January 5, 2007 -- The first All-School Assembly of 2007 welcomed back to campus familiar faces for some. Four alumni shared their post-Brewster experiences with the community as well as talked about how their own Brewster experiences help shaped how they got to where they are today. Here are their stories.

Rob Gorden '90
Comedian
Rob Gorden, who arrived at Brewster as an actor and hasn’t stopped acting since, opened the panel with a reflection on his own days at Brewster. “Last time I was behind a podium at Brewster, I was the student council president and I was about to be impeached.”

Gorden began doing stand up comedy at age 16 while at Brewster. Since then he has added Boston, New York, and Chicago to his venues. “I realized after graduation that I was not Robert De Niro.“ Maybe not. But Gorden has made a name for himself in the entertainment world. Read More

Kit Van Wagner ’89
Environmental Educator
While at Brewster Kit Van Wagner ’89 realized her interest in both the arts and sciences. In fact, she spent hours and hours in the school’s darkroom and discovered a love of photography, something she knew she wanted to be a part of what she did with her life. She just wasn’t sure how that would come together.

Following graduation, she yearned to return to city living. She enrolled at Simmons College in Boston but soon realized that city life really wasn’t what she wanted. She transferred to the quieter campus of Middlebury College in Vermont, where she earned a degree in environmental studies. Upon graduation and in search of a warmer climate, Van Wagner headed south to the Florida Keys where an internship awaited her at the Newfound Harbor Marine Institute. After four months, she became a science instructor at the Institute and at its summer program, Seacamp. It turned out to be everything she wanted and she spent every day in the water. She stayed for four years and during her fourth year, she added divemaster, deckhand, and kayak guide to her responsibilities. Read More

Chris Petronio '01
Marketer
While time was passing between when Gorden and Van Wagner had last seen each other and would meet again, Chris Petronio ’01 enrolled as a junior and was having his own Brewster experiences. The third panelist empathized with today’s students, saying, “It’s not easy at your age to leave your comfortable environment and move here. You are risk takers.”

The self-described risk-taker talked about his college to work transition. He graduated from college on a Monday (the College of Wooster, with a degree in history), moved to New York City on that following Friday, and started looking for a job on Monday, motivated as much by all the possibilities Manhattan could offer as by the need to survive and pay big rent in the big city. Petronio began enthusiastically searching for a career in business and sales. The first job – selling online office products – ended up being the “absolute wrong job for me.” Read More

Gregory Douglass '99
Singer-Songwriter
The final panelist of the day chose the piano bench from which to relate to students. Gregory Douglass, born and raised in rural Vermont, taught himself to play the piano and guitar and during junior high began writing his own songs.

“I liked to sing and write songs,” Douglass said. That was a big part of his decision to attend Brewster. He was looking for a college-like experience and found that experience at Brewster and more, referring to the school’s recording studio, which gave him the opportunity to demo his music early on.

When Douglass graduated from Brewster in 1999, then-Headmaster David M. Smith presented him with a music award and announced that Douglass was the first student he has ever encouraged not to go to college. Douglass immediately acted on that advice and began pursuing his passion full-time. That passion has led to the release of six records as an independent artist. He composed and recorded the material for his first two albums while at Brewster. Read More