(Some of my East Coast buddies wondered out loud how I intended to earn an MBA from what sounded to them like a junior college, but we'll save that for another day.)

When I arrived, I realized a couple old friends from my undergrad days at Oberlin College in Ohio were also in the Bay Area – Dick was finishing up his PhD in Physical Chemistry at UC Berkeley, while Steve, fresh out of Cornell Veterinary School, had begun a job as a horse doc in East Bay. Years before in college, we’d played in bands – Steve played a mean bass, Dick was a savant guitarist and arranger, and I played marginal sax and flute. And here we found ourselves, circumstance having drawn us within a few miles of one another on the other side of the country.