to help others discover new food and drink experiences and fall in love with Rochester. She has since become a social media force, with more than 27,000 followers on Instagram alone.

Phillips took on the name of Sir Rocha Says [pronounced Sir-Rah-Cha Says] for several reasons. It’s a playful twist on the oft-heard local phrase, “RoChaCha.” It also plays off of her love of sriracha, the popular condiment. Her social media pseudonym pays homage to her parents, too. In the late 1970s, they left war-torn Vietnam and immigrated to the U.S. “After the Vietnam War, my parents and sister fled to Malaysia with just the clothes on their backs,” she says.

“After eight months in a refugee camp, they received the good news that two Rochester families would help sponsor them. They arrived in a new country and had to completely start over. The name ‘Sir Rocha Says’ gives me an opportunity to pay tribute to their courageous journey.”

“Adding ‘Rocha’ to my brand name,” Phillips adds, “also underscores my gratitude to Rochester, aligns with my devotion to this city, and supports my interest in helping local businesses thrive.”

By bringing her firsthand experiences, inspiring photos, and food-worthy insights to social media, Phillips has met her goal of bringing the best of Rochester’s eateries and community to her followers. As a self-described “experiential explorer,” she says that being a food lover has given her opportunities to connect with the community, hear their stories, and become immersed in the foods of different cultures and backgrounds—something she relishes. For her, it’s all about shining a positive light on Rochester.

With the holidays approaching, Phillips notes some of her favorite family traditions. “We include Vietnamese fried eggs rolls (chả giò) at every Thanksgiving and Christmas meal,” she says. “We love blending Vietnamese and American foods during the holidays and throughout the year.”

When Phillips isn’t eating, posting, or blogging, she works as a marketing research expert, helping beverage brands grow. She also thrives on spending time with her husband and 18-month-old son, who often join her on her food adventures. “I really enjoy offering people fun and mouth-watering ways to discover new places to eat and rediscover places that they may not have visited in a while,” she says. “I want everyone to have a full repertoire of amazing local restaurants and places to visit and support.”

Learn more at SirRochaSays.com. Look for @sirrochasays on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

 

Top photo of Linh Phillips by Rachel Liz Photography

Questions and Answers with Ed Hajim ’58

Ed Hajim tried to hide the story of his life from most of the people who know him. Even his wife, Barbara, and their children, G. B., Corey, and Brad, didn’t get the entire account until 2008, when Hajim was named chair of the University’s Board of Trustees.

Despite a five-decade connection to the University that began when he was a student, Hajim kept his background as a child who grew up in foster homes and orphanages as private as he could. Today, as a successful philanthropist, Hajim sees himself in a position to help students with hardscrabble backstories like his.

“In the end, adversity is a gift,” Hajim writes in his new memoir, On the Road Less Traveled (Skyhorse Publishing, 2021). “If you don’t experience it, you’ll never know how to overcome it. The disadvantages I endured sparked my ambition and work ethic. So it wasn’t fate. It was drive—some call it grit. It’s the one thing privileged people who feel entitled to everything and have nothing to fight for often lack. That was never me.”

His life’s story is harrowing but ultimately a story of success. As a toddler he was, for all intents and purposes, kidnapped by his father, led to believe that his mother was dead most of his life, and was left to fend for himself in foster services and orphanages. He worked to become one of the late 20th-century’s most successful Wall Street executives as well as a major philanthropist. A generous supporter of education, Hajim committed $30 million to Rochester, the largest single gift in the University’s history.

Working with his family, Hajim spent seven years on the memoir. In completing it, he realized that recounting his story might help other people.

“To me, if you could help a few people have it a little bit easier on their trip through the forest, then you’re doing something,” he says. “Love is doing things for other people. And this seems like the right time.”

Why did you want to write a memoir?

I was very embarrassed by my back history, so I buried it for most of my life. In fact, my wife, Barbara, really didn’t get the whole story for a long time. The kids got pieces of the story. Nobody got the story until I came to Rochester to become chairman of the Board of Trustees. I was planning to make the gift anonymously, but Jim Thompson [then chief advancement officer] said, “We can’t do that.” And Mark Zupan [then dean of the Simon Business School] started digging into my background—typical research guy—and found some details. I watched this, and I thought, “You know, you’re 72, we’ve got to get this down on paper.” Once I started writing it, I really wanted it to be private and self-publish it and give it away to friends. But you start to learn things when you start to write.

What did you learn?

Your background is very important to you. It can give you advantages and disadvantages. Even when you have a very disadvantaged background, it gives you certain definite advantages that other kids don’t have. Think about me, going 15 different places before I was 18 years old. Am I adaptable? You bet your ass I am. People say, “Give me a one-liner on the book. Is it, ‘Anything is possible?’” Anything is possible, given my background.

You’ve overcome extraordinary odds. Do you think your story is exceptional?

Am I the exception or the rule? Well, that’s the essence of what I think I have to share. Am I just unusual, or are there other aspects to it?

There are certain things you get by having a background like mine. Like adaptability, resilience, the ability to bounce back, perseverance. And gratitude and appreciation for having to earn what you have. There are advantages to having a challenging background. Luck is certainly a factor, and so is the context you find yourself in. I refused to accept the fact of my circumstances.

Some of my success was due to the fact that I had a certain innate talent. I had capabilities in engineering and math. But I also had a dream. I really wanted something, and I felt I could get it. I think some of these things can be learned. If someone like me can communicate that with kids, it can make their trip a little bit easier.

You arrived at Rochester in 1954 from an orphanage. Why didn’t you want your classmates to know your background?

When I came to Rochester, I decided to hide my life. I didn’t want pity. I didn’t want sympathy; I didn’t want to get something I didn’t deserve. It just didn’t do me any good. After the first year at Rochester, I decided I was really going to join campus life as much as I could. I got a crew cut, went down to a store in Rochester and bought a tweed jacket. The whole transition. I wanted to be accepted, so I made those changes, but people didn’t know the story.

For someone who wrote a memoir, you seem keen to look ahead rather than back.

I always tried to look ahead. People say to me, “Why didn’t you look for your mother?” When I was six years old, I realized she wasn’t there. Until I was 60, I thought she was dead. I had enough things to cope with, so actually it was a defense mechanism, in many respects. I didn’t realize what I was doing. In my business life, my magic two words are, “What’s next?” What are we going to do here to stay ahead of our competitors?

What’s next for you?

At the Nantucket Golf Course, we have a foundation that supports 40 to 50 charities on the island and has put 25 kids through college. Our newest effort is vocational scholarships for kids who want to become chefs, welders, carpenters, or pursue occupations that don’t require a four-year college degree. This is one of my new mini crusades since I believe vocational education is one of the solutions to our US employment problem. I may try to take our model to other clubs in communities like ours.

I also have a couple more books that I’m working on. One is focused on what I’ve often described as the importance of defining the “Four P’s” of your life—your passion, your principles, your partner, and your plans—but it’s really about the conversation you need to have with your inner voice. Your inner sense of yourself is one constant you have in your life, and you need to develop ways to keep going back to it and listening to it.

Do you have advice for listening to that inner voice?

Every year you should sit down and review certain characteristics that you have. I do that, and then every three years, I do a deep dive. It isn’t business strategy but personal strategy. Self, family, work, community— reviewing each one of those areas and saying, “Am I doing those things correctly?”

In my business life, I really tried to make sure there was a certain amount of balance. I had a goal of having a family. One of my legacies is having a family. Having three children and eight grandchildren is a pretty good deal. That’s a pretty special experience