Robin Avers, CJ'80, found her calling early. "After my first co-op experience with the United States Customs Service, I knew I wanted to be involved with the investigation and apprehension of individuals who violate U.S. laws," she says. "I didn't think I'd be bored."

She hasn't been. Today, Avers is a special agent in charge in the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau, part of the Department of Homeland Security. From her office in Boston's Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill Federal Building, she supervises more than 200 criminal investigators throughout New England, exploring activities that could threaten national security. Besides working with state and local police, Avers interfaces daily with some heavy-hitting acronyms: the DEA, the FBI, the IRS.

Her schedule's tough. "This is not a nine-to-five job," says the Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, native. "These vigilant employees protect our nation's borders, twenty-four-seven."

Avers's Customs Service co-ops led to a full-time job with the agency after graduation. First, she was a special agent in the Baltimore area. Later, she was assigned to Vice President George H. W. Bush's Florida Joint Task Force in Miami, working with federal, state, and local law-enforcement agencies that wage the war on drugs. She stayed in Miami fifteen years. She became a group supervisor. She married and had two daughters.

In 1997, Avers and her family moved to a cooler climate, joining the Customs Attaché in Vienna, Austria. She assumed responsibility for thirteen countries, including Switzerland and several former Soviet republics. Six years later, she was back home, in her lofty perch in Boston.

In case you're wondering, women customs agents with families are not the norm. "I would not have been able to achieve what I have without the support of my husband, a retired customs agent," Avers says.

"I ask my girls if they would have preferred a more traditional life—as opposed to two parents coming home and locking up their weapons each night," she says. "But after the tragic events of 9/11, I think even they believe this work is important."

— Katy Kramer, MA’00

Teaching Goals

It was October 2002. Washington, D.C.'s Howard Road Academy was in "lockdown mode": The Beltway sniper was still at large and terrifying the city. No matter. Kate McCullough, AS'00, and the D.C. Scores soccer team were keeping their after-school program on track.

"For a month, the kids practiced dribbling routines on the third floor," says McCullough, who taught writing classes even as Scores students pounded up and down the hall outside her classroom.

D.C. Scores is part of America Scores, a national program that aims to motivate urban public-school students through an unusual mix of soccer and creative-writing activities. McCullough herself was early convinced that alternative learning methods can be a good thing. As a student in the Hanover, New Hampshire, public schools, she was diagnosed with an attention deficit disorder.

"I couldn't have gotten through Northeastern without the Disability Resource Center," she says. "They tailor-made programs for each student, and I really needed help with organization, studying, term papers ... life. I did all my own work and all my own writing, but I got a lot of support."

Hired as the first-ever Spanish teacher at Howard Road Academy, a public charter school for kindergartners through sixth-graders, McCullough created a Spanish studies curriculum for grades four, five, and six. When her position was phased out the following year, she took over a fourth-grade classroom.

But another test was in the cards, when the phys. ed. teacher asked if she'd be interested in handling an after-school writing program, the classroom component of the Scores approach.

Although McCullough plans to relocate soon to Washington State, she says she'll seek similar teaching work there. "It was the hardest, most underpaid and overworked job," she says of her Howard Road experience. "But a hundred percent more rewarding than any other job you'll ever have.

"I really felt needed," McCullough says.

— Katy Kramer, MA’00

A Passion for Fashion

With the likes of Halle Berry, Demi Moore, and Jennifer Aniston snapping up the glamorous gowns at his Santa Monica, California, boutique Undercover, it's hard to believe Adam Shaffer, BA'91, cut his teeth in real estate. After all, dressing the denizens of La-La Land is a far cry from brokering flats.

But even trendsetters have to start somewhere. Shaffer worked at Popular Properties, a rental agency in the Back Bay, while he was a student in Northeastern's entrepreneurship and new venture management program. Next came another dress rehearsal: running his own company, Bagel Express, on the New Jersey shore. Then he earned more stripes, selling T-shirts and hair accessories from a mall kiosk in Long Beach Island, New Jersey.

Born in New York and raised in New Jersey, Shaffer headed south when he decided he was ready for prime time. The day after graduation, he packed up his apartment, put everything he owned in a truck, jumped in his Jeep, and drove to Miami. With a $3,000 loan from his parents, he opened his own hair-accessories kiosk on Cocoa Walk in Coconut Grove. "I sold $5,000 worth of stuff in the first weekend," he says.

Now, as Undercover's owner and buyer, Shaffer has fashionistas relying on his eye for style. So much so that last year he opened a second Undercover, on West Hollywood's legendary Sunset Strip.

He's already cut an impressive swath through the fashion news. Undercover has been featured in Vogue, InStyle, and Women's Wear Daily, and was named "Best for Style" in Los Angeles magazine's prestigious "Best of" issue. Shaffer's made regular appearances on such outlets as the E! channel, MTV, and Access Hollywood.

"I always knew I wanted to have my own business," he says. "I wanted financial freedom, and I wanted to express my creative side and make a difference." Given goals like that, he was designed for success.

— Katy Kramer, MA’00